Commentary on Luke (Greek fragments) 12.49–13.17

Having this fire, Cleopas and his companion said: “Did not our heart burn within us on the road, as he opened to us the Scriptures?” This fire is saving and profitable: through it all of us on earth, who had in some way grown cold and dead through sin and through not knowing the one who is God by nature and in truth, are rekindled to the life of godliness and made fervent in spirit, according to the blessed Paul’s word. And besides this we gain participation in the Holy Spirit, who is in us like fire; for we have been baptized in fire, in the Holy Spirit. It is the custom of divine Scripture sometimes to call fire the divine and sacred words, and the working and power of the Holy Spirit. For one of the holy prophets said, as in the person of God, about Christ the Saviour of us all: “Suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold, he comes, says the Lord; and who will endure the day of his coming? Or who will stand at his appearing? Behold, he goes forth like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; and he will sit refining and purifying as silver and as gold.” And by the temple here he means the truly undefiled and holy body, formed through the holy Virgin by the Holy Spirit in the power of the Father. For it was said to the holy Virgin: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” And he calls the Only-begotten himself the messenger (angel) of the covenant, from announcing and serving the Father’s good pleasure toward us. And indeed he said to us: “All that I heard from the Father I have announced to you.” And the prophet Isaiah also writes of him: “A child is born to us, a son is given to us, whose government is on his shoulder; and his name is called Messenger of great counsel.” Just as those who know how to refine gold and silver melt out the dross in them by fire, so the Saviour, through the evangelical teachings, in the power of the Spirit, scours the mind of each of those who have believed in him. And the God of all said somewhere to the prophet Jeremiah: “Behold, I have made my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood.” And again: “Are not my words like fire, says the Lord?” And what would we understand the coal to be that touched the lips of the prophet Isaiah and cleansed him of all sin? Clearly, the saving proclamation and the confession of faith in Christ, which, if anyone takes it into his mouth, he is cleansed in every way. And Paul will confirm it, saying: “If you say with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Yet we say that the power of the divine proclamation is like a coal and fire, whose kindling the Lord hastens; for some of those of Israel already believed, of whom the divine disciples were the firstfruits. And once the fire was kindled, it was to lay hold of the whole world under heaven when the whole economy had been brought to its end. And he teaches this, saying: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am constrained until it is accomplished!” “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth?” (12:51).

… he is our peace, according to the Scriptures: “He joined the two peoples into one new man, making peace, and reconciled both in one body to the Father”; he joined things below to those above. How, then, did he say, “I did not come to give peace”? What do you say, O Master? You did not come to cast peace? Yet you have become our peace; you have broken down the dividing wall of the fence; you have destroyed the sin that separated us; you have preached good news to those far off and those near; you have joined flock to flock, those from the nations to those of the Jews; you have made peace through the cross between the things in the heavens and those on earth, as it is written; you have become our reconciler and mediator, and, removing the sin that lay between, you have joined us through yourself to God the Father. And you said that peace is your own, saying, “My peace I give to you.” How, then, did you not come to cast peace but a sword? Against whom is our fight? And how should the manner of the war be conducted by us, so that it may be beyond reproach and please you, who say that peace is your own and have given it to us? Let Paul, then, resolve the question, saying: “If any brother is a fornicator,” and what follows, “with such a one do not even eat.” For we must, I think, shun fornicators and consider peace with them a cause of loss: “For bad company corrupts good morals.” And as David says: “With the holy you will be holy, and with the crooked you will be perverse.” Would you see others too with whom embracing peace is harmful? Hear one of the holy disciples writing: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not even greet him.” And what teaching, if not surely that which the eyewitnesses from the beginning delivered to us? The leaders of the heresies are like wolves; then how will the sheep be at peace with the wolf? And they are dark: “For the god of this age,” he says, “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers”; but we are sons of light, for the grace through the Spirit has dawned on us. “What fellowship, then, has light with darkness?” Let us love, then, peace with brothers and those of one faith with us, but shun peace with those others. For it is clear that peace is a good thing; but not every peace is wholly blameless; it is often dangerous and carries one away from the love of God. For peace with those of other beliefs is unprofitable, in the sense of thinking as they do. For this reason the faithful withdraw even from earthly affections, and do not know their kin, and a father renounces friendship with his son, and a son does not know honour for his father, and a mother has thrust away affection for her daughter. For those who have gone astray must follow those of sound mind, and not rather those who choose to think rightly follow them. Christ said this to us in another way too: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” So when, for the sake of godliness toward Christ, you deny an earthly father, then you will be enriched with the Father in heaven. And if you leave a brother who dishonours God, because you wish to worship him, Christ will receive you as a brother; for he has given us this too along with the rest: “I will announce your name,” he says, “to my brothers.” You will find a splendid and great family, the multitude of the saints; you will be with them an heir of his gifts. “When you see a cloud rising in the west,” and so on (12:54).

… some, from such things and from very close observation, foretell the downpours of rain or the attacks of harsh winds. “How then,” he says, “do you, who test the things in the sky, not see the signs happening on earth, nor test the time, whether the expected one has come?” — Those who judge the signs of the seasons, and sometimes foretell the storms to come, ought, then, to turn a keen eye of the mind on necessary matters too. And what are these? The law showed beforehand the mystery of Christ, and that he would certainly shine on those on earth in the last times of the age and endure slaughter for the salvation of all. And indeed it commanded the lamb to be sacrificed as his type, toward evening and by lamplight. For those who believed in him the gate of salvation was certainly to be opened wide, and great fair weather of affairs to come. And indeed in the Song of Songs Christ is found calling the bride written of there, who bears the person of the Church, and saying: “Arise, come, my companion, my fair dove; for behold, the winter is past, the rain is gone, it has departed; the flowers have appeared in the land, the time of pruning has come.” So, as I said, a kind of spring fair weather was to dawn for those who believe in him. And that the blessed prophets too announced the mystery of Christ in many ways no one will doubt. “You ought, then, you ought,” he says, “being intelligent and knowing the face of the sky and the earth, not to be ignorant of the storms in this life. For there will be a south wind and a shower”—that is, punishment by fire; for the south wind is hot, and the falling of penalties is terrible and inescapable, falling like rain on those who are caught. They ought not to have been ignorant of the time of salvation. And this was the time of our Saviour’s coming, at which the most perfect knowledge of godliness came in, at which the grace that justifies the ungodly shone forth—not through the law, for it perfected no one, having types and shadows, but rather through faith in Christ, which does not cast out the law but brings it to completion through spiritual worship. Do you not test the time? Do you not [learn] the deeds from the words, the words from the deeds? … to understand, and to look to what is to come. “You see wonders and behold signs confirming the words. If these do not persuade you, let the trials that will overtake you persuade you: the destruction of the temple, the capture of the mother city, the ruin of the nation. Do not even these bring you to your senses?” “For as you go with your accuser before the magistrate,” and so on (12:58). … the example from which it is taken. For those who settle before the trial are wiser, seeing what is just of themselves. And what it is good to do here, it is good to do there also. “Suppose,” he says, “someone, before one of those appointed to office, brings a charge against you, and then, pointing you out to those who lead to court, has you carried off. While, then, you are on the way with him, that is, before you reach the judge, make an effort”—meaning, do not hesitate to apply all zeal—“to be rid of him; but if this does not happen, he will hand you over to the judge. Then, when you are found liable for the debts, you will be handed over to the officer,” that is, to the exactors; “and they, shutting you up, will exact even the last penny.” We are all, then, who are on earth, liable for offences; and the adversary and accuser of each is Satan; for he is an enemy and avenger. So while we are on the way, that is, while we have not yet come to the end of the life here, let us be rid of him; let us dissolve the charges against us; let us seize the grace through Christ, which frees us from every debt and puts us outside penalty, punishment and fear; lest, having the defilement unwashed, we be carried off to the judge and handed over to the officers, that is, the punishers, whose harshness no one could escape, but who will exact penalties for every offence, small and great. Far from these will be those who test the time of Christ’s coming and are not ignorant of the mystery concerning him.

“Telling him about the Galileans,” and so on (13:1).

The Galileans seem to have rebelled in the times of Pilate, following the teachings of Judas the Galilean, whom Luke too mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. The teaching of Judas, as Josephus also showed in the last books of the Jewish Antiquities, put forward a great show of vigour for the sake of piety. For he said that no one ought to call anyone “lord” even with the mouth, not even by way of honour and courtesy, and so not even the reigning emperor; and many of them endured the harshest tortures rather than call Caesar lord. They also taught that no sacrifices other than those prescribed in the law of Moses ought to be offered to God; therefore they prevented those handed down by the council of the people from being offered for the safety of the emperor and of the Roman nation. It is likely, then, that Pilate, angry with the Galileans over these things, ordered them to be killed at the very sacrifices which they thought they were offering according to the law, so that the blood of those who brought them was then mingled with the sacrifices being offered. Since these things seemed to have been done for piety’s sake, they reported them to the Saviour, wishing to learn what he thought of them. But he—since those of the people thought that the men had suffered these things most justly for their sins, having been killed as men who had stirred up sedition among the people and provoked the rulers to hatred against their subjects—grants that they were sinners; yet he does not say that they suffered these things as being worse than those who did not suffer. Then after this, turning away from civil strife kindled under the pretext of piety those who sided with the people (as far as the letter goes), he says: “Unless you repent”—that is, unless you turn from rebelling and resisting the rulers, which you do not do according to the will of God—“you will all likewise perish,” and your blood will be mingled with your sacrifices. Then he adds the example of the tower in Siloam, by it showing the fall of the whole city. For using the eighteen on whom the tower fell as an occasion, he hints that the part is a prelude to the whole city: for not only, he says, did the eighteen perish as guilty, but the whole city too will suffer the same a little later.

“And he said to the vinedresser,” and so on. “And he answered and said to him, Lord, let it alone,” and so on (13:7–8). If, then, someone wished to say that the vinedresser is the angel appointed by God to preside over the synagogue of the Jews, he would not miss what is fitting. For we remember that the prophet Zechariah wrote that one of the holy angels stood offering supplications on behalf of Jerusalem and saying: “O Lord Almighty, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, which you have disregarded? This is the seventieth year.” It is also written in Exodus that when the ruler of the land of the Egyptians, with his own shield-bearers, was pursuing those of Israel and was about to join battle with them, “the angel of God stood between the camp of the sons of Israel and the camp of the Egyptians, and they did not mingle with one another all night.” There is nothing unlikely, then, in understanding here too that the angel who presides over the synagogue lifts up supplications on its behalf. But if someone should say that the Son is the vinedresser, he too would have an account not out of keeping with proper reasoning. For he is our Advocate with the Father, our propitiation, and the cultivator of our souls. Indeed he himself said of himself: “The sower went out to sow his seed.” Nor will it do the Son any injury as to his glory to take on, I mean, the role of the vinedresser; for the Father himself is found to have accepted this at one time. For the Son said to the holy apostles: “I am the vine; you are the branches; my Father is the vinedresser.” For with each of the subjects proposed, the course of the discourse sometimes takes a turn. That Israel was going to undergo being cast out because of its great unfruitfulness, the blessed Baptist too indicated in a way when he said: “Even now the axe is laid at the root of the trees,” and so on. He seems, then, to compare the synagogue of the Jews to a fig tree, because the sacred Scripture compares it also to other plants—to a vine, I mean, and an olive tree, and forests. Indeed the prophet Jeremiah at one time says of it, or rather of those in it: “Israel is a vine with fine branches”; and at another, again as to it: “A beautiful olive tree, well shaded in form, the Lord called your name; at the time of its pruning fire was kindled upon it; great is the affliction upon it; its branches were made useless.” Another of the prophets, likening it to Mount Lebanon, says this: “Open your doors, O Lebanon, and let fire devour your cedars.” For the forest in Jerusalem, that is, the people in it, has been consumed as by fire. So, as I said, he takes the fig tree spoken of in the parable as an image of the synagogue of the Jews, that is, of those of Israel. “He came,” it says, “seeking fruit, and found none.” He came three times: the first through Moses and Aaron; the second in the time of Joshua the son of Nun and, after him, the judges; the third after these, in the time of the blessed prophets down to John the Baptist. In these times Israel was unfruitful. For as far as the good will of God the Father was concerned—and clearly of the Son too—worship in shadows and types was unacceptable, wholly unfruitful as regards spiritual fragrance. So it was also cast off. And the Saviour himself will teach this when he says to his Father and God in heaven: “Sacrifice and offering you did not want; in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings you took no pleasure.” And through Isaiah: “For who required these things from your hands? You shall no longer tread my court. If you bring fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination to me.” What God hates and abhors, how could it be thought a spiritual fruit of the soul, spiritual and acceptable to him? “Behold, there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years” (13:11).

