ACC ~ Matthew 14 v2

THE ANALOGY OF THE REAPPEARANCE OF ELIJAH

ORIGEN: The Jews had different opinions about the resurrection. Some of them were false. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead or in the existence of angels. They believed those things that were written about them were only to be interpreted figuratively but had no reality in point of fact. [1] Other Jewish views of the resurrection were true, such as were taught by the Pharisees about the resurrection of the dead—that they rise.

We must now therefore inquire about the opinion regarding the soul, which was mistakenly held by Herod and some from among the people. It ran something like this: John, who a little earlier had been slain by him, had risen from the dead after he had been beheaded. This person who had risen was the same person under a different name, one now called Jesus. Herod imagined that Jesus possessed the same powers that formerly worked in John. If the powers that worked in John had passed over to Jesus, Jesus was thus thought by some to actually be John the Baptist.

The return of Elijah fueled this idea. Here is the line of argument. It was the spirit and power of Elijah that had returned in John. “This is Elijah who is to come.” [2] The spirit in Elijah possessed the power to go into John. So Herod thought that the powers John worked in baptism and teaching had a miraculous effect in Jesus, even though John did not do miracles. It may be said that something of this kind was the underlying thought of those who said that Elijah had appeared in Jesus or that one of the old prophets had risen. COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 10.20. [3]

[1] Origen means that the Sadducees, not believing in the existence of angels, interpreted allegorically the passages of the Pentateuch (the only Scriptures that they accepted) in which angels are mentioned.

[2] Mt 11:14. In the time of Christ it was a common belief among the Jews that Elijah would return to earth to announce the coming of the Messiah before the end of the world.

[3] GCS 40:26-28; ANF 9:427.

THINKING THE BAPTIST HAD RISEN

THEODORE OF HERACLEA: Thinking that the Baptist had risen from the dead, Herod began to be afraid of him, as though John had become all the more powerful. He was alarmed lest John should employ against him even more of his caustic freedom of speech, which was a terror to him, frustrating him by revealing his crooked deeds. FRAGMENT 93. [1]

[1] MKGK 82.

THE IMAGINATIONS OF VANITY AND FEAR

CHRYSOSTOM: Do you see the intensity of his fear? Herod did not dare speak of it openly, but he still speaks apprehensively to his own servants. Yet this whole opinion was absurd. It savored of the jittery soldier. Even though many were thought to have risen from the dead, no one had done anything like what was imagined of John. Herod’s words seem to me to be the language both of vanity and of fear. For such is the nature of unreasonable souls; they often accept a mixture of opposite passions. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 48.2. [1]

[1] PG 58:488; NPNF 1 10:297.

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