The later chapters of this study argue that reading the parables of The Two Sons (21.28–32), The Tenants (21.33–46) and The Wedding Feast (22.1–14) as a trilogy offers important insight with respect to the responses the evangelist wished to elicit from his readers. In this chapter we survey previous twentieth-century studies of the trilogy before turning to defend the conclusion that Matthew himself was responsible for its formation.

Forschungsgeschichte: the trilogy in twentieth-century Matthean studies

Commentators have long recognised the presence of both formal and conceptual parallels that bind these parables together. These conceptual parallels were already important for Chrysostom, who drew attention to the strategic arrangement of the parables that underscored the failure of the Jewish leaders: ‘Therefore He putteth [The Tenants] after the former parable, that He may show even hereby the charge to be greater, and highly unpardonable. How, and in what way? That although they met with so much care, they were worse than harlots and publicans, and by so much.’

In the modern era, Matthean scholars have drawn attention with increasing precision to the striking formal links that unite the three parables. B. Weiss's nineteenth-century commentary noted in The Wedding Feast the clear repetition of entire phrases from The Two Sons and, especially, The Tenants:

For Weiss, 21.28–22.14 functions as a great parable trilogy that confronts the Jewish hierarchy with its guilt and its judgement with increasing intensity.

Early twentieth-century approaches to the trilogy

Many twentieth-century commentators have echoed these observations and conclusions.