John 2:21

Wherefore then did He not resolve the difficulty and say, "I speak not of that Temple, but of My flesh"? Why does the Evangelist, writing the Gospel at a later period, interpret the saying, and Jesus keep silence at the time? Why did He so keep silence? Because they would not have received His word; for if not even the disciples were able to understand the saying, much less were the multitudes. "When," saith the Evangelist, "He was risen from the dead, then they remembered, and believed the Scripture and His word." There were two things that hindered them for the time, one the fact of the Resurrection, the other, the greater question whether He was God that dwelt within; of both which things He spake darkly when He said, "Destroy this Temple, and I will rear it up in three days." And this St. Paul declares to be no small proof of His Godhead, when he writes, "Declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the Resurrection from the dead."

From this Apollinarius draws an heretical inference: and attempts to show that Christ's flesh was inanimate, because the temple was inanimate. In this way you will prove the flesh of Christ to be wood and stone, because the temple is composed of these materials. Now if you refuse to allow what is said, Now is My soul troubled; (John 12:27) and, I have power to lay it (My life) down, (ib. 10:18) to be said of the rational soul, still how will you interpret, Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend My spirit? (Luke 23:46) you cannot understand this of an irrational soul: or again, the passage, Thou shall not leave My soul in hell. (Ps. 16:11)

"The Jews said unto Him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?" And the Lord answered, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and dost thou say, In three days I will rear it up?" Flesh they were, fleshly things they minded; but He was speaking spiritually. But who could understand of what temple He spoke? But yet we have not far to seek; He has discovered it to us through the evangelist, he has told us of what temple He said it. "But He spake," saith the evangelist, "of the temple of His body." And it is manifest that, being slain, the Lord did rise again after three days. This is known to us all now: and if from the Jews it is concealed, it is because they stand without; yet to us it is open, because we know in whom we believe.

For inasmuch as they sought a sign from our Lord of His right to eject the customary merchandize from the temple, He replied, that that temple signified the temple of His Body, in which was no spot of sin; as if He said, As by My power I purify your inanimate temple from your merchandize and wickedness; so the temple of My Body, of which that is the figure, destroyed by your hands, on the third day I will raise again.