Commentary on Matthew 13.18–13.27

Let another interpretation besides the simpler one also be stated, whether as doctrine or for the sake of exercise; and let us inquire what child Jesus called and set in the midst of the disciples. See whether you can say that the child Jesus called is the Holy Spirit, who humbled himself, was called by the Saviour, and was set in the midst of the ruling faculty of the disciples of Jesus; and whether he wishes us, turning away from all other things, to be turned toward the examples set before us by the Holy Spirit, so that we may thus become like the children who themselves have turned and been made like the Holy Spirit; children whom God gave to the Saviour, according to what is said in Isaiah: “Behold, I and the children whom God has given me.” And it is not possible to enter the kingdom of heaven without turning from the affairs of the world and being made like the children who have borne the Holy Spirit. Jesus called this Holy Spirit, which had come down from its own perfection to human beings as a child, and set it in the midst of the disciples. One must therefore turn from worldly desires and humble oneself, not simply as the child, but, as it is written, “as this child.” And to humble oneself as that child is to imitate the Holy Spirit, who humbled himself for the salvation of human beings. That the Saviour and the Holy Spirit were sent by the Father for the salvation of human beings is shown in Isaiah, where the Saviour says in his own person, “And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.” One must know, however, that the expression is ambiguous: either God sent the Saviour, and the Holy Spirit also sent him; or, as we have taken it, the Father sent both, the Saviour and the Holy Spirit. Greater in the kingdom of heaven, then, is the one who has humbled himself more than all who humble themselves in imitation of that child. For many wish to humble themselves as that child; but the one who has become altogether like the child that humbled itself would be found to be the one called greatest of all in the kingdom of heaven, in the name of Jesus, being truly in Jesus himself most of all. And as whoever receives one such child in his name receives Jesus, so the one who will not receive one such child in the name of Jesus rejects and casts out Jesus. And if there is a difference among those deemed worthy of the Holy Spirit, believers receiving more or less of the Holy Spirit, there would be some little ones among those who believe in God who can be made to stumble. Avenging them when they are made to stumble, the Word says of those who caused them to stumble, “It is better for him that a donkey millstone be hung around his neck and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea.” Let this be said on the passages of Matthew set out above.

Let us also look at the parallels in the other Gospels. Mark, then, says that the twelve disputed on the way which of them was greater; so he sat down and called them, and teaches who is greater, saying that the one who has become last of all through moderation and gentleness will obtain the first place as greater, so as to take not the place of the one who is served but that of the one who serves, and this not toward some and not toward others, but toward all without exception. For note: “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” And next to this he says, “Taking a child” (clearly Jesus), “he set it in the midst of his disciples, and taking it in his arms said to them, Whoever receives one of the children in my name receives me.” What child, according to the deeper meaning in these passages, did Jesus take and embrace, if not the Holy Spirit? And to this child some have been made like, about whom he said, “Whoever receives one of such children in my name receives me.” According to Luke, however, a “reasoning” did not “go up” among the disciples, but “entered” them, about “which of them might be greatest. And Jesus, seeing the reasoning of their heart”: since he has eyes that see the reasonings of hearts, “seeing the reasoning of their heart,” and not even asked, according to Luke, he “took the child and set it” not only in their midst, as Matthew and Mark have said, but now “beside himself,” and said to the disciples not only “Whoever receives one such child” or “Whoever receives one of such children in my name receives me,” but now, going higher, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me.” According to Luke, then, we must receive in the name of Jesus that child whom Jesus took and set beside himself. And I do not know whether one can avoid interpreting figuratively “Whoever receives this child in my name.” For each of us must receive, in the name of Jesus, that child whom Jesus then set beside himself, taking hold of it. For it lives, as being immortal; and we must receive it from Jesus himself in the name of Jesus; and Jesus, not being separated from it, comes to be with the one who receives the child, so that in this sense it is said, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me.” Then, since the Father is inseparable from the Son, he comes to be with the one who has received the Son; therefore it is said, “And whoever receives me receives him who sent me.” The one who has received the child, and the Saviour, and the one who sent him, is lesser among all the disciples of Jesus, making himself small; but the more he makes himself small, the greater he becomes, his very making himself smaller causing him to advance in greatness. For note: “He who is least among you all, he is great.” We have read in other copies also, “will be great.” And according to Luke, “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a child will not enter it”; and the expression is ambiguous: either that the one who receives the kingdom of God becomes like a child, or that he receives the kingdom of God, which has become to him like a child. Perhaps here those who receive the kingdom of God receive it as being like a child, but in the age to come no longer as a child; for it will show the greatness of its perfection, in what I may call spiritual maturity, to all who at present have received it as being here like a child.

