Deception and the Severity of Christ

Some are deceiving the many by using the name of truth and of Christians; for this is the weed that grows among the wheat through corruption, bearing some appearance of the truth of the wheat. He says this will grieve, and the invisible powers will be favorable toward me as they wish, and will make invisible those who find them, namely those who remain in faith; but I will prevent this from happening through these strangers to the faith, lest the opponents, thinking that the Christians are being punished by the demons because of this being thought common to the designation, should dare to maltreat them because of the audacity, and because they teach everyone to stand away from idols, they should be alienated from piety, and as a result, the gathering of the pious should be diminished by the many fleeing from Christianity in ignorance of what is happening.

And what, when the servants having approached depart, does he answer them? He says to the one the reason for the arrangement, and to the other the reason for the forgiveness; for even when he reproduces the conversation of the parables, he gives the probable through the parables, so that they might seem to be perfect in the order of the narrative. Our task was to examine what he intends to signify through the parable.

40 Matthew 21:12 It is a more severe work being done not in the gentleness of speech, since he also drove out those who were trading and overturned the tables; and even according to the prophetic word he did nothing by violence, according to 'he will not fight nor cry out' and 'his voice will not be heard in the streets.' And John said that he 'made a scourge of cords'; and this is a sign of rebuke and severity. Therefore, this too must be counted among the symbols; for he did not strike anyone with a scourge, but it was a sign of the lash being brought upon those who use worldly things for the sake of God's things.

42 Matthew 22:16 They say that the Herodians are the soldiers of Herod or those demanding the taxes imposed on the Jews by the Romans.

For it is much better to cleanse the vessel of justice by the water, just as it was upon the men themselves (Mt 23:25). The righteous were bodily clean, those being cleansed by the waters, as David says, 'I will wash my hands in innocents' (Ps 26:6), so as to be in accordance with both the law and the Lord.

He calls the period from the ascension into the heavens until his own presence an 'abroad-going' (Mt 25:14–18), in which it seems for us to remain. The 'immediately' signifies the urgency, as it is necessary to work the things of God. The difference between five talents and two talents and one is that of ministry, so to speak—bishop, presbyter, deacon; for the amount of the talent shows more or less of the ministry. Therefore he rightly said to each according to his own power, so that it might happen that each is able to fulfill the ministry in proportion to what was entrusted to him; for he wishes to show that he also requires readiness from all, and he is rewarded similarly.

To show the doubling of what was given, he calls the displaying of what is proper with haste to be the cause of becoming a benefit to others (Mt 25:20–25), instead of which he says he will make him ruler over many as a fitting reward: 'for this is that I will make you ruler over many' (Mt 25:21). To condemn, he said it is the not displaying of what is due, but working the given grace as if it were vanished.

He named the resurrection the Kingdom of the Father (Mt 26:29), from which both the kingdom approached him and this fellowship approached the rest of mankind. And what is new, instead of the 'new'—being both incorruptible and not needing food? Even that must not be wondered at, how the Lord appears to be in agony according to the human nature (Mt 26:37), even though the disciples were rejoicing over those things which he had often suffered. Just as, being able to overcome death himself, he withdrew for the sake of the salvation of the world, so also, to struggle according to human nature, he continued struggling, persuading them not to think any passion to be something else, but truth, and especially being able to easily lead their understanding into that imminent resurrection.