St Matthew Chapter XVI : Verses 1-12
Contents
- Matt. xvi. 1-12. Douay-Rheims text & Latin text (Vulgate).
- Notes on the text.
- Additional Notes: signs and portents ; the leaven of the Pharisees.
Matt. xvi. 1-12
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| The Pharisees and Sadducees tempting. J-J Tissot. Brooklyn Museum. |
Et accesserunt ad eum pharisæi et sadducæi tentantes : et rogaverunt eum ut signum de cælo ostenderet eis.
2 But he answered and said to them: When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.
At ille respondens, ait illis : Facto vespere dicitis : Serenum erit, rubicundum est enim cælum.
3 And in the morning: Today there will be a storm, for the sky is red and lowering. You know then how to discern the face of the sky: and can you not know the signs of the times?
Et mane : Hodie tempestas, rutilat enim triste cælum. Faciem ergo cæli dijudicare nostis : signa autem temporum non potestis scire?
4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign: and a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. And he left them, and went away.
Generatio mala et adultera signum quærit : et signum non dabitur ei, nisi signum Jonæ prophetæ. Et relictis illis, abiit.
5 And when his disciples were come over the water, they had forgotten to take bread.
Et cum venissent discipuli ejus trans fretum, obliti sunt panes accipere.
6 Who said to them: Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Qui dixit illis : Intuemini, et cavete a fermento pharisæorum et sadducæorum.
7 But they thought within themselves, saying: Because we have taken no bread.
At illi cogitabant intra se dicentes : Quia panes non accepimus.
8 And Jesus knowing it, said: Why do you think within yourselves, O ye of little faith, for that you have no bread?
Sciens autem Jesus, dixit : Quid cogitatis intra vos modicæ fidei, quia panes non habetis?
9 Do you not yet understand, neither do you remember the five loaves among five thousand men, and how many baskets you took up?
Nondum intelligitis, neque recordamini quinque panum in quinque millia hominum, et quot cophinos sumpsistis?
10 Nor the seven loaves among four thousand men, and how many baskets you took up?
neque septem panum in quatuor millia hominum, et quot sportas sumpsistis?
11 Why do you not understand that it was not concerning the bread I said to you: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees?
Quare non intelligitis, quia non de pane dixi vobis : Cavete a fermento pharisæorum et sadducæorum?
12 Then they understood that he said not that they should beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Tunc intellexerunt quia non dixerit cavendum a fermento panum, sed a doctrina pharisæorum et sadducæorum.
Notes
Note. — As regards matter we have a similar passage in St Luke (xii. 54-56), but as the wording and the context are different, we may conclude that the two Evangelists do not relate the same incident. In the third gospel the clouds are given as a prognostic of good or bad weather, and the words are addressed to the multitudes. The passage runs thus: And he said also to the multitudes: When you see a cloud rising from the west, presently you say : A shower is coming, and so it happeneth : And when ye see the south wind blow, you say : There will he heat, and it cometh to pass, etc.
1. Pharisees and Sadducees. These sects were now for the first time uniting in their hostility to Christ.
They probably came forth from Bethsaida or Capharnauni, where they seemed to have taken up their temporary abode. From the watch-towers of Magdala they may have seen Jesus and His disciples approaching.
tempting. This word is colourless ; literally it signifies to try, to test : it may be used in a good or bad sense. The Pharisees, however, were tempting our Lord, with the foregone conclusion to condemn Him, and thus lower His prestige in the eyes of the people.
asked him, etc. They had evidently agreed together to ask for a sign from heaven, some miraculous portent in the heavens, as a proof that His claims were legitimate. This proposition would have originated with the Pharisees, since the Sadducees did not believe in portents. Had Jesus given them a sign, they would have attributed it to diabolical agency.
a sign from heaven. Asked as a condition of their allegiance. Thus Satan had promised : All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me (supra, iv. 9). And the multitude who mocked Jesus in His agony likewise asked for a sign : Let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him (infra, xxvii. 42).
2. But he answered and said, etc. St Mark prefaces our Lord’s answer with these words : And sighing deeply in spirit, he saith. Why doth this generation seek a sign ? Amen I say to you, a sign shall not be given to this generation.
Our Lord was grieved at —
(а) Their incredulity and jealousy.
(b) Their rejection of His claims.
(c) The guilt they thus incurred.
When it is evening. Jesus reproaches them with being able to read the face of the heavens, whilst they were unable to discern the meaning of what was passing around them.
“ Rabbinical schools made a point of teaching weather-lore : prognostications on this subject were greatly in vogue, and the rains of the coming year w'ere annually foretold.”
It will he fair weather, etc. The passage runs literally : “ Fair weather ; the sky glows” (Εὐδία, πυρράζει γὰρ ὁ οὐρανός).
3. in the morning. Lit. “early in the day” (πρωΐ·), corresponding to “ mane ” in Latin.
To-day there will he a storm. Better, “ To-day, a storm ” (Σήμερον χειμών)
lowering. (στυγνάζων) The word originally denotes a sullen countenance ; hence it is applied metaphorically to the heavens overcast with dark clouds.
The word occurs in St Mark, where the rich young man is said to have been struck sad (στυγνάσας) when asked to give up his wealth (x. 22).
4. A wicked and adulterous, etc. He speaks here not only of those present, but of the Jews as a race. On other occasions He had been asked to work some miracle as a sign of His divine authority ; e.g. after the first cleansing of the Temple, Jesus was asked. What sign dost thou shew unto us, seeing thou dost these things ? (St John ii. 18).
a sign shall not he given it. No sign was to be given, other than those signs of the times which they could all see. Jesus referred to such signs as —
(а) The sceptre had passed from Juda.
(b) The seventy weeks of Daniel were accomplished.
(c) The Incarnation had taken place.
(d) .le.sus had been born at Bethlehem.
(e) He had been called out of Egypt.
(f) The Innocents had suffered martyrdom.
(g) St John the Baptist had come in the spirit and power of Elias.
(h) The blind, deaf, dumb, etc. were healed, and the dead were raised to life.
the sign of Jonas. This is more fully explained by our Lord in another passage.
he left them. He recrossed the lake in the direction of Bethsaida Julias. Cf. And leaving them, he went up again into the ship, and passed to the other side of the water (St Mark). Jesus left Galilee, never to return as a teacher. He went there once later, but secretly : They passed through Galilee, and he would not that any man should know it (St Mark).
5. forgotten to take bread. That is, sufficient bread, for they had but one loaf with them in the ship (St Mark), Their departure had probably been hurried. The words may refer to their having forgotten to take food either —
(a) When they took ship after the miracle of feeding the four thousand.
(b) When they landed on the western side.
(c) When they recrossed to the eastern side, after our Lord’s answer to the Pharisees.
6. of the Pharisees and Sadducees, — i.e. of their false principles, and of their spirit of hypocrisy and worldliness, which led them to pay great attention to ceremonial observances, and to place them before the Laws of God. Thus they refused to eat with unwashed hands, but had no scruples about plotting against our Lord’s life.
7. they thought within themselves. Better, “ they reasoned in themselves” (οἱ δὲ διελογίζοντο ἐν ἑαυτοῖς) ; also they reasoned among themselves (St Mark). They questioned one another, and taking the words literally, imagined that our Lord was either reproaching them for having neglected to take provisions, or that He forbade them to use bread which had been leavened according to the Pharisees’ traditions and prescriptions.
8. Jesus knowing it. As He knew the thoughts of all men.
Why do you think, etc.? In St Mark’s account, before reminding the disciples of the two previous miracles, we find our Lord saying to them. Have you still your heart blinded ? Having eyes, see you not ? and having ears, hear you not ?
9. Do you not yet understand ? This is another rebuke for their dulness of comprehension (see xv. 16), and also for their solicitude about temporal matters. Though in that part of Galilee, to which they were going, it was difficult to obtain food, still the disciples ought to have trusted to their Master, and to have believed that, if necessary. He would have worked a miracle in their favour. The disciples lacked spiritual insight and confidence in Christ. Jesus reminded them of His miracles in order to animate their faith.
