Wednesday, Lent III: You “pass over the commandments of God, in order to keep to the traditions of men.”

Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Matthew

Matt 15:1-20 
At that time, scribes and Pharisees came to Jesus from Jerusalem, saying: Why do thy disciples trangress the tradition of the ancients? And so on.

Homily by St. Jerome, Priest at Bethlehem.
Bk. ii Comm. on Matth. xv 
The stupidity of the Pharisees and Scribes is something extraordinary. They rebuke the Son of God because He doth not observe the traditions and commandments of men for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. It behoveth us to cleanse, not the hands of the body, but the hands of the soul, namely, our works, that we may do the commandments of God. But He answered and said unto them Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? He meeteth here their false accusation by a true. “How,” saith He, “do ye, who pass over the commandments of God, in order to keep to the traditions of men, hold that My disciples are to be rebuked, because they deem the tradition of the elders of little moment in comparison with the doing of what they know to be the Laws of God?”