But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people.
All Commentaries on Matthew 26:5 Go To Matthew 26
Leo of Rome
AD 461
Serm. 58, 2: This precaution of the Chief Priests arose not from reverence forthe festival, but, from care for the success of their plot; they feared an insurrectionat that season, not because of the guilt the populace might thereby incur, but because they might rescue Christ.
Serm. 58, 1: We recognise here a providential arrangement whereby the chief men of the Jews, who had often sought occasion of effecting their cruel purposes against Christ, could never yet succeed till the days of the paschal celebration. For it behoved that the things which had long been promised in symbol and mystery should be accomplished in manifest reality, that the typical lamb should be displaced by the true, and one sacrifice embrace the whole catalogue of the varied victims. That shadows should give way to substance, and copies to the presence of the original; victim is commuted for victim, blood is abolished by blood, and the festival of the Law is at once fulfilled and changed.
