Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Christ, first, gives the parable of those invited to the wedding, and of the one among them who did not have a wedding garment. Secondly, in verse 15, when the Pharisees ask whether it is lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, He answers: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Thirdly, in verse 23, to the Sadducees denying the resurrection, He proves the same. Fourthly, in verse 34, to the lawyer asking which is the great commandment of the law, He answers that it is this: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart. Fifthly, in verse 42, asking the Pharisees how David, in the Spirit, calls his Son Christ his Lord, from their silence He convicts their ignorance and stops their mouths.
Vulgate Text: Matthew 22:1-46
1. And Jesus answering, spoke again in parables to them, saying: 2. The kingdom of heaven is like a king, who made a marriage for his son. 3. And he sent his servants to call those who had been invited to the wedding, and they would not come. 4. Again he sent other servants, saying: Tell those who have been invited: Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come to the marriage. 5. But they neglected, and went their own way, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise; 6. and the rest laid hold of his servants, and having treated them shamefully, killed them. 7. But when the king had heard of it, he was angry; and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers, and burnt their city. 8. Then he said to his servants: The wedding is indeed ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9. Go therefore into the highways, and whomsoever you shall find, call to the marriage. 10. And his servants, going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good; and the marriage was filled with guests. 11. And the king went in to see the guests, and he saw there a man who was not dressed in a wedding garment. 12. And he said to him: Friend, how did you come in here, not having a wedding garment? But he was silent. 13. Then the king said to the servants: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 14. For many are called, but few are chosen. 15. Then the Pharisees, going away, took counsel to ensnare Him in His talk. 16. And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying: Master, we know that You are truthful, and teach the way of God in truth, and do not care for any man, for You do not regard the person of men; 17. tell us therefore what You think: is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, or not? 18. But Jesus, knowing their malice, said: Why do you tempt Me, hypocrites? 19. show Me the coin of the tribute. And they offered Him a denarius. 20. And Jesus said to them: Whose image and inscription is this? 21. They say to Him: Caesar's. Then He said to them: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. 22. And hearing this, they marveled, and leaving Him, went their way. 23. On that day there came to Him the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection; and they questioned Him, 24. saying: Master, Moses said: If a man die, not having a son, his brother shall take his wife and raise up seed for his brother. 25. Now there were with us seven brothers: and the first, having married a wife, died; and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. 26. In like manner the second, and the third, and so on to the seventh. 27. And last of all, the woman also died. 28. At the resurrection therefore, whose wife of the seven shall she be? for they all had her. 29. And Jesus answering said to them: You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30. For at the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the angels of God in heaven. 31. And concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken by God, saying to you: 32. I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. 33. And the multitudes hearing it were astonished at His teaching. 34. But the Pharisees, hearing that He had silenced the Sadducees, assembled together; 35. and one of them, a doctor of the law, asked Him, tempting Him: 36. Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37. Jesus said to him: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind. 38. This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40. On these two commandments the whole law depends, and the Prophets. 41. And while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42. saying: What do you think of Christ? whose son is He? They say to Him: David's. 43. He said to them: How then does David in spirit call Him Lord, saying: 44. The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool? 45. If David then calls Him Lord, how is He his son? 46. And no one could answer Him a word; nor did anyone dare from that day to question Him any further.
Verse 1: And Jesus Answering, Spoke Again in Parables to Them
1. And answering (continuing to answer the Scribes and to refute their unbelief), Jesus spoke again in parables (that is, through parables, parabolically) to them, saying:
Verse 2: The Kingdom of Heaven Is Likened to a King Who Made a Marriage for His Son
2. The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son. — As if to say: It is dealt with in the kingdom of heaven, that is, in the Church militant on earth and tending toward heaven, in like manner as if a king were making a marriage for his son, etc. For otherwise the kingdom of heaven is not directly and precisely like a king, but like a human kingdom. See Canon 28. S. Gregory treats this parable at length, Homily 38 on the Gospels.
This parable is similar to that which Luke recounts, chapter XIV, 16. Whence Maldonatus considers that this is the same as that one; for Matthew here, he thinks, did not preserve the order of history. More truly S. Augustine, book II On the Agreement of the Evangelists, chapter LXXI; S. Gregory, S. Thomas, Jansenius, and others consider this parable to be different from Luke's; or at least the same, but repeated twice and in different ways: for to one comparing them both it is clear that many things in them are different. For, to pass over other matters, Luke says that it was told by Christ in the house of a Pharisee, but Matthew here tells it as spoken publicly in the temple, as is clear from chapter XXI, 23. Again, Luke calls this wedding feast a supper, but Matthew a dinner — unless you answer, with S. Gregory, Homily 38 already cited, that the dinner itself is called supper, because among the ancients the ninth hour, which inclines toward evening and supper, was when the dinner took place.
Verses 3-4: And He Sent His Servants to Call Those Who Had Been Invited
3. And he sent his servants to call those who had been invited to the wedding, and they would not come. 4. Again he sent other servants, saying: Tell those who have been invited: Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come to the wedding.
Verses 5-7: But They Neglected It; the King Sent His Armies and Destroyed Those Murderers
5. But they neglected it and went away, one to his farm, and another to his business. 6. And the rest seized his servants, and treating them shamefully, killed them. 7. But the king, when he heard of it, was angry; and sending his armies, destroyed those murderers. — For weddings, the Syriac always translates banquet, namely a wedding banquet, that is, a dinner, as he explains at verse 4. For business, the Syriac renders merchandise; for he was angry, he rendered he burned with rage; for wedding garment, he renders banquet garment.
The whole parable is to be explained and applied thus. First, the man who is king is God the Father; the king's son, the bridegroom, is the incarnate Son of God, namely Jesus Christ, whose bride is the Church; the wedding of the two began in Christ's incarnation: for in it Christ hypostatically espoused human nature to Himself, and through it the Church, that is, all other faithful men, as a bride, mystically espousing them to Himself through grace; but in heaven these nuptials will be consummated through glory. So Origen, Saint Hilary, Saint Jerome, Saint Gregory, and others. Hence Origen tropologically: "Understand the wedding, he says, as the joining of Christ with the soul; and the offspring and progeny, as good works."
Secondly, God the Father made a wedding feast for Christ — that is, a wedding banquet — when through Christ He set forth in Judaea and in the whole world the table of Evangelical doctrine and of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. So Origen, Euthymius, and the Author of the Imperfect Work.
Thirdly, to these nuptials the Jews were first invited by God through Moses and the Prophets, as God's servants, both before and after Christ's incarnation, so that they might believe that it would come or had already come, and thus, hoping in Christ, repenting and entreating Him, they might obtain grace, righteousness, and salvation from Him. So Saint Jerome, Gregory, Origen, Theophylact.
Fourthly, the oxen and fatlings in general only signify that the banquet was sumptuously prepared — which signifies the magnitude of the doctrines of the Gospel, as Saint Jerome says, as well as of the Sacraments, and especially of the Eucharist.
Moreover, altilia (fatlings) are not winged creatures (alites), that is birds and fowl, but oxen, calves, and the other animals which are fattened so as to grow plump; they are called altilia from feeding (alendo), as it were alitilia or alita, says Saint Gregory. For in Greek the word is σιτιστά, that is, fatlings, fattened animals, just as calves, sheep, and oxen are fattened with milk and turnips in order to become plump. For σιτίζω means I feed, nourish, pasture; and σιτεύω means I fatten and fatten with grain. Hence the Arabic translates: And my fattened calves are now killed; in Greek τεθυμένα, that is, they have been sacrificed. For anciently (as even today) weddings were begun with a sacrifice, and wedding feasts were conducted with banquets and victims slain and immolated in sacrifice. So also Christ's wedding banquet, which is here described in the parable, took its beginning from the sacrifice of the cross.
Symbolically: Saint Gregory understands by oxen the Fathers of the Old Testament, who by permission of the law struck their enemies with the horn of bodily strength — that is: Look to the example of the Fathers, and consider remedies for your life. And the fatlings, he says, are the Fathers of the New Testament, raised from earthly things to the sublime by contemplation. Chrysostom, however: "The fatlings, he says, are the Prophets; the oxen are those who were Prophets and priests: for just as oxen are the leaders of the herd, so priests are the leaders of the people." Saint Hilary moreover: "The oxen, he says, are the Martyrs, sacrificed as victims; the fatlings are spiritual men, fattened as with heavenly bread." Finally Origen: "The dinner, he says, is the word of God; those which are strong are called oxen; those which are sweeter are called fatlings."
Fifthly, the field and farm to which the invited guests went away, neglecting the invitation, signify the temporal goods which drew the Jews away from the faith and law of Christ and from the heavenly goods promised by Him; and thus they killed the servants of God Himself — that is, the Apostles and the first faithful — and Christ Himself. Wherefore God sent Titus and Vespasian, who destroyed and killed the Jews as murderers, and burned their city — that is, their capital, namely Jerusalem with Solomon's temple, which was a wonder of the world. So Saint Chrysostom, Saint Jerome, Euthymius, and others.
