Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore you shall receive the greater condemnation.
All Commentaries on Matthew 23:14 Go To Matthew 23
John Chrysostom
AD 407
After this, next He derides them for gluttony: and the grievous thing was, that not from rich men's goods, but from the poor they indulged their own belly, and aggravated their poverty, which they should have relieved. For neither did they merely eat, but devoured.
Moreover also the manner of their overreaching was yet more grievous, for a pretense making long prayers.
For every one is worthy of vengeance who does any evil thing; but he that is deriving even the reason for so doing from godliness, and is using this cloke for his wickedness, is justly liable to a far more grievous punishment. And wherefore did He not depose them? Because the time suffered it not as yet. So therefore He lets them alone for a time, but by His sayings, He secures that the people be not deceived, lest, through the dignity of those men, they be drawn on to the same emulation.
For as He had said, Whatsoever they bid you do, that do; He shows how many things they do amiss, lest from thence He should be supposed among the unwise to commit all to them.
