PROLOGUE My intention in writing this work was not to make a systematic commentary on the gospel, but to expose, according to the will and time of the person who consulted me and in whose company I read it, what seemed obscure to me, if that was the case. The reason for missing many passages, perhaps even darker, is this: who investigated the meaning, unknown to him, of certain texts already knew the interpretation of others and did not want to linger in those who, after hearing and commenting on them, he kept them resolutely and firmly in his memory. Some passages are not exposed in the book in the same order of narration as in the gospel. It is because of some of them, deferred exposure for the haste, I took up again when I had time, writing the comment below the last exposed. Once I noticed the anomaly, to avoid someone, looking perhaps to read in this work something that had shocked him in the gospel and had stimulated his research, he felt disgusted by the lack of order, I put the numeration of the issues, accompanied by their titles, so that anyone could consult without difficulty what he needed. All this after noticing that my comments, dictated, as it could, in separate units, had been collected and grouped in a single volume.
QUESTIONS ON THE GOSPEL OF SAINT MATTHEW
QUESTION 1. NO ONE THUNDERED THE SON, EXCEPT THE FATHER. — By saying that “no one knows the Son except the Father,” he did not add "and he to whom the Father wants to reveal him". However, after these words: "No one knows the Father, except the Son," Jesus added, "And he to whom the Son willed to reveal him. The meaning of this passage is not that the Son can be known only by the Father alone, while the Father would be known by the Son and by those to whom the Son has manifested it. Scripture wants us to hear rather than through the Son comes to us the knowledge of the Father and the Son, for the Son is himself the light of our soul. Thus the word that comes next: "And he to whom the Son willed to reveal him," does not mean only the Father but also the Son: it refers to all that precedes. The Father is manifested by his word, and every word manifests itself as much as it expresses.
(Matthew 12:1) QUESTION 2. BROKEN EARS — The disciples of the Lord began to tear ears and eat them. They crumpled them first, otherwise they could not eat them. Hence this recommendation: "Mortify your members who are earthly," that is to say: no one is incorporated in Christ until he has stripped the garment of the flesh. Hence this word: "Strip the old man” (Col. 3:5-9); And this one: "Be circumcised, not of the circumcision which is practiced externally on the flesh." (Col. 2:11)
(Matthew 12:20) QUESTION 3. SMOKING WICK. — With regard to the smoking wick, let us remark that by losing its light, it spreads the pollution.
(Matthew 12:22) QUESTION 4. OF THE BLIND-MUTE. — He was presented with a man possessed by the devil, blind and dumb, that is to say, a man who does not believe, and who is in Satan's power; who neither knows nor confesses the faith of which it is written: "Let it be confessed by mouth to be saved," (Rom. 10:10) or who does not give glory to God.
(Matthew 12:27-29) QUESTION 5. JESUS ACCUSED OF BEING THE COLLABORATOR OF BEELZEBUB. — Jesus said: "But if by your own admission, I cast out demons through Beelzebub, then the kingdom of God came among you, "for the kingdom of Satan cannot stand, being, as you acknowledge, divided against himself.” Jesus calls the kingdom of God in this world, the power that condemns the wicked and separates them from the faithful who are delivered into this world to the exercises of penance. He gives Beelzebub the name of strong man, because men could not shake his yoke by their own strength, but only by the grace of God. "What he owns," otherwise, the infidels. "If he does not enchain him before," that is to say, if he does not deprive him of the power to prevent the will of the faithful to become attached to Christ and to obtain the kingdom of God.
(Matthew 12:34) QUESTION 6. RACE OF VIPERS. — Jesus calls the Jews: Race of vipers, as he says of them that they are sons of the devil. One is all the more the son of the devil one who sins more like the devil.
