MATTHEW 27:40 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.”
And saying: you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. The first taunt: the temple-rebuilding claim from the false witnesses at the Sanhedrin trial is now used as a taunt. The if you are the Son of God echoes Satan's temptation (Matthew 4:3, 6): if you are the Son of God, prove it by the spectacular, by the self-saving. The answer to the if-you-are challenge is not the coming down but the staying on.
Church Fathers on Matthew 27:40
Having stripped and crucified Christ, they go yet further, and seeing Him on the cross revile Him.
'They revile him' because they passed by that way, and would not walk in the true way of the Scriptures. 'They wagged their heads,' because they had just before shifted their feet, and stood not upon a rock. The foolish rabble cast the same taunt against Him that the false witnesses had invented, 'Aha! thou that destroyest the temple of God and rebuildest it in three days.'
'Aha!' is an interjection of taunt and mockery.
Read all 18 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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