Fragments on Matthew

1The Hebrews used to call “Iao” (Matthew 1:1) salvation. Matthew says “of Christ,” though, because the old kings and priests were anointed with oil from the horn.

Our Jesus Christ was not named Christ because a horn anointed him, but because the divine Spirit did. For he truly and properly had the Holy Spirit himself.

CPG 5206 fr.1 on Mt 1, 1

2Matthew names Abraham because Abraham was the first type of the two peoples who would believe in Christ. He believed while still uncircumcised, and after circumcision he remained faithful.

Matthew names David especially because David too was a type of Christ. When Saul was cast out as rejected, David was appointed second as a king well-pleasing to God. In the same way, when the first human — Adam — was cast out through disobedience and no longer ruled the rest, a second Adam was brought in: Christ, king of all, so that what was lost in Adam might be recovered for humankind through Christ. He is king not only of earth but of heaven. He is called Son of Man by nature because he has all that Adam had, while now being God.

Abraham believed God while uncircumcised; then, after receiving the promises and being circumcised, he kept the faith unharmed. So the verse rightly rises to another contemplation: the church of Christ from circumcision and from the nations. Abraham was a type of those two peoples who have believed in Christ.

There uncircumcision came before circumcision. Uncircumcision is nature’s work; circumcision is command and law. That is why the former led, and afterward circumcision turns back into it — because nature together with law is better than the two standing apart.

David too was a type of Christ. When Saul was cast out, David was brought in instead. So also, when Adam was driven from Eden through disobedience, the second Adam was brought in instead, that he might restore the first Adam to the ancient order (Matthew 1:1).

CPG 5206 fr.2 on Mt 1, 1

3That is why the genealogy’s names run through men: “the woman is the glory of the man,” (1 Corinthians 11:7) an accompaniment, not the man’s beginning.

CPG 5206 fr.3 on Mt 1, 2

5Matthew does not say “through whom” (Matthew 1:16) he was born, but “out of whom.” (Galatians 4:4) That overthrows Apollinaris, who claimed Christ passed through the virgin as through a tube and took nothing from her.

The evangelist says Jesus was born not through her but out of her — that is, from her all-holy blood. The apostle speaks the same way: “God sent his Son, born of a woman,” not through a woman.

CPG 5206 fr.5 on Mt 1, 16

6The angel called her Joseph’s wife so no one would suspect another man. If she is named the wife of Joseph, who had not known her, the virgin is free of any thought of suspicion toward someone else (Matthew 1:20).

CPG 5206 fr.6 on Mt 1, 20

7If he already has a people and saves them before he is born of Mary, it is clear he does so as God (Matthew 1:21).

CPG 5206 fr.8 on Mt 1, 21

9It was not the magi’s voice that disturbed Herod, but the rumor among all who knew the law and trusted the prophets’ words. The magi were seeking a king; the Jews were publishing that the Christ had been born.

So he left the magi, called the Jews, and asked where the Christ is born — “the one you are now publishing,” he says, “after hearing the magi.” Even unwilling, the enemies of the truth speak the truth and interpret the whole prophecy — yet in vain, for they did not add what follows.

He calls the magi ambassadors because in a way they came to the king of Israel to make peace between themselves and Israel, so that of the nations and the Jews there might be “one flock, one shepherd.” (John 10:16)

And what did that mean — that “his goings forth are from the beginning” (Micah 5:2)? People come from the ends of the inhabited world to see the manger.

CPG 5206 fr.10 on Mt 2, 3–6

10Jacob was first called Israel when he saw the ladder and the angels going up and down on it through him (Genesis 28:12), wrestled with the one who appeared to him, and heard from him, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel.” (Genesis 32:28)

The whole Jewish people received that name as something exceptional and divine, setting them apart from the other nations. Israel means a mind that sees God. That is why the church from the nations was also named Israel (Matthew 2:6) — not according to flesh, but according to divine grace.

CPG 5206 fr.11 on Mt 2, 6

11Did the magi arrive at the birth itself and see Christ in swaddling clothes, or find him later sitting in a house with his mother? I think the truer reading is the swaddling clothes.

That is also why, as we said above, the star appeared before the Lord’s birth. From this it is clear that the star also preceded the magi’s arrival (Matthew 2:7–11).

CPG 5206 fr.12 on Mt 2, 7–11

12The star stood as a single unmoved fixture so the magi would go no farther. It did not come down from heaven and stand on the earth, nor lodge itself above the house. Its custom was not to travel like the other stars, but to run a strange course, appearing at different times in different regions — and only then did it stand still.

The star was unmoved and standing, yet it had not left heaven to travel near the earth, nor was it fixed on the house. It did not share the other stars’ motion, but a strange and outlandish one (Matthew 2:9).

CPG 5206 fr.13 on Mt 2, 9

13He no longer says “flee,” (Matthew 2:20) but “go,” hinting at relief after the trial. By speaking of the child’s soul he overturns Apollinaris’s claim that the Lord took flesh without mind and without soul.

In Christ’s economic descent into Egypt and his return from there into Judea, God recapitulates the people’s captivity and redeems them from the plot, leading them home again.

CPG 5206 fr.14 on Mt 2, 20

14It is worth noting that Nazareth lay at the edges of Judea. By settling there, Christ shows that because of the Jews’ murderousness he was about to leave Judea and go over to the nations, giving lovers of learning an occasion for faith in Christ.

Nazareth lay in the last parts of Judea. Leaving Judea for Nazareth, Christ showed clearly that he would leave the Jews and transfer worship to the nations — and at the same time give lovers of learning a reason to believe in him (Matthew 2:23).

CPG 5206 fr.15 on Mt 2, 23

15If “Nazorean” (Matthew 2:23) is interpreted “holy,” or according to some “flower,” the name shows up in many places. Daniel calls him “holy of holies.” Isaiah says, “a rod from the root of Jesse and a flower from it.” (Isaiah 11:1) And the Lord says of himself in the Song of Songs, “I am a flower of the field, a lily of the valleys.” (Song of Songs 2:1)

CPG 5206 fr.16 on Mt 2, 23

17John’s baptism did not give forgiveness of sins. It taught people to run to baptism because of their sins (Matthew 3:6).

CPG 5206 fr.18 on Mt 3, 6

18As men more learned in the law than the rest, they came to John later. He calls them offspring of vipers because of their likeness: when vipers are about to come into the light, they burst their mother’s belly and leave her dead.

In the same way these men left their own mother, Jerusalem, as if she were dead, and were being saved from the killing of Christ — the crime for which they endured incurable evils for a time under the Romans, which he calls the coming wrath (Matthew 3:7).

CPG 5206 fr.19 on Mt 3, 7

20Just as he turned Lot’s wife to stone, so he can also make humans from stones, as he earlier made Adam from earth (Matthew 3:9) (Genesis 19:26) (Genesis 2:7).

CPG 5206 fr.21 on Mt 3, 9

21By “axe” (Matthew 3:10) he means Christ, “sharper than any two-edged sword,” who is about to cut away the unbelieving Jews and estrange them from the patriarchs’ honor and fellowship. He also called those patriarchs the root — the fathers of old who pleased God, those around Abraham, and as many as were holy before.

Their unbelieving descendants were cut off as fruitless branches, but the root remained, and onto it those from the nations were grafted (Romans 11:17–24). Irenaeus says the axe is the word of God, as Jeremiah also does: the word of the Lord is “like an axe cutting rock.” (Jeremiah 23:29) Why do I say you are about to fall away? For this very reason it had not even stood clear of the root.

CPG 5206 fr.24 on Mt 3, 10

23What does he mean by axe? Nothing but what is about to cut from the patriarchs those who boast in vain and have done no good. Those who come from such lines and prove fruitless must be cut out and thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10).

CPG 5206 fr.26 on Mt 3, 10

24The blessed Baptist joins the Spirit’s meaning with fire’s energy and meaning. He is not saying we will be baptized in fire itself through Christ, but marking the Spirit’s life-giving energy by the figure of fire (Matthew 3:11).

CPG 5206 fr.27 on Mt 3, 11

25He snatches the righteous into the city above, and the sinners into what is to be burned (Matthew 3:12).

CPG 5206 fr.28 on Mt 3, 12

26The ancients before Christ used to hold those they baptized in the water until they confessed their own sins. Christ, being sinless, came up at once. He was not baptized as one repenting, but as one who cleanses sins and sanctifies the waters (Matthew 3:16).

CPG 5206 fr.29 on Mt 3, 16

27He was led by the devil by permission (Matthew 4:1).

CPG 5206 fr.30 on Mt 4, 1

28Christ did not obey the devil so as to turn the stones into loaves, because that request was not for the devil’s benefit. He was not asking so that he might believe and become again the angel he once was — for he is unrepentant — but so that he might drag Christ into vain glory. Knowing this, the Savior did not obey him (Matthew 4:3).

CPG 5206 fr.31 on Mt 4, 3

29Wanting to drag Christ into the passion of love of glory, Satan did not say to him, “Eat,” (Matthew 4:3–4) but, “Make a sign.” He did this not to gain any help himself, but — as I said — to pull Christ into empty glory. Knowing that, Christ did not obey him.

With the same aim he also refused the Pharisees when they wanted to see a sign from him. They were not coming to him with an undoubting heart as to God; they were testing him as a man. So let this stand for the saints as an unfailing rule toward unbelievers or testers: do not love glory in anything useless.

CPG 5206 fr.32 on Mt 4, 3–4

30Jesus’ withdrawal is itself a teaching. The word clearly teaches that no one should come to the school unless he is first baptized, receives the Holy Spirit, fasts completely, and conquers every kind of temptation — as the type of the truth began in Christ and happens through Christ (Matthew 4:12).

CPG 5206 fr.33 on Mt 4, 12

31He did not withdraw through cowardice, but by what he did he teaches us to withdraw from persecutors. He withdraws from Judea to the nations, showing that he stands away from the Jews not only when they insult God himself, but also when they sin against the holy prophets.

Christ our Lord is a great light, and so is the brightness of the gospel proclamation — not the law, which had been compared to a lamp. That is why a lamp always burned in the tent: the law’s gleam was short, able to send its own light only as far as the Jewish boundaries. So the gentiles were in darkness, as those who did not even have lamp-light (Matthew 4:12–16) (Isaiah 9:1–2).

CPG 5206 fr.34 on Mt 4, 12–16

32In some copies “repent” (Matthew 4:17) is not present. If the Savior says the same things as John, one God sent them both. Perhaps John, as one preparing a people made ready for God, first says “repent,” while Jesus, receiving what was already prepared and no longer needing repentance, does not say “repent.”

He is not heralding against the law and the prophets. John having finished the old, he begins to herald the new, himself becoming its beginning. That is why “he began” is not written of John — for John was an end. One heralds in the desert, the other among the people.

The kingdom of the heavens is not in a place but in a disposition, for it is within us (Luke 17:21). See also: John heralds a kingdom of heavens that is near, while Christ is the king who will hand it over to God and Father.

CPG 5206 fr.36 on Mt 4, 17

34A peacemaker is the one who shows that the battle others see in the scriptures is agreement: old with new, legal with prophetic, gospel with gospel. Having imitated the Son of God, he will be called a son, receiving in deed the spirit of adoption (Matthew 5:9).

CPG 5206 fr.38 on Mt 5, 9

35Peacemakers are not only those who reconcile enemies, but also those who tame anger and base desire, living rightly in deed and word through unfailing faith — and those who re-teach unbelievers and lead them to faith, making God’s enemies friends to him.

Blessed are such people, as those who have imitated the Son of God. They will be called sons, sharing immortality, or they will reign with Christ at his second coming (Matthew 5:9).

CPG 5206 fr.39 on Mt 5, 9

36Peacemakers are also those who persuade unbelievers to believe, making God’s former enemies at peace with him. They are called peacemakers who persuade unbelievers to believe God (Matthew 5:9).

CPG 5206 fr.40 on Mt 5, 9

37He calls salt prudence, of which the apostolic word is full. Sown in our souls, it settles the word of wisdom in us, compared to salt because it is savory and graceful. Just as without salt neither bread nor relish is edible, so without apostolic understanding and teaching every soul is foolish, tasteless, and not pleasant to God (Matthew 5:13).

CPG 5206 fr.41 on Mt 5, 13

38“A city cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14): those established on the faith as on a high mountain ought not to speak the word secretly or with cowardice.

CPG 5206 fr.43 on Mt 5, 14

39Having become light by participation, when you live it is no longer you who live, but the light — Christ — lives in you, able through the word to illuminate the whole world (Matthew 5:14).

CPG 5206 fr.44 on Mt 5, 14

40In place of fleshly worship the Lord introduced worship “in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23) Perhaps what the Jews were not even doing fleshly, Christ’s disciples now do spiritually. That is why he says one iota or one horn will not pass from the law until all happens.

Clearly the Jews did not do all of it — or if they did, they stopped, no longer allowed to do those things, partly through fear of kings, and partly because the temple had been destroyed, the only place where the sacrifices had to be completed (John 4:23).

CPG 5206 fr.46 on Mt 5, 18

41Whoever sets aside the least of the commandments in the law will be called a God-fighter, he says. That is why he is also set aside by God, as one who opposes him and legislates against him (Matthew 5:19).

CPG 5206 fr.47 on Mt 5, 19

42Whoever sets aside one commandment of the law is set aside by God as a God-fighter and as one who legislates against God. And now from the gospel law he receives the punishment that the old law had not defined. So Christ says consistently that he did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17–19).

What was lacking there, he filled up here. The law said, “You shall rise before a gray head,” (Leviticus 19:32) and, “If you see your enemy’s beast fallen under its load, raise it with him.” (Exodus 23:5) If someone transgressed these, the law had defined no punishment. Filling that up, Christ says such a person will be set at nought in the kingdom of God. That is what he calls the least commandment: one on which no penalty was brought for transgression.

CPG 5206 fr.48 on Mt 5, 19

43That is also why Moses’ law accepts the split hoof: that through riddles it may teach us to journey by both — by word and by deed. I think the split hoof in the law signifies this: that we journey by word and deed, neither acting without reason nor holding a word apart from deed.

If something from such things wants to stand alone, let it be deed and not word. An unbridled word has often pushed those who have it over cliffs; deed never has (Leviticus 11:3).

CPG 5206 fr.49 on Mt 5, 19

44Saying, “If you offer your gift,” (Matthew 5:23–24) and what follows, makes this clear: God invented a way of salvation and an escape from punishment for sinners — a change of mind — and he says healing the one who was grieved will overturn punishment.

Since the one who does not love his brother does not love the Lord, he reasonably does not accept the one who approaches while his brother is in grief, as one not truly coming to him.

CPG 5206 fr.50 on Mt 5, 23

45Here the Savior teaches us how sinners escape punishment. Afterthought over our sins, appeal to the one we grieved, and asking forgiveness of the fault heal both the brother and God (Matthew 5:23–24).

CPG 5206 fr.51 on Mt 5, 23–24

46The quadrans means a fourth of the hin. In Hebrew speech it is two obols, which Luke clarifies by naming it a “lepton.” (Matthew 5:25–26)

So let us be freed from the enemy and avenger — that is, the devil — while we are still on this road, and from the passions of dishonor, which are our adversaries. No one else is our adversary unless we make ourselves so through these things, and unless conscience condemns us for despising its reminder.

Otherwise we will be handed over to God, the judge of all, convicted by conscience. He will hand us to the exactors — the punishing angels — and we will be charged penalties for every fault, small and great (Luke 12:59).

CPG 5206 fr.52 on Mt 5, 25–26

47Carefully, then, the Lord here names “adversary” (Matthew 5:25) the one who tries to take something that belongs to us. We are well disposed toward him if we keep the Lord’s command: “To the one who wants to go to law with you and take your tunic, give him the cloak as well,” (Matthew 5:40) and likewise in every such matter.

