Commentary on Matthew 1 part 4/6

But lest anyone should think that Christ Himself was too weak to accomplish the marvel, He rebuked the unclean spirit, and immediately the boy was delivered from his sickness, and He gave him back to his father;

for before he was healed he did not belong to the father, but to the spirit that held him in its power.

If by some natural law of hers the moon had power to work an affliction upon someone, why does she not send this upon all men, just as she casts her own light upon all? Again this is plain, that the moon was made for giving light, not for begetting demons.

But if this had come about from the natural operation of the moon, then, when the demon was crushed, the moon too—being the cause of the affliction—ought to have suffered harm.

Yet this is not so; rather the demons, wishing to deceive men, attached to themselves the names of the elements, so that the elements might be slandered as though evil—which they are not.

for by nature the elements are good, serving only the laws given to them, and possessing no self-determining authority that springs from choice.

The unbeliever will surely also be perverse, and in no way know how to walk uprightly;

and with such men Christ does not deem it fitting to consort, but—if one may speak in human terms—He is wearied and grieved.

Nevertheless not against this man's person—and to think things unbefitting concerning them.

And when He says, 'How long shall I dwell with you' who thus insult Him and prove unbelieving, He shows that the season of His fleshly coming required Him to dwell with a godly gentleness among those who were not good, that through what He does He might set them right.

'How long,' He says, 'shall I dwell with you' who are so insolent and unbelieving, showing that His coming in the flesh constrained Him to consort with those who were not good, in order that He might set them right.

'If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed'—that is, warm and fervent, or else likened to the little seed on account of its lowliness in reputation.

For we have this treasure of faith in earthen vessels.

He therefore led the chief ones up the mountain and showed them the glory with which He will shine upon the world in due seasons; then, coming down from the mountain, He set free a certain man from a wicked and cruel spirit.

But it was altogether necessary for Him to endure the saving passion on our behalf and to bear with the perversity of the Jews;

and once this had come to pass, it is not unlikely that the disciples would fall into tumult and perhaps ponder and say among themselves something of this kind:

He who raised so many dead by a power befitting God, He who rebukes the seas and the winds, He who by a word crushes Satan—how has He now been seized and fallen into the snares of the murderers? Were we then deceived in thinking Him to be God? Therefore, that they might know what would altogether and by every means come to pass, He foretold to them the mystery of the passion.

Mingling in the word about the resurrection, He interweaves power with weakness, glory with dishonor, and the loftiness of the Godhead with the lowliness of manhood;

for He died as man, and rose again as God.

They perceive painful things—and more of them—than pleasant ones.

And craftily they question Peter,

'Since,' he says, 'it is his custom to act contrary to the laws of Moses, he does not even pay the didrachma'—not knowing that Christ had said, 'I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it,' and that the manner of the dispensation demanded this.

To these, then, Peter made answer—perhaps blushing to discourse about such matters.

For we were fishes, drawn up from the bitter turmoils of life as from a sea by the apostolic hooks, having in our own mouths Christ the royal stater, who was given as a ransom for two—for our soul and body, or rather for two peoples, Jews and Gentiles—alike redeeming poor and rich; since the old law too, without an apostle, exacted the drachma-tribute equally from both rich and poor.

The Saviour could have brought forth the stater even from the earth, yet He did not do this, but wrought the sign from the sea, that He might disclose to us a mystery full of contemplation;

for we are the fishes hunted out of the turmoils of life through the apostolic teachings,

and we have in our mouths the stater, that is, Christ.

The kingdom of heaven, even in the present time above all, we reckon and declare to be either the calling in sanctification or the measure attained in faith and holiness;

for the Saviour too intimates something of this kind when He says:

the kingdom of heaven is within you.

Since a great and numberless multitude of demons ranges throughout this whole universe, overturning our affairs with manifold deceits, Christ set over us from heaven our tutors—not as though human nature carried off the lesser portion (far from it),

for those beings are far above our condition, and the reasoning is plain—but rather as ones ranging their own strength against the greed of the demons, and able to contend on behalf of our life;

and this too, along with all the rest, Christ has accomplished for our souls.

Of old, when we had been rendered worthless, heaven was shut up, and the angels made no account of our affairs, being, as it were, indignant together with the Lord of all as with One who had been insulted;

but when God was pleased to gather up all things in Christ, coming upon the earth He brought down also the holy angels and appointed them guardians of our life.

