Thoughts

The Pharisees accuse Jesus of allowing his disciples to break the Sabbath rest. Green (p144) points out the irony of this, coming immediately after Jesus’s offering in him ‘rest for your souls’. Jesus is quick to answer in a way that not only justifies the actions of the disciples, but also hints at his own identity. First, he draws their attention to a case (1 Sam 21:1‑9) where David and his men ate consecrated loaves from the Temple because of need, even though these were reserved only for the priests (the hint here is that Jesus is greater than David, and so he and his disciples can do likewise). Secondly, he referred to the fact that the priests in the Temple work on the Sabbath because Temple worship takes precedence over Sabbath regulation (the hint here being that now Jesus, greater than the Temple, also takes precedence). Finally he quotes Hosea 6:6 again reminding them that God desires mercy above sacrifice.

In any case, there is nothing in the written Law of Moses that prevents the disciples from doing as they did. They contravened only the oral Law, which to the Pharisees sometimes seemed to take precedence over the Law given by God (e.g. 15:6). What the disciples were doing was specifically permitted in Deut. 23:25, although it is not specified that it is also permitted on the Sabbath. However, the context in Deuteronomy is specifically drawing a contrast between something that could be considered as work (gathering into bowls) and something that is merely to satisfy hunger (plucking grapes to eat), which would certainly imply that in the eyes of God’s Law it would be a permissible act on the Sabbath. In fact, as the purpose of the Sabbath was rest, given as a reflection of God’s seventh day of rest after Creation, the Sabbath rest imitated the Edenic tradition, and in Eden there was cultivating and plucking fruits and grains for food (Gen 1:29, 2:15) as opposed to the harder workaday toil that came afterwards (Gen 3:17-19). In this way, the disciples were in fact resting from their labour (11:28) and celebrating the Sabbath. Chrysostom notes that in any case, keeping company with Jesus was in itself a Sabbath (XXXIX:3).

Chrysostom draws an interesting contrast between the Pharisees’ response to this violation of their beloved oral law, a short rebuke, and their response to the next violation, when Jesus heals the man’s withered hand. Again Jesus defends his action (this time with a comparison with something in their own oral law). Upon this healing, Matthew reports, they plot to have him killed. They see the same violation in two forms, and yet have a different reaction. Chrysostom suggests plausibly that the first was not so infuriating as a simple act of the disciples’ eating, but the second was insupportable as an act of great kindness and mercy (XXXIX:1). Why? Presumably because while the people would not pay a great deal of attention to the first, healing always drew them closer to Jesus as it elevated his status, making him all the more dangerous from the Pharisees’ point of view.

John the Baptist from prison sends his disciples to ask Jesus whether he is the one expected, or whether they are to wait for another. Green (p137) pictures John sitting in prison and not seeing the revolutionary behaviour from Jesus that he had expected. Chrysostom, in contrast, considers that for John to have such serious doubts now would bring into question all the confidence he had displayed in Jesus before (XXXVI:1) and therefore he is sending his disciples for their own benefit, rather than for his (XXXVI:2). The text does not give an indication of John’s motive, which must therefore remain a matter of conjecture, but a straight reading of the text would indicate that the question was a genuine question of John’s.

Green goes further than to suggest John’s doubts, however. Even after commenting on Jesus’s strong commendation of John that he was “a prophet… and much more than a prophet… there has never been anyone greater than John the Baptist” (11:9-11) Green interprets “the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he” (11:11) to indicate that because of John’s doubts, he does not know the King and is not in the Kingdom (p138), and later (p144) he suggests that John even “rejected him” because of his doubts. This seems to be going a good deal further than the text.

There is another question, here, however. Most (if not all) English translations interpret the word ‘μικροτερος’ here as a superlative (‘least’) though technically it is in the form of a comparative (‘less’). Chrysostom takes it literally as a comparative, and suggests that the one who is ‘less’ in the Kingdom of Heaven than John is now Jesus: less in age, less in repute among the people, thus maintaining John’s standing from the previous verses without dropping it to exclusion from the Kingdom of Heaven as Green does.

