Commentary on Matthew

Matthew 3

68 ST. JEROME Chapter 3 3.2. “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” First, John the Baptist proclaims the kingdom of heaven, so that the Lord’s precursor might be honored with this privilege. 3.3 “For this is he who was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, who said: ‘A voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” He was preparing the souls of believers in which the Lord would walk. Thus the pure one would walk upon very pure ways, and say: “I shall dwell in them and I shall walk about and I shall be their God, and they shall be my people.”54 Porphyry55 compares that passage to the beginning of the evangelist Mark, in which it is written: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; just as it is written in the prophet Isaiah: ‘Behold, I am sending my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, a voice of one crying in the desert : Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”56 For since the testimony is woven together from Malachi and Isaiah,57 he asks how we can think the citation has been taken from Isaiah alone. Men of the Church58 have responded to him in great detail .59 My opinion is either that the name of Isaiah was added by a mistake of the copyists, which we can prove has happened even in other passages, or at least that one unit has been created out of diverse scriptural testimonies. Read the thirteenth Psalm and you shall discover this same thing.60 54. Lv 26.12; 2 Cor 6.16. 55. Porphyry (232–305), a disciple of Plotinus, was a prestigious Neoplatonic philosopher and historical critic, who in 268 wrote in fifteen books a ferocious attack, entitled Against the Christians, in which he tried to point out the contradictions in the Christian Scriptures. 56. Mk 1.1–2. Cf. Jerome’s Homily 75(I) on the beginning of the Gospel of St. Mark (1.1–12) in FOTC 57, 122. 57. Cf. Mal 3.1; Is 40.3. 58. Origen uses the term “man of the Church” (ἐκκλησιαστικὸς ἀνὴρ), as opposed to a follower of heretics, in Hom. in Lk. 16.6. 59. Porphyry’s work was refuted by Methodius of Olympus, Apollinaris of Laodicea, and more thoroughly by Eusebius of Caesarea (Preparation of the Gospel , Demonstration of the Gospel, and another work that is lost). 60. Jerome seems to be referring to the way in which Paul, in Rom 3.10–12, cites Ps 14.3 at the head of a unit that comprises a string of other OT texts. BOOK ONE (1.1–10.42) 69 3.4. But John himself had clothing made of camels’ hair and a leather girdle about his loins. It says he had [clothing made] “of hair,” not of wool. The former is an indication of austere dress, the latter of luxury and softness. The leather girdle, too, with which Elijah was girded61 is a σύμβολον [symbol] of mortification. What comes next: 3.4. His food was locusts and wild honey agrees well with his solitary abode. Thus he was satisfying not the [desire for the] delights of foods but the necessity of [our] human flesh. 3.9. “God is able to raise up sons for Abraham from these stones.” He calls the pagans stones on account of their hardness of heart. Read Ezekiel, who says: “I shall remove from you the heart of stone, and I shall give a heart of flesh.”62 Hardness is shown by stone, and tenderness by flesh. Or it may simply indicate the power of God, that he who made everything out of nothing63 can also produce a people from the hardest rocks. 3.10. “Behold, the axe has been placed at the root of the trees.” The proclamation of the word of the Gospel, which is a sharp double -edged sword,64 is called an axe according to Jeremiah the prophet. He compares the word of the Lord with an axe that can cut rock.65 3.11. “Whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.” In another Gospel he says, “Whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose.”66 In the one passage his humility is shown, in the other the mystery that Christ is the Bridegroom,67 and John is not deserving to loose the strap of...