Gospel according to Saint Matthew, commented on verse by verse

Chapter 13

7. The parables of the kingdom of heaven. 13, 1-52.

1. General ideas about parables evangelicals.

We have arrived at one of the most remarkable scenes in the teaching and preaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ: here, indeed, the Gospel narrative offers the reader not only the first parables that were kept by St. Matthew, but a whole collection of beautiful parables relating to the Messianic Kingdom. Jesus previously announced the coming of this Kingdom; he promulgated its legislation some time later in the Sermon on the Mount. Now, he elaborates on its nature, its various phases, and its relationship with the world and with humanity. But, for reasons we will soon explain (cf. 13:10 ff.), he presents these important points of Christian doctrine in a new form. Instead of the sententious language he most often used when speaking to the crowds, he now employs veiled, figurative discourse known as the Parable. It is therefore natural that we should seize this opportunity to study, in a general and brief manner, perhaps the most interesting part of the Savior's teaching. – What is the Gospel parable? This is the first question that arises for us. Its name, which comes from the Greek, is far from expressing its nature. The Greek word that Cicero translates as "collatio" and Quintilian as "similitudo" originally simply denoted the juxtaposition of two things and the comparison resulting from their juxtaposition. Later, in Greek rhetoric, the parable became an argument based on analogy. "You would not choose your pilots and athletes by lot: why then your statesmen?" This reasoning is cited by Aristotle as an example of a parable. But let us turn to the Greek of the Septuagint, the New Testament, and some Jewish writers; we will thus more quickly approach the specific meaning we are seeking. We then notice that the expression corresponds quite closely to the Hebrew noun, MaschalThe literary genre represented by this name has very broad boundaries in the books of the Old Testament: it includes simple proverbs (cf. 1 Samuel 10:12; 24:14), prophetic discourses of varying length (cf. Numbers 22:7, 18; 24:3; Ezekiel 20:49, etc.), enigmatic sayings (cf. Proverbs 1:6), and metaphorical narratives (Ezekiel 12:22, etc.). The proverb "Physician, heal yourself" is a parable according to Luke 9:23; a simple comparison without accompanying narration is also called a parable by Matthew 24:32: "Learn a parable from the fig tree." the figurative nature of the Levitical decrees, the specific facts of patriarchal history considered in their relation to the new Covenant, these are yet more of parables, Acts of the Apostles 9, 9, 19. Already understood in such a broad sense in Jesus' time, the word parable soon acquired an even wider meaning. Latinized by the Itala and the Vulgate, it gradually ceased to represent figurative language and passed into all our Romance languages to designate language in general: parable thus became parole, parler, parola, palabra, etc. But let us return to what the Evangelists, and after them the exegetes, commonly call a parable in the strict sense. St. Jerome defines it as: "A useful saying, expressed in the form of an image, and which contains in the background a spiritual teaching." A modern author, Unger, who wrote a remarkable work on this subject, gives a more precise and more philosophical definition of the parable: "A parable of Jesus is a comparison in the form of a real or plausible story, which accurately illustrates a sublime thing"; cf. De parabolarum Jesu natura, interpretatione, etc., Lipsiae 1828. It is a fictional narrative, borrowed either from nature or from real life, which presents, in a picturesque form, religious or moral truths of a certain gravity. – The parable differs markedly from several other literary genres with which it has sometimes been mistakenly confused because they bear some resemblance to it. 1° The parable is not a fable. Cicero said of the Fable: “A fable is a story in which are contained things that are neither true nor probable,” De Invent. 1, 19. The parable, therefore, never allows the objects it presents to transcend the laws of their nature. It does not make the wolf, the lamb, and the ant speak: it leaves the various objects it employs within their natural sphere. Its moral tendency is also much more elevated than that of the fable. 2. The parable differs from the myth in that, in the myth, truth and the images that serve as its vehicle are entirely confused; whereas, in the parable, the kernel is completely distinct from the almond, the lesson easily separated from the symbol. Who has ever thought of looking at the parables as real facts? 3. The parable differs from the allegory in that the latter does not, in fact, involve any comparison, since it directly personifies the ideas. The vices and virtues of humanity appear there as in a drama, in their own character. Thus, the allegory contains its own explanation (cf. the beautiful allegories of the vine, John 15:1-8, and of the Good Shepherd, John 10:1-16). This is not the case with the parable, which requires more attention and insight because it skillfully conceals, under foreign guises, the truth to which it wishes to draw attention. – An identical reflection by St. Matthew and St. Mark proves that the number of parables The number of parables revealed by Our Lord Jesus Christ during this period of his public life must have been very considerable: “Jesus spoke all these things to the people in parables; and he did not speak to them without using parables,” Matthew 13:34; cf. Mark 4:33, etc. Therefore, although the Evangelists have preserved a relatively large number of them for us, it is certain that they omitted even more. As for the precise number of those they included in their narratives, it is very difficult to determine it exactly, as can be seen from the divergence found among the authors who have addressed this question. While several exegetes count no fewer than 50, others refuse to go beyond the number 27; it is more commonly accepted that there are 30 or 31. parables evangelicals. Such a diversity of calculations, which at first glance seems extremely surprising, is explained by the difficulty one encounters in certain cases in defining the precise limits of the parable and in differentiating it from allegory or simple simile. Although the parable is a work of imagination, although Our Lord Jesus Christ generally invented his parables Day by day, according to the needs of the moment, it is easy to see that a true order reigns among them, allowing them to be classified methodically. They form, in fact, three distinct groups, separated by their general purpose as well as by the phases of Our Lord's public life to which they belong. The first group comprises eight parables all of which deal with the kingdom of heaven.

1. The sower, Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20; Luke 8:4-15.

2. Wheat and tares, Matthew 13:24-30.

3. The mustard seed, Matthew 13:31-32; Luke 13:18-19.

4. Leaven, Matthew 13:33; Luke 13:20-21.

5. The seed sown in the ground, Mark 4:26-29.

6. The hidden treasure, Matthew 13:44.

7. The precious pearl, Matthew 13:45 and 46.

8. The net, Matt. 13, 47-50.

After a period of pause, we see the appearance of a second, much larger group, and of a new type because the divine author proposes a new end to it.

1. The Good SamaritanLuke 10:25 and following.

2. The merciless servant, Matthew 18:23 ff.

3. The nocturnal friend, Luke, 11, 1 et seq.

4. The rich fool, Luke 12:13 ff.

5. The barren fig tree, Luke 13:6 ff.

6. The great feast, Luke 14:16 ff.

7. The lost sheep, Matthew 18:12 ff.; Luke 15 ff.

8. The lost drachma, Luke 15:8 ff.

9. The Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11 ff.

10. The shrewd manager, Luke 16:1 ff.

11. Poor Lazarus, Luke, 16, 19 and following.

12. The unjust judge, Luke 18:1 ff.

13. The Pharisee and the Publican, Luke 18:1 ff.

14. The workers in the vineyard, Matthew 20:1 ff.

We could also include in this category the little parable of the two debtors, Luke 7:40 ff., which belongs to it if not by time, at least by form and idea.

The third group consists of six parables proposed by the Savior during the final period of his life. They are theocratic like the first ones, and deal with the kingdom of God, but from a different point of view, which we will have to determine later.

These are :

1. The mines, Luke 19:11 ff.

2. The two sons, Matthew 21:28 and following.

3. The wicked tenants, Matthew 21:33 ff.; Mark 12:1 ff.; Luke 20:9 ff.

4. The royal wedding, Matthew 22:1 ff.

5. The wise virgins and the foolish virgins, Matthew 25:1 ff.

6. TalentsMatthew 25:14 and following.

Most of parables The first and third groups are specific to St. Matthew, who is indeed preeminently the evangelist of the kingdom of heaven. Those of the second group have been almost entirely preserved for us by St. Luke, and we will see, upon studying them, that they also perfectly suit the particular character of his Gospel. St. Mark inserted only a very limited number of parables This is because he focuses much more on the actions of Our Lord Jesus Christ than on his preaching. The Gospel according to St. John contains not a single one; moreover, the word is nowhere to be found in it. parableJesus did not invent this literary genre: the parable existed long before him, although it is already found in the Old Testament. The Easterner, with his fiery spirit and rich imagination, quick to clothe his thoughts in poetic embellishments, employed early on a form of teaching that combined pleasure and utility in such excellent proportions. Sages or prophets like Nathan (see 2 Samuel 12:1-7), Solomon (see Ecclesiastes 9:14-16), and Isaiah (see Isaiah 28:23-29) had composed parables. parablesIn the Savior's time, this method of preaching had become very common; the Rabbis used it constantly, and several of them, such as Hillel, Shammai, Nohorai, Meir, etc., gained a real reputation for their skill in this area. Some of the parables Rabbinic texts contain real beauties; but, either in detail or as a whole, they cannot bear comparison with those of Jesus Christ, which are utterly inimitable and marked with the image of the Son of God. Several Fathers, especially Origen, St. Ephrem, St. Augustine, and St. John Chrysostom, successfully devoted themselves to this type of composition. – If one studies the parables From the Gospel, not only one by one and in isolation, but in their magnificent arrangement, one soon realizes that they contain a complete body of Christian doctrine, an entire theology with its various treatises. “They offer us a great variety of lessons that appear independent of one another and which, taken individually, yield only partial results, whereas, if one compares and juxtaposes them, they shed a marvelous light on the entire theory of religion and the Church… Beneath the veil of Our Lord’s parabolic teaching, one can find all the doctrines and all the commandments that were to belong to the Church he came to found.” Card. Wiseman, Religious, Scientific, and Literary Miscellany, 1. The parables From the New Testament, the ordinary teaching of Jesus Christ corresponds to a whole system of teaching in parables which expresses the same ideas, the same dogmas, the same commandments, in symbolic form. This represents a very rich mine for theologians to explore. – See on the parables evangelicals: Salmeron, Sermones in Parabolas, Antwerp, 1600; Unger, from Parabolarum Jesu natura, interpretatione, Leipzig, 1828; Lisco, die Parabeln Jesu, Berlin, 1831; Greswell, Exhibition of the Parables, London, 1839; Trench, Notes on the Parables, 2nd ed. London, 1870.

2nd Opportunity for the first parables, vv. 1-3a. Parallel. Mark. 4, 1, 2; Luke. 8, 4.

Mt13.¹ That day, Jesus left the house and sat by the sea. – That same day, That is, the day on which the events recounted in the preceding chapter took place, at least from verse 22 onward. Jesus Christ himself will make us understand a little further on, in verses 11 and following, the connection between the willful hardening of a large part of the Israelites toward him and the new method of preaching that he adopted that very day. Having left the house : probably from the house where, according to Mark 3:20, Jesus had so successfully answered the accusations of his enemies. According to others, from his own house in Capernaum. He sat by the sea One of those picturesque details with which the Gospels are filled. On the shores of this beautiful Sea of Galilee, witness to the most touching episodes of Gospel history, the divine Master, surrounded by the close circle of his disciples, came to seek some rest after the arduous struggle we have just witnessed. But his rest will not be long.

Mt13.² A large crowd having gathered around him, he had to get into a boat, where he sat, while the crowd stood on the shore., – And crowds gathered…The crowd, eager to see and hear him, who had recently surrounded him in the house where he was staying (see Mark 3:20), soon found themselves with him on the shore. Understanding what these good people desired, but unable to easily address the dense audience pressing against him from all sides, he made a sudden decision. A boat was there, near the shore: he climbed aboard and sat in this improvised pulpit, as poetic as the new direction he was about to give to his teaching. And the whole crowd was standing on the shore. However, the crowd lined up opposite him on the riverbank, standing respectfully according to ancient custom, while the Master sat. The Talmud recounts with sorrow that the practice of sitting to hear the explanation of the Law began some time after Gamaliel's death, proof, it says, that disease had spread throughout the world.