In fact, even interpreting μικροτερος as ‘less’ still leaves open Green’s interpretation of John’s doubts (though not his rejection of Jesus!), but perhaps it could be modified by comparison with Jesus’s saying in Lk 11:27. In response to a woman’s crying out ‘blessed is the womb that bore you’, Jesus said ‘blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it’. This response clearly does not indicate that the keeper of God’s word should be blessed instead of his mother (see Lk 1:48: “all generations will call me blessed”), instead it means that (1) more important than biological affinity to him is obedience to God’s word and (2) the reason his mother is blessed is not primarily from carrying him in her womb, but because it was out of a life of obedience to God’s word that she received him into her womb. If this is a valid parallel, then, here Jesus would be indicating that (1) John’s great works as a prophet are not as important as the works of one who lives the life of righteousness he has been teaching as descriptive of life in the Kingdom of Heaven and (2) the reason that John will in the end be considered great is for living out the life of repentance and righteousness, not just for proclaiming the message. Thus John’s reputation established by Jesus in the preceding verses still stands – but in the context of Jesus’s teaching on life in the Kingdom of Heaven.

In this passage, the disciples are sent out in a precursor of the Great Commission to be give to them by Christ at the end of Matthew’s gospel (Mt 28:18-20). Green and John Chrysostom both speak of this ‘sending out’ as a sort of training of the apostles in the ways of mission: they have seen the ministry of proclaiming, teaching and acts of power (those three categories mentioned in Mt 4:23 and demonstrated in Mt 3-4; 5-7; 8-9:34) and now they are to be sent out to do this themselves. Chrysostom calls this mission “a sort of training school, to strip themselves for their conflicts with the world” and notes that their call here is only to reap the harvest: they can take no pride in the harvest themselves, for it was another who did the hard work of planting the seed and enabling it to grow (XXXII p.212 and cf. Jn 4:38). Indeed, it is made clear that not only is there no opportunity for personal pride in this work, but they should not find any personal or worldly security: all they need has been given them freely and they must likewise give freely to those they meet (10:8) with no fear or self-justification (10:19).

This freedom from fear, worldly security and self-justification is highlighted by Chrysostom (mentioning also Jn 14:27 and Rom 10:15 – referring to Is 52:7): “how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace” – that the disciples are sent out as sheep among wolves, living a ‘Sermon-on-the-Mount’ life (Mt 5:38-48) in Christ’s grace alone (2 Cor. 12:9). As the serpent in battle will give up everything but his head, Chrysostom says (XXXIII p.220), we are to give up everything but the faith so that, like the martyrs, no persecution or even torture can stop the mouths of those speaking by the Holy Spirit (10:17-20): he who endures to the end shall be saved (Mt 24:13)

Both Chrysostom and Green specifically point out the applicability of this instruction on mission and ‘sending out’ also to us, but in rather different ways. Green sees us addressed also as those to be sent out to imitate the preaching, teaching and healing. Chrysostom says, “not of the apostles alone are they said, but also of the saints afterwards. Let us therefore become worthy to entertain them” (XXXII p.216), reminding us that we also must be ready to receive those who come to us with nothing but the words of Christ – in this way we will receive the peace that is offered by him through them, and not have it leave us (10:13) and through it, communion with Christ himself (10:40-42). For those of us used to hearing the first message, Chrysostom’s words are a special reminder: let us not fall into the pride of thinking that we are only the teachers of the message and not the listeners. He also reminds us that the peace is the greeting that precedes the communion, in Mt 10:12-13 as in the Liturgy.

In the Great Commission, as here, he gives them authority before sending them out. As Green points out (p.134) it is Christ’s initiative, and our role is to cooperate when we are sent out. Christ’s authority is given them to carry out the works of power as he himself did over the unclean spirits (10:1) but also, through the gift of the Spirit, to know what to speak in times of trouble and persecution (10:20). Further, Chrysostom points out the significance of the ‘εν’ in v.32 in contrast to its absence in v.33 – the power to confess Christ comes of our communion with him: he in us and we in him. But this authority is also a double-edged sword when it comes of a Lord whose strength is made perfect in weakness: since a disciple is not above his master (v.24), Green points out (p.133) that means the disciple too will face the cross (v.38). Thus the disciple is placed between earthly life and death on the one hand, and heavenly life and the ‘fearful judgement seat’ on the other (Chrysostom XXXV p.230, ref. Mt10:28,32-33).

Matthew’s skill in structuring his account of Jesus’s ministry is again apparent in this section of the gospel as he alternates the groups of miracles with teaching on discipleship, so that the accounts of Jesus’s ‘acts of power’ convey multi-layered teaching on God’s love for his creation and the nature of life in the Kingdom of God and discipleship.