QUESTION 7. SIGN OF JONAH. — “As Jonah was in the belly of the whale, three days and three nights; so the Son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Count for one night and one day, that is to say, for a whole day, the evening of Friday when Christ was buried in the night before; add the night and the Sabbath day; then the night of Sunday and the beginning of that same day, and you will find, taking the part for the whole, three days and three nights. Thus, in common phrasing, the duration of pregnancy is ten months, that is to say, nine full months; the beginning of the tenth is counted for a month. So again, the Transfiguration of the Lord took place on Tabor "after six days," according to St. Matthew (Cf. Matt. 17:1); "After eight days," according to St. Luke (9:23). Saint Luke counts the last part of the first day that Our Lord promised this wonder, and the first part of the last day when the mystery is fulfilled, like two whole days; therefore St. Matthew would have counted only the six intermediate days which alone were complete. In Genesis, the day begins with the light and ends with the darkness, to represent the fall of the man (Gen. 1:5). Now the day goes from darkness to light, according to this saying: "God has brought out the light of darkness," (1 Cor. 4:6) because the man delivered from the darkness of sin has come to the light of righteousness.
(Matthew 12:43-45) QUESTION 8. THE IMPURE SPIRIT OUT OF A SOUL. — This word, "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man," means those who will believe, but who do not know how to bear the yoke of continence, will return to the age. "He takes seven more wicked minds.” This means that the fallen man of justice will become hypocritical. Indeed, when the lust of the flesh, whose soul had been robbed by penance, renouncing the habits and works of sin, no longer finds the satisfaction of its desires, it returns with a more ardent ardor of the soul. Then, after having expelled the enemy, it surrendered itself to idleness, and neglected to bring into its purified home the Word of God, that divine host whom sound doctrine had introduced. As this man defiled by the seven vices opposed to the seven virtues of the soul, also affects hypocritically to be in possession of these same virtues, the lust is really that evil spirit which by making it seven times hypocritical, returns with seven other wicked minds: so his last state is worse than the last.
(Matthew 13:13-23) QUESTION 9. REPORT A HUNDREDFOLD. — These words: "The one brings back a hundred, another sixty, another thirty," designate: the hundredfold, the state of the martyrs: the martyrs, in fact, are satiated with life, and despise death; the sixty, the state of the virgins who possess the repose of the soul, having no need to struggle against the weight of the flesh; it is well known that soldiers and other public officials are entitled to rest when they are sixty years old; the thirty, the state of the married people, their age indicates the time of the fight: the most difficult struggles is to resist the efforts of the passions, that is their sharing.
(Matthew 13:25-30) QUESTION 10. THE CHAFF SEPARATED FROM THE GRAIN. —The name of tares is given to every foreign herb that spoils the harvest. It is said: “that we first separate the tares.” The ungodly in the trial that will precede judgment, will therefore be separated from the righteous. The good angels will make this division; for the good can very well, in a good intention, exercise the ministry of vengeance, thus a king, thus a judge; but the offices of mercy cannot be filled by the wicked.
QUESTION 11. THE MUSTARD SEED. — The mustard seed, by the fervor of faith or due to the antitoxic properties attributed to it, becomes the largest of all vegetables, that is, of all doctrines. The doctrines are the beliefs of the sects, that is, the opinions of each one of them.
(Matthew 13:33) QUESTION 12. MYSTERIOUS LEAVEN. — In this passage: "The leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour," the woman designates wisdom; the leaven expresses the charity that warms and ferment it. The three measures of flour can refer either to three realities present in man: with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind (Matt. 12:37) or to the three levels of purification: one hundred, sixty or thirty; or to that triple human typology (Matt. 13:23), personified in Noah, Daniel and Job. (Exod. 14:14)
(Matthew 13:44) QUESTION 13. TREASURE HIDDEN IN A FIELD. — The treasure hidden in a field represents the two Testaments of the Law enclosed in the Church. When someone comes to a partial understanding, he notices the mysterious greatness that is hidden in them, and runs, sells all his property and buys that field. In short, with the contempt of temporal realities, he acquires heaven in order to be rich in the knowledge of God.
