Commentary on Matthew

The step of descent that Matthew set out in the order of royal succession, Luke reckons in the priestly line. While each counts it, each signifies that in the Lord there is kinship of both tribes. And rightly is the step of generation placed there: because the fellowship of the priestly and royal tribes, begun through David by marriage, is now confirmed by descent from Salathiel into Zerubbabel. And so, while Matthew recounts the paternal origin that came from Judah, and Luke shows the descent received through Nathan from the tribe of Levi, they proved by their own fathers that our Lord Jesus Christ, who is eternal king and priest, had the glory of both lineages even in his birth in the flesh. That Joseph’s descent rather than Mary’s is recounted makes no difference: for the whole tribe is one and the same kindred. Matthew and Luke also gave an example, calling men one another’s fathers not so much by birth as by family: because a tribe begun from one man is contained in a family of one succession and origin. For since he had to be shown to be the son of David and of Abraham (for so Matthew began: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham”), it makes no difference who is placed where in the number and order of descent, provided that the family of all is understood to have begun from one. So, since Joseph and Mary are of the same tribe, when Joseph is shown to have come from the stock of Abraham, Mary too is taught to have come from it. For this rule was kept in the law: if the head of a family had died without sons, a later brother of the same kindred should take the dead man’s wife and enter the sons born into the family of the one who had died; and so the order of succession remained in the firstborn, while the fathers of those born afterward were counted either by name or by descent. Next, since we have said that, according to the facts, the order of this genealogy agrees with itself neither in number nor in succession, the reason for this too must be given. For it is no light matter that one thing should be in the narrative and another in the events, and one thing reported in the total and another kept in the count. For from Abraham to David fourteen generations are listed, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, whereas in the books of Kingdoms seventeen are found. But in this there is no lie or carelessness. Three were passed over for a reason. For Joram begot Ahaziah, Ahaziah begot Joash, Joash then Amaziah, and Amaziah Uzziah. And in Matthew Joram is written to have begotten Uzziah, though he is fourth from him. This was so because Joram begot Ahaziah from a Gentile woman, namely of the house of Ahab; and it had been said through the prophet that no one of the house of Ahab would sit on the throne of the kingdom of Israel except in the fourth generation. So, the family of Ahab having been purged of its Gentile stain and three passed over, the royal line is now counted in the fourth of the following generations. And as for its being written that there are fourteen generations up to Mary, when only thirteen are found in the count, there can be no error for those who know that the origin of our Lord Jesus Christ is not only that which began from Mary, but that in the bodily procreation the significance of the eternal birth is included. The account of the birth is simple. For that he was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary is the work of all the prophets. But many irreligious people, quite alien to spiritual teaching, seize an occasion to think shamefully of Mary from what was said: “Before they came together, she was found to be with child,” and this: “Do not fear to take Mary your wife,” and this: “He did not know her until she gave birth”; not remembering that she had been betrothed, and that this was said to Joseph when he wished to put her away, because, being just, he did not wish the law to be applied against her. So, lest there should be any doubt about her childbearing, he himself is taken as witness that Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit; then, because she was betrothed, she is received as wife. So she is “known” after childbirth, that is, she passes into the name of wife: for she is known, not joined with. Accordingly, when Joseph is warned to go over into Egypt, it is said thus: “Take the child and his mother,” and: “Return with the child and his mother,” and again in Luke: “And Joseph and his mother were.” And whenever both are spoken of, she is called the mother of Christ, because that is what she was, not the wife of Joseph, because she was not. But this rule too was kept by the angel: that when he indicated her as betrothed to the just Joseph, he called her wife. For he says thus: “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife.” So the betrothed took the name of wife, and after the birth, recognized as wife, she is shown only as the mother of Jesus: so that, as a marriage with the same Mary in virginity was assigned to the just Joseph, so her virginity might be shown venerable in the mother of Jesus. But most perverse men take the authority for their opinion from the tradition that our Lord had many brothers. If they had been sons of Mary, and not rather sons of Joseph born of a former marriage, she would never at the time of the passion have been handed over as mother to the apostle John, the Lord saying to each: “Woman, behold your son,” and to John: “Behold your mother”; except that he was leaving to the desolate woman, for her comfort, the love of a son in the disciple. The rising of the star, first understood by the Magi, indicates that the nations would soon believe in Christ, and that men of a profession far turned away from the knowledge of divine understanding would come to know the light that appeared at once at his birth. Then the offering of the gifts expressed an understanding of his whole nature: confessing in gold the king, in frankincense God, in myrrh the man. And so through their veneration the knowledge of the whole mystery was completed: in the man, of death; in God, of resurrection; in the king, of judgment. And that they are forbidden to retrace their way and return to Herod in Judea means that we are permitted to seek no knowledge and understanding from Judea, but, placing all salvation and hope in Christ, we are warned to keep away from the way of our former life. When Herod was preparing the death of the little one, Joseph is warned through an angel to carry him over into Egypt: Egypt, full of idols and worshiping the monstrous forms of every kind of god. Now, after the persecution by the Jews and the consent of the profane people to destroying him, Christ passes over to the nations given up to the emptiest religions; and, leaving Judea, he is brought to be worshiped by a world that did not know him, while Bethlehem, that is, Judea, overflows with the blood of martyrs. The fury of Herod and the slaughter of the infants are a figure of the Jewish people raging against the Christians, thinking that by the slaughter of the blessed martyrs they could extinguish the name of Christ in the faith and profession of all. But glorious honor is rendered to their death through the prophet, who says: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great wailing, Rachel weeping for her children; and she would not be consoled, because they are not.” Rachel, Jacob’s wife, was long barren; but she lost none of those she bore. Rather, in Genesis she bore a figure of the church. So it is not her voice and weeping that is heard, she who had no grief for lost sons, but that of the church, long barren but now fruitful. Her weeping over her sons is heard not because she grieved that they were killed, but because they were being killed by those whom she had first wished to keep as her begotten sons. So she who grieved would not be consoled. For those who were thought dead were not “not”; they were being carried forward into eternity through the glory of martyrdom. Consolation had to be given for a thing lost, not for a thing increased.

After this, when Herod had died, Joseph is warned through an angel to return to Judea with the child and his mother. And returning, when he heard that Archelaus son of Herod was reigning, he was afraid to go there; and he is warned through an angel to pass over into Galilee and live in a city of that region, Nazareth. So he is warned to return to Judea, and having returned he is afraid. And again, warned in a dream, he is ordered to go over to the region of the Gentiles. But either he who had been warned ought not to have feared, or the warning ought not to have been brought through an angel only to be changed soon after. But a typological meaning was kept. For Joseph bears the figure of the apostles, to whom Christ was entrusted to be carried about. They, as if Herod were dead, that is, his people having perished in the Lord’s passion, were ordered to preach to the Jews; for they had been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But since the dominion of inherited unbelief remained, they are afraid and withdraw. Warned through a vision, that is, beholding the gift of the Holy Spirit among the Gentiles, they carry Christ over to them, Christ who was sent to Judea but named the life and salvation of the Gentiles. “In those days John came preaching in the desert of Judea, saying: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near,” and so on. In John we must look at the place, the preaching, the clothing, and the food; and in such a way that we remember that the truth of the events is not corrupted if a reason of inner understanding underlies the things done. For a more convenient place, more useful clothing, and more suitable food could have been had by a preacher; but an example underlies the things done, and in this the action itself is meditation. For he came to the desert of Judea, deserted by God’s visitation, not by people, empty of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not of men: so that the place of preaching might testify to the desolation of those to whom the preaching was sent. He also proclaims repentance as the kingdom of heaven draws near, through which there is return from error, recourse from crime, and, after the shame of vices, the profession of ceasing: so that deserted Judea might remember that it would receive him in whom is the kingdom of heaven, and would not be empty thereafter if it purged itself of its old vices by the confession of repentance. His clothing too, woven of camels’ hair, signifies the foreign dress of this prophetic preaching: the preacher of Christ is clothed with the skins of unclean beasts, to whom we are reckoned equal; and whatever in us was before either useless or filthy becomes sanctified by the dress of the prophet. The girding of the belt is preparation effective for every good work, so that we may be girded with will for every ministry of Christ. Locusts too are chosen for food, which flee from men and fly away at every sense of our approach: we, namely, who were carried away from every word and meeting of the prophets as if by certain leaps of our bodies. Wandering in will, useless in works, querulous in words, strangers in faith, we are now the nourishment of the saints and the satisfaction of the prophets, chosen together with wild honey: about to offer from ourselves the sweetest food, not from the hives of the law but from the trunks of wild trees. Preaching, then, in such dress, John calls the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to baptism a brood of vipers; he warns them to bear fruit worthy of repentance and not to boast that they have Abraham as father, because God is able to raise up sons to Abraham from stones. For what is sought is not descent of the flesh but the inheritance of faith. The dignity of origin, then, consists in the example of works, and the glory of lineage is kept by imitation of faith. The devil is unfaithful, Abraham faithful. For the one was faithless in the transgression of man, while the other was justified by faith. So each person’s character and life gains the nearness of kinship: those who are faithful are Abraham’s offspring through faith; those who are unfaithful are changed by unfaithfulness into the devil’s offspring: since the Pharisees are called a race of vipers, they are forbidden to glory in their holy parent, sons of Abraham are raised up from stones and rocks, and they are warned to bear worthy fruits of repentance; so that those who had begun to have the devil as father might again become sons of Abraham through faith, together with those raised up from stones. The axe laid to the roots of the trees testifies to the right of the power present in Christ, signifying by the felling and burning of unfruitful trees that the destruction of useless unbelief is being prepared for the burning of judgment. And since the work of the law was now ineffective for salvation, and John had appeared as the messenger to those to be baptized for repentance (for it was the office of the prophets to call back from sins, but the proper work of Christ to save believers), he says that he baptizes for repentance, but that a stronger one is coming, whose sandals he is unworthy to carry: leaving to the apostles the glory of carrying about the preaching, to whom, with beautiful feet, it was due to announce the peace of God. So he points to the time of our salvation and of judgment in the Lord, saying: “He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire”: because for those baptized in the Holy Spirit it remains to be completed by the fire of judgment. “His winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will clean his threshing floor, and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” The work of the fan is to separate the fruitful from the unfruitful. That it is in the Lord’s hand indicates the judgment of his power, as he stores in his barns his wheat, that is, the perfect fruits of believers, and burns in the fire of judgment the chaff, that is, the emptiness of useless and unfruitful men. “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him,” and the rest. In Christ Jesus there was the whole man; and therefore the body assumed into the service of the Spirit fulfilled in itself the whole mystery of our salvation. So he came to John, born of a woman, set under the law, and made flesh through the Word. He himself was not in need of washing, because it was said of him, “He committed no sin”; and where there is no sin, its forgiveness is also idle. But he had taken from us both the body and the name of our creation; and so it was not that he had any need of being washed, but through him the cleansing of our washing was to be sanctified in the waters. Then he is forbidden by John to be baptized, as God; and he teaches that it must be done to him, as man. For all righteousness was to be fulfilled through him through whom alone the law could be fulfilled. And so, by the prophet’s testimony, he does not need the washing, and by the authority of his own example he completes the mysteries of human salvation, sanctifying man both by his assumption and by washing. The order of the heavenly secret is also expressed in him. For when he had been baptized, the entrances of heaven being unbarred, the Holy Spirit is sent and is recognized as visible in the form of a dove, and he is anointed with this kind of fatherly love. Then a voice from heaven speaks thus: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” The Son of God is shown to hearing and to sight, and to the unfaithful people disobedient to the prophets, testimony is sent about their Lord by both sight and voice; and at the same time, so that from the things completed in Christ we might know that after the washing of water the Holy Spirit also flies down upon us from the gates of heaven, that we are anointed with the anointing of heavenly glory, and that we become sons of God by the adoption of the Father’s voice; since the truth has prefigured by the very effects of the events the image of the mystery thus arranged for us.

The leading into the desert, the fast of forty days, the hunger after the fast, the temptation of Satan, and the Lord’s answer are full of the effects of a great and heavenly plan. For his being led into the desert signifies the freedom of the Holy Spirit, now offering his man to the devil and permitting him the opportunity of tempting and attacking, which the tempter would not have had unless it had been given. So in the devil there was suspicion arising from fear, not knowledge arising from suspicion: for he was disturbed by the fast of forty days. He knew that for that many days the waters of the abyss were poured out, the land of promise was explored, and the law was written by God for Moses, and that the number of the years in which the people remained in the wilderness in the life and condition of angels had also been this. So, from fear of this period, in tempting him whom he saw to be a man, he took up rashness. For he had enticed Adam and by deceiving led him into death. But it was fitting to his wickedness and crime that he should be conquered in a man, in whose death and calamities he gloried; and that he who had envied man the benefits of God should not be able, before the temptation, to understand God in the man. The Lord, then, is tempted immediately after baptism, indicating by his temptation that the devil’s assaults rage most against us when we have been sanctified, because victory over the saints is more desired by him. He hungered not for the food of men but for their salvation: for he hungered after the forty days, not during the forty days, whereas Moses and Elijah did not hunger in the same period of fasting. So when the Lord hungered, it was not that the effect of going without food crept up on him, but that power, unmoved by the fast of forty days, left the man to his own nature. For the devil was to be conquered not by God but by the flesh; which he would certainly not have dared to tempt unless he had recognized in it, through the weakness of hunger, the things that belong to man. Sensing this in him, he spoke thus: “If you are the Son of God.” The words are uncertain, “If you are the Son of God.” Though he saw him hungry, he still dreaded the forty days’ fast in him. By this course of events he indicates that after the forty days’ sojourn which he would spend in the world after the passion, he would have a hunger for human salvation. At that time he carried back to God the Father the awaited gift, the man he had taken up. We must now consider what questions he used. He says: “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves.” The deceitful devil, the most cunning craftsman of misleading, knew that Christ could do all things, and he sensed hunger in the man from the very length of the fast, not knowing what he was hungry for. So in tempting him he proposed the condition of a work by which he might both recognize in God the force of his power, from the change of stones into loaves, and in the man mock the endurance of hunger with the delight of food. But the Lord, hungering not for bread rather than for the salvation of men, says: “Man does not live by bread alone”; because he himself, not only man but also God, though he abstained from human food until the day of temptation, was nevertheless nourished by the Spirit of God: showing that the nourishment of eternity is to be hoped for not in this solitary bread but in the Word of God. The following question is this, when he had lifted him to the top of the temple: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,” and the rest. He labors by temptation to bring the Lord down from the heights to lower things, and to confine in lowly things him who was set on the top of the temple, that is, rising above the law and the prophets. He knew that the ministries of angels were ready for the Son of God and that he could not strike against a stone of stumbling, since he would walk upon the asp and the basilisk and trample the lion and the dragon. About the things said against himself he was silent; but by recalling the earlier words he wishes somehow to draw out obedience from the one he tempts, intending to carry off glory from it if the Lord of majesty had obeyed him, even from confidence. But the devil got no occasion for so great a fraud, as the Lord himself testified at a later time, when he says: “The prince of this world came and found nothing in me.” So a worthy answer of the Lord followed this insolence of his: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” Crushing the devil’s attempts and assaults, he declares himself both God and Lord, teaching that boasting must be far from the faithful, because, though all things are possible to God, nothing is to be dared in tempting him. But now, the third time, the whole ambition of the devil’s power is set in motion. The Lord having been set on a high mountain, he offered all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, if only he himself were worshiped. By the two answers he had already gone beyond the opinion of suspicion. He had enticed Adam with food and led him down from the glory of paradise into the place of sin, that is, into the region of the forbidden tree; the third time he corrupted him by ambition for the divine name, promising he would be like gods. So now the fight against the Lord is waged with all the power of the world, and the possession of this universe is offered to its Creator: so that, keeping the order of the ancient fraud, he might now at least corrupt by ambition him whom he had neither enticed by food nor moved from his place. But the Lord’s answer made a step worthy of the earlier ones. For he says: “Go, Satan. For it is written: You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone.” He met an end fitting such rashness, when he both heard the name of his crimes in “Satan” and recognized the Lord his God to be worshiped in the man. By the effect of this answer the Lord also gave us a great example: that, despising the glory of human power and setting aside the ambition of the world, we should remember that God and the Lord alone is to be worshiped, because all the honor of the world is the devil’s business. After this flight of the devil, then, angels minister to Christ, showing that when the devil’s head has been conquered and trampled by us, neither the ministries of angels nor the services of the heavenly powers toward us will be lacking. “When Jesus heard that John had been handed over, he withdrew into Galilee.” The passage into Capernaum and the prophecy of Isaiah are the order of events. In the choosing of fishermen, the work of their future office is shown from the men’s craft: as fish from the sea, so henceforth men are to be drawn out of the world into a higher place, that is, into the light of the heavenly dwelling. As they leave their craft, their homeland, and their homes, we are taught that, if we are to follow Christ, we must not be held by the cares of worldly life or by the ways of our father’s house. In the choosing of four apostles first, besides the truth of events (for so it happened), the number of the future evangelists is prefigured. So he goes around Galilee and preaches the gospel of the kingdom in the synagogues; and by healing the infirmities of all sicknesses he shows himself by deeds, so that they might behold present in his works him whom they were accustomed to read in the volumes of the prophets.

So, when many crowds had gathered, he went up the mountain and taught; that is, placed in the height of the Father’s majesty, he laid down the precepts of heavenly life. For he would not have handed on the teachings of eternity unless he had been placed in eternity. Accordingly it is written thus: “He opened his mouth and taught them.” It would have been simpler to say that he spoke. But because he stood in the glory of the Father’s majesty and was teaching eternity, the office of a human mouth is therefore shown to have obeyed the movement of the Spirit speaking. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” By his example the Lord had taught that the glory of human ambition must be left behind, saying: “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone.” And since he had foretold through the prophets that he would choose a humble people, trembling at his words, he set the beginning of perfect blessedness in humility of spirit. So those who breathe humility, that is, who remember that they are men, are established in possession of the heavenly kingdom: aware that they have grown from filthy and slightest beginnings, that they are brought forth into this form of a complete body, and that they advance into this power of perceiving, beholding, judging, and acting as God supplies the progress; that nothing belongs to anyone as his own, nothing as his property, but that to all, by the gift of one parent, the same beginnings of coming into life are given and the means of using it supplied; and that we must imitate the goodness he has shown toward us, by the example of that most good one who gave us these things; so that we may be good to all and consider all things common to all; that no insolence of worldly pride, no greed for wealth, no ambition for empty glory corrupt us; but that we be subject to God and be held, from the fellowship of living, by the love of a common life toward all; considering that even in our being born there lies a great future advancement of divine goodness, whose reward and honor are to be earned by the works of the present life. And so, through this humility of spirit by which we remember that all things have been granted us by God and that better things are to be hoped for hereafter, the kingdom of heaven will be ours. To the meek he promises the inheritance of the earth, that is, of that body which the Lord himself took as his dwelling. Because through the meekness of our mind Christ will have dwelt in us, we too shall be clothed with the glory of his glorified body. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” To those who mourn the solace of eternal comfort is promised. Not for those grieving at bereavements or insults or losses, but for those weeping over old sins and distressed by the consciousness of the crimes with which we are soiled, this careful comfort is prepared in heaven. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” To those who thirst and hunger for righteousness he grants blessedness, signifying that the eagerness of the saints, stretched toward the teaching of God, will be filled with the good things of perfect satisfaction in heaven. “Blessed are the merciful, for God will have mercy on them.” For the merciful he prepares the gifts of mercy. For God is so delighted with the disposition of our goodwill toward all that he will show his mercy to the merciful alone. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” To the pure in heart he pledges the sight of God. For nothing polluted and filthy stands to meet the divine brightness, and the eye of a soiled mind is dulled for the sight of God; those, that is, are open to the sight and meeting of God who, by the brightness of the soul and purity of life, have the power of beholding. For only when we are perfected in spirit and changed by immortality shall we see that which in God is immortal, which is reserved for the pure in heart alone. The blessedness of the peacemakers is the reward of adoption, that they may remain sons of God; for God is the one parent of all. And it will not be possible to pass into the name of his family otherwise than by forgetting the things by which we could be offended and living in the peace of mutual brotherly love. “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake,” and the rest. Finally, he rewards with perfect blessedness those whose ready disposition is to suffer all things for Christ, because he himself is righteousness. For them, then, the kingdom is reserved and a great reward in heaven is promised, who, poor in spirit in contempt of the world, reproached with losses and forfeitures of present goods, confessors of heavenly righteousness against the curses of men, and then glorious martyrs of God’s promises, have spent all the use of life in testimony to his eternity. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has become foolish, what is salted with it is worth nothing.” Salt, I think, belongs to no earth: how then did he call the apostles the salt of the earth? But the proper sense of the words must be sought, which both the office of the apostles and the nature of salt itself will show. Salt contains in itself alone the elements of water and fire, and it is one thing from two. Made for the single use of the human race, it gives incorruption to the bodies on which it has been sprinkled and is most suited to every sense of seasoned flavor. The apostles are preachers of heavenly things and, as it were, sowers of eternity, bestowing immortality on all bodies on which their word has been sprinkled, and, as John testified above, perfected by the mystery of water and fire. Rightly, then, they are called the salt of the earth, preserving bodies for eternity by the power of their teaching in the manner of salting. But the nature of salt is always the same and can never be changed. But since man is subject to change, and he alone is blessed who has persevered to the end in all the works of God, he therefore warns those called the salt of the earth to persist in the strength of the power handed to them, lest, having become foolish, they salt nothing, and, having lost the sense of the flavor received, they cannot give life to what is corrupted, and, thrown out of the storehouses of the church, they are trampled under the feet of those who walk by, together with those they salted. “You are the light of the world.” The nature of light is to send out light wherever it is carried, and, brought into houses, to destroy the darkness as the light prevails. So the world, set outside the knowledge of God, was darkened by the darkness of ignorance; to it the light of knowledge is brought through the apostles, the knowledge of God shines, and from their small little bodies, wherever they go, light is supplied to the darkness. “A city built on a mountain cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel,” and the rest. He calls the flesh he had taken up a city: because, as a city consists of a variety and multitude of inhabitants, so in him, by the nature of the body he took, a kind of gathering of the whole human race is contained. And so he becomes a city from our being gathered into him, and we, through fellowship in his flesh, are the inhabitants of the city. So it can no longer be hidden: because, set in the height of God’s loftiness, he is lifted up to be contemplated and understood by all through wonder at his works. But neither is a lamp lit to be hidden under a bushel. For what is the use of keeping the expense of light shut up? Rather, the Lord fittingly compared the synagogue to a bushel: which, receiving within itself only the fruits it took in, kept a fixed measure of measured observance; now, however, it is empty of all fruit since his coming, yet still not able to hide the light. And therefore the lamp of Christ is no longer to be hidden under a bushel nor concealed by the covering of the synagogue, but, hung on the wood in the passion, it will give eternal light to those who dwell in the church. He warns the apostles too to shine with the same light, so that praise may be given to God through wonder at their work: not that glory is to be sought from men, since all things are to be done for the honor of God, but that, even if we keep it hidden, our work may shine out to those among whom we live. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill.” The force and power of the heavenly words contain great moments in themselves. For the law of works was laid down, and it enclosed all things in faith in the things that were to be revealed in Christ, whose teaching and passion are a great and deep decision of the Father’s will. The law, under the veil of spiritual words, spoke of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, his embodiment, passion, and resurrection; and that this was arranged so before the ages for the time of our age, prophetic and apostolic authority frequently declares. So after the fast of forty days, Satan, anxious with such great suspicions, broke out into the boldness of tempting, greatly fearing in Jesus the secret of a heavenly undertaking. For the name Jesus belongs to our Lord from the body. And so his embodiment and passion are both the will of God and the salvation of the world; and it is beyond the eloquence of human speech that God from God, the Son from the substance of the Father and existing within the substance of the Father, first was embodied as man, then was subjected to death by the condition of man, and finally, returning from death to life after three days, carried back to heaven the matter of the body he assumed, joined to the eternity of the Spirit and of his substance. So, lest we should think that there was anything in his works other than what was contained in the law, he professed that he did not abolish the law but fulfilled it: that heaven and earth indeed, chiefly, as we think, the elements, are to be dissolved, but that not even the least of the commandments of the law can be left undone; for in him the whole law and prophecy is fulfilled. In his passion, about to give up his spirit, certain of this great secret in himself, after drinking the vinegar he professed that all things were finished: for then all the sayings of the prophets took on the truth of the events. So he ruled that not even the least of God’s commandments may be broken without guilt before God, declaring that those who break the least will be least, that is, last and almost nothing. And there can be nothing less than the things that are least. The least of all is the Lord’s passion and the death of the cross: if anyone does not confess it, as something to be ashamed of, he will be least; but to the one who confesses it he promises the glory of a great calling in heaven. “But I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” With a most beautiful entrance he began to go beyond the work of the law, not abolishing it but going ahead of it by a greater advance: declaring that the apostles would have no entrance into heaven unless they surpassed the righteousness of the Pharisees in fairness. So, having set out the things prescribed in the law, he goes beyond them by advance, not abolition. The law forbade killing, intending to expiate the guilt of homicide by the severity of judgment. But in the Gospels the disposition of a mind badly stirred against another carries the same penalty; and by the precept of faith anger taken up without reason is no less guilty than homicide in the works of the law. “And whoever says to his brother, Raca, will be liable to the council.” Raca is a reproach of emptiness; and he who charges one full of the Holy Spirit with the insult of emptiness becomes liable to the council of the saints, to pay the penalty of insulting the Holy Spirit by the punishment of the saints’ judgment. “But whoever says, Fool, will be liable to the Gehenna of fire.” It is the danger of a great guilt to provoke with the insult of a foolish mind him whom God has called salt, and to exasperate with the curse of foolish understanding the understanding that salts the foolish. Such a one, then, will be fuel for eternal fire. So what the law did not condemn even in deeds, the faith of the Gospels condemns merely for careless insulting words. Binding all, then, in mutual love, he does not allow any prayer to be made without peace; but he commands those offering gifts at the altar, if they remember having some quarrel with their brothers, to return reconciled in human peace to the divine peace, so as to pass from the love of men into the love of God. And since he allows no time to be empty of the disposition to be reconciled, he commanded that we be quickly reconciled to our adversary by kindness on every road of our life: lest, slow in returning to favor, we come to the time of death without making peace, and the adversary hand us over to the judge and the judge to the officer, and we be put in prison and not come out until we pay the last penny. In the precepts of the Lord’s Prayer we pray that our sins be forgiven us after the example, and, having granted pardon to our adversaries on that condition, we beg his pardon. It will be denied us, then, if we deny it to others; and we are guilty by our own judgment if we pass into the time of judgment with quarrels not forgiven, the adversary handing us over to the judge, because the anger of our quarrel against him accuses us. And since love covers a multitude of sins and is an earnest advocate before God for our errors, we shall pay the last penny of punishment unless the guilt of some crimes is redeemed by its price. What many have thought about this passage I did not think should be discussed. For they referred our being commanded to be reconciled to our adversary by goodwill to the harmony of body and spirit, which oppose each other; but we, holding to the order of the teaching and going beyond the work of the law by the advances of the Gospel, did not think the continuity of the meaning ought to be torn apart. “You have heard that it was said to the ancients, You shall not commit adultery,” and so on. The order of precepts runs its course, and, the works of the law being passed over, now in the Gospels the mere movement of an eye falling on another is made equal to adultery, and the alluring disposition of a passing glance is punished with the deed of sexual immorality. “But if your right eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it from you,” and so on. The step of innocence becomes higher and faith takes an advance. For we are warned to be free not only of our own vices but also of those that come upon us from outside. For losses of the body were not commanded because of members that sin: for the left eye would err no less than the right. Certainly a foot, lacking the sense of desire, is uselessly cut off, since the cause of punishment does not fall upon it. But since, though the members are different from one another, we are all one body, we are warned to cast away from us, or rather to tear out, the closest ties of the dearest names, if we see anything such in them, lest from familiarity we come into fellowship in their crime: it is better to be without things useful and most necessary, like the members of eye and foot, than to be held by the affection of a vicious closeness even into the fellowship of Gehenna. The cutting off of members would be useful if the cutting out of the heart were also possible. For since desire is compared with the deed, the loss of the body is idle if the impulse of the will is left. “It was said: Whoever puts away his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce,” and so on. Reconciling fairness toward all, he commanded that it remain above all in the peace of marriages, adding many things to the law and taking nothing away. Nor can advance be faulted. For whereas the law had granted the freedom to give a divorce on the authority of a written certificate, now the faith of the Gospel has not only enjoined on the husband the will for peace but has also laid on him the guilt of a wife forced into adultery, if she must marry another through the necessity of the separation: prescribing no other cause for ceasing from marriage than that which would pollute the husband by fellowship with a wife who has prostituted herself. “Again you have heard that it was said to the ancients: You shall not swear falsely,” and so on. The law had set a penalty for perjury, so that the solemnity of an oath might restrain the deceit of liars, and at the same time that an untrained and insolent people might often make mention of their God through familiarity with swearing. But faith removes the habit of the oath, setting the business of our life in truth, casting off the disposition to deceive and prescribing simplicity in speaking and hearing: so that what was might be, and what was not might not be; because between “is” and “not” there would be open matter for deceit, and whatever goes beyond is all from evil. For what is, has it as its own that it always is; what is not, has it by nature that it is not. So for those living in simplicity there is no need for the solemnity of swearing, since with them what is, always is, and what is not, is not; and through this all their work and speech is in truth. “Do not swear by heaven, because it is the throne of God,” and the rest. He not only does not allow us to give oaths to God, since all the truth of God is to be kept by the simplicity of our word and deed, but he condemns the superstition of an old stubbornness. For the Jews made it a religious practice to swear by these names of elements, by heaven, earth, and Jerusalem, and even by their own head, offering by the oath a veneration to these things in insult to God. For what weight was there in swearing by heaven, the throne of God, in swearing by the earth, the footstool of his feet, in swearing by Jerusalem, a city soon to be destroyed for the insolence and sins of its inhabitants, especially since it had been established as a prefiguration of the church, that is, of the body of Christ, which is the city of the great king? And why should they wish to swear by their head? Could the swearer have the power of changing even one hair, when nature, proceeding from God, supplies the color to all? And so he shows that these pledges of oaths among them were full of guilt, since, their maker unknown or neglected, they gave religious honor to his works. “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” and the rest. The Lord wishes the hope of our faith, stretched out to eternity, to be shown by the very events, so that the very endurance of overlooking injury may be a witness of the judgment to come. The law kept unfaithful Israel within bounds by fear and restrained the will to injure by the requital of injury. But faith does not allow the pain of any injury to be so heavy that one seeks vengeance and makes himself the avenger of an insult done to him; because in the judgment of God there is both more consolation for those who have suffered injury and a more severe penalty for those who injure. And so the Gospels command us not only to keep away from iniquities but also require us to overlook the avenging of injury. For when we receive a slap we are commanded to offer the other cheek, and, carrying a burden for a mile, to go on for a distance of two miles, so that we shall have an advance of vengeance through the increase of injury, the very Lord of the heavenly powers offering, for the increase of glory, his cheeks to blows and his shoulders to scourges. He commands that not only are the decisions of human judgment to be fled, but that they are to be avoided even at the cost of willing loss; so that to one wishing to strip us of our tunic by a lawsuit we give up our cloak as well, and, despising worldly goods through the hope of future good things, we may refute the empty greed of the nations and the vanity of fruitless avarice. He also commands that what they ask be given to all, and that we not turn away mouth and mind from the requests of those who wish to borrow; so that those in need may be satisfied through our generosity, and we may refresh their thirst with drink, their hunger with food, or their nakedness with clothing given; and so may be found worthy of the good things we need from God, since the habit of giving wins the merit of obtaining. He also shows that we must be ready in the duty of dispensing the grace we have received, so that the dispensing of a free gift may be free, and we may not deny to those who wish to borrow what we borrow from God, always performing the service of sharing without loss of what we have. “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” and the rest. He concluded all things with perfect goodness. For the law required that the neighbor be loved and gave license for hatred toward the enemy. But faith commands that enemies be loved, and breaks the wanton movements of human minds by the disposition of a common love; not only driving anger away from vengeance but softening it into love for the one who injures: because it belongs to the nations to love those who love, and it is common to love those who love us. So he calls us to the inheritance, and so to the imitation, of God, who by the coming of his Christ gives both sun and rain, in the mysteries of baptism and the Spirit, to the good and the unjust. So, through this harmony of common goodness, he has trained us for the perfect life, because the perfect Father in heaven is to be imitated by us. “Take care not to do your righteousness before men,” and so on. He removes all care for present things and commands us to be intent only on the hope of the future, and not to pursue the favor of men by display of goodness or the boasting of religion by a public abundance of prayer, but to keep the fruit of good work within the conscience of faith: because the pursuit of human praise will receive only the reward it seeks from men; whereas the expectation of earning God’s favor will obtain the reward of long patience. He commands also that the left hand not know the work of the right. But does the nature of the body allow this? Or do the services of the hands have a share of understanding? Rather, the meaning is that our works should rest in the knowledge of God: since under the name of members, in the things we do, the awareness of those who are ours and with us is to be kept away

