Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

“Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?” They said to Him, “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone.
This was the Lord’s doing,
And it is marvelous in our eyes?

“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them. But when they sought to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitudes, because they took Him for a prophet. (Matthew 21:33–46)

Here we understand that God the Father is the landowner who has planted his people Israel in anticipation of an excellent harvest. He enclosed them within his wall, sanctified by the name of the fathers, that is, by the nobility of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—just as someone being surrounded with a special protection. He also equipped the prophets, like a kind of winepress into which He pours the fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit, who creates fermentation of a new wine, so to speak. With the tower He has built the eminence of the Law, which takes us from the bottom to the height of heaven and enables us to fathom Christ’s advent. In the tenants is an image of the chief priests and Pharisees to whom the authority of teaching has been granted.

In the servants, who were sent to gather the fruit, we see the advance of the prophets who had often and in various ways tried to recall [the people]. Later on, more were sent than the first time, when, after the preaching of a few individuals, a very great number of prophets together were sent out. These were at various times beaten, stoned, and killed, because they sought the fruit of the people by shaping and instructing them. In the sending of the son last of all, we understand the Advent and Passion of our Lord, who was thrown out of Jerusalem as out of the vineyard according to a sentence of condemnation. The plan of the tenants and their claim on the inheritance, once they had killed the heir, was the vain hope that the glory of the Law could be preserved after Christ had been slain. In the return of the landowners, we see the glory of the Father’s majesty appearing in the Son at the time of judgment. And in the response to the chief priests and Pharisees, the inheritance of the Law is more worthily handed over to the apostles. Finally the Son is Himself the stone which has been rejected by the builders but erected as the cornerstone and is marvelous in the eyes of all. Between the Law and the pagans, he is the conjunction of both buildings.

Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Matthew 22.1–2