Commentary on Matthew 13.8–13.17

“And as they were going about in Galilee, Jesus said to them, The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” This will seem to some to be equivalent to “He began to show his disciples that he must go away to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests.” But that is not so. For it is not the same thing to show the disciples “that he must go away to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes,” and after suffering be killed, and after being killed be raised on the third day, as to say to them while they were in Galilee (which we did not learn above) that the Son of Man was about to be delivered. For “being delivered” was not said above; but now it is said, and also “into the hands of men.” On this let us inquire by whom he is about to be delivered into the hands of men, or by which ones. There we are taught by whom he will suffer and in what place he will suffer; here we learn in addition that his suffering many things happens at the hands of those already mentioned, but that they are not the first causes of his suffering many things; rather, the one who delivers him, or those who deliver him, into the hands of men. One person will say that the Apostle, explaining this, says of God, “He who did not spare his own Son but delivered him up for us all”; and the Son also gave himself up to death for us, so that he was delivered not only by the Father but also by himself. Another, gathering together not only that passage but also the ones set out here, will say that the Son was first delivered by God, to be tempted, then to contend, then to suffer for human beings, or rather for the whole world, so as to take away its sin, to the ruler of this age and to his other rulers; and then by these delivered into the hands of men, those who would kill him. An example will be taken from the story of Job: “Behold, all that he has I give into your hand; but do not touch him himself”; then, as it were, Job was delivered by the devil to his rulers: to the raiders, to the horsemen, to the fire coming down as from heaven, to the great wind that came from the desert and threw down the house. You will consider whether, just as he delivered Job's possessions to the raiders and to the horsemen, so he delivered them also to some power under “the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit now at work in the sons of disobedience,” so that the fire coming down from there on Job's sheep might be seen as coming down from heaven by the one who reported to Job that “fire fell from heaven and burned up his sheep, and devoured the shepherds likewise.” In the same way you will inquire whether the great wind that suddenly came from the desert and struck “the four corners of the house” was one of the powers under the devil, to whom the devil delivered the banquet of Job's sons and daughters, so that the house might fall on the righteous man's children and they might die. Let it be, then, as with Job: the Father first delivers the Son to the opposing powers, and then they deliver him into the hands of men, among whom was Judas, “into whom after the morsel Satan entered,” who delivered him in a more primary way than Judas did. But perhaps, examining the Son's being delivered by the Father to the opposing powers together with the Saviour's being delivered by them into the hands of men, you may think that the “delivering” spoken of in both cases is the same. But consider that the Father delivered him up for us all out of love for humankind; whereas the opposing powers, when they delivered the Saviour into the hands of men, did not aim at delivering him for anyone's salvation. Rather, as far as lay with them, since none of them knew the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery, they delivered him over to die, so that his enemy death might get him under its hand, like those who die in Adam; and the men who killed him did this, shaped by the will of those who wanted Jesus to become subject to death. I think it was necessary to examine these things also, because Jesus, who is delivered into the hands of men, is delivered into the hands of men not by men but by powers to whom the Father delivered the Son for us all; and in his very being delivered, and coming under those to whom he was delivered, he destroys the one who has the power of death. “For through death …”

We must hold that the devil has the power of death: not of the intermediate and indifferent death by which beings composed of soul and body die when the soul is separated from the body, but of the death that is opposed and hostile to him who said, “I am the life,” the death according to which “the soul that sins, it shall die.” The Saviour shows that it was not God who delivered him into the hands of men when he says, “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be delivered to the Jews.” For in being delivered to the Jews he was delivered into the hands of men, not by his own servants, but by the ruler of this age, who said, concerning the powers in the invisible realm, the kingdoms set up against human beings, “All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.” Therefore we must hold that this too was said concerning them: “The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.” Those kings and rulers stood up and were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ; but we, having been helped by his being delivered by them into the hands of men and killed, say, “Let us burst their bonds and cast their yoke from us.” For when we are conformed to the death of Christ, we are no longer under the bonds of the kings of the earth, as we have explained them, nor under the yoke of the rulers of this age who were gathered together against the Lord. And for this reason “the Father did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all,” so that those who received him and delivered him into the hands of men might be laughed at by “him who dwells in the heavens” and be mocked by the Lord, having received the Son from the Father, contrary to their expectation, for the destruction of their own kingdom and rule; the Son who was raised on the third day by having abolished his enemy death, and who has made us conformed not only to his death but also to his resurrection, through which “we walk in newness of life,” no longer sitting in the region and shadow of death, because the light of God has risen upon us. When the Saviour said, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise,” “they were greatly grieved.” They fixed their attention on his being about to be delivered into the hands of men and on his being killed, as things gloomy and worthy of grief, but they did not attend to his rising on the third day; he needed not even a longer time, in order through death to destroy the one who has the power of death.