CPG 5206 fr.53 on Mt 5, 25

48What he means is this: be reasonable before judgment. If you are accused and jailed, you are not released until you pay down to an obol — that is what the quadrans shows.

He exhorts us to be reasonable and not to trust the lawsuit. If something goes against hope and the judge holds you, you will not be released until you pay the last obol. That is what is called a quadrans (Matthew 5:25–26).

CPG 5206 fr.54 on Mt 5, 25–26

49Suppose someone, he says, brings charges against you before one set in authority, then points you out to those who lead to court and has you hauled off. While you are still with him on the road — that is, before you reach the judge — give diligence: do not hesitate to use every effort to be freed from him.

If that does not happen, he will hand you to the judge. When you are found liable for the debts, you will be handed to the exactor — the collectors — and after shutting you up they will demand even “the last lepton.” (Matthew 5:25–26)

So all of us on earth are liable for faults. Each person’s adversary and accuser is Satan, for he is enemy and avenger. While we are still on the road — that is, before we reach the end of this life — let us be freed from him, loose the charges against ourselves, and seize the grace through Christ that frees us from every debt and sets us outside judgment, punishment, and fear.

Otherwise, still carrying the stain unwashed, we may be carried to the judge and handed to “the exactors,” the punishers, whose harshness no one escapes. Then penalties will be demanded for every fault, small and great. Far from this will be those who prove the time of Christ’s coming and have not ignored the mystery in him.

CPG 5206 fr.55 on Mt 5, 25–26

50Perhaps some have received such a gift that they do not desire. But Christ, having strengthened human nature, also commands what is beyond the law as now possible. Even if this was impossible for those before Christ, for the faithful cutting out desires is easy to accomplish (Matthew 5:28–30).

CPG 5206 fr.56 on Mt 5, 28–30

51The one who looks at a woman and desires is judged when her flesh appears beautiful to him for desire, and he sees her fleshly and sinfully. The one who looks at beauty through love of purity does not count the flesh beautiful, but the soul (Matthew 5:28).

CPG 5206 fr.57 on Mt 5, 28

52When he says, “If your eye causes you to stumble,” (Matthew 5:29–30) and what follows, by “eye” he means the thought of desire, which he says must be cut out.

CPG 5206 fr.58 on Mt 5, 29–30

53“Eye” (Matthew 5:29–30) and “hand” are understood as the friend. If you love someone as a right eye, and count him useful as a right hand, and he harms your soul, cut them off from you and separate far from them. When you do not save each other but rather both perish together, it is better that, once separated, at least one be saved.

CPG 5206 fr.59 on Mt 5, 29–30

54The one who casts out a chaste wife gives her leave to marry another — a form of adultery, as if the yoking were not loosed. For divorce papers do not loose marriage before God; improper deed does (Matthew 5:31–32).

CPG 5206 fr.61 on Mt 5, 31

55“You shall not swear falsely,” (Matthew 5:33–37) and what follows. If someone shamelessly lays an oath on the saints, instead of the oath they will have yes and no.

CPG 5206 fr.62 on Mt 5, 33–37

57Be ready, Christ says, not to receive but to give. Receiving separates us from God; giving joins us to him — especially when the one who asks is worthy and the request is just (Matthew 5:42).

CPG 5206 fr.66 on Mt 5, 42

58Let us love enemies not insofar as they are adulterers or murderers, but insofar as they are human. Sinning belongs to activity, not to essence; that is why sin is not God’s work (Matthew 5:44).

CPG 5206 fr.67 on Mt 5, 44

59Someone may ask how blessed Paul curses Alexander the smith. We say he cursed him not as a private enemy but as an enemy of the gospel, teaching that one must always war against God’s enemies.

Someone may bring forward blessed Paul cursing Alexander the smith to persuade us not to love enemies. To him we say: Paul curses not as against a private enemy, but as against an enemy of Christ and the gospel, teaching that one must always war against such people (Matthew 5:44) (2 Timothy 4:14).

CPG 5206 fr.68 on Mt 5, 44

60The one who does the good for the good itself has a boast of virtue above the world (Matthew 6:1).

CPG 5206 fr.69 on Mt 6, 1

61This is said by a metaphor from the trumpet in the camps. When they want to gather the army together, they sound the recall. The hypocrites do not want to gather anyone; they want to put on a show for the crowd (Matthew 6:2).

CPG 5206 fr.70 on Mt 6, 2

62That is why Christ urges that prayers be made briefly. He knows the mind is easily pulled aside and led astray by empty thoughts and cares, especially at the time of prayer. He commands us to ask God soberly and quickly for what we seek — not by announcing everything we happen to want. That is extreme mind-harm. God knows what we need even before we ask.

“Battology” (Matthew 6:7–8) means many words. It is named from a certain Greek, Battus, who made long, many-lined hymns to the idols, full of the same thing said over again. Battology is speech outside the good. The ancients call many-speaking battology from someone so named who made many-lined prayers to the idols and said the same words through one set of expressions after another.

CPG 5206 fr.71 on Mt 6, 7–8

64So one must not look gloomy, nor carry any charge of love of glory, but wash off what is dirt of the soul (Matthew 6:16).

CPG 5206 fr.74 on Mt 6, 16

65When fasting before people, one must guard the ruling faculty (Matthew 6:16–17).

CPG 5206 fr.75 on Mt 6, 16–17

66What a person has set before himself, that he also thinks and works at most readily, and strives to set it right. This is found more clearly of the heart when he leads the saying from intelligible things out to sensible ones (Matthew 6:21).

CPG 5206 fr.76 on Mt 6, 21

67The un-money-loving manner is a good master; the one who loves money is a base one. So one must cling to the one. It is not possible to please both, for they are different and opposite habits (Matthew 6:24).

CPG 5206 fr.79 on Mt 6, 24

68Since soul and body are more honorable than foods and garments, one must also despise the lesser things and care for the more honorable — I mean soul and body (Matthew 6:25).

CPG 5206 fr.80 on Mt 6, 25

69The soul is more honorable than the body’s essence, as God’s image and inbreathing. The body is its instrument and co-worker toward what is finest. So we must take thought for both body and soul together — for the body only so far as is enough for it and does not hinder the soul.

To the soul one must always give what is its own, care for it in every way, and draw it up through the virtues toward its creative cause (Matthew 6:25).

CPG 5206 fr.81 on Mt 6, 25

70To those who seek the things of the soul God also gives what suits the bodies, so that we, not caring about such things more than we must, will not be hindered toward what is finest (Matthew 6:33).

CPG 5206 fr.82 on Mt 6, 33

71Those being trained toward piety put the bridle of good thought on the tongue, allowing it to speak only what does no harm. Teaching us this, one of the wise said: “Child, if you have a word of understanding, answer; if not, let a hand be on your mouth.” (Sirach 5:12) For “death and life are in the hand of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21) — that is, in its power — “and those who master it will eat its fruits.”

And since mastering the tongue is not very easy, the psalmist also teaches us from above: “Set a guard, Lord, on my mouth.” (Psalm 141:3) So let us not speak against one another or condemn the brothers (Matthew 7:1–2). The one steered by understanding does not look at others’ sins, but gazing at his own evils drops a good tear over them, that he may receive forgiveness from God.

It is impossible for humans, weak as we are, not to fall into a few absurdities at all. Not falling at all belongs by nature to God alone. We who are in sins must not delight in others’ evils, but take thought how we ourselves may get outside what is base.

CPG 5206 fr.83 on Mt 7, 2

72“First cast the beam out of your eye” (Matthew 7:3–5) — that is, show yourself clean of the great sins, and then you will be a counselor to the one who errs a little. If you do not cast out the beam, yet condemn the one who has the speck, you will reasonably hear the apostolic word: “You who say not to commit adultery, commit adultery” (Romans 2:21–22); “you who say not to steal, steal.”

So the wise will be a teacher for himself and will not condemn another. The law through Moses also commands this: “Attend to yourself.” “To yourself,” he says, not to another. “Attend” means look carefully at what concerns you. The understanding person will thus train himself, not looking at others’ faults but examining his own and repenting over them.

But some do not see their own slips, and laugh broadly at others’ stumbles — lying on the ground while mocking those who stand, smeared with mire from feet to head while condemning those who have little dirt. They sometimes say of someone, “So-and-so is hard, inhuman, greedy for shameful gain, money-loving, raw, senseless,” (Luke 18:9–14) and while hanging these titles on others they do not notice they are painting their own manner. How much damage it is to condemn others we have learned through the Pharisee who despised the tax collector. Having removed all this through this good legislation, he added another command again.

CPG 5206 fr.84 on Mt 7, 5

73The beginning of virtue is to pray that the way of truth be made known to someone. The second step is to seek how one must travel that way. The third is, having taken hold of virtue, to knock to Christ, that he may open the door, free him from the narrow and compressed way, and lead him into the spacious work of knowledge. All this one receives through petition from God and toward God.

Perhaps he also hinted at asking with practice when he said “knock.” (Matthew 7:7) One knocks with the right hand, and the right hand is a symbol of good practice. And if you do not receive at once, do not despair even so — that is why he said “knock.”

CPG 5206 fr.85 on Mt 7, 7

74He calls “good gifts” (Matthew 7:11) the spiritual gifts. Luke said “Holy Spirit” (Luke 11:13) instead of “goods,” and there is no difference: the Holy Spirit is what is good by nature. That is why he also gives goods to those who share in him.

But for those who are very wicked, because they sin without yielding, badness becomes in a way a nature for them — as with Satan and the demons. One may even call these bad by nature, though they were not created bad by nature, but hardened from self-chosen badness.

CPG 5206 fr.86 on Mt 7, 11

75The word is against those who at the beginning believed rightly and carefully worked virtue — so as even to do signs, cast out demons, and prophesy — but later turned to baseness by willing choice and wicked eagerness.

When he says, “I never knew you,” (Matthew 7:22–23) he places the one who lived virtuously at the start but was condemned at the end on a level with those never known at all. God says he knows those he loves, and he loves those who believe in him wholly and do what is pleasing to him.

CPG 5206 fr.88 on Mt 7, 22–23

76The hearer of the law understood spiritually, who is not also a doer, is compared to a house built on sand. In a time of trial it falls and is buried when the spirits of wickedness blow, when troubled waters enter as far as the soul, and when the muddy torrent of their lawlessness disturbs it and shakes the danger concerning the last things.

He well said “I will liken him” (Matthew 7:24–27) of the prudent man, but “he will be likened” of the foolish. The worker of virtue is altogether “strong in the Christ who empowers him,” (Philippians 4:13) from whom comes every setting-right for humans, from whom come wisdom and understanding and likeness toward the good. The base person does not have God as cause of his badness and folly; he likens himself to the senseless, having stood away from what is according to nature and come to be in what is against nature.

CPG 5206 fr.89 on Mt 7, 24–26

77By the touch he accomplished the cleansing, making clear that his holy flesh is also needed for sanctification. The Spirit cleanses; communion with the body produces sanctification. Touching the leper, the Savior healed him, showing that the Spirit in him heals diseases, while the body, by contact, grants sanctification (Matthew 8:3).

CPG 5206 fr.92 on Mt 8, 3

78What was the gift the leper had to bring under the law? “Two little birds.” The priest slaughtered one “over living water,” took “cedar wood, twisted scarlet, and hyssop,” (Leviticus 14:4–7) dipped the living bird “in the blood of the slaughtered bird over living water,” and anointed the right ear, hand, and foot of the leper being cleansed. The living bird he sent away outside the city “into the open country.”

Watch how through these things Christ is painted for us in full: living bird — the living and heavenly Word; slaughtered blood — the Lord’s precious blood in his own body; incorruptible cedar — incorruptible flesh that “did not see corruption” (Acts 2:31); hyssop — the Spirit’s fervor; scarlet — confession of the blood-covenant; living water — baptism’s life-giving grace; sending outside the city — departure from the world and ascent into the heavens; right anointings — that we must become people of contemplation, practice, and journey in the things of God.

CPG 5206 fr.93 on Mt 8, 4

79Why did they not bring them by day? Was it caution toward the scribes and Pharisees, or shame again at their weaknesses, as with Nicodemus — or because the sick had no one to bring them to Jesus (Matthew 8:16)?

CPG 5206 fr.95 on Mt 8, 16

80Christ withdrew from the crowds so that no one would think him applause-loving, glad of praise from the many; so that the Pharisees would not be angered at him (for it distressed them greatly that many followed him); and so that he might shine his own saving light on the nearby cities (Matthew 8:18).

CPG 5206 fr.96 on Mt 8, 18

81Jesus commands only the disciples to go across, so that he may not seem hindered by the crowds pressing him from letting the disciples hear the lessons that fit them, and so that God’s mysteries — spoken “in parables to the crowds” (Matthew 8:18–22) — may be revealed to them more genuinely.

Since they left everything in hand and followed him alone for love of learning, he commands them to cross from the temporary to the eternal, from the earthly to the heavenly, from the fleshly to the spiritual.

CPG 5206 fr.97 on Mt 8, 18–22

83To say “save” (Matthew 8:25) carries praise of faith; to say “we are perishing” charges little faith in those who expect danger while Christ sails with them. They are not wholly unbelieving, but little-faith — those who did not take courage in dangers while Christ was with them.

CPG 5206 fr.99 on Mt 8, 25

84See little faith together with faith. They believe he can save, yet as little-faith people they say, “Save — we are perishing.” (Matthew 8:25–26) It was never possible to perish while the One who can do all things was with them.

CPG 5206 fr.100 on Mt 8, 25–26

85The divine nature of the Only-Begotten was burning down the demons with unspeakable fire, just as he was also doing other things invisibly — shutting the wilder demons into paths and taking down the devil’s tyranny.

“You have come before the time,” (Matthew 8:29) they say. They knew in the Word that Christ was also going to come and that he himself has them to judge. If they also said “before the time” as a slander on the timing of the incarnation, as if it had happened out of season, it is no wonder that, being wicked, they dare to say even this.

And yet, knowing they will be punished, they speak as if overlooking him: “What to us and to you?” For the Judge has an account with us from the time we transgressed his commandments.

CPG 5206 fr.101 on Mt 8, 29

86The Lord did not look at the faith of the paralyzed man, but at the faith of those who brought him. There are times when one person is healed through another’s faith, and the holy writing of the Gospels is full of such cases. Seeing their faith, he does not show their labor vain, but says “child” (Matthew 9:2) — either to him as one who also believed, or according to the word of creation.

He called the paralytic “child” by the word of creation, or as one who had believed in him and known him as Lord and Creator.

CPG 5206 fr.102 on Mt 9, 2

87The word went out and the wonder followed. Why then did he also say that the Son of Man forgives sins while a God-sign was being done? To show that he brought the authority of divinity down into human nature through the indivisible union with it.

“For if I also became man,” he says, “being God the Word, and through the economy I live and move about on earth, still I accomplish wonders beyond speech and grant forgiveness of sins. I did not take away any property of divinity or lessen it by becoming, unchangeably and truly, Son of Man according to flesh on earth.” (Matthew 9:3–7)

And a little later: he says “on earth” economically, to show that even having become man and appeared on earth he was God by nature. He commanded the paralytic to carry the bed and go home, so that through him he might also confirm to those absent what had happened to him.

CPG 5206 fr.103 on Mt 9, 3–7

88This too is full of a God-sign: that by word alone such a man was turned toward so great a virtue. Calling Matthew, he shows that even if no one comes to him “unless the Father draws him,” (John 6:44) still the drawing happens through Christ.

So the Savior, unashamed, called a tax collector into discipleship and came into his house, where nothing else was good except the householder’s change. A large crowd of tax collectors were reclining with Jesus. The Savior is not indignant and does not take what happens as an insult to him; as master of nature he arrives at the feast, eats and drinks, showing the truth of the body and blessing the timely use of foods.

