Church Fathers Commentary Luke 14:15-24

"And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. But he said unto him, A certain man made a great supper; and he bade many: and he sent forth his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for [all] things are now ready. And they all with one [consent] began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a field, and I must needs go out and see it; I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them; I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. And the servant came, and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor and maimed and blind and lame. And the servant said, Lord, what thou didst command is done, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and constrain [them] to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you, that none of those men that were bidden shall taste of my supper." — Luke 14:15-24 (ASV)

Eusebius of Caesarea: Our Lord had just taught us to prepare our feasts for those who cannot repay, since we will have our reward at the resurrection of the just. Someone then, supposing the resurrection of the just to be the same as the kingdom of God, praised the previously mentioned reward, for the text continues: When one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said to him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.

St. Cyril of Alexandria: That man was carnal and a careless hearer of the things Christ delivered, for he thought the reward of the saints was to be bodily.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Or it was because he longed for something far off, while the very bread he desired lay before him. For who is that Bread of the kingdom of God other than He who says, I am the living bread which came down from heaven? Do not open your mouth, but your heart.

The Venerable Bede: But because some receive this bread by faith alone, as if merely smelling it, but are reluctant to truly taste its sweetness with their mouths, our Lord, through the following parable, condemns the dullness of such men as unworthy of the heavenly banquet. For the text continues: But he said to him, A certain man made a great supper, and invited many.

St. Cyril of Alexandria: This man represents God the Father, just as images are used to convey a resemblance of power. For whenever God wishes to declare His avenging power, He is called by the names of a bear, leopard, lion, and other such creatures; but when He wishes to express mercy, He is called by the name of man. Therefore, the Maker of all things and Father of Glory—the Lord—prepared the great supper that was fulfilled in Christ.

For in these last days, as it were at the twilight of our world, the Son of God has shone on us and, enduring death for our sake, has given us His own body to eat. For this reason also, the lamb was sacrificed in the evening according to the Mosaic law. Therefore, the banquet prepared in Christ was rightly called a supper.

St. Gregory the Great: Or, He made a great supper, having prepared for us the full enjoyment of eternal sweetness. He invited many, but few came, because sometimes those who are subject to Him by faith still oppose His eternal banquet by the way they live.

This reveals a general difference between the delights of the body and those of the soul. Fleshly delights, when not possessed, provoke a longing for them; but once they are possessed and consumed, the one who partakes soon turns from satisfaction to disgust. Spiritual delights, on the other hand, are often disliked when not possessed, but are desired all the more once they are.

But heavenly mercy brings these despised delights back to our memory and, so that we might drive away our aversion, invites us to the feast. Thus it follows: And he sent his servant, etc.

St. Cyril of Alexandria: That servant who was sent is Christ Himself, who, being God by nature and the true Son of God, emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant. He was sent at suppertime. For the Word did not take on our nature in the beginning, but in the last days. And he adds, For all things are now ready. For the Father prepared in Christ the good things bestowed on the world through Him: the removal of sins, the participation of the Holy Spirit, and the glory of adoption. Christ invited people to these things through the teaching of the Gospel.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Alternatively, the Man is the Mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus. He sent His servant so that those who were invited might come—that is, those who were called by the prophets He had sent. In former times, these prophets were often sent to the people of Israel, inviting them to come at suppertime to the supper of Christ. They received the ones who invited them but refused the supper. They received the prophets but killed Christ, and in this way, they ignorantly prepared the supper for us. The supper now being ready—that is, Christ having been sacrificed—the Apostles were sent to the same people to whom the prophets had been sent before.

St. Gregory the Great: This servant, then, who is sent by the master of the house to invite guests to the supper, signifies the order of preachers. It is often the case that a powerful person has a lowly servant; yet when his lord gives an order through him, the servant who speaks is not despised, because respect for the master who sent him is still maintained in the heart. Our Lord, then, offers what He ought to be asked for, not what He asks others to receive. He wishes to give what could hardly be hoped for. Yet, they all at once begin to make excuses, for the text continues: And they all with one consent began to make excuse. Behold, a rich man invites, and the poor hurry to come. We are invited to the banquet of God, and we make excuses.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Now, there were three excuses, about which it is added: The first said to him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. The purchased field denotes government. Therefore, pride is the first vice to be rebuked. For the first man wanted to rule, being unwilling to have a master.

