Luke XX, 9-19. The homicidal winemakers.

"A man planted a vineyard. "

Many relate various interpretations to this word of vine; but Isaiah clearly recalled that the vineyard of the God of hosts is the house of Israel (Is., V, 7). This vineyard, what other than God created it? It is therefore He who praised Him and went far away: not that the Lord departed from one place to another, He who is always everywhere, but because He is more present to those who love him, absent for those who neglect him. But he was for a long time absent, so that his complaint would not appear precipitate; for the more liberality is indulgent, the more inexcusable is obstinacy. So you read in Matthew that he surrounded it with a hedge, that is to say, the fortifia of the rampart of the divine protection, lest it be an easy approach to the incursions of the wild beasts spiritual. "And he dug a winepress. How to hear what the press is? Perhaps because psalms are entitled: "For the presses", because the mysteries of the Passion of the Lord, like a new wine, have bubbled with more abundance, in the heat of the holy inspiration of the Prophets . It was also believed that those in whom the Holy Spirit poured out (Act II, 13). So He too dug a wine press, where the fruit inside the grapes of the donkeys would flow into a spiritual flow. "He built a tower": raising the ridge of the Law. And this vine thus defended, equipped, adorned, He praised it to the Jews. . And in the season of the fruits he sent his servants. He did well to write the season of the fruits, and not their harvest: for the Jews yielded no fruit; no one has been the report of this vine, of which the Lord says, "I have counted that it should produce grapes, but it has produced thorns" (/ s., V, 2). Therefore, it is not the wine of gladness, the must of the Spirit, but the vermeil blood of the Prophets, that the presses have disgorged. Jeremiah was thrown into a ditch (Jer., XLIV, 6): for such were now the presses of the Jews, filled not with wine, but with mud. And although the Prophets seem to be indicated in general terms, the text gives us to understand that the one who was stoned was Naboth: it is true that we did not gather from him any verbal prophecy; but we have gathered a prophecy by the fact, because by his own blood he prophesied that this vineyard would have many martyrs. And who is the one who is injured in the head? Evidently Isaiah49: for the saw has more easily cut off the frame of her body than she has bent her faith, worn out her constancy, or trimmed the vigor of her soul. Subsequently it happened that by sending several others, that the Jews sent back without honor and profit for them, having been able to draw nothing from it, finally he sent his only Son; and these treacherous, desiring to get rid of the heir, killed him by crucifying him, rejected him by denying him. In a few words only great things! First, that there is a goodness of nature, which often relies on the unworthy; then that Christ has come as the supreme remedy of evils; then that to deny the heir is to despair of the Father. Now Christ is all heir and testator: heir, because he survives his own death, and recovers in our progress as the benefit and inheritance of the Wills he himself wrote. It is therefore good that he questions, so that they condemn themselves by their own judgment. The master of the vineyard will come, He says, because in Christ also resides the majesty of the Father, or because in the last times his presence will be felt more in the hearts of men. So they themselves make the sentence against them: that the wicked perish, and that the vineyard passes to other sharecroppers. What are the sharecroppers, what is the vine? Look. The vine is our figure. For the people of God, rooted in the stump of the eternal vine, rise above the earth, and, adornment of a ground without beauty, sometimes pushes buds and flowers, sometimes surrounds itself with a garment of greenery sometimes it welcomes the amiable yoke, 50 when it has grown and its developed arms are the branches of a fertile vineyard. The vine-grower is the Almighty Father, the vine is the Christ, and we are the branches; and if we do not bear fruit in Christ, the serp of the eternal vine-cutter cuts us off. It is therefore right to call the people of Christ, either because he adorns his forehead with the sign of the Cross, or because he gets his fruit in the last season of the year, or because, as for the rows of the vine, thus for all, poor and rich, humble and powerful, servants and masters, there is in the Church of God equal measure, no distinction. As the vine marries the trees, so the body unites with the soul, and the soul with the body.

As the attached vine straightened up, as the pruning is not to diminish it, but to make it grow, so the bound holy people are stripped, humiliated stands up; the size the crown. Even more: as the tender offspring, taken from an old tree, is grafted onto the sucker of another root, so the holy people, once unbridled the scars of the old offspring, fed on the tree of the cross as well as within of a loving mother, develops; and the Holy Spirit, as poured out into the deep furrows of a soil, pours itself into the prison of this body, effacing by the bath of the wholesome water all that is foul, and straightening the outfit of our limbs towards a heavenly conduct. This vine, the diligent vine-grower, has the habit of weeding, binding, and pruning; clearing the heap of masses of earth, sometimes He burns the secrets of our body with the sun, sometimes He sprinkles them with rain. He likes to weed his ground, so that the brambles do not hurt the bud, so that the leaves do not thicken their shade, and that the sterile vanity of the words, shading the virtues, does not stop the ripening of the natural and character. But God forbid us to fear any detriment to this vine, which the watchful watchman of the Lord Savior has fortified against all the enterprises of the mischief of the age by the wall of eternal life! "She pushed her offspring to the sea" (Ps 79: 12); for "the earth belongs to the Lord" (Psalm 23: 1): everywhere God the Father is honored, everywhere the Lord Christ is worshiped.

