So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if you from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses.
All Commentaries on Matthew 18:35 Go To Matthew 18
Jerome
AD 420
For it is customary with the Syrians, especially they of Palestine, to add aparable to what they speak; that what their hearers might not retain simply, and in itself, the instance and similitude may be the means of retaining.
I know that some interpret the man who owed the ten thousand talents to be the devil, and by his wife and children who were to be sold when he persevered in his wickedness, understand foolishness, and hurtful thoughts. For as wisdom is called the wife of the righteous man, so the wife of the unrighteous and the sinner is called foolishness. But how the Lord remits to the devil ten thousand talents, and how he would not remit ten denarii to us his fellow servants, of this there is no ecclesiastical interpretation, nor is it to be admitted by thoughtful men.
That this may be made plainer, let us speak it in instances. If any one of you shall have committed an adultery, a homicide, or a sacrilege, these greater sins of ten thousand talents shall be remitted when you beg for it, if you also shall remit lesser offences to those that trespass against you.
Also this, “from your hearts,” is added to take away all feigned reconciliations. Therefore the Lord’s command to Peter under this similitude of the king and his servant who owed him ten thousand talents, and was forgiven by his lord upon his entreaty, is, that he also should forgive his fellow servants their lesser trespasses.
