Matthew 26:2

He foretels His crucifixion to His disciples, adding, And the Son of Man shall be delivered to be crucified; thus fortifying them against that shock of surprise, which the sight of their Master, led forth to crucifixion, would otherwise have occasioned them. And He expresses it impersonally shall be delivered, because God delivered Him up in mercy to the human race, Judas from covetousness, the Priest for envy, the Devil through fear that through His teaching the human race would be plucked out of His hand, little aware how much more that would be effected by His death, than either by His teaching or miracles.

(de Cons. Ev. ii. 78.) We gather from John's account, that six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, and thence entered Jerusalem sitting upon the ass, after which were done the things related to have been done at Jerusalem. We understand therefore that four days elapsed from His coming to Bethany, to make this two days before the Passover. (v. 17.) The difference between the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread is this; the name Passover is given to that one day on which the lamb was slain in the evening, that is, the fourteenth moon of the first month; and on the fifteenth moon, the day that the people came out of Egypt, followed the festival of unleavened bread. (vid. Acts 12:3.) But the Evangelists seem to use the terms indifferently.

You know that after two days the Passover will take place, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified. If, therefore, even the hour had been determined—according to what we have said—so that he should not be handed over before all his teaching was complete, how much more had the day also been determined, on which "Christ our Passover" should be sacrificed, dissolving the Jewish Passover and handing on the new one to his disciples according to the new covenant? The month of the Passover too had to be determined; and I think the year as well, of which the prophet also spoke: "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of salvation." He therefore foretells it to his disciples, fortifying them beforehand, so that they might not—before they had heard what was going to come about—suddenly, seeing their master handed over to the cross, be stunned with terror at the suffering befalling the Lord. For this reason he said to them: You know that after two days the Passover will take place, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified. Now he does not, as some suppose, wish to say by this that after two days the day of the Passover will arrive, but that after two days the new Passover will take place. For he did not say: after two days the Passover will be or will come, so as not to point to that Passover as future which used to be kept according to the law, but the Passover will take place—that is, such as had never been made before—so that through this new Passover that ancient one might be cut away. And then he adds thus: and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified. And after two days the Passover took place, according to what had been prophesied by him: when he was handed over in the night and said to Judas as he kissed him: "Friend, for what purpose have you come?" But if after two days the Passover took place, that is on the fourteenth day of the moon, it is manifest that when he was saying these things it was, according to the Jews, the eleventh day of the moon, when he also expounded the parables mentioned above. But by whom he was handed over is not written here. You may gather it, however, from the Scriptures, since the Father too handed him over, according to what is written: "who did not spare his only Son, but handed him over for us all"; but according to other Scriptures "Judas" handed him over; yet also…