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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
Having therefore spoken of the ways of destruction, afterwards He mentions the good ground, not suffering them to despair, but giving a hope of repentance, and indicating that it is possible to change from the things before mentioned into this. And yet if both the land be good, and the Sower one, and the seed the same, wherefore did one bear a hundred, one sixty, one thirty? Here again the difference is from the nature of the ground, for even where the ground is good, great even therein is the difference. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
The forms of virtue vary, and those who progress in virtue vary. Do you see the order in the parable? We must first hear and understand it so that we may not be like those who are by the way side. Then we must hold steadfastly to what we have heard, and, finally, we must not be lovers of money. For what benefit is it to me to hear and retain the word, only to be choked by the love of money?
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
It is certain that the Lord spoke the things which the Evangelist has recorded; but what the Lord spake was a parable, in which it is never required that the things contained should have actually taken place. (De Civ. Dei, xxi. 27.) Some think that this is to be understood as though the saints according to the degree of their merits delivered some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred persons; and this they usually suppose will happen on the day of judgment, not after the judgment. …
Jerome
For the joining together of the hands, as it were in the soft embrace of a kiss, represents husband and wife. The sixty-fold refers to widows, who as being set in narrow circumstances and affliction are denoted by the depression of the finger; for by how much greater is the difficulty of abstaining from the allurements of pleasure once known, so much greater is the reward. …
Gregory the Dialogist
But the good earth brings forth fruit through patience, because clearly our good works are nothing if we do not also bear with equanimity the evils of our neighbors. For the higher anyone has advanced, the more he finds in this world what he must bear more harshly, because when our mind's love for the present age diminishes, the adversity of that same age increases. Hence it is that we see many both doing good and yet laboring under the heavy burden of tribulations. …
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