Christ, in this parable of His banquet, alludes to Isaiah chapter 25:6: "And the Lord of hosts shall make unto all people in this mountain, a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined;" and to chapter 30:23: "And the bread of the corn of the earth shall be most plentiful and fat: in that day the lamb shall feed abundantly in your possessions; and the oxen and the young asses which till the ground shall eat mingled provender." See what is said in both places. From this learn that Christ in the Church continually sets before us a sumptuous spiritual feast of sacred doctrine and grace, seasoned in many ways with sacred readings, sermons, exhortations, and countless examples of Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins in every kind of virtue; by frequent prayer, meditation, and reception of the Sacraments — especially of the Eucharist (which is "the wheat of the elect, and the wine springing forth virgins," as Zechariah says, 9:17) — by the sacrifice of Holy Mass, with such great ornament of its sacred ministers, altars, and temples, with the celestial harmony as it were of music and organs, the celebration, and very many other things which feed, delight, and inebriate the mind of the faithful with spiritual delights, so that Christianity is for the pious nothing else than a continuous feast and banquet — according to that saying of Isaiah 66:23: "And from month to month (a continuous feast of the new moon), and from Sabbath to Sabbath."
Finally, Christ Himself already incarnate is the perpetual food and joy of the faithful: for through the incarnation He communicates to them not only all the gifts of His grace but also His whole self — His whole being — and thus His very divinity really, indeed He offers Himself to be tasted, eaten and enjoyed, according to John 6:51: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever." For this reason Isaiah, foretelling the delights and blessedness of the new Church that would come through Christ incarnate, exults and rejoices throughout, and invites all Christians to continual exultation and rejoicing, as is clear in chapters 2, 7, 30, 35, 60, 61, 62, and following. Let the Christian therefore — especially the Priest and the Religious — see to it that he feeds and satisfies his mind with these banquets, and, serving Christ in holiness and righteousness, continually leading a sweet life with Him, lead a life joyful, glad, and blessed, and begin and foretaste here that perennial felicity which He will soon perfect and consummate in heaven. From this let him likewise learn how foolish are those who prefer earthly fields and farms — that is, the husks of swine — to the delights of kings.
Verse 8: The Wedding Is Indeed Ready, But Those Who Were Invited Were Not Worthy
Verse 8. Then he said to his servants: The wedding is indeed ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. — This is the other and latter part of the parable of those invited. "Then" — that is, when the invited, namely the Jews, refused to come to the wedding table of Christ's Evangelical doctrine, because they "were not worthy" — that is, because by despising it they made themselves altogether unworthy — the king, namely God, said "to his servants," namely the Apostles.
Verse 9: Go Therefore Into the Highways, and Call All You Find to the Wedding
Verse 9. Go therefore into the highways, and whomsoever you find, call to the wedding. — For "exits of the ways," the Arabic renders pavements of the ways. In Greek it is διεξόδους ὁδῶν, that is, courses, branchings, passages, outlets, thoroughfares of the ways; that is: Travel and traverse all the ways and all the bends, corners, ends and limits of the roads; let there be no corner, no end of any road which you do not traverse — that is: Traverse all the ways of the world, O Apostles; go around the whole globe and all the regions of the Gentiles, that you may evangelize to them the faith and grace of Christ, and call all peoples and men absolutely to it. For He commands the Apostles that, from the invited — that is, the Jews — they should transfer the Gospel to all the Gentiles; whence He adds:
Verse 10: And His Servants, Going Out Into the Highways, Gathered Together All They Found
Verse 10. And his servants (the Apostles), going out into the highways. — Therefore "the exits of the ways" are the same as "the ways," or the courses and windings of the ways. So Aristotle, in the book On the World, calls διεξόδους πλανητῶν the courses of the moon and of the other wandering stars, their wanderings, circuits, and turns. Christ therefore commands the Apostles to go to all peoples and regions, even to the uttermost ends of the earth, and to evangelize Christ to them; according to that: "Their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world," Psalm 18. Mystically: the servants are the angels set over the conversion of the Gentiles, says Origen.
Symbolically: "The ways," first, are the various and contrary errors and sects of the Gentiles, which the Apostles drove away. So Remigius. Secondly, Saint Chrysostom: "The ways, he says, are the various professions of men in the world — philosophy, military life, etc. He commands therefore that men of every condition be invited to the faith." Thirdly: "The way," says Saint Hilary, "is the age of the world; therefore they are commanded to go to the exits, because all past things are granted them." Fourthly, Saint Gregory: "The ways, he says, are actions; the exits, failures: for most often those are easily met who do not succeed prosperously."
They gathered together all whom they found, good and bad. — This is the symbol of the parable, and it signifies only in a universal way that all men, without distinction, have been called to the faith of Christ.
And the wedding was filled with guests. — The Church has been filled with the number and abundance of all peoples and of the faithful.
Verse 11: And the King Came In to See the Guests, and Saw a Man Not Clothed in a Wedding Garment
Verse 11. And the king came in to see the guests, — to survey and examine them. This will happen when God comes to universal judgment at the end of the world, in order to examine all, judge them, reward or punish them, bless or condemn them. So Origen, Saint Chrysostom, and others.
And he saw there a man not clothed in a wedding garment. — The Arabic has: a wedding-robe; the Syriac: a banquet garment. The wedding garment — that is, clean, precious, and splendid — is not faith, as the heretics would have it; for all in this banquet of the Church had faith, nor could they even enter into it except through faith; therefore this garment is charity and uprightness of morals and holiness of life: for a pure and holy life is like a clean garment and a splendid silken robe, woven from virtues and good works, which wondrously adorns a man. So Saint Jerome, Hilary, Chrysostom, Tertullian, and others. Hence Saint Gregory explains "not having a wedding garment" as having faith but not the works of charity, through which the Lord comes to the nuptials of uniting to Himself the Church. Saint Augustine, book 2 Against Faustus, chapter 19, explains it as seeking his own glory, not the Lord's. Saint Hilary moreover: "The wedding garment, he says, is the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the brightness of the heavenly habit, which, received through the good interrogation of confession, is to be kept unstained even unto the heavenly assembly." Finally Saint Jerome says: "The works that are fulfilled according to the law and the Gospel make the garment of the new man."
Moreover, many in the day of judgment will be found by Christ as faithful, yet lacking this garment of charity and holiness; yet only one is named — this is added as it were only by the way and παρέργως. For Christ's proper and direct aim by this parable, as by the preceding ones, is only to signify that, with the unbelieving Jews rejected, the Gentiles are to be called to Christ; and again because this one man signifies all those like him, for this one man stands in place of all, or as the example and mirror of all the wicked; and finally so that He may signify that not a single impious man will be able to hide on the day of judgment or to go away unpunished.
Verse 12: Friend, How Did You Come In Here, Not Having a Wedding Garment?
Verse 12. And he said to him: Friend (Syriac: my companion), how did you come in here not having a wedding garment? — The word "friend" signifies that God will say these things to the wicked not from hatred and eagerness to condemn, but in a friendly manner, from zeal for justice. Saint Jerome adds: He calls him friend because he was invited to the wedding, and therefore accuses him of impudence — that, being amicably invited to the wedding, he came rustically without a wedding garment. Hence Saint Gregory, Homily 38: "It is wonderful, he says, that He calls him both a friend and reprobates him, as if saying more openly: Friend, and yet not friend — a friend through faith, but not a friend through action."
But he was silent. — Because there is no room for denial there, says Saint Jerome: for there God "will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts;" according to that: "I will search Jerusalem with lamps," Zephaniah 1:12. Hence Saint Gregory in Homily 38 on the Gospels: "He was silent, he says, because in that severity of the final rebuke all argument of excuse ceases — for He who outwardly reproaches is the same who inwardly, as the witness of conscience, accuses the soul."
Verse 13: Bind His Hands and Feet, and Cast Him Into the Outer Darkness
Verse 13. Then the king said to his ministers, — to his angels, as is clear from Matthew 13:39; whence Daniel says of them in chapter 7: "Thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him."
Bind his hands and feet. — This is a symbol signifying that the damned cannot resist God's sentence and vengeance, nor henceforth can they do anything good — just as if their hands and feet, indeed their mouth and mind, their judgment and will, were tied together. For, as Saint Augustine says in book 11 On the Trinity, "the entanglement of perverse wills is a chain." And Saint Gregory, Homily 38: "Then, he says, punishment binds those whom fault has now bound away from good works, etc.; those therefore who are now willingly bound in vice are then unwillingly bound in punishment." The Gloss says: "Each of the members will be subjected to punishment, for here they served each of the enslavements."
Cast him into the outer darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, — those (teeth) which rejoiced in gluttony, says the Interlinear Gloss from Saint Gregory. I have spoken of these things at chapter 8:12. Aptly Saint Gregory: "The inner darkness, he says, is the blindness of the heart; the outer darkness is the night of eternal damnation."
