Book Four
Book Four
22:41-45
(verses 41 onwards) But when the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus questioned them, saying, 'What do you think about the Christ, whose son is he?' They said to him, 'David.' He said to them, 'How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool?" If David then calls him Lord, how is he his son?' Those who had gathered together to test Jesus and tried to capture the truth through deceitful questioning, gave an opportunity for their own refutation. They are asked (or, it is asked) about Christ whose son he is. The questioning of Jesus benefits us even today against the Jews. And indeed those who confess that Christ is to come assert that he is a simple man and a holy man from the lineage of David. Let us therefore question those who are taught by the Lord: if he is a simple man and only a son of David, how does David call him his Lord? Not by uncertain error or personal will, but in the Holy Spirit (or, but in the Holy Spirit, he is silent). The testimony, however, which he presents, is taken from the one hundred and ninth Psalm. Therefore, David is called Lord, not according to what he was born, but according to what he always was, born from the Father, surpassing his own Father in the flesh. The Jews, in order to evade the truth of the question, invent many idle things, asserting that the native of Abraham, whose son was Damascus Eliezer, and that the psalm was written from that person's perspective, in which the Lord God said to his lord, Abraham, after the slaughter of the five kings: Sit at my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool. (Genesis 14). Whom should we ask: How did God say to Abraham these things that follow: With you is the beginning in the day of your power, in the splendors of the saints, I have begotten you before Lucifer; and: The Lord has sworn, and will not regret it; you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek? And we should try to answer how Abraham was born before Lucifer and was a priest according to the order of Melchizedek: regarding whom Melchizedek offered bread and wine, and from whom he received tithes of the spoils.
22:46
(Verse 46) And no one was able to answer him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask him any more questions. The Pharisees and Sadducees, seeking an opportunity to accuse him, and to find some word by which they could trap him, because they were confounded by his teachings, no longer questioned him, but were clearly apprehended and handed over to the Roman authorities. From this we understand that the poisons of envy can indeed be overcome, but it is difficult for them to rest.
23:1-3
(Chapter 23, Verses 1 and following.) Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying: The scribes and Pharisees have seated themselves on the chair of Moses. Therefore, whatever they tell you, observe and do it, but do not do their works. For they speak, but do not practice. What is gentler, what is kinder than the Lord? He is tempted by the Pharisees, their plots are crushed, and according to the Psalmist: The arrows of little children have become their wounds (Psalm 63:8). And nevertheless, because of their priesthood and the dignity of their office, he urges the people to submit to them, considering not their works, but their teaching. But when He says, 'The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat,' He shows that the seat represents the teaching of the Law. Therefore, we must also understand the teaching in the passages that say, 'He did not sit on the throne of pestilence' (Psalm 1:1) and 'He overturned the seats of those selling doves' (Matthew 21:12; Mark 11:15).
23:4
(Verse 4.) However, they bind heavy and burdensome loads and lay them on people's shoulders; but they themselves are unwilling to move them with their finger. This applies generally to all teachers who command heavy things but do not do smaller things. However, it should be noted that both the shoulders, the finger, the burdens, and the chains with which the burdens are bound should be understood spiritually.
23:5
(Verse 5.) All their works they do to be seen by others. Therefore, whoever does anything to be seen by others, is a scribe and a Pharisee.
23:6
(Verse 6.) For they enlarge their phylacteries and magnify their fringes. They love the places of honor at banquets, the chief seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called Rabbi by men. Woe to us, miserable ones, to whom the vices of the Pharisees have been passed on. When the Lord gave the commandments of the Law through Moses, He added at the end: Bind them upon your hand, and they shall be before your eyes (Deut. VI, 8). And the meaning is: Let my precepts be in your hand, so that they may be fulfilled in action: let them be before your eyes, so that day and night you may meditate on them. The Pharisees, by misinterpreting this, wrote the Ten Commandments of Moses on scrolls, folding them up and binding them on their foreheads, making them like a crown on their heads so that they would always be before their eyes. This is still done today by the Indians, Persians, and Babylonians, and those who do this are considered religious among the people. Moses also commanded (Num. XV) that the Israelite people should make blue tassels on the corners of their garments, to distinguish them as the chosen people, just as circumcision is a sign for the Jewish people's bodies, so their clothing should have some distinction. Superstitious teachers, seeking popular applause, and pursuing gains from women, made large phylacteries and bound the sharpest thorns in them so that, as they walked or sat, they would be punctured and, as it were, be drawn by this admonition to the duties of the Lord and to the ministries of his service. Therefore, because the Lord had said that they do all their works to be seen by men, which he had accused in general, he now divides them into parts. Those little tablets of the Decalogue were called phylacteries, which whoever had them would have as a safeguard and a reminder of themselves: the Pharisees not understanding that these things should be carried in the heart, not on the body; otherwise, even cabinets and chests have books, but do not have knowledge of God. This is done among us by superstitious women, in little Gospels, and in the wood of the cross, and in similar things (which indeed they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge). (Romans 10) Even today, they strain out a gnat and swallow a camel (Below, in the same place). Such was the fringe, small and short, from the Law and the precepts, which was touched by the woman who was flowing with blood, in the cloak of the Lord (Luke 8, above). But she was not moved by the superstitious thorns of the Pharisees; rather, she was healed by touching it. And when they excessively enlarge their phylacteries and make large fringes, seeking glory from men, they are accused in the rest, why they seek the first places at dinners, and the first seats in synagogues; and in public they cut throats and glory; and they are called Rabbi by men, which is said in Latin language, teacher. Denique sequitur:
23:8-12
(Verse 8 onwards) But you must not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, who is in heaven. Nor are you to be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. Neither be called masters; for One is your Master, that is, Christ. And do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. Father, because from Him all things are. Teacher, because through Him all things: or because through the dispensation of His flesh, we all are reconciled to God. It is asked why the Apostle, the teacher of the Gentiles, declared himself to be against this precept (2 Corinthians 5; Colossians 1); or how, in the common language, especially in the monasteries of Palestine and Egypt, they call each other Fathers? This is resolved as follows: It is one thing to be a father or a teacher by nature, another thing by indulgence. If we call someone our father, we show honor to their age, not that they are the author of our life. Likewise, a teacher is called such from the fellowship of a true teacher. And to avoid endless repetition, just as one God and one Son do not prejudice others from being called gods and sons by adoption, so one father and one teacher do not prejudice others from being called fathers and teachers in an abusive manner.
