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Translation
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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
And if thou doubt my affirmation, at any rate believe His example. "For what man is there of you," saith He, "whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?" Because, as among men, if thou keep on doing so, thou art even accounted troublesome, and disgusting: so with God, when thou doest not so, then thou dost more entirely provoke Him. And if thou continue asking, though thou receive not at once, thou surely wilt receive. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
"Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?" Here He teaches us that we must not only ask in a fervent manner, but we must also ask for things that are profitable for us. For, He says, when your children ask for things that are good for them, such as bread and fish, you give them what they are seeking. So too must you seek from God what is profitable for you, that is, spiritual things and not things of the flesh.
Western Saints
Thomas Aquinas
Therefore he adds: What man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? By bread is understood Christ: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven" (Jn 6:51). It is also sacred doctrine: "I will feed him with the bread of life and understanding" (Sir 15:3); and it is charity: "The produce of the ground will be rich and plenteous" (Is 30:23). On the other hand, the stone is the devil: "His heart will be hardened as a stone" (Jb 41:15). …
Rabanus Maurus
Or; bread which is the common food signifies charity, without which the other virtues are of no avail. The fish signifies faith, which is born of the water of baptism, is tossed in the midst of the waves of this life and yet lives. Luke adds a third thing, an egg, (Luke 11:12.) which signifies hope; for an egg is the hope of the animal. To charity, He opposes a stone, that is, the hardness of hatred; to faith, a serpent, that is, the venom of treachery; to hope, a scorpion, that is, despair, which stings backward, as the scorpion.
Remigius of Rheims
By the fish we may understand the word concerning Christ, by the serpent the Devil himself. Or by the loaf may be understood spiritual doctrine; by the stone ignorance; by the fish the water of Holy Baptism; by the serpent the wiles of the Devil, or unbelief. …
Translation