We are also commanded to pray with the door of our room shut, and we are taught to pour out prayer in every place: and the prayer of the saints was received among wild beasts, in prisons, in flames, and from the depth of the sea and the belly of a monster. So we are admonished to enter not a hidden part of the house but the room of our heart, and, with the secret place of our mind shut, to pray to God not with many words but with conscience, because the deed surpasses all the words that are spoken. From the need to comment on the mystery of prayer Cyprian, a man of holy memory, has freed us. Tertullian too wrote a most fitting volume on it; but the man’s subsequent error took away authority from his commendable writings. “When you fast, do not become sad like the hypocrites; for they disfigure their faces so as to appear to men to be fasting,” and so on. He teaches that the profit of fasting must lie outside the boasting of a worn-out body, and that the favor of the nations must not be pursued by showing off the injury; rather, all fasting must be set in the beauty of holy works. For it is the heavenly and prophetic word that oil is the fruit of mercy. So our head, that is, the mind of our life, is to be adorned with works of goodness, because all understanding is in the head; and the filth on the face is to be washed away, so that there may be nothing of horror from vices but rather the grace of brightness when one meets us: and so, washed into the splendor of a good conscience and anointed with the grace of merciful work, we may commend our fasts to God. Otherwise, if in our fasts we flee the knowledge of men by anointing our heads, we shall be both more ridiculous and more noticed. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,” and the rest. So, setting aside concern for human glory and wealth, he shows that all care must be taken to please God: because either the faults of bodies or the disparagement of the envious spoils human praise; and this treasure of money is dangerous either through loss or through theft. But heavenly praise is eternal, neither to be taken away by thieves creeping in nor eaten away by the moth or rust of envy; and our heart will follow the seat of the treasure, whichever it is, and with the light of our understanding will be either with ruinous money or with the everlasting God. “The lamp of your body is your eye.” The sense continues. From the office of the eye’s light he expressed the light of the heart. If it remains simple and bright, it will give the brightness of eternal light to the body and pour the splendor of its own origin into the corruption of the flesh. But if it is darkened by sins and wicked in will, the nature of the body will be subject to the vices of the mind. “And if the light that is in you is darkness, how great must be the darkness itself?” Because the vicious origin of earthly flesh is apt dangerously to dominate the nobility of the soul, and the sins of bodies grow far heavier if they are also helped by the desires of souls; and from this our bodies become dark contrary to their nature, if the light of minds is extinguished in them; whereas if we keep it through simplicity of spirit, it must illuminate the body too with its light. “No one can serve two masters,” and so on. Service to two masters is faithless, and care for the world and for God cannot be equal. For there must be hatred toward one and love toward the other: because the same work cannot suit the different wills of masters, nor can the poor in spirit who please God be fit for the ambitious boasting of this world. “Therefore I tell you, do not think in your heart what you will eat, nor about your body what you will wear. Is not your soul worth more than food, and your body worth more than clothing?” In all the preceding discourse he had taught contempt of the world and confidence in the future. For when he commands us to be ready for injury, willing for loss, careless of vengeance, indiscriminate in loving, and unconcerned about human glory, he labors to strengthen us in the hope of eternal goods. For both the love of present things and despair of the future make many uncertain, and either capture them with allurements or confound them with unbelief. So he wishes the kingdom of heaven, which the prophets announced, John preached, and our Lord professed to be in himself, to be hoped for without any doubt of an uncertain will: otherwise there is no justification by faith, if faith itself becomes doubtful. So he commands that there be no care for clothing and food, saying that the soul is more precious than foods and the body than clothing. And indeed it is a fine thing to spend care only on divine things in contempt of present things; but the speech goes deeper, and the reason underlying the words extends into the understanding of the heavenly saying. The Lord commanded treasure to be stored in heaven, promised splendor to the body from the light of the eye, and testified that no one can please two masters; and after this he says: “Therefore I tell you, do not think in your heart what you will eat, nor about your body what you will put on.” What follows does not fit the premises well enough. Can a servant of one master not also be anxious about clothing and food? Will the body be darkened if the light of the eye is dulled by ill health? Or what light of the body can there be from the eye? Can nakedness or hunger alone store up treasure in heaven? But since the mind of unbelievers is corrupt concerning care for the future, as they cavil about what form bodies will have in the resurrection and what nourishment there will be for the substance of eternity; and since, from the difficulties of useless questions, a kind of reason has been sought for enjoying present pleasures, and, lingering in useless fear about reverence for God, they pass over into the joys of the world; and so it comes about that the service of one man to two masters is faithless: therefore, out of the highest affection of godliness, having first foretold the gravest danger of distrust, he admonishes thus: “Is not the soul worth more than food, and the body worth more than clothing?” In the words of God there is truth, and the whole efficacy of things to be created lies in the word. So neither is what he promised doubtful nor what he spoke ineffective. There is nothing that is not bodily in its substance and creation; and the elements of all things, whether in heaven or on earth, whether visible or invisible, have been formed. For even the kinds of souls, whether they occupy bodies or are exiled from bodies, still receive a bodily substance of their nature; because everything that is created must be in something. And so God, refuting the folly of a most useless question, does not allow our hope of the future in the resurrection to linger in anxiety about food and clothing, when soul and body are to be placed in the substance of eternity: lest insult be offered to him who restores things so precious, namely body and soul, by supposing he would not provide lesser things. “Look at the birds of the sky: they do not sow or gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more?” Under the name of birds he exhorts us by the example of unclean spirits, to whom, without any business of seeking and gathering, the substance of living is nevertheless granted by the power of the eternal counsel. And to show that this must be referred to unclean spirits, he added: “Are you not worth much more than they?”, showing by the superiority of the comparison the difference between wickedness and holiness. “But which of you can add one cubit to his stature? And why are you anxious about clothing?” He strengthened faith in the substance of our life by the proof of the spirits; but he left the opinion about our future appearance to the judgment of common understanding. For since he will raise the diversity of all bodies that have drawn life into one perfect man, and he alone is able to add to each one’s height one cubit, or a second or third, why do we doubt about clothing, that is, about the form of bodies, with such insult to him, who, to make every man equal and uniform, will add only so much measure to human bodies? “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they do not labor or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was covered like one of these,” and so on. The lilies do not labor or spin; and Solomon, a great prophet and dear to God by the merit of the wisdom he loved, was not covered with their glory. But lilies are born rather than covered. Covering is the veil of a body, not the body itself. If it is referred to the sense of human understanding, the whiteness of a garment could have rivaled the color of the lily. But by the lilies that neither labor nor spin are to be understood the brightnesses of the heavenly angels, to whom the whiteness of glory was granted by God apart from the learning of human knowledge and the wage of their own work, lest they should be thought to have anything from their own labor or skill. And since in the resurrection men will be like angels, he wished us to hope for the covering of heavenly glory by the example of angelic brightness. It is in the nature of this plant that it is most fittingly compared to the heavenly substances of the angels. For when it is in flower, if it is torn from the stalk of the root held in the ground, it hides the power of its nature, though it may be thought to have withered, and when the season returns it is clothed again with the honor of its lily. For it flowers and is restored from itself; and what it is, it can owe neither to the root nor to the earth, since the sap that rises in it is from itself. And so, though it is annual, by the example of this greenness it imitates the power of their heavenly substance: since it is nourished into flower only by what it has received within itself. So the lilies do not labor or spin, because the powers of the angels receive their everlasting being from the honor of their origin which they obtained. “If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more you, of little faith?” He confirms the inviolable confidence of our faith by the authority of examples: so that the more carefully he has removed every occasion of unbelief, the greater the danger of doubting. Grass is not born in order to be given to the fire, nor does God take special care to clothe it in order that it be burned; but we often find that the nations are called by God by the name of grass. It is a plant that, when the flower of its strength has fallen, dries up in the heat of the sun. So no rest will be given to the nations, nor quiet, as they wish, by the shortcut of death; but a bodily eternity will be appointed for them too, so that there may be in them eternal material for eternal fire, and everlasting vengeance may be exercised on all who are everlasting. If, then, bodily eternity is granted to the nations only so that they may soon be appointed to the fire of judgment, how profane it is for the saints to doubt about the glory of eternity, when the work of eternity is provided to the wicked for punishment. So he requires all our expectation to be placed in faith in the promises and in the might of his power: so that, laying aside care for the things we need, we may rather expect all things from him from whom we ourselves took the beginning of life, and seek the kingdom of God with the service of our life. And this is the reward of those who live rightly and perfectly, that they are carried over from this material of a corruptible body into a new and heavenly substance, and earthly corruption is changed into heavenly incorruption. It belongs to the nations, then, to be tormented by the anxiety of this unbelief: who, held by love of the world and occupied with the joys of the body, seek and desire no way into the heavenly kingdom through faith and confession of God. “So do not be anxious about tomorrow. For tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own evil.” It is the common judgment that a day is the course of passing times lit by the light of the sun, which the intervening night divides and by its coming puts a day in place of a day; and the meaning of future time is contained in “tomorrow.” So God forbade us to be anxious about the future. And the carelessness of relaxed anxiety belongs not to negligence but to faith. For why should we be anxious about tomorrow, when the next day is anxious for itself? So the day itself, being anxious for us, drives away our anxiety. But anxiety, I think, is a feeling proper to man; for it is stirred up by the distress of care, fear, or pain. A day is the course of time; and only things that have attained foresight receive the feeling of anxiety. It would have to be established, then, that the day is a living being, which takes care, foresees, and is concerned, for which its own evil is also enough and is not to be heaped up by sin falling on it from outside. But the nature of the thing does not allow a feeling of mind to be assigned to a day: so both that it is anxious for itself, that its evil is enough for it, and that we are forbidden to be anxious about tomorrow, are all contained under sayings of heavenly meaning. We are commanded, then, not to doubt about future things; for the evil of our life and the sins of the days in which we live are enough that the whole meditation and labor of our life should be spent on cleansing them and on earning merit, lest from distrust about the future an inexpiable irreligion should also be contracted: since, when our care ceases, the future things themselves are anxious in their own office, by which they will be, and the advance of eternal glory is prepared for us, no longer anxious, by the providing goodness of God. “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you judge, you will be judged.” God removes every office of judgment entirely and allows none at all to be taken up. But what follows is thought to conflict with what was set forth, when he says: “With the judgment you judge, you will be judged.” But above he says: “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.” Will it not be right to take up the decision of a good judgment? Yet he professes that we are to be judged according to the condition of our judgment, and that all will be measured by the kind of measure they used. So there will never be good judgment if there is to be no judging at all. But, as is recognized above, for a long time nothing light or empty is treated in the words of God; and all speech here goes beyond the sense of the ears of the nations. For he forbade judgment about his promises: because, as judgments among men are taken up from uncertain matters, so this judgment against God is taken up from ambiguity of feeling and opining. This he drives entirely away from us, so that steadfast faith may rather be kept; because, unlike other matters, the sin is not that one has judged wrongly; but in these matters merely to judge about God is the beginning of crime. “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own eye?” and the rest. In what follows he taught that only blasphemy against the Spirit will be beyond pardon, God granting forgiveness for all other things. The sin against the Spirit is to deny God the might of power and to take away from Christ the substance of eternity, through whom, because God came into man, man in turn will come into God. So he shows that, as great as the difference between a speck and a beam, so far does the sin against the Spirit exceed the condition of other crimes: so that, while unbelievers reproach others with faults of the body, they do not first see in themselves the burden of the sin by which they doubt the promises of God, the beam of unbelief sitting in their eye as in the eye of the mind. For it often happens that we take to ourselves the authority of correcting others without any example of our own amendment, and put forward the boast of healing another’s blindness while we ourselves are set in the darkness of corrupted light: since it is hard for anyone to supply what he lacks, and it is best to teach by example rather than by words. Care must be taken for one’s own blindness: because it is in the nature of things that no one can become a fit teacher for removing the speck from his brother’s eye until he has cast out from the light of his own mind the heavy beam of faithlessness.

Nothing is more precious and holier than the precepts and promises of God, which bestow on us, once sanctified, the treasure of immortality. We are not permitted, then, either to carry out their mysteries and powers to the nations or to share them with heretics. For the nations are called dogs because of their rage in barking against God. The name of pigs belongs to the heretics: because, although their hoofs are cloven, they do not dispose of the knowledge of God they have received by chewing it over. So it is fitting that we do not treat indiscriminately the embodiment of the Word of God, the mystery of the passion, and the power of the resurrection, nor bring them out unskillfully and carelessly: lest, if instruction in perfect knowledge is lacking, they trample and tread down our ignorance, mock the weakness of the passion in God, and, turning on us, break apart our unskillfulness and faith with the stings of their contradictions. But in the things we do not know, a way of attaining the truth is opened to us, which can be obtained only by persevering in prayer. So, that we may perceive and believe all things and not be delayed by any uncertainty of a doubtful will, we must ask, seek, and knock: by prayer we shall find mercy, by seeking progress, by trying entrance. Indeed, we are taught to hope for obtaining by the example of human affection. For since we would not give a serpent or a stone to our sons asking for fish or bread, how much more will God, the best and most excellent Father, bestow the gifts of perfect faith on us when we pray; nor will he give, instead of the food of life, the stone of pagan hardness, or, instead of the keeping of baptism, the serpent of heretical poison. Then he completed all things with the example of goodness, joining all in the peace of mutual love: setting in this the commandments of the law and the prophets, that, wishing the goodness of all toward us, we ourselves may be good to all. “Enter through the narrow gate. How wide and spacious is the way that leads to destruction!” Man’s road to heaven is steep, and the entrance narrow and thin; but the way of destruction is wide. Many keep to the latter; few find the former. For losses of present things are dear to few, for whom it is the greatest gain of heavenly hope to conquer the desires of the soul, to break those of the body, and to pass by the enticements of all allurements set out with the whole strength of the world. But for those whose only good is to fornicate, carouse, scheme for office, grow insolent, scorn, hate, and plunder, such a well-trodden road has a very large company. And since it belonged to few to find the narrow way, he exposes the deceit of those who would falsely claim to seek it, saying: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing,” and so on. He warns that flattering words and pretended gentleness must be weighed by the fruit of action: so that we look not at what kind of person someone presents himself to be in words, but at what he makes himself in deeds; because in many a wolf’s rage is covered by sheep’s clothing. So, just as thorns do not produce grapes or thistles figs, and as bad trees do not bear useful fruit, so he teaches that the effect of good work does not lie in these people either; and therefore all are to be known by their fruits. For the mere services of words do not obtain the kingdom of heaven; nor will he who has said, “Lord, Lord,” be its heir. For what merit is there in saying to the Lord, “Lord, Lord”? Will he not be Lord unless he has been called so by us? And what holiness of duty is there in naming a name, since the road to the heavenly kingdom will be found by obedience of the will rather than by naming God? “Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?” and the rest. Here again he condemns the deceit of false prophets and the pretenses of hypocrites, who presume glory for themselves from the power of the word, in the prophecy of teaching, the putting to flight of demons, and powers of works of this kind, and from this promise themselves the kingdom of heaven. As if anything they say or do were their own, and the power of God, when invoked, did not accomplish all: since reading brings the knowledge of teaching, and the name of Christ drives the demons to flight. That blessed eternity, then, must be earned from what is ours; and something must be supplied from our own, that we may will the good, avoid all evil, and obey the heavenly precepts with all our affection, and be known to God by such services, and do rather what he wills than glory in what we can do: he rejects and repels those whom works of iniquity have turned away from knowing him. “Everyone, then, who hears my words and does them, I will liken to a wise man who built his house upon the rock,” and the rest. The sense is joined to what precedes. For rebuking the boasting of false prophets and the fictions of hypocrites, he sets out by the example of a comparison the man of perfect faith in himself: that he who both hears and does his words is built on the rock and stands on a stable and firm foundation, and cannot be broken up by the onset of storms that fall upon him; the Lord signifying himself by the rock, the strong foundation of the building. He who has grown up from it into a lofty work cannot be moved by rains, rivers, or wind. By the rains he signifies the allurements of soft pleasures slipping in gradually, by which faith first grows damp through opening cracks; after these comes the onrush of torrents, that is, the movements of heavier desires; and then the whole force of the winds blowing around rages, that is, the whole spirit of the devil’s power is brought to bear. But the man built on the foundation of the rock will stand and cannot be moved from his place. The fool, ignoring what he has heard, as if he had spent the work of building on sand, stands faithlessly, soon to be washed away by the rains slipping in, driven by the rivers, scattered by the winds, according to the nature of the sands on which he was built, to be broken up with the heavy disaster of his ruin. And so by the example of the preceding comparisons the Lord willed us both to do what he commanded and to believe what he promised. When all had been completed, the crowds marveled at his teaching, since he had not taught in the manner of the scribes and Pharisees. For they measured the effect of his powers by the power of his words.

“And when he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came and worshiped him, saying: Lord, if you will, you can make me clean,” and the rest. At the beginning of our discourse we warned that no one should think anything is to be taken away from the truth of the events if we teach that the events themselves contain in themselves the course of the events that would follow. For it takes nothing from the truth that the truth has achieved an imitation. In the whole preceding discourse the Lord had handed on the precepts of faith and gone beyond the law, signifying by going beyond it that it was now useless and ineffective. He had required the observance of the commandments and before that had commanded a most faithful hope in his promises; so we must consider what he did first after these things. A leper is present; he asks to be cleansed; he is purged by the power of the word together with a touch; he is ordered to be silent, but nevertheless to show himself to the priest and to offer the gift that Moses commanded to be made as a testimony. So in the leper is shown the healing of the crowd that heard and believed and came down from the mountain with the Lord: which, defiled by the vicious stain of the body, having heard the preaching of the kingdom of heaven, asks to be healed; it is visited by the touch of a body, it is healed by the power of the Word; and, so that this salvation might be sought rather than offered, silence is imposed, and he is ordered to show himself to the priests: so that he who was foretold in the law might be discerned by his deeds and works, and that in the matter in which the law was weak the power of the word might be understood; and that he who has been cleansed might offer to God the reward of the health he received; but so that that gift might not be made from birds, but that the man himself, cleansed from the filth of the body’s sin, might pass over into a sacrifice to God; because what Moses commanded in the law is a testimony, not the effect. “After this, when he had entered Capernaum, a tribune came to him asking him and saying: My servant lies at home paralyzed,” and so on. The healing of the paralyzed servant follows the cleansing of the leper. But what does it mean that the tribune, the servant’s master, professes that he is not worthy for Christ to enter his house, see the servant, and, present to one present, bring help; and that he has soldiers and orders what he wills, and many, set under his authority, obey him, and that likewise the Lord can supply healing by a word? Concerning the tribune let it be enough for me to have stated that he is the chief of the nations that would believe. Who this chief is, to whom many are subject, let whoever wishes to know read the song of Moses in Deuteronomy and Solomon’s book Ecclesiasticus, where they have said certain things about the dispersal of the nations: let our treatment concern only the servant. In this servant, then, after the health from paralysis, the salvation of the nations follows the healing of the people coming down from the mountain. For the servant lay disabled in a lowly, corruptible house, unworthy of the entry of the Savior whom he nevertheless needed. And the tribune knows that the servant can be healed by a word, because all the salvation of the nations is from faith, and in the precepts of the Lord is the life of all. So the nations are to be considered as lying in the world and disabled by the diseases of sins, with all their limbs everywhere loose and spoiled for the office of standing and walking. The mystery of their salvation is fulfilled in the tribune’s servant, Christ not entering the house. For although he lived in the world, he did not go into the vices and sins of the world. Then, marveling at his faith, he says: “I have not found such faith in Israel.” This tribune was not from the nations; and how is such faith not found in Israel, when the one who believed was an Israelite? But in order that this very truth might imitate the likeness of the future, the reason of the word was laid underneath: that such faith as belongs to the nations would not be found in Israel, and that men from the farthest nations would rest with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. The truth of health was indeed perfected in the servant according to the faith of the believer: but the effect of present things is shown to serve also as an image of the future, when, the tribune believing and the servant being saved, such faith was not found in Israel and fellowship in the kingdom of heaven with Abraham is destined for the nations. “When Jesus had come into Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever,” and the rest. In Peter’s mother-in-law the vicious disposition of unbelief is considered, to which is joined the freedom of the will, which binds us to itself by a kind of fellowship of marriage. So at the Lord’s entry into Peter’s house, that is, into the body, unbelief is healed, burning with the heat of sins and sick with the dominion of vices. Then, at once healed, she ministers in the service of duty. For he first believed and is the chief of the apostleship; and what was formerly languishing in him, growing strong by the word of God, worked by its ministry as if for the public salvation. That this likeness from Peter’s mother-in-law is rightly applied to the disposition of unbelief we shall treat in the passage that follows about the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law. Now she will be called the mother-in-law of unbelief because, until he believed, he was held in the service of his own will. “When evening came, they brought to him many who had demons, and he cast out the unclean spirits,” and so on. In the indiscriminate healing at the evening hours we recognize the gathering of those whom he taught after the passion: forgiving the sins of all, taking away the infirmities of all, and driving out the incitements of evil pleasures that sit upon them, absorbing by the passion of his body the infirmities of human weakness, according to the sayings of the prophets. “When Jesus saw great crowds around him, he ordered his disciples to go across the sea. And a scribe came to him and said: Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go,” and the rest. Many things occur that can trouble common sense. Yet we do not invent the understanding; the events themselves give us the understanding. For the thing does not follow the understanding, but the understanding follows the thing. The crowds are many, and the Lord commands the disciples to go across the sea. I do not think it befits the Savior’s goodness that he should have wished to leave those running around him and to choose some secret place for giving salvation. Then a scribe follows, saying that he will follow the teacher wherever he goes: but nothing is read to have been said or done by the scribe that could give offense. The Lord answered that foxes have holes and the birds of the sky nests for resting, but the Son of Man has no place where he may lay his head. And a disciple asked that time be given him to bury his father: this was refused, and the religious duty of a devoted and human office was forbidden. So the reason for such great and such different things must be brought out, and in such a way that the understanding of the inner meaning is unfolded according to the connected order of events and the weightiest causes of the truth itself. The name of disciples must not be thought to apply only to the twelve apostles. For we read that besides the apostles there were many disciples. So from the whole crowd a certain choice is commanded to be made: of those, namely, who would follow the Lord through the many dangers and tossings of this world. For the church is like a ship, and is called so in many places: which, having taken on passengers of the most different kind and nation, is subject to all the blasts of the winds and the movements of the sea. And so it is troubled by the attacks of both the world and the unclean spirits. For with the movements of all dangers set before us, we enter the ship of Christ, that is, the church, knowing that we will be tossed by sea and wind. So, that the order of the typological meaning might hold together, and the portion of the faithful going on board the ship and the crowd of the unfaithful remaining behind might be understood, the persons of the scribe and of the disciple are added. And indeed the scribe, who is one of the teachers of the law, asks whether he should follow. As if it were not contained in the law that this is the Christ whom it would be profitable to follow. So he expressed the disposition of unbelief under the distrust of a question: because the taking up of faith is not to be asked about but followed. And so that this same question of unbelief might be punished by judgment, the Lord answered that foxes have holes and the birds of the sky nests in which they rest, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. The fox is a crafty animal, hiding in holes around houses and lying in wait for domestic birds: and we read in several places that false prophets are called by this name. And we have learned that the birds of the sky are very often a name for unclean spirits. So the Son of God, seeing the fewness of those following, and the teacher of the law distrusting whether he should follow him, reproaches that the false prophets have holes and the unclean spirits nests for resting; because those left outside the ship, that is, placed outside the church, have become the lodging of false prophets and the dwelling of demons: but that the Son of Man, that is, he whose head is God, finds none in whom, the knowledge of God being placed, he may rest: all being invited into the church as into the ship, but few, for fear of the sea, that is, of the world, about to follow. After this a disciple is present, not asking whether he should follow (for he already believed that he must follow), but praying to be allowed to bury his father. We have received in the opening of the Lord’s Prayer that we must first pray thus: “Our Father who are in heaven.” So since the disciple bears the person of the believing people, he is reminded to remember that his living Father is in heaven. And he is ordered to follow the Lord, since he also wished to, in such a way that the dead should bury the dead. But I think no service can be expected from the dead. How, then, will the dead bury the dead? First, then, he shows that a faith perfect in itself is bound by no worldly religious duty toward another; next, that between a faithful son and an unfaithful father the right of the paternal name is not left. So he did not refuse the duty of burying a father; but by adding, “Let the dead bury their own dead,” he warned that the unfaithful dead are not to be mixed with the memorials of the saints, and that those too are dead who live outside God. And therefore mutual services are to be left to the dead, that the dead may be buried by the dead: because through faith in God the living must cling to the Living.

“And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, a great storm arose on the sea,” and the rest. When the disciples have entered the ship, a storm arises, the sea is stirred up, those sailing are troubled. He, sunk in sleep, is roused by the fear of the frightened and is begged to bring help. And having rebuked them for being of little faith, he commanded calm to the wind and the sea, the men marveling that wind and sea obeyed his commands. According to this, then, churches within which the word of God has not kept watch are shipwrecked: not that Christ relaxes into sleep, but that he is lulled to sleep in us by our sleep. And this happens most of all, that we hope in God chiefly in fear of danger and in distress. And would that even a late hope may trust that it can escape the danger, the power of Christ keeping watch within it. He left us a perpetual remembrance of his rebuke, saying: “You of little faith, why are you afraid?”, meaning that there should be no fear of worldly upheavals for those with whom the faith of Christ keeps watch. Then follows the wonder of the men, saying: “What kind of man is this, that the winds and the sea obey him?” This speech is not the disciples’ but the nations’. For whereas above he had said that only the disciples entered the ship and that he was roused only by the disciples, now he indicates that men marveled, men calling him a man in their very wonder. By this change of names it is understood that all the works of Christ and all his powers are to be praised as God’s: because it shows the folly of pagan guilt and most wretched error that they call him a man from the humility of the passion rather than God from his powers. “And when he had come across the sea into the region of the Gerasenes, two men possessed by demons met him, coming out of the tombs, very dangerous,” and the rest. The meeting of the two men; the long possession of two men by demons; the road dangerous to passers-by; the entreaty to pass over into the pigs; the fall of that herd headlong into the sea after the men were cleansed; then the flight of the herdsmen into the town; the coming out of the people from the city; the embassy asking that the Lord not enter the city; his return to his own country; and there the bringing of a paralytic lying on a bed; the forgiveness of sins at that very time for the merit of faith; the murmuring of the scribes; the confession of his power; the paralytic’s return home even under the burden of his bed; and the wonder of the men: these have this cause. At the beginning of the human race there was a threefold division of mankind, namely into the sons of Noah, of whom, according to the prophecy of Genesis, Shem was chosen for God’s possession. Outside the city, that is, outside the synagogue of the law and the prophets, demons held two men in the tombs: they had besieged, that is, the origins of two nations in the dwellings of the dead and the remains of the departed, making the road of present life dangerous for passers-by. So, in order that there might be in the events a full meditation of the future, two men meet the Lord as he comes: so that by their meeting the will of those running together to salvation might be indicated. But the demons in the men cry out, asking why he grudges them their seat and why he harasses them before the time of judgment. Next to these two peoples of the nations lay also a people of the race of Shem, the Sadducees, whose heresy among the Jews is the guilt of denying the resurrection. So the demons, seeing that no place is now left for them among the nations, beg that he allow them to dwell in the heretics: when these are occupied, the whole herd is driven headlong into the sea with a rapid rush: that is, they are cast down into worldly desire at the prompting of the demons, in many waters, that is, to die together with the unbelief of the remaining nations. And in this too the typological meaning was kept, that it was not enough to have said they were cast into the sea, without adding, “And they died in many waters.” Their leaders and herdsmen, troubled by wonder at such things, come to the city and announce what was done. That city bears the figure of the Jewish people, which, having heard of the works of Christ, goes out to meet its Lord, forbidding him to touch its borders and city; for the law does not receive the Gospels. Rejected by it, he returns to his own city. To God the city is the faithful people. Into this, then, he entered, carried by the ship, that is, the church. And now in the paralytic the whole of the nations is brought to be healed. But the words of the healing itself must be considered. It is not said to the paralytic, “Be healthy”; it is not said, “Rise and walk”; but it is said: “Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven you.” In one Adam sins are forgiven to all the nations. So he is brought to be healed by angels ministering; he is called son because he is God’s first work; to him the sins of the soul are forgiven, and the indulgence of the first transgression comes from pardon. For we have not received that the paralytic had sinned at all: especially since in another place the same Lord said that blindness from birth had not been contracted from sin, either his own or his father’s. Then the order of truth follows in the events, though the image of the future is fulfilled in the words. It troubles the scribes that sin was forgiven by a man: for they saw in Jesus Christ only a man. And it was forgiven by him, which the law could not loosen; for faith alone justifies. Then the Lord looks into their murmuring and says that it is easy for the Son of Man to forgive sins on earth. For truly no one can forgive sins but God alone: therefore he who forgives is God. Since no one forgives but God, God remaining in a man was supplying healing to a man; and there was no difficulty in doing and speaking for him in whom lies the whole power of what he says. Moreover, so that it might be understood that he, placed in the body, both forgives sins to souls and supplies resurrection to bodies, he says: “That you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, he says to the paralytic: Rise and take up your bed.” It would have been enough to have said “Rise”; but since the whole reason of the work to be accomplished had to be unfolded, he added: “Take up your bed and go into your house.” First he granted forgiveness of sin; then he showed the power of resurrection; then, by the taking up of the bed, he taught that weakness and pain will be absent from bodies; finally, by the return to his own house, that the way into paradise is to be given back to believers, from which Adam, the parent of all, dissolved by the stain of sin, had gone out. “When the crowds saw it, they were afraid.” Wonder rather than fear ought to have followed this work; but the order of the mystery still remains, so that the image of the future is added to the truth of the present: the crowds fear the power of the Lord’s words and deeds. For it is a matter of great fear to be dissolved in death without sins forgiven by Christ, because there is no return into the eternal home for anyone to whom pardon of offenses has not been granted. “And they glorified God, who had given such power to men.” All things have been concluded in their order, and, the fear of despair now ceasing, honor is rendered to God because he has given such power to men: but this was owed to Christ alone; to him alone, from communion in the Father’s substance, it was natural to do these things. So it is not this that comes into wonder, that he could do these things (for what will God not be believed able to do?); otherwise the praise would have been about one man, not many; but the cause of the honor brought to God is that power and a way have been given to men through his word, of forgiveness of sins, of resurrection of bodies, and of return to heaven.

