Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover.
All Commentaries on John 18:28 Go To John 18
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the prætorium. To the house and hall of Pilate; for he was Prætor, that Isaiah , both civil and criminal judge of Judæa. S. Augustine reads (inaccurately) unto Caiaphas into the Prætorium, and therefore was obliged to say either that Caiaphas came to the house of Pilate, or that they both lived in the same house, though the contrary is plain from the Gospel.
Every magistrate who had an army under him, was called Prtor, a preundo. And the place in which he held trials was called Prtorium; a place in which criminals were tried, for which purpose Jesus was brought thither by the Chief Priests.
But they themselves entered not into the judgment-hall lest they should be defiled (by entering the house of the heathen governor), but that they might (as pure and clean) eat the Passover. The Passover does not here mean the Paschal Lamb (as SS. Chrysostom and Cyril suppose), for that they had eaten the day before; but the Paschal victims, which were sacrificed during the whole seven days, which could be eaten only by those who were clean. See here the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who wished to appear most religious, though in truth utterly wicked and the murderers of Christ. S. Augustine exclaims, "0 impious and foolish blindness! for forsooth they would be defiled by a dwelling which was another"s, and not be defiled by a crime which was their own." See S. Cyril.
