Another parable spoke he unto them;
The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
All Commentaries on Matthew 13:33 Go To Matthew 13
Hilary of Poitiers
AD 368
Yeast comes from flour and returns the potency it received to the batch of its own kind. The Lord compared himself with this yeast. It was taken in hand by the woman, that is, the synagogue, and buried with the judgment of death, affirming that the law and the prophets are dissolved in the gospel. This yeast, covered with three measures of flour in equal parts— that is, the law, the prophets and the gospel—makes everything one, so that what the law established and the prophets proclaimed is completed by the added ingredient of the gospel. Everything, possessing the same contents and potency, is brought about through the Spirit of God, so that there is no disunity in what is fermented in equal parts.
