The accursed fig-tree (Notes)

Saint Matthew - Chapter 21

[Monday]

A  fig-tree in the valley of Hinnom. J-J Tissot

[17] Et relictis illis, abiit foras extra civitatem in Bethaniam : ibique mansit.
And leaving them, he went out of the city into Bethania, and remained there.

And He left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and He lodged there. Syriac and Arabic, He passed the night at Bethany. See here the ingratitude and fickleness of the people: for those who that very morning had cried to Christ Hosanna, on the evening of the same day forsake Christ for fear of the Scribes, so that no one was found to invite Him to hospitality. Therefore Christ was forced to go out of the city to Martha and Magdalene, his hostesses at Bethany.

[18] Mane autem revertens in civitatem, esuriit.
And in the morning, returning into the city, he was hungry.

Now in the morning as He returned into the city, he hungered. This, therefore, took place on the day after Palm Sunday, on Monday, the eleventh day of Nisan, the first month; which is, according to our reckoning, the twenty-first of March. For three days afterwards (namely, on Friday in the Paschal season, which fell that year on the twenty-fifth day of March) Christ was crucified and offered up.

He hungered. Not with natural hunger, but with hunger voluntarily excited, say S. Chrysostom and Abulensis (quœst. 103). For it was morning, and Christ had supped with Martha the evening previous; so that He would not so soon again be hungry. He stirred up, therefore, this hunger in Himself, that by it He might have occasion to curse the unfruitful fig tree. Wherefore, also, He sought figs upon it, although He knew that the time of figs was not yet, as Mark has (11:13). For this was the twenty-first of March, as I have said, at which time there are no figs.

Observe: this hunger of Christ and the withering of the fig tree were before He cast out of the Temple the buyers and sellers. For He did this on this same Monday, but after the withering of the fig tree, as appears from Mark 11:14, &c., where he assigns the actions of Christ to the several days on which they were done.

[19] Et videns fici arborem unam secus viam, venit ad eam : et nihil invenit in ea nisi folia tantum, et ait illi : Numquam ex te fructus nascatur in sempiternum. Et arefacta est continuo ficulnea.
And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, he came to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only, and he saith to it: May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And immediately the fig tree withered away.

And when He saw a fig tree in the way, He came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away. Christ cursed the fig tree, and dried it up, that He might manifest His power, by which He was able in like manner to destroy and wither up the Scribes and the Jews, His enemies, if He wished; and to show that He would shortly suffer the Cross and death at their hands, not against His will, but voluntarily. Note that this curse of Christ was not done proprie, but by catachresis, abusive. For this malediction only signifies that Christ prayed for evil—i.e., withering for the fig tree—which it is lawful, especially to Christ, for a sufficient reason to pray for, for inanimate things; for to Him belong all the trees and farms of all men. See what has been said (Jeremiah 20:14, and Job 3:1). In like manner, S. Francis cursed a juniper tree planted by blessed Juniper, one of his first companions, in punishment of his disobedience. From thenceforward, this tree did not grow a nail’s breadth after the day in which it was planted in the ground. This tree is still visited at Carinula, or Calenum, a town of Campania Felix, near Mondragonium, in a monastery of the Friars Minor. For blessed Juniper was busy planting this tree, and being called by S. Francis, he delayed obeying the call until he had finished his work. S. Francis cursed the tree because it had been an occasion and object of disobedience, and bade it grow no more; and so it straightway happened that the tree obeyed the saint, in order to teach men the evil of disobedience. So Wadding (in Annal. Minorum, A.D. 1222, num. 11).

May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. J-J Tissot

[20] Et videntes discipuli, mirati sunt, dicentes : Quomodo continuo aruit?
And the disciples seeing it wondered, saying: How is it presently withered away?

And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away! The Vulg. omits fig tree, which is found in the Greek and Syriac. This took place on the following day, for Christ on the Monday returning from Bethany to Jerusalem cursed the fig tree: after that He cast out the buyers from the Temple, and taught there: in the evening He returned from the city to Bethany: on the Tuesday morning, as the disciples were returning with Him from Bethany to Jerusalem, they saw the fig tree dried up, and then they cried in wonder, How immediately is it dried up! That this is the order in which the events happened is plain from Mark 11:19, 20.

Symbolically: Christ cursed the fig tree, because a fig was the tree which God forbade, of which Adam ate, and ruined himself and his posterity, as the learned men whom I have cited (Gen. 2:9) think with probability.

