The Lord's Sermon on the Mount

If anyone will consider piously and soberly the sermon which our Lord Jesus Christ spoke on the mount, as we read it in the Gospel according to Matthew, I think he will find in it, as far as the best morals are concerned, the perfect pattern of the Christian life. This we do not venture to promise rashly, but infer it from the very words of the same Lord. For the sermon itself is concluded in such a way that it is clear that all the precepts that pertain to forming the life are in it. For he says thus: “Everyone therefore who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock: the rain came down, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it did not fall; for it was founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them, I will liken him to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand: the rain came down, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell; and great was its fall.” Since, then, he did not say only “who hears my words,” but added, saying “who hears these words of mine,” he indicated clearly enough, I think, that these words which he spoke on the mount so perfectly instruct the life of those who are willing to live according to them that they are rightly compared to one who builds upon the rock. I have said this so that it may be clear that this sermon is perfect in all the precepts by which the Christian life is formed; for this passage will be treated more carefully in its place.

The beginning of this sermon, then, is taken up thus: “And when he saw the great crowds, he went up into the mountain; and when he had sat down, his disciples came to him; and opening his mouth he taught them, saying.” If it is asked what the mountain signifies, it is well understood to signify the greater precepts of righteousness, since those that had been given to the Jews were lesser. Yet the one God, through his holy prophets and servants, according to a most orderly distribution of times, gave the lesser precepts to a people that still had to be bound by fear, and through his Son the greater ones to a people whom it was now fitting to set free by love. And when the lesser are given to the lesser and the greater to the greater, they are given by him who alone knows how to provide the human race with the medicine suited to its times. Nor is it surprising that greater precepts are given for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, and that lesser ones were given for the sake of an earthly kingdom, by the same one God who made heaven and earth. Of this righteousness, then, which is greater, it is said through the prophet, “Your righteousness is like the mountains of God”; and this well signifies that it is taught on a mountain by the one Master who alone is fit to teach such great things. He teaches sitting, which belongs to the dignity of the teacher’s office; and his disciples come to him, so that those who were drawing near in mind to fulfil his precepts might also be nearer in body to hear his words. “And opening his mouth, he taught them, saying.” This circumlocution, in which it is written “And opening his mouth,” perhaps by its very delay signals that the sermon will be somewhat long; unless perhaps it is not without meaning that it is now said that he opened his own mouth, because in the old Law he was accustomed to open the mouths of the prophets.

What then does he say? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” We read it written concerning the craving for temporal things, “All is vanity and presumption of spirit”; and presumption of spirit signifies boldness and pride. Commonly, too, the proud are said to have great spirits; and rightly, since the wind too is called spirit. Hence it is written, “Fire, hail, snow, ice, the spirit of the storm.” And who does not know that the proud are said to be puffed up, as though swollen with wind? Hence also that saying of the Apostle: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Wherefore the poor in spirit are rightly understood here as the humble and those who fear God, that is, those who do not have a spirit that puffs up. Nor was it fitting for blessedness to begin from anywhere else at all, since it is to arrive at the highest wisdom; “and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” just as, on the other hand, “Pride” is written to be “the beginning of all sin.” Let the proud, then, seek and love the kingdoms of the earth; but “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” That earth, I believe, of which it is said in the Psalm, “You are my hope, my portion in the land of the living.” For it signifies a certain solidity and stability of a perpetual inheritance, where the soul through a good disposition rests as in its own place, as the body rests on the earth, and is fed from there with its own food, as the body is fed from the earth: that is the rest and life of the saints. Now the meek are those who yield to acts of wickedness and do not resist evil, but overcome evil with good. Let those who are not meek, then, quarrel and fight for earthly and temporal things; but “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” from which they cannot be driven out.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Mourning is sorrow over the loss of what is dear; but those who have turned to God lose the things they embraced as dear in this world. For they do not rejoice in the things in which they rejoiced before; and until love of eternal things comes to be in them, they are wounded by some sadness. They will therefore be comforted by the Holy Spirit, who is chiefly for this reason named the Paraclete, that is, the Comforter, so that, losing the temporal, they may enjoy eternal gladness.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Now he calls these lovers of the true and unshaken good. They will be filled, then, with that food of which the Lord himself says, “My food is to do the will of my Father,” which is righteousness; and with that water of which, as the same one says, whoever drinks, it will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” He says that those are blessed who come to the help of the wretched, because it is repaid to them in such a way that they are set free from wretchedness.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” How foolish, then, are those who seek God with these outward eyes, since he is seen with the heart, as is written elsewhere, “And seek him in simplicity of heart.” For this is a pure heart, which is a simple heart; and just as this light cannot be seen except with pure eyes, so neither is God seen unless that by which he can be seen is pure.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” In peace is perfection, where nothing fights against it; and therefore the peacemakers are sons of God, because nothing resists God, and sons certainly ought to have the likeness of their father. Now they are peacemakers within themselves who, setting in order all the movements of their soul and subjecting them to reason, that is, to the mind and spirit, and having their carnal desires tamed, become a kingdom of God; in which all things are so ordered that what is chief and excellent in man commands, without resistance, the other things which we have in common with the beasts; and that very thing which excels in man, that is, mind and reason, is subjected to what is better, which is the truth itself, the only-begotten Son of God. For one cannot command what is inferior unless he himself is subject to what is superior. And this is the peace which is given on earth to men of good will; this is the life of the consummate and perfect wise man. From a kingdom of this kind, most peaceful and most ordered, the prince of this world, who rules the perverse and disordered, has been cast out. When this peace has been established and made firm within, whatever persecutions he who was cast out stirs up from outside increase the glory that is according to God; they do not shake anything in that building, but, as his siege engines fail, they make known how great a firmness has been built within. Therefore there follows: “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

There are, then, eight sayings here in all. For from now on he addresses the rest to those who were present, saying, “Blessed shall you be when they revile you and persecute you.” But the earlier sayings he directed in general terms: for he did not say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven,” but “for theirs,” he says, “is the kingdom of heaven”; nor “Blessed are the meek, for you shall inherit the earth,” but “for they shall inherit the earth.” And so with the others up to the eighth saying, where he says, “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” From there he now begins to speak addressing those present, although the things said above also pertained to those who were present and listening, and these later things, which seem to be said specially to those present, pertain also to those who were absent or were to come afterward. Wherefore this number of sayings is to be carefully considered.

For blessedness begins from humility: “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” that is, those not puffed up, when the soul submits itself to divine authority, fearing lest after this life it go on to punishment, even if perhaps in this life it seems to itself to be blessed. From there it comes to the knowledge of the divine Scriptures, where it must show itself meek in piety, lest it dare to find fault with what seems absurd to the unlearned and become unteachable through obstinate disputes. From there it now begins to know by what knots of this world it is held through carnal habit and sins; and so in this third step, in which there is knowledge, the loss of the highest good is mourned, because it clings to the lowest things. In the fourth step there is toil, where one strives vehemently so that the mind may tear itself away from the things in which it is entangled by a pestilent sweetness; here, then, one hungers and thirsts for righteousness, and fortitude is very necessary, because what is held with delight is not abandoned without pain. In the fifth step, counsel for escape is given to those who persevere in toil; because unless one is helped by a superior, he is in no way able by himself to free himself from such great entanglements of miseries. And it is just counsel that he who wishes to be helped by one more powerful should help one weaker in that in which he himself is more powerful. Therefore, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” In the sixth step is purity of heart, which from a good conscience of good works is strong enough to contemplate that highest good which can be seen only by a pure and serene understanding. Last is the seventh, wisdom itself, that is, the contemplation of truth, which brings peace to the whole man and takes on the likeness of God; and it is concluded thus: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” The eighth returns, as it were, to the beginning, because it shows and proves what is complete and perfect. Therefore in the first and in the eighth the kingdom of heaven is named: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”; as it is now said, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or distress? Or persecution? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or peril? Or the sword?” There are seven, then, that make perfect; for the eighth glorifies and shows what is perfect, so that through these steps the others too may be made perfect, beginning again, as it were, from the start.

It seems to me also that the sevenfold operation of the Holy Spirit, of which Isaiah speaks, corresponds to these steps and sayings. But there is a difference of order: for there the enumeration began from the more excellent, but here from the lower. For there it begins from wisdom and ends at the fear of God; but “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Wherefore if we count step by step, as though ascending, first there is the fear of God, second piety, third knowledge, fourth fortitude, fifth counsel, sixth understanding, seventh wisdom. The fear of God corresponds to the humble, of whom it is said here, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” that is, not puffed up, not proud: to whom the Apostle says, “Do not be high-minded, but fear,” that is, do not be lifted up. Piety corresponds to the meek: for he who seeks piously honours holy Scripture and does not find fault with what he does not yet understand, and therefore does not resist, which is to be meek; hence it is said here, “Blessed are the meek.” Knowledge corresponds to those who mourn, who have now learned in the Scriptures by what evils they are held bound, which in ignorance they sought as good and useful: of whom it is said here, “Blessed are those who mourn.” Fortitude corresponds to those who hunger and thirst: for they toil, desiring joy from true goods and longing to turn their love away from earthly and bodily things: of whom it is said here, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Counsel corresponds to the merciful: for this is the one remedy for escaping from such great evils, that we forgive as we wish to be forgiven, and help others in what we can, as we desire to be helped in what we cannot: of whom it is said here, “Blessed are the merciful.” Understanding corresponds to the pure in heart, as to a cleansed eye, by which can be seen what the bodily eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man: of whom it is said here, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” Wisdom corresponds to the peacemakers, in whom all things are now set in order and no movement rebels against reason, but all things obey the spirit of man, since he himself also obeys God: of whom it is said here, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

But the one reward, which is the kingdom of heaven, is named variously according to these steps. In the first, as was fitting, is placed the kingdom of heaven, which is the perfect and highest wisdom of the rational soul. Thus it was said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” as if it were said, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” To the meek an inheritance is given, as to those who seek a father’s testament with piety: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” To those who mourn, comfort, as to those who know what they have lost and in what they are sunk: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” To those who hunger and thirst, fullness, as refreshment for those who toil and strive bravely for salvation: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” To the merciful, mercy, as to those who use true and excellent counsel, so that what they show to the weaker may be shown to them by one more powerful: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” To the pure in heart, the power to see God, as to those who carry a pure eye for understanding eternal things: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” To the peacemakers, likeness to God, as to those who are perfectly wise and formed to the image of God through the regeneration of the renewed man: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” And these things indeed can be fulfilled in this life, as we believe they were fulfilled in the apostles. For that complete change into angelic form which is promised after this life cannot be set forth in any words. “Blessed, therefore, are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This eighth saying, which returns to the beginning and declares the perfect man, is perhaps signified by circumcision on the eighth day in the Old Testament; and by the Lord’s resurrection after the sabbath, which is certainly the eighth day and also the first; and by the celebration of the eight festal days which we celebrate at the regeneration of the new man; and by the very number of Pentecost. For when the number seven is multiplied by seven, which makes forty-nine, an eighth is as it were added, so that fifty is completed and there is, as it were, a return to the beginning: on which day the Holy Spirit was sent, by whom we are led into the kingdom of heaven, and receive the inheritance, and are comforted, and are fed, and obtain mercy, and are cleansed, and are made peaceful; and, thus made perfect, we endure all troubles brought upon us from outside for the sake of truth and righteousness.

“Blessed shall you be,” he says, “when they revile you and persecute you and say all evil against you, lying, for my sake. Rejoice and exult, for your reward is great in heaven.” Let anyone who seeks the delights of this world and the wealth of temporal things in the Christian name take note that our blessedness is within; as is said of the soul of the church by the mouth of the prophet: “All the beauty of the king’s daughter is within”; for from outside, revilings and persecutions and disparagements are promised; yet for them there is a great reward in heaven, which is felt in the heart of those who suffer, of those who can already say, “We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience proof, and proof hope; and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” For it is not suffering these things that bears fruit, but bearing them for the name of Christ not only with an even mind but even with exultation. For many heretics, deceiving souls under the Christian name, suffer many such things; but they are excluded from this reward for this reason, that it was not said only, “Blessed are those who suffer persecution,” but there was added, “for righteousness’ sake”; and where there is no sound faith, there cannot be righteousness, because “the righteous lives by faith.” Nor let schismatics promise themselves anything from this reward; because likewise where there is no love, there cannot be righteousness: for “love of neighbour works no evil”; if they had it, they would not tear apart the body of Christ, which is the church.

It may be asked, however, what difference there is in his saying “when they revile you” and “say all evil against you,” since to revile is to say evil. But a reviling is hurled with insult in the presence of the one reviled, as was said to our Lord, “Do we not say truly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”; it is otherwise when the reputation of one absent is injured, as is likewise written of him, “Some said, He is a prophet; but others said, No, but he leads the people astray.” To persecute, again, is to use force or to attack by ambush, as did he who betrayed him and those who crucified him. Certainly the fact that this too is not set down bare, so as to say “and they shall say all evil against you,” but “lying” is added, and “for my sake” is added as well: I think it was added on account of those who wish to glory in persecutions and in the disgrace of their reputation, and therefore to say that Christ belongs to them because many evil things are said of them, when the things said are true when they concern their error; and if sometimes some false things too are hurled, which commonly happens through human rashness, yet they do not suffer these things for Christ’s sake. For he does not follow Christ who is called a Christian not according to the true faith and the catholic discipline.

“Rejoice,” he says, “and exult, for your reward is great in heaven.” I do not think the heavens here mean the upper parts of this visible world. For our reward, which ought to be unshaken and eternal, is not to be placed in changeable and temporal things. But I think “in heaven” means in the spiritual firmaments, where everlasting righteousness dwells; in comparison with which the wicked soul is called earth, to which it was said when it sinned, “You are earth, and to earth you shall go.” Of these heavens the Apostle says, “For our citizenship is in heaven.” Those who rejoice in spiritual goods, then, already feel this reward; but it will be perfected in every part when this mortal too shall have put on immortality. “For so,” he says, “they persecuted the prophets also who were before you.” Here he has set down persecution in general terms, both in revilings and in the tearing of reputation; and he exhorted well by example, because those who speak the truth are accustomed to suffer persecution; and yet the prophets of old did not, for fear of persecution, fall away from preaching the truth.

Most rightly, therefore, there follows, “You are the salt of the earth,” showing that those are to be judged foolish who, either pursuing abundance of temporal goods or fearing want of them, lose eternal things, which can neither be given nor taken away by men. “So if the salt has become foolish, with what shall it be salted?” That is, if you, through whom the peoples are in a sense to be seasoned, lose the kingdom of heaven through fear of temporal persecutions, who will be the men through whom error may be removed from you, when God has chosen you to remove the error of the rest through you? Therefore the salt that has become foolish is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trodden down by men. So it is not he who suffers persecution who is trodden down by men, but he who becomes foolish through fearing persecution. For only one who is lower can be trodden down; but he is not lower who, though he endures many things on earth in the body, is yet fixed in heaven in heart.

“You are the light of the world.” As he said above “salt of the earth,” so now he says “light of the world.” For above, too, the earth is not to be taken as this earth which we tread with bodily feet, but the men who dwell on the earth, or even sinners, for the seasoning and extinguishing of whose stench the Lord sent the apostolic salt. And here by world one must understand not heaven and earth, but the men who are in the world or who love the world, for whose enlightening the apostles were sent. “A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden”; that is, one founded on a notable and great righteousness, which the very mountain on which the Lord discourses also signifies. “Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel.” What are we to think? That “under a bushel” was said so that only the hiding of the lamp is to be understood, as if he said, “No one lights a lamp and hides it”? Or does the bushel also signify something, so that to put the lamp under a bushel is to rank the comforts of the body above the preaching of the truth, so that someone does not preach the truth because he fears he may suffer some trouble in bodily and temporal things? And it is well called a bushel, whether on account of the repayment by measure, because each receives what he has done in the body (“that each one,” says the Apostle, “may receive what he has done in the body”; and as though of this bushel of the body it is said in another place, “For with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you again”), or because temporal goods, which are carried out in the body, both begin and pass away within a fixed measure of days, which the bushel perhaps signifies, while eternal and spiritual things are confined by no such limit: “For God does not give the Spirit by measure.” He, then, puts the lamp under a bushel who obscures and covers the light of good teaching with temporal comforts. “But on a lampstand.” And he puts it on a lampstand who subjects his body to the ministry of God, so that the preaching of the truth is higher and the service of the body lower; yet through that very service of the body the teaching shines out more loftily, being conveyed to learners through bodily functions, that is, through voice and tongue and the other movements of the body in good works. The Apostle, then, puts the lamp on a lampstand when he says, “I do not fight as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, having preached to others, I myself should be found reprobate.” And as for his saying, “that it may give light to all who are in the house,” I think the house means the dwelling of men, that is, the world itself, because of what he said above, “You are the light of the world”; or if anyone wishes to take the house as the church, that is not absurd either.

“Let your light so shine,” he says, “before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” If he had said only, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works,” he would seem to have set the goal in the praises of men, which hypocrites seek, and those who canvass for honours and grasp at the emptiest glory. Against them it is said, “If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ”; and through the prophet, “Those who please men have been put to shame, because God has set them at nothing”; and again, “God has broken the bones of those who please men”; and again the Apostle, “Let us not become desirous of empty glory”; and he again, “But let a man prove himself, and then he will have glory in himself and not in another.” So he did not say only, “that they may see your good works,” but added, “and glorify your Father who is in heaven”: so that the very fact that a man pleases men by good works should not make this the goal, to please men; but he should refer it to the praise of God, and please men for this reason, that God may be glorified in him. For this is profitable to those who praise, that they honour not man but God, as the Lord showed in the very man who was carried, where the crowds, wondering at his powers when the paralytic was healed, as is written in the Gospel, “were afraid and glorified God, who had given such power to men.” His imitator the apostle Paul says, “But they were only hearing that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once ravaged; and they glorified God in me.”

After he had exhorted his hearers, then, to prepare themselves to endure all things for truth and righteousness, and not to hide the good they were about to receive, but to learn with such good will that they would teach the rest, referring their good works not to their own praise but to the glory of God, he now begins to form and instruct them in what they are to teach, as if they were asking and saying: “See, we are willing both to endure all things for your name and not to hide your teaching; but what is this very thing which you forbid to be hidden, and for which you command that all things be endured? Are you going to say things contrary to what is written in the Law?” “No,” he says. “For do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfil.”

In this saying there is a twofold sense; it is to be treated according to both. For he who says, “I have not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it,” says it either of adding what it lacks or of doing what it contains. Let us then consider first what I put first. For he who adds what is lacking certainly does not abolish what he finds, but rather confirms it by completing it; and therefore he goes on and says, “Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, one iota or one stroke shall not pass from the Law, until all things come to pass.” For while even the things that are added for completion come to pass, much more do those come to pass that were set down beforehand as a beginning. And as for his saying, “One iota or one stroke shall not pass from the Law,” nothing else can be understood but a vehement expression of completeness, since it is shown by individual letters; among which letters the iota is smaller than the rest, because it is made with one stroke, while the apex is some small part even of it, at the top. By these words he shows that in the Law even the least things are brought to accomplishment. Then he adds: “Whoever therefore abolishes one of these least commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” The least commandments, then, are signified by the one iota and the one stroke. He, then, who abolishes and teaches so, that is, according to what he abolishes, not according to what he finds and reads, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; and perhaps for this reason he will not be in the kingdom of heaven, where only the great can be. “But whoever does and teaches so,” that is, whoever does not abolish and teaches so, according to what he does not abolish, “shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” And of him who shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven, it follows that he is also in the kingdom of heaven, into which the great are admitted: for to this pertains what follows.

