# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S39
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1902. 39

[They were] properly to be only outside the temple; but they also came into the inner courts, and, in great crowds, into the neighborhood of the halls in which Christ, as well as the Pharisees, taught. And there it was natural that a certain force was applied to drive these people away from there, where they had no right to be. But it is very much to be expected that they kept coming back. Since the later acts of Christ relating to this do not differ greatly from the earlier ones, it was natural that it was related by each evangelist only once. In John the deed appears still stronger, because Christ at that time did not yet have the authority he had later." So far Schleiermacher.

What is correct in this is that one need not be surprised at something strange, and thus also need not see a contradiction in the fact that two cleansings of the temple at different times are reported to us, which ran a fairly similar course. Idle only is the remark that Jesus must have done something similar every time he was in Jerusalem. Twice, however, according to Scripture, he did so: once at the beginning, the other time at the close of his public teaching ministry. And although what Jesus did remained essentially the same both times, the words which he spoke at the end of his career, according to the account of Matthew, Mark and Luke, were sharper than those spoken at the beginning according to the account of John. At first he said only: "Make not my Father's house an house of merchandise." On the Monday after Palm Sunday, however, Christ reproaches them: You have made my house, which is to be a house of prayer for all nations, a den of robbers. In respect of the consequences of Jesus' deed too a difference appears. In John the Jews still ask a sign of Jesus, that he may do such a thing. He had until then done no miracles in Judea; so he should, in the Jews' opinion, prove himself by a sign to be a prophet sent by God and as such called to the cleansing of the temple, otherwise they could not grant him the right to do this and to put an end to an abuse that had already been tolerated by the priesthood for many years. But when Jesus cleansed the temple a second time they no longer demand a sign of him; he had already done enough of them, had only recently raised Lazarus from the dead, which was a thorn in the eye of the chief men among the Jews and had filled them with envy and hatred against Jesus. Then this second time the cleansing of the temple and the still more serious words of Jesus about the den of robbers connected with it had rather the consequence that the high priests and scribes, before whom it came, sought how they might destroy him. But for fear of the people they did not yet dare for the time being to lay hands on him. He had after all entered the city the day before amid the hosanna-cry of the people; all the people hung upon him. So the pretext also falls away that Jesus should not have allowed himself such a thing