Commentary on Matthew 11.19–12.7

[Heading:] On the seven loaves. “And Jesus called his disciples to him and said.” Above, in the similar narrative about the loaves, before the loaves, “Jesus went out and saw a great crowd, and had compassion on them, and healed their sick. And when it was evening the disciples came to him, saying, The place is desert, and the hour is already past; send them away,” and so on; but now, after the healing of the deaf and the rest, he has compassion on the crowd that has already remained with him three days and has nothing to eat. And there the disciples make the request about the five thousand; but here he speaks of his own accord about the four thousand. And those are fed in the evening, after spending a day with him; but these, who are attested to have remained with him three days, partake of the loaves lest they faint on the way. And there the disciples say that they have only five loaves and two fish, without his asking; but here, when he asks, they answer about seven loaves and a few small fish. And there he commands the crowds to recline or sit down on the grass—for Luke wrote, “Make them recline,” and Mark says, “He commanded them all to recline”—but here he does not command, but instructs the crowd to recline. Again, there the three evangelists say in the same words that “taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed”; but here, as Matthew and Mark wrote, “Jesus gave thanks and broke”; and there they recline on the grass, but here they sit down on the ground. And you will inquire in these passages into the variation in John, who recorded of that event that Jesus said, “Make the people sit down,” and that having given thanks he gave of the loaves to those who were reclining; but of this one he made no mention at all. Attending, then, to the difference in what is written about the loaves in these passages, I think that these people belong to a different rank from those; therefore these are fed on a mountain, those in a desert place; and these remained with Jesus three days, those one, in the evening of which they were fed. And if it is not the same thing for Jesus to act of his own accord and to act after hearing from the disciples, consider whether those who received his benefit differ, when he fed them on his own initiative in order to benefit them. And if according to John the loaves from which the twelve baskets were left over were barley, but nothing of the kind is said of these, how are these not better than the former? And of those he healed the sick; but here, with the crowds, he heals not the sick but the blind, the lame, the deaf, and the maimed; therefore the four thousand marvel at these, but nothing of the kind is said about the sick. And those who ate of the seven loaves over which thanks were given are, I think, better than those who ate of the five that were blessed; and those who ate of the few small fish than those who ate of the two; and perhaps also those who sat down on the ground. And those leave twelve baskets from fewer loaves, but these seven baskets from more, because they are able to contain greater things. And perhaps these tread upon all earthly things and sit down on them; but those on the grass sit on their flesh alone: “For all flesh is grass.” Notice also after this that Jesus does not wish to send these away fasting, lest they faint, being empty of Jesus’ loaves, and come to harm while still on the way, the way to their own homes. Note too wherever Jesus is recorded to have sent people away, so that you may see the difference between those sent away after being fed by him and those sent away otherwise. An example of one sent away otherwise is “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Besides this, the disciples who are always with Jesus are not sent away from him; but the crowds, having eaten, are sent away. So again the disciples, thinking nothing great of the Canaanite woman, say, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us”; but the Saviour does not appear to send her away at all; for having said to her, “O woman, great is your faith; let it be done for you as you wish,” he healed her daughter from that hour; yet it is not written that he sent her away. This much we have been able to examine and see on the text before us for the present. [Heading of the next chapter:] On those who asked him to show them a sign from heaven.

“And the Sadducees and Pharisees came, and testing him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.” The Sadducees and Pharisees, who disagree with each other about the most necessary doctrines—for the Pharisees uphold the resurrection of the dead, hoping that there is an age to come, while the Sadducees know of nothing stored up for a person after this life, whether he has advanced in virtue or has not even tried to come out of the bounds of wickedness—these agree in order to test Jesus. Something similar to this happened, as Luke recorded, with Herod and Pilate, who became friends with each other in order to kill Jesus. For perhaps their quarrel with each other would have kept Herod from demanding, to please the people who said, “Crucify, crucify him,” that he be put to death; and Pilate, who had some inclination toward not condemning him, would have had his enmity toward Herod added to the inclination he already had to release Jesus. But their supposed friendship made Herod more forceful in his demand against Jesus before Pilate, who wished perhaps, because of the new friendship too, to do Herod and the whole Jewish nation a favour. And often even now one can see in life those who hold the most discordant doctrines, whether in the philosophy of the Greeks or in other systems, seeming to agree, in order to mock and make war on Jesus Christ in his disciples. And from these things, I think, one may pass in thought to seeing whether, among opposing powers that are in discord with one another, as Pharaoh was with Nebuchadnezzar, and Tirhakah king of the Ethiopians with Sennacherib king of the Assyrians, an agreement does not sometimes come about against Jesus and his people. So perhaps also “the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together” in one, never before in agreement with one another, so that, having taken counsel against the Lord and against his Christ, they might kill the Lord of glory.