“For I say to you, unless your righteousness abounds more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven”: that is, unless you fulfil not only those least precepts of the Law which set a man on his way, but also these which are added by me, who have not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. But you say to me: if, when he was speaking above about those least commandments, he said that whoever abolishes one of them and teaches according to his abolishing is called least in the kingdom of heaven, but that whoever does them and teaches so is called great, and is therefore already going to be in the kingdom of heaven because he is great, what need is there for anything to be added to the least precepts of the Law, if whoever does them and teaches so can already be in the kingdom of heaven because he is great? Wherefore that saying, “But whoever does and teaches so shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven,” is to be taken thus: not according to those least things, but according to the things that I am about to say. And what are these? “That your righteousness,” he says, “may abound beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees; for unless it abounds, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Therefore he who abolishes those least things and teaches so shall be called least; but he who does those least things and teaches so is not yet to be held great and fit for the kingdom of heaven, though he is not so least as he who abolishes them. But to be great and fit for that kingdom, he must do and teach as Christ now teaches, that is, so that his righteousness abounds beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees. The righteousness of the Pharisees is not to kill; the righteousness of those who are to enter the kingdom of God is not to be angry without cause. Not to kill, then, is the least thing; and whoever abolishes it shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever fulfils it so as not to kill will not forthwith be great and fit for the kingdom of heaven, but yet he climbs some step; and he will be made perfect if he is not even angry without cause; and if he achieves this, he will be much further removed from murder. Wherefore he who teaches that we should not be angry does not abolish the Law that we should not kill, but rather fulfils it, so that we may keep innocence both outwardly, by not killing, and in the heart, by not being angry.

“You have heard, then,” he says, “that it was said to those of old, You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother without cause shall be liable to judgment; and whoever says to his brother, Racha, shall be liable to the council; and whoever says, Fool, shall be liable to the gehenna of fire.” What is the difference between being liable to judgment, liable to the council, and liable to the gehenna of fire? For this last sounds most grave, and suggests that certain steps have been made from lighter to graver, until the gehenna of fire is reached. And therefore, if it is lighter to be liable to judgment than to be liable to the council, and likewise lighter to be liable to the council than to be liable to the gehenna of fire, it must be understood that it is lighter to be angry with a brother without cause than to say Racha, and again lighter to say Racha than to say Fool. For the guilt itself would not have steps unless the sins too were mentioned step by step. Now one obscure word has been set down here, because Racha is neither Greek nor Latin; the rest are in common use in our speech. Some have wished to draw the interpretation of this word from the Greek, thinking that a ragged person is called Racha, since in Greek a rag is called ῥάκος. Yet when they are asked what the Greek is for “ragged,” they do not answer Racha; and further, the Latin translator, where he put Racha, could have put “ragged,” and not used a word which both does not exist in the Latin language and is unusual in the Greek. More probable, then, is what I heard from a certain Hebrew when I asked him about it: he said that it is a word not signifying anything, but expressing the movement of an indignant mind. Grammarians call these interjections, parts of speech signifying the feeling of a stirred mind, as when “Alas!” is said by one in pain, or “Hem!” by one who is angry. These words belong properly to each language and are not easily carried over into another; and this reason certainly compelled both the Greek and the Latin translator to set down the word itself, since he could not find how to translate it.

There are, therefore, steps in these sins: first, one is angry and keeps that movement conceived in the heart; then, if the agitation itself wrings out an indignant sound, not signifying anything but testifying by its very outburst to that movement of the mind, by which the one with whom he is angry is struck, this is certainly more than if the rising anger were held down in silence; and if not only an indignant sound is heard, but also a word by which he now marks and brands a definite reproach of the one at whom it is uttered, who would doubt that this is more than if only the sound of indignation were let out? So in the first there is one thing, that is, anger alone; in the second two, both anger and a sound that signifies anger; in the third three, anger, and a sound that signifies anger, and in the sound itself the expression of a definite reproach. See now also the three liabilities: of judgment, of the council, of the gehenna of fire. For in judgment room is still given for defence; and in the council, although there is usually also a judgment, yet because the very distinction compels us to admit that there is some difference here, the pronouncing of sentence seems to belong to the council, when it is no longer a question with the accused himself whether he is to be condemned, but those who judge confer among themselves with what punishment he ought to be condemned who is agreed to be condemned. But the gehenna of fire has neither a doubtful condemnation, as judgment has, nor a doubtful punishment of the condemned, as the council has; for in the gehenna of fire both the condemnation and the punishment of the condemned are certain. There seem, then, to be some steps in sins and in liability; but in what ways they are invisibly allotted to the deserts of souls, who can say? We must hear, then, how great the difference is between the righteousness of the Pharisees and this greater one which leads into the kingdom of heaven: that, although it is graver to kill than to inflict an insult by word, there killing makes one liable to judgment, but here anger makes one liable to judgment, which is the lightest of those three sins; because there they were conducting the inquiry into murder among men, but here everything is handed over to divine judgment, where the end of the condemned is the gehenna of fire. And whoever says that, if insult is punished by the gehenna of fire, murder is punished with a heavier penalty under the greater righteousness, compels us to understand that there are differences of gehennas.

Certainly in these three sayings we must notice that words are to be supplied. For the first saying has all the necessary words, so that nothing need be supplied: “Whoever is angry,” he says, “with his brother without cause shall be liable to judgment.” But in the second, when he says, “And whoever says to his brother, Racha,” “without cause” is understood, and so it is joined, “shall be liable to the council.” Then in the third, where he says, “And whoever says, Fool,” two things are understood, both “to his brother” and “without cause.” This is how the Apostle is defended for calling the Galatians foolish, whom he also names brothers: for he does not do it without cause. And the reason “brother” is to be understood here is that it is said afterward of an enemy how he too is to be treated by the greater righteousness.

Next there follows here: “So if you offer your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go, first be reconciled to your brother; and then come and offer your gift.” From this it certainly appears that what was said above was said of a brother, since the saying that follows is connected by a conjunction such that it bears witness to the preceding: for he does not say, “But if you offer your gift at the altar,” but, “So if you offer your gift at the altar.” For if it is not lawful to be angry with one’s brother without cause, or to say Racha, or to say Fool, much less is it lawful to hold something in the mind so that indignation is turned into hatred. To this pertains also what is said in another place, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” We are commanded, then, when about to bring a gift to the altar, if we remember that a brother has something against us, to leave the gift before the altar and go and be reconciled to the brother, then come and offer the gift. If this is taken literally, perhaps someone may believe that it ought to be done so if the brother is present; for it cannot be put off long, since you are commanded to leave your gift before the altar. If, then, something of the kind comes to mind concerning one who is absent, and, as can happen, even settled across the sea, it is absurd to believe that the gift is to be left before the altar, to be offered to God after you have wandered over lands and seas. And therefore we are compelled to take refuge altogether inward, in spiritual things, so that what has been said can be understood without absurdity.

So we may take the altar, spiritually, in the inner temple of God, to be faith itself, of which the visible altar is a sign. For whatever gift we offer to God, whether prophecy, or teaching, or prayer, or a hymn, or a psalm, or whatever other such spiritual gift occurs to the mind, it cannot be acceptable to God unless it is supported by sincerity of faith, and placed upon it firmly and immovably, as it were, so that what we utter may be whole and unimpaired. For many heretics, not having the altar, that is, the true faith, have spoken blasphemies instead of praise, weighed down, that is, by earthly opinions, and casting their offering, as it were, on the ground. But the intention of the one who offers must also be sound. And therefore, when we are about to offer some such thing in our heart, that is, in the inner temple of God (“For the temple of God is holy,” he says, “which you are”; and, “that Christ may dwell in the inner man through faith in your hearts”), if it comes to mind that a brother has something against us, that is, if we have injured him in something (for then he has something against us; whereas we have something against him if he has injured us, and then there is no need to go for reconciliation: for you will not ask pardon from one who has done you wrong, but only forgive, as you desire the Lord to forgive you what you yourself have committed), we must go, then, for reconciliation when it comes to mind that we have perhaps injured a brother in something; and go not with the feet of the body but with movements of the mind, so that you prostrate yourself with humble feeling before the brother, to whom you have run in loving thought, in the sight of him to whom you are about to offer the gift. For thus, even if he is present, you will be able to soften him with no feigned mind and bring him back into favour by asking pardon, if you have first done this before God, going to him not with a slow movement of the body but with the swiftest feeling of love; and then coming from there, that is, recalling your attention to what you had begun to do, you will offer your gift.

But who does this, so that he is not angry with his brother without cause, or does not say Racha without cause, or does not call him fool without cause, all of which is committed most proudly; or, if perhaps he has slipped into one of these, asks pardon with a suppliant mind, which is the one remedy, except one who is not puffed up with a spirit of empty boasting? “Blessed,” then, “are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Now let us see what follows.

“Be well-disposed,” he says, “to your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest perhaps the adversary hand you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out from there until you pay the last farthing.” By the judge I understand: “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.” By the officer I understand: “And angels,” it says, “ministered to him”; and we believe that he will come with his angels to judge the living and the dead. By the prison I understand the punishments of darkness, namely, which in another place he calls outer: I believe because the joy of the divine rewards is within, in the mind itself, or in anything still more inward that can be conceived; of which it is said to the deserving servant, “Enter into the joy of your Lord”; just as also, in the ordering of this commonwealth, one who is thrust into prison is sent out from the judge’s private chamber or praetorium.

As for paying the last farthing, it can be understood not absurdly either as put for this, that nothing is left unpunished, as we too say in speaking, “to the dregs,” when we wish to express something so exacted that nothing is left; or so that earthly sins are signified by the name of the last farthing. For the fourth part of the distinct members of this world, and the last, is found to be earth: you begin from heaven, count air second, water third, earth fourth. So it can fittingly be thought that “until you pay the last farthing” was said for “until you atone for earthly sins”; for this the sinner too heard: “You are earth, and to earth you shall go.” But as for the words “until you pay,” I wonder whether they do not signify that punishment which is called eternal. For from what is that debt paid, where room is no longer given for repenting and living more correctly? For perhaps “until you pay” is put here as in the place where it is said, “Sit at my right hand, until I put all your enemies under your feet”; for when the enemies have been put under his feet, he will not cease to sit at the right hand; or that saying of the Apostle, “For he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet”; for when they have been put there, he will not cease to reign. Just as there, then, he of whom it is said, “He must reign until he puts his enemies under his feet,” is understood to be going to reign always, since they will always be under his feet: so here it can be taken that he of whom it is said, “You will not come out from there until you pay the last farthing,” will never come out; because he is always paying the last farthing, while he atones for earthly sins with everlasting punishments. Nor would I say this as though I seemed to have cut off a more careful treatment of the punishments of sins, of how they are called eternal in the Scriptures; although, whatever they are like, they are to be avoided rather than known.

But let us now see who is that adversary to whom we are commanded to be well-disposed quickly, while we are with him on the way. For he is either the devil, or a man, or the flesh, or God, or his commandment. But I do not see how we are commanded to be well-disposed to the devil, that is, in concord or agreement with him. For what is set down in Greek as εὐνοῶν some have translated “in concord,” others “agreeing.” But we are neither commanded to show good will to the devil (for where there is good will, there is friendship, and no one would say that friendship is to be made with the devil); nor is it profitable to be in concord with him on whom we declared war by renouncing him once for all, and by whose defeat we shall be crowned; nor is it right any longer to agree with him, with whom, had we never agreed, we would never have fallen into these miseries. As for a man, although we are commanded to have peace with all, as far as lies in us, where certainly good will and concord and agreement can be understood, yet I do not see how I am to take it that we are handed over to the judge by a man, when I understand Christ to be the judge, before whose tribunal all must appear, as the Apostle says: how then will he hand anyone over to the judge who will himself appear before the judge alike? Or if someone is handed over to the judge because he injured a man, although the one injured does not hand him over, it is much more suitably taken that the guilty one is handed over to the judge by the law itself, against which he acted when he injured the man. For even if someone has harmed a man by killing him, there will no longer be a time to come to concord with him, because he is no longer with him on the way, that is, in this life; and yet he will not for that reason fail to be healed by repenting, and by taking refuge with the sacrifice of a troubled heart in the mercy of him who forgives sins to those who turn to him, and who rejoices more over one who repents than over ninety-nine righteous. Much less do I see how we are commanded to be well-disposed, in concord or agreement, with the flesh. For it is rather sinners who love their flesh and are in concord with it and agree with it; but those who bring it into subjection do not themselves agree with it, but compel it to agree with them.

Perhaps, then, we are commanded to agree with God and be well-disposed toward him, so as to be reconciled to him from whom we have turned away by sinning, so that he can be called our adversary. For he is rightly called the adversary of those whom he resists: “For God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble”; and, “Pride is the beginning of all sin, and the beginning of man’s pride is to apostatize from God”; and the Apostle says, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” From this it can be understood that no nature is evil as an enemy of God, since those who were enemies are themselves reconciled. Whoever, then, on this way, that is, in this life, has not been reconciled to God through the death of his Son will be handed over by him to the judge, because the Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son; and so the rest that is written in this passage follows, of which we have already treated. There is only one thing that makes this understanding difficult: how it can rightly be said that we are on the way with God, if in this place he himself is to be taken as the adversary of the ungodly, to whom we are commanded to be reconciled quickly; unless perhaps, since he is everywhere, we too, while we are on this way, are certainly with him. “For if I ascend into heaven,” it says, “you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present; if I take my wings straight on and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will hold me.” Or if it is not acceptable to say that the ungodly are with God, although God is nowhere not present, just as we do not say that the blind are with the light, even though the light surrounds their eyes, one thing remains: that we understand the adversary here as the commandment of God. For what so opposes those who wish to sin as the commandment of God, that is, his law and the divine Scripture, which has been given to us for this life, so as to be with us on the way? We must not contradict it, lest it hand us over to the judge, but we must agree with it quickly. For no one knows when he will depart from this life. And who agrees with the divine Scripture except one who reads or hears it piously, granting it the summit of authority, so that what he understands he does not hate because he feels that it opposes his sins, but rather loves his own correction and rejoices that his diseases are not spared until they are healed; and as for what sounds obscure or absurd to him, he does not stir up contests of contradiction over it, but prays that he may understand, remembering nevertheless that good will and reverence must be shown to so great an authority? But who does this, except whoever has come to open and learn his father’s testament not harsh with threats of lawsuits, but meek with piety? “Blessed,” then, “are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Let us see what follows.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” The lesser righteousness, then, is not to commit adultery by the joining of bodies; but the greater righteousness of the kingdom of God is not to commit adultery in the heart. And whoever does not commit adultery in the heart much more easily guards against committing adultery in the body. He who commanded this, then, confirmed that: for he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it. Certainly it must be considered that he did not say, “Everyone who lusts after a woman,” but, “who looks at a woman to lust after her,” that is, has turned his attention with this end and this intent, to lust after her: which is no longer to be tickled by the delight of the flesh, but fully to consent to desire, so that the unlawful appetite is not reined in, but would be sated if opportunity were given.

For there are three things by which sin is completed: suggestion, delight, and consent. Suggestion comes either through memory or through the senses of the body, when we see, or hear, or smell, or taste, or touch something. If it delights us to enjoy this, the delight, being unlawful, must be reined in. As when we are fasting and, at the sight of food, the appetite of the palate rises: this happens only through delight; but yet we do not consent to it, and we restrain it by the right of the ruling reason. But if consent has been given, it will be a full sin, known to God in our heart, even if it does not become known to men by deed. These, then, are the steps: the suggestion comes as from a serpent, that is, from the slippery and shifting, that is, temporal, movement of bodies; because even if any such images move about inside the soul, they have been drawn from the body outside; and if any hidden movement of the body besides these five senses touches the soul, it too is temporal and slippery; and therefore the more secretly it glides in so as to touch thought, the more fittingly it is compared to a serpent. These three, then, as I had begun to say, are like that event which is written in Genesis: the suggestion and a certain persuasion come as from the serpent; the delight lies in the carnal appetite, as in Eve; and the consent in the reason, as in the man. When these have been completed, man is driven out, as from paradise, that is, from the most blessed light of righteousness, into death; and most justly. For he who persuades does not compel. And all natures are beautiful in their order, by their degrees; but one must not turn aside from the higher, among which the rational mind has been set in order, to the lower. Nor is anyone compelled to do this; and therefore, if he does it, he is punished by the just law of God, for he does not commit it unwillingly. Yet delight before habit is either nothing, or so slight that it is almost nothing; to consent to it is a great sin when it is unlawful. And when anyone consents, he commits sin in the heart. If it goes on into the deed as well, the desire seems to be sated and extinguished; but afterward, when the suggestion is repeated, a greater delight is kindled, which is yet still much less than that which has turned into habit through repeated deeds. For this is most difficult to overcome; and yet even habit itself one will overcome, if he does not desert himself and does not shrink from the Christian warfare, under Christ’s leadership and help; and so, in the original peace and order, the man is subjected to Christ and the woman to the man.

As, then, sin is reached by three steps, suggestion, delight, consent, so there are three differences of sin itself: in the heart, in the deed, in habit, like three deaths: one as it were in the house, that is, when consent is given to desire in the heart; the second now carried out as it were outside the gate, when assent goes on into deed; the third when the mind is pressed down by the force of evil habit as by a mass of earth, as if already stinking in the tomb. Whoever reads the Gospel recognizes that the Lord raised these three kinds of dead. And perhaps he considers what differences there are even in the very voice of him who raises them, when he says in one place, “Girl, arise”; in another, “Young man, I say to you, arise”; in another, he “groaned in spirit, and wept, and groaned again,” and after that “cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.”

Wherefore under the name of the adulterers mentioned in this passage all carnal and lustful desire must be understood. For since Scripture so constantly calls idolatry sexual immorality, and the apostle Paul calls greed by the name of idolatry, who would doubt that every evil desire is rightly called sexual immorality, when the soul, neglecting the higher law by which it is ruled, is corrupted, prostituted for the base pleasure of lower natures as for a fee? And therefore whoever feels carnal delight rebelling against his right will through the habit of sins, by whose untamed violence he is dragged into captivity, let him recall as far as he can what peace he lost by sinning, and cry out, “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ.” For thus, when he cries out that he is wretched, he implores by mourning the help of the Comforter. Nor is the knowledge of one’s own wretchedness a small approach to blessedness; and therefore, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Next there follows, and he says: “But if your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is better for you that one of your members should perish than that your whole body should go into gehenna.” Here indeed great fortitude is needed for cutting off members. For whatever it is that the eye signifies, it is without doubt something that is vehemently loved. For those who wish to express their love vehemently are accustomed to say, “I love him like my eyes,” or even “more than my eyes.” And the addition of “right” perhaps serves to increase the force of the love. For although these bodily eyes are directed to seeing in common, and if both are directed can do so equally, yet men fear more to lose the right one. So the sense would be: whatever it is that you so love that you hold it as a right eye, if it causes you to stumble, that is, if it is a hindrance to you on the way to true blessedness, pluck it out and cast it from you. For it is better for you that one of those things should perish which you so love that they cling to you like members, than that your whole body should go into gehenna.

But since there follows the saying about the right hand, and it is said likewise, “If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is better for you that one of your members should perish than that your whole body should go into gehenna,” this compels us to inquire more carefully what he called the eye. In this question nothing occurs to me more fitting than a most beloved friend; for this is certainly what we can rightly call a member, what we vehemently love; and this friend a counsellor, because it is an eye, as it were showing the way; and in divine things, because it is the right one: so that the left would be a beloved counsellor indeed, but in earthly things pertaining to the needs of the body; and of him, if he causes stumbling, it was superfluous to speak, since not even the right one is to be spared. Now a counsellor in divine things causes stumbling if he tries to lead one into some destructive heresy under the name of religion and teaching. So let the right hand too be taken as a beloved helper and minister in divine works: for just as contemplation is rightly understood in the eye, so is action in the hand; so that the left hand is understood in the works which are necessary for this life and the body.

