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Mat_12:33. Euth. Zigabenus says correctly (comp. Hilary, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Erasmus, Beza, Jansen, Raphel, Kypke, Kuinoel, Schegg, Grimm): ποιήσατε ἀντὶ τοῦ εἴπατε . Καταισχύνει δὲ πάλιν ἑτέρως αὐτοὺς , ὡς ἀνακόλουθα καὶ παρὰ φύσιν κατηγοροῦντας . Ἐπεὶ γὰρ τὸ μὲν ἀπελαύνεσθαι τοὺς δαίμονας οὐκ ἐκάκιζον … τὸν δὲ ἀπελαύνοντα τούτους διέβαλλον , παραδειγματικῶς αὐτοὺς ἐλέγχει , τὸ μὲν ἔργον παλὸν κρίνοντας , τὸν δὲ ἐργαζόμενον κακόν , ὅτερ ἐστὶν ἐναντιότητος καὶ ἀναισχυντίας . Either make the tree good (i.e. judge it to be good), and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad (see on Mat_7:17),—do not proceed in the same absurd way as you did when you pronounced an unfavourable judgment upon me, when you made the tree bad (declared me to be an instrument of the devil), and gave him credit for good fruit (the casting out of demons), ποιεῖν , similarly to our make, is used to denote the expression of a judgment or opinion, therefore in a declarative sense. Joh_5:18; Joh_8:53; Joh_10:33; 1Jn_1:10; 1Jn_5:10; Xen. Hist. vi. 3. 5 : ποιεῖσθε δὲ πολεμίους , you declare them, to be enemies. Stephanus, Thesaurus, ed. Paris, VI. p. 1292, and the passages in Raphel, Herod. p. 154; Kypke, I. p. 66; among Attic writers usually in the middle voice, τὸ δένδρον denotes the tree on which you pronounce a judgment, and nothing is to be supplied after τὸν καρπὸν αὐτοῦ . Some (Grotius, Fritzsche), who, however, attach substantially the same meaning to the figurative terms, take ποιεῖν in the sense of to suppose, assume, animo fingere (Xen. Anab. v. 7. 9; Ast, Lex. Plat. III. p. 136 f.), though the imperative is not so well suited to the second clauses, καὶ τὸν καρπόν , etc. Others, understanding ποιεῖν as meaning, partly to judge, as well as partly to assume, refer it to the evil disposition of the Pharisees, which can be detected in the kind of language they indulge in. So Munster, Castalio,[445] Maldonatus, and others; also de Wette, Neander, Bleek (comp. Olshausen). But in that case the imperative is no longer appropriate to the second clauses. According to Ewald (comp. Baumgarten-Crusius, and Holtzmann, p. 187), the connection and meaning may be thus stated: “Let it not be supposed that these are but mere words! It is exactly the words … that spring from the deepest source, and proceed as it were from the root of a man; like tree, like fruit.” ΠΟΙΉΣΑΤΕ is a bold expression in reference not only to the fruit, as has been supposed, but also to the tree itself (“cultivate the tree well, and thus make the tree good”). But ΠΟΙΕῖΝ is not used in this sense (which would have required ΦΎΕΙΝ instead); and, once more, the imperative expression would scarcely have suited the second clauses, for an alternative so imperious might, with much more propriety, be addressed to persons who were undecided, neutral. Similarly Keim, though without any further grammatical elucidation (“man either makes himself good—a tree which bears good fruit—or makes himself evil”).
[445] “Hoc pro certo habere necesse esse, quae arbor sit bona, ejus fractum esse bonum.… Atqui ista vestra verba malus fructus est: ex quo consequens est vos stirpem esse malam.”