Then said he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they who were bidden were not worthy.
All Commentaries on Matthew 22:8 Go To Matthew 22
John Chrysostom
AD 407
See then care utterable. He had planted a vineyard; He had done all things, and finished; when His servants had been put to death, He sent other servants; when those had been slain, He sent the son; and when He was put to death, He bids them to the marriage. They would not come. After this He sends other servants, and they slew these also.
Then upon this He slays them, as being incurably diseased. For that they were incurably diseased, was proved not by their acts only, but by the fact, that even when harlots and publicans had believed, they did these things. So that, not by their own crimes alone, but also from what others were able to do aright, these men are condemned,
But if any one should say, that not then were they out of the Gentiles called, I mean, when the apostles had been beaten and had suffered ten thousand things, but straightway after the resurrection (for then He said to them, Go ye and make disciples of all nations. Matthew 28:19) We would say, that both before the crucifixion, and after the crucifixion, they addressed themselves to them first. For both before the crucifixion, He says to them, Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; Matthew 10:6 and after the crucifixion, so far from forbidding, He even commanded them to address themselves to the Jews. For though He said, Make disciples of all nations, yet when on the point of ascending into Heaven, He declared that unto those first they were to address themselves; For, you shall receive power, says He, after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and unto the uttermost part of the earth; Acts 1:8 and Paul again, He that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, was mighty in me also toward the Gentiles. Therefore the apostles also went first unto the Jews, and when they had tarried a long time in Jerusalem, and then had been driven away by them, in this way they were scattered abroad unto the Gentiles.
