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 20: On the hope of the apostles, and on the last being made first. Where labourers are hired for the vineyard. On the sons of Zebedee, on the chief seats at a feast, and on the two blind men sitting by the wayside.
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Having heard these things, then, the disciples wonder and are afraid, saying that no one can be saved. The Lord answered that this is impossible with men, but possible with God. Again they reply to the Lord’s words that they have left all and are with Him. To them the Lord promised that when He should sit on the throne of His majesty they would sit upon twelve thrones and judge as many tribes of Israel; and that for all who have left everything for His name’s sake the fruit of a hundredfold reward is kept; but that many of the last would be first, and of the first last.
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There are many things which do not allow us to take the sayings of the Gospel in a simple understanding. For by the setting in of some things which, by the nature of human sense, contradict one another, we are warned to seek the meaning of a heavenly understanding. The apostles say both that they follow Christ and that they have left all: how, then, do they become sad, and how are they afraid, saying that no one can be saved? For it could be done by others too, if they themselves had done anything. Then, if they had done it themselves, why or from where was fear taken up? There is added also in the Lord’s answer that these things are impossible with men, possible with God. Were the things impossible with men which the apostles boast of having done, and which the Lord acknowledges them to have done, and which many afterwards, even to the blessedness of martyrdom, would leave everything to do? Or is there anything that God can need, and has anything been left that must be pursued by the loss of the things He has, so that to Him alone it is possible to do this? This whole passage, then, is spiritual.
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For the apostles, hearing spiritually that no one could be saved by the Law, though they themselves were even then under the Law — for a vehement love and attachment to the Law held them — being not yet fully acquainted with the truth of the mystery of the Gospel, fear that no one can be saved without the Law: because even then they place all salvation in the Law. But the Lord, with a short and complete reason, dispels both their ignorance and their fear, saying, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. For what seems so ineffectual to a Jew — who looks for salvation rather from man, and from the Law — as that, in the offence of the cross, the giving of the Law, and the covenant, and the adoption, and the inheritance should be disregarded? And what is so possible to the power of God as to save through faith, to regenerate through water, to conquer through the cross, to adopt through the Gospels, to give life out of death through the resurrection?
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Having heard this the apostles quickly believe, and declare that they have left all. And the Lord quickly rewards this obedience of theirs, resolving all the difficulty of the earlier question, when He says, Ye which have followed me, in the regeneration … shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel. They followed Him in the regeneration: in the washing of baptism, in the sanctification of faith, in the adoption of the inheritance, in the resurrection from the dead. For this is that regeneration which the apostles followed, which the Law could not grant, which joined them on twelve thrones, in judging the twelve tribes of Israel, to the glory of the twelve patriarchs. To the rest too who follow Him in contempt of the world He promises the abundance of a hundredfold fruit. This is the hundredfold fruit which is fulfilled with heavenly joy in the hundredth sheep. This is the hundredfold fruit which the richness of the good ground attains. This honour of the Church was already appointed in the name of Sara, and is to be earned by the loss of the Law and by the faith of the Gospel: and so He promises that out of the last the first will be made, because the last are made out of the first.
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For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers, and the rest. The whole comparison is complete in itself; but it must be divided according to persons and distinguished according to times. This householder must be taken to be our Lord Jesus Christ, who, having the care of the whole human race, at every time called all men to the tilling of the Law. By the vineyard we understand the work of the Law itself and obedience to it; and by the penny the reward of that obedience. And we have already treated of the penny above. Of the vineyard we shall give an account more fittingly in what follows. And the thing itself tells us that the market-place is to be taken for the world, always alike in turmoil with crowds of men, with the quarrels of slanders and wrongs, and with the difficulties of all kinds of business.
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In the first hour, then, by the meaning of the morning, we must recognise the time of the covenant made with Noe; in the third hour, that with Abraham; in the sixth, that with Moses; in the ninth, that with David and the prophets. For as many covenants are found made with the human race, through particular men, as there are goings out to the market-place counted. And in the eleventh hour He shows the time of the Lord’s bodily coming; for out of the whole number which has been set for the span of the present world, His birth of Mary falls into the same proportion as the time of the eleventh hour falls in the day. For if the whole sum of six thousand years is divided by the number five hundred, the time of His bodily birth is reckoned at the eleventh count of the whole division.
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And indeed the saying is different for the labourers of the eleventh hour. For to the first, but also to the rest, it was said, Go ye into the vineyard: but the reward of a penny was agreed with the first; to the rest the hope of a just payment was held out; but to the last it is said, Why stand ye here? — because, although the Law had been given to Israel, yet the will of the Gentiles was not shut out from the Law. And they answered, Because no man hath hired us. For it was owed that the Gospel should be preached through the whole world, and the Gentiles saved by the justification of faith. These, then, are sent into the vineyard. And when even was come, the first labourers receive, at the hour of evening, the gift of the reward agreed for the labour of the whole day. Now there is no reward by gift, since a reward is owed for work; but God has given free grace to all by the justification of faith. But, according to the insolence of a people already stubborn under Moses, hence comes the murmuring of the workers, hence the grudging of a free reward: that the same prize should be paid back to those who worked without the difficulty of a long labour, and under the name of “the heat”, with the heat of the devil’s prompting burning upon them for no long time. But it is for this reason that what is impossible with men is possible with God: that He may give the reward of the Law, kept in the best and most blameless way, as a gift of grace through faith, to believers made first out of last.
