Commentary on Matthew 15.30–16.2

Since there are various parables that name a vineyard, it might be asked whether in each of them the vineyard is taken of different things or of the same thing. I think one must examine … why the householder did not answer all who came first, and thought that they would receive more, and grumbled against the householder, but said to one of them only: “Friend, I do you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? And I wish to give to this last one as I give to you.” That the parable set before us admits these and similar questions that one might ask about it, I would affirm; and that no one can speak about the parable worthily except one who could say truly, “But we have the mind of Christ,” this too I will confidently declare. Who, then, has known the mind of Christ in this parable, except the one who has given himself over to the Paraclete, of whom the Saviour says, “He will teach you all things, and remind you of all that I have said to you”? For unless the Paraclete teaches all that Jesus said, including this parable, nothing worthy of Jesus would be said about it. And if all who read the Gospel according to John had understood such things about the Paraclete according to the voice of Jesus, some would not have given heed, as …, “to spirits of error and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose own conscience is seared,” so as to proclaim the spirits of error and the demons by the great name of the Paraclete, which the Saviour promised to the apostles and to anyone who is like the apostles. And I am persuaded that Matthew knew mysteries about this parable, just as he knew those about the sower and the tares sown among the wheat; but he did not judge it reasonable to record the explanation of this one as he did the explanations of those, not trusting to writing even a partial clarification of this parable, whereas for those parables they recorded the explanation in full. And if Matthew reasonably kept silent about the explanation of the parable, clearly, even if someone should be able to understand it in part, he would perhaps reasonably hint at the explanation that appears to him, without making clear all that he has grasped, and without entrusting it to writing, keeping clear of the danger that attends the setting out of mysteries

Come, then: let us, who fall very far short of the depth of the matters in the parable, and whose notions of it are very faint, give some things in part, with prayer, and show a little of others that are under inquiry, and so pass on, after dealing fittingly with the parable, to what follows it. First, then, let us look at what concerns the day in the parable under inquiry; and see whether we can call the whole present age a kind of day—great as regards us, but small and of short duration as regards the life of God, and of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. For perhaps for some of the blessed powers too, who are exalted in comparison with the many created beings below the ruling Trinity, the whole present age bears the same ratio to their life as a day among men bears to the whole time a man can live. Whether some such mystery is shown in Deuteronomy, in the song in which it is written, “Remember the days of the age,” or not, the one who is able will inquire. Then, if the days of the age are of this kind, it would follow to understand in a similar way the words: “I remembered eternal years, and I meditated by night with my heart; I mused, and my spirit searched, and I said, Will the Lord cast off for the ages?” And perhaps, to speak more boldly, the Lord will not cast off for the ages—for it is much that the Lord should cast off even for one age—but perhaps he will cast off also for a second age, when such a sin is forgiven neither in this age nor in the age to come. Who, then, is sufficient to refer to such days the six days and the seventh day of resurrection, and, after the sabbaths, the new moons, and the feasts in the first month, and the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month, and the days of unleavened bread that follow? In the same way one will fall into an abyss of thoughts if he imagines the other feasts in such days, and the whole seventh year, in which God grants to the poor and to proselytes and to the beasts of the earth the fruits that spring up from earlier cultivation, the land not being cultivated at that time. And who can go up to the number of the days of the abyss in the period of fifty years—I say “abyss” because of the depth of the doctrines—so that one may go up and see the fiftieth year and what is legislated for it fulfilled? But in seeking the one day of the parable set before us, and taking it to be the whole present age, we have entered unawares into the depths of God, needing “the Spirit who searches all things, even the depths of God.” I think that, just as it is said that certain things must take place at the going out, at the completion, of the year, so, as it were at the completion of many ages—whether they complete a kind of year or whatever it may be—our Jesus “was manifested for the putting away of sin,” so that after the completion of the ages, like the days of a year, another may follow again, in which “God may show, in the ages to come, the surpassing riches of his kindness,” into which he himself knows what he must show. Let these things be said about the day in the parable. You can establish them also from the Letter of John, which says: “Children, it is the last hour; and as you heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour.” For the last hour comes after the eleventh of the parable before us, since about the eleventh hour the householder in the parable, “going out, found others standing, and says to them, Why do you stand here all day idle?”