(Matthew 13:54) QUESTION 14. THE CARPENTER'S SON. — Regarding the question of the Jews: Where does this wisdom and such power come from, their wisdom manifested in their words, the powers in the facts. That is why when the Apostle said: “Christ, power of God and wisdom of God,” (1 Cor. 1:24) he made an equation between power and miracles, thinking about the Jews, and between wisdom and doctrine, with the mind set on the Greeks, that is, on the Gentiles. (Matthew 14:26-33) QUESTION 15. JESUS WALKING ON THE WATERS. — The exclamation of the disciples that he was a ghost is equivalent to the content of this question: Do you think that he will find faith in the earth? (Luke 18:8) Indeed, some who end up yielding to the devil will doubt the coming of Christ. Peter's request for help from the Lord, when he was about to sink, symbolizes that the Church will be purified with some evidence, even after the last persecution. Something that also symbolizes Paul when saying: “He will be saved, but as through fire.” (1 Cor. 3:15) The affirmation that all those who were in the boat said to him full of admiration: Truly you are the Son of God means the brightness of his glory that then will be revealed, and that already contemplate in image those who currently walk guided by faith.
(Matthew 15:5) QUESTION 16. RESPECT DUE TO PARENTS. — “Every gift that comes from me will benefit you.” That is, everything you offer in attention to my person will already belong to you. With these words they imply that children no longer need parents to make offerings for them, because they have reached the age when they can make them for themselves. Once they reached the age when they could manifest this decision, in expressing it in fact, the Pharisees denied all personal guilt by neglecting their parents and not honoring them.
(Matthew 15:13) QUESTION 17. PLANT THAT GOD DID NOT PLANT. — “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.” It applies to carnal appetite. Those who thought according to their criteria were scandalized that the signs of certain things or their traditions were omitted, and they did not worry about the commandments of life that purify the spirit of all disordered passion.
(Matthew 15:28) QUESTION 18. THE SERVANT OF THE CENTURION AND THE DAUGHTER OF CANANEAN. — The healing of the centurion's servant and the daughter of the Canaanite woman, which Christ performs without coming to their homes, is a sign that Gentiles, without being the object of the personal coming of Christ, will obtain salvation through his word. In the fact of the healing of children at the appeal and request of both, it is necessary to understand the double personality of the Church that simultaneously, with respect to itself, motherhood and filiation. In effect, the Church is called mother by the totality of its members, while the name of children is held by each and every one of its members.
(Matthew 15:30) QUESTION 19. SPIRITUAL SICK. — The people presented the Lord mute, that is, people who neither praise nor make profession of faith; blind, people who do not understand, although they obey their superiors; deaf, who do not obey, although they do understand; lame, which are those who do not keep the commandments.
(Matthew 16:2-3) QUESTION 20. THE SIGNS OF TIME. — “At dusk you say: it will do good, because the sky is flushed.” That is to say, through the blood of the passion of Christ, in his first coming, the forgiveness of sins is granted. “And tomorrow you say: Today there will be a storm, because the sky presents a set red.” That is, Christ will arrive at his second coming with the fire of a herald. “So you know how to discern the aspect of the sky and you are not able to discern the signs of the times?” He spoke of the signs of the times with reference to his coming or to his passion, similar to the latter to the evening trees of the sky. He spoke of them also with reference to the horrors that will come before his Parousia, comparable to the set red of the morning sky.
(Matthew 17:11) QUESTION 21. ADVENT OF ELIJAH. — In the passage: “Elijah will come, it is true, and he will restore everything,” this restoration can be applied to men who have disturbed the persecution of the antichrist, or to the fact that, when he dies, he himself will repay all debt.
(Matthew 17:14-18) QUESTION 22. POSSESSED EPILEPTIC. — Regarding the passage: “Frequently he falls into the fire and, sometimes, in the water,” the fire is referred to the anger since it rises above; the water to the carnal pleasures. Regarding the question that the disciples asked him: “Why could not we expel him?” The answer is: So that they would not be proud when performing such miracles. To that end, through humble faith, as if it were a mustard seed, they were warned to seek to eliminate earthly pride, meaning in the term mountain.
