Mateus 3
Cyril of Alexandria · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Mateus 3:2
The kingdom of heaven? This refers to justification by faith and sanctification by the Spirit. This is why it says elsewhere, "the kingdom [of heaven] is within you." — FRAGMENT 17.4
Mateus 3:6
The baptism of John did not provide forgiveness of sins, but it taught people to run to the baptism that is for the sake of sins. — FRAGMENT 18.34
Mateus 3:8
One might say that the fruits of repentance are, by way of anticipation, faith in Christ. They are also the evangelical society that exists "in newness of life," changed from the present dullness of the letter. — FRAGMENT 20.15
Mateus 3:10
He calls Christ an axe "sharper than a two-edged sword," which was to cut off the unbelieving Jews and dissociate them from the honor and communion of the patriarchs. Those spoken of as "the root" are the fathers of old who remained well pleasing to God, those who with Abraham and as with many people in former times were holy. The unbelievers who sprang from them were cut off as fruitless branches. But the root remained, onto which those of the believing Gentiles were engrafted. And as Irenaeus reminds us, God's Word is like an axe in accordance with Jeremiah's saying: the word of the Lord is "like a pickaxe chopping stone." Why am I saying that you are going to fall away? God did not spare the root. — FRAGMENT 24
Mateus 3:11
The blessed Baptist added to the word spirit the active and meaningful phrase "and with fire." This was not to imply that through Christ we shall all be baptized with fire but to indicate through the designation fire that the life-giving energy of the Spirit is given. — FRAGMENT 27
Mateus 3:16
In the times before Christ's coming, those being baptized were held down in the water a longer time for the confession of sin. But Christ, being sinless, "came up immediately." For Christ was not baptized as one repenting but as one cleansing sins and sanctifying the waters. — FRAGMENT 29