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We heard above the command of our Savior from Matthew 23:2: “The scribes and Pharisees have sat upon Moses’ chair. Therefore whatever they tell you, observe and do.” This is a great and broadly extending precept. When he says “all things,” what has he excepted? When he says “observe,” and at the same time adds “and do,” does he require only the hearing of bodily ears and the inward keeping of memory?
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Does he not also command works and outward actions? But on the contrary, behold the same Lord in Matthew 16:6: “Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
But what is this leaven? The Apostles certainly doubted in the same place, and thought that they were being forbidden to accept from the Pharisees, either as a gift or by purchase, the breads which they then lacked and which were necessary for food, verse 7 in the same place. But the same Lord was the interpreter of his own words to them. Therefore, verse 11: “Why do you not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread, when I said, Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees?” Then, verse 12, “they understood that he had not said that one must beware the leaven of breads, but the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
If, then, one must beware the doctrine of the Pharisees, how are the same men to be heard when teaching? How are all the things they say to be observed and done? Some interpreters restrict that word “all,” but in various ways.
For some think that only Moses’ precepts are included, those which are necessary for salvation and must remain in force at every time as long as human beings exist; but not the Mosaic ceremonies and rites, from which the Lord wished human minds to be snatched rather than inserted into them. Maldonatus, however, does not assent to these men for this reason: at the very time when Christ the Lord was speaking, indeed while he lived, he himself observed those ceremonies and wished them to be observed by others.
[margin: Various interpretations, 1.]
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Others seem to take “all” generally, but either in this way: all things which the law and Moses tell you, while the scribes and Pharisees recite them, observe and do; or in this way: all things which the scribes and Pharisees tell you while reading aloud the books of Moses, observe and do.
But these two interpretations differ little from one another, and they neither escape the difficulty, nor are they sufficiently consistent so as to escape it. For when it is said that all things which the law and Moses tell them, as the scribes and Pharisees recite them, are to be understood, does this mean all things with respect to the bare words of the law and of Moses, or also with respect to the explanation of the scribes and Pharisees? Likewise, when it is said that all things spoken by them while reading aloud the books of Moses are to be understood, does this mean with respect to the bare reading of the words, or with respect to that reading joined with some exposition?
The former interpretation of certain men does not explain itself sufficiently. The latter signifies that a reading with some exposition is to be understood, but one which is consonant with Mosaic doctrine. Yet in either interpretation there always remains the difficulty raised at the beginning: how all the things which Moses commands through the scribes and Pharisees, as readers and expositors, are to be observed and done, while their leavened doctrine must nevertheless be avoided.
And the latter interpretation has this inconvenience also, that it admits an exposition which must nevertheless be consonant with the law itself.
[margin: Interpretations 2 and 3.]
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But whose role will it be to judge this? The hearers’ own? But how much wisdom and how much judgment would that require? For surely more is required to judge whether the exposition of learned men especially is consonant with the word of God than to read that word itself and to illustrate or enlarge it by some exposition. Thus those who hear would have to be more learned, wiser, and sharper in judging than those who teach; the people more than the scribes and Pharisees; the sheep more than the shepherds. And much more would the people sit upon Moses’ chair than the scribes and Pharisees themselves, because the people would pass judgment on the doctrine of these men, although they were most learned and most wise.
But if we understand this passage with a caution and condition - “do all things which the scribes and Pharisees say, provided that they are consonant with the law and with Moses” - there will be no reason why the Lord might not have added, with the same caution, “and do according to all their works.” For we would understand “all works” also, if they agree with the divine law and word. In this way the whole force of the Lord’s words would be weakened.
Therefore it must be said that all things which the scribes and Pharisees said were to be observed and done not simply and in whatever manner, but those things which they said in the chair upon which they were sitting, and by force of that chair itself; that is, those things which they said by public and legitimate power and authority, and by the impulse, influence, or
[margin: Interpretation 4, the best.]
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direction, taught, explained, commanded, and forbade, all these things had to be received by everyone and committed to execution. But what they taught by their own private opinion, or discipline, or by depravity of judgment and morals, even if they taught these things not only at home and within private walls, but also outside, in gatherings of men and in schools, did not necessarily have to be heard. Rather, some of their teaching had to be avoided as a corrupting leaven: namely, those things that were either wicked in themselves, or things that were good, or certainly not evil, but were nevertheless depraved by those Pharisees, and only insofar as they were depraved. These were discussed above.