Pharisees and scribes were also present — not to learn, but to meddle in what was happening. They see the tax collectors reclining with him, call the disciples, and blame what is going on. Jesus hears and says to them: “You also need a physician. If you were not ill, you would not blame the physician’s love of humankind. I know they are tax collectors; I know their soul’s diseases; I know they are in a bad way. That is why I have come to them: to heal their sick souls.” (Matthew 9:9–13)

The reason the Pharisees seize on the Savior for eating with sinners is that there was a law “to distinguish between holy and profane.” (Leviticus 10:10) They did not know that Christ was giving philanthropic grace above the legal use: the one cast out the evil; the other changed it. So he showed that he is present not as judge but as physician, and does what belongs to the art by being with those who also need healing.

CPG 5206 fr.104 on Mt 9, 9–13

89Yet the old law forbade the holy to glue themselves to the profane, lest their mind slip — not the opposite: if a profane person runs toward a holy one, one must not turn him away, according to “You shall not abhor an Edomite or an Egyptian.” (Deuteronomy 23:7)

But of Christ, who is above every wickedness and passion, one must think no such thing. He wants faith that justifies the human being, not the law in letters that commands sacrifices through bloods — which he makes clear by adding also “knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings,” for “mercy” (Hosea 6:6) is the gospel word. So we are justified from faith freely, without works of law. And he calls not those who are near, but those who have stood far off.

CPG 5206 fr.105 on Mt 9, 11–13

90The Pharisees, resembling a torn garment or an old wineskin, cannot receive the youthful teaching that annuls the bodily things of the law. He says the tear is worse because those who hear the gospel and do not accept it are punished more than those who never heard.

And since John’s disciples asked the Lord two things — why we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not — to them he spoke the parable of the bridegroom, and to the Pharisees the one about the wineskins (Matthew 9:14–17).

CPG 5206 fr.106 on Mt 9, 14–17

91Perceiving the woman with the hemorrhage, Christ did not deem her unworthy, but healed her and called her daughter as one faithful — and at the same time showing that with God no one who has an involuntary disease is unclean (Matthew 9:20–22).

CPG 5206 fr.107 on Mt 9, 20

92He shows that with God no one who has an involuntary disease is unclean. That is why the Lord also calls the woman with the hemorrhage near: to lead the typological law over into spiritual contemplation (Matthew 9:20–22).

CPG 5206 fr.108 on Mt 9, 20

93It is a custom among people to mourn unmarried girls who die when they are at the age for marriage, with symbolic wedding rites. That is why flute-players were inside — even if the Jews were then doing this against the Jewish command (Matthew 9:23).

CPG 5206 fr.109 on Mt 9, 23

94He calls the disciples workers — few though they were — whom he sent into all the world under heaven (Matthew 9:38).

CPG 5206 fr.111 on Mt 9, 38

95The law also prefigured these twelve disciples (Matthew 10:2), and the prophets proclaimed them beforehand. It is written in the Mosaic book: “Take fine flour and make it into twelve loaves, and set them on the pure table before the Lord, and set frankincense and salt on them.” (Leviticus 24:5–7) For the bread that came down from heaven “and gives life to the world” (John 6:33–35) is Christ himself; and by imitation of him the blessed disciples too are called breads. Having become sharers in the one who nourishes us unto eternal life, they also nourish, through their own writings, those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness.” (Matthew 5:6)

Just as the Savior, being “the true light,” named them light (“You are the light of the world”), (Matthew 5:13–14) so he himself, being “the bread of life,” also granted the disciples to be understood in the rank of the breads. See the skill of the law: “You shall set frankincense and salt on the breads.” Frankincense is a symbol of fragrance; salt, of mind and understanding. Both were present in the highest degree in the holy apostles. Their life was fragrant — they even said, “We are the fragrance of Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:15) to Christ — and they were also all-understanding. That is why they also heard, “You are the salt of the earth.”

I hear the prophet David singing about them: “There Benjamin the younger in ecstasy, rulers of Judah their leaders, rulers of Zebulun, rulers of Naphtali.” (Psalm 68:27) For the divine disciples were chosen from almost every tribe of Israel and became worldwide luminaries holding a word of life — men who had been craftsmen, seafarers, and fishers, without a stock of polished words, “unlearned in speech” yet rich “in knowledge.”

God also showed these through Jeremiah’s voice, saying about Satan: “Woe to him who multiplies for himself what is not his, for suddenly those who bite him will rise, and your plotters will wake, and you will be plunder for them.” For Satan gathered all people on earth who were not his and made them his own worshipers; but those who plunder his vessels rose up. The net of the apostolic teaching caught all who had gone astray, and they brought the world under heaven near to God.

CPG 5206 fr.112 on Mt 10, 2

96First one must preach to the Jews. The promises had been made to them, that from them Christ was going to appear according to the flesh; and when they disobeyed, then one must go to the nations. He joins the Samaritans to those from the nations, since they too were from the nations by race — Babylonians who settled Judea.

It is just that the word be preached to the Jews first, since the promises were first toward them, and since from them Christ appeared according to the flesh. But when they disobeyed, it was necessary to go to the nations. He joins the Samaritans to those from the nations as themselves also being from the nations and having settled Judea (Matthew 10:5–6).

CPG 5206 fr.113 on Mt 10, 5–6

97By “kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 10:7) he means the grace that comes through faith — the adoption through the Spirit that unites the human being to God.

CPG 5206 fr.114 on Mt 10, 7

98The saying forbids every possession to excess — from gold down to a staff — as the greatest hindrance to virtue and piety. It does not forbid necessary food. If it were possible for us to live without food, he would have forbidden that too (Matthew 10:9–10).

CPG 5206 fr.115 on Mt 10, 9

99He does not want them to change from place to place and house to house, lest grief come to the first host, and lest they take on a suspicion of gluttony and easiness. The dust shaken from their feet is proof of a journey toward them that gained nothing, and of the toils they endured for them. They will be punished equally with the people of Sodom (Genesis 19): those dishonored the angels; these, the apostles (Matthew 10:11–15).

CPG 5206 fr.116 on Mt 10, 11–15

101“It is given,” (Matthew 10:19) he says — a word is given to some when it is useful to make a defense, so that through the confession some may be helped and the church strengthened.

CPG 5206 fr.118 on Mt 10, 19

102In that very hour he promised to give the grace of debate, so that the Spirit’s gift might be shown. If he had given it before the time of trial, the matter would have been thought a thing of human nature and skill. They were not going to be hated by absolutely everyone, but by many — especially at that time. So from the greater part he said “by all,” (Matthew 10:19–22) since those who received the word loved them.

CPG 5206 fr.119 on Mt 10, 19–22

103He does not want them to be cowardly — rather the opposite: not, out of longing for the things hoped for, to hand themselves over ready to death and so harm those who are about to be helped by the preaching.

He urges the disciples to flee from this city to another, and from that to another. He says this not teaching them to fear, but not to throw themselves into dangers, die lightly, and harm those who are about to be helped through the preaching (Matthew 10:23).

CPG 5206 fr.120 on Mt 10, 23

104By “cities of Israel” (Matthew 10:23) he also means the assemblies of the faithful, which last until the consummation of the age. Teachers and learners do not cease until the Lord’s second appearing. And the disciples and evangelists seem to live until then, since from their writings all teach.

CPG 5206 fr.121 on Mt 10, 23

105He teaches them to bear every kind of abuse patiently, and not to think themselves above the Master (Matthew 10:25).

CPG 5206 fr.122 on Mt 10, 25

106In the time of judgment everything is made plain. He does not attend to abuses, but to the hearts (Matthew 10:26).

CPG 5206 fr.123 on Mt 10, 26

108The one who confesses that Christ is God, having humbled himself, will have Christ confessing about him to the Father that he is a genuine servant (Matthew 10:32).

CPG 5206 fr.125 on Mt 10, 32

109One must not keep friendship with the enemies of God and friends of Satan (Matthew 10:34–35).

CPG 5206 fr.126 on Mt 10, 34–35

110“The one who loves this temporary life here,” (Matthew 10:37–39) he says, “and prefers it to me ‘is not worthy of me.’ But the one who neglects this temporary life here and counts me and my commandments as much will find eternal life.”

CPG 5206 fr.127 on Mt 10, 39

111Here he calls “loss of soul,” (Matthew 10:39) by a stretched use of the word, separation from the body. The one who “finds” his soul — that is, who prefers this temporary life here and seems to gain it — endures something worse than death: he is sent into undying punishment and death.

CPG 5206 fr.128 on Mt 10, 39

112“The one who receives you,” he says, “who preach the truth, receives that divinity itself — that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For this is what he means: the one who receives you receives me, and the one who receives me receives the Father himself.” (Matthew 10:40)

CPG 5206 fr.129 on Mt 10, 40

113He said this so that no one would plead poverty as an excuse, wanting to give a reward to those who receive them (Matthew 10:40–42).

CPG 5206 fr.130 on Mt 10, 40–42

114John does not ask because he does not know him to be the Christ, or because he was about to go down into Hades, as some say — for he knew his passion. That is why he also named him Lamb. He asks so that, while he himself is still alive, he may persuade them, and they may not attach themselves to another teacher after his death (Matthew 11:3).

CPG 5206 fr.132 on Mt 11, 3

115He prepared the Lord’s way — that is, he made people ready to receive God’s legislation. He also showed this from here — from himself he then brings a verdict, saying (Matthew 11:10)…

CPG 5206 fr.133 on Mt 11, 10

116He confirms what concerns John with an oath. He said “has been raised” because of John’s great and lofty worth, as of a conspicuous king or a thriving plant — for he also saw the one prophesied. And see how he confirms what concerns John with an oath: “Amen,” he says, making it known to all. “I say that no one greater than he has been raised.” (Matthew 11:11) He said “has been raised” as about some conspicuous king, or as about a plant grown very tall and run up into height by the virtues.

CPG 5206 fr.134 on Mt 11, 11

117Together with the others who came before him, he is born of a woman (Matthew 11:11). But those who have accepted the faith are no longer called born of women. As the most wise evangelist says, “As many as received him, he gave them authority to become children of God, who were born not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God.” (John 1:12–13) For we were reborn into God’s adoption not from corruptible seed, but through a living and abiding word. So those born not from corruptible seed but rather from God are better than everyone born of a woman.

John was born of a woman; but those who accepted the faith are no longer called born of women — “but they were born of God.” When Christ rose again after spoiling Hades, then the Spirit of adoption is given. Blessed John departed before the Spirit was given. So even if we are lesser than those who accomplished righteousness under the law, we have still come into greater things through Christ.

CPG 5206 fr.136 on Mt 11, 11

118He calls greater than John the believer reborn through the washing — a state he names “kingdom of heaven,” (Matthew 11:11) since the kingdom of heaven is given to the faithful, which the Baptist had not yet attained. Even the one only baptized, if he does not yet have a virtuous life, is above John. So the saying is praise of holy baptism.

CPG 5206 fr.137 on Mt 11, 11

119Since the kingdom of heaven is faith in Christ, it began from John’s preaching, who was pointing out the one being preached as leading through baptism into the kingdom. Those who force their way into the kingdom of heaven are the ones who renounce the old, empty custom of idolatry, and those who do not cling to the letter but are drawn over, as by a kind of force, through faith in Christ.

By saying the kingdom is seized by forcers he also hints at the malice of the Jews, who not only did not believe in Christ but also hindered others by threats and blows. Those who want to share the kingdom of heaven through faith in Christ had to prove firm in mind, despising the Jews’ threats. And the believer too, whenever he resists bodily and soul passions vigorously in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, is a God-loving forcer. “Until now” (Matthew 11:12) means until the ongoing time.

CPG 5206 fr.138 on Mt 11, 12

120Faith in Christ through baptism is the kingdom of God, which began from the preaching of John, who pointed out Christ. The ones who force are those who renounce idolatry and the old custom (Matthew 11:12).

CPG 5206 fr.139 on Mt 11, 12

121Just as when some children dance and others mourn, their will does not settle into one thing (for both blame companions who do not agree with them), something like that happened to the Jews: they accepted neither John’s gloom nor Christ’s ease, and were helped by neither manner (Matthew 11:16–17).

CPG 5206 fr.142 on Mt 11, 16–17

122John was putting the passions of the flesh to death through an ascetic life; Jesus, as God, was putting them to death by an authoritative law, not helped by ascetic toils. John, “preaching a baptism of repentance,” (Matthew 11:18–19) was a type of gloom for those who ought to mourn for that; the Lord, “preaching the kingdom of heaven,” was showing brightness in himself, through which he now sketches for the faithful the life to come and toilless joy.

CPG 5206 fr.143 on Mt 11, 18–19

123It was fitting for John, as a household servant, to put the flesh’s passions to death through extreme austerity; but for Christ, as free, to put to death the flesh’s movements and its innate law by the power of divinity with authority — not to be helped into this by ascetic toils. Still, John, “preaching a baptism of repentance,” (Matthew 11:18–19) offered himself as a type to those who ought to mourn; the Lord, “preaching the kingdom of heaven,” reasonably showed ease and brightness in himself, through which he was sketching for the faithful inexpressible joy and toilless life. For the flute is the sweetness of the kingdom of heaven; the dirge is the pains of Gehenna.

CPG 5206 fr.144 on Mt 11, 18–19

125Knowledge of God comes under different aspects: as Creator, by which he created; as Judge, by which he judged — and the rest. All these become clear to anyone to whom the Son reveals them, and only if that person is God’s Son in no other sense. So the one who has received authority to become a child, when he has it and has not yet come to know, does not yet have the Father; but when he becomes such, once Jesus has revealed it, he will know as a brother (Matthew 11:27).

CPG 5206 fr.146 on Mt 11, 27

126Just as the Father is said to have made all things, though he makes all things through the Son, so he is also said to hand all things over to the Son while himself having power, ruling the universe through him, and being with him. And even if, as man, he is said economically to receive authority — since human nature is not of itself master — that too is not unreasonable (Matthew 11:27).

CPG 5206 fr.147 on Mt 11, 27

127The one who sees the Son, who has the Father’s image in himself, sees the Father himself. He reveals the Father as himself appearing to the Father in the prototype, while again showing the archetype under his own form. These things must be thought of in a way worthy of God.

Since he said, “All things have been handed over to me,” (Matthew 11:27) so that he would not seem to be of another kind and lesser beside the Father, he added this to show that his own nature is ineffable and incomprehensible, like the Father’s. For only the divine nature of the Trinity knows itself. The Father alone knows the Son, his own fruit of his nature; the divine Offspring alone knows the One from whom he was born; the Holy Spirit alone knows “the depths of God,” (1 Corinthians 2:10) that is, the thoughts of the Father and of the Son.

CPG 5206 fr.148 on Mt 11, 27

128So the one who has heard the call, drawn near, and clung to the One who commanded rests. “Stand away,” he says, “from a sin-loving mind and love of the flesh, turn to deeds worthy of praise, and draw near to me, so that you may become ‘sharers in the divine nature’ and partakers of the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:4) He calls all, not only those from Israel, as Creator and Lord of all.

By “those who labor” he means the Jews, who cannot bear the yoke of the law; by “those who are burdened,” the idolaters, weighed down by the devil and heavy with a mass of sins. “So you, Jews,” he says, “lean toward the truth, recognize me as your guardian and master, and take the gain of approaching near. For I release you from slavery under the law, in which you endure much toil — unable to finish it easily, and preparing for yourselves the greatest ‘burden’ of sins, the more you must keep when living in line with the law.” (Matthew 11:28)

CPG 5206 fr.149 on Mt 11, 28

129Christ’s yoke is light, because he does not punish us as the law does, demanding what is sinless and free of passion. In simple words he holds out the promise and the pattern of virtue (Matthew 11:30).