“It has also been said, Whoever puts away his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” This is the lesser righteousness of the Pharisees, to which what the Lord says is not contrary: “But I say to you, whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman released from her husband commits adultery.” For he who commanded that a certificate of divorce be given did not command this, that a wife be put away; but, “Whoever puts away,” he says, “let him give her a certificate of divorce,” so that the thought of the certificate might temper the rash anger of one casting off his wife. He, then, who sought a delay in putting away indicated, as far as he could to hard men, that he did not want separation. And therefore the Lord himself, questioned about this in another place, answered thus: “Moses did this because of your hardness.” For however hard he might be who wished to put away his wife, when he reflected that, once the certificate of divorce had been given, she could now marry another without danger, he would easily be appeased. The Lord, therefore, to confirm that a wife should not easily be put away, excepted only the cause of sexual immorality; but all other troubles whatever, if any should arise, he commands to be borne bravely for the sake of conjugal fidelity and chastity; and he calls an adulterer also the man who marries her who has been released from her husband. The apostle Paul shows the limit of this matter, for he says it is to be observed as long as her husband lives; but when he has died, he gives permission to marry. For he himself also held this rule, and in it he shows not his own counsel, as in some admonitions, but the precept of the Lord who commands, when he says: “But to those who are married I command, not I but the Lord, that the woman not depart from her husband; but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband; and let the husband not put away his wife.” I believe it is in like manner: that if he puts her away, he is not to marry another, or is to be reconciled to his wife. For it can happen that he puts away his wife for the cause of sexual immorality, which the Lord willed to be excepted. Now if neither is she permitted to marry while the husband from whom she departed is alive, nor he to take another while the wife whom he put away is alive, much less is it lawful to commit unlawful acts of sexual immorality with anyone at all. More blessed, certainly, are those marriages to be judged which, whether after children have been begotten or even with this earthly offspring disregarded, have been able to keep continence between themselves by mutual consent: because this is not done against that precept by which the Lord forbids a spouse to be put away (for he does not put her away who lives with her not carnally but spiritually), and that is kept which is said through the Apostle, “It remains that those who have wives be as though they had none.”

That other saying usually troubles more the minds of the little ones, who are nevertheless now eager to live according to the precepts of Christ, which the Lord himself says in another place: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and his own soul besides, cannot be my disciple.” For it can seem contradictory to those who understand little that here he forbids a wife to be put away, except for the cause of sexual immorality, but elsewhere denies that anyone can be his disciple who does not hate his wife. And if he were saying this on account of intercourse, he would not also have put father and mother and brothers in the same condition. But how true it is that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and those who use violence seize it! For how much force is needed for a man to love his enemies and to hate father and mother and wife and children and brothers! For he who calls to the kingdom of heaven commands both. And how these are not contrary to each other is easy to show with him as guide; but once they are understood, they are hard to fulfil, although this too is most easy with him helping. For the eternal kingdom to which he has deigned to call his disciples, whom he also calls brothers, has no temporal relationships of this kind. “For there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free; but Christ is all and in all.” And the Lord himself says: “For in the resurrection they will neither marry nor take wives, but will be like the angels of God in heaven.” Whoever, then, wishes already here to meditate on the life of that kingdom must hate not men themselves but these temporal relationships by which this life that is to pass away is propped up, a life carried on by being born and dying; and whoever does not hate this does not yet love that life where there will be no condition of being born and dying, the condition that joins earthly marriages.

And so, if I ask some good Christian who nevertheless has a wife, even if he still begets children with her, whether he would wish to have a wife in that kingdom, mindful surely of the promises of God and of that life where this corruptible will put on incorruption and this mortal will put on immortality, he, already lifted up by a great or at least by some love, will answer with abhorrence that he vehemently does not want it. Again, if I ask whether he would wish his wife, after the resurrection, having received the angelic change that is promised to the saints, to live with him there, he will answer that he wants this as vehemently as he does not want the other. Thus the good Christian is found to love in one woman God’s creature, whom he desires to be reformed and renewed, but to hate the corruptible and mortal union and coupling: that is, to love in her that she is a human being, to hate that she is a wife. So too he loves his enemy, not insofar as he is an enemy but insofar as he is a human being, so that he wishes for him what he wishes for himself, that is, that he may come corrected and renewed to the kingdom of heaven. This is to be understood also of father and mother and the other bonds of blood: that we hate in them what the human race has received as its lot by being born and dying, but love what can be brought with us to those kingdoms where no one says, “My father,” but all say to the one God, “Our Father”; nor “My mother,” but all say to that Jerusalem, “Our mother”; nor “My brother,” but all say of all, “Our brother.” And there will be a marriage, as of one spouse, when we have been brought together into one, with him who set us free from the prostitution of this world by the shedding of his blood. It is necessary, then, that the disciple of Christ hate the things that pass away, in those whom he desires to come with him to the things that will always remain; and the more he loves them, the more he will hate these things in them.

A Christian, therefore, can live in concord with his wife: whether meeting the carnal need with her, which the Apostle says by way of concession, not of command; or for the propagation of children, which can already be praiseworthy in some degree; or in a brotherly fellowship without any mingling of bodies, having a wife as though not having one, which is the most excellent and sublime thing in the marriage of Christians: yet so that he hates in her the name of temporal necessity and loves the hope of everlasting blessedness. For without doubt we hate what we certainly wish someday not to be, as this very life of the present world, which, being temporal, if we did not hate, we would not desire the future one, which is not subject to time. For the soul is put in place of this life, of which it was said there, “Whoever does not hate his own soul besides cannot be my disciple.” For this corruptible food is necessary to this life, of which the Lord himself says, “Is not the soul more than food?”, that is, this life, to which food is necessary. And when he says that he lays down his soul for his sheep, he certainly means this life, when he declares that he is going to die for us.

Here another question arises: since the Lord permits a wife to be put away for the cause of sexual immorality, how far sexual immorality is to be understood in this place: whether as everyone understands it, that is, that we should believe that sexual immorality is meant which is committed in illicit intercourse; or as the Scriptures are accustomed to call sexual immorality, as was said above, every unlawful corruption, such as idolatry or greed, and hence every transgression of the law through unlawful desire. But let us consult the Apostle, lest we say anything rashly: “To those who are married,” he says, “I command, not I but the Lord, that the wife not depart from her husband; but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband.” For it can happen that she departs for that cause for which the Lord permits it. Or if a woman is allowed to put away her husband even apart from the cause of sexual immorality, and a man is not, what shall we answer concerning what he said afterward, “And let the husband not put away his wife”? Why did he not add “except for the cause of sexual immorality,” which the Lord permits, unless because he wants a similar pattern to be understood: that if he puts her away (which is permitted for the cause of sexual immorality), he is to remain without a wife or be reconciled to his wife? For a husband would not do ill to be reconciled to a woman like her to whom, when no one had dared to stone her, the Lord said, “Go, and see that you sin no more from now on.” For he too who says, “It is not lawful to put away a wife except for the cause of sexual immorality,” compels one to keep the wife if there is no cause of sexual immorality; but if there is, he does not compel one to put her away, but permits it; just as it is said, “Let it not be lawful for a woman to marry another unless her husband is dead”: if she marries before her husband’s death, she is guilty; if she does not marry after her husband’s death, she is not guilty; for she was not commanded to marry, but permitted. If, then, there is an equal pattern in this law of marriage between man and woman, so much so that the same Apostle not only said of the woman, “The woman does not have power over her own body, but the husband,” but also did not keep silent about him, saying, “Likewise the husband too does not have power over his own body, but the wife”: if, then, the pattern is similar, it must not be understood that a woman is allowed to put away her husband except for the cause of sexual immorality, just as with the man.

It must be considered, therefore, how far we ought to understand sexual immorality, and the Apostle is to be consulted, as we had begun. For he goes on and says, “But to the rest I say, not the Lord.” Here we must first see to which “rest”: for above he was speaking in the person of the Lord to those who are married, but now he speaks in his own person to the rest; so perhaps to those who are not married? But this does not follow. For he adds thus: “If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to live with him, let him not put her away.” So even now he speaks to those who are married. What then does he mean by “to the rest,” unless that above he was speaking to those who were so joined that both were alike in the faith of Christ, but now he speaks to the rest, that is, to those who are so joined that not both are believers? But what does he say to them? “If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to live with him, let him not put her away; and if any woman has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, let her not put away her husband.” If, then, he does not command in the person of the Lord but admonishes in his own person, this is good in such a way that if anyone does otherwise he is not a transgressor of a precept; just as he says of virgins a little later that he has no precept of the Lord but gives counsel; and he praises virginity in such a way that whoever wishes may embrace it, yet not so that, if one does not, he is judged to have acted against a precept. For one thing is commanded, another is counselled, another is pardoned. The woman is commanded not to depart from her husband, and if she departs, to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband: so it is not lawful to do otherwise. But the believing husband, if he has an unbelieving wife who consents to live with him, is counselled not to put her away: so it is lawful also to put her away, because it is not a precept of the Lord that he should not put her away, but counsel of the Apostle; just as a virgin is counselled not to marry, but if she marries, she will indeed not keep the counsel, but will not act against a precept. Something is pardoned when it is said, “But this I say by way of concession, not of command.” Wherefore, if it is lawful for an unbelieving spouse to be put away, although it is better not to put away, and yet according to the Lord’s precept it is not lawful for a spouse to be put away except for the cause of sexual immorality, then unbelief itself is also sexual immorality.

For what do you say, Apostle? Surely that a believing husband should not put away an unbelieving wife who consents to live with him? “Yes,” he says. Since, then, the Lord too commands this, that a husband should not put away his wife except for the cause of sexual immorality, why do you say here, “I say, not the Lord”? Because, of course, the idolatry which unbelievers follow, and any harmful superstition, is sexual immorality. And the Lord permitted a wife to be put away for the cause of sexual immorality; but because he permitted and did not command it, he gave room to the Apostle to counsel that whoever wished should not put away an unbelieving wife, so that thus perhaps she might become a believer. “For the unbelieving husband,” he says, “is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother.” I believe it had already happened that some women came to the faith through believing husbands, and men through believing wives; and though not naming names, he nevertheless exhorted by examples to confirm his counsel. Then follows: “Otherwise your children would be unclean; but now they are holy.” For there were already Christian little ones who had been sanctified either on the initiative of one of the parents or with both consenting; which would not happen if the marriage were dissolved as soon as one believed, and the unbelief of the spouse were not borne until there was opportunity to believe. This, then, is the counsel of him to whom I believe it was said, “Whatever you spend beyond this, I will repay you when I return.”

Further, if unbelief is sexual immorality, and idolatry is unbelief, and greed is idolatry, it is not to be doubted that greed too is sexual immorality. Who then can rightly separate any unlawful desire whatever from the class of sexual immorality, if greed is sexual immorality? From this it is understood that on account of unlawful desires, not only those which are committed in illicit intercourse with other men or women, but any whatever which make the soul, misusing the body, stray from the law of God and be ruinously and shamefully corrupted, a husband can put away his wife without crime, and a wife her husband: because the Lord makes the cause of sexual immorality an exception; and this sexual immorality, as was considered above, we are compelled to understand as general and universal.

But when he says, “except for the cause of sexual immorality,” he did not say whose, the husband’s or the wife’s. For not only is it permitted to put away a wife who commits sexual immorality; but whoever puts away that wife too by whom he himself is compelled to commit sexual immorality certainly puts her away for the cause of sexual immorality. For instance, if a wife compels someone to sacrifice to idols, he who puts away such a wife puts her away for the cause of sexual immorality, not only hers but his own: hers, because she commits sexual immorality; his own, so that he may not commit it. But nothing is more unjust than to put away a wife for the cause of sexual immorality if he himself is also convicted of committing sexual immorality. For that saying comes to mind, “For in that in which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you do the same things that you judge.” Wherefore whoever wishes to cast off his wife for the cause of sexual immorality ought first to be cleansed of sexual immorality himself; and I would say the same likewise of the woman.

As for his saying, “Whoever marries a woman released from her husband commits adultery,” it can be asked whether, as he who marries commits adultery, so also does she whom he marries. For she too is commanded to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband; but “if she departs,” he says, “from her husband.” Yet there is much difference whether she puts away or is put away. For if she has put away her husband and married another, she seems to have left her former husband out of a desire to change her marriage, which is without doubt an adulterous thought. But if she is put away by the husband with whom she desired to be, he who marries her indeed commits adultery, according to the Lord’s sentence; but whether she too is held by such a crime is uncertain. Although it can much less be found how, when a man and a woman unite with each other by equal consent, one of them is an adulterer and the other is not. Add to this that if he commits adultery by marrying her who has been released from her husband, even though she did not put away but was put away, she causes him to commit adultery, which the Lord nonetheless forbids. From this it is gathered that, whether she has been put away or has put away, she ought to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.

Again it is asked whether, if with his wife’s permission (whether she is barren or unwilling to endure intercourse) a husband takes to himself another woman, not another’s wife nor separated from a husband, he can be without the crime of sexual immorality. In the history of the Old Testament, indeed, an example is found; but now the precepts are greater, to which the human race has come through that stage; those things are to be handled in order to distinguish the ages of the dispensation of divine providence, which comes to the aid of the human race in a most orderly way, but not in order to appropriate rules of living. But yet, whether what the Apostle says, “The woman does not have power over her own body, but the husband; likewise the husband too does not have power over his own body, but the wife,” can be valid to such an extent that, with the permission of the wife, who has power over the husband’s body, the husband can lie with another woman who is neither another’s wife nor separated from her husband: but it is not to be thought so, lest the woman too should seem able to do this with her husband’s permission, which everyone’s sense excludes.

Although some cases can arise where the wife too, with her husband’s consent, might seem obliged to do this for the husband’s own sake, as is reported to have happened at Antioch about fifty years ago, in the time of Constantius. For Acyndinus, then prefect, who was also consul, when he was demanding from a certain man a debt of a pound of gold owed to the treasury, moved by I know not what (which is often dangerous in these powers to whom anything is permitted, or rather is thought to be permitted), threatened, swearing and vehemently affirming, that if he did not pay the said gold on a certain day that he had fixed, he would be put to death. And so, while he was held in cruel custody and could not free himself of that debt, the dreaded day began to threaten and draw near. And as it happened, he had a very beautiful wife, but without any money with which to help her husband. When a certain rich man had been inflamed by this woman’s beauty and had learned that her husband was set in that peril, he sent to her, promising that he would give a pound of gold for one night, if she would consent to lie with him. Then she, knowing that she did not have power over her own body, but her husband did, carried the matter to him, saying that she was ready to do this for her husband, provided that he himself, the lord of the conjugal body to whom all that chastity was owed, wished it to be done, as with his own property, for the sake of his life. He thanked her and commanded that it be done, in no way judging it to be an adulterous union, since no lust but the great love of her husband demanded it at his own command and will. The woman came to that rich man’s villa; the shameless man did what he wished; but she gave her body only to her husband, who desired not to lie with her, as is usual, but to live. She received the gold; but he who gave it fraudulently withdrew what he had given and substituted a similar bundle with earth. When the woman, now back at home, found this, she rushed out in public, ready to cry out what she had done with the same love for her husband by which she had been compelled to do it: she appeals to the prefect, confesses everything, shows the fraud she had suffered. Then indeed the prefect first pronounces himself guilty, because matters had come to this through his threats, and, as if passing sentence on another, declares that a pound of gold be paid into the treasury from the goods of Acyndinus, and that the woman be put in possession as owner of that land from which she had received earth instead of gold. I argue nothing from this one way or the other; let each judge as he wishes; for the story is not drawn from divine authorities. But yet, when the deed is told, human sense does not so reject what was done in that woman at her husband’s command as we shuddered before, when the matter itself was put without any example.

But in this passage of the Gospel nothing is to be considered more seriously than that the evil of sexual immorality is so great that, while marriages are bound together by so great a bond, this one cause of dissolution has been excepted; and what sexual immorality is has now been treated.

“Again,” he says, “you have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not swear falsely, but you shall render your oath to the Lord. But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King; nor shall you swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your speech be, Yes, yes; No, no; whatever is more than this is from evil.” The righteousness of the Pharisees is not to swear falsely; he who forbids swearing, which pertains to the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven, confirms it. For just as he who does not speak cannot speak falsely, so he who does not swear cannot swear falsely. But yet, since he swears who calls God as witness, this passage must be carefully considered, lest the Apostle seem to have acted against the Lord’s precept, who often swore in this way, when he says, “What I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie”; and again, “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I do not lie.” Such too is this: “For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his Son, how without ceasing I always make mention of you in my prayers.” Unless perhaps someone says that an oath is to be reckoned only when something is named by which one swears, so that he has not sworn, because he did not say “by God,” but said “God is witness.” It is ridiculous to think this; yet on account of the contentious or the very slow, lest anyone think there is some difference, let him know that the Apostle swore in this way too, saying, “I die daily, by your glorying.” And lest anyone think this was said as if it meant “Your glorying makes me die daily,” as one says, “By his teaching he was made learned,” that is, it came about by his teaching that he was perfectly taught, the Greek copies decide it, in which is written Νὴ τὴν ὑμετέραν καύχησιν, which is said only by one who swears. So it is understood that the Lord commanded us not to swear, lest anyone seek an oath as a good thing and, through readiness to swear, slide by habit into perjury. Wherefore he who understands that swearing is to be reckoned not among good things but among necessary ones should restrain himself as far as he can, so as not to use it except from necessity, when he sees that men are slow to believe what it is useful for them to believe unless it is confirmed by an oath. To this, then, pertains what is said: “But let your speech be, Yes, yes; No, no”: this is good and to be sought. “Whatever is more than this is from evil”; that is, if you are compelled to swear, know that it comes from the necessity of the weakness of those whom you are persuading of something; and this weakness is certainly an evil, from which we pray daily to be delivered when we say, “Deliver us from evil.” And so he did not say, “Whatever is more than this is evil”; for you do not do evil when you make good use of an oath, which, though not good, is yet necessary to persuade another of what you usefully urge; but “it is from evil,” the evil of him by whose weakness you are compelled to swear. But no one knows, except one who has experienced it, how difficult it is both to extinguish the habit of swearing and never to do rashly what necessity sometimes compels one to do.

But it may be asked why, when it was said, “But I say to you, do not swear at all,” there was added, “neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God,” and the rest, up to the words “nor by your head.” I believe it is because the Jews did not think they were bound by an oath if they swore by these things; and since they had heard, “But you shall render your oath to the Lord,” they did not think they owed their oath to the Lord if they swore by heaven or earth, or by Jerusalem, or by their head: which happened not through the fault of the one who commanded, but because they understood badly. And so the Lord teaches that nothing among God’s creatures is so cheap that anyone should think he may swear falsely by it, since created things from the highest to the lowest are ruled by divine providence, beginning from the throne of God down to a white or black hair. “Neither by heaven,” he says, “for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet”: that is, when you swear by heaven or earth, do not think that you do not owe your oath to the Lord; for you are shown to swear by him whose throne heaven is and whose footstool the earth is. “Nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King”: better than if he said “mine,” though he is understood to have meant this. And since he himself is certainly the Lord, he who swears by Jerusalem owes his oath to the Lord. “Nor shall you swear by your head.” For what could anyone think belonged more to himself than his own head? But how is it ours, when we do not have the power to make a single hair white or black? Therefore whoever wishes to swear even by his own head owes the oath to God, who holds all things ineffably and is present everywhere; and here the rest also are understood, which certainly could not all be mentioned; as we recalled that saying of the Apostle, “I die daily, by your glorying”; and to show that he owed this oath to the Lord, he added, “which I have in Christ Jesus.”

Yet (I say this for the sake of the carnal) one must not suppose, because heaven is called the throne of God and the earth the footstool of his feet, that God has members placed in heaven and on earth as we do when we sit; rather, that seat signifies judgment. And since in this whole body of the universe heaven has the greatest beauty and the earth the least, as if the divine power were more present to surpassing beauty, yet ordered the least in the outermost and lowest parts, he is said to sit in heaven and to tread the earth. Spiritually, however, the name of heaven signifies holy souls, and that of earth sinful ones; and since the spiritual man judges all things but is himself judged by no one, he is fittingly called the seat of God; but the sinner, to whom it was said, “You are earth, and to earth you shall go,” since he is set among the lowest by the justice that assigns to deserts what they deserve, and he who was unwilling to remain in the law is punished under the law, is fittingly taken as the footstool of his feet.

