Woe unto you, because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish their sepulchers, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
Not because they build, nor because they blame the others, does He say, woe, but because, while both thus, and by what they say, they are pretending to condemn their fathers, they do worse. For in proof that the condemnation was a pretense, Luke says, you do allow because ye build; for, Woe unto you, says He, for you build the sepulchers of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. Truly ye bear witness, and you allow the deeds of your fathers, for they indeed killed them, and you build their sepulchers. For here He reproves their purpose, wherewith they built, that it was not for the honoring of them that were slain, but as making a show of the murders, and afraid, lest, when the tombs had perished by time, the proof and memory of such daring should fade away, setting up these glorious buildings, as a kind of trophy, and priding themselves in the daring deeds of those men, and displaying them.
For the things that you now dare to do, show that you do these things also in this spirit. For, though ye speak the contrary, says He, as condemning them, as, for instance, We should not, if we had been in their days, have been partakers with them; yet the disposition is evident wherewith ye say these things. Wherefore also unfolding it, though darkly, still He has expressed it. For when He had said, you say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets; He added, Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that you are the children of them that slew the prophets. And what blame is it to be a murderer’s son, if one partake not in the mind of one’s father? None. Whence it is evident, that for this same thing He brings it forward against them, hinting at their affinity in wickedness.
And this is manifest too by what comes after; He adds at least, You serpents, you generation of vipers. For as those beasts are like their parents, in the destructiveness of their venom, so also are you like your fathers in murderousness.
Then, because He was searching their temper of mind, which is to the more part obscure, He does, from those things also which they were about to perpetrate, which would be manifest to all, establish His words. For, because He had said, Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that you are the children of them which killed the prophets, making it evident, that of their affinity in wickedness He is speaking, and that it was a pretense to say, We should not have been partakers with them, He added, Fill ye up therefore the measure of your fathers, not commanding, but declaring beforehand, what was to be, that is, His own murder.
Therefore, having brought in their refutation, and having shown that they were pretenses which they said in their own defense, as, for instance, We would not have been partakers with them, (for they who refrain not from the Lord, how should they have refrained from the servants), He makes after this His language more condemnatory, calling them serpents, and generation of vipers, and saying, How shall you escape the damnation of hell, at once perpetrating such things, and denying them, and dissembling your purpose?
Then rebuking them more exceedingly from another cause also, He says, I will send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes, and some of them shall you kill and crucify, and some of them shall you scourge in your synagogues. For that they should not say, Though we crucified the Lord, yet from the servants we should have refrained, if we had been then; Behold, He says, I send servants also to you, prophets likewise themselves, and neither will you spare them. But these things He says, showing that it was nothing strange, that He should be murdered by those sons, being both murderous and deceitful, and having much guile, and surpassing their fathers in their outrages.
And besides what has been said, He shows them to be also exceedingly vainglorious. For when they say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them, they spoke out of vainglory, and were practising virtue in words only, but in their works doing the contrary.
You serpents, you generation of vipers, that is, wicked sons of wicked men, and more wicked than those who begot them. For He shows that they are committing greater crimes, both by their committing them after those others, and by their doing much more grievous things than they, and this, while positively affirming that they never would have fallen into the same. For they add that which is both the end and the crown of their evil deeds. For the others slew them that came to the vineyard, but these, both the son, and them that were bidding them to the wedding.
But these things He says, to separate them off from the affinity to Abraham, and to show that they had no advantage from thence, unless they followed his works; wherefore also He adds, How can you flee from the damnation of hell, when following them that have committed such acts?