João 2
Origen of Alexandria · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
João 2:2
The third day was now come from Jesus' baptism, and there was a marriage taking place in Cana of Galilee. Jesus' mother was there when, on the failure of the wine, he made wine out of water.… Jesus being Maker of man and woman does not refuse to be called to a marriage; it was he who after forming Eve brought her to Adam. Therefore in the Gospel he says about this union, "What God has joined together let no man put asunder." Let the heretics therefore be put to shame who reject marriage, since Jesus was called to a marriage and his mother was there. — FRAGMENT 28 ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
João 2:12
The other three authors of the Gospels say that after the Lord's struggle with the devil, he withdrew into Galilee. Matthew and Luke, however, say that he was in Nazareth first after these events and that he left there and went to settle in Capernaum. Matthew and Mark also mention a reason for his withdrawal from there: he had heard that John had been delivered up. …We must let the reader know, then, that the truth of these accounts lies in the spiritual meanings, because if the discrepancy is not solved, many will dismiss the Gospels as not credible, or not written by a divine spirit or not successfully recorded. The composition of these Gospels, in fact, is said to have involved both. Let those who accept the four Gospels and who think the apparent discrepancy is not to be solved through the anagogical sense tell us when the Lord came to Capernaum in relation to the difficulty we mentioned earlier concerning the forty days of temptation that can have no place at all in John. For if it occurred six days after the time when he was baptized, since his ministry at the marriage in Cana of Galilee took place on the sixth day, it is clear that he has not been tempted, nor was he in Nazareth, nor had John yet been delivered up.… The four Evangelists … made full use of many things done and said in accordance with the prodigious and unexpected power of Jesus. In some places they have interwoven in Scripture something made clear to them in a purely intellectual manner, with language as though it were something perceptible to the senses. But I do not condemn the fact that they have also made some minor changes in what happened so far as history is concerned, with a view to the usefulness of the mystical object. Consequently, they have related what happened in this place as though it happened in another, or what happened at this time as though at another time, and they have composed what is reported in this manner with a certain degree of adaptation. For their intention was to speak the truth spiritually and materially at the same time where that was possible but, where it was not possible in both ways, to prefer the spiritual to the material. — COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.3-4, 10, 18-20
João 2:12
We must ask, however, why his brothers are not invited to the wedding (nor were they present, for they are not mentioned), but they go down to Capernaum with him and his mother and the disciples. — COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.39
João 2:14
He found in the temple, which is also said to be the house of the Savior's Father, that is, in the church or in the proclamation of the sound message of the church, some who were making his Father's house a house of merchandise. — COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.133
João 2:14
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (tom. x. in Joan. c. 16) Jerusalem, as our Saviour Himself saith, is the city of the great King, into which none of those who remain on earth ascend, or enter. Only the soul which has a certain natural loftiness, and clear insight into things invisible, is the inhabitant of that city. Jesus alone goes up thither. But His disciples seem to have been present afterwards. The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up. But it is as though in every one of the disciples who went up, it was Jesus who went up. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
João 2:15
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (tom. x. in Joan. c. 16) Should it appear something out of the order of things, that the Son of God should make a scourge of small cords, to drive them out of the temple? We have one answer in which some take refuge, viz. the divine power of Jesus, Who, when He pleased, could extinguish the wrath of His enemies however innumerable, and quiet the tumult of their minds: The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought. (Ps. 32, 33:10) This act indeed exhibits no less power, than His more positive miracles; nay rather, more than the miracle by which water was converted into wine: in that there the subject-matter was inanimate, here, the minds of so many thousands of men are overcome. (tom. x. in Joan. c. 17) John says here that He drove out the sellers from the temple; Matthew, the sellers and buyers. The number of buyers was much greater than of the sellers: and therefore to drive them out was beyond the power of the carpenter's Son, as He was supposed to be, had He not by His divine power put all things under Him, as it is said. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
João 2:16
Now Christ is especially jealous for the house of God in each of us, not wishing it to be a house of merchandise or that the house of prayer become a den of thieves, since he is the son of a jealous God.… [These words] set forth the fact that God wishes nothing alien to his will to be mingled with the soul of anyone, but especially with the soul of those who wish to receive [the teachings of the] most divine faith. — COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.221