In the ten[1] miracles reported in this section, Jesus apparently effects the act in a variety of ways, by touching or being touched (8:3, 8:15, 9:21-22, 9:25 and 9:29), by his announcement of it (8:13), by a rebuke (8:26) and by a simple command (8:32 and 9:5-6). In some of these cases, the faith of the recipient of the healing power was also specifically noted as a contributing feature, and in 9:5-6, the command seems to be in order to evidence a healing that has already taken place due to the forgiveness of sins (although John Chrysostom interprets this almost as two healings, one of the soul and one of the body[2]). Though touch seems to be the most common form of healing, the first instance of Jesus’s touching to heal here deserves particular attention.

Green writes what is surely true, that Jesus’s willingness to touch the leper speaks volumes of God’s love for sinners. John Chrysostom suggests that in making this touch, Jesus also shows himself above the Jewish law of purity, contrasting his action with Elisha in 2 Ki 5:1-14 and suggesting that the reason Elisha did not go out to meet Naaman before he was cleansed was because of the purity laws. There is no doubt that the touch was a loving gesture, but was it more than a gesture? To some degree it was a touch that conveyed healing. John Chrysostom suggests that, rather than the uncleanness of the disease transferring from its carrier to Jesus through the touch – as might have been expected, in this case the purity of Jesus overwhelms the disease, healing the sufferer – an active example of the comment in Titus ‘to the pure all things are pure’ (Tit 1:15). This latter explanation could apply in all of these cases of Jesus’s healing, not only by touch: when combined with the faith of the person seeking healing, even this degree of communion with God can be a partaking in God’s healing power against the corruption of the physical world.

Yet we also see people of faith seeking healing and not receiving it. How are we to understand this? John Chrysostom refers also to this issue[3] of times and places such as his own, where miracles do not seem to be part of the life of the faithful. Green also mentions that he used to doubt miracles would still happen in our own days (p116). He also says that “in Israel in Jesus’s day there was not too much of that living trust in God’s power to heal.” (p115) Although Green no longer doubts that miracles still happen, he writes that why they happen sometimes and not others is a “mystery”[4]. John Chrysostom points out that “if we all lived as we ought, workers of miracles would not be admired so much as we by the children of the heathen” – that if the Church really looked like the description of Jesus in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, that would be a greater testament to the miraculous power of God than healings and miracles of nature, and that healing the soul is harder than to heal the body: “if thou wouldest work miracles also, be rid of transgressions, and thou hast quite accomplished it.” (XXXII₁₁).

He also gives two reasons why miracles may not be in their own experience. First, that having been given the faith, miracles are unnecessary in terms of signs. This is a possible explanation, and plausible especially in terms of miracles such as the walking on water, but it is harder to apply it to miracles of healing, which, while they may also be signs, surely emerge because of God’s love for humanity in our pain and sufferings: this love, joined with our reaching out to him in faith and hope, enables us, like the woman with the issue of blood (9:21-22) to receive healing. His second reason is that we are already so proud of our piety and teaching that if we were also able to perform miracles, we would be unable to maintain our communion. Perhaps increased humility would permit more miracles to take place.

[1] Green prefers to see them as nine miracles. There are clearly 10 miracles, though equally clearly they are presented as nine miracle accounts, with the woman with the issue of blood and Jairus’s daughter (unnamed in Matthew) presented together in one account.

[2] Homily XXIX, p196

[3] Particularly in Homilies XXIV₂ (p168), XXVII₂ (p185) and XXXII₁₁ (p218)

[4] Also relevant here is exactly what we mean by ‘miracles’ and how we perceive them. In general, I take both John Chrysostom and Green in this discussion to be referring to those miracles comparable to Jesus’s ‘acts of power’ in Matthew’s Gospel and to those miracles wrought by Paul’s clothing referred to in Acts 19:11-12. The subsequent verses (Acts 19:13-19) indicate how complex a matter this is in terms of the precise relationships and contrasts between mediating the power of God, personal and community faith, and magic and the use of demonic powers. There is clearly a continuum taking into account everything from the miracle of the sun’s predictable rising and setting, through the miracle of my wife’s continuing love for me, through the mystery of faith, through public healings, to the overwhelming experience and example of God’s power given to Moses when he had to hide in a cleft in the rock (Ex 33:18-23) – the kind of experience that Jesus refused the temptation to provide in Mt.4:1-11, the kind of absolute proof of God some seek, but which would make faith and freedom impossible if given to those still seeking God. In the end, as Green says, the issue of what miracles, when and for whom is a ‘mystery’ and, it seems, necessarily so.

