Matthew 18:32 — Community Reflections

MATTHEW 18:32 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:”

Then his master summoned him and said to him: you wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. The master's characterization of the first servant as wicked and the explanation of the forgiveness — I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded — communicates the fundamental injustice of the behavior. The wickedness is not that the servant demanded payment but that he demanded it from someone after being forgiven an impossibly larger amount.

Church Fathers on Matthew 18:32

That none should think that the Lord had enjoined something great and burdensome in saying that we must forgive till seventy times seven, He adds a parable.
Chrysostom · 4th century

For it is customary with the Syrians, especially they of Palestine, to add a parable 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.
Jerome · 4th century

30): The Son of God, as He is wisdom, righteousness, and truth, so is He a kingdom; not indeed any of those which are beneath, but all those which are above, reigning over those in whose senses reigns justice and the other virtues; these are made of heaven because they bear the image of the heavenly. This kingdom of heaven then, i.e. the Son of God, when He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, was then like to a king, in uniting man to himself.
Origen · 3rd century · (vid. 1 Cor 1

Read all 37 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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