Friday, May 24, 2013

St. Thomas' Division of Matthew

He starts with this major division:
  • Entrance of Christ's humanity into the world (1-2)
    • Generation (1)
    • Manifestation of his generation (2)
  • His course of life (3-20)
    • Preparation for teaching  (4)
      • Baptism
      • Temptation
    • Teaching itself (5-20)
      • Doctrine of Christ (5-12)
      • Power of this doctrine (13-16)
      • The end to which it leads (17-20)
  • His departure (21-28)
    • Certain preambles (21-25)
      • Provocation of persecutors (21-23)
        • Provoked by his glory (21)
        • Provoked by his knowledge  (22)
        • Provoked by his justice (23)
      • Strengthening of disciples (24)
      • Judgment (25, he starts talking about this in 24)
    • Passion of Christ (26-27)
      • Things done to him by the Jews (26)
      • Things done to him by the Gentiles (27)
    • Triumph of the Lord's Resurrection (28)
Just so as not to make the table too big, the further subdivision of the section on his teaching itself will be below:
  • Doctrine of Christ (5-12)
    • Doctrine for all (5-9)
      •  Proposed in words (5-7)
      • Confirmed through miracles (8-9)
        • By which men are freed from bodily evils (8)
        • And from spiritual evils (9)
    • Institution/instruction of ministers (10)
    • Refutation of adversaries (11-12)
  • Power of this Doctrine (13-16)
    • Shown in words (13)
    • Shown in deeds (14-16)
      • ostendit ad quos effectus se extendat per similitudinem factorum (14)
      • ostendit sufficientiam evangelicae doctrinae (15)
      • quomodo in puritate conservanda sit (16)
  • End to which it leads: future glory (17-20)
    • Demonstrated in Transfiguration (17)
    • Departure to future glory (18-20)
      • How one is to come to it (18-19)
        • The common way (18)
        • The way of perfection (19)
      • Reprehends those who seek it inordinately (20)
That's about as orderly as it gets. Eventually, I will have to take the time to read his commentary in full as it is still not clear to me all of those parts of that Gospel are about what he says it is. It would be worth the time it takes to reread the whole Gospel of Matthew with this division in mind.

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