Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aguinas
10:21–22
21. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.
22. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.
GLOSS. (ap. Anselm.) Having placed the comfort first, He adds the more alarming perils; Brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father the son; children shall rise against parents, to put them to death.
GREGORY. (Hom. in Ev. xxxv. 3.) Wrongs which we suffer from strangers, pain us less than those we suffer from men on whose affections we had counted; for besides the bodily affliction, there is then the pain of lost affection.
JEROME. This we see often happen in persecutions, nor is there any true affection between those whose faith is different.
CHRYSOSTOM. What follows is yet more dreadful, Ye shall be hated of all men; they sought to exterminate them as common enemies of all the world. To this again is added the consolation, For my name’s sake; and yet further to cheer them, Whosoever shall endure to the end, he shall be saved. For many are hot and zealous in the beginning, but afterwards grow cool, for these, He says, I look at the end. For where is the profit of seeds that only sprout at first? wherefore He requires a sufficient endurance from them.
JEROME. For virtue is not to begin but to complete.
REMIGIUS. And the reward is not for those that begin, but for those that bring to an end.
CHRYSOSTOM. But that no man should say, that Christ wrought all things in His Apostles, and therefore it is nothing wonderful that they were made such as they were, since they did not bear the burden of these things, therefore He says, that perseverance was their work. For though they were rescued from their first perils; they are preserved for still harder trials, which again shall be followed by others, and they shall be in danger of snares as long as they live. This He covertly intimates when he says, Whosoever shall endure to the end, he shall be saved.
REMIGIUS. That is, He who shall not let go the commands of the faith, nor fall away in persecution, shall be saved; he shall receive the reward of the heavenly kingdom for his earthly persecutions. And note that ‘the end’ does not always mean destruction, but sometimes perfection, as in that, Christ is the end of the Law. (Rom. 10:4.) So the sense here may be, Whosoever shall endure to the end, that is, in Christ.
AUGUSTINE. (De Civ. Dei, xxi. 25.) To endure in Christ, is to abide in His faith which worketh by love.
10:23
23. But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xxxiv.) Having foretold the fearful things which should come upon them after His Cross, resurrection, and ascension, He leads them to gentler prospects; He does not bid them presumptuously to offer themselves for persecution, but to fly from it; When they persecute you in this city, flee ye to another. For because this was the first beginning of their conversion, He adapts His words to their state.
JEROME. This must be referred to the time when the Apostles were sent to preach, when it was said to them, Go not into the way of the Gentiles; they should not fear, but may shun persecution. This we see the believers did in the beginning, when on a persecution arising in Jerusalem they were scattered throughout all Judea, and thus the season of tribulation was made the seedtime of the Gospel.
AUGUSTINE. (cont. Faust. xxii. 36.) Not that the Saviour was unable to protect His disciples, does He here bid them fly, and Himself give them an example of it, but He instructed man’s weakness, that he should not presume to tempt God, when he has any thing that he can do for himself, but should shun all evils.
AUGUSTINE. (De Civ. Dei, i. 22.) He might have suffered them to lay violent hands upon themselves, that they might not fall into the hands of their persecutors. Therefore if He neither commanded nor allowed this mode of departure from this world to His own, for whom He Himself had promised that He would prepare an eternal mansion; whatever instances may be brought by the Gentiles who know not God, it is clear that this is not lawful for those who believe one true God.
CHRYSOSTOM. But that they should not say, What then if we fly from persecution, and again they cast us out thence whither we have fled? To remove this fear, He says, Verily I say unto you, ye shall not have completed, &c. that is, ye shall not have made the circuit of Palestine and return to Me, before I shall take you to Me.
RABANUS. Or; He foretels that they shall not have brought all the cities of Israel to the faith by their preaching, before the Lord’s resurrection be accomplished, and a commission given them to preach the Gospel throughout the world.
HILARY. Otherwise; He exhorts to fly from place to place; for His preaching driven from Judæa, first passed into Greece; then, wearied with divers sufferings of the Apostles up and down the cities of Greece, it takes an abiding refuge in the rest of the Gentile world. But to shew that the Gentiles would believe the preaching of the Apostles, but that the remnant of Israel should only believe at His second coming, He adds, Ye shall not have completed the cities of Israel; i. e. After the fulness of the Gentiles is brought in, that which remains of Israel to fill up the number of the Saints shall be called into the Church in Christ’s future coming to glory.
AUGUSTINE. (Ep. 228.) Let the servants of Christ then do as He commanded, or permitted them; as He fled into Egypt, let them fly from city to city, whenever any one of them is marked out for persecution; that the Church be not deserted, it will be filled by those who are not so sought after; and let these give sustenance to their fellow-servants whom they know cannot live by any other means. But when the threatening danger is common to all, Bishops, clergy, and laity, let not those who have need of aid be deserted by those whose aid they require. Either therefore let them all pass to some stronghold, or let those who are obliged to remain, not be deserted by those whose province it is to supply their ecclesiastical needs; that they may either all live, or all suffer whatever their Master will have them to suffer.
REMIGIUS. Be it known moreover, that as this precept respecting endurance under persecution specially belongs to the Apostles and their successors, men of fortitude, so the permission to fly is sufficiently proper for the weak in the faith, to whom the tender Master condescends, lest if they should offer themselves for martyrdom, under the pain they should deny the faith; and the sin of flight is lighter than that of denial. But though by their flight they shewed that they had not the constancy of perfect faith, yet their desert was great, seeing they were ready to leave all for Christ. So that if He had not given them permission to fly, some would have said that they were aliens from the glory of the heavenly kingdom.
JEROME. Spiritually we may say; When they shall persecute you in one book or one passage of Scripture, let us flee to other volumes, for however contentious the adversary may be, protection will come from the Saviour before the victory is yielded to the enemy.
10:24–25
24. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.
25. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?
CHRYSOSTOM. Because it should come to pass that His disciples among their other persecutions should suffer loss of character, which to many is the most grievous of all calamities, He consoles them from His own example, and those things that were spoken of Him; a comfort to which no other can be compared.
HILARY. For the Lord, the Light eternal, the Captain of the faithful, the Parent of immortality, set before His disciples this solace of the sufferings that should come upon them, that we should embrace it as our glory when we are made like to our Lord in suffering; whence He says, The disciple is not above his master, nor the slave above his lord.
CHRYSOSTOM. Understand, so long as he is a disciple or servant, he is not above his master or lord by the nature of honour. And do not here object to me such cases as rarely happen, but receive this according to the common course of things.
REMIGIUS. He calls Himself master and lord; by disciple and servant He denotes His Apostles.
GLOSS. (ord.) As much as to say, Be not indignant that ye suffer things, which I also suffer, because I am your lord, who do what I will, and your master, who teach you what I know to be profitable for you.
REMIGIUS. And because this sentence seemed not to agree with the foregoing words, He shews what they mean by adding, If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more they of his household?
CHRYSOSTOM. He said not here ‘slaves,’ but those of his household, to shew how dear they were to Him; as elsewhere He said, I will not call you slaves, but my friends. (John 15:15.)
REMIGIUS. As much as to say, Ye therefore will not seek worldly honours and human glory, while you see me pursuing the redemption of mankind through mocking and contumely.
CHRYSOSTOM. And He says not only, If they have reviled the master of the house, but expresses the very words of railing, for they had called Him Beelzebub.
JEROME. Beelzebub is the idol of Accaron who is called in the book of Kings, the God of flies; ‘Bel,’ signifying idol; (2 Kings 1:3.) ‘zebub,’ a fly. The Prince of the dæmons He calls by the name of the foulest of idols, which is so called because of the uncleanness of the fly, which destroys the sweetness of ointment.
Catena Aurea Matthew 10