After this we inquire how it is not by lot that the householder hands over the works of the vineyard to five orders of workers: to the first, when “he went out early in the morning to hire workers into the vineyard”; to the second, when, “going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace”; to the third and fourth, when, “going out again about the sixth and the ninth hour, he did likewise”; and to the fifth, about the eleventh hour, when, “going out, he found others standing, and says to them, Why do you stand here all day idle?” And see whether you can call the first order that of Adam, at the very making of the world; for the Householder went out early in the morning and, if I may so name it, hired Adam and Eve to work the vineyard of godliness. The second order is that of Noah and the covenant made with him; the third, that of Abraham, with whom are understood to be included the fathers down to Moses; the fourth, that of Moses and the whole dispensation of Egypt and the giving of the law in the desert; and the last order is that of the coming of Christ Jesus, the one about the eleventh hour. Yet one man, the householder, … in the parable before us, went out five times and came to the affairs here below, so as to send out to the vineyard “workers who need not be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth,” who do his works. For one Christ, coming down to men, has always, many times over, ordered the calling of the workers.

Whether the five times of taking on workers also have some symbolic meaning drawn from the world of the senses, and from those who began to do the works by way of sense-perception, let the one who is able consider. Let it serve as an exercise, even if someone does not wish to accept as doctrine what is about to be said. For someone will say that touch belongs to the first calling; and so the woman said to the serpent what God had said: “You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it.” Smell belongs to the second; and so in Noah’s time “the Lord smelled a fragrant odour.” Taste belongs to Abraham; and so, entertaining the angels, he sets before them cakes of fine flour and the tender calf. Hearing belongs to the time of Moses, when the voice of God was heard from heaven. And sight, the most honoured of all the senses, belongs to the coming of Christ, when they saw Christ with blessed eyes. Let these things too be said about the five callings, whether for the sake of rational exercise or, if one wishes, also as doctrine.

I think also that there were works of the vineyard that needed workers at each hour. For works had to be done in the vineyard at dawn, and the householder who calls saw which workers were suited to the works from dawn. Another work, about the third hour, was that in the time of Noah, when God established a covenant with him. Then the ten generations from Noah to Abraham, ending with Abraham, … of the calling; and Abraham was a worker of the vineyard, beginning then; and after him Moses, with those who were with him, was taken into the vineyard. But there remained a last work in the vineyard, which needed a fresh and new calling, one that would work vigorously and all at once, in a short time, what was lacking in the vineyard; and this was the work of the new covenant. Equal, then, are the intervals between those called about the third, the sixth, and the ninth hours; and corresponding to the interval from the beginning to the third hour is that from the ninth hour, the hour of Moses, to the eleventh, that of the coming of Christ Jesus in the flesh. The householder agreed with those taken on at dawn for a denarius. This, I think, is the coin of salvation, the things that belong to glory not being reckoned along with it; for the denarius, I think, will be seen to be a name for salvation, while what is beyond the denarius, wherever it is named, is the coins of the one who made the mina he was given fivefold or tenfold. And in saying to those taken on about the third hour, “Whatever is right I will give you,” he urged the workers of the third hour to work as much as ever they could, but kept for himself the judging of the wage that would be right for the work done. And since he did likewise with those of the sixth and ninth hours, clearly he said to them too, “Whatever is right I will give you.” And those who wish, in a shorter time, to intensify their strength and energy for the work can have done work in the vineyard equal to that of those who worked from dawn, since they have not grown tired beforehand, as happened to those called at dawn. But someone might ask how the householder, going out about the eleventh hour, says to those who were not only idle but standing all day—that is, through all the time before the eleventh hour—“Why do you stand here all day idle?” I suspect that the secret doctrine about the soul is hidden in these words too, since they were idle all day until the eleventh hour, though they wished to work in the vineyard—they who boldly defended themselves, saying, “No one hired us.” We, then, have dared to say some such things, drawing our notions both from many Scriptures and from the parable before us, to show how those called about the eleventh hour stood idle all day because no one had hired them.

