Mateus 13
Augustine of Hippo · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Mateus 13:1
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (De Cons. Ev. ii. 41.) By the words, The same day, he sufficiently shows that these things either followed immediately upon what had gone before, or that many things could not have intervened; unless indeed 'day' here after the Scripture manner signifies a period. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:15
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quæst. in Matt. q. 14.) Otherwise; They have shut their eyes lest they should see with their eyes, that is, themselves were the cause that God shut their eyes. For another Evangelist says, We hath blinded their eyes. But is this to the end that they should never see? Or that they should not see so much as this, that becoming discontent with their own blindness and bewailing themselves, should so be humbled, and moved to confession of their sins and pious seeking after God. For Mark thus expresses the same thing, Lest they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them. From which we learn, that by their sins they deserved not to understand; and that yet this was allowed them in mercy that they should confess their sins, and should turn, and so merit to be forgiven. But when John relating this expresses it thus, Therefore they could not believe because Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them, (John 12:39) this seems to be opposed to this interpretation, and to compel us to take what is here said, Lest they should see with their eyes, not as though they might come to see after this fashion, but that they should never see at all; for he says it plainly, That they should not see with their eyes. And that he says, Therefore they could not believe, sufficiently shows that the blindness was not inflicted, to the end that moved thereby, and grieving that they understood not, they should be converted through penitence; for that they could not, unless they had first believed, and by believing had been converted, and by conversion had been healed, and having been healed understood; but it rather shows that they were therefore blinded that they should not believe. For he speaks most clearly, Therefore they could not believe. But if it be so, who would not rise up in defence of the Jews, and pronounce them to be free from all blame for their unbelief? For, Therefore they could not believe, because he hath blinded their eyes. But because we must rather believe God to be without fault, we are driven to confess that by some other sins they had thus deserved to be blinded, and that indeed this blinding prevented them from believing; for the words of John are these, They could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes. It is in vain then to endeavour to understand it that they were therefore blinded that they should be converted; seeing they could not be converted because they believed not; and they could not believe because they were blinded. Or perhaps we should not say amiss thus—that some of the Jews were capable of being healed, but that being puffed up with so great swelling pride, it was good for them at first that they should not believe, that they might understand the Lord speaking in parables, which if they did not understand they would not believe; and thus not believing on Him, they together with the rest who were past hope crucified Him; and at length after His resurrection, they were converted, when humbled by the guilt of His death they loved Him the more because of the heavy guilt which had been forgiven them; for their so great pride needed such an humiliation to overcome it. This might indeed be thought an inconsistent explanation, did we not plainly read in the Acts of the Apostles that thus it was. This then that John says, Therefore they could not believe, because he hath blinded their eyes that they should not see, (Acts 2:37) is not repugnant to our holding that they were therefore blinded that they should be converted; that is to say, that the Lord's meaning was therefore purposely clothed in the obscurities of parables, that after His resurrection they might turn them to wisdom with a more healthy penitence. For by reason of the darkness of His discourse, they being blinded did not understand the Lord's sayings, and not understanding them, they did not believe on Him, and not believing on Him they crucified Him; thus after His resurrection, terrified by the miracles that were wrought in His name, they had the greater compunction for their great sin, and were more prostrated in penitence; and accordingly after indulgence granted they turned to obedience with a more ardent affection. Notwithstanding, some there were to whom this blinding profited not to conversion. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:23
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (De Gen. ad lit. viii. 4.) It is certain that the Lord spoke the things which the Evangelist has recorded; but what the Lord spake was a parable, in which it is never required that the things contained should have actually taken place. (De Civ. Dei, xxi. 27.) Some think that this is to be understood as though the saints according to the degree of their merits delivered some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred persons; and this they usually suppose will happen on the day of judgment, not after the judgment. But when this opinion was observed to encourage men in promising themselves impunity, because that by this means all might attain to deliverance, it was answered, that men ought the rather to live well, that each might be found among those who were to intercede for the liberation of others, lest these should be found to be I so few that they should soon have exhausted the number allotted to them, and thus there would remain many unrescued from torment, among whom