Luke 13:32

The preceding words of our Lord roused the Pharisees to anger. For they perceived that the people were now smitten in their hearts, and eagerly receiving His faith. For fear then of losing their office as rulers of the people, and lacking their gains, with pretended love for Him, they persuade Him to depart from hence, as it is said, The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying to him, Get you out and depart hence, for Herod will kill you: but Christ, who searches the heart and the reins, answers them meekly and under figure. Hence it follows, And he said to them, Go you and tell that fox.

Because of his wires end stratagems He calls Herod a fox, which is an animal full of craft, concealing itself in a ditch because of snares, having a noisome smell, never walking in straight paths, all which things belong to heretics, of whom Herod is a type, who endeavors to destroy Christ (that is, the humility of the Christian faith) in the hearts of believers.

Or else the discourse seems to change here, and not to refer so much to the character of Herod as some think, as to the lies of the Pharisees. For He almost represents the Pharisees themselves to be standing near, when He said, Go tell this fox, as it is in the Greek. Therefore he commanded them to say that which might rouse the multitude of Pharisees. Behold, said He, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and on the third day I shall be perfected. He promises to do what was displeasing to the Jews, namely, to command the evil spirits, and deliver the sick from disease, until in His own person He should undergo the suffering of the cross. But because the Pharisees thought that He who was the Lord of hosts, feared the hand of Herod. He refutes this, saying, Nevertheless I must walk today and tomorrow, and the day following. When He says must, He by no means implies a necessity imposed upon Him, but rather that He walked where He liked according to the inclination of His wild, until He should come to the end of the dreadful cross, the time of which Christ shows to be now drawing near, when He says, Today and tomorrow,

As if He says, What think you of My death? Behold, a little while, and it will come to pass. But by the words, Today and tomorrow, are signified many days; as we also are wont to say in common conversation, “Today and tomorrow such a thing takes place,” not that it happens in that interval of time. And to explain more clearly the words of the Gospel, you must not understand them to be, I must walk to day and to morrow, but place a stop after today and tomorrow, then add, and walk on the day following, as frequently in reckoning we are accustomed to say, “The Lord’s day and the day after, and on the third I will go out,” as if by reckoning two, to denote the third. So also our Lord speaks as if calculating, I must do so to day, and so to morrow, and then afterward on the third day I must go to Jerusalem.

Or these things are understood to have been spoken mystically by Him, so as to refer to His body, which is the Church. For devils are cast out when the Gentiles having forsaken their superstition, believe in Him. And cures are perfected when according to His commands, after having renounced the devil and this world until the end of the resurrection, (by which as it were the third day will be completed,) the Church shall be perfected in angelical fullness by the immortality also of the body.

But because they said to Him, Depart from hence, for Herod seeks to kill you, speaking in Galilee where Herod reigned, He shows that not in Galilee, but in Jerusalem it had been fore-ordained that He should suffer. Hence it follows, For it can not be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. When you hear, It can not be (or it is not fitting) that a prophet should perish out of Jerusalem, think not that any violent constraint was imposed upon the Jews, but He says this seasonably with reference to their eager desire after blood; just as if any one seeing a most savage robber, should say, the road on which this robber lurks can not be without bloodshed to travelers. So also no where else but in the abode of robbers must the Lord of the prophets perish. For accustomed to the blood of His prophets, they will also kill the Lord; as it follows, O Jerusalem, which kills the prophets.

In calling upon Jerusalem, He addresses not the stones and buildings of the city, but the dwellers therein, and He weeps over it with the affection of a father.

For the twice repeated word betokens compassion or very great love. For the Lord speaks, if we may say it, as a lover would to his mistress who despised him, and was therefore about to be punished.

But the repetition of the name also shows the rebuke to be severe. For she who knew God, how does she persecute God’s ministers?

Now that they were unmindful of the Divine blessings He proves as follows, How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and you would not. He led them by the hand of Moses out of all wisdom, He warns them by His prophets, He wished to have them under His wings, (i.e. under the shelter of His power,) but they deprived themselves of these choice blessings, through their ingratitude.

As many as I gathered together, it was done by my all prevailing will, yet your unwillingness, for you were ever ungrateful.

Now He who aptly had called Herod a fox, who was plotting His death, compares Himself to a bird, for foxes are ever lying in wait for birds.