Verse 14: Many Are Called, But Few Are Chosen
Verse 14. For many are called, but few are chosen. — Because all the first ones who were invited and refused to come were rejected, namely all the Jews unbelieving in Christ, to whom this parable properly pertains, as also the preceding ones in chapters 20 and 21. Moreover, that one man was rejected from those who were called and came, but entered without a wedding garment — who represents all impious faithful. For since Christ did not here properly intend to signify them, it sufficed for Him to indicate through this one, incidentally, that not all who came — that is, who believed in Christ — would be saved, but only those who adorned their faith with the wedding garment, that is, with charity and holy works, and that the rest would be rejected. So the Gloss, Maldonatus, and others. This saying of Christ should inject great fear into every one; for no one knows whether he is elect or reprobate. Therefore each one should take pains to make his election and calling certain through good works, as Saint Peter admonishes.
Saint Gregory here gives an example in Homily 38 of his three aunts, of whom the first, namely Tharsilla, had lived in holy virginity and was called up to heaven by her grandfather, Saint Felix the Pontiff, already blessed, saying to her: "Come, for I receive you in this mansion of light." Whereupon, looking upward and seeing Jesus, she cried out: "Depart, depart, Jesus comes," and gave up her spirit to Him to be made blessed with eternal life. The second, Aemiliana, was called up to heaven by her sister Tharsilla on the feast of the Epiphany; when she was anxious about her third sister Gordiana and replied: "And if I come alone, to whom shall I leave Gordiana?" — she heard from her with a sad face: "Come, for Gordiana has been reckoned among the laity:" who thereupon, soon forgetting her virginal consecration, her honor and modesty, took her bailiff as a husband. He adds another example of a monk who had lived irreligiously, and dying was handed over to a dragon to be devoured; but freed by the prayers of his brothers, being converted, he did worthy penance, and therefore deserved to be counted among the elect.
Verse 15: Then the Pharisees Took Counsel to Entangle Him in His Words
Verse 15. Then the Pharisees, going away, took counsel to entangle Him in His words. — For "to entrap," the Greek is παγιδεύσωσιν, that is, ensnare; for παγίδες are snares; the Syriac renders it, hunt down. For just as fowlers catch birds with a snare, so crafty men catch the simple with a captious question — that is: The Pharisees sought captious questions to propose to Christ, so that whatever He answered He might incur a rebuke, and so by His own answer He might, as it were, ensnare Himself, and be caught and refuted, and be prosecuted as guilty of injury to majesty, whether human or divine. "Lying in wait with a two-horned dilemma," says Saint Augustine, book 1 Against Cresconius, chapter 17, "so that whichever He should choose He would be caught. If He answered that it was lawful, He would be as though guilty against the people of God; but if He said it was not lawful, He would be destroyed as an adversary of Caesar."
Verse 16: And They Sent to Him Their Disciples With the Herodians
Verse 16. And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying: Master, we know that You are truthful, and teach the way of God in truth, and You care not for any one: for You do not regard the person of men.
With the Herodians. — The Syriac: with those who were of Herod's house, that is, those who were Herod's supporters, intimates, domestics.
This was a sect of the Jews who favored the Roman Caesar and the paying of tribute to him, so named from the first Herod the Ascalonite, the infanticide, who was wholly a Caesarian, being made king of Judaea by the Roman senate and Caesar Augustus, and who, as Josephus says, presided over Caesar's tributes in Judaea. So Saint Jerome, Origen, and others. Saint Epiphanius (book 1, heresy 20), Tertullian (in the book On Prescription), Saint Jerome (in the Dialogue against the Luciferians), and from them Baronius in the Apparatus of the Annals, add that the Herodians were a sect, or heretics of the Jews, who thought that Herod the Ascalonite was the Messiah — the Christ promised by the Prophets — because they saw that in him the scepter had failed from Judah, according to the oracle of Jacob (Genesis 49:10). Herod eagerly aided and fostered these flatterers; and therefore he killed the infants in Bethlehem, so as to kill Christ, lest another than himself be considered the Christ; and for this reason he built for the Jews a most magnificent temple, with the old one destroyed — one which seemed to rival the temple of Solomon, as Josephus shows in book 15 of the Antiquities, chapter 14. Hear Saint Jerome briefly narrating the Jewish sects in the Dialogue against the Luciferians: "I pass over the heretics of Judaism, who before the coming of Christ shattered the transmitted law: — that Dositheus, the prince of the Samaritans, repudiated the Prophets; that the Sadducees, born from his root, even denied the resurrection of the flesh; that the Pharisees, divided from the Jews on account of certain superfluous observances, took their very name from the dissension; that the Herodians accepted king Herod as the Christ." Theophylact and Euthymius here hold the same, as also Philastrius in the book On Heresies; except that these substitute for Herod the Ascalonite his son Herod Antipas, who, succeeding his dead father, was already reigning, and killed John the Baptist, and mocked Christ clothed in a white garment. But that Antipas was held as Messiah by the Jews — neither Josephus, nor Hegesippus, nor any other of the ancients makes mention of it; indeed Saint Jerome here expressly denies it.
The Pharisees, therefore (who leaned to the contrary opinion — namely, that Herod was not the Messiah, and that tribute should not be given to the Roman Caesar, as though they were champions of the Mosaic law and Jewish liberty, as is clear from Josephus, book 18 of the Antiquities, chapter 1) — these Pharisees suborn the Herodians to go with their own disciples to Jesus, as if to a new prophet and teacher of Judaea; and to propose to Him this question of giving tribute to Caesar, which was controversial among them at that time, so that He should settle the dispute. But they did this with fraud and cunning design so that, if Christ should assert that tribute must be given to Caesar, He would incur the hatred of the Jewish populace; if He should deny it, He would fall into the wrath and charge of Caesar and the Romans.
Master. — Hebrew rabbi. Rabbi, however, signifies not only a teacher of the law (such as the Rabbis), but also a leading man endowed with authority, powerful and a prince. They flatter Christ feignedly: for they call Him master whose disciples they do not wish to be, whom they are plotting to deprive of His teaching office, His reputation, and His life.
We know that You are truthful, and teach the way (that is, the law) of God in truth. — For the law is the way by which we tend toward God and His grace and glory; for the law teaches what is pleasing to God, what He wills us to do, so that we may be pleasing to Him, and that we may be justified and made blessed by Him.
And You care not for any one. — You do not fear the wrath of Herod, nor the power of Caesar, so as to be impeded by this fear from answering the truth and pronouncing sentence for your own people the Jews, even if you know that through this you will incur the offense of Herod and of Caesar — just as the Baptist, in rebuking Herod's adultery, did not shrink from incurring his offense. For they themselves thought wholly that Christ would render sentence for the Jews, as faithful, against Caesar as unfaithful. So Saint Chrysostom: "By flattery, he says, they think to puff Him up and make Him bold, so that He should say something against the established laws and the present state of affairs, etc.," so that namely "He should offend Caesar by the suspicion of an affected rebellion."
For You do not regard the person (Syriac: face) of men, — so as to see whether the face or person is that of the rich and of a prince, or of the poor and a commoner, and by flattering the prince to answer on his behalf and condemn the commoner; but as it were with closed eyes you pronounce sentence on behalf of truth and justice, and say: "Caesar is a friend, but truth is a greater friend." Hence the Arabic translates: You do not regard the face of a man. For the Greek πρόσωπον signifies both person and face, because every person is recognized from his face.
Verse 17: Is It Lawful to Pay Tribute to Caesar, or Not?
Verse 17. Tell us therefore what You think: is it lawful to pay tribute (Syriac: money by head; for they paid the tribute by individual persons) to Caesar, or not? — The Jews, as a people faithful and devoted to God, abhorred the Gentiles as idolaters, and therefore many of them thought it was not lawful for Jews to acknowledge Caesar as lord and to pay tribute to him, since God alone was their Lord, to whom they paid tithes and the annual tribute. Understand Caesar — not Augustus, as he had already died, but Tiberius, the stepson and successor of Augustus by his wife Livia, who had then been reigning for eighteen years, as is clear from Luke 3:1.
Moreover, the occasion for proposing this question to Christ was that, around that time, a certain Judas the Galilean had taught that it was not lawful for Jews to be subject to, or pay tribute to, the Romans, since they were Gentiles; and Christ and the Apostles were Galileans (for Christ was conceived and brought up in Nazareth: whence He was called Nazarene and Galilean), and therefore they were accused by the Jews of the teaching and error of Judas the Galilean, as though he were their fellow-citizen; and for this reason they often repelled and refuted this error themselves, as I said at Acts 5:37. Hear Saint Jerome on chapter 3 of Titus, verse 1: "I think, he says, that this precept was issued by the Apostle for this reason: because the teaching of Judas the Galilean was still flourishing at that time and had very many followers, who among other things put forward this as supposedly probable — that, according to the law, no one should be called lord except God alone, and that those who brought tithes to the temple should not pay tribute to Caesar. This heresy had grown to such a degree that it disturbed even the Pharisees and a great part of the people, so that this question was referred to our Lord as well: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? To whom the Lord, prudently and cautiously answering, said: Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. Saint Paul, in agreement with this answer, teaches that believers must be subject to princes and powers."
Verse 18: But Jesus, Knowing Their Wickedness, Said: Why Do You Tempt Me, Hypocrites?