“There was in the synagogue a woman who for eighteen years had been bent over from infirmity” (13:11). This too benefits not a little those who think rightly; for we must gather what is useful from every side. One can see from this, then, that Satan often receives power over some—over those who offend, that is, and have chosen indolence rather than zeal for piety—and those he seizes he sometimes casts into bodily ailments, being a harsh and cruel punisher. The all-seeing God, with great providence, gives him room for this, so that, weighed down by the burden of misfortune, they may choose to cross over to better things. Indeed the most wise Paul handed over to Satan a man in Corinth accused of sexual immorality, “for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved.” So the bent woman is said to have suffered this from diabolical savagery: either, as I said, being overlooked by God for her own offences, or in the universal and general sense; for the accursed Satan became the joint cause of sickness in human bodies, since we say that through him the transgression in Adam was contrived, through which human bodies were brought down into weakness and corruption. Yet when human beings were in this state, God, being good by nature, did not overlook us; he set free from their bonds those who suffered, punished by a long and inescapable disease, showing very clearly that his presence and manifestation in this world brings release from human sufferings; for he came to reshape our condition into what it was in the beginning. “For God did not make death,” as it is written, “nor does he delight in the destruction of the living; for he created all things that they might exist, and the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no poison of destruction in them; but through the envy of the devil death entered the world.” For the overthrow of death and corruption, and of the envy directed against us by the wicked dragon, the author of evil, the incarnation of the Word took place, that is, his becoming man; and this is made plainly manifest to us by the very deeds. So he freed the daughter of Abraham from so long an illness, calling out and saying: “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” A voice most befitting God, full of the supreme authority! For with a royal nod he drives the disease away. He also lays his hands on her, and she was made straight, it says, at once. One can see from this too that the holy flesh bore the power and energy of God; for it was his own, and not that of some other Son existing beside him separately and individually, as some most impiously think. “But the ruler of the synagogue answered, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath,” and so on (13:14).

Yet how should he not rather have marvelled at Christ for releasing the daughter of Abraham from her bonds? You saw her wonderfully freed from her affliction. Did you not see that the physician did not pray, did not receive the sick woman’s healing as a request granted by another, but accomplished a work of authority? Being a ruler of the synagogue, you surely know the writings of Moses; you saw him praying in very many places and accomplishing nothing at all by his own power. Indeed, when Miriam became leprous for only saying something against him by way of reproach—and that something true, for “he took to himself,” she said, “an Ethiopian wife”—he did not prevail over the evil, but rather fell down before God, saying: “O God, I beg you, heal her.” And yet, even at his supplication, the penalty of the sin was not remitted for her. And each of the holy prophets, if he did anything at all, is seen to have done it in the power of God. But here, I pray, see Christ the Saviour of all not lifting up a prayer, but ascribing the accomplishment of the deed to his own power, healing by a word and by the touch of a hand. For being Lord and God, he made his own flesh equal in power to himself—with respect, I mean, to being able to set free from diseases. From this, then, one ought at last to have understood the power of the mystery concerning him. So if the ruler of the synagogue had been at all quick-witted, he would have perceived from so marvellous a divine sign who and how great the Saviour is, and would not have said the same things to the crowds, nor charged those being healed with breaking the law, the tradition of rest on the Sabbath. For being healed is altogether work, he thinks! But is the law wronged when God has compassion even on the Sabbath day? Whom did he order to rest on the Sabbath—himself, or you? If himself, then let him not govern our affairs on the Sabbath; let the course of the sun rest too, let the rains not fall, let the springs of waters stand still, and the flowing of ever-running rivers, and the service of the winds. But if he ordered you to rest, do not charge God with granting mercy to some with authority even on the Sabbath. And why did he order rest on the Sabbath at all? “That your servant may rest,” he says, “and your ox, and your beast of burden, and all your cattle.” When, then, he gives rest to some by releasing them from diseases, and you yourself forbid it, you have plainly broken the law about the Sabbath, not allowing those in pains and diseases, whom Satan bound, to have rest.

