A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.
All Commentaries on Matthew 12:35 Go To Matthew 12
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Hom. xlii: After his former answers He here again refutes them in another manner. This He does not in order to do away their charges against Himself, but desiring to amend them, saying, “Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt. "As much as to say, None of you has said that it is an evil thing for a man to be delivered from daemons. But because they did not speak evil of the works, but said that it was the Devil that wrought them, He shows that this charge is contrary to the common sense of things, and human conceptions. And to invent such charges can only proceed from unbounded impudence.
For the discerning of a tree is done by its fruits, not the fruits by the tree. A tree is known by its fruits.” For though the tree is the cause of the fruit, yet the fruit is the evidence of the tree. But ye do the very contrary, having no fault to allege against the works, ye pass a sentence of evil against thetree, saying that I have a daemon. Therefore either must be made a good tree with good fruits, or an evil tree with evil fruits; not that a good tree is tobe made a bad tree, or the reverse; but that in this metaphor we may understand that Christ is either to be left in fruitlessness, or to be retained in the fruitfulness of good works. But to hold one’s self neuter, to attribute some things to Christ, but to deny Him those things that are highest, to worship Him as God, and yet to deny Him a common substance with the Father, is blasphemy against the Spirit. In admiration of His so great works you dare not take away the name of God, yet through malevolence of soul you debase His high nature by denying His participation of the Father’s substance.
Herein also He shows His Godhead as knowing the hidden things of the heart; fornot for words only, yea but for evil thoughts also they shall receive punishment. For it is the order of nature that the store of the wickedness which abounds within should be poured forth in words through the mouth. Thus when you shall hear any speaking evil, you must infer that his wickedness ismore than what his words express; for what is uttered without is but the overflowing of that within; which was a sharp rebuke to them.
