Commentary on Matthew 17.10–17.17

Next in the parable is that “again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them.” The Scripture is full of what happened to the prophets whom he sent on behalf of the people, so that, as holy priests, they might offer up the people’s fruit to God through their prayers. Later, after the prophets, he sent his Son, Christ. You will ask how the one who sends the Son says, “They will respect my son,” as though he said this without foreseeing what would happen to him; for according to the letter they plainly did not respect him. To say in this connection that the Father of the Son who was sent did not foreknow the future, but was deceived, saying one thing while another happened, is impious; and again, to say that the tenants respected him is against the plain evidence: “For the tenants, seeing his son, said among themselves, This is the heir,” and so on. One person, then, will say about this that “They will respect my son” had necessarily to come to pass, even if it did not come to pass then. Another will say that the Father, in sending the Son, did not say, “My son will receive the fruit from the tenants,” but that “they will respect him”; and they did respect him, in that they recognized that this was the Son and said among themselves, “This is the heir.” But it does not at all follow that, if they respected him and were struck at the beginning, they also did what people do who respect someone.

At the same time someone will ask who these tenants are who said, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him”; for the Jews do not appear to have killed him as the son of the householder. To this someone will reply that, when they were discussing among themselves who he might be, some said, “This is the Christ,” to whom others answered, “When the Christ comes, no one knows where he is from; but we know where this man is from.” Then, since, struck by the signs and wonders and divine powers, they thought that he was the Christ of God, but did not confess it, both “They will respect my son” was true, and it was also true that, having recognized that he was the Son, they said, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him.” For this reason the Saviour says, “You know me, and you know where I am from.” Whoever considers what is written about Herod, when he learned from the magi that the king of the Jews had been appointed, will see that those who killed the Saviour could have known who he was and nonetheless have plotted against him. For Herod, having learned from the scribes that the Christ is born in Bethlehem, and agreeing that the one who had been born was the Christ, sends them off, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, so that I too may come and worship him”; and none the less, when they had gone home, he plotted against the child, not disbelieving that he was the Christ. For had he disbelieved altogether, he would not have “killed all the children in Bethlehem and in all its region, from two years old and under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the magi”; but he believed him to be the prophesied Christ, and wished to kill him, and, as far as lay in him, did kill him. So too those who plotted against the Saviour could have said it — though not so that their word reached others, “for they said among themselves, This is the heir” — and none the less have put him to death. For when they had killed Christ, not understanding his resurrection (“for if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”), they thought that they themselves would be masters of affairs, since their wickedness had blinded them and they did not know the mysteries of God; and, as not knowing them, “they cast” his Son “out of the vineyard and killed” him. “They cast him out of the vineyard” seems to me to mean this: as far as lay in them, they judged him to be alien both to the vineyard and to the tenants, when they passed against him the sentence of death. Upon this the Saviour asks these same wicked tenants, saying to them, “When, then, the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” And they say to him, to be judged and condemned out of their own mouth, as wretches who would perish wretchedly and would no longer have the oracles of God: “He will put those wretches to a wretched death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants, who will render him the fruits in their seasons.” And they prophesy, as it were, like Caiaphas, the high priest of that year, and from themselves …

