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 21: On the ass and her colt, on the money-changers cast out of the temple, on the cursed fig tree, on the two sons sent into the vineyard, and on the publicans and harlots.
-
Then sent Jesus two disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and so on. Two disciples are sent to the village to loose an ass that was tied with her colt and bring them to Him; and if anyone asks why this is done, they are to answer that the Lord has need of them and will send them back straightway. After the earlier discourse, in which we recalled that a double calling out of Israel was signified in the two sons of Zebedee, two disciples are now fittingly appointed to loose the ass and the colt: because a double calling of people from among the Gentiles was to follow. For there were, and are, the Samaritans, who once went out from the Law by secession and serve under a kind of custom of their own observance; and there were also the Gentiles, untamed and fierce. So two are sent, to loose those who were bound and tied and hindered by the chains of error and ignorance; and they are sent outside Jerusalem, for these two callings were held outside it. But the mother of Zebedee’s sons prayed to the Lord within Jerusalem: for Israel is saved out of the Law by two callings, either through the apostles or through John. And in like manner Samaria believed through Philip, while through Peter Cornelius was brought to Christ as the firstfruits of the Gentiles. And as for their being instructed to answer anyone who asked that the Lord had need of them and would soon send them back: that is, that these very men were to be given back to their own people as preachers of the faith of the Gospel. So the prophecy was fulfilled which announced that the Lord would come into Jerusalem riding on an ass and a young colt. But it is by the working of events that prophecy is made. For the ass which is loosed from the village and brought — Samaria, that is, held under a foreign and alien dominion — is loosed by the apostles and given back to her Lord. And the same Lord mounts the colt, young, stubborn and hard: and all these vices of Gentile ignorance had dominion, and the fierceness of so many souls became a carriage for God.
-
And this whole likeness of what is to come keeps its order: and by parabolic meanings and the circumstances of present things a figure is sent ahead for the future. For the Lord in the coming of His glory will possess the Gentiles, and sitting upon their minds as a rider, will be proclaimed by the whole column of His train, of patriarchs, prophets and apostles. For the patriarchs spread their glory, in their garments, under the Lord: for by their generations and names and persecutions the Lord was prophesied. And yielding to Him with all the adornment of their dignity, and spreading themselves under His seat, they teach that all their glory was spread beneath the preparing of the Lord’s coming. The prophets too spread their garments in the way before Him as He goes; for they preached this road, that the Gentiles would carry God: and they, putting aside love of the world, offering themselves to deaths and stonings, in a manner put off their very bodies, offered up for the entering on such a road. The apostles too spread, after the garments, branches cut from the trees: but in this there is no reverence of human courtesy. For branches would hinder Him as He went, and make the road tangled for one hastening to enter: but the whole meaning of the prophecy is unfolded and the figure of the future kept. So the branches of the unfruitful Gentiles, that is, the fruits of the Gentiles who were once unbelieving, are spread by the apostles in the Lord’s way, and are justified by the Saviour’s going in: and through them He goes, and a service most pleasing to God as He goes is made out of the branches of a barren root.
-
And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. But how does the multitude praise one who is to be crucified, or how did He earn hatred from favour? But the words of praise express in Him the power of redemption. For Hosanna in the Hebrew tongue means the redemption of the house of David. Then they call Him the son of David, in whom they recognise the inheritance of the eternal kingdom. Lastly they confess Him blessed who comes in the name of the Lord. Yet what they were to cry out was, Crucify the blasphemer. But present deeds work out the figure of the future; and though the feelings of those among whom these things were done were at war with one another, and though things quite different would soon follow, yet the working of events contrives the proof of heavenly things even through the unwilling. Then Jerusalem is moved; for the strangeness of the events brought commotion on people astonished.
