Commentary on Matthew 12.17–12.30

But one who holds that the truth that he is the Christ had also been proclaimed earlier by the apostles, who had heard, “What I tell you in the dark, say in the light; and what you hear in the ear, proclaim on the housetops,” will say that he wished first, as it were, to instruct those who would hear the name of Christ from the apostles, and then to let this be digested, as it were, in the minds of the hearers, so that, after a silence in the proclamation of such a thing about him, Christ Jesus crucified and raised from the dead might be built more fittingly on those already instructed; which at the beginning not even the apostles themselves knew. For it is written in the passage now being examined: “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem,” and suffer this and that. And if the apostles now learn from Jesus what would befall him—the plot of the elders, and that he would be killed, and that after this on the third day he would rise from the dead—what must we think that those who were being taught by the apostles had known about Jesus before, except that, even if Christ was proclaimed to them, he was proclaimed by way of an introduction that did not make clear what concerned him? For our Saviour, in charging the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ, wished to keep the more perfect teaching about him for a more suitable time, when the disciples who had seen him crucified and risen could testify about his resurrection to those who had seen him crucified. For if the apostles, who were always with him and had seen all the wonders he did, and testified of his words that they were words of eternal life, were offended on the night when he was betrayed, what do you suppose would have befallen those who had earlier learned that he was the Christ? It was to spare them, I think, that he gave this charge.

But one who holds that what was said to the twelve refers to the times after this, and that the apostles had not yet proclaimed to their hearers that he was the Christ, will say that he wished the notion of the Christ, interwoven with the name of Jesus, to be kept for the more perfect and saving proclamation, such as Paul knew when he said to the Corinthians: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Therefore earlier they proclaimed Jesus as one who did certain things and taught certain things; but now, when Peter confesses him to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, since he did not wish to be proclaimed already as the Christ, so that he might be proclaimed at a more suitable time, and as crucified too, he charges the disciples to tell no one that he is the Christ. And that this was his intent in forbidding it to be proclaimed that he was the Christ is shown in some measure by “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders,” and what follows. For then, at the right moment, as it were, he proclaims to the disciples who knew that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Father having revealed it to them, that instead of believing in Jesus Christ crucified, they should believe in Jesus Christ who would be crucified; and also, instead of believing in Christ Jesus and him raised from the dead, he teaches them to believe in Christ Jesus and him who would be raised from the dead. And since, “having stripped the principalities and authorities, he made a public example of them, triumphing over them boldly on the tree,” if anyone is ashamed of the cross of Christ, he is ashamed of the dispensation through which those powers were triumphed over; whereas one who both believes and knows these things ought even to boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which, when Christ was crucified, the principalities were made a public example and triumphed over before the believing world; among them, I think, was also the ruler of this age. Therefore, when he was near his suffering, he said, “Now the ruler of this world has been judged,” and, “Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And if I am lifted up from the earth,” he says, “I will draw all people to myself,” since the one who hinders is no longer so able to keep those drawn by him from coming to Jesus.

It is necessary, then, in proclaiming Jesus Christ, to proclaim him crucified; and the proclamation that Jesus is the Christ does not seem to me so deficient when any of his other wonders is passed over in silence as when his having been crucified is passed over. Therefore, reserving for the apostles a more perfect proclamation of the things concerning him, “he charged his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ,” and prepared them to say that he is the Christ who was crucified and rose from the dead, when he began not only to say, nor merely to advance as far as teaching, but “to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem,” and so on. For attend to the word “show”: just as sense-perceptible things are said to be shown, so the things spoken by Jesus to his disciples are said to be shown by him. And I do not think that each of the things seen was shown to those who saw him bodily suffering many things from the elders of the people as clearly as the rational demonstration about this was shown to the disciples.