'You shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.'

'of Man'—that is, on account of man;

for the heaven that had been shut throughout the times now past He opened for us, so that, coursing up and down for our sake, they might be certain ministers of the dispensation accomplished toward us through Christ.

This too Paul declares:

'Are they not all ministering spirits?'—and what follows.

This same declaration is held also by the import of the dreams of our forefather Jacob;

he beheld, as it is said, the ladder reaching from earth to heaven, the dream signifying, I think, nothing other than that at due seasons there would be an ascent and descent for the holy angels on account of man—the Only-begotten shining in the world with flesh.

It is therefore an utterly dreadful thing that the angels, counted worthy by God of such great care as overseers and tutors, should be assigned to no account at all—and this among us, their fellow-servants and brothers.

When those who have once turned aside pass over to the desire of virtue, one ought to fear the voices of the saints, even if there be not many who make the determination;

for Christ has given us full assurance of this also, having said not at all that whatever comes from the many is sure, but rather having promised that even if only two in number should determine anything in agreement and with careful deliberation, it will come to its fulfilment;

'for I will be with them,' He says, 'and will help define the matter, if only two be gathered together for My sake;'

for He says that it is not the number of those present, but the power of piety and love of God, that will prove effective.

While the God of all forgives us the grievous of our trespasses—which is signified by the many talents—if we ourselves do not remit to our fellow-servants the hundred denarii, that is, the few worldly faults, then the angels set over us, being under the same yoke of lordship as we, out of the hatred of evil within them make their denunciation before God—not as informing One who is ignorant (for He knows all things as God), but rather requesting, as is fitting, that those who have chosen to despise and to dishonor the laws of mutual love be usefully chastened.

And if we do suffer the condemnation for these things, either we are chastened during the present life, being handed over as it were to certain tormentors—temptations and sicknesses—or else we are punished unto the age to come.

And that God chastens correctively, refashioning the disobedient and hard-to-lead unto the better, is easy to see;

for the divine Scripture is full of such things, as is that which is wisely said, 'Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives,' and again, 'Endure unto chastening,' and what follows.

And the selling signifies the estrangement, evidently the estrangement from God;

for strangers to God are those to whom that bitter and joyless word would be spoken:

'Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity.'

When Christ had said, 'If you would enter into life, keep the commandments,' that man, expecting Him to say nothing other than 'Mine,' immediately says,

'Which?' But he was greatly disappointed in his expectation;

for Christ did not answer him as he had supposed, but leads him up to the law—not because the law is perfection (for no one is justified in the law, according to what is written), but because the practice according to the law is, as it were, a kind of preliminary approach to eternal life, gradually accustoming the mind of those under tutelage to higher things;

for the law has become for us a tutor unto Christ;

the law, therefore, is the beginning of a bodily polity, but Christ is the perfection;

for 'the beginning of good things,' it says, 'is to do what is just.'

The law, then, points out the just, but Christ the good.

The one taught us to requite with equal measure those who wished to do wrong (for 'a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye'), but the other taught us, letting go of the exact equipoise, to aim at the greater;

for 'to him who strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also;'

'and to him who wishes to go to law with you,' He says, 'and to take your tunic, let him have your cloak also.'

By 'camel' here He means not the burden-bearing animal, but the thick rope with which sailors bind fast their anchors.

He shows that this is not utterly impossible, yet by its exceeding difficulty He now sets the matter somewhere close, near to the very door of the impossible.

Whence it is shown that it is not just anyone [who can do it]—he who is to accomplish this has need of grace.

No one could have a soul altogether free from passions, even if he be exceedingly among the most laborious of men;

...the ground for being condemned—who then would not for the rest be answerable for the transgression in even one thing, not having escaped it? For not even the exceedingly sober man could escape sinning in the mind.

As far as human weakness is concerned, no one is saved;

but as far as the gentleness of Him who preserves is concerned, salvation is not to be despaired of;

for not every sin is unto death.

Lest anyone should suppose that what was said applies only to the disciples, He broadened the word to include all who do the like;

for even if the rest do not obtain the very same things as the disciples, yet they shall have, in place of kinsmen according to the flesh, closeness to God and brotherhood with the saints (that is, He means the elders and elder-women of the Church, whom they held as kinsmen out of love, beloved by disposition, who love far more than kinsmen according to the flesh, from whom they even received monies to administer as they wished, with the good things to come also laid up in store for them); and in place of fields, Paradise; and in place of houses built of stones, the Jerusalem above, the mother of the firstborn.