For these are properly the things which, like leaven, corrupt the whole mass of a good life. This is clear from the fact that the Lord, in the preceding chapter of Matthew 15, was dealing with such impious or futile teachings of the Pharisees; and in Luke 12:1 he calls all these same things by one word, hypocrisy. “Beware,” he says, “of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” It swells and puffs up souls with a vain opinion of virtue, pride, and arrogance; it soaks and irritates minds with a certain rotten bitterness of greed, envy, and cruelty; and finally, whatever good is in the kneading-trough of the breast, whether by nature or by God and discipline, it corrupts the whole as if into one mass and makes it eternally ruinous.
[margin: Chapter 4.]
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For what one of the poets said is most true not only before human beings but also before God: pride, when joined to noble character, pollutes it.
In the Syriac text this hypocrisy is called masab baphe, that is, acceptance of the face, or a counterfeit pretense made by the face, outward gesture, and habit. And this is the first proof of the explanation just given.
The second proof is taken from the fact that it is clear that the scribes and Pharisees did not impose on everyone the necessity of their one sect, or of their own doctrines and morals. Otherwise, to say nothing of the Sadducees, no Essene could rightly have existed, nor any other Jew outside the three heresies set out above, although there were in fact many who, even if they supported and praised this or that sect, did not for that reason enroll their names in it. For not all Jews were Pharisees, or Essenes, or Sadducees, but only all those who were pleased to philosophize in some particular manner.
The third proof is drawn from the very fine testimonies of Saint Augustine, and these from several books, repeated quite often. Thus in book 4 of On Christian Doctrine, chapter 27, he says:
Good faithful people obediently hear not any man, but God himself, when he says, “What they say, do; but what they do, do not do. For they say and do not do.” Therefore those who do not act usefully are nevertheless heard usefully. They are eager to seek their own, but they do not dare to teach their own
[margin: Claudian, book 4, On the Consulship of Honorius. Augustine on hearing the Pharisees sitting upon Moses’ chair.]
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from the higher place of the ecclesiastical seat, which sound doctrine has established. For this reason the Lord himself, before saying of such men what I have recalled, prefaced it with, “They have sat upon Moses’ chair.” Therefore that chair was not theirs; it was Moses’ chair that compelled them to say good things, even when they did not do good things. They were doing their own things in their own life; but the chair did not permit them to teach their own things.
In book 16, chapter 29, Against Faustus, he says:
The Lord restrains his own from imitating the morals of evil men when he says, “Upon Moses’ chair sit the scribes and Pharisees. What they say, do; but what they do, do not do. For they say and do not do.” In these words of the Lord you should observe both points: what honor is paid to the doctrine of Moses, in whose chair even bad men sitting there were compelled to teach good things.
In letter 166:
The heavenly master warned that the people should beware, so that even concerning bad prelates they might be secure, lest because of them the chair of saving doctrine should be deserted; in that chair even bad men are compelled to say good things. For what they say is not theirs, but God’s, who has placed the doctrine of truth in the chair of unity.
There are similar things in the added letters, letter 7. In the third discourse on Psalm 36, near the end, when he is dealing with good and bad bishops in the Catholic Church and cites the words of Saint Matthew, he says:
You see that in Moses’ chair, which the chair of Christ succeeded, even bad men sit; and yet by saying good things they do not harm their hearers. Why, because of bad men, did you abandon the chair itself?
Saint Chrysostom applies similar things in homily 21 on 1 Corinthians, also using the example of Judas the traitor, and in Galatians 1 and homily 3 on Colossians, near the end.
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What advantage is it, he says, if you receive us and do not hear the things said by us? What gain comes to you if you honor us and do not attend to what is said to you? This is honor for us; this is admirable worship, which profits you and us, if you hear us. Hear Paul saying, “I did not know, brothers, that he was high priest.” Hear Christ saying, “All things which they tell you to observe, observe and do.” You do not despise me, but the priesthood. If you see me stripped of it, then despise me; then I am not allowed to command. But as long as we sit in this seat, as long as we have the presidency, we have both authority and power, even if we are unworthy. If Moses’ throne was so venerable that men were heard because of it, much more is Christ’s throne. We have received that throne. From it we speak; from it Christ has also placed in us the ministry of reconciliation. Ambassadors, whoever they are, receive great honor because of the dignity of the embassy. Look, then: they go alone into the midst of a barbarian region among so many enemies, and because the right of embassy has great force, everyone honors them, everyone looks upon them, everyone sends them back home safely. And so we also undertake the office of embassy, and we come from God. This is the dignity of the episcopate. We come to you carrying out an embassy, asking that you put an end to war, and we say under what conditions: we do not promise that cities will be given to you, nor so many measures of grain,
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nor estates, nor gold, but the kingdom of heaven, eternal life, familiar fellowship with Christ, and other good things which cannot be expressed by us in words nor heard by you, as long as we are in this flesh and present life. Therefore we perform an embassy. We wish to enjoy honor, but not for our sake; perish the thought, for we are as vile as can be. We wish it for your sake, so that you may listen carefully to what we say, receive benefit, and not attend with sloth and negligence to what is said. Do you not see how all people gather around ambassadors and observe them? But we carry out the office of God’s embassy among human beings. Those who effect these things are not we, but the episcopate itself; not this man or that man, but the bishop. Let no one hear me, but the dignity. Therefore let us do everything so that we may seem to live for God, and so that we may be judged worthy of those good promises by him who loves him, by the grace and kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
See also Rupert, book 4 on Exodus, chapter 28, and our Gretser, digression 4.
Perhaps someone will say: if the scribes and Pharisees had to be followed in everything that they taught from Moses’ chair with legitimate power and authority, then Christ the Lord should not have been recognized, believed, and worshiped by anyone as Christ and as the Son of God. For those men decreed exactly the opposite, even from Moses’ own chair, since both the pontiffs and the whole council condemned him and his disciples, and made those who dared to acknowledge and profess him
[margin: Objection.]
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aposynagogoi, that is, after imposing an anathema, they cast them out of the synagogue, or church, of that time.
I reply. Every thing that must perish perishes first when some greater contrary force weakens, breaks, and cuts down its strength and life. Then, before the thing perishes completely and breathes its last breath, so to speak, there come certain preparations, blows, wounds, and illnesses. So too that Mosaic chair and synagogue, and the whole state of the old law, had to be removed and perish. A greater and more powerful opposing force came upon it: Christ the Lord. He wished to remove that chair, synagogue, and state. By the performance of very many, very great, and very certain miracles he proved to the scribes, Pharisees, elders, priests, pontiffs, rulers, and the whole people of Israel that he was truly the Christ sent by God, and the Son of God, and that he used divine power and authority.
At that point, first in this very question, whether Christ had come and was God, and in all matters joined and connected to it, he took away and removed all power and authority from those who sat in that chair. Therefore in this chief question they could now err, fall, deceive, and be deceived, being deprived, namely in respect to that kind of truth, of the Spirit who ruled and governed that chair.
[margin: Response. As Christ’s Church gradually rose, Moses’ chair gradually fell.]
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But in all other matters he still left the authority of that same chair intact, and sanctioned it by his own authority, until he removed that whole state from the foundations: until he cast down the temple, cut off Jerusalem, and overturned the whole polity. Then the synagogue received, as it were, a lethal blow. Then the Mosaic chair, together with all its rites, ceremonies, explanations, and interpretations, was weakened, broken, and exhausted of every vital blood and spirit, and breathed its last breath.
By contrast, the new state of the new law, the new chair of Christ Jesus, of which Saint Augustine spoke above, began first when that strongest foundation had been laid concerning the most blessed coming of Christ the Lord, his divinity, power, divine authority, and similar things. Then it grew up with respect to all other matters which he deigned to sanction and institute by his divine right.
And what philosophers today in the schools call a proportion held in this case: as the old chair, or synagogue, was falling and dying, so the Christian chair, or Church, was rising and acquiring greater strength day by day. Thus, when the old one was extinct, this whole Church now stood, already strong, indeed already alone; it flourished, it was vigorous, it shone, and now stands, is vigorous, and flourishes, and will always stand, be vigorous, and flourish until the final end of this world’s time. These things could be proved, but this is enough for the present passage, as it were in passing, since occasion has arisen.
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