(Matthew 17:25) QUESTION 23. FREEDOM OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD. — As for the passage: “then the children are exempt,” in all civil legislation it is understood that the children are free, that is, they are not subject to taxes. Therefore, the more free in any earthly kingdom the children of the kingdom to which all the kingdoms of the earth are subject.
(Matthew 18:6) QUESTION 24. SCANDAL. — The words of the Lord: “To those who scandalize one of these children,” that is, of the humble, just as he wants them to be his disciples, and do so by resorting to disobedience and contumacy, following the example of Alexander the copper-worker the Apostle: (2 Tim. 4:14) You'd be better off to fit one of those mill wheels around your neck that move the donkeys and submerge you in the bottom of the sea. (Matt. 18:6) That is to say, it fits well that the appetite of temporal realities, to which the fools and the blind are bound, drives him to perdition, chained to his own weight.
(Matthew 18:24-31) QUESTION 25. FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. — “A master was introduced to an individual who owed him ten thousand talents and ordered that he, his wife, his children and all his property be sold, and that he be paid that way.” It must be understood that he was a debtor of the ten commandments of the law and that, by greed and by his misdeeds, personified in the woman and the children, he must suffer a punishment, to which the price is equivalent. In effect, in the price of what is sold, it is necessary to understand the punishment of the condemned. As for the one who did not want to forgive the debt of one of his companions, but went and put him in jail, etc., it is necessary to understand that this the individual had such animosity against his partner that it led him to want to apply the torment. The companions who told the master everything that happened can be considered as personification of the Church that binds one and unties another.
(Matthew 19:23-25) QUESTION 26. RICH EXCLUDED FROM THE KINGDOM OF GOD. — When the Lord says that a rich man does not enter the kingdom of heaven, his disciples ask him who can be saved. Since the rich are so few in comparison with the poor, we must understand, then, that those who yearn for such material goods must realize that they are included in the number of those rich.
(Matthew 20:17) QUESTION 27. PREDICTED PASSION. — If the Lord anticipated his future passion to two disciples separately, he did so in anticipation of the future so that his testimony would be confirmed, since he himself said: “Every word is valid if it is uttered by two or three witnesses.” (Matt. 18:16) Both to avoid the disclosure of his words and to avoid the lack of human testimonial corroboration of what he said, he had to tell at least two people. This gesture of Jesus can also refer to the mystery of charity. There must be at least two people for it to exist. Christ was not going to suffer coerced by a debt of personal sins, but went to the passion for charity, to free us from our sins.
(Matthew 20:29-34) QUESTION 28. BLIND OF JERICHO. — “The Lord leaves Jericho, already moving away from this earth by the resurrection. Huge masses follow him: they believe in peoples and nations.” The two blind men sitting at the side of the road symbolize the presence in both the Jews and Gentiles of some men who, by faith, are integrating themselves into the temporal economy within which Christ is the way, and who yearn for enlightenment, that is, understand something of the eternity of the Word. This they wanted to achieve when Jesus passed, that is, thanks to the merit of the faith for which they believe that Christ, the Son of God, was born as a man and suffered for us. Thanks to this temporary economy, Jesus goes in a certain way because it is something that happens in time. It was, then, convenient that the cry of the blind was strong enough to silence the overwhelming racket of the crowd, who opposed it. That is, it was convenient that they kept tense and persevering the spirit in asking and in calling, until overcoming with that vigorous tension the custom of carnal desires that, like a mob, shouts at the doors of our thinking, anxious for light of the eternal truth; or even overcome the same mob of carnal men who are an impediment to the ideals of the spirit. Hearing, then, Jesus, that same Jesus who said that the one who asks receives, the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks will be opened, (Matt. 7:7) who approached him, that is, with the same ardor of desire they reached what they longed for, remaining motionless, he touches them and grants them sight. Because the eternity of the Word that, remaining in itself, renews everything, is not transient like that temporal economy. (Cf. Wis 7:27) Therefore, given that faith in the temporary incarnation prepares us to understand the eternal realities, in the fact of passing Jesus they were intimated to let themselves be enlightened, and they received the enlightenment of the one who remained immobile. Because the temporal realities are transient, while the eternal realities are immutable.