CPG 5206 fr.150 on Mt 11, 30

130Where nothing great or noble is happening, they keep quiet; but where they see some being saved, they are more burdensome than anyone. So they are enemies of human salvation and ignorant of the sacred writings. For if the new covenant proclaimed through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31) is other than the first, one must certainly use not the old laws but the new.

But the Pharisees, unwilling to see this, lie in wait for the holy apostles and say about them to Christ: “Look, we see those you train opposing the legal commands. The law orders rest on the Sabbath and touching no labor at all, yet the disciples rub ears of grain with their hands.” (Matthew 12:1–2) But tell me yourself, Pharisee: when you set your own Sabbath table, do you not break the bread? Why then blame others? And how does the Savior defend them?

CPG 5206 fr.152 on Mt 12, 1–2

131Being impious, the Pharisees were pretending piety in order to destroy the pious. That is why they also tried to slander Christ and his disciples when they saw them shining with wonders (Matthew 12:9–14).

CPG 5206 fr.153 on Mt 12, 9–

132“Since,” he says, “I do not cast out the demons by the ruler of the demons — as he showed by saying that every kingdom divided against itself is dissolved and destroyed — then I cast them out by the power of the Spirit, and for that reason the kingdom of God has drawn near.” (Matthew 12:24–28)

CPG 5206 fr.154 on Mt 12, 23–28

133He calls the devil “strong” (Matthew 12:29) not as if he were this by nature, but to show the tyranny he gained from our slackness. “I plunder him,” not letting him keep humans as worshipers, but persuading them to come to the knowledge of God. How then will he become my ally against himself?

CPG 5206 fr.155 on Mt 12, 29

134When someone sinned against a human being, it was possible to beseech God for him; but when humans blasphemed against God, it was not allowed to beseech for them. Yet since the Son of God was seen as man — even though he was God by nature — and was not very clearly recognized by the senseless, he sometimes grants forgiveness to those who sin against him from ignorance; but to those who sin against the Spirit he says perpetual punishment is brought (Matthew 12:31–32).

CPG 5206 fr.156 on Mt 12, 31–32

136When he says “treasure,” he points to the mass of what lies in the soul. And so that some may not say humans are wicked by nature, he showed this in the Pharisees’ case: that the same one person can sometimes become good and sometimes wicked, saying, “The good person speaks from the overflow of his heart,” (Matthew 12:34–35) and likewise the wicked.

CPG 5206 fr.158 on Mt 12, 34–35

138“Since the signs that have happened,” (Matthew 12:38) they say, “were of demons, who produce appearances only on earth, you too make a sign from heaven by your own power.” (Mark 8:11) Another evangelist said clearly that they were asking him to make a sign “from heaven,” which it was fitting for divine power to do. They said this as if he could not do anything God-befitting, blind in mind — for opening blind eyes, raising the dead, and rebuking sea and winds belong to God-befitting authority alone.

CPG 5206 fr.160 on Mt 12, 38

139They are “wicked” (Matthew 12:39) as spending the excellence of the mind not on love of God, but on doing and saying something against God. He called them an “adulteress,” showing both the earlier and the present unbelief. For they neither believed the Father nor stood with Christ himself, who wedded humanity and betrothed it according to humanity through what was said: “And I will betroth you to myself forever.” (Hosea 2:19) They glued themselves to Satan, naming the manner of intelligible fornication. He shows himself again to the Father — the sign of Jonah the prophet.

CPG 5206 fr.161 on Mt 12, 39

141And it is quite fitting. Once someone has been freed from evils and is not made prudent, he will suffer things much harder than before. That is why he said the spirit “finds no rest” (Matthew 12:43–45): to show that the demons’ plot will certainly and of necessity seize such a person. Two things ought to have made them prudent — having suffered earlier, and having been released. There is even a third: the threat of suffering worse. Yet by none of these did they become better.

The wicked spirit lived in them even when they were slaves in Egypt and, living by Egyptian customs and laws, were full of every uncleanness. When they were ransomed through Moses and received the law as a guide calling them toward the light of true knowledge of God, the profane and unclean spirit was driven out. But because they have not believed in Christ, the demon settled in them again. It found their heart bare and idle of every piety, as if swept clean, and dwelt in them. Just as the Holy Spirit, when it sees a human heart idle of every uncleanness, lodges and dwells and rests in it, so the unclean spirit loves to inhabit the souls of the lawless.

CPG 5206 fr.163 on Mt 12, 43–45

142Christ speaks in parables (Matthew 13:3) also to show through them that he himself is the one prophesied, of whom David said, “I will open my mouth in parables,” (Psalm 78:2) and again, “And the man will be one who hides his words and will be hidden as from rushing water.”

CPG 5206 fr.164 on Mt 13, 3

143In the gentle and eager to learn who already have knowledge, the divine light will settle even more richly than before. But in those who had a spark of intelligible light and turned it into senseless “knowledge,” even the small brightness they have will be quenched — which is what the Jews suffered by not believing in Christ. They had a small leading light from the law guiding them toward knowledge of God; but because they acted impiously toward Christ, they were deprived of that too.

The Lord makes clearer what he meant by “to the one who has it will be given, and from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken,” (Matthew 13:12–13) by adding: “For this reason I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor understand.”

In teachable people well disposed to receive divine words, the Holy Spirit will settle, increasing the gifts in them. But in those who possessed a spark of light and neglected it, even the least they once had will wholly be quenched and taken from them. That is what the Jews suffered: they received light from the law and did not multiply it; and when the truth came, growing dull-eyed toward it, they were stripped of what they had possessed.

CPG 5206 fr.165 on Mt 13, 12–13

144Saying “lest they turn and I heal them” (Matthew 13:15) shows intensified stubbornness — yet it is also the speech of one drawing and stirring them. He shows that if they turn, he heals them. He speaks this way for their salvation. He could have said nothing at all and kept silent; yet he does everything not for his own glory, but for their salvation.

CPG 5206 fr.166 on Mt 13, 15

145So he calls them blessed as ones who have heard the Son’s voice and been counted worthy of his sight — through whom and in whom they were seeing the Father and God’s nature intelligibly — the very things the saints of old were counted worthy of, and in which they had the fullest joy in goods (Matthew 13:16).

CPG 5206 fr.167 on Mt 13, 16

146Let us see, in concrete terms, what it is to be “on the road.” (Matthew 13:19–22) Every road is somehow hard and useless, because it lies under everyone’s feet; none of the seed is heaped into it, but lies on the surface, ready for any birds that want to snatch it. So those who have a hard, packed mind in themselves do not receive the divine seed, but have become a road trampled by unclean spirits — for these are “the birds of the heaven.” By heaven here we mean the air, in which the spirits of wickedness move, by whom the good seed is also snatched and destroyed.

And who are those on the rock? Some hold the faith in themselves without investigation and do not let the mind down into testing the mystery. These have a light, rootless piety toward God. If Christian affairs are carried with a fair wind and no trial storms them, they scarcely keep the faith in themselves then; but when persecution disturbs them, they have a soul unwilling to fight.

CPG 5206 fr.168 on Mt 13, 19–22

147Matthew wrote “the evil one,” Mark “Satan,” Luke “the devil.” “Beside the road” is not the same as “in the road,” and we need the difference because of “I am the road” (John 14:6); yet all three wrote “beside the road.” Most aptly Matthew and Mark say the word was sown “on the rocky places,” not on rock. Of all that is beside the road it is said that they do not understand; but of the good soil, “this is the one who hears the word and understands.” (Matthew 13:19–23) Perhaps, then, those on the rocky places and those among the thorns stand between the non-understanding and the understanding.

And it urges care for understanding. If the seed of the one who understands is not snatched, one must take up understanding and cover the seed in the earth — memory — so that it may take root and, not being found bare, may not be snatched by the spirits of wickedness.

CPG 5206 fr.169 on Mt 13, 19–23

148That the call through Christ has become worldwide, he himself will confirm by saying clearly that the net of the gospel preachings gathers from every race. Just as those skilled in fishing, whose craft is the sea’s work, let down the net without distinguishing, and whatever is caught in the meshes they wholly and altogether draw to land, so also the power of the preaching and the marvelous, intricate teaching of the sacred lessons — which the good fishermen, the apostles, wove — draws from every race and gathers toward God.

It gathers until a time that will be fulfilled at the consummation, when the angels of God appointed for this, having drawn those netted out of this life, will make the distinction of all, separating the wicked from the midst of the righteous (Matthew 13:49–50).

CPG 5206 fr.171 on Mt 13, 49–50

149A “scribe” (Matthew 13:52) is the one who, through persistent reading of the scriptures of both the old and the new, has stored up a treasure of knowledge for himself. That is why he blesses those who have brought together in themselves both legal and gospel training, so as to bring out from the treasure things new and old. He also likens these to a scribe, just as elsewhere he says, “I send you wise men and scribes.” See how he does not cast out the old — through which the soul is adorned.

CPG 5206 fr.172 on Mt 13, 52

151Let us examine carefully what “dismiss them” (Matthew 14:15) means. Some of those following Christ were asking to be released from the wicked spirits holding them; others were seeking the putting away of other illnesses. So the disciples, knowing that with a mere nod he accomplishes what the suffering desire, say “dismiss them” — not themselves growing weary as if the time had passed, but holding to love for the crowds, already practicing pastoral skill, as it were, and beginning to care for peoples.

CPG 5206 fr.175 on Mt 14, 15

152Fulfilling the mystery of the economy, the Savior looks up to heaven. For though God by nature, he took a slave’s form (Philippians 2:7), and through the disciples’ hands he gives the foods to the crowds (Matthew 14:19), hinting at the holy ones’ nearness to God. That is why those who are not such stand outside him.

CPG 5206 fr.176 on Mt 14, 19

153So that by every manner he may be recognized as God by nature, he multiplies the little, and looks into heaven as if asking the blessing from above. He was also doing this economically for our sake. For he himself is the one who fills all things — the blessing from above and from the Father. But so that we may learn, when beginning a table and about to break bread, that we ought to set them in upturned hands, as it were, and bring down the blessing from above upon them, he has become for us economically the beginning and type and way of the deed (Matthew 14:19).

CPG 5206 fr.177 on Mt 14, 19

154That fragments of the loaves abounded after a not small multitude of men had been satisfied would be clear assurance that hospitality’s work has rich repayment from God. One can see the new wonders agreeing with the more ancient, workings of one and the same power. He rained the manna in the desert for those from Israel (Exodus 16); and look — again in the desert he has supplied abundantly to those in need of food, as if sending it down from heaven. For multiplying the little and, as from nothing, feeding so great a multitude would not be unlike the first sign (Matthew 14:20).

CPG 5206 fr.178 on Mt 14, 20

155What is male is always chosen by God as most ready for combat, able to come into youth — that is, into spiritual fitness — to sow seed, to teach others, and strong enough to measure “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Matthew 14:21) (Ephesians 4:13)

CPG 5206 fr.179 on Mt 14, 21

156He prays not as one in need, but as high priest making petitions on our behalf. And a little later: until evening, to show that one must not be fickle about this, but have endurance and eagerness. He also teaches this: that when there is need, we ought to speak what benefits the common good to those we meet, and after such conversation and teaching proceed to prayer.

He prays not as God needing something, but as high priest making petitions on our behalf — and yet, according to what he is understood to be and is, God by nature, himself supplying the holy ones’ requests. He prays until evening to show that one must not be fickle about it, but show endurance and long-suffering. So he was going up there and praying (Matthew 14:23).

CPG 5206 fr.180 on Mt 14, 23

157Having said “Take courage,” (Matthew 14:27) he requires the faith through which each of those who believe sincerely in Christ is saved. And by adding “I am,” he dissolves every fear; for “I,” he says, “am the one who can do all things.”

CPG 5206 fr.181 on Mt 14, 27

158Some of the Jews were coming forward and were eager to consecrate their own souls to God — still in type and shadow, yet according to the law — confessing as their own the honors owed to those allotted to priestly service and attending the divine altar. But some longed for that sort of glory (I mean being sanctified, holy, and a divine offering) while lack of money cut short the desire.

When Pharisees and scribes urged them that they must pursue this — for those men are exceedingly fond of money — the people put forward reverence toward parents and, speaking truthfully, said they could scarcely provide the means of life for themselves and for their parents. The Pharisees dared to persuade them to count the matter as nothing for God’s sake: even if those who begot them approached seeking the customary help from them, they taught that one must say to father or mother, “It is a gift — whatever you would be helped with from me,” (Matthew 15:1–6) that is, “Whatever you would take from me, know that you are harming the divine offering and laying hands on sacred funds; for I have dedicated myself and promised myself to God as a gift.”

But the parents, fearing the harm that comes from temple-robbery and shuddering at the laws about it, kept enduring while they wailed, and insisted that piety toward God had become a pretext of famine for them — crying out, perhaps, that the divine command itself was wronging them in what mattered most. “Why then,” he says, “did you make void the command of God through your tradition?” For it was necessary — necessary — to honor those who begot them, not to destroy the law concerning them for the sake of piety toward God. Therefore one must neither neglect what befits God because of human affairs, nor wholly neglect humans because of God; rather, assigning love’s exceptional share to the beginning of all — that is, to God — one should next, as in a second and neighboring rank, also convey to the helpers of one’s birth the honors most fitting to them.

CPG 5206 fr.182 on Mt 15, 1–6

159Though God commands that parents be honored and has hung danger over those who transgress, you command the children not to honor their parents — unless perhaps the children should wish to do this from ambition — but if they ask you for something, to say to them: “Whatever you take from me, know that you are stripping this from God; for I promised to give it as a sacrifice.” (Matthew 15:4–6) God must indeed be preferred to parents; yet I say one must also require that honor toward parents be kept. For they ought not, by seeming to pretext gift-bringing to God, to wrong their own parents.

CPG 5206 fr.183 on Mt 15, 4–6

160Every planting that is not from God — everything outside God — will also be uprooted. The one conformed to that planting is blind (Matthew 15:13–14).

CPG 5206 fr.184 on Mt 15, 13–14

161The Lord also calls them senseless for turning about the body, like the Pharisees, and not yet crossing over to the inner human. Foods, then, he says, fill the body; they do not touch the heart. And what does not touch the heart cannot make the true human common or render him unclean (Matthew 15:17–18).

CPG 5206 fr.185 on Mt 15, 17–18

162When he said, “Let it be for you as you wish,” (Matthew 15:28) he spoke royally — not accomplishing the matter through prayer, but through the authority that befits God in him.

CPG 5206 fr.186 on Mt 15, 28

163Once the word is spoken, the deed does not delay. For God is the one speaking, the word is at work, and the power is everywhere (Matthew 15:28).

CPG 5206 fr.187 on Mt 15, 28

164They had not yet learned the Lord’s dignity — that he is God — but were thinking him a mere human. That is why they were also sending up the glory to the God of Israel (Matthew 15:31).

CPG 5206 fr.188 on Mt 15, 31

165From many things Christ shows that he is God. Not least, he also presents this by feeding the crowd in the desert (Matthew 15:34–39) — doing the sign of the loaves, as if somehow unwillingly, because of necessity and how hard food was to get — which he would not have done in a city, where market goods are abundant. Yet though he could have strengthened them by a word through what is unseen, he does not do that; he did the sign of the loaves as clearly showing his God-befitting glory.

Peter did not say, “You are Christ,” or “a son of God,” (Matthew 16:16) but “the Christ, the Son of God.” For there are many christs by grace and who hold the dignity of adoption, but only one is Son of God by nature. That is why, with the article, he said “the Christ, the Son of God.” And by calling him Son of the living God he shows that he himself was life, and death does not lord it over him. For even if for a little the flesh weakened in dying, it rose, since the Word in it could not be held under death’s bonds.

CPG 5206 fr.189 on Mt 15, 34–39

166Just as those who, by adding fuel to what is already burning, raise the flame higher, so also those who hastened to destroy Christ’s church, through the persecution, led it forward into greater glory and power. And if, he says, they do not prevail over the church — then he also names another honor (Matthew 16:18).