Most translations of Matthew either put 7:6 together with 7:1-5 or separate it as an isolated saying. Green also sees it rather in this way (p106), giving it a purely evangelistic connotation: don’t force the message on anyone, only go with the Spirit, where he has been leading the way. Chrysostom (p159) describes the dogs as those who have no desire to change, and the pigs as those submerged in unchaste lifestyles; this is good imagery of two examples of groups who may not be ready to receive the ‘pearl’. However there is no particular indication in the text of these allegorical interpretations, and indeed it seems more likely that the pigs and dogs are just parallel examples standing for people who for whatever reason are not ready to receive ‘what is holy’. Green lumps pigs and dogs together with the same interpretation Chrysostom gave to the dogs alone: those who are not ready for Christ’s message, the hard-hearted and unwilling to change.

Chrysostom, speaking of the swine trampling the pearl, gives the example (p160) of the secrecy of the mysteries of the Church: the secrecy (the unbaptised were not permitted to remain in the Church after the dismissal of the catechumens in the Liturgy) was so that those who were unprepared, and therefore in danger of not seeing the value of the ‘pearl’, would not be able to ‘trample’ it, or defile it by not giving it due reverence. This perhaps shows a connection for 7:6 with the passage that follows, 7:7-12. Chrysostom sees the ‘asking’, ‘seeking’ and ‘knocking’ as examples of our perseverance in approaching God (as, for example, in the story of the perseverant woman before the judge in Lk 18:1-8 – perhaps this could be Matthew’s parallel teaching, as he has no version of that parable). Whether or not it indicates perseverance, it certainly indicates that we have to make our own move for God to make his: that we must be prepared to ask.

The swine, on the other hand, are not prepared for the pearl, and therefore it would be a mistake to give it to them. Thus God also waits for the evidence that we are prepared, in that we are ‘asking’, ‘seeking’ or ‘knocking’ before he will cast his pearl before us. There is also an interesting contrast between the pearl being cast before the swine (7:6) and the hypothetical father who might give his son a stone (7:9). While it would be wrong to give holy things to the dogs, it would be equally wrong to give a serpent to a hungry child – a child who is seeking to eat will be given a fish by his father who loves him.

“Our Father who art in heaven” – Green points out (p100) that this is known as the ‘Lord’s prayer’ not because it was the prayer Jesus himself prayed (as he did not need to ask for forgiveness) but that it was the prayer he gave to us. We are united to him in the prayer because it is through him that we have gained the right to call God ‘Abba’ (the original of ‘πάτερ’ according to Green, referring to Rom 8:15 “Abba, Father”). Chrysostom (p134) writes that this opening phrase calls us up to heaven through intimacy and the recognition of God. We approach collectively in the ‘our Father’ and in this multitude we approach together, whether king or servant, the Father of us all.

In this longing for heaven (“thy kingdom come”), Chrysostom says, we should work to make the earth more like it, and that means aiming for perfection (5:48: “be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect”). Green has trouble with this saying, and wishes the ‘τέλειοι’ to be not ‘perfect’ but ‘mature’ (p101). While this is technically a possible interpretation of the Greek word, it would be unusual to describe God as ‘mature’ – ‘the Ancient of Days’ (Dan 7:9) perhaps, but this would not fit the context of 5:48 (and in any case is usually taken to be a reference to God as eternal). Thus it seems necessary to take this word here as referring to completeness or perfection.

Chrysostom says “there is nothing to hinder our reaching the perfection of the powers above… even while abiding here” by virtue of the grace from above (p135). On the other hand, further on in the Lord’s prayer we assume our sinfulness, asking for our sins (or ‘debts’) to be forgiven. Even in the midst of our sinfulness we still must look forward to becoming the person God calls us to be, and that involves perfection.