“And as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and said to him: Follow me,” and the rest. He commands Matthew the tax collector, sitting at the tax office, to follow him. And going into his house, he prepares a banquet, and a crowd of tax collectors and sinners reclines at table with him; the Pharisees rebuke the disciples, asking why their teacher eats with tax collectors. He answers them that the healthy have no need of a physician, but the sick need healing; and he commands them to go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy rather than sacrifice.” The name of tax collectors comes from their way of life: they abandoned the works of the law and preferred to conduct themselves by common and public custom. So the Lord called Matthew out of his house, that is, out of the sins of the body, and entering his mind he reclines there. For this is the same man who is the writer of this Gospel; and, going out of the house of his sin, he himself received the Lord, enlightened by his indwelling within, and within him a banquet of gospel foods is prepared in rich abundance for sinners and tax collectors. Then rivalry stirs the Jews, that the Lord shares with tax collectors and sinners. To them he brought out the words of the law, covered over by the veil of their unbelief: that he brings help to the sick and gives medicine to those in need; but for those who thought themselves healthy no healing was necessary. But so that they might understand that none of them was healthy, he warned them to learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”: namely, that the law, bound to the observance of sacrifices, could not bring help, but that salvation for all is reserved in the indulgence of mercy. “For I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” He had come for all; how, then, does he say that he has not come for the righteous? Were there, then, some for whom it was not necessary that he should come? But no one is righteous from the law. He shows, then, that the boasting of righteousness is empty: because, the sacrifices being powerless for salvation, mercy was necessary for all placed under the law. For if righteousness had been from the law, pardon through grace would not have been necessary. “Then the disciples of John came to him, saying: Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” The Pharisees and John’s disciples fasted, and the apostles did not fast. But he answers them spiritually and shows himself to John’s disciples as the bridegroom. For John pledged that all the hope of life was stored in Christ; and his disciples could not yet be received by the Lord while he was still preaching. For the law and the prophets are until him; and, unless the law were ended, none of them would pass into the gospel faith. That he answers that his disciples have no need of fasting while the bridegroom is present teaches the joy of his presence and the mystery of the holy food, of which no one will be in need while he is present, that is, while holding Christ in the sight of the mind. But he says that when he is taken away they will fast: because all who do not believe that Christ has risen would not have the food of life. For in faith in the resurrection the mystery of the heavenly bread is received; and whoever is without Christ will be left in a fast from the food of life. And so that they might understand that these perfect mysteries of salvation could not be entrusted to them, set as they were in old things, he set out the example of a comparison. Unshrunk cloth is not sewn onto an old garment, because the strength of the raw patch would tear apart the weakness of the old; and new wine is not poured into old wineskins, for the heat of the fermenting must bursts old wineskins: that is, souls and bodies weakened by the age of sins do not hold the mysteries of new grace. For the tear will become worse, and, the wine spilled, the old wineskins will perish. For the guilt of such will be double, if, besides the age of their sins, they do not bear the power of the new grace: and so both the Pharisees and John’s disciples would not receive new things unless they became new. “While he was saying these things, behold, a ruler came and worshiped him, saying: Lord, my daughter has just died; come and lay your hand on her,” and so on. The ruler’s prayers, the woman’s faith, the gathering of the crowd in the house, the cry of the two blind men, and the bringing of the dumb, deaf, and demon-possessed man hold, from what was said above, an order of understanding connected with itself. This ruler is understood to be the law, which prays to the Lord for the people whom it had nourished, by preaching Christ, with the expectation of his coming, that he may give life back to the dead girl. For we read that no ruler believed: so the person of this ruler who prays will rightly be fitted to the figure of the law. To him the Lord promised help, and he set out to give it. But first the crowd of sinners is saved together with the apostles. And although the elect, who were destined from the law, ought first to have lived, yet before them, in the figure of the woman, salvation is given to tax collectors and sinners. So she, meeting the Lord as he passes by, trusts that by the touch of his garment she will be healed of her flow of blood: polluted, that is, by the filth of her body and dissolved by the uncleanness of inner vice, she hastens by faith to touch the fringe of the garment, that is, to touch, in company with the apostles, the gift of the Holy Spirit going out from the body of Christ like a fringe; and she is at once made whole. So health was given to one while it was being brought to another. And the Lord at once praised her constancy too: because the people of the nations seized what was being prepared for Israel. In the simple understanding, too, there is great wonder at the Lord’s power: since the power remaining within the body added the efficacy of health to perishable things, and the divine working went out even to the fringes of his garments. For God was not divisible and containable, so as to be shut in by a body. For he himself divides gifts in the Spirit, but is not divided in the gifts. Faith attains his power everywhere, because he is everywhere and absent nowhere. And the assumption of the body did not enclose the nature of the power; rather, the Power took up the frailty of the body for its redemption: a Power so infinite and so free that the working of human salvation was contained even in its fringes. Then the Lord enters the ruler’s house, that is, the synagogue, in which, in the songs of the law, a hymn of mourning was sounding; and he is mocked by many. For they never believed God to be in a man; rather, they laughed at the preaching of the resurrection from the dead. So he took the girl by the hand, whose death was sleep in his sight, and drew her back to life. And so that it might be understood that the number of the elect who believe from the law is small, the whole crowd was put out: which the Lord would certainly have wished to be saved; but, by mocking his words and deeds, it was not worthy of fellowship in the resurrection. “And the report went out into all that land”: after the salvation of the elect, the gift and works of Christ are proclaimed. So as the Lord goes out, two blind men at once follow. But how could the blind know both of the Lord’s going out and his name? And they even call him Son of David and ask to be saved. In the two blind men the reason of the whole preceding prefiguration is completed. For the ruler’s daughter is shown to be from these, namely the Pharisees and John’s disciples, who had already, above, tested the Lord together. To these, not knowing from whom they should seek salvation, the law pointed him out and showed them their Savior in the body, of the line of David; and on those blind from ancient sin, because they did not see Christ unless they were reminded, he placed the light of the mind. To them the Lord, showing that faith is not to be expected from health but health through faith (for the blind saw because they had believed, not believed because they had seen; from which it must be understood that what is asked for is to be earned by faith, not faith taken up from what has been obtained), promises sight if they believed, gives it to them as they believe, and commands silence, because preaching belonged properly to the apostles. And after this, in the dumb and deaf and demon-possessed man, the people of the nations, in need of complete salvation, is brought. For, beset on every side by all evils, it was entangled in the vices of the whole body. And in this the order of events was kept. For the demon is cast out first, and then the other offices of the body follow. For when the madness of all superstitions has been put to flight by the knowledge of God, sight, hearing, and the speech of salvation are brought in. Wonder at this deed was followed by this confession of the crowd: “Nothing like this has ever appeared in Israel”: since one whom the law could give no help was saved by the power of the word, and since a dumb and deaf man spoke the praises of God. And when salvation has been given to the nations, all the cities and all the villages are enlightened by the power and entry of Christ and escape every weakness of the old sickness.

We must look into the force of the words no less than that of the deeds: because, as we have said, the weight of meaning is equal in what is said and in what is done. The Lord has pity on the crowds, harassed and lying down, like a flock scattered without a shepherd. And he says that the harvest is great and the laborers few, and that the Lord of the harvest must be asked to send out more laborers into the harvest. And calling his disciples together, he gave them power to cast out unclean spirits and to heal every infirmity and every sickness. Although these things were done for the present, we must consider what they signify for the future. No harasser had burst in upon the crowds, nor were they lying struck down by some accident or upheaval: how, then, does he pity them as lying down and harassed? The Lord pities the people harassed, namely, by the ruling violence of the unclean spirit and sick under the burden of the law, because they had as yet no shepherd to give them back the protection of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of this gift was most abundant, but not yet reaped by anyone. For its abundance surpasses the multitude of those who draw from it: however much is taken by all, it always overflows for giving. And since it is useful that there be many through whom it is ministered, he commands that the Lord of the harvest be asked to send out more laborers into the harvest: that is, that God supply an abundance of reapers to take up the gift of the Holy Spirit that was being prepared; for this gift is poured out on us by God through prayer and petition. And to indicate that numerous reapers were to be spread into that harvest, beginning with these twelve apostles, he called them together and gave them power to cast out spirits and to heal every infirmity. For by the powers of this gift both the troubler could be expelled and the sick healed. It is worthwhile to look at the meaning of each of the precepts. They are told to keep away from the ways of the Gentiles: not that they would not be sent also for the salvation of the Gentiles, but that they should keep away from the works and life of Gentile ignorance. They were forbidden to enter the cities of the Samaritans. Did he not himself rather heal a Samaritan woman? But they are warned not to go to the churches of the heretics. For perversity differs in nothing from ignorance. Then they are sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And yet these raged against him with the tongues and jaws of wolves and vipers. But the giving of the law was to have the privilege of the Gospel: so that Israel would have the less excuse for its crime, the more care it had experienced in being warned. Then the whole power of the Lord’s might is transferred to the apostles: and those who in Adam had been formed in the image and likeness of God now obtain the perfect image and likeness of Christ, differing in nothing from the powers of their Lord; and those who were before earthly now become heavenly. Let them preach that the kingdom of heaven is drawing near, that is, that the image and likeness of God is now being taken up into fellowship with the truth, so that all the saints, who are called heavens, may reign with the Lord. Let them heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons: whatever evils the prompting of Satan had brought upon the body of Adam, let them in turn cleanse these from their communion in the Lord’s power. And so that they may attain the likeness of God fully, according to the prophecy of Genesis, they are commanded to give freely what they have freely received: so that the ministering of a free gift may be free. They are forbidden to possess gold, silver, or money in their belts, to carry a bag on the road, two tunics, and sandals, and to take a staff in their hands: and the laborer is worthy of his wage. A treasure in a belt is not, I think, a thing to be envied; and what does the forbidden possession of gold, silver, and bronze in a belt mean? The belt is the equipment of ministry, the girding for effective work. So we are warned that nothing in our ministry should be for sale, and that this work of our apostleship should not become the possession of gold, silver, and bronze. Nor a bag on the road: that is, care for worldly substance must be left behind, because all treasure on earth is harmful, since our heart will be where the treasure is stored. Not two tunics. For it is enough for us to have put on Christ once; nor should we, through a perversity of our understanding, afterward be clothed with another garment, either of heresy or of the law. Not sandals. Is the weakness of human feet able to bear nakedness? But, about to stand with bare feet on holy ground, not beset with the thorns and stings of sins, as was said to Moses, we are warned to have no other equipment for our entering than what we have received from Christ. Nor a staff in the hands, that is, not to seek the rights of an outside power that we do not need, since we have a staff from the root of Jesse; for whatever else there may be will not be Christ’s: equipped by all the preceding words for making the journey of the world with grace, provision, clothing, footwear, and power; for working in these we shall be found worthy of our wage, that is, we shall receive the rewards of heavenly hope through the observance of these things. “Into whatever city you enter, ask who in it is worthy,” and the rest. Perhaps the Lord will be thought to have given the apostles trivial precepts, in that he lowered himself even to instructions about entering, lodging, staying, and leaving. Understood simply, these things suit the modesty of the saints: that hospitality should be with a worthy person, and that they should not, through carelessness or ignorance, be defiled by living with a disreputable household. But he commands them, when they enter a city, to ask about the worthy man and to live with him until they leave; and also that the house be greeted peaceably by those entering; if it is worthy, it should be worthy of the communion of peace; if unworthy, the peace should return; and as for those who did not receive them and their words, the dust of their feet being shaken off, the seeds of eternal cursing are to be left with them. These things trouble the understanding not a little. For if they are not to enter hospitality unless they have first asked who is worthy, how will the house afterward be found unworthy? And how will he not hear their words, both not hearing them and not receiving them? Either this is not to be feared in one who is righteous; or, if he has been found unworthy, the communion of dwelling will not be entered upon. And what would it profit to have asked and sought the worthy man, if observance and penalty are commanded against an unworthy host? But the Lord instructs them not to mix with the houses and familiarity of those who either persecute Christ or do not know him; and in whatever city, to ask who is worthy of their lodging, that is, where there is a church and Christ dwells in it; and not to pass anywhere else, since that is the worthy house and the righteous host. As to his command that those entering greet the house with their voice, saying, “Peace to this house,” and that if the house is found worthy the peace should come upon it, but if unworthy the peace should return to them: if peace has already been spoken at the first entry in the office of greeting, how will it afterward come, or how will it afterward return? Either peace ought not to have been spoken before it was proved whether the house was worthy; or, if it was worthy and was greeted with peace, the condition of peace coming and returning cannot logically fit with what preceded. So the proper meaning of the sayings must be shown. Many of the Jews would come to be whose affection in favor of the law would be so great that, although they had believed in Christ through wonder at his works, they would nevertheless linger in the works of the law; others, curious to spy out the freedom that is in Christ, would pretend that they had passed from the law to the Gospels; and many would also be led into heresy through perversity of understanding. And since all deceivers of this kind, flattering their hearers, falsely claim that the catholic truth is with them, he therefore warned above that the worthy man with whom one should dwell must be sought; but since the ignorant could fall in with a host of this kind through deceitful words, the very house that is called worthy, that is, the church which is called catholic, must be dealt with cautiously and carefully; it is to be greeted with a disposition of peace, but in such a way that peace is spoken rather than given. For he commanded thus: “Greet it, saying, Peace to this house.” So the peace of greeting is in words and is to be given in the speech of prayer. But our own peace, which is the heart of mercy, ought not to come upon it unless it is worthy: if it is not found worthy, the mystery of heavenly peace is to be kept within their own conscience. Against those who, having heard the preaching of the heavenly kingdom, spurn the precepts of the apostles, eternal cursing is to be left by their departure and by the sign of the dust shaken from their feet. For there seems to be, I know not how, a kind of communion between one who stands in a place and the place on which he has stood, and a certain joining of body and ground arises between them. So all the sin of the house and of the dwelling is left within it with the shaking off of the dust of the feet, and it borrows nothing of holiness from the footprints of the apostles standing there: so that those by whose entry and coming the offenses of earthly origin are taken away, by their testimony unbelief is judged together with all the dust of its land. “It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that city”: because for them to have erred without knowing Christ is lighter, but for these it is inexpiable either not to have received him when preached, or, having received him, not to have preached him holily and in a catholic manner. And indeed he signifies that many would come who would rage with insane fury against the apostles, when he says that he sends them like sheep into the midst of wolves, proclaiming that they must be simple as doves and prudent as serpents. The simplicity of the dove is plain; but what the prudence of the serpent is must be considered. I do not know what prudence and counsel stands out in it, although some have recorded this: that when it perceives it has come into men’s hands, it withdraws its head from the blow in every way, and either covers it by coiling its body into a circle or plunges it into a hole, and leaves the rest of itself to the beating; and that by this example we must, if any persecution befalls us, hide our head, which is Christ, so that, exposed to every torture, we may protect the faith received from him at the cost of the body. But all this speech of the Lord is about Jews and heretics: “Brother will hand over brother, and father son, and sons will rise against parents”: that is, a family of the same kind will be at variance within itself: because by the names of parents and kin the former unity of the people is indicated, now divided against itself by hostile hatred; and that we will be brought before judges and kings of the earth, while they try to extort either our silence or our connivance. For they will be witnesses to them and to the nations: by this testimony the excuse of not having known the divinity is to be taken from the persecutors, and for the nations a way is to be opened to believing in Christ, proclaimed by the voices of confessors persevering amid the punishments of those who rage. So he warns that we must be equipped with the prudence of the serpent. Before it misled Adam, Genesis already called it wise; and it taught its prudence by the order of a malicious plan. For first it attacked the mind of the weaker sex, then enticed by hope, promised a share in immortality, and through these great rewards carried out the work of its plan and will. With like fitness, then, having looked into each person’s nature and will, prudence of words must be applied. The hope of future goods must be revealed, and so the heavenly rewards of perfect faith set forth: so that what he lied about we may proclaim truly, that according to God’s promise those who believe will be like angels; so that, though both wolves and heretics rage around, we may take hold of the easy and simple minds of the peoples with the promises of the heavenly kingdoms, and hand on the truth of things with the prudence of the serpent and the simplicity of the dove. He also warns that those handed over must have no care about their answer, but must rather wait for what the Spirit of God suggests; because our faith, inward to all the precepts of the divine will, will be equipped with the knowledge of how to answer: having the example of Abraham, who, when Isaac was demanded as an offering, was not without a ram for the sacrifice. Then he advises flight from one city into two. Because his preaching, first driven from Judea, passes over to Greece; then, wearied by the various sufferings of the apostles within the cities of Greece, it dwells thirdly among all the nations. But to show that the nations would believe the preaching of the apostles, but that the believing of the remnant of Israel was reserved for his coming, he says: “You will not finish the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes”: that is, after the fullness of the nations, what will remain of Israel, to complete the number of the saints, is to be placed in the church at the future coming of his glory. “The disciple is not above the teacher, nor the servant above the master.” Knowledge of what is coming helps greatly toward taking up endurance, especially if the will to patience is taken up by example. Our Lord, the eternal light, the leader of believers, and the parent of immortality, sent ahead to his disciples consolations for their future sufferings: lest any disciple should think himself better than the teacher or a servant above the master. “For if they have given the master of the house, out of envy, the name of a demon, how much more will they do every kind of injury and insult against those of his household?” But let these things not frighten us at all; let us rather embrace it as glory if we are made equal to our Lord even in the conditions of suffering. “Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed.” He shows the day of judgment, which will bring out the hidden conscience of our will and uncover by the light of public knowledge the things we now think hidden. So he warns that neither the threats nor the plans nor the powers of persecutors are to be feared, because the day of judgment will reveal that these were nothing and empty. We do not read that the Lord was accustomed to speak at night and hand on his teaching in darkness. But since all his speech is darkness to the carnal, and his word is night to unbelievers, and what he has said is to be spoken by each with the freedom of faith and confession, he therefore commanded that what was said in darkness be preached in the light, and what was entrusted secretly to the ears be preached on the housetops, that is, on the heights, so that it may be heard by the proclamation of those who speak. For the knowledge of God is to be pressed on steadily, and the deep secret of gospel teaching revealed by the light of apostolic preaching: not fearing those who, though they have license over bodies, have no right over the soul; but rather fearing God, who has power to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them falls to the ground without the will of your Father.” It is not, I think, a crime to go bird-catching, nor has the sale of sparrows any fault. And what he says, “Not one of them falls to the ground without the will of your Father,” seems to go against the apostle’s saying: “God has no care for cattle.” And his authority will be much lessened if he is found to have thought otherwise than is handed down in the Gospels. Nor is much dignity given to the apostles if they stand ahead of sparrows. This passage proceeds from the preceding sense. For the iniquities of those are being heaped up who will hand over, who will persecute, who will drive into flight, by whom we must be hated for the Lord’s name, who exercise all their right over bodies alone, having no power over the soul. These, then, sell two sparrows for a penny. And indeed Christ redeemed from the law what had been sold under sin: so what is sold is body and soul, and that to which it is sold is sin: because Christ both redeemed from sin and is the redeemer of soul and body. Those, then, who sell two sparrows for a penny sell themselves for the smallest sin, born for flying and to be borne up to heaven on spiritual wings. But, caught by the prices of present pleasures and up for sale for the luxury of the world, they trade themselves wholly in such dealings. But we must ask how it is one of them that does not fall without God’s will. God’s will is that one of them should rather fly away, but the law that proceeded from God’s ordinance decrees that one of them should rather fall down. Just as, if they flew away, they would be one, that is, the body would have passed into the nature of the soul, and that heaviness of earthly matter would be abolished in the advance and substance of the soul, and the body would rather become spiritual: so in those sold for the price of sins the subtlety of the soul grows heavy into the nature of bodies and contracts earthly matter from the filth of vices, and they become one which is handed over to the earth. When he says that they stand ahead of many sparrows, he shows that the elect of the faithful are ahead of the multitude of unbelievers: because for the latter there is a fall to the earth, for the former a flight to heaven. To gather something into a number is the care of diligence and concern: for it is not a worthy business to number what will perish. So that we might know, then, that nothing of us will perish, because we are much better than sparrows, it is indicated by the very number of our hairs being counted, so that we shall be safe entirely: since what in us is countless is counted by the affection and power of preserving. So no fall of our bodies is to be feared, nor is any grief to be admitted at the slaying of the flesh: since, dissolved according to the condition of its nature and origin, it is poured back into the substance of a spiritual soul. And since those strengthened by such teachings must have a free constancy in confessing God, he added also the condition by which we are held: that he would deny before the Father in heaven him who had denied him before men on earth, but would confess in heaven him who had confessed him before men; and that such witnesses as we had been of his name before men, such testimony of his we shall have before God the Father. “Do not think that I have come to send peace on the earth. I have not come to send peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a son against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be those of his household.” What is this division? For among the first precepts of the law we received: “Honor your father and your mother.” And the Lord himself says: “My peace I give you, my peace I leave you.” What does it mean that a sword rather is sent on the earth, a son separated from his father, a daughter from her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s household his enemies? On that reading, public sanction would from then on be given to impiety: everywhere hatred, everywhere wars, and the sword of the Lord raging between father and son and between daughter and mother. And in Luke there is this saying about it: “For from now on there will be five in one house divided, three against two and two against three.” Can the family of a household not spread into a larger number of kin? Or was it laid down for a time that from then on there would be only five in one house, and these divided? So we must consider what the sword on the earth is, what the proper meaning of the names is, what reason there is in the number five, how three are divided against two and two against three, and in what way a man’s household are his enemies. And first the nature of each thing and of the whole question must be unfolded; and the preceding and following sense will help our understanding no less. The sword is the sharpest weapon of all weapons, in which lies the right of power, the severity of judgment, and the punishment of sins. And it is frequent authority in the prophets that the preaching of the new Gospel is called by the name of this weapon. Let us remember, then, that the word of God is named by the sword: and this sword has been sent on the earth, that is, his preaching has been poured into the bodies of men. This, then, divides five living in one house, and divides three against two and two against three. But we find only three things in man, namely body, soul, and will. For as the soul was given to the body, so to both was granted the power to use themselves as they wished: and for this reason the law was set before the will. But this is found in those who were first formed by God, in whom the coming into being of the origin begun was effected, not derived from elsewhere. But from the sin and unbelief of the first parent, in the following generations sin began to be the father of our body and unbelief the mother of the soul; for from these we received our origin through the transgression of the first parent. For each person’s will lies with him as his own. So now there are five in one house: sin the father of the body, unbelief the mother of the soul, and, joined to them, the decision of the will, which binds the whole man to itself by a kind of right of marriage. Its mother-in-law is unbelief, which receives us, born from her and strangers to faith and the fear of God, so as to hold us, possessed between unbelief and pleasure, both in ignorance of God and in the delight of all vices. So when we are renewed by the bath of baptism through the power of the word, we are separated from the sins and authors of our origin; and, cut off by a kind of cutting of God’s sword, we are at odds with the affections of father and mother: and putting off the old man with his sins and unbelief, and renewed in soul and body by the Spirit, we must hate the habit of our inborn and old work. And since the body itself, mortified by faith, passes into the nature of the soul, which came from the breath of God (though it still exists in its own matter); since communion between them is brought about by the word: therefore it has now begun to will one and the same thing with the soul, that is, to become spiritual as the soul is; to which the freedom of the will, divided from its mother-in-law, that is, from unbelief, yields all its right: so that what was the freedom of the will is henceforth the power of the soul. And a grave dissension arises in one house, and the household will be enemies to the new man: because he, divided from them by the word of God, will rejoice to remain, both inner and outer man, that is, both body and soul, in the newness of the spirit; but those things which are inborn and drawn from a certain antiquity of lineage will desire to remain in the things in which they have delighted. And the origin of the flesh, the origin of the soul, and the freedom of power will be divided against two, namely the soul and body of the new man, which have begun to will one and the same thing: and the three, divided, will be subject to the two, who are stronger by the newness of the Spirit, under their dominion. And therefore those who have preferred the household loves of names to love of him will be unworthy of the inheritance of future goods. Then he continues in the same course of precepts and understanding. For after he had commanded that all that is dearest in the world be left behind, he added: “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me”: because those who are Christ’s have crucified the body with its vices and desires. And he is unworthy of Christ who has not followed the Lord taking up his cross, in which we suffer with him, die with him, are buried with him, and rise with him, so as to live in this mystery of faith in the newness of the spirit. “Whoever finds his soul will lose it; and whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it.” By the power of the word, that is, and the division of old vices, the gain of the soul will issue in death and the loss in salvation. So death must be taken up in newness of life, and vices must be nailed to the Lord’s cross; and against persecutors, by contempt of present things, the freedom of glorious confession must be kept, and the harmful gain of the soul shunned: knowing that no right over the soul is left to anyone, and that by the loss of a short life the interest of immortality is acquired. “Whoever receives you receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.” He spends the affection of his teaching and the diligence of his precepts on all. And having declared, through the apostles’ testimony of shaken-off dust, the danger of those who do not receive, he commends the merit of those who receive beyond the favor of the hoped-for service; and he teaches the office of mediator in himself: since he is received by us, and he has come forth from God, God has been poured through him into us. And so whoever receives the apostles receives Christ; and whoever receives Christ receives God the Father: because he receives nothing else in the apostles than what is in Christ, and nothing else is in Christ than what is in God; and through this order of graces, to have received the apostles is nothing else than to have received God; because Christ dwells in them, and God in Christ. He who receives a prophet receives the one who dwells in the prophet; and he becomes worthy of a prophet’s reward, receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet. An equal reward is reckoned for having received a righteous man, and he becomes righteous from honoring righteousness. And so righteousness is completed from faith, and the service acquires a reward, God granting many occasions of attaining eternity: since in receiving a righteous man and a prophet, the very disposition of reverence receives the honor both of the righteous man and of the prophet. “And whoever gives one of these least a cup of cold water to drink,” and the rest. He taught that the work of a good conscience is not empty, and that the hope of faith does not suffer from the crime of another’s unbelief. For, foreseeing that many would be glorious only in the name of apostleship but disreputable in the whole work of their life, and that they would long deceive and long lie, he nevertheless does not defraud the service offered to them under the belief that they are religious of the reward of its work and hope. For although they themselves were least, that is, the last of all sinners (and the least of all is that than which nothing is less), he still decrees that even light services toward them, which he signifies by the name of cold water, are not empty. For the honor was given not to the man’s sins but to the name of disciple. And so the shameful deeds of the deceiver do not harm the uprightness of the one who serves: since he obtains his reward by the faith of the giver, not by the lie of the receiver.

