Commentary on Luke (Greek fragments) 14.7–15.1.2

“Noticing how they chose the places of honour” (14:7). He watched some of the guests foolishly snatching the first places as something great and worth having, and, necessarily, so that he might benefit both them and us, he urges them to despise vain glory. To some, perhaps, these things seem somehow small and not worth much concern; but when someone fixes the eye of his understanding on them, he will then learn from what blame it frees a person and how much decorum it works in him. For to leap readily at honours that do not suit us, that is, that are not wholly and altogether owed to us, shows us to be foolish. “For when,” he says, “one more honourable than you comes, he who invited you and him will say to you: Give this man your place.” O how full of shame the thing is! But prudent and admirable is the one who, though he could without reproach take pride of place among the first, does not desire it, but all but yields his own place to others, so as not to seem overcome by love of glory; such a one will receive honour as a debt; for he will hear from the one who invited him: “Go up higher.” A great and excellent good, then, is a modest mind. For if someone seeks to be placed before others, let him gain this by the vote from above, and let him be crowned with honours from God; let him surpass many by the brightness of his virtues—by humility; for a lowly mind is lofty before God; he becomes an imitator of Christ, who said: “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” In saying these things he no longer rebukes severely but exhorts kindly; exhortation achieves the same, indeed even more, with the sensitive. For turning someone away from the things of ambition draws him away from ambition more effectively; and by so small an example as the one about dinners … the custom of men. For many who reached for honour have obtained this paltry honour, while others who humbled themselves remained without a mark of honour.

… showing the downfall of the ambitious and the exaltation of those without ambition, he adds something great to the small, bringing in the universal saying: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (14:11). This depends on the divine judgement, and not altogether … “When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends,” and so on (14:12). That precept, then, concerned humility; but he adds a good teaching also for those who invite, bringing in a great aim for hospitality among men and a fruit worth striving for, even if it is far off and does not have its repayment at once—which is what the small-souled do: they invite friends, brothers, relatives, neighbours, so that, being invited back at once, they may get this in return. Far finer and more magnificent than this is what the Lord introduced: to invite those in need, to show kindness to the weak and the maimed, from whom there is no repayment; rather God is the one who repays the honour of kindness in the life to come. He says this not to keep us from honouring our own, but to teach us not to sell our courtesies for equal repayments, but to make them profitable, for the great returns that come from God. For he will say: “Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you; for I was hungry and you gave me food,” and so on. “For as you did it to one of these, you did it to me.” “Blessed is he who will eat a meal in the kingdom of God” (14:15).

It is likely that the man was not yet spiritual, but rather natural, and ill fitted for an exact understanding of what Christ said; for he was still among the unbelievers and not yet enlightened. He thought, then, that the saints’ rewards for what they do, when they choose to do good to others, would be bodily.

“A certain man gave a great dinner” (14:16). … Let us see, before the rest, what reason there was for many to be invited not to a lunch but to a dinner; or rather, before this, who the man who sent the one inviting to the dinner may be taken to be by us; who, too, the one inviting is; and who in general are those who were invited but dishonoured the invitation. The man, then, may be taken to be God the Father; for images are moulded toward the truth, they are not wholly the truth themselves. This Creator of all, then, and Father of glory, has made a great dinner, that is, has held a festival for the whole world, clearly the one in Christ. In the last times of the age, and as it were at the setting of our age, the Son appeared to us, when he also underwent death for us and gave us his own flesh to eat, being bread from heaven and giving life to the world. Toward evening and by lamplight the lamb too was slaughtered according to the law of Moses. Fittingly, then, the call in Christ has been named a dinner. Next, who is the one sent, whom he also says is a servant? Perhaps Christ himself; for being God by nature and true Son of God the Father, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. He is, then, Lord of all, as God from God; but one might fittingly apply the name of servant to the measures of his humanity. And when was he sent? “At the hour of the dinner,” it says; for the only-begotten Word of the Father did not come down from heaven at the beginning of this age and come to be in our form, but rather at the times that the Sovereign himself willed—clearly the last ones, as we said before. And what was the message of the one who invited? “Come, for everything is now ready.” For God the Father has prepared in Christ for those on earth the good things given through him to the world: the putting away of sins, participation in the Holy Spirit, the splendour of adoption, the kingdom of heaven. To these Christ invited, through the gospel decrees, and before the others, Israel. Did they then resolve anything good among themselves? Did they marvel at the gentleness of the one who invited, at the providence of the one who served the invitation? Not at all; rather they dishonoured both the one who invited and the one sent; “and they began all alike …”

“And they all alike began to make excuses” (14:18). You see that, foolishly inclined toward earthly things, they do not see the spiritual, and take no account of what lies in hope with God. Next, who might be meant by those who excused themselves on account of fields and farming and the begetting of children in the flesh? Perhaps the leaders of the synagogue of the Jews: men with fat purses, overcome by love of gain, and spending all their zeal on it. For throughout the whole divinely inspired Scripture, so to speak, one can see them reproached for these very things.

