Mark 14:2 — Community Reflections

MARK 14:2 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people.”

But not during the festival, they said, or the people may riot — the explicit fear of the people drives the timing calculation: not during the festival. The Passover crowd swelled Jerusalem's population from 40,000 to hundreds of thousands, and the pilgrims who welcomed Jesus on Palm Sunday are present. Judas's offer (verse 10) will provide the solution: an arrest away from the crowds, at night, in the garden.

Church Fathers on Mark 14:2

Let us now sprinkle our book, and our thresholds, with blood, and put the scarlet thread around the house of our prayers, and bind scarlet on our hand, as was done to Zarah [Gen 38:30], that we may be able to say that the red heifer [Num 19:2] is slain in the valley [Deut 21:4]. For the Evangelist, being about to speak of the slaying of Christ, premises, 'After two days was the feast of the Passover, and of unleavened bread.'
Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century

Pascha, which in Hebrew is, phase, is not called from Passion, as many think, but from passing over, because the destroyer, seeing the blood on the doors of the Israelites, passed by them, and did not smite them; or the Lord Himself, bringing aid unto His people, walked above them.
Bede · 8th century · Marc., iv, 43

Nevertheless, Christ Himself had determined for Himself the day of His Passion; for He wished to be crucified on the Passover, because He was the true Passover.
Theophylact · 11th century

Read all 7 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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