Let those who are not pleased with such doctrines tell us what the whole day is, and who are those who stood idle the whole day, wishing to work but not called into the vineyard, and speaking boldly in the words, “No one hired us.” For if the soul was sown together with the body, how had they stood idle the whole day? Or let them tell us what the whole day is, and the different callings of the workers in it, according to the different hours. But whether those hired by the householder in the parable are blessed, while there were also other hired workers, hired either by other householders or by the same one, who are either not blessed or not so blessed, is beyond us to understand worthily, or, as we understand it, to entrust to writing. I inquire also into what lies outside the vineyard, where the workers are found by the one who went out to hire them, and I consider whether the place outside the vineyard is the region of souls before the body; and whether the vineyard is not only the things here but also the things outside the body, where, I think, the workers work. For the souls of workers taken into the householder’s estate that have been freed from the body are not idle. Samuel, at any rate, worked outside the body by prophesying, and Jeremiah by praying for the people. Let us therefore make it our aim to work the vineyard, whether at home or away, so as to receive whatever is right. And no one, so far as the parable goes, is sent into it who will not do the works of the vineyard; for the householder blamed no one as having done the work too deficiently, though he did blame one for hoping for a greater and larger wage. And perhaps the place outside the vineyard is the marketplace, where those standing idle were. Great is the defence, toward their becoming worthy of the whole day’s wage, spoken by those who said, “No one hired us”; therefore he hired them and, so to speak, gave them a wage for standing patiently the whole day and waiting until evening for the one who would hire them. After this, when evening came—that is, the completion of the age, and of the day in the parable—the Lord says to his steward, whether to one of the angels who is set over the wages, or to one of many stewards who have held that office; just as it is said that the heir is under stewards and managers for the time that he is a child. According to the householder’s command, then, the workers are called by the steward, so that the wage may be given to the last first. For the earlier workers, “though attested through their faith, did not receive the promise, since God had foreseen something better concerning us”—those called at the eleventh hour—“that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” And we have received mercy for having stood the whole day, wishing that the one who would hire us might come, and having been idle, yet having been thought worthy of the work along with our defence; and having received mercy, we who are known to Christ expect to receive the wage first. Then, going upward, he will give the wage to those who worked before us, then to those before them, and so up to the first. One who has seen the place where Samuel dwelt, and has considered consistently with it the workers called at the eleventh hour, will see in what way those before bore the burden and the scorching heat of the day; while those called at the eleventh hour did not, like them, bear the burden of the day and the scorching heat, but bore the burden of having stood idle—before the coming to us of the Master, who said to us, “Come to me, all who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” (For idleness was a burden, as was not yet being judged worthy of the works in the vineyard; and those before the eleventh hour bore the scorching heat, each in proportion to his calling.) The first, not knowing the dignity of the householder, and that one must not grumble against him, thought they would receive something more than the salvation which the last receive, and they grumbled against the householder, envying us, the last, who worked one hour, the hour up to the completion, and became equal to those called from the beginning to the divine vineyard. But the householder said to one of them, perhaps to Adam: “Friend, I do you no wrong. Did I not agree with you for a denarius? Take what is yours and go”; for the denarius, salvation, is yours. “For I wish,” he says, “to give to this one too as I give to you.” And he did not say “to these,” but indicated one in particular; to say who he is is rather bold, but one might not implausibly conjecture that he is Paul the apostle, who worked one hour, perhaps more than all those before him. And if we must also say something about the vineyard, taking our starting point from the one who himself interpreted the vineyard in another parable, we shall say that the vineyard is the kingdom of God. For so he himself said in the words, “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation producing its fruits.” All, then, who do the works of the vineyard, accomplishing the works of the kingdom of God in a manner worthy of salvation, will receive the denarius.

After dictating these things on the parable set before us, the following also occurred to us about it, which can be useful to those who stumble at the deeper and more secret explanation. Someone will say that the whole life of human beings is the day of the parable. It is shown, then, that those called from childhood and the first stage of life to work the works of the kingdom of God are those hired by the householder at dawn; those who come to godliness after boyhood are those who came from the third hour; those who are already men are those sent into the vineyard about the sixth hour; those brought to godliness as elders are the ninth hour, taken to the Word of God after the scorching heat of youth and the burden of the deeds up to the age of elders; and those who are very old, at the very point of departure, are indicated by those called at the eleventh hour to the works of the vineyard. Since, then, it is the choice, and not the time someone has spent in faith, that is examined, the equal wage of salvation is given to all who have done what fell to them from the time they were called. At this those who have been believers from childhood, who have toiled and kept their youth under constraint, are indignant, if they are to have equal salvation with those who were idle as to godliness until old age, and … a short time to faith and …

