Commentary on Matthew 17.3–17.9

But since the chief priests and the elders of the people here were in no way worthy of such contemplations, he does not answer them for this reason, but asks in return, so that, through their failure to answer about John, he too might reasonably persuade the questioners that it was not idly that he answered them, “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.” In connection with the passage I ask whether each of those who have done marvels by some authority has done them by one, or whether some did so at first by one, but, having advanced, by some greater one. The Saviour, however, seems to have done these things by one authority, which he received from the Father. For “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things” was the saying of one who teaches that he has acted by an authority, but did not show them by what kind, nor unfold its particular character and all that he would have defined about it, setting out what distinguishes it from the other authorities by which the prophets before him had acted. And now too Christ is in the temple, the church, and teaches in it; and some people like those chief priests and elders of the people question him, but do not obtain an answer, being unworthy to know what they wish to learn. Someone will ask whether, wishing to shake them off, he asked about John at random, as though he might have asked about anyone else of the kind, or whether he necessarily asked about John, so that, in keeping with their answer about him, he might give the answer that followed about the authority. To me the passage seems not to be at random. But since John was “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord,” and this was the one of whom the prophet said, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you,” — for this reason, I think, he asks about him, not unaware that, after considering, they would say, “We do not know,” because of what is written; but, supposing they had said, “From heaven,” he would have given the answer that follows from the answer that John’s baptism was from heaven …

“What do you think? A man had two children. He went to the first and said, Child, go, work today in the vineyard,” and so on, down to: “But you, when you saw it, did not change your minds afterward so as to believe in him.” Matthew alone recorded this parable, which, as it seems to me, contains the account of Israel, which disobeyed God, and of the people from the Gentiles, which believed. For these are the two children whom God had, he who, like a man, bears patiently with his son. And he, going to the first, whom he acquired from the beginning, whom he foreknew and foreordained, said to him, “Child, go, work today in my vineyard”; and he put it off, avoiding this place because of the scorching heat in it and the labours, and said, “I will not”; but later, at the consummation, repenting of having said to the father, “I will not,” he came into the vineyard and did the father’s will. When, however, the first had said, “I will not,” the father went to the other and spoke in the same way; then the second answered, “I go, Lord,” but did not come to the vineyard of the word and the father’s field. And it is plain that the one who said, “I will not,” and afterward repented, went away and worked in the vineyard, did the father’s will in deed; for the one who promised in word and did not do it denied by his works that he was doing the father’s will. Consider whether you can apply the parable also to those who promise little or nothing — neither virginity nor any other practice in keeping with the Gospel — but in their works show the opposite of what they did not even promise at the start in words about good deeds; and further to those who promise great things but do nothing in keeping with their promise. For the one says, as it were, “This virginity is beyond me; I do not want it; and to renounce life and devote oneself to the word is better than my worth”; while the other, hearing of each of the great works in the Scripture, says, “I go, Lord.” And one can see some who, as if from repentance, make progress toward the better, and take care of themselves toward what is higher beyond what was expected of them at the start; and others who rashly promised many things but in their works acted against their promises.

After the parable there follows, addressed to the one who said, “I will not,” and afterward repented and went: “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go ahead of you into the kingdom of God”; and addressed to the one who said, “I go, Lord,” and did not go: “For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him,” and: “But you, when you saw it, did not change your minds afterward so as to believe him.” Whoever considers those who come to the word from a most wretched life and believe in Christ, and those who boast of the law and the prophets yet disbelieve the Son of God, live licentiously, and are rather cruel toward their own people, will see that Jesus’ saying is true, that the tax collectors and the prostitutes go ahead of Israel into the kingdom of God; but that Israel, having seen Jesus, has not repented even to this day so as to believe the truth at least later. But notice also that “They go ahead of you into the kingdom of God” does not shut Israel out from entering the kingdom of God; for no one goes ahead of someone who will never be in the place to which he has gone ahead. See, then, whether it is not indicated that, when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then all Israel will be saved. But let Israel be understood not as Israel according to the flesh, but as the one marked by nobility of soul, who has a natural aptitude for understanding and insight, yet has not been brought up in faith and a good life in a way worthy of that aptitude. [On the vineyard that was planted and let out to tenants.]