And when you hear that the giver of the feast sent his servant, you are to consider both the servanthood and the sending as belonging to the economy in the flesh. What was he sent to say to the Jews invited through the law? “Come, everything is now ready.” But since the Jewish rulers refused the invitation—as they themselves said, “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him?”—the master of the house was angry, as they deserved to suffer what comes from wrath and anger. “All alike began to make excuses,” that is, as by one agreement.

“Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant,” and so on (14:21). Here, then, the master of the house is said to have been angry with the Jewish rulers, since they had treated the great dinner with insolence. And in their place those in the streets and lanes have been invited: those of the Jewish multitude who had a weak and ignoble understanding, unlit and limping; for these might be understood as the blind and the lame, but they have become strong and healthy in Christ; they were taught to walk straight, and they received the divine light into their minds. That not a few of the Jews have believed, one may learn by reading the Acts of the holy apostles. For there, when Peter addressed the people, first three thousand believed, and again a great crowd. By teaching some things and working wonders in others he drew the guileless multitude after him, and many of the Jews believed in him; and the Pharisees called these accursed, because they believed in Christ; for they said: “Has any of the Pharisees believed in him? But this people, who do not know the law, are accursed.” Here both things are shown: that the rulers did not believe, and that many of the multitude believed; and the parable hinted at both, bringing in some who excuse themselves and others who are invited and obey.

“Go out into the roads and hedges, and compel them to come in” (14:23). See the calling of the nations, brought in through faith after those of the blood of Israel. For of old those from the nations were rustic in mind, wild in understanding and as it were outside the city, because they did not live under good laws but rather like cattle and with much irrationality; for this reason the one who invites to the dinner was sent to the roads outside the city and to the hedges in the fields. But he was ordered by the one who sent him not simply to invite, offering them only an exhortation, but even to compel. Yet believing is a matter of free choice for all, and as such it is acceptable to God; how, then, are some compelled? This too, indeed, was done by a wise economy. For the nations—yoked as they were to unbearable greed, fallen under diabolical yokes, held fast as it were by the unbreakable chains of their own offences, and not knowing him who is by nature and truly God of all—needed, yes needed, a more urgent call, one imitating compulsion, so that they might be able to look up to God, taste the sacred teachings, depart from the ancient deceit, and in some way leap free from the devil’s hand. Indeed Christ said: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” The word altogether shows the call to be a work of strength befitting God. The prophet David is found saying something of the kind to God about them: “With bit and bridle you will constrain the jaws of those who do not draw near to you.” Do you see how the God of all turns back to himself with a kind of bridle those who have wildly bolted away? For he is good and loves humankind, and wishes all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father,” and so on (14:26).

So in saying, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate” his kin by blood and even his own life, he does not dishonour the laws of innate affection, nor does he teach us to despise the natural disposition owed by children to parents, by husbands to their wives, by brothers to brothers, making enemies of those closest to us, so that we may be with him and be able to follow him. For he who commands us to love our enemies, how could he have wished us to hate those who are ours by nature? Christ, then, commands neither that we ignore nature nor that we be slaves to it, but that we use nature for what is better and saving; for he wants us to bring our own along with us into the friendship of Christ himself, not to be drawn away from divine love by our own. For honouring parents is the Lord’s own pleasure too, and Paul enjoins the rearing of children; and children, he says, must obey their parents in the Lord, and in the admonition of the Lord. He enjoined husbands to love their wives, but in imitation of Christ, who loved the church; and wives to fear their husbands, but after the pattern of the church, which fears Christ. For those who are our own, if they are ours in the faith, are not to be hated: “For if anyone,” he says, “does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith.” In a word, the aim set before us being to follow Christ, whatever agrees with it is to be chosen, and whatever does not agree is to be refused. For if, while living the life in the flesh, it is possible to keep one’s reverence for Christ, one should not flee life in the body but preserve it, as Paul did when, let down through a window in a basket, he escaped the hands of Aretas, so that he might still live and preach Christ, and not be killed too soon and hinder the preaching. But where he had to despise even life in order to finish his course, he said that he did not count even his life precious to himself; and he set Christ before himself as his aim in both, in living and in dying: “For to me,” he says, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” “For which of you, wishing to build a tower,” and so on (14:28).