But now, to conclude this summary too, what more laborious and toilsome thing can be said or thought, in which the faithful mind may exert all the sinews of its industry, than overcoming a vicious habit? Let him cut off the members that hinder the kingdom of heaven, and not be broken by the pain; let him bear in conjugal fidelity all things which, however very troublesome, yet do not involve the crime of unlawful corruption, that is, of sexual immorality: for instance, if anyone has a wife who is barren, or deformed in body, or weak in her limbs, or blind, or deaf, or lame, or anything else, or worn down by diseases and pains and sicknesses, and whatever can be thought exceedingly dreadful except sexual immorality, let him bear it for the sake of fidelity and fellowship; and not only let him not cast off such a wife, but even if he does not have one, let him not marry a woman released from her husband, though she be beautiful, healthy, rich, fruitful. And if it is not lawful to do these things, let him think much less that he is permitted to approach any other unlawful intercourse; and let him so flee sexual immorality as to draw himself away from all base corruption. Let him speak the truth, and commend it not by frequent oaths but by uprightness of character; let him take refuge in the citadel of Christian warfare and from higher ground, as it were, lay low the countless hordes of all evil habits rebelling against him, of which a few have been mentioned so that all might be understood. But who would dare to undertake such great labours, except one who so burns with love of righteousness that, as though most vehemently inflamed by hunger and thirst, and thinking he has no life until he is filled with it, he does violence to the kingdom of heaven? For otherwise he will not be strong enough to bear all the things which the lovers of this world think laborious and arduous and altogether difficult in cutting off habits. “Blessed,” then, “are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Yet in these labours, when anyone suffers difficulty, and, making his way through hard and rough places, surrounded by various temptations, and seeing the mass of his past life rising up on this side and that, fears that he may not be able to fulfil what he has undertaken, let him seize upon counsel, that he may deserve help. And what other counsel is there but that he who desires to be helped by God in his own weakness should bear the weakness of others and help as far as he can? Accordingly, then, let us look at the precepts of mercy. The meek and the merciful seem to be one; but there is this difference, that the meek man, of whom we treated above, out of piety does not contradict the divine sentences that are pronounced against his sins, nor those words of God which he does not yet understand, but he confers no benefit on the one whom he does not contradict or resist; whereas the merciful man does not resist in such a way that he does it for the correction of the one whom he would make worse by resisting.

The Lord, then, goes on and says: “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist evil; but if anyone strikes you on your right cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever wishes to go to law with you and take your tunic, let him have your garment also; and whoever compels you to go a thousand paces, go with him two more. Give to everyone who asks you, and do not turn away from him who wishes to borrow from you.” The lesser righteousness of the Pharisees is not to exceed the measure in revenge, so that no one repays more than he has received; and this is a great step. For no one is easily found who, having received a blow, wishes to return only one blow, and who, having heard one word from a reviler, is content to return one word that is worth just as much; but either, disturbed by anger, he avenges himself immoderately, or he thinks it just that the one who injured first should be injured more gravely than the one who had given no offence was injured. Such a mind the Law in great part reined in, in which it is written, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” by which words a measure is signified, so that the vengeance does not exceed the injury. And this is the beginning of peace; but perfect peace is to wish for no such vengeance at all.

Between that first thing, then, which is outside the law, that a greater evil be returned for a lesser evil, and this which the Lord said to make his disciples perfect, that no evil at all be returned for evil, a certain middle place is held: that as much be returned as was received, by which a passage has been made from the highest discord to the highest concord, according to the distribution of times. See, then, how far he who first inflicts evil from a desire to injure and harm is from one who does not repay even when injured. But whoever has first done evil to no one, but yet, when injured, repays more gravely, whether in will or in deed, has withdrawn somewhat from the highest iniquity and advanced toward the highest righteousness, and yet does not yet hold what the law given through Moses commanded. He, then, who returns as much as he received already forgives something; for the guilty party does not deserve only as great a punishment as the innocent one, injured by him, has suffered. This righteousness, then, which is begun and is not severe but merciful, he brings to perfection who came to fulfil the law, not to abolish it. So he left the two steps that still lie between to be understood, and preferred to speak of the very summit of mercy. For there is still something that one can do who does not fulfil this greatness of the precept which pertains to the kingdom of heaven: that he return not as much, but less, for instance one blow for two, or cut off an ear for an eye plucked out. Rising from here, he who repays nothing at all approaches the Lord’s precept, and yet is not yet there. For it still seems little to the Lord if, for the evil you have received, you repay no evil, unless you are also ready to receive more. Wherefore he does not say, “But I say to you, do not return evil for evil,” although this too is a great precept; but he says, “do not resist evil,” so that you not only do not repay what has been inflicted on you, but also do not resist the infliction of more. For this is what he also goes on to explain: “But if anyone strikes you on your right cheek, offer him the other also.” For he does not say, “If anyone strikes you, do not strike him,” but, “Make yourself ready for him to strike you further.” That this belongs to mercy is felt most by those who serve the ones they love much, such as their children or any of their dearest when they are sick, or little ones, or the delirious, from whom they often suffer much; and if their health requires it, they offer themselves to suffer still more, until the weakness of age or of illness passes. Those, then, whom the Lord, the physician of souls, was instructing to cure their neighbours, what else could he teach but to bear with an even mind the weaknesses of those whose welfare they wished to serve? For all wickedness comes from weakness of mind, since nothing is more innocent than one who is perfect in virtue.

But it can be asked what the right cheek means. For so it is found in the Greek copies, to which greater trust must be given; for many Latin ones have only “cheek,” not “right” also. Now the face is that by which each one is recognized; and we read in the Apostle, “For you bear it if someone enslaves you, if someone devours you, if someone takes from you, if someone exalts himself, if someone strikes you in the face”; then he immediately adds, “I speak as regards dishonour,” to explain what it is to be struck in the face, that is, to be despised and looked down on. The Apostle does not say this so that they should not bear with those men, but so that they should bear rather with him, who loved them so much that he was willing to be spent for them. But since a face cannot be called right and left, and yet there can be honour both according to God and according to this world, it is divided as it were into a right cheek and a left, so that any disciple of Christ in whom what is Christian has been despised may be much more ready to have despised in himself whatever honours of this world he has. So the same Apostle, when men were persecuting the Christian name in him, would not have offered the other cheek to those who struck the right if he had kept silent about the rank he had in the world. For by saying, “I am a Roman citizen,” he was not unready to have despised in himself what he held as least, by those who had despised in him a name so precious and saving. For did he on that account bear any the less afterward the chains which it was not lawful to put on Roman citizens, or did he wish to accuse anyone of this injury? And if some spared him because of the name of Roman citizenship, yet he did not therefore fail to offer something for them to strike, since he desired by his patience to correct from so great a perversity those whom he saw honouring in him the left parts more than the right. For this alone must be attended to: with what mind he did all things, how kindly and gently he acted toward those from whom he suffered these things. For when, struck with the palm at the high priest’s command, he seemed to speak insultingly in saying, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall,” it sounds like abuse to those who understand little, but to those who understand it is prophecy. For a whitewashed wall is hypocrisy, that is, pretence that displays priestly dignity and under this name, as under a white covering, hides an inner, as it were muddy, foulness. For what belonged to humility he kept wonderfully: when it was said to him, “Do you revile the chief of the priests?” he answered, “I did not know, brothers, that he is chief of the priests; for it is written, You shall not revile the ruler of your people.” Here he showed with how much tranquillity he had said what he seemed to have said in anger, since he answered so quickly and so gently, which cannot be done by the indignant and disturbed. And in that very word he spoke truly to those who understand: “I did not know that he is chief of the priests”; as if he said, “I have known another chief of the priests, for whose name I endure these things, whom it is not lawful to revile, and whom you revile, since in me you hate nothing but his name.” So one must not make a show of these things in pretence, but be prepared in the heart itself for all things, so as to be able to sing that prophetic word: “My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready.” For many know how to offer the other cheek, but do not know how to love him by whom they are struck. But the Lord himself, who certainly first fulfilled the precepts he taught, did not offer the other cheek to the priest’s servant who struck him on the cheek, but said besides, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike me?” Yet he was not on that account unprepared in heart not only to be struck on the other cheek for the salvation of all, but to be crucified in his whole body.

Therefore what follows too, “And whoever wishes to go to law with you and take your tunic, let him have your garment also,” is rightly understood as a precept for the preparation of the heart, not for a show of the deed. But what was said of the tunic and the garment is to be done not in these alone, but in all the things which we say are ours by some right for a time. For if this was commanded about necessary things, how much more fitting is it to despise superfluous ones? Yet the things I have called ours are to be included in that class which the Lord himself prescribes, saying, “If anyone wishes to go to law with you and take your tunic.” So let all those things be understood about which there can be a lawsuit with us, so that they pass from our right into the right of him who sues or for whom he sues; such as clothing, a house, an estate, a beast of burden, and in general all property. Whether this is to be taken also of slaves is a great question. For a Christian ought not to possess a slave as he does a horse or silver, although it can happen that a horse is worth a higher price than a slave, and much more some object of gold or silver. But if that slave is brought up or governed by you, his master, more rightly and honourably and more suitably for worshipping God than he can be by the one who desires to take him away, I do not know whether anyone would dare to say that he should be disregarded like a garment. For man ought to love man as himself, since he is commanded by the Lord of all, as what follows shows, to love even his enemies.

Certainly it must be noted that every tunic is a garment, but not every garment is a tunic. The word “garment,” then, signifies more than the word “tunic.” And therefore I think it was said thus, “And whoever wishes to go to law with you and take your tunic, let him have your garment also,” as if he said, “Whoever wishes to take your tunic, let him have also whatever other clothing you have.” That is why some have translated as “cloak” what is set down in Greek as ἱμάτιον.

“And whoever compels you,” he says, “to go a thousand paces, go with him two more.” And this certainly not so much that you do it with your feet as that you be ready in mind. For in the Christian history itself, in which there is authority, you will find nothing of the kind done by the saints, or by the Lord himself when, in the human nature which he deigned to take up, he was giving us an example of living; although in almost all places you will find them to have been ready to bear with an even mind whatever had been wickedly thrust upon them. But are we to think that “go with him two more” was said by way of example? Or did he want three to be completed, by which number perfection is signified, so that whoever does this may remember that he is fulfilling perfect righteousness by mercifully bearing the weaknesses of those whom he wishes to be made whole? It can seem that he also set forth these precepts with three examples for this reason: the first of which is, if anyone strikes you on the cheek; the second, if anyone wishes to take your tunic; the third, if anyone compels you to go a thousand paces: in which third example the double is added to the single, so that the triple is completed. If this number here does not, as has been said, signify perfection, let it be taken thus: that in commanding he began with what is more bearable and rose gradually until he reached the bearing of a further double. For first he wished the other cheek to be offered when the right has been struck, so that you are ready to bear less than you have borne. For whatever the right signifies is certainly dearer than what the left signifies; and one who has borne something in a dearer matter, if he bears it also in a cheaper one, bears less. Next he commands that the garment also be given up to him who wishes to take the tunic, which is either just as much or not much more, yet not double. Third, concerning the thousand paces, to which he says two thousand are to be added, he commands you to bear even up to a further double: thus signifying that whether anyone wishes to be somewhat less wicked toward you than he has already been, or just as much, or more, it is to be borne with an even mind.

In these kinds of the three examples I see that no kind of injury has been passed over. For all the things in which we suffer some wickedness are divided into two kinds, of which one is what cannot be restored, the other what can. In that which cannot be restored, the consolation of vengeance is usually sought. For what does it profit that, having been struck, you strike back? Is what was injured in the body restored to wholeness on that account? But a swollen mind desires such poultices; whereas they do not help a sound and firm mind, which rather judges that the weakness of another is to be borne mercifully than that its own weakness, which is none, should be soothed by another’s punishment.

Nor is that punishment forbidden here which serves for correction; for it too pertains to mercy; nor does it hinder that resolve by which one is ready to bear more from him whom he wishes to be corrected. But no one is fit to administer this punishment except one who has overcome by the greatness of his love the hatred with which those who desire to avenge themselves usually burn. For there is no fear that parents may seem to hate a little son when he is beaten by them for sinning, so that he may not sin further. And certainly the perfection of love itself is set before us in imitation of God the Father, when it is said in what follows, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you”; and yet it is said of him through the prophet, “For whom the Lord loves he corrects, and he scourges every son whom he receives.” The Lord too says, “The servant who does not know his master’s will and does things worthy of stripes will be beaten with few; but the servant who knows his master’s will and does things worthy of stripes will be beaten with many.” Nothing more is required, then, than that he punish to whom power has been given in the order of things, and that he punish with the will that a father has toward his little son, whom, because of his age, he cannot yet hate. For from here the most fitting example is drawn, by which it is made sufficiently clear that sin can be punished out of love rather than be left unpunished, so that he wishes the one he punishes to be not wretched by the penalty but blessed by the correction; yet ready, if need be, to bear with an even mind more things inflicted by him whom he wishes to be corrected, whether he has power to restrain him or not.

But great and holy men, who already knew very well that this death which dissolves the soul from the body is not to be feared, nevertheless, in accordance with the mind of those who feared it, punished some sins with death, so that a useful fear might be struck into the living, and so that those who were punished with death might be harmed not by death itself but by sin, which could have increased if they had lived. Those to whom God had granted such judgment did not judge rashly. Hence it is that Elijah put many to death, both with his own hand and by fire obtained from God; which many other great and godly men also did, not rashly, by the same spirit of care for human affairs. When the disciples had cited this Elijah as an example, reminding the Lord of what had been done by him, that he might give them too power to call down fire from heaven to consume those who would not give them hospitality, the Lord rebuked in them not the example of the holy prophet, but the ignorance about punishing that was still in the untaught, noticing that they desired vengeance not out of love for correction but out of hatred. And so, after he had taught them what it is to love one’s neighbour as oneself, and had also poured out the Holy Spirit, whom he sent from above, as he had promised, when ten days were completed after his ascension, such punishments were not lacking, although much more rarely than in the Old Testament. For there for the greater part, being servants, they were pressed down by fear; but here they were nourished chiefly by love, as free men. For at the words of the apostle Peter too, Ananias and his wife, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, fell down lifeless and were not raised up but buried. But if the heretics who oppose the Old Testament will not believe this book, let them look at the apostle Paul, whom they read along with us, saying of a certain sinner whom he handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his soul may be saved. And if they will not understand death here (for perhaps it is uncertain), let them admit that some punishment was carried out by the Apostle through Satan; and that he did this not out of hatred but out of love is shown by the addition, “that his soul may be saved.” Or let them notice what we say in those books to which they themselves attribute great authority, where it is written that the apostle Thomas called down on someone by whom he had been struck with the palm the punishment of a most dreadful death, yet commended his soul, that he might be spared in the world to come; and when the man had been killed by a lion, a dog brought his hand, torn from the rest of the body, to the tables at which the Apostle was feasting. We are free not to believe this writing, for it is not in the catholic canon; yet they read it and honour it as most uncorrupted and most true, who rage most fiercely, with I know not what blindness, against the bodily punishments in the Old Testament, altogether ignorant with what intent and in what distribution of times they were carried out.

In this kind of injuries, then, which is atoned for by punishment, Christians will keep this measure: that when an injury has been received, the mind does not rise into hatred, but, out of mercy for weakness, is ready to suffer more; nor does it neglect correction, which it can use by counsel, or by authority, or by power. The other kind of injuries is that which can be restored to wholeness, of which there are two species, one pertaining to money, the other to labour. Therefore examples have been added, of the former concerning the tunic and the garment, of the latter concerning the forced service of a thousand and two thousand paces; because both a garment can be given back, and one whom you have helped with labour can himself also help you, if need be. Unless perhaps it should rather be distinguished thus: that the first, set down about the struck cheek, signifies all things inflicted by the wicked in such a way that they cannot be restored except by punishment; the second, set down about the garment, signifies all things that can be restored without punishment (and perhaps for this reason it was added, “Whoever wishes to go to law with you,” because what is taken away through a lawsuit is not thought to be taken away by the kind of force to which punishment is due); and the third is made from both, so that it can be restored both without punishment and with punishment. For he who violently exacts labour not owed, without any lawsuit, as does one who wickedly presses a man into service and unlawfully forces him to help against his will, can both pay the penalty of his wickedness and give back the labour, if he who bore the wickedness asks for it back. In all these kinds of injuries, then, the Lord teaches that the mind of a Christian must be most patient and most merciful and most ready to bear more.

But since it is little not to harm unless you also confer a benefit as far as you can, he goes on to add, “Give to everyone who asks you, and do not turn away from him who wishes to borrow from you.” “To everyone who asks,” he says; not “everything to one who asks”: so that you give what you can give honourably and justly. For what if he asks for money with which to try to oppress an innocent person? What, finally, if he asks for an act of sexual immorality? But, not to pursue many cases, which are countless, that is certainly to be given which harms neither you nor another, as far as can be known or believed by a man; and to one whom you have justly refused what he asks, justice itself is to be pointed out, so that you do not send him away empty. Thus you will give to everyone who asks you, although you will not always give what he asks; and sometimes you will give something better, when you have corrected one who asks for unjust things. And as for his saying, “Do not turn away from him who wishes to borrow from you,” it is to be referred to the mind. “For God loves a cheerful giver.” Now everyone who receives borrows, even if he himself is not going to pay back; for since God restores more to the merciful, everyone who confers a benefit lends at interest. Or if it is not agreeable to take “the borrower” except as one who receives and will repay, it must be understood that the Lord has embraced these two kinds of giving. For either we give as a gift what we give with good will, or we lend to one who will repay. And often men who are ready to give when the divine reward is set before them become slow to give what is asked as a loan, as if they were going to receive nothing from God, since he who receives pays back the thing that is given. Rightly, then, does the divine authority exhort us to this kind of conferring a benefit, saying, “And do not turn away from him who wishes to borrow from you”: that is, do not estrange your will from him who asks for the reason that your money will lie idle and God will not repay you, since the man will repay; but when you do this by God’s precept, it cannot be fruitless with him who commands these things.

Next he adds and says: “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, who commands his sun to rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even the tax collectors do this? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing? Do not even the Gentiles do this very thing? Be perfect, therefore, as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.” For without this love, by which we are commanded to love even our enemies and persecutors, who can fulfil what was said above? And the perfection of mercy, by which the labouring soul is most cared for, cannot be extended beyond love of an enemy; and therefore it is concluded thus: “Be perfect, therefore, as your Father who is in heaven is perfect”; yet so that God is understood to be perfect as God, and the soul perfect as a soul.

That there is nevertheless some step in the righteousness of the Pharisees, which pertains to the old Law, is understood from this, that many men hate even those by whom they are loved, as dissolute sons hate the parents who restrain their dissoluteness: he, then, climbs some step who loves his neighbour, although he still hates his enemy. But by the command of him who came to fulfil the Law, not to abolish it, he will bring good will and kindness to perfection when he has carried it as far as love of an enemy. For that step, though it is something, is yet so small that it can be shared even with the tax collectors. Nor is what was said in the Law, “You shall hate your enemy,” to be taken as the voice of one commanding the righteous, but of one making allowance for the weak.

Here indeed a question arises which must in no way be passed over: that to this precept of the Lord, by which he exhorts us to love our enemies, and to do good to those who hate us, and to pray for those who persecute us, many other parts of the Scriptures seem opposed to those who consider them less carefully and soberly; because in the Prophets too are found many imprecations against enemies, which are thought to be curses, such as this: “Let their table become a snare,” and the rest that is said there; and this: “Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow,” and the other things that are said above or below in the same psalm by the Prophet in the person of Judas. Many other things are found everywhere in the Scriptures which seem contrary both to this precept of the Lord and to that of the Apostle in which he says, “Bless, and do not curse,” since it is written of the Lord too that he cursed the cities which did not receive his word, and the said Apostle said of someone, “The Lord will repay him according to his works.”

