Interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew

Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 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 knew the will of God from the conversation of God Himself with them mouth to mouth. Such was Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, Moses. But when people became corrupted and became unworthy of enlightenment and teaching from the Holy Spirit, then the man-loving God gave Scripture, so that, although with its help, they would remember the will of God. So Christ himself first personally talked with the apostles, and (after) sent them the grace of the Holy Spirit as teachers. But since the Lord foresaw that heresies would subsequently arise and our morals would deteriorate, He deigned that the Gospels should be written, so that we, having learned the truth from them, would not be carried away by heretical lies, and so that our morals would not completely deteriorate. He gave us the four Gospels because we learn from them the four main virtues: courage, wisdom, truth and chastity: we learn courage when the Lord says: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28); wisdom when he says: “Be wise as serpents” (Matthew 10:16); truth when he teaches: “As you want people to do to you, do so to them” (Luke 6:31); chastity, when he says: “Whoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). He gave us the four Gospels also because they contain subjects of four kinds, namely: dogmas and commandments, threats and promises. They threaten those who believe in dogmas, but do not keep the commandments, with future punishments, and promise eternal benefits to those who keep them. The Gospel (good news) is called so because it tells us about good and joyful things for us, such as: remission of sins, justification, relocation to heaven, adoption to God, inheritance of eternal blessings and liberation from torment. It also proclaims that we receive these benefits easily, for we do not acquire them through our labors and do not receive them for our good deeds, but we are rewarded with them through the grace and love of God. There are four evangelists: two of them, Matthew and John, were from among the twelve, and the other two, Mark and Luke, from among the seventy. Mark was Petrov's companion and student, and Luka Pavlov. Matthew, first of all, wrote the Gospel in Hebrew for the believing Jews, eight years after the ascension of Christ. John, as rumor has it, translated it from Hebrew into Greek. Mark, on the instructions of Peter, wrote the Gospel ten years after the Ascension; Luke after fifteen years, and John after thirty-two years. They say that, after the death of the former Evangelists, the Gospels were presented to him, at his request, in order to examine them and say whether they were written correctly, and John, since he received the great grace of truth, supplemented what was omitted from them, and wrote about what they said briefly in his Gospel at greater length. He received the name Theologian because other Evangelists did not mention the eternal existence of God the Word, but he spoke with inspiration so that they would not think that the Word of God is just a man, that is, not God. Matthew speaks of the life of Christ only according to the flesh: for he wrote for the Jews, for whom it was enough to know that Christ was born of Abraham and David. For a Jewish believer will be at peace if he is assured that Christ is from David. You say: “Wasn’t one Evangelist enough?” Of course, one was enough, but in order to reveal the truth more clearly, it was allowed to write four. For when you see that these four did not meet and did not sit in one place, but were in different places, and meanwhile wrote about the same thing as if it were said with one mouth, then how can you not marvel at the truth of the Gospel, and cannot say that the Evangelists spoke according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit! Don't tell me they don't agree on everything. Because look at what they disagree about. Did any of them say that Christ was born, and the other: “was not born”? Or did one of them say that Christ was risen, and the other: “not risen”? No no! They agree on what is necessary and most important. And if they do not disagree on the main things, then why be surprised that they apparently disagree on the unimportant; for from the fact that they do not agree on everything, their truth is most evident. Otherwise they would have been thought to have written by getting together, or by conspiring with each other. Now it seems that they disagree because what one of them omitted was written by the other. And this is indeed true. Let's get to the Gospel itself.