Mt13.³ and he told them many things in parables "The sower," he said, "went out to sow.". – And he told them. Theophylact, alluding to the external situation as described by the Evangelist, graciously compares Our Lord Jesus Christ to an extraordinary fisherman who, with the net of his word, catches fish from the heart of the sea, fish that have taken refuge on the shore. Many things in parables. “Many,” that is to say, the seven parables of the kingdom of heaven set forth by St. Matthew following this brief introduction, and also the parable of the seed sown in the ground, preserved by St. Mark, 4:26-29. For everything leads us to believe that Our Lord expounded, immediately and on the same day, this entire series of parablesThis is evident first and foremost from the close connection that exists between them from the point of view of the subject: the second explains the first, the third is similarly linked to the second to clarify and develop it, and so on up to the seventh, which completes and concludes all the others. It is a continuous chain in which all the links are interconnected: it is hardly likely that its different parts were formed at separate times, as one might suppose from the account of St. Luke (cf. 8:4-15; 13:18-21). The striking unity that reigns between the parables This shows, therefore, that they were, in a sense, poured out all at once. Moreover, St. Matthew himself shows throughout this chapter that he wanted to follow a strictly chronological order: this is evident from the care he took to link all the sections that make up his narrative to verses 1 and 3 (cf. vv. 10, 24, 31, 33, 36, 53). What would be the point of all these connecting points if he had sacrificed the sequence of events to the sequence of things?

3. First parable of the kingdom of heaven: the sower. vv. 3b-9. Parall. Mark. 4:3-9; Luke. 8:5-8.

Mt13.³ (…) The sower, he said, went out to sow. This parable, which shows us the formation of the kingdom of heaven on earth in its earliest stages, very naturally opens the group of similes relating to the Messianic empire. Its beginning is simple, yet expressive. We see the sower—in Greek, the sower in general—leaving his house, carrying the seed he is about to entrust to the earth, and heading toward his field. Soon the operation begins, and we learn of its immediate results.

Mt13.⁴ And as he was sowing, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds of the air came and ate them up. – Along the way. Not on the path itself, but on the edges, where the field and the road that crosses or runs alongside it meet. And the birds of the sky…This grain, having remained on the surface of the hardened soil, which the plow had not disturbed, soon became food for the birds. In the East, much more so than in the West, the sower is surrounded by a multitude of sparrows or other similar birds which he tries, but in vain, to frighten away with constantly repeated cries, and which, according to his calculations, devour at least a quarter of his grain.

Mt13.⁵ Other grains fell on stony ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprouted immediately, because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But when the sun rose, the plant, stricken by its heat and having no roots, withered. – Another part: another part of the grain therefore fell in stony places This, as the context indicates, does not refer to soil more or less mixed with pebbles, but to a continuous surface of rocks simply covered with a little topsoil. This second type of terrain is certainly preferable to the beaten path; however, the results will be just as disastrous. She immediately raised…It is a fact of experience that seed placed in such conditions germinates with surprising rapidity, for it is comfortable and undergoes without any loss the initially beneficial influences of the heat. In spring, the rocks of Palestine are the first to be covered with a soft green. But death is as swift as the initial growth had been. Sole orto œstuaveruntThe other plants also suffered from the scorching influence of the eastern sun; but, living in deep soil, they had the resource of drawing up, with the help of their roots, a little underground moisture sufficient to prevent them from perishing. Deprived of this aid because the rock on which they had fallen had allowed them to send up only insufficient rootlets, our poor herbs were scorched from within as they had been from without, and soon they withered completely. Pliny had observed the frequency of this phenomenon in the province of Syria: “In Syria"A light plow digs a shallow furrow, because the triangular iron underneath burns the seeds in the summer," Hist. Nat. 17, 3.

Mt13.⁷ Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. – In the thorns, from the Greek, on thorns; that is to say, among the roots or seeds of herbs and other thorny plants. The situation is therefore better, at first glance, than in the two previous cases. The soil is plentiful, and even good soil. The problem lies in what Columella called invasive weeds, therefore, due to a lack of sufficient culture. – And the thorns grew ; Thistles and brambles grow alongside the good seed, initially providing beneficial shade. However, these dangerous neighbors grow considerably in just a few days, encircling the slender wheat stalk on all sides, depriving it of air and light, and eventually suffocating it.

«Other seeds reach rough fields covered with brambles and thorns, 

which grow faster and kill the fruit of the earth by strangling it. – Juvencus.

Mt13.⁸ Others fell on good soil and produced fruit, some a hundred, some sixty, and some thirty. – Another part… good soil. So far, everything has perished because the grain was sown under poor conditions; fortunately, the rest of the seed falls on good, fertile, and well-prepared soil: the sower's hope will therefore not be completely thwarted. It bore fruit. Without mentioning the growth, which has been entirely prosperous, with nothing hindering it, the divine orator immediately moves on to the harvest, mentioning its varied results. A few grains making…A soil that yields thirty, sixty, and especially one hundred to one must be endowed with great fertility. However, the last two of these figures are by no means a poetic embellishment; they are not surprising for the region where Jesus Christ was then located, nor for Palestine in general, whose fertility is so frequently praised by the Bible, by secular writers of antiquity, and by modern travelers. «When the soil is rich, the fruits of the earth rejoice,» Tacitus, Histories 5.6. Had not Isaac once harvested a hundredfold In the vicinity of Gerara? Cf. Genesis 26:12. By mentioning these three different degrees of production, was Jesus alluding to the unequal yields of the same type of seed, or did he mean three distinct seeds? The first of these interpretations seems more consistent with the text of the parable, which speaks of only one kind of grain; however, there is nothing to prevent us from admitting three kinds of seed that would correspond to the three degrees of fertility. Several travelers mention barley, wheat, and dura (small white corn), which usually yield in Palestine "thirty to one" (barley), "sixty to one" (wheat), and "a hundredfold" (dura).

Mt13.⁹ "Let anyone who has ears hear."» – The one who has ears…Cf. 11:15. In concluding this first parable, the Savior invites his listeners to reflect, to ask themselves what it means and the reasons why such a considerable quantity of seed produced nothing. – This is the parable of the sower, of which Jesus Christ himself will deign to give us an authentic commentary a little later, v. 19 ff. It shows us the intimate, familiar, and at the same time profound character of the new oratorical genre adopted by Our Lord. Several distinguished pilgrims have highlighted the local color with which it is imbued. Mr. Stanley, describing the shores of the Sea of Galilee, expresses himself thus: «A small depression at the foot of the hill, not far from the plain, suddenly revealed to me in detail, and with a unity that I do not recall having encountered elsewhere in Palestine, each of the features of the parable.» There was the undulating wheat field, sloping down to the shore. There was the well-trodden path that crossed it, without wall or hedge to prevent the seed from falling here and there on its edges: it was hardened by the perpetual passage of horses, mules, and human feet. There was the good soil that distinguishes this whole plain (of Gennesaret) from the surrounding bare mountains, and that produces a vast quantity of wheat. There was the rocky ground that, pulling away from the hill, extended in various directions across the field. There were the broad grouse bushes that sometimes rose right in the middle of the gently swaying wheat,” Sinai and Palestine, ch. 13. From the boat on which he sat, Jesus had only to look up and describe the scene that lay before him.

4. Reason why Jesus teaches the people in the form of parablesboles, vv. 10-17. Parallel. Mark. 4, 10-12; Luke. 9-10.

Mt13.¹⁰ Then his disciples came to him and said, «Why are you speaking to them about this?” parables ? » – The disciples, approaching“When he was alone, the twelve who were with him questioned him.” Mark 4:10. Therefore, it was not immediately after hearing the first parable of the kingdom of heaven that the Apostles approached Jesus to express their astonishment: they waited until Our Lord had finished his preaching and the crowd, having gradually dispersed, had left them alone with their Master. This is also evident from the account in St. Matthew, according to which they ask, “Why do you speak in parables?” using the plural form, which implies that they had heard several parablesTherefore, this question, Jesus' answer, and the explanation of the parable of the sower (vv. 18-24) were placed here in anticipation of future events. According to the order of events, this entire passage should come only after verse 35. Why are you talking to them about parables…According to Mark 4:10 and Luke 7:9, the disciples only asked the divine Master to interpret the word about the seed for them; Matthew mentions a request of a completely different kind. But it is clear that the two questions were addressed at the same time, since Jesus answers both according to the three Synoptic Gospels. “Why do you speak to them about parables "?", that is to say, in an obscure, enigmatic way. The disciples' astonishment suggests that there was something unusual in Our Lord's teaching that day. Never before had he used the parables in such an extraordinary way: he had barely mentioned one or two in passing, and suddenly he had begun to pile them one on top of the other, which rendered his thought incomprehensible. For a parable accompanied by its commentary facilitates the understanding of an idea, a series of parables which follow one another without any explanation can only produce obscurity.

Mt13.¹¹ He answered them, «To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. – He answered them. Jesus finds the Apostles' request just and natural; therefore, he deigns to explain to them very clearly the reasons for the novelty they have just witnessed. Because... This conjunction must be taken in its full force; it answers the "why" of the Apostles and means "Because." It is by no means a redundancy, as various authors believe. Over to you: my disciples, as opposed to the crowd, the mass of listeners who are referred to below as "theirs". Given It is a free gift from heaven, a special grace granted only to a select few. And what does this particular favor consist of? Jesus describes it with the words: to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom has its secrets of state that no one can know or understand without a special revelation. How many truths were hidden until the time of Jesus, and revealed only by Him to those He deemed worthy to receive the light! Undoubtedly, many of these truths concerning the Messianic reign had been deposited by God in the writings of the Old Covenant, but generally in such mysterious terms that human intelligence, left to its own devices, had found itself incapable of penetrating them. But Jesus unveiled, divulged everything to His disciples. – A For them, it wasn't a given.“He said this not as implying necessity, not as a spell cast rashly and definitively, but to show that they themselves were the cause of their own suffering.” St. John Chrysostom, Hom. 45 in Matth. Therefore, one cannot infer from these words that Jesus Christ had an esoteric doctrine and an exoteric doctrine in the manner of the pagan priests and even the Jewish Rabbis, one freely communicated in its entirety to the Master's inner circle, the other, considerably restricted, for the use of the uninitiated masses. All were called without exception to the knowledge of the most secret mysteries; all had sufficient grace to attain it: if most did not succeed, they could only attribute the fault to themselves, as Jesus will say later. – Let us return to the general meaning of verse 11. The Apostles asked the Savior: Why do you speak of parables Don't you see that you are not understood? Jesus answered: I speak in parables Because, among my listeners, there are some who have received the singular privilege of understanding the mysteries of the Gospel, while others have not. It is therefore by virtue of a divine decree that the Savior will henceforth speak in parablesAnd this decree stems from the moral difference that exists between the men who make up Jesus' audience. One could not better define the twofold motive, the twofold purpose of the teaching in the form of parablesThe new preaching of Our Lord is marked at once by his condescension and his holy anger. To well-disposed souls, it will more readily bring light; on the contrary, it will blindfold the unworthy, who will not understand the truth veiled for them, and will not be able to misuse it against Jesus. Writers and philosophers are unanimous in recognizing the existence of these effects. parables were invented and their use spread for two reasons. For what is most astonishing is that they serve opposite purposes. We make parables to veil and conceal one's thought, and they are used to illuminate and illustrate it.” Bacon, De Sap. Vet. Cf. De Augm. Scient. 2, 13. On the one hand, therefore, the parable obscures thought, “figures defend secrecy against banality and vulgarity” (Macrob. Summ. Scip. 1, 2). On the other hand, it illuminates it and facilitates its understanding; indeed, says Quintilian, Instit. 8, 3, 72: “Comparisons were judiciously invented to shed light on things.” Thus, Tertullian, after having affirmed that “the parables "darken the light of the gospel," he adds, referring to Res. Carn. 32. "God extends his hand to a faith made easier by images and words representing persons and things," he continues, referring to Anima, 43. In this respect, they resemble, according to a beautiful comparison, the pillar of cloud and fire that illuminated the people of the Covenant and darkened the eyes of the Egyptians (De Gerlach). There is something paradoxical in this, but certainly nothing contradictory, since experience confirms this twofold result every day. Jews who were ill-disposed, or even simply indifferent to Jesus, listened without understanding and left without having learned anything; on the other hand, the friends of Christ, eager to know the meaning of these images that had keenly piqued their curiosity, searched, worked, questioned, and ultimately succeeded. For them, the new system was yet another blessing, since it excited them to pursue the understanding of the holy mysteries with increasing ardor.