But these things are easily resolved, because the Prophet sang by way of imprecation what was going to happen, not with the mind of one wishing it but with the spirit of one foreseeing it; and so too the Lord, and so too the Apostle; although in their words too is found not what they wished but what they foretold. For when the Lord says, “Woe to you, Capernaum,” it means nothing but that some evil will come upon it in desert of its unbelief; which the Lord did not wish to happen out of ill will, but saw by his divinity. And the Apostle does not say, “May the Lord repay,” but, “The Lord will repay him according to his works,” which is the word of one foretelling, not imprecating. So too of that hypocrisy of the Jews, of which we have already spoken, whose overthrow he saw impending, he said, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall.” And the prophets are especially accustomed to foretell future things in the figure of one imprecating, just as they often sang of things that were to come in the figure of past time, as in this: “Why did the nations rage, and the peoples meditate vain things?” For he did not say, “Why will the nations rage, and the peoples meditate vain things?”, although he was not recalling these things as already done, but foreseeing them as to come. Such too is this: “They divided my garments among them, and for my garment they cast lots”: for here too he did not say, “They will divide my garments among them, and for my garment they will cast lots.” Yet no one cavils at these words except one who does not perceive that this variety of figures in speaking takes nothing from the truth of things and adds very much to the feelings of minds.

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.

“And when you pray,” he says, “you shall not be like the hypocrites, who love to pray standing in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.” Here too it is not wrong to be seen by men, but to do these things in order to be seen by men; and the same things are said too many times, since there is now one rule to be kept, by which it is known that what is to be dreaded or shunned is not that men know these things, but that they be done with this intent, that the fruit of pleasing men is sought in them. The Lord himself also keeps the same words, when he adds likewise, “Truly I say to you, they have received their reward,” showing by this that what he forbids is that that reward be sought in which fools rejoice when they are praised by men.

“But you, when you pray,” he says, “enter into your chambers.” What are these chambers but the hearts themselves, which are also signified in the Psalm when it is said, “What you say in your hearts, be sorry for upon your beds”? “And shutting the doors, pray,” he says, “to your Father in secret.” It is little to enter the chambers if the door is open to the importunate, through which door the things outside rudely plunge in and assail our inner parts. Now we have said that all temporal and visible things are outside, which penetrate into our thoughts through the door, that is, through the carnal sense, and with a crowd of vain images make a din around those who pray. The door must be shut, then, that is, the carnal sense must be resisted, so that spiritual prayer may be directed to the Father, which is made in the innermost parts of the heart, where the Father is prayed to in secret. “And your Father,” he says, “who sees in secret will repay you.” And this had to be ended with such a close; for he does not now admonish us to pray, but how to pray; nor above, that we give alms, but with what mind we give them; since he is giving precepts about cleansing the heart, which nothing cleanses except a single and simple intention toward eternal life, by the sole and pure love of wisdom.

“And when you pray,” he says, “do not speak much, as the heathen do; for they think that they are heard for their much speaking.” As it belongs to hypocrites to offer themselves to be watched in prayer, their fruit being to please men, so it belongs to the heathen, that is, the Gentiles, to think they are heard for much speaking. And in truth all much speaking comes from the Gentiles, who give their effort to exercising the tongue rather than to cleansing the mind. And they try to transfer this kind of trifling pursuit even to bending God by prayer, thinking that he, like a human judge, is brought to a verdict by words. “So do not be like them,” says the one true Master. “For your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” For if many words are put forth so that an ignorant person may be instructed and taught, what need is there of them toward the knower of all things, to whom all things that are speak by the very fact that they are, and show themselves to have been made; and from whose art and wisdom the things that are to come are not hidden, in which both the things that have passed and the things that will pass are all present and not passing?

But since he too is going to say words, though few, by which to teach us to pray, it can be asked why even these few words are needed toward him who knows all things before they happen, and knows, as has been said, what we need before we ask him. Here first it is answered that we ought to deal with God, in order to obtain what we wish, not by words but by the things which we carry in the mind and by the intention of thought, with pure love and simple affection; but that our Lord taught us the things themselves by words, so that, having committed them to memory, we may recall them at the time of prayer. But again it can be asked, whether one is to pray by things or by words, what need there is of prayer itself, if God already knows what we need; unless because the very intention of prayer calms and cleanses our heart and makes it more capable of receiving the divine gifts, which are poured into us spiritually. For God does not hear us because of the canvassing of prayers, he who is always ready to give us his light, not visible but intelligible and spiritual; but we are not always ready to receive, when we are inclined to other things and are darkened by desire for temporal things. In prayer, then, there comes about a turning of the heart to him who is always ready to give, if we would take what he gives; and in that very turning a cleansing of the inner eye, when the things that were desired in a temporal way are shut out, so that the sight of the single heart can bear the single light, shining divinely without any setting or change; and not only bear it, but also abide in it; not only without trouble, but even with unspeakable joy, by which the blessed life is truly and sincerely brought to completion.

But now we must consider what he has commanded us to pray for, he through whom we both learn what to pray for and obtain what we pray for. “Pray, then, in this way,” he says: “Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come; your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth; give us today our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; and do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Since in every petition the good will of the one we petition must first be won, and then what we petition for must be said, good will is usually won by praise of him to whom the prayer is directed, and this is usually put at the beginning of the prayer; and here our Lord commanded us to say nothing else but “Our Father, who are in heaven.” For many things have been said in praise of God, spread variously and widely through all the holy Scriptures, which anyone may consider when he reads; yet nowhere is a precept found for the people of Israel to say “Our Father,” or to pray to God as Father; but he was made known to them as Lord, as to those who were serving, that is, still living according to the flesh. I say this of the time when they received the commandments of the Law which they were ordered to keep; for the prophets often show that the same Lord of ours could also have been their Father, if they had not strayed from his commandments: as in this, “I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have despised me”; and this, “I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High”; and this, “If I am Lord, where is my fear? And if I am Father, where is my honour?” and very many others, where the Jews are rebuked because by sinning they were unwilling to be sons; apart from those things which are said in prophecy of the future Christian people, that it would have God as Father, according to that saying of the Gospel, “He gave them power to become sons of God.” And the apostle Paul says, “As long as the heir is a child, he differs in nothing from a slave,” and he recalls that we have received the spirit of adoption, in which we cry, “Abba, Father.”

And since our being called to an eternal inheritance, to be co-heirs of Christ and to come into the adoption of sons, is not of our merits but of the grace of God, we put that very grace at the beginning of the prayer when we say, “Our Father.” By this name love too is stirred up (for what ought to be dearer to sons than a father?), and suppliant feeling, when men say to God, “Our Father,” and a certain confidence of obtaining what we are about to ask, since before we asked anything we received so great a gift as to be allowed to say to God, “Our Father.” For what will he not now give to sons who ask, when he has already given this very thing, that they should be sons? Finally, with how much care does it touch the mind, that he who says “Our Father” should not be unworthy of so great a Father! For if some plebeian were permitted by a senator of advanced age to call him father, he would without doubt tremble and not easily dare, thinking of the lowliness of his birth, the want of his means, and the meanness of his plebeian person: how much more, then, must one tremble to call God Father, if there is so great a stain and so much filth in one’s character that God would much more justly expel them from union with himself than that senator the poverty of any beggar? For the senator despises in the beggar that into which he himself can come through the frailty of human affairs; but God never falls into filthy morals. And thanks be to the mercy of him who requires this of us, that he be our Father, which can be obtained at no cost, but by good will alone. Here also the rich, or those noble by birth according to the world, are admonished, when they have become Christians, not to be proud toward the poor and lowborn, since together they say to God, “Our Father”: which they cannot say truly and piously unless they recognize that they are brothers.

Let the new people, then, called to an eternal inheritance, use the word of the New Testament and say, “Our Father, who are in heaven,” that is, in the holy and righteous. For God is not contained in any extent of place. For the heavens are indeed excellent bodies of the world, but yet bodies, which cannot exist except in a place; and if God’s place is believed to be in the heavens as in the higher parts of the world, the birds are of greater desert, since their life is nearer to God. But it is not written, “The Lord is near to lofty men,” or to those who dwell on mountains; but it is written, “The Lord is near to the broken-hearted,” which pertains rather to humility. But as the sinner was called earth, when it was said to him, “You are earth, and to earth you shall go,” so the righteous man can on the contrary be called heaven. For it is said to the righteous, “For the temple of God is holy, which you are.” Wherefore, if God dwells in his temple, and the saints are his temple, “who are in heaven” is rightly said as “who are in the saints.” And this likeness is most fitting, so that spiritually there seems to be as much difference between the righteous and sinners as there is bodily between heaven and earth.

For the sake of signifying this, when we stand for prayer we turn to the east, whence the sky rises: not as if God dwelt there, as though he who is present everywhere, not by extents of place but by the power of his majesty, had deserted the other parts of the world; but so that the mind may be admonished to turn itself to the more excellent nature, that is, to God, when its body, which is earthly, is turned to a more excellent body, that is, to the heavenly body. It also suits the stages of religion, and is most expedient, that God be thought of rightly in the minds of all, both little ones and great. And therefore those who are still given to visible beauties and cannot think of anything incorporeal, since they necessarily put heaven before earth, hold a more tolerable opinion if they believe that God, whom they still think of bodily, is in heaven rather than on earth: so that when at some time they have learned that the dignity of the soul exceeds even a heavenly body, they may seek him rather in the soul than in a body, even a heavenly one; and when they have learned how great the difference is between the souls of sinners and of the righteous, just as they did not dare, while they still thought carnally, to place him on earth but in heaven, so afterward with better faith or understanding they may seek him rather in the souls of the righteous than in those of sinners. Rightly, then, is “Our Father, who are in heaven” understood to have been said as “in the hearts of the righteous,” as in his holy temple. At the same time, too, so that he who prays may wish him whom he calls upon to dwell in himself as well, and while he aspires to this, may hold fast to righteousness, the gift by which God is invited to dwell in the soul.

Now let us see what things are to be asked. For it has been said who it is that is asked, and where he dwells. The first of all the things that are asked is this: “Hallowed be your name.” This is not asked as if the name of God were not holy, but that it may be held holy by men: that is, that God may become so known to them that they think nothing holier, nothing which they fear more to offend. For neither, because it was said, “God is known in Judah, his name is great in Israel,” is it to be understood as if God were lesser in one place and greater in another; but his name is great there where it is named according to the greatness of his majesty. So his name is said to be holy there where it is named with veneration and fear of offending. And this is what is now happening, while the Gospel, becoming known through the various nations up to now, commends the name of the one God through the ministry of his Son.

Next follows, “Your kingdom come.” As the Lord himself teaches in the Gospel, the day of judgment will come when the Gospel has been preached among all nations: which pertains to the hallowing of God’s name. For here too “Your kingdom come” is not said as if God did not reign now. But perhaps someone may say that “come” was said meaning “to the earth”; as if he did not now reign on earth too, and had not always reigned in it from the founding of the world. “Come,” then, is to be taken as “be made manifest to men.” For just as even present light is absent to the blind and to those who close their eyes, so the kingdom of God, although it never departs from the earth, is yet absent to those who do not know it. But no one will be permitted not to know the kingdom of God when his Only-begotten has come from heaven, not only intelligibly but also visibly in the Lord’s man, to judge the living and the dead. After that judgment, that is, when the distinction and separation of the righteous from the unrighteous has been made, God will so dwell in the righteous that there will be no need for anyone to be taught by man, but all will be, as is written, taught by God. Then the blessed life will be perfected in every part in the saints forever, just as now the heavenly angels, most holy and most blessed, are wise and blessed by God alone enlightening them; for the Lord promised this too to his own: “In the resurrection,” he says, “they will be like the angels in heaven.”

And therefore after that petition in which we say, “Your kingdom come,” follows, “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth”: that is, as your will is in the angels who are in heaven, so that they cleave to you in every way and enjoy you fully, no error clouding their wisdom, no misery hindering their blessedness, so may it be done in your saints who are on earth and were made from the earth as regards the body, and who, although they are to be taken up into a heavenly dwelling and change, are yet to be taken up from the earth. To this also looks that proclamation of the angels, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will”: so that when our good will has gone before, which follows him who calls, the will of God may be perfected in us as it is in the heavenly angels, so that no adversity resists our blessedness, which is peace. Again, “Your will be done” is rightly understood as “may your precepts be obeyed”: “as in heaven, so on earth,” that is, as by the angels, so by men. For that God’s will is done when his precepts are obeyed the Lord himself says, when he says, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me”; and often, “I came not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me”; and when he says, “Behold my mother and behold my brothers; and whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and mother and sister.” In those, then, who do the will of God, the will of God is certainly done: not because they themselves cause God to will, but because they do what he wills, that is, they act according to his will.

There is also this understanding: “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth”: as in the holy and righteous, so also in sinners. This again can be taken in two ways: either that we should pray even for our enemies (for what else are they to be considered, against whose will the Christian and catholic name increases?), so that “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth” is said as if it were said, “May sinners do your will as the righteous do, so that they may be converted to you”; or thus, “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth,” so that to each his own is assigned; which will happen at the last judgment, when reward will be given to the righteous and damnation to sinners, when the lambs will be separated from the goats.

That understanding too is not absurd, indeed most suited to our faith and hope, that we take heaven and earth as spirit and flesh. And since the Apostle says, “With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin,” we see the will of God done in the mind, that is, in the spirit; but when death has been swallowed up in victory, and this mortal has put on immortality, which will happen by the resurrection of the flesh and that change which is promised to the righteous according to the preaching of the same Apostle, may the will of God be done on earth also, as in heaven: that is, that as the spirit does not resist God, following and doing his will, so the body too may not resist the spirit or soul, which is now troubled by the weakness of the body and is prone to carnal habit. This will belong to the highest peace in eternal life, that not only to will may be present to us, but also to accomplish the good. “For to will,” he says, “is present to me, but to accomplish the good is not”: because not yet on earth as in heaven, that is, not yet in the flesh as in the spirit, has the will of God been done. For the will of God is done even in our misery, when we suffer through the flesh the things owed to us by right of mortality, which our nature earned by sinning; but this is what is to be prayed for, that as in heaven, so also on earth, the will of God may be done: that is, that as we delight in the law with the heart according to the inner man, so, when the change of the body has taken place, no part of us may oppose this delight of ours with earthly pains or pleasures.

Nor is this far from the truth, that we take “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth” as: as in our Lord Jesus Christ himself, so also in the church; as in the husband who fulfilled the will of the Father, so also in the wife who has been betrothed to him. For heaven and earth are fittingly understood as husband and wife, since the earth is fruitful when the heaven makes it fertile.

The fourth petition is, “Give us today our daily bread.” Daily bread is said either for all those things which sustain the needs of this life, about which, when he gave precepts, he said, “Do not think about tomorrow,” so that “give us today” was added for this reason; or for the sacrament of the body of Christ, which we receive daily; or for spiritual food, of which the same Lord says, “Work for the food which does not perish,” and this, “I am the bread of life, who came down from heaven.” But which of these three is more probable can be considered. For perhaps someone may be disturbed as to why we should pray to obtain those things which are necessary for this life, such as food and clothing, when the Lord himself says, “Do not be anxious about what you shall eat or what you shall put on.” Or can anyone not be anxious about a thing he prays to obtain, when prayer must be directed with such intensity of mind that all that was said about shutting the chambers is referred to it, and also that saying, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you”? He certainly does not say, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and then seek these things,” but “all these things,” he says, “will be added to you,” that is, even to those who do not seek them. But how anyone can rightly be said not to seek what he most intently prays to God to receive, I do not know whether it can be found.

As for the sacrament of the Lord’s body: there are those, very many in the eastern parts, who do not communicate daily in the Lord’s supper, although this bread has been called daily. So that they may not raise a question, then, let them keep silent and not defend their opinion on this matter even by ecclesiastical authority itself (since they do this without scandal, and are neither forbidden to do it by those who preside over the churches, nor condemned for not complying; from which it is proved that this is not understood as the daily bread in those parts, for otherwise those who do not receive of it daily would be accused of a great sin). But, so that, as has been said, we may argue nothing about these people one way or the other, this at least ought to occur to those who reflect: that we have received from the Lord a rule of praying which must not be transgressed either by adding anything or by passing over anything. This being so, who would dare to say that we ought to pray the Lord’s Prayer only once, or at least, even if a second or third time, only up to the hour at which we communicate in the Lord’s body, but afterward not pray it so through the remaining parts of the day? For we will no longer be able to say “give us today” of what we have already received; or else anyone could compel us to celebrate that sacrament even in the last part of the day.

It remains, then, that we take daily bread as spiritual, namely the divine precepts, which we ought to meditate on and carry out daily. For of these the Lord says, “Work for the food which does not perish.” And this food is now called daily, as long as this temporal life is carried on through days departing and succeeding. And in truth, as long as the affection of the mind alternates now to higher things, now to lower, that is, now to spiritual, now to carnal things, as with one who sometimes is fed with food and sometimes suffers hunger, bread is necessary daily, by which the hungry may be refreshed and the one slipping back may be raised up. Just as, therefore, our body in this life, that is, before that change, is refreshed with food because it feels loss, so the mind too, since through temporal affections it suffers as it were a loss of its attention to God, is to be refreshed by the food of the precepts. And “give us today” has been said for as long as it is called today, that is, in this temporal life. For after this life we shall be filled with spiritual food forever in such a way that it will not then be called daily bread; for there will be no turning of time there, which makes day succeed day, from which “daily” would be named. But as it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice,” which the Apostle interprets in the Epistle to the Hebrews as “as long as it is called today,” so here too “give us today” is to be taken. But if anyone wishes to take this saying also of the bodily food that is necessary, or of the sacrament of the Lord’s body, all three must be taken together; so that we ask at once for daily bread both necessary for the body, and the visible consecrated bread, and the invisible bread of the word of God.

There follows the fifth petition, “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” That debts means sins is manifest, either from what the same Lord says, “You will not come out from there until you pay the last farthing,” or from his calling debtors those who were reported to him as killed, either in the fall of the tower or those whose blood Herod mixed with sacrifice. For he said that men thought they were debtors beyond measure, that is, sinners; and he added, “Truly I say to you, unless you repent, you will likewise perish.” Here, then, no one is pressed to forgive money to debtors, but whatever another has sinned against him. For we are commanded to forgive money rather by that precept which was stated above, “If anyone wishes to take your tunic and go to law with you, let him have your garment also”; and there it is not necessary to forgive the debt to every money debtor, but to one who is unwilling to pay, so much so that he is even willing to go to law; “but the servant of the Lord,” as the Apostle says, “must not go to law.” To one, then, who, either of his own accord or when called upon, is unwilling to pay the money owed, it is to be forgiven. For he will be unwilling to pay for one of two reasons, either because he does not have it, or because he is greedy and covetous of another’s property; and both pertain to poverty; for the former is poverty of household goods, the latter of the mind. Whoever, therefore, forgives the debt to such a person forgives a poor man, and does a Christian work, provided that rule remains, that he be ready in mind to lose what is owed to him. For if he acts in every way modestly and gently to have it restored to him, intending not so much the profit of the money as to correct the man, for whom it is without doubt ruinous to have the means to pay and not pay, he will not only not sin, but will even do very much good, so that the other, while he wishes to make a profit of another’s money, may not suffer loss of faith; which is so much graver that there is no comparison. From this it is understood that in this fifth petition too, in which we say, “Forgive us our debts,” it is not indeed money that is spoken of, but all things in which anyone sins against us, and by this also money. For he sins against you who refuses to pay you money owed when he has the means to pay. And if you do not forgive this sin, you will not be able to say, “Forgive us, as we also forgive”; but if you pardon it, you see that he who is commanded to pray with such a prayer is admonished also about forgiving money.

Certainly this can be discussed: that since we say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive,” we are convicted of having acted against this rule only if we do not forgive those who ask pardon, because we too wish to be forgiven by the most kind Father when we ask pardon. But again, by that precept by which we are commanded to pray for our enemies, we are not commanded to pray for those who ask pardon; for those who are such are no longer enemies. But in no way could anyone truly say that he prays for one whom he has not pardoned. Wherefore it must be admitted that all sins committed against us are to be forgiven, if we wish what we commit to be forgiven us by the Father. For about vengeance enough has been argued above, I think.

