Commentary on Matthew 16.26–17.2

“And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany,” and so on, up to “And whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” Whom did Jesus leave when he went out of the city of Jerusalem, from which he went out and was in Bethany? Was it not the chief priests and scribes of the people, who saw the wonders that he did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the son of David,” but were nonetheless indignant at those who praised Christ, and were reproved for this as not having understood “Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have perfected praise”? And since he left that Jerusalem and went outside it, it has fallen for this reason, and not one stone upon another was to remain, but it was to be thrown down until all was destroyed. He came to Bethany, the house of obedience, the church, where he also lodged and rested, since he had nowhere in Jerusalem to lay his head, such being the chief priests and scribes in it. And when he had rested in Bethany, the house of obedience—after the beginning of the founding of the church and of Christ’s rest in it—then he returns to the city which he had left and outside which he had gone; and as he returns to it he is hungry, and seeing a single fig tree by the road, the tree of the people, he came to it; and he found nothing edible in it, only an appearance of life, for there were leaves without fruit on the fig tree. Then, since this fig tree was living, he speaks to it, as to one that hears, the curse that befitted it. What was said was this: As long as the present age stands, may there be no more fruit in you. For this reason the synagogue of the Jews is fruitless, and this befalls it until the completion of the age, “until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in.” And the fig tree withered while Jesus was still dwelling in human life and living as a man. “And the disciples, when they saw it, marvelled, saying, How did the fig tree wither at once?” For with the eyes of the soul they saw the mystery of the withered fig tree, and they marvelled not so much at its withering as at its withering at once; for they saw that the fig tree, that people Israel, was dry. And to the disciples, who marvelled at having seen the fig tree withered at once, Jesus answered, confirming what had been said: “Truly, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, Be lifted up and cast into the sea, it will happen.” The disciples, then, who believe and do not doubt, also do what was done to the fig tree, saying to it, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you; since you do not judge yourselves worthy, behold, we turn to the Gentiles”; and by leaving it they wither it, so that its life-giving power may pass over to those from the nations, and the spirit that formerly held that people together may pass over to those from the nations. And besides the disciples’ doing what was done to the fig tree, the Word of God promises them that, if they have faith and do not doubt, they will say to the mountain he points out—the opposing power that is lifted up against men—“Be lifted up and cast into the sea,” and it happens. For the heavy mountain of wickedness, Satan, is lifted from each of those who are helped by the disciples of Jesus, being lifted by the one who conquered him, and is cast into the sea, the abyss, as he casts him into the place of punishment he deserves. And about this sea it is said in the Psalms: “This is the sea, great and wide; there ships pass, small creatures with great; this dragon, whom you formed to mock him.” And in another Psalm: “There you crushed the heads of the dragon”—clearly in the sea—and there “you crushed the head of the dragon; you gave him as food to the peoples, the Ethiopians.” The mountain that Jesus sees and points out is lifted, then, from each of those who are being prepared for salvation by the Word, and is cast into the sea at the word of a disciple of Jesus who succeeds in teaching, saying to the mountain in each of his hearers, “Be lifted up and cast into the sea”—saying it with faith and without doubting, so that what is said may happen. And all things whatever that the one who has faith and does not doubt asks in prayer, believing, he will receive.