-
And Jesus went into the temple: that is, into the church, by the entrance of the preaching He had handed down. From it His power first rightly drives out all the vices of the priestly ministry: for He had commanded that all should give freely what they had freely received; because the freedom of the gift ought not to admit of anything being bought or sold through the corruption of a priest. And He overthrew the seats, above all of those who sold doves. What dignity is there in a market of doves? Or what privilege has been reserved for trading in these birds, that those who sell them should claim for themselves the honour of seats? But in every place we give warning that other forces of the words are to be looked for in meanings of this kind. In the dove, according to the examples of prophecy, we understand the Holy Spirit; in the seat is the chair of the priesthood. So He overthrew the seats of those who hold the gift of the Holy Spirit for sale, for whom the ministry entrusted by God is a trade; recalling the authority of His warning, which is held in the prophet. For it is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. But it must not be thought that the Jews in the Synagogue could either buy or sell the Holy Spirit. For they had not anything to sell, nor was there anything anyone could buy: but the foreshadowing of things to come is contained in present sayings — that the vices of the Church are to be purged at the very coming of the Lord’s glory.
-
He healed also the infirmities of the blind and the lame in the temple; and the favour of the people followed His public works. But the chief priests grudge the children their shouts, and warn Him that He should hear such things; for He was being proclaimed as having come for the redemption of the house of David. He answered them that they had not read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise: that, the judgments of the prudent ceasing, this glory of confession had been prepared for Him by children and infants, whose is the kingdom of heaven; because the prudent and the princes of the world had rejected the wisdom of God, but the little ones and sucklings of the regeneration would preach Christ. And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there: that is, leaving the unbelieving Synagogue, He abides in the Church of the Gentiles.
-
Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and the rest. Here too the same order of heavenly things is sent ahead. For an example of the Synagogue is set in the fig tree. For when space has been given for repentance — the time, that is, which lies between the Passion and the return of His glory — He will come hungering for the salvation of this people, and will find it barren, clothed only with leaves, that is, boasting of empty words, but empty of fruit, sterile indeed of good works, and bare of the produce looked for. And because the time for repentance will have gone by, it will wither for ever under the sentence of the heavenly judgment. And in this we shall find a proof of the Lord’s goodness. For when He wished to bring an example of the salvation He had obtained, He exercised the power of His might on human bodies, commending the hope of things to come and the salvation of the soul by healing present sicknesses. But now, when He was setting forth a figure of severity against the stubborn, He showed the likeness of the future by the destruction of a tree, so that the peril of unbelief might be taught without harm to those for whose redemption He had come.
-
The disciples marvel that the tree withered at the moment of His very word: because the force of the present deed bore the image of the future. For when He comes in the heavenly kingdom, at the very time of His coming the sentence of eternal damnation will follow the barrenness of Jewish unbelief. And the Lord assures the disciples that if they have faith they can do not only these things, but greater than these. They were indeed to judge Israel, according to the promises before; but they were also to obtain every right over the devil, whom He calls the mountain. For He says thus: If ye have faith, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. O vast reward of faith, by whose merit the power of believers is lifted so high that, being about to judge all, they sink the height and mass of the devil, by a like sentence of severity, in the condemnation of the world!
-
And we must consider why the Synagogue is compared to the fig tree. For this tree flowers unlike other trees both in nature and in manner. For its first flower is in its fruits, but not in those fruits which, once they have appeared, come to ripeness. Both common use and the authority of prophecy have called these “untimely figs”. But afterwards, as the strength of its inner fruitfulness overflows, fruits of the same kind and shape break forth, and as they break forth those are thrust out, and, the stalks that held them being loosened, they fall; and the others that come out are carried on to the ripeness of fruit. But of those earlier ones, if it ever happens that they have come out in the fork of the twigs that spring from the same branch, they always remain, and do not fall like the other untimely figs, but cling alone, and come to ripeness before the other fruits. And the tree will give these finest fruits of itself, which, coming out with the other untimely figs, are put forth from the middle of both twigs like little tendrils. So from the tree’s nature a proper and fitting likeness of the Synagogue has been set before us.
-
For it lost the first fruits of the people which it had borne from the beginning, after the manner of the untimely figs: because the people of the Gentiles, faithful and steadfast and abiding to the end of the times, thrust out its useless people. Yet the apostles, the first believers out of Israel, clinging like those untimely figs between the Law and the Gospels, will go before the rest in the glory and the time of the resurrection. And indeed already at the beginning of Genesis, as a figure of this, Adam and Eve covered their shame with the leaves of this tree, when they hid themselves at the coming of the Lord who called them: because the unbelieving Synagogue, transgressing the commandments of the Law, was to cover the foulness of its shamelessness and the confusion of its disgraces with unfruitful coverings of words, as with fig leaves. And these things about the nature of this tree have been put in so that the fitness of the comparison might be understood. Let us now consider the rest of the order of events.