We have come to these things in our discourse because of the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to Jesus together, who disagree about the resurrection and as it were came to an agreement in order to test our Saviour and ask him to show them a sign from heaven. For not content with the wonders among the people in the healing of every disease and every sickness, and with the other marvels which our Saviour had done in the knowledge of many, they wanted him to show them a sign from heaven as well. And I conjecture that they suspected the signs on earth, as possibly not being from God; at any rate they did not hesitate to say that “Jesus casts out the demons by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons”; and it seemed to them that a sign from heaven could not come from Beelzebul or any other evil power. But they erred about both, the signs on earth and those from heaven, not being approved money-changers, nor knowing how to discern the spirits at work, which are from God and which have revolted from him. And they ought to have known that many of the wonders against Egypt in the time of Moses, though they were not from heaven, were clearly of God, and that the fire that fell from heaven on Job’s sheep was not from God; for that fire belonged to the same one to whom belonged both those who took captives and those who formed three companies of horsemen against Job’s cattle. And I think that in Isaiah too—as though signs could be shown both from the earth and from heaven, the true ones from God, but those “with all power and signs and lying wonders” from the evil one—it was said to Ahaz: “Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height.” For if there were not signs, some in the depth and some in the height, that are not from the Lord God, it would not have been said, “Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height.” I know well that such an interpretation of “Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord God” will seem forced to some; but attend to what is said by the Apostle about the man of sin, the son of perdition, that “with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all deception of unrighteousness” he will appear to those who are perishing, imitating all the wonders of the truth. And just as the enchanters and sorcerers of the Egyptians, being inferior to the man of sin and son of perdition, imitated certain powers and signs and wonders of the truth, doing those of falsehood so that the true might not be believed, so I think the man of sin will imitate the signs and the powers. And perhaps the Pharisees suspected these things too because of the prophecies about him; but I ask whether the Sadducees too, testing him, asked Jesus to show them a sign from heaven. And if we do not say that they suspected this, what shall we say they felt in face of the wonders done by Jesus, when they remained unmoved and were not abashed by the marvels that took place? But if anyone supposes that we have given the Pharisees and Sadducees grounds for a defence, both where they say that the demons were cast out by Jesus by Beelzebul, and where, testing Jesus, they ask about a heavenly sign, let him know that we say they were drawn away by plausibility into not believing Jesus’ marvels, but not so as to be pardonable, since they did not see the words of the prophets fulfilled in the deeds of Jesus, which no evil power was able to imitate. For to bring back a soul that had departed, so that one already stinking and on his fourth day came out of the tomb, belonged to none other than him who heard from the Father, “Let us make man according to our image and likeness.” And to command the winds and stop the surge of the sea by a word belonged to none other than him through whom all things came into being, the sea itself and the winds too. Further, the teaching that calls people to the love of the Creator in harmony with the law and the prophets, and restrains the passions, and shapes character to piety—what else did it show to those able to see than that he who did such things was truly the Son of God? In view of which he said also to the disciples of John: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight,” and so on.

After this let us observe how, when asked about one sign, that he should show it from heaven to the Pharisees and Sadducees who asked him, he answers and says: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet”; when also “he left them and went away.” The sign of Jonah, then, was, in accordance with their request, not simply a sign but also one from heaven; so that even to those who tested him and sought a sign from heaven he none the less gave the sign, in his great goodness. For if as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so did the Son of Man in the heart of the earth, and after this he rose from it, from where would we say the sign of Jesus’ resurrection came, if not from heaven? And especially since at the time of the passion he became a sign to the robber to whom it was granted to enter the paradise of God; after this, I think, descending to Hades to the dead, “as free among the dead.” And the Saviour seems to me to join the sign that comes from himself to the account of the sign concerning Jonah, saying not only that a sign like that one is given by him, but that very sign; for attend to: “And no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.” That sign, then, was this one, in that the former became indicative of the latter, so that the solution of that sign, which in itself was obscure, was the Saviour’s suffering and his spending three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. At the same time we also learn something general: that, if a sign signifies something, each of the signs recorded, whether as in an event of history or as in a commandment, is indicative of something fulfilled later; for instance, the sign of Jonah, coming out after three days from the belly of the sea monster, was a sign of the resurrection of our Saviour, rising after three days and three nights from the dead; and circumcision, which is called a sign, was a sign of the circumcision shown by Paul in the words, “For we are the circumcision.” And seek for yourself what each sign in the old writings is a sign of in the New; and what is named a sign in the New Testament, what it indicates either in the age to come or in later generations, after the sign has taken place.

