Denunciation of the Wicked Cities

With heartfelt sorrow, Christ pronounces "woe" to the cities of Chorazin (north of Capernaum) and Bethsaida (south of it) for not repenting, although they saw many miracles performed by Christ. The Lord compares these cities with the pagan cities of Tyre and Sidon in neighboring Phoenicia and asserts that the situation at the Last Judgment of the latter will be better than that of the Jews, who were given the opportunity to be saved, but who did not want to repent, as Nineveh repented after the preaching of Jonah: in sackcloth (a coarse sackcloth that causes pain to the body), sprinkling ashes on the head and sitting on the ashes as a sign of deep contrition. The Lord also prophesies the destruction of Capernaum for its extreme degree of exaltation in pride and as a result of outward well-being and well-being. The Lord compares Capernaum with the Greek Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed by God for their wickedness with sulfur rain and fire. All these cities, indeed, soon suffered the punishment of God: they were razed to the ground by the Romans in the same war as Jerusalem. Proud of their imaginary wisdom and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, the Pharisees and scribes did not understand the Lord Jesus Christ and His teaching due to their spiritual blindness, and the Lord glorifies His Heavenly Father by the fact that the truth of His teaching, hidden from these "wise and prudent ones", was revealed to "babes", that is, simple and guileless people, such as the Apostles and His closest disciples and followers, who have felt not in their minds, but in their hearts, that Jesus is truly the Messiah-Christ." All things have been delivered to Me by My Father" (Matt. 11:27; Luke 10:22), says the Lord, meaning the following: everything is given over to His power: both the visible bodily world and the invisible spiritual world — all this is given not to the Son of God, Who always possesses such power, but as the God-Man and Savior of men, so that He could turn all this to the salvation of mankind. "And no man knoweth the Son but the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to whom the Son wants to reveal it" (Matt. 11:27; cf. Luke 10:22)—these words of the Lord imply that no man is able to comprehend all the greatness and goodness of the Son as well as the greatness and goodness of the Father. Only the Son in Himself reveals the Father to those who come to Him, and He, in turn, calls everyone to Himself: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden" (i.e., those who are weary and barren under the yoke of sinful passions arising from pride and self-love), "and I will give you rest" (i.e., I will give you peace and rest from the passions) (Matt. 11:28). Offering to take upon you His "yoke," the Lord implies the yoke of the Gospel law in comparison with the yoke of the passions: "Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me meekness and humility" (Matt. 11:29), "for My yoke is easy, and My burden is light" (Matt. 11:30). The Lord Himself gives strength to bear His burden in the form of the goodness of the Holy Spirit, and by His own example inspires us to bear His yoke.

Forgiveness of a Sinner in the House of Simon the Pharisee

A certain Pharisee named Simon, who apparently had a love for the Lord, but did not have firm faith in Him, invited the Lord to his meal in order, perhaps, to enter into closer communion with Him. The woman, known in the city as a great sinner, came in unexpectedly, stood humbly behind the Lord, bent down at His feet, and, seeing that they had not yet been washed of the dust of the road, shed torrents of tears, thus washing the Lord's feet with her tears instead of water, and wiping them with her hair instead of a towel. Then, kissing His feet, she began to anoint them with the precious myrrh she had brought. According to the Pharisees, the touch of a sinner defiles a person, and therefore Simon, not in the least touched by the moral revolution that took place in the soul of this harlot, only condemns the Lord for accepting honors, thinking to himself that He cannot be a prophet, since then He would have to know "who and what kind of woman touches Him," and would reject her. The Lord told him a parable about two debtors. One of them owed the lender 500 denarii (about 125 rubles), and the other 50. As both of them had nothing with which to pay, the lender forgave them both. It is easy to answer the Lord's question: Which of the debtors loved the lender more? Of course, the one who is forgiven more. And confirming the correctness of the answer, the Lord added: "To whom little is forgiven, he loves little." Judging from the context, these words were directed against Simon, who had little love for Christ and was poor in works of love; although he invited Christ into his house, he did not show worthy signs of attention to the Lord: washing the feet and kissing. And from the parable, Simon should have understood that the Lord morally places the repentant sinful woman higher than Simon the Pharisee himself, since she showed more love for the Lord than he did; And for this love, her sins are forgiven. And in the words "to whom it is not enough to forgive"... contains an indirect indication to Simon that for his disposition towards the Lord, he is also forgiven some debts to God, but much less than to this sinful wife.The guests who sat with Simon (probably also Pharisees) did not understand the Lord's words and began to be indignant in their hearts, so Christ sent the woman away, saying: "Go in peace!"