might be found all such as in most vain rashness had promised themselves to reap the fruits of others. (Quaest. Ev. i. 9.) Otherwise; There is fruit an hundred-fold of the martyrs because of their satiety of life or contempt of death; a sixty-fold fruit of virgins, because they rest not warring against the use of the flesh; for retirement is allowed to those of sixty years' age after service in war or in public business; and there is a thirty-fold fruit of the wedded, because theirs is the age of warfare, and their struggle is the more arduous that they should not be vanquished by their lusts. Or otherwise; We must struggle with our love of temporal goods that reason may be master; it should either be so overcome and subject to us, that when it begins to rise it may be easily repressed, or so extinguished that it never arises in us at all. Whence it comes to pass, that death itself is despised for truth's sake, by some with brave endurance, by others with content, and by others with gladness—which three degrees are the three degrees of fruits of the earth—thirty-fold, sixty-fold, and an hundred-fold. And in one of these degrees must one be found at the time of his death, if any desires to depart well out of this life. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:25
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quaest. in Matt. q. 11.) He says, While men slept, for while the heads of the Church were abiding in supineness, and after the Apostles had received the sleep of death, then came the Devil and sowed upon the rest those whom the Lord in His interpretation calls evil children. But we do well to enquire whether by such are meant heretics, or Catholics who lead evil lives. That He says, that they were sown among the wheat, seems to point out that they were all of one communion. But forasmuch as He interprets the field to mean not the Church, but the world, we may well understand it of the heretics, who in this world are mingled with the good; for they who live amiss in the same faith may better be taken of the chaff than of the tares, for the chaff has a stem and a root in common with the grain. While schismatics again may more fitly be likened to ears that have rotted, or to straws that are broken, crushed down, and cast forth of the field. Indeed it is not necessary that every heretic or schismatic should be corporally severed from the Church; for the Church bears many who do not so publicly defend their false opinions as to attract the attention of the multitude, which when they do, then are they expelled. When then the Devil had sowed upon the true Church divers evil errors and false opinions; that is to say, where Christ's name had gone before, there he scattered errors, himself was the rather hidden and unknown; for He says, And went his way. Though indeed in this parable, as we learn from His own interpretation, the Lord may be understood to have signified under the name of tares all stumbling-blocks and such as work iniquity. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:27
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quaest. in Matt. q. 12.) Or otherwise; When a man begins to be spiritual, discerning between things, then he begins to see errors; for he judges concerning whatsoever he hears or reads, whether it departs from the rule of truth; but until he is perfected in the same spiritual things, he might be disturbed at so many false heresies having existed under the Christian name, whence it follows, And the servants of the householder coming to him said unto him, Didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it tares? Are these servants then the same as those whom He afterwards calls reapers? Because in His exposition of the parable, He expounds the reapers to be the Angels, and none would dare to say that the Angels were ignorant who had sowed tares, we should the rather understand that the faithful are here intended by the servants. And no wonder if they are also signified by the good seed; for the same thing admits of different likenesses according to its different significations; as speaking of Himself He says that He is the door, he is the shepherd. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:27
Therefore, the Lord explained to us what he proposed. See what we choose to be in his field: see what kind of people the harvest finds us to be. For the field, which is the world, is the Church spread throughout the world. Whoever is wheat, let him persevere unto the harvest; whoever are tares, let them be changed into wheat. For this is the difference between humans and true grains and true tares, because those in the field, what is grain is grain; what are tares are tares. However, in the field of the Lord, that is the Church, sometimes what was wheat turns into tares; and sometimes what were tares change into wheat: and no one knows what will happen tomorrow. Therefore, the laborers indignant with the paterfamilias, when they wanted to go and remove the tares, were not permitted; for they wanted to remove them, but were not allowed to separate the tares. They did what they were capable of, they reserved the separations for the angels. And indeed, they did not wish to reserve the separations of the tares for the angels; but the paterfamilias, who knew all and that a separation was to be sent, commanded them to tolerate the tares, not to separate them: "No," he said—when they had said: "Do you want us to go and gather them?"—"no: lest perhaps, when you would gather the tares, you uproot the wheat with them." Therefore, Lord, will tares also be with us in the barn? "At the time of harvest," I will say to the reapers: "Gather first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them"; tolerate in the field what you will not have with you in the barn. — Sermon 73
Mateus 13:28
