The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 1.22–2.2

But what presses this question harder is what the apostle John says: “If anyone knows that his brother sins a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and the Lord will give life to him who sins not unto death; but there is a sin unto death; I do not say that he should pray for that.” For he clearly shows that there are some brothers for whom we are not commanded to pray, although the Lord commands us to pray even for our persecutors. Nor can this question be resolved unless we admit that there are some sins in brothers which are graver than the persecution of enemies. That “brothers” signifies Christians can be proved by many testimonies of the divine Scriptures. Yet most manifest is this, which the Apostle puts thus: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother.” For he did not add “our,” but thought it manifest, since by the name of brother he wished a Christian to be understood who had an unbelieving wife. And therefore a little later he says, “But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or sister is not subject to bondage in such cases.” I think, then, that the sin of a brother unto death is when anyone, after coming to know God through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, attacks the brotherhood and is driven by the firebrands of envy against the very grace by which he was reconciled to God. But a sin is not unto death if someone has not estranged his love from a brother, but through some weakness of mind has failed to show the duties owed to brotherhood. Wherefore the Lord on the cross also says, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”; for they had not yet been made partakers of the grace of the Holy Spirit and entered the fellowship of the holy brotherhood. And blessed Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles prays for those by whom he is stoned, because they had not yet believed in Christ and were not fighting against that common grace. And the apostle Paul, I believe, does not pray for Alexander for this reason, that he was already a brother and had sinned unto death, that is, by attacking the brotherhood through envy. But for those who had not broken off love but had given way through fear, he prays that they may be pardoned. For he says thus: “Alexander the coppersmith showed me much evil; the Lord will repay him according to his works; beware of him yourself, for he greatly resisted our words.” Then he adds those for whom he prays, saying thus: “At my first defence no one stood by me, but all forsook me: may it not be charged against them.”

This difference of sins distinguishes Judas the betrayer from Peter the denier: not that pardon is not to be given to the penitent, lest we go against that sentence of the Lord by which he commands that a brother is always to be pardoned when he asks his brother to pardon him; but because the ruin of that sin is so great that one cannot submit to the humility of praying for pardon, even if a bad conscience compels him both to acknowledge and to declare his sin. For when Judas had said, “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood,” he nevertheless ran more readily in despair to the noose than he prayed for pardon in humility. Wherefore it matters much what kind of repentance God pardons. For many much more quickly confess that they have sinned, and are so angry with themselves that they vehemently wish they had not sinned; and yet they do not lay down their pride of mind so as to humble and crush the heart and implore pardon: and this disposition of mind, because of the greatness of the sin, they must be believed to have already as part of their condemnation.

And this perhaps is to sin against the Holy Spirit: that is, through malice and envy to attack brotherly love after receiving the grace of the Holy Spirit, a sin which the Lord says is forgiven neither here nor in the world to come. From this it can be asked whether the Jews sinned against the Holy Spirit when they said that the Lord was casting out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons: whether we should take this as said against the Lord himself, since he says of himself in another place, “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more those of his household?” Or, since they had spoken from great envy, ungrateful for such present benefits, are they, although they were not yet Christians, to be believed to have sinned against the Holy Spirit on account of the very greatness of their envy? For this is not gathered from the Lord’s words. For although he said in the same place, “Whoever speaks a wicked word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks a word against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this world or in the one to come,” yet he can seem to have warned them to this end, that they should come to grace, and after receiving grace not sin as they had now sinned. For now they had spoken a wicked word against the Son of Man, and it can be forgiven them if they turn and believe in him and receive the Holy Spirit; but if, having received him, they choose to envy the brotherhood and attack the grace they have received, it will not be forgiven them, either in this world or in the one to come. For if he held them so condemned that no hope remained for them, he would not have judged them still worth warning when he added, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad.”