Does John, held in prison, not know the Lord? Does so great a prophet not know his God? Yet as forerunner he announced him as coming, as prophet he recognized him standing there, as confessor he worshiped him as he approached. How did error creep into knowledge so varied and so abundant? But the Lord’s following testimony about him does not allow this to be thought. Nor indeed can it be believed that the glory of the Holy Spirit was absent from him when placed in prison, since he would provide the light of his power to the apostles when they were placed in prison. But in the things done in John a fuller understanding is offered; and with the effect of the deed, the grace expressed in him is perceived: so that the prophet himself prophesied even by the kind of his own condition, because in him the form of the law was set forth. For the law announced Christ, preached forgiveness of sins, and promised the kingdom of heaven; and John fulfilled this whole work of the law. So, the law now ceasing, which, shut in by the sins of the people and bound by the vices of the nation, was held in chains and prison so that Christ could not be understood, the law sends to look at the Gospels: so that unbelief may behold the truth of the words in the deeds; and that what was bound within it by the deceit of sins may be set free through the understanding of gospel freedom. By such an example, then, John provides not for his own ignorance but for his disciples’; for he himself had preached him as coming for the forgiveness of sins. But so that they might know that no other had been preached by him, he sent his disciples to look at his works: so that his works might give authority to John’s words, and no other Christ be expected than him to whom the works had given testimony. And when the Lord had shown himself wholly by the wonders of his deeds, namely by the sight of the blind, the running of the lame, the healing of lepers, the hearing of the deaf, the voice of the dumb, the life of the dead, and the preaching to the poor, he says: “Blessed is he who is not scandalized in me.” Had anything yet been done in Christ that could scandalize John? Certainly not. For he was still occupied in the very course of his teaching and work. But we must look at the force and proper meaning of the preceding sentence, what it is that good news is preached to the poor: that is, to those who will have lost their soul, who will have taken up their cross and followed, who will become humble in spirit, for whom a kingdom is prepared in heaven. So, since this whole sum of sufferings would meet in the Lord, and his cross would be a stumbling block to very many, he declared them blessed whose faith the cross, death, and burial would not put to the test. So he showed what John had guarded against, saying that they are blessed for whom there had been nothing to stumble at in him: because John had sent his disciples out of fear for them, so that they might hear and see Christ. But lest this could be referred to John, as though he had been scandalized at something in Christ, as they were going away he spoke to the crowds about him: “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed shaken by the wind?” The desert must be understood as empty of the Holy Spirit, a place where there is no dwelling of God. For by the reed such a man is shown, handsome with the empty glory of worldly life, but hollow within of the fruit of truth; pleasing outwardly and nothing inwardly; to be moved by every movement of the winds, that is, by the breath of unclean spirits, without strength for standing firm, and empty in the marrow of the soul. So when he says, “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed shaken by the wind?”, he says this: Did you go out to see a man empty of the knowledge of God and wandering at the breath of unclean spirits? For he says this with the feeling of one rebuking rather than affirming: showing, that is, that one who is both empty and fickle is not to be seen in John. “But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in the houses of kings.” By the garment he signifies the body, the covering with which the soul is clothed, which grows soft with luxury and wantonness. “But those dressed in soft things are in the houses of kings.” By kings the transgressing angels are named: for these are the powerful of the world and the rulers of the earth. So those dressed in soft things are in the houses of kings, that is, those whose bodies are loose and dissolved through luxury are the dwelling of demons, who choose a seat like their own purposes and works. “But what did you go out to see? A prophet? I tell you, even more than a prophet,” and so on. The Lord shows the whole glory of John, saying that he is beyond a prophet: because to him alone it was granted both to prophesy Christ and to see him. And how is he believed not to know Christ, he who, sent in the power of an angel, prepared the way for the one to come, and than whom no greater prophet has arisen among those born of women; except that he who is less than he, that is, he who is questioned, who is not believed, to whom his own works give no testimony, is greater in the kingdom of heaven? … “To what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the market place and calling to one another,” and the rest. This whole speech is a reproach of unbelief, and it comes down from the feeling of the preceding complaint: that the insolent people was not taught by the various kinds of preaching. By the children he signifies the prophets, who in the midst of the synagogue, as in the public gathering of the market place, rebuke the people because they did not comply with the office of the body to those singing to them, that is, did not obey their words. For the movement of dancers is fitted to the measure of singers. In simplicity of mind, like children, they preached, and called them to the confession of singing psalms to God, as is held in the song of Moses, of Isaiah, of David, and of the other prophets; and again the preaching of John did not bend them to repentance for sins and to grief and mourning for old offenses: to them the law seemed heavy, difficult, and troublesome with its prescriptions about drink and food, having sin in it, which he calls a demon, because through the difficulty of its observance it was necessary for them to sin in the law; and again the preaching of the Gospel in Christ does not please them with its freedom of life, through which the difficulties and burdens of the law have been relaxed, and tax collectors and sinners have now believed: and so, so many and such kinds of warnings having been in vain, they are neither justified by grace and have been cast off from the law. “And wisdom has been justified by her children”: by those, namely, who, doing violence to the kingdom of heaven, seize it by the justification of faith: confessing that it is the just work of Wisdom that it has transferred its gift from the stubborn and unbelieving to the faithful and obedient. It is not idle in this place to look at the force of the saying. “And Wisdom has been justified”: he certainly spoke of himself. For he himself is Wisdom, not from its effects but by nature: for everything has a power. But every activity is the effect of power; and the work of power is not the same as power, and the effecting is distinguished from the effected. For many are accustomed to evade the apostle’s saying, in which he says that Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God, in these ways: that in his creation from the Virgin the wisdom and power of God appeared effective, and in his birth the work of divine prudence and might is understood; and that in him there is the effect rather than the nature of wisdom. So that nothing of this sort could be understood, he called himself Wisdom, showing it in himself, not the things that are its. For the work of Wisdom is faith, hope, love, chastity, fasting, self-control, humility, kindness: but these are the works of the nature, not the nature itself; and the thing itself that makes does not consist in the things that are made. Why would the Apostle have said “the power of God and the wisdom of God,” if wisdom was created from that Wisdom which was? “Woe to you, Chorazin and Bethsaida; for if the powers that have been done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon,” and the rest. The curse of disobedience is decreed together with the blessing of obedience. For the gospel had to be preached first to the Jews; but by the privilege of preaching the odium of unbelief is heaped up, since they are refuted by the example of believers, to whom no wonder of deeds was set forth and all salvation is from faith. For in Bethsaida and Capernaum the dumb praise the Lord, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame run about, the dead come to feel; and the wonder at such things moved no one to a will to believe, though the mere hearing of the deeds ought to have called them to fear and swept them into faith. But they make light not only of the sins of Tyre and Sidon but even those of Sodom and Gomorrah: because perhaps those would have had the disposition to believe if the sight of such powers had befallen them. “At that time Jesus answered and said: I confess to you, Lord, Father of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to little ones,” and the rest. Fittingly such a confession is joined to the preceding words. For although the salvation of Israel would have been desirable, yet the faith of the nations, long since preached, was not outside the Lord’s joy. For the secrets and powers of the heavenly words are hidden from the wise and revealed to little ones: little in malice, not in understanding; and wise by the presumption of their folly, not for reasons of prudence. And the Lord confirms the fairness of this deed by the judgment of the Father’s will: that those who disdain to become little ones in God should henceforth be foolish in their wisdom. And lest anything less in him than what is in God should be thought, he says that all things have been handed over to him by the Father, and that he is known to the Father alone, and the Father known to himself alone, or to whom he has wished to reveal him: and he will reveal him to the one by whom he is asked to wish to reveal. By this revelation he teaches that the substance of both is the same in their mutual knowledge, since whoever knew the Son would also know the Father in the Son: because all things have been handed over to him by the Father. And what has been handed over is nothing other than what in the Son is known to the Father alone. And what is the Father’s is known to the Son alone. And so in this secret of mutual knowledge it is understood that nothing else has stood in the Son than what in the Father is unknowable. Then he calls to himself those laboring under the difficulties of the law and burdened by the sins of the world; and he promises that he will take away their labor and burden, if only they take up his yoke, that is, receive the precepts of his commandments and come to him by the mystery of the cross: because he is humble and meek of heart, and in these things they will find rest for their souls: setting before them the allurements of a sweet yoke and a light burden, so that he may give believers the knowledge of that good which he alone knows in the Father. And what is sweeter than his yoke, what lighter than his burden: to become approved, to abstain from crime, to will good, to refuse evil, to love all, to hate none, to attain eternal things, not to be captured by present things, to refuse to inflict on another what is troublesome to suffer oneself.

“At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath; and his disciples, being hungry, began to pluck the ears and eat.” The going out into the grain field, the Sabbath day, the hunger of the disciples, the plucking of the ears, the accusation of the Pharisees, and the Lord’s answer have, like the rest, an understanding of an inner cause lying beneath. For, as we have said, all the truths of the deeds attain, in the very effects of the events, an image of future truth like themselves and to be understood from them. And first we must consider that this speech began thus: “At that time Jesus went through the grain fields,” that is, at the time when he confessed thanks to God the Father for the salvation given to the nations: so that the same sense might hold together both what precedes and what follows. Let us run through the rest, then. The field is the world; the Sabbath is rest; the crop is the advance of those who will believe toward the harvest. So, having gone out into the field on the Sabbath, the Lord’s advance into this world is in the rest of the law, visiting that crop, that is, the sowing of the human race. And since the hunger is a hunger for human salvation, the disciples hasten to pluck and pull the ears, that is, to satisfy themselves with the salvation of the saints. For the food of ears does not suit man, nor is eating plucked ears of grain useful: but the appearance of the deed carries out the truth of a future deed, and the power of the inserted words unfolds the mystery of both hunger and satisfaction. The Pharisees, who thought the key of heaven was in their keeping, accuse the disciples of doing unlawful things: these the Lord reminded of the deed in which, under the matter of events, the reason of prophecy is contained, that David, hungry, together with those who were with him, was filled by similarly unlawful things. For if it was not lawful to be done, David would not have been believed to have done it without crime. But in the law he prophesied by deeds without the guilt of crime: that he himself, with the others, was filled with the loaves of presentation: showing thus that Christ with the apostles was to be satisfied by the salvation of the nations, which seemed unlawful to the Jews. He also reminds them of another prophecy, so that they might recognize that all things said earlier in the law were fulfilled in him: that the priests violate the Sabbath in the temple without crime; indicating, that is, himself as the temple, in which, through the apostolic teaching, while the people of the law faithlessly stood in the way, salvation is given to the nations: because he himself is greater than the Sabbath, and the gospel faith works in Christ without the guilt of violating the law. And to show that the whole effect of the events contained this image of the future work, he added: “For if you knew what this is, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would never have condemned the innocent.” The work of our salvation is not in sacrifice but in mercy; and with the law ceasing, we are saved in God’s goodness. If they had understood the gift of this thing, they would never have condemned the innocent, that is, the apostles, whom they would accuse out of hatred of having transgressed the law, when, the old order of sacrifices ceasing, the newness of mercy would come to the help of all through them; nor would they have thought that the Lord of the Sabbath was bound by the rule of the Sabbath. These things were said and done in the field. And after this, when he had entered the synagogue, they bring a man with a withered hand, asking whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath, seeking from his answer an occasion to accuse him. He shut them up with the example of a sheep falling into a pit, which they would be careful to pull out on the Sabbath without crime; and that a man, who surpasses a sheep, is more rightly to be healed; and that the Sabbath must not be thought able to be violated by the ministry of human salvation, which the concern to pull a sheep out of a pit does not violate. Such a healing by the Lord is fittingly placed next. For after his return from the crop, from which the apostles had already received the fruits of the sowing, he came to the synagogue, to prepare from there also workers for his harvest, who afterward appeared, many of them, together with the apostles. These, then, are healed in the maimed man. For they did not have the substance for giving salvation, and the office of the hand had ceased, and the ministry of the body by which anything is done and imparted had withered. So the Lord commanded him to stretch out his hand, which was restored to him like the other. All the healing is in the word, and the hand is given back like the other, that is, it is made like the ministry of the apostles for the office of giving salvation: and he teaches the Pharisees that they ought not to take it ill that the work of human salvation is in the apostles, since their own hand would be restored to the ministry of the same office if they believed. But hatred of the deed stirs the Pharisees, and they take counsel against him: because, seeing a man in the body, they did not understand God in the works. And knowing their counsels, he withdrew, so that he might be known to be far from the counsels of the malicious. And many crowds followed him: as he withdraws from the unbelievers, the company of the faithful attends him. To those whom he heals he commanded silence. But was silence about the healing being commanded? Certainly not; for the health given back to each was its own witness. But by commanding secrecy he both declines the boasting of glorying about himself and nevertheless provides the knowledge of himself in the very act of warning that he be kept silent about; because the observance of silence proceeds from a thing that must be kept silent. Indeed, through this will to be kept silent about, the effect of the sayings through Isaiah is fulfilled: concerning whose prophecy we now point out only this: that he is beloved by God, and that in him there is the good pleasure of the Father’s will, and that the Spirit of God is upon him, and that judgment is announced by him to the nations, and that the reed which was shaken was not broken, and the smoking flax not quenched: that is, the perishable and shaken bodies of the nations were not crushed but rather kept for salvation; nor was the small amount of fire still smoldering in the flax quenched, that is, the spirit was not taken away from the small number of Israel out of the remnants of the old grace; because there is the possibility of taking up again the whole light in the time of repentance. But this is prescribed within the limits of a fixed time, until he sends out victory to judgment, that is, until, the power of death having been removed, he brings in judgment by the return of his glory, the nations believing in his name through faith. “Then a man was brought to him having a demon, blind and dumb,” and the rest. The fitting healing of the demoniac, blind and dumb man follows. For not without reason, when he had said that all the crowds were healed in common, is a man having a demon, blind and dumb, now brought from outside: so that the same order of understanding might follow without any ambiguity. The Pharisees accused the apostles of plucking ears, that is, of plucking men of the world; mercy was proclaimed above sacrifice; the man with the withered hand brought in the synagogue was healed: and these things not only did nothing to convert Israel, but the Pharisees even take counsel to kill him. It was fitting, then, that after these things the salvation of the nations should come about in the form of this one man: so that he who was the dwelling of a demon, blind and dumb, might be made ready to hold God, and behold God in Christ, and praise the works of Christ with the confession of God. The crowds were amazed at the work of this deed; but the hatred of the Pharisees grows heavier. For since these great works of his exceeded human weakness, they avoid the shame of their own confession by a greater crime of faithlessness: so that, since they could not think these were the works of a man and would not confess them as God’s, they said that all this power of his over demons was from Beelzebub, prince of demons. “But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them: Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste.” The word of God is rich, and, set as the argument of understanding, supplies an abundance of examples of itself; and whether understood simply or looked into inwardly, it is necessary for every advance. But leaving aside the things that lie open to common understanding, let us dwell on the inner causes. “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste.” About to answer what had been said about Beelzebub, he turned the condition of his answer against those very people to whom he was answering. For the law is from God, and the promise of the kingdom of Israel is from the law, and the birth and coming of Christ are from the law. If the kingdom of the law is divided against itself, it must be dissolved. And all power is taken away by division, and the strength of a kingdom separated against itself is consumed: and so Israel lost the kingdom from the law, since the people of the law fights against the fulfillment of the law in Christ. “But also a city and a house divided against itself will not stand.” The reason of the house and city is the same as that of the kingdom. But the city here indicated is Jerusalem, always glorious with rule over nations. Now, after it blazed with the fury of the people against its Lord, and drove out his apostles with the crowds of believers, it will not stand, by the division of those departing from it: and so, by this division, the destruction of that city, which soon followed, is announced. “If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself.” They condemn the malice of their former saying, by which they said that he did these things by Beelzebub, by the very kind of thing they said: not understanding that they had confessed that Beelzebub was divided; and that if he had been forced into his division, so that a demon drove out demons and the division itself stood against itself, it must be reckoned from this too that there is more power in the one who divided than in those who were divided. So he has already been divided and forced against himself, and his kingdom has been dissolved by such a division. “But if by the power of Beelzebub” Christ casts out demons, “your sons,” that is, the apostles, in whose name do they cast them out? And therefore they are worthily appointed judges over them, since Christ will be found to have given them that power against demons which he himself is denied to have had. So if the disciples work in Christ, and Christ works from the Spirit of God, the kingdom of God is present, now poured into the apostles through the office of the mediator. But when Christ is accused of having power through Beelzebub, God is blasphemed in Christ: and so an insult of inexpiable abuse against God is prepared through the Pharisees in the name of Beelzebub. “How can anyone enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods?” and the rest. He indicates that all the devil’s power was crushed by him in the first temptation, because no one may enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods unless he has bound the strong man, and then he will plunder his house; and one who does this must be stronger than that strong man. So he was bound then, when, named Satan by the Lord, he was bound by the very naming of his wickedness: from him, thus bound, he took the spoils and carried off the house, that is, he brought back under his own right us, once his weapons and the soldiers of his kingdom, and, the strong man being conquered and bound, he acquired for himself from us a house empty and useful. And he shows that he is far from having borrowed any power from him: since he who is not with him is against him, and he who does not gather with him scatters. From this it is understood to be a matter of great danger to think ill of him, with whom not to be is the same as to be against him, and not to gather is to scatter. “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men; but the blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven.” He condemns with a most severe definition the opinion of the Pharisees and the perversity of those who think as they do, promising pardon for all sins and refusing indulgence to blasphemy of the Spirit. For whereas all other words and deeds are released by generous pardon, there is no mercy if God is denied in Christ. And concerning the thing in which one sins without pardon, he spends the kindness of a repeated warning: that sins of every kind whatever are to be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not to be forgiven. For what is so beyond pardon as to deny in Christ that he is God, and to take away the substance of the Father’s Spirit existing in him: since he accomplishes every work in the Spirit of God, and he himself is the kingdom of heaven, and in him God is reconciling the world to himself? So whatever insult has arisen against Christ will all arise against God: because God is in Christ and Christ in God. “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad,” and the rest. The speech both shows itself in the present and carries itself into the future. For in the present it refutes the Jews, who, though they understood that the works of Christ were beyond human power, still would not confess that they were God’s. And for the future it convicts every perversity of faith, namely of those who, taking away from the Lord divinity and communion in the Father’s substance, have boiled over into various pursuits of heresy: doing neither, neither living among the nations under the pardon of ignorance nor engaged in the knowledge of the truth. By the tree he signifies himself placed in the body: because through the inner fruitfulness of his power all richness goes out into fruit. So either the tree is to be made good with good fruits, or established as bad with bad fruits: because the tree itself will testify about itself from its fruits: not that, according to the nature of trees, a tree that is good can be made bad, or the same tree be good with its branches if it is bad; but so that through this meaning we might understand that Christ is either to be abandoned as useless or kept as good for the usefulness of his good fruits: because words against the Son of Man are under pardon, but blasphemy of the Spirit lacks pardon. But to take a middle course, to grant Christ some things and deny what are the greatest; to venerate him as God and strip him of communion with God: this is blasphemy of the Spirit: so that, while through wonder at such great works you do not dare to take away the name of God, through malice of mind and sense you pluck away his nobility, which you were compelled to confess in name, by denying communion in the Father’s substance. And therefore the Lord extends the gift of his goodness even in this, saying that either a bad tree with bad fruits or a good one with good fruits must be made: because in the opinion of a bad tree, pardon has been laid up in the secret of God’s indulgence (for every sin is to be forgiven); in the confession of a good one, the fruit is eternal: lest, falling into a middle opinion between the two, while we do not dare to establish him as bad and will not confess him as good, we be left in the indissoluble judgment of a corrupt opinion about him. … We cannot doubt, then, that all this is to be referred to the person of this people: but we must consider how each of the things set forth is assigned to particular times and events. Above, namely in the name of the Ninevites and of the queen of the South, the faith of the nations was justified: but long before, after many grave sins against God, the law was given to the Jews. And their sins are contained in the books of Moses. For after so many proofs of divine power, that is, Egypt struck with ten plagues, the pillar of cloud and light serving them night and day, a road provided in the Red Sea, springs flowing from split rocks, manna supplied to the hungry, and finally a people living for forty years in the life and condition of angels, cattle and stones were afterward worshiped and supplicated, dances and songs were held for them, and metals were called gods. So the law, given afterward, by its intervention cast out the unclean spirit sitting in the hearts of this people and shut it out as by a kind of guard of surrounding power. Going out from there, it wandered about the desert and dry nations, leaving its old house, so as to rest in them in an undisturbed dwelling until the day of judgment. But again, when the grace of God was imparted to the nations, after the living spring flowed in the washing of water, it has no place of dwelling with them; and since it no longer had rest in them, reckoning within itself, it thinks it best to return to the house from which it set out. This house, cleansed by the law, adorned by the proclamations of the prophets, and prepared by the coming of Christ, is found empty: from which both the guard of the law has departed (because the whole law is until John) and Christ has not been received to dwell. And so it is both empty of an inhabitant and deserted by its guards: though, with the inhabitant coming, it has been both cleansed and adorned by the care of those who went before. So seven more wicked spirits are taken along; because as many gifts of graces had been destined with Christ, which that manifold wisdom of God placed in him with a sevenfold glory: so that the possession of iniquity might be as great as that of graces would have been. And so the last state of that man will be worse than the first: because the unclean spirit had gone out of the Jews from fear of the law, but now it will return into them with vengeance for the grace rejected by them. And since he spoke all this in the power of the Father’s majesty, when it was announced to him that his mother and brothers were waiting outside, stretching his hand toward his disciples he answered that these were his brothers and mother; and that whoever obeyed the Father’s will was his brother, sister, and mother: making himself the pattern for all of acting and thinking, that the right and name of all kinship is to be held no longer from the condition of birth but from the communion of the church. But he must not be thought to have thought scornfully of his mother, to whom, set in his passion, he gave the affection of the greatest care. But in this too a typological reason was kept, that his mother and brothers stood outside, although they had, like the others, the power of entering to him. But because he came to his own and his own did not receive him, in his mother and brothers the synagogue and the Israelites are prefigured, keeping away from entering and approaching him.

“On that day Jesus went out and sat by the sea; and crowds gathered to him, so that he got into a boat.” That the Lord sat in a boat and the crowds stood outside has its reason in what follows. For he was going to speak in parables; and by the kind of this act he signifies that those who are placed outside the church can grasp no understanding of the divine word. For the ship bears the figure of the church: within it the word of life is placed and preached, which those who are outside, lying beside it barren and useless like sand, cannot understand. As for the parables already explained by the Lord, it is idle to speak. “For to him who has, it will be given, and he will abound; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.” Faith receives the mysteries of the kingdom. In those in whom it is present it will advance and abound with the increase of its progress; but from those in whom it is not, even what they have will be taken away. He declares, that is, the loss of the law from the lack of faith: the Jews, not having this faith, also lost the law that they had had. And therefore the gospel faith has a perfect gift: because when received it enriches with new fruits, but when rejected it takes away even the wealth of the old substance. “But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.” He teaches the blessedness of the apostolic time, to whose eyes and ears it was granted to see and hear God’s salvation: the prophets and the righteous desiring to see and hear in the fullness of the appointed times, and the joy of this expectation reserved for the apostles. “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed,” and the rest. The Lord compared himself to a grain of mustard seed, very sharp and the smallest of all seeds, whose force and power is kindled by tribulations and pressures. So this grain, after it has been sown in the field, that is, when, seized by the people and handed over to death, it was buried, as in a field, by a kind of sowing of his body, grows beyond the measure of all herbs and surpasses the whole glory of the prophets. For the preaching of the prophets was given to Israel as a herb is given to a sick man. But now the birds of heaven dwell in the branches of the tree raised up from the ground on high. By the branches we shall understand the apostles, stretched out by the power of Christ and overshadowing the world: to them the nations will fly in hope of life, and, harassed by the whirlwind of the winds, that is, by the spirit and blast of the devil, they will rest as in the branches of a tree. Leaven comes from flour and gives back the power it received to the heap of its own kind. The Lord compared himself to this, which a woman, namely the synagogue, took and hid by the sentence of death, claiming that the law and the prophets were dissolved by the Gospels. But this, covered by three measures of flour, that is, by the equality of the law, the prophets, and the Gospels, makes all things one: so that what the law established and the prophets announced is fulfilled by the advances of the Gospels. And all things come about through the Spirit of God, of the same power and meaning; and nothing leavened in equal measures will be found to disagree with another. Yet I remember that many have thought the three measures of flour should be referred to the mystery of faith, that is, to the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and also to the calling of the three nations from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. But I do not know whether reason allows this to be thought: since, although the calling of all nations is equal, Christ is not hidden in them but shown, and in so great a multitude of unbelievers the whole has not been leavened; but in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, without the need of any leaven mixed in from outside in Christ, all things are one. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden,” and the rest. By the likeness of a treasure in a field he shows the wealth of our hope placed within itself: because God has been found in a man, for whose price all the means of the world are to be sold, so that with the clothing, food, and drink of the needy we may buy the eternal riches of the heavenly treasure. But we must consider that the treasure was found and hidden, though one who found it could surely have carried it off both secretly and at the time when he hid it, and by carrying it off would have had no need of buying. But as with the thing, so with the saying, the reason must be explained. The treasure was hidden for this reason, that the field also had to be bought. For the treasure in the field, as we have said, is understood as Christ in the flesh, whom to find is free. For the preaching of the Gospels is open; but the power of using and possessing this treasure with the field cannot be without a price, because heavenly riches are possessed only at the cost of the world. And the reasoning about the pearl is the same. But this speech is directed to a merchant long engaged in the law, who by long and lasting labor has come to the knowledge of the pearl and leaves behind what he obtained under the burden of the law. For he has long been trading, and at last he has found such a pearl as he wished: and the price of this desired stone is to be paid for at the loss of the rest of his labor. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea,” and the rest. Rightly he compared his preaching to a net, which, coming into the world, gathered those living in the world without loss to the world, in the manner of a net, which, penetrating the sea, is drawn from the deep so that, escaping through the whole body of that element, it draws out those enclosed within its circuit, and leads us out of the world into the light of the true sun: showing the examination of the future judgment in the choosing of the good and the casting away of the bad.

