But Jesus turning unto them said,
Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.
Read Chapter 23
Athanasius the Apostolic
AD 373
The Lord over death set out to abolish death. Being Lord, he accomplished his aim. We therefore have passed from death to life. The concept that the Jews and those who think like them held about the Lord was wrong. Things did not turn out at all according to their expectations, because the opposite was true. In fact, “he who sits in heaven shall laugh at them: the Lord shall have them in derision.”That is the reason our Savior restrained the women from weeping when he was being led to death. He said, “Do not weep for me.” He wished to show that his death was not an event for us to mourn about but rather to be joyful about, since he who died for us is alive! He was not created from nothing, but he derives his being from the Father.
He was going to the place of crucifixion. Weeping women, as well as many others, followed him. The female sex tends to weep often. They have a disposition that is ready to sink at the approach of anything that is sorrowful. “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck!’ ” How did this happen? When the war came on the country of the Jews, they all totally perished, small and great. Infants with their mothers and sons with their fathers were destroyed without distinction. He then says, “Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ ” In extreme miseries, those less severe misfortunes become, so to speak, desirable. Commentary on Luke, Homily
The Lord said, “If they do that to the green wood.” He compared his divinity with the green wood and those who received his gifts to the dry wood. What is green bears fruit, as these words that he spoke testify: “For which of my works are you stoning me? If I suffer to this extent, although you have found no sin in me, which of you will convict me of sin? Since you have invented a pretext to dispose of me, how much more will you suffer?” Perhaps he was referring the green wood to himself, because of the miracles he had done. He called the righteous who were without virtue, the dry wood. They ate the fruit of this green wood, and they rejoiced beneath its foliage. Then they took it in hatred and destroyed it. What more will they do to the dry wood, which does not even have a sprout? What more will they do to the ordinary righteous people who do not work miracles? Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron
Weep not over me. If you knew the evils that threaten and must soon fall upon your city, upon yourselves, and upon your children, you would preserve your tears to deplore your own misfortunes. My death is for the good of mankind; but it will be fatal to your nation because you have been pleased to make it so. In the ruin of Jerusalem, which is at hand, happy shall they be who have no children. They shall save themselves the grief of seeing their sons and daughters perish miserably, and in some sort of suffering as many deaths as they have children to die. (Calmet)