QUESTION 29. POWER OF FAITH. — The words of the Lord to his disciples: “You will say to this mountain: Arise and throw yourself into the sea,” he said referring to the pride that is characteristic of worldly men. These same words must be repeated to himself the servant of God to remove that vice from his person, given his incompatibility with the profession he has. It can also be explained in this sense: the same Lord, who is represented in Isaiah as a mountain, (Cf. Isa. 2:1) was taken away from the Jews to be thrown away to the gentility, as if it were a sea, by the faith of the Jews themselves, since they preached the gospel.
(Matthew 21:44) QUESTION 30. THE STONE THAT CRUSHES. — The Lord says: “And whoever falls on this stone will be smashed to pieces, and whoever he falls on will be crushed.” These words he says of those who fall on him, who are those who despise him and insult him at present. This attitude does not leave them completely broken, but they are very crushed and cannot walk without limping. With reference to those on which it falls, this stone will fall from above in the judgment, accompanied by the penalty of condemnation. That is why he said: He will crush them, so that the wicked will be like the dust that the wind snatches from the face of the earth. (Ps. 1:4)
(Matthew 22:2-9) QUESTION 31. THE ROYAL WEDDING. — The Lord said: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who prepared the wedding of his son.” This wedding is the Incarnation of the Word; by this adoption of the nature of man, the Church was united to God as a wife. By saying: "My bulls and my poultry are killed,” they understand bulls to the heads of the towns and by poultry everything that fattens. In the words of the Lord: “Go out to the crossings of the roads and to those you find inviting them to the wedding,” the roads are the doctrines of the Gentiles, because from all of them they came to the wedding, that is, they believed in Christ.
(Matthew 22:25) QUESTION 32. THE SEVEN HUSBANDS. — The passage in which the Sadducees say to the Lord: “there were seven brothers among us. The first was married and died, and the same happened with the second and the others,” it applies to the wicked who could not produce fruits of justice during the span of the seven ages of the world of which this land consists. At the end, after that like the seven husbands, and like them sterile, they passed on it.
QUESTION 33. THE SEVEN HUSBANDS. — On the words of the Lord: “On these two precepts hang all the law and the prophets.” A means that these two commandments are the conclusion and the end of the Law and the Prophets.
(Matthew 23:17-19) QUESTION 34. THE ALTAR THAT SANCTIFIES. — Regarding what the Lord said: “What is better, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? What is better, the offering or the altar that sanctifies the offering?” The Temple and the Altar is Christ Himself; gold, the gift, are the sacrifices of praise and the prayers we offer on the altar of Christ by the very hand of Christ. It is not these offerings that sanctify him; he himself sanctifies the offerings.
(Matthew 23:23-24) QUESTION 35. THE GNAT AND THE CAMEL. — These words of the Divine Master: "They reject, the gnat," are an allusion to the workings of the Pharisees; and these: "They swallow the camel," recall this reproach that was made to them: "You neglect what is most serious in the Law, mercy, justice, fidelity.” The meaning is this: You observe the smallest things, you despise the greatest. It may be said in an allegorical sense that by virtue of this criminal disposition they set Barabbas free and delivered the Lord to death. Barabbas was, in their eyes, a faithful observer of the Sabbath, whose sanctification they understood in a gross and material sense; but the Lord insisted on spiritual sanctification by the practice of mercy, justice, fidelity, virtues they trampled underfoot. It is not unreasonable to find in the comparison of the gnat an emblem of the seditious, guilty of murder; the gnat torments by its buzzing, and is greedy for blood. The camel that obediently lowers its high height to bear burdens, is the rather expressive type of the Lord's lowering.