12. the doctrine. The disciples had at last grasped the truth inculcated by Jesus. Our Lord here drops the metaphor of “leaven.” A similar passage is found in ch. xvii. : Then the disciples understood that he had spoken to them of John the Bapjtist (verse 13). We frequently find the opposite statement made : They understood not the word (St Mark ix. 31. See also St Luke ii. 50, ix. 45 ; St John viii. 27, x. 6).
Additional Notes
The Pharisees would have taken the initiative, since the Sadducees rejected “ signs and portents ” : here they apparently put aside their differences as regards creeds, and origin, they would then accept Him as the Messias. The Pharisees also naturally called to mind the signs worked by prophets of old. Thus in the Old Testament we read that—
(a) Moses obtained three days of “ horrible darkness ”as a punishment upon the Egyptians. He likewise procured the Israelites manna from heaven.
(b) Josue stayed the sun and moon.
(c) Samuel brought down a violent thunder and hail storm in time of harvest. “A bolt from the blue.”
(d) Elias called down fire on the sacrifice, and also on the two bands of men sent to take him.
(e) Isaias brought back the shadow on the king’s dial.
1. Came to him .... tempting. Lit. “ trying Him,” as the word primarily means. Custom has now given to this word a bad meaning, but originally it was neutral, and simply meant “ to test, to prove,” without reference to the motive of the trial. In Holy Scripture we find the word used in different senses, thus : —
(a) “God tempted Abraham, and said to him; Abraham, Abraham. And he answered : Here I am ” (Gen. xxii. 1). God’s object in tempting man is clearly, not that He may know their dispositions, since He is omniscient, but that he may exercise and strengthen men’s virtues and render them evident to their fellows.
Christ also tried Philip’s faith when He said, “ Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this he said to try him (tentans eum, Vulgate), for he himself knew what he would do ” (St John vi. 6, 6).
(b) Men “tempt” God when —
(1) they ask for visible proofs of His power or presence,(2) they doubt His goodness,(3) they rashly expose themselves to danger, and(4) they defy His judgments.
Thus, God speaking to the Israelites concerning “ the provocation in the wilderness,” refers to the time when “ your fathers tempted me, they proved me, and saw my works” (Ps. xciv. 9). Man may sometimes, without sin, ask God for a sign of His will, as Gideon did when he asked that the fleece might be wet and the ground around dry.
(c) Satan tempts man. In this case there is always solicitation to evil. Our Lord teaches us to pray against Satan’s “insidious suggestions,” “Lead us not into temptation.”
4. A wicked and adulterous generation, — i.e. attached fondly to the world and its pleasures, and alienated from God. The Church is called the “ Bride of Christ.” Unfaithfulness to the Bridegroom is a kind of adultery. The same simile is used in the Old Testament —
“ And the word of the Lord came to me saying ; Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying : Thus saith the Lord, I have remembered thee, pitying thy youth, and the love of thy espousals, when thou follow'edst me in the, desert, in a land that is not sown ” (Jer. ii. 2). Also St Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says, “I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. xi. 2).
The Leaven of the Pharisees.
On Leaven. This word was generally considered by the rabbis as symbolical of corrupt or false principles. This view probably arose from the fact that the Jews were forbidden to partake of leavened bread or even to have it in their bouses during the Paschal season. As leaven permeates the dough, so principles influence doctrines.
(1) Examples of ‘ ‘ leaven ” used in a bad sense : —
“ Your glorying is not good. Know you not that a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump ? Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are unleavened. For Christ our pasch is sacrificed ” (1 Cor. v. 6, 7). “ A little leaven corrupteth the whole lump ” (Gal. V. 9).
(2) Example of ‘^leaven ” used in a good sense : —
Another parable he spoke to them ; The kingdom of heaven is like to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened” (St Matt. xiii. 33).
In warning His apostles against the “ leaven of the Pharisees,” Jesus was not referring to all their doctrines, and certainly not to those which were based on the law of Moses, since He Himself taught His disciples to respect their teaching on these points. “ The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not: for they say, and do not” (St Matt. xxiii. 2, 3). Our Lord refers to their hypocritical spirit and their formalism, and to those traditions by which they rendered void the law of God.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
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