St. Gregory the Great: Or, the field represents worldly possessions. Therefore, the one who goes out to see it is the one who thinks only of external things for the sake of his livelihood.

St. Ambrose of Milan: Thus, the worn-out soldier is assigned to demeaning duties, just as one who, intent on things below, buys earthly possessions for himself, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Our Lord says, Sell all that you have, and follow me.

It follows: And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to test them.

St. Augustine of Hippo: The five yoke of oxen are understood to be the five senses of the flesh: in the eyes, sight; in the ears, hearing; in the nostrils, smell; in the mouth, taste; and in all the limbs, touch. The "yoke" is more easily apparent in the first three senses: two eyes, two ears, two nostrils. Here are three yokes. And in the mouth is the sense of taste, which is found to be a kind of double, in that nothing can be tasted that is not touched by both the tongue and the palate. The pleasure of the flesh, which belongs to touch, is secretly doubled. It is both external and internal. But they are called "yoke of oxen" because earthly things are pursued through these senses of the flesh. For oxen till the soil, and people who are far from faith, given over to earthly things, refuse to believe in anything except what they can perceive through the five senses of the body. “I believe nothing but what I see.” If these were our thoughts, we would be hindered from the supper by those five yoke of oxen. But so that you may understand that it is not the delight of the five senses that charms and brings pleasure, but rather that a certain curiosity is indicated, he does not say, "I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to feed them," but "I go to test them."

St. Gregory the Great: Curiosity is also rightly represented by the bodily senses, because they cannot comprehend internal realities but are aware only of what is external. This curiosity, not knowing its own secret, inner life, seeks to cast off a life that feels foreign to it and desires instead to dwell on external things. But we must observe that the one who makes an excuse for his farm, and the other who does so to test his five yoke of oxen, both mix words of humility into their excuses. For when they say, "I ask you, have me excused," and then disdain to come, the words sound humble, but the action is prideful. It follows: And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.

St. Augustine of Hippo: That is the delight of the flesh which hinders many; I wish it were external and not internal. For the one who said, "I have married a wife," taking pleasure in fleshly delights, excuses himself from the supper. Let such a person take care, lest he die from an inner hunger.

St. Basil the Great: But he says, "I cannot come," because when the human mind degenerates toward worldly pleasures, it is too weak to attend to the things of God.

St. Gregory the Great: But although marriage is good, appointed by Divine Providence for the procreation of children, some seek in it not the fruitfulness of offspring but the lust for pleasure. And so, an unrighteous thing may be fittingly represented by means of a righteous one.

St. Ambrose of Milan: Or, marriage is not being blamed, but purity is held in greater honor, since the unmarried woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Now John, when he said, all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, began where the Gospel's list of excuses ended. The lust of the flesh: "I have married a wife." The lust of the eyes: "I have bought five yoke of oxen." The pride of life: "I have bought a farm." But, proceeding from a part to the whole, the five senses have been spoken of under the category of the eyes alone, which hold the chief place among them. For although sight properly belongs to the eyes, we are accustomed to ascribing the act of "seeing" to all five senses.

St. Cyril of Alexandria: But who can we suppose these people to be, who refused to come for the reasons just mentioned, other than the rulers of the Jews, who throughout sacred history we find were often rebuked for these things?

Origen of Alexandria: Alternatively, those who have bought a field and reject or refuse the supper are those who have accepted other divine doctrines but have despised the word they once possessed. But the one who has bought five yoke of oxen is the one who neglects his intellectual nature and follows the things of the senses; therefore, he cannot comprehend a spiritual nature. And the one who has married a wife is he who is joined to the flesh, a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God.