 This is our harvest. In the joy and security, then, that some of them charge the bunches of tasty grapes in their bosom, that others taste in the gifts of heaven, that a good many express the fruit of divine blessing under the feet of their good will, and, their shoes taken off, color their bare feet with the wine that runs off: for the place where we are is a holy ground (Ex., III, 5), and from then on it is necessary to leave the shoes, so that the step of our soul, ascending the degrees of the most holy throne, is freed from the bonds and hindrances of the body. It is advisable that there is harvest of the whole world, since it is the vineyard of the whole world. "This is the favorable time" (II Cor., VI, 2): the year no longer shivers under the winter frost and the mists of false faith; the bark deformed by blasphemy no longer thickens under the heaped snow and the persistent jelly; but, freed from the squalls of sacrilege, the earth already conceives new fruits, produces the ancients. Yes, the storm of all dissensions has fallen; all the fires of the world's lusts, all the flame whose fire was burning the people of Italy, formerly the Jewish error, recently the Arian, is now tempered by a calm zephyr. The storm is appeased, the concord is sailing, the faith is blowing, the sailors of the faith return to the envy to the ports they had left and press sweet kisses on the shores of their homeland, congratulating themselves for being delivered from the dangers freed from mistakes. Hi, vineyard worthy of such a guardian! You have been consecrated by the blood not of Naboth alone, but of numberless prophets, and, what is more, by the precious blood of the Lord. No doubt Naboth was not frightened by the king's threats; his constancy did not bend under fear; the richest present could not lead him to sell his religious attachment; but resisting the wishes of the king, who wanted to plant in his gardens herbs and vegetables by cutting the vine, being unable to do anything else he extinguished the fire that threatened the vines with his own blood. But he defended an ephemeral vine; it is for eternity that you have planted for us the death of a multitude of martyrs; the cross of the Apostles, reproducing the Passion of the Lord, has provoked you to the ends of the whole world.

Luke, XX, 21-26. The tribute to Caesar.

"Whom does he wear the effigy and the exergue? "

The Lord teaches us in this place that we must be wary in our responses to heretics or Jews. Elsewhere He said, "Be skilled as serpents" (Matt. X. 16); a passage that many hear as follows: since the hanging serpent (Num. 21: 8) announced the Cross of Christ, by which He was to eliminate the snake venom from the evil spirit, it seems that we must be clever as the Christ, as simple as the Spirit52. Here you have the snake, which still protects his head, dodge the deadly wound. Asked by the Jews if he had received his power from heaven, He answered, "The baptism of John, where is he from? from heaven, or men? (Lk, xx, 4) so ​​that, not daring to deny that he is from heaven, they refute themselves as foolish if they deny that his author is from heaven. Asking for a didrachm, He inquires about the effigy; for other is the effigy of God, another the effigy of the world, and this is why this warns us: "As we have borne the likeness of the earthy, let us also bear the likeness of the heavenly" (I Cor. , XV, 49). Christ does not bear the likeness of Caesar, for He is the Image of God. Peter does not bear the likeness of Caesar, for he said, "We have left everything and have followed you" (Matt., XIX, 27). We can not find the effigy of Caesar either in James or John, because son of Thunder. But it is found at sea (Mc, III, 17), where the monsters have their heads crushed under water, while the main monster, the Crushed Throw, is given for food to the peoples of Ethiopia (Ps. 73, 13 ssq.). If, therefore, he did not have the effigy of Caesar, why did he pay the tax? He did not pay for it, but gave back to the world what was in the world. You too, if you want to owe anything to Caesar, do not have what is in the world. But you have riches: you are indebted to Caesar. If you want to owe nothing to the king of the earth, leave all your belongings and follow Christ. And it is right that he first decides what to give back to Caesar: for one can not belong to the Lord if at first one does not renounce the world. But all we renounce in words; we do not renounce our heart; for when we receive the mysteries, 53 we give up. What a heavy chain! to promise to God, and not to fulfill! "Better for you," he said, "do not only vow and not give back" (Eccl., V, 4). A contract of faith is more serious than a contract of money. Accomplish your promise while you are in this body, before the creditor comes to jail you: "Truly, I say to you, you will not come out that you have not paid the last denier" (Matt. , V, 25 ssq.).

Luke XX, 27-37. The wife of seven husbands.

"If someone's brother is dying ..."

