Catholic Commentary
The Tradition of the Elders vs. the Commandment of God (Part 2)
9And they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrine rules made by men.’”
Matthew 15:9 condemns worship that is structurally empty because it is based on human traditions elevated to divine authority rather than on God's actual commandments. Jesus identifies this worship as vain—objectively futile before God—because elevating human teachings to doctrinal status corrupts the very foundation of genuine worship, regardless of the worshipper's sincere feelings.
Worship becomes worthless not when it's insincere, but when the outward form has replaced the inward movement of the heart toward God.
Catholic tradition uniquely illuminates this verse by holding in creative tension two truths that Protestant readings sometimes collapse: (1) Sacred Tradition is a genuine and binding source of divine revelation, co-equal with Scripture (Dei Verbum §9–10); and yet (2) not every ecclesiastical custom, devotional accretion, or juridical regulation possesses that same divine authority. The Catechism distinguishes carefully between Sacred Tradition — the living transmission of the Gospel entrusted to the apostles and their successors — and merely human ecclesiastical traditions, which are legitimate and often valuable but subordinate (CCC §83, §1124).
Jesus is not attacking Tradition; He is attacking the misidentification of human custom as divine Tradition. This is a distinction the Church Fathers drew sharply. St. Basil the Great (On the Holy Spirit, Ch. 27) distinguished between apostolic traditions holding divine authority and ecclesiastical customs of human origin. St. Vincent of Lérins (Commonitorium, II) likewise warned that novelties — even pious ones — must never be allowed to override the deposit of faith.
The Council of Trent (Session IV) was careful to define Sacred Tradition as that which descends "from the apostles" through continuous succession — not every practice that develops locally or culturally. Pope Benedict XVI (Verbum Domini §17–18) emphasized that authentic liturgical tradition must be rooted in logos, in the Word who is Christ, or it becomes aesthetic and performative rather than genuinely theological. This verse, read in Catholic context, thus becomes a perennial call for ressourcement — returning to the living source — rather than a rejection of Tradition itself.
A contemporary Catholic might encounter this verse and feel either defensive (does Jesus critique Catholic liturgical tradition?) or lazily dismissive of Church practice. Neither response is adequate. The verse invites honest self-examination: Are there ways I perform the external marks of Catholic life — Mass attendance, rosary, fasting — while my heart remains fundamentally oriented around my own comfort, reputation, or habit? The Pharisees were not hypocrites in the simple sense of deliberate fraud; many were deeply sincere. Their failure was structural: they had allowed the form of devotion to become its own end.
Concretely: examine whether your parish or personal practice has traditions — particular prayers, devotional customs, liturgical preferences — that you guard with a passion exceeding your zeal for justice, charity, or truth. The test Jesus implies is not "Is this old?" or "Is this new?" but "Does this draw my heart genuinely toward God and neighbor, or does it substitute for that movement?" Authentic Catholic worship — especially the Mass — is precisely designed to prevent this vanity, orientating the whole person, body and soul, toward the living God (CCC §1073).
Commentary
Matthew 15:9 — "And they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men"
Matthew 15:9 is the second half of a two-verse quotation from Isaiah 29:13 (LXX), which Jesus deploys with surgical precision against the Pharisees and scribes who have challenged Him over His disciples' failure to perform the ritual handwashing prescribed by the "tradition of the elders" (v. 2). Verse 8 established the diagnosis — their hearts are far from God even as their lips honor Him — and verse 9 delivers the verdict: such worship is mátēn (ματην), meaning "vain," "empty," "to no purpose." The Greek word carries the sense of futility, of effort expended that achieves nothing before God. Crucially, Jesus does not say their worship is insincere in the subjective sense; it is possible for the Pharisees to feel deeply committed to their ritual observances. The vanity is objective: worship becomes void when it is structured around human invention rather than divine revelation.
The second clause, "teaching as doctrines the commandments of men" (didaskalías entálmata anthrópōn), is the precise mechanism of this corruption. The Greek word entálmata (commandments, ordinances) is deliberately set against the entolē (commandment) of God invoked in verse 3 and 4. The Pharisees had not simply added customs alongside the Law; they had elevated their oral traditions — the halakha surrounding purity, tithing, oaths, and Sabbath — to the doctrinal level, such that violating them was treated as a religious offense equivalent to violating the Mosaic Torah itself. Jesus exposes this as a category error of the gravest spiritual consequence: when human teaching is accorded divine authority, it does not merely supplement worship, it supplants and corrupts it.
The typological sense is rich. The Pharisees stand in a long line of Israelites rebuked by the prophets for empty cult: Isaiah's contemporaries burned incense and offered sacrifice while oppressing the poor (Isaiah 1:11–17); Malachi's priests offered blemished animals (Mal. 1:8). Jesus reads the Pharisees' legalism through this prophetic tradition. They are not innovators in sin — they are heirs of a recurring Israelite failure to understand that God desires mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6, cited twice by Matthew: 9:13, 12:7).
The moral/tropological sense focuses on the interior disposition that animates external act. St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on Matthew, Hom. 51) observed that worship without love of God and neighbor is not merely incomplete — it is an insult to God, who is not deceived by ceremonies. The points toward the eschatological temple: the New Jerusalem's worship (Rev. 21–22) is unmediated, total, and true — the fulfillment of what the Pharisees' empty ritual could only mock.