“And when they came to Capernaum, those who collected the double drachma came to Peter.” There are certain kings of the earth, and their sons, who do not pay tolls or tribute; and others besides their sons, strangers to the kings of the earth, from whom the kings of the earth take tolls or tribute. Their sons are free in the presence of the kings of the earth, as with their fathers; but the strangers, though free with respect to things outside the earth, are slaves with respect to those who lord it over them and enslave them, as the Egyptians lorded it over the sons of Israel, “and made their life bitter,” and enslaved them by force. For the sake of those who are in slavery, in a manner corresponding to the slavery of the Hebrews, the Son of God took only the form of a slave, doing no work of clay or of a slave. As one, then, who has the form of that slave, he pays toll and tribute, no other than that paid by his disciple; for the same stater was enough, the one coin given for Jesus and for his disciple. This coin was not in the house of Jesus; it happened to be in the sea, in the mouth of the sea fish. I think that the fish too was benefited when it came up caught on the hook of Peter, who had become a fisher of men, in whom was the fish figuratively spoken of, so that the coin bearing the image of Caesar might be taken from it, and it might come to be among those caught by people who have learned to fish for men. So let the one who has the things of Caesar render them to Caesar, so that after this he may be able to render the things of God to God. But since Jesus, being the image of the invisible God, did not have the image of Caesar (for the ruler of this age had nothing in him), for this reason he takes the image of Caesar from the sea, the place proper to it, to give it to the kings of the earth for himself and his disciple, so that those who collected the double drachma might not suppose that Jesus was their debtor or the debtor of the kings of the earth. For he paid the debt without having taken it up or possessed it or acquired it, or ever having made it his own possession, so that the image of Caesar might never be beside the image of the invisible God.

It might also be put in another way. Some are sons of the kings of the earth; others are not their sons, but sons nonetheless, sons in the absolute sense. These others, because they are strangers to the sons of the kings of the earth, are sons of no one on earth, but are sons in just this sense: of God, or of his Son, or of someone who belongs to God. If, then, the Saviour asks Peter, “From whom do the kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their own sons, or from strangers?”, and Peter says, not from their own sons but “from strangers,” Jesus says concerning those who are strangers to the kings of the earth and who, because they are free, are sons: “Then the sons are free.” For the sons of the kings of the earth are not free, “since everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin”; but those are free who have remained in the truth of the word of God, and for this reason have known the truth, so that they may also be set free by it. If, then, anyone is simply a son, and not, wholly, a son of the kings of the earth, that one is free; and yet, though free, he has taken care not to cause offence even to the kings of the earth and their sons and those who collect the double drachma. Therefore he says, “But so that we may not offend them, go and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up,” and what follows. I would ask those who delight in myth-making about natures of what nature they were, the kings of the earth, or their sons, or those who collected the double drachma, whom the Saviour takes care not to offend. It appears, on their hypothesis, that they are not of a praiseworthy nature; and yet he took care that they should not be offended, and prevented any stumbling-block from arising for them, so that they might not sin worse, and with a view to their being saved, if they wish, also through accepting the one who spared them so that they would not be offended. And as in a place of consolation (for that is the meaning of Capernaum), consoling his disciple, who was both free and a son, he gives him power to catch the first fish, so that when it came up Peter might be consoled at the fish that came up and was caught, and at the stater taken from its mouth, which was to be paid to those to whom the stater belonged, who demanded such a coin as their own.

You might sometimes apply the passage gracefully to a lover of money, who has nothing in his mouth but talk about money, when you see him healed by some Peter, who takes away the stater, the symbol of all his love of money, not only from his mouth and his words but also from his whole disposition. For you will say that such a person was in the sea, in the salty affairs of life and the waves of the cares and anxieties of avarice, having the stater in his mouth while he was unbelieving and avaricious; but that he came up from the sea caught on the hook of reason, and, benefited by some Peter who taught him the truth, no longer has the stater in his mouth, but instead of it the oracles of God, which bear his image.