“Have you understood all these things? They say to him: Yes. And he said to them: Therefore every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven,” and so on. He spoke not to the crowds but to the disciples; and he gives worthy testimony to those who understand the parables, comparing them to himself under the name of a householder, because they have obtained teaching from his treasure of new and old things; and he calls them scribes because of their knowledge, since they have understood the things, new and old, that he brought out, that is, in the Gospels and in the law, both from the same householder and from one treasure. “And it happened, when Jesus had finished these parables, he went from there and came into his own country,” and the rest. The Lord is dishonored by his own. Although both the wisdom of his teaching and the power of his working stirred wonder, yet their unbelief does not accept the truth of judgment. For they do not believe that God does these things in a man; rather they name his father, mother, and brothers, and taunt him with a kind of reproach about his father’s trade. But plainly he was the son of a smith, who conquers iron with fire, who melts down the whole power of the world with judgment, and shapes the mass into every work useful to man: shaping, that is, the formless matter of our bodies into the various services of the limbs and for all the works of eternal life. In these things, then, all were scandalized: and amid so many and such magnificent things that he did, they were disturbed by the sight of his body. To them the Lord answered that a prophet is without honor in his own country, because in Judea he was to be despised even to the sentence of the cross. And since the power of God is with the faithful alone, because of their unbelief he refrained from all works of divine power. “At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the report of Jesus, and said to his servants,” and the rest. We have often warned that all diligence must be applied to the reading of the Gospels: because in the things narrated as done there is found an underlying reason of inner understanding. For the narrative of all the works has its own order; but in the effects of the deeds an image of an underlying cause is prefigured, as is understood in Herod and John. For Herod was the ruler of the people, and by the right of power he had taken into marriage Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. And this Herodias had a daughter, who, pleasing him by dancing on his birthday, received by the oath of the swearer the power of whatever reward she wished; and at her mother’s prompting the girl asked that the head of John, long held in prison, be brought to her on a dish. And Herod, though sad, kept faith with his oath, and the girl presented the gift to her mother; and when he had been buried his disciples passed over to the Lord. And hearing these things the Lord withdrew in a boat into desert places, and he pitied the distress of the crowds following him, and the apostles advise that they be sent away into the villages to buy food. And the Lord answers that they have no need to go back there, and commands that food be given them. And they plead that they have only five loaves and two fish. And he ordered these to be brought to him, and the crowd to recline on spread grass. And he blessed what was brought, broke it for the crowd to eat, and gave it to the disciples to distribute; and when all were satisfied, twelve baskets of leftovers remained over, though the number of the men, besides women and children, was five thousand. And he orders the disciples to get into the boat and go ahead across the sea; and having sent the crowd away he goes up the mountain alone to pray: and when evening came he was alone; and the ship in the middle of the sea, with the wind against it, was tossed by the waves. And in the fourth watch the Lord came walking on the sea; and seeing him they were troubled, and, thinking the empty sight a ghost, they cried out for fear. To them the Lord at once spoke and told them to take heart. And of the many Peter answered and asked that he might come to the Lord on the waters. He, going down from the boat and going a little way, as the wind grew strong, began to fear and to sink. Taking hold of him, the Lord rebuked him for being of little faith; and, entering the ship, he restored calm as the wind and sea fell quiet. These things, then, were done as we have recounted: but in all these persons, effects, causes, and numbers there lies a manner, so that what they did, besides the mind and impulse of acting that each took from his own nature, they all did outwardly as an example: and this with all the greater reverence in so thinking, if one and the same understanding attains the efficacy of such different causes. So the speech must be referred back to the origin of the proposition. John, as we have often warned, bore the form of the law: because the law preached Christ, and John came forth from the law, foretelling Christ from the law. Herod is the ruler of the people; and the ruler of a people comprises the name and cause of the whole subject to him. So John was warning Herod not to join his brother’s wife to himself. For there are and were two peoples, of the circumcision and of the nations. But the law was warning Israel not to join to itself the works and unbelief of the nations. For unbelief is the partner of the nations, joined to them as by the bond of conjugal love. These, then, are brothers from the same parent of the human race. For the truth of this harsh warning, then, John, as the law, was held in prison. On the birthday, that is, amid the joys of bodily things, the daughter of Herodias danced: for pleasure, as if born of unbelief, was carried through all the joys of Israel with all the courses of its allurement. To it the people bound itself as wholly for sale even by an oath: for under sins and the pleasures of the world the Israelites sold the gifts of eternal life. This daughter, at the prompting of her mother, that is, of unbelief, asked that John’s head, that is, the glory of the law, be brought to her: because the law, by the authority of the divine precepts, accused incestuous Israel. But above Herod was shown wanting to kill John and delaying for fear of the people, because he was held as a prophet. But now, when his death is asked for, especially when he was held by the solemnity of his oath, how is he made sad? It is contradictory, of course, to have wanted then and not to want now; and the present distress does not fit the earlier will. But in the earlier passage is the order of the event done; in these the image of the following cause is set out. Pleasure born of unbelief seized the glory of the law. But the people, aware of the good that was in the law, connives at the conditions of pleasure not without some grief at its certain danger. And it knows that it ought not to have yielded such glory of precepts: but, compelled by sins as by an oath, and depraved and overcome by the fear and example of the rulers about it, it obeys the allurements of pleasure even while sad. So amid the other joys of a dissolute people, John’s head is brought on a dish: that is, by the loss of the law the pleasure of bodies and worldly luxury is increased: and so it is carried by the girl to her mother. And so shameful Israel handed over the glory of the law both to pleasure and to its unbelief, a family once of the nations. So when the times of the law were ended and buried with John, his disciples report what had happened to the Lord, coming, that is, from the law to the Gospels. So the Word of God, the law being ended, boarding the ship goes to the church and withdraws into the desert: leaving, that is, the way of life of Israel, to pass over into hearts empty of divine knowledge. The crowd, hearing this, follows the Lord from the city on foot into the desert: passes over, that is, from the synagogue to the church. Seeing it, he had compassion and heals all its sickness and infirmity: he cleanses, that is, the minds and bodies beset by the lethargy of unbelief for the understanding of the new preaching. And when the disciples advised that the crowds be sent away into the nearest villages to buy food, he answered: “They have no need to go”: showing that those whom he was healing had no need of the food of the law’s teaching, nor the need to go back to Judea and buy food; and he commands the apostles to give them food. Did he not know that there was nothing that could be given; and, seeing into the inner parts of human minds, did he not know the amount of food stored with the apostles? But the whole typological reason had to be unfolded. For it had not yet been granted to the apostles to make and minister the heavenly bread for the food of eternal life. Their answer tends to the order of spiritual understanding. For they answered that they had only five loaves and two fish: because they were still held under five loaves, that is, the five books of the law, and were nourished by two fish, that is, the preachings of the prophets and of John. For in the works of the law, life was as from bread; while the preaching of John and the prophets cherished the hope of human life by the power of water. These, then, the apostles offered first, because they were still in them: but from them the preaching of the Gospels is shown to have proceeded, and, drawn from these origins, it grows into a greater abundance of its power. So, having taken the loaves and fish, the Lord looked up to heaven, blessed, and broke, giving thanks to the Father that after the times of the law and the prophets he himself was turned into the food of the Gospel. After this the people are commanded to recline on the grass; no longer lying on the ground, but supported by the law: and each is spread, as on the grass of the earth, on the fruits of his own work. The loaves are also given to the apostles, because through them the gifts of divine grace were to be given back. Then the people are fed and filled with five loaves and two fish; and the fragments of bread and fish, when those reclining were satisfied, abounded to the fullness of twelve baskets: that is, the multitude is satisfied by the word of God coming from the teaching of the law and the prophets; and, the ministry of eternal food being reserved for the people of the nations, the abundance of divine power overflows into the fullness of the twelve apostles. And the number of those who ate is found to be the same as was to be the number of those who would believe. For, as is contained in the book of the Acts, out of the infinite multitude of the people of Israel five thousand men believed. For the wonder of the events extends to the measure of the underlying cause. And the loaves broken with the fish, when the people had been satisfied, are heaped up afterward to such an increase as the number of the believing people and of the apostles to be filled with heavenly grace was destined: so that both the measure obeyed the number and the number the measure; the reason, enclosed within its own bounds, was held by the very governing of divine power to the condition of the following effect. The work of the deed surpasses human understanding: and whereas often there are things that, conceived by the mind, speech does not unfold, in these the very subtlety of the mind grows heavy and is stunned at contemplating the thing because of the difficulty of so invisible a business. For having taken the five loaves, the Lord looked up to heaven, himself confessing the honor of him from whom he was: not that it was necessary to look at the Father with fleshly eyes, but so that those present might understand from whom he had received the effect of so great a power. Then he gives the loaves to the disciples. The five are not multiplied into more, but fragments succeed fragments, and always deceive those breaking them as already broken. Then the matter grows: I do not know whether in the place of the tables, or in the hands of those taking it, or in the mouth of those eating. Do not wonder that springs flow, that grapes are in vines, that wine pours from grapes, and that all the wealth of the world flows down in a kind of yearly and unwearied course: for so great an increase of loaves shows the author of this universe, through whom by such increase measure was added to the matter handled. For an invisible working is done in a visible work: and the Lord of heavenly secrets works the secret of the present business. The power of the worker surpasses all nature, and the reason of the power goes beyond the understanding of the deed, and only wonder at the might is left. The order of causes and works also follows. After this he ordered the disciples to get into the ship until he himself sent the crowds away; and having sent the crowd away he went up the mountain to pray, and when evening came he was alone. The reason of these things is to be distinguished by times. That he is alone in the evening shows his solitude at the time of the passion, the others having scattered in fear. That he commands the disciples to get into the ship and go across the sea while he himself sends away the crowds, and, the crowds sent away, goes up the mountain: he commands that they be within the church and be carried through the sea, that is, through the world, until the time when, returning at the coming of his glory, he himself gives salvation to all the people that will be left of Israel and forgives its sins; and, having sent it away, or rather admitted it into the heavenly kingdom, giving thanks to God the Father, he stands in his glory and majesty. But meanwhile the disciples are driven about by wind and sea and tossed by all the upheavals of the world, the unclean spirit opposing them. But in the fourth watch the Lord comes: for at the fourth time he will return to the wandering and shipwrecked church. For in the fourth watch of the night the number of his care is found to be as many. For the first watch was that of the law, the second of the prophets, the third of his bodily coming, and the fourth at the return of his glory. But he will find it weary and driven about by the spirit of Antichrist and by all the upheavals of the world. For he will come to those most anxious and harassed. And since from the ways of Antichrist they will be anxious about every novelty of temptations, they will be terrified even at the Lord’s coming, fearing false images of things and phantoms creeping up on their eyes. But the good Lord will at once speak, drive away their fear, and say: “It is I,” driving away the fear of imminent shipwreck by faith in his coming. That of the whole number of those in the ship Peter alone dares to answer and prays to be ordered to come to the Lord on the waters signifies the disposition of his will at the time of the passion, when alone, coming behind and keeping to the Lord’s footsteps, despising the upheavals of the world as of the sea, he accompanied him with a like courage to despise death: but his fearfulness shows the weakness of the coming temptation. For although he had dared to walk, still he began to sink: for through the weakness of the flesh and the fear of death he was driven even to the necessity of denying. But he cries out and prays the Lord for salvation. That cry is the groan of his repentance. For he returned to confession when the Lord had not yet suffered, and he had pardon for his denial in time; Christ afterward being about to suffer for the redemption of all. That the Lord did not grant him, in his trembling, the power of coming to him, but stretched out his hand and held him up when he had taken hold of him, has this reason. Peter was not unworthy of approaching his Lord, for he also tried to approach; but the typological order was also kept in him. For no one could be a sharer in the passion with the Lord who was trampling the upheavals and storms of the world: for he alone, about to suffer for all, was loosing the sins of all; nor does he admit a partner in what is provided for the whole by one. So since he himself was the redemption of all, Peter too had first to be redeemed, kept then for faith in this redemption as a martyr of Christ. And this must be considered in Peter, that he surpassed the others in faith: for while the others did not know, he first answered: “You are the Son of the living God.” He first detested the passion, while he thought it an evil. He first promised that he would die and not deny. He first forbade his feet to be washed. He also drew a sword against those who were seizing the Lord. When he got into the ship, the wind and sea were calmed: the eternal peace and tranquility of the church after the return of his glory is indicated. And since he will then come openly, rightly all, marveling, said: “Truly he is the Son of God.” For the confession of all will then be both complete and public, that the Son of God, no longer in bodily humility but in heavenly glory, has given back peace to the church. “When they had crossed over, they came into the land of Gennesaret; and when the men of that place recognized him, they worshiped him.” Many intermediate things have come up which, after the gathering and satisfying of the five thousand men, have delayed us by our zeal to give their reason: but the sense up to this place is the same. For when the times of the law had ended and the five thousand men from Israel had been placed within the church, now the people of believing Israelites comes to meet him: itself now saved from the law through faith, bringing to the Lord the rest of its own who are weak and sick; and those brought wished to touch the fringes of his garments, to be healed through faith. But as fringes come out of the whole garment, so the power of the Holy Spirit went out from our Lord Jesus Christ: which, given to the apostles, who come out as from the same body, ministers salvation to those who desire to touch them.

“Then scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem came to him, saying,” and so on. The reason of both the words and the deeds in what follows is plain: for he himself answered what had been put to him, saying that every planting which is not from the Father must be rooted up, that is, that the tradition of men, in whose favor they have transgressed the precepts of the law, must be torn out; and that therefore they are blind guides, promising the road of eternal life which they do not see, and that a fall into the pit is common to the blind and the guides of the blind. “And Jesus went out from there and withdrew into the districts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman came out from those borders and cried out,” and the rest. The different kinds of healings embrace different effects of causes; but the matter and the speech take their order from what precedes. For he convicted the unbelief of the Pharisees both by the reproach of blind guides and by the superstitions of human traditions. And after this he came to the regions of Tyre and Sidon; and a Canaanite woman, coming out from those borders, cries out and prays, confesses the Lord as Son of David, and asks help for her daughter. The Lord is silent; the disciples ask for her; he answers them that he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But she, worshiping, asks to be helped: to her the Lord says that it is not lawful to give the children’s bread to dogs. And she in turn answers that little dogs are usually fed by the crumbs falling from their masters’ table. After this the Lord praises her faith, and at that very time health was given back to the girl. So that the inner reason may attain to the things that were done, we must look, from the very force of the words, at whom the person of the Canaanite woman represents. It is certain that there was, and still is, among Israel a people of proselytes: which passed over from the nations into the works of the law, and, having left the region of its former life, was held in the law, a foreign and ruling law, as in a house. The Canaanites were those who inhabited the lands in which Judea now is: who, either destroyed in war, or scattered into neighboring places, or subjected to slavery on the terms of the conquered, carry about only a name without a homeland. This people, then, mixed with the Jews, is from the nations. And since there is no doubt that in the crowd that believed there was a fair part of proselytes, this Canaanite woman, bearing the figure of the proselytes, will rightly be thought to have gone out of her borders, passing out of the nations into the name of another people: she prays for her daughter, that is, for the people of the nations. And since she knew the Lord from the law, she calls him Son of David. For in the law are contained the rod from the root of Jesse and the Son of David, king of the eternal and heavenly kingdom. She herself no longer needs healing, she who confesses Christ as both Lord and Son of David: but she asks help for her daughter, the people of the nations, occupied by the dominion of unclean spirits. The Lord is silent, by the patience of his silence reserving to Israel the privilege of salvation. And the disciples, pitying her, join their prayers: but he, holding the secret of the Father’s will, answered that he was sent to the lost sheep of Israel: so that it might be quite clear that the Canaanite’s daughter contains the figure of the church; since she was asking for what was being brought to others, not that salvation was not also to be imparted to the nations, but the Lord had come to his own and into his own, awaiting the firstfruits of faith from those from whom he had sprung, the rest to be saved afterward by the preaching of the apostles. And therefore he says: “It is not lawful to take the children’s bread and give it to dogs.” The honor offered to Israel and God’s affection for it heap up resentment; in comparison with it the people of the nations received the name of dogs. But the Canaanite woman, now herself saved through faith and sure of the inner mystery, answered that little dogs are fed by the crumbs that fall from the table, the reproach of “dogs” now softened under the endearment of a diminutive name. And so that we might understand that the Lord’s silence came from the reckoning of the time, not from any reluctance of will, he added: “O woman, great is your faith”: being herself now sure of her own salvation, she may also be confident about the gathering of the nations: at which time, believing thus, they will soon, like the girl, be freed from all the dominion of unclean spirits. And at once the truth of the deed follows. For after the people of the nations had been prefigured in the Canaanite’s daughter, at once on the mountain those beset by various kinds of diseases are brought to the Lord by the crowds, that is, the unbelieving and sick are taught by the believers to worship and fall down: and to them health is given back, and all the services of mind and body are restored for perceiving, beholding, praising, and accompanying God. “But Jesus called his disciples and said: I have compassion on this crowd, for they have now continued with me three days,” and the rest. He keeps the order of the course of working, and a like reason of the words follows the same works. For we remember that the form of the church was established in the Canaanite’s daughter; and we have shown that the healing of the following people is the gathering of the sick nations. So now both the Lord’s words and deeds must be treated carefully: so that we may see whether the preceding matter and speech, as it has been taught by us to be understood, receives the authority of the same understanding from what follows. The Lord pities the crowd because it remains with him three days: he does not wish to send it away fasting, lest it faint on the way from hunger. The disciples plead that there are not enough loaves to fill and satisfy it. The Lord asked how many loaves they had. They answered that there were seven loaves and a few fish. The crowds are ordered to recline on the ground; and the Lord, taking the loaves and fish, gave thanks, broke them, and gave the broken pieces to the disciples to distribute. But the fragments of seven loaves and a few fish fill four thousand men; in such a way, however, that the broken bread, when all were satisfied, abounded to fill seven baskets. Many things occur that are new: the disciples, pitying a fast of one day, wished the five thousand men to be sent away into the villages to buy food: now they are silent through a whole three days. Then the earlier crowd is spread on grass: this one reclines on the ground. There five loaves, here seven are offered: there two fish, here an indefinite number, though signified as few. There five thousand men, here four: there twelve baskets, here seven hampers filled. And I think the earlier things have been answered and all fittingly placed according to the person of the people. Now too let us try to give a reason fitting the matter and the cause: so that, as those fit the believing Jewish people, so these may be compared with the people of the nations. The order in the Lord’s speech, then, is the same as remains in the attaining of grace. For those who are to come to baptism first confess that they believe in the Son of God and in his passion and resurrection: and to this mystery of profession faith is given. And so that a certain truth of the things themselves may follow this pledge of words, remaining in fasts throughout the whole time of the Lord’s passion, they are joined to the Lord by a kind of fellowship of suffering with him. So, whether by the mystery of the pledge or by fasting, they spend with the Lord the whole time of the Lord’s passion. And the Lord, pitying this hope and companionship, says that they have been with him three days. Lest weakness waste them away in the course of worldly life, that is, in the work of the road, he wishes to feed them with his food and strengthen them with the power of his bread for finishing the whole journey: while the disciples complain that there are no loaves in the desert. Yet in what preceded they had taken the example that nothing is impossible to God. But the causes of the events work out the reason of inner understanding. For how great the apostles’ zeal was for saving Israel, the letters of most blessed Paul teach: and therefore, while this zeal remains, now at the gathering of the nations both the complaint about bread and the silence about the fast are introduced. So seven loaves are offered. For no salvation for the nations is taken from the law and the prophets, but they live through the grace of the Spirit, whose gift, as is handed down through Isaiah, is sevenfold. So the Spirit, through faith, is salvation for the nations. They recline on the ground; for they had not before been spread on any works of the law, but, clinging to the origin of their sins and bodies, they are called to the gift of the sevenfold Spirit. The indefinite number of fish signifies the distributions and ministries of different gifts and charisms, by which the faith of the nations is filled with a diversity of graces. That seven hampers are filled indicates the overflowing and multiplied abundance of the sevenfold Spirit, which overflows with what it gives: and it becomes ever richer and fuller as we are satisfied. That four thousand men are gathered is understood as the multitude of innumerable people from the four parts of the world. For, as the form of the future, the people is counted and satisfied in as many thousands of parts as there would be thousands of believers running together from the parts of the world to the gift of heavenly food. So the crowd is sent away satisfied and filled. And since the Lord remains with us all the days of our life, he enters the ship, that is, the church, accompanied by the believing people.

The Pharisees and Sadducees are present, insolent in their confidence in the law and disdaining the works of power that belong to faith, and they ask that a sign from heaven be shown them. Looking at the humility of flesh and body in Christ, they disdain to accept teaching from the things he did in the guise of a man. Mocking their insolence and emptiness, he answered that they are accustomed to infer much about the nature of the sky, when from a red sunrise or evening they declare fair or stormy weather; but that they do not know the signs of the times, though the whole law and the prophets signify the indications of his coming by wonder at the works he did: so that, as the redness of morning or evening gives assurance about the weather in the sky, so the indications of his powers and works ought to supply a manifest knowledge of the times. But he who had risen from heaven appointed for them an earthly sign, to keep them within the confession of bodily humility, saying that the sign of Jonah would be given. The Lord compares himself to him, whom he had sent ahead in a like figure to the Ninevites for the preaching of repentance, for the effect of his future passion. For Jonah, when the winds raged, was thrown out of the ship and swallowed by the whale, and after three days sent out alive, not held by the monster, not consumed by the condition of food; but, against the nature of the human body, whole and unharmed, he escaped into the upper air by the power of the Lord’s prefiguration. He shows, then, that this was appointed as the sign of his power: himself preaching forgiveness of sins through repentance, to be thrown out of Jerusalem or the synagogue by the ruling blast of unclean spirits, and handed over to the power of Pilate, that is, to the judgment of the world; to be swallowed by death as by the monster of the same element; and after three days to emerge from it alive and incorrupt, not held, against the condition of the man he had taken up. So he willed that the things in the man taken from the Virgin’s conception which were full of divine powers be known and understood about himself both by the sign of the prophet and by the example of a man. “And leaving them, he went away.” It is not, as is read in other places, “having dismissed the crowds he went away”: but since the error of unbelief held the minds of the insolent, he is written not to have dismissed them but to have left them. “And when they had come across the sea, his disciples had forgotten to take loaves. And Jesus said to them: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” All obscurity about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees is cleared up. That the apostles are ordered to keep away from it warns them not to mix themselves with the teaching of the Jews; because the works of the law were established for the effect of faith and for the prefiguring of things to follow: so that those into whose times and age the truth had come should think that no further hope is placed in the likeness of the truth; lest the teaching of the Pharisees, not knowing Christ, should corrupt the effects of gospel truth. “And Jesus came into the districts of Caesarea Philippi, and he asked his disciples,” and the rest. In the progress of his speech and work he gives his disciples a more complete knowledge of himself, and establishes a certain form and method of understanding him. This is the true and inviolable faith: that God the Son came forth from God of eternity (to whom, because he was always Son, the right and name of Father always belongs; lest, if he were not always Son, he should not always be Father), and that he has eternity from the eternity of his parent. That he was born was his will, in whose power and might it lay that he should be born. So the Son of God is God from God, one in both: for he received the theotēs, which the Latins call deity, of his eternal parent, from whom he came forth by being born. He received what he was: and the Word was born which was always in the Father. And so the Son is both eternal and born: because nothing else was born in him than what is eternal. That he took a body and became man is the complete confession: because, as eternity took the body of our nature, so it must be acknowledged that the nature of our body can take up the power of eternity. Since, then, this is the highest good in this faith, he asks the disciples whom men said he was: and he added, “the Son of Man.” For this is the method of confession to be held, that we remember him as Son of Man as well as Son of God: because the one without the other gives no hope for salvation. So, after the various opinions men had about him were set out, he asks what they themselves think of him. Peter answered: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” But Peter had weighed the condition of the question. For the Lord had said: “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” And certainly the sight of his body showed the Son of Man: but by adding “who do they say that I am,” he signified that something besides what was seen in him must be understood; for he was the Son of Man. What judgment of opinion about himself, then, was he seeking? Not, we think, that which he had confessed about himself: but that which was hidden was what was being asked about, to which the faith of believers had to extend itself. And Peter’s confession plainly obtained a worthy reward, because he had seen the Son of God in the man. Blessed is he who was praised for having looked and seen beyond human eyes: beholding not what was of flesh and blood, but the Son of God by the revelation of the heavenly Father; and judged worthy to be the first to recognize what of God was in Christ. O happy foundation of the church in the naming of a new name, and a rock worthy of its building, which would dissolve the laws of the underworld, the gates of Tartarus, and all the bars of death! O blessed doorkeeper of heaven, to whose decision the keys of the eternal entrance are handed over, whose judgment on earth is an authority decided beforehand in heaven: so that what has been bound or loosed on earth obtains the condition of the same decree in heaven also. He also commands the disciples to tell no one that he is the Christ: for others had to be the witnesses of his Spirit, namely the law and the prophets. But the testimony of the resurrection belongs properly to the apostles. And since the blessedness of those who know Christ in the Spirit has been shown, the danger of denying his humility and passion is in turn declared. For when he had begun to preach that he must go to Jerusalem, then suffer many things from the elders of the people and from the scribes and chief priests, be killed, and rise after the third day, Peter, taking hold of him, said: “Far be it from you, Lord; this shall not be.” But he, turning, said to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan; you are a stumbling block to me.” As it is the gift of God to know Christ as God in the Spirit, so it is the work of the devil not to know Christ in the man. And it is a matter of the same danger either to deny the body without God or to deny God without the body. To God in the eternity of the Spirit there is no body of this flesh: but for the sake of human salvation Christ is in the body which he took from man. So after the preaching of the passion, the devil, taking the opportunity (for he had withdrawn from him until a time), because it would seem quite incredible to the apostles that he in whom God was could suffer, seizing this occasion of human unbelief, slipped the feeling of this opinion into Peter. Accordingly he so detested the passion as to say, “Far be it”: in which word the execration of things to be detested is contained. But the Lord, knowing the prompting of the devil’s craft, says to Peter: “Get behind me”; that is, that he should follow him by the example of the passion. But turning to him through whom this opinion was being suggested, he added: “Satan, you are a stumbling block to me.” For it is not fitting to think that the name of Satan and the charge of being a stumbling block should be assigned to Peter after such great proclamations of the blessedness and power granted him. But since all unbelief is the work of the devil, the Lord, offended by Peter’s answer, detested the author of this unbelief with the reproach of the name. “Then Jesus said to his disciples: If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself,” and the rest. O blessed loss and happy forfeit! The Lord willed us to grow rich by the loss of soul and body, and exhorts us to be like him: because he, set in the form of God, made humble and obedient even to death, received the sovereignty of all the power that is in God. So he is to be followed with the cross taken up, and accompanied in his passion, if not in fact, at least in will. For what does it profit to have seized the world, and to brood over the wealth of the world with the whole dominion of earthly power, if the soul is to be lost and the loss of life incurred? And what exchange for the soul will be sought when it has been lost? For Christ will be present with the angels, rendering to each as they will deserve. What shall we bring for life? Treasures, I suppose, of earthly wealth prepared for future trading, ambitious titles of honors and fame, or the ancient portraits of a pampered nobility? All these must be denied, so that we may abound in better things: and Christ is to be followed in contempt of all things, and the eternity of spiritual things is to be bought at the loss of earthly things.

“Truly, truly I tell you that there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” The Lord teaches by both deeds and words; and speech and work equally build up the faith of our hope. For he had laid a heavy burden on human weakness: that, though men had begun to have the sense of life from the affection of living, they should give up the fruit of that which, present, was pleasing to their bodies, and deny themselves, that is, should be unwilling to be what they had begun to be, though they had had the beginning of this sense from the affection of the will; and then that they should follow the opinion of a doubtful and uncertain hope, when in the things held present there were the allurements of pleasing joy. So there was need of the authority of a true and manifest example, so that, against the force and sense of judgment, the loss of present things might become desirable, for the henceforth undoubted gain of future things. So after he had warned that the cross must be taken up, the soul lost, and the eternity of life exchanged for the loss of the world, turning to the disciples he said that there would be some of them who would not taste death until they beheld the Son of Man in the glory of his kingdom. By the condition of “tasting” he shows a slight libation, as it were, of death for the faithful. And so the deed follows the words. For after six days Peter, James, and John are taken apart, and they stand on a high mountain; and while they watch, the Lord is transfigured and shines around with the full appearance of his glory. And in this kind of deed both reason, number, and example are kept. For after six days the glory of the Lord’s appearance is shown: that is, when the times of six thousand years have run their course, the honor of the heavenly kingdom is prefigured. And by the three taken up, the future choosing of a people from the origin of the three, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, is shown. That Moses and Elijah, out of the whole number of the saints, stand by: Christ in the kingdom is between the law and the prophets; for with them, by whose testimony he was proclaimed, he will judge Israel: and at the same time so that it might be taught that the glory of the resurrection has been decreed for human bodies, since Moses stood there visible. The Lord himself becomes whiter than snow and sun, that is, conspicuous with the splendor of heavenly light beyond our imagining. To Peter, offering that three tents be made there, no answer is given: for it was not yet the time to remain in this glory. But while he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and they are surrounded by the Spirit of divine power. The voice from the cloud signifies that this is the Son, this the beloved, this the one well pleasing, this the one to be heard: so that he himself might be the fit author of the precepts, who, after the loss of the world, after the will of the cross, after the death of bodies, had confirmed the glory of the heavenly kingdom from the resurrection of the dead even by example. Then he raised them up, terrified and dismayed; and they see him alone, whom they had seen standing between Moses and Elijah. For Moses and Elijah had stood on the mountain as the form of the future and for the assurance of the deed. He commands silence about the things done which they had seen until he should rise from the dead (for this reward of faith was being reserved, that honor might be given to those with whom the authority of the precepts would not be found light); for he had perceived that they were weak at hearing the voice: so that, when they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they might then be witnesses of spiritual deeds. Anxious also about the times of Elijah, they inquire. He answers them that Elijah will come and restore all things, that is, will call back to the knowledge of God the remnant of Israel that he finds. But he signifies that John came in the power and spirit of Elijah, on whom they had inflicted every grievous and harsh thing: so that, announcing beforehand the Lord’s coming, he might also run ahead of his passion by the example of injury and harassment. “And when he had come to the crowd, a man came to him, falling on his knees, saying: Lord, have mercy on my son.” When the Lord had returned to the crowds, a demon-possessed boy, who often fell both into water and into fire, is brought by his father kneeling down; the disciples could not bring him healing. The disciples rebuked and the demon reproved, the boy was made well. The apostles had indeed believed: yet they were not yet of perfect faith. For while the Lord stayed on the mountain and they remained with the crowd, a certain sluggishness had relaxed their faith; and therefore he says: “Unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?”: because in his absence the habit of the old unbelief had crept in. So he teaches that those can bring no salvation who, in the time between the Gospels and his second coming, depart from the faith as if the Lord were absent. Finally, when they asked him why they could not cast out the demon, he answered that it came from a lack of faith that they could not: if it were in them like a grain of mustard seed, they would command this mountain to pass from place to place, with the power of accomplishing it. But he had already come down from the mountain and was saying these things among the crowds. So he called himself the grain of mustard seed, the least of all, and named the devil the mountain: because in it are the spiritual wickednesses and heavenly powers to be cast out by them and thrown into the depth of the sea as into the depth of the underworld, those whom fasting and prayer accompany to this efficacy. We shall also keep this order, that under the name of the disciples the person of the Pharisees and scribes is treated. To them, as to the disciples, the law brought the people to be healed, as a father his son, while the Lord was absent. The people, sins ruling it, now fell into the fire of judgment, now was sunk into the water by the habit of its daily filth. These, then, brought no help: because, while Moses stayed with the Lord on the mountain, they had become unbelieving. And so that the typological reason might be fulfilled, the disciples wonder that they could not cast out the demon, though all power had been granted not only of putting demons to flight but even of raising the dead. But since the law would no longer be with them, he says, “unbelieving and perverse generation” (he does not seem to say this to those whom he had sanctified), “how long,” he says, “shall I be with you?” Because, not having faith, they were going to lose even the law which they had. If they had had that faith in themselves, since he himself is the grain of mustard seed, by the power of the word, casting out from the one being brought to them this burden of sins and the heavy mass of unbelief, they would have transferred it, like a mountain into the sea, to the way of life of the nations and of the world. “While they were staying in Galilee, Jesus said: The Son of Man is about to be handed over into the hands of men.” Sadness follows the knowledge of the passion: for the mystery of undergoing the cross had not yet been revealed by the power of the resurrection. “And when Jesus had come to Capernaum, those who collected the didrachma came to Peter.” The Lord is asked to pay the didrachma: for the law had established this for all Israel, for the redemption of soul and body, in the ministry of those serving the temple. But the law, as we know, is the shadow of things to come. For God did not desire a price in bronze, so that by so small an expense some redemption might be granted for the crimes of body and soul. So that we might offer ourselves in Christ, who is the true temple of God, enrolled, professed, and sealed with the name of Christ, the offering of this didrachma was established as a testimony to the Son of God. So he forestalls Peter, who was silent after being approached, with such words: “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take tribute or tax?” and so on. Is there any doubt that the sons of kings are not liable to tributes, and that those who have the inheritance of the kingdom are free from servitude? But the speech aims more deeply. The didrachma was being demanded from the people. For the law is enclosed within that faith which was to be revealed through Christ. So this same didrachma, by the custom of the law, was being demanded from Christ as from a man. But to show that he was not subject to the law, and to testify in himself to the glory of the Father’s dignity, he set out the example of an earthly privilege: that the sons of kings are not held by tax or tributes, and that he is rather the redeemer of our soul and body than that anything should be demanded for his redemption; because the king’s son must be outside the common lot of the rest. So he pays to avoid scandal, but he is free of the debt of the law. Then under the effect of present things he set out both the meaning of the law and the steadfastness of gospel freedom: so that it might be easy to know what the didrachma prefigured in the law. Peter is ordered to go to the sea, cast a hook, look in the mouth of the first fish coming up, and offer the stater found in it for himself and for the Lord. The Lord is asked for a didrachma, that is, two denarii; why does Peter offer a stater? Then, when he is told to look for the first fish, more are shown to be about to come up. Would the nature of fish allow that it should hold in its mouth, rather than store within its belly, a stater found by chance on the shore? So an inner reason underlies the accomplishing of present things. For Peter, destined for preaching and made a fisher of men, cast the hook of teaching into the world, to draw out of it the wandering and drifting, drawn to him by its sweetness. To this hook clung that blessed first martyr, who held a fourfold denarius in his mouth: that is, by the unity of the gospel number, he preached the glory of God and the Lord Christ, beholding him in his passion. So Stephen came up first, Stephen held the stater in his mouth: in which there was also the didrachma of the new preaching, as two denarii. This the law prefigured; it carried about the shadow of this truth, as the image of a body; this redemption of soul and body was being signified: and therefore he says, “Give for me and for you”: because now such a payment, no longer a didrachma but a stater, was to be paid both for Christ and for the preaching of Christ.