To sustain us on this journey towards perfection, we ask for ‘our daily bread’ (‘τον αρτον υμων τον επιουσιον’ – the ‘essential’ – sometimes translated ‘super-essential’ – bread) to be given to us ‘this day’. Chrysostom (p135) takes this absolutely straightforwardly, as being our needs for the current day, with no worry about the morrow, referring us forward to v25-31 where this is what Jesus teaches us. Green agrees, but also suggests a possible interpretation of the Greek phrase as ‘the bread of tomorrow’, pointing to this being a foretaste of the eternal Bread which sustains not only our bodies but our souls. Augustine (‘Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount’ Book 2, VII:25 – NPNF vol.6 p41) suggests three possible interpretations: our daily needs (but unlike Chrysostom he sees v25-31 as an objection to this interpretation), the Eucharistic mysteries (but he notes that these are not taken daily in the East), or a reference to spiritual ‘food’ or precepts which we live by daily. He inclines towards the last interpretation, but accepts that all are acceptable. Perhaps the fullest understanding of this petition comes from holding all three together.

The significance of Jesus’s teaching about righteousness in the Sermon on the Mount is demonstrated by Matthew in the setting on a mountain. Mountains have significance in Matthew’s gospel, as Green points out (p89), in that they highlight points of revelation. Moreover, the mountain was established in the Old Testament as a place of God’s revelation. Here we are again at Sinai, witnessing the giving of the law, but whereas (as Green points out p93-4) the prophets had said “thus says the Lord” and the rabbis quoted their various authorities, and, we might add, Moses disappeared into the cloud to bring back the tablets of stone, this time Jesus himself stands on the mountain in full view of the people and simply says “I say…”

Chrysostom (p103-4) points out that Jesus understands the suspicion that he might be abrogating the ancient institutions, and thus he assures them that he is not there to destroy the Law, speaking of his reverence for it before intensifying its demands. Jesus goes on to show, in Green’s words (p92), that true righteousness transcends “formal obedience”. It is not the letter of the law that counts, but the Spirit (and how much Spirit is required!): that is, actions and words should not be performed with the idea of satisfying the law, but “to respond in wholehearted gratitude to the love of God” (Green, p93) – a much higher demand. Jesus speaks of exceeding even the Pharisees and Scribes who minutely observed the law. Chrysostom (p106) says that to exceed them means to follow Jesus’s intensification of the law’s demands, outdoing them not in legalistic detail, but in fulfilling the purposes for which they were given.

How was Christ himself the fulfilment of the law? Chrysostom (p105) gives three ways: firstly, by not transgressing it (Chrysostom gives supporting quotes from John’s gospel and from Isaiah to show that none could convict Christ of having transgressed the law) – on those points where he was accused specifically of transgressing the law, he always had an answer for his accusers (e.g. Mt 12:1-8); secondly, by granting his fulfilment of the law to us (quoting Romans 10:4, 8:3-4, 3:31) through his incarnation and our faith in him; and thirdly, fulfilling the law through his intensification of it in his ministry and his teaching. In contrast, Green (p92) writes that some elements of the Old Testament law were “abolished by being fulfilled” – that some had pointed forward and were now eclipsed. Presumably he is speaking here of ritual law, since he points out that the moral law is all intensified in Christ.

The Beatitudes at the beginning of the passage are important as setting out the context for Jesus’s speaking about the Law. In the Beatitudes he illustrates what a righteous life (that is, a life truly in accordance with the law) is like: as Green puts it (p89), what life is like after repentance and commitment. Chrysostom points out (p105) that having set forth the blessings in the example of the life in accordance with the true law in the Beatitudes, in the examples of his intensification of the law, he goes on to indicates the consequences of not living in accord with the Spirit of the law.

Both Green and Chrysostom see in this passage the greater context of love as rule, as motivation, and as context of life. Chrysostom says that reconciliation is even above prayer: that if the gift you are offering at the altar is even a prayer, still you should lay it down and first be reconciled with your neighbour before returning to offer your prayer: “Let my service… be interrupted, that thy love may continue” (p112).

It is noticeable that the next thing reported by Matthew after the baptism of Christ is the temptation of Christ by the devil, or as it is titled in the Orthodox Study Bible, ‘Jesus’ Triumph over Satan’, recalling that part of the ritual of baptism now includes our renouncing and spitting on the devil. Green and John Chrysostom both comment on this. Green generalizes this experience (p.82) by pointing out that after any kind of a spiritual ‘high’, some kind of serious temptation often follows, as he says, to help us separate the emotional effect from the lasting and to encourage us to seek not the ‘highs’ but the experience of constancy and dependence on God for our daily bread. John Chrysostom (p.80) emphasizes particularly the connection with baptism: that in baptism we are taking up arms to fight, and the temptations are where the fight begins: here we have to show our fortitude in standing against the demons and learn to be strong. He also points out that when man is brought to honour, the devil will always attack: as with Adam as king of creation, as with Job recommended by God, as with Christ and with us in baptism.

