Commentary on Matthew 25–30

“And having gone out of the temple, he was walking; and his disciples came to show him the structure of the temple.” After the threat that Jerusalem would be deserted, the magnificence of its building is shown to him, as though he might be moved by the grandeur of the temple. He says that all things are to be destroyed and pulled down, the stones of the whole substructure scattered. For an eternal temple was being consecrated for the dwelling of the Holy Spirit: namely man, made a fit dwelling for God through the acknowledgment of the Son, the confession of the Father, and obedience to the precepts. “And when he had withdrawn to the mountain,” the disciples, coming to him privately, ask when these things will happen, and by what sign they may know his coming and the end of the age. And since these three things were asked together, they are separated by distinct meanings of time and understanding. So the answer is first about the fall of the city: and they are strengthened by the truth of teaching, so that no deceiver could creep up on them in their ignorance. For there would come, even in their time, those who would call themselves Christ. So that faith might not be dragged away by pestilent falsehood, the warning went first. For Simon the Samaritan came, equipped with devilish works and words, and corrupted many by the miracles of his deeds. And since this would fall in the times of the apostles, he says: “It is not the end.” But not even then, when nations and kingdoms will rush against one another, and there will be famines and earthquakes: because in these there is not the dissolution of this universe, but the beginning of sorrows, all evils beginning from then on. So he strengthens them to endure sufferings: flight, scourging, death, and the public hatred of the nations against them for his name. And by these harassments many will be troubled, and, such great evils rising up, will be scandalized and roused even to mutual hatred. And there will be false prophets (as Nicolaus, one of the seven deacons, was), and they will pervert many by counterfeiting the truth: and, wickedness abounding, love will grow cold. But salvation is reserved for those who persevere to the end: then, when apostolic men have been scattered through all parts of the world, the truth of the Gospel will be preached. And when the knowledge of the heavenly mystery has been brought to all, then the fall and end of Jerusalem will come upon it: so that both the punishment of the unbelievers and the fear of the destroyed city may follow the truth of the preaching. These things, then, as they had been foretold, were accomplished against it: and, the apostles having been stoned, driven out, and killed, it was consumed by famine, war, and captivity. And then it was worthy not to exist, when, having cast out the preachers of Christ, it showed itself unworthy of God’s preaching. Then follows also the indication of the coming to come: when they see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, then the return of his glory is to be understood. And about this I think it superfluous to speak, since most blessed Daniel and Paul proclaim it: for he spoke these things about the times of Antichrist. He is called an abomination because, coming against God, he will claim for himself the honor of God: and the abomination of desolation, because he will desolate the earth dangerously with wars and slaughters. And for this reason, received by the Jews, he will stand in the place of sanctification: so that where God was invoked by the prayers of the saints, there, received by unbelievers, he may be venerated with the honor of God. And since this will be the error proper to the Jews, that those who rejected the truth should accept falsehood, he warns that Judea is to be deserted, and that they should flee to the mountains; lest by mixing with the people that will believe Antichrist some force or contagion be brought: but for all who will then be faithful, the deserts of the mountains will be safer than the crowds of Judea. As for his saying, “And let those on the housetop not come down to take anything from the house”: this precept, by human understanding, does not admit a reason of word and deed. For one who is on the housetop and is about to leave Judea cannot go away without coming down from it. Or what usefulness is there in standing on the housetop and not staying in the house? But we have often warned that the proper meanings of words and places must be looked at, so that we may attain the weight of the heavenly precepts. The housetop is the summit of a house and the lofty completion of the whole dwelling. For no house can be called or be a house without a roof. So he who stands in the completion of his house, that is, in the perfection of his body, new by regeneration, lofty in spirit, and perfected by the completion of the divine gift, ought not to come down into lower things by desire for worldly things, nor, provoked by the lower allurements of the body, depart from the height of his housetop. “And let him who is in the field not turn back to take his tunic”: that is, set in the work of the precept, let him not return to his former cares; nor desire any garments of the body, for the sake of which, having returned, he will bring back from there the tunic