Matthew 3:10
By “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.
Greek
Ἀξίνην φησὶν τὸν Χριστὸν τὸν "τομώτερον μαχαίρας διστόμου" τὸν μέλλοντα ἐκκόπτειν τοὺς ἀπίστους Ἰουδαίους καὶ ἀλλοτριοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν πατριαρχῶν τιμῆς καὶ κοινωνίας, οὓς καὶ ῥίζαν εἶπεν, οἳ καὶ ἔμειναν οἱ πάλαι θεῷ ἀρέσαντες πατέρες οἱ περὶ Ἀβραὰμ καὶ ὅσοι πρῴην ἅγιοι· οἱ γὰρ ἐξ αὐτῶν ἄπιστοι ἐξεκόπησαν ὡς ἄκαρποι κλάδοι, ἡ δὲ ῥίζα ἔμεινεν, ἐφ' ἧς οἱ ἐξ ἐθνῶν ἐνεκεντρίσθησαν. Εἰρηναῖος δὲ ἀξίνην φησὶν τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ καθὰ καὶ Ἰερεμίας· ὁ λόγος κυρίου "ὡς πέλυξ κόπτων πέτραν". τί γὰρ λέγω, φησίν, ὅτι ἐκπίπτειν μέλλετε–διά τοι τοῦτο οὐδὲ ἀφειστήκει τῆς ῥίζης.