And he called them an evil generation because of the quality from the evil one that had come to be in them—for wickedness is voluntary evil-doing; and adulterous for this reason, that the Pharisees and Sadducees, having left the one figuratively called husband, the word of truth or the law, were led into adultery by falsehood and the law of sin. For if there are two laws, the one “in our members, warring against the law of the mind,” and the law of the mind, we must say that the law of the mind, that is, the spiritual law, is a husband, to whom the soul was joined by God as wife, to the husband who is the law, according to what is written: “A wife is joined to a husband by God”; but the other is the adulterer of the soul that is subject to it, which because of him is called an adulteress. That the law is the husband of the soul Paul clearly shows in the Epistle to the Romans, saying: “The law is lord of a person as long as he lives; for the married woman is bound to the living husband,” the husband who is the law, and so on. For notice in these words that the law is lord of a person as long as the law lives, as a husband is of a wife; for the married woman, the soul under the law, is bound to the living husband, who is the law; but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law, which is the husband. And the law dies for one who has gone up to blessedness and no longer lives as a citizen under the law, but acts as Christ did, who, though he came to be under the law for the sake of those under the law, in order to win those under the law, neither remained under the law nor left under the law those whom he had set free; for he led them up with himself to the divine citizenship above the law, which contains, as for the more imperfect and those still sinning, sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins. One who is without sin, then, and no longer needs the sacrifices of the law, has perhaps, when perfected, passed beyond even the spiritual law and come to be in the Word who is above it; who for those living in the flesh had become flesh, but for those who no longer at all make war according to the flesh is contemplated as he was in the beginning with God, being God the Word, and reveals the Father. Three things, then, are to be understood in this passage: a married woman under the husband, the law; an adulterous woman, the soul, which while the husband, the law, lives, becomes another man’s, the law of the flesh; and a woman married to the brother of the dead husband, to the living Word who does not die, who, “having been raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has dominion over him.” And this because of “If the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband,” and because of “Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she becomes another man’s while her husband lives,” and because of “If the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress if she becomes another man’s.” We have adduced this very text, “Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress while her husband lives,” wishing to show clearly why Jesus said to the Pharisees and Sadducees who tested him and sought him to show them a sign from heaven not only “an evil generation” but also “adulterous.” In general, then, “the law in the members, warring against the law of the mind,” is, as an adulterous man, the adulterer of the soul; and indeed every opposing power that gains mastery over the human soul and mingles with it is its adulterer, since the soul has the Word as bridegroom, given to it by God. After this it is written that “he left them and went away”; for how was the Word, the bridegroom, not going to leave the adulterous generation and go away from it? And you might say that the Word of God, leaving the synagogue of the Jews as adulterous, went away from it and “took a wife of harlotry,” those from the Gentiles; since those who were “Zion, the faithful city,” have become harlots, but these are like Rahab the harlot, who received the spies of Jesus and was saved with all her house, and after this no longer played the harlot, but came to the feet of Jesus, and wet them with the tears of repentance, and anointed them with the fragrance of the ointments of holy living; because of whom, reproaching Simon the leper, the former people, he said what is written. [Heading of the next chapter:] On the leaven of the Pharisees.

“And when his disciples came to the other side, they forgot to take bread.” Since the loaves from before the other side were of no use to the disciples who had come to the other side—for they needed some loaves before the other side and needed others on the other side—for this reason, neglecting to bring loaves with them as they went away to the other side, they “forgot to take” them with them. And those disciples of Jesus have come to the other side who have crossed over from bodily things to spiritual, and from things of sense to things of the mind. And perhaps, to turn back those who by reaching the other side had begun in the spirit from running back to fleshly things, Jesus said to those on the other side: “See and beware”; for there was a lump of teaching and of truly old leaven, that according to the bare letter and therefore not free of what comes from wickedness, which the Pharisees and Sadducees provided, and of which Jesus no longer wishes his own disciples to eat, having made them a new and spiritual lump, giving himself to those who had left the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees and come to him, as living bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world. And since for one who will no longer use the leaven and lump and teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees the way is first to see and second to beware, lest from not seeing and from inattention one partake of their forbidden leaven, for this reason he says to the disciples first, “See,” and second, “Beware.” It belongs, then, to the discerning and attentive to separate the leaven of the Sadducees and Pharisees, and all food that is not of “the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,” from the living bread that came down from heaven, so as not to admit the things of the Pharisees and Sadducees, but by eating the living and true bread to be strengthened in soul. And we might fittingly apply the text to those who, while being Christians, choose to live as Jews in a bodily way; for these do not see nor beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, but, contrary to the will of Jesus who forbade it, eat the bread of the Pharisees. And all, I think, who will not consider that the law is spiritual, and has a shadow of the good things to come, and is a shadow of things to come, and do not seek what good thing to come each of the laws is a shadow of, do not see nor beware of the leaven of the Pharisees; and those who reject the resurrection of the dead do not guard against the leaven of the Sadducees; and indeed many among the heterodox, because of unbelief about the resurrection of the dead, are kneaded with the leaven of the Sadducees. While Jesus was saying this, the disciples reasoned, not saying it aloud, but in their hearts: “Because we did not take bread.” And what they said was something like this: “If we had loaves, we would not have taken of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees; but since through lack of loaves we are in danger of taking of their leaven, and the Saviour does not wish us to run back to their teaching, for this reason he said to us, See and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” This they reasoned; but Jesus, seeing what was in their hearts and hearing the words in them, as the true overseer of hearts, rebukes them as not understanding, nor remembering the loaves they had received from him, because of which, even when they seemed to be in want of loaves, they had no need of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Then, making it clear, and showing more plainly to those who were being led astray by the double sense of “bread” and “leaven” that he was not speaking to them about bread of sense but about the leaven in teaching, he adds: “How do you not understand that I did not speak to you about bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” And though he had not laid bare the interpretation but still kept to the figure, the disciples understood that the Saviour’s word was about teaching, figuratively called leaven, which the Pharisees and Sadducees taught. As long, then, as we have Jesus with us fulfilling the promise that says, “Behold, I am with you all the days, until the consummation of the age,” we cannot fast nor lack food, so as through lack of it to seek to take and eat the forbidden leaven even from Pharisees and Sadducees. There may at times be an occasion, while he is with us, of our being without food, as was said above in the words, “They have already remained with me three days and have nothing to eat.” But even if this happens, not wishing to send us away fasting, lest we faint on the way, he gives thanks over the loaves the disciples have and makes the seven baskets left over for us from the seven loaves, as we have explained. This too must be observed, because of those who think that the divinity of the Saviour is not at all shown in the Gospel according to Matthew: that, when the disciples were reasoning among themselves and saying that they had no bread, Jesus knew their reasonings and said, “Why do you reason among yourselves, you of little faith, that you have not taken bread?”—this was not human; for the Lord alone knows the hearts of human beings, as Solomon says in the third book of Kingdoms. And since, when Jesus said, “Beware of the leaven,” the disciples understood that he did not tell them to beware of the loaves but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees, you will consider whether wherever leaven is named it is taken figuratively of teaching, whether in the law or in the Scriptures that come after the law; and so perhaps leaven is not offered on the altar, for prayers ought not to have the character of teaching, but should be only requests for good things from God. One might ask, because of what has been explained about the disciples who came to the other side, whether one who has come to the other side can be reproached as of little faith and as not yet understanding nor remembering what Jesus had done. It is not hard, I think, to answer that, in relation to the perfect—“when it comes, the partial will be done away”—all our faith here is little faith, and in relation to that we who know in part do not yet understand nor remember; for we cannot attain a memory sufficient and extending to the great number of the objects of contemplation.

We may also learn from this that we are sometimes charged, and reproached as of little faith, for the reasonings alone that we reason within ourselves. And I think that, just as one commits adultery in the heart alone without going on to the act at all, so one does the rest of the forbidden things in the heart alone. As, then, one who has committed adultery in the heart will be punished in proportion to such adultery, so too one who has done any of the forbidden things in the heart—for example, has stolen in the heart alone, or borne false witness in the heart alone—will be punished not as one who has stolen in deed too, or carried out the act of false witness, but as one who did such things in the heart alone; and this, if it was owing to himself that he did not go on to the vicious act. For if, besides having willed it, he made the attempt but did not succeed, he will be punished as having sinned not in the heart alone but also in act. One might ask on such matters whether, while one can commit adultery in the heart alone even without doing the deed of adultery, one cannot be chaste in the heart alone. And you will do the like with the rest of the praiseworthy things. The passage contains something that can plausibly mislead us, which, I think, must be cleared up in this way: adultery committed in the heart is a lesser sin than if one added the act as well; but it is impossible for there to be chastity in the heart while one hinders the chaste act—unless one should here too take as an example the virgin who, according to the law, was forced in a solitary place. For let it be granted that someone’s heart is most pure, but that violence, in the licentious man, has brought about the corruption of the body of the chaste woman. She seems to me to be wholly chaste in secret, but in body no longer pure, as she was before the violence; but not, because she is not pure, therefore also unchaste. I have said this because of “They reasoned among themselves, saying, Because we did not take bread,” to which is added, “But Jesus, aware of it, said, You of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves?” and so on; for the blame of things done in secret had to be examined, and alongside it the praise of things in secret.