And this is Bethany, where the friend of Jesus who rose from the dead lived. And everyone who obeys the word of God, and has the word of obedience established in himself, is a house of obedience and a Bethany, in which Jesus lodges and rests. And since we must draw from what is said matters worthy of the wisdom of God, by which the Gospels were written, consider whether, for those who understand more simply, the words “Leaving them, he went out of the city” are not superfluous; for how could he have been outside the city without leaving those with whom he was before? But for those who hear what is said with more understanding, he leaves the former entirely, because after them he comes to be with others, and not with them. Yet, having lodged in Bethany, he returns to the city without leaving Bethany; for he was both in Bethany and returning to the city. And Jesus was hungry, always wishing to partake of the fruits of the Spirit in the righteous; and his figs, if I may so name them, which he eats when hungry, are the love of the one who bears it, which is the first fruit of the Spirit, and joy, and peace, and patience, and the rest. As long as we bear these, we shall not be withered; but when we do not offer fruit to him when he comes upon us and seeks fruit to eat, it will be said to us, “May no fruit ever come from you again.” For apart from the explanation given before of the fig tree as the people, one may also refer the saying to each person as a fig tree, either withering, or bearing fruit, living, and being cultivated so as to bear more fruit. And perhaps, as in the case of the sowing—“the sower went out to sow, and some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds of the air came and devoured them; others on the rocks, others among the thorns, and others on the fine and good soil”—so there are different fig trees. If a fig tree is on the fine and good soil, it both bears fruit and offers it to Jesus when he is hungry; but when it is beside the road, like this one of which it is written, “And seeing a single fig tree by the road,” it gives no fruit to Jesus when he comes. For he finds nothing “on the fig tree beside the road but leaves only”; and so he says to it, since it was beside the road and had only leaves, an appearance of life but without fruit, “May no fruit ever come from you again.” As long, then, as he does not come to the fig tree, nor yet seek its fruit, but is patient, waiting to see whether perhaps the fig tree will bear fruit, it is not withered. But when he who hungers for our fruits stands by, and we are found to have nothing but the bare profession of faith, with no fruits accompanying it, we shall at once be withered, having lost even our seeming to be faithful. And one can find some such people who have borne the name of faith for a long time and have given the appearance of being alive, and yet are wholly dry; and because they bear no fruit, one can see them departing wholly from the Word and withering. Here, then, the fig tree that did not give fruit to the hungry Jesus is withered; another fig tree is ordered to be cut down, so that it may not waste the ground. Then the disciples, when they see someone withered after an appearance of life, marvel, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” We shall understand it still better if we apply the passage to individuals, considering how in temptations Jesus asks for fruits: for example, in persecution, confession and martyrdom; and when a woman is mad with desire for someone, the self-control and chastity of Joseph; and so in each temptation the fruit that corresponds to it. And the one who is not prepared to give confession, or self-control, to Jesus when he hungers and stands by, is at once withered: the one who denies is withered, and likewise the one who commits sexual immorality, even though, in the time before the temptations, he showed a living power and wore, as it were, the leaves of the fig tree. And the disciples marvel at such cases, how Jesus came hungering and seeking fruit, and, not finding it, at once spoke, and it happened, and the fig tree that was not prepared to bear fruit withered at once. And often someone who has been a fig tree for many years does not wither; but when Jesus stands by in the time of temptation and demands the fruit, and he has not given it to him, he is at once withered, and loses the life of so many years. And this happens because, according to the Saviour’s word, “to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken away from him,” so that what he seems to have may not lie idle. And each of the disciples, if he has faith and does not doubt, does both what was done to the fig tree and what is said next.

And it is a task to show how a disciple of Jesus, having sought fruit on a fig tree and not found it, says to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again,” so that at his word too the fig tree withers at once. For this, think of someone who professes the things of the faith, and thinks that he eats and drinks in the name of Jesus, and that Jesus has taught in the streets of his soul. Then let a disciple come, seeking the fruit of wisdom and of the word in him, according to his profession of teaching divine things; and seeking and examining him by the word, let him find no fruit; and by this, showing him to those who look on as empty of Christ, let him show by the word that, harmed as he is by conceit, it is no longer possible for fruit ever to come from him. See, then, whether in such a case the one who has faith and does not doubt does to the fig tree something like what Jesus did. And it is better that the deceitful fig tree, thought to be alive but bearing no fruit, should be shown to be fruitless and appear dry through the words of Jesus’ disciple, than that it should deceive, by its seeming life and pretence, the hearts of the guileless and easily deceived. The withering of the fig tree, then, has appeared a good work both of Jesus and of his disciples. And on each unbelieving and lawless person, I think, a mountain lies, corresponding to his unbelief and lawlessness, which is lifted by the word of Jesus’ disciples and cast into the sea of his punishment. And all things whatever that the disciples of Jesus ask in prayer, believing, they will receive, as disciples who will ask nothing that is not fitting, and as obeying the Teacher, asking for nothing but the great and heavenly things. For Jesus said to his disciples: “Ask for the great things, and the small will be added to you; and ask for the heavenly things, and the earthly will be added to you.”

