John 2:13-25

Literal Sense
Summary:
Jesus departs from Capernaum to Jerusalem to observe the passover according to the Law,
When: at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, After his baptism and before the Passover. His first
destination when he arrives is the Temple, to pray. When he arrives there he sees a multitude of Jews
buying and selling animals for sacrifice, and money-changers established to facilitate these
transactions. Jesus then fashions a cord and uses it to drive out all those usurious jews. The Jews who
were driven out and upset at their loss of profits then challenge Jesus to show a sign to validate his
actions. Jesus then speaks in a prophetic way saying, “Destroy this temple, and in 3 days I will raise it
up again” But by this he was prophesying to his own death and resurrection.

Who:?
Jesus, his disciples, (possibly without Peter and Andrew)

Cornelius A lapide:
“And His disciples. You will ask, Who were these disciples? For Jesus did not gather together His
apostles until after the imprisonment of S. John the Baptist: and this had not then taken place.”
And His brethren , i.e ., His cousins, James the Less, Joseph, Simon, and Judas ( Mat 13:55 ). Also John
and James the Greater.
“I reply, it is probable they were Nathanael and Philip, and perhaps Andrew and Peter. For they had
visited Jesus three days before, and for a time adhered to Him as their Master; though afterwards they
went back to their fishing until they were called to the apostolate.”

Where?:
Having first left Capernaum, he now travels towards Jerusalem and to the Temple.
(see map)
Why?:
He goes to Jerusalem to observe the passover as is obligatory by the Law, he goes to the Temple to
Pray, to show the temple is the most fitting place to pray and make homage to God his Father.
He then drives out the money-changers because the Temple is meant to be a house of prayer, not
commerce, and especially not corrupt commerce.

How:?
Jesus fashioned a cord to drive out the money changers, some saints say it was a miracle that he was
able to drive out such a vast number of people by himself with nothing but a cord, Saint Jerome even
calls this Jesus’ greatest miracle. (Because he didn’t simply show his power over nature, but he also
showed his power over the minds and wills of men)

Special Words:
Scourge,
Zeal
“Zeal, taken in a good sense, is a certain fervor of the Spirit, by which the mind, all human fears
forgotten, is stirred up to the defense of the truth. To take the passage mystically, God enters His
Church spiritually every day, and marks each one’s behavior there. Let us be careful then, when we are
in God’s Church, that we indulge not in stories, or jokes, or hatreds, or lusts, lest on a sudden He come
and scourge us, and drive us out of His Church.” -Alcuin of York
Temple,
Jews,
Jerusalem,
Money-changers,
Pasch

Figures of Speech:
“Was at Hand”
“Zeal has consumed me”

Connected Passages:
Jeremiah 7:11,
11 Is this house then, in which my name hath been called upon, in your eyes become a den of robbers?
I, I am he: I have seen it, saith the Lord.

Mathew 21:12
12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and
overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves:
Mark 11:15
15 And they came to Jerusalem. And when he was entered into the temple, he began to cast out them
that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the chairs of
them that sold doves.

Psalm 68:10
For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up: and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen
upon me.
Typical Sense

Allegorical:
There is an Allegorical sense of the Church being defiled by Simoniacs, represented by those selling
buying and selling Doves

ORIGEN. (tom. x. in Joan. c. 16) By the temple we may understand too the soul wherein the Word of
God dwelleth; in which, before the teaching of Christ, earthly and bestial affections had prevailed. The
ox being the tiller of the soil, is the symbol of earthly affections: the sheep, being the most irrational of
all animals, of dull ones; the dove is the type of light and volatile thoughts; and money, of earthly good
things; which money Christ cast out by the Word of His doctrine, that His Father’s house might be no
longer a market

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. x. c. 7) By the oxen may be understood the Apostles and Prophets, who have
dispensed to us the holy Scriptures. Those who by these very Scriptures deceive the people, from
whom they seek honour, sell the oxen; and they sell the sheep too, i. e. the people themselves; and to
whom do they sell them, but to the devil? For that which is cut off from the one Church, (1 Pet. 5:8)
who taketh away, except the roaring lion, who goeth about every where, and seeketh whom he may
devour?

Moral
This Gospel’s moral lesson instructs against the using of religious office for personal gain, as well as
corrupt business practices. It also makes clear that the Temple (Church) is a place reserved for prayer
and not for commerce. Simony (the buying and selling of Holy Offices) is also implicitly condemned in
this passage according to the Holy Fathers.
As well, it encourages proper zeal and attitude towards offences against God’s honor.

BEDE. Our Lord on coming to Jerusalem, immediately entered the temple to pray; giving us an
example that, wheresoever we go, our first visit should be to the house of God to pray.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. x. c. 9) He then is eaten up with zeal for God’s house, who desires to correct all that
he sees wrong there; and, if he cannot correct, endures and mourns. In thine house thou busiest thyself
to prevent matters going wrong; in the house of God, where salvation is offered, oughtest thou to be
indifferent? Hast thou a friend? admonish him gently; a wife? coerce her severely; a maid-servant?
even compel her with stripes. Do what thou art able, according to thy station.

ALCUIN. To take the passage mystically, God enters His Church spiritually every day, and marks each
one’s behaviour there. Let us be careful then, when we are in God’s Church, that we indulge not in
stories, or jokes, or hatreds, or lusts, lest on a sudden He come and scourge us, and drive us out of His
Church.