He compared also the sons of Jerusalem to birds in n the net, as if He said, Birds who are used to fly in the air are caught by the treacherous devices of the catchers, but you shall be as a chicken in want of another’s protection; when your mother then has fled away, you are taken from your nest as too weak to defend yourself; too feeble to fly; as it follows, Behold, your house is left to you desolate.

The city itself which He had called the nest, He now calls the house of the Jews; for when our Lord was slain, the Romans came, and plundering it as a deserted nest, took away both their place, nation, and kingdom.

Or your house, (that is, temple,) as if He says, As long as there was virtue in you, it was my temple, but after that you made it a den of thieves, it was no more my house but yours. Or by house He meant the whole Jewish nation, according to the Psalm, O house of Jacob, bless you the Lord, by which he shows that it was He Himself who governed them, and took them out of the hand of their enemies. It follows, And verily I say to you, &c.

There seems nothing opposed to St. Luke’s narrative, in what the multitudes said when our Lord came to Jerusalem, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, for He had not as yet come thither nor had this yet been spoken.

For our Lord had departed from Jerusalem, as it were abandoning those who were unworthy of His presence, and afterwards returned to Jerusalem, having performed many miracles, when that crowd meets Him, saying, Osanna to the Son of David, blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.

At But as Luke does not say to what place our Lord went from thence, so that He should not come except at that time, (for when this was spoken He was journeying onward until He should come to Jerusalem,) He means therefore to refer to that coming of His, when He should appear in glory.

For then also will they unwillingly confess Him to be their Lord and Savior, when there shall be no departure hence. But in saying, You shall not see me until he shall come, &c. does not signify that present hour, but the time of His cross; as if He says, When you have crucified Me, you shall no more see Me until I come again.

Luke must be understood then as wishing to anticipate here, before his narrative brought our Lord to Jerusalem, or to make Him when approaching the same city, give an answer to those who told Him to beware of Herod, like to that which Matthew says He gave when He had already reached Jerusalem.

you shall not see, that is, unless you have worked repentance, and confessed Me to be the Son of the Father Almighty, you shall not see My face at the second coming.

3. For as, among men, those sons who disobey their fathers, being disinherited, are still their sons in the course of nature, but by law are disinherited, for they do not become the heirs of their natural parents; so in the same way is it with God, those who do not obey Him being disinherited by Him, have ceased to be His sons. Wherefore they cannot receive His inheritance: as David says, “Sinners are alienated from the womb; their anger is after the likeness of a serpent.” And therefore did the Lord term those whom He knew to be the offspring of men “a generation of vipers;” because after the manner of these animals they go about in subtilty, and injure others. For He said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” Speaking of Herod, too, He says, “Go ye and tell that fox,” aiming at his wicked cunning and deceit. …

The conversion, however, which leads to divine things, the Stoics say, is affected by a change, the soul being changed to wisdom. And Plato: “On the soul taking a turn to what is better, and a change from a kind of nocturnal day.” Now the philosophers also allow the good man an exit from life in accordance with reason, in the case of one depriving him of active exertion, so that the hope of action is no longer left him. And the judge who compels us to deny Him whom we love, I regard as showing who is and who is not the friend of God. In that case there is not left ground for even examining what one prefers, the menaces of man or the love of God. And abstinence from vicious acts is found, somehow, [to result in] the diminution and extinction of vicious propensities, their energy being destroyed by inaction. …

4. Epiphanius mentions sundry slight alterations in capp. v. 14, 24, vi. 5, 17. In chap. viii. 19 he expunged ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτοῦ . From Tertullian’s remarks (chap. xix.), it would seem at first as if Marcion had added to his Gospel that answer of our Saviour which we find related by St. Matthew, chap. xii. 48 : “Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?” For he represents Marcion (as in De carne Christi , vii., he represents other heretics, who deny the nativity) as making use of these words for his favourite argument. But, after all, Marcion might use these words against those who allowed the authenticity of Matthew’s Gospel, without inserting them in his own Gospel; or else Tertullian might quote from memory, and think that to be in Luke which was only in Matthew, as he has done at least in three instances. (Lardner refers two of these instances to passages in chap. …

Then shall the Church realize, fully and perfectly, the condition of “not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing,” because then also will it in a real sense be glorious. For inasmuch as he added the epithet “glorious,” when he said, “That He might present the Church to Himself, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing,” he signified sufficiently when the Church will be without spot, or wrinkle, or anything of this kind, then of course when it shall be glorious. …