The Healing of the Demoniac and the Rebuke of the Pharisees

The Lord heals a demoniac in whom the dwelling of an unclean spirit was accompanied by muteness and blindness, and all the people marvel at this miracle. The Pharisees, wishing to stop the talk among the people about Jesus as Christ (that is, about the Messiah), began to spread the rumor that He casts out demons by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that He Himself has in Himself an unclean spirit (Mark 3:30), and even called Him Beelzebub (Matt. 10:25). To these rumors, the Lord replied that it was possible to assume that Satan would destroy his kingdom himself? "Every kingdom divided against itself will be desolate" (Matt. 12:25; Luke 11:17; cf. Mark 3:24). In the kingdom of the devil, there must be a unity of power and action, and therefore Satan cannot act against himself. "And if I cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, by whose power do your sons cast out?" says the Lord (Matt. 12:27; Luke 11:19). By sons we can understand here the Apostles, who received from the Lord the authority to cast out demons, and the disciples of the Pharisees, who practiced conjuring evil spirits, and the man about whom the Apostles told the Lord that he casts out demons in the name of Christ, but does not walk with Christ himself (Mark 9:38; Luke 9:49). "If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come to you" (Matt. 12:28; cf. Luke 11:20); here the Lord means that the Kingdom of God has come in place of the kingdom of Satan, who is fleeing from the world, persecuted by Christ: by casting out demons, the Lord thereby proves that He has "bound" the "strongest" – Satan. Immediately the Lord adds the following thought: "He who is not with Me is against Me; and whoever does not gather with Me scatters" (Matt. 12:30; Luke 11:23). In the Kingdom of Christ: whoever is not with Christ is already hostile to Him, for he brings division into one "house" under one authority. It is another matter when a person is still outside the Kingdom of Christ, has not yet been called there; then, if only he would not be against Christ, would not be in union with the world hostile to Christ. Such a person, who already belongs to Christ in part, can become one with Him and enter His Kingdom. But whoever is not with Christ in His struggle with Satan for the gathering of all people into the Kingdom of God is against Him, since anyone who, hearing and understanding the teaching of Christ, does not take His side, is already an enemy, and even more so is the enemy who opposes. if any man speak a word against the Son of man, he shall be forgiven; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this world or in the world to come" (Matt. 12:31-32; cf. Mark 3:28-29). God's mercy is infinite, and there is no sin that can overcome it; but anyone who stubbornly rejects this mercy itself, who stubbornly resists the very saving grace of God, there is no mercy for him, and his sin remains unforgiven, and such a person perishes. This deliberate opposition to the saving grace of God, which is the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Lord calls blasphemy against the Spirit. This was clearly expressed in the fact that the Pharisees dared to call the works of God's omnipotence the works of the devil. Why is there no forgiveness for this sin "neither in this world nor in the world to come?" Because if a person rejects the obvious actions of the saving grace of the Holy Spirit, then there is nowhere to come from repentance, without which there is no salvation. If anyone blasphemes Christ when he sees His humiliation, that sin will be forgiven, because it is a simple error, easily washed away by repentance. The Lord explains the slander of the Pharisees against His deeds by the malice in their hearts: "Offspring of vipers! How can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matt. 12:34). The Lord threatens the Pharisees that they will have to answer for every idle word on the day of the Last Judgment, since their malicious remarks testify to the presence in them of an evil, atheistic will.