Mt13.¹² For to him who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. – The particle because This shows that we have in this verse a development of the preceding one. «To you it has been given… to them it has not been given»: there is nothing strange about this, Jesus continues, for it is in the very nature of things. The proverbial expression he quotes on this occasion (he will quote it again on two other occasions, modifying the meaning, cf. 25:9; Luke 19:26) is universally true. It consists of two parts: 1° To the one who has : the verb to have a here means to possess, to be rich. Once one has begun to acquire some fortune, goods flow in and abundance arrives in a short time. On the contrary, 2° to the one who has none....that is to say, according to the context, someone who has very little, modest possessions that are not worth considering when compared to what the world calls wealth. We will even take away what he has. While the rich easily become even richer, the poor who are behind in their affairs easily fall further and further, and often end up losing what little they possess. A rabbinic legend comments on this proverb in the most charming way: «A woman asked Rabbi Jose, »What does Daniel’s saying mean: «He gives wisdom to the wise and understanding to the intelligent» (Daniel 2:21)?« He answered her with a parable: »If two men, a rich man and a poor man, came to you asking for a loan, to whom would you lend?« She replied, »To the rich man.’ ‘Why?’ asked the Rabbi. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘if the rich man loses his money, he will still have enough to pay me, whereas the poor man will not.’ He exclaimed, ‘Have your ears heard what you have just said?’” “If God had given wisdom to fools, they would sit and talk about it in brothels, theaters, and bathhouses; but God has given wisdom to the wise, and they sit and talk in the synagogues.” This aphorism, which has ancient and modern equivalents among several peoples (compare Martial's saying, 5.81: "Only the rich get what they need," and the French phrase: "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," meaning "On ne prêt qu'aux riches," or "On ne prêt à l'autre" meaning "On ne prêt à l'autre" ...

Mt13.¹³ That's why I speak to them in parables, Because when they see, they do not see, and when they hear, they neither hear nor understand. – That's why… This is the direct answer to the question posed by the Apostles; we see clearly indicated in it the reason why Jesus Christ only began, during the current period of his public life, and not from the beginning, his teaching in the form of parablesUntil then, he had preached according to the ordinary method, saying openly and simply what he wanted to say. But now, enthusiasm for his divine person had noticeably diminished, his direct preaching had been received with contempt, even insulted on more than one occasion; he sometimes aroused doubt instead of inspiring faith. So Our Lord partially abandoned him and replaced him with the parablesAnd, by acting in this way, he has the very clear intention of punishing the people's unbelief. "He therefore speaks to them obscurely, under penalty of not being believed, because they refused to understand the harsh things when they were clearly explained to them. They deserved that he speak to them thus, so that they could not understand even if they wanted to," Maldonat. parables They thus take on a penal character: the Jews will be punished for their ingratitude by no longer receiving, as before, the simple, naked, and easily grasped truth. When they look they don't see. The people's diseased eyes are now unable to bear full light: they see outside, but their vision does not penetrate beyond the surface. Likewise, their ears have become deaf to heavenly teachings., While listening… they don't understand, They hear, and yet they don't truly hear. And, what's worse, this blindness, this deafness, is willful and culpable: how could God not punish them? "The great God, by an unceasing law, spreads penal blindness upon illicit greed," St. Augustine. He therefore punishes according to his great law: "that by which he has sinned, by that very fact he is punished," definitively blinding those who have closed their eyes to the truth.

Mt13.¹⁴ For them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: «You will hear with your ears but you will not understand, you will see with your eyes but you will not see. – It is fulfilled, «"is fully accomplished," or "and is being fulfilled again"; an allusion to the partial and imperfect fulfillment already received by Isaiah's prophecy. At this moment, Jesus says, as a result of my new teaching method, this prediction is being fulfilled perfectly and completely. The prophecy of Isaiah, Cf. Isaiah 6:9. The prophet was speaking, or rather God was speaking to him, about his contemporaries; however, according to the intention of the Holy Spirit, the divine oracle also aimed to describe the hardening and terrible punishment of the Jews at the time of the Messiah. Jesus Christ quotes it quite literally from verses 70. It is intended to prove the assertion "by looking" in verse 13, which is, moreover, modeled on the first lines of Isaiah's text. You will hear it with your own ears, repetition in the manner of the Hebrews, to reinforce the idea; similarly, you will look with your eyes. There is a double play on words and a double paradox: we hear and we do not hear; we see and we do not see.

Mt13.¹⁵ For the heart of this people has grown dull, they have hardened their ears and closed their eyes: lest their eyes should see, their ears hear, their hearts understand, and they should turn and I should heal them.» – The heart of this people has hardened…We have just learned that Israel is blind and deaf; the rest of the prophecy shows us that this has happened through its own fault. Fat, among all the ancients, was regarded as a cause and cited as a symbol of insensitivity. This expression is therefore a powerful figure of speech to describe the state of moral hardness into which the Jews had fallen. They listened with difficulty, They can barely hear; moreover, they keep their eyes tightly closed. And why is that? Lest they seeNothing could better express the freedom of their obstinacy in evil than these words: it is precisely so as not to hear, not to understand, that they act as the Prophet said. If they saw, if they understood, they would convert and be saved, whereas they want to live and die in their iniquities, despite the eternal damnation that awaits them. And that I heal them ; Jesus adds these words, says St. John Chrysostom, loc. cit., "thereby showing their profound wickedness and a deliberately prepared opposition." – Let us note the psychological truth in this verse. The nouns "heart, ears, eyes" are repeated twice, but in reverse order, because the sacred writer did not want to represent the same state of affairs. The moral insensitivity that reigns in the heart passes from there to the ears, then to the eyes: it is well known, in fact, that morally the ear is influenced by the heart and sight by the ear. If the heart is hardened, the ear is deaf; if the ear hears poorly, the eye sees poorly. In the second case, the order is reversed, because it concerns conversions, and the heart remains the last citadel to be conquered, and one can only reach it through the senses of sight and hearing. It should also be noted that, in the original text, the prophet receives directly from God the mission to harden and blind Israel (cf. Vulgate 6:10); but this is a distinctly Eastern way of forcefully announcing an inevitable future. The one to whom it is predicted is presumed to bring about it himself. The Jew Kimchi explicitly admits that the imperatives here are simply future tenses and that their sole purpose is to reinforce the idea.

Mt13.¹⁶ For you, blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. – But happy… Jesus, after stating the reason why he was now speaking to the people parablesThis returns to the first half of verse 11 and the privileges God bestowed upon his Apostles. The pronoun "your" is placed for emphasis at the beginning of the sentence. A whole people condemned; you, so favored. Happy are your eyes…The contrast is striking: their eyes see, their ears hear, the people are blind and deaf. «They were Jews, and they had been educated among them. The prophecy, however, did not harm them in any way, because they had the root of good firmly planted within them, in their thoughts and in their will.» St. John Chrysostom, 11th.

Mt13.¹⁷ I tell you truly, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. – In truth… Under the seal of the oath, Jesus Christ provides an example intended to demonstrate the full extent of the favor shown to his disciples. Many prophets and righteous people, On the one hand, there are the heralds of God, charged with announcing his will to mankind and speaking to them about his Christ; on the other hand, the Saints of every condition. They wanted to see..They were consumed with ardent desires for Him whom one of them had called the expectation of the peoples (cf. Genesis 49:10): they longed to see the Messiah and his works, to hear his word; but these desires, although quite legitimate, were not fulfilled., They didn't see him… they didn't hear himSt. Paul, in the Letter to the Hebrews, insists on their intense desires which remained unfulfilled: "All these people died believing, not having received the things promised, but looking at them and greeting them from a distance," Hebrews 11:13 cf. 39:40.

5° Explanation of the parable of the semeur, vv. 18-23. Parallel. Mark. 4, 13-20; Luke. 8, 11-15.

Mt13.¹⁸ Therefore, listen to what the parable of the sower means: – So you. «You» is emphatic, like «your» in verse 16. «Therefore,» since you are called to receive revelations that will remain hidden from others – Listen, understand; or else, listen again to this parable with an authentic interpretation, which will determine its meaning for you infallibly. The Parable of the Sowerthat is to say, of the one who disseminates, propagates, spreads. The divine Master deigns to become an exegete to teach us not only what this particular parable means, but also, and by the same token, what general rules we must follow to interpret all the others. These rules have often been indicated. They consist of: 1) seeking with the greatest care the dominant truth that the parable aims to teach; 2) resorting to the context, which is often of great help in establishing the true meaning of the parable. It will sometimes be an allusion by Jesus Christ, sometimes a note from the Evangelist, sometimes a preliminary detail, sometimes an epilogue, that will lead us to the legitimate interpretation; 3) once the main idea has been found, attending to the details, which must always be brought back to this principal thought, for they radiate from it like rays from the center; 4. To avoid forced, purely imaginary analogies, and consequently not to stray too far from the literal meaning of the parable. Naturally, in this area, which cannot be precisely defined, the wisdom and discernment of the interpreter have an important role to play, but this role is quite delicate, and it would be easy to abuse it. As for the question of how far the significant and symbolic features extend... parablesWe know that it is the subject of great controversy, which arose in the earliest days of exegesis and has come down to us through the centuries. Two systems of interpretation have long been formed on this point. St. John Chrysostom, and many commentators following him, maintain that it suffices to find the dominant thought, the main purpose of the parable. It is not necessary, they say, to seek a special meaning for each of the secondary incidents that compose it, for these incidents are by no means essential; they are merely a backdrop intended to give the parables more grace and beauty. Therefore, once the main point is achieved, do not worry about insignificant details (St. John Chrysostom). The other school, on the contrary, asserts that in a parable, everything has meaning, even the finest threads of the narrative, even the most seemingly insignificant details; the interpreter should therefore neglect nothing, since nothing is mere ornament. – It can be said that there is exaggeration on both sides: Jesus Christ himself proved the defenders of both systems wrong, for, in the interpretation he left us of the parables From the parable of the sower and the tares, we see him sometimes descend to several very minor details, such as birds, thorns, and scorching heat, to apply them to the spiritual life, and sometimes neglect various incidents of the same kind, thus showing that, in his mind, these were merely poetic embellishments. We must therefore avoid arbitrariness and remain as much as possible within the middle ground that Vitringa seems to have defined very well in the following lines: “I like those who draw from parables Christ's teachings contain more truth than a commandment of ethics illustrated by a parable. If we can explain the parables of Christ, so as to rediscover the doctrine of salvation in each of their parts, without exaggeration or contortion, I believe that this kind of explanation should be chosen as the best and preferable to others. The more solid truths we draw from the words of the Word of Life, the more we will share in divine wisdom,” Schriftmaessige Erklaerung der Evang. Parabeln, Frankfurt, 1717, in hl. Thus, let us explain as many features as we can, but let the exegete or preacher take great care not to “resist the temptation to bend Scripture to his own will” (St. Jerome), as happens all too often.

Mt13.¹⁹ «Whoever hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the Evil One comes and takes away what was sown in his heart: this is the way in which the seed was sown. – According to Luke 8:11, Jesus placed these important words at the beginning of his explanation: «The seed is the word of God.» The sower obviously represents Jesus Christ, and then, more generally, all those charged with preaching the word of God. The field in which the seed is sown represents, through its different parts, the hearts of people more or less prepared to receive the divine word. Our Lord follows the details of the parable step by step, indicating sometimes literally, sometimes through new images, the meaning of each one. Just as he had distinguished four kinds of soil, he also distinguishes four kinds of souls, three of which do not know how to benefit from the preaching of the Gospel. – 1. The beaten path. If anyone hears…; these words are in the nominative absolute. The word of the kingdom, the word of the Messianic kingdom, therefore the doctrine of the Gospel. – And does not penetrate it, through his own fault, of course. Cf. vv. 14 and 15. This listener's heart has been willfully hardened: he has become completely indifferent to heavenly things, which fell upon him like seed on the path; he totally lacks "receptivity" to them. Therefore, he does not receive the divine word, and, for him, there is no question of germination, let alone growth and fruit. The evil spirit, «The devil,» says St. Luke, «Satan» according to St. Mark. The birds eagerly watched for the grain scattered by the sower’s hand along the edges of the field; likewise, the demon spies on the heavenly seed, snatching it away as soon as it falls upon a soul he knows to be ill-disposed: thus he deprives it of the slim chances of success it might still have. The ruler of the infernal kingdom opposes with all his might that which is of a nature to strengthen and increase the kingdom of God. Remove It is a swift and skillful abduction, which the prince of demons would not find difficult to accomplish. What had…A singular and unexpected turn of phrase, usually translated as: This one is like the seed sown along the path. But why not retain here, and in verses 20, 22, and 23, where it is faithfully reproduced, this very logical and very real assimilation of the word of the heart that receives it, the seed, and the field where it is sown? It is not without reason that Jesus seems to conflate these various things: they are worthless without one another. What can the seed do outside the field? The field without the seed? Their mutual union is necessary to produce anything. This is why the divine Interpreter likens the listener to the Gospel message, using the phrase "which has been sown" four times.

