The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
As Moses had shown signs and prodigies from heaven, by which he demonstrated to Pharaoh and the Egyptians that he was sent by God. So Ruperti.
Ver. 19 .—Jesus answered , &c. Appositely does He prove His authority over the Temple by His power of rebuilding the Temple.
This Temple , viz., His body, which Christ pointed out by moving His hand to His breast. Observe : the Body of Christ is called a temple because in It dwelt the fulness of the Deity, not merely by grace as it dwells in us, but corporeally and personally (Col. ii. 9). So S. Cyril. As though He said, “You, O ye incredulous Jews, ask of Me a sign, or a miracle ; lo, I give you one, even My resurrection from the dead. This thing is now indeed dark unto you, because ye are unbelieving. But after a little while ye will understand it, or at least ye might easily understand, when ye shall see that I am risen on the third day. For then ye shall understand who I am, and how great I was, that I was in truth the Lord of My Own Body, that of My own will I gave Myself to die, and rose to life again. Thus, in consequence, ye may understand that much more am I the Lord of this Temple, which is only a type and shadow of My Body ; and therefore that I have power to cast out of it the buyers and sellers.” So Bede.
Moreover, Christ calls his Body a temple rather than anything else because this contention took place in the Temple and about the Temple. As though He said, That ye may know, O ye Jews, that I am Lord of the Temple, loose ye, that is, I permit you to destroy the temple of My Body, which ye will do when ye kill and crucify Me, and I rise again by My own power on the third day. “ Destroy ye” not as inciting them to His destruction ; but predicting in figurative language what He knew they were about to do. So Euthymius.
Ver. 20 . — The Jews then said , &c. 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 ii. 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.
You may say that Josephus, in the passage cited above, says that Herod completed the building of the Temple in eight years instead of forty-six. I answer that he finished building as far as the most important parts of the Temple, such as the holy place and the Holy of Holies, were concerned : but both he himself and his successors laboured for many years after, even to Christ’s thirtieth year, in adorning the same. For in constructing the courts, the porticoes, and in beautifying the whole, inside as well as out, eighteen thousand men laboured all that time, as the same Josephus records.
Finally, some think that the Jews spoke of both Temples, viz., Zorobabel’s and Herod’s. For Herod did not so much build a new Temple as adorn the old Temple of Zorobabel, so as to make it loftier and grander. This Villalpandus clearly proves from Hegesippus and other authors. The Temple then of Zorobabel occupied fifteen years in building. It was afterwards for several more years enlarged and adorned by the Maccabees, by Simon the son of Onias the High Priest (Ecclus. L. 1), and by Herod. If you reckon up all these years you will easily make them come to forty-six years. Similarly the Basilica of S. Peter at Rome, the ancient one of Constantine the Great having been destroyed, has occupied a hundred years in building, and even at the present time we see continually in process of erection turrets, altars, pillars, chapels, &c.
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 ἀνατολή, for the west δύσις, for the north ἄρκτος, for the south μεσημβρία, which four letters form Adam’s name, even the elect who are to be 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.”
Ver. 23. — But when He was at Jerusalem, &c. They believed in His name, that is, that He bore truly the name of Messiah, or Christ, as He Himself named Himself, and was so publicly named and called by the faithful.
Ver. 24 . — But Jesus did not, &c. He did not trust, i.e., He did not confide. For although He knew that they believed in Him, yet He also knew that they were fickle, and would easily fall back from this faith, and be perverted by His numerous enemies, the Scribes and Pharisees. For the authority and power of those men was great. For this reason Christ neither securely, nor for long, conversed with them, but went away into other parts of Judea, for He knew not only what they were then doing and thinking, but what they were hereafter about to think and do against Him, to persecute Him even unto the death of the cross.
Ver. 25. — For He had no need, &c. For He was searching the heart of each, whether it were constant, or fickle and inconstant. Wherefore , as S. Chrysostom says, “ He did not regard outward words who enters into the mind itself, who penetrates human thoughts, who knew how soon their fervour would grow cold. Jesus had no need of testimony to know the minds which He had formed.” Augustine adds, “That the Maker knew better what was in His work than the work what was in itself. Man's Creator knew what was in man.”