23:13-14
(Ver. 13, 14.) But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation. The scribes and Pharisees have knowledge of the Law and the Prophets, and they know that Christ is the Son of God; they are not ignorant that He was born of a Virgin. But while they seek to prey on the subject people, they themselves do not enter the kingdom of heaven, nor do they allow those who could enter to do so. This is what the Prophet Hosea accuses: The priests have hidden the way, they have murdered Shechem (Hosea 6:9). And again: The priests have not said, 'Where is the Lord?' (Hosea 4). Indeed, every teacher who scandalizes his disciples with evil deeds shuts the kingdom of heaven before them.
23:15
(Verse 15.) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel over sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. We do not serve with the same zeal with which we seek. Scribes and Pharisees, while traversing the whole world for the sake of gains or different profits to be sought both by attracting disciples and by the image of holiness, they had the intention to make a proselyte, that is, a stranger and uncircumcised, mix with the people of God. But he, who before, while he was an ethnick, simply wandered, and was once the son of Gehenna, seeing the vices of the masters, and understanding to destroy them by works, what they were teaching by words, returns to his vomit: and becoming a gentile, as if a transgressor, he will be worthy of a greater punishment. But he is called the son of Gehenna, just as the son of perdition, and the son of this age. For each one is called the son of him whose works he does.
23:16-22
(Verse 16 onwards) Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'Whoever swears by the temple is nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is bound by his oath.' Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? And, 'Whoever swears by the altar is nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on it is obligated.' Blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? Therefore, whoever swears on the altar, swears on it and on all things that are above it. And whoever swears in the temple, swears in it and in him who dwells in it. And whoever swears in heaven, swears on the throne of God and on him who sits on it. Above, as it seemed to us, we have explained what the tradition of the Pharisees meant, saying: Whatever gift is from me will benefit you: now the double tradition of the Pharisees, enticing to one occasion of greed, is condemned, so that they may be proved to do everything for gain and not for the fear of God. For just as in the phylacteries and fringes, by enlarged expectations of holiness, it was trying to capture glory, and was seeking gains through the opportunity of glory, so another tradition found fault with the teachers of impiety. If anyone were to swear in the temple during a dispute, or in some argument, or in a doubtful case, and later be convicted of lying, they were not held accountable for the crime. But if they were to swear on gold and money, which was offered to the priests in the temple, they were immediately compelled to fulfill what they had sworn. Again: If anyone swore upon the altar, no one held him guilty of perjury; but if he swore falsely on a gift, or on offerings, that is, on victims and on fine flour and on the rest, which are offered to God upon the altar, these were most diligently sought after. Therefore, the Lord reproached them both for foolishness and deceit, because the temple is much greater than the gold that is sanctified by the temple, and the altar is greater than the offerings that are sanctified by the altar. But they did it not out of fear of God, but out of greed for riches.
23:23
(Verse 23.) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. Many precepts are given in the law that foreshadow future events. But others are open, according to the Psalmist, saying: The commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes (Psalm 19:8), which are immediately to be desired. For example, thou shalt not commit adultery: thou shalt not steal: thou shalt not bear false witness, etc. But the Pharisees, because the Lord had commanded (let us for the present leave out the mystical understanding) tithes to be offered in the temple for the maintenance of the priests and Levites, whose portion was the Lord’s, were studious in this one thing, that the commands should be observed: but as to the other matters, whether a man should do them or not, they made little account. And from this chapter it accuses them of greed, because they eagerly demand tithes even of cheap vegetables, and neglect justice in the handling of business disputes, and mercy towards the poor, orphans, and widows, and faith in God, which are great.
23:24