Matthew 26:5
But they said: Not on the festival day, lest perhaps there should be a tumult among the people.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Dicebant autem : Non in die festo, ne forte tumultus fieret in populo.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- ἔλεγον δέ· Μὴ ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ, ἵνα μὴ θόρυβος γένηται ἐν τῷ λαῷ.
Haydock's commentary
Not on the festival day. Such a day seemed to them at first improper, at least to some of them; but this was overruled, when Judas informed them how he could and would put him into their hands on Thursday night. St. Jerome takes notice, that when they said, Not on the festival, it was not through a motive of religion that they made this objection, but only lest a tumult should happen in his favour among the people; (Witham) for they looked upon him as a great prophet.
Behold how fearful these people are, not of offending God, nor of increasing the enormity of their most atrocious crime, by committing it on the solemnity of the Passover, but of offending men by raising a tumult. Still boiling over with rage, they no sooner found the Traitor, than yielding to the impulse of their blind fury, they gladly seized the opportunity offered, and immolating their victim in the middle of their solemnity. Though this their wickedness was the instrument of the divine dispensation, to bring about the greatest good, still they will not go without receiving condign punishment; which the perversity of their wills so richly deserved, for murdering innocence itself; and at a time when guilt was accustomed to meet with mercy and forgiveness. (St. Chrysostom, hom. lxxx.)
We know that by a decree of divine Providence, what had been so long and so earnestly sought for by the Jewish princes, viz. an opportunity of murdering the innocent Lamb of God, was not granted to them, except on the very feast of the Pasch. For it was only fitting, that what had been for such a length of time figuratively promised, should be manifestly fulfilled; that the true Lamb should supersede the figurative one; and that by one grand sacrifice, the vast variety of offerings and holocausts should be done away. (St. Leo the great)
Where a note speaks of the Jewish people, the Church teaches that the Passion cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Gloss Catena Aurea on verses 3-5
non occ.: Then the Evangelist lays before us the hidden springs and machinery by which the Lord's Passion was brought to pass.
Remigius of Auxerre Catena Aurea on verses 3-5
This, "then," is to be referred to the preceding words, and means before the Feast of the Passover.
Origen Catena Aurea on verses 3-5
Not true Priests and elders, but Priests and elders of what seemed the people of God, but was indeed the people of Gomorrah; these, not knowing God's High Priest, laid a plot against Him, not recognizing "the firstborn of the whole creation, [Col 1:15] yea, even against Him that was elder than them all, did they take counsel.
St John Chrysostom Catena Aurea on verses 3-5
With such ill designs they came to the chief Priest, seeking a sanction whence a prohibition should have issued. There were at that time several Chief Priests, while the Law allowed but of one, whence it was manifest that the dissolution of the Jewish state was having its beginning. For Moses had commanded that there should be one Chief Priest, whose office should be filled up at death; but in process of time it grew to be annual. All those then who had been Chief Priests [marg. note: τους απ" αρχιερεων ] are here called "Chief Priests."
Remigius of Auxerre Catena Aurea on verses 3-5
They are condemned both because they were gathered together, and because they were the Chief Priests; for the more the numbers, and the higher the rank and station of those who band together for any villainy, the greater the enormity of what they do, and the heavier the punishment stored up for them. To shew the Lord's innocence and openness, the Evangelist adds, "that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him."
St John Chrysostom Catena Aurea on verses 3-5
For what then did they conspire, to seize Him secretly, or put Him to death? For both; but they feared the people, and therefore waited till the feast was over, for "they said, not on the feast-day." For the Devil would not that Christ should suffer at the Passover, that His Passion might not be notorious. The Chief Priests had no fear in respect of God, namely, that their guilt might be aggravated by the season, but took into account human things only, "Lest there be an uproar among the people."
Origen Catena Aurea on verses 3-5
By reason of the parties among the populace, those who favoured and those who hated Christ, those who believed and those who believed not.
St Leo the Great Catena Aurea on verses 3-5
This precaution of the Chief Priests arose not from reverence for the festival, but, from care for the success of their plot; they feared an insurrection at that season, not because of the guilt the populace might thereby incur, but because they might rescue Christ.
St John Chrysostom Catena Aurea on verses 3-5
But their fury set aside their caution, and finding a betrayer, they put Christ to death in the middle of the feast.
St Leo the Great Catena Aurea on verses 3-5
We recognise here a providential arrangement whereby the chief men of the Jews, who had often sought occasion of effecting their cruel purposes against Christ, could never yet succeed till the days of the paschal celebration. For it behoved that the things which had long been promised in symbol and mystery should be accomplished in manifest reality, that the typical lamb should be displaced by the true, and one sacrifice embrace the whole catalogue of the varied victims. That shadows should give way to substance, and copies to the presence of the original; victim is commuted for victim, blood is abolished by blood, and the festival of the Law is at once fulfilled and changed.
St Augustine The Harmony of the Gospels, Of the Concord Between Matthew, Mark, and John in Their Notices of the Supper at Bethany, at Which the Woman Poured the Precious Ointment on the Lord, and of the Method in Which These Accounts are to Be Harmonized with that of Luke, When He Records an Incident of a Similar Nature at a Different Period
154. Matthew, then, continuing his narrative from the point up to which we had concluded its examination, proceeds in the following terms: “Then assembled together the chief priests and the elders of the people unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty and kill Him: but they said, Not on the feast-day, lest there be an uproar among the people. Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto Him a woman having an alabaster box of precious ointment, and poured it on His head as He sat at meat;” and so on down to the words, “there shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her.” The scene with the woman and the costly ointment at Bethany we have now to consider, as it is thus detailed. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).