Chapter CIII.—The Pharisees are the bulls: the roaring lion is Herod or the devil.
“Then what is next said in the Psalm—‘For trouble is near, for there is none to help me.
Many calves have compassed me; fat bulls have beset me round. They opened their mouth
upon me as a ravening and roaring lion. All my bones are poured out and dispersed like
water,’—was likewise a prediction of the events which happened to Him. For on that night
when some of your nation, who had been sent by the Pharisees and Scribes, and teachers,577
came upon Him from the Mount578 of Olives, those whom Scripture called butting and
prematurely destructive calves surrounded Him. And the expression, ‘Fat bulls have beset
me round,’ He spoke beforehand of those who acted similarly to the calves, when He was
led before your teachers. And the Scripture described them as bulls, since we know that
bulls are authors of calves’ existence. As therefore the bulls are the begetters of the calves,
so your teachers were the cause why their children went out to the Mount of Olives to take
Him and bring Him to them. And the expression, ‘For there is none to help,’ is also indicative
of what took place. For there was not even a single man to assist Him as an innocent person.
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And the expression, ‘They opened their mouth upon me like a roaring lion,’ designates him
who was then king of the Jews, and was called Herod, a successor of the Herod who, when
Christ was born, slew all the infants in Bethlehem born about the same time, because he
imagined that amongst them He would assuredly be of whom the Magi from Arabia had
spoken; for he was ignorant of the will of Him that is stronger than all, how He had com-
manded Joseph and Mary to take the Child and depart into Egypt, and there to remain until
a revelation should again be made to them to return into their own country. And there they
did remain until Herod, who slew the infants in Bethlehem, was dead, and Archelaus had
succeeded him. And he died before Christ came to the dispensation on the cross which was
given Him by His Father. And when Herod succeeded Archelaus, having received the au-
thority which had been allotted to him, Pilate sent to him by way of compliment Jesus bound;
and God foreknowing that this would happen, had thus spoken: ‘And they brought Him to
the Assyrian, a present to the king.’579 Or He meant the devil by the lion roaring against
Him: whom Moses calls the serpent, but in Job and Zechariah he is called the devil, and by
Jesus is addressed as Satan, showing that a compounded name was acquired by him from
the deeds which he performed. For ‘Sata’ in the Jewish and Syrian tongue means apostate;
and ‘Nas’ is the word from which he is called by interpretation the serpent, i.e., according
to the interpretation of the Hebrew term, from both of which there arises the single word
Satanas. For this devil, when [Jesus] went up from the river Jordan, at the time when the
577 καὶ τῶν διδασκάλων, adopted instead of κατὰ τὴν διδασκαλίαν, “according to their instructions.”
578 ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους. Justin seems to have supposed that the Jews came on Christ from some point of the hill
while He was in the valley below. ᾽Επὶ τοῦ ὄρους and ἐπὶ τὸ ὄρος have been suggested.
579 Hos. x. 6.
Chapter CIII.—The Pharisees are the bulls: the roaring lion is Herod or the devil.
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Chapter CIII.—The Pharisees are the bulls: the roaring lion is Herod or…