Then, upon this, the Saviour puts them to shame from the Scripture, since they thought themselves to be the builders of the people too: he, being a stone rejected by them, the Father will make the head of the whole building, holding together two corners, the Old and the New Testament, and the buildings of two peoples. For this is the meaning of: “Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner; this was from the Lord, and it is marvellous in our eyes?” The text stands in the hundred and seventeenth psalm, which is placed before the psalm with the most verses, and the passage runs thus: “The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner. This was from the Lord, and it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” And if any other of the prophecies about Christ can put to shame one who examines what is written with fair judgment, this too may be ranked among them. For if the prophet does not say these things about a senseless stone, as a foolish man might claim, it would be plain that Jesus, who was rejected by the wise men of that people, and by the chief priests and elders and scribes, truly became, as head of the church, the head of the corner, uniting the two Testaments and bringing them together. And this head is a gift of the Lord given to the whole building, and a head marvellous in our eyes, since we are able to see it. And for this reason, since the builders rejected this stone, the oracles of God, in which was the kingdom of God, were taken away from those tenants and those builders, and were given to a nation producing its fruits. But if “It will be given to a nation producing its fruits” is true, then plainly the kingdom of God is given to none of those who do not produce the fruits of the kingdom of God; for the kingdom of God is given to no one who is ruled by sin. But someone will say: if the kingdom of God is given to no one who does not produce its fruits, how was the kingdom of God given to those from whom it was taken away, according to the saying, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you”? Consider whether, in so great a difficulty, a problem not at all easy to resolve, we can solve the question by attending to the difference between what is said first about the vineyard and second about the kingdom of God. What is said about the vineyard is not what is said about the kingdom of God: for about the vineyard it is written, in the first place, that he let it out to tenants, but about the kingdom of God, that it will be given to a nation producing its fruits. The passage would have been insoluble if, as “He let it out to tenants” is written of the first, so it had been said of the second, “It will be let out to a nation producing its fruits”; and if, as it is said of the second, “And it will be given to a nation producing its fruits,” it had also been said of the first that he gave it to tenants. These are the difficulties we have raised about the passage, and we have said what appeared to us; but let one who is better able both to understand and to speak be heard rather than us.

“And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them. And though they sought to seize him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.” The chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables — one of which began, “A certain man had two children,” and the other, “There was a man, a householder, who planted a vineyard” — and knew that he was speaking about them: according to the first parable, because the second son said, “I go, lord,” and did not go; according to the other, because, in keeping with what had been said against the former, sinning tenants, this was said: “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruits.” And knowing that he was speaking about them, they sought to seize him and to do to him whatever they could; but they could not, since they were unable to withstand the onrush of the crowds, who held Jesus to be a prophet. And those who wish with treacherous intent to seize the Word, so that, having him in their grip, they may destroy him, could never seize him, since the crowds on his side, who take him to be a prophet of God, draw away those who wish to seize him and to plot against him. Next, it must be known that there are differences among those who seek to seize Jesus. In one way the chief priests and the Pharisees sought to seize him; in another way the bride in the Song of Songs sought him, and rose, and went about in the city, in the marketplaces and in the streets, and at last, with difficulty, found him, when she had gone a little past the watchmen who go about in the city; and having found him she held him fast, when she also says, “I held him and will not let him go, until I have brought him into my mother’s house and into the chamber of her who conceived me.” But this same bride, in the earlier part of the Song of Songs, says, “I held him … into my mother’s house and into the chamber of her who conceived me”; while toward the end of the same book, as one who has made progress and is about to hold him in another and a better way than before, she says, “I said, I will go up into the palm tree, … its heights.” That you may understand that the chief priests and Pharisees who sought to seize him did not seize him, consider that with doctrines other than the word of Christ it is possible to seize and to grasp the meaning of those who have taught anything whatever, and to overturn it with understanding, and, as Scripture has called it, to “instruct” it. For in this way the one who is wise according to the Gospel, as “the spiritual person who discerns all things, but is himself discerned by no one,” discerns and tests and refutes the other doctrines, whether of the wise of this world or of those who seem to excel in the heresies; but the mind of Christ in him is not condemned, nor caught, nor seized by those who set out to overturn it. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him?” And it is plain that, if anyone is going to instruct someone’s mind, he will first know it, and after this instruct it; “but who will know the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him?” For it would be caught by him and would yield to him. Let these things be said by me because of the words, “And seeking to seize him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.”

