John 12:14

For state reasons, the various orders of the [Roman] citizens … are crowned with laurel crowns.… There are also provincial crowns of gold, needing now the larger heads of images instead of those of men. But your orders, and your magistracies and your very place of meeting, that is, the church, are Christ's. You belong to him, for you have been enrolled in the books of life. There the blood of the Lord serves for your purple robe, and your broad stripe is his own cross. There the axe is already laid to the trunk of the tree. There the branch is from the root of Jesse. Never mind the state horses with their crown. Your Lord, when, according to the Scripture, he would enter Jerusalem in triumph, had not even a donkey of his own. These [put their trust] in chariots, and these in horses. But we will seek our help in the name of the Lord our God.

"Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion"? Because all their kings had for the most part been an unjust and covetous kind of men, and had given them over to their enemies, and had perverted the people, and made them subject to their foes; "Be of good courage," It saith, "this is not such an one, but meek and gentle"; as is shown by the ass, for He entered not with an army in His train, but having an ass alone.

And this He did, figuring one prophecy and fulfilling another; and the same act was the beginning of the one and the end of the other. For the, "Rejoice, for thy King cometh unto thee meek," belonged to Him as fulfilling a prophecy, but the sitting upon an ass was the act of one prefiguring a future event, that He was about to have the impure race of the Gentiles subject to Him.

But how say the others, that He sent disciples, and said, "Loose the ass and the colt," while John saith nothing of the kind, but that "having found a young ass, He sat upon it"? Because it is likely that both circumstances took place, and that He after the ass was loosed, while the disciples were bringing it, found the colt, and sat upon it.

(Tr. li. 5) John relates the matter briefly, the other Evangelists are more full. The ass, we read in them, was the foal of an ass on which no man had sat: i. e. the Gentile world, who had not received our Lord. The other ass, which was brought, (not the foal, for there were two,) is the believing Jew.

(Tr. li) This act of our Lord's is pointed to in the Prophets, though the malignant rulers of the Jews did not see in it any fulfilment of prophecy: As it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion, behold thy King cometh sitting on an ass's colt. Yea, in that nation though reprobate, though blind, there remained still the daughter of Sion; even Jerusalem. To her it is said, Fear not, acknowledge Him whom thou praisest, and tremble not when He suffers. That blood it is which shall wipe away thy sins, and redeem thy life.

"And Jesus, when He had found a young ass, sat thereon." Here the account is briefly given: for how it all happened may be found at full length in the other evangelists. But there is appended to the circumstance itself a testimony from the prophets, to make it evident that He in whom was fulfilled all they read in Scripture, was entirely misunderstood by the evil-minded rulers of the Jews.

For when a great multitude were escorting Him like a body-guard and shouting His praises, with the most perfect self-restraint He seated Himself upon an ass, teaching us not to be lifted up by praises, and omitting no necessary thing. Matthew therefore related at greater length the circumstances concerning the ass; but John comes at once to the point of the affair that was most suited to the occasion, as it is his custom to do. And since, contrary to His usual habits, on this occasion only, Christ appears seated on an ass, we do not say that He so sat for the reason that it was a long distance to the city; for it was not more than fifteen furlongs off: nor because there was a multitude; for it is certain that on other occasions when He was found with a multitude He did not do this: but He does so, to indicate that He is about to make subject to Himself as a new people the unclean among the Gentiles, and to lead them up to the prerogative of righteousness, and to the Jerusalem above, of which the earthly is a type; into which this people being made clean shall enter with Christ, Who will be hymned by the guileless angels, of whom the babes are a type. And He calls the ass a colt, because the people of the Gentiles had been untrained to the piety which faith produces.

The Jews, when they called Him King of Israel, dreamed of an earthly king. They expected a king to arise, of more than human greatness, who would deliver them from the government of the Romans. But how did our Lord come? The next words tell us; And Jesus when He had found a young ass, sat thereon.

