“Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:”
Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. The test of genuine repentance is not the performance of the baptism ritual but the fruit that follows. John is already anticipating Jesus' teaching in Matthew 7:15–20 where false prophets are known by their fruits, and Matthew 21:43 where the kingdom will be given to people producing its fruits. Repentance that produces no change in conduct is not repentance but religious performance. Isaiah 1:16–17 makes the same demand: cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice — the prophetic tradition consistently grounds religious acts in their ethical consequences. John is saying: do not come to my baptism unless you are prepared for your life to actually change.
Church Fathers on Matthew 3:8
The words of the teachers should be fitted to the quality of the hearers, that in each particular it should agree with itself and yet never depart from the fortress of general edification.
It was necessary that after the teaching which he used to the common people, the Evangelist should give an example of the doctrine he delivered to the more advanced; therefore he says, 'Seeing many of the Pharisees, &c.'
The manner of Scripture is to give names from the imitation of deeds, according to that of Ezekiel, 'Thy father was an Amorite;' [Ezek 16:3] so these from following vipers are called 'generation of vipers.'
Read all 28 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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