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (ubi sup) And when the servants of God knew that it was the Devil who had contrived this fraud, whereby when he found that he had no power in open warfare against a Master of such great name, he had introduced his fallacies under cover of that name itself, the desire might readily arise in them to remove such men from out of human affairs if opportunity should be given them; but they first appeal to God's justice whether they should so do; The servants said, Wilt thou that we go and gather them out? — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:29
The workers of the householder wanted to go and gather up the weeds, but they were not allowed to do so. Though they indeed wanted to gather them up, they were not allowed to separate the weeds. They did what they were suited for and left it to the angels to do the separation. At first they were unwilling to leave the separation of the weeds up to the angels. But the householder, who knew them all and saw that a separation was necessary, ordered them to put up with the weeds and not to separate them. In answer to their words, "Do you want us to go and gather them up?" he replied, "No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them." "Therefore, Lord, will the weeds also be with us in the barn?" "At harvest time I will say to the reapers, 'Gather up first the weeds, and bind them in bundles to burn. Allow what you do not have with you in the barn to grow in the field.' " — SERMON 73A.1
Mateus 13:29
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quaest. in Matt. q. 12.) Wherein He renders them more patient and tranquil. For this He says, because good men while yet weak, have need in some things of being mixed up with bad, either that they may be proved by their means, or that by comparison with them they may be greatly stimulated and drawn to a better course. Or perhaps the wheat is declared to be rooted up if the tares should be gathered out of it, on account of many who though at first tares would, after become wheat; yet they would never attain to this commendable change were they not patiently endured while they were evil. Thus were they rooted up, that wheat which they would become in time if spared, would be rooted up in them. It is then therefore He forbids that such should be taken away out of this life, lest in the endeavour to destroy the wicked, those of them should be destroyed among the rest who would turn out good; and lest also that benefit should be lost to the good which would accrue to them even against their will from mixing with the wicked. But this may be done seasonably when, in the end of all, there remains no more time for a change of life, or of advancing to the truth by taking opportunity and comparison of others' faults; therefore He adds, Let both grow together until the harvest, that is, until the judgment. (Cont. Ep. Parm. iii. 2.) For when any one of the number of Christians included in the Church is found in such sin as to incur an anathema, this is done, where danger of schism is not apprehended, with tenderness, not for his rooting out, but for his correction. But if he be not conscious of his sin, nor correct it by penitence, he will of his own choice go forth of the Church and be separated from her communion; whence when the Lord commanded, Suffer both to grow together till the harvest, He added the reason, saying, Lest when ye would gather out the tares ye root up the wheat also. This sufficiently shows, that when that fear has ceased, and when the safety of the crop is certain, that is, when the crime is known to all, and is acknowledged as so execrable as to have no defenders, or not such as might cause any fear of a schism, then severity of discipline does not sleep, and its correction of error is so much the more efficacious as the observance of love had been more careful. But when the same infection has spread to a large number at once, nothing remains but sorrow and groans. Therefore let a man gently reprove whatever is in his power; what is not so let him bear with patience, and mourn over with affection, until He from above shall correct and heal, and let him defer till harvest-time to root out the tares and winnow the chaff. But the multitude of the unrighteous is to be struck at with a general reproof, whenever there is opportunity of saying aught among the people; and above all when any scourge of the Lord from above gives opportunity, when they feel that they are scourged for their deserts; for then the calamity of the hearers opens their ears submissively to the words of their reprover, seeing the heart in affliction is ever more prone to the groans of confession than to the murmurs of resistance. And even when no tribulation lays upon them, should occasion serve, a word of reproof is usefully spent upon the multitude; for when separated it is wont to be fierce, when in a body it is wont to mourn. (Ep. 93. 17.) This indeed was at first my own opinion, that no man was to be driven by force into the unity of Christ; but he was to be led by discourse, contended with in controversy, and overcome by argument, that we might not have men feigning themselves to be Catholics whom we knew to be declared heretics. But this opinion of mine was overcome not by the authority of those who contradicted me, but by the examples of those that showed it in fact; for the tenor of those laws in enacting which Princes serve the Lord in fear, has had such good effect, that already some say, This we desired long ago; but now thanks be to God who has made the occasion for us, and has cut off our pleas of delay. Others say, This we have long known to be the truth; but we were held by a kind of old habit, thanks be to God who has broken our chains. Others again; We knew not that this was true, and had no desire to learn it, but fear has driven us to give our attention to it, thanks be to the Lord who has banished our carelessness by the spur of terror. Others, We were deterred from entering in by false rumours, which we should not have known to be false had we not entered in, and we should not have entered in had we not been compelled; thanks be to God who has broken up our preaching by the scourge of persecution, and has taught us by experience how empty and false things lying fame had reported concerning His Church. Others say, We thought indeed that it was of no importance in what place we held the faith of Christ; but thanks be to the Lord who has gathered us together out of our division, and has shown us that it is consonant to the unity of God that He should be worshipped in unity. Let then the Kings of the earth show themselves the servants of Christ by publishing laws in Christ's behalf. (Ep. 185. 