Commentary on Matthew

Chapter Twenty-One

218 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE hen Jesus sent two of his disciples saying, “Go to the village which is ahead of you,”1 etc. Two disciples are sent to the village in order to loosen a donkey tied up with her colt and lead them to the Lord.2 If anyone should ask why they are doing this, the disciples are supposed to respond that they are necessary to the Lord and must be brought immediately.3 Considering the earlier passage in which we remember that the double calling of Israel was signified in the two sons of Zebedee ,4 it is now appropriate that two disciples are appointed to untie the donkey and the colt because a double calling5 was extended to the pagans. They were and are from the Samaritans, who formerly originated by separating from the Law,6 though still by custom they had continued to observe it.7 They were also a wild and ferocious pagan people.8 Two disciples are sent, therefore, to untie those who have been bound and held captive , shackled by the chains of error and ignorance. The two are sent from outside Jerusalem because it is from outside of the city that these two callings are realized. In contrast , the mother of the sons of Zebedee sought the Lord within Jerusalem because there is a dual calling that comes from the Law. Israel is saved through the apostles and through John,9 but Samaria has also believed through Philip;10 however, Cor1 . Mt 21.1b–2. 2. Mt 21.2. 3. Mt 21.3. 4. Supra, 20.11. Cf. Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 3.13.9; Adv. Iud. 9.13. 5. duplex ... vocatio. 6. Ezra 4.10. Peoples from various nations were settled on formerly Jewish lands. See Mt 10.5. 7. Jn 4.20–22. 8. 2 Kgs 17.29–34. Child sacrifice was still being practiced by the Samaritans even as they adhered to the Mosaic Law. 9. Supra, 20.11. 10. Acts 8.5–8. ON MATTHEW, CHAP. 21 219 nelius, the firstfruits of the pagans, was led to Christ through Peter.11 The disciples are instructed to respond, to anyone who asks, that the two animals are needed by the Lord and that they must be released immediately.12 This means that preachers of the Gospel faith should be sent back to their own nations. Thus the prophecy was fulfilled which was announced: the Lord is going to enter Jerusalem, mounted on a donkey and a young colt.13 What was prophesied finds its fulfillment in what happened. A donkey, so to speak, is untied from the village and presented [to the Lord]. This means that Samaria, oppressed by hostile and foreign domination, is unloosed by the apostles and returned to her Lord.14 The Lord then mounted the colt, which was young, defiant, obdurate (all these are the sins of ignorance that dominate the pagans), and untamed in spirit, yet it is made a vehicle for God.15 2. This entire image comprises a pattern of the future, and its prefiguring is anticipated by metaphorical16 expressions and by the situation of present events. In the advent of his glory, the Lord undertakes to rein in the pagans. By restraining their impulses (just like riding the colt), he will be preached by the entire body of his company of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles .17 With their vestments, the patriarchs spread18 their glory before the Lord (for it is by their generations, by their names, 11. Acts 10.34–48. 12. Mt 21.3. 13. Mt 21.4–5. See Zec 9.9. 14. In the Matthean commentary of Fortunatianus of Aquileia, the donkey is said to represent the synagogue, whereas the colt is the people who believe, that is, the futurum Christianum (2.44; CCSL 9.369). 15. vectio Deo. 16. parabolica, a neologism (see Hilary, De trin. 9.70). 17. Cf. Fortunatianus, 2.53–56. The spreading of brambles before the Lord and shouting of “Hosanna” are said to signify “the preceding fathers [OT saints] who preached before him [the Lord], the apostles and others following them” (CCSL 9.369). See also Victorinus, In Apoc. 4.10, which identifies the crowd as two peoples: one of the patriarchs and the other of the prophets, who cast all their palms of victory under the feet of Christ. 18. Hilary makes repeated use of the verb substerno (“prostrate”) in this section; it is found twice in his version of the...