Matthew 26:63

(Verse 63.) And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God that you tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. Why do you swear, most wicked of priests, to accuse rather than to believe? If to accuse, others argue: condemn the silent one. If to believe, why did you not want to believe the one confessing?

This place teaches us to contemn the clamours of slanderers and false witnesses, and not to consider those who speak unbeseeming things of us worthy of an answer; but then, above all, when it is greater to be manfully and resolutely silent, than to plead our cause in vain. Under the Law, we do indeed find many instances of this adjuration (Numb. 5:19, 1 Kings 22:16.); but I judge that a man who would live according to the Gospel should not adjure another; for if we are not permitted to swear, surely not to adjure. But he that regards Jesus commanding the daemons, and giving His disciples power over them, will say, that to address the daemons by the power given by the Saviour, is not to adjure them. But the High Priest did sin in laying a snare for Jesus; imitating his father, who twice asked the Saviour, If thou be Christ the Son of God. (Matt. 4.) Hence one might rightly say, that to doubt concerning the Son of God, whether Christ be He, is the work of the Devil.

And the chief priest said to him: I adjure you by the living God, that you tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. And Jesus said to him: You have said it (26, 63ᵇ. 64ᵃ). And indeed in the Law we find the practice of adjuring used on several occasions. For in Numbers the Law says that "the priest shall adjure her" (that is, that woman in whose husband there has arisen "a spirit of jealousy"), "and shall say to the woman" (this is, the priest): "if no one has lain with you, and unless you have transgressed so as to be defiled by a man not your own, you shall be innocent of this cursed water of accusation". And after a few words: "and the priest", he says, "shall adjure the woman with the adjurations of this curse". Likewise in the third book of Kingdoms king Ahab says to Micaiah: "Yet twice more do I adjure you, that you speak to me the truth in the name of the Lord". Now the king adjured the prophet, and he adjured not as the priest in Numbers; for the latter did so from the precept of the Law, but the former of his own choice. And now in the present passage the priest adjures Jesus by the living God. But I judge that it is not fitting for a man who wishes to live according to the Gospel to adjure another. For it is similar to what the Lord himself says in the Gospel: "But I say, not to swear at all" and not to adjure at all; for if it is not permitted to swear, so far as concerns the evangelical commandment of Christ, it is true that neither is it permitted to adjure another. Therefore it is manifest that the chief priest unlawfully adjured Jesus, although he may seem to have adjured him by the living God. Someone will ask whether it is fitting even to adjure demons. And he who looks to the many who have dared to do such things will say that this is not done without reason; but he who looks to Jesus … commanding the demons, but also giving power to his disciples over all demons and to heal infirmities, will say that to adjure demons is not according to the power given by the Savior: for it is a Jewish practice. This (even if sometimes something of the kind is done by our own people) is similar to that whereby demons are wont to be adjured by the adjurations written by Solomon. But those very people who use those adjurations sometimes do not even use properly established books, and with certain adjurations received even from the Hebrew they adjure…