But the ruler of the ungrateful synagogue, when he saw the woman whose limbs were bound, unable to walk upright but bent toward the ground and toward her belly, shown mercy by Christ and by a touch alone made fully straight, walking in the upright posture proper to human beings and magnifying God for it, is vexed at her release; burning at the glory of the Lord, he is bound by envy. He spitefully disparages the miracle, and, passing over the Lord who exposed his hypocrisy, he rebukes the crowds, so as to seem indignant because of the Sabbath, in order to persuade those who were scattered on the other days and busy with their work not to be spectators and admirers of the Lord’s wonders even on the Sabbath, lest perhaps they should believe. But tell us, you slave of envy, what work did the law forbid when it said to you: “You shall refrain from every handmade work on the Sabbath day”? Work by the mouth and by speech? Then stop eating and drinking and conversing and singing psalms on the Sabbath. And if you do not do these things, and do not even read the law, what is the Sabbath to you? Work by the hands, then. And what work of the hands is it to set a woman upright by a word? But if you call this labour because the woman was healed by a work, you too work a work in finding fault with the healing. “But he said,” he says, “‘You are freed from your infirmity,’ and she was freed.” What then? Do you not also loosen your belt on the Sabbath? Do you not loosen the sandal from your feet? Do you not spread your bed? Do you not wipe your hand when it is soiled with food? How then are you indignant at one single word, “You are freed”? And what work did the woman do after the word? Did she take up smithing, or carpentry, or building? On that very day did she undertake the work of weaving or of the loom? “But she was made straight,” he says; “for being healed is altogether work.” But in truth you are not indignant because of the Sabbath; rather, seeing Christ honoured and worshipped as God, you rage and choke and waste away with envy; you harbour one thing in your heart and allege another as a pretext. Hence you are very gracefully exposed by the Lord, who knows your vain reasonings, and you receive the name that fits you, being called hypocrite, dissembler, and deceitful. “You hypocrite, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox?” and so on. “And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham,” and so on (13:15–16).

For you blame, he says, the one who released the daughter of Abraham; yet you give rest to an ox and an ass, releasing them from their labours and leading them to water; but when a sick person is wonderfully saved, and God has had compassion, you rebuke both as transgressors—the one because he healed, the other because she was freed from her sickness. See, I pray, the ruler of the synagogue: to him a human being is of less value than a beast, if he thinks an ox and an ass worthy of care on the Sabbath, but, from envy toward Christ, does not wish the bent woman to be freed from her infirmity or to regain the posture proper to her.

But the envious ruler of the synagogue wished the woman who had been made straight to stay bent down like the four-footed beasts, rather than regain the posture proper to human beings, only so that Christ might not be magnified, nor be proclaimed God by the deeds. The ruler of the synagogue is shown, however, to be a hypocrite, if he leads the irrational animals to water on the Sabbath, but does not think the woman—a daughter of Abraham not so much by race as by faith—worthy to be loosed from the bond of her infirmity, and judges freedom from disease a transgression of the Sabbath.

“All his adversaries were put to shame” (13:17). Put to shame were those who passed corrupt judgements; those who stumbled against the cornerstone and so were broken; those who opposed the physician; those who resisted the wise potter as he restored the vessels that had been bent out of shape. Not one answer was left them; they were themselves an irrefutable refutation of themselves, muzzled and at a loss what to say. So did the Lord sew up their bold mouth! But the crowds, as people benefited by the signs, rejoiced; for the glory and conspicuousness of the works dissolved every question and doubt for those who did not inquire with malice.