of the old sins by which he was formerly covered. “Woe to those who are pregnant and nursing.” This can indeed be taken simply because of the delay of flight: because it is troublesome for those hampered by the burden of the womb to escape the imminent ruin of the times. But what has the condition of sex and the order of generation deserved? Unless perhaps that age of women who fall in those times will be properly accursed. But far be it that there should be anything that becomes evil to a man except by his own fault. So it must not be believed that the Lord warned about the burden of unborn children when he says, “Woe to the pregnant”: but that he showed the heaviness of souls filled with sins, which, neither placed on the housetop nor remaining in the field, can avoid the storm of wrath. For pain follows the pregnant by nature, and birth is not poured forth without the shaking of the whole body. Such souls, then, as will be found will be held in their burden and pain. Woe also will be to those who are nursed. Infancy weaned from milk is no less useless for flight than that which is still fed with milk. And how is there woe to one who is nursed, when it makes no difference of age and time to be fed with milk or to have left off milk? But here too he shows the weakness of souls which are still fed, as it were, with milk toward the knowledge of God: who, needing the strength of solid food, are steeped in a slight and weak taste of divine knowledge. And therefore woe will be to them: because, heavy for escaping Antichrist and unskilled for enduring him, they will have neither escaped sins nor received the food of the true bread. And therefore we are warned to pray that our flight be not in winter or on the Sabbath, that is, that we be not found either in the cold of sins or in idleness from good works: because a heavy and unbearable harassment will come upon all, except that for the sake of God’s elect shortness is to be granted to those days, so that the time of raging, shortened, may overcome the force of the evils pressing upon them. And since, to those set in great harassment, false prophets will point to help as present in Christ, they will falsely say that Christ is and is to be had in many places, to lead those oppressed and harassed into the service of Antichrist; now saying that he is in the deserts, to corrupt them by error; now asserting that he is in the inner rooms, to shut them in by the power of the ruler: but the Lord declares that he is not to be hidden in a place nor seen by individuals; but that he will be present everywhere and in the sight of all, in the manner of lightning, which, raised from the east, spreads its light to the regions of the west, and, flashing from anywhere, is seen everywhere. And lest we should be ignorant even of the place in which he would be, he says: “Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered.” He called the saints eagles from the flight of the spiritual body: and he showed that their gathering, the angels gathering them, will be in the place of the passion. And rightly the coming of glory will be awaited there, where he worked for us the glory of eternity by the passion of bodily humility.

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened,” and the rest. He indicates the glory of his coming and the return of his brightness by the darkening of the sun, the failing of the moon, the fall of the stars, the movement of the heavenly powers, the showing of the saving sign, the lamentation of the nations recognizing the Son of Man in the glory of God, and the sending of angels with a trumpet to gather the saints, that is, with the summons of now public freedom. So will a huge tree come from the grain of mustard seed: so, the image having been crushed by the stone from the mountain, will a mountain occupy the whole earth: so a city visible to all: so a light on the wood shining to all: so from the humility of death the glory of God. By the evidence of all these things he wished us to know the time of our redemption, at which we shall be carried over from the corruption of bodies into the honor of a spiritual substance. He set the sign for knowing the time in the likeness of the fig tree: when its branch has become tender and put forth leaves, then summer is understood to be near. But the nature of summer and of the tree is very different. For it swells at the beginning of spring: and the time between the coming on of summer and the branch of the tree becoming tender in leaves is not small. From which it must be recognized that this was not said of the tree. And indeed we have already treated above the property of this tree. We read too that Adam was clothed with its leaves and covered the shame of his conscience, that is, surrounded as with the garment of sin under the law. So the branch of the fig tree is understood as Antichrist, the son of the devil, the portion of sin, the champion of the law. When he begins to grow tender and put forth leaves, then summer, that is, the day of judgment, will be felt to be near. His putting forth leaves will be recognized by a kind of greenness of exulting sins: for then there will be the flowering of criminals, the honor of evildoers, and the favor of the profane: for whom, however, summer, that is, the heat of eternal fire, is near. And so that faith