Thomas Aquinas · 8 of 74

Gospel of Matthew · Chapter 2 · Part 3

Rabanus: Or, The Church weeps the removal of the saints from this earth, but wishes not to be comforted as though they should return again to the struggles of life, for they are not to be recalled into life.

Gloss. ord.: She “will not be comforted” in this present life, for that they are not, but transfers all her hope and comfort to the life to come.

Rabanus: Rachel is well set for a type of the Church, as the word signifies ‘a sheep’ or ‘seeing;’ [margin note: see Ch. 1, note i, p. 19] her whole thought being to fix her eye in contemplation of God; and she is the hundredth sheep that the shepherd layeth on his shoulder.

19. But when Herod was dead, behold, an Angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,

20. Saying, “Arise, and take the young Child and His mother, and go into the land of Israel; for they are dead which sought the young Child’s life.

Euseb., Eccles. Hist., 1, 8: For the sacrilege which Herod had committed against the Saviour, and his wicked slaughter of the infants of the same age, the Divine vengeance hastened his end; and his body, as Josephus relates, was attacked by a strange disease; so that the prophets declared that they were not human ailments, but visitations of Divine vengeance. Filled with mad fury, he gives command to seize and imprison the heads and nobles out of all parts of Judaea; ordering that as soon as ever he should breathe his last, they should be all put to death, that so Judaea, though unwillingly, might mourn at his decease.

Just before he died he murdered his son, Antipater,(besides two boys put to death before, Alexander and Aristobulus.) Such was the end of Herod, noticed in those words of the Evangelist, “when Herod was dead,” and such the punishment inflicted.

Jerome: Many here err from ignorance of history, supposing the Herod who mocked our Lord on the day of His passion, and the Herod whose death is here related, were the same. But the Herod who was then made friends with Pilate was son of this Herod and brother to Archelaus; for Archelaus was banished to Lyons in Gaul, and his father Herod made king in his room, as we read in Josephus.

Pseudo-Dionysius, Dion. De Cael. Hierarch. 4: See how Jesus Himself, though far above all celestial beings, and coming unchanged to our nature, shunned not that ordinance of humanity which He had taken on Him, but was obedient to the dispositions of His Father made known by Angels. For even by Angels is declared to Joseph the retreat of the Son into Egypt, so ordained of the Father, and His return again to Judaea.

Pseudo-Chrys.: See how Joseph was set for ministering to Mary; when she went into Egypt and returned, who would have fulfilled to her this so needful ministry, had she not been betrothed? For to outward view, Mary nourished and Joseph defended the Child; but in truth the Child supported His mother and protected Joseph.

“Return into the land of Israel;” for He went down into Egypt as a physician, not to abide there, but to succour it sick with error. But the reason of the return is given in the words, “They are dead, &c.”

Jerome: From this we see that not Herod only, but also the Priests and Scribes had sought the Lord’s death at that time.

Remig.: But if they were many who sought his destruction, how came they all to have died in so short a time? As we have related above, all the great men among the Jews were slain at Herod’s death.

Pseudo-Chrys.: And that is said to have been done by the counsel of God for their conspiring with Herod against the Lord; as it is said, “Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.”

Remig.: Or the Evangelist uses a figure of speech, by which the plural is used for the singular. These words, “the Child’s life,” overthrow those heretics [margin note: or “soul,” i.e. the Apollinarians] who taught that Christ did not take a soul, but had His Divinity in place of a soul.

Bede, Hom. in Nat. Innocent: This slaughter of the infants for the Lord’s sake, the death of Herod soon after, and Joseph’s return with the Lord and his mother to the land of Israel, is a figure shewing that all the persecutions moved against the Church will be avenged by the death of the persecutor, peace restored to the Church, and the saints who had concealed themselves return to their own places. Or the return of Jesus to the land of Israel on the death of Herod shews, that, at the preaching of Enoch and Elijah [see note, c, below], the Jews, when the fire of modern jealousy shall be extinguished, shall receive the true faith.

[ed. note, c: That Enoch and especially Elias will come at the end of the world and by their preaching convert the Jews is affirmed by Tertullian, (de Anima 35. de Resur. c. 22) Origen, (in Joann, i. tom. 5. in Matt. tom. 13) Hilary, (in Matt. xx. 10. xxvi. 5) Chrysostom, (in Matt. xvii. 10) Augustine, (City of God 20, 29. Op. Imp. contra Julian. vi. 30) Pope Gregory, (in Job. lib. xiv. 23. in Joann. Hom. vii. 1) and Damascene, (de Fid. Orth. iv. 26 fin]

21. And he arose, and took the young Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel.

22. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee:

23. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene.

Gloss: Joseph was not disobedient to the angelic warning, but “he arose, and took the young Child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.”

The Angel had not fixed the particular place, so that while Joseph hesitates, the Angel returns, and by the often visiting him confirms his obedience.

