But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But found none: yea, Though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. "The wicked men found no semblance of blame in him," says Origen, "though they were many, astute, and ingenious, so pure and blameless was the life of Jesus." For the evidence of these witnesses was either false or contradictory, or not to the point, so that He could not be proceeded against as worthy of death.
At last came two false witnesses, and said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days. Christ, indeed, had said this ( John 2:19), in answer to their request for a sign that He was sent from God. But they were false witnesses, because, though they spake the truth in part, yet they perverted His words and meaning. For, first, He did not say "I am able to destroy," but "destroy ye," i.e, "if ye destroy it." Next, S. Mark says they added the words "made without hands," though S. John has nothing of the kind. Next, Christ said not, "I will build it again," but...
False witnesses. But how were these men false witnesses, who affirm what we read in the gospel? That man is a false witness, who construes what is said in a sense foreign to that of the speaker. Jesus Christ spoke of the temple of his body. Our divine Saviour had said, Destroy this temple; and they affirm that he had said, I am able to destroy. Had the Jews attended sufficiently to our Saviour's words, they would easily have perceived of what Christ was speaking, from what he there says: and in three days I will raise it up. (St. Jerome)
These words of Jesus Christ are only mentioned by St. John ii. 19, who marks on what occasion and in what sense there were spoken. (Bible de Vence)
Wherefore also they were all assembled together, and it was a council of pestilent men, and they ask some questions, wishing to invest this plot with the appearance of a court of justice. For neither did their testimonies agree together; so feigned was the court of justice, and all things full of confusion and disorder.
They brought Jesus to Caiaphas who was the high priest for that year. There Caiaphas spent the night along with the others, not keeping the Pascha at that time, but waiting so that they might kill the Lord, and thus transgressing the law (Jn. 18:28). For the Lord kept the Pascha in keeping with the law, but they despised the law that they might slay the Lord.