32 et 22.) But who is there of you who has any wish that a heretic should perish, nay, that he should so much as lose aught? Yet could the house of David have had peace in no other way, but by the death of Absalom in that war which he waged against his father; notwithstanding his father gave strict commands to his servants that they should save him alive and unhurt, that on his repentance there might be room for fatherly affection to pardon; what then remained for him but to mourn over him when lost, and to console his domestic affliction by the peace which it had brought to his kingdom. Thus our Catholic mother the Church, when by the loss of a few she gains many, soothes the sorrow of her motherly heart, healing it by the deliverance of so much people. Where then is that which those are accustomed to cry out, That it is free to all to believe? Whom hath Christ done violence to? Whom hath He compelled? Let them take the Apostle Paul; let them acknowledge in him Christ first compelling and afterwards teaching, first smiting and afterwards comforting. And it is wonderful to see him who entered into the Gospel by the force of a bodily infliction labouring therein more than all those who are called by word only. (1 Cor. 15:10.) Why then should not the Church constrain her lost sons to return to her, when her lost sons constrained others to perish? — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:30
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quaest. in Matt. q. 12.) It may be asked why He commands more than one bundle or heap of tares to be formed? Perhaps because of the variety of heretics differing not only from the wheat, but also among themselves, each several heresy, separated from communion with all the others, is designated as a bundle; and perhaps they may even then begin to be bound together for burning, when they first sever themselves from the Catholic communion, and begin to have their independent church, so that it is the burning and not the binding into bundles that will take place at the end of the world. But were this so, there would not be so many who would become wise again, and return from error into the Catholic Church. Wherefore we must understand the binding into bundles to be what shall come to pass in the end, that punishment should fall on them not promiscuously, but in due proportion to the obstinacy and wilfulness of each separate error. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:31
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quaest. in Ev. i. 11.) A grain of mustard seed may allude to the warmth of faith, or to its property as antidote to poison. It follows; Which a man took and sowed in his field. (ubi sup.) Dogmas are the decisions of sects, the points, that is, that they have determined. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:33
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quæst. Ev. i. 12.) Or, The leaven signifies love, because it causes activity and fermentation; by the woman He means wisdom. By the three measures He intends either those three things in man, with the whole heart, with the whole soul, with the whole mind; or the three degrees of fruitfulness, the hundred-fold, the sixty-fold, the thirty-fold, or those three kinds of men, Noe, Daniel, and Job. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:34-35
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quæst. in Matt. q. 15.) Or, this is said, not that He uttered nothing in plain words; but that He concluded no one discourse without introducing a parable in the course of it, though the chief part of the discourse might consist of matter not figurative. And we may indeed find discourses of His parabolical throughout, but none direct throughout. And by a complete discourse, I mean, the whole of what He says on any topic that may be brought before Him by circumstances, before He leaves it, and passes to a new subject. For sometimes one Evangelist connects what another gives as spoken at different times; the writer having in such a case followed not the order of events, but the order of connection in his own memory. The reason why He spake in parables the Evangelist subjoins, saying, That it might be fulfilled that was spoken by the Prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world. (Ps. 78:2.) — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:38
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (cont. Faust. xviii. 7.) The tares the Lord expounds to mean, not as Manichæus interprets, certain spurious parts inserted among the true Scriptures, but all the children of the Evil one, that is, the imitators of the fraud of the Devil. As it follows, The tares are the children of the evil one, by whom He would have us understand all the wicked and impious. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:39
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quæst. Ev. i. 10.) For all weeds among corn are called tares. It follows, The enemy who sowed this is the Devil. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:40-41