“Woe to the world because of stumbling-blocks.” The word “world” (kosmos) is used by itself, in an absolute sense, in “He was in the world, and the world did not know him”; but in a relative sense, joined with that of which it is the kosmos, it is used in “Lest, looking up to heaven and seeing the sun and the moon and all the array (kosmos) of heaven, you be led astray and worship them and serve them.” You will say that the same is said of Esther in Esther, where it is written, “having taken off all her adornment (kosmos)”; for “the world” simply is not the same as “the array of heaven” or “the adornment of Esther.” What we are now seeking is something else. I think, then, that according to the divine writings the world is not the system made up of heaven and earth, but only the region around the earth; and this not understood as the whole earth, but as our inhabited world. For the true light was in the world, that is, in the region around the earth understood as ours; “and the world did not know him”: the people in the region around the earth, and perhaps also the powers that belong to this place. For it is absurd to say that it means the system of heaven and earth and the things in them, so that one would say that the sun and the moon and the choir of stars, and the angels in this whole world, did not know the true light, and yet, while not knowing it, kept the order appointed to them by God. But also when the Saviour says in his prayer to the Father, “And now glorify me, Father, with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was,” we must understand “world” to mean our inhabited earth. For it is from this world that the Father gave people to the Son, for whom alone the Saviour asks the Father, and not for the whole world of human beings. And the Saviour, when he says, “And I come to you, and I am no longer in the world,” speaks of the earthly world; for we must not think that he says contradictory things when he says, “And I come to you, and I am no longer in the world,” and “I am in the world.” In “And these things I speak in the world,” too, we must understand the region around the earth. This is clearly signified also by “And the world hated them, because they are not of the world.” For what hated us, from the time when, because of Jesus' teaching, we no longer look at the things that are seen but at the things that are not seen, is not the whole world composed of heaven and earth and the things in them, but the people on earth among us. “They are not of the world” is equivalent to “They are not of the region around the earth”; and so the disciples of Jesus are not of the world, as he himself was not of the world. Further, “that the world may believe that you sent me,” said twice in the Gospel according to John, refers not to beings higher than human beings but to the people who need to believe that the Father sent the Son into the world here; and in the Apostle, “your faith is proclaimed in the whole world.”

If “woe” is to people everywhere on earth “because of stumbling-blocks,” since the stumbling-blocks touch them, but the disciples, who do not look at the things that are seen, are not of the world, just as the Teacher is not of the world, then for none of the disciples of Jesus is there “woe because of stumbling-blocks,” since “great peace have those who love the law of God, and there is no stumbling-block for them.” But if someone seems to bear the name of disciple, yet is still of the world because he loves the world and the things in it (I mean life in the region around the earth, and the money or possessions in it, or property of any kind), so that “They are not of the world” does not fit him, then what happens to the world, “Woe because of stumbling-blocks,” will happen to him as to one who is of the world. Let the one who wishes to escape this woe not be a lover of life, but let him say with Paul, “The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” For the saints, “being in the tent, groan, being burdened” by “the body of humiliation,” and do everything so that they may become worthy to be found in the mystery of the resurrection, when God “will transform” not everyone's “body of humiliation,” but that of those who are genuinely Christ's disciples, so that it becomes conformed to the glory of Christ. For just as none of the woes befalls any of Christ's disciples, so neither does “Woe to the world because of stumbling-blocks”; for even if countless stumbling-blocks occur, they will not touch those who are no longer of the world. But if anyone is liable to stumble because of the instability of his faith and the insecurity of his assent to the word of God, let him know that he is not yet called by Jesus his disciple. We must think that so many stumbling-blocks come that the woe reaches not merely certain parts of the earth but the whole world on it.