It should be noted that even if the rest do not attain the very same things as the disciples, yet nonetheless they shall have, in place of kinsmen according to the flesh, closeness to God and brotherhood with the holy city, the mother of the firstborn.

He does not say, then, that they shall receive many fathers instead of one, or many mothers instead of one, or many fields instead of a few; but that the heavenly things shall surpass all earthly things by incomparable excellences, and the things that are saved shall be more precious than the things that perish.

Luke has added something concerning a wife as well;

and this accords with Paul, who commands us to honour older women as mothers and younger women as sisters, in all purity;

just as, then, He gives as brothers those who are not brothers, and as parents those who are not parents, and as children those who are not children, so also He gives as a wife her who is not a wife—fulfilling these relationships in another manner, plainly a spiritual one, not a bodily one.

And to forsake one's kindred according to the flesh is a good thing for the sake of the spiritual life;

for He speaks of separating from parents and from a wife then, when they draw one toward impiety;

for just as one must despise soul and body for the sake of godliness, so must one prefer godliness above all these things.

Shunning the love of glory, the Lord speaks as though of another householder, though He Himself is the householder and the distributor of the kingdom of heaven.

By 'day' He means the whole age, throughout which, at various times after Adam's transgression, He calls certain righteous men to godly labour, appointing them a wage for their works.

There are, then, about the first hour, those around Adam and Enoch; about the third, those around Noah and Shem, and the righteous descended from them;

for this is a second season and a second calling, when the ordinances too were different.

Those workers called about the sixth hour are those of Abraham's times, in whose day again the legislation of circumcision was given; those of the eleventh are those of Christ's coming, of whom alone it is said, 'Why do you stand here all the day idle?'—because, having no hope of the Lord and being without God in the world and idle in every good work, they resembled those standing in the marketplace and feeling after nothing at all, but running through their own life in vain and to no purpose.

These the Lord exhorts, saying:

'Why do you stand'—so He speaks—'idle?' To whom they reply, saying:

for neither Moses nor any of the saints preached to the nations, but to Israel alone.

yet the Lord sends even these into the vineyard.

...times; and that some were found virtuous, while some despised it through folly regarding the age to come.

And at the end of life, which is the evening (for the season from Christ's coming until the consummation is that which is after the eleventh hour, as John says:

'It is the last hour'), in which, He says, the householder commands that the wage be given, beginning from the last.

And the householder may be understood as the Father, who employs the Son as distributor—not as a servant, but as a fellow-worker—because through Him He administers and works all things, whatsoever He wills.

And He gives to all the one denarius each, which is the grace of the Spirit, rendering the saints conformed to God, engraving the heavenly characters upon their souls, and leading them up to life and incorruption.

In these things the first seem to have laboured more than the last, inasmuch as they endured to a greater degree the burning heat of the devil, sin and corruption and death not yet being brought to nought;

for the matter, if it be examined according to equity, suggests that something more is owed to the former, because they lived their life while death and the devil held sway;

for this is the burden of the day and the scorching heat, when not even the dew of the Spirit was present to aid men toward righteousness.

But the last, having in place of labours the munificence of the Master, receive the wage first, since all who came after His coming, through baptism and union with the Spirit, have become partakers of the divine nature and were reckoned sons of God—whereas all before His coming were reckoned as born of women, though they too were destined to be called to this.

For even though the prophets became partakers of the Spirit, yet not as the faithful do; the Holy Spirit having become, as it were, a leaven in the souls of the faithful in a certain manner, and transferring the whole man into another condition of life.

Wherefore we too become partakers of the divine nature and with boldness cry, 'Abba, Father.'

But the more ancient did not attain the same grace.

'For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again unto fear, but you received a spirit of adoption'—signifying that the ancients received a spirit of slavery, not having the dignity of adoption.

Having, then, been the first to receive the spiritual denarius, we are necessarily said to be preferred above the others.

You ask whether, moreover, certain ones are destined to be seated;

for such a thing belongs to the first Essence alone, and not to human nature;

for the apostles, not understanding what it is to sit upon twelve thrones and what the being glorified then signifies, sought such a seat.

Five days before His saving Passion, wishing to fulfil also the utterances of the prophets that had been spoken concerning Him, He commands the two disciples to go to the little village opposite Bethphage and Bethany, and to bring His unbroken colt.