João 2:16
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (tom. x. in Joan. c. 16) It is possible even for the dweller in Jerusalem to incur guilt, and even the most richly endowed may stray. And unless these repent speedily, they lose the capacity wherewith they were endued. He finds them in the temple, i. e. in sacred places, or in the office of enunciating the Church's truths, some who make His Father's house an house of merchandize; i. e. who expose to sale the oxen whom they ought to reserve for the plough, lest by turning back they should become unfit for the kingdom of God: also who prefer the unrighteous mammon to the sheep, from which they have the material of ornament; also who for miserable gain abandon the watchful care of them who are called metaphorically doves, without all gall or bitterness. Our Saviour finding these in the holy house, maketh a scourge of small cords, and driveth them out, together with the sheep and oxen exposed for sale, scatters the heaps of money, as unbeseeming in the house of God, and overthrows the tables set up in the minds of the covetous, forbidding them to sell doves in the house of God any longer. I think too that He meant the above, as a mystical intimation that whatsoever was to be performed with regard to that sacred oblation by the priests, was not to be performed after the manner of material oblations, and that the law was not to be observed as the carnal Jews wished. For our Lord, by driving away the sheep and oxen, and ordering away the doves, which were the most common offerings among the Jews, and by overthrowing the tables of material coins, which in a figure only, not in truth, bore the Divine stamp, (i. e. what according to the letter of the law seemed good,) and when with His own hand He scourged the people, He as much as declared that the dispensation was to be broken up and destroyed, and the kingdom translated to the believing from among the Gentiles. (tom. x. in Joan. c. 16) By the temple we may understand too the soul wherein the Word of God dwelleth; in which, before the teaching of Christ, earthly and bestial affections had prevailed. The ox being the tiller of the soil, is the symbol of earthly affections: the sheep, being the most irrational of all animals, of dull ones; the dove is the type of light and volatile thoughts; and money, of earthly good things; which money Christ cast out by the Word of His doctrine, that His Father's house might be no longer a market. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
João 2:19
It is likely, moreover, that what has been recorded in the Gospels according to Matthew and Mark in the name of the false witness who accuses our Lord Jesus Christ at the end of the Gospel contains a reference to the saying, "Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days." For he … was speaking about the temple of his body, but they, supposing that the things said here were said about the temple built from stones, accused him. — COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.251-52
João 2:19
Both, however (I mean the temple and Jesus' body), according to one interpretation, appear to me to be a type of the church, in that the church, being called a "temple," is built of living stones, becoming a spiritual house "for a holy priesthood," built "on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the chief cornerstone." And through the saying, "Now you are the body of Christ and members in part," [we know] that even if the harmony of the stones of the temple appear to be destroyed, [or,] as it is written in Psalm 21, all the bones of Christ appear to be scattered in persecutions and afflictions by the plots of those who wage war against the unity of the temple by persecutions—we know that the temple will be raised up and the body will arise on the third day after the day of evil that threatens it and the day of consummation that follows. For the third day will dawn in the new heaven and the new earth, when these bones, the whole house of Israel, shall be raised up on the great day of the Lord, once death has been conquered. Consequently, the resurrection of Christ too, which followed from his passion on the cross, contains the mystery of the resurrection of the whole body of Christ. — COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.228-29
João 2:23
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (t. x. c. 27) But (in the mystical interpretation) we shall attain to the full measure of faith, at the great resurrection of the whole body of Jesus, i. e. His Church; inasmuch as the faith which is from sight, is very different from that which seeth as through a glass darkly. (tom. x. c. 30) But how was it that many believed on Him from seeing His miracles? for he seems to have performed no supernatural works at Jerusalem, except we suppose Scripture to have passed them over. May not however the act of His making a scourge of small cords, and driving all out of the temple, be reckoned a miracle? — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
João 2:24
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (tom. x. c. 28) Or, it was those who believed in His Name, not on Him, to whom Jesus would not commit Himself. They believe on Him, who follow the narrow way which leadeth unto life; they believe in His Name, who only believe the miracles. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas