Luke 20:45-47

7. The Warning against the Scribes: Luke 20:45-47.

Vers. 45-47. On the field of battle where the scribes have just been beaten, Jesus judges them. This short discourse, like its parallel Mark 12:38-40, is the summary of the great discourse Matthew 23, wherein Jesus pronounced His woe on the scribes and Pharisees, and which may be called the judgment of the theocratic authorities. It is the prelude to the great eschatological discourse which follows (the judgment of Jerusalem, of the Church, and of the world, Matthew 24:25).

In the discourse Matthew 23, two different discourses are combined, of which the one is transmitted to us by Luke (Luke 11:37 et seq.), in a context which leaves nothing to be desired, and the other was really uttered at the time where we find it placed in the first Gospel. We have only an abridgment in Mark and Luke, either because it was found in this form in the documents from which they drew, or because, writing for Gentile readers, they deemed it unnecessary to transmit it to them in whole. Θελόντων : who take their pleasure in.

There are two ways of explaining the spoliations referred to in the words: devouring widows' houses. Either they extorted considerable presents from pious women, under pretext of interceding for them, this sense would best agree with the sequel, especially with the reading προσευχόμενοι; or what is more natural and piquant, by the ambiguity of the word eat up, Jesus alludes to the sumptuous feasts provided for them by those women, while they filled the office of directors of the conscience; in both senses: the Tartuffes of the period. The word πρόφασις, strictly pretext, signifies secondarily, show. The words: greater damnation, include in an abridged form all the οὐαί, woes! of Matthew.