Mark, in recording this passage, added something that seems incongruous as regards the letter, writing that “Jesus, seeing from afar a fig tree in leaf, came to see whether he would find anything on it; and when he came to it he found nothing but leaves only, for it was not the season for figs; and he answered and said to it, May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” For someone might say: If it was not the season for figs, how did Jesus come to see whether he would find anything on it, and how was it just for him to say to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again”? To this it will be said that the fruits of the Spirit listed by the Apostle—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control—are sometimes rendered in their own season; but it is better if, when circumstances call one toward what is contrary to bearing fruit, a person can, because he has been greatly helped by the Word, give the fruits of the Spirit nonetheless, even then. What I mean is this. One of the fruits of the Spirit is love. Its season is when it is not hard to return the fruit of being loved; and to love the one who loves is indeed a fruit of the Spirit, but not out of the season, if I may so name it, for figs. But when someone provokes the believer to hatred, acting and plotting in such a way, and being so corrupted in his character, that he seems to deserve to be hated, and the righteous man does not hate even such a one, but, as a son “of him who makes his sun rise on the evil and the good,” loves him even then—giving the fruit of love, as it were, out of the season for figs—he is blessed. You will understand the like with joy as well. To bear the fruit of the Spirit, joy, when nothing provokes one to grief and displeasure, is not hard; but when circumstances provoke to grief, despondency, and displeasure, and someone advances so far through the help of the Word as to be content in times that seem displeasing, and to rejoice in times of dishonour and scourging, and simply, in every time of trouble, to remember “Rejoice always,” such a one would be blessed, bearing the fruit of joy even out of the season, if I may so name it, for figs. It is not hard to see the like in the other fruits of the Spirit too. For God wishes the one who comes to his Word to be better than human nature, and he demands of him extraordinary things—works, if I may so name them, of God rather than of man. Therefore he says to all whom he calls to blessedness, “I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High”; and, blaming those who do not wish to be made divine and become sons of the Most High, he says, “But you die like men.” For in each sin, because “we are fleshly and walk according to man,” we do nothing else than die; and it is clear that “if we live according to the flesh, we shall die,” as the Apostle taught. So much on the words, “For it was not the season for figs.” And according to Mark, Peter, “seeing the fig tree withered from the roots,” said to the Saviour, “Look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered”; for the tree that does not bear fruit for the Word when he seeks it is worthy of the curse that comes from the Word. At the end the saying has something that urges us to believe that we shall receive; for we shall not receive otherwise unless we ask. Let our disposition, then, be worthy of obtaining what we ask, and our prayer, sent up with knowledge, worthy of being granted; and let our requests be heavenly and great and worthy of being given by … [On the chief priests and elders who asked the Lord … saying, “By what authority do you do these things?”]

“And when he had come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, saying, By what authority are you doing these things?” and so on, down to: “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.” Since three evangelists have recorded the present passage, as was necessary, it is worth seeing what the chief priests and the elders of the people had in mind when they questioned the Saviour, putting to him not one question but two: one, “By what authority are you doing these things?” and the other, “And who gave you this authority?”; and what the Saviour intended when, on this point alone, he answered with a counter-question so as not to reply to the question. For he saw that they were not worthy of a reply to their question and of an exposition of the problem. That the contents of this passage are not, as some think, simple and easy to grasp, but mystical and in need of a deep heart, will become plain on close attention. Come then, let us first argue the case for the plausibility of those who take the passage more simply. They will say that the chief priests and the elders of the people, knowing of two general authorities, the better one, God’s, and the worst, the devil’s, asked the Saviour by which of these two authorities he was doing the wonders, and from whom he had received it; then Jesus, so as not to speak in his own defence, asked in return, wishing at the same time to refute his questioners as having acted against right reason in disbelieving John the Baptist; and his counter-question accomplished two things: it refuted their unbelief toward John, and it diverted the questioners, so that he might seem to them to have good reason for not answering. But someone might say in reply that it was ridiculous to ask by what authority Jesus was doing these things, for he would not have answered, “By the devil’s authority.” And I say not only that the Saviour would not have answered this, but that not even “the man of sin, the adversary, who exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship,” would tell his questioners the truth, that he does every power and sign and wonder by the devil’s authority, … and will lead astray, if possible, even the elect. But if not even he would say that he does by the devil’s authority “the signs and lying wonders,” those performed “with all deception of unrighteousness for those who are perishing,” how much more would the Saviour, even if he had not asked in return, have answered nothing else than “By God’s”! When the answer was so obvious, to suppose both that they asked and that the Saviour did not answer seems to me simple-minded.