(Matthew 23:37) QUESTION 36. MATERNAL DEDICATION. — The Lord apostrophized Jerusalem: “How many times I wanted to gather your children, as a hen welcomes her chicks under wings, and you have not wanted!” This animal shows great affection for its offspring to the point that the weakness of these confers that air of indisposition, and that something special that is very difficult to find in other animals: in the act of protecting their chicks with wings, is able to stand up to the hawk itself. Something like this happens to our mother, the Wisdom of God, who presents health in a certain way broken because of the incarnation, according to the opinion of the Apostle: Divine weakness is stronger than human robustness; It is protective of our weakness and faces the devil so that we do not fall into his clutches. And in this defense, what the hen tries to do for love in front of the hawk, that same can be achieved by his power in front of the devil.
(Matthew 24:20) QUESTION 37. DO NOT RUN AWAY IN WINTER OR ON SABBATH. — The Lord said: “Pray that your flight will take place neither in winter nor on the Sabbath.” This is it, pray that no impediment will stop you: whether in winter, rain or cold; if on Saturday, the prohibition of walking, not being allowed to go on the road. There is another way to understand it: pray that on that day nobody will be involved in the sadness or joy that have their origin in temporal realities.
(Matthew 24:23-27) QUESTION 38. LIGHTNING AND THE CHURCH. — In the passage that records the words of the Lord: “As the lightning comes from the east and crosses to the west, so will the arrival of the son of man,” by east and west he wanted to make the whole world understand why it was to be extended to the Church, once the gospel began in Jerusalem. (Cf. Luke 24:47) According to it he said: “From now on you will see the son of man coming on the clouds.” (Matt. 26:64) With all property applied here to the Church the name of lightning, whose radiance comes off above all from the clouds. Once the authority of the Church throughout the world is visibly and clearly established, it immediately intimates to the disciples, to the totality of the faithful and to all who wish to believe in him, that they do not give faith to the schismatics or to the heretics. Because all schisms and all heresies either occupy a specific place on the map no matter how tiny, or they deceive the curiosity of men using dark and hidden conventicles. This is what one says to you: “Look, the Christ is here or there,” with reference to parts of countries and provinces, or inside the houses or in the desert, with reference to the hidden and dark conventicles of the heretics. Therefore, what he said of his arrival, that he would cross from east to west, is an argument against those who receive his name from some regions of our geography and preach that Christ is where they are. The phrase like lightning can be wielded against those who congregate in the recesses of their homes and are few as residents in a depopulated place. The name of lightning belongs to the Church with reference to its manifestation and luminosity, meaning at the same time the night or the clouds of this world: in them is where the lightning flash manifests itself.
(Matthew 24:32) QUESTION 39. THE FIG TREE AND THE HUMAN RACE. — In the words of the Lord: “Learn the parable taken from the fig tree,” it is understood that the fig tree is by human kind, because of the itching of the flesh. “When their branches are tender,” that is, when the children of men have reached spiritual fruits through faith in Christ, the honor of being adopted children of God becomes visible in them.
(Matthew 26:24) QUESTION 40. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD FOR JUDAS NOT TO BE BORN. — What is the meaning of this word of the Lord concerning Judas: Would it have been good for him if he had not been born? Does the Lord speak, according to ordinary language, of the natural life? For a thing can only be good for one who enjoys existence. If it is maintained that there is a life before the present life, it will not be only for Judas but for every man that it will be true to say that it was good not to be born. Or did Jesus say that it would have been good for Judas not to be born to the devil to sin? Or, finally, not to be born to the life of Christ by the grace of the vocation, so as not to become apostate?
