Origen's line-by-line allegorical exposition of Matthew 13:36 through 14:21, covering the weeds, the hidden treasure, the pearl, and the feeding of the crowds.
Book 10 of Origen's Commentary on Matthew picks up where Jesus leaves the crowds and withdraws into a house with his disciples, who ask him to explain the parable of the weeds of the field (Matthew 13:36-43). Origen reads the move indoors as a figure for the difference between simple hearers of the gospel, who remain 'outside,' and disciples who press further and are granted deeper, hidden meaning. From there he works through the remaining parables of Matthew 13 in sequence: the treasure hidden in a field, which he takes to be Christ or the hidden sense of Scripture bought at the cost of everything a person owns, and the merchant seeking fine pearls, which prompts a lengthy digression on the natural history of pearls (Indian, British, Bosporan, and Acarnanian varieties) drawn from a treatise on stones, before he turns that lore into an allegory about the different worth of interpretations and souls.
The book then moves into Matthew 14, treating the crowds who follow Jesus and are healed of their sicknesses, and the feeding of the five thousand. Origen distinguishes between being merely 'weak,' being 'sick,' and being 'asleep' as three degrees of moral and spiritual affliction, tying the distinction to Paul's language in 1 Corinthians about believers who are weak, sick, or asleep because they have eaten and drunk unworthily of the Lord's bread and cup. Throughout, healing of bodily illness in the narrative is read as a figure for the healing of vice - love of money, love of glory, lust - and the loaves that Jesus blesses become an image of teaching or scriptural nourishment that only the already-healed can safely receive.
The book matters as a sustained example of Origen's method: he treats the Gospel narrative as a surface that repays patient, almost forensic attention to individual words and grammatical connectives (he pauses over the conjunction 'and' in Paul's sentence), and he freely imports secular learning - here, ancient pearl lore - as raw material for spiritual reading. It is one of the fullest surviving specimens of how a third-century Christian scholar actually practiced allegorical exegesis verse by verse.
“Then, leaving the crowds, he entered his house, and his disciples came near him, saying, 'Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field'”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 10 · read this chapter →
“and it is a work of his love for humanity to leave the house and go off to those who are unable to come to him”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 10 · read this chapter →
“a merchant seeking fine pearls”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 10 · read this chapter →
“And the land pearls occur only among the Indians, and are suited for seals, slings, and necklaces. Of the sea pearls, the finer ones are found among these same Indians, and these are the best, occurring in the Red Sea.”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 10 · read this chapter →
“he who is beyond suffering suffered, as one who loves humanity, by being moved with compassion”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 10 · read this chapter →
It is a continuous allegorical exposition of Matthew 13:36 through 14:21, covering the parable of the weeds, the hidden treasure, the pearl of great price, and the feeding of the crowds. Origen explains each episode word by word and converts details of the narrative into figures for the soul's relationship to Scripture and virtue.
He first surveys real pearl lore - where the finest pearls come from (India, then Britain, then the Bosporus, then Acarnania) and how they form - drawn from an ancient treatise on stones. He then uses that hierarchy of quality to argue that, just as pearls vary in worth, so do interpretations of Scripture and souls, and that the 'fine pearl' is worth selling everything to obtain.
Commenting on Jesus healing the crowds, Origen reads bodily sickness as a figure for vice and identifies three degrees: the merely weak sin occasionally without being wholly given over to it, the sick are consumed by a single vice such as love of money or lust, and those who sleep are spiritually inattentive and drowsing in false reasoning. He grounds the distinction in Paul's statement to the Corinthians that some among them are weak, sick, or asleep for eating and drinking the Lord's bread unworthily.
Origen treats Jesus leaving the crowds and entering a house as a figure for the move from the plain, accessible sense of the gospel, available to everyone, to its deeper hidden meaning, available only to those who press further as disciples and ask for explanation.
Yes. To explain the parable of the pearl he draws at length on a secular treatise about precious stones, describing the natural history and grading of pearls from various regions, before turning that material into a scriptural allegory about worth and interpretation.
Commentary on John, Book 1 · Commentary on John, Book 10 · Commentary on John, Book 2 · Commentary on John, Book 4 · Commentary on John, Book 5 · Commentary on John, Book 6 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 11 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 12 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 13 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 14 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 15 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 16