Let it be taken, then, that we are to love our enemies, and do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who persecute us, in such a way that it is understood that we are not commanded to pray for certain sins even of brothers; lest through our lack of skill the divine Scripture seem (which cannot happen) to disagree with itself. But whether, as one must not pray for some, so also one must pray against some, has not yet sufficiently appeared. For it has been said generally, “Bless, and do not curse,” and this, “Repaying no one evil for evil.” But for whom you do not pray, you do not therefore pray against him; for you may see his certain punishment and his salvation utterly despaired of, and you do not pray for him not because you hate him, but because you perceive that you can achieve nothing, and you do not wish your prayer to be rejected by the most just judge. But what are we to do about those against whom we have learned that the saints prayed, not that they might be corrected (for in that way prayer was rather made for them), but for that final damnation? Not as against the Lord’s betrayer through the prophet, for that, as has been said, was a prediction of things to come, not a wish for punishment; nor as by the Apostle against Alexander, for enough has already been said of that too; but as we read in the Apocalypse of John that the martyrs pray to be avenged, although that first martyr prayed that his stoners might be pardoned. But one need not be disturbed by this. For who would dare to affirm, when those holy ones clothed in white asked to be avenged, whether they asked against the men themselves or against the kingdom of sin? For this is the sincere vengeance of the martyrs, full of justice and mercy: that the kingdom of sin be overthrown, under whose reign they suffered so much. For its overthrow the Apostle strives, saying, “Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body.” And the kingdom of sin is destroyed and overthrown partly by the correction of men, so that the flesh is subjected to the spirit, partly by the damnation of those who persist in sin, so that they are ordered by justice in such a way that they cannot trouble the righteous who reign with Christ. Look at the apostle Paul: does he not seem to you to avenge the martyr Stephen in himself, when he says, “I do not fight as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection”? For he was certainly laying low and weakening in himself, and, once conquered, setting in order that by which he had persecuted Stephen and the other Christians. Who, then, can prove that the holy martyrs did not ask the Lord for such a vengeance of theirs, since they could even freely wish for the end of this world, in which they suffered so many deaths, for their vengeance? Those who pray for this both pray for their enemies who are curable and do not pray against those who have willed to be incurable; because God too, in punishing them, is not a malevolent torturer but a most just orderer. Without any hesitation, then, let us love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who persecute us.

And what is set down next, “that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven,” is to be understood by that rule by which John too says, “He gave them power to become sons of God.” For one is Son by nature, who knows no sin at all; but we, having received power, are made sons insofar as we fulfil what is commanded by him. Hence the apostolic teaching calls it adoption, by which we are called into an eternal inheritance, so that we may be co-heirs with Christ. We are made sons, then, by spiritual regeneration, and are adopted into the kingdom of God, not as strangers but as made and created by him: so that one benefit is that by which he made us to be through his omnipotence, when before we were nothing; the other, that by which he adopted us, so that we might enjoy eternal life with him as sons, according to our share. And so he does not say, “Do these things because you are sons,” but, “Do these things that you may be sons.”

And when he calls us to this through the Only-begotten himself, he calls us to his likeness. For he, as he goes on to say, makes his sun rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. You may take “his sun” not as this one visible to carnal eyes, but as that wisdom of which it is said, “For she is the brightness of eternal light”; of which it is likewise said, “The sun of righteousness has risen for me”; and again, “But for you who fear the name of the Lord the sun of righteousness will rise”; so that you take the rain too as the watering of the teaching of truth, because Christ appeared to the good and the evil, and was preached to the good and the evil. Or you may prefer to take it as this sun, made plain to the bodily eyes not only of men but also of cattle, and this rain by which the fruits are produced that have been given for the refreshment of the body; which I think is the more probable understanding: so that that spiritual sun rises only on the good and holy, because this is the very thing which the wicked lament in that book which is entitled the Wisdom of Solomon, “And the sun did not rise on us”; and that spiritual rain waters only the good, because the vineyard signified the wicked, of which it was said, “I will command my clouds not to rain upon it.” But whether you understand this or that, it comes about by the great goodness of God, which we are commanded to imitate if we wish to be sons of God. For who is so ungrateful as not to feel how much comfort this visible light and bodily rain bring to this life? And we see this comfort shown in common in this life to the righteous and to sinners. And he does not say, “who makes the sun rise on the good and the evil,” but added “his,” that is, the sun which he himself made and established, taking nothing from anyone in order to make it, as is written in Genesis of all the lights; he who can properly say that all things are his which he created from nothing: so that from this we might be reminded with how great liberality we ought, by his precept, to provide for our enemies the things which we did not create but have received from his gifts.

But who can be ready to bear injuries from the weak as far as is profitable for their welfare; and to prefer to suffer more of another’s iniquity than to return what he has suffered; to give to everyone who asks something of him either what he asks, if it is to be had and can rightly be given, or good counsel, or a kindly mind; and not to turn away from one who wishes to borrow; to love his enemies, to do good to those who hate him, to pray for those who persecute him? Who, then, does these things except one who is fully and perfectly merciful? By this one counsel misery is avoided, with the help of him who says, “I desire mercy rather than sacrifice.” “Blessed,” then, “are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” But now I think it fitting that the reader, wearied by so long a volume, should take breath a little and refresh himself for considering the rest in another book.