Yet even if the crowds speak well of Jesus, and think something true about him, they do not understand his greatness. For Jesus was indeed also a prophet, as is plain to one who has understood: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me; you shall listen to him in everything that prophet says. And whoever does not listen to that prophet will be utterly destroyed.” Yet his superiority did not lie in his being a prophet, but in his being the Son of God, “the firstborn of all creation, and the image of the invisible God, in whom all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,” and so on; and still more did his superiority lie in his being the Wisdom who says, “God created me as the beginning of his ways for his works; before he made anything, and before the age, he founded me in the beginning, before he made the earth,” and so on. And these crowds, who thought thus of him and were ready to fight for him against those who fought him, the chief priests and the Pharisees fear; and, though they wish to seize Jesus in order to plot against him, they cannot seize him. Here, then, it is written, “Because they held him to be a prophet”; but from this you may observe that the crowds, even if they do not hold him to be a prophet in so many words, whatever they hold him to be, hold him to be far less than he is, since they have not yet attained even the partial knowledge of those who know him in part, and state nothing clearly about him. And this I say about those who think truly about him; for those who think falsely about him must not be considered to be on his side, under a pretence of glorifying him. Such are those who confuse the conception of the Father and the Son, and grant that the Father and the Son are one in hypostasis, dividing the one subject by conception alone and by names; and those from the heresies who, under a pretence of thinking great things about him, “speak unrighteousness on high” and speak evil of the Creator, are not on his side; for they are not with him, and for this reason they are against him: “For whoever is not with me,” he says, “is against me.” So too, even if those who do not think truly about the Son gather in the name of Jesus, they scatter rather than gather; for the Saviour says, “And whoever does not gather with me scatters.” And notice that it is not said simply, “Whoever does not gather scatters,” but with the precise addition, “with me”; for the one who gathers must gather with him. You will understand who gathers with him by considering: “When you and my spirit are gathered together with the power of the Lord Jesus, to hand over such a man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh”; for “When you and my spirit are gathered together with the power of the Lord Jesus” shows the one who gathers with him. And you would not say that “When you are gathered in the power of the Lord Jesus” fits those who gather, or are gathered, while living wickedly, or while thinking wickedly and impiously about God or his Christ. I have said these things also because the crowds, who thought about Jesus and were on his side, but thought far less than his worth, are said to have held him to be a prophet. If you examine together with this Luke’s words about similar matters, you will, I think, establish what has been said more clearly. He says: “And he was teaching daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the elders of the people sought to destroy him, and could not find what they might do; for all the people hung on his words.” For here too it is shown that those who preside unlawfully over Jewish doctrines, called chief priests and scribes, enemies of Jesus, and elders of the people, seek to destroy Jesus and to blot out from among human beings his name and the faith in him; but they do not find what to do to accomplish what they wish, since the whole people that believed in him had been won over beforehand, and was bound to Jesus in love, and hung on hearing his teaching and his word. And one can see this even to this day: in what way those who put forward the worship of God, as his chief priests, and the divine Scripture, as scribes, and … the ancient, as elders of the people, seek to destroy Jesus and to blot out his glory, doing everything to this end in keeping with the will of their fathers, yet not finding what to do to draw away from him the people bound to Jesus, and to wipe him out of their minds. And perhaps all who hold any opinion whatever about the Divine, and maintain it in a way foreign to the teaching of Jesus, wish to destroy Jesus, but cannot, since the whole crowd hangs on him, listening. And those too who attend to writings of any wisdom whatever, and for this reason are figuratively called scribes, wish to destroy Jesus from among human beings; yet they do not find anything they could do that would accomplish it. And all the doctrines of Greeks and barbarians that are older than the teaching of Jesus wish to destroy Jesus; but they cannot, being overcome by the whole people, which hangs on Jesus the teacher, hearing and perceiving his teaching. And Mark too suggests similar things, saying: “And the chief priests and the scribes heard it, and sought how they might destroy him; for they feared him, because all the people were astonished at his teaching.” For the whole people of Christ is astonished at his teaching, and nothing can be accomplished by the chief priests and scribes just mentioned, who seek to destroy Jesus from among human beings and to dispel the astonishment of his whole people. [On those invited to the wedding.]

“And Jesus answered and spoke to them again in parables, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like a man, a king, who, when he made a marriage feast for his son, sent his servants,” and so on, down to: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” This parable too, understood in a more general way, will seem clear. In it the man, the king, is said figuratively to be the God and Father of Jesus Christ; the marriage of the king’s son is the restoration of the bride, the church of Christ, to Christ her bridegroom; the servants sent to call those invited to the wedding are the prophets in their several times, turning those of the people by their prophecies toward the festivity held at the restoration of the church to Christ; those who would not come, though they had been invited first, were those who did not listen to the words of the prophets; the other servants who were sent are another company of prophets; the dinner prepared, for which the king’s oxen and his fatted animals had been slaughtered, was the solid and rational food of the mysteries of God. So too “all things are ready”: the accounts of all things that exist, which those who have followed the call will eat and drink when the perfect comes. And since, of those invited through the prophets, some merely neglected what was said and busied themselves with the affairs of life, yet did not act wickedly against the prophets, he therefore, wishing to show the difference between them, said: “But they made light of it and went off, one to his own farm, another to his business; and the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.” Then, in keeping with the more general explanation, the king’s anger is understood, which the Apostle too names when he says of the Jews, “But wrath has come upon them to the end.” Then the war against the Jews is prophesied, and the capture of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the people after Christ’s coming, in the words, “And he sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.”

