Encrypted Yeast? The Fathers on “What does the “leaven” really say?” (6th Sunday after Epiphany Resumed)

So I’m sitting here and going over some notes for what I want to say for my live Mass stream for this 6th Sunday after Epiphany Resumed (to fill the gap between the Sundays after Pentecost which ran out before the Last Sunday) and it happened again. I’ve been over these readings for years, of course. However, it often happens that some word or idea pops out that you’ve not considered before. This time it is…

… encrypted yeast.

Well… it wasn’t encrypted until I read the Greek. In English the reading from Matthew 13:31-51 with the parables about the mustard seed and leavening of bread dough, a woman “hid” leaven in three measures of dough. “Hid?”, quoth I. “Three measures? The Fathers must‘ve done something with that.” In Latin, that “hid” is “abscondit” from abscondo, “to hide, conceal, put out of sight,” a compound of ab-, “off, away from” and condere “put together, store”. We have English “abscond” from this, which involves an idea of disappearing. In Greek we have ἐνέκρυψεν (enekrypsen), from ἐγκρύπτω, “to hide in.” If you were telling someone how to make bread, you would probably say she mixed it or worked it in. Our Lord says she hid it. Once she has worked it into the flour, you can no longer see it. However, give it some time and the whole batch gives witness to its incorporation.

“Encrypted yeast”. Right. What do the Fathers say about “hid”?

St. John Chrysostom comments (Homilies on Matthew 46.2) precisely on “hid”, asking how twelve men were supposed to do anything about the condition of the world. Christ sends them among people who can ridicule them or drive them out of town. And yet, they have to go as leaven to do its thing when it is worked into the flour

And see His wisdom, in that He brings in things natural, implying that as the one cannot fail to take place, so neither the other. For say not this to me: “What shall we be able to do, twelve men, throwing ourselves upon so vast a multitude?” Nay, for this very thing most of all makes your might conspicuous, that you mix with the multitude and are not put to flight. As therefore the leaven then leavens the lump when it comes close to the meal, and not simply close, but so as to be actually mixed with it (for He said not, “put,” simply, but “hid”); so also ye, when you cleave to your enemies, and are made one with them, then shall you get the better of them. And as the leaven, though it be buried, yet is not destroyed, but little by little transmutes all into its own condition; of like sort will the event be here also, with respect to the gospel. Fear ye not then, because I said there would be much injurious dealing: for even so shall you shine forth, and get the better of all.

After Chrysostom offers something that helps with today’s Epistle form 1 Thess 1:2-10:

That which has been once leavened, becomes leaven again for what remains.

The Thessalonians received the word “in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost.” Before long, Paul could say to them, “From you the word of the Lord was spread abroad.” vobis …from you.” The Word had come to them through Paul. From them it was going out into Macedonia and Achaia. People had heard how the Thessalonians had turned from idols to the living and true God.

Turning to the Latin Fathers, St. Jerome in his Commentary on Matthew 2.12 sees the woman kneading the dough as a type of the Church and apostolic preaching. The leaven the Church works into us is the understanding of Scripture. Jerome takes the three measures of flour as spirit, soul, and body, which the Gospel brings into harmony via the yeast. He also offers a reading drawn from Plato’s Republic about the passions in the human soul (rational (brain), irascible (gall baldder), desirous (liver)) . The Gospel makes harmonious rendering our reason prudent, directing our anger against vice, and teaching us to desire virtue. A man may spend years doing his duty with reluctance. What a change when he begins to want to do what is right.

“All this takes place through the doctrine of the Gospel, which Mother Church has presented to us.”

St. Augustine in Questions on the Gospels, 1, 12 sees the woman as wisdom and the leaven as charity. One way he reads the three measures of flour is in light of the great commandment: we are to love God with our heart, soul, and mind. That gives some force to the last words of the parable, “until the whole was leavened.” Also, he has a fascinating comparison with the figures of Noah, Daniel and Job, three righteous men who are saved when under judgment. He doesn’t explain them in Questions but he does in Sermon 397, 1. These are three states of life. Noah stands for good pastors who guide the Church because Noah guided the ark during the flood, Daniel stands for single people who live in continence and Job stands for those who live uprightly in marriage. The yeast of charity leavens all three states of life.

In his Commentary on Matthew 13.5, St. Hilary of Poitiers reads “hid” as Christ’s death and burial. Christ himself is the leaven. The woman, therefore, is the “synagogue” (the Jews), which “hides” Christ the leaven by means of the death sentence. The three measures of flour are the Law, the Prophets and the Gospel and Christ the leaven makes them one, that is, what the Law ordained and the Prophets foretold comes to fulfillment in the Gospel.

And although he is not an ancient Father, St. Thomas Aquinas sees something marvelous (mirabilis) in the fact that so much growth comes from a hidden beginning. In his own Commentary on Matthew, he calls this a “parabola de profectu … a parable about growth”, and says it is marvelous “quia de semine occulto … because it comes from a hidden seed.” He then explains why leaven can be a good image here even though St. Paul uses leaven for malice and wickedness (1 Cor 5:6-8). Christ focuses on its warmth and its power to spread its effect. The word “hid” gives force to the ending: what disappeared into the flour has changed the whole batch.

Our encrypted leaven – that is, what we work into others we encounter by our words and deeds – can be like the charity which is harmonizing or like the malice which Paul points to, the sort of leaven that we must rid from our lives in contrast to the leaven we benefit from.

There is a question for the examination of conscience. What have I been allowing to work its way into everything in my life and even into those around me?