Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Matthew 13:15

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

So that they first inflicted the loss on themselves, by stopping their ears, by closing their eyes, by making their heart fat. For they not only failed to hear, but also "heard heavily," and they did this, He saith, "Lest at any time they should be converted, and I should heal them;" describing their aggravated wickedness, and their determined defection from Him. …

Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 45 ↗

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

Otherwise; They have shut their eyes lest they should see with their eyes, that is, themselves were the cause that God shut their eyes. For another Evangelist says, We hath blinded their eyes. But is this to the end that they should never see? Or that they should not see so much as this, that becoming discontent with their own blindness and bewailing themselves, should so be humbled, and moved to confession of their sins and pious seeking after God. …

Catena Aurea by Aquinas ↗

Jerome

For the heart of this people has become fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily. They see without seeing, and hear without hearing. For the heart of this people has become fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily. And lest we think that the thickness of the heart and the heaviness of the ears are natural, not voluntary, he adds the fault of their own judgment and says: And they closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and …

Commentary on Matthew ↗

Hilary of Poitiers

Faith perceives the mysteries of the kingdom. A person will make progress in those things he has been immersed in and will abound with an increase in that progress. But in those things he has not been immersed in, even that which he has shall be taken away from him. In other words, he suffers the loss of the law from the loss of his faith. Lacking faith, the people of the law lost even the efficacy of the law. Therefore, gospel faith receives a perfect gift, because it enriches with new fruit those things that have been undertaken. …

Commentary on Matthew 13.2 ↗