The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. Luke
Chapter 17
Ver. 5. — And the Apostles said to the Lord , Increase our faith. The Apostles said this, when, from their little faith, they had been unable to cast out the devil from the lunatic. They then asked for greater faith, as appears from the above words compared with those of S. Matt. xvii. 19, &c., for Christ made the same reply in each place, “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed you would move mountains.” Ver. 6. — If ye had faith. “This indeed,” says S. Chrysostom, “is small in quantity but great in power. He means that the least portion of faith can do great things.” And Bede, “ Perfect faith is a grain of mustard seed : in appearance it is small, in the heart it is fervent.”
You would say unto this sycamine tree (a mulberry tree (moro) close at hand, to which Christ pointed). Be thou rooted up and be thou cast into the sea, and it would have obeyed you . — For mulberry tree, Matt. xvii. 20 has mountain. Christ therefore said both. It is called the mulberry tree allegorically, as if tuaps (foolish) ; that is by antithesis, because it is the wisest of trees ; not putting forth its leaves till the frost is over, lest they should be cut off. The mulberry signifies the gospel of the cross of Christ, which to the Gentiles appears foolishness, but to the faithful is “ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” 1 Cor. i. 24. Hence S. Augustine (Lib. ii. Qucest. Evan. : qucest. 39) : “Let those servants speak through the grain of mustard seed, to this mulberry tree; that is, to the gospel of the cross of Christ through the blood-coloured apples hanging like wounds on that tree which is to give food to the nations. Let them say that it is rooted up by the unbelief of the Jews, and transferred to the sea of the Gentiles and planted there, for by this home service they will minister to the hungering and thirsting Lord.” So too Bede. “ The mulberry tree,” he says, “ by the blood colour of the fruit and shoots, is the gospel of the cross of Christ, which, through the faith of the Apostles, when it was held as it were in the stem of its kind, was rooted up from the Jews, and planted in the sea of the Gentiles.” The Gloss adds, “ The leaves of the mulberry, offered to the serpent, bring death upon him, as the word of the cross destroys all hurtful and venomous things of the soul.” On the other hand, SS. Ambrose and Chrysostom and the Gloss understand by the mulberry tree, the devil, whom the faith of Christ casts out and sends into hell.
“ The fruit of the mulberry tree,” says S. Ambrose, “ is firstly white, when in flower, when fully blown red, and when ripe it becomes black. The devil also, from the white flower of his angelic nature and power, when cast out by his reddening wickedness, grew horrible from the foul odour of sin. Behold Christ saying to the mulberry tree, ‘ Be thou rooted up and cast into the sea ; ’ when He cast the Legion out of the man, He permitted them to enter into the swine which, being driven by the spirit of the devils, cast themselves into the sea.”
Hear also S. Chrysostom in the Catena : “ As the mulberry feeds worms (silk-worms) which spin silk from its leaves, so does the devil, from thoughts springing from those leaves, nourish in us an undying worm ; but faith has power to root this tree out of our souls, and to plunge it into hell.”
Lastly, the Arabic for the mulberry has “sycamine,” or “sycamore ,” of which, chap. xix. 4. Christ, moreover, exalts the power of faith, that He might implant in the Apostles an additional desire of increasing its keenness, and of praying for its gift to them ; for He who gave to men the mind and desire of praying, wished also to increase the faith of those who prayed. Hence He subsequently increased their faith, especially when He sent the Holy Spirit upon them at Pentecost. Hence too, by the strength of their excelling faith, they wrought so great wonders and miracles, converting the whole world; and, lest they should grow proud of such deeds, and become vainglorious, Christ, by the following Parable, teaches them to be humble-minded, and to say, “we are unprofitable servants.”
Ver. 7. — But who is there of you, having a servant ploughing or keeping sheep . Christ represses the vainglory of the Apostles, lest, when exalted by faith they had performed wonderful and stupendous acts, they might glory in them and not ascribe to God, whose it is, the honour. “He,” says Euthymius,“ who attains the result, plucks up the effect of boasting. The servant was not a slave as the heretics say, but one who was hired, and who, in addition to the service agreed upon or ordered by his master, might perform another for him to which he was not bound.” Here observe that the heretics abuse this passage to the opposing of good works, but wrongly. For this servant, as clearly appears, truly deserved the daily payment due to him by agreement, but did not deserve that his master should render him thanks ; for masters are not accustomed to bestow thanks upon those whom they pay for their labour. Thanks are only given to assistance rendered gratuitously and without payment. We who are the servants of God, through the works ordered by Him, if we offer them, merit eternal life, as the hired servant who has laboured throughout the day deserves his daily payment. Mark ix. 41 ; Matt x. 41; Apoc. xi. 18. For although our works, as far as they are ours, are of little or no value, yet so far as they flow from the grace of Christ, and are therefore the works of Christ, our head, they are of great worth and desert, and do merit, as such, eternal glory ; for grace is the seed of glory : especially as God, of His immeasurable goodness, has been pleased to promise to them, as done by the grace of Christ, eternal glory.
Vers. 8, 9. — And will not rather say unto him . That is, I suppose, because he does not owe thanks to his servants. “ For it is incumbent upon such an one to do his master’s will,” says Theophylact . “So there is laid upon us,” as Bede says, “the necessity of doing all things that God has commanded, and by fresh diligence, of always increasing our former services.” The meaning is, as S. Ambrose says, “ As we not only do not say to our servant, Take thy repose (recumbe), but require of him a further service, and give him no thanks, so neither does the Lord permit in us one only work, for all while living ought to work always. Acknowledge we ourselves therefore to be servants, lending very many acts of obedience on interest. Nor should we exalt ourselves, because we are called the sons of God. Grace is to be acknowledged, but nature is not to be passed over (ignoranda), nor should we boast ourselves, if we have served well in that which we ought to do. The sun obeys, the moon submits, the angels serve.”
Ver. 10. — Even so ye also . “Woe unto us if we do it not,” says S. Bernard in his fourth sermon on Psalm xv. So the Apostle, 1 Cor. ix. 16, “Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel,” because God has commanded me to do so.
The heretics object, “Christ here calls His faithful, useless servants, therefore by their merits they deserve nothing, nay, they do nothing good, because they contribute nothing useful.” I answer, Their first premiss is false, for Christ does not call His own servants unprofitable, nay, in Matt xxv. 23, He says, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” &c. But He warns each one of the faithful to call himself unprofitable, to the avoidance of vainglory, and to the greater increase of humility and equally so of their merit, as say SS. Ambrose, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Bede, and others, passim ; and that, in a sense not false and pretended but true and sincere. Because the faithful servant, in merely fulfilling the precepts of God, does nothing peculiar or remarkable, but only that which by the law of God he ought to do, and to which he was bound under the penalty of sin. He therefore both is, and is called, unprofitable, because he has fulfilled the commandments alone, but has omitted the counsels and works of supererogation, as Christ Himself explains : “ All things that are commanded,” and “ what we ought to do we have done.” He therefore gains only the ordinary reward of such observance of His commands ; but to that exceptional glory, and crown, and aureole of the observance of the Evangelical counsels he does not attain ; as says S. Paul, whose words I will shortly cite. Again, says S. Chrysostom, “When we say, with humility, we are unprofitable servants,” Christ says, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”