Green, after a brief paragraph mentioning how the experience of temptation is a feature of the Christian life, goes on to say that “it would be a great mistake to suppose that the story of the temptations is included in the Gospel primarily to provide an example to Christian disciples, though they do provide that example. These temptations were messianic.” On the other hand, Chrysostom, in his only sermon on the temptations in this collection, Homily XIII, spends the bulk of his time precisely in relating Christ’s temptations to ours. While it is true that the story of the temptations as presented by Matthew and Luke very clearly presents what kind of Messiah Jesus is – against the expectations of the Jewish people of the day, I think Green is overstating the case when he wants to divide these two aspects of the passage elevating its messianic nature far above the exemplary nature. Chrysostom (p.83) points out how beautifully this summary[1] of the temptations is framed to provide us with the three most common basic forms of temptation: through sensual appetites and desires (‘the belly’ as he puts it), through vainglory and self-importance, and through wealth and power. If we are in Christ, if we form the body of Christ, then there is no distinction between what kind of Messiah Jesus is and what our own temptations and struggle with the devil involve, especially since it is ‘in Christ’ by the Holy Spirit that we overcome. In contrast to Green’s dividing of our experience of temptation from the messianic nature of the account of Christ’s temptations, Irenaeus, in putting the temptations of Christ at the centre of his account of how Christ recapitulates Adam’s fall without giving into sin[2], brings together the messianic nature of Christ’s temptations with the basic experience of human sin in Adam which we all share.

Neither Green nor Chrysostom miss the parallel between Christ’s temptation with the bread and Adam and Eve’s with the fruit, though this is not explicit in the text. Here is a hint in Matthew of Christ as the ‘new Adam’ expressed by Paul[3] and detailed so thoroughly by Irenaeus in his exploration of the divine economy. But there are other parallels too, not least Israel in the wilderness, succumbing to the devil’s temptations instead of overcoming them (Green p.83 with reference to Deut.8:2 as the verse immediately preceding Jesus’s quotation).

One other interesting point about the temptation to turn stones into bread is pointed out by Chrysostom: this is not a temptation to break any law. In fact, were we to receive such a temptation, we may not even see it as such, as it contravenes no ethical instruction. Nonetheless, just as Paul cast out a demon (Acts 16:18) that was doing nothing but identify him as a preacher of salvation, we have to be wise to all the devil’s wiles, and learn to discern when the devil speaks, as even when we cannot see the evil in what the devil suggests, we should know that he is using something not necessarily bad in itself to lead us down to a darker place. Once we have started on that downward path it is hard to climb back up from it.

Green points out the messianic expectation of the Jews based on the experience of the manna given by God in the wilderness of the Exodus: the Messiah would do the same[4]. However, apart from this, Green doesn’t speak of the significant place that eating has in this pericope (perhaps because of his separation between the ‘messianic’ nature of the text in terms of showing who Christ is and the nature of Christians as the Church, the body of Christ, now on earth[5]). Chrysostom shows no such division, and therefore sees the connection here between the fasting of Jesus mentioned in Matthew and the baptismal candidates’ fasting, the temptation to turn stones into bread, Adam’s taking of the forbidden fruit, and even the indication in Ezekiel 16:9 that the basic sin of Sodom was “fullness of bread” which resulted in all their other sin. He also says that, just as with Job, the devil loves to begin with the weak and most base appetites, only progressing to the more beguiling (vainglory and riches) when these fail. Thus, fasting, following Jesus’s example, is a key way to be prepared to do battle with the devil.

Speaking of battle with the devil, Green draws an excellent parallel between Christ’s use of the expression ‘it is written…’ and Eph. 6:17: ‘the sword of the Spirit… is the word of God’. Indeed the whole of the passage Eph 6:10-20 is useful parallel reading to Mt 4:1-11 in terms of the spiritual struggle. Finally, John Chrysostom points out, that after the battle, Matthew tells us that angels came and ministered to him, and that this is a promise also to us, that having stood up and done battle with the devil, we will not be left comfortless.

[1] He suggests that Luke, in his version of this story, by the use of his phrase ‘when the devil had ended every temptation’ (Lk 4:13) implies that there were more than the three specified in the text.

[2] Against Heresies 5:21: “recapitulating all things he also recapitulated the war against our enemy… utterly crushing him, and striking his head with his heel.”