And as for the fact that Matthew says an ass and a colt were brought to the Lord, while Luke and Mark record only one beast of burden, what is said is no contradiction;

for as the colt was being led according to what had been commanded by the disciples, the ass also leapt after it, following its own offspring like a tender-hearted mother.

Or He also calls 'good messengers' those who minister to Christ for our redemption, ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

And if he who bound them with the cords of their sins should ask, 'What are you doing?'—yet, being unable to withstand the words of the Saviour, he shall be silent, not willingly, because of the surpassing greatness of the power.

And the divine calling is disclosed in this.

Being by nature also Son of the Father, He became man and came in the name of the Lord, being Himself the Lord who is called upon.

This One, then, as being God by nature, is called blessed, that is, glorified with doxology.

Christ, then, sat upon the colt, and she who bore it followed.

And what was being enacted was for us a sign of a most necessary matter;

for Christ rested upon the new people that once worshipped idols, while the synagogue of the Jews shall follow in due time, even though in the matter of the calling it holds the seniority in time;

for it had been called beforehand through Moses and the prophets.

But since it gave offence to the God who saves, on this account it justly comes behind the colt, with difficulty, and became a tail—that is, an appendage—and behind those from the nations; and the first became last.

And observe how He who knows the reins and hearts showed man's nature to have been carried off into the utmost irrationality;

for both the synagogue of the Jews and the multitude of the nations are likened to the ass, that most utterly irrational creature;

for the one having served the creation rather than God the Creator, and the other dishonouring the Law that was their tutor, they came to be without mind and sound understanding, and turning aside to every kind of baseness, they were compared to the senseless beasts and became like them, according to the word of the psalmist.

And the ass is in another way also a symbol of uncleanness;

for the animal is unhallowed and bears the condemnation of the Law.

And such are all who go astray and are lovers of sin.

The colt is led, two disciples having been sent by Christ;

for two orders minister to Him for this—prophets and apostles—through whom the nations are drawn as with a net into the faith.

And it is led from a certain village, that from this too He might make manifest the rustic mind of the nations, who were not reared in the Law but rather lived neglectfully and wildly—yet were transferred to a gentler state;

for these things came about under Christ, who teaches such things.

And children too, holding up branches of palms, ran before Him and together with the disciples composed the doxology, that through them also we might behold the new people, even that from the nations, as though painted upon a tablet;

'and a people that is being created shall praise the Lord.'

The Hebrew reads thus in the 117th Psalm;

There was in the temple a multitude of merchants—money-changers, that is, exchangers—and along with them cattle-dealers and sheep-merchants, and those selling turtledoves and pigeons.

And these things were useful for the sacrifices of the worship according to the Law.

But the time had now come for the shadow to cease and for the truth in Christ to shine forth;

wherefore Christ, being fittingly the Truth—inasmuch as He was honoured, together with His own Father, in the temple that was His own—commanded that the sacrifices under the Law and the smoke of them be restrained, and that the temple be shown forth as a house of prayer;

for to rebuke the merchants and to drive out from the sacred precincts those who were selling to certain people the things useful for sacrifice—this is entirely that, and nothing else.

Another of the evangelists says that Jesus even made a scourge out of cords, threatened them with blows, and raised it against them.

For those who honoured the legal worship, even after the truth had been made manifest, needed to know that, since they possessed a spirit of bondage and refused to be set free, they would be subjected to scourges and be liable to a servile punishment.

He sets up Isaiah too as an accuser against them—for the evangelist says so.

And by casting out the animals appointed for slaughter and the legal traditions, He foretells the transference of the worship.

He raises the scourge, signifying that if they should do the same things again, they will experience blows; and in order to show the servile condition of those under the Law, He brings upon them a scourge fitting for household slaves.

When the Jews had been cast out of the temple together with the typical sacrifices, the blind and the lame—who bear a figure of the nations—are healed.

Let those also learn who sell the very gifts of the Spirit and the priesthood, that the Lord scourged and cast out from the temple those who sold doves; and let them cease from gathering revenues for themselves from ordinations.

The Lord has sworn and will not repent:

You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Tell me then, which of the scribes or Pharisees has ministered to God after the order of Melchizedek? Assuredly no one.

But even the forefather Abraham, the root of the descent of those who are of Israel, was blessed by the priesthood of Melchizedek.