The sixth petition is, “And do not bring us into temptation.” Some manuscripts have “lead,” which I think means just as much: for both were translated from the one Greek word that was used, εἰσενέγκῃς. But many, in praying, say, “Do not allow us to be led into temptation,” explaining, that is, in what sense “lead” was said. For God does not lead by himself, but allows to be led one whom he has deprived of his help, by a most hidden order and according to his deserts. Often, too, for manifest causes, he judges him worthy to be deserted and allowed to be led into temptation. But it is one thing to be led into temptation, another to be tempted. For without temptation no one can be proved, whether to himself, as is written, “He who has not been tempted, what does he know?”, or to another, as the Apostle says, “And you did not despise my temptation in my flesh”: for from this he came to know them as steadfast, that they were not turned aside from love by those tribulations which had befallen the Apostle according to the flesh. For we are known to God even before all temptations, since he knows all things before they happen. So what is written, “The Lord your God tests you, to know whether you love him,” has been set down by that figure of speech in which “to know” stands for “to make you know”; as we call a day glad because it makes people glad, and cold sluggish because it makes people sluggish, and countless things of this kind, which are found in ordinary speech, in the language of the learned, or in the holy Scriptures. Not understanding this, the heretics who oppose the Old Testament think that he of whom it is said, “The Lord your God tests you,” is to be branded with the fault of ignorance: as if it were not written in the Gospel of the Lord, “But this he said testing him; for he himself knew what he would do.” For if he knew the heart of the one he was testing, what is it that he wished to see by testing? But surely this was done so that he who was tested might become known to himself and condemn his own despair, when the crowds had been filled with the Lord’s bread, though he had thought they had nothing to eat.

Here, then, it is not prayed that we not be tempted, but that we not be brought into temptation: as if someone who must be tested by fire prayed not that he not be touched by fire, but that he not be burned up. “For the furnace proves the potter’s vessels, and the trial of tribulation righteous men.” Joseph, then, was tempted by the enticement of illicit intercourse, but was not brought into temptation; Susanna was tempted, nor was she led or brought into temptation; and many others of both sexes; but Job above all, whose admirable steadfastness in the Lord his God those heretics, the enemies of the Old Testament, wish to ridicule with sacrilegious mouth, and they toss about this above all, that Satan asked for him to be tempted. For they ask unskilled men, who are quite unable to understand such things, how Satan could have spoken with God: not seeing (for they cannot, blinded as they are by superstition and contention) that God does not occupy an extent of place with the mass of a body, and so is not in one place and not in another, or at least has one part here and another part elsewhere; but that by his majesty he is present everywhere, not divided by parts, but everywhere whole. But if they look carnally at what was said, “Heaven is my throne and earth the footstool of my feet,” a passage to which the Lord too bears witness, saying, “Do not swear, neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet,” what wonder if the devil, being placed on the earth, stood before God’s feet and said something in his presence? For when will they be able to understand that there is no soul, however perverse, that can still reason in any way, in whose conscience God does not speak? For who wrote the natural law in the hearts of men but God? Of which law the Apostle says: “For when the Gentiles, who do not have the Law, do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves; who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or even excusing one another, on the day when the Lord will judge the secrets of men.” Wherefore, if in every rational soul, even blinded by desire, when it thinks and reasons, whatever in that reasoning is true is not to be attributed to it but to the very light of truth, by which it is illumined, even faintly according to its capacity, so that it perceives something true in reasoning, what wonder if the soul of the devil, perverted by wicked desire, is reported to have heard by the voice of God himself, that is, by the voice of truth itself, whatever true thing it thought about the righteous man when it wished to tempt him? But whatever is false is attributed to that desire from which he received the name of devil. Although God has also often spoken through bodily and visible creation to both good and evil, as Lord and ruler of all and orderer according to the deserts of each thing: as through angels, who appeared even to men’s sight, and through prophets saying, “Thus says the Lord.” What wonder, then, if, although not in thought itself, yet certainly through some creature suited to such a work, God is said to have spoken with the devil?

Nor let them think it a matter of dignity, as if a merit of righteousness, that God spoke with him: since he spoke with an angelic soul, though foolish and covetous, as if he were speaking with a human soul foolish and covetous. Or let them themselves say how he spoke with that rich man whose most foolish covetousness he wished to rebuke, saying, “Fool, this night your soul is required of you; whose will these things be which you have prepared?” Certainly the Lord himself says this in the Gospel, to which these heretics, willing or unwilling, bow their necks. But if they are disturbed by this, that Satan asks God for the righteous man to be tempted, I do not explain why it was done, but I compel them to explain why it was said in the Gospel by the Lord himself to the disciples, “Behold, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat”; and he says to Peter, “But I have prayed that your faith may not fail.” And when they explain this to me, they at the same time explain to themselves what they ask of me. But if they cannot explain this, let them not dare to find fault rashly in some other book with what they read without offence in the Gospel.

Temptations, then, come about through Satan not by his power but by the Lord’s permission, either to punish men for their sins or, by the Lord’s mercy, to prove and exercise them. And it matters very much into what kind of temptation each falls. For Judas, who sold the Lord, did not fall into the same kind as Peter fell into when, terrified, he denied the Lord. There are also human temptations, I believe, when someone with a good mind, but according to human frailty, slips in some plan, or is provoked against a brother by zeal to correct him, yet a little more than Christian tranquillity demands: of which the Apostle says, “Let no temptation take hold of you but what is human,” while the same says, “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, but with the temptation will also make a way out, so that you may be able to endure.” In this saying he shows clearly enough that we are not to pray that we not be tempted, but that we not be led into temptation. For we are led in, if such temptations befall us as we cannot bear. But since the dangerous temptations, into which it is ruinous to be brought and led, arise either from prosperous temporal things or from adverse ones, no one is broken by the trouble of adverse things who is not captured by the delight of prosperous ones.

The last and seventh petition is, “But deliver us from evil.” For we must pray not only that we not be led into the evil which we are without, which is asked in the sixth place, but also that we be delivered from that into which we have already been led. When this has been done, nothing fearful will remain, nor will any temptation at all be dreaded. Yet in this life, as long as we carry about this mortality into which we were led by the serpent’s persuasion, it is not to be hoped that this can come about; but it is to be hoped that it will come someday, and this is the hope which is not seen, of which the Apostle, speaking, says, “But hope that is seen is not hope.” Yet wisdom, which is granted in this life too, is not to be despaired of by the faithful servants of God. And it is this: that what, by the Lord’s revealing, we have understood is to be fled, we flee with most careful vigilance; and what, by the Lord’s revealing, we have understood is to be sought, we seek with most ardent love. For thus, when the remaining burden of this mortality has been laid down in death itself, the blessedness which has been begun in this life, and to grasp and obtain which all our effort is now spent, will be perfected at the proper time in every part of man.

But the distinction of these seven petitions must be considered and commended. For since our life is now carried on in time, and an eternal one is hoped for, and since eternal things are prior in dignity, although we pass over to them after temporal things have first been done, the obtaining of the first three petitions, although it takes its beginning in this life which is carried on in this world (for the hallowing of God’s name began to be carried out from the very coming of the Lord in humility; and the coming of his kingdom, in which he will come in glory, will be manifested not after the world has ended, but at the end of the world; and the perfection of his will, as in heaven so on earth, whether you understand heaven and earth as the righteous and sinners, or spirit and flesh, or the Lord and the church, or all together, will be completed by the very perfection of our blessedness, and therefore by the ending of the world), yet all three will remain forever. For the hallowing of God’s name will be everlasting, and of his kingdom there is no end, and eternal life is promised to our perfect blessedness. These three, then, will remain, consummated and heaped up, in that life which is promised to us.

But the remaining four which we ask seem to me to pertain to this temporal life. The first of them is, “Give us today our daily bread.” For by the very fact that it was called daily bread, whether spiritual bread is signified, or the visible bread in the sacrament or in this food, it pertains to this time, which he called “today”: not because spiritual food is not everlasting, but because that which is called daily in the Scriptures is presented to the soul either in the sound of speech or by some temporal signs; none of which will exist then, when all will be taught by God, and will drink in the ineffable light of truth itself, not signifying it by the motion of bodies but by purity of mind. For perhaps it was also for this reason called bread and not drink, because bread is turned into nourishment by breaking and chewing, just as the Scriptures feed the soul by being opened and discussed; but drink, prepared as it is, passes into the body: so that in this time truth is bread, when it is called daily bread; but then it will be drink, when there will be no need of the labour of disputing and discoursing, as if of breaking and chewing, but only of drinking in sincere and clear truth. And sins are now forgiven us, and now we forgive, which is the second of these remaining four petitions; but then there will be no pardon of sins, because there will be no sins. And temptations infest this temporal life; but they will not exist when what was said is perfected, “You will hide them in the hiding place of your face.” And the evil from which we desire to be delivered, and deliverance itself from evil, certainly pertain to this life, which by the justice of God we deserved to have mortal, and from which we are delivered by his mercy.

It seems to me also that this sevenfold number of petitions corresponds to that sevenfold number from which this whole sermon has flowed. For if it is the fear of God by which the poor in spirit are blessed, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, let us ask that the name of God be hallowed among men, “the chaste fear enduring forever and ever.” If it is piety by which the meek are blessed, for they shall inherit the earth, let us ask that his kingdom may come, whether into ourselves, so that we may become meek and not resist him, or from heaven to earth in the glory of the Lord’s coming, in which we shall rejoice and be praised, when he says, “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” “For in the Lord,” says the prophet, “shall my soul be praised; let the meek hear and be glad.” If it is knowledge by which those who mourn are blessed, for they shall be comforted, let us pray that his will be done, as in heaven, so on earth; because when the body, as earth, agrees with the spirit, as heaven, in highest and complete peace, we shall not mourn; for there is no other mourning in this time except when these fight against each other and compel us to say, “I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind,” and to testify to our mourning with tearful voice, “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?” If it is fortitude by which those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed, for they shall be filled, let us pray that our daily bread be given us today, so that, supported and sustained by it, we may come to that fullest satiety. If it is counsel by which the merciful are blessed, for they shall obtain mercy, let us forgive debts to our debtors, and pray that ours be forgiven us. If it is understanding by which the pure in heart are blessed, for they shall see God, let us pray not to be led into temptation, lest we have a double heart, not seeking the single good to which we may refer all that we do, but pursuing temporal and earthly things at the same time. For temptations from things which seem grievous and calamitous to men have no power over us if those have no power which come through the allurements of things men think good and to be rejoiced in. If it is wisdom by which the peacemakers are blessed, for they shall be called sons of God, let us pray to be delivered from evil; for deliverance itself will make us free, that is, sons of God, so that by the spirit of adoption we cry, “Abba, Father.”

Certainly it must not be passed over carelessly that of all these sayings by which the Lord commanded us to pray, he judged that one most of all to be commended which pertains to the forgiveness of sins; in which he wished us to be merciful, which is the one counsel for escaping miseries. For in no other saying do we pray in such a way as if we made a pact with God: for we say, “Forgive us as we also forgive.” If we lie in this pact, there is no fruit of the whole prayer. For he says thus: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your sins.”

There follows the precept about fasting, pertaining to the same cleansing of the heart which is now being treated. For in this work too one must beware lest some ostentation and desire for human praise creep in, which would double the heart and not allow it to be pure and single for understanding God. “And when you fast,” he says, “do not become gloomy like the hypocrites; for they disfigure their faces, so that they may be seen by men to be fasting. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your heads and wash your faces, so that you may not be seen by men to be fasting, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” It is manifest from these precepts that all our intention is directed to inner joys, lest, seeking a reward outside, we be conformed to this world and lose the promise of a blessedness as much more solid and firm as it is more inward, by which God has chosen us to be conformed to the image of his Son.

But in this passage it must especially be noticed that there can be boasting not only in the splendour and pomp of bodily things, but even in mournful squalor itself; and it is the more dangerous because it deceives under the name of the service of God. He, then, who shines with immoderate adornment of body and clothing or splendour of other things is easily convicted by the things themselves of being a follower of the pomps of the world, and deceives no one by a false image of holiness; but as for him who, in the profession of Christianity, draws men’s eyes to himself by unusual squalor and filth, when he does it by choice and does not suffer it from necessity, it can be inferred from his other works whether he does this from contempt of superfluous adornment or from some ambition; because the Lord commanded us to beware of wolves even under sheep’s clothing, “but by their fruits,” he says, “you will know them.” For when, through some trials, the very things begin to be withdrawn or denied them which they have either obtained or desire to obtain under this covering, then it must appear whether it is a wolf in sheep’s skin or a sheep in its own. Yet a Christian ought not to charm men’s sight with superfluous adornment because pretenders often adopt that sparing and necessary dress in order to deceive the unwary; for neither ought those sheep to lay aside their skins if wolves sometimes cover themselves with them.

It is often asked, then, what he means by saying, “But you, when you fast, anoint your heads and wash your faces, so that you may not be seen by men to be fasting.” For no one would rightly command that, although we wash our faces by daily habit, we ought also to have our heads anointed when we fast. And if all admit that this would be most shameful, it must be understood that this precept of anointing the head and washing the face pertains to the inner man. To anoint the head, then, pertains to gladness; to wash the face, to purity. And therefore he anoints the head who rejoices inwardly in mind and reason. For we rightly take as the head that which is preeminent in the soul, and by which it is manifest that the rest of man is ruled and governed. And he does this who does not seek gladness outside, so as to rejoice carnally in men’s praises. For the flesh, which ought to be subject, is in no way the head of the whole human nature. “No one indeed ever hated his own flesh,” as the Apostle says when he gives precepts about loving one’s wife; but the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ. Let him, then, rejoice inwardly in his fasting, by the very fact that by fasting he so turns himself away from the pleasure of the world as to be subject to Christ, who according to this precept desires to have his head anointed. Thus too he will wash his face, that is, cleanse his heart, with which he is to see God, with no veil interposed because of weakness contracted from filth, but firm and stable, because pure and single. “Wash,” he says, “be clean, take away the wickedness from your souls and from the sight of my eyes.” From these filthy things, then, by which the sight of God is offended, our face is to be washed. “For we, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, shall be transformed into the same image.”

Often, too, the thought of necessary things pertaining to this life wounds and soils our inner eye, and very often doubles the heart, so that the things which we seem to do rightly with men we do not do with that heart with which the Lord commands, that is, not because we love them, but because we wish to obtain some advantage from them for the needs of the present life. But we ought to do good to them for the sake of their eternal salvation, not for our temporal advantage. May God, then, incline our heart to his testimonies and not to gain. “For the end of the commandment is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned.” But he who looks after a brother for the sake of his own need in this life certainly does not look after him with love; for he looks after not him, whom he ought to love as himself, but himself; or rather not even himself, since by this he makes for himself a double heart, by which he is hindered from seeing God, in which vision alone blessedness is certain and everlasting.

Rightly, then, he who presses on with cleansing our heart follows and commands, saying: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and corrosion destroy, and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor corrosion destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” So if the heart is on earth, that is, if anyone does something with this in his heart, to obtain an earthly advantage, how will it be pure, wallowing on the earth? But if it is in heaven, it will be pure, because whatever things are heavenly are pure. For a thing is soiled when it is mixed with a lower nature, even one not soiled in its own kind; since gold too is soiled even by pure silver if it is mixed with it; so our mind too is soiled by desire for earthly things, although the earth itself is pure in its own kind and order. But we should not take heaven in this place as bodily, because every body is to be reckoned as earth. For he who stores up treasure for himself in heaven ought to despise the whole world. In that heaven, then, of which it is said, “The heaven of heaven is the Lord’s,” that is, in the spiritual firmament, we ought to establish and place our treasure and our heart: not in that which will pass away, but in that which always remains; for heaven and earth will pass away.

And here he makes manifest that he commands all these things about cleansing the heart, when he says: “The lamp of your body is your eye. If, then, your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be dark. If, then, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” This passage is to be understood so that we know that all our works are pure and pleasing in God’s sight if they are done with a single heart, that is, with an intention directed above, with that end of love; for love is the fulfilment of the law. By the eye here, then, we ought to take the very intention with which we do whatever we do; and if this is pure and right, and looking to that which ought to be looked to, all our works which we do according to it must be good. All these works he called the whole body; for the Apostle too calls certain works, which he condemns, our members, and commands them to be put to death, saying, “Put to death, therefore, your members which are on earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, greed,” and other such things. So what is to be considered is not what anyone does, but with what mind he does it. For this is the light in us, because this is manifest to us, that we do what we do with a good mind: “for everything that is made manifest is light.” For the deeds themselves which go forth from us into human society have an uncertain outcome; and therefore he called them darkness. For I do not know, when I hand money to one who is needy and asks, what he is going to do with it or suffer from it; and it can happen that he either does some evil with it or suffers some evil because of it, which I did not wish to happen when I gave it, nor did I give it with that mind. So if I did it with a good mind, which was known to me when I did it and is therefore called light, my deed too is illuminated, whatever outcome it has had; and that outcome, since it is uncertain and unknown, has been called darkness. But if I did it with a bad mind, even the light itself is darkness. For it is called light because each one knows with what mind he acts, even when he acts with a bad mind; but the light itself is darkness, because the single intention is not directed to things above, but is bent down to lower things, and with a double heart makes as it were a shadow. “If, then, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”: that is, if the very intention of the heart with which you do what you do, which is known to you, is soiled and blinded by the desire for earthly and temporal things, how much more is the deed itself, whose outcome is uncertain, filthy and dark? For even if what you do with an intention that is not right and pure turns out well for someone, how you did it is charged to you, not how it turned out for him.

And what follows, where he says, “No one can serve two masters,” is to be referred to this same intention, as he explains in what follows, saying, “For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will bear with the one and despise the other.” These words are to be considered carefully; for who the two masters are he next shows, when he says, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Among the Hebrews, riches are said to be called mammon. The Punic word agrees too: for gain is called mammon in Punic. But he who serves mammon certainly serves him who, set over these earthly things in desert of his perversity, is called by the Lord the ruler of this world. So either a man will hate this one and love the other, that is, God; or he will bear with the one and despise the other. For whoever serves mammon bears with a hard and ruinous master; for, entangled in his own desire, he is made subject to the devil; and he does not love him (for who is there who loves the devil?), but yet he bears with him: as in some great household, one who is joined to another man’s maidservant endures a hard servitude because of his desire, even if he does not love him whose maidservant he loves. “But the other he will despise,” he said; not “he will hate.” For hardly anyone’s conscience can hate God; but he despises him, that is, does not fear him, as being secure about his goodness. From this negligence and ruinous security the Holy Spirit calls us back when he says through the prophet, “Son, do not add sin upon sin, and say, The compassion of God is great”; and, “Do you not know that the patience of God invites you to repentance?” For whose mercy so great can be mentioned as his who forgives all sins to those who turn, and makes the wild olive a partaker of the richness of the olive? And whose severity so great as his who did not spare the natural branches, but broke them off because of unbelief? But whoever wishes to love God and to beware of offending him, let him not think that he can serve two masters, and let him free the right intention of his heart from all doubleness: for thus he will think of the Lord in goodness, and will seek him in simplicity of heart.

“Therefore,” he says, “I say to you, do not be anxious for your soul, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on”; lest perhaps, although superfluous things are no longer sought, the heart be doubled on account of necessary things themselves, and our intention be twisted toward obtaining them when we do something as if out of mercy; that is, lest, when we wish to seem to be looking after someone, we pay attention there rather to our own gain than to his benefit, and think we do not sin because it is not superfluous but necessary things which we wish to obtain. But the Lord admonishes us to remember that God has given us much more, in making and composing us of soul and body, than food and clothing, through care for which he does not wish us to double our heart. “Is not the soul,” he says, “more than food?” So that you may understand that he who gave the soul will much more easily give food. “And the body than clothing,” that is, is more, so that you may likewise understand that he who gave the body will much more easily give clothing.