[3] Rom 5:12-21 and 1 Cor 15:21-23

[4] And hence, according to Green, the excitement in Jn.6:5-15.

[5] Although his mention of the manna in the wilderness and the comparison with the passage in John’s gospel implies the close connection between the manna and the Eucharist (especially reading further in Jn 6:22-66), Green doesn’t follow this up.

Repentance is, according to the footnote in the Orthodox Study Bible, “the necessary first step in the Way of the Lord” and according to Green, “the inescapable beginning”. It is only a beginning, as the Forerunner points out: it needs to be followed by the “fruits worthy of repentance” (v.8). Repentance is clearly the first thing that is common between John’s baptism and Christian baptism, but the latter is more: “He who is coming after me… will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (v.11). Baptism with the Holy Spirit is prefigured in Christ’s own baptism by the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove. But though the Holy Spirit comes as a comforter, as a sign of hope, like the dove that brought the olive branch to Noah (as John Chrysostom points out), he also brings a fire that will burn the tree that does not bear good fruit, the fruit of repentance, along with all the chaff (vv.10,8,12).

If baptism is about repentance and the descent of the Holy Spirit[1] then why was Christ himself, without sin and already with the Holy Spirit, baptized? John Chrysostom wonders that we who have accepted Christ’s acceptance of the Virgin’s womb and the humiliation of human nature would be surprised at his acceptance of this further humiliation for our sake. He points out that the Baptist’s words make it clear that Christ does not need baptism for any of the reasons it is given, but that the fulfilment of all righteousness requires that Christ, who has taken on our nature and our sin – the “very purpose of my assuming flesh” (p.76) – undergo, in Green’s stark phrase, “baptism on the cross” (p.80).

Among the various other reasons listed by Green (p.80-81) why Jesus was baptized, is that Christ was leading where we should follow. John Chrysostom goes further, saying that in Jesus’s baptism, John’s baptism ceases and “ours takes its beginning” (p.78), comparing this to Christ’s fulfilment of the Passover in the Eucharist. I do not think it is stretching what Chrysostom indicates to say that just as in Christ the bread and the wine become the thing signified, so in Christian baptism, following the baptism of Christ himself, the sign of repentance and forgiveness of sins comes to bear the means of achieving what is signified, through the descent of the Holy Spirit. Green notes that Jerome said “the mystery of the Trinity is revealed in the baptism”, and this also demonstrates that in Jesus’s baptism everything has changed: when baptism is offered in Christ, in the Church, it is always to be a Trinitarian baptism, and not a baptism for repentance only.

Chrysostom also focuses on the expression (v.16) “the heavens were opened” to show us that this is what happens to us at our own baptism – the heavens are opened and accessible to us, and the Holy Spirit descends on us just as on Christ, and just as on the apostles at Pentecost, even though it may be now in silence, as signs are “not for them that believe, but for them that believe not” (1 Cor.14:22). In this he reinforces the point that Jesus’s baptism was for our benefit. (Here, Chrysostom presents a much stronger and more holistic view of reality than Green, who speaks of baptism being “a pledge of the gift of the Spirit”, p.80.) The gift of the Spirit in baptism and in Pentecost is, as Green points out, a fulfilment of the prophets: Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Joel all speak of this time in anticipation – “After this it shall come to pass that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh… and there shall be proclamation of the good news to those whom the Lord himself called.” (Joel 3).

[1] Green lists five ‘themes’ of baptism, Matthew’s explicitly noted “repentance, forgiveness of sins and the fulfilment of all righteousness” along with the implied “mark of sonship and… gift of the Spirit” (p.80) and has earlier mentioned the distinguishing features of John’s baptism from the Jewish practice of purification-baptism as a sign that birthright is inadequate for salvation, the requirement for baptism to be received from the hands of another and not self-administered, and its eschatological nature (p.77-78). As well as the five, these latter three would also seem to apply to Christian baptism.

The genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel presents many challenges and questions: the division around Abraham, David and the Babylonian captivity; the missing 14^th generation; the presence of certain named women; and the difference with the genealogy in Luke being a few of them that seem to jump out. Lest we should think that these are questions of the modern mind, John Chrysostom covers them all and more in his first homily on Matthew (pp6-7)… although he does not necessarily provide the answers, at least in this sermon.