“On that day the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Who, do you think, is greater in the kingdom of heaven?” and the rest. The Lord teaches that only those who have turned back into the nature of children enter the kingdom of heaven, that is, that the vices of our bodies and souls must be called back to childlike simplicity. He has called all believers “children” through the faith of hearing. For these follow their father, love their mother, do not know how to wish evil to their neighbor, neglect the care of wealth; they do not grow insolent, do not hate, do not lie, believe what is said, and hold what they hear as true. And when the habit and will of all these dispositions is taken up in us, it makes the road of the heavens passable. We must return, then, to the simplicity of infants: because, set in it, we shall carry about the image of the Lord’s humility. If any receive such ones in the name of Christ, they will obtain the reward of having received Christ. “But whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble,” that is, whoever brings in the stumbling block of temptation, “it is better for him that a donkey millstone be hung on his neck and that he be sunk in the depth of the sea.” So many and such things are not compared idly: a millstone, and a donkey’s millstone, and being sunk with it in the sea, and this being better for him. By the common sense of all, what is better is always useful. What usefulness is there, then, in being sunk with a donkey millstone hung on the neck? For so heavy a death will serve for punishment: and I do not know how it will be useful to seek what is the last of evils. So what must be understood is to be sought. The work of the mill is the labor of blindness: for beasts of burden are driven round in a circle with their eyes shut. And we often find the nations named by the name of the beast of burden. So the nations do not know what they do: and, held in the work of their life, they are kept in the ignorance of blind labor. But to the Jews the road of knowledge was supplied in the law. If they caused the apostles of Christ to stumble, it would be more right that they, a donkey millstone tied to their neck, had been sunk in the sea, that is, pressed down by the labor of the nations, had remained in the ignorance of the world: because it would have been more tolerable for them not to have known Christ than, as those to whom he was prophesied, not to have received him. “Woe to this world because of stumbling blocks. For it is necessary that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes.” The humility of the passion is a stumbling block to the world. For in this especially human ignorance is held fast, that it will not accept the Lord of eternal glory under the ugliness of the cross. And what is so dangerous to the world as not to have received Christ? But under the naming of “man” he designates the Jewish people as the author of this stumbling block, through which all this danger is prepared for the world, that they should deny Christ in his passion, whom the law and the prophets proclaimed as able to suffer. He says it is necessary that stumbling blocks come for this reason: because, for the mystery of giving eternity back to us, all the humility of the passion had to be fulfilled in him. Above we explained that the names of kin are contained in the cutting off of hand or foot: and so he signifies that the kinship of the Israelite race must be left behind, as by a kind of cutting off of members, because through it stumbling blocks are prepared for the world. “See that you do not despise one of these little ones who believe in me.” He laid on us the tightest bond of mutual love, especially toward those who had truly believed in the Lord. For the angels of the little ones daily see God: because the Son of Man came to save what was lost. So the Son of Man saves, and the angels see God, and the angels belong to the little ones. That angels preside over the prayers of the faithful is a settled authority. So the angels daily offer to God the prayers of those saved through Christ. So he is despised at peril whose desires and requests are carried to the eternal and invisible God by the eager service and ministry of angels. And to show the great joy in heaven at the return of human salvation, he set out the example of a comparison, of one who left ninety-nine sheep in the mountains and sought one that was straying: when it is found there is more joy than was had in keeping the ninety-nine. The one sheep is to be understood as man, and under one man the whole is to be perceived. For in the straying of one Adam the whole human race went astray; so the ninety-nine that did not stray are to be thought of as the multitude of heavenly angels, who have in heaven joy and care for human salvation. So both the one seeking man is Christ, and the ninety-nine left are the multitude of heavenly glory: to which the straying man, with the greatest joy, has been brought back in the Lord’s body. Rightly, then, this number is added through a letter in Abraham and completed in Sara: for from Abram he is called Abraham, and from Sarai Sara receives her name. For in one Abraham we all are: and through us, who are all one, the number of heavenly glory is to be filled. And therefore all creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God: and therefore it groans and is in pain, so that the number which was added through the alpha of Abraham, and which was completed in the alpha in Sara, may be filled up for the heavenly establishment by the increase of believers. “But if your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him,” and the rest. The Lord laid on us the same order of keeping love which he himself had held in preserving Israel: for he commands that a sinning brother be reproved and rebuked by him alone against whom he has sinned. For he himself rebuked the Jewish people when it sacrificed to foreign gods, by the coming of his majesty and the whole terror of his present power. And then, when the same people could not bear the coming of God approaching, though placed outside the mountain, he commanded that for the disobedient one or two also be brought, so that in the mouth of two witnesses the truth and reality of the word might stand: because the law, the prophets, and John were sent to insolent Israel, and by these witnesses it was called upon to stop sinning; it was warned the third time by the very coming of the Lord, as before the assembly of the church looking on: and, these rebukes having been in vain, it is disregarded as of the worthlessness of a tax collector or a Gentile. And to strike the greatest fear, by which all might be held in the present, he set out beforehand the immovable judgment of apostolic severity: that those whom they have bound on earth, that is, left tied in the knots of sins, and those whom they have loosed, that is, received into salvation by the confession of pardon, these, by the condition of the apostolic sentence, are either loosed or bound in heaven too. So much did he care for the harmony of human peace that he confirms that by the merit of unity all things to be asked of God are to be obtained; and where two or three are gathered with the same spirit and will, he promises that he will be in their midst. For he who is peace and love will place his seat and dwelling in good and peaceable wills. Then, when Peter asked whether he should forgive a brother sinning against him seven times, he answered: “Not up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” In every way he trains us to the likeness of his humility and goodness, and, softening and breaking the stings of our turbulent movements, he strengthens us by the example of his own readiness to be appeased: granting, indeed, pardon for all sins through faith. For the vices of our nature would not deserve indulgence. So all pardon is from him: since he forgives even the sins that are against himself after the return of confession. The penalty to be paid through Cain was set at sevenfold: but that sin was against a man; for in Abel it was a sin against a brother even to killing. But in Lamech the punishment was set even to seventy times seven; and in him, as far as we think, the penalty set against the authors of the Lord’s passion is signified. But the Lord, through the confession of believers, grants pardon for this crime, that is, through the gift of baptism he grants the grace of salvation to slanderers and persecutors: how much more, he shows, must we give back pardon without measure or number, and not think how often we forgive; but rather stop being angry with those who sin against us, as often as the necessity of being angry has arisen? This constancy of pardon certainly teaches that there should be no time at all for anger with us: since God grants us pardon for all sins whatever by his gift rather than by our merit. For it is not right that we should be shut in a number for giving pardon according to the prescription of the law, since through the grace of the Gospel it has been granted to us by God without measure. Indeed, for the disposition of perfect goodness he set out the example of a comparison, in which the master released the whole debt to a servant who had nothing with which to pay: and that servant, extorting from his fellow servant the small amount owed to him, lost through this vice of his will the gift of his master’s generosity and liberality. The reason of this comparison is plain, and it was all explained by the Lord himself.

“And it happened, when Jesus had finished these sayings, he moved into Galilee and came into the borders of Judea,” and so on. He heals Galileans in the borders of Judea. For he could have spared the crowds of the sick the fatigue and brought help to the weak within Galilee itself: but the typological reason was to be fulfilled even by the privileges of places, so that he might admit the sins of the nations to the pardon that was being prepared for Judea. “Then Pharisees came to him, testing him and saying: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause?” In the discussion about a wife and divorce, it occurs that it is written otherwise in Genesis than the Lord now spoke at present. For there the whole matter is related under the words of Adam; here the Lord indicates that all those things were said by him who formed the man and made the woman. But we, following the apostle’s authority, who professed that this mystery is great, but that he takes it of Christ and the church, will leave this passage untouched as it is. Yet we warn the reader that whenever he consults himself about this same question, he should carefully note the force of the words, both those with which the Lord answered and those the disciples used, and weigh the mind of the apostle Paul on this, whether he is silent or sometimes treats it in other places. Let our speech and intention be about the eunuchs. In one he placed nature, in another necessity, in the third will: nature in him who is born so, necessity in him who has been made so, will in him who has decided to be such in hope of the heavenly kingdom: to whom he has warned us to become like, if indeed we can. “Then little children were brought to him, that he might lay his hands on them and pray; but the disciples forbade them,” and the rest. It is new that the disciples forbade little children to come to Christ, who were being brought so that he might lay his hand on them and pray. The gospel matter, as we have said, has tempered between the effect of the present and of the future a reason midway and fitting to both: so that an image of the future might cling to the things that were being done. The little children were truly brought, but they were also truly forbidden. But these are the figure of the nations, to whom salvation is given back through faith and hearing. But out of the affection for saving Israel first, they are forbidden by the disciples to approach. The will to forbid does not fit apostolic gentleness: but the impulse to forbid the little children crept in for the typological fulfillment. The Lord says they must not be forbidden, because the kingdom of heaven is of such: for the gift and endowment of the Holy Spirit was to be given to the nations through the laying on of hands and prayer, the work of the law ceasing. “And behold, one came to him and said to him: Teacher, what good shall I do that I may have eternal life?” and the rest. Fittingly, after the preceding discourse, in which the little children were forbidden and the answer given that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such, this young man follows, asking by what good works he might have eternal life. This young man both asked, and was insolent, and again was made sad: and all the things that are written were done and accomplished. But we have warned that the things done under God showed, by the effects of the present, the form of what would follow: and that thus every speech in the heavenly Scriptures has always been tempered so as to fit no less the likeness of things to be done than the things that were being done. So this young man bears the form of the Jewish people, insolent in the law and expecting from Christ nothing of hope beyond the precepts of Moses. To him the Lord, in his very answer, declared the severity of the judgment to come from himself, saying: “Why do you call me good?” For he who must punish impious and unjust things abstained from the name of goodness, reserving this name for God the Father alone, who, by giving himself as judge, put off the office of severity: not that he himself was not good, but that as judge he would use a fitting severity against him. So he sends this man, insolent from the law and anxious about salvation, back to the law: so that in that very law in which he gloried he might understand that he had done no right work from it. For the Lord answered him with the words of the law. But the young man, like an insolent and boasting people, trusts in the law, though he obeyed it in nothing. For he had been commanded not to kill: he had killed the prophets. Not to commit adultery: he had brought corruption on the faith and adultery on the law, and had worshiped foreign gods. Not to steal: before Christ gave back the freedom of believing in faith, he dissolved the precepts of the law by theft. Not to be a false witness: he denied that Christ was risen from the dead. He was commanded to honor father and mother: he cut himself off from the family of God the Father and of mother church. He was commanded to love his neighbor as himself: he persecuted Christ, who took the body of us all and, by the condition of the body he took, became neighbor to each of us, even to the penalty of the cross. So he was commanded to return to the law, putting these aside and cutting off all vices. But he answers that he has done all these from his youth, and asks what still remains for him. But, as we have said, he had neither done those earlier things to which he is sent back, and, glorying in them as one completed, he says these things. The Lord answers him that he must sell all his goods and give to the poor: and then he will be perfect and have treasure in heaven. To this young man the answer is indeed that most beautiful and most useful precept of leaving the world, by which the riches of heaven are to be bought at the loss of earthly substance: but in being commanded to sell his goods and give to the poor, he is warned to leave his confidence in the law and exchange it in a happy trade; and to remember that in it there is the shadow of the truth, which is henceforth to be divided among the poor, that is, the nations, under the body of the truth itself; and that no one can do this except one who has begun to follow Christ. But the young man, hearing this, went away sad: for he had much confidence of wealth from the law. And in this too the reason of typological effect was kept: since, though it signifies that he was a young man, he himself had said above that he had served these precepts contained in the law from all his youth: though young manhood lies within youth, and a later stage of age cannot be contained within the bounds of an earlier one. But this was so, that by serving from youth it might show the long time of the people already in the work of the law. Then the Lord, knowing the young man’s sadness, answered that it is hard for a rich man to come into the kingdom of heaven. Israel, as we have said, boasted that it was rich by its confidence in the law. For it the entry into heaven is hard, holding on to old riches under the name of Abraham with the ambition of an empty lineage. Indeed he added that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. To have is not a crime, but measure must be kept in having. For how is one to share, how to give in common, if the material for sharing and giving in common is not left? So it is rather having harmfully that becomes a crime than having itself. But the wish to grow rich is a dangerous care: and innocence takes on a heavy burden when occupied with the increase of wealth. For service of God does not obtain the goods of the world without the vices of the world itself. Hence it is hard for a rich man to come to the kingdom of heaven. And also, since many could use rightly what they have, this reason was kept in the Lord’s speech, that it was not said absolutely that no one could enter the kingdom of heaven; but the rarity of those who will is to be understood from the difficulty. And these things belong to the understanding of the simple sense: but the order of the inner cause must be kept on the same course. The young man, as we have said, insolent, is sorrowful and sad when he is commanded to suffer the loss of the law. For to this people the cross and passion are a stumbling block; and therefore there is no salvation for it from them. But it glories in the law, despises the nations as fellow heirs, and refuses to pass over into gospel freedom: and therefore it will hardly enter the kingdom of heaven. For few of them, and very rare in comparison with the multitude of the nations, were going to believe: for they would hardly bend a will hardened in the law to the preaching of gospel humility. “But it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.” A camel does not fit with the eye of a needle: nor can the misshapenness of a huge beast be received into the narrows of a tiny hole. But at the beginning of the book, under the clothing of John, we pointed out that the nations are signified by the camel. For this beast obeys words, is restrained by fear, endures fasting, and submits to its burden by a kind of trained reasoning: by its example the savagery of the nations is softened to obedience to the heavenly precepts. These, then, enter the narrowest road of the heavenly kingdom: namely the needle, which is the preaching of the new word, by which the wounds of bodies are sewn up, the torn places of garments are rewoven, and death itself is pierced. This, then, is the road of this new preaching: into it the misshapenness of the nations will enter more easily than the wealth of the rich, that is, of one boasting in the law.

Having heard these things, the disciples marvel and are afraid, saying that no one can be saved. The Lord answered that this is impossible with men, possible with God. Again they reply to the Lord’s words that they have left everything and are with him. To them the Lord promised that, when he sits on the seat of his majesty, they will sit on twelve seats and judge as many tribes of Israel; and that for all who have left everything for his name’s sake the fruit of a hundredfold reward is reserved: but that many of the last will be first, and of the first last. There are many things that do not allow us to receive the gospel sayings with a simple understanding. For by inserting some things that by the nature of human sense are contrary to one another, we are warned to seek the reason of heavenly understanding. The apostles say both that they follow Christ and that they have left everything: how, then, do they become sad, and how are they afraid, saying that no one can be saved? For it could also be done by others, if they themselves had done it. Then, since they themselves had done it, why or whence was the fear taken up? There is added too in the Lord’s answer that these things are impossible with men, possible with God. Were the things impossible with men which the apostles boast of having done, which the Lord acknowledges them to have done, and which many afterward would do, leaving everything even to the blessedness of martyrdom? Or is there anything God could lack, and anything left which is to be pursued by the loss of things he has, so that it should be possible for him alone to do this? So this whole speech is spiritual. For the apostles, hearing spiritually that no one can be saved from the law, since even then they themselves were in the law (for a strong love and favor for the law held them): these, then, not yet having fully discovered the truth of the gospel mystery, fear that no one can be saved without the law, because even then they set all salvation in the law. But the Lord, with a brief and plain reason, dissolves both their ignorance and their fear, saying: “This indeed is impossible with men, but possible with God.” For what seems to a Jew so without effect, expecting salvation rather from man and from the law, as that in the stumbling block of the cross the giving of the law, the covenant, the adoption, and the inheritance should be set aside? And what is so possible to the power of God as to save through faith, regenerate through water, conquer through the cross, adopt through the Gospels, and give life from death through the resurrection? Hearing this, the apostles quickly believe and profess that they have left everything. But the Lord quickly rewards this obedience of theirs, dissolving all the difficulty of the previous question, when he says: “You who have followed me in the regeneration will judge the twelve tribes of Israel.” They followed in the regeneration: in the bath of baptism, in the sanctification of faith, in the adoption of the inheritance, in the resurrection from the dead. For this is that regeneration which the apostles followed, which the law could not grant, which joined them on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, in the glory of the twelve patriarchs. To the others too who follow him in contempt of the world he promises the abundance of a hundredfold fruit. This is the hundredth fruit which is completed with heavenly joy in the hundredth sheep. This is the hundredth fruit which the richness of perfect earth attains. This honor of the church was already destined in the name of Sarah, and it is to be earned by the loss of the law and by gospel faith: and so he promises that the first will be made out of the last, because the last are made out of the first. “The kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers,” and the rest. The whole comparison is plain in itself: but it must be distinguished by persons and discerned by times. This householder must be thought to be our Lord Jesus Christ: who, having the care of the whole human race, called all at every time to the cultivation of the law. By the vineyard we understand the work and obedience of the law itself; by the denarius, the reward of that obedience. We have already treated the denarius above. Of the vineyard we will give the reason more fittingly in what follows. That the market place is taken for the world the thing itself warns, being always equally tumultuous with crowds of men, with contentions of slanders and injuries, and with the difficulties of various businesses. At the first hour, then, the time of the covenant established with Noah is to be recognized from the meaning of morning; at the third hour, with Abraham; at the sixth, with Moses; at the ninth, with David and the prophets. For as many covenants are found established with the human race through each of these as there are goings out to the market place counted. At the eleventh hour he shows the time of the Lord’s bodily coming; for out of the whole number set as the span of the present age, his birth from Mary agrees with that reckoning in which the time of the eleventh hour stands in a day. For when division is made by the number five hundred in the whole sum of six thousand years, the time of his bodily birth is counted in the eleventh reckoning of the whole division. And indeed the speech to the workers of the eleventh hour is different. For to the first, but also to the others, it was said: “Go to the vineyard”: yet the wage of a denarius was agreed with the first; for to the others the hope of a just payment was promised, but to the last it is said: “Why do you stand here?” because, although the law had been given to Israel, the will of the nations was not shut out from the law. They answered: “No one has hired us.” For it was owed that the Gospel be preached through the whole world and the nations be saved by the justification of faith. These, then, are sent to the vineyard. And when it had begun to be evening, the workers of the first hour receive the gift of the wage agreed for the labor of the whole day. There is no wage from a gift, since it is owed from work; but God has given free grace to all from the justification of faith: but, in keeping with the insolence of a people already stubborn under Moses, hence the grumbling of the workers, hence the resentment at the free wage, because, without the difficulty of long labor, and under the name of heat, the burning of the devil’s prompting not raging against them for long, the same reward is paid back to the workers. But for this reason, what is impossible with men is possible with God: that he grants first to those from the last, to those who believe through faith, the gift of grace, the wage of the law kept excellently and blamelessly. “And Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples and said to them: Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem,” and the rest. The Lord now sets out the mystery of the cross to the apostles, who would hear it without stumbling (in fact, no sadness followed this speech): they having been strengthened, that is, by the earlier speech, that through faith in the cross the last will be first; but that for the rich, that is, those trusting in the law and stumbling at that same cross, the road of the kingdom of heaven would be impassable. “Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons,” and the rest. It must not be thought that it was done thus without some significance that the mother of the sons of Zebedee entreated the Lord. Did the sons not have the familiarity to ask? But it had to be prophesied by the effects of the events. The apostles had indeed already believed from the law, which had nourished them into gospel faith. So in the mother of the sons of Zebedee the law is understood, which, by confidence in its privilege, prays for the peoples who believe from it. Since she had heard above that the first would be last and the last first, she prays that it be granted to her sons that in the Lord’s kingdom one sit at his right and the other at his left. The Lord answered her that she did not know what she was asking. There was indeed no doubt about the glory of the apostles, and the preceding speech had set out that they would be judges. Then in the middle of the speech he asks whether they could drink his cup. He was certainly not speaking of a common kind of drink; for it is no labor to drink from a cup: but he asks about the cup of the mystery of the passion. And they, who already held the freedom and constancy of martyrdom, promise that they will drink. The Lord, praising their faith, says that they can indeed suffer with him in martyrdom; but that to sit at his left and right had been arranged by God the Father for others. And indeed, as far as we think, this honor has been reserved for others in such a way that the apostles too will not be strangers to it: they who, sitting in the seat of the twelve patriarchs, will judge Israel. And as far as one may perceive from the Gospels themselves, Moses and Elijah will sit beside him in the kingdom of heaven. For when the Lord had promised that some of the apostles would see, before they tasted death, the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, taking Peter, James, and John, he appeared with the appearance of his glory, Moses and Elijah accompanying him on the mountain. And we understand these same two prophets to be those who go before his coming, whom the Apocalypse of John says are to be killed by the Antichrist: though there have been various opinions of many, either about Enoch or about Jeremiah, that one of them must die like Elijah. But we cannot corrupt by the opinion of our own mind the truth of faith which the Lord revealed to the three witnesses above: nor think that others will come than those who were seen to have come for the pledge of faith. And although there is no need to form opinions beyond the gospel truth, yet if anyone has carefully noted the condition of Moses’ death, burial, and tomb, and has attained, according to the apostle’s authority, the knowledge of the secret Scriptures, he will understand that all things were so handled that Moses could already be seen. And let these things be said for the sake of instruction. But so that the reason of spiritual understanding might be full, the mother prayed to the Lord for two. For there are two callings from Israel: one of the disciples of John, the other, through the apostles, of the Pharisees. For after John’s passion we read above that his disciples passed over to the Lord. So prayer is made for two, because these twin callings believed the Gospel of Christ. After this, then, the ten disciples were saddened about the two brothers: but of these two disciples themselves there is no sadness. Reason does not allow that one should be made sad by the affront to another. Certainly the ten could also have been sad for themselves; for under the names of the two this seemed denied to all; but the typological order was kept. The apostles were sure about themselves: therefore they are sad only about the two, because they wished for these two callings too, which are from the law, a share in this glory. For the speech so governs the reason of both future and present that neither the ten nor the two are written as anxious about themselves, and in the anxiety of the ten about the two the effect of the present business was obeyed. So the Lord, wishing to show us the proper meaning of this prefiguration, and that those who were to come from the law wished to presume this privilege from the prerogative of the Israelite name, teaches that leadership is to be taken up by them not after the manner of the nations, but that ministers and servants, and not those who are ministered to, are called to the glory of the highest honor: by the example, namely, of the patriarchs and prophets who served, also by the example of the apostles who ministered, and also by the example of the Lord, who spent his soul for the redemption of our salvation. And for the glory of this humility he instructs them in the manner of a supper and banquet: warning that one ought not to recline in the more prominent places, lest perhaps, when one more distinguished comes, being warned by the master of the supper that the place is taken, he leave with fitting disgrace. But if he reclines in the lowly places, when lowlier ones come he will go up to the glory of a higher place. And so it is fitting not to presume any honor, but to earn it by works of humility. “And as they went out from Jericho, a great crowd followed him; and behold, two blind men sitting by the road heard that Jesus was passing,” and so on. Above, under the figure of the two sons of Zebedee, the Israelite people, which sprang from the seed of Shem, was treated. Fittingly, then, two blind men sit by the road: that is, the two peoples of the nations, begotten from Ham and Japheth, watch his going out and his way, and pray that sight be given back to them, blind as they are. Then the crowd rebukes them for crying out and orders them to be silent: not that they demanded silence for the sake of honor, but they bitterly hear from the blind what they denied, that the Lord is the Son of David. For when the minds of the blind were enlightened, God in man was being proclaimed, so that what was said by the Lord might be true: “For judgment of this world I came, that those who see may not see, and the blind may see.” But they cry out the more: and while the people of the law delays, they declare the more vehement heat of their faith. But the Lord has pity and asks what they want. They pray that their eyes be opened. He, pitying, touched their eyes and gave back the sight of knowing God. And so that the type of the nations that would believe might be fulfilled, having received the knowledge of heavenly grace, those who had been blind, seeing their Lord, followed him.

“Then Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying: Go into the village opposite you,” and so on. Two disciples are sent to the village to loose a tied donkey with her colt and bring them to him; and if anyone asks why this is done, they are to answer that the Lord needs them and will send them back at once. After the preceding discourse, in which we remember that a twofold calling from Israel was signified in the two sons of Zebedee, two disciples are now fittingly assigned to loose the donkey and the colt: because a twofold calling of people from the nations was to follow. For there were, and are, the Samaritans, who once went out from the law by secession and serve under a certain custom of their own observance; there were also the nations, untamed and fierce. So two are sent to loose those tied and bound and hampered by the chains of error and ignorance: and they are sent outside Jerusalem; for these two callings were held outside it. But the mother of the sons of Zebedee prayed to the Lord within Jerusalem: for Israel is saved from the law by two callings, either through the apostles or through John. But likewise Samaria believed through Philip; and through Peter Cornelius was brought to Christ as the firstfruits of the nations. That they are instructed to answer whoever asks that the Lord needs them and will soon send them back means that these very ones are to be given back to their nation as preachers of the gospel faith. So the prophecy was fulfilled which announced that the Lord would come into Jerusalem riding on a donkey and a new colt. But it is prophesied by the effects of the events. For the donkey that is loosed from the village and presented, namely Samaria, held by a foreign and alien dominion, is loosed through the apostles and given back to her Lord. The same Lord mounts the colt, young, stubborn, hard: and all these vices of pagan ignorance hold sway, and the fierceness of so many souls has been made into a carriage for God. All this image of the future keeps its order: and by parabolic meanings and the conditions of present things a form is sent ahead for the future. For the Lord will be, at the coming of his glory, possessing the nations: and, sitting on their minds as a rider, he will be proclaimed by the whole train of his retinue, of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. For the patriarchs spread their glory under the Lord as garments: for by their generations, names, and persecutions the Lord was prophesied. And yielding with all the adornment of their dignity and spreading themselves under his seat, they teach that all their glory was spread beneath the preparation for the Lord’s coming. There the prophets too spread their garments on the road of the one advancing; for they preached this way of God carried by the nations: and, putting aside the love of the world, by offering themselves to deaths and stonings, they stripped themselves in a manner of their very bodies, offered for the entrance on such a road. The apostles too spread branches cut from trees after the garments: but in this there is no reverence of human duty. For branches would hinder the one advancing and make the road tangled for the entry of one hurrying: but the whole reason of prophecy is unfolded and the form of the future kept. So the branches of the unfruitful nations, that is, the fruit of the once unbelieving nations, are spread through the apostles on the Lord’s road and justified by the Savior’s entry: and he advances over them, and the service from the branches of an unfruitful root becomes most pleasing to God as he advances. “But the crowd going before and following cried out: Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” But how does the crowd praise one who is to be crucified, or how did it earn hatred from favor? Rather, the words of praise express the power of redemption in him. For “hosanna” in the Hebrew language means the redemption of the house of David. Then they call him Son of David, in whom they recognize the inheritance of the eternal kingdom. Finally they confess blessed him who comes in the name of the Lord. Yet they were going to shout “Crucify the blasphemer.” But present deeds carry out the form of the future; and although the dispositions of those among whom these things were being done fought against it, though soon different things would follow, the working of heavenly things nevertheless rehearses the truth even of the unwilling. Then Jerusalem is stirred; for the novelty of the events brought commotion to the astonished. He entered the temple, that is, the church, by the entry of the preaching he had handed on. From it he first expels by right of power all the vices of the priestly ministry: for he had handed on that all should give freely what they had received freely: because the freedom of the gift ought not to admit anything to be bought or sold through the corruption of a priest. He overturned the chairs, especially of those selling doves. What dignity is there in the market of doves? Or what privilege is reserved in the trade of these birds, that their sellers should claim for themselves the honor of chairs? But in every place we warn that the force of the words must be looked at more deeply in meanings of this kind. In the dove, according to the examples of prophecy, we understand the Holy Spirit: in the chair is the seat of priesthood. So he overturns the chairs of those who hold the gift of the Holy Spirit for sale, for whom the ministry entrusted by God is business; recalling the authority of his warning, which is held in the prophet. For it is written: “My house will be called a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of robbers.” But it must not be thought that the Jews could buy or sell the Holy Spirit in the synagogue. For they did not have it so as to be able to sell it, nor was there anything anyone could buy: but the prefiguration of future things is contained in present sayings, that the vices of the church are to be purged at the very coming of the Lord’s glory. He also healed the infirmities of the blind and lame in the temple: and the favor of the people followed his public works. But the chief priests envy the shouts of the children and warn him, asking why he listens to these things; for he was being proclaimed as having come for the redemption of the house of David. He answered them that they had not read: “Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings you have perfected praise”: that, the judgments of the prudent failing, this glory of confession had been prepared for him by children and infants, whose is the kingdom of heaven; because the prudent and the rulers of the world rejected the wisdom of God, but the little ones and sucklings of regeneration would proclaim Christ. “And having said these things, he went out of the city and left them, and stayed in Bethany”: leaving, that is, the unbelieving synagogue, he stays in the church of the nations. “But in the morning, passing into the city, he was hungry; and seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it,” and the rest. The same order of heavenly things is still sent ahead. For in the fig tree an example has been placed for the synagogue. For a space of repentance being given, namely during the time that lies between the passion and the return of his glory, he will come hungry for the salvation of this people, and will find it unfruitful, clothed only with leaves, that is, glorying in empty words, but empty of fruits, barren indeed of good works and bare of the expected produce. And since the time for repenting will have passed, it will wither for ever by the sentence of heavenly judgment. And in this we shall find a proof of the Lord’s goodness. For where he wished to bring an example of the salvation provided by him, he exercised the power of his strength on human bodies, commending the hope of future things and the salvation of the soul by the cure of present sicknesses. But now, where he was setting up a figure of severity against the stubborn, he indicated the image of the future by the destruction of a tree, so that the danger of unbelief might be taught without harm to those for whose redemption he had come. The disciples marvel that the tree withered at the moment of his very word: because the efficacy of the present deed bore the image of the future. For when he comes in the heavenly kingdom, at the very time of his coming the sentence of eternal damnation will overtake the barrenness of Jewish unbelief. The Lord confirms that they, if they have faith, can do not only these things but also greater than these. They would indeed judge all Israel, according to the preceding promises: but they would also obtain all right over the devil, whom he calls a mountain. For he says thus: “If you have faith, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain: Be taken up and cast into the sea, it will be done.” O great reward of faith, by whose merit the power of believers is lifted up so far that, about to judge all, by a like sentence of severity for the condemnation of the world they sink the height and mass of the devil! But we must consider for what reason the synagogue is compared to a fig tree. For this tree flowers unlike the others in nature and condition. For its first flower is in the fruits, but not in those that reach ripeness once they have come out. For common usage and prophetic authority have called these green figs. But afterward, by the power of inner fruitfulness overflowing, fruits of the same appearance and form burst out; as these burst out, those are pushed out and fall, the stalks by which they were held being loosened; and those others coming out are carried on to the ripeness of fruits. But of those earlier ones, if it happens that any have come out in the fork of twigs coming from the same small branch, they always remain, and do not fall like the other green figs, but they alone hold on and precede the other fruits in ripening. And the tree will give these most beautiful fruits of itself, which, coming out together with the other green figs, are put forth from the knot between both twigs. So from the proper condition of the tree a fitting likeness has been set out for the synagogue. For it lost the first fruits of the people, which it had put forth from the beginning, after the example of the green figs: because the faithful and persistent people of the nations, remaining until the completion of the times, pushed out its useless people. Yet the apostles, the first believers from Israel, clinging like green figs between the law and the Gospels, will go before the others in the glory and time of the resurrection. And indeed already at the beginning of Genesis, as a figure of this thing, Adam and Eve covered their shame with the leaves of this tree when they hid themselves at the coming of the Lord calling them: because the unbelieving synagogue, transgressing the commands of the law, was to cover the foulnesses of its shamelessness and the confusion of its disgraces with unfruitful coverings of words, as with fig leaves. And these things have been inserted about the nature of this tree so that the propriety of the comparison could be understood. So the remaining order of the events must be looked at. The Pharisees had seen many things since then more worthy of great wonder: but now they are especially anxious, and ask by what power he does these things. For the matter, under the effects of present deeds, embraced a great secret of the future. And therefore the impulse to ask is found specially from that under which the prefiguration of the whole danger was being put forward. The Lord answers that he will say by what power he does these things, if only they, as he asks, answer him whether they thought John’s baptism was from heaven or from men. But they hesitate at the danger of their answer, thinking that if they professed it to be from heaven they would be caught guilty by their own confession for not having believed the authority of a heavenly testimony; if they said from men, they feared the crowds, for many held John to be a prophet. So they answered that they did not know. They certainly did not fail to know that it was from heaven, since they fear being convicted by the truth of their profession. But they spoke the truth about themselves even with the will to deceive. For through their unbelief they did not know that John’s baptism was from heaven. And that it was from men they could not know, because it was not. “A certain man had two sons,” and the rest. Many and grave are the things that can confuse the understanding unless we hold to the order of the earlier and later sense. For who can be thought to be the elder son, who said he would not go to the work and, corrected by repentance, went again? Yet Israel did not repent, but laid hands on the Lord, and its whole body crucified its God with impious mouth. And whom shall we understand as the younger, who promised he would go and did not go? But the people of the nations and of sinners did what it promised. For it went and set out to the work to which it was called: how then shall it be understood to be the one who did not go? Then we must ask what weight the Pharisees’ answer itself has. They say that the younger obeyed the will. The reason of things does not allow that a pretended profession should obtain the merit of perfect truth: that it should be more to have deceived when promising than to have done everything without promising. And who would not prefer to have what he asks refused him, provided what he asked is done, rather than that what is promised to be done should not be done; since the effect of a deed is more welcome after despair, while disappointed hope grieves more? Unless perhaps the will of those asking flatters itself only with the flattery of those promising. So we must remember that the setting out of this comparison comes down from that discourse which began about John, so that such an example was set to rebuke the hesitation of unbelief and the necessity of silence that came from it. But, as we have warned in other things, here too we must remember that sometimes something is lacking to the reason of present things on this condition, that the image of the future may be fulfilled without any loss of the prefigured effect. The first son is the people of the Pharisees, warned in the present by God through John’s prophecy to obey his precepts. This was insolent, disobedient, and stubborn against the present words, having confidence in the law, and despising repentance for sins by the glory of the prerogative of nobility from Abraham: which afterward, repenting at the miracles of the works after the Lord’s resurrection, believed under the apostles, and, returning by the truth of the deed to the will of gospel working, confessed by repenting the guilt of its former insolence. The younger son is the people of tax collectors and sinners, later by the very condition of sin in which it then lived, which was commanded through John to expect salvation from Christ, and, baptized by him, believed. But in saying that it promised it would go and did not go, he shows that it indeed believed John, but since it could not receive the gospel teaching except after the Lord’s passion through the apostles (for then the mysteries of human salvation were to be accomplished), he signifies that it did not go. In fact he does not say it refused, but that it did not go. The matter is outside the fault of unbelief, because it lay in the difficulty of the deed that it should not be done. So it did not refuse to go at once to the work that was commanded; but since it could not go, it did not go. For in this a delay of necessity without crime of the will is shown. And in the Pharisees’ answer there is a certain necessity of prophecy. For though unwilling, they confess who obeyed the will, namely the younger son, obedient by profession, though not accomplishing it in time; because faith alone justifies. And therefore tax collectors and harlots will be first in the kingdom, because they believed John, and, baptized for the forgiveness of sins, confessed the coming of Christ, praised the works of healing, received the mystery of the passion, and acknowledged the power of the resurrection. But the chief priests and Pharisees, seeing these things and despising them, were not justified through faith, nor returned through repentance to salvation: and therefore their fruit withers for ever under that curse which was prefigured in the fig tree.