“Hear another parable. There was a man, a householder, who planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it and dug a winepress in it,” and so on, down to: “and it will be given to a nation producing its fruits.” To one who does not test the details of the parable further, nor examine each word, it will seem quite clear when explained as follows. The people before us, being also God’s portion, was the vineyard planted by the householder of the parable; God’s guard around it was the hedge; the tower was the temple, the winepress the place of the libations; and the tenants were the elders and wise men of the people. The master’s going abroad means that the Lord, who was with them in a cloud by day and a pillar by night until he planted them, bringing them into his holy mountain and into his dwellings, no longer appeared to them in that way. The season of fruits that drew near was the time of the prophets, who demanded the fruit from the tenants and from the vineyard, so that they might now show that they had received the law by having lived according to it. The servants sent to the tenants to receive the fruits were the first prophets, whom the rulers and wise men of the people insulted, beating them; some they even killed, and others they stoned. The other servants after these, more than the first, are the time of the many prophets, whose names are written in the second book of Chronicles, and in Jeremiah, and the Twelve, and Daniel; for one might say that Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael too were prophets. These too, more numerous than the earlier prophets, they treated in the same way, beating, killing, and stoning them. Last of all the householder sends his own son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was able to win the respect of the vineyard and the tenants. But the chief priests and the elders and the wise men of the people, seeing the Son, and not being wholly insensible of his superiority, took him to be the heir; and they dare even to kill him, so that they themselves may become masters of the vineyard; and having cast him out, and judged him to be outside the affairs of Israel, they killed him. And at once the Lord of the vineyard, whom they killed, comes, risen from the dead, and destroys the tenants, wretches, wretchedly, and hands over to other tenants, his apostles, those of the people who believed, that is, the vineyard; and they render the fruits to the householder in their seasons. Then, when those who earlier had asked, “By what authority are you doing these things?” had spoken, after the parable, the words beginning, “He will put those wretches to a wretched death,” the Saviour answers, teaching them from the prophecy that he was rejected by them, but is precious with God, the head of the whole building and of what holds it together, and indeed a head marvellous in the eyes of those who know how to see it. Then, prophesying about the calling from the Gentiles, he says to the teachers of the Jews who did not believe in him, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruits.” But, as we said before, such an explanation is rather general and not word by word. A spiritual person, able to discern all things, might raise many difficulties about it, knocking at the door, shut by obscurity, of the thoughts hidden here; and seeking rightly he might find, and asking of God he might receive. We too, according to our modest measure, picture the passage in some such way as this. The householder, the man, is God, about whom it is written, “The Lord your God bore with your ways, as a man would bear with the ways of his son.” For because he bears with our ways and, in helping human beings, takes on a human manner, the one who helps human beings is said in certain parables to be a man. And here he is called a man, a householder, because of the vineyard, the hedge placed around the vineyard, the winepress that he dug, the tower that he built, the servants he has acquired, whom he sends to the tenants, and the second time sends in greater number; and as a householder he let out the vineyard to tenants, from whom he takes it away and gives it to others. Again, in the passages above, a man, a householder, is spoken of in these words: “For the kingdom of heaven is like a man, a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard”; and as a householder he has a vineyard and hires workers; and he also has a steward, to whom he says, “Call the labourers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last up to the first.” But in the parable of the supper, the marriage feast of his son, and the invitation, he is called not a householder but a king; for he is greater than a householder, sending an army as a king, and destroying those who seized his servants, insulted them, and killed them; and with royal authority, not merely as a householder, he told the attendants to bind the feet and hands of the one who came into the wedding without a wedding garment, and to cast him into the outer darkness. But when it says above, “A man had two children,” he is named neither householder nor king, but simply man. As, then, there are many aspects of God according to the divine Scriptures, so there are also differences in his being named man: either simply, or householder, or king. So much for Matthew. According to Luke, the parable similar to the one before us named him a man, in: “A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants”; and Mark says: “A certain man planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it.” And again Luke, setting out the parable of the invitation, says: “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many.” And you too, gathering the places where God is named man, comparing spiritual things with spiritual in the discussion of this, and examining the passages rightly, would find, in proportion to your inquiry, more reasons for God’s being called a man. This householder, then, the man, planted a vineyard, which must be investigated more carefully, so as not to pass over so great a parable without testing it.