John Chrysostom connects the first two questions together, although we have to move to Homily IV to find it. He considers that the missing generation[1] is the Babylonian captivity itself, heading the third section: thus demonstrating that neither under an ‘aristocracy’ (Abraham, the first group), nor under a King (David, the second group), nor under an ‘oligarchy’ (the Babylonians, the third group) does Israel escape its need for a Saviour, and the Saviour is born at last – the last of the generations. Green does not consider the question of the missing generation at all, instead focusing on the three names: Abraham, David, Jesus, and especially on the latter two. He points out that the number 14 is taken from the Hebrew number read from the letters of David’s name, and sees the genealogy as a move from the beginning of the chosen people (Abraham) to the height of their history (David) and the depth (Babylon) culminating in Jesus “great David’s greater Son” (p58). Thus for Green, the construction is an aid to memorization, and therefore a selective, rather than full, genealogy; hence, the differences between Matthew’s and Luke’s. It is undeniable that the system is based around Abraham-David-Babylon and culminating in Christ, and that it says much more than may at first meet the eye if one views it as a straightforward ‘family tree’.

Green’s theory as to the difference between Matthew and Luke, that Luke is tracing Mary’s rather than Joseph’s line, is not entirely convincing, perhaps being born more out of the evangelical Christian’s need to eliminate all contradiction than from a straightforward analysis of the text. It is not impossible, but that Luke, having (unlike Matthew) not mentioned any women in the genealogy, should actually be compiling the genealogy of a woman without even mentioning that he was doing so is surely unlikely at a time when even Matthew’s inclusion of women would raise eyebrows. (John Chrysostom tries to argue that Matthew traces the genealogy of Joseph so as to protect Mary against stoning as an adulteress by not revealing the virgin birth, an argument which could support Green in Luke’s Gospel, if it weren’t for the fact that both Matthew and Luke proclaim the virgin birth clearly.) Having already pointed out that Matthew’s genealogy is selective rather than exhaustive, Green probably does not need to argue the point further. Instead, the differences between the genealogies are rather covered by John Chrysostom’s contention (I pp3-4, echoed by Green, p63) that the minor differences between the Gospel writers are evidence for their truthfulness: in bearing witness to genuine traditions rather than colluding to fabricate a story, they repeat what they know.

Chrysostom also suggests that there was a rule that one married within the same tribe and even house, and that proving Joseph is of the house of David is therefore the same as proving that Mary (and therefore Jesus) is of that line. One could alternatively argue that it demonstrates adopted sonship is equal in all ways to biological (as we are adopted sons of God, grafted on to the tree of Israel, as St Paul says).

Some may be surprised that it is Matthew who names women in the genealogy rather than Luke. Both Green and Chrysostom note the kind of women who are represented here: those who started off as women of ill-repute one way or another (although probably by Jesus’s time they may have been remembered more as Biblical heroines). Green uses this to make the point that the genealogy shows that Christ brings together all the old divisions between man/woman, Jew/gentile, even righteous/sinner.

There are so many other interesting topics in these chapters and the discussions by Green and Chrysostom: the star and its possible provenance, the great parallelism between Moses and Christ based around the flight into and calling out from Egypt, the meaning of the gifts, the Christological titles. One other interesting point that I would like to pick out is the one John Chrysostom makes about the apparent foolishness of the Magi (VI pp36-7). These supposedly ‘wise’ men, having seen a star, embark on a long and dangerous journey in order to arrive in a country with an existing king only to tell him that a new king has been born in his land, a king of such importance that a great sign has been sent to announce his birth. Messengers with such a message would be lucky to escape with their lives, and it was only through angelic intervention in the end that they did. Nonetheless, when there must have been other magi who saw the sign, these, the fearless before Herod, were the ones who actually heard God’s call and followed (VI p39). Green makes the point that even from the very beginning, the incarnation divided people into those who welcomed Christ and those who hated him (p65). The Magi fall into the first category: those who are ready to respond to God even though in doing so they are foolish in the eyes of the world. Herod, falling into the latter category and living in accord with the world’s wisdom, hated instinctively any threat to his worldly power. As Green says in reference to Herod and his slaughter of the innocents (p72), “If we are determined to go our way at all costs, we will go to any lengths to eliminate all trace of Jesus and his claims on our lives.”

[1] In fact, he initially sees only 12, since he does not count Jesus as one of the ‘generations’, but in adding both the Babylonian captivity and Jesus, he comes to the requisite 14.