… What occasion led to these words must be stated. In what preceded he said that the great gospel dinner was being held, to which many were invited by the one who provided the festival for them. But some were indolent toward it; for they excused themselves, he says, all alike, one saying, “I have bought a field,” another, “I have bought yoke of oxen,” another, “I have married a wife, and I cannot come”; and using such pretexts they grieved the one who invited them. We ought, then, to know very clearly that when God calls us to himself, it is fitting for us to despise the desires directed toward the flesh and concerned with it. Then he uses two examples, sharpening his disciples toward invincible courage. For if someone wishes, he says, to build a tower, he first prepares what is needed for completing it and so sets about the building; and if a king goes to meet another king in war, he first deliberates whether he is strong enough to resist or not, so that he may either take courage for the war or choose peace. This very thing he requires also of believers; for those who have chosen to achieve the glorious and blameless life must store up in their minds a zeal sufficient for this, and remember the one who says: “Child, if you come forward to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for temptation; set your heart right and endure.” But those who lack such zeal, how could they accomplish the aim set before them?

What is hinted at by this? “Our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” And there is also a swarm of other enemies against us: the mind of the flesh, the law raging in our members, the manifold passions; against these is our wrestling, this is the wild multitude of the enemies. How, then, shall we prevail? When we believe that “in God we shall do valiantly,” as it is written, “and he will bring to nothing those who afflict us.” Having so disposed himself, one of the holy prophets said: “Behold, the Lord helps me; who will harm me?” And the inspired David too sings somewhere: “The Lord is my light and my saviour; whom shall I fear?” and the rest. For he is our strength.

“Salt is good” (14:34). As without salt neither bread nor relish is edible, so without the apostles’ understanding and teaching every soul is insipid and tasteless, and not pleasing to God. Let the salts, then, be in us, that is, the divine and saving words; if we despise them, we shall be insipid and foolish and altogether useless.

“Now all the tax collectors were drawing near to him” (15:1).

“… and the sinners, to hear him.” “God the Father sent the Son from heaven not to judge the world,” as he himself says, “but that the world might be saved through him.” How, then, was the world, caught in the snares of sin, to be saved? By being made to pay penalties, or rather by being shown kindness, God bearing with it patiently, as it were consigning the past to oblivion and refashioning for a holy life those who did not know how to live well? Why, then, tell me, do you murmur, Pharisee, because Christ did not disdain to be with tax collectors and sinners, and in his wise economy was preparing for them this way of salvation? For this reason he lowered himself into self-emptying and came to be in likeness to us. Do you then rebuke the economy in the flesh of the Only-begotten? Yet the blessed prophets marvelled at the skill of the mystery. For the prophet David sings and says: “Sing praises with understanding; God has become king over the nations.” And Habakkuk says that he heard the report and considered the works and came into amazement. How, then, are you not ashamed to find fault with what you ought to marvel at? The race on earth had gone astray; it had slipped from the hand of the chief shepherd. For this reason he who shepherds the flocks above and in heaven became like us, so that he might also lodge us in his own folds, join us to those who had not gone astray, drive off the accursed beast, and remove, like a band of robbers and impious men, the unclean demons who had led the world under heaven astray. So he sought what was lost, and showed the Jews’ fault-finding over this very thing to be idle and empty. “What man of you, having a hundred sheep,” and so on (15:4). But understand with me here, beloved, the breadth of our Saviour’s kingdom and the skill of his economy toward us. For he says the sheep are a hundred, referring the number of the rational creatures subject to him to a complete and most perfect multitude; for the number one hundred is always somehow perfect, being made up of ten tens. And we have learned from the divinely inspired Scripture too that thousands of thousands minister to God, and ten thousand times ten thousand stand around his most high throne. The sheep, then, are a hundred; and one of them went astray, that is, the race on earth, which the chief shepherd of all sought, leaving the ninety-nine in the wilderness, in the place above and in heaven, full of calm. Did he then, without regard for the many, show regard for the one alone? Not without regard for them. How so? For they are, yes they are, in safety, the all-powerful hand fencing them about. But it was right rather to have pity on the lost, so that nothing should be seen lacking to the rest of the multitude, and that, the one being added, the hundred might have its own beauty. Come, let us present the matter also by another example, everywhere pleading the cause of the incomparable gentleness of Christ the Saviour of us all. Suppose that many live in one house, and that it happens that one falls ill: on whose account would those skilled in healing be called? Not on account of the one alone who fell ill? But those called to heal would do this without disregarding the many, giving the help of their art to the one who is sick, since the occasion and the need call for it. So it was necessary, yes necessary, that God who holds power over all should extend his saving hand to the one that had gone astray. The chief shepherd has saved it; for he sought what had gone astray, and set up for us a fold safe from plunder and impregnable to beasts and robbers—I mean the church. Marvelling at it, we say that word spoken through the voice of the prophet: “Behold, a strong and saving city for us; he will set up a wall and an outer wall.” The same would be the meaning of the parable placed immediately after, in which he says that a woman who had ten drachmas lost one of them; then, having lit a lamp and found it, she was very glad at this very thing and made the event an occasion of the highest joy. The parable runs thus: