Events in Matthew

The sequence of events in the Gospel According to St. Matthew may be instructive:

Peter’s Confession at Caesarea Philippi

Transfiguration

Various healings & “Who is the greatest?”

Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard

Departure from Galilee to Judea

Restoring of sight to the blind on the way to Judea

Pronouncements on the Law in Judea, controversy with religious authorities

Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

Cleansing of the Temple [overturning conventions of finance and economic norms]

More controversy, no more healings.

Having revealed His divine Identity, Jesus makes fior Jerusalem, to complete the Exodus that He discussed with Moses and Elijah on Tabor.

The last parable describes the Kingdom (God’s will to be done by humans on earth as in heaven) as distribution of the fruits of production on the basis of need, not work: from each according to ability; to each according to need.

The restoration of sight could indicate a raising of consciousness, political as well as mystical.

The Cleansing of the Temple, under the authority of the Messiah, Who has just entered the City, is the first act of realizing the Reign of God on earth in economic terms. The healings and exorcisms “destroy the works of the devil” in disfiguring the image of God physically and spiritually. The Cleansing of the Temple undoes social and economic disfiguration.

An Analogy

ALLEGORY OF THE SUN

Let the sun represent God. The ancient hymn of St. Sophronius of Jerusalem (Phos hilaron) apostrophizes the Word as “Brightness of the Heavenly father’s face.” So the Son may be represented as  the brightnessof the sun. Pursuing the analogy, the Holy Spirit might be represented by the warmth of the sun.

The Wisdom of God could be the sky – the azure firmament. The Eastern, and especially Russian, distinction between the Son and Wisdom introduces a speculation about the nature of creation. While it may be heretical to say that creation is eternally co-existent with God, it may not be heretical to say that God has always comprised Wisdom, meaning not so much knowledge or understanding as Beauty.

Wisdom as Beauty is the creature of God, not only God’s attribute (like omnipotence or omniscience).Could we say that before the Act of creation, from all eternity, Holy Wisdom (Sophia) has been with God? Beauty as Objective Reality and not subjective feeling might be said to be co-eternal with God: not an attribute or aspect of God, but an Act of divine will prior to creation. In Wisdom have you you created all.