Commentary on Matthew

Chapter Twelve

138 CHAPTER TWELVE t that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath ; his disciples who were hungry began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.1 His entering the grain field, the day of the Sabbath, the hunger of the disciples, the plucking2 of the grain heads, the allegation of the Pharisees, and the response of the Lord3 have, as do the rest, an underlying explanation based on an interior cause.4 For the full truth of the facts, as we have said, stems from the consequences of these events, and also provides the likeness of a future truth understood from this image. 2. From the beginning, we should consider the statement that begins thus: At that time Jesus went through the grain fields. It was at this time when he offered5 thanks to God the Father for the salvation brought to the pagans so that we might connect the same idea both with what took place earlier and what was to follow. Let us briefly, therefore, touch on the remaining points: the field is the world, the Sabbath is rest, the crop is the production6 of future believers for the harvest. Therefore, as he entered into the field on the Lord’s Sabbath day of rest, so he proceeded into this world, to its crop, which he has sown into the human race.7 And because this hunger was a longing for the salvation of 1. Mt 12.1. 2. praecerptio. A neologism. 3. Mt 12.3–8. 4. subiacentem interioris causae intelligentiam. I.e., a principle of figurative or allegorical interpretation, leading to scriptural truth. 5. confessus est. 6. profectus. 7. Hilary is drawing on specific scriptural metaphors from the parable of the sower in Mt 13. ON MATTHEW, CHAP. 12 139 humanity, the disciples wanted to pluck heads of grain. In other words, the disciples hastened to fulfill the salvation of the saints. For grain [merely] as food does not benefit8 a man, nor is eating the plucked heads of grain really useful. Rather, we have here the image of future events that describe the faith and the power of the words interposed [among these future events] brings clarity to the mystery of hunger and its fulfillment.9 3. The Pharisees, who thought they were in possession of the keys of heaven, accused the disciples of breaking the Law,10 yet the Lord reminded them of the event in which a prophetic principle11 was contained under the rubric of these facts: how David and those with him who were hungry had been satisfied with unlawful bread.12 For if it were not allowed for them to do so, David would not have been believed to have done this without guilt. Instead David prophesies about these facts according to the Law with no sacrilege of guilt. As he and the others were satisfied by the shew bread,13 so also Christ with the apostles ought to be satisfied with the salvation of the pagans, even though it seemed illegal to the Jews. 4. The Lord also reminded them of another prophecy so that they should understand that everything mentioned earlier about the Law had been fulfilled in him: the priests in the Temple broke the Sabbath without guilt.14 By this he indicates that he is himself the temple in which, by means of the apostolic teaching, salvation is brought to the pagans, whereas the people of the Law lived in the lassitude of unbelief. Since he himself is greater than the Sabbath, the Gospel15 is at work in Christ, who cannot be blamed for having violated the Law. 5. And in order to show that every one of these events that happened contains an image of a work to come, he added: If you knew what this meant, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” you would not 8. congruit. 9. Cf. Is 55.1–3. 10. illicita agere (Mt 12.2). 11. prophetiae ratio. 12. Mt 12.3–4. 13. Ex 25.30; 35.13. 14. Mt 12.5; 1 Sm 21.6. 15. evangelica fides. 140 HILARY OF POITIERS have condemned the innocent.16 The work of our salvation is not in sacrifice but in mercy,17 and, now that the Law has ceased, we are saved by the goodness of God. If they had understood the reality of this gift, they would never have condemned the innocent, that is...