Homily of St. Bede the Venerable, Priest The Cursing of the Fig Tree

 

Homily of St. Bede the Venerable, Priest

The Cursing of the Fig Tree

What the Lord signified by cursing the fig tree, this same He "showed more clearly by casting the impious men from the temple. For the tree did nothing wrong in not having fruit when the Lord was hungry, since its season had not yet come. But the priests did sin who carried on worldly affairs in the house of the Lord, and who omitted to bear the fruit of love which they owed, and which the Lord hungered after in them. By curbing it the Lord dried up the tree, that men, seeing or hearing these things, might much better understand that they will be condemned by divine judgment if, without the fruit of works, they are flattered by applause for their religious speech alone, which resembles, as it were, the sound and appearance of green loaves.

But, because they did not understand, He consequently applied severity of their merited punishment to them, and He threw the business transactions of mankind out of that house in which wag commanded that only divine things be done, sacrifices and prayers be offered, the Word of God be read, heard and sung. And indeed, it must be believed that He found that those things only were sold and bought in the temple which were necessary to the ministry of the temple itself—according to that which were necessary elsewhere, when, entering the same temple, He found in in it the same men and buying sheep, cattle, doves—because they who had come from afar were without doubt buying from the townsmen all these things only that they might be offered in the house Of the Lord.

 

If therefore the Lord did not even wish those things to be sold in the temple which He wished to be offered in the temple because of avarice and fraud, which is the vice proper businessmen with what great punishment do you think he would afflict those whom He found idling there in laughter and vain chatter or giving themselves up to any other vice? For if those temporal transactions which they were able to carry on freely elsewhere not permitted by the Lord to be done in His house, how much more do those things which are never permitted merit the wrath of heaven, if they are done in temples consecrated to God?

 

But because the Holy Spirit appeared above the Lord as a dove, rightly are the gifts of the Holy Spirit signified by doves. But who are they who sell doves in the temple of God, but those who pay for the imposition of hands, though which the Holy Spirit is given from heaven?