in the future might be sure, by saying “Amen,” the profession of truth, he added that our generation cannot pass away unless all these things have passed through, and that those things thought firm, namely heaven and earth, will not be; but his words cannot fail to be: because those, from the condition of their creation, that is, having come from nothing, have this necessity in themselves, that they should not be; but these, drawn from eternity, contain in themselves this power, that they should remain. About the end of times he took away the care of our anxiety, saying that that day is known to no one, and is unknown not only to the angels but even to himself. O inestimable mercy of divine goodness! Did God the Father refuse the knowledge of the day with the purpose of hiding it from the Son, when it was said by him: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father”? So they are not all, if there is anything that is refused. But since he was to carry to us all things received from the Father, and the Word of God contains faith not so much of what is to be in himself as of what has been done, therefore the day has been placed outside definition, so that God, though granting us an ample time for repentance, might always hold us anxious by fear of the uncertain; and he himself, by speaking to no one the will of giving this day, might restrain it by no definition of his saying; because, as in the time of the flood, while all are acting and suffering in the very course of our life, that great day will be present. Indeed he showed that there will be a distinction in the taking up of the faithful, when of two placed in the field one is taken and the other left; and of two grinding, one is rejected and the other chosen; and of two who will be in a bed, one clings and the other is abandoned. For he teaches the distinction of unbelievers and believers in some being left and others taken up. For when the anger of God grows heavy, the saints (as the prophet says) will be hidden in the storerooms; but the faithless will be left as material for heavenly fire. So the two in the field, two peoples, of believers and unbelievers, the day of the Lord will catch in the world as in the work of this life; yet they will be separated, one left and the other taken. And the reason about those grinding is the same. The mill is the work of the law. But since part of the Jews, as it believed through the apostles, so will believe through Elijah and be justified through faith: therefore one will be laid hold of through the same faith of good work, but the other will be left in the unfruitful work of the law, grinding in vain and not about to make the bread of heavenly food. But two are in a bed, proclaiming the same rest of the Lord’s passion: about which the confession of heretics and catholics is one and the same. But since the truth of the catholics will proclaim the unity of the Father and the Son and their common theotēs, which we call deity, and the falsehood of the heretics will in turn attack it with many insults, therefore of the two in the bed one will be left and the other taken: because the judgment of the divine decision will approve the faith of the confession of each by taking one and leaving the other. And so that we might know that that ignorance of the day, kept silent from all, is not without the reason of a useful silence, he warned us to keep watch because of his coming, and, held by the constancy of prayers, to cling to all the works of his precepts. For he showed that the devil is the thief, watchful to carry off spoils from us, and lying in wait for the houses of our bodies, so that, while we are careless and given to sleep, he may dig through them with the darts of his counsels and allurements. So it is fitting that we be ready: because ignorance of the day stirs up the attentive anxiety of suspended expectation.

“Who then is the faithful and prudent servant whom the Lord has set over his household?” and so on. Although he exhorts us in common to unwearied care of watchfulness, yet he entrusts a special anxiety in the expectation of his coming to the leaders of the people, that is, to the bishops. For by this faithful and prudent servant he signifies the one set over the household, caring for the advantages and benefits of the people entrusted to him. If he is attentive to the word and obedient to the precepts, that is, if by the timeliness and truth of teaching he strengthens the weak, mends the broken, corrects the perverted, and dispenses the word of life as the food of eternity for nourishing the household, and is caught doing these things and persevering in them, he will obtain glory from the Lord as a faithful steward and useful manager, and will be set over all goods, that is, placed in the glory of God, since there is nothing beyond that is better. But if, seeing the long patience of God, which is extended for the advance of human salvation, he grows insolent against his fellow servants and gives himself to the evils and vices of the world, exercising care only for present things in the worship of the belly: the Lord will come on a day he did not expect, and will divide him from the goods he had promised, and will set his portion with the hypocrites in the eternity of punishment, because he despaired of the coming, because he did not