LUKE 11:49 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:”
The parable of the barren fig tree allows one more year: the owner of the vineyard who wants to cut it down is stayed by the gardener's intercession — let me dig around it and fertilize it; if it bears fruit next year, fine; if not, then cut it down. The fig tree's unfruitfulness after three years of searching mirrors Israel's response to three years of Jesus' ministry, and the extended deadline is not a guarantee of safety but an act of mercy that nevertheless has a terminus.
Church Fathers on Luke 11:49
A reproof which exalts the meek is generally hateful to the proud man. When therefore our Savior was blaming the Pharisees for transgressing from the right path, the body of Lawyers were struck with consternation. Hence it is said, Then answered one of the lawyers, and said to him, Master, thus saying you reproach us also.
In what a grievous state is that conscience, which hearing the word of God thinks it a reproach against itself, and in the account of the punishment of the wicked perceives its own condemnation.
Now the Lawyers were different from the Pharisees. For the Pharisees being separated from the rest had the appearance of a religious sect; but those skilled in the Law were the Scribes and Doctors who solved legal questions.
Read all 28 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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