-
The Pharisees had seen many things since then more worthy of great wonder; but now they are most anxious, and ask by what authority He does these things. For the event, under the working of present deeds, embraced a vast secret of what was to come. And so the impulse to ask is found to come especially from this, under which the foreshadowing of the whole danger was being set forth. The Lord answers that He will tell them by what authority He does these things, if only they will answer Him when He asks whether they think John’s baptism was from heaven or of men. But they hesitate at the danger of their answer, reckoning that if they confessed it was from heaven they would be caught guilty by their own confession, because they had not believed the authority of a heavenly testimony; and if they said it was of men, they feared the multitude, for many held John as a prophet. So they answered that they did not know. They did indeed not know that it was from heaven, since they fear to be convicted by the truth of their confession. But they spoke the truth about themselves, even with the will to deceive. For through their unbelief they did not know that John’s baptism was from heaven. And that it was of men they could not know, because it was not.
-
A certain man had two sons, and the rest. There are many weighty things which can confuse the understanding, unless we hold to the order of the earlier and the later meaning. For who can be thought to be the elder son here, who said that he would not go to the work, and, amended by repentance, afterwards went? Yet Israel did not repent, but laid hands on the Lord, and its whole body crucified its God with impious mouth. And whom shall we take to be the younger, who promised to go and did not go? But the people of the Gentiles and sinners did what it promised. For it went, and went out to the work to which it was called: how, then, shall it be thought to be the one who did not go?
-
Then we must ask what weight the Pharisees’ answer itself has. They say that the younger did his father’s will. The reason of things does not allow that a feigned profession should win the merit of perfect truth: that it should count for more to have promised and deceived than to have done everything without promising. And who would not rather be refused what he asks, so long as what he asked is done, than have what is promised not done? since the effect of a deed is the more welcome after despair, and a hope disappointed grieves the more. Unless perhaps the will of those who ask flatters itself only with the fawning of those who promise.
-
We must remember, then, that the setting out of this comparison comes down from the discourse begun about John, so as to rebuke, by an example of this kind, the hesitation of unbelief and the silence forced by it. But, as we have pointed out in other places, we must remember here too that something is sometimes wanting to the meaning of present things on this condition: that the likeness of the future may be fulfilled without any loss to the foreshadowing work. The first son is the people of the Pharisees, warned for the present by God, through John’s prophecy, to obey His precepts. This people was insolent and disobedient and stubborn towards the present words, having confidence in the Law, and scorning repentance for sins in the glory of its prerogative of nobility from Abraham: it afterwards, through the wonders of the works, after the Lord’s resurrection, repented and believed under the apostles; and, returning by the faith of the deed to the will of the Gospel’s working, confessed by repenting the guilt of its former insolence.
-
And the younger son is the people of the publicans and sinners, later by the very condition of sin in which it then lingered; which was commanded through John to look for salvation from Christ, and, baptized by John, believed. But by saying that it promised to go and did not go, He shows that it did indeed believe John, but that, because it could not receive the teaching of the Gospel until after the Lord’s Passion, through the apostles — for then the mysteries of man’s salvation had to be accomplished — He signifies that it did not go. Then He does not say that it would not, but that it did not go. The matter is outside the guilt of unbelief, because the reason it was not done lay in the difficulty of doing it. So it was not unwilling to go at once to the work commanded; but because it could not go, it did not go. For in this is shown a delay of necessity, without guilt of the will.
-
And in the Pharisees’ answer there is a certain necessity of prophecy. For, unwilling as they are, they confess who did the will: the younger son, that is, obedient in profession, though not performing in time; because faith alone justifies. And so the publicans and harlots will go before them into the kingdom, because they believed John, and, baptized for the remission of sins, confessed the coming of Christ, praised the works of healing, received the mystery of the Passion, acknowledged the power of the resurrection. But the chief priests and Pharisees, who saw these things and despised them, were not justified by faith, nor did they return by repentance to salvation: and so their fruit withers for ever under that curse which was foreshadowed in the fig tree.