St. Ambrose of Milan: Or, let us suppose that three classes of people are excluded from partaking in that supper: Gentiles, Jews, and Heretics. The Jews, by their carnal service, impose the yoke of the Law upon themselves, for the "five yoke" are the yoke of the Ten Commandments, of which it is said: And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. These are the commands of the Decalogue. Or, the five yoke are the five books of the Old Law. But heresy, indeed, like Eve with a woman’s obstinacy, tests the devotion of faith. And the Apostle says that we must flee from covetousness, so that we are not entangled in the customs of the Gentiles and unable to come to the kingdom of Christ. Therefore, the one who has bought a farm is a stranger to the kingdom, as is the one who has chosen the yoke of the Law rather than the gift of grace, and also the one who excuses himself because he has married a wife.

It follows: And the servant returned and told these things to his lord.

St. Augustine of Hippo: God does not require messengers for the sake of knowing about lesser beings, as if He gained anything from them, for He knows all things steadfastly and unchangeably. But He has messengers for our sake and for theirs, because to be present with God, to stand before Him to consult Him about His subjects, and to obey His heavenly commands is good for them according to the order of their own nature.

St. Cyril of Alexandria: But the Master of the household was angry with the rulers of the Jews who refused His call—as they themselves confessed, Have any of the rulers believed on him?—for they deserved His indignation and wrath. As it follows: Then the master of the house, being angry...

Pseudo-Basil: This is not to say that the passion of anger belongs to the divine substance, but that an operation which in us is caused by anger is called the "anger" and "indignation" of God.

St. Cyril of Alexandria: Thus, the master of the house is said to have been enraged with the leaders of the Jews, and in their place were called men taken from the Jewish multitude, who were of weak and powerless minds. For at Peter’s preaching, first three thousand, then five thousand believed, and afterward a great many people. As it follows, He said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame.

St. Ambrose of Milan: He invites the poor, the weak, and the blind to show that physical weakness excludes no one from the kingdom of heaven, and that the one who lacks the incentive to sin is guilty of fewer sins; or that the infirmities of sin are forgiven through the mercy of God. Therefore, He sends to the streets, so that they may come from the broader ways to the narrow way.

Because the proud refuse to come, the humble are chosen. For those who are weak in their own estimation of themselves are called "weak" and "poor." Yet there are some who are poor and still, as it were, strong, who are proud despite their poverty. The blind are those who have no brightness of understanding; the lame are those who have not walked uprightly in their works.

But since the faults of these people are expressed in the weakness of their bodies, just as those who were invited and refused to come were sinners, so also are these who are invited and do come. The difference is that the proud sinners are rejected, while the humble ones are chosen.

God, then, chooses those whom the world despises, because for the most part, the very experience of being scorned brings a person to his senses. And people hear the voice of God all the sooner when they have nothing in this world in which to take pleasure.

When the Lord calls certain people from the streets and lanes to the supper, He signifies those people within the city who had learned to observe the constant practice of the Law. But the multitude from the people of Israel who believed did not fill all the places in the great banquet hall.

Thus it follows: And the servant said, ‘Lord, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ For although great numbers of the Jews had already entered, there was still room in the kingdom for the great number of the Gentiles to be received.

Therefore, it is added: And the Lord said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.’ When He commanded His guests to be gathered from the highways and hedges, He was seeking a rural people—that is, the Gentiles.

Or, He sends to the highways and hedges because those who are fit for the kingdom of God are not absorbed in the desire for present goods but are hastening toward the future, set on a fixed path of good will. And these people, like a hedge that separates cultivated ground from uncultivated ground and keeps out trespassing cattle, know how to distinguish good from evil and to hold up the shield of faith against the temptations of spiritual wickedness.

St. Augustine of Hippo: The Gentiles came from the streets and lanes; the heretics come from the hedges. For those who make a hedge are seeking a division. Let them be drawn away from the hedges, torn away from the thorns. But they are unwilling to be compelled. "We will enter by our own will," they say. "Compel them to come in," He says. Let necessity be applied from the outside; from that, a will arises.

St. Gregory the Great: Those, then, who are broken down by the calamities of this world and return to the love of God, are compelled to enter. But the sentence that comes next is very terrible: For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper. Let no one, then, despise the call, lest, if he makes an excuse when invited, he will not be able to enter when he wishes to.