Further, on “Those who collected the double drachma came to Peter,” you will cite from Numbers that for the holy ones, according to the law of God, it is not simply a double drachma that is given but a holy double drachma; for it is written, “And you shall take five shekels a head, according to the holy double drachma”; and for all the sons of Israel a holy double drachma is given per head. Since, then, the holy one of God cannot have, along with the holy double drachmas, double drachmas that are, if I may call them so, profane, for this reason the Saviour orders that a stater, in which were the double drachmas, found in the mouth of the first fish that came up, be given to those who collected the double drachmas that were not holy and who asked Peter, “Does your teacher not pay the double drachma?”, so that it might be given for the teacher and for the disciple.

“In that day the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” To teach us what the disciples came to Jesus asking to learn from him, and how he answered their question, Matthew could have told only this; but he added, according to some of the copies, “In that hour the disciples came to Jesus,” and according to others, “In that day.” It is necessary not to leave the evangelist's intention unexamined. Therefore, attending to what comes before “In that day” or “hour,” let us consider whether it is possible to find a way from it to see the addition “in that day” or “hour” as necessary. Jesus, then, had come to Capernaum together with his disciples, where “those who collected the double drachma came to Peter” and asked him, “Does your teacher not pay the double drachma?” Then, when Peter had answered them and said, “Yes,” Jesus, to give a further defence concerning the payment of the double drachma, sends Peter to draw up a fish with the hook, in whose mouth, he said, would be found the stater to be given for himself and for Peter. It seems to me, then, that they thought this was the greatest honour from Jesus to Peter, as if he had judged him greater than his other followers, and that they wanted to make sure of what they suspected by asking Jesus and hearing from him whether, as they supposed, he had judged Peter greater than them; and at the same time they hoped also to learn the reason why Peter had been preferred to the other disciples. Wishing, I think, to show this, Matthew added to “Take that” (clearly the stater) “and give it to them for me and for you” the words “In that day the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Perhaps they were also in doubt because three had been preferred at the transfiguration; and they were in doubt which of the three had been judged greatest by the Lord. For John reclined on his breast because of love, and it is likely that before the supper they had seen many tokens of special honour from Jesus toward John; Peter, on the other hand, at his confession, heard himself called blessed because of “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”; but again, because of “Get behind me, Satan; you are a stumbling-block to me, because you do not think the things of God but the things of men,” they were distracted by the thought that perhaps he was not the greatest, but rather one of the sons of Zebedee. So much on “In that day” or “hour,” the day in which the matter of the stater had happened.

Next we must consider “the disciples came to him,” as disciples putting problems to their teacher and inquiring who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. In this we must imitate the disciples of Jesus: if ever something we are investigating is not found, let us come in full agreement about the question to Jesus, who is present where two or three are gathered in his name, and who is ready, by his presence in power, to enlighten the hearts of those who genuinely wish to be his disciples, so that they grasp what is sought. And it is not out of place for us also to come to one of the teachers appointed by God in the church and put to him a problem like “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” What, then, of the matters in this question was already known to the disciples, and what was being sought? They had grasped that there is no equality among those deemed worthy of the kingdom of heaven; and that, since there is no equality, there is someone greater, and so on in order down to the least. But what sort of person the greater is, and how the least has lived, and who are those in between, they were still seeking. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that they knew who the least was from “Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches people so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven,” but did not know who was greatest of all, even if they grasped “But whoever does and teaches them, he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven”; for since there are many who are great, who among the great is greater, as among human beings, was not clear to them. That there are many great ones, but that the great are not equally great, will be shown by the word “great” applied to Isaac, “who, advancing, became greater, very [great],” and said also of Moses, of John the Baptist, and of the Saviour. Everyone will agree that all these were great according to Scripture, but that the Saviour was greater than they. But whether John, than whom none among those born of women was greater, was greater than Isaac and Moses, or not greater but equal to both, or to one of them, it is not without danger to declare. And from “Isaac, advancing, became greater, until he became very great,” not simply but with the added word “very,” set down twice, one can learn that there is a difference among the great: one is great, another very great, and another very, very great. The disciples, then, coming to Jesus, sought to learn who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven; and perhaps they wished to learn it by hearing from him something like, “So-and-so is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” But he leads the discussion to something more general, showing what sort of person in quality is greatest in the kingdom of heaven; let us understand this, as far as we can, from what is written: “For Jesus, calling a child,” and what follows.

