But he said, Nay; lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with them.
All Commentaries on Matthew 13:29 Go To Matthew 13
Jerome
AD 420
He set forth also this other parable, as it were a rich householder refreshing his guests with various meats, that each one according to the nature of his stomach might find some food adapted to him. He said not ‘a second parable, 'but “another;” for had He said ‘a second,’ we could not have looked for athird; but another prepares us for many more.
The Devil is called a man that is an enemy because he has ceased to be God; and in the ninth Psalm it is written of him, “Up, Lord, and Let not man have the upper hand.” Wherefore let not him sleep that is set over the Church, lest through his carelessness the enemy should sow therein tares, that is, the dogmas of the heretics.
But this seems to contradict that command, “Put away the evil from among you.” For if the rooting up be forbidden, and we are to abide inpatience till the harvest-time, how are we to cast forth any from among us? But between wheat and tares (which in Latin we call, ‘lolium’) so long as it is only in blade, before the stalk has put forth an ear, there is very great resemblance, and none or little difference to distinguish them by. The Lord then warns us not to pass a hasty sentence on an ambiguous word, but to reserve it for His judgment, that when the day of judgment shall come, He may cast forth from the assembly of the saints no longer on suspicion but on manifest guilt. But when the same infection has spread to alarge number at once, nothing remains but sorrow and groans. Therefore let aman gently reprove whatever is in his power; what is not in let him bear with patience, and mourn over with affection, until He from above shall correct and heal, and let him defer till harvest-time to root out the tares and winnow the chaff. But the multitude of the unrighteous is to be struck at with a general reproof, whenever there is opportunity of saying aught among the people; and above all when any scourge of the Lord from above gives opportunity, when they feel that they are scourged for their deserts; for then the calamity of the hearers opens their ears submissively to the words of their reprover, seeing the heart in affliction isever more prone to the groans of confession than to the murmurs of resistance. And even when no tribulation lays upon them, should occasion serve, a word of reproof is usefully spent upon the multitude; for when separated it is wont to be fierce, when in a body it iswont to mourn.
In that He says that the bundles of tares are to be cast into the fire, and the wheat gathered into barns, it is clear that heretics also and hypocrites are tobe consumed in the fires of hell, while the saints who are here represented bythe wheat are received into the barns, that is into heavenly mansions.