Josephus: Herod had nine wives, by seven of whom he had a numerous issue. By Josida, his first born Antipater - by Mariamine, Alexander and Aristobulus - by Mathuca, a Samaritan woman, Archelaus - by Cleopatra of Jerusalem, Herod, who was afterwards tetrarch, and Philip. The three first were put to death by Herod; and after his death, Archelaus seized the throne by occasion of his father’s will, and the question of the succession was carried before Augustus Caesar. After some delay, he made a distribution of the whole of Herod’s dominions in accordance with the Senate’s advice. To Archelaus he assigned one half, consisting of Idumaea and Judaea, with the title of tetrarch, and a promise of that of king if he shewed himself deserving of it. The rest he divided into two tetrarchates, giving Galilee to Herod the tetrarch, Ituraea and Trachonitis to Philip. Thus Archelaus was after his father’s death a duarch, which kind of sovereignty is here called a kingdom.

Aug., De Con. Evan. ii. 10: Here is may be asked, How then could his parents go up every year of Christ’s childhood to Jerusalem, as Luke relates, if fear of Archelaus now prevented them from approaching it? This difficulty is easily solved. At the festival they might escape notice in the crowd, and by returning soon, where in ordinary times they might be afraid to live. So they neither became irreligious by neglecting the festival, nor notorious by dwelling continually in Jerusalem.

Or it is open to us to understand Luke when he says, they “went up every year,” as speaking of a time when they had nothing to fear from Archelaus, who, as Josephus relates, reigned only nine years.

There is yet a difficulty in what follows; “Being warned in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee.” If Joseph was afraid to go into Judaea because one of Herod’s sons, Archelaus, reigned there, how could he go into Galilee, where another of his sons Herod was tetrarch, as Luke tells us? As if the times of which Luke is speaking were times in which there was any longer need to fear for the Child, when even in Judaea things were so changed, that Archelaus no longer ruled there, but Pilate was governor.

Gloss. ord.: But then we might ask, why was he not afraid to go into Galilee, seeing Archelaus ruled there also? He could be better concealed in Nazareth than in Jerusalem, which was the capital of the kingdom, and where Archelaus was constantly resident.

Chrys.: And when he had once left the country of His birth, all the occurrences passed out of mind; the rage of persecution had been spent in Bethlehem and its neighbourhood. By choosing Nazareth therefore, Joseph both avoided danger, and returned to his country.

Aug., de Con. Evan., ii, 9: This may perhaps occur to some, that Matthew says His parents went with the Child Jesus to Galilee because they feared Archelaus, when it should seem most probable that they chose Galilee because Nazareth was their own city, as Luke has not forgot to mention. We must understand, that when the Angel in the vision in Egypt said to Joseph, “Go into the land of Israel,” Joseph understood the command to be that he should go straight into Judaea, that being properly “the land of Israel.” But finding Archelaus ruling there, he would not court the danger, as “the land of Israel” might be interpreted to extend to Galilee, which was inhabited by children of Israel.

Or we may suppose His parents supposed that Christ should dwell no where but in Jerusalem, where was the temple of the Lord, and would have gone thither had not the fear of Archelaus hindered them. And they had not been commanded from God to dwell positively in Judaea, or Jerusalem, so as that they should have despised the fear of Archelaus, but only in the land of Israel generally, which they might understand of Galilee.

Hilary: But the figurative intepretation holds good any way. Joseph represents the Apostles, to whom Christ is entrusted to be borne about. These, as though Herod were dead, that is, his people being destroyed in the Lord’s passion, are commanded to preach the Gospel to the Jews; they are sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But finding the seed of their hereditary unbelief still abiding, they fear and withdraw; admonished by a vision, to wit, seeing the Holy Ghost poured upon the Gentiles, they carry Christ to them.

Rabanus: Or, we may apply it to the last times of the Jewish Church, when many Jews having turned to the preaching of Enoch and Elijah, the rest filled with the spirit of Antichrist shall fight against the faith. So that part of Judaea where Archelaus rules, signifies the followers of Antichrist; Nazareth of Galilee, whither Christ is conveyed, that part of the nation that shall embrace the faith. Galilee means, ‘removal;’ Nazareth, ‘the flower of virtues;’ for the Church the more zealously she removes from the earthly to the heavenly, the more she abounds in the flower and fruit of virtues.

Gloss: To this he adds the Prophet’s testimony, saying, “That is might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophets, &c.”

Jerome: Had he meant to quote a particular text, he would not have written ‘Prophets,’ but ‘the Prophet.’ By thus using the plural he evidently does not take the words of any one passage in Scripture, but the sense of the whole. Nazarene is interpreted, ‘Holy,’ [ed. note, d: נזיר] and that the Lord would be Holy, all Scripture testifies.

Otherwise we may explain that it is found in Isaiah rendered to the strict letter of the Hebrew. [margin note: c. 11. 1] “There shall come a Rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Nazarene shall grow out of His roots.” [ed. note, e: As if נצר]

Pseudo-Chrys.: They might have read this in some Prophets who are not in our canon, as Nathan or Esdras. That there was some prophecy to this purport is clear from what Philip says to Nathanael. “Him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth.” [John 1:15] Hence the Christians were at first called Nazarenes, at Antioch their name was changed to that of ‘Christians.’

Aug., de Con. Evan., ii, 5: The whole of this history, from the account of the Magi inclusively, Luke omits. Let it be here noticed once for all, that each of the Evangelists writes as if he were giving a full and complete history, which omits nothing; where he really passes over any thing, he continues his thread of history as if he had told all. Yet by a diligent comparison of their several narratives, we can be at no loss to know where to insert any particular that is mentioned by one and not by the other.