Third, Matthew 13[:8]: “some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
Third, Matthew 13[:8]: “some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
§ 95. (III) He takes the third testimony from Matt. 13:8, where the Lord compares the kingdom of heaven—that is, the church—to good soil: one part of which was producing grain a hundredfold, another sixty, and still another thirty. Cyprian, Augustine, and Jerome apply this to virginity, widowhood, and marriage. Therefore if the continence of virginity is more meritorious, it must be a counsel.
We respond. Whether and to what extent celibacy is preferred to marriage and what the fathers believed about celibacy will be explained in its own place [On Marriage, Celibacy, and Similar Topics (Commonplace XXVIII), §§ 489–554]. Here we merely give this response. (1) Allegories do not provide firm and conclusive arguments unless their application is demonstrated from Scripture itself.
(2) Christ’s statement about all the hearers of the Word is a general one, namely, that not all will bear fruit equally, for some will produce very much fruit in proportion to their gifts, zeal, and vocation; and others will produce a smaller amount.
(3) The facts do not allow us to take the hundredfold fruit to mean virginity, sixty widowhood, and thirty marriage since there is no doubt that the patriarchs produced a greater amount of fruit in marriage than did many virgins who nevertheless lived piously and devoutly.
(4) In this parable it is not Christ’s aim to compare those three conditions as the apostle compares them (1 Corinthians 7). Instead, He intends to show that among the good hearers of His Word, regardless of their order, status, or condition, some make greater progress than others in their zeal for piety—and that as a result some provide more, some less, to the edification of the church.
(5) The parable addresses itself particularly to the fruits of the divine seed, that is, of the heavenly Word. But now, celibacy, widowhood, and marriage, properly speaking, are not fruits of the Word because God’s Word finds all people existing in one of these states [already]. Gregory (on Ezekiel, homily 17): “He produces the thirtyfold fruit of the good soil when his mind has conceived the perfection of faith in the Trinity; he produces the sixtyfold fruit when he perfectly produces the works of a good life; but he produces the hundredfold fruit when he advances to the contemplation of eternal life.” Isidore of Pelusium (Letter 144, bk. 2): “ ‘Some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty’ can mean virginity and continence and marriage. Again, it can even designate the institution of the soul, the ministry of the body, and the generosity of money—for producing the salvation of the soul is greater and more excellent than to provide for a ministry through the body or even to be generous with money.” Jerome assigns the conditions of life to these three [levels of fruitfulness], but he is influenced to do so by very weak reasons, for he writes as follows (Letter 50 ad Pammach. Apolog. pro libris adversus Jovinianum): “ ‘Thirtyfold’ refers to marriage because the very joining of the fingers encompassing and binding themselves like a gentle kiss depicts husband and wife. ‘Sixtyfold’ refers to widows and widowers because they have been placed in anguish and tribulation, whence they are pressed under the thumb. The number one hundred is transferred from the left to the right hand. As one makes a circle with the same fingers, but not the same hand, with which marriage and widowhood are signified, he expresses the crown of virginity.” In the same letter he adds: “Almost all the Latin and Greek commentators relate the number 100 to the martyrs; 60, to celibates; 30, to widows.” Husbands and wives are completely excluded, according to their opinion about the good soil and the seed of the father of the household.
** Augustine (De s. virg., ch. 45) applies the explanation by which the hundredfold fruit is taken to mean celibacy, but with his usual modesty he adds: “Those who understand this better than we understand what the diversities of fertility signify: whether the celibate life is in the hundredfold fruit, widowhood in the sixty, marriage in the thirty; or whether the hundredfold fertility should rather be reckoned as martyrdom, the sixty to continence, and the thirty to marriage; whether celibacy produces hundredfold fruit as martyrdom approaches it, but is actually only the sixty; if married people producing thirty advance to sixty if they become martyrs; whether, and this seems most probable to me because there are many gifts of divine grace and one is greater and better than another, it must mean that there is more than can be distributed into three differences,” etc. **