Remigius: These are the errors of the gentiles.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: Or; The streets are all the professions of this world, as philosophy, soldiery, and the like. And therefore He says, "Go out into the crossings of the streets," that they may call to the faith men of every condition. Moreover, as chastity is the way that leads to God, so fornication is the way that leads to the Devil; and so it is in the other virtues and vices. Thus He bids them invite to the faith men of every profession or condition.
Hilary: By the street also is to be understood the time of this world, and they are therefore bid to go to the crossings of the streets, because the past is remitted to all.
Gregory: Or otherwise; In holy Scripture, way is taken to mean actions; so that the crossings of the ways we understand as failure in action, for they usually come to God readily, who have had little prosperity in worldly actions.
Origen: Or otherwise; I suppose this first bidding to the wedding to have been a bidding of some of the more noble minds. For God would have those before all come to the feast of the divine oracles who are of the more ready wit to understand them; and forasmuch as they who are such are loth to come to that kind of summons, other servants are sent to move them to come, and to promise that they shall find the dinner prepared. For as in the things of the body, one is the bride, others the inviters to the feast, and they that are bidden are others again; so God knows the various ranks of souls, and their powers, and the reasons why these are taken into the condition of the Bride, others in the rank of the servants that call, and others among the number of those that are bidden as guests. But they who had been thus especially invited contemned the first inviters as poor in understanding, and went their way, following their own devices, as more delighting in them than in those things which the King by his servants promised. Yet are these more venial than they who ill-treat and put to death the servants sent unto them; those, that is, who daringly assail with weapons of contentious words the servants sent, who are unequal to solve their subtle difficulties, and those are illtreated or put to death by them.
The servants going forth are either Christ’s Apostles going from Judaea and Jerusalem, or the Holy Angels from the inner worlds, and going to the various ways of various manners, gathered together whomsoever they found, not caring whether before their calling they had been good or bad.
By the good here we may understand simply the more humble and upright of those who come to the worship of God, to whom agreed what the Apostle says, "When the Gentile which have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law, they are a law unto themselves." [[Rom 2:14]]
Jerome: For there is an infinite difference among the Gentiles themselves; some are more prone to vice, others are endowed with more incorrupt and virtuous manners.
Gregory: Or; He means that in this present Church there cannot be bad without good, nor good without bad. He is not good who refuses to endure the bad.
Origen: The marriage-feast of Christ and the Church is filled, when they who were found by the Apostles, being restored to God, sat down to the feast. But since it behoved that both bad and good should be called, not that the bad should continue bad, but that they should put off the garments unmeet for the wedding, and should put on the marriage garments, to wit, bowels of mercy and kindness, for this cause the King goes out, that He may see them set down before the supper is set before them, that they may be detained who have the wedding garment in which He is delighted, and that he may condemn the opposite.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: "The King came in to see the guests;" not as though there was any place where He is not; but where He will look to give judgment, there He is said to be present; where He will not, there He seems to be absent. The day of His coming to behold is the day of judgment, when He will visit Christians seated at the board of the Scriptures.
Origen: But when He was come in, He found there one who had not put off his old behaviour; "He saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment." He speaks of one only, because all, who after faith continue to serve that wickedness which they had before the faith, are but of one kind.
Gregory: What ought we to understand by the wedding garment, but charity? For this the Lord had upon Him, when He came to espouse the Church to Himself. He then enters in to the wedding feast, but without the wedding garment, who has faith in the Church, but not charity.
Aug., cont. Faust., xxii, 19: Or, he goes to the feast without a garment, who goes seeking his own, and not the Bridegroom’s honour.
Hilary: Or; The wedding garment is the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the purity of that heavenly temper, which taken up on the confession of a good enquiry is to be preserved pure and unspotted for the company of the Kingdom of heaven.
Jerome: Or; The marriage garment is the commandments of the Lord, and the works which are done under the Law and the Gospel, and form the clothing of the new man. Whoso among the Christian body shall be found in the day of judgment not to have these, is straightway condemned. "He saith unto him, Friend, How camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment?" He calls him "friend," because he was invited to the shredding as being a friend by faith; but He charges him with want of manners in polluting by his filthy dress the elegance of the wedding entertainment.
Origen: And forasmuch as he who is in sin, and puts not on the Lord Jesus Christ, has no excuse, it follows, "But he was speechless."
Jerome: For in that day there will be no room for blustering manner [Source note: [marg. note: al. peonitentiae] , nor power of denial, when all the Angels and the world itself are witnesses against the sinner.
Origen: He who has thus insulted the marriage feast is not only cast out therefrom, but besides by the King’s officers, who are set over his prisons, is chained up from that power of walking which he employed not to walk to any good thing, and that power of reaching forth his hand, wherewith he had fulfilled no work for any good; and is sentenced to a place whence all light is banished, which is called "outer darkness."
Gregory: The hands and feet are then bound by a severe sentence of judgment, which before refused to be bound from wicked actions by amendment of life. Or punishment binds them, whom sin had before bound from good works.