According to this explanation, the vineyard would be the church of God, and the marketplace and the things outside the vineyard would be the things outside the church, from which the Word takes those who are called and sends them into the vineyard, the church. According to this explanation, those would not be counted among the workers of the vineyard who were called to godliness earlier but did not keep the things of the faith, and went out, overcome by passions. For even if, after having had their fill of the pleasures of sin, they wish, as penitents, to work the vineyard, they cannot say to the householder, “No one hired us”; for they were hired at the time when they were first called to believe. Nor will it be said to them, “Why do you stand here all day idle?”—especially if, “having begun in the Spirit” and afterwards “ending in the flesh,” they should wish to return once more to the desire to live by the Spirit as at the beginning. And we do not say this to deter those who have fallen from rising again, or those who have strayed from turning back, or those who have squandered the substance of the gospel teaching from running back to their father’s house. For let them have, because of their repentance and because they are found in a converted life, something better than those who are found in their sins; yet one must not suppose of them that they are like those who sinned in their youth only because they had never learned the things of the faith at all. The householder, then, wishes to give the last, as well as the first, the denarius, which is salvation, since he may do what he wishes with what is his own, and may rebuke the one whose eye is evil because the householder is good. Many of the last, then, will be first, and some of those called first will be last; “for many are called, but few are chosen.” It is likely, then, that one wiser than we, and judged by God worthy of a clearer and richer gift of the word of wisdom through the Spirit of God, and of the gift of the word of knowledge according to the Spirit, will find loftier and greater things, with full comprehension, concerning the parable, and will have an abundance of proofs, taking texts for them in a more lofty way. And we, having set out the meaning of the parable as far as we could, ask pardon of our readers if we have not been able to reach worthily the intent of what is written here; for perhaps, for our eagerness and for not having shrunk from the task, we shall be thought to have something worthy of acceptance.

“And as Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve aside privately on the way and said to them,” and so on, up to “and on the third day he will rise.” Things equivalent to these are recorded by Mark too, in this way: “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going ahead of them,” and so on, up to “and on the third day he will rise.” And Luke too will be seen to agree with these, writing: “And taking the twelve, he said to them,” and so on, up to “and they did not know what was said.” Paul, who urges us to imitate him as he himself imitated Christ, and who said, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” seeing Christ going to meet manifest dangers and going up to Jerusalem, though he knew beforehand that he would be handed over to the chief priests and scribes and condemned to death, and the rest, did something similar. For Agabus, taking his belt, bound his own hands and feet and said: “Thus says the Holy Spirit: The man whose belt this is they will bind in this way when he goes to Jerusalem.” Learning this, Paul, as one imitating the Teacher, went up eagerly to Jerusalem; and when he felt something human because of those who wept out of love for him and tried to prevent him from going up to Jerusalem, he said: “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound when I come to Jerusalem, but also to die for the name of my Lord Jesus.” Considering these things, then, let us sometimes, even when we know that toilsome trials lie ahead, go to meet them for a good reason, taking as our examples in such things first of all the Saviour, and after him his Apostle as well. But do not think that these things, and what we have said about them, conflict with the words, “If they persecute you in this city, flee to the next,” and what follows, or with the fact that Jesus withdrew when he heard that John had been handed over to prison. For we say that it is fitting neither always to avoid dangers nor always to go to meet them; and there is need of someone wise in Christ to discern which occasion calls for withdrawal, and which calls for eagerness for the contest without withdrawal, and much more without flight. Let this be said according to the intent of the Scripture set before us, to urge us to despise death and dangers.

Next we must observe that when Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem and took the twelve aside privately, Judas was still one of the twelve, and he took Judas aside privately too. For, it is likely, he was still worthy to be taken aside privately with the other eleven. And when on the way he said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem,” and what follows, clearly he judged this man too to be one of those who should hear what the Teacher would suffer, not despairing of him, since Judas did not yet know what he would do, just as none of us does. For it has been said to all of us: “Do not boast about tomorrow; for you do not know what the coming day will bring forth.” And the devil had not yet, I think, put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray Jesus. And since the Gospel according to Matthew is now before us for examination, let the one who is able attend more carefully to it from the beginning up to the present passage, and inquire whether Judas has not yet been accused by Matthew, but only, in the list of the twelve, has he said: “Judas son of Simon Iscariot, who also betrayed him.” More has been said by us to establish that Judas too was at first like the other apostles, when we were examining the words, “These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, saying,” and what is recorded there. We must compare what is said here with what is recorded in a similar way above. For there, at such words prophesied by the Saviour, “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, Mercy on you, Lord; this shall never happen to you”; but here the disciples are not recorded as having said or done anything at the announcement of the gloomier things that would befall him. And I think that the disciples were silent now because above, when “Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, saying, Mercy on you, Lord; this shall never happen to you, Jesus turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan; you are a stumbling block to me, for you do not think the things of God but the things of men.” It is likely, then, that, remembering what was said to Peter, they were on their guard in these matters, lest they too should hear something worse from the Teacher.