Verse 18. But Jesus, knowing their wickedness (Greek πονηρία, that is, malice, by which with fraudulent pretense they wished to deliver Him up to the Romans to be put to death), said: Why do you tempt Me, hypocrites? — For you feign to be friends and zealous for religion and a good conscience, as if to learn what you ought rightly and justly to do in this case according to the law of God, while in reality you are enemies of Mine and of God alike, and thirst for My blood, and are striving fraudulently and deceitfully to wring it from Me. "The first virtue of one answering," says Saint Jerome, "is to recognize the mind of the questioner," and to adapt his answer to it. For these Pharisees and Herodians, as hypocrites, "flatter," says the Author of the Imperfect Work, "in order to destroy;" but Christ rebukes them in order to save: "For God angry is more useful than a man favorable."
Verse 19: Show Me the Coin of the Tribute. And They Offered Him a Denarius
Verse 19. Show me the coin of the tribute (that is: Show me the coin which Caesar exacts from every head as census and tribute. Hence the Syriac renders it "the silver of the head;" the Arabic, "show me the figure of the denarius"). And they offered Him a denarius. — You will say: From chapter 17:17 it is clear that the Jews paid a didrachma, or half-shekel, for the tribute; but the Roman denarius was only one drachma, and was equivalent to what is now the Roman julius, or the Spanish real, which at Rome is worth ten baiocchi and at Antwerp five stuivers. Therefore the denarius was half a didrachma, and a quarter of a shekel: for the shekel was worth four julii. I answer that the didrachma, for convenience, was divided into two denarii, and each man paid two denarii as census, that is, a didrachma: so Jansenius, Maldonatus, and others; unless you prefer that this denarius was a double one, and therefore equal to a didrachma, just as we call a ten-stuiver real a double real.
Finally, it seems that Tiberius, like the other emperors, ordered a denarius of such value to be struck as he wished the Jews to give him in census; because, as Baronius shows from Lampridius, the Romans used to strike coins of such price and weight as they wished to be paid to them in tribute — which varied according to the circumstances of the times and needs, and was sometimes greater, sometimes less.
Verse 20: Whose Is This Image and Superscription?
20. And Jesus said to them: Whose is this image and superscription? — In Greek ἐπιγραφή, which the translator in Mark renders "inscription." For coins are customarily marked with both the name and the image or effigy of the prince who strikes them. Hence the Arabic renders: Whose is this figure and inscription?
Verse 21: Render Therefore Unto Caesar the Things That Are Caesar's, and Unto God the Things That Are God's
21. They said to Him, Caesar's. — Of Tiberius, who then was reigning. Christ knew this already, but He asks in order to draw the answer from their own mouths, which He might turn back upon them and convict them. The surname Caesar was first given to Julius Caesar, from whom it passed to the following emperors. Hear Saint Isidore, book 9 Etymologies, chapter 3: "The name of the Caesars began from Julius, who, when the civil war was stirred up, was the first of the Romans to obtain sole rule. He was called Caesar because he was brought forth and drawn out from the womb of his dead mother by cutting (caeso); or because he was born with a head of hair (caesarie), from which the succeeding emperors were also called Caesars, because they were long-haired." But Servius and Spartianus, and from them Carolus Sigonius in his book On the Names of the Romans: "Caesar, he says, was so called from an elephant first slain (caeso): for in the Punic language an elephant was called caesar; whence on certain silver coins in my possession one can see, on one side an elephant with this inscription: CAESAR, and on the other the instruments by which the Romans killed elephants."
Then He said to them: Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. — That is: Since you, O Jews, are already subject to Caesar, and therefore commonly use his coinage — which you would otherwise not use, since you utterly abhor the rites and symbols of the Gentiles — and since Caesar demands from you nothing but temporal things, namely the denarius stamped with his own effigy and name, as if it were his own: do not so much "give" as "render" him back his denarius as census; but the spiritual things, namely worship and piety, give to God, for these God by His own right claims for Himself. Thus it will come to pass that you will offend neither God nor Caesar.
Note that Christ is unwilling here to dispute whether the Jews are justly subject to the Romans and have been made tributaries and taxpayers, or whether unjustly and tyrannically. For this was a doubtful question. For at first sight the negative side — namely that it is not just — seems the more true. For Pompey, who first subjected Judaea to the Romans and made it tributary, was only called in by the brothers Hyrcanus and Aristobulus (grandsons of Simon the priest, who was the brother of Judas Maccabee) when they were contending with each other over the principate and pontificate of Judaea, that he might settle the dispute between them: by what right, then, after excluding them, did he transfer the principate of Judaea from them to the Romans? For this is the Turkish way of doing things, for the Turk, called in as an ally by Christian princes quarreling with one another, seizes and subjugates both. But to one who examines the matter more deeply, the affirmative side will be proved — namely, that Pompey and the Romans occupied Judaea by the right of just war. For when Pompey had adjudged the dispute in favor of Hyrcanus, and rightly so, as being the elder, and had therefore assigned the principate of Judaea with the pontificate to him, Aristobulus his younger brother, in order to seize both by deceit and force, took possession of Jerusalem, the capital of Judaea, and filled it with his followers and soldiers, who resisted Hyrcanus and Pompey. Therefore Pompey took the city by force and subjected it to the Romans with Hyrcanus's consent. For Hyrcanus alone could not have protected and retained it, whence he handed over himself and his affairs to Pompey. Then came the consent of the elders and more powerful Jews, who preferred to be under the Romans rather than under Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. For they saw that without the Romans the Jewish republic would fall into schisms and seditions, since these brothers disagreed sharply with each other and their citizens were divided between them, as Josephus relates, book 14 of the Antiquities, chapter 5 and following. Hence Saint Jerome: "And there was," he says, "great sedition in the people, some saying for the sake of security and quiet — because the Romans fought on behalf of all — that tributes ought to be paid; but the Pharisees, who applauded themselves in their own righteousness, contending on the contrary that the people of God (to whom one should pay tithes and give first-fruits, and the other things written in the law) ought not to be subject to human laws."
Finally, prescription was in favor of the Romans: for they had already peacefully and in good faith possessed Judaea for nearly a hundred years, with the people of the Jews being silent and tacitly consenting; wherefore by this prescription they seemed to hold the dominion of Judaea justly. Again, in a doubtful case the condition of the possessor is better: whence in doubt no one should be deprived of his possession. Therefore the burden lay upon the Pharisees, if they wished to strip the Romans of this possession, of proving and convicting them of having unjustly occupied Judaea and of being possessors in bad faith. Since they could not do this, the Romans justly retained their possession: for when the accuser does not prove the crime, the defendant is acquitted: for the proof of the crime falls upon the plaintiff; it is enough for the defendant to deny the crime. The plaintiffs here were the Pharisees, the defendants were the Romans, whom the Pharisees wanted to dispossess. Christ therefore does not wish here to examine whether this dominion of the Romans over the Jews, and the tribute imposed on them, was just or unjust; but He presupposes the fact itself as though just, inasmuch as it was supported and confirmed by so many titles already mentioned: because the Pharisees, in this question of paying tribute to the Romans, alleged on behalf of their exemption from this tribute not justice, but religion and piety — namely, that it was not lawful nor seemly that the people of God (as the Jews alone were) should be subject to a Gentile and idolatrous Caesar and pay him tribute.
Hence in their question which they put to Christ, they do not say: "Are we obliged to pay tribute to Caesar?" but "Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, or not?" — that is: "To us it seems not to be lawful, because this seems to redound to the contempt of God, the disgrace of the Jews, and an injury to religion and to the faith." So they. But Christ answers the contrary: namely, that it is no injury to God and to the faith, nor any belittling of a faithful people, if the people of God be subject to a Gentile Caesar; and that the Jews can fittingly, usefully, and honorably be subject and obedient both to God and to a Gentile prince, if they render to each what they owe; and that they will do this prudently, lest they stir up either God or Caesar against themselves, so that He should overthrow the whole nation as being in rebellion, just as a little later Titus and Vespasian, the Roman emperors, did for this very reason; for it is better to give money than to lose life and all things.
Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. — That is: Give to Caesar the didrachma which by his own right he demands from you as census, for sustaining the burdens of the state, and especially for maintaining the soldiers who protect you from the assault of enemies; but to God give the didrachma, the tithes, offerings, and victims, says Saint Jerome, prescribed in Leviticus, which He claims from you by the right of supreme dominion, as from His own creatures and faithful. "For from the fact that one pays Caesar what is Caesar's," says Origen, "he is not prevented from paying God what is God's." For the rights of Caesar are one thing, those of God another, but they are by no means opposed or contrary to each other: for politics does not oppose religion, nor conversely does religion oppose politics. Wherefore, since Tiberius Caesar reigns over you, and you are subject to him — as is clear from the fact that he has among you the right of striking money, nay even the right of striking the coin of census, namely the denarius at such price and weight as he himself thinks fit — therefore you, by receiving from Tiberius Caesar, as from your prince, both his coinage and the coin of census, by that very fact profess yourselves to be his subjects and tributaries, and therefore obliged to pay him the coin of census struck and imposed by him. "What Christ spoke with His mouth," says Saint Bernard, Epistle 42, "He took care to fulfill in deed. The Creator of Caesar did not hesitate to render to Caesar the census," Matthew 17:26. Hear Tertullian, in his book On Idolatry, chapter 15: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's — that is, the image of Caesar to Caesar, which is on the coin, and the image of God to God, which is in man — so that you may give money to Caesar, but yourself to God." And Saint Chrysostom: "When you hear that the things of Caesar are to be rendered to Caesar, do not doubt that those things only are meant which are no hindrance to piety and religion; for what is opposed to faith and virtue is the tribute and tax, not of Caesar, but of the devil." And Saint Hilary: "For if none of what is Caesar's remained in our hands, we would not be bound by the condition of rendering him what is his. But further, if we rely upon his possessions, if we use them by right of his authority, we are not exempt from the complaint of injustice — it is to be given back to Caesar what is Caesar's." That is: If you wish to be exempt from tribute, renounce all that you possess, as I and the Apostles have done; for where there is nothing, there Caesar has no right. But if you wish to retain what is yours, and among those things the coins struck by Caesar and imposed upon you as his subjects for sustaining the burdens of the state, then in all equity it is just that you render them back to him as his own.
Politically: Christ here tacitly admonishes Caesars and princes, that, being content with their own, they should not meddle with the affairs of God and of the Church. Wisely and piously Constantine the Great, the Emperor — as Eusebius bears witness in his Life, book 4, chapter 24 — said to the prelates of the Church: "You, within the Church, are bishops, but I have been appointed by God to be a bishop outside the Church." And Valentinian the elder: "It is not permitted to me, who am one of the number of the laity, to intervene in such matters." His son Valentinian the younger, when at the instigation of his mother Justina, an Arian, he was demanding a church for the Arians from Saint Ambrose (as he himself relates in epistle 33 to his sister Marcellina), heard this from him: "Do not burden yourself, O Emperor, with thinking that you have imperial right in the things that are divine. Do not exalt yourself, but if you wish to reign longer, be subject to God; it is written: 'Render what is God's to God, what is Caesar's to Caesar.' To the emperor belong the palaces, to the priest the Church: to you the right of the walls has been granted, not of holy things." And Hosius of Cordova to the Arian emperor Constantius: "Do not, he says, meddle with ecclesiastical matters, nor prescribe to us in this kind, but rather learn these things from us. To you God has entrusted the empire; to us He has committed the things that belong to the Church." Theodosius the younger, in his epistle to the Council of Ephesus: "It is wicked," he says, "that he who is not inscribed in the catalogue of the holy bishops should intrude himself into ecclesiastical affairs and consultations."
Morally: Christ here teaches us prudence, so that among captious persons we may speak so wisely and so temper our speech that we offend neither side; but rather swim between two waters, and navigate between Scylla and Charybdis.
Tropologically, Saint Hilary: "To God also we ought to render the things that are God's — that is, body and soul and will. For the coin of Caesar is in gold, on which his image is depicted; but the coin of God is man, on whom the image of God is stamped. Therefore give your riches to Caesar, but to God preserve the conscience of your innocence." So also Origen: "To God, he says, should be rendered the things that belong to virtue; to Caesar, the things that belong to the state and to census." And Saint Augustine, book 1 Against the Epistle of Parmenianus, chapter 7: "To God," he says, "is to be rendered Christian love; to kings, human fear." Saint Bernard, or whoever the author is, in book On the Passion of the Lord, chapter 3: "Render," he says, "to Caesar the denarius, which bears the image of Caesar; render to God the soul, which He created to His own image and likeness, and you will be just." See Saint Bernard, in his treatise On the Fourfold Debt by which we are bound to God.
Symbolically: The author of a sermon To the Brothers in the Desert, among the works of Saint Augustine, tome 10, sermon 7: "Then," he says, "we render what is Caesar's to Caesar, when we pay to the saints the dulia due to them; and what is God's to God, when we give to God the latria proper to Him alone."
Finally, Saint Augustine in the Sentences, sentence 15, rightly applies this to vows and those who make them: "Whoever," he says, "well considers what he should vow to God, and what he should pay by vowing, should vow and render himself. This is demanded, this is owed. Let the image of Caesar be rendered to Caesar; let the image of God be rendered to God." The Psalmist commands this, saying: "Vow and pay to the Lord your God, all you who round about Him bring gifts," Psalm 75:12.
Verse 22: And Having Heard It, They Marveled, and Leaving Him, Went Away
Verse 22. And having heard it, they marveled, and leaving Him, went away. — They marveled at the wisdom and dexterity of Christ, by which He so easily extricated Himself from this snare which seemed to the Pharisees inevitable and inextricable, and turned it back upon the neck of the Pharisees who were lying in wait for Him, and so bound them as they tried to ensnare Him, according to that saying of Psalm 9:16: "In the snare which they hid, their own foot is taken." For the Pharisees both denied tribute to Caesar and worship to God, as will be clear in chapter 23; therefore Christ tacitly reproves and censures them, and commands them to do both, because "there is no wisdom, no prudence, no counsel against the Lord," Proverbs 21:30.
Verse 23: On That Day There Came to Him the Sadducees, Who Say There Is No Resurrection
Verse 23. On that day there came to Him the Sadducees (about whom I spoke at chapter 3, verse 7), who say there is no resurrection, and they questioned Him. — These had heard Christ teaching the resurrection, and through it persuading men to repentance and a holy life. Therefore they attack Him with this question, which to them likewise seemed inextricable, in order to confute, entangle, and overthrow Christ and His doctrine by the absurdity which seemed to them to follow from it.
Verse 24: Master, Moses Said: If a Man Die Having No Son, Let His Brother Take His Wife
Verse 24. Saying: Master, Moses said: If a man die having no son, let his brother take his wife and raise up seed to his brother. — "Seed," that is, posterity, a son (so the Syriac) who should be called by the name of the deceased, so that the dead man might, as it were, survive and be perpetuated in him as in a son. This law is found in Deuteronomy 25:5, where I explained it.
Verses 25-27: The Seven Brothers and the One Wife
Verse 25. Now there were with us seven brothers, and the first, having married a wife, died; and not having seed, left his wife to his brother.
Verse 26. In like manner the second, and the third, unto the seventh.
Verse 27. And last of all the woman also died.
Verse 28: In the Resurrection, Whose Wife Shall She Be of the Seven?
Verse 28. In the resurrection therefore, whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. — The Sadducees thought to confound Christ with this question. For if He said that this woman was to be the wife of one, He would have stirred up the other brothers to anger and envy, and to perpetual lawsuits; for it does not appear any reason why this wife should be given to this one rather than to another. For her first husband, who seemed more to have the right, lost it through death: for when a man dies, all his rights die together with him. But if Christ had said that this wife was to be common to the seven brothers, they would have accused Him of being the author of a most shameful doctrine and of public incest, that is: These absurdities will follow from the resurrection if it be posited; therefore it is not to be posited nor asserted, as You, O Christ, posit and assert it. Thus these little men think themselves wise when they are supremely foolish; therefore Christ blows away this weapon of theirs as though a spider's web with a word, by which He shows them their ignorance, adding a third member which they had omitted as unexpected to coarse and carnal men, namely, that this widow in the future age will be the wife of none.
Verse 29: You Err, Not Knowing the Scriptures, Nor the Power of God
Verse 29. But Jesus answering said: You err, not knowing the Scriptures, — which frequently and clearly establish the resurrection, as at Job 19:23, and 2 Maccabees 7:9 and following, and chapter 12:44; Isaiah 26:19, and 66:14; Ezekiel 37:1 and 9; Daniel 12:12, and elsewhere.
Nor the power of God. — In Greek δύναμιν, that is, force, strength, power — that is: You do not know that God is omnipotent, and therefore able to raise up bodies that are dead and reduced to ashes back to life, as He first created them from nothing; for greater power is required for creating something from nothing than for raising it from the dead. To life, I say, spiritual, glorious, and eternal, so that they live like the angels; for the Sadducees denied God and God's power and providence, and consequently the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of bodies, as is clear from Acts 23:8. Christ touches upon the twofold root of the error of the Sadducees: the first is ignorance of the Scriptures, which clearly teach the resurrection; the second, ignorance or inconsideration of God's omnipotence, which caused them to interpret the Scriptures that establish the resurrection about a mystical resurrection from vice to virtue.
Verse 30: In the Resurrection They Shall Neither Marry Nor Be Given in Marriage, But Shall Be as the Angels of God in Heaven
Verse 30. For in the resurrection (that is, in the future age, as Luke 20:35 explains, namely, in heaven and in heavenly beatitude) neither shall they marry (namely, the men), nor be given in marriage, — that is, shall not be given in marriage. The Interpreter writes in a Grecizing manner: for in Greek it is οὔτε γαμοῦσιν, οὔτε ἐκγαμίζονται, that is, "neither do they take a wife" (namely, the men) "nor are they given in marriage" (namely, the women). Hence the Interpreter at Luke chapter 20:35 renders it: "neither are they given in marriage." For women who are upright and modest do not choose husbands themselves, but are given by their parents to the husbands whom the parents have chosen. The Syriac: neither do they take women, nor are they wives to men. For the Greek γαμεῖν is attributed to both men and women, as also the Latin nubere in ancient usage was applied to both, as Nonius Marcellus and Tertullian testify in the book On the Resurrection of the Flesh. Yet properly "to wed" (nubere) is said of her who serves her husband and is, as it were, governed by him. Hence that saying of Martial, book 8, poem 10, to Priscus:
"Why should I refuse to marry a wealthy wife? / You ask? I do not wish to be married to my wife. / Let the matron, Priscus, be inferior to her husband: / Not otherwise do the woman and the man become equal."