Aug, de Trin. xi, 6: The bonds of wicked and depraved desires are the chains which bind him who deserves to be cast out into outer darkness.
Gregory: By inward darkness we express blindness, of heart; "outer darkness" signifies the everlasting night of damnation.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: Or, it points to the difference of punishment inflicted on sinners. Outer darkness being the deepest, inward darkness the lesser, as it were the out- skirts of the place.
Jerome: By a metaphor taken from the body, "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth," is shewn the greatness of the torments. The binding of the hands and feet also, and the weeping of eyes, and the gnashing of teeth, understand as proving the truth of the resurrection of the body.
Gregory: There shall gnash those teeth which here delighted in gluttony; there shall weep those eyes which here roamed in illicit desire; every member shall there have its peculiar punishment, which here was a slave to its peculiar vice.
Jerome: And because in the marriage and supper the chief thing is the end and not the beginning, therefore He adds, "For many are called, but few chosen."
Hilary: For to invite all without exception is a courtesy of public benevolence; but out of the invited or called, the election will be of worth, by distinction of merit.
Gregory: For some never begin a good course, and some never continue in that good course which they have begun. Let each one’s care about himself be in proportion to his ignorance of what is yet to come.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: Or otherwise; Whenever God will try His Church, He enters into it that He may see the guests; and if He finds any one not having on the wedding garment, He enquires of him, How then were you made a Christian, if you neglect these works? Such a one Christ gives over to His ministers, that is, to seducing leaders, who bind his hands, that is, his works, and his feet, that is, the motions of his mind, and cast him into darkness, that is, into the errors of the Gentiles or the Jews, or into heresy. The nigher darkness is that of the Gentiles, for they have never heard the truth which they despise; the outer darkness is that of the Jews, who have heard but do not believe; the outermost is that of the heretics, who have heard and have learned.
Ver. 15. Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.16. And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, "Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.17. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cesar, or not?"18. But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, "Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?19. Shew me the tribute money." And they brought unto him a penny.20. And he saith unto them, "Whose is this image and superscription?"21. They say unto him, "Caesar’s." Then saith he unto them, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s."22. When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: As when one seeks to dam a stream of running water, as soon as one outlet is stopped up it makes another channel for itself; so the malevolence of the Jews, foiled on one hand, seeks itself out another course.
"Then went the Pharisees; went" to the Herodians. Such as the plan was, such were the planners; "They send unto Him their disciples with the Herodians."
Gloss. ord.: Who as unknown to Him, were more likely to ensnare Him, and so through them they might take Him, which they feared to do of themselves because of the populace.
Jerome: Lately under Caesar Augustus, Judaea, which was subject to the Romans, had been made tributary when the census was held of the whole world; and there was a great division among the people, some saying that tribute ought to be paid to the Romans in return for the security and quiet which their arms maintained for all. The Pharisees on the other hand, self- satisfied in their own righteousness, contended that the people of God who paid tithes and gave first-fruits, and did all the other things which are written in the Law, ought not to be subject to human laws.
But Augustus had given the Jews as king, Herod, son of Antipater, a foreigner and proselyte; he was to exact the tribute, yet to be subject to the Roman dominion. The Pharisees therefore send their disciples with the Herodians, that is, with Herod’s soldiers, or those whom the Pharisees in mockery called Herodians, because they paid tribute to the Romans, and were not devoted to the worship of God.
Chrys., Hom. lxx: They send their disciples and Herod’s soldiers together, that whatever opinion He might give might be found fault with. Yet would they rather have had Him say somewhat against the Herodians; for being themselves afraid to lay hands on Him because of the populace, they sought to bring Him into danger through His liability to pay tribute.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: This is the commonest act of hypocrites, to commend those they would ruin. Thus, these break out into praises of Him, saying, "Master, we know that Thou art true." They call Him Master, that, deceived by this shew of honour and respect, He might in simplicity open all His heart to them, as seeking to gain them for disciples.
Gloss., non occ.: There are three ways in which it is possible for one not to teach the truth. First, on the side of the teacher, who may either not know, or not love the truth; guarding against this, they say, "We know that Thou art true."
Secondly, on the side of God, there are some who, putting aside all fear of Him, do not utter honestly the truth which they know respecting Him; to exclude this they say, "And teachest the way of God in truth."
Thirdly, on the side of our neighbour, when through fear or affection any one withholds the truth; to exclude this they say, "And carest for no man," for Thou regardest not the person of man.
Chrysostom: This was a covert allusion to Herod and Caesar.
Jerome: This smooth and treacherous enquiry was a kind of challenge to the answerer to fear God rather than Caesar, and immediately they say, "Tell us therefore, what thinkest Thou? Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?"
Should He say tribute should not be paid, the Herodians would immediately accuse Him as a person disaffected to the Emperor.
Chrysostom: They knew that certain had before suffered death for this very thing, as plotting a rebellion against the Romans, therefore they sought by such discourse to bring Him into the same suspicion.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: He makes an answer not corresponding to the smooth tone of their address, but harsh, suitable to their cruel thoughts; for God answers men’s hearts, and not their words.