First one may explain it simply. One who explains the Saviour's words here in the simple sense might say this: if a man so far puts to death the desires of a man, putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit and “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,” that he has the condition of a child who has not tasted sexual pleasure and has no thought of a man's impulses, such a person has turned and become like the children. And to the one who has the children's condition with regard to such impulses, so much more than those who are in training and have advanced only so far in chastity, the Saviour added the words “is greater in the kingdom of heaven.” What has been said of children in the matter of sexual pleasure might also be said of the other passions, infirmities, and diseases of the soul, into which children who have not yet reached the full use of reason do not by nature fall. For example, one may turn and, being a man, become toward anger such as the child is; and such as a child sometimes is toward grief at the time when a father or mother or some brother has died, so as to laugh and play at that time, such would one become who has turned like the children and has acquired, by reason, a state that does not admit grief, so as to become toward grief such as the little child is. You will say the same about what is called pleasure, by which the base are irrationally elated; children do not feel it, nor do those who have turned and become like the children. It has been demonstrated with precision by others too that none of the passions befalls children who have not yet reached the full use of reason; and if none, then clearly not fear either. But if there is something in children analogous to the passions, it is faint, very quickly overturned and healed, so that it is something to be content with if one who has turned like the children attains to this: to have only so much of the suggestion, as it were, of the passions as children have. Concerning fear, then, one might think much as has been said: children do not suffer the fear of the base, but something else, which those who distinguish precisely the matters of the passions and of their names say is fear. Such too is children's freedom from bearing grudges at the very time of their tears: in an instant they change, and laugh and play with those who are thought to have grieved and frightened them, but who did not truly do these things. So too one will humble himself like the child whom Jesus called. For loftiness of mind and conceit about noble birth or wealth or any of the things that are thought to be good but are not, do not befall a child. That is why one can see very young children, up to three or four years old, behaving like the low-born even if they seem to be of noble birth, and not seeming at all to love rich children more than poor ones. If, then, the disciple of Jesus has, by reason, what children have by reason of their age toward such passions as elate the foolish, and has humbled himself like the child Jesus showed, not elated by a little glory, nor puffed up by wealth or by fine clothing, nor swollen with pride in noble birth, then above all those who, as the Word has shown, have turned like the child whom Jesus took, must be received and imitated in the name of Jesus, since Christ is in these most of all. And for this reason he says, “And whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.”

What follows is laborious to explain consistently with what was set out before. For someone might say: how is one who has turned and become like the children a little one among those who believe in Jesus, and liable to be made to stumble? Let us try to make this clear too, consistently. Whoever has assented to Jesus as the Son of God according to the true history about him, and journeys through the deeds of the Gospel toward living according to virtue, has turned and is journeying toward becoming like the children; it is impossible that such a one should not enter the kingdom of heaven. Such people are many, but not all who have turned toward becoming like the children have arrived at being made like the children; each falls short of likeness to the children by as much as he falls short of the children's disposition toward the passions described above. In the whole multitude of believers, then, there are also those who have, as it were, just turned toward becoming like the children, who, by the very fact of having turned so as to become like the children, are called little ones; and of these, those who have turned to become like the children but fall far short of becoming exactly like the children are liable to be made to stumble. Each of them falls short of likeness to the children by as much as he falls short of the children's disposition toward the passions described above. To these one must not give occasions of stumbling; otherwise, the one who made them stumble will need, as something profitable to him for healing, “to have a donkey millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” For having thus paid the sufficient penalty in the sea, where is the dragon “which God formed to mock at it,” the one who has been punished and has suffered as far as is profitable for the end in view will afterwards be past the labours in the depth of the sea which he endured, dragged down by the donkey millstone. For there are differences among millstones too: one of them is, so to speak, a human millstone, another a donkey millstone. The human one is that of which it is written, “Two women will be grinding at one mill; one is taken and one is left”; the donkey one is that which will be placed around the one who causes stumbling. Someone might say (I do not know whether rightly or mistakenly) that the donkey millstone is the heavy and downward-tending body of the wicked man, which he will take up in the resurrection, so as to be drowned in the abyss, which is called the depth of the sea, where is the dragon “which God formed to mock at it.” Another will refer the causing of one of the little ones to stumble to the powers invisible to human beings; for many stumbling-blocks come from these too to those whom Jesus shows to be little ones. And whenever they cause one of the little ones shown by Jesus, who believe in him, to stumble, they will take up, as a donkey millstone, the perishable body that weighs down the soul, hanging from the neck that drags them down to the things of this world, so that through these their conceit may be pulled down, and, having paid the penalty, they may come to something profitable to them through the donkey millstone.