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The Jews plot to put
Jesus Christ to death
23.1
First Point
The Jews, indignant
because Jesus Christ performed a great number of miracles, and therefore
everybody flocked to him and considered him as a prophet, plotted to
bring about his death and called a council among themselves[i]
to determine how they would go about arresting him. Because they feared
the people,[ii]
who esteemed him highly, they had to act cautiously. Out of hatred for him
they spread the word that he was a preacher of new doctrines, and they used
this pretext as a way to do away with him.
Consider
with amazement the hatred that the Jews felt for Jesus Christ and the
opposition that he endured from them, especially the Pharisees, who brought
about his death, and reflect on the excesses into which the envy and rage of
these wicked men led them, since they did not hesitate to cause the death of
an innocent man, a saint, a prophet, one who possessed all the exterior
signs of divinity.
23.2 Second Point
Despite the hatred that
the Jews had for him and the wicked plot they had against him, Jesus Christ
did not stop speaking to them about himself with all imaginable kindness. On
one occasion he reminded them of the many good works he had performed
among them and asked them for which of them they wanted to put him to death.[iii]
In their assembly they openly admitted their motive: If we let him
continue to live, they said, the whole world will believe in him.[iv]
What evil
has he done? Pilate said to them. I find no crime in him that
deserves death.[v]
But it sufficed that Jesus Christ was hated by the Jews because he
reproached them for their vices, and this was reason enough for their
tribunal to find him guilty and worthy of death. Let us condemn him to a
shameful death,[vi]
they said, borrowing the words of the Wise Man.
Adore Jesus'
interior disposition in all these plans of the Pharisees' intrigue. He
courageously endured the accomplishment of their designs because this was in
accord with the plan of his Eternal Father. You would have no power over
me, he told Pilate, unless it were given to you from above.[vii]
23.3 Third Point
Another reason the Jews
gave in their assembly as reason for wanting to put Jesus to death was that
a great number of persons were believing in him, following him, and
honoring him as their king. They feared that because of this the
Romans would come and destroy their city and nation.[viii]
In this, says Saint Augustine, they were strangely blinded, because it was
as a result of the cruelty they showed to the Anointed One of the Lord that
their city was besieged, taken by the Romans, and so completely destroyed
that, as Jesus Christ had foretold, not a stone remained upon a stone.[ix]
All this took place, according to the testimony of Josephus, a writer who
lived in those times and who belonged to the party of the Pharisees, only
because they had put Jesus Christ to death.
God, as a
rule, overturns the plans of men and causes the opposite of what they
proposed to happen, so that they may learn to have confidence in him, and
abandon themselves entirely to his Providence, not undertaking anything on
their own, because they should desire only what God wants.
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