“Hear another parable. There was a man, a householder, who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower,” and the rest. The whole question is plain. For even the chief priests and Pharisees themselves, understanding that these things were said about them, were kindled to anger. But the proper meaning of the persons and the comparisons of things must be brought out. By this householder we understand God the Father, who planted the people of Israel for the produce of the best fruits, and who enclosed them within their borders, as by a kind of hedge of special guard, by the sanctification of the fatherly name, that is, by the nobility of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; who also fitted the prophets as winepresses, into which a certain richness of the fervent Holy Spirit might flow like new wine: and in the tower he built the eminence of the law, which would carry them from the ground up into heaven, and from which the coming of Christ could be watched for. In the tenants is the figure of the chief priests and Pharisees, to whom power of teaching over the people was permitted. In the servants who were sent to receive the fruits is the varied and often repeated succession of the prophets. And the sending again of more than the first is that time in which, after the preaching of individuals, a very great number of prophets prophesying together was sent out; who at various times were beaten, stoned, and killed, demanding the fruits of the people they had established and taught. In the son sent last is both the coming and the passion of our Lord: who was cast out of Jerusalem, as out of the vineyard, to the sentence of condemnation. The plan of the tenants and their presumption of the inheritance once the heir was killed is the empty hope that the glory of the law could be kept when Christ was destroyed. In the householder’s return is the glory of the Father’s majesty standing in the Son at the time of judgment. And in the answer of the chief priests and Pharisees themselves, the inheritance of the law is given back more worthily to the apostles. But this Son is the stone rejected by the builders and raised to the top of the corner, marvelous in the eyes of all, and, between the law and the nations, the joining of side and of both buildings. “The kingdom of heaven is like a man, a king, who made a wedding for his son and sent his servants to call those invited to the wedding,” and so on. This parable too must be distinguished by times and recognized by persons. And about the person of the king and son the understanding is plain. But that the father made the wedding for the son, and invited in this way, is a new reasoning. For to make a wedding belongs both to the author and to the time of the wedding. But here the wedding is the mystery of heavenly life and of the eternal glory to be received in the resurrection. Rightly, then, it was made by the Father; because the fellowship of this eternity and the espoused union of the new body were already held perfected in Christ. And in this place we shall warn that, in the earlier passage where the condition of divorce was treated, one should look carefully at what was signified about the reason of the resurrection, and that what was said under the person of Adam to Eve, since it is a great mystery, should not be passed over carelessly. Those who are warned to come, invited earlier, are the people of Israel: for it was called through the law into the glory of eternity. The servants sent to call the invited are the apostles: for it was their proper work to remind those whom the prophets had invited. Those sent again with the condition of precepts are apostolic men and the successors of the apostles. The fatted bulls are the glorious figure of the martyrs, who were sacrificed as chosen victims for the confession of God. The fatlings are spiritual men, like birds fed with heavenly bread for flying up, who will fill the rest with the richness of the food they received. When all these have been prepared and gathered into the number of the multitude pleasing to God, the glory of the heavenly kingdom is announced like a wedding. But they so neglected their warning too that some of them were occupied with the ambition of the world as with a field: but many were detained in trade by the desire for money. The rest, having inflicted injuries on the servants sent, which was fulfilled in the apostles themselves, killed them. But fitting vengeance follows the crime of so monstrous a deed. Heavenly armies are sent; they will burn their whole gathering by the judgment of God and set it alight with the flames of eternal fire; because against the disposition of humanity they raged with the hatreds of murderers. And since he speaks these things about the time of judgment and resurrection, he turned the same speech to the gathering of the nations. For those who were first invited being found unworthy, he commands that they go to the outlets of the roads. For by the gift of grace the crimes of former life are passed over. For we have very often warned that by the road the time of the world is to be understood. And therefore we are commanded to go to the outlets of the roads; because all past things are forgiven. Then he commands that all be called to the wedding without any exception, and the bad come together with the good. The calling ought to have made them good, because it is holy and proceeds from the best disposition of the one inviting: but through the fault of an unamended will there is a difference among those called. And since pretense usually has very much skill in deceiving men, which, though it may deceive us either by the secret of another’s mind or by the simplicity of our judgment, yet cannot be hidden from God: therefore God, entering the gathering of this happy resurrection and seeing a man reclining without a wedding garment, asks how he got in. Had he designated the dress of those to be invited? Then, since he had commanded that anyone at all be invited, how could one be dressed like all? Or if there was usually a fixed dress by the custom of guests at weddings, he could have been stopped by those inviting and by the servants. But since it is not for all to understand the wicked, and human simplicity hardly understands the deceit of a pretending mind, God alone therefore finds out this wicked man, unworthy of the wedding gathering. The wedding garment is the glory of the Holy Spirit and the brightness of a heavenly dress: which, taken up by the confession of a good questioning, is to be kept spotless and whole until the gathering of the kingdom of heaven. So this man is taken away and sent into the outer darkness, because many are called and few chosen. So it is not fewness among those invited but rarity among the chosen: because in the one inviting there is the kindness of a common goodness without exception; but among those invited the choosing is made from the merit of uprightness at the judgment.

“Then the Pharisees went and took counsel how to trap him in his speech,” and so on. The Pharisees are often stirred up, and they cannot find an occasion for accusing him from past things: for no fault could fall on his deeds and words. But from a disposition of malice they stretch themselves into every inquiry for finding an accusation. For he was calling all from the vices of the world and the superstitions of human religions to the hope of the heavenly kingdom. So they test, by the condition of the question put, whether he would violate the power of the world: namely, whether tribute ought to be paid to Caesar. He, knowing the inner secrets of their thoughts (for God beholds nothing of the things hidden within men that he does not see), ordered a denarius to be brought to him and asked whose inscription and image it bore. The Pharisees answered that it was Caesar’s. To them he said that the things that are Caesar’s are to be paid back to Caesar, and the things that are God’s to God. O answer full of wonder, and perfect resolution of a heavenly saying! He so tempered everything between contempt of the world and the insult of offending Caesar that he freed minds devoted to God from all human cares and duties, when he decided that what is Caesar’s should be paid back to Caesar. For if nothing of his remains with us, we shall not be held by the condition of paying back to him what is his. But if we brood over his things, if we use the right of his power, and subject ourselves like hirelings to the management of another’s estate, it is beyond complaint of injury that what is Caesar’s should be paid back to Caesar, and that we ought to give back to God the things that are properly his: body, soul, will. For we hold these as having come from him and been increased by him: so it is fitting for those who recall that they owe him both their origin and their progress to give themselves back wholly to him. “On that day Sadducees came to him, who say there is no resurrection,” and the rest. The Sadducees are outside faith in the resurrection. And since the Lord preached it, they put forward a cavil against divine things from their will to win, namely, of seven brothers with the same wife, whose wife he would answer she would be in the resurrection. And indeed public opinion holds that nothing is contained in the prophetic Scriptures about the conditions of the resurrection. But the Lord says: “You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” So it is written; and the doubt which so great an authority condemns ought to cease. For many are accustomed to bring forward this same cavil: in what form the female sex will rise, and whether it will be re-formed with the very functions of its nature and body. We indeed touch this passage, passed over by almost all, rashly: but we point out only that what was put to the Lord was whose wife out of the seven she must be reckoned; and that the Lord rebuked them for erring, not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God, because they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. And indeed it would have been enough against the Sadducees, who thought thus, that the opinion of bodily allurement had fallen away and that, the functions ceasing, these empty joys of bodies had been taken away: but he added: “They will be like the angels of God.” Since, then, the mystery of the Scriptures and the might of divine power show that they will be like angels, such as the authority in the Scriptures is for forming opinions about angels, such must be the understanding of our hope in the resurrection about women. And this is what he answered to the question put about the conditions of the resurrection. But about the resurrection itself he spoke thus against their unbelief: “Have you not read what was said to you by God, saying: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” For this word came to Moses when these holy patriarchs had long been at rest. So those whose God he was had God. But they could have nothing if they did not exist; because it is in the nature of the thing that that must exist to which something else belongs. And so to have God belongs to the living; since God is eternity, and it does not belong to things that are dead to have what is eternal. And how will they be denied to be and always to be, whose God eternity professes itself to be? “But the Pharisees, hearing that he had silenced the Sadducees, gathered together against him, and one of them, a teacher of the law, asked him,” and the rest. The Pharisees succeed the testing Sadducees. And to those an answer about the resurrection had fittingly been given, so that they were convicted that the faith of the hoped-for resurrection is contained in the very law from which they had come. But the Pharisees boasted that they had the knowledge of the law, which, set forth as an image of things to come, contained the likeness of the truth that would follow. They ask which commandment was the greatest in the law: not seeing that the meditation of the law was perfected in Christ. And indeed the ignorance of the insolent was answered in the very words of the law: and this answer embraced in itself the whole teaching of truth. For it is the proper office of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring the knowledge of God and to supply the understanding of his name and power. For he had come sent, and, brought forth from eternity, he was carrying out the things that were pleasing to God. So he answered that the first commandment is: “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind.” For he was doing nothing else than what the law contained; because the precepts of the law embraced the form of the things he himself would do. So he reminds them of the knowledge of him which they boasted of having in the law, that God almighty is to be loved with every disposition of mind, heart, and soul, so that the commandments of the law set forth beforehand might confirm his warning. Then he added: “This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But the following and like commandment signifies that the duty and the merit are the same in both. For neither love of God without Christ nor of Christ without God can be useful. So one without the other brings no progress to our salvation. And therefore on these two commandments the whole law and the prophets hang; because the law and all prophecy was assigned to Christ’s coming, and his coming, by fulfilling them, supplied the understanding of knowing God. For we have often warned that by the neighbor no other is to be understood than Christ. For since we are forbidden to put father, mother, and sons before the love of God, how is love of neighbor a commandment like that of loving God? Or will anything be left that can be equaled to the love of God? Unless that the likeness of the precept required an equal love in loving the Father and the Son. And so that they could be refuted by the words of the law itself, and a clearer understanding about the neighbor might be opened, he asks what they thought of the Christ, whose son he would be. They answered: David’s. He said to them: how was he called Lord by David in the Spirit, who would be his son; and how was it said by him: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies as a footstool for your feet”? It was indeed true that Christ was to be begotten from David’s seed: but the likeness of the name, by which the Lord spoke to the Lord, and by which he placed him at the right hand until he subjected all enemies under his feet, signified both the unity of substance from the sharing of the name, judgment from the invitation to sit beside, and power from the subjection of all things; so that they might remember that in him who was rising from David the substance of eternal power, might, and origin is contained, and that God would remain in man.

“Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying: The scribes and Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses,” and the rest. He set forth the glory of the law testifying of him, which had expressed in itself the image of the future truth. For in all things it was meditating Christ’s coming. For whatever was contained in it was taken up for the advance of making knowledge of him manifest. So he commands that the precepts of the Pharisees be obeyed, because they have sat in the chair of Moses: he commands that all the commandments of the law be obeyed, but that their deeds and works be avoided; so that it is men’s manners and unbelief, not the teaching of the law, that is shunned. For they lay the heaviest burdens of the law on the people subject to them, not even moving their own finger to touch them. Indeed they command that the Lord be loved with the whole heart and the neighbor as oneself, while they themselves, against the testimony of the law given to them, persecute God in Christ with sufferings. Broadening the glory of their words like phylacteries, by which God the author of eternal life is not understood in Christ, and magnifying themselves as sent out from the honor of the law, like fringes from a garment, they who, ignorant of the whole law, have recognized neither the works nor the power of that law itself: loving the first places at banquets, they who are assigned to eternal fire (while the nations rather feast with Abraham); and the first chairs in the synagogues, they who do not know their teacher according to the testimonies of the law and the prophets; and greetings in the market place, they to whom humility of heart and service toward all is commanded. They also wish to be called teachers by men, ignorant of the teaching of the law and forever rejecting the teacher of salvation. Since all these things were profane and perverse, they are condemned for imitation of their deeds. But hearing of the law and obedience to its words, because they spoke of Christ, is required. But in contrast he completes, for the disciples who now knew him, the precepts of all humility: that they should remember that all are brothers, that is, sons of one parent, and by the birth of a new nativity have gone beyond the beginnings of earthly birth, and that there is one teacher of heavenly doctrine for them all, and that the glory of eternal honor is to be seized by the consciousness of humility; because God will make insolence humble and will raise humility into glory. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who shut the kingdom of heaven.” He condemns their pretense by the signification of punishment. For “woe” is the voice of one grieving. He says they shut the kingdom of heaven because in the law they hide the meditation of the truth that is in Christ and conceal by pretended teaching the bodily coming proclaimed by the prophets; and, not themselves going on the road of eternity in Christ, they do not allow others to go either. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who devour the houses of widows.” Hence that denial of the truth, hence the hindering of others from salvation, and the barring of the heavenly kingdom: so that ambition may be kept in visiting the houses of widows, so that they may be despoiled by the honor of a long prayer, so that the knowledge of heavenly things may be sought from them as from a treasure of stored wealth, so that the dignity of the law may persist by silence about grace. And therefore they will receive greater judgment, because they will owe both the penalty of their own sin and the guilt of another’s ignorance. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who travel around sea and dry land.” By traveling over sea and land he signifies that in all the ends of the world they will disparage the Gospel of Christ and subject some to the yoke of the law against the justification of faith: for proselytes are those received from the nations into the synagogue. The rarity of these to come is indicated by the “one”: for after the preaching of Christ, no faith has been left to their teaching. But whoever has been acquired for the people becomes a son of Gehenna, an offspring of punishment, and an inheritance of eternal judgment: because adoption from the nations will make up the family of Abraham. And he will be a son of double punishment for this reason, because he has neither obtained the forgiveness of sins of the nations and has followed the fellowship of those who persecuted Christ. “Woe to you, blind guides, who say: Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing.” He reproaches their reverence for human observances and their insult to prophetic tradition, because they gave honor to empty things and took it from things to be honored. For he himself had given the law, and the law did not contain the efficacy but meditated the effects. For the adornment of altar and temple did not win dignity from its decoration but shaped an image of things to come by its beauty. For gold, silver, bronze, brass, pearls, and crystal contain their own meaning according to the nature of each metal. So he refutes them because they venerated the gold of the temple and the gifts of the altar for the reverence of the sacred things; whereas the honor of both altar and temple was greater, because both the gold was dedicated to the temple and the gift to the altar as an image of things to come. And therefore, when Christ comes, confidence in the law is useless: because Christ is not sanctified in the law, but the law in Christ, in which a seat and throne, as it were, has been set for him. Since it is held as sacred, it must have received sacredness from him who sits on it: and so they are foolish and blind, venerating what is sanctified while passing over what sanctifies. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who tithe mint and dill and every herb,” and the rest. He refutes the hidden things of the mind and the dark iniquity of wills: that they do the things the law prescribes in the tithes of mint and dill, so that they are thought by men to fulfill the law; but have left mercy, justice, faith, and every disposition of kindness, which is the proper duty of man. Because that tithing of herbs, which was useful as a prefiguring of things to come, ought not to be omitted: but this ought to be done, that, having performed the parts of faith, justice, and mercy, we might please him not by imitation of a pretended will but by works of a will kept in truth. And since it would be less guilt to pass over the tithing of herbs than the duty of kindness, he mocks their care in straining out gnats, whose carelessness lay in swallowing camels, that is, of those who avoid light sins and devour heavy ones. A like announcement of punishment is made against those who wash cups and dishes outside but do not clean their insides, and, following the boast of useless zeal, leave the ministry of perfect usefulness. For the use of a cup is inner: if it is filthy, what will the whole outside profit? And therefore the brightness of inner conscience is to be obtained, so that the things of the body may be washed on the outside. He also compared them to tombs, which, shining with human work and decoration, are filthy within with the bones of the dead and the uncleanness of corpses: that is, they put forward the beauty of righteousness in empty words, but have within them the stench of their mind’s conscience. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who build the tombs of the prophets,” and the rest. The form of judgment is plain, and on each of us, from nature, a sense and opinion of fairness is laid; and the work of iniquity has the less pardon from this, the less fairness was unknown. For the people of the law killed all the prophets. For they were kindled to hatred of them by the bitterness of their rebuke: for they convicted with public voice its thefts, murders, adulteries, and sacrileges. And since they announced that it was unworthy of the heavenly kingdom for these works, and proclaimed that the nations would be heirs of God’s covenant, they were destroyed by various kinds of punishments. But posterity so detested the deeds of its parents that it venerates the books of prophecy, adorns their memorials, restores their tombs: and by such reverence testifies that it is outside the guilt of its fathers’ crime. Those, then, who admit that the prophets were killed with the gravest guilt, with what pardon will they condemn Christ, who is the work of the prophets, when they carry out with multiplied crime the very things they detest? And therefore they are both serpents and a brood of vipers, because they will fill up the measure of their fathers’ will. And how will they escape judgment, detesting the slaughter of the prophets and persecuting their Lord even to the death of the cross? By whom, on account of the apostles, who are prophets from the revelation of things to come, wise from the knowledge of Christ, scribes from the understanding of the law, beaten, stoned, crucified, and driven from city to city, all the blood of the righteous from Abel to Zechariah overflowed: so that, whereas if these had been obeyed pardon for their own crimes would have been granted, because these same were killed the penalty of their fathers’ crimes too would be heaped on those who killed them. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you,” and so on. Among many kinds of rebukes he always declares the disposition of his mercy: whose whole complaint here is that they refused to return to the salvation he was offering. For Jerusalem had killed the prophets and stoned those sent to it. In the naming of the city the crime of its inhabitants is shown. And therefore the blood of Abel and of Zechariah is shown to come upon this posterity of theirs: because Christ, now dwelling among them and preaching, had suffered. If he had been believed, not only would the faith of believers be outside the penalty for the killing of the prophets, but even that very sentence of the Lord’s passion would have obtained pardon. But truly, since he was not believed even after the resurrection, even vengeance for the blood of Abel and Zechariah will be demanded from them. For although he speaks these things in the body and, found as a man, gives help to all, yet he often wished to gather them by the preachings of the prophets. But he spent this affection in vain and to no purpose. Like a hen gathering her chicks, he wished to hold them under his wings: having become, that is, an earthly and domestic bird, granting, as to his chicks, the warmth of immortal life by a kind of covering of his body as of wings, and bringing them out to flight as by a new generation. For chicks have one manner of being born and another of flying. For first they are held in the shells of eggs as in the enclosure of the body: then afterward, warmed by the care of the parent, they go out into flight. In the manner of this familiar and almost earthly bird, then, he wished to gather them into himself: so that those who had already been brought forth by the condition of birth, now arisen by another generation and reborn by the warmth of one cherishing them, might fly into the heavenly kingdom as with feathered bodies. Since they were unwilling, their house will be left deserted and empty, that is, they will be unworthy of the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. For they began to be their own house, not God’s: and, remaining in the stubbornness of unbelief, they will not see him until the time when, as he returns in the name of the Lord, they will bless him even with the confession of an unwilling unbelief.

“And having gone out of the temple, he was walking; and his disciples came to show him the structure of the temple.” After the threat that Jerusalem would be deserted, the magnificence of its building is shown to him, as though he might be moved by the grandeur of the temple. He says that all things are to be destroyed and pulled down, the stones of the whole substructure scattered. For an eternal temple was being consecrated for the dwelling of the Holy Spirit: namely man, made a fit dwelling for God through the acknowledgment of the Son, the confession of the Father, and obedience to the precepts. “And when he had withdrawn to the mountain,” the disciples, coming to him privately, ask when these things will happen, and by what sign they may know his coming and the end of the age. And since these three things were asked together, they are separated by distinct meanings of time and understanding. So the answer is first about the fall of the city: and they are strengthened by the truth of teaching, so that no deceiver could creep up on them in their ignorance. For there would come, even in their time, those who would call themselves Christ. So that faith might not be dragged away by pestilent falsehood, the warning went first. For Simon the Samaritan came, equipped with devilish works and words, and corrupted many by the miracles of his deeds. And since this would fall in the times of the apostles, he says: “It is not the end.” But not even then, when nations and kingdoms will rush against one another, and there will be famines and earthquakes: because in these there is not the dissolution of this universe, but the beginning of sorrows, all evils beginning from then on. So he strengthens them to endure sufferings: flight, scourging, death, and the public hatred of the nations against them for his name. And by these harassments many will be troubled, and, such great evils rising up, will be scandalized and roused even to mutual hatred. And there will be false prophets (as Nicolaus, one of the seven deacons, was), and they will pervert many by counterfeiting the truth: and, wickedness abounding, love will grow cold. But salvation is reserved for those who persevere to the end: then, when apostolic men have been scattered through all parts of the world, the truth of the Gospel will be preached. And when the knowledge of the heavenly mystery has been brought to all, then the fall and end of Jerusalem will come upon it: so that both the punishment of the unbelievers and the fear of the destroyed city may follow the truth of the preaching. These things, then, as they had been foretold, were accomplished against it: and, the apostles having been stoned, driven out, and killed, it was consumed by famine, war, and captivity. And then it was worthy not to exist, when, having cast out the preachers of Christ, it showed itself unworthy of God’s preaching. Then follows also the indication of the coming to come: when they see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, then the return of his glory is to be understood. And about this I think it superfluous to speak, since most blessed Daniel and Paul proclaim it: for he spoke these things about the times of Antichrist. He is called an abomination because, coming against God, he will claim for himself the honor of God: and the abomination of desolation, because he will desolate the earth dangerously with wars and slaughters. And for this reason, received by the Jews, he will stand in the place of sanctification: so that where God was invoked by the prayers of the saints, there, received by unbelievers, he may be venerated with the honor of God. And since this will be the error proper to the Jews, that those who rejected the truth should accept falsehood, he warns that Judea is to be deserted, and that they should flee to the mountains; lest by mixing with the people that will believe Antichrist some force or contagion be brought: but for all who will then be faithful, the deserts of the mountains will be safer than the crowds of Judea. As for his saying, “And let those on the housetop not come down to take anything from the house”: this precept, by human understanding, does not admit a reason of word and deed. For one who is on the housetop and is about to leave Judea cannot go away without coming down from it. Or what usefulness is there in standing on the housetop and not staying in the house? But we have often warned that the proper meanings of words and places must be looked at, so that we may attain the weight of the heavenly precepts. The housetop is the summit of a house and the lofty completion of the whole dwelling. For no house can be called or be a house without a roof. So he who stands in the completion of his house, that is, in the perfection of his body, new by regeneration, lofty in spirit, and perfected by the completion of the divine gift, ought not to come down into lower things by desire for worldly things, nor, provoked by the lower allurements of the body, depart from the height of his housetop. “And let him who is in the field not turn back to take his tunic”: that is, set in the work of the precept, let him not return to his former cares; nor desire any garments of the body, for the sake of which, having returned, he will bring back from there the tunic of the old sins by which he was formerly covered. “Woe to those who are pregnant and nursing.” This can indeed be taken simply because of the delay of flight: because it is troublesome for those hampered by the burden of the womb to escape the imminent ruin of the times. But what has the condition of sex and the order of generation deserved? Unless perhaps that age of women who fall in those times will be properly accursed. But far be it that there should be anything that becomes evil to a man except by his own fault. So it must not be believed that the Lord warned about the burden of unborn children when he says, “Woe to the pregnant”: but that he showed the heaviness of souls filled with sins, which, neither placed on the housetop nor remaining in the field, can avoid the storm of wrath. For pain follows the pregnant by nature, and birth is not poured forth without the shaking of the whole body. Such souls, then, as will be found will be held in their burden and pain. Woe also will be to those who are nursed. Infancy weaned from milk is no less useless for flight than that which is still fed with milk. And how is there woe to one who is nursed, when it makes no difference of age and time to be fed with milk or to have left off milk? But here too he shows the weakness of souls which are still fed, as it were, with milk toward the knowledge of God: who, needing the strength of solid food, are steeped in a slight and weak taste of divine knowledge. And therefore woe will be to them: because, heavy for escaping Antichrist and unskilled for enduring him, they will have neither escaped sins nor received the food of the true bread. And therefore we are warned to pray that our flight be not in winter or on the Sabbath, that is, that we be not found either in the cold of sins or in idleness from good works: because a heavy and unbearable harassment will come upon all, except that for the sake of God’s elect shortness is to be granted to those days, so that the time of raging, shortened, may overcome the force of the evils pressing upon them. And since, to those set in great harassment, false prophets will point to help as present in Christ, they will falsely say that Christ is and is to be had in many places, to lead those oppressed and harassed into the service of Antichrist; now saying that he is in the deserts, to corrupt them by error; now asserting that he is in the inner rooms, to shut them in by the power of the ruler: but the Lord declares that he is not to be hidden in a place nor seen by individuals; but that he will be present everywhere and in the sight of all, in the manner of lightning, which, raised from the east, spreads its light to the regions of the west, and, flashing from anywhere, is seen everywhere. And lest we should be ignorant even of the place in which he would be, he says: “Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered.” He called the saints eagles from the flight of the spiritual body: and he showed that their gathering, the angels gathering them, will be in the place of the passion. And rightly the coming of glory will be awaited there, where he worked for us the glory of eternity by the passion of bodily humility.

