Matthew 14-28

Volume 1B

Manlio Simonetti, Thomas C. Oden, Manlio Simonetti, Thomas C. Oden

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780830814695
• eBook ISBN: 9780830897421
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The Gospel of Matthew stands out as a favorite biblical text among patristic commentators. The patristic commentary tradition on Matthew begins with Origen's pioneering twenty-five-volume commentary on the First Gospel in the mid-third century. In the Latin-speaking West, where commentaries did not appear until about a century later, the first commentary on Matthew was written by Hilary of Poitiers in the mid-fourth century.From that point the First Gospel became one of the texts most frequently commented on in patristic exegesis. Outstanding examples are Jerome's four-volume commentary and the valuable but anonymous and incomplete Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum. Then there are the Greek catena fragments derived from commentaries by Theodore of Heraclea, Apollinaris of Laodicea, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Cyril of Alexandria.The ancient homilies also provide ample comment, including John Chrysostom's ninety homilies and Chromatius of Aquileia's fifty-nine homilies on the Gospel of Matthew. In addition, there are various Sunday and feast-day homilies from towering figures such as Augustine and Gregory the Great, as well as other fathers.This rich abundance of patristic comment, much of it presented here in English translation for the first time by editor Manlio Simonetti, provides a bountiful and varied feast of ancient interpretation of the First Gospel.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

THE DEATH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST
MATTHEW 14:1-12

OVERVIEW: After King Herod’s death the Romans divided his kingdom into a tetrarchy, and one part of the tetrarchy went to his son, who was called Herod the tetrarch (THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA). Herod imagined that John had risen from the dead after he had been beheaded and was acting in the person of Jesus, the continuation of Elijah’s spirit (ORIGEN). Thinking that the Baptist had risen from the dead, Herod began to be afraid of him, as though John had become all the more powerful (THEODORE OF HERACLEA). Herod’s fantasies reveal a combination of conflicting emotions: vanity and fear (CHRYSOSTOM). While fear is able to restrain the power to sin, it is unable to remove the will to sin. Hence it makes those whom it has restrained from crime all the more eager to return to crime (PETER CHRYSOLOGUS). John preferred to incur the king’s anger rather than ignore God’s commandments (JEROME). Virtue is undesirable to those who are immoral; integrity is a hardship for those who are corrupt; mercy is intolerable to those who are cruel (PETER CHRYSOLOGUS).

Herod is said to be afraid due to his oath and guests, but he should have been far more afraid of that which is more fearful (CHRYSOSTOM). The house is converted into an arena, the table changes into a stall at the amphitheater, the birthday guests turn into spectators, the food ripens into carnage, the wine transforms into blood, the birthday mutates into a funeral (PETER CHRYSOLOGUS). Herod’s former willingness is incompatible with his present unwillingness, and the annoyance he now feels is contrary to the elation he felt before (HILARY OF POITIERS). Now that the time of the law is over and buried with John, his disciples (JEROME) announce to the Lord these events as they leave the law and come to the gospel (HILARY OF POITIERS).

14:1 Herod Hears of Jesus’ Works

HEROD THE TETRARCH. THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: Herod the king is one person, Herod the tetrarch, his son, is another. After King Herod’s death the Romans divided his kingdom into a tetrarchy, and one part of the tetrarchy went to his son. This is the man who beheaded the Forerunner and who, for this reason, received his due punishment not long afterward.1 FRAGMENT 77.2

14:2 John’s Powers at Work

THE ANALOGY OF THE REAPPEARANCE OF ELIJAH. ORIGEN: The Jews had different opinions about the resurrection. Some of them were false. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead or in the existence of angels. They believed those things that were written about them were only to be interpreted figuratively but had no reality in point of fact.3 Other Jewish views of the resurrection were true, such as were taught by the Pharisees about the resurrection of the dead—that they rise.

We must now therefore inquire about the opinion regarding the soul, which was mistakenly held by Herod and some from among the people. It ran something like this: John, who a little earlier had been slain by him, had risen from the dead after he had been beheaded. This person who had risen was the same person under a different name, one now called Jesus. Herod imagined that Jesus possessed the same powers that formerly worked in John. If the powers that worked in John had passed over to Jesus, Jesus was thus thought by some to actually be John the Baptist.

