“And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.”
Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop — some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown — the good soil people complete the triad: they hear (like all four types), they accept (unlike the path-people, the rocky-ground people who abandon, and the thorny-ground people who are choked), and they produce (unlike the other three types). The three levels of production (thirty, sixty, a hundred) communicate that fruitfulness varies within the good-soil category while remaining extraordinary by any normal standard. The good soil's defining characteristic is not perfection but the complete sequence: hearing, accepting, producing.
Church Fathers on Mark 4:20
Although the Lord appears in the transactions mentioned above to neglect His mother, nevertheless He honours her; since on her account He goes forth about the borders of the sea.
For if we look into the Gospel of Matthew, it appears that this same teaching of the Lord at the sea, was delivered on the same day as the former. For after the conclusion of the first sermon, Matthew immediately subjoins, saying, 'The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea-side.'
But He began to teach at the sea, that the place of His teaching might point out the bitter feelings and instability of His hearers.
Read all 22 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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