What, then, is the vineyard, distinct from the first and the second tenants, which the householder, the man, planted? This vineyard is first let out to insolent tenants, and secondly — according to those who answered about the vineyard — let out to other tenants, who will give its fruits in their seasons; but according to the Saviour, who says, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruits.” Must we, then, say that the kingdom of God is the same as the vineyard, taken away from the former and given to a nation producing its fruits? Or is the vineyard one thing and the kingdom of God another? Let us first show from Scripture that the people is called a vineyard, and then see whether everything in the passage can fit such an explanation. Isaiah, then, says: “Let me sing for the beloved a song of the beloved about my vineyard. The beloved had a vineyard on a hill, in a rich place; and I put a hedge around it, and fenced it, and planted a choice vine,” and so on, down to: “but it did lawlessness, and not righteousness, but an outcry.” I have set out the song from Isaiah because I wish to examine it together with the parable, to see whether the vineyard stands for the same thing in each Scripture. And see what likenesses and what unlikenesses the passages set out have, so that, seeing how the like differ from the unlike, you may attend to the meaning of Scripture. Alike, then, are “He planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower” and “The beloved had a vineyard on a hill, in a rich place, and I put a hedge around it and fenced it and planted a choice vine and built a tower in the middle of it and dug a wine vat in it.” For set beside “He planted a vineyard” the words “I planted a choice vine”; beside “He put a hedge around it,” “I put a hedge around it”; beside “He dug a winepress in it,” “And I dug a wine vat in it”; and beside “He built a tower,” “And I built a tower in the middle of it.” In both passages something is said about the fruits of the vineyard: in Isaiah, “I waited for … grapes, and it produced thorns”; but in the parable of the Gospel it is plainly not the vineyard that is accused of not giving its fruits when their season drew near, but these tenants, who took the householder’s servants and “beat one, killed another, and stoned another.” And when he sent other servants, more than the first, again the tenants are accused of having done the same to them. And a third time the tenants are accused, “saying, This is the heir; come, let us kill him and have his inheritance,” and casting him out of the vineyard and killing him. In Isaiah the Word threatens the vineyard itself, saying, “I will take away its hedge, and it will be plundered; I will pull down its wall, and it will be trampled. And I will abandon my vineyard, and it will not be pruned or dug; and thorns will come up on it as on waste land”; and also when “he commands the clouds not to rain rain on the vineyard,” he threatens the vineyard, which the prophet said is the house of Israel and the man of Judah, because it did not produce the fruit, judgment and righteousness, but produced thorns, lawlessness and outcry. But in the Gospel we find that the vineyard suffers nothing; rather, if one may put it so, it is cared for so that it may bear its own fruits for the householder. For he, providing for the vineyard, takes it away from the former tenants, who answer the Saviour when he asks, “When, then, the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” And they say — whether compelled by reason and the logic of the story, or unwillingly prophesying, so to speak, about themselves — that the lord of the vineyard will put those wretches, the tenants, to a wretched death, and, providing for the vineyard, will let it out to other tenants, who will render him the fruits in their seasons. In Jeremiah too, consistently with “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah a beloved new planting,” it is said to the sinning people, “But I planted you as a fruitful vine, wholly true”; and, corresponding to “I waited for it to produce grapes, but it produced thorns,” and “I waited for it to do judgment, but it did lawlessness, and not righteousness, but an outcry,” comes “How have you turned to bitterness, a foreign vine?” So do you see that in the prophetic passages the people is said to be the vineyard, and the one who planted it threatens it and says, “I will take away its hedge, and it will be plundered,” and the rest; but in the Gospel passages no blame is brought against the vineyard, but all of it against the tenants? Besides there being no threat to the vineyard, care is even taken of it, so that it may give the householder its fruits in their seasons; and if you wish to preserve the exactness of the Gospel text, you could not show clearly that the vineyard was the people. But perhaps the vineyard of the Gospel is the kingdom of God, which is, I think, the same as the teaching of the Scriptures, given under God’s oversight. For “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruits,” added to the parable of the vineyard, clearly shows, I think, that the mysteries of the kingdom of God are said to be the vineyard which the householder, the man, planted. This vineyard, then, which is, as I think, the law and the prophets and the whole divine Scripture, the Lord of the vineyard let out to tenants: first to that people, for they were the first “entrusted with the oracles of God”; and secondly to a nation producing its fruits, the church from the Gentiles. But on this understanding of the vineyard of the Gospel it is a task to make fit the hedge placed around it, which suffers nothing like the hedge in Isaiah, of which it is written, “I will take away its hedge, and it will be plundered”; and the winepress dug in it; and the tower that was built. See, then, whether we can say that the vineyard is the account of nature according to the divine Scripture; that the life in keeping with the true account of nature, bearing fruit in virtue and the finest character, is the fruit of the vineyard; that the rational element and the whole letter of Scripture is the hedge of the vineyard lying around it on the outside, so that the vineyard, and above all its hidden fruit, cannot be spied on by those outside; that the depth of the soul that receives these fruits, casting off everything superficial, is the winepress dug in the vineyard; and that the tower built in the vineyard, which has elevation and loftiness and height above the vineyard, the hedge, and the winepress, is the account about God, being a temple of the divine mind within it. And I think that the Saviour spoke of such a tower in the words, “Which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first count whether he can lay the foundation and finish it, lest those who see it begin to mock the one who did not finish?” For there too he seems to me to say in a parable: When you are about to speak about God, consider whether, having begun, you can complete all that reason demands of you for speaking about God, so that you do not begin the doctrines of godliness and leave the tower about God unfinished, without building its coping; for if you do not build the coping, someone will fall from the conception of God and will die. This vineyard, as we have explained it, God let out to tenants, the people before us, and went abroad to his own lookout, giving the tenants the means, from what he himself had planted, put around, dug, and built, to bear the fruits in their seasons. The seasons of the fruits drew near, then, for each individual, and I think also for the whole people. To explain exactly the drawing near of the seasons of the fruits belongs to a greater habit of mind than ours, and to a heart far purer and more discerning than ours; yet as far as we can, we shall approach the passage as follows, beginning with individuals.