The Sadducees, that is, the most detestable part of the Jews, are tempting the Lord in this place. In the obvious sense their stupidity is resumed; in the mystical sense their opinion is refuted, and the case of chastity they have drawn from their own funds, since according to the letter a woman must marry even against her will, so that the brother of the deceased gives him a posterity. So the letter kills (II Cor., III, 6), like a matchmaker of vices, while the Spirit is master of chastity. Let's see if this woman is not the synagogue. She had seven husbands, just as it is said to the Samaritan woman: "You have had five husbands" (Jn, IV, 18): for the Samaritan woman follows only five books of Moses54; the Synagogue follows, princely, seven, and, by its bad faith, had none of a descent, a posterity, heirs. So she will not share with her husband in the resurrection, because she has diverted a spiritual precept in a carnal sense. There was no question of the brother of any one according to the flesh to give a posterity to the deceased brother, but of that Brother who was to gather from the dead people of the Jews the knowledge of divine worship as a wife, and to have an offspring of the person of the Apostles: remained in the synagogue as shapeless remains of the dead Jews, they have obtained to be preserved, thanks to the election of grace, by the alloying of a new seed. As for the Synagogue, she often receives the stole, the mark of marriage, because she is the mother of believers; often she is also repudiated because she is a mother of unbelievers. For her the bodily law is dead, to resurrect spiritual. So the holy people of God, if they love the seven books of the law as conjugal love, and obey his commands as those of a husband, will have in the resurrection this celestial union, where no defilement of the body will not make his modesty blush, but where the gifts of divine grace will enrich it.

Luke, xx, 41-44 David and Christ.

"The Lord said to my Lord,"

To complete his teachings, the Lord includes in the final of his testament faith, even before his Passion, and mercy: faith, which consists in believing that he is the Christ and the Lord our God, and that he sits on the right hand of God - not that he sits bodily, being everywhere. For the rest He is himself in the Father, since he is in the substance of God, since there is only one power, one majesty. He is therefore in the Father, and the Father is in Him, because the Word is in God, God in the Word; He is in the Father, He is at the right hand of the Father, because He is one with the Father, not yielding to anyone; He is sent by the Father because he came down from heaven to fulfill the Father's will. Remove the quibbles of bad faith, and the religion is perfect: It is neither placed before because it sits on the right, nor dishonored because sent. There is no searching for degrees of dignity where there is the fullness of divinity. It must also be considered that he takes again those who call Christ the son of David; how, then, did the blind man deserve his healing by proclaiming him son of David (Lk 18: 35)? How did the children, when they said, "Hosanna to the son of David" (Matt. Xxi. 9), glorify God by proclaiming Him highly? But the wrong in this place is not to recognize him son of David, but not to believe him Son of God. It is not one of them, but both, who make true faith; for if we began to know "only Christ Jesus, and crucified" (I Cor., II, 2), now that we are nearing judgment we no longer know the crucified Christ, but we await his coming on the clouds ( // Cor, V, 16). The unbeliever looks at the wounds (Jn, xx, 25, 27), the believer runs to meet Christ, taken up in the air (I Thess., IV, 16). Let us then believe that Christ is at once God and man, one in two natures, and not double. The Father submits to him his enemies (Ps 109.1), not that his power is insufficient, but by virtue of the unity of nature, because one operates in the other. For the Son also submits to the Father his enemies, since he glorifies his Father on earth (Jn, XVII, 4). The Father has given the Son a name that surpasses all names (Phil, II, 9); but on his side the Son said to the Father: "I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me" (Jn, XVII, 6). But by giving a name that surpasses all names, He did not give more than he had, but He gave all he had. And if He gave this name, it is "that every tongue may render homage to God that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father" (Phil, II, 11).

 See each detail. The Father submits to the Son; the Son submits to the Father. The Father raises the Son; the Son resurrects himself; He also says: "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it in three days" (Jn, II, 19). The Father is Lord, and the Son is Lord: "The Lord has spoken to my Lord"; yet there are not two Lords, but one Lord. For the Father is God, and the Son is God; but there is only one God, since the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father (Jn, XIV, 10, XVII, 21); one God, since there is only one divinity: "Your throne, God, exists for ever and ever; it is a scepter of rectitude that the scepter of your kingship; you love righteousness, and hate iniquity: wherefore God your God hath consecrated you "(Ps 44, 7ffq); but there is only one God. On this point the teaching of the New Testament agrees with that of the Old; for in the Old Testament it is written, "You shall love the Lord your God," and "you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him" ​​(Deut., VI, 5, 13); in the New: "One God, who is Father of all" (Ephes., IV, 6). So the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord, but there is only one Lord; so it is written, "Beware of serving two lords" (Matt. VI, 24). This in the New Testament; in the Old it is written, "Listen, Israel: the Lord your God is the only Lord" (Deut., VI, 4). So the Apostle has admirably said, taking care not to speak of two Gods, to mention two Lords, or to diminish the Son or the Father: "There is only one God, the Father, from whom all things come, and one Lord, Jesus, by whom are all things "(I Cor., VIII, 6); for who is God is also Lord, and who is Lord is God; as well as it is written, "Know that the Lord Himself is our God" (Ps 99, 3). So all that the Father has, the Son has it too. God is Father in the relation of generation; the Son is God in the unity of the image. The Son is Lord, because, being able to submit all things by power, He did it by wisdom; the Father is Lord, because He is the root of the Son. Thus we distinguish the Father from the Son as to the diversity of persons; we unite them in the same power. So one is in the other, and one and the other are one. For it is the glory of the Father not to have degenerated in the Son, and the beauty of the Son to see the Father in Christ. He has not degenerated, having sovereign majesty in unity; He is no stranger, being really late, expression of the truth.