The other Evangelists say that the Lord told the disciples: "Untie it and bring it to Me" (Matt. 21:1–2; Mark 11:2; Luke 19:30). But here John mentions none of this, and simply says: "Jesus found a young donkey." However, there is no disagreement among the Evangelists. The others spoke more at length, while John said it more briefly: "Jesus, having found a young donkey." When the disciples untied it and brought it, Jesus found it and sat upon it.

And Jesus found a young ass and sat upon it. Although he was the true King and permitted royal honor to be offered to him, nevertheless he came not with a multitude of horses, but upon an ass. In which is signified, as Augustine says, that "he was not a king for exacting tribute, not for arming an army with iron, but the King of Israel, who rules minds, who takes counsel, who leads believers, hopers, and lovers into the kingdom of heaven."

As it is written. Here is touched upon the second point, namely the approval of that deed through Scripture, and this he does by showing that it had been foretold in Scripture: because this gives strength to true faith. Therefore he says that he sat upon an ass in royal honor: lest you think this was done by chance, therefore he says: As it is written, in the ninth chapter of Zechariah.

Question II. Likewise, a question is raised about the apparent contradiction:

1. Because it is said in Matthew twenty-one that he first sent into the village for the donkey, and then that the crowd came to meet him.

2. Likewise, in the same place it is said that he sat upon the she-donkey and the colt, but here it is said that upon a young donkey.

3. Likewise, this is not written in Zechariah: Fear not, daughter of Sion, but rather: Rejoice and shout for joy, daughter, etc.

I respond: To this last point, it must be said that because the Evangelists spoke through the Holy Spirit, who composed all of Scripture and is its author, they did not insist upon the similarity of words but upon the integrity of meaning; and the very same thing that the prophet said through the word rejoicing, the Evangelist says through the word not fearing.

As for the objection concerning the contradiction and the reversal of order: it must be said that the Lord sat upon the she-donkey and also upon her colt. And some say this happened in this way: he first mounted the colt, and because it was bucking, he afterward sat upon the she-donkey. But this amounts to nothing, because I do not believe that the colt would ever buck while the Lord was sitting upon it; rather, it should be understood that the Lord, for the sake of the figure, first sat upon the she-donkey, that is, upon the old synagogue, and afterward upon the colt, that is, the untamed gentile world.

And he first sat upon the she-donkey before the crowds came to meet him; therefore Matthew narrates this first. But afterward, when the crowds came to meet him, then he sat upon the young donkey. And therefore John says after the arrival of the crowds: Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, not troubling to tell the whole, because another had already told it.

When the Evangelist says, and Jesus found a young ass and sat upon it, he describes our Lord's coming: first, he tells how he came; secondly, he mentions a prophecy (v 15); and thirdly, he describes the state of mind of the disciples in regard to this event (v 16).

It should be noted in regard to the first point, that John the Evangelist wrote his Gospel after all the others. And so, after carefully noting what these had written, he merely summarized what they had already mentioned, but filled in what they had omitted. Therefore, since the other Evangelists had already told how the Lord sent two of his disciples to bring the ass, John contents himself with mentioning briefly that Jesus found a young ass and sat upon it.

Here it should be pointed out that Christ's actions are in a way midway between the events of the Old Testament and of the New Testament. Thus the crowds praised him, both the one which went before him, and the one which followed him, because Christ's actions are the rule and exemplar of the things that are done in the New Testament, and they were prefigured by the fathers of the Old Testament.

The young ass is an awkward animal, and signifies the Gentiles. Christ sat upon it to signify that he would redeem the Gentiles: "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth" (Is 49:6); "Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the ass range free," that is, thus uniting the Jews and the Gentiles in one faith.

Now Matthew wrote his Gospel for the Jews, and so he made mention of a she-ass. This she-ass signifies the synagogue of the Jews, which was like a mother to the Gentiles in spiritual matters, because "out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Is 2:3). The other Evangelists, however, wrote their Gospels for the Gentiles, and so they mention the young colt of the she-ass.