The Lord's Answer to Those Who Sought His Sign

The Jews were tempted by His humiliation in Jesus Christ, and they demanded of Him such a sign that would clearly indicate His divine dignity as the Messiah. The miracles that Christ performed out of His love for suffering people, through the prayers of individuals, were not enough for them. They hypocritically, like enemies, ask for a sign, and therefore He calls them "a wicked and adulterous generation" (Matt. 12:39; cf. Luke 11:29) in the sense that they are unfaithful to God, and this unfaithfulness was pointed out by the prophets, who presented the idolatry of the Jews in the form of adultery of God, adultery (see Isa. 57:3; Ezek. 16:15, 23-27). The Lord says that such a sign will not be given to them and points only to the greatest miracle in the past, which became a prototype of the new: the preservation of the prophet Jonah in the belly of the whale for three days; in the same way, after three days of bodily death, Christ will be resurrected. In fact, Christ stayed in the tomb for one day and two nights, but in the East it was always customary to consider a part of the day or night as a whole (examples: 1 Sam. 30:12; Gen. 42:17-18; 2 Chron. 10:5-12, etc.). The Ninevites, the inhabitants of the city of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian kingdom on the banks of the Tigris, north of Babylon, who repented as a result of the preaching of the prophet Jonah, will condemn the Jews at the upcoming General Judgment for not heeding the preaching of their Messiah and not wanting to repent in their stubbornness. The Queen of the South, the Queen of Sheba, who came to Solomon (1 Kings 10) from Arabia, will also condemn the Jews, since she came from afar to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and the Jews did not want to listen to the Incarnate Wisdom of God Itself, Who is "greater than Solomon." Further, the Lord tells a parable about an unclean spirit that went out of a man and returned to him with others who were even more evil than himself. With this parable, the Lord clearly explains that even though He made the Jews believe in Himself by some amazing miracle, their moral depravity is so strong that after a while their unbelief will arise with even greater strength and stubbornness. Unbelief and depravity in them are the same evil spirit from the parable of the demoniac man. If a person remains negligent, idle, inattentive to himself, then the evil spirit and passions, once expelled from him, return to him with much greater force.

A woman glorifies the Mother of Christ

One woman was so struck by the Lord's conversation that she could not restrain her delight and publicly glorified the Lord and His Most-Pure Mother, Who was with His named brethren, only outside the house (see Matt. 12:46 and Mark 3:31). According to tradition, this woman was the servant of Martha (Luke 10:38), Markela, and therefore at the feast of the Mother of God this passage is always added to the Gospel about the Lord's visit to Mary and Martha and is read as one Gospel." Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the breasts that nourished thee" (Luke 11:27), or in other words: blessed is she who gave birth to and brought up such a teacher. Here begins the glorification of the Mother of God in the fulfillment of Her own prophecy: "From now on all will bless Me." The holy Evangelist Matthew points out that it was at this very time that the Mother of the Lord and His imaginary brothers stood outside the house and sent word to Him that they were unable to squeeze in because of the multitude around Him. The Lord always had tender feelings for His Mother, and even when He was crucified, He worried about Her and entrusted Her to the care of His beloved disciple, the Apostle John. But at that moment, in preaching to the people, He showed everyone that doing the will of the Father in Heaven is higher than His kindred feelings: "Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is my brother, sister, and mother" (Matt. 12:50; cf. Mark 3:35; cf. Luke 8:21). Comparing the narratives of all four Gospels, we can see that the mother of all these "brothers" of Jesus was Mary of Cleopas, whom St. John calls "the sister of His mother" (John 19:25), Mary of Cleopas was considered a cousin of the Mother of the Lord, since the Mother of God was the only daughter of Joachim and Anna. According to one legend, that Mary was the wife of Cleopas, who was the father of Jesus' "brothers". In other words, these "brothers" were the children of Joseph the Betrothed from his first marriage. Bringing the two legends into agreement, it is quite possible to assume that the "brothers" were both the children of Joseph and (according to the law of kinship) the wife of his brother, who died childless, or a close relative of Mary of Cleopas. In any case, among the Jews, "brothers" were called not only brothers, but also cousins, second cousins, and close relatives in general.

The Teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ in Parables

About the Sower; Of the tares; About the invisibly growing seed; On the mustard seed; About leaven; About the treasure hidden in the field; About the pearl of great price; The word parable is a translation of two Greek words: "paravoli" and "parimia". Parimia in literal translation means "a short saying expressing the rule of life" (such, for example, are the Proverbs of Solomon); Paravoli is a story that has a hidden meaning and expresses the highest spiritual truths in images taken from everyday life. The Gospel parable is, in fact, paravolia. The parables set forth in the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew and in parallel passages by two other synoptics, Mark and Luke, were pronounced by the Lord in front of such a multitude of people that the Lord Jesus Christ had to enter the boat in order to get away from the crowd besieging Him, and from the boat to address the people standing on the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret ("sea"). Chrysostom explains: "The Lord spoke in parables in order to make His word more expressive, to imprint it more deeply in the memory of those who heard, and to present the deeds themselves to the eyes." The Lord's parables are allegorical teachings, images and examples borrowed by the Lord from the everyday life of the Jewish people and from the surrounding nature.To the disciples' question: "Why do you speak to them in parables?" the Lord answered: "Because it is given to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is not given to them" (Matt. 13:10-11; cf. Mark 4:10-11 and Luke 8:9-10). The disciples of the Lord, as future heralds of the Gospel, were given knowledge of Divine truths through a special grace-filled enlightenment of the mind, although not in full perfection before the descent of the Holy Spirit. All the rest, lacking such knowledge, were not ready to accept and understand these truths, which was the reason for the moral coarseness and false idea of the Messiah and His Kingdom, spread by the scribes and Pharisees. Isaiah prophesied about this (6:9-10). If these morally corrupt and spiritually coarse people are shown the truth as it is, without putting it into something understandable to them, then they will not see it when they see it, and when they hear it, they will not hear it. Only clothed in a flowing veil, combined with ideas about well-known objects, does it, the truth, become accessible to perception and understanding: non-violently, but by itself, the coarse thought rises from the visible to the invisible, from the external to the highest spiritual meaning. Though Asaph said this of himself, yet as a prophet he was a type of the Messiah, as is evident from the following words of the same verse: "I will speak divination of old," which, in fact, befits only the Omniscient Messiah, and not mortal man. The hidden mysteries of the Kingdom of God are known, of course, only to the hypostatic Wisdom of God.

The Parable of the Sower

In the parable of the Sower, the Lord means Himself by the Sower, by the seed the Word of God preached by Him, and by the soil on which the seed falls, the hearts of those who hear. The Lord vividly reminded them of their native fields, through which the road passes, in some places overgrown with thorny bushes, sometimes stony, covered only with a thin layer of earth. Sowing is a beautiful image of preaching the Word of God, which, falling on the heart, according to its condition, remains barren or bears fruit, greater or less." Whoever has, to him will be given, and he will abound; but whoever does not have even that which he has will be taken away from him," the Lord repeats repeatedly in various parts of the Gospel (for Matt. 13:12, 25:29; Luke 19:26, etc.). The meaning of this proverb is that the rich with diligence becomes richer and richer, and the poor with laziness loses even the latter. In a spiritual sense, this means: you, Apostles, with the knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God already granted to you, can penetrate deeper and deeper into these mysteries, understand them more and more perfectly. The people would have lost even that scanty knowledge of these mysteries which had been preserved in them, if in the revelation of such mysteries they had not been given to help them by a flowing speech, much more suitable for the people. St. Chrysostom explains it this way: "To him who desires and strives to acquire the gifts of grace, God Himself grants everything; but if there is neither desire nor effort in anyone, even that which he thinks he has will not profit him.' He whose mind is darkened, and whose heart is hardened in sin, so that he does not understand the Word of God, this Word, lies on the surface of the mind and heart, without taking root, like a seed on the road, open to all who pass by, and the evil one, Satan or the demon, easily kidnaps him, making what he hears fruitless. The stony ground is represented by those who are carried away by the preaching of the Gospel as pleasant news, sometimes even sincerely and sincerely, finding pleasure in preaching, but in their hearts they are cold, hard, and motionless as a stone. Such people are unable to change their way of life for the sake of the requirements of the Gospel teaching, to abandon their favorite sins, which have become habitual, and to struggle with temptations, enduring sorrows and deprivations for the truth of the Gospel teaching. In the struggle with temptations, they are offended, lose heart, and betray their faith and the gospel. Thorny ground refers to the hearts of people who are entangled in passions: for wealth, for pleasure, for the blessings of this world in general.By good and fruitful land are meant people with a kind and pure heart, who, having heard the Word of God, are firmly determined to make it the guide of their lives and to produce the fruits of virtue. "The kinds of virtue are different, as are those who excel in spiritual wisdom" (Blessed Theophylact)