Let the Word in each soul be understood as a vine planted by the householder, or the vineyard as the starting points for all the questions necessary for salvation. Just as with vines there is a season when they put out leaves, another when they show the beginnings of the fruits, still small, another when what has appeared is in blossom, another when the grapes begin to colour, and another when it is time to gather the fruits, perfected and ready to yield the quality of wine; so let the first season of a person’s life, in infancy, have the vine with nothing on it, but having only the life-force. Then, when reason begins to be filled out, let it be the season of the first flowering. And the more the soul advances under cultivation, the more the cultivated vineyard bears signs of clusters: in blossom at first, and bearing the fragrance of virtue to come, and later already unripe, because there is vice — not the kind that remains, but the kind that necessarily exists, which never inclines toward the worse but always, if one may name it so, travels toward virtue. But if the vice remains, and we do not use it as a passage, so to speak, toward virtue, always leading it on toward progress in virtue, an unripe grape is produced, and whoever eats it, as the prophet says, has his teeth set on edge. One who advances further has the grape as though ripening, but not yet perfected. And after progress there is an excellent state, when the cultivated vine bears its fruit, perfect clusters of love, and joy, and peace, and patience, and the rest that are listed by the Apostle and in countless other Scriptures. For there is a cluster corresponding to “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” another to “Blessed are those who mourn,” another to “Blessed are the meek,” another to “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and another to “Blessed are the pure in heart.” And why must I list the clusters that bring about the beatitudes? I examined these things at some length because I wished to understand and to make clear the words, “When the season of the fruits drew near.”

It belongs to the householder and to his divine knowledge to know each person’s season: when it has drawn near, and when the season of the fruits is still far off. And we too, if we consider more closely, comparing the time since we were called with the whole time of our faith, will be able to see how some, “though by this time they ought to be teachers, need again to be taught what are the elements of the oracles of God.” So some who ought, in proportion to the time of God’s dispensation and of everything connected with their calling, to be bearing fruit already, have none at all, but blossom out of season and grow unripe grapes at the wrong time. If, then, you have understood how “When the season of the fruits drew near” is to be taken of each individual, transfer the account, if you can, to those who received the law through Moses: for them too the season of the fruits once drew near, and he sent his servants to the first tenants, who had been “entrusted with the oracles of God,” to receive the fruits of the vineyard in each of them. It is easy to say that he calls the prophets servants; but we must ask how they are sent to the tenants to receive the fruits of the vineyard. For someone might say that the prophets are sent not to receive the fruits, but rather to cultivate and to help the fruits along. See, then, whether we can say that the spiritual first fruits and the divine offerings are given by those who have cultivated the vineyard to the servants who are sent, so that they, as priests, may bring to God the fruits of the one who offers. But the tenants among the people took the servants sent to receive the fruits of the vineyard, and beat one, as “Zedekiah son of Chenaanah struck Micaiah on the cheek,” when the false prophet also said to him after he had prophesied, “What kind of Spirit of the Lord spoke in you?”; killed another, as Zechariah between the temple and the altar; and stoned another, as Azariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, as is written in the second book of Chronicles: “For when the Spirit of God clothed Azariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, and he stood up above the people and said, Thus says the Lord: Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord? You will not prosper; because you have forsaken the Lord, he will forsake you, they set upon him and stoned him by command of King Joash in the court of the house of the Lord. And Joash did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada his father had shown him, and he put his son to death. And as he was dying he said, May the Lord see and judge.”