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And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the rest. Now, to apostles who would hear it without offence, the Lord sets out the mystery of the cross — and indeed no sorrow follows this saying: the apostles having been confirmed by the earlier saying that through faith in the cross the last would be first; but that for the rich, that is, for those who trust in the Law and take offence at that same cross, the road to the kingdom of heaven would be impassable.
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Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, and the rest. It must not be thought that it came about without some significance that the mother of Zebedee’s sons made the request of the Lord. Had the sons not the familiarity to ask for themselves? But there was to be prophecy by the working of events. The apostles had already believed out of the Law, which had nourished them for the faith of the Gospel. And so in the mother of Zebedee’s sons is understood the Law, which, in confidence of its privilege, makes request for the peoples who have believed out of it. Because she had heard above that the first would be last and the last first, she asks that it be granted to her sons that in the Lord’s kingdom one should sit at His right hand and the other at His left. The Lord answered her that she did not know what she was asking. There was no doubt about the glory of the apostles, and the earlier saying set out that they would judge. Then in the middle of the discourse He asks whether they could drink of His cup. He was not speaking of a common kind of drinking-cup; for it is no labour to drink from a cup: but He asks about the cup of the mystery of the Passion. And they, who already held the freedom and constancy of martyrdom, promise that they will drink it. The Lord, praising their faith, says that they can indeed suffer with Him in martyrdom; but to sit at His left hand and His right has been appointed for others by God the Father.
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And indeed, as we judge, this honour has been kept for others in such a way that the apostles will not be strangers to it either: they who, sitting on the seat of the twelve patriarchs, will judge Israel. And so far as may be gathered from the Gospels themselves, Moses and Elias will sit beside Him in the kingdom of heaven. For when the Lord had promised that some of the apostles, before they tasted death, would see the Son of man coming in His kingdom, He took Peter and James and John and appeared in the garb of His glory, with Moses and Elias accompanying Him on the mountain. And we understand these to be the same two prophets who go before His coming, whom the Apocalypse of John says are to be slain by Antichrist: although there have been various opinions of many, either about Enoch or about Jeremias, that one of them must die, as Elias must. But we cannot corrupt, by an opinion of our own mind, the truth of the faith which the Lord revealed to the three witnesses above: nor think that any others will come than those who were seen to have come for the pledge of faith. And although there is no need to form opinions beyond the truth of the Gospel, yet if anyone has carefully considered the circumstances of the death and burial and tomb of Moses, and has gained the knowledge of the secret Scriptures, according to the Apostle’s authority, he will understand that all things were so handled that Moses could already be seen. And let these things be said for instruction.
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But so that the spiritual meaning might be complete, the mother prayed to the Lord for two. For there are two callings out of Israel: one of the disciples of John, the other, through the apostles, of the Pharisees. For above we read that after John’s passion his disciples passed over to the Lord. So prayer is made for two, because these twin callings believed the Gospel of Christ. After this, then, the ten disciples were grieved about the two brothers; but there is no sorrow on the part of those two disciples themselves. Reason does not allow that one should be made sad by the rebuff given to another. Certainly the ten could have been sad for themselves too; for under the names of the two this seemed to be refused to all; but the figurative order was kept. The apostles were sure about themselves: so they are sad only about the two, because they wished fellowship in this glory for these two callings also, which are from the Law. For the saying so governs the meaning both of the future and of the present that neither the ten nor the two are written as anxious about themselves, and in the anxiety of the ten about the two the working of the present business was served.
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The Lord, then, wishing to show us the proper meaning of this foreshadowing, and that those who were to come from the Law would wish to presume upon this presumption from the prerogative of the name of Israel, teaches that not only is leadership over the Gentiles not to be grasped by them, but that those who serve and minister, and not those who are ministered to, are called to the glory of the highest honour: after the example, that is, of the patriarchs and prophets who served, after the example too of the apostles who ministered, after the example too of the Lord, who spent His life for the redemption of our salvation. And for the glory of this humility He instructs them by the manner of a supper and a feast: warning that one should not sit down in the higher places, lest perhaps, when one more honourable comes, he be told by the master of the feast that the place is taken and depart in fitting shame. But if he sits down in the low places, then, when lowlier men come, he will go up to the glory of a higher place. And so it is fitting not to presume upon any honour, but to earn it by works of humility.
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And as they departed from Jericho, a great multitude followed him. And, behold, two blind men sitting by the way side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, and so on. Above, under the figure of the two sons of Zebedee, the people of Israel was treated, which had sprung from the seed of Sem. Fittingly, then, two blind men sit by the way: that is, the two peoples of the Gentiles, begotten of Cham and Japheth, watch His going forth and His road, and pray that sight be restored to them in their blindness. Then the multitude rebukes them for crying out, and charges them to hold their peace: not that they required silence for the sake of reverence, but they were bitter at hearing from the blind what they themselves denied, that the Lord was the son of David. For when the minds of the blind were enlightened, God in man was preached, so that what was said by the Lord might be true: For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. But they cry the more; and while the people of the Law lingers, they declare a more vehement warmth of faith. And the Lord has compassion, and asks what they want. They pray that their eyes may be opened. And having compassion on them He touched their eyes, and gave them back the sight to know God. And that the figure of the Gentiles who were to believe might be fulfilled, those who had been blind, having received the knowledge of heavenly grace, saw and followed their Lord.