After mercy, with the treatment of which the first book reached its end, follows the cleansing of the heart, with which this one takes its beginning. Now the cleansing of the heart is, as it were, the cleansing of the eye by which God is seen; and the care to keep it single should be as great as the dignity of the thing that can be beheld by such an eye demands. But when this eye has been in great part cleansed, it is difficult for some defilements not to creep in from those things which usually accompany even our good actions, such as human praise. If indeed not to live rightly is ruinous, yet to live rightly and not wish to be praised, what else is this than to be an enemy to human affairs, which are certainly the more wretched the less men’s right life pleases? If, then, those among whom you live do not praise you when you live rightly, they are in error; but if they praise you, you are in danger, unless you have a heart so single and pure that you do not do what you do rightly for the sake of men’s praises; and that you congratulate those who praise what is right, since what is good pleases them, rather than yourself, since you would live rightly even if no one praised you; and that you understand your praise to be useful to those who praise you only if they honour not you yourself in your good life, but God, whose most holy temple is everyone who lives well; so that what David says may be fulfilled, “In the Lord shall my soul be praised; let the meek hear and be glad.” It belongs, then, to the pure eye not to look to men’s praises in doing right, and not to refer what you do rightly to them, that is, not to do something rightly in order to please men. For thus one will even be pleased to feign good, if nothing is attended to except that man may praise; and man, since he cannot see the heart, can also praise what is false. Those who do this, that is, who feign goodness, are of double heart. No one, then, has a single, that is, a pure heart, except one who transcends human praises and, when he lives rightly, looks to him alone and strives to please him who alone is the inspector of conscience. And whatever proceeds from the purity of that conscience is the more praiseworthy the less it desires human praises.

“Beware, therefore,” he says, “of doing your righteousness before men in order to be seen by them”: that is, beware of living righteously with this intent and of placing your good there, that men may see you. “Otherwise you will have no reward with your Father who is in heaven”: not if you are seen by men, but if you live righteously for this reason, that you may be seen by men. For where will be what was said at the beginning of this sermon, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden; nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a lampstand, that it may give light to all who are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works”? But he did not set the goal there; for he added, “and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” But here, because he finds fault with this, if the goal of right deeds lies there, that is, if we do right in order only to be seen by men, after he said, “Beware of doing your righteousness before men in order to be seen by them,” he added nothing. In this it appears that he did not forbid right to be done before men, but forbade that right be done before men for this reason, to be seen by them, that is, that we look to this and place there the goal of our purpose.

For the Apostle too says, “If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ,” although in another place he says, “Please all men in all things, as I too please all men in all things.” Those who do not understand this think it a contradiction, although he said that he did not please men because he did not do right in order to please men, but in order to please God, to whose love he wished to turn the hearts of men by that very thing by which he pleased men. And so he rightly said that he did not please men, because in that very thing he looked to pleasing God; and he rightly commanded that men be pleased, not so that this should be sought as the reward of right deeds, but because one could not please God who did not offer himself to be imitated by those whom he wished to be saved; and no one can in any way imitate one who has not pleased him. So, just as one would not speak absurdly who said, “In this work by which I seek a ship, I do not seek a ship, but my homeland,” so the Apostle too might fittingly say, “In this work by which I please men, I please not men but God, because I do not seek this, but refer it to this end, that those whom I wish to be saved may imitate me.” As he says of the offering made for the saints, “Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit”; that is, “In seeking your gift, I do not seek this, but your fruit.” For by this sign it could appear how far they had advanced toward God, when they willingly offered what was sought by him not for joy in the gifts but for the fellowship of love. Although when he adds, saying, “Otherwise you will have no reward with your Father who is in heaven,” he shows nothing else than that we must beware of seeking human praise as the reward of our works, that is, of thinking that we are made blessed by it.

“When therefore you give alms,” he says, “do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be glorified by men.” Do not, he says, wish to be known in this way, like the hypocrites. Now it is manifest that hypocrites do not carry in the heart also what they hold out to men’s eyes. For hypocrites are pretenders, like performers of other persons’ parts, as in the plays of the theatre. For he who acts the part of Agamemnon in a tragedy, for example, or of anyone else belonging to the history or story being acted, is not truly that person himself, but feigns him, and is called a hypocrite. So in the church, or in all human life, whoever wishes to seem what he is not is a hypocrite. For he feigns the righteous man, he does not show him; because he places all his fruit in men’s praise, which even pretenders can obtain, while they deceive those to whom they seem good and are praised by them. But such men receive from God, the inspector of the heart, no reward except the punishment of deceit; but from men, he says, they have received their reward; and most rightly will it be said to them, “Depart from me, you deceitful workers; you had my name, but you did not do my works.” They, then, have received their reward who give alms for no other reason than to be glorified by men: not if they are glorified by men, but if they do it for this reason, that they may be glorified, as was treated above. For human praise ought not to be sought by one who does right, but ought to follow one who does right, so that those may profit who can also imitate what they praise; not so that he whom they praise should think that they profit him in anything.