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quæst. Ev. i. 10.) That the tares are first separated, signifies that by tribulation the wicked shall be separated from the righteous; and this is understood to be performed by good Angels, because the good can discharge duties of punishment with a good spirit, as a judge, or as the Law, but the wicked cannot fulfil offices of mercy. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:41
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (De Civ. Dei. xx. 9.) Out of that kingdom in which are no offences? The kingdom then is His kingdom which is here, namely, the Church. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:44
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quæst. in Ev. i. 13.) Or, He speaks of the two testaments in the Church, which, when any hath attained to a partial understanding of, he perceives how great things lie hid there, and goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that; that is, by despising temporal things he purchases to himself peace, that he may be rich in the knowledge of God. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:45-46
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quæst. in Matt. q. 13.) Or, A man seeking goodly pearls has found one pearl of great price; that is, he who is seeking good men with whom he may live profitably, finds one alone, Christ Jesus, without sin; or, seeking precepts of life, by aid of which he may dwell righteously among men, finds love of his neighbour, in which one rule, the Apostle says, (Rom. 13:9.) are comprehended all things; or, seeking good thoughts, he finds that Word in which all things are contained, In the beginning was the Word. (John 1:1.) which is lustrous with the light of truth, stedfast with the strength of eternity, and throughout like to itself with the beauty of divinity, and when we have penetrated the shell of the flesh, will be confessed as God. But whichever of these three it may be, or if there be any thing else that can occur to us, that can be signified under the figure of the one precious pearl, its preciousness is the possession of ourselves, who are not free to possess it unless we despise all things that can be possessed in this world. For having sold our possessions, we receive no other return greater than ourselves, (for while we were involved in such things we were not our own,) that we may again give ourselves for that pearl, not because we are of equal value to that, but because we cannot give any thing more. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:52
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (De Civ. Dei, xx. 4.) He said not 'old and new,' as He surely would have said had He not preferred to preserve the order of value rather than of time. But the Manichæans while they think they should keep only the new promises of God, remain in the old man of the flesh, and put on newness of error. (Quæst. in Matt. q. 16.) By this conclusion, whether did He desire to show whom He intended by the treasure hid in the field—in which case we might understand the Holy Scriptures to be here meant, the two Testaments by the things new and old—or did He intend that he should be held learned in the Church who understood that the Old Scriptures were expounded in parables, taking rules from these new Scriptures, seeing that in them also the Lord proclaimed many things in parables. If He then, in whom all those old Scriptures have their fulfilment and manifestation, yet speaks in parables until His passion shall rend the vail, when there is nothing hid that shall not be revealed; much more those things which were written of Him so long time before we see to have been clothed in parables; which the Jews took literally, being unwilling to be learned in the kingdom of heaven. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:52
And now the voice of Christ speaks to the Jews through the voice of the old Scriptures. They hear the voice of those Scriptures but do not see the face of the One who speaks. Do they want the veil to be lifted? Let them come to the Lord. Thus the old things are not taken away but are hidden in a storeroom. The learned scribe is now in the kingdom of God, bringing forth from his storeroom not new things only and not old things only. For if he should bring forth new things only or old things only, he is not a learned scribe in the kingdom of God presenting from his storeroom things new and old. If he says these things and does not do them, he brings them forth from his teaching office, not from the storeroom of his heart. We then say, Those things which are brought forth from the old are enlightened through the new. We therefore come to the Lord that the veil may be removed. — SERMON 74.5
Mateus 13:53
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (De Cons. Ev. ii. 42.) From the foregoing discourse consisting of these parables, He passes to what follows without any very evident connection between them. Besides which, Mark passes from these parables to a different event from what Matthew here gives; and Luke agrees with him, so continuing the thread of the story as to make it much more probable that that which they relate followed here, namely, about the ship in which Jesus slept, and the miracle of the demons cast out; which Matthew has introduced above. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Mateus 13:55
Those heretics were called Antidicomarites who denied the virginity of Mary to the point that they claim that after the birth of Christ she had intercourse with her husband. — Heresies, LVI
Mateus 13:55
[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Quæst. in Matt. q. 17.) No wonder then that any kinsmen by the mother's side should be called the Lord's brethren, when even by their kindred to Joseph some are here called His brethren by those who thought Him the son of Joseph. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas