Fathers

Loading…

What the Fathers say

Matthew 25:17

Western Saints

Jerome

Likewise, the one who received two, gained two more. And this person, according to their abilities, doubled whatever they had learned in the Law in the Gospel: whether knowledge and works of the present life or understanding the types of future blessedness.

Commentary on Matthew ↗

Gregory the Dialogist

And there are some who, as if enriched with two talents, receive understanding and action, understand subtle things about internal matters, work wonders in external things; and when by both understanding and working they preach to others, they bring back, as it were, a doubled profit from their business. Moreover, it is rightly reported that another five or another two came as profit, because when preaching is expended on both sexes, the talents received are, as it were, doubled.

Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 9 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

In like manner he that had received the two, namely, he who profits in understanding and in action, gained other two, i.e., a reward for each. Or two, because he profits by preaching not only to men but also to women, according to Gregory. According to Origen, what he had received according to the measure of natural endowments he referred to the understanding.

Commentary on Matthew ↗