ACC ~ Matthew 16 v4

EVIL AND ADULTEROUS

ORIGEN: Now he called them evil because their wicked deeds had made them evil people (evil because of deliberate wickedness) and adulterous because when the Pharisees and Sadducees left their metaphoric spouse, the true word, they committed adultery, with falsehood and the law of sin. [1]

Assume there are two laws: the law of our bodies, which is in conflict with the law of our mind. We might say then that the law of the mind (that is, the law of the Spirit) is the husband to whom the soul was betrothed by God as wife according to the Scripture; a wife is married to a man by God. [2] But the other law is a seducer of the soul and as such is called “adulterous.” COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 12.4. [3]

[1] Origen explains in which sense Jesus refers to the Pharisees and the Sadduccees as adulterers and then generalizes the explanation: The soul is the bride of moral law and becomes an adulteress if it follows the inclination to sin.

[2] Prov 19:14.

[3] GCS 40:73-74; ANF 9:451.

THE SIGN OF JONAH

CHROMATIUS: Just as that whale was not able to digest Jonah nor was able to keep him alive inside himself for long, so too voracious Death assuredly received the Lord. But since he was not able to keep him alive and in custody inside himself, Death regurgitated him on the third day, just as the whale had regurgitated Jonah. For Death, though accustomed always to eat and digest the dead, was nauseated and vomited out the Lord alive. Truly he was not able to digest him, for he was a rock—as the apostle says: “Moreover, Christ was a rock.” [1] And indeed the whale gulped and expelled only Jonah. But Death in ingesting the Lord cast out not that very one alone but many with him. For we read that many corpses of the holy had risen up with the Lord. TRACTATE ON MATTHEW 54.3. [2]

[1] 1 Cor 10:4.

[2] CCL 9a:470.

NO SIGN FOR AN ADULTEROUS GENERATION

HILARY OF POITIERS: But he descended from the sky and established for these an earthly sign that he might preserve among them a conviction of bodily humility, saying that the sign was to be given by Jonah. The Lord compares himself by means of like appearance with this one whom he had dispatched to Nineveh to accomplish the coming suffering for the proclamation of repentance. Indeed, Jonah was thrown from the ship by furiously raging winds and was devoured by the whale. After the space of three days he was cast out alive, not retained by the monster. He was not digested as food, but contrary to the nature of the human body, he escaped whole and unharmed into the open air. He prefigured the Lord. Therefore Jesus demonstrated that this sign of his own power had been divinely constituted, thus proclaiming in himself the forgiveness of sins through repentance. For he was soon to be cast out of Jerusalem and the synagogue by the blast of unclean spirits and by the power of Pontius Pilate. ON MATTHEW 16.2-3. [1]

[1] SC 258:48-50.