145. This is also a matter which requires some consideration, namely, the question how it is said here, “Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,” when, according to this same Matthew, they had already expressed themselves to this effect. Besides, Luke likewise tells us that a reply containing these very words had previously been returned by the Lord to the persons who had counselled Him to leave their locality, because Herod sought to kill Him. That evangelist represents these self-same terms, which Matthew records here, to have been employed by Him in the declaration which He directed on that occasion against Jerusalem itself. For Luke’s narrative proceeds in the following manner: “The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto Him, Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee. …

15. “They shall be delivered unto the hands of the sword” ( ver. 10 ). In truth, thus it hath visibly befallen them, they have been taken by storm by enemies breaking in. “Portions of foxes they shall be.” Foxes he calleth the kings of the world, that then were when Judæa was conquered. Hear in order that ye may know and perceive, that those he calleth foxes. Herod the king the Lord Himself hath called a fox. “Go ye,” He saith, “and tell that fox.” See and observe, my brethren: Christ as King they would not have, and portions of foxes they have been made. For when Pilate the deputy governor in Judæa slew Christ at the voices of the Jews, he said to the same Jews, “Your King shall I crucify?” Because He was called King of the Jews, and He was the true King. …

“All they that go by the way have spoiled him:” that is, all the heathen that go by the way, meaning, all who pass through this life, have spoiled Israel, have spoiled David. First of all, see his fragments in all nations: for it is of the Jews that it is said, “They shall be a portion for foxes.” For the Scripture calls wicked, crafty, and cowardly kings, whom another’s virtue terrifies, foxes. Thus when our Lord Himself was speaking of the threatening Herod, He said, “Go ye, and tell that fox.” The king who fears no man, is not a fox: like that Lion of Judah, of whom it is said, “Stooping down Thou didst rise up, and didst sleep as a lion.” At Thy will Thou didst stoop down, at Thy will didst rise; because Thou wouldest, Thou didst sleep. …

Who is there then to pray over us, since Paul hath departed? These who are the imitators of Paul. Only let us yield ourselves worthy of such intercession ( συνηγορίας ), that it may not be that we hear Paul’s voice here only, but that hereafter, when we are departed, we may be counted worthy to see the wrestler of Christ. Or rather, if we hear him here, we shall certainly see him hereafter, if not as standing near him, yet see him we certainly shall, glistening near the Throne of the king. Where the Cherubim sing the glory, where the Seraphim are flying, there shall we see Paul, with Peter, and as a chief and leader of the choir of the Saints, and shall enjoy his generous love. For if when here he loved men so, that when he had the choice of departing and being with Christ, he chose to be here, much more will he there display a warmer affection. …

18. If then, as we have many times said, the Word of God is the same with us, and nothing differs from us except in time, let Him be like us, and have the same place with the Father as we have; nor let Him be called Only-begotten, nor Only Word or Wisdom of the Father; but let the same name be of common application to all us who are like Him. For it is right, that they who have one nature, should have their name in common, though they differ from each other in point of time. For Adam was a man, and Paul a man, and he who is now born is a man, and time is not that which alters the nature of the race. If then the Word also differs from us only in time, then we must be as He. …

What then? do I condemn second marriages? not at all; but I commend first ones. Do I expel twice-married persons from the church? Far from it; but I urge those who have been once married to lives of continence. The Ark of Noah contained unclean animals as well as clean. It contained both creeping things and human beings. In a great house there are vessels of different kinds, some to honour and some to dishonour. In the gospel parable the seed sown in the good ground brings forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. The hundredfold which comes first betokens the crown of virginity; the sixtyfold which comes next refers to the work of widows; while the thirtyfold, indicated by joining together the points of the thumb and forefinger, denotes the marriage-tie. What room is left for double marriages? None. They are not counted. …

And who is able, Lord, to tell me up the several succours that are hid in Thee? How shall the parched mouth be able to drink from the Fountain of the Godhead! Answer today the voice of our petition; let our prayer which is in words take effect in deeds. Heal us, O my Master; every time that we see Thy Feast, may it cause rumours that we have heard to pass away. Our mind wanders amid these voices. O Voice of the Father, still [other] voices; the world is noisy, in Thee let it gain itself quiet; for by Thee the sea was stilled from its storms. The devils rejoiced when they heard the voice of blasphemy: let the Watchers rejoice in us as they are wont. From amongst Thy fold there is the voice of sorrowfulness; O Thou that makest all rejoice, let Thy flock rejoice! as for our murmur, O my Master, in it reject us not: our mouth murmurs since it is sinful. …