Melchizedek and the priesthood according to him were a type of Christ the Saviour of all, who has become our High Priest, bringing to God the Father all who have believed in Him, and perfecting them unto sanctification through a worship that surpasses the Law.

Why then are you vexed, O Pharisee? Do you charge the Lawgiver, tell me, with dissolving the Law, and with not following His own commandments? But God is altogether above the Law.

For He who ordained the laws not so much for Himself as for us, transfers in due season what He has appointed to whatever He may choose, and raises it to something better.

There was therefore a time for the things in types to cease, and for the better things to be manifested.

Wherefore He said somewhere through the voice of Isaiah:

The ordinances of the people shall be done away.

For it grew idle, once the new commandment had been made manifest, which the Son has spoken to us through Himself.

Christ asked what opinion they held concerning the Baptist, since it was the custom of the Jews to call the saints false-speakers, and to say that they fabricated their prophecy out of their own private judgement, not being sent from God.

But the Pharisees were afraid to speak the truth, lest they should hear:

Why then did you not believe? And the vineyard is Israel, as the psalmist says:

You brought a vine out of Egypt; and Isaiah too:

There was, he says, a vineyard belonging to my beloved.

God planted it and went abroad for a long time—that is, He was longsuffering.

Yet He is seen taking thought for the field and keeping it in mind.

For no intervening time occurred in which prophets and righteous men were not being sent from God to admonish them.

But they became disobedient, and dishonouring those who were sent, they sent them away empty—that is, having nothing good to say about them to God who had sent them.

Are you then also sons of God the Father? Does the inheritance descend to you by nature, if you should put the heir out of the way? How shall you become lords of what you lust after? And how is this too not worthy of laughter? For while Christ, as a Son and having become by essence heir of the dignities of God the Father, when He became man called those who believe in Him into fellowship of His own kingdom; yet the Hebrews wished to possess the kingdom alone, which was both impossible and ignorant.

Observe in these words that after the servants the Son is sent, as not being reckoned among servants, but as a true Son and therefore Lord.

For even though He wore the form of a slave in the divine economy, yet even so He was God and the true Son of God the Father, having lordship by nature.

And who might these be? The choir of the holy apostles, the ministers and teachers of the new covenant.

By 'the stone' here He means Christ; and the 'corner' is the joining together and the union of these two peoples, that which was saved from Israel and that which is of the nations.

And the 'way' is the fellowship with the Spirit, through which one acquires the kingdom of the heavens.

This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.

The stone, therefore, is a means of salvation to the corner that has come into being through Him, but a crushing and destruction to those who have remained outside this spiritual and noetic concurrence.

To some Christ is a rock of offence and a stone of stumbling.

By 'marriage' He means the joining of the faithful to the Son, calling the Jews to this—of old through the prophets, and later through the disciples before the Passion and the Resurrection.

Those who had been called through the first servants refused to come—they who, thrusting aside the Law given through Moses, turned to the teachings of men.

And likewise those called after them, in the second summons—that is, through the holy apostles—disregarding what was profitable, moved as far away as possible toward what seemed good to themselves.

For some went to their own field, by which is signified the possession of earthly things and the zeal concerning them.

And others to their merchandise, by which again is shown to us the passion of the love of wealth and the frenzy concerning it.

For carnal loves and worldly pleasure-seekings and vain distractions and the anxiety of amassing money deprive us of the everlasting delight and of intimacy with God.

And we say that the Roman army is God's, inasmuch as He is Master and Maker of all.

And in another sense he is said to be bound hand and foot, as being no longer able to do anything good there.

For the working of good extends only as far as the present life.

For since they saw that those around Theudas and Judas—by these words to cast Him into such suspicion.

The God of all willed that Israel should be free of human dominion.

But since they trampled upon the divine laws, they came under the hand of those who then prevailed, and these imposed tributes upon them.

And thereafter, when the rule had passed to the Romans, they were also subject to tribute.

Out of measureless shamelessness the Pharisees, being consumed with envy—since the crowds praised Him after the Sadducees had been put to shame—again with hypocrisy question Him, tempting Him, to see whether He would add something to the first commandment, as though correcting the Law, so that they might find a handle against Him.

And Matthew and Luke said that the one who questioned Him was a lawyer, but Mark called him a scribe.

But this is not a discrepancy.

For the former show him to be learned in the Law, and the latter an introducer of scribal learning—that is, an interpreter of the Law to the people.