Church Fathers Commentary Matthew 23:32-36

"Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell? Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation." — Matthew 23:32-36 (ASV)

St. John Chrysostom: He had said against the Scribes and Pharisees that they were the children of those who killed the Prophets. He now shows, therefore, that they were like them in wickedness, and that what they said was false: "If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets."

Therefore He now says, "Fill ye up the measure of your fathers." This is not a command, but a prophecy of what is to come.

Pseudo-Chrysostom: He foretells that as their fathers killed the Prophets, so they also would kill Christ, the Apostles, and other holy men. For example, if you had a quarrel with someone, you might say to your adversary, "Do to me what you are about to do," but you are not thereby ordering him to do it, but showing him that you are aware of his schemes. And in fact, they went beyond the measure of their fathers, for their fathers put to death only men; these crucified God.

But because He submitted to death of His own free choice, He does not lay on them the sin of His death, but only the death of the Apostles and other holy men. This is also why He said, "Fill up," and not "Fill over," for a just and merciful Judge overlooks His own wrongs and only punishes those done to others.

Origen of Alexandria: They fill up the measure of their fathers' sins by not believing in Christ. And the cause of their unbelief was that they looked only to the letter and the body, and would understand nothing spiritual in them.

St. Hilary of Poitiers: Because they will fill up the measure of their fathers' purposes, they are therefore "serpents, and an offspring of vipers."

St. Jerome: John the Baptist had said the same thing. Therefore, just as vipers are born from vipers, so you murderers are born from your fathers who were murderers.

Pseudo-Chrysostom: He calls them "offspring of vipers" because the nature of vipers is such that the young burst their mother's womb and so come forth; similarly, the Jews condemned their fathers by finding fault with their deeds.

He says, "How shall ye escape the damnation of hell?" By building the tombs of the saints? But the first step of piety is to love holiness; the next, to love the saints. For it is not reasonable for someone to honor the righteous who despises righteousness. The saints cannot be friends to those to whom God is an enemy.

Will you be saved by a mere name, because you seem to be among God's people? Since an open enemy is better than a false friend, so is he more hateful to God who calls himself the servant of God but does the commands of the Devil.

Indeed, before God, he who has resolved to kill a worm is a murderer before the deed is done, for it is the will that is rewarded for good or punished for evil. Deeds are evidence of the will. God, then, does not require deeds on His own account so that He may know how to judge, but for the sake of other men, that they may perceive that God is righteous.

And God affords the opportunity for sin to the wicked, not to make them sin, but to reveal the sinner. He also gives the good an opportunity to show the purpose of their will. In this way, then, He gave the Scribes and Pharisees an opportunity to show their purposes: "Behold, I send unto you Prophets, and wise men, and Scribes."

St. Hilary of Poitiers: That is, the Apostles, who, as foretelling things to come, are "Prophets"; as having knowledge of Christ, are "wise men"; and as understanding the Law, are "Scribes."

St. Jerome: Or, as the Apostle writes to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 12)ⁱ, there are various gifts among Christ's disciples: some are Prophets, who foretell things to come; some are wise men, who know when they ought to speak; others are Scribes taught in the Law. Of these, Stephen was stoned, Paul was killed, Peter was crucified, and the disciples of the Apostles were beaten, as recorded in the Acts. And they persecuted them from city to city, driving them out of Judea so that they might go to the Gentiles.

Origen of Alexandria: Or, the Scribes who are sent by Christ are Scribes according to the Gospel, whom the Spirit makes alive and the letter does not kill, as did the letter of the Law, which whoever followed ran into vain superstitions.

The simple words of the Gospel are sufficient for salvation. But the Scribes of the Law still scourge the Scribes of the New Testament by detracting from them in their synagogues. The heretics also, who are spiritual Pharisees, with their tongues murder Christians and persecute them from city to city—sometimes in the body, sometimes also in the spirit—seeking to drive them from their own city of the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel, into another Gospel.

St. John Chrysostom: Then, to show them that they would not do this without punishment, He holds out an unspeakable terror over them: "That upon you may come all the righteous blood."

Rabanus Maurus: That is, all the vengeance due for the shedding of the blood of the righteous.

St. Jerome: Concerning the Abel spoken of here, there is no doubt that it is he whom his brother Cain murdered. He is proved to have been righteous, not only by this judgment of the Lord but also by the passage in Genesis, which says that his offerings were accepted by God. But we must inquire who this Zacharias, son of Barachias, is, because we read of many Zachariases. And so that we might not be mistaken, it is added here, "whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." Some say that it is that Zacharias who is the eleventh among the twelve Prophets, and his father's name agrees with this; but Scripture does not mention when he was slain between the temple and the altar. Above all, in his time there were scarcely even the ruins of the temple. Others will have it to be Zacharias the father of John.

Origen of Alexandria: A tradition has come down to us that there was one place in the temple in which virgins were allowed to worship God, while married women were forbidden to stand there. And Mary, after the Savior's birth, going into the temple, stood to pray in this place of the virgins. And when those who knew that she had borne a Son were hindering her, Zacharias said that since she was still a virgin, she was worthy of the place of the virgins.

Whereupon, as though he were manifestly contravening the Law, he was slain there between the temple and the altar by the men of that generation. Thus this word of Christ is true which He spoke to those who were standing there: "whom ye slew."ⁱ

St. Jerome: But as this has no scriptural authority, it is as readily despised as it is offered. Others will have it to be that Zacharias who was killed by Joash, king of Judah, between the temple and the altar (2 Chronicles 24:21), that is, in the court of the temple. But that Zacharias was not the son of Barachias, but of Jehoiada the Priest. However, "Barachias" in our language is interpreted "Blessed of the Lord," so the righteousness of Jehoiada the Priest is expressed by this Hebrew word. But in the Gospel which the Nazarenes use, we find "son of Jehoiada" written instead of "son of Barachias."

Remigius of Auxerre: It should also be inquired how He says, "to the blood of Zacharias," since the blood of many more saints was shed afterward. This is explained as follows: Abel, a keeper of sheep, was killed in the field; Zacharias, a priest, was slain in the court of the temple. The Lord therefore names these two because by them all holy martyrs are denoted, both of the lay and priestly order.

St. John Chrysostom: Moreover, He names Abel to show that it would be out of envy that they would kill Christ and His disciples. He names Zacharias because there was a twofold resemblance in his case: the sacred place, as well as the sacred person.

Origen of Alexandria: "Zacharias" is interpreted "The memory of God." Whoever then hastens to obliterate the memory of God seems to those whom he offends to shed the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, for it is by the blessing of God that we retain the memory of God. Also, the memory of God is slain by the wicked when the Temple of God is polluted by the lustful and His altar defiled by the carelessness of prayers.

"Abel" is interpreted "mourning." He then who does not receive the saying, "Blessed are they that mourn," sheds the blood of Abel—that is, he puts away the truth of wholesome mourning.

Some also shed, as it were, the blood of the Scriptures by putting aside their truth, for all Scripture, if it is not understood according to its truth, is dead.

St. John Chrysostom: And to take away all excuse from them, so that they could not say, "We were offended because you sent them to the Gentiles," He foretells that His disciples would be sent to them, and it is of their punishment that He adds, "Verily I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation."

Glossa Ordinaria: He means not only those present there, but the whole generation before and after, for all were one city and one body of the Devil.¹

St. Jerome: The rule of the Scriptures is to know only two generations: one of good and the other of bad. Of the generation of the good it is said, "The generation of the righteous shall be blessed" (Psalm 112:2). And of the bad it is said in the present passage, "Generation of vipers." These, then, because they did against the Apostles things similar to what Cain and Joash did, are described as being of one generation.

St. John Chrysostom: Alternatively, because He delayed the punishment of hell which He had threatened them with, He pronounces against them threats of present evil, saying, "All these things shall come upon this generation."

Pseudo-Chrysostom: Just as all the good things which had been merited by all the saints in each generation since the foundation of the world were bestowed upon that last generation which received Christ, so all the evil that all the wicked in every generation from the foundation of the world had deserved to suffer came upon that last generation of the Jews which rejected Christ.

Or, put another way: Just as all the righteous deeds of former saints, indeed, of all the saints, could not merit such great grace as was given to humanity in Christ, so the sins of all the wicked could not deserve as much evil as came upon the Jews, that they should suffer such things as they did from the Romans, and that in later times every generation of them to the end of the world should be cast off from God and be mocked by all the Gentiles.

For what is there worse than to reject and, in such a way, to put to death the Son coming in mercy and lowliness?

Or, put another way: When nations and states sin, they are not immediately punished by God; He waits for many generations. But when He sees fit to destroy that state or nation, He then seems to visit upon them the sins of all former generations, and one generation suffers the accumulation of all that former generations have deserved. Thus this generation of the Jews seems to have been punished for their fathers, but in truth, they suffered not for others, but on their own account.

St. John Chrysostom: For he who, having seen many sinning, yet remains uncorrected, but rather does the same or worse, is liable to heavier punishment.

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