“Then he says to his servants, The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the outlets of the roads, and invite to the wedding as many as you find.” This could be referred to the apostles of Jesus Christ, who say to the Jews, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you; but since you judge yourselves unworthy, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.” The outlets of the roads, then, are the affairs outside Israel, at which those whom the apostles find are called to the wedding, the apostles gathering all whom they find. And they found those who listen, and in calling them did not concern themselves whether those called had been bad or good before the call; for they called all who were found. By “good” here we must take it that the more moderate of those coming to godliness are meant, in a simpler sense; to them you might apply this apostolic saying: “When Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves; they show the work of the law written on their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness.” And the wedding of Christ and the church was filled, the restoration of those whom the apostles had found, reclining to rejoice at the wedding. Then, since both bad and good must be called — not, however, so that the bad remain bad, but so that, changing their clothes and putting off the garments foreign to the wedding, they may put on those of the wedding, “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience” (for these are the garments of the wedding) — for this reason the king comes in to look at those reclining, before the prepared dinner is set before them, the oxen, the fatted animals slaughtered, and all things ready, so that, having looked, he may keep and gladden those who have the wedding garment, and condemn their opposites. Coming in, then, he finds one of those who had been invited and had come in response to the call, who had not changed his character nor “put on a wedding garment,” and he says to him, “How did you come in here without a wedding garment?” Then, since the one who has sinned, and has not been renewed nor put on the Lord Jesus Christ, is silenced as having no ground for defence, it is therefore written, “But he was speechless.” And it is not enough that the one who dishonoured the call be cast out of the wedding. He must be bound by those of the king’s attendants who are appointed to the bonds — he who did not use his course as he ought, and did not bring his active power to good action — so that he is not only cast out of the wedding, but also sentenced to the place foreign to light, where there was darkness, as it were the deeper darkness, which is called the outer darkness. And if any of us, coming at the king’s call to the wedding of his son, seems to obey and to come with those invited, but has not put on the wedding garment just described, he will suffer these things, and, bound feet and hands, will be cast into the outer darkness; where, in keeping with “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will weep,” there is weeping for those who have committed sins worthy of weeping and lament; and they will weep, lamenting their own miseries. Then, so that the Word may set forth the fear and the trembling and the grim things and the pains in which those will be who have not put on a wedding garment, he said, “There will be weeping”; and not only weeping, but also “the gnashing of teeth.” And there is added to the whole parable, because it has been shown that many were called but not all came, only few of them: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

So much, then, for a more general treatment of the parable. But we shall try to go back and search it out according to the power we now have, in case, helped by the Spirit of wisdom, we may be able to find some deeper things in the parable and so build up our readers, and, as reason directs, either keep silent, or hint at them, or set them out. The kingdom of heaven, then, is likened, as regards the one who reigns, to a man, a king; as regards the one who reigns with the king, to his son; and as regards those who are ruled, to the servants and to those invited to the wedding, of whom some would not come in, and others, making light of coming in, “went off, one to his own farm, another to his business, and others seized the servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.” Also among those who are ruled are the king’s army, and the bad and good gathered from the roads until the wedding was filled with guests reclining, and the one among those reclining who had no wedding garment, and the attendants ordered to bind feet and hands the one who had no wedding garment and to cast him into the outer darkness. It could, however, have been written, “The kingdom of heaven is like a king,” without the addition “man”; but since “man” has been added too, it is necessary to explain this as well. It might, it seems to me, be made clear in this way. One of those before us, who composed books of allegories of the sacred laws, in explaining the passages that present God as if he had human feelings, and those that show his divinity, used one text for God being said to be like a man as he manages human beings, namely: “The Lord your God bore with your ways, as a man would bear with the ways of his son”; and another for God not being like a man, namely: “God is not like a man, to waver.”