Then he began to show; and it is likely that after this he showed more clearly to those who had become capable, no longer beginning to show, as to beginners, but already advancing in showing; and if it is reasonable to think that whatever Jesus began he certainly finished at some time, he finished what he began to show his disciples about his having to suffer what is written. For when someone grasps from the Word the perfect knowledge of these things, then it must be said that, by a rational demonstration, the mind seeing what is shown, the showing is completed for one who wishes and is able to contemplate these things, and does contemplate them. And since “it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside Jerusalem”—a perishing that corresponds to “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”—for this reason he had to go to Jerusalem, so that, having suffered many things there, he might make the firstfruits of the resurrection from the dead in the Jerusalem above, abolishing and dissolving the earthly one with all the worship in it. For as long as “Christ had not been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep,” and those who become conformed to his death and resurrection had not been raised with him, the city of God was sought below, and the temple, the purifications, and the rest; but when this had happened, no longer those, but the things above; and so that these might be established, “he had to go” to the Jerusalem below, “and suffer many things” there “from the elders” in it, “and chief priests and scribes” of the people, so that he might be glorified by the heavenly elders who receive his benefits, and by diviner high priests ranked under the one high priest; and might be glorified by the scribes of the people who busy themselves with letters not written in ink but made clear by the Spirit of the living God; and might be killed in the Jerusalem below, but having risen might reign on Mount Zion and in the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. And on the third day he rose from the dead, so that, having rescued them from the evil one and from his son, in whom were falsehood, unrighteousness, war, and all things opposed to what Christ is, and further from the profane spirit that disguises itself as the Holy Spirit, he might obtain for those rescued that they be baptized in spirit, soul, and body into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, which are three days present together eternally to those who through them are sons of the light.

… But since he thought the sufferings unworthy of Christ, the Son of the living God, and such things about him beneath the Father who had revealed such great things to him—for what concerned his coming suffering had not been revealed to him—for this reason, “taking him aside,” and as though forgetting the dignity of the Christ, and that the Son of the living God says or does nothing deserving rebuke, “he began to rebuke him”; and as to one who needed propitiation (for he did not yet know that “God put him forward as a propitiation through faith in his blood”), he said: “God be merciful to you, Lord.” Accepting his intention but rebuking his ignorance, because of the intention, which was right, he says to him: “Get behind me,” as to one who, through the things of which he was ignorant and did not speak rightly, had left off following Jesus; but because of the ignorance, as to one who had something opposed to the things of God, he said: “Satan,” which in Hebrew is “adversary.” But if he had not spoken from ignorance, nor rebuked the Son of the living God, saying to him, “God be merciful to you, Lord; this shall never happen to you,” he would not have said to him, “Get behind me,” as to one who had left being behind him and following him; nor would he have said, as to one who had spoken things opposed to what he had said, “Satan.” But as it was, Satan had been able to draw him, who had followed Jesus and was walking behind him, away from following him and from being behind the Son of God, and to make him, by what he said from ignorance, worthy to be called Satan and a stumbling block to the Son of God, “not minding the things of God but the things of men.” That Peter was behind the Son of God before he committed this sin is clear from: “Come behind me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

At the same time compare what he said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan,” with what he said to the devil when he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me”: “Go away, Satan,” without the addition “behind me”; for to be behind Jesus is a good thing. Therefore it is said, “Come behind me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Of the same kind is: “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow behind me is not worthy of me.” And in general observe the word “behind”: it is a good thing when one walks behind the Lord God and comes to be behind the Christ; but the opposite when one casts the words of God behind him, or when one transgresses the commandment that says, “Do not walk behind your desires.” And Elijah too, in the third book of Kingdoms, says to the people: “How long will you limp on both your hams? If the Lord is God, walk behind him; but if Baal is lord, walk behind him.” And Jesus says this to Peter “having turned,” and he does this to do him good. And if you collect more examples of “having turned,” especially those set down of Jesus, and examine them together, you would find that the word is not set down superfluously; for the present it is enough to set down this from the Gospel according to John: “And Jesus turned and saw them”—clearly Peter and Andrew—“following, and said to them, What are you seeking?” For see that in these words too “having turned” is for the benefit of those to whom he turned.

After this we must ask how he said to Peter, “You are a stumbling block to me,” especially since David says, “Great peace have those who love your law, and there is no stumbling block for them.” For someone will say: if this is said in the prophet because of the steadfastness of those who have love and are incapable of being made to stumble—“for love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things; love never fails”—how did the Lord himself, “who upholds all who are falling and sets upright all who are broken down,” say to Peter, “You are a stumbling block to me”? We must say that not only the Saviour but also one who has been perfected in love is incapable of being made to stumble; but, as far as lies in himself, one who says or does such things is a stumbling block even to one who will not be made to stumble; unless indeed Jesus calls the sinning disciple a stumbling block even to himself, as one who would say from love, much more than Paul, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?”—beside which one could put: “Who is made to stumble, and I am not made to stumble?” And if Peter was then called a stumbling block by Jesus for saying, “God be merciful to you, Lord; this shall never happen to you,” as not minding the things of God in what he said but the things of men, what must be said of all who profess to be disciples of Jesus, but do not mind the things of God, nor look at the things unseen and eternal, but mind the things of men and look at the things seen and temporal, except that such people would be called by Jesus still more his stumbling block? And because they are stumbling blocks to him and to the brothers, as he says concerning them, “I was hungry and you did not give me to eat,” and so on, so he might also say, “When I was running you made me stumble.” Let us not, then, think that minding the things of men is a chance sin, since we ought in all things to mind the things of God. And it will be fitting to say this also to everyone who has fallen away from the doctrines of God and the teachings of the Church and the true mind, and who holds as true, for example, the teachings of Basilides, or Valentinus, or Marcion, or of anyone who teaches human things as divine.