Perhaps, then, the contents of the passage are of this kind. In the wisdom of God, which contains knowledge of things divine and human and of their causes, there are treasures, such as the treasures of wisdom and knowledge must be; and these are hidden. And if anyone has been counted worthy to know “the unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter,” he would know “the wisdom hidden in a mystery, which God foreordained before the ages for the glory” of the righteous. In the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge, then, there are deep and secret accounts about different authorities: in general two, but in particular several under each of the two, hard to discern. The two general authorities are of this kind. Some belong to the better order: there are men of God, no ordinary ones, and blessed angels of God, and prophets of God borne along by God; so there are certain authorities of God, of which the Apostle, glorifying Christ, speaks in the Letter to the Colossians: “The Saviour is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; in him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him, and he is before all things.” One kind of the beings under God, then, is the authorities created in Christ, distinct from the principalities and the thrones and the dominions; and each has authority over certain beings, set by God according to some secret worth over those who deserve to be under authority, according to the difference among them, each under one of the authorities. Long and hard to explain would be the account of these authorities and of the things subject to them. And just as there are certain authorities of God, so there are also opposing ones, corresponding to the men of sin and the angels of the devil; and those who no longer wrestle against blood and flesh, but, because they have risen in strength, contend against what lies beyond these, have their wrestling against the authorities that oppose the athletes of godliness. And as there were several orders under God, so also in the opposing region there are not only authorities but also “world-rulers of this darkness” and “spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places,” and perhaps principalities as well. I think that all of them bear the same names as those of God, but in the sense of opposition. The holders of the various titles in Israel, then, that is, the chief priests and the elders of the people, having formed many opinions about authorities, and moved whether by traditions, or by their own conjecture, or by apocryphal writings (I do not know whether reasonably or unreasonably), saw him performing the wonders not without some authority present with him; they wanted, therefore, to learn the nature of this authority from Jesus’ knowledge, or from what seemed to them to be knowledge in him. And if those who questioned the Saviour then had been holy and blessed chief priests, like Aaron, or Eleazar, or Phinehas, or all who carried out their ministry in a praiseworthy way, and elders like those whom Moses chose by God’s commandment, it is likely that the Saviour, treating them as people not testing him but eager to learn, and worthy of such great teachings, would have begun and set out an account that not even the whole world could contain. Having begun, he would have handed on knowledge about the blessed authorities and the difference between them, and the cause of their having come to be authorities, and about the beings under them, whether souls or rational beings of whatever kind; and he would also have gone through the account of the opposing authorities, and set out their differences. And it is likely that he would have taught, in keeping with “The law ordained through angels” and “If the word spoken through angels proved firm” — in keeping, I mean, with the account of the angels who ministered the law — also about authority as found in the Scriptures: for example, by what authority ministering to God, or by what kinds of authority, each of the wonders in Egypt took place; what authority ministered to the staff of Moses when it was changed into a serpent, and what opposing one ministered to the transformation of the Egyptian staffs into serpents; and he would have told the power of the authority by which Aaron’s staff swallowed up those of the Egyptians. He would also have told what was the authority of the change of Moses’ hand to snow, and, on the opposing side, what authority conspired in each case with the enchanters of the Egyptians when they seemed to imitate the signs of God; and so he would have gone through the ten plagues of the Egyptians, and the “sending” against them “by evil angels.” He would also have told what authority served the people’s passage through the Red Sea and the drowning of the Egyptians, and what authority served the change of bitter water into sweetness through the wood; he would also have told the authority that ministered to the water from the rock, and would have shown either the same or another authority ministering to the rain of manna and the coming of the quails; he would also have told what was the authority that turned that same manna into worms and stench on the six days but preserved it on the Sabbath day. And why must I collect the wonders in the wilderness up to the death of Moses to show that the Saviour would have spoken about authority, had the chief priests and the elders of the people been worthy of an answer to their question? You too can see what corresponds, by going through the whole Scripture: what the authority was by which the sun stood still at Gibeon and the moon at the valley of Elom, and, much earlier, by which the river Jordan was crossed and the manna ceased. And in the book of Judges too many such things could be sought and found, for example the marvels concerning Gideon and Samson; and from the Kingdoms the things concerning Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, and Hezekiah. And so the Saviour, after going over this and going through the mystery of the different authorities, would have taught by what authority, and by how surpassing an authority, he was doing the wonders that the people saw, an authority given him not by some angel and minister of God, nor through any of the beings lower than God, but by the Father himself.