Allegorically: the withered fig tree denotes the Jews, who when Christ came, being unbelieving, lost the sap of faith and grace, and so bring forth no fruits of good works. Thus Origen.

Tropologically: the fig tree, full of leaves but without figs, denotes believers who have the leaves of a profession of the faith but lack the solid fruit of virtues, and so will be cursed by Christ. Thus Origen.

[21] Respondens autem Jesus, ait eis : Amen dico vobis, si habueritis fidem, et non haesitaveritis, non solum de ficulnea facietis, sed et si monti huic dixeritis : Tolle, et jacta te in mare, fiet.
And Jesus answering, said to them: Amen, I say to you, if you shall have faith, and stagger not, not only this of the fig tree shall you do, but also if you shall say to this mountain, Take up and cast thyself into the sea, it shall be done.

Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith (that excellent and efficacious faith, like a grain of mustard seed, of which, chap. 17:19) and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree (that which ye see has been done by Me, as is plain from the Greek), but also ye shall say to this mountain, Lift up (viz. thyself, as follows, in the Greek ἄρθητι, i.e., as the Syriac, be lifted up, be rooted up out of the earth) and be thou cast (Gr. βλήθητι, Syr. fall) into the sea, it shall be done. And shall not hesitate, Gr. μὴ διακριθῆτε, i.e., shall not dispute, as doubting and hesitating; shall not distinguish whether what ye ask be easy, or hard to be done. For many, because they think what they ask arduous and difficult, are in doubt whether they shall obtain it from God, and so do not obtain it. But they do not distinguish between easy and difficult, thinking that what is difficult to them is easy to God, and who therefore rely on the Divine Omnipotence, goodness and promise, by which He has promised that we shall obtain from Him all things which we ask of Him with certain faith and confidence; wherefore, I say, they lift up their minds and hopes above their infirmity, and set them upon God, certainly expecting from Him the end and fruit of their prayer; such, I say obtain whatsoever and how much soever they ask of Him. This mountain, Olivet, for Jesus, proceeding by it to Jerusalem, there spake these things. So Abulensis (quæst. 134), Franc. Lucas and others. Other things which pertain to this subject I have spoken of, chapter 17:19.

The Holy Family in Nazareth. J-J Tissot

So on account of the infidelity of the Turks who are masters of the Holy Land, the Angels, A.D. 1291, transferred from Galilee and Nazareth the house of the Blessed Virgin (in which she, the angel announcing it, conceived the Son of God), to Dalmatia;

and subsequently, A.D. 1294, to Italy (Lauretum), where is the seat and the head of the faith and the faithful; 

and therefore on account of that faith it works in the same place innumerable miracles, which our Horace Turselli relates in his History of Loretto.

[22] Et omnia quaecumque petieritis in oratione credentes, accipietis.
And in all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.

And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. Believing, i.e., if ye shall believe and be confident that ye shall obtain those things from God, according to James 1:6. “Let him ask in faith, nothing doubting.” See what is there said.

Well speaks S. Bernard (Serm. 15 in Psal. Qui habitat), expounding tropologically the words of God to Joshua, chap. 1. “Whatsoever place your foot shall tread upon shall be yours.” “Your foot,” he says “is your faith, and let it go as far as it will, it shall obtain, if so be that it be fixed wholly upon God, that it be firm, and stumble not.” The reason a priori is the liberality and munificence of God, which does not suffer itself to be surpassed by our hope, but far surpasses and transcends it.

Excerpt from The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ by J-J Tissot (1897)

Judæa is the land of the fig-tree, and throughout the whole year its foliage beautifies the lower districts of the valleys near the springs and watercourses.  On the slopes of the mountains, too, the fig-trees make patches of shade in the fields of wheat and barley, and even on the mountain tops they occur amongst the olives, to bear witness to the ownership of man and to the wealth of cultivation throughout the entire country.  Travellers recognise three varieties of the fig-tree in Judæa, and these three are also referred to in the Talmud.  First, there are the black or white figs, which are ripe in the month of June; then the summer figs, which ripen in August, and it was doubtless beneath the tree of this second kind, during the time of vintage, that Jesus first saw Nathanael, when one look from Him changed his very soul.  Lastly there are the long shaped violet fixgs which remain on the trees all the winter and are not gathered until the spring.  Most of these trees, if they are sheltered from the winter, retain their foliage throughout the bad season unless the winter should be unusually severe, and the fig-tree of Egypt, thanks to the exceptional climate of the Delta and the constant humidity of the soil, sometimes yields seven crops in one year.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam