While almost all of the works in this vault use Victorian translations, due to the only English translation of this commentary being in copyright, it was machine-translated (by Claude, 2026) from the public-domain Latin. It has not been checked by a human translator.
Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, written about 353–356, before his exile to the East. Chapter 15: On the washing of hands, and that it is not what goes into the mouth but what comes out of it that defiles; on the daughter of the woman of Canaan; and on the seven loaves and a few small fishes.
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Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, and so on. The meaning both of the words and of the deeds is complete in what follows: for He Himself answered what had been put forward, saying that every plant which is not of the Father must be rooted up, that is, that the tradition of men, for the sake of which they transgressed the commandments of the Law, must be torn out; and that they are therefore blind leaders, promising a road to eternal life which they do not see; and that both the blind and the leaders of the blind will fall together into the ditch.
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Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried, and the rest. Different kinds of healing embrace different workings of meaning; but the event and the discourse take their order from what went before. For He had convicted the unbelief of the Pharisees with the reproach of blind leaders, and with the superstitions of human traditions. And after this He comes to the regions of Tyre and Sidon, and the woman of Canaan, coming out of those coasts, cries out and prays, and confesses the Lord as the son of David, and asks help for her daughter. The Lord is silent; the disciples ask for her: and He answers them that He is sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. She, worshipping, begs to be helped; and the Lord says to her that it is not lawful to give the children’s bread to dogs. And she answers in turn that the little dogs are fed with the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table. After this the Lord praises her faith, and at that very hour health was restored to the girl.
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So that the inner meaning may follow upon what was done, we must consider from the very force of the words what the person of the woman of Canaan is. That there was, and still is, among Israel a people of proselytes is a sure fact: this people passed over from the Gentiles into the works of the Law, and, having gone out of the region of its former life, was held within the Law, which was foreign to it and ruled over it, as in a house. And the Canaanites were those who dwelt in the lands where Judaea now is: who, either destroyed in war, or scattered into neighbouring places, or brought into servitude by the condition of the conquered, carry about a name only, without a home in their own country. This people, then, mingled with the Jews, is of the Gentiles. And because it is not doubtful that in that multitude which believed there was some part of proselytes, this woman of Canaan, bearing the figure of the proselytes, will rightly be thought of as having gone out of her own coasts, that is, as passing out of the Gentiles into the name of another people: and she prays for her daughter, that is, for the people of the Gentiles. And because she knew the Lord from the Law, she calls Him the son of David. For in the Law are contained the rod from the root of Jesse, and the son of David, the king of an eternal and heavenly kingdom.
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She herself, indeed, no longer needs healing, since she confesses Christ as both Lord and son of David; but she asks help for her daughter, that is, for the people of the Gentiles, held under the dominion of unclean spirits. The Lord is silent, keeping for Israel, by the patience of His silence, the privilege of salvation. And the disciples, in pity, join their prayers to hers: but He, holding the secret of His Father’s will, answered that He was sent to the lost sheep of Israel: so that it might be quite plain that the daughter of the woman of Canaan contains the figure of the Church; since she was asking for what was being offered to others: not that salvation was not to be imparted to the Gentiles too; but the Lord had come to His own and among His own, and so was waiting for the firstfruits of faith from those from whom He had sprung, the rest to be saved afterwards by the preaching of the apostles. And therefore He says, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. The honour paid to Israel, and God’s affection for them, heap up the reproach of their unbelief: beside them the people of the Gentiles received the name of dogs. But the woman of Canaan, now herself saved through faith, and sure of the inner mystery, answered that the little dogs are fed with the crumbs that fall from the table: the reproach of “dogs” being now softened under the endearment of a diminutive name.
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And that we might understand that the Lord’s silence proceeded from the reckoning of the time and not from unwillingness, He added, O woman, great is thy faith: that is, that she, now sure of her own salvation, might be confident also of the gathering in of the Gentiles; at which time, believing as she did, they will soon, like the girl, be set free from all the dominion of unclean spirits. And at once the truth of the deed follows. For after the people of the Gentiles had been prefigured in the daughter of the woman of Canaan, at once, on the mountain, those beset with various kinds of diseases are brought to the Lord by the multitudes: that is, the unbelieving and the sick are taught by the believers to worship and fall down before Him; and to them health is restored, and all the services of mind and body are refashioned for perceiving, beholding, praising and following God.
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Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and the rest. He keeps the order of His course of working, and an equal meaning of the words follows upon the same works. For we remember that the figure of the Church was set in the daughter of the woman of Canaan, and we have taught that the healing of the people that followed is the concourse of the sick Gentiles. Now, then, both the words and the deeds of the Lord must be carefully treated, so that we may see whether what went before, the event and the discourse, as we have taught it is to be understood, receives the authority of the same meaning from what follows. The Lord has compassion on the multitude because it has stayed with Him three days; He will not send it away fasting, lest it faint in the way for want of food. The disciples plead that there is not bread enough to fill and satisfy it. The Lord asked how many loaves they had. They answered that there were seven loaves and a few small fishes. The multitudes are bidden sit down on the ground; and the Lord, taking the loaves and the fishes, gave thanks and broke them, and gave them broken to the disciples to set before them. But the fragments of seven loaves and a few fishes fill four thousand men; and yet the broken bread, when all were filled, was so abundant as to fill seven baskets.
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And many things indeed meet us which are new, compared with what was related before. The disciples, pitying a fast of one day, had wished five thousand men to be sent away into the villages to buy food: now for three whole days they are silent. And then the earlier multitude is spread upon the grass: this one sits down on the ground. There five loaves are offered, here seven: there two fishes, here the number is not fixed, though it is marked as few. There five thousand men, here four: there twelve baskets, here seven baskets filled. And I think the earlier account has been answered, and that everything in it has been fittingly set under the person of the people. Now let us try to bring a fitting meaning of the event and its cause here too: so that as those things suit the people of the Jews who believed, so these may be likened to the people of the Gentiles.
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The order in the Lord’s discourse is the same, then, as remains in the obtaining of grace. For those who are to come to baptism first confess that they believe in the Son of God, and in His Passion and resurrection: and to this mystery of their profession faith is given in return. And so that some truth of the things themselves may follow this pledge of words, remaining in fasting throughout the whole time of the Lord’s Passion, they are joined to the Lord by a kind of fellowship of suffering with Him. So, whether by the mystery of the pledge or by fasting, they pass with the Lord the whole of that time of the Lord’s Passion.
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And the Lord, having compassion on this hope and companionship, says that they have been with Him three days. He wishes to feed them with His food, lest faintness should weaken them in the course of worldly life, that is, in the labour of the way; and to strengthen them by the power of His bread with strength to finish the whole journey: the disciples complaining that there is no bread in the desert. And yet they had taken an example from what went before, that nothing is impossible with God. But the causes of the deeds work out the meaning of an inward understanding. For how great the eagerness of the apostles was for the saving of Israel, the epistles of the most blessed Paul teach: and therefore, while that eagerness still lasts, now, at the concourse of the Gentiles, there is brought in both the complaint about bread and the silence about the fast.
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Seven loaves, then, are offered. For no salvation is taken by the Gentiles from the Law and the prophets; but they live through the grace of the Spirit, whose gift is sevenfold, as is handed down by Esaias. So the Spirit, through faith, is salvation to the Gentiles. They sit down on the ground; for they had not before been spread upon any works of the Law; but, clinging to the origin of their sins and their bodies, they are called to the gift of the sevenfold Spirit. The unfixed number of the fishes signifies the distributions and ministrations of different gifts and graces, with which the faith of the Gentiles is satisfied by the diversity of graces. And the filling of seven baskets signifies the overflowing and multiplied plenty of the sevenfold Spirit, who has more than enough to give: and when we are filled it becomes ever richer and fuller. And the gathering of four thousand men signifies the multitude, past numbering, from the four quarters of the world. For in the figure of what was to come the people, counted out into the thousands of so many quarters, is satisfied, as many as the thousands of believers who were to run together from those quarters to the gift of the heavenly food. The multitude, then, is sent away filled and satisfied. And because the Lord remains with us all the days of our life, He goes into the ship, that is, the Church, accompanied by the people of believers.