Origen's line-by-line exposition of Matthew 20-21, from the third Passion prediction through the cursing of the fig tree, read for moral and allegorical meaning.
Book 16 of Origen's Commentary on Matthew works through a stretch of Matthew's Gospel running from Jesus's third prediction of his death on the road to Jerusalem (Matthew 20:17-19) through the request of James and John's mother, the healing of blind men, the entry into Jerusalem, and the withering of the fig tree near the end of chapter 21. As is typical of Origen's commentary method, he compares Matthew's wording against the parallel accounts in Mark and Luke, resolves apparent discrepancies between them, and then presses each detail for a deeper, often allegorical, sense once the literal narrative has been established.
Several extended set-pieces anchor the book. Origen dwells on why Jesus takes Judas aside along with the other eleven disciples to hear the Passion prediction, arguing that Judas at that moment was still "like the rest of the apostles" and had not yet been surrendered to the devil's plan. He uses Paul's journey toward Jerusalem despite Agabus's warning as a scriptural parallel for knowingly walking into danger, drawing a rule about when a believer should flee persecution and when to "go to meet it directly." Later he takes up the disciples' silence after this third prediction (contrasted with Peter's rebuke after the first), and works out why Jerusalem and its priesthood were destroyed only after, not before, Jesus was actually condemned and crucified there.
The book closes with Origen's extended reading of the fig tree that Jesus curses for bearing no fruit. He treats it first as a real event, addressing the puzzle (raised by Mark's detail that "it was not the season for figs") of why Jesus expected fruit at all, and then turns it into a sustained allegory: a teacher who talks about God without producing the "fruit of wisdom and reason" is like that fig tree, and the true disciple must learn to bear the Spirit's fruits - love, joy, and the rest - even in seasons that seem unfavorable to them, since God asks of believers "things beyond the ordinary" and calls them, in the Psalm's words, to be "gods" and "sons of the Most High."
“Now as long as Jesus was not being handed over in Jerusalem to the chief priests and scribes, nor condemned to death, nor mocked or scourged or crucified, Jerusalem stood firm and the place called the sanctuary was not thrown down.”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 16 · read this chapter →
“For we say that it is not always fitting to avoid dangers, nor always to go to meet them directly; rather one who is wise in Christ is needed to judge which occasion calls for withdrawal and which for eager engagement in the contest without withdrawal, and much more without flight.”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 16 · read this chapter →
“for the devil had not yet, I think, thrown "into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, that he should betray" Jesus”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 16 · read this chapter →
“And it is indeed better that the deceptive fig tree, which is supposed to be alive yet bears no fruit, once convicted of being fruitless, should appear withered at the words of Jesus’ disciples, than that it should go on deceiving”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 16 · read this chapter →
“For God wants the one who comes to his word to be better than human nature, and he demands of him things beyond the ordinary and, if I may call them so, works of God rather than of man.”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 16 · read this chapter →
It works through Matthew 20:17 to roughly 21:22 - the third Passion prediction, the request of the sons of Zebedee, blind men healed near Jericho, the entry into Jerusalem, and the cursing of the fig tree - comparing Matthew's wording with Mark and Luke and then drawing out moral and allegorical readings.
No. Origen argues that when Jesus took the twelve aside to predict his death, Judas was included and was still 'like the rest of the apostles,' because, in his reading, the devil had not yet put the plan of betrayal into Judas's heart.
Origen treats Paul's insistence on going to Jerusalem after Agabus predicted he would be bound there as a model of imitating Christ's own eagerness to face suffering, and uses it to argue that a wise believer, not a fixed rule, must judge case by case when to flee danger and when to meet it directly.
He reads it on two levels: literally, as Jesus's response to a tree that had leaves but no fruit even out of season; and allegorically, as a figure for a professed teacher of divine things who is found, on close examination, to bear no fruit of wisdom, and so is exposed and withers.
He states that the sanctuary stood and the chief priests remained chief priests only up until Jesus was actually handed over, condemned, and crucified there - after which, in his view, the priesthood and the temple's standing came to an end.
Following Paul's list, Origen names love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control, and argues the real proof of bearing them is producing them under provocation or hardship - 'in a season not of figs' - not only when circumstances make it easy.
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 10 · 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