“For it is necessary that stumbling-blocks come.” I think these are other than the people through whom they come. The stumbling-blocks that come, then, are a kind of army of the devil, his angels and a wicked choir of unclean spirits, which, seeking instruments through which to work, often find those who are wholly strangers to godliness, but sometimes also some of those thought to believe the word of God. For these the woe is worse than the woe for the one who is made to stumble, just as “it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment” than for the places where Jesus did signs and wonders and yet was not believed. One might make a kind of treatise from the Scriptures by collecting those who are called blessed and the things for which they are called blessed, and also the woes that are written and the things for which “woe” is said. Further, that the woe of the one who causes stumbling is worse than that of the one who is made to stumble, you will show by “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it is better for him,” and what follows. For when the little one who was made to stumble is avenged on the one who made him stumble, so heavy and hard to endure is what is written as “better” for the one who causes stumbling. If we considered these things more carefully, we would guard against “sinning against the brothers and wounding their weak conscience,” so that “we may not sin against Christ,” since often brothers around us perish, not only “through our knowledge” but also through other things, brothers “for whom Christ died.” For these, sinning against Christ, we shall pay the penalty, when the soul of those who perish because of us is avenged on …

After this we must test the word “necessity” in “For it is necessary that stumbling-blocks come,” and its equivalent in Luke, “It is impossible that stumbling-blocks should not come,” where “not admissible” is used for “impossible.” And just as it is necessary that what is mortal should die, and impossible that it should not die; and necessary that one who is in a body should be nourished, for it is impossible for one who is not nourished to live; so it is necessary, and impossible not to happen, that stumbling-blocks should come, since it is also necessary that wickedness should exist in human beings before virtue, and from this wickedness come the stumbling-blocks. For it is impossible that a human being should be found wholly without sin, and to have taken up virtue without sin. For the wickedness in the evil powers, being the origin of the wickedness in human beings, impels them all to work, through certain instruments, against the people of the world; and perhaps the evil powers are enraged even more when they are cast out by the word of Jesus, and their worship diminishes, as the customary sacrifices are no longer offered to them. It is necessary that these things should come, but it is not necessary that they come through this or that particular person. Therefore the woe falls on the person through whom the stumbling-block comes, as on one who has given place to the evil power that chooses to cause stumbling. But do not think that the stumbling-blocks, which seek people through whom to come, are what they are by nature and by constitution. For just as God did not make death, so he did not create stumbling-blocks either; but free will gave birth to the stumbling-block in some who would not endure the labours that virtue requires.

It is good, then, if the eye and the hand are praiseworthy, so that the eye cannot reasonably say to the hand, “I have no need of you.” But if someone in the whole body of the congregations of the church, called a hand because of his active role, should change and become a hand that causes stumbling, let the eye say to such a hand, “I have no need of you,” and, having said it, let it “cut it off and throw it” from itself. So too it is good if a head is blessed and the feet are worthy of the blessed head, so that the head, keeping what befits it, cannot say to the feet, “I have no need of you.” But if some foot should be found becoming a stumbling-block to the whole body, let the head say to such a foot, “I have no need of you,” and let it cut it off and throw it from itself. For it is much better that the rest of the body should enter into life lacking the foot or the hand that caused stumbling, than that the stumbling-block should spread through the whole body and it be thrown into the Gehenna of fire with the two feet or the two hands. So too it is good that one who has been able to become the eye of the whole body should be worthy of Christ and of the whole body; but if ever such an eye should change so as to become a stumbling-block to the whole body, it is good to take it out and throw it out of the whole body, and that the rest of the body be saved without that eye, rather than that, with the whole body harmed along with it, the whole body be thrown into the Gehenna of fire. For the hand that causes stumbling, the foot that causes stumbling, and the eye that causes stumbling can also be the soul's faculty of walking, if I may call it so, when used sinfully, and its faculty of seeing, when used sinfully; it is better to cast these off and, having put them away, to enter into life without them, as it were lame or maimed or one-eyed, than to lose the whole soul with them. Likewise with the soul: it is good and blessed to use its power for the best things; but if we are about to perish because of some one power, it is preferable to cast off the use of it, so that we may be saved with the other powers.