obey the commandments, because he was devoted to present things, because he lived the life of the nations, because, despairing of judgment, he harassed the household entrusted to him with hunger, thirst, and slaughter. “Then the kingdom of heaven will be likened to ten virgins,” and the rest. From the preceding sayings the reason of this discourse too can be understood. For the whole discourse is about the great day of the Lord, in which the hidden things of human thoughts will be brought out by the knowledge of divine judgment, and the true faith of the expected God will attain the merit of an undoubted hope. For in the five wise and the five foolish a division of believers and unbelievers has plainly been established: after which example Moses had received the ten words written on two tablets. For it was necessary that all of them be written on both: and the double page, between the property of right and left, signified, though under one covenant, the division of good and bad. The bridegroom and the bride is our Lord, God in the body. For as the Spirit is bridegroom to the flesh, so the flesh is bride to the Spirit. Accordingly, when the trumpet rouses them, they go out to meet the bridegroom only; for both were already one, since the humility of the flesh had passed into spiritual glory. In the first going out, by the duties of this life, we are prepared to meet the resurrection from the dead. The lamps, then, are the light of shining souls, which have shone with the mystery of baptism. The oil is the fruit of good work. The vessels are human bodies, within whose inner parts the treasure of a good conscience is to be stored. The sellers are those who, needing the mercy of the faithful, give back from themselves the trade that is asked for, selling, that is, for the satisfying of their need, the consciousness of our good work. For this is the abundant material of unwearied light, which must both be bought and stored by the fruits of mercy. The wedding is the taking up of immortality, and the joining of corruption and incorruption in a new fellowship. The delay of the bridegroom is the time of repentance. The sleep of those waiting is the rest of believers, and, in the time of repentance, the temporary death of all. The cry at midnight, while all are unaware, is the voice of the trumpet, announcing the coming of the Lord who goes before and rousing all to go out to meet the bridegroom. The taking up of the lamps is the return of souls into bodies: and their light is the conscience of good work shining out, which is held within the vessels of bodies. The wise virgins are those who, embracing the timely season of working in the body, have prepared themselves for the first meeting of the Lord’s coming. The foolish are those who, loose and negligent, had concern only for present things, and, forgetful of God’s promises, stretched themselves toward no hope of resurrection. And since the foolish cannot go out to meet him with their lamps gone out, they beg those who were wise to lend them oil. These answered that they cannot give, because perhaps there would not be enough for all: that is, no one is to be helped by another’s works and merits, because to each lamp its own … To hide a talent in the earth is to hide the glory of the new preaching under disparagement of bodily suffering. Such a one, though he cannot deny that Christ the Lord was sent for the salvation of the nations (for both his coming and his passion are from the law), yet himself would not obey the Gospels. For he says: “I know that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter.” The nature of present things does not allow a harvest without seed, nor the gathering of what has not been scattered: but this whole speech is spiritual. For we have said that this people is from the law, not ignorant of the Lord’s coming and the salvation of the nations, but unbelieving: since it knows that the fruits of righteousness are to be reaped there where no law was sown, and gathered from the nations, who were not scattered from the stock of Abraham: and therefore he is a hard man, namely about to justify without the law, to gather without scattering, and to reap without sowing. And so this will be the more beyond pardon, that he hid the preaching and buried the talent entrusted to him, though knowing that he would reap without seed and gather what he had not scattered: but rather he ought to have given it to the bankers, that is, to have shared the use of the talent entrusted to him with the whole human race, which is occupied with the business of the world, the Lord being about to demand its return from each. For this fault the talent is taken from him, not so much of the Gospel, which he had buried, as of the law, and it is given to him who doubled five, the Lord saying: “For to everyone who has, it will be given, and he will abound; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” He who has can indeed abound; for it is easy for the wealthy to grow rich through the increase of either generosity or labor: but how will one who does not have, have something to lose? This is so because to those who have the use of the Gospels the honor of the law too is given back: but from him who does not have faith in Christ, even the honor which he seemed to himself to have from the law is taken away.

