Ver. 1. And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,2. "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son,3. And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.4. Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage."5. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:6. And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.7. But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.8. Then saith he to his servants, "The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.9. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage."10. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.11. And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:12. And he saith unto him, "Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?" And he was speechless.13. Then said the king to the servants, "Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.14. For many are called, but few are chosen."
Chrys., Hom. lxix: Forasmuch as He had said, And it shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof," He now proceeds to shew what nation that is.
Gloss., interlin.: "Answered," that is, meeting their evil thoughts of putting Him to death.
Aug., de Cons. Ev., ii, 71: This parable is related only by Matthew. Luke gives one like it, but it is not the same, as the order shews.
Greg., Hom. in Ev., xxxviii, 2: Here, by the wedding-feast is denoted the present Church; there, by the supper, the last and eternal feast. For into this enter some who shall perish; into that whosoever has once entered in shall never be put forth. But if any should maintain that these are the same lessons, we may perhaps explain that that part concerning the guest who had come in without a wedding garment, which Luke has not mentioned, Matthew has related. That the one calls it supper, the other dinner, makes no difference; for with the ancients the dinner was at the ninth hour, and was therefore often called supper.
Origen: The kingdom of heaven, in respect of Him who reigns there, is like a king; in respect of Him who shares the kingdom, it is like a king’s son; in respect of those things which are in the kingdom, it is like servants and guests, and among them the king’s armies. It is specified, "A man that is a king," that what is spoken may be as by a man to men, and that a man may regulate men unwilling to be regulated by God. But the kingdom of heaven will then cease to be like a man, when zeal and contention and all other passions and sins having ceased, we shall cease to walk after men, and shall see Him as He is. For now we see Him not as He is, but as He has been made for us in our dispensation.
Greg: God the Father made a marriage feast for God the Son, when He joined Him to human nature in the womb of the Virgin. But far be it from us to conclude, that because marriage takes place between two separate persons, that therefore the person of our Redeemer was made up of two separate persons. We say indeed that He exists of two natures, and in two natures, but we hold it unlawful to believe that He was compounded of two persons. It is safer therefore to say, that the marriage feast was made by the King the Father for the King the Son when He joined to Him the Holy Church in the mystery of His incarnation. The womb of the Virgin Mother was the bridechamber of this Bridegroom.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: Otherwise; When the resurrection of the saints shall be, then the life, which is Christ, shall revive man, swallowing up his mortality in its own immortality. For now we receive the Holy Spirit as a pledge of the future union, but then we shall have Christ Himself more fully in us.
Origen: Or, by the marriage of Bridegroom with Bride, that is, of Christ with the soul, understand the Assumption of the Word, the produce whereof is good works.
Hilary: Rightly has the Father already made this wedding, because this eternal union and espousal of the new body is already perfect in Christ.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: When the servants were sent to call them, they must have been invited before. Men have been invited from the time of Abraham, to whom was promised Christ’s incarnation.
Jerome: "He sent his servant," without doubt Moses, by whom He gave the Law, to those who had been invited. But if you read "servants" as most copies have, it must be referred to the Prophets, by whom they were invited, but neglected to come. By the servants who were sent the second time, we may better understand the Prophets than the Apostles; that is to say, if servant is read in the first place; but if ’servants,’ then by the second servants are to be understood the Apostles;
Pseudo-Chrysostom: whom He sent when He said unto them, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." [[Mat 10:5]]
Origen: The servants who were first sent to call them that were bidden to the wedding, are to be taken as the Prophets converting the people by their prophecy to the festival of the restoration of the Church to Christ. They who would not come at the first message are they who refused to hear the words of the Prophets. The others who were sent a second time were another assembly of Prophets.
Hilary: Or; The servants who were first sent to call them that were bidden, are the Apostles; they who, being before bidden, are now invited to come in, are the people of Israel, who had before been bidden through the Law to the glories of eternity. To the Apostles therefore it belonged to remind those whom the Prophets had invited. Those sent with the second injunction are the Apostolic men their successors.
Greg: But because these who were first invited would not come to the feast, the second summons says, "Behold, I have prepared my dinner."
Jerome: The dinner that is prepared, the oxen and the fatlings that are killed, is either a description of regal magnificence by the way of metaphor, that by carnal things spiritual may be understood; or the greatness of the doctrines, and the manifold teaching of God in His law, may be understood.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: When therefore the Lord bade the Apostles, "Go ye and preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand," it was the same message as is here given, "I have prepared my dinner;" i. e. I have set out the table of Scripture out of the Law and the Prophets.
Gregory: By the oxen are signified the Fathers of the Old Testament; who by sufferance of the Law gored their enemies with the horn of bodily strength. By fatlings are meant fatted animals, for from ’alere’, comes ’altilia,’ as it were ’alitilia’ or ’alita.’ By the "fatlings" are intended the Fathers of the New Testament; who while they receive sweet grace of inward fattening, are raised by the wing of contemplation from earthly desires to things above.
He says therefore, "My oxen and my fatlings are killed;" as much as to say, Look to the deaths of the Fathers who have been before you, and desire some amendment of your lives.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: Otherwise; He says "oxen and fatlings," not as though the oxen were not fatted, but because all the oxen were not fat. Therefore the fatlings denote the Prophets who were filled with the Holy Spirit; the oxen those who were both Priests and Prophets, as Jeremiah and Ezekiel; for as the oxen are the leaders of the herd, so also the Priests are leaders of the people.
Hilary: Or otherwise; The oxen are the glorious army of Martyrs, offered, like choice victims, for the confession of God; the fatlings are spiritual men, as birds fed for flight upon heavenly food, that they may fill others with the abundance of the food they have eaten.