(Matthew 26:15) QUESTION 41. THE THIRTY SILVER COINS. — The sale of the Lord in thirty pieces of silver means that, through Judas, the wicked Jews, followers of the earthly and temporal realities that enter the sphere of the five corporal senses, did not want to accept Christ. And like this they did in the sixth age of the world, it means that they took the result of six by five as good, when appraising the sale of the Lord. Speaking of this age or epoch, the prophet reproaches these evil ones: “and why do you love vanity and go in search of lies?” (Ps. 4:3) as if in the five ages of the world they found an excuse to follow vanity, or as if in the sixth age they understood the truth preached and shown by our Lord, just as on the sixth day God created man in his image. (Cf. Gen. 1:26) But as they continued in the denial of Christ, they have the image of the prince of the century printed in six by five and they do not have Christ by whom the light of your face is reflected in us, Lord. (Ps. 4:7) And since the word of the Lord is silver, (Cf. Ps. 11:7) the Jews continued to understand that law carnally and, leaving the Lord marginalized, they maintained the printed image of a secular power.
(Matthew 24:28) QUESTION 42. EAGLES AROUND THE BODY. — The Lord says: “Where the corpse is, there the eagles will congregate.” That is, in the direction of heaven, where he raised the body, thanks to the humanity he assumed. He calls the body corpse, because it said that when it still had to die. There will congregate the eagles applied to spiritual people who, by imitating the passion and humility of Christ, are satiated from his body. Body and passion that, due to his humility, he assumed for us.
(Matthew 26:29) QUESTION 43. THE FRUIT OF THE TRANSFORMED VINE. — The words that the Lord spoke at the beginning of his passion: “from now on I will not drink this product of the vine until the day I drink the new one with you in my Father's kingdom,” they want to imply that this product of the vine is old, since, in contrast, it speaks of a new wine. And since he had taken body of the descendants of Adam, the so-called old man, and this body was going to deliver him to death (and logically that means his blood also through the mystery of wine), what is new wine but the Immortality of the renewed bodies? Therefore, when I say I will drink with you, it also promises you the bodily resurrection to clothe immortality. The circumstance of company, with you, should not be interpreted as a temporary identity, but as a renewing identity. The Apostle says, on the other hand, that we too have risen with Christ, (Cf. Col. 2:12) so that the hope of a future reality will give us a present joy. And when, when speaking of this product of the vine, he says that there is also a new wine, he wants to make it understood that these same bodies that will now die because of the earthly old age, will also be resurrected according to the heavenly renewal. If one understands by this ancient fruit of the vine, of which the Lord drank the chalice in his passion, the Jews themselves; the new life of this same people and its incorporation into Christ will also have to be recognized in the new fruit, when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, all Israel will obtain salvation. (Cf. Rom. 11:25)
(Matthew 26:67) QUESTION 44. SPITTLE AND BELLOWS. — The words: “They spit in his face” allude to those who reject the presence of the grace of God. Those who prefer their own honor to Christ's are as if they slapped him. He is buffeted by those who, blinded by infidelity, continue to affirm that Christ has not come, as nullifying and rejecting his presence.
(Matthew 26:69-74) QUESTION 45. DENIAL OF SAINT PETER. — Peter, without yet conforming to the faith, denied Jesus three times. This triple denial seems to designate the detestable error of the heretics. Because the error of the heretics about Christ has three facets: either they err on their divinity, or they are mistaken about their humanity, or they deceive themselves about one thing or another.
(Matthew 26:58) QUESTION 46. PETER OR THE CHURCH FOLLOWING FROM AFAR THE SAVIOR. — Peter, following the Lord from afar on the path of passion, is a sign of the Church that will follow the Lord, that is, that will imitate his passion. But this happens in a very different way: the Church suffers for itself, while Christ suffers for the Church.
(Matthew 26:39.42.44) QUESTION 47. TRIPLE TEMPTATION AND TRIPLE PRAYERS. — The temptation of concupiscence is threefold and so is the temptation of fear. The fear of death is opposed to the appetite anchored in curiosity, because, just as in curiosity there is a desire to know things, in relation to death there is the fear of losing that knowledge. The fear of infamy and insults is opposed to the appetite for honors and fame. The fear of pain is opposed to the appetite of pleasures. That is why it is not absurd to accept that the Lord, thinking of the triple temptation that passion meant for him, begged three times to pass that chalice, but putting the will of the Father first.
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