But they shall be as the angels (the Syriac: like angels) of God in heaven. — That is: The blessed after the resurrection in heaven will be similar to the angels, not as regards nature, but first, as regards purity; secondly, as regards spiritual life: for they live on food not bodily but spiritual; thirdly, as regards incorruption and immortality; fourthly, as regards happiness and glory, in which they shall continue forever into all eternity, just as the angels do. Wherefore there will be no need there of marriage and generation, since these have been invented and instituted by nature for perpetuating the species and the individual — not in itself, but through a son. For since the father dies, he therefore generates a son so that after his death he may in a sense live and survive in his son. But in heaven no one will die, but each one will live and be blessed forever; therefore marriages and the procreation of children would there be in vain. Hence Luke 20:36 adds: "For neither can they die anymore." Appositely Saint Augustine in Questions on the Gospels, on this passage of Luke: "Marriages," he says, "are for the sake of children; children for succession; succession on account of death: therefore where death is not, neither are marriages." Bede adds: "Even sinners will be without marriages in that age, but the Lord, in order to stir up minds to seek the glory of the resurrection, wished to speak only of the elect." Therefore, just as the elect will be like the angels, so the reprobate will be like the demons, who, since they are spirits, will be immortal, but in punishment and hell, just as the angels are in glory.
Luke adds: "And they are the children of God, since they are the children of the resurrection," that is: The blessed, in rising again both in body and in soul, will be similar to God, namely spiritual, glorious, immortal, and eternal as God is, as sons born of the resurrection and newly begotten by this procreation to the blessed and eternal life; wherefore they have no need of the procreation of children, nor will they delight in it: about which more at Luke 20:35.
From this passage the author of the Imperfect Work here teaches that no virtue is so angelic as chastity; for of it Christ says here: "They shall be as the angels of God;" for these do not know by experience what lust is. And Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 12: "He calls virginity the conversation of the angels, and the purity of incorporeal nature." Hence Saint Basil, On Virginity, chapter 79, teaches that virginity is the seed of future incorruption; nay more, that virgins here anticipate and begin that future likeness in heaven with the angels; and that its perfection, to be granted in heaven, is earned here by assiduous struggle with the flesh and by victory. Saint Basil adds that chastity makes us like not only the angels but God Himself, according to what Luke adds: "And they are the children of God."
"Great and excellent is virginity," says Basil, "which makes man most like the incorruptible God, so that he receives within himself the likeness of God as in a most pure mirror, flowing into him from God Himself with His graces, in the manner of the sweetest ray." Hear Saint Basil further: "And truly, those who keep continence are angels, who, living in corruptible flesh, safeguard the life of mortals by illuminating it. And they are angels not of any lowest order, but indeed of the most illustrious and noblest. For those, free from the bonds of the flesh, preserve their integrity in heaven, inviolable both in place and in nature, and established before the supreme King of all, God. But these, on earth long struggling against the allurements and pleasures of the flesh, and overcoming the temptations of the devil by perpetual exercise, have guarded before the eyes of the Creator an incorruption equal to angelic purity, by their surpassing virtue."
Elegantly and piously Saint Bernard, Epistle 42: "What," he says, "is more becoming than chastity, which makes clean what was conceived from unclean seed, makes a member of the household of one who was an enemy, and finally makes an angel out of a man? The chaste man and the angel do indeed differ from each other, but in happiness, not in virtue. And even if the angel's chastity is more blessed, yet the man's is known to be stronger. Chastity alone, in this place and time of mortality, represents a certain state of immortal glory. It alone, amid the solemnities of marriage, claims the custom of that blessed region in which 'they neither marry nor are given in marriage,' offering in a certain way on earth an experience of that heavenly manner of life already." The same, in sermon 2 on the text "This is the generation of those seeking the Lord": "Who," he says, "would fear to call this celibate life heavenly and angelic? Or seeing that in the resurrection all the elect are to come, how are you not already now as the angels of God in heaven, wholly abstaining from marriages? Embrace, brothers, the most precious pearl; embrace the sanctity of life, which makes you like the saints and members of God's household, since Scripture says: 'Incorruption makes one to be near to God,' Wisdom 6:20." See what I said there.
Finally, from this passage Saint Hilary here, and Saint Athanasius in sermon 3 Against the Arians; Saint Basil on Psalm 114; Saint Jerome, on chapter 4 of Ephesians, verse 13, from what is said there — "Until we all meet," etc., "unto a perfect man" — seem to assert that after the resurrection in heaven there will not be the female sex, just as there is none in the angels; and that therefore all women will be changed into men and will rise again in the male sex. Saint Augustine testifies that many in his own age held the same opinion, book 22 of the City of God, chapter 17.
But Saint Augustine himself teaches the contrary in the same place, as does Saint Chrysostom here, and Tertullian in the book On the Resurrection of the Flesh; Saint Jerome, Epistle 61 to Pammachius, against the errors of John of Jerusalem; and the Scholastics generally at IV, distinction 44. The a priori reason is that the female sex is not a defect, but a natural condition; whence it was also in the state of innocence, namely in paradise. For Eve, the mother of the living, was created by God a woman, just as Adam a man. In the resurrection, however, exactly the same nature will rise again in every man, the same, I say, in number or individual; and to this much contributes the diversity and property of sex; therefore it will then remain, lest the one who rises should seem to be a different individual and a different man from the one who lived in this life. The same is clear from what Christ says here: "They shall neither marry nor be given in marriage" — they shall not marry, namely the men; they shall not be given in marriage, namely the women; therefore then there will be women as well as men, distinguished from each other by sex. Christ therefore does not deny that there will then be women, but rather presupposes that there will be, yet in such a way that they do not use their sex for marital relations and generation, as Bede rightly observes. "For no one," says Saint Jerome, "says of things that have no genital members: 'They shall not marry, neither shall be given in marriage.'" And this only the Fathers cited at the outset meant, who seemed to say the contrary. For they only wish to signify that in heaven there will not be the diversity of sexes as to use, but as to substance they do not deny it; indeed, they presuppose it. More on this I said at Ephesians 4:13.
Verse 31: And Concerning the Resurrection of the Dead, Have You Not Read What Was Spoken to You by God
Verse 31. And concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying: — Exodus 3:5. See what I said there.
Verse 32: I Am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; He Is Not the God of the Dead, But of the Living
Verse 32. I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. — Christ, not content with having resolved the Sadducees' objection against the resurrection, proves the same to them from God's saying to Moses: "I am the God of Abraham," etc. For although He could have sought clearer testimonies of the resurrection from Job, Maccabees, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel — which I cited at verse 29 — yet He preferred to seek this from Moses and the Pentateuch, because the Sadducees received this alone and rejected the Prophets. So Origen, Saint Jerome, Bede, and others. Hence Josephus, book 18, chapter 2, On the Sadducees, says: "Nor do they think that anything else is to be observed besides the law"; though there Josephus may properly seem to oppose the law to the traditions, but not to the Prophets, rather comprehending them under the law; otherwise they would have been manifest heretics, and hissed off by all the Jews, as Franciscus Lucas notes. Therefore the more important reason for the citation seems to be this: that among the Jews the authority of Moses was greater and more ancient than that of the Prophets; and likewise the highest veneration for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Patriarchs and their forefathers, whom accordingly they considered not to be dead but to live in God's presence, and to have a care for their descendants, the Hebrews; whence no one would have dared to say plainly that they had utterly perished.
I am the God of Abraham, etc. — First, that is: I am the God who glory in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as in holy Prophets, My faithful ones, friends and worshipers, and with whom I entered into a covenant to give to them (that is, to their posterity) the land of Canaan, for which they, dwelling in the limbo of the Fathers, assiduously implore Me; and I will soon fulfill in very deed through Moses and Joshua the faith which I promised them. Now I would not thus glory in them unless they themselves lived — especially I, who am the living and life-giving God. Therefore they are themselves alive according to their soul, and consequently will live in the resurrection according to body — and that shortly and quickly, namely after a few days, when I shall rise from the dead; for then I shall also raise them up from death and bring them with Me in triumph into heaven, Matthew chapter 27:52.
Here note that the Sadducees and the Epicurean philosophers denied the resurrection because they denied the immortality of the soul; for these two things are interconnected. For if the soul is immortal, since it naturally inclines toward the body, of which it is the form, the body must rise again; otherwise the soul would exist perpetually in a violent state and would obtain only a kind of half-existence, half-life, and half-subsistence. For this reason Christ here, as well as Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and the author of 2 Maccabees chapter 43, prove the resurrection of bodies from the immortality of souls.
