The Strange Vine and the True Vine: Israel's Vineyard and Christ the Vine
Old Testament: Jeremias 2:21
Yet I planted thee a chosen vineyard, all true seed: how then art thou turned unto me into that which is good for nothing, O strange vineyard?
Old Testament, also: Psalms 79:9
Thou hast brought a vineyard out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the Gentiles and planted it.
New Testament: John 15:1-2, 5
I am the true vine; and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me, that beareth not fruit, he will take away: and every one that beareth fruit, he will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit. ... I am the vine: you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.
The connection
God planted Israel as His vine: "Thou hast brought a vineyard out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the Gentiles and planted it" (Psalms 79:9). The prophets sang of the care He gave it and the fruit He looked for. In Isaias's song He "looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes", and asks, "What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it?" (Isaias 5:2, 4). Jeremias puts the same grief in one line: "Yet I planted thee a chosen vineyard, all true seed: how then art thou turned unto me into that which is good for nothing, O strange vineyard?" (Jeremias 2:21). On the night before He suffered Christ answers the prophet: "I am the true vine; and my Father is the husbandman" (John 15:1). What God planted and looked for, He is: the vine that bears the fruit, and in whom the branches bear it. "He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing" (15:5). St Augustine hears Jeremias in the word true: "He distinguishes Himself from that vine to whom it is said, How you are turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine to me ... For how is that a true vine, which when grapes are expected from it, produces only thorns?" The prophets' rebuke was spoken to their own people, and God does not take back His call: "the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance" (Romans 11:29). Christ is the vine in whom that calling bears its fruit, and every branch, of Israel or of the nations, lives by abiding in Him. The Catechism names Christ the true vine who gives life and fruitfulness to the branches (CCC 755).
Moral sense
A vine is known by its fruit, and the Baptist asked for nothing less. "Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance" (Matthew 3:8). The fruit is not ours to make: "the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience" (Galatians 5:22), borne only by the branch that abides, for, as St Augustine says, "He does not say, you can do little." And the branch that bears is pruned: "every one that beareth fruit, he will purge it" (John 15:2). St John Chrysostom reads the pruning as "the tribulations and trials" that purge and strengthen, and Hebrews says the same of God's chastisement, which "seemeth not to bring with it joy, but sorrow: but afterwards it will yield ... the most peaceable fruit of justice" (Hebrews 12:11).
Anagogical sense
At the Last Supper Christ looked past the cup to the harvest: "I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father" (Matthew 26:29). The vintage the prophets waited for is drunk at last with Him, and the branch that abode in the vine is gathered in, as St John asks: "abide in him, that when he shall appear, we may have confidence" (1 John 2:28).
The Fathers
St Augustine, in the Catena Aurea on John 15:1: "When He says, I am the true vine, He does not mean really a vine; for He is only called so metaphorically, not literally, even as He is called the Lamb, the Sheep, and the like; but He distinguishes Himself from that vine to whom it is said, How you are turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine to me ... For how is that a true vine, which when grapes are expected from it, produces only thorns?" St John Chrysostom, in the Catena Aurea on John 15:2: "He alludes here to the tribulations and trials which were coming upon them, the effect of which would be to purge, and so to strengthen them. By pruning the branches we make the tree shoot out the more."
Warrant
Patristic. St Augustine sets Christ's "true vine" against the "strange vine" of Jeremias 2:21 (in the Catena Aurea on John 15:1, where the English misprints the reference as Jeremias 11:21), and St John Chrysostom reads the pruning of John 15:2 as tribulation that strengthens. Checked in the Greek: the Septuagint of Jeremias 2:21 has God plant a vine all true, and Christ says hē ampelos hē alēthinē, the true vine, with the same noun and the same adjective. OpenBible's readers join Jeremias 2:21 to John 15:1 with 79 votes, and Psalm 79:9 and Isaias 5:1 to it as well. The verses came to the site from Dunk's search for fruit.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 755.
The verses
Jeremias 2:21 · Psalms 79:9 · John 15:1 · John 15:2 · John 15:5