The return of Elijah fueled this idea. Here is the line of argument. It was the spirit and power of Elijah that had returned in John. “This is Elijah who is to come.”4 The spirit in Elijah possessed the power to go into John. So Herod thought that the powers John worked in baptism and teaching had a miraculous effect in Jesus, even though John did not do miracles. It may be said that something of this kind was the underlying thought of those who said that Elijah had appeared in Jesus or that one of the old prophets had risen. COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 10.20.5

THINKING THE BAPTIST HAD RISEN. THEODORE OF HERACLEA: Thinking that the Baptist had risen from the dead, Herod began to be afraid of him, as though John had become all the more powerful. He was alarmed lest John should employ against him even more of his caustic freedom of speech, which was a terror to him, frustrating him by revealing his crooked deeds. FRAGMENT 93.6

THE IMAGINATIONS OF VANITY AND FEAR. CHRYSOSTOM: Do you see the intensity of his fear? Herod did not dare speak of it openly, but he still speaks apprehensively to his own servants. Yet this whole opinion was absurd. It savored of the jittery soldier. Even though many were thought to have risen from the dead, no one had done anything like what was imagined of John. Herod’s words seem to me to be the language both of vanity and of fear. For such is the nature of unreasonable souls; they often accept a mixture of opposite passions. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 48.2.7

14:3 Herod Had Imprisoned John

JOHN’S ADMONITION. HILARY OF POITIERS: We have frequently advised that all diligence must be applied to the reading of the Gospels, for in the narration of the different events one may arrive at a deeper understanding. There is indeed an order to the narration of all the works, but the underlying cause behind the effects of the narrated events is preestablished, as with Herod and John.

John, as we frequently noted, preferred the form of the law, because the law foretold Christ and John proceeded from the law, announcing Christ from the law. Herod, on the other hand, was the prince of the people, and the prince of the people embraces the name and interests of his subjects. John accordingly advised Herod not to take to himself his brother’s wife. There were and there are two peoples: one people of the circumcision and the other of the Gentiles. But the law admonished Israel not to ally itself with the works of the Gentiles and with infidelity. Infidelity is associated with the Gentiles, as if by a bond of conjugal love. Because of the truth of this stern admonition by John, he was confined in prison like the law. ON MATTHEW 14.3, 7.8

14:4 John’s Rebuke of Herod

IT IS NOT LAWFUL FOR YOU TO HAVE HER. JEROME: Ancient history tells us that Philip the son of Herod the Great (under whom the Lord fled into Egypt), the brother of that Herod under whom Christ suffered, took as his wife Herodias the daughter of King Phetrai. Later his father-in-law, after a rivalry between him and his son-in-law, took his daughter and, to the great chagrin of the first husband, Herod his enemy united with her in marriage. As to just who this Philip was, Luke the Evangelist notes clearly, “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis.”9

Therefore John the Baptist, who had come in the spirit and power of Elijah, with the same authority whereby the latter had rebuked Ahab and Jezebel, upbraided Herod and Herodias because they had entered into an unlawful marriage. He did so because it is not lawful to take the wife of one’s own living brother. John preferred to incur the king’s anger rather than, through fawning, be unmindful of God’s commandments. COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 2.14.4.10

INTEGRITY IS A HARDSHIP FOR THE CORRUPT. PETER CHRYSOLOGUS: John aroused Herod by his moral admonitions, not by any formal accusation. He wanted to correct, not to suppress. Herod, however, preferred to suppress rather than be reconciled. To those who are held captive, the freedom of the one innocent of wrongdoing becomes hateful. Virtue is undesirable to those who are immoral; holiness is abhorrent to those who are impious; chastity is an enemy to those who are impure; integrity is a hardship for those who are corrupt; frugality runs counter to those who are self-indulgent; mercy is intolerable to those who are cruel, as is loving-kindness to those who are pitiless and justice to those who are unjust. The Evangelist indicates this when he says, “John said to him, ‘It is not lawful for you to ha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Project Research Team
• Contents
• Publisher’s Note Regarding this Digital Edition
• General Introduction
• A Guide to Using This Commentary
• Abbreviations
• The Gospel According to Matthew
• Appendix: Early Christian Writers and the Documents Cited
• Biographical Sketches & Short Descriptions of Select Anonymous Works
• Timeline of Writers of the Patristic Period
• Bibliography
• Author/Writings Index
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• Notes
• Praise for the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture
• About the Editor
• Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright Page