Mt13.²⁰ The rocky ground on which it fell is like the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy: – In stony places. Having previously characterized a soul completely insensitive to the preaching of the Gospel, Jesus moves on to another category of listeners, represented by the rocky ground, or rather by the rock barely covered with a little topsoil (vv. 5 and 6). The resemblance is perfect: this soil had received the seed and had quickly caused it to germinate by imparting its fertilizing warmth; likewise, this type of listener who receives the word with joy, The surface of their hearts is easily stirred, quickly inflamed. Endowed with a keen impressionability, they are electrified at first by the beauty and appeal of Christian doctrine; thus they receive it with joy and eagerness. "These are the hearts which, at the mere sweetness of a word heard, already enjoy heavenly promises," V. Bede.

Mt13.²¹ But he has no roots; he is fickle; as soon as tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. – It has no roots within itself. Despite this promising start and outward appearance, there is in reality the same lack of receptiveness as in the first case. These men do not possess what Cicero called "virtue rooted deep in the earth" (Phil. 4:13); they are not what the Greek Fathers liked to call, alluding to this parable, [the following]. rooted Superficial listeners, they are consequently temporary listeners. «Those who believe for a time,» says St. Luke 8:13, “and who cease to believe in the time of testing.” Indeed, a single trial, a single tribulation, is enough to ruin the beautiful hopes they initially held. As soon as they realize that the divine word, which they had nevertheless received with such enthusiasm, will be the source of some temporal evils for them, they abandon it cowardly, shamefully: and so it withers like grass on a rock under the rays of a scorching sun. He was immediately outraged.…«What has always known success is brought down by failure,» Fr. Luc, Comm. in hl. Wouldn’t it seem that Quintilian is commenting on this passage when he writes, Inst. 1. 3, 3-5: «These precocious geniuses never reach maturity. They did not accomplish great things because they produced too soon. They lacked true strength in depth, and they failed to develop all their branches. It is just like seeds scattered on the ground; they quickly spoil. And among the thorns, they are choked by weeds before the harvest.» But Quintilian starts from the intellectual realm, and Jesus from the moral realm. 

Mt13.²² The thorns that received the seed are those who hear the word, but the worries about the things of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it does not bear fruit. – Among the thorns. The first listeners of the heavenly word had created obstacles for it from the very beginning, so it could not even germinate in them; others, after having fostered its initial growth, soon opposed its subsequent progress; those of whom the divine Master now speaks allow it to grow further and even to rise in ears of grain, but for them, as for the others, the seed ultimately remains barren. However, the soil of their hearts is good and deep: unfortunately, it is filled with thorns; hence the failure that awaits the preaching of the Gospel in this part of the great human field. – The thorns are of two very distinct kinds. – 1° The solicitudes of this world The worries and troubles of this life, when they preoccupy and absorb a soul, pull it in various directions, as Terence said, and can be extremely detrimental to the divine word that Providence has sown there. – 2° The allure of wealth. The riches and pleasures of this world are no less so when abused; they can even produce more pernicious effects. Each of these causes, taken separately, and a fortiori their combination, stifles the seed of the Gospel, which is thus hindered, "by prosperity and adversity," in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas. The phrase the allure of wealth It is remarkable: wealth is personified and depicted as a woman who deceives the world through flattery. "Who would ever believe me," said Saint Gregory the Great on this subject, "if I said that thorns represent riches, especially since some prick and others please? And yet they are indeed thorns, for with the stings of their thoughts they lacerate the mind. And, since they lead even to sin, they truly inflict a wound. Jesus is right to call riches false. They are false because they cannot remain with us for long. They are false because they are incapable of banishing the sterility of our thinking."«

Mt13.²³ The good soil sown is the one who hears the word and understands it; he bears fruit and yields one a hundredfold, another sixty, another thirtyfold.» – In good soil. An excellent land, both in a material sense and in the way Jesus applies it here to the class of perfect hearers of the heavenly preaching; excellent also not only by its nature and intrinsic constitution, but also by the constant cultivation and assiduous care it has received: it is therefore good in every respect and in an absolute way. And which bears fruit The seed grows there without difficulty, but above all, it bears abundant fruit. However, the moral ground of holy souls, just like the soil itself, does not produce the seed entrusted to it in a uniform manner: hence these harvests, always abundant but uneven, that are gathered there. The most perfect yield the most considerable harvests. «The same spiritual grace that is received equally by all believers at baptism (and in a thousand other ways) is subsequently increased or diminished by our conduct and our actions, as it is said in the Gospel that the Lord’s seed was sown equally everywhere, but that because of the diversity of the soils, it does not have the same outcome. It yields thirtyfold, or sixtyfold, or a hundredfold.» St. Cyprian, Ep. 69.

6. Second parable of the kingdom of heaven: the weeds, vv. 24-30.

Mt13.²⁴ He told them another parable, saying, «The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. – Another parable…While the parable of the sower has been preserved for us by the three Synoptic Gospels, this one is found only in the first Gospel. It shares with the former the honor of having been interpreted by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Cf. vv. 36-43. Moreover, they are closely linked by the lessons they contain. If the first teaches us that a considerable portion of the Gospel seed is lost because it falls on poor soil, the second shows us that even on good soil, not everything flourishes as desired, but that there too evil grows alongside good. The first has shown us how the divine word reaches humankind and how they receive it; the second recounts the progress of this entirely heavenly seed and the dangers that accompany its outward development. He proposed to them. “Their” refers to the crowds surrounding Jesus, cf. vv. 2, 36, before whom the first three parablesVerses 10-23, as we have said, are an anticipated insertion: the pronoun therefore does not refer solely to the disciples of Jesus. The Kingdom is similar : a formula that Jesus Christ frequently uses to introduce his parables cf. 18:23; 22:2; 25:1; etc. “The kingdom of God is like this,” or according to others, “has become like this.” To a man. The messianic kingdom does not precisely resemble this man, but rather the entire incident that will follow and in which he will play the principal role: this is therefore an improper expression, used here and elsewhere, cf. v. 45, etc., by abbreviation. Good grain The context suggests that this grain had been selected and purified, so as to be completely unmixed when it was sown. In the kingdom of Christ, something similar occurs to the action of a farmer sowing excellent wheat in his field.

Mt13.²⁵ But while the men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. – While the men slept. A picturesque expression to designate the time of night. We would say the same: When everyone was asleep. It therefore does not refer exclusively to the servants and the farmer, nor to any culpable negligence on their part. «When the men were asleep.» He does not say the watchmen (or the servants as in verse 28); if he had said the watchmen, we would have understood that they were being accused of negligence. But he says men, so that we may understand that it was without fault of their own that they had given themselves over to sleep. It was during the night, therefore surreptitiously and without anyone's knowledge, that the evil deed which follows was committed. The divine Master meant nothing else. And sow: The Latin text indicates "sema de nouveau" (sow again), a felicitous expression to indicate a second sowing carried out shortly after others, in the same field. Tares, plant named Zawan by the Arabs and Zonim by the Talmud. Linguists have formed a twofold opinion regarding this name, some giving it a Semitic origin, others believing it to be derived from Greek and adopted by Oriental languages, which seems more probable today. The herb thus designated must not differ from "Lolium temulentum," or darnel, which is found almost everywhere in Palestine as well as in our own lands. The seeds it produces, quite similar to those of wheat, but generally blackish in color, have long been renowned for their dangerous effects. When mixed in a significant amount with food, they cause dizziness, convulsions, and even death: hence the epithet of fatal that Virgil attributes to tares in his Georgics, 1, 154. – And he went away. Having succeeded in carrying out his malicious work, he hastens to disappear. Acts of this kind are apparently not unheard of in the East, nor even in the West. Dr. Robert asserts, in Oriental Illustrations, p. 541, that more than one Indian farmer has seen his field ruined in this way, and for many years, in the space of a single night. Rev. Alford recounts in his commentary that he himself suffered from a similar act of malice in Gaddesby, Leicestershire. This proves that the malice of the world has not changed.

Mt13.²⁶ When the grass had grown and borne its fruit, then the weeds also appeared. – When the grass had grown: The grass specified by the narrative, that is to say, both wheat and darnel together. And produces its fruit The two types of grass gradually grow taller and each produces its own ear of grass. Then the tares appeared…Until that moment, it had not been possible to distinguish them; the field seemed full of good wheat: now we see that it also contains a large quantity of weeds. This characteristic is entirely consistent with the nature of darnel and its perfect resemblance to wheat throughout its growth: as long as its development is not complete, the most experienced eye would confuse them nine times out of ten; but, as soon as the ear has emerged from the sheath, a child can distinguish them without difficulty. St. Jerome had noted this fact with his own eyes: «Between wheat and darnel, which we call tares, when they are still in their young stage and the ear has not yet formed, there is a great resemblance, and it is difficult or impossible to distinguish them from one another,» Comm. in hl.

Mt13.²⁷ And the servants of the family owner came to him and said, “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?” – The servants approached…The servants noticed the unfortunate mixture that had now appeared in their Master's field and, unable to understand its origin, they went directly to the head of the household to ask him to shed light on this mystery. Haven't you sown… They know how careful and vigilant he is: obviously, he could only have sown excellent grain in his field; their astonishment only becomes greater, the fact more inexplicable.

Mt13.²⁸ He replied, "An enemy did this." The servants said to him, "Do you want us to go and pick it?" – It was the enemy who did this. The Master easily guessed where the evil must come from: it was his enemy who had committed such a misdeed, eager to thus satisfy a dark plan of revenge. His servants told him. These good servants demonstrate true zeal for the interests of the head of the family: they bravely offer to pull up, one by one, the weeds that fill the field, which is no small task. Do you want to?, Since that is the case. To tear it off. Greek uses the deliberative conjunction which gives more vigor to the sentence.

Mt13.²⁹ “No,” he told them, “lest you uproot the wheat along with the tares.”. – And he said: No. The Master did not accept their offers of service. However, "one should not condemn the disdain one has for discord, but it must still be reasonable," Bengel. Their zeal, in fact, however great and selfless it may have been, was far from well-informed, as the head of the family indicated to them in explaining his refusal. For fear that by tearing…The danger no longer stemmed from the difficulty of distinguishing the two plants from one another, since, as we have said, the darnel now appeared with its characteristic difference («the darnel also appeared,» v. 26); it stemmed from the difficulty of uprooting the weed without damaging the good. It has been observed, in fact, in fields where darnel and wheat grow side by side, that their roots intertwine and entwine, making it impossible to remove the darnel without considerably harming the wheat.

Mt13.³⁰ Let both grow until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers: First gather the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned, and gather the wheat into my barn.» – Let both grow…After rejecting his servants' flawed plan, the Master proposes another that will produce the same result, without any drawbacks. The weeds must be left to grow and ripen alongside the wheat until harvest time. Then the two plants are more distinct than ever, and, when they have been cut together by the sickle, it is easy to separate them without harming the good grain in any way. I will tell the harvesters. The instructions this wise farmer will give his harvesters consist of three parts. First, they must separate all the weeds; then, they will tie them into sheaves to be burned—an excellent precaution that will destroy any harmful seeds they contain. Finally, they will gather the wheat into the farm's granaries, after threshing it in the field itself, following the Eastern method. Thanks to these wise precautions, a very pure harvest will be obtained, despite the treacherous machinations of the enemy.

7. Third parable of the kingdom of heaven : the mustard seed, vv. 31 and 32. Parall. Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18-19.

Mt13.³¹ He told them another parable, saying, «The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. – Another parable. St. John Chrysostom marks the connection between this parable and the two preceding ones in these terms: »Since Jesus Christ had already told them that three-quarters of the seed had been lost, and that the remaining quarter had suffered great damage, they must have been inclined to be afraid and to say: ‘Who then will be those who believe, and how few will be saved?’ It is this fear that Jesus Christ wants to remedy with the parable of the mustard seed, by which he strengthens their faith and shows them the Gospel spreading throughout the earth. He chooses for this purpose the comparison of this seed, which perfectly represents this truth” (Hom. 46 in Matth.). This is the third time the subject is seed: but while the first two parables had undergone considerable development; this one and the following four are simply drawn from their main outlines. A mustard seed. The plant that serves as the basis for this parable is, in all likelihood, Linnaeus's "Sinapis nigra" (black mustard), as we commonly call it in France. It has always been readily cultivated in the gardens of Palestine; it even grows wild in most of the Orient. Its seed consists of small, round globules, enclosed in a pod, numbering four to six.

Mt13.³² It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it grows, it is larger than all vegetable plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come to shelter in its branches.» – It's the smallest…This seed, the Savior continues, is the smallest of all seeds. In itself and in an absolute sense, it is not accurate to say that the mustard seed is the smallest of all; it is at least one of the tiniest among those sown in the East: thus, it had become proverbial to designate a barely perceptible quantity. “For the quantity of a mustard seed, for the quantity of a droplet of mustard,” these phrases recur constantly in the Talmud, as synonyms for a very minimal dimension. The Quran speaks in the same vein, Surah 31. Cf. Matthew 17:20. Jesus Christ therefore uses this example in the manner of his compatriots. Now, “In the sayings of the parables“We are not accustomed to speaking subtly like philosophers, but rather according to the way the people think and express themselves,” Maldonat. When she grew, when it has reached its full growth. It is larger than all other vegetables ; This assertion is borne out literally in Palestine, as we learn from numerous ancient and modern documents. The "synapis nigra" easily reaches a height of ten feet there. The travelers Irby and Mangles encountered a small plain in the Jordan Valley covered with it, and this plant grew as high as the heads of their horses. Dr. Thomson saw other specimens that were taller than a rider's head. These characteristics help us understand the following accounts from the Talmud: "Rabbi Simon said: I had a mustard stalk in my field, which I used to climb, as one does in a fig tree," Hieros. Peah. f. 20, 2. "Rabbi Joseph gives as an example that his father had given him three mustard stalks." One of them was uprooted and nine bushels of mustard were found inside, and its branches were interwoven to form a shelter for the fig tree. (Kethub. f. 3, 2.) And she becomes a tree. Several authors, taking these words literally, have supposed that Jesus meant in this parable not the herbaceous plant we have described, but a tree proper, the mustard tree or "Salvadora persica," which grows in various places in the Holy Land, and especially around the Dead Sea. However, this opinion is commonly rejected by exegetes, either because Our Lord himself explicitly classified the plant from which he borrows the various features of this parable among vegetables ("it is larger than all the other vegetables"), or because the expression "becomes a tree" is sufficiently justified by the prodigious dimensions that the mustard plant reaches in the East. So that the birds of the sky… A feature intended to demonstrate the considerable growth of what was once a very small seed: Maldonat confirms this based on scenes he frequently witnessed in Spain. «Birds are extremely fond of its grains: This is why, in the heart of summer, they customarily perch on its branches to eat the seed, branches which do not break under the weight of the large number of these birds,» Comm. in hl – They come to live…They perch there not only to eat the seeds more easily, but also to spend the night. «To inhabit» here does not have the meaning of «to nest» that some exegetes, following Erasmus, attribute to it. – The purpose of this parable is easy to discern: just as a mustard seed, despite its proverbial smallness, soon gives rise to a plant that can be compared to a tree, so too the kingdom of heaven, small and barely perceptible at its beginning, quickly acquires astonishing proportions, and all peoples come seeking shelter within it. The Fathers expressed this idea with their customary eloquence: «The preaching of the gospel is the smallest of all philosophical disciplines. At first glance, it does not have the appearance of truth, when it preaches a man who is God, a dead God, and the scandal of the cross.» Compare this doctrine with the dogmas of the philosophers and with their books, with the brilliance of their eloquence and the beauty of their style, and you will see how much smaller the Gospel seed is than all other seeds. When their seed grows, it shows nothing vibrant, nothing vigorous. Everything is limp and languishing. But this preaching, which seemed small at the very beginning, when it harvests in the soul of a believer or in the whole universe, will not grow like a vegetable, but like a tree.” St. Jerome, Comm. in hl Cf. August. Serm. 44, 2

8. Fourth parable: the leaven, v. 33. Parall. Luke 13:20 and 21. 

Mt13.³³ He also told them this parable: «The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.» – Another parableIt has long been observed that, among the seven parables Of the kingdom of heaven, there are six parables that are paired by their nearly identical meaning: these are the third and the fourth, the fifth and the sixth. In the third parable, Our Lord Jesus Christ, as we have just seen, intended to prophesy the progressive development of his kingdom and to indicate the mysterious but active force that produced this development. In the parable of the leaven, he continues to express the same thought using another image, thus presenting it from a new perspective. Sourdough ; The etymology of this word is instructive. «Fermentum,» originally «fervimentum,» derives from «ferveo»; similarly in French, «levain» from the Late Latin «levare.» In these three languages, the name very clearly indicates the effect. The kingdom of heaven, therefore, Jesus tells us, resembles a certain quantity of leaven: this reveals its intrinsic and penetrating energy. That a woman took… It is the woman who, within the family, is usually responsible for kneading the bread, especially in the East (cf. Leviticus 26:26). And mixed, That is to say, mixed: the leaven, thoroughly mixed into the dough, soon disappears completely, as if one had deliberately wanted to hide it. In three measures of flour. The unit of measurement (Satum in Latin) comes from Greek, which itself derives from Hebrew., seâh, through the Chaldean, sata. Now, the seah was a Jewish measure equivalent to one ephah, two hin, twenty-four log, ultimately the contents of 144 eggs. According to the historian Josephus, Antiquities 9.2, the seah corresponded to one and a half bushels of Italy. It seems that three of these measures constituted the usual quantity of flour that was kneaded at one time (cf. Genesis 18:6; Judea 6:19; 1 Samuel 2:24). Until all the dough has risen The leaven, mixed with this mass of flour, immediately acts upon it and causes it to ferment completely. «See,» exclaimed St. Paul, “how little leaven there is to make a great deal of bread!” (1 Corinthians 5:6). Here again, as in the parable of the mustard seed, we have great effects produced rapidly by causes that seem to have no real proportion to them. But this is not a mere repetition of the same thought. The previous parable showed the kingdom of God growing and manifesting itself outwardly; this one reveals more clearly the secret action of the Gospel, its assimilative qualities, the way in which it pervades and permeates the foreign elements placed within its reach. What astonishing ferment produced in humanity by the preaching of the Gospel!.

9th Evangelist's reflection on the Savior's new teaching method, vv. 34 and 35.

Mt13.³⁴ Jesus said all these things to the crowd. parables, and he only spoke to her in parables, – All these thingsthat is to say the first four parables of the kingdom of heaven, vv. 3-9, 24-31. To the peopleSee verse 2; in contrast to the disciples who alone heard the other three parables and the various explanations Jesus gave for his new kind of preaching, vv. 1-23, 37-52. And he didn't speak without parables. We should not rush the meaning of this reflection and apply it to the rest of Our Lord's public life, for we will see Jesus again sometimes employing direct teaching before the crowds. The evangelist primarily wants to point to the present period.

Mt13.³⁵ thus fulfilling the word of the prophet: «I will open my mouth in parables, "And I will reveal things hidden since the creation of the world."» – So that it may be accomplishedJesus Christ quotes many things to the people parablesNot only because the Jews liked this form of preaching, not only because he wanted to punish their unbelief by presenting the truth veiled (cf. vv. 11-17), but also because the Scriptures had foretold, albeit in a very mysterious way, that the Messiah would act in this manner. St. Matthew never loses sight of his objective: he takes every opportunity to show that even the smallest details of Jesus' life were prophesied in the Old Testament. What had been said… The following passage being taken from Psalm 77, 78 according to the Hebrew, and this psalm being attributed to Asaph in the preceding inscription, it is this famous Levite who is designated by the words by the Prophet Indeed, in the Bible, 2 Chronicles 29:30, he is called a "seer," which is equivalent to the title of Prophet. I will open my mouth in parables.Listen, O people, to my teaching; give ear to the words of my mouth. For I am about to open my mouth to speak in parables"I will recount the mysteries of ancient times." Thus begins, according to the Hebrew, the psalm quoted by St. Matthew, in which Asaph celebrates the marvelous deeds performed by God on behalf of his people since the Exodus from Egypt. The poet calls parables and riddles, hidden things, The great things that the Lord had deigned to accomplish to save Israel and to establish them happily in the Promised Land. To divinely enlightened eyes, such as his, these dazzling events contained prophetic teachings full of mystery that would interest all future generations. This is why he sang of them with holy enthusiasm, like a fountain whose waters spring forth bubbling forth. However, Asaph, in writing this verse, was in all likelihood unaware that he was personally serving as a type of the Messiah, who would one day come to fulfill in his entirety the role that he himself only played in passing. But the Holy Spirit, the inspirer of these lines, knew this, and it was he who revealed to St. Matthew their messianic meaning, which had remained hidden for several centuries. «This helps us understand how we should interpret what was written in parables"One must not adhere to the letter, but see in it abstruse mysteries," St. Jerome, Comm. in hl – Since the creation of the world The Hebrew simply says "ab olim," that is, from the earliest times of Jewish history. The evangelist, with his customary freedom, goes back to the first days of the world in order to better apply this passage to Our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, while Asaph only revealed the mysteries of Hebrew history, Jesus unveiled those contained within the history of all humanity since creation. Thus, the Savior, by imitating the literary genre once employed by the Prophet, his mystical representative, fulfilled an oracle of the Holy Spirit that ultimately, albeit indirectly, referred to his sacred person. – As we see, St. Matthew reveals to us, through this quotation, a new aspect of the teaching method recently adopted by Jesus Christ. The author of the Book of EcclesiasticusIn describing a wise man, hadn't he said that "the wise man must enter into the mysteries of..." parablesthat he will penetrate the secret of proverbs, and that he will nourish himself on the hidden meaning of parables "?" Ecclesiasticus 39:1, 3. Since, in the land and time of Christ, the idea of wisdom was so closely linked to the use of parablesAnd this not as a result of a whim of the crowd, but according to the very definition of the inspired books, "it was fitting for Jesus to conform to this way of seeing things, so deeply rooted in people's minds, so as to win the attention and respect that a wise man deserved," Card. Wiseman, Religious Miscellany: The Parables, page 27.

10° Interpretation of the parable of the tares, vv. 36-43

Mt13.³⁶ Then, having dismissed the people, he returned to the house. His disciples came to him and said, «Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.» – Having dismissed the crowds. – After telling the fourth parable, verse 33, Jesus got out of the boat he had boarded to speak more comfortably to his large audience (see verse 2), and gently dismissed the crowd. Came into the house ; This is the same house as in verse 1. (See explanation). His disciples approached…Having been indistinguishable until then from the rest of the audience, the disciples took advantage of the first moment they were alone with their Master to ask him for several explanations they needed. They naturally began with the question in verse 10, to which they added a second, as we saw in Luke 8:9: «His disciples asked him what this parable meant.» Then, when Jesus had deigned to give them the twofold answer we have explained, verses 11-23, they added: Explain it to us…, which led us to the authentic interpretation of a second parable concerning the kingdom of heaven. The parable. This parable presented a serious difficulty: why, indeed, was there weeds in the kingdom of heaven? The Apostles had not succeeded in understanding the presence of evil in the abode par excellence of good in all its forms.

Mt13.³⁷ He replied, «The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.” – Their respondent. The good Master readily granted their wish and, in a clear and concise style, explained the parable of the weeds to them, just as he had previously interpreted that of the seed. The good grain. Two very different sowers appeared on stage in turn, one to sow the good seed, the other the tares. The first was the Son of Man, therefore Jesus Christ himself; is he not, in fact, the owner of the spiritual field of the Church and of the holy souls represented by the wheat?

Mt13.³⁸ The field represents the world, the good grain represents the sons of the kingdom, the tares represent the sons of the Evil One. – The field is the world. The world, that is to say, not only the Jewish state, as has sometimes been claimed, but the whole earth. And yet, the parable directly concerns only the kingdom of heaven. However, the world of that time, although far from belonging in its entirety to the Messianic kingdom, is considered here insofar as it was destined to gradually form the Christian Church, after having everywhere received the good seed of the Gospel. The children of the kingdom ; Hebraism meaning: the subjects, the citizens of the kingdom of God (cf. 8:12). These are the good Christians. They are contrasted with the children of iniquity, from the Greek "the sons of the wicked" or of the demon. This should be understood as referring to the impious and the fishermen who imitate the perverse works and conduct of the devil. In the Church, as in the field indicated by Jesus, there is therefore, and will be until the end of time, evil alongside good; for, says St. Augustine, “One is the condition of the field (this present life), another is the rest of the barn (the life to come)... These parables And these figures teach us that until the end of the world the Church will be formed from a mixture of the good and the wicked, in such a way that the good are spared any unintentional defilement by the wicked, whether the latter are ignored or tolerated for peace and the tranquility of the Church, provided, however, that it does not become necessary to reveal or accuse them. Indeed, this desire for peace must not degenerate into abuse to the point of lulling all vigilance, to the point of completely suspending all correction, all degradation, all excommunication… lest patience Discipline without it fosters iniquity, and discipline without it patience "do not break unity," Warning to the Donatists after the conference, 6.