CPG 5206 fr.191 on Mt 16, 18

167See how he shows himself Lord of heaven and earth in summary. For he promises what is beyond our nature — rather, even beyond the angelic order — and whatever it befits to grant only to the nature and glory highest of all. First he says the church is his own, although the sacred writings dedicate it rather to God and to none of the others — “having no spot or wrinkle” (Ephesians 5:27) — and he also promises to found it, assigning it what cannot be shaken, as himself Lord of the powers, and he sets Peter over it as shepherd.

Then he said, “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens.” (Matthew 16:18–19) This voice no angel, nor any other rational power, can utter; it befits rather the God who rules all and has authority over earth and heaven.

CPG 5206 fr.192 on Mt 16, 18–19

168The time of the gift looks to the resurrection, when he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive the sins of any, they have been forgiven; if you retain those of any, they have been retained.” (John 20:22–23) But the gift of the faith given fits all; that is why we understand the faith as common to all the apostles, and not Peter’s alone (Matthew 16:19).

CPG 5206 fr.193 on Mt 16, 19

169That he is Jesus Christ is shown through this. For he says the things of the economy that were about to be — which had to be proclaimed completely after this — *** so that Christ crucified, by those able to bear witness *** But since it was not accepted that a “prophet perish outside Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33) — a destruction that has an analogy to “the one who has lost his soul will find it” — for that reason he goes away into Jerusalem (Matthew 16:20–21).

CPG 5206 fr.194 on Mt 16, 20

170Since the disciples did not yet have “power from on high,” (Luke 24:49) it was likely they might somehow also fall into human weaknesses and, having thought something of the sort, say: How will someone deny himself? Or how, having lost his own soul, will he find it? And what equal-honoring prize is there for those who have suffered this?

Therefore, so that he might stand them away from such reasonings and, as it were, reforge them toward courage by instilling desire for the fair fame about to be theirs, he says, “There are some of those standing here,” (Matthew 16:24–28) and what follows — hinting at Peter and the sons of Zebedee. For these were taken along at the transfiguration, which he calls a kingdom as having shown the ineffable of his authority and the unvarying genuineness of his relation to the Father. In it he also indicated the dignity of the second coming and a frightful prelude — showing this as confirmation, as it were, of that. For he will come in the glory of God the Father, not in the smallness that is ours.

CPG 5206 fr.195 on Mt 16, 24–28

171By “glory” (Matthew 16:27–28) he means the transformation and change of our nature from the form now seen into a glorious and incomparable glory. And of those who also have one glory, much more is the substance one.

Otherwise by “glory” he means the transformation and remodeling of our nature that has the glorious and incomparable glory beside the form now seen.

CPG 5206 fr.196 on Mt 16, 27–28

172He goes up onto the mountain to show that a lowly mind would not become fit for contemplation, but the one who has become his own, outside life’s cares, in quiet (Matthew 17:1).

CPG 5206 fr.197 on Mt 17, 1

173We say the transfiguration took place not by the body’s human form being changed, but by a light-like glory wrapping it around. The body remained in its form, while the features were colored more gloriously by a light-like hue (Matthew 17:2).

CPG 5206 fr.198 on Mt 17, 2

174What they speak together shows that the prophets of old uttered the same things as Christ, even if in riddles. The disciples fall from extreme fear, and the Savior raises them, showing that unless he had become flesh, mediated between God and humans, and strengthened our nature, it could not have borne to hear God’s voice (Matthew 17:3–7).

CPG 5206 fr.199 on Mt 17, 3–7

175He did not know what he was saying. Before the Savior’s passion and resurrection, and before the dissolution of death and the corruption of our bodies, it was impossible for Peter to dwell with Christ and to long for the tents in heaven. Those things must come after the Savior’s resurrection and ascent into heaven (Matthew 17:4).

CPG 5206 fr.200 on Mt 17, 4

176He has commanded that we hear him, because God the Father no longer wills us to obey legal writings, nor even the shadow-sketches in type, but rather to follow what has been enjoined on us through the Savior — without thrusting out Moses and the prophets. For they were standing beside him and speaking with him, so that their presence might signify servant-like service to us, while their conversing might signify intimacy with Christ and, as it were, speaking the same things (Matthew 17:5).

CPG 5206 fr.201 on Mt 17, 5

177The voice of God the Father is good and worthy of wonder; yet the disciples fall (Matthew 17:6), already held by unmixed fear, so that through this too we may learn how necessary the Savior’s mediation has appeared for those on earth — understood according to the manner of the incarnation. For if he had not become as we are, who of us could have borne God approaching from above and displaying his ineffable glory, scarcely bearable for any generated being? For the blessed Paul also said that he “dwells in unapproachable light.” (1 Timothy 6:16) And before this such a voice was borne at the Jordan, and a crowd was present.

CPG 5206 fr.202 on Mt 17, 6

178Christ shows that the Jews are greatly ignorant of the scriptures, from which they did not recognize John — that is, the first Elijah, “who prepared the way of the Lord.” (Matthew 17:11–12) Not knowing him and killing the forerunner of Christ, they also failed to recognize the Lord himself and killed him.

CPG 5206 fr.203 on Mt 17, 11–12

179Even if the father of the demon-possessed boy, grieving, ought to have gone away without obtaining the favor — because he did not make a blameless approach, but cried out against the apostolic band and said they could not rebuke the demon, rather accusing the Lord of the powers himself (for the one who says those who received authority from Christ to cast out unclean spirits were weak for the work rather accuses the grace, not those who received it) — therefore that unbelieving and so distorted father ought to have been sent away empty.

Yet so that no one might think Christ himself powerless to accomplish the marvel, “he rebuked the unclean spirit,” (Matthew 17:14–18) and at once the child was freed from illness, “and he gave him to his father.” For before he was healed he was not the father’s, but the spirit’s that held him.

CPG 5206 fr.204 on Mt 17, 14–18

180If the moon could produce a passion in someone by its natural law, why does it not send this on all humans, just as it pours its light on all? Again it is clear that the moon was made for shining, not for begetting demons. And if this came from the moon’s natural working, then when the demon was crushed the moon too — the cause of the passion — ought to have been harmed. But that is not so. Demons, wanting to deceive humans, put the names of the elements around themselves so that the elements might be accused as wicked — which they are not. By nature the elements are good, serving only the laws given them and having no authority from choice (Matthew 17:15).

CPG 5206 fr.205 on Mt 17, 15

181The unbeliever will somehow also be distorted and know no way to walk straight. Christ does not deem such people worthy of his company; if one may say something human, he grows weary and is distressed. Yet this is not aimed at this person’s face — and one must not think what is unfitting about them (Matthew 17:17).

CPG 5206 fr.206 on Mt 17, 17

182When he says, “How long shall I dwell with you who insult and are unbelieving?” (Matthew 17:17) he shows that the time of the incarnate presence required him to dwell with the not-good in God-befitting gentleness, so that through what he does he might correct them. “How long,” he says, “shall I dwell with you so insolent and unbelieving?” — showing that his presence with flesh compelled him to associate with the not-good in order to correct them.

CPG 5206 fr.207 on Mt 17, 17

183“If you have faith as a mustard seed” (Matthew 17:20) — that is, hot and boiling, or faith likened to the tiny grain because of smallness in word. For “we have the treasure” (2 Corinthians 4:7) of faith “in earthen vessels.”

CPG 5206 fr.208 on Mt 17, 20

184So he brought the chief disciples up the mountain and showed them the glory with which he will shine upon the world in due times; then, coming down from the mountain, he freed someone from a wicked and harsh spirit. Yet he had wholly to endure the saving passion for us and bear the Jews’ perversity. When that happened it would not be strange for the disciples to be in tumult and perhaps to think and say among themselves: He who raised so many dead by God-befitting authority, who rebukes seas and spirits, who crushes Satan by a word — how has he now been caught and fallen into murderers’ snares? Were we deceived in thinking him God? So that they may know what will wholly and altogether come, he foretells to them the mystery of the passion (Matthew 17:22–23).

CPG 5206 fr.209 on Mt 17, 22–23

185Mixing in the word about the resurrection, he weaves power together with weakness, glory with ingloriousness, the height of divinity with the cheapness of humanity. For he died as man and lived again as God. The disciples are grieved from love toward Christ, even though the resurrection was announced to come soon — because humans grieve more hotly when they hear grievous things and feel those more than the sweetest (Matthew 17:22–23).

CPG 5206 fr.210 on Mt 17, 22–23

186And they ask Peter craftily. Since, they say, he is accustomed to oppose Moses’ laws, he does not even pay the didrachma (Matthew 17:24) — knowing that Christ had also said, “I came not to destroy the law but to fulfill,” (Matthew 5:17) and that the manner of the economy requires this. To these Peter said — perhaps blushing to converse about these things.

CPG 5206 fr.211 on Mt 17, 24

187Though able to bring forth the stater from the earth, he did not do that, but made the sign from the sea, to teach us a mystery full of contemplation. For we were fishes drawn up from life’s bitter turmoils as from a sea through the apostolic hooks, having in our mouths Christ the royal stater, given as ransom for two — for our soul and body, or for two peoples, Jews and gentiles — likewise ransoming poor and rich, since the old law also unreservedly demanded the drachma’s tax equally from rich and poor.

The Savior could have brought forth the stater from the earth, but he did not; he worked the sign from the sea to show us a mystery full of contemplation. For we are the fishes caught from life’s turmoils through the apostolic teachings, and we have in our mouths the stater — that is, Christ (Matthew 17:27).

CPG 5206 fr.212 on Mt 17, 27

189Because a great and hard-to-count host of demons wanders this whole world, overturning our affairs by many kinds of deceit, Christ has set tutors over us from heaven — not as if human nature were inferior (far from it; they are far above what is ours, and the point is clear), but as ones who oppose demonic greed with their own strength and are able to contend for our life. With everything else, Christ has also set this right for our souls.

Long ago, when we were ruined, heaven was shut, and the angels took no account of any of us, as if sharing the Master of all’s indignation at the insult. But when God was pleased “to sum up all things in Christ,” he came to earth, brought the holy angels down, and appointed them guardians of our life (Matthew 18:10). That is why he also said, “You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51) — “of Man,” that is, for the sake of the human. Heaven, shut in the times already past, he opened for us, so that running up and down for our sake they might be servants of the economy accomplished for us through Christ.

Paul too says this: “Are they not all ministering spirits,” (Hebrews 1:14) and what follows. Jacob our forefather’s dreams have the same force: he saw, as he said, “the ladder” (Genesis 28:12) reaching from earth “to heaven,” and the dream signifies nothing else, I think, than that in due times there will be ascent and descent for the holy angels because the Only-Begotten shines in the world with flesh for the human. It is most dreadful, then, that those deemed worthy of such care from God — allotted angels as overseers and tutors — should be ranked as of no account, and that by us, their fellow-servants and brothers.

CPG 5206 fr.214 on Mt 18, 10

190Since Christ gives those appointed to teach authority to loose and to bind — once people have turned toward desire for virtue and do not wander off again — one must fear the holy ones’ voices, even if those who decide are not many. Christ has also assured us of this: he did not say a decision is firm only when it comes from many, but promised that if even two should decide in concord and with care, it will come to pass. “For I will be with them,” he says, “and join in the decision, if only two are gathered because of me.” (Matthew 18:18–20) It is not the number of those present, he says, but the power of piety and love of God that will be effective.

CPG 5206 fr.215 on Mt 18, 20

191When the God of all forgives us the hard faults — shown by the many talents — if we ourselves do not remit to fellow-servants the hundred denarii, that is, the few worldly slips, then from the hatred of evil in them the angels set over us, who share the same yoke of mastery with us, make accusation before God — not as informing one who does not know (for he knows all as God), but rather, as is fitting, asking that those who choose to despise and dishonor the laws of mutual love be usefully disciplined.

And if we suffer the repayment for these things, either we are disciplined in the present life, as if handed over to torturers (Matthew 18:24–35) by trials and illnesses, or at least we are punished in the age to come. That God disciplines convertibly, transforming the disobedient and hard to lead toward what is better, is easy to see; for divine scripture is full of such things — as in the wise saying, “Whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son he accepts,” (Hebrews 12:6–7) and again, “Endure for discipline,” and what follows.

CPG 5206 fr.216 on Mt 18, 24–35

193When Christ said, “If you want to enter into life,” (Matthew 19:17–18) or “keep the commandments,” that man, expecting him to say nothing other than “mine,” asks, “Which?” But he was much mistaken in his hope. Christ did not answer him as he thought, but leads him up to the law — not because the law is perfection (“no one is justified in the law,” according to what is written), but because practice according to the law is a kind of entrance to eternal life, little by little habituating the mind of those being tutored toward what is higher. For “the law has become our tutor unto Christ.” (Galatians 3:24) So the law is the beginning of bodily conduct, and Christ is perfection; for the beginning of goods, he says, is to do what is just. The law shows the just; Christ shows the good.

The law taught us to ward off with equals those who want to wrong us (“tooth for tooth” and “eye for eye”); but Christ, releasing us from that balance, leads us to the greater … “To the one who strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and to the one who wants to go to law with you and take your tunic,” (Matthew 5:38–40) he says, “leave him the cloak as well.”

CPG 5206 fr.218 on Mt 19, 17–18

194By “camel” (Matthew 19:24) here he does not mean the burden-bearing animal, but the thick rope with which sailors bind the anchors. He does not show this as wholly impossible, but by the extreme difficulty places the matter somehow near and next door to the impossible. From this it is clear that the one about to accomplish it is no ordinary person — he needs grace.

CPG 5206 fr.219 on Mt 19, 24

195No one would have a soul free of passions in every respect, even if he were among the most industrious. For “who is clean from filth,” according to what is written, or “who will boast of having a pure heart?” And if “the one who stumbles in one thing has become liable for all,” as far as the word of condemnation goes, who would not then be held for the remaining single transgression, not even having escaped? For even the very sober would not escape sinning in the mind. So as far as human weakness goes, no one is saved; but as far as the Savior’s gentleness goes, salvation is not to be despaired of (Matthew 19:26) — for not every sin is unto death (1 John 5:16–17).

CPG 5206 fr.220 on Mt 19, 26

196So that no one may think what was said fits only the disciples, he widened the word to all who do the like. Even if the rest will not obtain the same things as the disciples, they will still have, instead of kin according to the flesh, intimacy with God and brotherhood with the holy — he means the elders and elder women of the church, whom they had through love as kin, beloved by disposition, loving far more than fleshly kin, from whom they also received money to manage as they wish, with the goods to come also stored up for them — and instead of fields, paradise, and instead of houses of stone, the Jerusalem above, mother of the firstborn.

Note that even if the rest do not obtain the same as the disciples, they will nonetheless have, instead of fleshly kin, intimacy with God and brotherhood toward the holy city, mother of the firstborn (Matthew 19:29).

CPG 5206 fr.221 on Mt 19, 29

197He does not say they will receive many fathers instead of one, or many mothers instead of one, or many fields instead of few, but that the heavenly will surpass all earthly things with incomparable excellences, and what is being saved will be preferred to what is being lost (Matthew 19:29).

CPG 5206 fr.222 on Mt 19, 29

199Fleeing love of glory, the Lord speaks as about another householder, though he himself is householder and distributor of the kingdom of the heavens. By “day” he means the whole age, in which at different times after Adam’s transgression he calls some righteous into God-reverent work, setting them a wage for the works.

