The Esoteric Gospel of Matthew 12:15-21

Today, a brief passage from The Gospel of Matthew, and a brief comment. The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 12, verses 15-21 reads: 

15 But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all;

 

16 And charged them that they should not make him known:

 

17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,

 

18 Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.

 

19 He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.

 

20 A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.

 

21 And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.

 

Prophecy

Matthew is connecting the Old and New Testaments, and presenting Christ as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. The question, of course, is whether he is right to do so. Modern Biblical "scholars" tend to say No-- they read each Gospel as simply presenting the agenda of its particular author. Matthew is trying to convert Jews, Luke is making a political argument, John is arguing at once against the Jews and against proto-Gnostic followers of Thomas, and so on. 

Of course, the orthodox position is that the incidents wherein Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophecy are exactly what they claim to be. When I was much younger, a Christian evangelist presented this to me as a reason I ought to attend his church. I thought it was nonsense. "So the Bible is right because the Bible said so?" I scoffed as only a 20 year old can scoff and departed the scene. But of course what we call "the Bible" is not a book but a collection of books, collected precisely because of their relationship to one another. 

Now, of course, the perspective I've been using in these commentaries is neither the false skepticism of the modern "critic" nor the naive acceptance of the orthodox believer. But it is far closer to the latter than the former, and I'm inclined to take Matthew at his word here. If it looked like Jesus was fulfilling a prophecy, that's very likely because he was fulfilling a prophecy, and the Gospel authors recorded it as such for the obvious reason.  

Fulfilled Prophecies

I want to say two more things on this topic.

The first is that in a fulfilled prophecy we have one of the best tests of religious truth you can find. The fulfilled prophecy is the religious equivalent of the accurate prediction which proves the scientific hypothesis. 

On June 17, 1917, the Virgin Mary gave the following message to three children at Fatima, in Portugal:

I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart. If people attend to my requests, Russia will be converted and the world will have peace.

In a later appearance that July she was more specific:

God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The [First World] war is going to end; if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart.... If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world
 

Now the consecration of Russia took place in 1984, as part of a consecration of the entire world. A miracle promptly followed. Within five years, the Warsaw Pact began to fall apart. By 1991 the Communist Party had fallen in Russia, the Soviet Union was dissolved, and the Russian Church began a resurgence which continues to this day. 

In another world, this would be sufficient proof of the power of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And also of the fact that the schism that divides the Russian and the Roman Churches means little or nothing in Heaven. Humans being humans, neither of these is an acceptable option, and so the most astonishing spiritual event of the 20th century goes largely ignored. 

Two thousand years ago, the famous Roman statesman Cicero presented a dialog about the existence of the gods in his work, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Part of it runs as as follows:

The augur's office is one of high dignity; surely the soothsayer's art also is divinely inspired. Is not one who considers these and countless similar facts compelled to admit that the gods exist? If there be persons who interpret the will of certain beings, it follows that those beings must themselves exist; but there are persons who interpret the will of the gods; therefore we must admit that the gods exist. But perhaps it may be argued that not all prophecies come true. Nor do all sick persons get well, but that does not prove that there is no art of medicine. 
 

Nothing is really new, and humanity runs in the same circles over and over again.