And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?
Ver. 29. What have we to do with thee] Horrible impudence. As if Christ were not concerned when his members are vexed. David felt his own coat cut and his own cheeks shaven in the coats and cheeks of his servants; and shall not Christ be as sensible of the abuses done to his? The sovereign suffers in the subject. Neither is it other than just, that the arraignment of mean malefactors runs in the style of wrong to the king's crown and dignity.
Jesus, thou Son of God] The devil speaks Christ fair, but only to be rid of him. So deal many by Christ's ministers, that rip up their consciences, and so put them into a hell above ground. St Mark tells us that they worshipped our Saviour; St Luke, that they adjured him. Satan, saith one, doth not always appear in one and the same fashion. At Lystra he appeared like a comedian, at Athens like a philosopher, at Ephesus like an artificer, and here like an exorcist; as to Saul he appeared like the old prophet, who could not have spoken more gravely, severely, divinely, than the fiend did. But as, when one commended the pope's legate at the Council of Basil, Sigismund the emperor answered, Tamen Romanus est: Yet I am a Roman, so when the devil comes commended unto us under what name soever, let us cry out, Yet he is a devil; and remember still to resist him, steadfast in the faith, 1 Peter 5:8,9 .
Art thou come hither to torment us] To dispossess us. Lo, it is another hell to the devil to be idle, or otherwise than evil occupied. Should not we hold it our heaven to be well doing? a Learn for shame of the devil, saith father Latimer, to be busy about the salvation of your own and other men's souls, which he so studiously seeks to destroy. Athanasius hath a conceit, that the devil may he driven out of a body by repeating the 68th Psalm. Origen saith of devils, no greater torment to them than to see men addicted to the Scriptures: In hoc eorum omnis flamma est, in hoc uruntur incendio. Chrysostom saith, we may lash and scourge the devil by fasting and prayer, which the prophet Isaiah calls a charm or enchantment, Isaiah 26:16; (לחש).
Before the time] For they are respited and reprieved, as it were, in respect of full torment, and suffered, as free prisoners, to flutter in the air, and to course about the earth till that great day; which they tremble to think on, and which they that mock at, 2 Peter 3:3, or make light of, are worse than devils. b
a Tantum abest ut in oves Dei habeat potestatem.
b Ut iugulent homines, surgunt, &c. Horace.