Anagogical:
There is an Anagogical reference to our own death and resurrection by this passage because by our
baptism we are united to Christ in both his death and his resurection.

Accommodated:
AUGUSTINE. (b. lxxxiii. Quæst. 2. 5. f.) The process of human conception is said to be this. The first
six days produce a substance like milk, which in the following nine is converted into blood; in twelve
more is consolidated, in eighteen more is formed into a perfect set of limbs, the growth and
enlargement of which fills up the rest of the time till the birth. For six, and nine, and twelve, and
eighteen, added together are forty-five, and with the addition of one (which1 stands for the summing
up, all these numbers being collected into one) forty-six. This multiplied by the number six, which
stands at the head of this calculation2, makes two hundred and seventy-six, i. e. nine months and six
days. It is no unmeaning information then that the temple was forty and six years building; for the
temple prefigured His Body, and as many years as the temple was in building, so many days was the
Lord’s Body in forming.

Fathers/Church Commentaries

Cornelius A Lapide:
There were three buildings of the Temple of Jerusalem. The first was by Solomon, and occupied seven
years. The second was the rebuilding after its destruction by the Babylonians, by Zorobabel and his
companions, under Cyrus, King of Persia. This rebuilding occupied fifteen years only, though many
ancient and modern writers have erroneously supposed it to have occupied forty-six years, and to have
been here referred to by the Jews. The third was the rebuilding of the Temple by Herod of Ascalon,
who murdered the innocents of Bethlehem. He built the Temple afresh for the Jews, in order that he
might secure the kingdom for himself and his posterity, and that he might be accounted by them as the
true Messiah. And it is exceedingly probable that the Jews were here referring to this rebuilding from
their use of the pronoun this . For "this" points out an existing Temple. And inasmuch as the two former
Temples were destroyed, they could not be thus pointed out. Herod began his erection of the third
Temple in the eighteenth year of his reign. For it was at that time he made known his intention of
rebuilding the Temple, as Josephus testifies ( Ant., lib. 15, c . 14). Wherefore, since Christ was born in
the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Herod, as I have shown on Luke 2:1 , it follows that from his
beginning to build until the birth of Christ, sixteen years had elapsed. Add thirty years of the life of
Christ and you have forty-six. For it was in His thirtieth year, in which also He was baptized, that
Christ had this disputation with the Jews.
Symbolically, the forty-six years of the building of the Temple signify that the Body of Christ was built
up in as many days. Hear S. Augustine ( de Trin., lib. 14, c. 5 .) : "This number answers to the
perfection of the Body of Christ; for forty-six times six make two hundred and seventy-six, that is, nine
months and six days; for in so long time was the Body of Christ coming to perfection." The same ( in
Joan, tract. 10) says, "Christ received a body from Adam. Now the Greek for the east is α̉νατολὴ , for
the west δύσις , for the north άζκτος , for the south μεσημβζία , which four letters form Adam's name,
even the elect who are to he gathered from the four winds when the Lord shall come to judgment. The
letters also of Adam's name count for forty-six, according to the Greek numeration; for alpha signifies
one, delta four, alpha one, and mu forty, in all forty-six. Thus Bede, S. Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria,
and others. Ver. 21. But He spake, &c. S. Chrysostom asks, "Why He did not explain to them, being in
doubt, that He called His flesh the Temple?" and answers that "since they had no belief in Him, even if
He had explained the Jews would have derided Him, and treated Him still worse." Ver. 22. When
therefore He was risen , &c. They believed the Scripture, which foretold that Christ would rise from the
dead. This, which they did not previously understand, they understood when they saw it actually
fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ. Such a Scripture is that verse of the Psalms (xvi. 10), "Thou shalt
not leave My soul in hell, nor suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption."
ALCUIN.
Or Capernaum, we may interpret “a most beautiful village,” and so it signifies the world, to which the
Word of the Father came down.
BEDE. But He continued there only a few days, because he lived with men in this world only a short
time.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. x. c. 5) Such sacrifices were prescribed to the people, in condescension to their
carnal minds; to prevent them from turning aside to idols. They sacrificed sheep, and oxen, and doves.
He who was to be scourged by them, was first of all the scourger; and when He had made a scourge of
small cords, He drove them all out of the temple. It is evident that this was done on two several
occasions; the first mentioned by John, the last by the other three. So that temple was still a figure only,
and our Lord cast out of it all who came to it as a market. And what did they sell? Things that were
necessary for the sacrifice of that time. What if He had found men drunken? If the house of God ought
not to be a house of merchandise, ought it to be a house of drunkenness?

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xxiii. 2) But why did Christ use such violence? He was about to heal on the
Sabbath day, and to do many things which appeared to them transgressions of the Law. That He might
not appear therefore to be acting contrary to God, He did this at His own peril; and thus gave them to
understand, that He who exposed Himself to such peril to defend the decency of the house, did not
despise the Lord of that house. For the same reason, to shew His agreement with God, He said not, the
Holy house, but, My Father’s house. It follows, And His disciples remembered what was written; The
zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

Haydock:
This made Origen consider this miracle, in overcoming the unruly dispositions of so many, as a
superior manifestation of power to what he had shown in changing the nature of water at Cana.

Bibliography
Catena Aurea, St Thomas Aquinas. https://www.ecatholic2000.com/catena/ Great Commentary of
Cornelius A Lapide, https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/clc/john-2.html
Catena Bible, https://catenabible.com/jn/2