In this place it is usually asked whether this food pertains to the soul, since the soul is incorporeal, but this food is bodily. But let us know that “soul” is put in this place for this life, whose support is this bodily nourishment. In this meaning that too is said: “He who loves his soul will lose it.” Unless we take this of this life, which one must lose for the kingdom of God, as it has been shown that the martyrs could, this precept will be contrary to that saying in which it is said, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his own soul?”

“Look,” he says, “at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”, that is, you are worth more. For certainly a rational animal, such as man is, has been ranked higher in the nature of things than irrational ones, such as birds are. “And which of you,” he says, “by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature? And why are you anxious about clothing?” That is: by the providence of him by whose power and dominion it came about that your body was brought to this stature, it can also be clothed; but that it was not by your care that your body came to this stature can be understood from this, that if you were anxious and wished to add one cubit to this stature, you could not; leave, then, the care of covering the body too to him by whose care you see it came about that you have a body of such stature.

And an illustration had to be given for clothing too, as one was given for food. And so he follows and says: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; but I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith?” But these illustrations are not to be examined as allegories, so that we ask what the birds of the air or the lilies of the field signify; for they have been set down so that greater things might be urged from lesser ones: as is the case with that judge who neither feared God nor respected man, and yet yielded to the widow who often appealed to him, so as to consider her case, not out of piety or humanity, but so as not to suffer annoyance. For that unjust judge in no way represents the person of God allegorically; but yet the Lord wished it to be inferred from this how much God, who is good and just, cares for those who pray to him, since not even an unjust man can despise those who pound him with constant prayers, if only to avoid annoyance.

“Do not, therefore,” he says, “be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek all these things. For your Father knows that you need all these things. Seek first, therefore, the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Here he shows most manifestly that these things are not to be sought as our goods in such a way that we ought to do good for their sake, if we do anything, but yet that they are necessary. For what difference there is between the good that is to be sought and the necessary thing that is to be taken, he declared by this saying when he said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” The kingdom and righteousness of God, then, is our good, and this is to be sought, and there the goal is to be set for whose sake we do all that we do. But because we serve as soldiers in this life, so that we may be able to come to that kingdom, and this life cannot be carried on without these necessary things, “these things will be added to you,” he says, “but you, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” For when he said “first,” he signified that this is to be sought later, not in time but in dignity: that as our good, this as our necessity; but a necessity for the sake of that good.

For we ought not, for example, to preach the Gospel in order to eat, but to eat in order to preach the Gospel: for if we preach the Gospel in order to eat, we hold the Gospel cheaper than food; and then our good will be in eating, and our necessity in preaching. This too the Apostle forbids, when he says that it was indeed lawful for him, and permitted by the Lord, that those who proclaim the Gospel should live by the Gospel, that is, have from the Gospel the things necessary for this life; but yet that he had not abused this power. For there were many who desired to have an occasion of acquiring and selling the Gospel; and wishing to cut off this occasion from them, the Apostle supported himself with his own hands. For of these he says in another place, “That I may cut off the occasion from those who seek an occasion.” Although even if, like the other good apostles, he lived by the Gospel with the Lord’s permission, he would not on that account set the goal of preaching in that livelihood, but would rather place the goal of his livelihood itself in the Gospel; that is, as I said above, he would not preach in order to arrive at food and whatever other necessities there are, but would take these in order to fulfil that, so as to preach not unwillingly, from necessity. For this is what he condemns when he says: “Do you not know that those who work in the temple eat what is from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share with the altar? So too the Lord ordained for those who proclaim the Gospel to live by the Gospel; but I have used none of these things.” Here he shows that it was permitted, not commanded; otherwise he will be held to have acted against the Lord’s precept. Then he goes on and says: “But I have not written these things that it may be done so in my case. For it is better for me to die than that anyone should make my glorying empty.” He said this because he had already resolved, on account of some who were seeking an occasion, to get his livelihood with his own hands. “For if I preach the Gospel,” he says, “I have no glory”: that is, if I preach the Gospel so that these things may be done in my case, that is, if I preach the Gospel in order to arrive at those things and place the goal of the Gospel in food and drink and clothing. But why has he no glory? “For necessity,” he says, “lies upon me”; that is, so that I preach the Gospel because I have nothing to live on, or in order to acquire temporal profit from the preaching of eternal things: for thus there will be necessity in the Gospel, not will. “For woe to me,” he says, “if I do not preach the Gospel.” But how ought he to preach? Surely so as to place his reward in the Gospel itself and in the kingdom of God: for thus he can preach not compelled but willingly. “For if I do this willingly,” he says, “I have a reward; but if unwillingly, a stewardship has been entrusted to me”: that is, if, compelled by want of the things necessary for temporal life, I preach the Gospel, others will have the reward of the Gospel through me, who love the Gospel itself when I preach it; but I will not have it, because I do not love the Gospel itself, but its price, set in those temporal things. And it is wrong for this to happen, that anyone should minister the Gospel not as a son but as a slave to whom a stewardship has been entrusted, so that he pays out, as it were, what belongs to another, receiving nothing from it himself except rations, which are given from outside, not from a share in the kingdom, but for the support of a wretched servitude. Although in another place he calls himself a steward too. For a slave too, adopted into the number of sons, can faithfully dispense to his fellow sharers that thing in which he has earned the portion of a co-heir. But here, where he says, “But if unwillingly, a stewardship has been entrusted to me,” he wished to be understood such a steward as dispenses what belongs to another, from which he himself receives nothing.

Whatever thing, then, is sought for the sake of something else is without doubt inferior to that for whose sake it is sought; and therefore that is first for whose sake you seek this thing, not this thing which you seek for its sake. Wherefore, if we seek the Gospel and the kingdom of God for the sake of food, we make food first and the kingdom of God later; so that if food were not lacking, we would not seek the kingdom of God: this is to seek food first and then the kingdom of God, that is, to put this in the first place, that in the later. But if we seek food in order to have the kingdom of God, we do what was said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

For those who seek first the kingdom and righteousness of God, that is, who put this before other things so that they seek the other things for its sake, there ought to be no anxiety lest the things be lacking which are necessary to this life for the sake of the kingdom of God. For he said above, “Your Father knows that you need all these things.” And therefore when he had said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” he did not say, “Then seek these things,” although they are necessary; but he said, “all these things will be added to you,” that is, will follow, if you seek those, without any hindrance on your part: lest, while you seek these, you be turned away from that; or lest you set up two goals, so that you seek both the kingdom of God for its own sake and these necessary things; but rather seek these for the sake of that: thus they will not be lacking to you. For you cannot serve two masters. And he tries to serve two masters who seeks both the kingdom of God as a great good and these temporal things. But he will not be able to have a single eye and serve one master, the Lord God, unless he takes whatever other things there are, if they are necessary, for the sake of this one thing, that is, for the sake of the kingdom of God. Just as all who serve as soldiers receive rations and pay, so all who preach the Gospel receive food and clothing. But not all serve as soldiers for the welfare of the state, but for the sake of what they receive; so too not all minister to God for the welfare of the church, but for the sake of these temporal things, which they obtain as rations and pay; or both for this and for that. But it has already been said above, “You cannot serve two masters.” So with a single heart we ought to do good to all solely for the sake of the kingdom of God, and in this work not think of the reward of temporal things, either alone or together with the kingdom of God; all of which temporal things he denoted by the name of tomorrow, saying, “Do not think about tomorrow.” For a day is not called tomorrow except in time, where the future succeeds the past. So when we do some good, let us think not of temporal but of eternal things: then that will be a good and perfect work. “For tomorrow,” he says, “will be anxious for itself”: that is, so that you take food or drink or clothing when you need to, that is, when necessity itself begins to press. For these things will be at hand, because our Father knows that we need all these things. “For sufficient,” he says, “for the day is its own evil”: that is, it is enough that necessity itself will press us to take these things. And I think it was named evil for this reason, that it is penal for us: for it belongs to this frailty and mortality which we earned by sinning. To this punishment of temporal necessity, then, do not add something heavier, so that you not only suffer the want of these things, but also serve God as a soldier in order to satisfy it.

But in this place we must beware vehemently lest, when we see some servant of God providing that these necessary things are not lacking either to himself or to those whose care has been committed to him, we judge that he is acting against the Lord’s precept and is anxious about tomorrow. For the Lord himself too, to whom angels ministered, nevertheless, for the sake of example, so that no one might afterward take offence on noticing one of his servants procuring these necessary things, deigned to have a purse with money, from which whatever was needed might be supplied for necessary uses; of which purse the keeper and the thief, as is written, was Judas, who betrayed him. So too the apostle Paul can seem to have thought about tomorrow when he said: “Now concerning the collections for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also do: on the first day of the week let each of you put by at home, storing up what pleases him, so that collections may not be made when I come. And when I arrive, whomever you approve by letters, I will send to carry your gift to Jerusalem; and if it is fitting that I go too, they will go with me. And I will come to you when I have passed through Macedonia; for I am passing through Macedonia; and perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may send me on wherever I go. For I do not wish to see you now in passing; for I hope to remain some time with you, if the Lord permits. But I will remain at Ephesus until Pentecost.” Again, in the Acts of the Apostles it is written that the things necessary for food were procured for the future because of an impending famine. For thus we read: “In those days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and there was great rejoicing. And when we were gathered together, one of them named Agabus stood up and signified by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over the whole world, which also happened under Claudius Caesar. And the disciples, each according as he had abundance, determined each of them to send for relief to the presbyters, the brothers living in Judea; which they also sent by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.” And in that provisions which were offered to him were put on board for the same apostle Paul when he was sailing, food seems to have been procured not for one day only. And as for what the same Apostle writes, “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labour, working with his hands what is good, so that he may have something to give to one in need,” to those who understand badly he does not seem to keep the Lord’s precept which says, “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,” and, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin,” since he commands these people to labour, working with their hands, so that they may have something they can give to others too. And as for his often saying of himself that he worked with his own hands so as not to burden anyone, and its being written of him that he joined himself to Aquila because of their likeness of trade, so that they might work together for their living, he does not seem to have imitated the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. From these and similar places of the Scriptures it appears clearly enough that our Lord does not condemn it if anyone procures these things in the human way, but only if anyone serves God as a soldier for the sake of these things, so that in his works he looks not to the kingdom of God but to the acquiring of these things.

To this rule, then, this whole precept is reduced: that even in providing these things we think of the kingdom of God, but in the service of the kingdom of God we do not think of these things. For thus, even if they are sometimes lacking, which God often allows for our exercise, not only do they not weaken our purpose, but they even strengthen it once it has been examined and proved. “For we glory,” he says, “in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience proof, and proof hope; and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” And in recounting his tribulations and labours the same Apostle recalls that he laboured not only in prisons and shipwrecks and many troubles of that kind, but also in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness. When we read this, let us not think that the Lord’s promises wavered, so that the Apostle suffered hunger and thirst and nakedness while seeking the kingdom and righteousness of God, although it was said to us, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you”: since that physician to whom we have once committed ourselves wholly, and from whom we have the promise of the present and the future life, knows, as with aids, when to add these things and when to withdraw them, as he judges expedient for us; and he governs and directs us, to be comforted and exercised in this life, and after this life to be established and made firm in everlasting rest. For a man too, when he often withdraws feed from his beast, does not desert it from his care, but rather does this by caring for it.

And since, when these things are either procured for the future or, if there is no reason for spending them, are kept, it is uncertain with what mind it is done, since it can be done with a single heart and can be done with a double one, he fittingly added in this place: “Do not judge, that you may not be judged; for with the judgment with which you judge you will be judged, and with the measure with which you measure it will be measured back to you.” In this place I think nothing else is commanded us than that we interpret in the better sense those deeds about which it is doubtful with what mind they are done. For what is written, “By their fruits you will know them,” was said of manifest things, which cannot be done with a good mind: such as acts of sexual immorality, or blasphemies, or thefts, or drunkenness, and whatever such things there are, about which we are permitted to judge, as the Apostle says, “For what have I to do with judging those outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?” But concerning kinds of food, since any human foods can be taken indifferently with a good mind and a single heart without the fault of concupiscence, the same Apostle forbids those who ate meat and drank wine to be judged by those who abstained from foods of this kind: “Let not him who eats,” he says, “despise him who does not eat; and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats.” There he also says: “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.” For about such things, which can be done with a good and single and great mind, although they can also be done with a mind not good, those people, though they were men, wished to pronounce sentence on the hidden things of the heart, of which God alone judges.

To this pertains also what he says in another place: “Do not judge anything before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the thoughts of the heart; and then each will have praise from God.” There are, then, certain middle deeds, of which we do not know with what mind they are done, because they can be done with both a good and a bad mind, about which it is rash to judge, especially so as to condemn. But the time will come for these to be judged, when the Lord will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the thoughts of the heart. Again, in another place the same Apostle says: “The sins of some men are manifest, going before them to judgment; but some also follow after.” He calls those manifest of which it is clear with what mind they are done: these go before to judgment; that is, if judgment follows them, it is not rash. But those follow after which are hidden; for not even they will lie hidden in their time. So too is it to be understood of good deeds. For he adds thus: “Likewise also good deeds are manifest; and those that are otherwise cannot be hidden.” Let us judge, then, of manifest things; but of hidden things let us leave the judgment to God: for these too cannot be hidden, whether evil or good, when the time has come for them to be made manifest.

Now there are two cases in which we ought to beware of rash judgment: when it is uncertain with what mind anything has been done, or when it is uncertain what someone will become who now appears either good or bad. If, then, for example, someone complaining of his stomach has been unwilling to fast, and you, not believing him, attribute this to the fault of gluttony, you will judge rashly. Again, if you have come to know manifest gluttony and drunkenness, and rebuke it as if the man could never be corrected and changed, you will nonetheless judge rashly. Let us not, then, rebuke those things of which we do not know with what mind they are done; nor so rebuke those which are manifest as to despair of healing; and we shall avoid the judgment of which it is now said, “Do not judge, that you may not be judged.”

But it can be disturbing that he says, “For with the judgment with which you judge you will be judged, and with the measure with which you measure it will be measured back to you.” For if we judge with rash judgment, will God also judge us rashly? Or if we measure with an unjust measure, is there also with God an unjust measure from which it will be measured back to us? For I think that by the name of measure the judgment itself is signified. In no way does God either judge rashly or repay anyone with an unjust measure; but this has been said because the rashness with which you punish another must itself punish you. Unless perhaps it is to be thought that iniquity does some harm to him against whom it proceeds, but none to him from whom it proceeds: on the contrary, it often does no harm to him who suffers the injury, but must harm him who does it. For what harm did the iniquity of the persecutors do to the martyrs? But to the persecutors themselves very much. For even if some of them were corrected, yet at the time when they were persecuting, their malice was blinding them. So too rash judgment for the most part does no harm to the one about whom one judges rashly; but to him who judges rashly the rashness itself must do harm. By this rule I think that saying too was said: “Everyone who strikes with the sword will die by the sword.” For how many strike with the sword and yet do not die by the sword, as not even Peter himself did? But lest anyone think that he escaped such a penalty through the pardon of sins (although nothing is more absurd than to think that the penalty of the sword, which did not befall Peter, could have been greater than that of the cross, which did befall him), what will he say about the robbers who were crucified with the Lord, since he who earned pardon earned it after he had been crucified, while the other did not earn it at all? Or had they perhaps crucified all whom they had killed, and therefore deserved to suffer this too themselves? It is ridiculous to think this. What else, then, has been said, “For everyone who strikes with the sword will die by the sword,” but that the soul dies by the very sin, whatever it has committed?

And since in this place the Lord warns us about rash and unjust judgment (for he wishes us to do whatever we do with a single heart intent on the one God; and there are many things of which it is uncertain with what heart they are done, about which it is rash to judge; and those especially judge rashly about uncertain things and readily find fault who love to blame and condemn rather than to amend and correct, which is the vice either of pride or of envy), he goes on to add and say, “But why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not see the beam in your own eye?” As if, for example, he has sinned by anger, and you rebuke him with hatred: and as much as there is between a speck and a beam, so much, as it were, is the difference between anger and hatred. For hatred is inveterate anger, which by age itself has acquired such strength that it is rightly called a beam. Now it can happen that if you are angry with a man, you wish him to be corrected; but if you hate a man, you cannot wish to correct him. “For how do you say to your brother, Let me cast the speck out of your eye, and behold, there is a beam in your own eye? Hypocrite, cast first the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see to cast the speck out of your brother’s eye”: that is, first drive hatred out of yourself, and then you will be able to amend him whom you love. And he says well, “Hypocrite.” For to accuse vices is the duty of good and well-disposed men; when bad men do it, they play another’s part, like hypocrites, who hide under a mask what they are and display in the mask what they are not. By the name of hypocrites, then, you should understand pretenders. And truly a much-to-be-shunned and troublesome kind of pretenders are those who, while they take up accusations of all vices out of hatred and spite, wish also to seem counsellors. And therefore we must watch piously and carefully, so that when necessity compels us to rebuke or reprove someone, we first consider whether it is such a vice as we have never had, or of which we are now free; and if we have never had it, let us consider that we are men and could have had it; but if we have had it and do not have it now, let common weakness touch our memory, so that not hatred but mercy may go before that rebuke or reproof: so that whether it serves for the correction of him for whose sake we do it or for his perversion (for the outcome is uncertain), we may yet be secure about the singleness of our eye. But if on reflection we find ourselves to be in the same vice as he whom we were preparing to rebuke, let us not rebuke or reprove, but rather groan together; and let us invite him not to obey us, but to strive together with us.

For that too which the Apostle says, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win the Jews; to those under the Law as under the Law, though I myself am not under the Law, that I might win those who were under the Law; to those without the Law as without the Law, though I am not without the law of God but in the law of Christ, that I might win those who are without the Law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I became all things to all, that I might win all,” he certainly did not do by pretence, as some wish it to be understood, so that their detestable pretence may be fortified by the authority of so great an example; but he did this by love, by which he thought of the weakness of the one whom he wished to help as his own. For he also laid the groundwork for this by saying, “For though I am free from all, I made myself the servant of all, that I might win the more.” And so that you may understand that this is done not by pretence but by love, by which we have compassion on weak men as if we were they, he admonishes thus in another place, saying, “You were called to freedom, brothers; only do not give freedom as an occasion for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” This cannot be done unless each holds the other’s weakness as his own, so as to bear it with an even mind until he whose salvation he cares for is freed from it.

Rarely, then, and in great necessity are reproofs to be used, yet in such a way that even in these we press on so that not we but God may be served. For he is the goal: so that we do nothing with a double heart, removing from our eye the beam of envy or malice or pretence, so that we may see to cast the speck out of a brother’s eye. For we shall see it with the eyes of a dove, such as are praised in the bride of Christ, the glorious church which God has chosen for himself, not having spot or wrinkle, that is, pure and single.

But since the name of singleness can deceive some who desire to obey God’s precepts, so that they think it as faulty sometimes to conceal the truth as it is faulty sometimes to say what is false, and in this way, by disclosing things which those to whom they are disclosed cannot bear, they do more harm than if they concealed them altogether and always, he most rightly adds: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you apart.” For the Lord too, although he told no lie, yet showed that he concealed some truths, saying, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” And the apostle Paul says: “I could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal. As to little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not able; nor are you able even now, for you are still carnal.”

In this precept, by which we are forbidden to give what is holy to dogs and to cast our pearls before swine, we must carefully ask what is holy, what pearls, what dogs, what swine. Holy is that which it is wrong to violate and corrupt; and the attempt and will of that crime is held guilty, although the holy thing remains by nature inviolable and incorruptible. Pearls, again, are whatever spiritual things are to be highly valued; and because they lie hidden in secret, they are as it were dug up from the depth, and are found in the wrappings of allegories as in opened shells. It may be understood, then, that one and the same thing can be called both holy and a pearl: holy because it ought not to be corrupted, a pearl because it ought not to be despised. Now one tries to corrupt what he does not wish to be whole; but he despises what he holds cheap and thinks as it were beneath him; and therefore whatever is despised is said to be trodden underfoot. Wherefore, since dogs leap upon things to tear them apart, and do not allow what they tear apart to be whole, “Do not give,” he says, “what is holy to dogs”: because even if it cannot be torn apart and corrupted, but remains whole and inviolable, yet we must consider what they wish who resist the truth sharply and most hostilely, and, as far as is in them, try to destroy it if that could be done. But swine, although they do not attack with a bite as dogs do, yet defile things by trampling them everywhere: “Do not, then, cast your pearls before swine, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you apart.” So we not unfittingly take the dogs as put for the assailants of the truth and the swine for its despisers.

