Blessed Theophylact composed in Greek a commentary on the entire New Testament, except for Revelation. In his interpretations, he follows the tradition of the Fathers of the Antiochian school, especially St. John Chrysostom.

Orthodoxy, Gospel, apostles, Church, Christ, Jesus, God, orthodoxy, Bible, holiness, salvation ru Vladimir Schneider http://www.ccel.org/contrib/ru/xml/index.html FB Editor v2.0, MS Word, XML Spy July-October 2002 http://www.ccel.org/contrib/ru/xml/Feofilakt_New_Tastement_Explanations.zip FD1E17FE-7278-4869-A558-34889C1D1ACA 2.0

ANNUNCIATOR

or INTERPRETATION

BLESSED THEOPHYLACT

ARCHBISHOP OF BULGARIA

on the HOLY GOSPEL

in four books

COMMENTARY ON

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

Preface

The divine men who lived before the law did not learn from scriptures and books, but, having a pure mind, were enlightened by the illumination of the All-Holy Spirit, and thus learned the will of God from the conversation of God Himself with them lip to mouth. Such were Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, Moses. But when people became corrupt and unworthy of enlightenment and instruction from the Holy Spirit, then the loving God gave the Scriptures, so that, even with its help, they would remember the will of God. In the same way, Christ Himself first personally conversed with the Apostles, and (after) sent them the grace of the Holy Spirit as a teacher. But since the Lord foresaw that heresies would arise later and our morals would deteriorate, He was pleased that the Gospels should be written, so that we, learning the truth from them, would not be carried away by heretical lies, and so that our morals would not be completely corrupted.