Matthew 20:4 — Community Reflections

MATTHEW 20:4 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.”

And to them he said: you go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you. So they went. The promise of whatever is right — without specifying an amount — is the basis on which the third-hour workers go into the vineyard. The open-ended promise creates the ambiguity that the day's end will resolve: what is right according to the kingdom's economy may differ from what is right according to the labor market's economy.

Church Fathers on Matthew 20:4

To establish the truth of this saying, 'There are many first that shall be last, and last first,' the Lord subjoins a similitude.
Remigius · 9th century

The Master of the household is Christ, whose house are the heavens and the earth; and the creatures of the heavens, and the earth, and beneath the earth, His family. His vineyard is righteousness, in which are set divers sorts of righteousness as vines, as meekness, chastity, patience, and the other virtues; all of which are called by one common name righteousness.
Pseudo-Chrysostom · 5th century

Or; The Master of the household, that is, our Maker, has a vineyard, that is, the Church universal, which has borne so many stocks, as many saints as it has put forth from righteous Abel to the very last saint who shall be born in the end of the world. To instruct this His people as for the dressing of a vineyard, the Lord has never ceased to send out His labourers; first by the Patriarchs, next by the teachers of the Law, then by the Prophets, and at the last by the…
Gregory the Great · 6th century · Hom. in Ev., xix, 1

Read all 47 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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