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, If anyone wishes to follow behind me,” and the rest. By these words it is shown that wishing to come behind Jesus and follow him does not come from ordinary manly virtue, and that no one who has not denied himself could come behind Jesus. And one denies himself who, by a notable change, wipes out his own former life spent in wickedness: for example, one who was formerly licentious denies his licentious self by becoming self-controlled, and so on. But someone may well object: whether, as he denied himself, so he also confesses himself, denying his unjust self but confessing his just self? But if Christ is righteousness, one who has taken up righteousness confesses not himself but Christ; so too one who has found wisdom confesses Christ by the very fact of having wisdom. And such a one, “believing with the heart unto righteousness and confessing with the mouth unto salvation,” and bearing witness to Christ by his works, as one who has confessed Christ by all these before men, will be confessed by him before the Father in heaven. So too one who has not denied himself, but has denied Christ, will undergo the saying, “I too will deny him.” Therefore let every reasoning and thought of ours, and every word and every act, be a denial of ourselves and a witness concerning Christ and in Christ; for I am persuaded that every act of the perfect man is a witness to Christ Jesus, and that abstaining from every sin is a denial of oneself, which brings one behind Jesus. Such a one has been crucified with Christ, and taking up his own cross follows him who for our sake bears his own cross, according to what is said in John: “So they took him and laid on him,” and the rest, as far as “where they crucified him.” But the Jesus according to John, if I may so call him, bears the cross for himself, and “bearing it went out”; but the Jesus according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke does not carry it himself, for Simon of Cyrene carries it. And perhaps Simon refers to us, who take up the cross of Jesus for Jesus’ sake, and Jesus himself to himself; for there are, as it were, two aspects of the cross: one which Simon of Cyrene carries, and another which Jesus carries himself for himself.

Further, on “Let him deny himself,” what was said by Paul, who denied himself, seems useful to me, as follows: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”; for “It is no longer I who live” was the voice of one denying himself, as one who had put off his own life and taken Christ into himself, so that he might live in him as righteousness, as wisdom, as sanctification, as our peace, and as the power of God, working all things in him. And attend to this too, that though there are many ways of dying, the Son of God was crucified, hung on a tree, so that all who die to sin might die to it in no other way than that of the cross. Therefore they will say, “I have been crucified with Christ,” and, “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of the Lord, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” For perhaps each of those crucified with Christ “strips off the principalities and authorities, and makes a public example of them, and triumphs over them on the tree”; or rather, Christ does these things in them.

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.” The first phrase is ambiguous; for one can understand it in one way thus: if anyone, as a lover of life, thinking the present life a good, cherishes his own life with a view to living in the flesh, fearing to die, as though he would lose it through death, this man, by the very wish to save his life in this way, will lose it, putting it outside the bounds of blessedness. But if anyone, despising the present living because of my word, which has persuaded him to contend for truth even to death for the sake of eternal life, loses his own life, handing it over for piety to what is more commonly called death, this man, as having lost his life for my sake, will rather save it and preserve it. And in another way we might take the text thus: if anyone, having understood what salvation is, wishes to obtain the salvation of his own soul, let this man, renouncing this life, and denying himself, and taking up his cross and following me, lose his soul to the world; for losing it for my sake and for the sake of all my teaching, he will obtain salvation as the end of such loss.

And at the same time observe that at the beginning “whoever wishes” is said, but next “whoever loses it.” Wishing, then, for it to be saved, let us lose it to the world, as those crucified with Christ and having our boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world will be crucified to us and we to the world, so that we may obtain the end, the salvation of our souls, which begins from our losing it for the sake of the word. But if we understand the saving of the soul to be blessed, referring it to salvation in God and to the blessednesses with him, there must also be a loss of the soul that is good, and for Christ’s sake, which will be a prelude to the blessed salvation. It seems to me, then, that in analogy with denying oneself, as explained, each must lose his own soul. Let each, then, lose his sinning soul, so that, having lost the sinning one, he may take up the one that is being saved in doing right. “For a man will be profited nothing if he gains the whole world”; and he gains the world, I think, to whom the world is not crucified; and to whom the world is not crucified, for him there will be the loss of his own soul. Two things being set before us—either to lose the world for the sake of gaining the soul, or to lose the soul for the sake of gaining the world—it is much more to be chosen that we lose the world and gain the soul by losing it for Christ.

But the saying, “Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”, if taken as a question, will seem able to indicate that one gives “an exchange for his soul” who after his sins has given away his whole substance, “to feed the poor with his possessions,” as though to be saved by this; but taken as a statement, it indicates, I think, that there is nothing a man has which he could give as “an exchange for his soul,” when it is held fast by death, and so redeem it from death’s hand. A man, then, could give nothing as “an exchange for his soul”; but God has given as the exchange for the souls of us all the precious blood of Jesus, according to which “we were bought with a price,” “redeemed not with perishable things, with silver or gold, but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, Christ.” And in Isaiah it is said to Israel: “I gave Ethiopia as your exchange, and Egypt and Syene for you, since you became precious in my sight, you were glorified”; for, for example, the firstborn of the Egyptians became the exchange for the firstborn of Israel, and for Israel the Egyptians who died in the remaining plagues that came on Egypt and in the drowning after the plagues. From these things let one who is able examine whether the true Ethiopia, and, so to call it, the spiritual Egypt, and the Syene of Egypt, are given as the exchange for the true Israel by God, “who redeems Israel from all their iniquities.” And to inquire more boldly: perhaps Syene is given for Jerusalem, Egypt for Judea, and Ethiopia for those who fear the Lord, who are other than Israel and the house of Levi and the house of Aaron.

“For the Son of Man is to come in the glory of his Father with his angels.” Now, indeed, the Son of Man has come, not in his glory: “For we saw him, and he had no form or beauty; but his form was without honour, and failing beside the sons of men; a man in affliction and toil, and knowing how to bear weakness, for his face was turned away; he was dishonoured and not esteemed.” And he had to come such as this, so that he might “bear our sins and suffer pain for us”; for it was not fitting for one in glory to “bear our sins and suffer pain for us.” But he also comes in glory, having first prepared the disciples through his appearing that had no form or beauty; and having become as they are, so that they might become as he is, “conformed to the image” of his glory—since he first became conformed “to the body of our humiliation,” when “he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant”—he is restored to the form of God and makes them conformed to it.

If you are able to perceive the differences of the Word, proclaimed “in the foolishness of preaching” to those who believe, and spoken “in wisdom” among the perfect, you will see how the Word has the form of a servant to those being introduced, so that they would say, “We saw him, and he had no form or beauty”; but to the perfect he comes in the glory of his Father, and they would say: “And we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” For to the perfect there appears the glory of the Word, and his being only-begotten of God the Father, and his fullness of grace, and likewise of truth; which one who needs “the foolishness of preaching” in order to believe cannot receive. And “the Son of Man is to come in the glory of his Father,” not alone, but “with his angels.” And if you can perceive all the fellow workers of the glory of the Word and of the revelation of wisdom, which is Christ, coming with him, you will see how “the Son of Man comes in the glory of his Father with his angels.” And consider whether in these terms you can say that the prophets who suffered before had, by their word that had no form or beauty, a likeness to the Word who had no form or beauty. And as “the Son of Man comes in the glory of his Father,” so the words in the prophets, becoming angels, come with him, keeping the proportion of their own glory. And when the Word comes in such a way with his angels, he will give to each a share of his own glory and of the brightness of his angels, according to each one’s deeds. We say these things without rejecting the second coming of the Son of God understood in the simpler way. And when will these things come about? Is it not when that apostolic saying is fulfilled which says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive what was done through the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad”? And if he will repay each according to his deeds, not the good alone, nor the bad apart from the good, it is clear that he will repay each according to every bad and every good deed. And I suppose—trusting the Apostle in this, and comparing also the words of Ezekiel, in which the sins of one who has turned completely are wiped out, and the former right deeds of one who has fallen away entirely are not reckoned—that for one who has been perfected and has entirely put off wickedness, the sins are wiped out; and for one who has entirely apostatized from godliness, any good he did before is not reckoned; but to us who are between the perfect and the apostate, when we appear before the judgment seat of Christ, is given what we have done, whether good or bad; for neither have we become so pure that our bad deeds are not reckoned against us at all, nor have we fallen away so far that our better deeds are forgotten.