Secondly, Saint Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, and Irenaeus, book 4, chapter 11: "Abraham," they say, "Isaac, and Jacob do not signify their souls alone, but the whole men. These, therefore, although dead to men, yet live to God, and as it were sleep, because in a short time God will awaken them from death as from sleep to the blessed and eternal life." Hence Luke, in chapter 20:38, explaining this, adds: "For all live to Him," namely, to God.
Verse 33: And the Crowds Hearing It Were Astonished at His Doctrine
Verse 33. And the crowds hearing it, were astonished at His doctrine, — so clear, holy, and solid, by which He was convincing their highest Rabbis, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, of their error, so that they did not dare to open their mouths in opposition.
Verse 34: But the Pharisees, Hearing That He Had Silenced the Sadducees, Gathered Together
Verse 34. But the Pharisees, hearing that He had silenced the Sadducees, gathered together, — in order to humble Him in regard to the victory won over the Sadducees — as they supposed — while He was puffed up and elated by it, and to turn back against Him the ignorance of the Scriptures which He had charged against the Sadducees. But senseless men kick against the goad, so that, once conquered by Christ, they are again more disgracefully conquered by Him. For He is Truth itself and eternal Wisdom, who reveals and discloses to each the darkness of their own ignorance.
Verse 35: And One of Them, a Doctor of the Law, Asked Him, Testing Him
Verse 35. And one of them, a doctor of the law, asked Him, testing Him — This one offered himself to the Pharisees who were seeking to catch Jesus in His speech, saying that he had ready a most difficult question which he would put to Jesus, in order to test from His answer how skilled Jesus was in the law and Scripture — not only in speculative matters, such as that Sadducean question about the resurrection, but also in practical ones. Therefore the word "tempting" (tentans) is the same as testing and taking an experiment. For this man, although he pretended before the Pharisees that he wished to entangle and catch Jesus, yet in his heart he desired to try out and hear what Jesus would answer to this question, so difficult, in which he himself hung in doubt. He therefore desires to be taught by Jesus. Hence, hearing Jesus respond that the greatest commandment is the love of God and of neighbor, he immediately approved and praised this answer, saying: "Well, Master, You have spoken in truth," etc. Whence "Jesus, seeing that he had answered wisely, said to him: You are not far from the kingdom of God," namely, from the true faith and grace which leads the faithful to the heavenly kingdom, Mark 12:34.
Verse 36: Master, Which Is the Great Commandment in the Law?
Verse 36. Master, which is the great commandment in the law? — This question, says Bede in chapter 12 of Mark, was in the time of Christ much disputed among the Jews. For many considered the first precept of the law to be concerning the sacrifices and victims to be offered to God according to the law (Leviticus chapter 1 and following); for it is by these that God is properly worshiped as the supreme Lord of all. Hence the Pharisees for this reason ordered sons to say to their parents "corban" — that is, "the gift wherewith I intended to support you, I have vowed to God: to Him therefore it must be given, not to you," Matthew chapter 15:6. Hence also the doctor of the Law here, on hearing Christ's response concerning the love of God and of neighbor, praising it, added: "and to love one's neighbor as oneself is greater than all holocausts and sacrifices," Mark 12:33.
Verse 37: You Shall Love the Lord Your God With Your Whole Heart, and With Your Whole Soul, and With Your Whole Mind
Verse 37. Jesus said to him: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind. — Moses, at Deuteronomy 6:5, and from him Mark and Luke add: "and with all your strength;" the Syriac: "and with your whole power," that is, from the whole effort of your heart and mind. For here "heart," "soul," and "mind" signify the same thing. The Ethiopic: "with all your strength and with all the power that is in you;" the Persian: "with all the excess of your mind;" for this corresponds to the Hebrew מאדך (meodecha), Deuteronomy 6:4, as I said there.
Note against Calvin and the heretics that this precept of God is possible for any man to keep; for total or supreme love of God is not here commanded extensively or intensively, but only comparatively, finally, and appreciatively. "You shall therefore love God with all your heart," or "with all your soul and mind," is the same as if He said: "You shall love God with all your will" — namely, first, comparatively, so that you give no part of your love to an idol or to anything contrary to God; secondly, finally, so that you generally wish God to be the whole end and the ultimate end of all your thoughts, actions, and loves, and that you prefer and set Him, as the highest good and ultimate end, above all things; and consequently, thirdly, appreciatively, so that you esteem nothing to the extent nor hold anything in such place and at such price as you hold God. And therefore apply your whole heart, that is, your will, so that you may fulfill all His precepts completely, and obey Him in all things, even if on that account you must lose wealth, honors, fame, friendship, and life itself. Whence what is said here "with your whole heart" is elsewhere said: "with an upright and perfect heart." Hence that saying so often repeated: "His heart was perfect with God; he walked in all the commandments of the Lord; he followed the Lord with his whole heart, doing what was pleasing in His sight," etc., 1 Kings 14:8. See what I said at Deuteronomy 6:4, where I explained this commandment at length. This is what Saint Bernard says in his treatise On Loving God: "The measure of loving God is to love without measure." For the immense goodness of God deserves an immense love, so that He may be loved, as it were, immensely — without end, without limit, and without measure. Accordingly Victor of Antioch on Mark 12:32 says: "A man ought to burn with so great a love of God that he permits nothing whatsoever to creep into any faculty of his soul that would exclude, diminish, or transfer elsewhere his love toward God; but in all things he should strive to please Him alone more and more assiduously, and no other person or created thing except for God's sake."
Verse 38: This Is the Greatest and the First Commandment
Verse 38. This is the greatest and the first commandment. — The Arabic has: This is the first and greatest of commandments. For charity is the greatest virtue and the queen of all virtues, 1 Corinthians 13. Wherefore charity is nobler than religion: for it is nobler to love God with the whole heart than to offer sacrifices to Him. Add this: charity, as it were a queen, commands sacrifices and the other acts of religion and of the other virtues. Finally, love is the most noble affection and act, which excels fear, honor, and all the rest; of whose preeminence I have enumerated eight causes at Deuteronomy 6:4.
Verse 39: And the Second Is Like Unto This: You Shall Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
Verse 39. And the second is like unto this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. — The Syriac has: as your own soul, that is, as yourself. "Second," not in the order of legislation (for many other laws and precepts were enacted and sanctioned by God before this one), but in the order of dignity and perfection — though far unequal and inferior to the first, which concerns the love of God. For God is to be loved far more than all angels, men, and the whole of creation; but after God, among created things, the neighbor is to be loved above all. "Like," in love and affection, and in its offices and acts. For just as we love God, so also our neighbor; indeed, the reason for loving our neighbor is the love of God; for we love our neighbor for God's sake, because God commands us to love our neighbor as His image.
Christ here omits love of oneself, because this is implanted in everyone and is, as it were, natural — so that if you have charity toward others, you should first exercise it toward yourself. For "he that is evil to himself, to whom will he be good?" Hence Christ here presupposes it; indeed, He establishes the love of self as the model and, as it were, the measure of the love of one's neighbor, saying: "As yourself" you love and cherish. Hence Saint Augustine, Book 1 of On Christian Doctrine, chapter 27: "The love of yourself," he says, "is not here passed over: for it is said that you should love your neighbor as yourself."
In the first place, therefore, God is to be loved above all things with the whole heart; in the second, one's own person — namely one's own soul and body; in the third, one's neighbor. Therefore when He says: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," the word "as" signifies not equality but similarity of love: for we ought to love ourselves more than our neighbor, yet we ought to wish for our neighbor things similar to those we wish for ourselves, and to bestow them on him. He cites Leviticus 19:18, where I explained this law; to which add that the Hebrew רע (rea) properly signifies "companion." Our translator, however, renders it "neighbor," in order to press upon each one a strong stimulus of love, because every man (who is here understood) is to us a neighbor and a very close associate, and as it were a brother — both by creation and nature, because man was created by the same God the Father, and by re-creation, because he has been regenerated in Baptism by the same Father through Christ, and is nourished by His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, and is assiduously fed by the other Sacraments, gifts, and graces, just as others are. See what was said at Leviticus 19:18.
He commands, therefore, that God be loved with the whole heart, but the neighbor not with the whole heart, but "as yourself" — so that, first, you may not love yourself alone and neglect your neighbor (which self-love, implanted in us by our nature corrupted by sin, urges), but may extend the love with which you love yourself to your neighbor. Secondly, so that, just as you love yourself not feignedly nor coldly, but sincerely and ardently, so likewise you may love your neighbor, and the goods of body and soul which you desire for yourself, you may desire also for your neighbor. This is what Christ said and enjoined at chapter 7:12: "All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them;" or, as Tobit commanded his son when dying (Tobit 4:16): "What you hate to have done to you by another, see that you never do to anyone else." "For this is the rule of love," says Saint Augustine, On True Religion, chapter 46, "that whatever goods a man wishes to come to himself, he should wish also for his neighbor; and whatever evils he does not wish to befall himself, he should not wish for the other." Do you not wish to have your wealth, honor, wife, or life torn from you? Then do not tear these from others. Do you wish these same things to be given and preserved to you? Then give them also to others and preserve them for them.