These sayings can also be applied to those most closely related to us, who are, as it were, our members because of our great closeness to them, whether of kinship or of what I may call friendly intimacy; they are regarded as our members, but we must not spare them when they harm our soul. Let us cut off from ourselves, as a hand or a foot or an eye, a father or mother who want us to do things contrary to godliness, and a son or daughter who, as far as lies with them, draw us away from the church of Christ and from his love. Even if the wife in our bosom, or the friend who is as our own soul, becomes a stumbling-block to us, let us not spare them, but cutting them off from ourselves let us cast them out of our soul, as not our own but as enemies of our salvation. For whoever does not hate father or mother, and the rest that follows, when it is time to hate them as hostile and treacherous, so that he may be able to gain Christ, is not worthy of the Son of God. And in these cases it may be said that, through force of circumstances, someone is saved as it were lame, having lost a foot (say, his brother), and he alone inherits the kingdom of God; and someone is saved maimed, his father not being saved along with him, but they perishing and he being separated from them, so that he alone obtains the blessings; and so too someone is saved one-eyed, having cut out the eye of his own house, his wife who had committed sexual immorality, so that he may not go with two eyes into the Gehenna of fire.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones.” It seems to me that, just as among human bodies there are different sizes, so that some are small, others large, and others in between, and again there are differences among the small, some being more and some less small, and likewise among the large and those in between, so also in the souls of human beings there are things that mark their smallness, and others that mark their greatness, and, analogously to bodies, their in-between state. But with bodies it is not through any cause in the person, but through the seminal principles, that one is short and small, another large, another in between; whereas with souls, what lies in our power, and particular actions, and a particular character, are the cause of someone's being great or small or being among those in between. And it lies within our power either to advance in stature, growing into greatness, or, by not advancing, to remain short. It is in this way too that I understand the words about the Saviour, who took a human soul, “Jesus advanced.” For just as his advance in wisdom and grace came from the free choice of his soul, so also his advance in stature. And the Apostle says: “Until we all attain to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” For attaining to the man, and to the perfect man, must be understood of the inner man, who has passed through the things of the infant and reached manhood, and has done away with the things of the infant, and, in short, has brought to completion the things of the man. So too we must suppose that there is a measure of spiritual stature, to which the most perfect soul can attain by magnifying the Lord and becoming great. In this way, then, those of whom this is recorded became great: Isaac, Moses, John, and above all the Saviour himself; for of him too it was said, “He will be great.” But little ones are “the newborn babes, longing for the rational, pure milk,” who also need the nurses and foster-fathers spoken of in Isaiah, which says concerning the calling of the Gentiles, “And they will bring your sons in their bosom, and carry your daughters on their shoulders; and kings will be your foster-fathers, and their princesses your nurses.” On this account, then, you will consider, in connection with “Do not despise one of the little ones,” whether their angels are those who bring them in the bosom when they are sons, and also carry on their shoulders those called daughters; and of these, the so-called kings are foster-fathers, and those named princesses are nurses. And since the little ones pointed out by our Saviour are cared for as by nurses and foster-fathers, it is for this reason, I think, that Moses, believing that he was already ranked among the great, said in reply to “My angel will go before you”: “If you yourself do not go with me, do not bring me up from here.” For if the little one, even though an heir, is an infant, differing in no way from a slave while he is an infant, and is small, he has “the spirit of slavery leading to fear”; but the one who is no longer such at all has no longer the spirit of slavery but now that of adoption, when “perfect love casts out fear.” It will then be clear to you that it is in accordance with this that the angel of the Lord is said to encamp around those who fear him and to deliver them. You will consider, accordingly, whether the little ones, who are led to fear by a spirit of slavery, have angels, since the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them; while the great have the Lord, who is greater than the angels, who might say of each one of them, “I am with him in affliction.” So long as we are imperfect, and need someone to help us to be delivered from evils, we need an angel, of whom Jacob said, “The angel who delivers me from all evils”; but when we have been perfected, and have passed beyond being under nurses and foster-fathers, stewards and guardians, we advance to being cared for by the Lord himself.

Then again someone might ask when the so-called angels of the little ones pointed out by the Saviour take charge of them: whether they received the charge of administering them from the time when, through the washing of regeneration by which they were born, “as newborn babes, they long for the rational and pure milk,” and are no longer subject to any evil power; or from birth, these angels having been appointed by God, according to his foreknowledge and predestination, over those “whom” God “also foreknew and predestined” to be “conformed to the glory of Christ.” In favour of having angels from birth one might cite these words: “who set me apart from my mother's womb”; and “From my mother's womb you are my protector”; and “He took hold of me from my mother's womb”; and “Upon you I was cast from the womb”; and in the Epistle of Jude, “To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ,” surely kept by the guardian angels.