Those about the first hour are those around Adam and Enoch; those about the third, around Noah and Shem and the righteous from them — for the time is second and the call second, when the ordinances also differ. The workers called about the sixth are those in Abraham’s times, when again came the legislation of circumcision; those of the eleventh, those at Christ’s presence, of whom alone it is said, “Why do you stand here idle all day?” (Matthew 20:6) — having no hope of the Lord, godless in the world, idle in every good work, like those standing in the marketplace handling nothing at all, but running through their life vainly and to no purpose. The Lord also exhorts them, saying, “Why do you stand idle?” They answer, “No one hired us” — for neither Moses nor any of the holy ones preached to the nations, but only to Israel. Still the Lord sends them too into the vineyard.

He says five calls happened, to show that in each time some succeeded and some missed — as the “five prudent virgins and the five foolish” (Matthew 25:1–13) show, being in the same times — and that some were found virtuous, while some despised the coming age through folly. At the end of life, which is evening (for the time from Christ’s advent until the consummation is the time after the eleventh hour, as John says, “It is the last hour”), the householder, he says, commands the wage to be given beginning from the last. The householder may be understood as the Father, using the Son as distributor not as a mere servant but as co-worker, because through him he administers and works whatever he wills.

He gives each a denarius — the Spirit’s grace, conforming the holy to God, engraving the heavenly characters in their souls, and leading them up into life and incorruption. In this the first seem to have toiled more than the last, having endured the devil’s burning longer while sin, corruption, and death were not yet abolished. If the matter is weighed by equality, something more seems owed to the former, because they lived while death and the devil ruled — that is the burden of the day and the heat, when not even the Spirit’s dew was present helping humans toward righteousness. But the last, having the Master’s generosity instead of toils, receive the wage first, since all after the advent, through baptism and union with the Spirit, have become “sharers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) and were named sons of God, while all before the advent were named born of women — though they too are to be called to this. For even if the prophets became partakers of the Spirit, it was not as the faithful: somehow the Holy Spirit becomes like leaven in the faithful’s souls and transforms the whole human into another state of life. That is why we become “sharers of the divine nature” and cry out boldly, “Abba, Father.” The more ancient did not obtain the same grace. So Paul says, “You did not receive a spirit of slavery again unto fear, but you received a spirit of adoption” (Romans 8:15) — meaning the ancients received a “spirit of slavery,” not having the dignity of adoption. Having received the intelligible denarius first, we are necessarily said to have been preferred above the others.

CPG 5206 fr.226 on Mt 20, 1–16

200You ask whether some are still going to sit. Learn that no one will. Such a thing belongs to the first substance alone, not to what is human. For the apostles, not understanding what it is to sit “on twelve thrones” (Matthew 19:28) and what being glorified then means, were seeking that sort of seat (Matthew 20:23).

CPG 5206 fr.227 on Mt 20, 23

201Five days before his saving passion, wanting also to fulfill the prophets’ voices spoken about him, he commands the two disciples to go away into the village opposite Bethphage and Bethany and bring him the unbroken colt. That Matthew says a donkey and a colt were brought to the Lord, while Luke and Mark recalled only one beast, is no conflict: when the colt was being led as the disciples were commanded, the donkey also sprang along, following her child as an affectionate mother (Matthew 21:1–7).

CPG 5206 fr.228 on Mt 21, 1–7

202He says the disciples are two — that is, apostles and evangelists — who became Christ’s co-workers and servants for this. Or he also means angels who serve Christ for our ransom, “ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” (John 1:51) And if the one who bound them with the cords of sins asks, “What are you doing?” (Matthew 21:1–3) still, unable to withstand the Savior’s words, he will fall silent — not willingly, because of the excess of power. In this the call is shown to be divine.

CPG 5206 fr.229 on Mt 21, 1–3

203Christ is said to be “coming” (Matthew 21:7–9) as one who came from above: being God by nature and Son of the Father, he became man and came in the Lord’s name, being called Lord. So as God by nature he is called blessed — that is, glorified. Christ was sitting on the colt, and the mother followed. What was done was a sign for us of a most necessary matter: Christ rested on the new people that once worshiped idols, and in due times the Jews’ synagogue will also follow — though in the time of the call it had the older place, having been called first through Moses and the prophets. But because it struck against the saving God, it justly comes behind the colt only with difficulty and has become a tail — that is, an attendant behind those from the nations — and the first has become last.

See how he who knows “kidneys and hearts” showed human nature carried into the last irrationality: both the Jews’ synagogue and the multitude of the nations are likened to a donkey, the most irrational of all. For some “served the creation rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25) God, and others, dishonoring the tutoring law, went outside good mind and understanding and turned toward every form of baseness; “they were compared to senseless cattle and made like them,” (Psalm 49:12) according to the psalmist’s voice. A donkey is also otherwise a symbol of uncleanness; for the animal is unholy and has condemnation from the law. Such are all who wander and love sin.

CPG 5206 fr.230 on Mt 21, 7–9

204The colt is led when two disciples have been sent from Christ; for two orders serve him for this — prophets and apostles — through whom the nations are netted into faith. And it is led from a village, so that from this too he may show the rustic mind of the nations, not raised in the law, but living rather carelessly and wildly — yet it changed toward the gentler, for it came under Christ teaching these things. And children, raising “palm branches,” (Matthew 21:7–9) were running before him and composing the doxology together with the disciples, so that through them too we may see the new people from the nations as if written on a tablet. For it is written: “And a people being created will praise the Lord.” (Psalm 102:18)

CPG 5206 fr.231 on Mt 21, 7–9

205“Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed…” (Matthew 21:9) The Hebrew stands thus in Psalm 117: ANNA ADONAI OSIANNA, ADONAI ASLIANNA, BAROUCH ABBA BSAIM (Psalm 118:25–26).

CPG 5206 fr.232 on Mt 21, 9

206There was in the temple a crowd of merchants — money-changers, or small-coin dealers — and with them sellers of oxen and sheep, and people selling turtledoves and pigeons. These things were useful for the sacrifices of worship under the law. But it was already time for the shadow to cease and for the truth in Christ to shine. So Christ, the Truth, rightly honored with his own Father in the temple that is his, commanded the sacrifices and smoke under the law to be curtailed, and showed the temple to be a house of prayer. For to rebuke the merchants and drive from the sacred precincts those selling what is useful for sacrifice is exactly that and nothing else.

Another evangelist says Jesus also “made a whip of cords,” (Matthew 21:12–13) (John 2:15) threatened blows, and raised it against them. Those who honor legal worship needed to know, after the truth was shown, that having a “spirit of slavery” (Romans 8:15) and refusing to be freed, they will be under scourges and subject to slavish punishment. He also sets Isaiah against them as accuser — for so the evangelist says.

CPG 5206 fr.233 on Mt 21, 12–14

209Because of the Jews’ lack of love for God, he withdraws (Matthew 21:17).

CPG 5206 fr.236 on Mt 21, 17

211Christ asked what opinion they held about the Baptist, because the Jews were accustomed to call the holy ones liars and to say they invent prophecy from their own judgment, not sent from God. The Pharisees fear to say the truth, lest they hear: “Why did you not believe?” (Matthew 21:25)

CPG 5206 fr.238 on Mt 21, 25

212The vineyard is Israel (Matthew 21:33–41), as the psalmist says, “You brought a vine out of Egypt,” (Psalm 80:8) and Isaiah, “A vineyard was made for the beloved.” (Isaiah 5:1) God planted it and went abroad a long time — that is, he was long-suffering. Yet he is seen caring for the place and holding it in mind; for there was no intervening time when prophets and righteous men were not being sent from God to admonish. But they became disobedient, and having dishonored those sent, they sent them away empty — that is, with nothing good to say about them to the God who sent them.

CPG 5206 fr.239 on Mt 21, 33–41

213Are you too sons of God the Father? Does the lot descend to you by nature if you put the heir out of the way? How will you become lords of what you desire? And how is that not worth laughing at? For Christ, as Son and essential heir of God the Father’s dignities, became man and was calling those who believe in him into share of his own kingdom; but the Hebrews wanted to have the kingdom alone — which was both impossible and ignorant. Notice here that after the household servants the Son is sent, not as one counted among servants, but as true Son and therefore Lord. Even if he wore a slave’s form economically, he was still God and true Son of God the Father, and had lordship by nature (Matthew 21:37) (Philippians 2:7).

CPG 5206 fr.241 on Mt 21, 37

214And who would these be? The choir of the holy apostles, through whom come the priests and teachers of the new covenant (Matthew 21:41).

CPG 5206 fr.242 on Mt 21, 41

215By “stone” here he means Christ, and by “corner” the joining and fellowship of these two peoples — the remnant saved from Israel and those from the nations. For this reason “the kingdom of the heavens will be taken from you” (Matthew 21:42–43) — that is, the knowledge of salvation, the way toward everything praiseworthy, and sharing in the Spirit, through which one acquires the kingdom of the heavens.

CPG 5206 fr.243 on Mt 21, 42–43

216Blessed David marveled at this corner (Matthew 21:42) — that is, the meeting of the two peoples into one — saying, “This was from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” (Psalm 118:22–23) So the stone is saving for the corner made by him, but crushing and ruin for those who remained outside this intelligible and spiritual concurrence. For some, Christ is “a rock of stumbling and a stone of scandal.” (1 Peter 2:8)

CPG 5206 fr.244 on Mt 21, 42

217By “marriage” (Matthew 22:2) he means the joining of the faithful to the Son, calling Jews into it — long ago through the prophets, later through the disciples before the passion and resurrection.

CPG 5206 fr.245 on Mt 22, 2

218Those called through the first household servants refused to come: thrusting aside the law through Moses, they turned to human teachings. Likewise those called second after them through second messengers — that is, the holy apostles — left what was beneficial and withdrew as far as possible to what seemed good to themselves. Some went to their own field, which signifies possession of earthly things and zeal about them; others to commerce, which again shows us love of money and the spasm around it. For love of flesh and worldly love of pleasure, empty distractions, and care for making money deprive us of eternal enjoyment and intimacy with God (Matthew 22:2–5).

CPG 5206 fr.246 on Mt 22, 2–5

219Clearly the irresistible hand of the Roman army. We call the Roman campaign God’s, inasmuch as he is Master and Creator of all (Matthew 22:7).

CPG 5206 fr.247 on Mt 22, 7

220Otherwise he is said to have hands and feet bound as no longer able to do anything good there; for the working of the good extends only as far as the present (Matthew 22:13).

CPG 5206 fr.248 on Mt 22, 13

221For they saw that those around Theudas and Judas — through these words to cast into such suspicion (Matthew 22:15) (Acts 5:36–37).

CPG 5206 fr.249 on Mt 22, 15

222The God of all wanted Israel free of human domination. But because they trampled the divine laws, they came under the hand of those then in power, who laid tributes on them. And tax thereafter — when rule passed over to the Romans (Matthew 22:17).

CPG 5206 fr.250 on Mt 22, 17

223From measureless shamelessness the Pharisees, envious because he was being praised by the crowds after the Sadducees were put to shame, ask again with hypocrisy, testing him — whether he will also add again to the first command as if correcting the law — so that they may find a handle against him. Matthew and Luke said the one who asked was a “lawyer,” (Matthew 22:34–40) Mark a “scribe.” That is no disagreement: some show him learned in the law, others a leading scribe, that is, an interpreter of the law to the people.

The Lord exposes their wickedness: they did not come to ask so as to be helped, but from having nothing and being held by envy. He also teaches that one must not love God in part and cling to earthly things in part. Because the Lord said this command is more summary than all, the lawyer seemed to be thrusting him into danger as making himself God. Hence, though he had not said that, the lawyer praised him, as Mark says. The first command teaches every form of piety; for loving God from the whole heart is the cause of every good. The second contains what is just toward humans. The first opens the way for the second, and the second is held together from it; for the one who has accomplished love toward God clearly also loves the neighbor in all things as himself. Such a person happens to be the fulfiller of all the commands.

CPG 5206 fr.251 on Mt 22, 34–40

224Since the Lord was being praised after the Sadducees were shamed and withdrew, the Pharisees, envious at this, came forward, and someone thought very learned in the law among them asks which commandment is great in the law. He supposed Christ was about to cross out Moses’ teaching and set his own beside it, or to say, “You shall love the Lord your God — and me,” (Matthew 22:34–42) yoking his own glory to the Father’s glory, and so find a place to cast him into danger as making himself God — or, if he passed over that in silence, to say, “Then I do not accept you as God.”

But the Lord said nothing new, only what is of the law, and having muzzled the Pharisees by this, he himself asks them whose son they think the Christ is.

CPG 5206 fr.252 on Mt 22, 34–42

225How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord? For one ought, he says, to name fathers lords of their sons, because they have the sons under their authority; yet David, on the contrary, calls the one from his own seed his Lord (Matthew 22:43–46) (Psalm 110:1).

CPG 5206 fr.253 on Mt 22, 43–46

226Woe to you, then, lawyers: while the law is admittedly burdensome, on others who trample it you bring the penalty of death, but you yourselves do not even touch the law (Matthew 23:4).

CPG 5206 fr.254 on Mt 23, 4

227Since one generally sees those who teach new doctrines arriving at the dignity of teaching from love of empty glory and boastfulness, the Lord removes this suspicion and cuts off the road as leading to ruin. So if, he says, you love glory and first places, seek the order of servants and of those later, and practice humility (Matthew 23:11–12).

CPG 5206 fr.255 on Mt 23, 11–12

228By “son of Gehenna” (Matthew 23:15) he means the one being destroyed from unbelief — as having slid into this through impiety and reached such a measure of lawlessness as to have unmediated intimacy with the flame, and all but kinship toward bearing the torments without dispute.

CPG 5206 fr.256 on Mt 23, 15

230You exact tithes, he says, Pharisees — perhaps even of fine herbs — while leaving aside the commands whose transgression is greater. And what are those injunctions? Judgment — that is, judging what is right and blameless — and mercy — that is, genuineness toward God. For judgment and mercy and faith toward God are better than tithe and firstfruits. That is why through the prophet the God of all says: And now, Israel, “what does the Lord God seek from you but to do judgment and to love” (Deuteronomy 10:12) (Matthew 23:23) and to seek “mercy, and to be ready to walk with the Lord your God”? For in being very ready to follow, what is saved into genuine faith is seen.

See the rebuke: you exact tithes, Pharisees — perhaps even of fine herbs — leaving aside the commands whose transgression is greater. And what are those commands? Judgment — judging rightly — and mercy and faith toward God; for these are better than tithe and firstfruits. That is why through the prophet the God of all says: And now, Israel, “what does the Lord God seek from you but to do judgment and to love” and to seek “mercy, and to be ready to walk with the Lord your God”?

CPG 5206 fr.258 on Mt 23, 23

231Through these he describes the Pharisees’ life, advising not to be molded only by outward fashionings, but also to have the inside clean — what belongs to mind and heart (Matthew 23:25).

CPG 5206 fr.259 on Mt 23, 25

232Let us search carefully what the Savior says. The Jews’ fathers killed the holy prophets in their times, who were ferrying the divine word to them. Those born from them, confessing that the prophets were august and honorable, fitted crowns around them — that is, tombs (Matthew 23:29–36) — assigning the honor most fitting to the holy, and by believing them prophets and holy men they became judges of those who killed them. For by the very means they chose to honor the slain, through those means they accuse their fathers as having acted impiously.

But those who condemned their own fathers for such terrible bloodshed were about to be caught by equal evils — rather, by still worse. They “killed the Author of life,” (Acts 3:15) and added to the impieties against him other bloodsheds against his marvelous disciples. For as long as someone examines others’ injustices judging by natural reasoning, he sees what is base and blames it; but when he himself is led into the same passions, he is carried upon them as if blind.

CPG 5206 fr.260 on Mt 23, 29–36

233In what manner will the justice for every blood come upon the last generation of the murderers (Matthew 23:35–36) — though God says through the prophet, “Fathers shall not die for children,” (Deuteronomy 24:16) and again the reverse, “each shall die by his own sin”? What then do we say? How will those to whom Christ spoke these things be made to give account for others’ bloodshed? Will Cain not be punished for Abel? And Lamech saying, “I have killed a man for my wound and a youth for my bruise” (Genesis 4:23)? So if each is weighed down by his own evils, how will the wretched undergo justice on behalf of all? For “God is not unjust,” but is a just and strong and long-suffering judge, according to what is written.

