English · KJV

Theodore Stratelates

Ante-Nicene · to AD 325 · 52 passages across 3 books

Commentary

41–52 of 52
Matthew 12:20-21

A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.

He did not eagerly contend with the folly of the rulers, nor did he scream and provoke them to anger against himself. Rather, with gentleness Jesus withdrew slowly so that he might not, in confuting them, cause them to be destroyed while they were still weak in soul like “a bruised reed” or like “smoking flax,” that is, very close to being snuffed out. He bore with them patiently, so as not to reduce them to utter oblivion on account of their weakness, until he had fulfilled the purpose of his dispensation,that is, to bring judgment to a full end. By this dispensation all the nations would come to believe.

FRAGMENT 85

Matthew 12:37

For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

If we are called to account “for every careless word,” how much more will those who have blasphemed against the Spirit of the only begotten Son receive a more bitter punishment on the day of judgment. And if, Christ says, someone merely utters a slander against someone else, that one will by no means escape judgment. If they will give an account concerning an idle word, how much more so concerning a work.

FRAGMENTS 88-89

Matthew 12:40

For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Christ says he will spend “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” He is referring to the end of Friday, all of Saturday and the beginning of Sunday [of the passion week], in keeping with the way people understood the beginning and ending of days. For we too commemorate the third day of those who have died, not when three days and three nights, completed in equal measure, have gone by. But we reckon as a single, complete day that day on which the person died, regardless of what hour the death occurred. We count as another day that on which we take our leave of the departed in hymns before the tombs. Following this same kind of sequence, then, the Lord announced that he would spend a full three days and nights under the earth. A clear indication of this is the fact that the women arrived at that very time, in order to fulfill those things that the law prescribed to be done for the dead upon the third day.

FRAGMENT 90

Matthew 14:2

And said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him.

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

Matthew 15:32

Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.

In this way, by his speech, Christ had so disposed their souls that they had even become self-forgetful and had taken no care to provide for food or other inevitable needs. They had not grown weary, even in the desert, of being with Christ. But Christ understood the weakness of our nature and that we require food for the health of our bodies. He makes preparation even for this, that it might be evident that he is concerned not only about our souls but about our bodies as well. For he himself is the Creator of both soul and body. He is not merely the Lord of one or the other, as the lunacies of the Manichaeans hold. They teach different creators, one for the soul and another for the body.

FRAGMENT 97

Matthew 15:38-39

And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children.

He does this not only once but also a second time, in order that we should know his strength. This strength by which he feeds the multitudes when he wishes and without bread finds its source in his divinity. He does this in order to bring them to believe that he himself is the one who earlier had fed Israel for forty years in the wilderness. And Jesus not only fed them with a few loaves of bread, but he even produced a surplus of seven baskets, so that he might be shown as incomparably surpassing Elijah, who himself also caused a multiplication of the widow’s small quantity of oil and flour. Nevertheless, when Jesus produced a multiplication of seven baskets from seven loaves, he did not go beyond what was needed, lest the difference between these miracles should again be forgotten by the disciples.

FRAGMENT 98

Matthew 16:13

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

Jesus asks this in order that we might know what opinions about him were current among the Jews. [He also asks] so that we might learn to inquire intently into what people are saying about him, and if it is bad, to remove the causes, or if complimentary, to increase them. But he said “Son of man” in order to show that he himself not only appears to be but in fact unchangeably is man, and again, is true God. [It is] not as if he were divided into different species, one part God and one part man; rather one may address him as Son of man with no doubt that this very same one is also the Son of God.

FRAGMENT 101.5

Matthew 16:23

But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

When, contrary to what he had hoped, Peter heard this, he was troubled. For the revelation had exhibited Christ as Son of God and the living God, on the one hand. Yet on the other hand, he was found to be preparing for the dreadful events of the Passion. In rebuking Peter, Christ brings to light his own righteous judgment. When Peter confessed Christ, Christ praised him. But when he was irrationally terrified, Christ rebuked him, acting without respect of persons.

FRAGMENT 102

Matthew 18:10

Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

But see, he says, that you do not at all despise those forced out of the church for wickedness. He does not want them to be cast out with any hatred or curse. But he spares those who are guilty of some damage or disorder and often hardened in their own depravity. It is as if it were possible to see even these change again for the better. By “little ones” he means those imperfect in their knowledge or those recently baptized. He does not want these to be looked down upon as ignorant in his teaching.

FRAGMENT 105

Matthew 19:29

And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

“A hundredfold” means that which is incomparably better as regards the future in heaven. When Mark says he will receive a hundredfold “in this age,” we should understand him as speaking about spiritual joys far exceeding earthly ones, inasmuch as they are pledges of future blessings.

FRAGMENT 107

Matthew 23:16-17

Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!

Jesus is saying that the gold in the temple, the gold objects dedicated in the temple to the glory of God, whether these be the gold cherubim or the gold jar containing the manna, were considered by the Jews to be worthy of much more honor than the temple. Therefore they were condemned by the Lord.… But the saying possesses a figurative meaning directed against them because they are not receiving the truth regarding Christ. Instead, they were judging Moses and the types given through him as more valuable than Christ.… They were rejecting the Christ who sanctifies Moses while simultaneously praising the law. Just as the law was praiseworthy, not because it possesses the types and the symbols but because it prefigures the true mystery of worship in Christ, in the same way the gold is precious because of the one who sanctifies the temple, and heaven is beautiful because of the God who sanctifies it and dwells within it.

FRAGMENT 115.16

Matthew 24:27

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

For it is much the same with lightning. Lightning is figuratively compared with truth. It is likened to the coming of the Son of man, which is explained in every Scripture, whether it concerns the law, prophecy, the gospel or apostolic testimony. It flashes out from the east, the region of principalities and spiritual powers, and shines all the way to the west, the realm of darkness and Satan, in the time of the Passion. Note that if the law is rising in the east, the end of the law is setting in the west. But from Jesus Christ to Paul is a rising and setting. He was revealed to Paul last of all as “to one abnormally born.”

FRAGMENT 124-25

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