And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers who stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answer you the high priest so?
All Commentaries on John 18:22 Go To John 18
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
This shows that Annas was the high priest, for this was before He was sent to Caiaphas. And Luke in the beginning of his Gospel says, that Annas and Caiaphas were both high priests.
What can be truer, gentler, kinder, than this answer? He Who received the blow on the face neither wished for him who struck it that fire from heaven should consume him, or the earth open its month and swallow him; or a devil seize him; or any other yet more horrible kind of punishment. Yet had not He,by Whom the world was made, power to cause any one of these things to take place, but that He preferred teaching us that patience why which the world is overcome? Some one will ask here, why He did not do what He Himself commanded, i.e. not make this answer, but give the other cheek to the smiter? But what if He did both, both answered gently, and gave, not His check only to the smiter, but His whole body to be nailed to the Cross? And herein He shows, that those precepts of patience are to be performed not by posture of the body, but by preparation of the heart: for it is possible that a man might give his cheek outwardly, and yet be angry at the same time. How much better is it to answer truly, yet gently, and be ready to bear even harder usage patiently.
He was the one to whom they were taking Him from the first, as Matthew says; he being the high priest of this year. We must understand that the pontificate was taken between them year by year alternately, and that it was by Caiaphas’s consent that they led Him first to Annas; or that their houses were so situated, that they could not but pass straight by that of Annas.