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened,” and the rest. He indicates the glory of his coming and the return of his brightness by the darkening of the sun, the failing of the moon, the fall of the stars, the movement of the heavenly powers, the showing of the saving sign, the lamentation of the nations recognizing the Son of Man in the glory of God, and the sending of angels with a trumpet to gather the saints, that is, with the summons of now public freedom. So will a huge tree come from the grain of mustard seed: so, the image having been crushed by the stone from the mountain, will a mountain occupy the whole earth: so a city visible to all: so a light on the wood shining to all: so from the humility of death the glory of God. By the evidence of all these things he wished us to know the time of our redemption, at which we shall be carried over from the corruption of bodies into the honor of a spiritual substance. He set the sign for knowing the time in the likeness of the fig tree: when its branch has become tender and put forth leaves, then summer is understood to be near. But the nature of summer and of the tree is very different. For it swells at the beginning of spring: and the time between the coming on of summer and the branch of the tree becoming tender in leaves is not small. From which it must be recognized that this was not said of the tree. And indeed we have already treated above the property of this tree. We read too that Adam was clothed with its leaves and covered the shame of his conscience, that is, surrounded as with the garment of sin under the law. So the branch of the fig tree is understood as Antichrist, the son of the devil, the portion of sin, the champion of the law. When he begins to grow tender and put forth leaves, then summer, that is, the day of judgment, will be felt to be near. His putting forth leaves will be recognized by a kind of greenness of exulting sins: for then there will be the flowering of criminals, the honor of evildoers, and the favor of the profane: for whom, however, summer, that is, the heat of eternal fire, is near. And so that faith in the future might be sure, by saying “Amen,” the profession of truth, he added that our generation cannot pass away unless all these things have passed through, and that those things thought firm, namely heaven and earth, will not be; but his words cannot fail to be: because those, from the condition of their creation, that is, having come from nothing, have this necessity in themselves, that they should not be; but these, drawn from eternity, contain in themselves this power, that they should remain. About the end of times he took away the care of our anxiety, saying that that day is known to no one, and is unknown not only to the angels but even to himself. O inestimable mercy of divine goodness! Did God the Father refuse the knowledge of the day with the purpose of hiding it from the Son, when it was said by him: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father”? So they are not all, if there is anything that is refused. But since he was to carry to us all things received from the Father, and the Word of God contains faith not so much of what is to be in himself as of what has been done, therefore the day has been placed outside definition, so that God, though granting us an ample time for repentance, might always hold us anxious by fear of the uncertain; and he himself, by speaking to no one the will of giving this day, might restrain it by no definition of his saying; because, as in the time of the flood, while all are acting and suffering in the very course of our life, that great day will be present. Indeed he showed that there will be a distinction in the taking up of the faithful, when of two placed in the field one is taken and the other left; and of two grinding, one is rejected and the other chosen; and of two who will be in a bed, one clings and the other is abandoned. For he teaches the distinction of unbelievers and believers in some being left and others taken up. For when the anger of God grows heavy, the saints (as the prophet says) will be hidden in the storerooms; but the faithless will be left as material for heavenly fire. So the two in the field, two peoples, of believers and unbelievers, the day of the Lord will catch in the world as in the work of this life; yet they will be separated, one left and the other taken. And the reason about those grinding is the same. The mill is the work of the law. But since part of the Jews, as it believed through the apostles, so will believe through Elijah and be justified through faith: therefore one will be laid hold of through the same faith of good work, but the other will be left in the unfruitful work of the law, grinding in vain and not about to make the bread of heavenly food. But two are in a bed, proclaiming the same rest of the Lord’s passion: about which the confession of heretics and catholics is one and the same. But since the truth of the catholics will proclaim the unity of the Father and the Son and their common theotēs, which we call deity, and the falsehood of the heretics will in turn attack it with many insults, therefore of the two in the bed one will be left and the other taken: because the judgment of the divine decision will approve the faith of the confession of each by taking one and leaving the other. And so that we might know that that ignorance of the day, kept silent from all, is not without the reason of a useful silence, he warned us to keep watch because of his coming, and, held by the constancy of prayers, to cling to all the works of his precepts. For he showed that the devil is the thief, watchful to carry off spoils from us, and lying in wait for the houses of our bodies, so that, while we are careless and given to sleep, he may dig through them with the darts of his counsels and allurements. So it is fitting that we be ready: because ignorance of the day stirs up the attentive anxiety of suspended expectation.

“Who then is the faithful and prudent servant whom the Lord has set over his household?” and so on. Although he exhorts us in common to unwearied care of watchfulness, yet he entrusts a special anxiety in the expectation of his coming to the leaders of the people, that is, to the bishops. For by this faithful and prudent servant he signifies the one set over the household, caring for the advantages and benefits of the people entrusted to him. If he is attentive to the word and obedient to the precepts, that is, if by the timeliness and truth of teaching he strengthens the weak, mends the broken, corrects the perverted, and dispenses the word of life as the food of eternity for nourishing the household, and is caught doing these things and persevering in them, he will obtain glory from the Lord as a faithful steward and useful manager, and will be set over all goods, that is, placed in the glory of God, since there is nothing beyond that is better. But if, seeing the long patience of God, which is extended for the advance of human salvation, he grows insolent against his fellow servants and gives himself to the evils and vices of the world, exercising care only for present things in the worship of the belly: the Lord will come on a day he did not expect, and will divide him from the goods he had promised, and will set his portion with the hypocrites in the eternity of punishment, because he despaired of the coming, because he did not obey the commandments, because he was devoted to present things, because he lived the life of the nations, because, despairing of judgment, he harassed the household entrusted to him with hunger, thirst, and slaughter. “Then the kingdom of heaven will be likened to ten virgins,” and the rest. From the preceding sayings the reason of this discourse too can be understood. For the whole discourse is about the great day of the Lord, in which the hidden things of human thoughts will be brought out by the knowledge of divine judgment, and the true faith of the expected God will attain the merit of an undoubted hope. For in the five wise and the five foolish a division of believers and unbelievers has plainly been established: after which example Moses had received the ten words written on two tablets. For it was necessary that all of them be written on both: and the double page, between the property of right and left, signified, though under one covenant, the division of good and bad. The bridegroom and the bride is our Lord, God in the body. For as the Spirit is bridegroom to the flesh, so the flesh is bride to the Spirit. Accordingly, when the trumpet rouses them, they go out to meet the bridegroom only; for both were already one, since the humility of the flesh had passed into spiritual glory. In the first going out, by the duties of this life, we are prepared to meet the resurrection from the dead. The lamps, then, are the light of shining souls, which have shone with the mystery of baptism. The oil is the fruit of good work. The vessels are human bodies, within whose inner parts the treasure of a good conscience is to be stored. The sellers are those who, needing the mercy of the faithful, give back from themselves the trade that is asked for, selling, that is, for the satisfying of their need, the consciousness of our good work. For this is the abundant material of unwearied light, which must both be bought and stored by the fruits of mercy. The wedding is the taking up of immortality, and the joining of corruption and incorruption in a new fellowship. The delay of the bridegroom is the time of repentance. The sleep of those waiting is the rest of believers, and, in the time of repentance, the temporary death of all. The cry at midnight, while all are unaware, is the voice of the trumpet, announcing the coming of the Lord who goes before and rousing all to go out to meet the bridegroom. The taking up of the lamps is the return of souls into bodies: and their light is the conscience of good work shining out, which is held within the vessels of bodies. The wise virgins are those who, embracing the timely season of working in the body, have prepared themselves for the first meeting of the Lord’s coming. The foolish are those who, loose and negligent, had concern only for present things, and, forgetful of God’s promises, stretched themselves toward no hope of resurrection. And since the foolish cannot go out to meet him with their lamps gone out, they beg those who were wise to lend them oil. These answered that they cannot give, because perhaps there would not be enough for all: that is, no one is to be helped by another’s works and merits, because to each lamp its own … To hide a talent in the earth is to hide the glory of the new preaching under disparagement of bodily suffering. Such a one, though he cannot deny that Christ the Lord was sent for the salvation of the nations (for both his coming and his passion are from the law), yet himself would not obey the Gospels. For he says: “I know that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter.” The nature of present things does not allow a harvest without seed, nor the gathering of what has not been scattered: but this whole speech is spiritual. For we have said that this people is from the law, not ignorant of the Lord’s coming and the salvation of the nations, but unbelieving: since it knows that the fruits of righteousness are to be reaped there where no law was sown, and gathered from the nations, who were not scattered from the stock of Abraham: and therefore he is a hard man, namely about to justify without the law, to gather without scattering, and to reap without sowing. And so this will be the more beyond pardon, that he hid the preaching and buried the talent entrusted to him, though knowing that he would reap without seed and gather what he had not scattered: but rather he ought to have given it to the bankers, that is, to have shared the use of the talent entrusted to him with the whole human race, which is occupied with the business of the world, the Lord being about to demand its return from each. For this fault the talent is taken from him, not so much of the Gospel, which he had buried, as of the law, and it is given to him who doubled five, the Lord saying: “For to everyone who has, it will be given, and he will abound; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” He who has can indeed abound; for it is easy for the wealthy to grow rich through the increase of either generosity or labor: but how will one who does not have, have something to lose? This is so because to those who have the use of the Gospels the honor of the law too is given back: but from him who does not have faith in Christ, even the honor which he seemed to himself to have from the law is taken away.

He himself settles the whole reason of this discourse. For he speaks of the time of judgment and of his coming, at which he will separate the faithful from the unfaithful, and distinguish the fruitful from the unfruitful, that is, the goats from the lambs, and, placing each on the right and the left, will set him in a seat worthy either of his goodness or of his malice: indicating that in his least ones, that is, in those who serve him with the expectation of his humility, he himself is fed when they hunger, given drink when they thirst, sheltered when they are strangers, clothed when they are naked, visited when they are sick, and comforted when they are anxious. For he is so poured into the bodies and minds of all the faithful that these duties of humanity, either when given earn his favor or when refused provoke his offense. After this discourse, in which he had shown that he would come at the return of his glory, he now warns that he will suffer: so that they might recognize that the mystery of the cross is mingled with the glory of eternity. Meanwhile a plan to kill him is taken up by the Jews; and the chief priests gathered, an occasion for so great a crime is awaited.

“When Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of precious ointment,” and the rest. It is not for nothing that, at the very time of the passion, a woman poured precious ointment on the head of the Lord as he reclined: then that the disciples were angry and said that this should rather have been sold for the use of the poor: then that the Lord both approved the woman’s deed and promised an eternal memory of this work together with the preaching of the Gospel: finally that after this Judas broke out to sell his salvation. This woman is a prefiguration of the people of the nations, which in the passion of Christ gave glory to God. For she anointed his head: and the head of Christ is God. For ointment is the fruit of good work. And because of the care of the body it is especially pleasing to the female sex. So she poured all the care of her body and the whole affection of her precious mind into the honor and praise of God. But the disciples, out of zeal for saving Israel, as often, are moved: that this should have been sold for the use of the poor. But this woman was not carrying the ointment about for sale. And by a prophetic impulse they called the poor those in need of faith; and they meant that this faith of the nations ought rather to have been bought for the salvation of this needy people. To them the Lord said that there would be much time in which they could have care of the poor; but that salvation could not be given to the nations except by his command, who, by the pouring of this woman’s ointment, have been buried with him: because regeneration is given back only to those who have died with him in the profession of baptism. And therefore, wherever this Gospel is preached, her work will be told: because, Israel failing, the glory of the Gospel is proclaimed by the faith of the nations. Profane Israel, kindled to rivalry by this in the person of Judas, is roused with all hatred to extinguish the name of the Lord.

“On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Where do you wish us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” and the rest. The disciples are ordered to go to a certain man and tell him that the Lord wished to keep the Passover with his disciples at his house. They obeyed the commands and prepared the Passover. But they ought to have known where they were going and to have been told the man’s name. Otherwise, uncertain to whom they were being sent, how could those sent carry out what had been commanded? But the word of prophecy is mixed with the effects of present things. For he does not name the man with whom he would celebrate the Passover. For the honor of the Christian name, given to those who truly behold God with the eyes of mind and faith, had not yet been granted to believers: so that we might know that the apostles prepared the Lord’s Passover with one to whom, in the Lord’s time, a new name was to be added. After this Judas the betrayer is pointed out, without whom the Passover is completed, the cup taken and the bread broken: for he had not been worthy of communion in the eternal sacraments. For it is understood that he left at once from this, that he is shown returning with the crowds. Nor indeed could he drink with the Lord, who would not drink in the kingdom: since he promised that all who were then drinking of the fruit of this vine would drink with him afterward. “And when they had sung a hymn, they went back to the mountain”: that is, all the powers of the divine mysteries being completed, they are carried up with common joy and exultation into heavenly glory. He also warned them of the weakness to come, and that that same night all would be troubled by fear and unbelief. The truth of this was contained even in the authority of the old prophecy, that when the shepherd was struck the sheep would be scattered: yet that he, rising, would go before them into Galilee, so that their weakness might be strengthened by the promise of his return. But Peter, from the heat of his faith, answered that, though the others might be scandalized, he would never be scandalized. For he was so carried away by affection and love for Christ that he did not consider either the weakness of his flesh or the truth of the Lord’s words: as if his sayings would not be fulfilled. To him he says: “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” But both he and the others promise that not even for fear of death will they depart from the confession of his name: for they had strengthened themselves with the fearless will of faith for every constancy of ministry.

“Then Jesus came with them to a field called Gethsemane, and he says to his disciples: Sit here while I go there and pray,” and the rest. He had accepted the faith of the disciples and the constancy of their will devoted to him: but he knew that they would be troubled and would scatter. He orders them to sit in a place while he went forward to pray. And he took Peter, James, and John, the sons of Zebedee. Having taken them, he began to be sad and sorrowful, and said that his soul was sad even to death. Some hold the opinion that sorrow for his own sake could fall on God, and that fear of the coming passion broke him: because he said, “My soul is sad even to death”; and that: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me”; and again: “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”; and finally twice the same: “Father, if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” They wish that distress from the weakness of the body clung to the Spirit: as if the assumption of flesh had infected that power of incorrupt substance with the dishonor of its weakness, and eternity had received the nature of frailty. If it is sad unto fear, if weak unto pain, if trembling unto death, it will now be subject to corruption, and the disposition of every weakness will fall upon it. So it will be what it was not: sorrowful from anguish, anxious from fear, terrified from pain: and so, eternity being changed into fear, if it can be what it was not, it could likewise at some time not be what is in it. But God is always, without measure of times: and as he is, so he is eternal. And eternity, remaining in the infinite, is extended into what follows as into what was: always whole, incorrupt, perfect, beyond which nothing that could be is left outside. Not itself in anything, but all things within it: able to bestow on us what is its own in such a way that nothing of what it is departs from it by its bestowing. But the whole sense of those who think that fear of death fell on the Son of God is this: they assert that he was not brought forth from eternity nor came to be from the infinity of the Father’s substance, but was made from nothing by him who created all things: so that he was taken up from nothing, begun from a work, and established from time. And therefore in him there is the anxiety of pain, therefore the suffering of the Spirit together with the suffering of the body, therefore the fear of death: so that he who could fear death could also die; and he who could die, though he will be eternal in the future, is not eternal from the past through him who begot him. If these had been able, through faith and uprightness of life, to grasp the Gospels, they would know that the Word was God in the beginning, and that he was with God from the beginning, and that he was born from him who was, and that this is in him who was born, which he himself is with whom he was before he was born: namely, that the eternity of the begetter and of the begotten is the same. Nothing in God, then, could die, nor is there any fear in God from himself. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. But this whole speech must be looked into, so that, since we read that the Lord was sorrowful, we may find the causes of the sorrow. He had warned above that all would be scandalized. Peter, confident of himself, had answered that, even if the others were troubled, he would not be moved: and the Lord answered that he would even deny him three times. But both he and all the other disciples promise that, even if they were placed in death itself, they will not deny him. And going forward, he ordered his disciples to sit while he prayed. And having taken Peter, James, and John, he began to be sad. So he is not sad before he takes them, and all fear began when they had been taken: and so the sorrow arose not from himself but from those whom he had taken. And indeed we must remember that no others were taken here than those very ones to whom the Son of Man was shown coming in his kingdom, when, Moses and Elijah standing by on the mountain, he was surrounded with the whole honor of his eternal glory. But the cause of taking them then was the same as now. Accordingly he says: “My soul is sad even to death.” Does he say: “My soul is sad because of death”? Certainly not. For if the fear were of death, it ought to have been referred to that through which it was. But it is one thing to fear until something, another to fear because of it. And whatever is at the end does not make the cause, because it is put off until something which was begun by another. Above, then, he had said: “You will be scandalized in me this night.” He knew that they would be terrified, put to flight, would deny: but since the blasphemy of the Spirit is forgiven neither here nor in eternity, he feared that they would deny him as God, whom they were about to see beaten, spat upon, and crucified. This reasoning was kept in Peter, who, when he was going to deny, denied thus: “I do not know the man”: because anything said against the Son of Man is forgiven. So he is sad until death. So not death but the time of death is in the fear: because after it the faith of believers would be strengthened by the power of the resurrection. “And going forward, he fell on his face, praying.” He warns them to remain watchful with him. For he knew that, the devil pressing hard, their faith would be put to sleep: and he commands an equal watchfulness on those whom the same suffering threatened. Then he prays: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: yet not as I will, but as you will.” He asks that the cup pass from him. Does he say: “Let this cup pass me by”? For that would be the prayer of one fearing for himself. But it is one thing to pray that it pass one by, another that it pass from one. For in what passes one by, that person is exempted from the trouble of what passes: but he who asks that it pass from him does not pray that he himself be passed by, but that what passes from him go on to another. Was it possible for Christ not to suffer? Yet already from the foundation of the world this mystery of our salvation had been shown in him. Did he himself not wish to suffer? Yet above he had consecrated the blood of his body to be poured out for the forgiveness of sins. How then does he say, “Father, if it is possible”? And how, “Not as I will, but as you will”? So his whole fear is for those who were going to suffer: and therefore, since it is not possible for him not to suffer, he prays for those who would suffer after him, saying, “Let the cup pass from me,” that is, as it is drunk by me, so let it be drunk by them, without distrust of hope, without the sense of pain, without fear of death. And he says “if it is possible” because for their flesh and blood the terror is heavy, and it is hard for human bodies not to be overcome by its bitterness. And as for his saying, “Not as I will, but as you will”: he would indeed wish them not to suffer, lest perhaps they lose confidence in suffering, but that they earn the glory of his co-inheritance without the hardship of suffering. So he does not ask that they not suffer, saying, “Not as I will”: but that, as the Father wills, the firmness of drinking the cup may pass from him into them: because by the Father’s will the devil was to be conquered not only through Christ but also through his disciples. After this he returns to the disciples and finds them sleeping: and he reproves Peter, asking why he could not watch with him even one hour. Peter, out of the three, because he had boasted above the others that he would not be scandalized. And he indicates the causes of his previous fear, saying: “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” This, then, was what he wished; and therefore he had handed on in the prayer: “Lead us not into temptation,” lest anything be permitted against us to the weakness of the flesh. And why he had warned them to pray that they might not come into temptation, he shows by saying, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”: certainly not of himself; for this speech is turned to them. Or how is the spirit now willing of himself, if above his soul is sad even to death? But he commands watching and praying, lest they fall into temptation, lest they succumb to the weakness of the body: and therefore he prays that, if possible, the cup may pass from him, because all flesh is weak for drinking it. And again going away he prayed, saying: “Father, if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” For the disciples who would suffer through the justification of faith, he took on himself all the weakness of our body: and with himself he fixed to the cross all the things by which we were weakened. Therefore he bears our sins and grieves for us: because, when the heat of faith is burning in us, and the battle of suffering must be fought against the devil, all the pains of our weaknesses die with his body and passion. And therefore the cup cannot pass from him unless he drinks it: because we cannot suffer except from his passion. But that, returning again, he found them sleeping shows that during the time of his absence many would be held by a kind of sleep of faith. But again he prayed, repeating the same: and returning, he who had commanded them to watch, who had rebuked them for being asleep, says: “Sleep now and take your rest.” After frequent prayer, after many goings and returnings, he takes away fear, gives back security, exhorts to rest, and now, secure, awaits the Father’s will concerning us, saying, “Your will be done”: because, drinking the cup that would pass into us, he would swallow up the weakness of our body, the anxiety of fear, and the very pain of death. That, returning to them and finding them sleeping, the first time he rebukes them, the second time is silent, the third time bids them rest: the reason is this, that first, after the resurrection, he will reprove them, scattered, distrustful, and trembling; second, when the Paraclete Spirit has been sent, he will visit them, their eyes heavy for beholding the freedom of the Gospel. For for some time, held by love of the law, they were occupied by a kind of sleep of faith. But the third time, that is, at the return of his glory, he will restore them to security and rest.

“And while he was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great crowd.” In all these things there is the order of the passion. But in the kiss of Judas this was the reason: that we might be taught to love all our enemies, even those we know will rage against us. For the Lord did not refuse his kiss. And by saying to Judas, “Do what you are doing,” he permits him, under the condition of this word, the power of his betrayal. For he who had it in his right to call against the betrayers twelve thousand legions of angels could much more easily have met the counsels and arts of one man. Accordingly he says to Pilate: “You would have no power over me unless it had been given to you.” So he gives power over himself by saying, “Do what you are doing”: that is, since the crime of the will is weighed with the odium of the deed, let him carry out in fact what he was already doing in will. One of those who were with him, drawing a sword, cut off the ear of the servant of the chief priest; and the Lord says to him: “Put your sword back into its place. For all who use the sword will perish by the sword.” So is this man already judged, since, using the sword, he will perish by the sword? But death by the sword is not usual for all who use the sword. For fever or some other mishap carries off many who have used the sword either in the office of judgment or from the necessity of resisting robbers. So the ear of the servant of the chief priest is cut off by an apostle: that is, by Christ’s disciple the disobedient hearing is cut out of the people serving the priesthood, and what was not hearing is cut off so that it may become capable of the truth. The whole crowd had come out armed with swords against the Lord. He ordered the sword to be put away: because he would destroy them not with a human sword but with the sword of his mouth. Otherwise, if according to his sentence everyone using the sword were to perish by the sword, the sword would rightly be drawn for the death of those who were using it for crime. The rest of the events keep their order. False witnesses are sought: the priest, ignorant of the very law in which he gloried, asks even under oath whether he is the Christ: as if the law and the prophets spoke of him in secret. Indeed this very man confessed Christ unwillingly, the Lord saying: “You have said it.” Hearing his majesty, he tore his garment, tearing, that is, the very veil of the law by which he was covered. In the slaps and spitting, to complete the humility of the man, every kind of insult was exercised against him. But we must carefully consider on what condition Peter denied: although this was treated above. For first he says that he does not understand what she is saying; next, that he has not been with him; but the third time, that he does not know the man. And truly he was now almost without guilt denying the man, whom he had first recognized as the Son of God: yet because, from weakness of the flesh, he had been even doubtful, he wept most bitterly, recalling that, even though warned, he could not avoid the guilt of this trembling. Then he is handed over to Pilate, the judge of the nations. For he could not be judged guilty from the law, being himself without guile and sin. “Then Judas, who had betrayed him, seeing that he had been condemned,” and the rest. Judas, repenting, gave back the price of Christ’s blood to the priests: so that, although he himself was the author of selling righteous blood, the very profession of the seller might convict the unbelief of the buyers. “They answered: What is that to us? See to it yourself.” The profession is bold and blind. They hear that they have bought righteous blood, and they believe that they will be outside the guilt of judgment: whereas by saying, “See to it yourself,” they place the crime itself in the seller, while, on the contrary, by the testimony of the seller the crime of the buyers is confirmed. So, going off, he hanged himself after Christ’s condemnation. The time of Judas’s death was so arranged that, at the Lord’s passion, when all things below and above were moved and torn up and the governance of all the elements was stunned into forgetfulness of its office, he might neither be visited among the dead nor have opportunity for repentance among the living after the resurrection. As for the silver pieces given back, since it was the price of blood and could not be mixed with the corban, that is, with the money of offerings, after taking counsel the potter’s field is bought and assigned for the burial of strangers. Great in this is the mystery of prophecy, and in the deeds of iniquity there is a meditation full of wonder. It is the work of a potter to form vessels from clay; it lies in his hand to re-form, from the same clay, a vessel either the same or more beautiful. That the world is called a field is contained in the very words of our Lord. So the world is bought at the price of Christ, that is, the whole of it is acquired, and it is assigned for the burial of strangers and the needy. Nothing of this belongs to Israel, and the whole use of the world bought is for strangers: for those, namely, who will be buried in the price of Christ’s blood, by which all things have been bought. For he has received from the Father all things that are in heaven and on earth: and therefore this is the potter’s field, because all things are God’s, in whose hand it lies to re-form us as he wishes, like a potter. In this field, then, having died with Christ and been buried with him, we shall obtain the eternal rest of this our pilgrimage. For assurance of this the prophecy of Jeremiah is added, so that in the work of this deed the authority of the divine voice, so long before, might be shown. When Pilate asked whether he was the king of the Jews, he answered: “You say it.” But how different is the speech from that which had been to the priest! For to him, asking whether he was the Christ, he had said: “You have said it.” This is because the law had proclaimed in all things that Christ would come: the answer to the priest is as of things past, because he himself had always said from the law that Christ would come. But to this man, ignorant of the law, asking whether he was the king of the Jews, it is said: “You say it”: because the salvation of the nations is through faith in present confession, and because the one who was formerly ignorant says this about him, which those deny who formerly were saying it.

“While Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying: Have nothing to do with that righteous man.” In her is the figure of the people of the nations: which, now faithful, calls the unbelieving people with whom it lived to faith in Christ. Since she herself has suffered much for Christ, she invites him with whom she lived to the same glory of future hope. Then Pilate washed his hands and testified to the Jewish people that he was innocent of the Lord’s blood: because, the Jews taking on themselves and their sons the crime of the Lord’s blood poured out, the people of the nations, washed, passes over daily to the confession of faith. When Pilate offered, according to the privilege of the feast day on which one of the accused had to be released at the people’s demand, to release Jesus, the people, urged by the priests, chose Barabbas rather. The interpretation of the name Barabbas is “son of the father.” Already, then, the secret of future unbelief is shown, by preferring to Christ the son of the father, namely Antichrist, the man of sin and son of the devil: and, urged by their leaders, they choose one reserved for damnation rather than the author of salvation. Then, the Lord having been beaten, a scarlet cloak, a purple garment, a crown of thorns, and a reed in his right hand are put on him, and, kneeling, they worship him in mockery. Having taken up, that is, all the weaknesses of our body, he is then drenched in the color of scarlet with the blood of all the martyrs, to whom a kingdom with him was owed: and he is clothed in purple with the precious honor of the prophets and patriarchs. He is also crowned with thorns, that is, with the sins of the nations, once piercing: so that from harmful and useless things, which, set around his head, that is, God, are contrived, the glory of sinners might be sought. For there is a sting in thorns, from which the crown of victory is woven for Christ. In the reed, the weakness and emptiness of the same nations, taken in hand, is made firm. Indeed it is struck on his head. To the head, I think, there is no great injury from the blow of a reed: but a typological reason is kept in it, that the weakness of the bodies of the nations, taken in Christ’s hand, may rest even in God the Father, who is his head. And in all these, while Christ is mocked, he is worshiped. Going out, they place the wood of the passion on a certain man of Cyrene. For the Jew was unworthy to carry Christ’s cross: because it was left to the faith of the nations both to take up the cross and to suffer with him. Then the place of the cross is such that, set in the middle of the earth and standing as on the summit of this universe, it was equally open to all nations for grasping the knowledge of God. He also refused to drink the wine mixed with gall that was offered: for the bitterness of sins is not mixed with the incorruption of eternal glory. His garment, divided by lot rather than torn, indicated the incorruption of the body that would remain. And so the salvation and life of all hangs on the tree of life; two robbers are fixed to it, on left and right (and therefore with him, so that it might be understood that the death of men differs from the death of the Only-begotten: for he gave up his spirit willingly when he wished, while their legs were broken), showing that the whole of the human race is called to the mystery of the Lord’s passion. But since, through the difference of believers and unbelievers, the division of all is by right and left, one of the two, placed at the right, is saved by the justification of faith. There is added also that reproach by which Israel convicted itself of unbelief, when it is said: “This is he who was destroying the temple of God and rebuilding it in three days,” and the rest. It would not be difficult to come down from the cross: but the mystery of the Father’s will had to be fulfilled. But, set on the cross, he was doing greater works, by the upheaval of all nature: is this, then, put forward as the greatest of all and as most difficult? What pardon, then, will there be, when after three days the temple of God is seen rebuilt in the resurrection of the body? That both robbers reproach him with the condition of his passion signifies that the cross would be a stumbling block even to all the faithful. The night from the day is a division of times. For so the third number of three days and as many nights is completed: and the hidden mystery of the divine working is felt by the astonishment of all creation. The cry to God is the voice of the body, testifying to the departure of the Word of God withdrawing from it. Accordingly he cries out why he is forsaken, saying: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But he is forsaken: because he was a man who had to be carried even through death. Indeed this too must be carefully considered, that, after drinking the vinegar given in a sponge on a reed, he cried out and gave up his spirit. Wine is both the honor and the power of immortality, which turns sour through the fault either of carelessness or of the vessel. Since this had soured in Adam, he himself received it and drank it from the nations. For it is offered on a reed from a sponge for him to drink, that is, from the bodies of the nations he received the vices of corrupted eternity; and into himself and into the communion of immortality he transferred the vices that were in us. Accordingly, in John, after he had drunk, he said: “It is finished”: because he had drained every vice of human corruption. And since nothing was to be done outwardly, he sent forth his spirit with a cry and a loud voice: grieving that he was not bearing the sins of all. And thereupon the veil of the temple is torn: because from then on the people was divided into parts, and the honor of the veil is taken away together with the guard of the protecting angel. The earth is moved: for it could not be capable of holding this dead man. The rocks were split: for the Word of God and the might of eternal power, penetrating all things then strong and firm, had burst in. And the tombs were opened: for the bars of death had been unlocked. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep rose: for, illuminating the darkness of death and lighting up the gloom of the underworld, he was taking away the spoils of death itself in the resurrection of the saints, who were seen at once. But so that the crime of unbelief might be heaped on Israel, the centurion and the guards, seeing this upheaval of all nature, confess the Son of God. That Joseph asked Pilate to give back the body, that it is wrapped in a linen cloth, laid in a new tomb cut in rock, and a stone rolled to the door of the tomb: although this is the order of events, and it was necessary that he who would rise from the dead should be buried, yet each thing is expressed not without some significance. Joseph bears the figure of the apostles: and therefore, though he was not among the number of the twelve apostles, he is called a disciple of the Lord. He wraps the body in a clean cloth. And indeed in this same linen sheet we find that the kinds of all animals were let down from heaven to Peter. From this it is perhaps not superfluously understood that under the name of this linen the church is buried with Christ: because in it, as in the mingling of the church, a diversity of clean and unclean animals was gathered. So the Lord’s body is brought, as through the teaching of the apostles, into the empty and new rest of hewn stone: that is, Christ is brought into the heart of pagan hardness, hewn out by a kind of work of teaching, rough and new, and before passable by no entry of the fear of God. And since nothing besides him ought to penetrate our hearts, a stone is rolled to the door: so that, since no author of divine knowledge had been brought into us before, none may be brought in afterward without him. Then the fear that the body would be stolen, and the guarding and sealing of the tomb, is a testimony of folly and unbelief: that they wished to seal the tomb of him at whose command they had seen a dead man raised from a tomb. The earthquake in the morning is the power of the resurrection on the Lord’s day: when, the sting of death crushed and its darkness illuminated, as the Lord of the heavenly powers rises, the trembling of the underworld is stirred. The angel of the Lord coming down from heaven, rolling back the stone, and sitting by the tomb is the token of the mercy of God the Father, sending the ministries of the heavenly powers to the Son rising from the underworld. And therefore he is first the herald of the resurrection, so that the resurrection might be announced by a kind of service to the Father’s will. But at once the Lord meets the women, who had been encouraged by the angel, and greets them: so that, about to announce the resurrection to the waiting disciples, they might speak with the mouth of Christ rather than of an angel. That the women first see the Lord, are greeted, fall at his knees, and are ordered to tell the apostles: the order of the principal cause is turned the other way: so that, since death had begun from this sex, to it first the glory, sight, fruit, and announcement of the resurrection might be given. The silence about Christ’s resurrection is bought with silver from the guards who had seen all these things, and the lie of theft: by the honor, that is, and greed of the world, because its honor is in money, the glory of Christ is denied.