Then said Thomas, who is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.
All Commentaries on John 11:16 Go To John 11
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Then said Thomas, &c. Thomas was not doubly named, as if his first name had been Thomas, his second Didymus; but they were one and the same: for the Hebrew word Thomas is the same as the Greek Didymus, that Isaiah , a twin.
Let us also go, that we may die with Him. Not with Lazarus, as some will have it, for this seems foolish; but with Christ, who a little before had said, Let us go to him. Thomas, says Bede, exhorts his companions beyond all, that they should go and die with Christ, in which his great constancy appears. (And the Interlin.) Behold the true disposition of loving souls, either to live with Him or to die with Him; such as were the Soldurii among the Gauls, whose law and covenant in war was, either to conquer together or to die together, as Julius Csar bears witness in his Commentaries (De Bell. Gall. III:22), whom S. Paul seems to have alluded to when he says, in2Cor. vii3 , Ye are in our hearts to live and to die with you. Furthermore, that which S. Thomas says, Let us also go, that we may die with Him, is as if he had said, "If we go with Jesus, we must die with Him, because of the violent hatred of the Jews towards Him. If then He goes, let us also go, as brave disciples and soldiers, and die with Him courageously as our Leader; if He disregards death, and even advances to meet it, let us also disregard it and meet it." For he had not sufficiently understood what Christ ( John 11:9) intimates, that no danger threatened Him yet from the Jews. So Cyril. Therefore he offers himself for Christ to certain death, for he considered it was impending; which was a remarkable proof of his great bravery, and singular love for Christ.
