Matthew 25--Who Are the Sheep and the Goats?

Scripture cannot be comprehensively understood by boldly underscoring,  heavily emphasizing, or  cherry picking particular chapters or verses.  One of the most frequently quoted passages in the entire Bible—Old and New Testament—is Matthew 25:31-46, revisited this Lent.  Within Catholic circles, and particularly in the past sixty years, social justice warriors have relished quoting Jesus’s seemingly whole cloth criteria for those souls headed for heaven or hell, based on, seemingly solely, corporeal works of mercy.  However, even Communists—albeit atheistic by self description—heavily reference its materialistic aspects to secure Christian support.  

 
While it is true that the purple-robed Lazarus who haughtily rebuffed the poor and tragically disabled begger while lavishly indulging himself will “thirst” on the other side of the chasm for eternity, this most powerful Scriptural section requires a much deeper dive to ascertain its expansive meaning.  The Commentary of Cornelius A. Lapide, a renowned Flemish Jesuit priest and highly esteemed Scriptural scholar, illuminates this often plucked passage.  A full read of the chapter is available online, in various sites, and recommended, but I will focus on And He shall separate them—sheep and goats (forward).  

 
Father Lapide notes that the “elect” are the sheep for “their innocence, modesty, humility, obedience, and patience.”  The goats are creatures who are fetid and smell.  They are “fierce, immodest, lascivious”. A goat “walks in precipitous places …And it is quarrelsome.  Such are the wicked.”

 
Elaborating on this imagery, Father Lapide reveals the damned as more than persons with aversion to the needy and downtrodden.  They literally reject Christ, so also in their neighbor.  One could even venture to say that they are ignorant, indifferent, or withholding because their being is vice-filled instead of virtuous. 

 
Indeed Father Lapide expands on this theme when he cites St. Hippolytus, the Martyr’s order of the saints:  prophets, banished for My Name’s sake; patriarchs, obedient even before the time of Jesus Christ. Apostles, “partakers of My sufferings, for the sake of the Gospel.”  “Come ye Martyrs, who confessed Me before tyrants”…and so forth.   “Come ye who love the poor and strangers.  Come, ye who kept MY love, who am Love.  Come, ye friends of peace, for I am peace.”

 
In short,  Matthew 25 lays the grounding for Jesus’s words that follow when separating the sheep from the goats:  those who freed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned from those who are spiritually clueless or just plain cruel.  Most essential to the true interpretation of the sheep is that they are the authentic saints, unaware of their own good deeds, so moved by their total love of God, while the sinner does not even discern his or her own conscience, being so chaotic and self absorbed.

 
At judgment, the sheep will be those who sought and persevered in God’s grace, and this is known by their works!  The goats rejected truth and love and pursued their own gratification instead of grace; their own preservation instead of patience and self denial in suffering.  Moreover, Father Lapide cites St. Augustine and alludes to the illumination of conscience each will have upon judgment.  Each will know!  

 
Specifically, in Verse 35, Father Lapide notes that Jesus speaks of works of mercy because “they are natural and everywhere at hand, and have to do with every one.”  Also, “no one can excuse himself from the performance of them.”  They are, in perhaps other words, the baseline of evaluation, the obvious if not quite visible premise of potential accusation of sin.  

 
Yet, Father Lapide, also continues, “Moreover, we cannot doubt that many will be saved or condemned because of other virtues and sins of greater importance.  Not all are capable of the corporeal works of mercy. “For there are numbers who can scarcely practice works of mercy, as paupers, children.”  Religious may accomplish much by their chastity obedience, evangelical poverty and conversion of  sinners.  (Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.)

 
As to the six corporeal works of mercy in this chapter, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, taking in strangers clothing the naked, visiting the sick, comforting and redeeming captives—a possible seventh from Tobit, burying the dead, this insight follows.  “There are as many spiritual works of mercy, which Christ here would have us understand under the corporeal works.  They are as much superior to the corporal works as the soul is superior to the body.”  They are:  to correct sinners, to teach the ignorant, to give good advice to the perplexed, to pray to God for the salvation of our neighbors, to comfort the sorrowful, to bear injuries patiently, and to forgive injuries.  Concerning these, see Peter Canisius in Opera Catechistico.

In almost profound extrapolation of Matthew 25, Father Lapide notes that St. Louis, king of France, recognized that the poor stood in the place of the Master and referenced the disadvantaged  as though each was Christ Himself.  Thus King Louis distributed food to the poor with his own hands (italics mine).  He personally included them on all vigils and festivals and washed their feet on Saturdays.  So, lacking personal charity, direct care, and constant vigilance for those in need, mercy loses its luster.  We must seek and see Jesus Christ in every single person, and serve that person in his or her most immediate needs including eternal salvation.  On the latter account we will be also judged.

 
As for the goats, St. Hippolytus the Martyr explained that they are condemned for misusing creation to the dishonor of God, being ungrateful,  and serving another master, even the devil.  Not feeding the hungry etc. may denote that these condemned goats imitated mercilessness, lack of compassion and failure to expiate other sins by almsgiving.   

 
So,  even the simplest of Jesus Christ’s words hold so much depth and expansion, requiring introspection beyond world bound interpretations.  Matthew 25 is truly about the entire person in all of his and her being and how he or she lives and grows in sanctity or slowly dies, regrettably, and ultimately, perhaps eternally.