Gregory: It is to be observed, that in the first invitation nothing was said of the oxen or fatlings, but in the second it is announced that they are already killed, because Almighty God when we will not hear His words gives examples, that what we suppose impossible may become easy to us to surmount, when we hear that others have passed through it before us.
Origen: Or; The dinner which is prepared is the oracle of God; and so the more mighty of the oracles of God are the oxen; the sweet and pleasant are the fatlings. For if any one bring forward feeble words, without power, and not having strong force of reason, these are the lean things; the fatlings are when to the establishment of each proposition many examples are brought forward backed by reasonable proofs.
For example, supposing one holding discourse of chastity, it might well be represented by the turtle-dove; but should he bring forward the same holy discourse full of reasonable proof out of Scripture, so as to delight and strengthen the mind of his hearer, then he brings the dove fatted.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: That He says, "And all things are now ready," means, that all that is required to salvation is already filled up in the Scriptures; there the ignorant may find instruction; the self-willed may read of terrors; he who is in difficulty may there find promises to rouse him to activity.
Gloss., interlin.: Or, "All things are now ready," i.e. The entrance into the kingdom, which had been hitherto closed, is now ready through faith in My incarnation.
Pseudo-Chrysostom:, non occ. sed vid. Gloss. ord.: Or He says, "All things are now ready" which belong to the mystery of the Lord’s Passion, and our redemption. He says, "Come to the marriage," not with your feet, but with faith, and good conduct. "But they made light of it;" why they did so He shews when He adds, "And they went their way, one to his farm, another to his merchandize."
Chrysostom: These occupations seem to be entirely reasonable; but we learn hence, that however necessary the things that take up our time, we ought to prefer spiritual things to every thing beside. But it seems to me that they only pretended these engagements as a cloak for their disregard of the invitation.
Hilary: For men are taken up with worldly ambition as with a farm; and many through covetousness are engrossed with trafficking.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: Or otherwise; When we work with the labour of our hands, for example, cultivating our field or our vineyard, or any manufacture of wood or iron, we seem to be occupied with our "farm;" any other mode of getting money unattended with manual labour is here called "merchandize." O most miserable world! and miserable ye that follow it! The pursuits of this world have ever shut men out of life.
Gregory: Whosoever then intent upon earthly business, or devoted to the actions of this world, feigns to be meditating upon the mystery of the Lord’s Passion, and to be living accordingly, is he that refuses to come to the King’s wedding on pretext of going to his farm or his merchandize. Nay often, which is worse, some who are called not only reject the grace, but become persecutors, "And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them despitefully and slew them."
Pseudo-Chrysostom: Or, by the business of a farm, He denotes the Jewish populace, whom the delights of this world separated from Christ; by the excuse of merchandize, the Priests and other ministers of the Temple, who, coming to the service of the Law and the Temple through greediness of gain, have been shut out of the faith by covetousness. Of these He said not ’They were filled with envy,’ but "They made light of it." For they who through hate and spite crucified Christ, are they who were filled with envy; but they who being entangled in business did not believe on Him, are not said to have been filled with envy, but to have made light of it.
The Lord is silent respecting His own death, because He had spoken of it in the foregoing parable, but He shews forth the death of His disciples, whom after His ascension the Jews put to death, stoning Stephen and executing James the son of Alphaeus, for which things Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. And it is to be observed, that anger is attributed to God figuratively and not properly; He is then said to be angry when He punishes.
Jerome: When He was doing works of mercy, and bidding to His marriage-feast, He was called a man; now when He comes to vengeance, the man is dropped, and He is called only a King. [Source note: margin note: homin regi]
Origen: Let those who sin against the God of the Law, and the Prophets, and the whole creation, declare whether He who is here called man, and is said to be angry, is indeed the Father Himself. If they allow this, they will be forced to own that many things are said of Him applicable to the passible nature of man; not for that He has passions, but because He is represented to us after the manner of passible human nature. In this way we take God’s anger, repentance, and the other things of the like sort in the Prophets.
Jerome: By "His armies" we understand that Romans under Vespasian and Titus, who having slaughtered the inhabitants of Judaea, laid in ashes the faithless city.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: The Roman army is called God’s army; because "The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof;" [[Psa 24:1]] nor would the Romans have come to Jerusalem, had not the Lord stirred them thither.
Gregory: Or, The armies of our King are the legions of His Angels. He is said therefore to have sent His armies, and to have destroyed those murderers, because all judgment is executed upon men by the Angels. He destroys those murderers, when He cuts off persecutors; and burns up their city, because not only their souls, but the body of flesh they had tenanted, is tormented in the everlasting fire of hell.
Origen: Or, the city of those wicked men is in each doctrine the assembly of those who meet in the wisdom of the rulers of this world; which the King sets fire to and destroys, as consisting of evil buildings.
Gregory: But when He sees that His invitation is spurned at, He will not have His Son’s marriage-feast empty; the word of God will find where it may stay itself.
Origen: "He saith to His servants," that is, to the Apostles; or to the Angels, who were set over the calling of the Gentiles, "The wedding is ready."
Remigius: That is, the whole sacrament of the human dispensation is completed and closed. "But they which were bidden," that is the Jews, "were not worthy," because, "ignorant of the righteousness God, and going about to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. [[Rom 10:3]]
The Jewish nation then being rejected, the Gentile people were taken in to the marriage-feast; whence it follows, "Go ye out into the crossings of the streets, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the wedding."
Jerome: For the Gentile nation was not in the streets, but in the crossings of the streets.