We say, then, that some such sense fits what was said. Suppose something like this: robbers arise in a certain country. They plunder the villages round about and kill those in them. The ruler of the province does not at once bare the ruling sword against them, but is eager rather to reform them by threats. They are no less cruel. So that the horror may at last be turned back, when some are caught he does not spare them, but subjecting them to most cruel tortures he sets the final danger upon them — not indignant only at those last crimes, but much more because the wildness of the first ones also deceived him while he was long-suffering. I think one of those last who were harshly punished will say that they themselves received everyone’s sins, because the judge’s anger ended upon them.

You will think something like this also about God. Having been long-suffering in the previous times, he was reasoning up to these that the measure of long-suffering must be defined; for the divine anger also had to strike upon these. The earlier ones were sinning against humans and fellow-slaves; but these have killed the Lord of all. He is not harsh because he punishes the last, but marvelous because he endured until the present.

CPG 5206 fr.261 on Mt 23, 35–36

234If someone wants, because the Lord said “this generation,” (Matthew 23:36) not only those to whom the word was addressed to be indicated, but as it were the whole race of the murderers, he leaves what is right. For we find holy scripture naming like manners and, as it were, same counsels as a “generation.” Blessed David said, “A generation of the upright will be blessed,” (Psalm 112:2) and “This is the generation of those seeking the Lord.” (Psalm 24:6) So “this,” even if said demonstratively, we say does not indicate only those then present and hearing, but every murderer and the whole race falling under the same impiety; for like will be ranked with like as brother and same-kin.

CPG 5206 fr.262 on Mt 23, 36

235Having said this he shows what is God-befitting in himself even while in human form. For Moses also said about God, “Spreading his wings he received them” (Deuteronomy 32:11) (Matthew 23:37); and again David, “But the sons of humans will hope in the shelter of your wings.” (Psalm 36:7)

CPG 5206 fr.263 on Mt 23, 37

236What was said has an intelligible sight through faith. For when “the fullness of the nations enters” (Romans 11:25) and they believe in Christ, then the Jews who believe after that see the beauty of Christ’s divinity, beholding the Father to be in the Son, and saying that he is the redeemer proclaimed through the prophets, of whom the prophet foretold as coming in the Lord’s name. For the other prophets did not come in the Lord’s name; they were saying, “Thus says the Lord,” and “I am a slave of the Lord, and I worship the God of heaven.” (Matthew 23:39)

CPG 5206 fr.264 on Mt 23, 39

237Having said, “Your house is left to you,” (Matthew 23:38–24:1) he does the matching act: he goes out from the temple and walks on, and by this shows the departure of divine grace from the Jewish race as it transfers to others. He used strong language; yet it also came about in deed when the sanctuary was utterly ruined.

CPG 5206 fr.265 on Mt 24, 1

238Some were showing Christ the great works in the temple and the adornment of the offerings; for they supposed he would marvel with them at what was seen — though he is God and has heaven as his throne. He sets aside talk about those things, but has foretold that it will fall from its foundations in due times, when the Roman army brings it to that end and all Jerusalem exacts from Israel the penalties for killing the Lord. For after the Savior’s cross these things happened to them to suffer, yet they did not understand the force of what was said. They supposed he was weaving words about the completion of the age. So they asked when these things would be, and what the sign would be when it was about to happen (Luke 21:7).

CPG 5206 fr.266 on Mt 24, 1–3

239The Lord follows the aim of those who bring the question, and for now speaks about the completion of the present age. For before his descent from the heavens takes place, some forerunners will appear — false christs and false prophets molding his face around themselves — but do not follow them, he says (Matthew 24:4–5).

CPG 5206 fr.268 on Mt 24, 4–5

240Perhaps the word also has a riddle, so that we should pray not to depart from the body either while idle of good work — which the sabbath hints — or in unfruitfulness — which winter makes clear. For it should be noted that God did not make a winter of evils; yet we are in winter whenever the passions of the flesh dominate in us.

This is what Christ hints: that we should pray not to be in departure from the body, nor idle of the works of virtue — which the sabbath indicates — nor troubled in the worldly tumults and disturbances, which winter makes clear (Matthew 24:20).

CPG 5206 fr.269 on Mt 24, 20

241Just as when a dead body lies there the flesh-eating birds run together upon it, so, when the Son of Man arrives, then all the eagles — that is, those who fly into the heights and highest places and have been lifted above earthly and worldly things — will run together to him (Matthew 24:28).

CPG 5206 fr.270 on Mt 24, 28

242How will they not shudder? For as heaven and earth are re-elemented toward what seems good to God (it is not possible to say something precise in such matters), the sun and the moon will be darkened, and the stars will fall like flowers, while the one who created them re-elements them again as he wills; the elements themselves will also be disturbed. For as humanity is renewed, the creation made because of the human is also recapitulated and co-created (Matthew 24:29).

CPG 5206 fr.271 on Mt 24, 29

243Since the disciples wanted to learn things beyond themselves, he finds an opening to check them from such inquiries in not knowing insofar as he is human, and he says that not even the holy angels in heaven can know these things (Matthew 24:36).

CPG 5206 fr.272 on Mt 24, 36

244It is the Savior Christ’s custom to do something like this with his holy disciples especially: if they inquire into things that have a reputation for love of learning yet are free of higher searching, he grants the account and tries to make it exact with fine care. But if they want to learn over-again things beyond the measure that fits them, he checks them quietly and strongly persuades them to choose busying themselves with what is more fitting, and to do in those things what will make them conspicuous, having the brightest radiance from good works before God. So when they somehow chose to ask and learn things beyond a household slave’s measure, he persuades them to be quiet with necessary reasonings that put them to shame: that the Father has not revealed it even to angels, nor makes it known to the Son himself — if one were a bare human on earth like them and did not have it by nature to be God.

It was the Savior Christ’s custom to do something like this with his holy disciples especially: if they inquired into things that had a reputation for love of learning yet were free of higher searching, he would grant the account and try to make it exact with fine care. But if they wanted to learn over-again things beyond the measure that fits them, he would wrap the matter quietly and strongly persuade them to choose busying themselves with what is more fitting. So since the disciples wanted to learn things beyond them, he usefully pretends not to know insofar as he is human, and says that not even the holy angels in heaven know, so that they may not be grieved as if not trusted with what is moderate. And see how he persuades them to be quiet with his own reasonings and puts them to shame: that the Father has not revealed it even to angels, nor was it made known to the Son himself (Matthew 24:36).

CPG 5206 fr.273 on Mt 24, 36

245Even if the completion was clear, what would they not have done? If the Son is the wisdom of the Father, and if what he himself knows wisdom does not know, he is found again not knowing — or else his nature is better than his wisdom, and the simple God is found composite and unlike himself. Yet not-knowing and knowing do not make a difference of essence, any more than they do among humans; ignorance is a passion, which the Son does not have, but he is God by nature and, even on the heretics’ terms, unreceptive of passions. But if all that is the Son’s is the Father’s and all that is the Father’s is the Son’s, either both do not know, or the Father knows and the Son knows as having by nature all that is the Father’s. For he does not say this about lordship over creatures; yet whenever scripture names “Father,” (Matthew 24:36) it signifies the whole of the divinity thought and worshipped in the holy Trinity.

CPG 5206 fr.274 on Mt 24, 36

246See that the word divides humans into two ranks — the saved and the destroyed. He says the saved are taken along, and the destroyed are left, that is, rejected. By “field” (Matthew 24:40–41) here understand the world, where “the one sowing to the Spirit harvests eternal life, and the one sowing to the flesh, corruption.” (Galatians 6:8) He likens teachers to the women grinding, who in a way thin out the scriptural thoughts and set the divine oracles before humans as easily accepted and easily understood. For the law also, commanding that a millstone or upper millstone not be taken in pledge so that someone who takes the tools of food may not hinder those fed through them, indicates teachers in a riddle.

The Lord divides humans into two ranks — the saved and the destroyed. He says the saved are taken along, and the impious are left, which is to be rejected. He likens teachers to the women grinding as thinning the scriptures and making them easily accepted and easily understood by humans. For the law also forbids taking a millstone or upper millstone in pledge, so that someone who takes the tools of food may not become an obstacle to those being fed. That is why the Savior also indicates teachers in a riddle (Deuteronomy 24:6).

CPG 5206 fr.275 on Mt 24, 40

247Faithful in teachings, prudent in work, and a most reasonable steward of fellow-slaves: for such a one will share in the master’s whole kingdom. That is what “he will set him over all his belongings” (Matthew 24:45–47) makes clear. He does not say who this is, but speaks indefinitely, to show how scarce and precious right teachers are. He rightly requires both; if either is missing, the other limps.

CPG 5206 fr.276 on Mt 24, 45–47

248The word is against leaders who spend their time in luxuries. For he named the careless teacher a bad and wicked slave, who, because the judge is absent and not seen through long-suffering, strikes those under his hand bitterly and mixes with flesh-lovers. For those who sin as if the judge were not present and as if they were not reckoning on judgment. By some of them being struck he shows those harmed in soul by the leaders’ luxury, as the apostle says: “Thus sinning against the brothers and striking their weak conscience.” (1 Corinthians 8:12) So he threatens those living in luxury with undergoing the last things. For he splits him and divides him from himself with pains by his living word — from the Spirit united to him in the age, that is, the divine gift. Those who pretend to think right things but do not think as they ought, wearing virtue only by outward shape, will be cut in two on the fearful day of judgment, which is lasting alienation from the Spirit. For now, even if it has not been mixed into the unworthy, it somehow seems present to those once sealed, awaiting the salvation that comes from their turning. Then it will be cut off from the whole soul that profaned its gift, and his portion will be set with the hypocrites. By “hypocrites” (Matthew 24:48–51) he means those who try to teach what is right, yet through what they do harm the disciples more. So, he says, for those who will not use in the present life as they ought the ministry entrusted to them by the Lord, he will not only add nothing further, but taking away the participation in the Spirit already come to be in them — which they obtained when appointed to church ministry — he will thus hand them over to punishment. For it is not possible for someone to be handed over to punishment together with the Spirit; he does not hint a bodily cut, but the stripping of the Spirit’s adoption. So they are punished for what they were laughing at, and they will “gnash their teeth,” reckoning the end of the pain and the excess of the

CPG 5206 fr.277 on Mt 24, 48–51

249Let us examine what it is to be cut in two (Matthew 24:51). When Adam came to be in the beginnings of punishment — God, giving nature its most complete beauty, makes him sharer of his own Spirit. For “he breathed into his face a breath of life” (Genesis 2:7); for what truly gives life is the Spirit of life, that is, of Christ. But since he slipped from deceit into sin, the Spirit was removed. When God and Father was pleased “to recapitulate all things in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10) and to bring human nature back up into its ancient beauty, we received back through grace what the intrusion of sin had damaged in us. For Christ breathed into us after the resurrection, renewing us into the ancient beauty: “Receive,” (John 20:22) he says, “holy Spirit.” So the Spirit is united to us; for “the one cleaving to the Lord is one spirit.” (1 Corinthians 6:17) Therefore, if we are found at the end in efforts according to piety, we receive back the fullness — now having the Spirit as in the order of a pledge — but if we are accused in sins we are damaged even of the Spirit’s pledge itself; for it is cut off and departs, as it were, at the time of judgment. And this, we say, is the cutting in two of which he speaks here; for it is not possible for someone to be given over to punishment together with the Spirit.

CPG 5206 fr.278 on Mt 24, 51

250In the time of the completion the Holy Spirit is taken away; for it is not possible for someone to be given over to punishment together with the Spirit (Matthew 24:51).

CPG 5206 fr.279 on Mt 24, 51

251He likens the leaders of the peoples to virgins. The one who serves as priest must be spotless in soul and body, as Paul also says, “that she may be holy in body and in spirit.” (1 Corinthians 7:34) Since scripture customarily divides all of life into five, he assigns to each time both holy and foolish souls, as each time has wise and simple, just and unjust. In that they all went out with the lamps, he shows that all souls were illumined by God with natural and innate laws, and also with the written laws through Moses. And all went out to meet the bridegroom — that is, all set themselves to please God and to be joined spiritually to the bridegroom who sows in the hearts of the faithful every form of virtue, which is why he is also called bridegroom. Yet some, though having the illumination from God, did not endure to live reasonably — which the prudent souls did, through good works making the illuminating grace given them from within by God shine out still more, and benefiting both themselves and others to the glory of God. By oil understand good love of work, which the idle do not have; when it is absent, the divine illumination in us passes over toward what is less beautiful. He likens to sleep, and calls drowsiness, the death of the flesh, which of necessity comes upon both the prudent and the senseless, whom the angels’ trumpet raises at the time of Christ’s presence. For all are raised when death is abolished, good and bad, and all are prepared for defense before the judge — that is, to arrange the lamps as each reckons his own life. When the base bring nothing along, the soul begins to be gloomy and as if quenched and to go into madness, so that they think they will be mercied through others’ virtue. That is why they are rejected when those say, “Perhaps it will not suffice for us and for you.” (Matthew 25:1–13) For each person’s virtue will scarcely suffice for the soul’s salvation, because even the very reasonable stumble in many things. “But go to those who sell” — who are prophets, apostles, evangelists, through whom one learns to work virtue, and right teachers of right doctrines. When they went away readily, the time did not allow it, making examination of what had been lived and not giving a beginning of working.

Since scripture customarily divides all of life into five, he assigns to each time both holy and foolish souls. In that they all went out with the lamps, he shows that all souls were illumined by God with the natural and the written law. Yet some did not endure to live reasonably with the illumination from God, while some through good works make the illuminating grace given them from God shine out still more and benefit both themselves and others to the glory of God. By oil understand good love of work; when it is absent, the divine illumination in us passes over toward what is less beautiful. He likens the death of the flesh to sleep and drowsiness, which of necessity comes upon all, whom the angels’ trumpet raises when death is abolished, and all are prepared for defense; for this is to arrange the lamps as each reckons his own life. For the base the soul begins to be gloomy and as if to go into madness, so that they think they will be mercied through others’ virtue. That is why they are rejected; for each person’s virtue will scarcely suffice for salvation, because even the very reasonable stumble in many things. Those who sell are the teachers of right doctrines, through whom one learns virtue. But to buy — that is, to be taught — the time did not allow, making examination of what had been lived and not giving a beginning of working. The present time is for working; the coming one is for recompense.

CPG 5206 fr.280 on Mt 25, 1–13

252Souls that neglect virtue wither and are as if quenched, and they go into madness, having thought that at the Savior’s second presence they can be saved without the working of the virtues. That is why they are also rejected by the prudent who say to them, “Perhaps it will not suffice for us and for you.” (Matthew 25:8–9) For this indicates here that someone can scarcely ever be saved through his own virtue, and certainly not through that of others; for it is foolish that someone who does not work should have received the wage of the working.

CPG 5206 fr.281 on Mt 25, 6–9

253So because of the frankness that belongs to virginity they ask that it be opened to them. And he does not open, because in due time they did not care for themselves. And this is “I do not know you” (Matthew 25:11–12): for he knows those who not only show faith but also have works; but those who have lived by only one of the two have never even come into knowledge of the bridegroom.

CPG 5206 fr.282 on Mt 25, 11–12

254The “man” (Matthew 25:14–30) who is a householder is the creator and Lord of this whole world. The word of the parable likens his journey either to Christ’s ascent into the heavens or to the unseen and out-of-sight character of the divine nature. By God’s “belongings” understand those in each country and city who have believed in him. He calls “his slaves” those whom Christ in due times crowns with the boast of priesthood; for the inspired Paul writes, “No one takes the honor for himself, but the one called by God.” (Hebrews 5:4) To these he hands over those who have come under him, giving a spiritual gift to each according to the mind and fitness he has. We say this is the distribution of the talents, not supplied to the household servants in equal measure because of the difference of understanding. “Straightway” they went and worked, he says — the “straightway” here signifying to us that it would be fitting to work the things of God without any delay. Those held by hesitation and idleness will be in the worst evils. For he buried, he says, the talent given to him in the earth — that is, he kept the gift idle in himself and useless to others. So the talent is taken from him and will be given to the one who is rich; for the Spirit and the giving of the divine gifts will depart from such people, while for those who have worked lovingly there will be a richer increase of gifts.

The householder here is the Master Christ as creator of all and Lord. His journeying is the ascent into the heavens. One may also say it otherwise: as existing unseen to creation and not seen by us when we sin, he is said in scripture to be journeying. His belongings are the faithful in each country.

CPG 5206 fr.283 on Mt 25, 14–30

255So that the betrayer might not hand him over to his killers “before the feast of the Passover,” (Matthew 26:18) the Savior disclosed neither the house nor the man with whom he fulfilled the Passover (John 13:1).

CPG 5206 fr.284 on Mt 26, 18

256By saying “so-and-so” (Matthew 26:18) he does not make a name clear specifically, but obliquely indicates one of the holy. For the word also fits every holy person, who first receives the Lord’s disciples — evangelists and apostles leveling his soul beforehand — and then Christ himself, who will come not as one called but of his own accord, dwelling with the Holy Spirit beside the one with whom he sees the holy baptism. For that is what “the man carrying the jar of water” (Mark 14:13) makes clear, as Mark and Luke say (Luke 22:10).

CPG 5206 fr.285 on Mt 26, 18

257We will not surely understand from this that none of the other disciples, but only Judas, dipped the morsel in the bowl with him. I think what was said has some such sense: he wants to say, as is likely, that the betrayer will be the one who dipped his hand with me in the bowl (Matthew 26:23) — that is, the fellow diner and table-mate, sharer and participant of table and of salt. For thus he also was accusing him through the voice of blessed David, saying, “But you, man of equal soul, who sweetened foods for me at the same table.” (Psalm 55:13) And again, “He who eats my bread has lifted up his heel against me.” (Psalm 41:9) John made this very point more clearly; for he said the Lord had said, “It is that one to whom I will give the morsel when I have dipped it.” (John 13:26)

CPG 5206 fr.287 on Mt 26, 23

258Not as if some good or base thing somehow belonged to those not yet born, who are outside sensation (it is still utterly silly to think thus), but that for those about to fall into all misery, if they should be brought into being by God, non-existence is surely much and incomparably better (Matthew 26:24).

CPG 5206 fr.288 on Mt 26, 24

259The Lord gives thanks when he takes the cup — that is, in the form of prayer he converses with God the Father, declaring him as it were sharer and co-approver of the life-giving blessing that will be given to us, and at the same time giving us a pattern first to give thanks and thus to break the bread and distribute it. That is why we too, setting what was said before God’s face, beg intently that it be remolded for us into the spiritual blessing, so that by partaking of them we may be sanctified bodily and spiritually. He said demonstratively, “This is my body” (Matthew 26:26–28) and “This is my blood,” so that you may not think what appears is a mere type, but that through some ineffable energy of the God who can do all things what has been brought forward is truly changed into the body and blood of Christ — of which, when we partake, we take in Christ’s life-giving and sanctifying power. For it was necessary that he be mingled in us in a God-befitting way through the Holy Spirit, as it were with our bodies through his holy flesh and precious blood. And these we have also received as a life-giving blessing in bread and wine, so that we may not shrink when we see flesh and blood lying before us on the holy tables of the churches. For God, adjusting himself to our weaknesses, sends into what lies before us a power of life and transfers them toward the energy of his own life. And do not doubt that this is true when he says clearly, “This is my body” and “This is my blood”; rather receive the Savior’s word by faith, for being truth he does not lie.

CPG 5206 fr.289 on Mt 26, 26–28

260After Judas went out, the Savior handed over to the eleven the saving mystery. For a little later Christ was about, having risen with his own flesh, to go up to the Father, so that we might have the presence of his body — for without Christ’s presence it is impossible for a human to be saved and freed from death and sin if the Life is not with us. So he gave us his own body and blood, so that through them the power of corruption might also be destroyed, and that it might dwell in our souls through the Holy Spirit, and we might become sharers of sanctification and be called heavenly and spiritual humans.

Since after the resurrection Christ was about to be taken up to the Father with a body, for this reason he has given us his own body and blood, so that his flesh and blood, dwelling in us, may make us holy and sharers of immortality (Matthew 26:26–28).

CPG 5206 fr.290 on Mt 26, 26-

262The disciples were troubled not as light people, but because the matter was full of much perplexity and the knowledge of this mystery was hard to grasp — how the one who raised the dead and did countless signs beyond human measure was handed over to so dishonorable a death. This was the one who had said through the prophet, “I will strike the shepherd.” (Zechariah 13:7) (Matthew 26:31) That is why David also says to the Father, “For the one whom you struck, they themselves pursued.” (Psalm 69:26) Yet this did not happen entirely and wholly by the Father’s will; he wanted him not to suffer, if the Jews had accepted him. But since they did not receive him, the Father consented to the Son who chose to suffer this. That is why it is also said that the Father struck “the shepherd,” since he allowed him to suffer though able to prevent his suffering. The word said to Pilate by Christ is also to be understood thus: “You would have no authority at all against me unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11) — instead of “the Father did not consent to me who chose to suffer.”

CPG 5206 fr.292 on Mt 26, 31

263He did not leave the disciples to remain only as far as the gloomy things; he foretells the resurrection, loosing their grief, and promises to go before them into Galilee, by which he signifies that he is about to depart from the Jews and transfer to the nations. He does not appear from heaven immediately — which is also why he appeared there (Matthew 26:32).

CPG 5206 fr.293 on Mt 26, 32

264He is grieved as a human, and the impassible one makes his own what belongs to the soul and what belongs to the body. Since what belongs to humanity is common to him, just as what befits divinity alone has somehow also become common to the flesh through the ineffable and inexpressible union, let what happened scandalize no one; for the Word’s coming together with flesh, having suffered what is its own, will confirm well in us the mystery of the incarnation (Matthew 26:37–38).

CPG 5206 fr.294 on Mt 26, 37–38

265By “cup” in these things he calls the stupefaction through death and the drunkenness that as it were puts one to sleep toward sleep. Declining to drink it — that is, not making suffering very much according to pleasure — accuses the impiety of those who crucified him. For they may not surely say, “Since he chose to suffer, we are rather helpers of the will” (Matthew 26:39); for the declining will convict them of choosing to speak falsely.

CPG 5206 fr.295 on Mt 26, 39

266He intensifies the prayer and weaves through the same words, setting what concerns himself beside us as outline and pattern. For I think we must not offer a prayer only once according to eagerness, but rather approach frequently and not blush at repeating the same until our requests depart to an end for us. For this reason Christ also made a third prayer about the same things, though he knew the will of God the Father very clearly; rather, through the third he was confirming that he had become human (Matthew 26:42–44).

CPG 5206 fr.296 on Mt 26, 42–44

267Perhaps Judas thought he could escape notice, holding forth a kiss as a type of love while having a heart full of unholy plans. So he approaches Christ as from drunkenness, expecting to declare the exceptional virtue an instrument of deceit and of love, and he was also adding, “Rejoice, Rabbi.” (Matthew 26:47–50) Do you say “rejoice” to the one ensnared toward death through you? Are you not even ashamed of the shape of the betrayal? But from here one could see that, having the liar in himself — that is, Satan — he was also lying when he said “rejoice.” And Christ accepted being kissed — and he became harsher than every beast of gentleness.

CPG 5206 fr.297 on Mt 26, 47–50

268He said “twelve legions,” saying it instead of “you twelve disciples,” so that “I do not need your help; for I have not used the authority, but I give myself over to the Jews, since the scriptures foretold that this would be, that the Jews are about to do these things.” (Matthew 26:53)

CPG 5206 fr.298 on Mt 26, 53

269Does Christ then blame the Jewish leaders because they were not already laying an early snare of death for him? That is not what he means. Rather: though you could seize me day by day while I taught in the temple, you did not — for I was saving the need to suffer for the fitting time. So Christ did not say this as accusing Jewish madness, nor as rebuking their slowness toward bloodshed because they did not seize him at the outset when he was present and seen. He convicts them rather that the arrest was not the work of power in them, but of his will, who economically accepted the unwanted suffering and made it willed — not because suffering was good in itself, but because what would follow from it was about to restore human nature to what it was from the beginning, showing that taking him was the work of his permission (Matthew 26:55).

CPG 5206 fr.299 on Mt 26, 55

270God of all said somewhere through Moses: “If a soul sins and hears a voice of adjuration, and he is a witness or has seen or known, if he does not report it, he will receive the sin.” (Leviticus 5:1) So a charge of lawlessness was written against people if they answered nothing when they heard an adjuring voice. That is why Caiaphas craftily adjures the Lord: so that if he still wished to be silent after this, Caiaphas might condemn him as a transgressor — knowing that one adjured who stays silent becomes liable to the law’s penalty — but if he spoke the truth, they might kill him as a false christ for calling himself God while, in the flesh and what is seen, having nothing more than other humans. That is why Christ said, “You have said it” — instead of “your own mouth has now confessed it.” (Matthew 26:63–65)

And so that he might make the judgment against them heavier — I mean the judgment on their unwillingness to believe in him — he again sets his glory plainly before them, saying, “From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of God.” “Me, who have become in the form that is yours, the Son by nature and truly of God the Father, you have made of no account; and since you have sunk to such ignorance that you do not know his mystery and mine, though you are learned in the law, I necessarily say this: that only a short and bounded time was given you for impiety against me, as far as the precious cross; for after this I will at once run back into my own honor, ascend to the glory that was in the beginning, and sit with God the Father even with the flesh.” While Christ said this, Caiaphas tore his garments, saying, “He has blasphemed.” He did this to make the accusation fiercer and to raise what was said by the act. And yet what blasphemy was this? This especially both shone and conquered by force.

CPG 5206 fr.300 on Mt 26, 63–65

271One might fittingly say what one of the holy prophets said: “Heaven was amazed at this and shuddered still more exceedingly, says the Lord,” (Jeremiah 2:12) the God of all, the King of those who reign and Lord of those who lord it. He is dishonored as one of us, endures being struck (Matthew 26:67–68), and undergoes the laugh of the impious, setting beside us a pattern of his extreme forbearance. For how could the one who “examines hearts and kidneys,” the giver of all prophecy, not have known who it was that struck him?

CPG 5206 fr.301 on Mt 26, 67–68

273These things are a great proof against the Jews, who chose a robber and murderer rather than Christ. So little did justice matter to them, and thus, for “piety,” they were accusing Christ. And though the one appointed to judge was freeing him, they urge a death verdict against the leader and teacher of all piety, and, so that they might undergo a still heavier punishment, they cried out, “Take this one; release Barabbas to us.” (Matthew 27:21–26) See clearly: they “denied the Holy and Righteous One,” as blessed Peter says, “and asked that a murderer be granted them,” (Acts 3:14) so that they would be sharers of that man’s portion.

CPG 5206 fr.303 on Mt 27, 21–26

274Pilate, neglecting right and just judgment, did not even reason that he was giving an innocent man over to death, though he was master of delivering him. And he washes his hands, having supposed that through this he was free of the sin — which is foolish to think. Perhaps, as a gentile, he imagined that the water itself sufficed for cleansing of sins (Matthew 27:24).

CPG 5206 fr.304 on Mt 27, 24

275The Lord was blaming this unholy outcry of theirs (Matthew 27:25) through Jeremiah’s voice: “I have abandoned my house; I have left my inheritance; I have given my beloved soul into the hands of her enemies. My inheritance has become to me like a lion in a thicket; she raised her voice against me; therefore I hated her.” (Jeremiah 12:7–8) Somewhere Hosea also spoke about the Jews’ unholiness: “Woe to them, for they leaped away from me; they are wretched, for they acted impiously against me. I redeemed them, but they spoke false things against me. Their rulers will fall by the sword through the lack of training of their tongue.” (Hosea 7:13–16)

CPG 5206 fr.305 on Mt 27, 25

280Darkness came upon the whole earth from the sixth hour until the ninth, the sun failing, so that they might know that the one hung on the wood is that very one who took creation as ally for them when he warred against the Egyptians for their sake. The sun’s light failed, and darkness was scattered over their whole country, the sun drawing in its ray and as if no longer enduring to send it to those who had become killers of the Lord. And in another way we say the Jews’ country — or those who inhabit it — was darkened, because it did not receive the sun of righteousness and “the true light.” (John 1:9)

CPG 5206 fr.311 on Mt 27, 45

281The Lord spoke this cry as a human, so that he might set right for our human nature the freedom to say boldly to God, “Why have you abandoned me?” (Matthew 27:46) — for only the pure and those outside sin may say this without fear. And when he says “my God” to the Father, he undergoes no harm regarding his own divinity and glory, being God by nature, whenever as a human he says what befits humanity — since we too, if we call God Father, do not thereby cast off being humans by nature and creatures of God, even if by grace God calls us into sonship through faith in Christ.

CPG 5206 fr.312 on Mt 27, 46

284The tearing of the veil was no unclear sign that the temple itself all but mourned, and those brought down into ruin and destruction who crucified the Master of that very temple — perhaps also convicting them, through the custom among them, of impiety against Christ. For it was a Jewish custom to tear clothing around when God was blasphemed. But what happened also seems to hint something else needful for our benefit: the veil that hid the holies of holies within, when the time arrived in which the law’s shadow had to be drawn together and the worship in types to cease, and the holies of holies to be opened to those justified through faith in Christ, is torn around, God as it were showing them to the worthy, so that henceforth, with nothing restraining, those who go in Christ’s track may run into the inner tent (Matthew 27:51).

CPG 5206 fr.315 on Mt 27, 51

285And the crowds who had come to the spectacle were returning, striking their breasts — freeing themselves, perhaps, from impiety against Christ by crying out against the crucifiers, even if not openly, because of the leaders’ unholiness. So great was the power of the one being crucified — this centurion afterward proving steadfast in the faith (Matthew 27:54). The Lord was speaking truly when he said, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself.” (John 12:32) For look: lifted on the precious cross, he began to net many into knowledge of the truth. He drew the centurion, and he also drew some of the Jews, who were striking their breasts, pricked in mind and looking up toward the Lord with the eyes of understanding (Luke 23:48).

CPG 5206 fr.316 on Mt 27, 54

288You see how some of the evangelists run past certain things. For “they doubted” (Matthew 28:16–17) is clearly unfolded in John, where the one who doubted is shown — and he was Thomas. So mentioning the appearance in Judea that happened second also shows how the matter stood. But he said that he appeared to them in Galilee — which alone John seems to me to omit, since it lay before him to say the rest: how often he appeared, and where, and indeed how, narrating clearly (John 20:24–29).

CPG 5206 fr.319 on Mt 28, 16–17

289John speaks of other visions; the one Matthew speaks of here the eleven saw, and not only they, but also the many, as is likely (Matthew 28:17).

CPG 5206 fr.320 on Mt 28, 17

290Still economically, and in a more human way, he said “it was given to me.” (Matthew 28:18) Yet he wants it understood that he has authority over all as God, and that, leaving the measure of the emptying, he ran back into the glory innate and always present to him, and is confessed God and Lord of all even with the flesh. So when he says “it was given to me,” it is not as if he first received it when he became human, but as receiving, in the rank of a human, what he always had because he exists from the Father and is God by nature.

CPG 5206 fr.321 on Mt 28, 18