He himself settles the whole reason of this discourse. For he speaks of the time of judgment and of his coming, at which he will separate the faithful from the unfaithful, and distinguish the fruitful from the unfruitful, that is, the goats from the lambs, and, placing each on the right and the left, will set him in a seat worthy either of his goodness or of his malice: indicating that in his least ones, that is, in those who serve him with the expectation of his humility, he himself is fed when they hunger, given drink when they thirst, sheltered when they are strangers, clothed when they are naked, visited when they are sick, and comforted when they are anxious. For he is so poured into the bodies and minds of all the faithful that these duties of humanity, either when given earn his favor or when refused provoke his offense. After this discourse, in which he had shown that he would come at the return of his glory, he now warns that he will suffer: so that they might recognize that the mystery of the cross is mingled with the glory of eternity. Meanwhile a plan to kill him is taken up by the Jews; and the chief priests gathered, an occasion for so great a crime is awaited.

“When Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of precious ointment,” and the rest. It is not for nothing that, at the very time of the passion, a woman poured precious ointment on the head of the Lord as he reclined: then that the disciples were angry and said that this should rather have been sold for the use of the poor: then that the Lord both approved the woman’s deed and promised an eternal memory of this work together with the preaching of the Gospel: finally that after this Judas broke out to sell his salvation. This woman is a prefiguration of the people of the nations, which in the passion of Christ gave glory to God. For she anointed his head: and the head of Christ is God. For ointment is the fruit of good work. And because of the care of the body it is especially pleasing to the female sex. So she poured all the care of her body and the whole affection of her precious mind into the honor and praise of God. But the disciples, out of zeal for saving Israel, as often, are moved: that this should have been sold for the use of the poor. But this woman was not carrying the ointment about for sale. And by a prophetic impulse they called the poor those in need of faith; and they meant that this faith of the nations ought rather to have been bought for the salvation of this needy people. To them the Lord said that there would be much time in which they could have care of the poor; but that salvation could not be given to the nations except by his command, who, by the pouring of this woman’s ointment, have been buried with him: because regeneration is given back only to those who have died with him in the profession of baptism. And therefore, wherever this Gospel is preached, her work will be told: because, Israel failing, the glory of the Gospel is proclaimed by the faith of the nations. Profane Israel, kindled to rivalry by this in the person of Judas, is roused with all hatred to extinguish the name of the Lord.

“On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Where do you wish us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” and the rest. The disciples are ordered to go to a certain man and tell him that the Lord wished to keep the Passover with his disciples at his house. They obeyed the commands and prepared the Passover. But they ought to have known where they were going and to have been told the man’s name. Otherwise, uncertain to whom they were being sent, how could those sent carry out what had been commanded? But the word of prophecy is mixed with the effects of present things. For he does not name the man with whom he would celebrate the Passover. For the honor of the Christian name, given to those who truly behold God with the eyes of mind and faith, had not yet been granted to believers: so that we might know that the apostles prepared the Lord’s Passover with one to whom, in the Lord’s time, a new name was to be added. After this Judas the betrayer is pointed out, without whom the Passover is completed, the cup taken and the bread broken: for he had not been worthy of communion in the eternal sacraments. For it is understood that he left at once from this, that he is shown returning with the crowds. Nor indeed could he drink with the Lord, who would not drink in the kingdom: since he promised that all who were then drinking of the fruit of this vine would drink with him afterward. “And when they had sung a hymn, they went back to the mountain”: that is, all the powers of the divine mysteries being completed, they are carried up with common joy and exultation into heavenly glory. He also warned them of the weakness to come, and that that same night all would be troubled by fear and unbelief. The truth of this was contained even in the authority of the old prophecy, that when the shepherd was struck the sheep would be scattered: yet that he, rising, would go before them into Galilee, so that their weakness might be strengthened by the promise of his return. But Peter, from the heat of his faith, answered that, though the others might be scandalized, he would never be scandalized. For he was so carried away by affection and love for Christ that he did not consider either the weakness of his flesh or the truth of the Lord’s words: as if his sayings would not be fulfilled. To him he says: “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” But both he and the others promise that not even for fear of death will they depart from the confession of his name: for they had strengthened themselves with the fearless will of faith for every constancy of ministry.