“But when you give alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” If you understand unbelievers to be called the left hand, it will seem to be no fault to wish to please believers, although we are nonetheless altogether forbidden to set the fruit and goal of a good work in the praise of any men whatever. But insofar as it concerns this, that those whom your right deeds please may imitate you, they are to be shown not only to believers but also to unbelievers, so that by praising our good works they may honour God and come to salvation. But if you think the left hand is an enemy, so that your enemy may not know when you give alms, why did the Lord himself mercifully heal men while the Jews, his enemies, stood around? Why did the apostle Peter, having healed the man at the Beautiful Gate whose weakness he pitied, also bear the anger of enemies against himself and the other disciples of Christ? Then, if the enemy must not know when we give alms, how shall we deal with the enemy himself so as to fulfil that precept, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink”?

There is a third opinion, usually held by carnal people, so absurd and laughable that I would not mention it had I not found by experience that not a few are held in this error, who say that by the name of the left hand a wife is signified: so that, since women are usually more tight-fisted with money in household matters, it may be hidden from them when their husbands spend something mercifully on the needy, for the sake of avoiding domestic quarrels. As if only men were Christians, and this precept were not given to women too! From what left hand, then, is a woman commanded to hide her work of mercy? Will the husband too be the woman’s left hand? This is said most absurdly. Or if anyone thinks they are left hands to each other, then, if something is spent from the household property by one in such a way that it is against the will of the other, such a marriage will not be Christian; rather it is necessary that, whichever of them wishes to give alms by God’s precept, the one he finds opposed to him is an enemy to God’s precept and is therefore to be reckoned among unbelievers; and the precept about such cases is that the believing husband should win his wife by his good conduct and character, or the believing wife her husband; and therefore they ought not to hide from each other their good works, by which they are to be drawn to each other, so that one may invite the other to the fellowship of the Christian faith. Nor are thefts to be committed in order to earn God’s favour. But if something is to be hidden as long as the weakness of the other cannot bear it with an even mind, which is nevertheless done neither unjustly nor unlawfully, yet that the left hand does not signify this is easily apparent from considering the whole passage, in which it will at the same time be found what he calls the left hand.

“Beware,” he says, “of doing your righteousness before men in order to be seen by them; otherwise you will have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” Here he named righteousness in general, then he follows it out in particular. For the work done through almsgiving is a certain part of righteousness, and therefore he connects it, saying, “When therefore you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be glorified by men.” This looks back to what he said above, “Beware of doing your righteousness before men in order to be seen by them.” And what follows, “Truly I say to you, they have received their reward,” looks back to what he set down above, “Otherwise you will have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” Then follows, “But when you give alms.” When he says, “But you,” what else does he say but, “Not as they do”? What then does he command me? “But when you give alms,” he says, “let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Therefore they act so that their left hand knows what their right hand is doing. What, then, is blamed in them, you are forbidden to do. And what is blamed in them is that they act so as to seek men’s praises. Wherefore nothing seems more consistently signified by the left hand than the very delight in praise; and the right hand signifies the intention of fulfilling the divine precepts. So when the desire for human praise mingles itself with the conscience of one giving alms, the left hand becomes aware of the work of the right. “Let not your left hand know, then, what your right hand is doing”: that is, let not the desire for human praise mingle itself with your conscience when, in giving alms, you strive to fulfil the divine precept.

“That your alms may be in secret.” What is “in secret” but in the good conscience itself, which cannot be shown to human eyes nor disclosed by words? For many tell many lies. Wherefore, if the right hand acts inwardly in secret, all outward things, which are visible and temporal, belong to the left. Let your alms, then, be in your conscience itself, where many give alms by good will even if they do not have money or anything else that is to be bestowed on the needy. But many give outwardly and do not give inwardly, who wish to seem merciful either from ambition or for the sake of some temporal thing; in these only the left hand is to be reckoned to work. Again, others hold as it were a middle place between the two, so that they give alms with an intention directed to God, and yet some desire for praise or for some frail and temporal thing inserts itself into this excellent will. But our Lord much more vehemently forbids the left hand alone to work in us, when he forbids it even to be mingled with the works of the right: that is, so that we beware not only of giving alms from desire for temporal things alone, but also of attending to God in this work in such a way that a craving for outward advantages mingles or joins itself to it. For it is a question of cleansing the heart, which will not be pure unless it is single. And how will it be single if it serves two masters, and does not purify its sight by the one intention of eternal things, but clouds it also with love of mortal and frail things? “Let your alms, then, be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” Altogether most rightly and most truly. For if you expect a reward from him who alone is the inspector of conscience, let conscience itself be enough for you to earn the reward. Many Latin copies have it thus: “And your Father who sees in secret will repay you openly”; but because we do not find “openly” in the Greek ones, which are earlier, we did not think anything need be discussed on this point.