And as for his saying, “Turn and tear you apart,” he does not say, tear the pearls themselves apart. For by trampling on those, even when they turn to hear something more, they yet tear apart him by whom the pearls they trampled were cast. For you will not easily find what could be pleasing to one who has trampled on pearls, that is, has despised divine things found with great labour. And as for one who teaches such people, I do not see how he would not be torn apart by indignation and vexation. Both animals, the dog and the pig, are unclean. We must beware, then, of disclosing anything to one who does not grasp it; for it is better that he seek what is closed than that he either assail or neglect what is open. Nor is any other cause found why they do not receive things that are manifest and great, except hatred and contempt, for the one of which they were named dogs, for the other swine. Yet all this uncleanness is conceived by the love of temporal things, that is, by love of this world, which we are commanded to renounce so that we may be clean. He, then, who seeks to have a pure and single heart ought not to think himself guilty if he conceals something because the one from whom he conceals it cannot grasp it. Nor is it to be thought from this that it is lawful to lie: for it does not follow that when the truth is concealed, something false is said. We must first act so that the hindrances are removed which make him unable to grasp it; because certainly, if he does not grasp it because of filth, he must be cleansed by word or deed, as far as we can do it.

And as for our Lord being found to have said certain things which many who were present did not receive, either by resisting or by despising them, he is not to be thought to have given what is holy to dogs, or to have cast pearls before swine: for he did not give to those who could not grasp them, but to those who could and were present at the same time, who were not to be neglected because of the uncleanness of others. And when tempters questioned him and he answered them so that they had nothing to say in reply, although they wasted away with their own poisons rather than being filled with his food, yet others who could grasp it heard many things profitably on their occasion. I have said this lest perhaps anyone, when he has been unable to answer a questioner, should think himself excused by this saying, if he says that he does not wish to give what is holy to dogs or cast pearls before swine. For he who knows what to answer ought to answer, if only for the sake of others, in whom despair arises if they believe that the question put cannot be solved: and this concerning useful things that pertain to instruction for salvation. For there are many things which can be asked by idle people, superfluous and vain and often harmful, about which nevertheless something must be said; but just this is to be disclosed and explained, why such things ought not to be asked. About useful things, then, one must sometimes answer what we are asked, as the Lord did when the Sadducees had asked him about the woman who had seven husbands, whose of them she would be in the resurrection. For he answered that in the resurrection they will neither take wives nor marry, but will be like the angels in heaven. But sometimes the one who asks is to be asked something else, which, if he says it, will answer for himself what he asked; but if he is unwilling to say it, it will not seem unjust to those present if he too does not hear what he asked. For those who asked, testing him, whether tribute should be paid were asked something else, namely whose image was on the coin which they themselves had produced; and because they said what they were asked, namely that the coin had Caesar’s image, they in a sense answered for themselves what they had asked the Lord; and so from their answer he concluded thus: “Render, then, to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” And when the chief priests and elders of the people had asked him by what authority he did those things, he asked them about the baptism of John; and when they were unwilling to say what they saw would be said against themselves, and yet dared to say nothing evil about John because of those standing around, “Neither will I tell you,” he said, “by what authority I do these things”: which appeared most just to those standing around. For they said that they did not know what they in fact knew, but were unwilling to say. And truly it was just that those who wished to be answered what they had asked should first themselves do what they demanded be done toward themselves; and if they had done it, they would certainly have answered themselves. For they themselves had sent to John asking who he was; or rather, they themselves, priests and Levites, had been sent, thinking that he was the Christ, which he denied he was, and bore witness about the Lord; and if they had been willing to acknowledge this testimony, they would have taught themselves by what authority Christ did those things, which they had asked as if they did not know, so as to find an opening for slander.

Since, then, the precept had been given that what is holy should not be given to dogs, and pearls should not be cast before swine, a hearer could have come forward, conscious of his ignorance and weakness and hearing himself commanded not to give what he felt he had not yet received himself; he could have come forward, then, and said, “What holy thing do you forbid me to give to dogs, and what pearls to cast before swine, when I do not yet see that I have them?” Most fittingly, then, he added, saying, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” Asking pertains to obtaining health and strength of mind, so that we may be able to fulfil what is commanded; seeking, to finding the truth. For since the blessed life is completed by action and knowledge, action requires ability of strength, contemplation the manifestation of things: the first of these, then, is to be asked, the second sought, so that the one may be given and the other found. But knowledge in this life is of the way rather than of the possession itself; but when anyone has found the true way, he will come to the possession itself, which, however, is opened to one who knocks. So, that these three, that is, asking, seeking, knocking, may be made plain, let us suppose by way of example someone who cannot walk because of weak feet: first, then, he must be healed and strengthened for walking; and to this pertains what he said, “Ask.” But what does it profit that he can now walk or even run, if he wanders on pathless roads? The second thing, then, is that he find the road which leads where he wishes to arrive; and when he has kept to it and arrived at the very place where he wishes to dwell, if he finds it shut, it will have profited him nothing to have been able to walk, or to have walked and arrived, unless it is opened: to this, then, pertains what was said, “Knock.”

And he gave and gives great hope who does not deceive in promising; for he says, “Everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” So perseverance is needed, that we may receive what we ask, and find what we seek, and that what we knock at may be opened. And just as he dealt with the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, so that we might not despair of food and clothing being at hand for us, so that hope might rise from lesser things to greater, so too in this place: “Or what man is there among you,” he says, “who, if his son asks him for bread, will hand him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will hand him a serpent? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” How do the evil give good things? But he called evil those who are still lovers of this world and sinners. And the good things which they give are to be called good according to their sense, because they hold these things for goods. Although in the nature of things too these are goods, but temporal ones and pertaining to this weak life; and whoever, being evil, gives them, does not give from his own; for “the earth is the Lord’s and its fullness,” who made heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them. How much, then, is it to be hoped that God will give good things to us who ask him, and that we cannot be deceived so as to receive one thing for another when we ask from him, when even we, though we are evil, know how to give what we are asked? For we do not deceive our children; and whatever good things we give, we give not from our own but from his.

Now firmness and a certain strength for walking on the way of wisdom is established in good morals, which are carried through to the cleansing and singleness of heart; and having now long been speaking of this, he concludes thus: “All things, therefore, whatever good things you wish that men should do to you, do so to them as well; for this is the Law and the Prophets.” In the Greek copies we find it thus: “All things, therefore, whatever you wish that men should do to you, do so to them as well.” But I think “good things” was added by the Latins to make the meaning plain. For it occurred to them that if anyone wished something shameful to be done to himself, he might refer this saying to that: as if someone wished to be challenged to drink immoderately and gorge himself with cups, and did this first to the one by whom he desires it to be done to himself; it is ridiculous to think that he has fulfilled this saying. Since this was disturbing, then, I think, one word was added to make the matter plain, so that after it was said, “All things, therefore, whatever you wish that men should do to you,” “good things” was added. But if it is lacking in the Greek copies, they too must be corrected: but who would dare to do this? It must be understood, then, that the saying is full and altogether perfect even if this word is not added. For what was said, “whatever you wish,” ought to be taken not in the common and loose sense, but in the proper sense. For will exists only in good things; for in evil and shameful deeds it is properly called desire, not will. Not that the Scriptures always speak properly, but where it is necessary they hold to the proper word in such a way as not to allow anything else to be understood.

Now this precept seems to pertain to love of neighbour, not also to love of God, since in another place he says there are two precepts on which the whole Law and the Prophets hang. For if he had said, “Whatever you wish to be done to you, do these things too,” he would have embraced both those precepts in this one saying: for it would quickly be said that each one wishes to be loved both by God and by men; and so, when he was commanded to do what he wished to be done to himself, he would certainly be commanded to love God and men. But since it was said more expressly of men, “All things, therefore, whatever you wish that men should do to you, do so to them as well,” nothing else seems to have been said than, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” But we must not attend carelessly to what he added here: “For this is the Law and the Prophets.” In those two precepts he not only says, “the Law and the Prophets hang,” but also added, “the whole Law and the Prophets,” meaning the whole of prophecy; and by not adding it here he kept a place for the other precept, which pertains to love of God. But here, since he is following out the precepts of the single heart, and one must fear lest anyone have a double heart toward those from whom the heart can be hidden, that is, toward men, this very thing had to be commanded. For there is hardly anyone who would wish another to deal with him with a double heart. But this cannot happen, that is, that a man should give something to a man with a single heart, unless he gives in such a way that he expects no temporal advantage from him, and does it with that intention which we treated sufficiently above, when we spoke about the single eye.

The eye, then, cleansed and made single, will be fit and suitable for beholding and contemplating its inner light. For this is the eye of the heart. And he has such an eye who sets the goal of his good works, so that they may truly be good works, not in pleasing men; but even if it happens that he pleases them, he refers this rather to their salvation and to the glory of God, not to his own empty boasting; nor does he do some good for his neighbour’s salvation in order to obtain from it the things necessary for carrying on this life; nor does he rashly condemn a man’s mind and will in a deed in which it does not appear with what mind and will it was done; and whatever services he shows to a man, he shows with the intention with which he wishes them to be shown to himself, that is, so as not to expect any temporal advantage from him: thus the heart will be single and pure, in which God is sought. “Blessed, then, are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

But because this belongs to few, he now begins to speak of seeking and possessing wisdom, which is the tree of life; for seeking and possessing it, that is, contemplating it, such an eye has been led through all that went before, so that the narrow way and the strait gate can now be seen. What, then, he says next, “Enter through the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through it: how strait is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it!”, he does not say because the Lord’s yoke is harsh or his burden heavy, but because few are willing to bring their labours to an end, believing too little the one who cries, “Come to me, all you who labour, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart: for my yoke is gentle and my burden light” (and it was from this, from the humble and meek of heart, that this sermon took its beginning); this gentle yoke and light burden many reject, few take up; and so it comes about that the way that leads to life is narrow, and the gate by which it is entered strait.

Here, then, those are especially to be guarded against who promise wisdom and knowledge of the truth which they do not have, such as the heretics, who for the most part commend themselves by their fewness. And therefore, when he had said that there are few who find the strait gate and the narrow way, lest they put themselves forward under the name of fewness, he immediately added: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.” But these do not deceive the single eye, which knows how to distinguish a tree by its fruits. For he says: “By their fruits you will know them.” Then he adds likenesses: “Do they gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? So every good tree bears good fruit; but a bad tree bears bad fruit; a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

In this place the error of those is especially to be guarded against who think that from these very two trees there are two natures, of which one is God’s, and the other neither God’s nor from God. About this error there has already been fuller disputation in other books, and if that is still too little, there will be more; but now it must be shown that these two trees do not help them. First, because it is so clear that he is speaking of men that whoever reads what goes before and what follows will marvel at their blindness. Then they attend to what was said, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit,” and therefore they think that neither can an evil soul come to be changed for the better, nor a good one for the worse; as if it had been said, “A good tree cannot become bad, nor a bad tree good.” But it was said, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” For the tree is the soul itself, that is, the man himself, and the fruits are the works of the man: so an evil man cannot do good works, nor a good man evil ones. If, then, an evil man wishes to do good works, let him first become good. So the Lord himself says more plainly in another place: “Either make the tree good, or make the tree bad.” But if he were figuring the two natures of these people by these two trees, he would not say “make”: for who among men can make a nature? Then too, when he had made mention there of these two trees, he added: “Hypocrites, how can you speak good things when you are evil?” As long, then, as anyone is evil, he cannot bear good fruit; for if he bears good fruit, he will no longer be evil. So it could most truly be said, “There cannot be hot snow”: for when it has begun to be hot, we no longer call it snow but water. So it can happen that what was snow is not snow; but it cannot happen that snow is hot. So it can happen that one who was evil is not evil; yet it cannot happen that an evil man does good. And even if he is sometimes useful, he does not do this himself, but it comes about from him by the arrangement of divine providence, as was said of the Pharisees, “What they say, do; but what they do, do not do.” This very fact, that they said good things, and the things they said were usefully heard and done, was not theirs: “For they sit,” he says, “on the seat of Moses.” By divine providence, then, preaching the law of God, they could be useful to their hearers though not to themselves. Of such it was said in another place through the prophet, “You have sown wheat and will reap thorns”: because they command good things and do evil. Those, then, who heard them and did what was said by them did not gather grapes from thorns, but through thorns gathered grapes from the vine: as if someone puts his hand through a hedge, or at least gathers a grape from a vine that has been entwined with a hedge; that fruit is not the thorns’ but the vine’s.

Most rightly, certainly, it is asked what fruits he wished us to attend to, by which we might know the tree. For many count among the fruits certain things which belong to the sheep’s clothing, and in this way are deceived by wolves: such as fasts, or prayers, or almsgiving; all of which, unless they could also be done by hypocrites, he would not have said above, “Beware of doing your righteousness before men in order to be seen by them.” With this saying set first, he follows out these three: almsgiving, prayer, fasting. For many bestow much on the poor not out of mercy but out of ambition; and many pray, or rather seem to pray, not looking to God but desiring to please men; and many fast and display wonderful abstinence to those to whom these things seem difficult and are thought worthy of honour; and by deceits of this kind they capture them, while they display one thing to deceive and put forth another to plunder or kill those who cannot see the wolves under this sheep’s clothing. These, then, are not the fruits by which he warns that the tree is known. For when these are done with a good mind in truth, they are the proper clothing of the sheep; but when with a bad mind in error, they cover nothing other than wolves. But the sheep ought not to hate their clothing on that account, because wolves often hide themselves in it.

What, then, the fruits are by which, when they are found, we may know a bad tree, the Apostle says: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are acts of sexual immorality, uncleanness, wantonness, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, strife, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, factions, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, as I forewarned you before, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God.” And what the fruits are by which we may know a good tree, the same goes on to say: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, continence.” It must certainly be known that “joy” is used here in its proper sense; for evil men are properly said not to rejoice but to exult wildly; just as we said above that “will,” which evil men do not have, was used in its proper sense, where it was said, “All things, therefore, whatever you wish that men should do to you, do so to them as well.” By this propriety of the word, by which joy is not spoken of except in the good, the prophet also speaks, saying, “There is no rejoicing for the ungodly, says the Lord.” So too faith is set down, not just any faith, but true faith; and the other things that are set down here have certain images of themselves in evil men and deceivers, so as to deceive completely, unless someone already has a pure and single eye by which to recognize these things. In the best order, therefore, the cleansing of the eye was treated first, and then the things to be guarded against were spoken of.

But since, however pure one’s eye is, that is, however single and sincere the heart with which one lives, he cannot see into another’s heart, whatever cannot appear in deeds or words is laid open by temptations. And temptation is twofold: either in the hope of obtaining some temporal advantage, or in the terror of losing it. And we must especially beware lest, striving toward wisdom, which can be found in Christ alone, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, we must beware, I say, lest we be deceived under the very name of Christ by heretics or by any who understand badly and are lovers of this world. For this is why he goes on and warns, saying, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he will enter the kingdom of heaven”: lest we think that it already belongs to those fruits if someone says to our Lord, “Lord, Lord,” and that from this he seems to us a good tree. But these are the fruits: to do the will of the Father who is in heaven, in the doing of which he deigned to offer himself as an example.

But it can rightly be disturbing how that saying of the Apostle agrees with this one, where he says, “No one speaking in the Spirit of God says Jesus is anathema; and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit”: because we can neither say that any who have the Holy Spirit will not enter the kingdom of heaven, if they persevere to the end, nor can we say that those who say, “Lord, Lord,” and yet do not enter the kingdom of heaven, have the Holy Spirit. How, then, does no one say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit, unless because the Apostle used the word “say” in its proper sense, so as to signify the will and understanding of the speaker? But the Lord used the word generally when he said, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.” For he too seems to say who neither wills nor understands what he says; but he properly says who utters his will and mind by the sound of his voice. Just as a little before, “joy” among the fruits of the Spirit was said in its proper sense; not in the way the same Apostle says elsewhere, “It does not rejoice over iniquity,” as if anyone could rejoice over iniquity: for that is the elation of a mind exulting turbulently, not joy; for only the good have this. So those too seem to say who do not discern by understanding and do by will what they sound, but only sound it with the voice: in which sense the Lord says, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.” But those say truly and properly from whose will and mind the utterance of their words does not differ; in which sense the Apostle said, “No one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.”

And this pertains very much to the matter: that we not be deceived, as we strive toward the contemplation of truth, not only by the name of Christ through those who have the name and do not have the deeds, but also by certain deeds and miracles; for although the Lord did such things for the sake of unbelievers, he yet warned us not to be deceived by such things, thinking that invisible wisdom is there where we have seen a visible miracle. So he adds and says: “Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will say to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity.” He will know, then, only him who works righteousness. For he also forbade his own disciples to boast about such things, that is, that demons were subject to them: “But rejoice,” he says, “that your names are written in heaven”; I believe, in that city Jerusalem which is in heaven, in which only the righteous and holy will reign. “Do you not know,” says the Apostle, “that the unrighteous will not possess the kingdom of God?” But perhaps someone may say that the unrighteous cannot do those visible miracles, and may rather believe that those are lying who will say, “We prophesied in your name, and cast out demons, and did many mighty works.” Let him read, then, how great things the magicians of the Egyptians did in resisting God’s servant Moses; or if he does not wish to read this, because they did not do it in the name of Christ, let him read what the Lord himself says about false prophets, speaking thus: “Then if anyone says to you, Behold, here is the Christ, or there, do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and will give great signs and wonders, so that even the elect are led into error: behold, I have told you beforehand.”

How great a need, then, there is of a pure and single eye, that the way of wisdom may be found, against which the deceptions and errors of so many evil and perverse men raise their din; to escape all of which is to come to the most certain peace and unmoving stability of wisdom! For it is greatly to be feared lest, through eagerness for altercation and contention, someone may not see what can be seen by few: that the noise of those who contradict is small, unless one also makes a din against oneself. To this pertains also what the Apostle says: “But the servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, patient, correcting with modesty those who think otherwise, if perhaps God may give them repentance to know the truth.” “Blessed, then, are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

How terrifyingly, then, the conclusion of this whole sermon is brought in must be closely attended to: “Everyone, therefore,” he says, “who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who built his house upon the rock.” For no one makes firm what he hears or perceives except by doing it. And if the rock is Christ, as many testimonies of the Scriptures proclaim, he builds on Christ who does what he hears from him. “The rain came down, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it did not fall; for it was founded upon the rock.” Such a man, then, fears no dark superstitions (for what else is understood by rain, when it is put to signify some evil?), nor the rumours of men, which I think are compared to winds, nor the river of this life, flowing as it were over the earth with carnal desires. For he who is led on by the prosperity of these three is broken by their adversity; but he fears none of them who has his house founded upon the rock, that is, who not only hears the precepts of the Lord but also does them. And he is dangerously subject to all of them who hears and does not do; for he has no stable foundation, but by hearing and not doing he builds a ruin. For he says next: “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who builds his house upon the sand: the rain came down, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell; and great was its fall. And it came about, when Jesus had finished these words, that the crowds were astonished at his teaching; for he was teaching them as one having authority, not as their scribes.” This is what I said before was signified through the prophet in the Psalms, when he said: “I will act confidently in him: the words of the Lord are pure words, silver tried by fire, proved for the earth, purified seven times.” Because of this number I was led also to refer these precepts to those seven sayings which he set at the beginning of this sermon, when he spoke of the blessed, and to those seven operations of the Holy Spirit which the prophet Isaiah mentions; but whether this order is to be considered in them, or some other, the things we have heard from the Lord must be done, if we wish to build upon the rock.