Verse 40: On These Two Commandments Hang the Whole Law and the Prophets
Verse 40. On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets. — That is to say: All the precepts of the Law and the Prophets rest and are supported upon these two precepts of the love of God and of one's neighbor; indeed, they are born from them and drawn forth from them, just as many branches are born and hang from a single tree and root. Therefore in these two they are summarily contained, just as conclusions are contained in their principles and premises: for all the precepts are comprised in the Decalogue. And the Decalogue contains nothing but precepts concerning the love of God and of neighbor: for the three precepts of the first tablet pertain to the love of God, and the other seven of the second tablet pertain to the love of neighbor, says Saint Augustine, Book 8 On the Trinity, chapter 7. Wherefore the Apostle says in Romans 13:8: "He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For: You shall not commit adultery; You shall not kill; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." See what I said there. Accordingly all the precepts of mercy and of the other natural and supernatural virtues are referred to these two — the love of God and of neighbor — and are contained in them. For the precepts of faith, hope, charity, and religion are contained in the precept of the love of God; while the precepts of justice, truthfulness, fidelity, friendship, mercy, gratitude, and so forth, are contained in the precept of love of neighbor. Christ therefore signifies that these two precepts ought always to be revolved in the mind and kept before the eyes of each person, so that he may direct all his thoughts, words, and actions toward them, and shape and order his whole life by them.
Verse 41: And While the Pharisees Were Gathered Together, Jesus Asked Them
Verse 41. And while the Pharisees were gathered together (in the temple, as is clear from Mark 12:33), Jesus asked them. — Christ here takes the occasion of the Pharisees who were tempting Him to instruct them concerning the person and dignity of the Messiah, to teach us to turn evil back into good, and to convert temptation into instruction, hypocrisy into doctrine, and malice into benefit. The Pharisees therefore, "who had been gathered together to tempt Jesus and were striving by a fraudulent question to catch at the truth, afforded the occasion of their own refutation," says Saint Jerome. He taught them, then, that the Messiah or Christ is not a mere man, as they themselves supposed, but is man-God, or one subsisting in the divine person of the Word. Whence they ought not to wonder if He Himself asserts that He is the Son of God.
Verse 42: What Do You Think of Christ? Whose Son Is He? They Said: David's
Verse 42. Saying: What do you think of Christ? (that is, of the Messiah promised to you in the Law) Whose son is He? They said unto Him, David's. — They ought to have said that Christ, as God, is the Son of God, according to that saying: "You are My Son; this day have I begotten You," Psalm 2; but as man, He is the son of David. The former, however, the Pharisees either did not know or did not believe: whence they answer only the latter, but from it Christ draws out and proves the former as well. Peter, when asked by Christ whom He thought Him to be, inspired by God answered: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," Matthew 16. But the Pharisees lacked this divine inspiration: whence, savoring only what is human, they believed that Christ was nothing more than a man.
Note: Luke and Mark narrate these things a little differently; but they must be reconciled with Matthew, in that they mean to say that Christ first asked the Pharisees whose son Christ would be; they answered: The Scribes, that is, the doctors of the Law, say that Christ is the son of David. Then Christ subjoined: How do the Scribes say that Christ is the son of David, when David calls Him his Lord?
Verse 43: How Then Does David in Spirit Call Him Lord?
Verse 43. He said to them: How then does David in spirit (inspired by the Holy Spirit, and acted upon and impelled by Him, indeed filled with Him: for the Holy Spirit dictated the Psalms to David and infused into him their living affections and meanings, so that it was not so much David speaking in the Spirit, as the Spirit speaking in David) call Him Lord? — For a son is less than and younger than his father; wherefore it is not a father who is accustomed to call his son "my lord," but a son his father, as happens among the Italians and other peoples. From this passage the modern Rabbis are refuted, who interpret this Psalm 109 (110) not of the Messiah and Christ, but of Abraham, or David, or Hezekiah. For the Pharisees and Scribes in Christ's time understood it of Christ, and considered this psalm to be an oracle about Christ: otherwise they would at once have replied to Christ that He was wrongly citing and understanding this psalm of the Messiah, since it ought to be understood of Abraham, David, or Hezekiah. The same is clear from verse 4 of the same psalm: "With You is the principate (the sovereignty: for this is what the Hebrew נדבות nedabot and the Greek ἀρχή mean) in the day of Your power, in the splendors of the saints: from the womb before the daystar I begot You." For this belongs to none but Christ. Finally Jonathan the Chaldean, Rabbi Barachias, Rabbi Levi, and the ancient Rabbis (as R. Moses and Genebrardus attest on Psalm 109) understand it of none but Christ.
Verse 44: The Lord Said to My Lord: Sit at My Right Hand, Until I Make Your Enemies Your Footstool
Verse 44. Saying: The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool. — From this verse of Psalm 109 (110), Christ gathers and proves that the Messiah (such as He Himself was) is not a mere man, as the Pharisees believed, but is God, and therefore the Lord of David. The sense, then, is as if David said: "The Lord" God "said to my Lord," namely to Christ: "Sit at My right hand," when, that is, after the cross, death, and resurrection of Christ, He will raise Him up, exalt Him above all Powers and Principalities, and establish Him next to Himself in heaven, that He may reign in the highest felicity, authority, glory, and dominion over all creatures. See what I said at Ephesians 1:20 and Colossians 3:1, where I explained at length what it is for Christ to sit at the right hand of God.
For "said," the Hebrew has נאם (neum), that is, a thing said, pronounced, uttered, an oracle, a decree of the Lord concerning Christ my Lord — and this fixed, certain, and immutable. For neum, by metathesis, is the same as Amen, that is, surely, faithfully, steadfastly to come to pass, as I have said more fully at 1 Timothy 1:15 on the words "A faithful saying;" that is to say: God the Father from eternity surely, firmly, and inviolably said, pronounced, decreed concerning Christ His Son — not insofar as He is God, but insofar as incarnate and made man (for this is what the Hebrew אדני Adoni, that is, "to my Lord," implies: for when God is signified, it is written אדני Adonai), who, by title both of hypostatic union and of the redemption accomplished on the cross, is the Lord of all men, and consequently my Lord, that is, David's. He said this, I say, inwardly in His mind from eternity; but outwardly He said it — that is, He will say it — at the time of Christ's Ascension, when He shall say to Christ ascending in triumph into heaven: Come, and sit at My right hand, that is, next to Me, and in the highest glory of My majesty reign and triumph. So Saint Jerome and Theodoret and others, on the same passage.
For that Psalm 109 (110) celebrates the highest and most ample kingdom of Christ, both in heaven and on earth, in which Christ, after His resurrection and Ascension, from Sion and Jerusalem began to reign over all the nations, and to subject them through the Apostles to His faith and worship, until He shall trample and crush all His enemies — that is, all the impious and reprobate — on the day of judgment.
Until I put Your enemies as a footstool for Your feet. — That is: Reign with Me in all glory, until the day of judgment, when I shall utterly subject all Your enemies — that is, the impious — to You, so that You may rule over them as over slaves, nay even trample them as the footstool of Your feet, which is a sign of the lowest and most abject servitude. Whence Sapor, king of the Persians, made the emperor Aurelian, whom he had taken captive in war, his footstool: for when Sapor was about to mount his horse, Aurelian was obliged to present his own back to him as a footstool, by which he might climb up onto the horse. Tamerlane, emperor of the Tartars, did the same to Bajazet, emperor of the Turks, when he had vanquished and captured him in battle.
Therefore "until" here does not signify an end, but rather the continuation and amplification of the session and of the kingdom — as if to say: Reign with Me even until I lay Your enemies beneath Your feet; reign even at the time which seems opposed and contrary to Your kingdom; reign even when they shall seem to reign; reign even before I cast down Your enemies under Your feet and subject them to Your will, after the devil, death, the impious, and sins have been utterly overthrown and rooted out. Reign, that is, amid the crosses, persecutions, impieties, stirrings, and tumults of Satan and of his ministers: for as to another time, there is no doubt that Christ reigns. So Genebrardus. "Until" is taken in this sense at Matthew 1, the last verse, and elsewhere.
Christ adds this to reproach tacitly the Pharisees, His enemies, as if to say: You, O Pharisees, are persecuting Me; indeed, you will kill Me and crucify Me — but know that on the third day I shall rise, and on the fortieth day I shall ascend into heaven, and from there I shall return as judge of all men, and I shall condemn you and the other infidels and impious enemies of Mine, and I shall trample you down and press you into hell.
Verse 46: And No Man Was Able to Answer Him a Word
Verse 46. And no man was able to answer Him (the Syriac: to render an account) a word (because, as I have said, they believed the Messiah would be merely a man), neither did any man dare from that day forth to ask Him any more questions. — "They were silent, therefore," says Saint Chrysostom, "pierced by a deadly wound." "For they preferred," says Saint Augustine on Psalm 109, verses 1 and 2, "to burst from swollen silence rather than to be instructed by humble confession."