Mt13.³⁹ The enemy who sowed it is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; the harvesters are... the angels. – The enemy.... Evil by nature, what can he produce but evil? He is called the enemy par excellence, that is to say, the enemy of Christ and his kingdom. Satan and the Messiah thus work side by side in the great field of the world: but the former does evil while the latter does good; the former has only one concern, that of destroying, to the extent of his power, the happy results achieved by his rival. Who sowed it? ; It is to the devil, his baleful operations, and his perverse spirit that he communicates to a number of men; it is to him alone, and not at all to God, that we must attribute the moral evil that exists in this world. All the bad seed that invades the field was sown by him. The end of the world, the end of the present age followed by the Messianic judgment, which will inaugurate the eternal period of the kingdom of heaven in its transfigured state. The harvesters. There are several other specific features of the parable that Jesus does not explain; but, after the details he has just given, it was so easy to complete the interpretation. It is evident, for example, that the servants of the father of the family, that is, of the Son of Man (cf. v. 37), represent the Apostles who, more than once, driven by their zeal, would have imprudently tried to uproot the weeds planted in the Messianic field, at the risk of uprooting the good ones at the same time.

Mt13.⁴⁰ As the weeds are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. From this point onward, Jesus Christ expands his explanation: instead of the brief indications he had only provided up to this point, he gives a complete and solemn description of the final fate of the good and the wicked. Like pulling up the tares…“Jesus graciously teaches that the wicked are now tolerated by God’s very wise decision,” Rosenmuller in hl. However, it will not always be so: a terrible hour will come when evil will suddenly cease to be tolerated alongside good in the kingdom of heaven, and then it will be cut down, thrown into the fire like the tares of the parable. In the meantime, this mixture of good and evil that God tolerates in his Church is a profound mystery, which has often tested the sagacity of theologians and our great orators. See Bourdaloue, Sermon 5 for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany: On the Society of the Just with the fishermen ; Massillion, sermon 20, Tuesday of the third week of Lent: On the mixture of good and bad.

Mt13.⁴¹ The Son of God will send his angels, and they will remove from his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers, – His angels will take away, a poetic image because in Latin the verb has the meaning of pick, tie : the angels The wicked will, in a way, reap what they sow. All the scandals, The scandals of heretical doctrines, corrupting principles, and sins of every kind; or rather, the perpetrators of these different kinds of scandals; for the abstract is used here for the concrete. "Which means: the rapacious with the rapacious, the adulterers with the adulterers, the murderers with the murderers, the thieves with the thieves, the mockers with the mockers, each with his own kind," St. Augustine. The sorting Jesus speaks of takes place even now, at the death of each individual; but it will take place on a grand and decisive scale at the end of time. 

Mt13.⁴² and they will throw them into the blazing furnace: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. – In the fiery furnace. Cf. 6:30. Hell, with its vengeful fire, is compared to a blazing furnace where the damned will be horribly tortured. Perhaps this expression alludes to a special form of torture, very common in antiquity, which consisted of throwing the condemned person into a blazing oven. Cf. Deuteronomy 3:19 ff. Tears and gnashing of teeth…: symbol of the atrocious torments that the wicked will have to endure eternally cf. 8, 12. «The tears that come from pain, the gnashing of teeth that comes from fury», St. Bernard.

Mt13.⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. – So the righteous. Jesus also mentions, by way of contrast and to avoid ending on such a bleak note, the incomparable reward that the good, the "sons of the kingdom," will receive forever in heaven. They will shine. The Greek text means to shine, to be luminous. This radiant splendor of the righteous represents the happiness and glory with which they will be showered before God (cf. Dan. 12:3), the God whom Our Lord tenderly calls their Fatherto show gentleness relationships they will have with him indefinitely. Let he who has ears… cf. 11, 15. At the end of this commentary, which contains such important truths, Jesus Christ adds for his disciples, as in the past for the whole crowd, an urgent call to serious reflection.

11° Fifth parable of the kingdom of heaven: the hidden treasure, v. 44.

Mt13.⁴⁴ «The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid again, and in his joy went and sold all that he had and bought that field. – The kingdom of heaven...As indicated above (see note to v. 33), the fifth and sixth parables are linked to express the same idea, as were the third and fourth. Earlier, Jesus had set out to describe the power and effectiveness of the kingdom of heaven; now he wants to describe its price and value. There, the Messianic kingdom had been presented to us objectively and in itself; here we see it more subjectively, and we learn what we must do to make it our own. The fifth parable, like the two that follow, seems to have been spoken only before the inner circle of disciples (cf. v. 36). They are found only in the first Gospel. A treasure The word must retain its general and popular meaning. It is defined in this sense by the jurist Paulus: "A treasure is money deposited so long ago that its existence has been forgotten, and which no longer has an owner." Therefore, in this passage, it refers to a real treasure of gold or silver, and not, as Schoettgen claims, to an "abundance of wheat buried in the field," which is not natural. Hidden in a field. The Oriental, by nature suspicious, has always liked to bury his most precious objects, assuming that this was the best way to keep them safe. What the inhabitants of Palestine did in this regard (cf. Jeremiah 41:8; Job 3:21; Proverbs 2:4), their successors still do today to protect their wealth from the grasp of marauding Arabs. Therefore, excavations carried out in various places in the Holy Land by European travelers in the interest of science often present great difficulties, because the natives always assume that they are motivated by the search for some treasure. The man… hides him. After his fortunate discovery, the lucky man Jesus Christ speaks of hastens to return the riches he has found to the earth: this is a jealous precaution to ensure his complete possession of them, as can be seen from the context. In his joyIt could be translated as follows: As a result of joy that this unexpected discovery had caused him. He sells everything…, he impoverishes himself momentarily in order to become rich forever. He needs a sum of money that he can use immediately, and to obtain it, he does not hesitate to sell everything he owns: perhaps he will lose something at first, but he knows that he will soon be more than compensated. And buy this field, and at the same time the precious treasure he will enjoy for his entire life. Jesus does not judge the morality of this conduct; he merely mentions an example, which he proposes everyone imitate with regard to acquiring the kingdom of heaven. Moreover, according to the Jewish custom of that time, confirmed by the teachings of the Rabbis, everyone was considered the absolute owner of everything they found in their movable or immovable property: «If someone buys fruit from his neighbor and finds money inside, that money belongs to him,» Barv. Mez. 2, 4. «Rabbi Emi found an urn full of silver coins. He bought the field to possess the money by right,» ibid. f. 28, 2. Thus, in sales contracts, to prevent any cause for discussion and dispute, it was customary to insert the following formula: «I buy this item with everything on it or inside it.» According to Roman law, treasures discovered by the owner of a building belonged entirely to him; if found on someone else's property, they had to be shared with the owner. – The moral of this parable is quite clear: the treasure is faith, the Gospel, Christian truth; when God deigns to let us encounter it, we must immediately strive to acquire it, even at the cost of the greatest sacrifices, without hesitating to divest ourselves of everything, if necessary, to make it our private possession.

12° Sixth parable of the kingdom of heaven: the pearl, vv. 45 and 46.

Mt13.⁴⁵ «"The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. – A merchant. See verse 24. The kingdom of heaven resembles this merchant less than the whole of his conduct, as it will be described in verses 45 and 46 by the divine Master. Who is looking for good pearls? This is his profession; he is a pearl merchant, but he only wants excellent pearls. However, there are some of common, even inferior, quality (see Bochart, Hierozoicon 2.4.5-8, Pliny, Natural History 9.35, and Origen, Commentary on Matthew 11). To obtain good pearls, one must therefore search for them, and that is what our merchant does. The main idea of the sixth parable, what distinguishes it from the fifth, is thus contained in the word "search." Previously, one found without searching; this time, one finds only after long and serious searching.

Mt13.⁴⁶ Having found a pearl of great price, he went and sold everything he had, and bought it. – A priceless gem. The merchant's efforts are finally rewarded; he finds a pearl of great value, enough to make his fortune. "One" is emphatic; only one, but it is precious. The ancients indeed attached immense value to beautiful pearls; for them, according to Pliny, they were the most esteemed of jewels. "The prices of precious stones are the beginning and the end of all things," Natural History 9, 15. He left, He quickly returns to his country, for he has gone far to find it, sells all his possessions, and comes back as soon as possible to buy it. – Practical conclusion: «Learn to appreciate precious stones, you merchants of the kingdom of heaven,» St. Augustine, Sermon 37, 3. The Gospel is a pearl without equal that we must seek patiently and acquire generously (cf. Psalm 18:11; 118:127). «The word and truth of the Gospel are hidden in this world like a treasure, and all good things are contained within it. It can only be bought by selling everything. It can only be found by seeking it with the same ardor with which one seeks a treasure. For there are two things that are entirely necessary for us: contempt for the goods of this life, and exact and continual vigilance,» St. John Chrysostom, Homage 47 in Matthew. The unique character of the precious pearl reminds us, according to the same Father, that truth is one, and that there cannot be several Christian faiths distinct from one another.

13° Seventh parable of the kingdom of heaven: the net, vv. 47-50.

Mt13.⁴⁷ «"The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught all kinds of fish.". – It's still similar.... A superficial reader might easily imagine that this parable is a simple repetition of the second, for, as we have said, there is a certain analogy between them. Does not the net filled with good and bad fish, like the field that produces weeds alongside wheat, teach us that the Church of Jesus Christ, as long as it exists on earth, will be formed of a heterogeneous mixture of good and evil? Yes, undoubtedly, but the differences are even greater and deeper than the resemblance. There, Jesus Christ emphasized the present coexistence of the righteous and the wicked within his kingdom; here, he places greater emphasis on their future separation. There, the wicked were sown by the enemy in the messianic field, and the head of the household did not allow them to be uprooted; here, they are violently separated from the righteous by God's command. There, the focus was on the gradual development of the kingdom of heaven; here, it is primarily its final consumption that is depicted. A net. This word, from the Greek word for "seine," designates a long trailing net, "vasta sagena," as Manilius calls it. Its ends are carried by means of boats, so as to enclose a large area in the open sea or lake, then these ends are brought together, and everything enclosed within is caught. Cf. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, §64. This symbol is perfectly suited to the parable, to reveal the extent and all-encompassing nature of the kingdom of God. Thrown into the sea. The lake, in turn, provides a comparison. Most of those we have heard so far were borrowed from the fields that stretched out opposite Jesus on the shore. Fish of all kinds. This last word, "piscium," is not in the Greek text, but it is clearly in the meaning, which the Vulgate made clearer with this clever little addition. Everything is thus caught pell-mell in the folds of the net, the bad fish as well as the good ones.,

«"The filthy chromis, the vilest hake,

The squid carrying black poison in a body as white as snow

Pork, so hard to digest… » Ovid, Halieuticon

Mt13.⁴⁸ When it is full, the fishermen take it out, and, sitting on the shore, they choose the good ones to put in baskets, and throw away the bad ones. – The fishermen pull it, a picturesque detail, but one that is merely an ornament to the narrative, while the following detail, and having sat down on the edge of the shore, Even more picturesque, it has a real meaning in the parable, because it indicates the care and attention with which the captive fish will be chosen:

«"I sat down on this grass; while I dried my nets, 

and that I keep myself busy tidying up, counting on the grass 

"the fish that chance led into my nets," Ovid, ibid.

– They choose the good ones and put them in vases.. «Small vessels are the seats of the saints, and large ones, the secrets of the blessed life,» says St. Augustine, Sermon 348, 3. They reject the bad, Outside the net, on the shore, like worthless objects destined to perish and be purified. Therefore, in application, outside the kingdom of heaven and the abode of the elect.

Mt13.⁴⁹ The same will be true at the end of the world: the angels They will come and separate the wicked from the righteous, ⁵⁰ and they will throw them into the blazing furnace: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. – At the end of the world See verse 4. Jesus quickly explains this parable, which, moreover, presented no serious difficulty after his interpretation of the parable of the weeds. When the solemn hour of the end of the world arrives, God will very carefully examine everything contained in the Church, represented by the net. This will be the work of the final judgment. – The angels… will separate the wicked.....Cf. verses 41 and 42, of which we have here a nearly literal reproduction. The last of the parables relating to the kingdom of heaven vividly reminds us of our unhappy eternity; thus, St. John Chrysostom calls it the frightening parable, lc For his part, St. Gregory the Great wrote about the words which end it: "We must fear rather than explain", Hom. 11 in Evang. – It proves against Luther and Calvin that the current Church is not exclusively a "choir of the predestined".

14th Conclusion of the parables of the kingdom of heaven, vv. 51 and 52.

Mt13.⁵¹ «Have you understood all these things?» They said to him, «Yes, Lord.» – In the Greek, this verse begins with the words "Jesus said to them," which are missing from the Itala, from some other ancient versions, and from several important manuscripts, as well as from the Vulgate. Their authenticity is highly doubtful, and they are regarded by the best scholars as an interpolation. Did you understand? "All these things," that is to say, all the parables relating to the kingdom of heaven, especially the last three, which the disciples, by a special privilege, had been the only ones to hear. They told him: yesWithout hesitation, they answered the Savior's question in the affirmative. Not that they had grasped every detail; at least they had been able to understand the general meaning of the parables, thanks to the explanations that Jesus had given them to put them on the path to the mysteries contained beneath the surface of the comparisons.

Mt13.⁵² And he added: «Therefore every scribe skilled in the kingdom of heaven is like a father of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.» – He told them: that is why... «What is Jesus talking about?” that's why, "It's not easy to say," Maldonat. There are really only two ways to connect this word to the preceding words: 1) since I have shown you by my examples the different ways in which the Gospel can be preached; 2) since you have understood. This second connection seems preferable, because it is not as far removed from the other. Moreover, exegetes agree that the consequence expressed by "that is why" is not very rigorous. "Well, indeed," would be its true translation. Every scribe. Scribe, not in the exclusively Jewish sense of this expression (cf. the explanation of 2:4), but in general, to signify: Every scholar, every doctor. Educated, learned, according to the Greek, is a verb in the passive past participle, meaning "that which has been instructed, taught"; it is not an adjective. As far as the kingdom is concerned. This phrase means: "For the kingdom of heaven, in view of the Messianic kingdom." The teachers who received special instruction, in preparation for the teaching they themselves would later give in the Church of God, are none other than the Apostles and generally all preachers of the Gospel. Jesus will now outline their duties to them in the form of a beautiful comparison. Similar to a family man. Material things, the customs of family life, will continue to serve to illustrate spiritual and supernatural things. Who draws from his treasure. Here, the word "treasure" does not have the special meaning it had in verse 44: it reverts to its original meaning and designates any place where riches or provisions of various kinds are kept, to be used when needed. New things and old thingsObjects of every kind and season, some old, others new and fresh. The family man whom Jesus presents as a model to his disciples is a prudent steward who, after carefully assembling a variety of provisions, knows how to use them appropriately, according to the needs and desires of his children or guests: he does not always give old things, nor always new things, but he skillfully mixes the two, acting according to the circumstances. Such should be the shepherd of souls. “The good teacher, who has enriched his mind with the treasures of varied learning, will always be ready, according to the demands of his teaching, to lay hold of what he needs and to draw upon the experience of ancient times as well as new ideas: he will adapt to his doctrine the maxims, proverbs and the sayings of the wise men who are no more, as well as the events of history; at the same time, he will grasp all current events or present matters and draw useful lessons for his disciples,” Card. Wiseman, Religious Miscellany, etc…1. Parablesp. 22. Therefore, the preacher, the apostle, needs abundant and varied knowledge. Our Lord could not have demonstrated with more vigor and in fewer words the absolute necessity of great learning for the priest. Some Fathers saw in the old and new things of which Jesus speaks an indication of the Law and the Gospel, of the Old and New Testaments; but it is better to retain for the adjectives "new" and "old" their general meaning. – We have completed the explanation of the Parables of the kingdom of heaven; but, before moving on to another subject, it will be good to take a retrospective look at these admirable comparisons and to show their harmonious union by means of a few general ideas. Each of them relates to the Church of Jesus considered in its entirety, that is to say, from its foundation to its consummation at the end of time; but this relationship is not established in the same way, for each time they present the messianic kingdom to us under a new aspect, under one of its many faces, so that each time, too, we glean a new lesson: it is therefore the most felicitous diversity in the most perfect unity. They have allowed us to witness the growth and development of the kingdom of God on earth, from its foundation by Our Lord Jesus Christ to its glorious transfiguration in heaven, the first beginning precisely with the foundation and the last leading us to its consummation. Does this mean, however, as has been claimed, that they all correspond, exclusively, to a specific period in ecclesiastical history—for example, the parable of the sowing to the apostolic age, that of the tares to the period of the ancient heresies, that of the mustard seed to the Constantinian era, and so on? Bengel, among other authors, states this categorically: «Alongside the common and perpetual properties of the kingdom of heaven or of the Church, we find these seven parables which possess a very secret meaning, even in different periods and ages of the Church, so that one complements the other, each beginning where the other ends,” Gnomon Novi Testam. in hl But no! There is obviously much exaggeration and much arbitrariness in this system; for, if the parables They prophesied something—and this is true for a great many of them—namely, the general future of the Church rather than the particular features of its history; it is the universal laws that will govern it throughout the centuries, not isolated, specific periods. Thus, the parable of the sower reveals the reasons for the success and failure that the preaching of the Gospel generally encounters when it is proclaimed to the world. The parable of the weeds describes the obstacles that await the kingdom of heaven when it has been newly established somewhere and is working on its inner development: it simultaneously reveals the true source of this hostile opposition and foretells the ultimate triumph of the Gospel. The two parables The following symbols, the mustard seed and the leaven, express the growth of the messianic kingdom on earth, according to the twofold way in which it manifests itself: there is extrinsic energy represented by the mustard seed, and intrinsic force represented by the leaven. The first four parables The parables of the hidden treasure and the precious pearl then revealed the duties of humankind toward it and how they are obliged to abandon everything to obtain it, once they have had the good fortune to discover it. Finally, the parable of the net shows how good and evil, after having long coexisted in the kingdom of Christ, will be eternally separated by God at the end of time. Therefore, among our seven parables a logical sequence that leaves nothing to be desired and through which they explain and complement each other. – Having reached the end of this first group, we can now fully appreciate the beauty of the parables Gospels, and to understand with what accuracy St. Bernard could make the following judgment about them: “The surface seen from the outside is magnificently decorated. And if someone breaks through the core, they will find inside all that is most delightful and joyful.” There is nothing in human language that can be compared to them from the threefold point of view of simplicity, grace, and inner richness. They are perfect and inimitable models, charming pictures in which the dominant idea is highlighted by the most striking contrasts, by means of the most varied colors. But however seductive their outward form, the truths they contain are a thousand times more admirable. They are inexhaustible treasures of doctrine, consolation, and exhortation; with each new meditation devoted to them, one discovers intimate splendors of which one had not yet been aware. "Simple for the simple, they are profound enough for the most profound thinkers; it is, like all Scripture, a stream that a lamb can ford and in which the elephant can swim at ease," Lisco, die Parabeln Jesu 2nd ed. p. 16.

To a new series of attacks, Jesus responds with new miracles. 13:53–16:12.

At first, it seems difficult to discern the link that unites the isolated events found in this part of the first Gospel. But upon closer examination, one soon notices a twofold opposing current and, at the same time, the progressive transformation in the Savior's general attitude that we have already had occasion to point out. This twofold current consists, on the one hand, of the universal unbelief that is constantly gaining ground around Jesus; on the other hand, of kindness The tireless service of the divine Master, who responds with extraordinary blessings to the ingratitude and insulting behavior of most of his fellow citizens. Faith in his messianic role, so fervent in the early days, gradually diminished and continues to decline significantly. We have striking examples of this sad state of affairs in the conduct of the inhabitants of Nazareth and the Jewish authorities toward him. But Jesus does not tire of doing good, and we will see him twice in succession providing miraculous food to considerable crowds. Nevertheless, he withdraws discreetly as others withdraw from him. If the first period of his public life, the blessed year, was marked by almost perpetual apostolic journeys, this one is marked by other, no less frequent, trips, but with a very different purpose, for their aim was to lead Our Lord away from the ungrateful who no longer wanted him or from the persecutors who attacked him relentlessly. 

1. Jesus comes to Nazareth where he causes scandal to his compatriots. 13:53-58. Parall. Mark 6:1-6.

Mt13.⁵³ After Jesus had finished these parables, He left from there. ⁵⁴ Having come to his homeland, he taught in the synagogue, so that, seized with astonishment, they said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miracles?" – When Jesus had finished these parables....that is, immediately after the interesting day that filled most of chapters 12 and 13. He left from there. He left for a time the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where several of the scenes recounted above had taken place. Cf. vv. 1 and 2. And having come to his countryThe Savior's actual homeland was Bethlehem But it is certainly not the city of David that the Evangelist intends to designate here, since there is no mention anywhere of a visit by Jesus to his birthplace, and moreover, St. Matthew, throughout his Public Life, is concerned only with Our Lord's sojourn in Galilee. It is therefore a question here of an adopted homeland, and such was Nazareth. where he had been raised, Luke. 4, 16 cf. Matt. 2, 23. – He was instructing them. The listeners are vaguely indicated by the expression, as frequently happens in the first Gospel (cf. the note to 4:23); but they are very clearly determined by the context. In their synagogues ; Better still, according to the Greek text, in the synagogue (singular); the variant seems to be a corruption of the text, since Nazareth was a rather small town to have several synagogues. – This journey of the Savior to Nazareth is the subject of lively controversy. Indeed, while the first two Synoptic Gospels recount it in roughly the same terms and place it around the same time in Jesus' public ministry, St. Luke attributes it to a much earlier date (cf. 4:16-30) and adds very particular details to his narrative, although the core of the story is similar in all three versions. These discrepancies raise a significant difficulty regarding Gospel harmony. Are we dealing with a single event or two distinct occurrences? – On this point, exegetes are divided into roughly two equal groups: some identify the two episodes, while others separate them. Here are the main reasons put forward by both sides. Those who believe the two visits were one cannot believe that Jesus returned to Nazareth after receiving the hateful reception from his compatriots that we read about in St. Luke. Furthermore, if Our Lord came to his homeland twice, is it not astonishing that he was treated the same way on each visit, that the same words were addressed to him (cf. Luke 4:22), that he quoted the same proverb (cf. Luke 4:24), and that he was prevented from demonstrating his miraculous power (cf. Luke 4:23)? Therefore, there must have been only one visit, which St. Luke recounts in detail, but which the other two Synoptic Gospels only outline. Such is the opinion of St. Augustine, Sylveira, Maldonat, J. P. Lange, Olshausen, etc. Those who believe it necessary to distinguish the two episodes, and among them we can cite Patrizzi, Curci, Schegg, Wieseler, Tischendorf, Arnoldi, Bisping, etc., reply: 1) that sufficient time had elapsed between the first and second visits to allow the Passion to subside, so that Jesus could now come to Nazareth without any serious danger; 2) that while there are striking similarities between the two visits, supporting their identification, there are also even more significant differences between them that require a separation of the events. We must admit that the question is delicate, and that it is very difficult to decide between two opinions that seem equally reasonable and equally supported. If the events are distinct, why do the Evangelists who recount the second say not a single word about the first? Why does St. Luke, who recounts the first, remain completely silent about the second? But, on the other hand, if they are identical, how is it that the sacred writers attributed such different dates to them? Nevertheless, all things considered, the discrepancies between the accounts seem more striking than the similarities; this is why we decide to maintain that the sojourns were not identical. They were filled with admiration, They were deeply moved, beside themselves. The wonders that the inhabitants of Nazareth beheld in Jesus would have been, for well-disposed minds, a very effective aid, leading them to recognize the divinity of his mission; they could only serve to blind narrow souls, filled with vulgar prejudices. Where does this wisdom come from?…Wisdom, especially such wisdom. And these miracles The gift of performing numerous and dazzling miracles. All this in a man who seems so ordinary to them. How to reconcile the works with the person of the one who produces them? On the other hand, the works are tangible; their reality cannot be denied. So, "where does it come from?" That is the problem these skeptics must solve.

Mt13.⁵⁵ Isn't that the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name... Married, and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Jude? – Isn't that it...?.. This one. A disdainful term that they use three times in succession in three verses. Here they develop the main reason for their disbelief in Jesus. How is it possible, they mean, that a man of such humble origins, whose parents, so well known to us, were nothing but ordinary, a man who received no special instruction, who lived so long among us as a poor craftsman, should suddenly manifest so much wisdom, so much power? The carpenter's son. By the equally contemptuous term "carpenter," they referred to St. Joseph, whom they believed to be the true father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This word is rather vague and can mean both "blacksmith" and "carpenter." Although several Fathers, especially St. Ambrose and St. Hilary, adopted the first meaning, it is more in keeping with tradition to consider the Savior's foster father a craftsman who worked with wood. He is generally believed to have been a carpenter. St. Justin and an apocryphal gospel (cf. Thilo. Cod. apocr. 1, 368) suggest that he made yokes and plows. The common opinion is that he had been dead for some years and had not been present at the beginning of Jesus' public life. Isn't her name mother Married ; which is similar to the Hebrew form "Miriam". Cf. 1:18. And his brothers…The unbelieving inhabitants of Nazareth at least provide us with valuable information about the kinship of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. But they also compel us to study a complicated and difficult point, the examination of which we have already deferred twice (see notes to 1.25 and 12.46), and which has been the subject of ardent struggle between Catholics and heretics for centuries. It concerns determining the degree of kinship that united Jesus to those whom the New Testament quite frequently calls “his brothers.” Long and numerous works have been written on this subject. Naturally, we must limit ourselves to a simple overview of the problem; however, we will strive, as far as the nature and scope of a note allow, to be both complete and concise, and to omit no important argument. Indeed, it is the virginal honor of Married which is being questioned, and we would like to be able to defend it with all our might. Here are two points that are out of context for any true Catholic: 1. It is a dogma of faith that Married remained a virgin, not only before and during, but also after the birth of the Savior. See the Theology in the treatise on the Incarnation. 2. This dogma rests on a constant and universal tradition: if it was sometimes attacked, it immediately found vigorous defenders. “There are some who have denied that the Blessed Virgin persevered in her virginity. We cannot let this pass as an uncondemned sacrilege,” St. Ambrose, Instit. Virg. c. 5, 35. The question is therefore entirely resolved for us from the perspective of authority. It remains for us to see how Catholic tradition and dogma can be reconciled with Holy Scripture, or rather, how they are supported by the testimony of the Holy Books. – The expression “brothers of Jesus” appears nine times in the Gospel: Matthew 12:46; Mark 3:31; Luke 8:19; Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3; John 212; John 7:3, 5, 10. The main places where it is encountered outside the Gospel narrative are: Acts of the Apostles 1:14; 1 Corinthians 9:5; Galatians 1:19. Various heretics, notably the Ebionites, the Antidicomarianists, the followers of the famous Helvidius, and most contemporary Protestants, admit that, wherever it is found, it must be taken in the strict sense to designate real brothers, or more precisely half-brothers of Jesus, born after his birth from the marital relations of Joseph and MarriedOn the contrary, according to Orthodox doctrine, the title "brothers of Jesus" should never be taken literally because it in no way refers to children born of Married, the blessed mother of the Savior. Catholic exegetes are unanimous on this point, and it is indeed the crucial element. They differ only on the manner and degree of kinship that existed between "the brothers of Jesus" and Married, or his divine Son; in other words, on the exact meaning to be given here to the word "Brothers." The opinions that have been formed on this subject since antiquity can be reduced to three. has. The brothers and sisters of Jesus were said to be the offspring of a levirate marriage, contracted according to Jewish law, between St. Joseph and the wife of Cleopas, St. Joseph's brother, who had died childless. Joseph then married his widow, with whom he had six children (four sons: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judah, and two daughters) who, in accordance with legal prescriptions (see Deuteronomy 25:6), bore the name Cleopas, as if they had truly been born to him. All of this would have taken place, of course, before the marriage of St. Joseph to the Virgin Mary. Theophylact in ancient times, and Tholuck, expressed support for this view. But this is merely a series of conjectures without serious foundation, which seem to have been invented expressly to resolve a difficult problem. b“Some authors,” says Origen, “relying on the so-called Gospel of Peter and the Book of James, claim that Jesus’ brothers were sons Joseph had with a first wife to whom he was married before marrying Mary.” Several apocryphal writings do indeed mention this tradition, particularly the Gospel of the Nativity of MarriedThe Gospel of the Infancy of the Savior, the story of Joseph the carpenter (cf. Tischendorf, Evang. apocr. p. 10 ff.); various Church Fathers, for example St. Epiphanius, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Hilary, also formally accepted it. But St. Jerome judges it very harshly: "There are those who imagine that the brothers of Jesus are the sons of another wife of Joseph, letting themselves be led astray by the delusions of the apocrypha," Comm. in Matth. 12, 49. Such an origin is indeed a very fragile basis. cAccording to the common opinion of Catholics and several Protestant exegetes, Jesus' brothers were simply the sons of Cleopas and Married, sister of the Blessed Virgin. “For us, as we said in the book written against Helvidium, the brothers of Jesus are not the sons of Joseph, but first cousins of the Savior. We believe that the sons of Married are the sons of an aunt of Jesus who happens to be the mother of James the Less, Joseph, and Jude” St. Jerome, 11th century. This is the opinion of Hegesippus, Papias, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Theodoret, St. Isidore, St. Augustine, among the Fathers, and of most of the commentators of the Middle Ages and modern times, and this is indeed the most serious opinion and the one most in accordance with the Gospel narrative, as we shall try to demonstrate. – 1. The noun “brother” in Oriental languages, and especially in Hebrew, has a very broad meaning: the most learned Hebraists affirm this without hesitation. “The name ‘brother’ had, among the Jews, a broad meaning. It is understood in several ways, sometimes as a relative, sometimes as a cousin,” Gesenius, Thesaurus ling. hebr. et chald. There are passages in the Bible on this subject that have become classics (cf. Genesis 13:8; 14:16; 24:48; 29:12; 2 Samuel 10:13). The Septuagint, in translating them, reproduced the Hebrew verbatim. It was therefore not contrary to Greek usage to designate relatives other than brothers as "brother." Consequently, Saint Matthew could use this noun to indicate the cousins of Our Lord Jesus Christ. – 2° At the foot of the Savior's cross, between Married Madeleine and Salome, we see on the one hand, according to St. Matthew, 17, 56 and following, and St. Mark, 15, 40 cf. 16, 1, Married, mother of James and Joseph; on the other hand, according to St. John 19:25, the Mother of Jesus and his sister, Married "of Cleophas." By combining the two accounts, it becomes clear that MarriedThe mother of James and John, mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels, must be confused either with the Blessed Virgin Mary or with her sister. Married, wife of Cleophas. The first hypothesis falls apart of its own accord, for it would never be possible to explain why St. Matthew and St. Mark would have designated the mother of Our Lord, in such a circumstance, by the names of two of her other sons. Consequently, the second hypothesis remains true, and Married, sister of the Blessed Virgin, wife of Cleophas, is no different from the mother of St. James and Joseph. Thus, according to the Gospels, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ has a sister (or perhaps a sister-in-law, as we will discuss later) who also bears the name of Marriedand who has two sons, James, or James the Less, cf. Mark 15:40; Luke 24:10, and Joseph. On the other hand, one of the Apostles is named James, son of Alphaeus or Cleopas. This same Apostle is called by St. Paul "brother of the Lord," Galatians 1:19; he has a brother named Jude, Luke 6:16; Acts of the Apostles 1:13, who also calls himself the brother of Jesus, Jude 1:1. Obviously, this James, this Joseph, and this Jude are sons of Cleopas and of MarriedSister of the Blessed Virgin, therefore, “cousins” of Our Lord. As for Simon, he does not appear outside of this passage. Fortunately, tradition provides us with very important information about him for the point we are considering. Hegesippus, who, around the year 140 AD, faithfully recorded in five books the history of the memorable events that had taken place in the church of Jerusalem since its origin, recounts, concerning the election of Simon, successor of St. James to the episcopal see of the holy city, that this other son of Cleophas was chosen in preference because he was likewise a cousin of the Savior. Then he adds: “Cleophas was the brother of Joseph.” Cf. Valroger, Introduction to the New Testament, 2, p. 347. Here we have perfect confirmation of the results obtained with the help of inspired writings. Simon is the brother of Saint James the Less; therefore, he is also the brother of Joseph and Jude, and the four sons of Cleophas are simply cousins of Jesus Christ. Hegesippus further informs us of the reason for their kinship: it is because their father is the brother of Saint Joseph. It follows from this that they were not even cousins in the strict sense, but merely legal and putative first cousins of the Savior, since Saint Joseph, their uncle, was himself only the legal and putative father of Jesus. It also follows from this that MarriedTheir mother was probably not the true sister, but only the sister-in-law of the Blessed Virgin. – 3° Undoubtedly, the “brothers of Jesus” are mentioned quite regularly alongside his Mother either in the Gospels or in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. Matthew 12:46; Mark 3:31; Luke 8:19). John 2, 12 ; Acts of the Apostles 1, and this circumstance is quite remarkable; but it is even more astonishing that they were never called the sons of Married, mother of Christ. This connection is further explained by the close ties that existed between the two families. Most commentators agree that after the death of Saint Joseph, which most likely occurred before the public life of the Savior, Married He withdrew with his divine Son to the home of his brother-in-law Cleopas, so that the families were united into one; Jesus was then regarded as the brother of Cleopas's children. According to others, Cleopas died first, and St. Joseph received his brother's widow and children into his home. We have known of several families in which, as a result of similar adoptions, cousins treated each other, and were treated by everyone else, as brothers and sisters. – 4° Finally, if, as our opponents claim, Married If Jesus had other children, how can we explain the conduct of Our Lord on the cross, at the moment of his last breath? Was it not to St. John that he entrusted her? And yet two members of the apostolic college were "his brothers": therefore, they were not brothers in the strict sense, otherwise would he have deprived them of the privilege and the right to care for their mother? – Let us conclude from all these proofs that Jesus had no brothers in the true sense of the word, according to the flesh, but only relatives, more or less close, who belonged to the family of St. Joseph or of the Blessed Virgin, or of both at the same time.

Mt13.⁵⁶ And aren't all his sisters here with us? Where did he get all these things from?» – And his sisters. “Sister” here has exactly the same meaning as “brother” in the preceding verse. Ancient traditions give Our Lord only two cousins, and name them sometimes Assia and Lydia, sometimes Married and Salome; however the expression all This seems to indicate that they were more numerous. Where did he come from?…After this peculiar reasoning, the inhabitants of Nazareth believe they can repeat their question from verse 54 with greater force. As if wisdom and miracles had something in common with birth and kinship. These unbelievers had completely forgotten Jewish history.

Mt13.⁵⁷ And he was a stumbling block to them. But Jesus said to them, «A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and home.» – And they were shocked. Some authors have concluded from this passage that the compatriots of Our Lord went so far as to attribute to Satan, as the Pharisees had already done, the supernatural gifts that shone in him; but the text suggests nothing of the sort. We simply read that the humble origin of Jesus was for the inhabitants of Nazareth an occasion of spiritual ruin, a stone against which they stumbled, to their misfortune, on the path to salvation. But was their fall not entirely voluntary? A prophet is not despised…Popular proverbs of this kind exist in all literatures, as can be seen in Wetstein's work, Hor. talm. in Evang. We will limit ourselves to citing a few. «What belongs to the house is worthless,» Seneca, De Benef. 3, 3. «He was despised by his own people, like most household things,» Protogenes. Cf. Pliny, Hist. Nat. 35, 36. St. Jerome explains this fact by the jealous rivalries so frequently encountered in small towns: «It is a natural thing to see citizens envy other citizens; they do not look at the present works of the mature man, but they remember the fragility of childhood, as if they too had not reached adulthood by the same stages,» Comm. In hl, "Men are accustomed," says Theophylact, "to despise familiar things, to praise foreign things to the skies, to admire and extol them." This is how the Jewish prophets were admirably well received by foreigners, while they were subjected to ill-treatment in their own country.

Mt13.⁵⁸ And he did not perform many miracles in that place because of their unbelief. – The inhabitants of Nazareth thought they were punishing the Savior; on the contrary, it is they who are being punished. He didn't perform many miracles.. Jesus, as St. Mark recounts in 6:5, simply healed a few sick people by laying his hands on them. Because of their disbelief. Why would he have displayed his wondrous omnipotence as was his custom? It would have been a waste of time, given the disposition of his compatriots. He who constantly demanded faith before performing any miracle concealed or diminished the brilliance of his wonders when he had only unbelievers before him. Did he not say that one should not lightly give holy things to the unworthy?