Commentary on Matthew

Why certain generations were omitted.

Why fourteen are named when only thirteen are counted.—The following point follows, that, since we have said that, according to the truth of the facts, the order of this generation does not agree with itself either in number or in succession, an explanation of this matter also should be given. For it is no light matter that one thing should be in the narration and another in the events, and that one thing should be reported in the sum and another kept in the number. For from Abraham to David fourteen generations are enumerated, and from David to the transmigration of Babylon fourteen generations, whereas in the books of Kings seventeen are found. But in this there is no fault of falsehood or negligence. For three were deliberately passed over. For Joram begot Ochozias, Ochozias begot Joas, Joas then begot Amasias, and Amasias begot Ozias. And in Matthew it is written that Joram begot Ozias, though he is the fourth from him.

This is so because Joram begot Ochozias from a Gentile woman, namely from the house of Achab; and it had been said through the prophet that no one of the house of Achab would sit upon the throne of the kingdom of Israel until the fourth generation. Therefore, once the family of Achab had been purged of its Gentile taint, and three generations passed over, the royal origin is now numbered from the fourth of the succeeding generations. But as for the fact that fourteen generations are written down to Mary, though only thirteen are found in the number, this can be no error to those who know that the origin of our Lord Jesus Christ is not that alone which began from Mary; but that in his bodily procreation the significance of his eternal birth is comprehended.

Against those who are unwilling that Mary remained a virgin.—The account of the generation is simple.

For that he was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, is the work of all the prophets. But many irreligious men, quite alien from spiritual teaching, seize an occasion from this to think shamefully of Mary, because it is said, "Before they came together, she was found to be with child"; and this, "Fear not to take Mary your wife"; and this, "He knew her not until she brought forth"; not remembering that she had been betrothed, and that this was said to Joseph who wished to put her away, because he, being just, was unwilling to have judgment decreed against her under the law. Therefore, lest any ambiguity should arise concerning her childbearing, he himself is taken as witness that Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit; and then, because she had been betrothed, she is received as wife. She is thus "known" after the birth, that is, she passes into the name of wife.

For she is "known," not "united with." Finally, when Joseph is warned to depart into Egypt, it is said thus: "Take the child and his mother"; and, "Return with the child and his mother"; and again in Luke (according to the Greek): "And Joseph and his mother were..." And as often as mention is made of both, she is called rather the mother of Christ, because that she was; not the wife of Joseph, because that she was not. But this rule too was observed by the angel: that when he was signifying her as betrothed to the just Joseph, he called her wife. For thus he says: "Joseph, son of David, fear not to take Mary your wife." Therefore the betrothed both received the name of wife, and after childbirth, being acknowledged as wife, is shown to be only the mother of Jesus: so that, just as the marriage of that same Mary in virginity was accounted to the just Joseph, so her venerable virginity might be shown in her being the mother of Jesus.

Joseph's sons from a former marriage.—But most depraved men take from this the authority for their opinion

because it has been handed down that the Lord had several brothers. If these had been sons of Mary, and not rather ones taken up by Joseph from a former marriage, she would never at the time of the Passion have been made over to the apostle John as his mother, the Lord saying to each: "Woman, behold your son"; and to John: "Behold your mother"—except that, for the comfort of the desolate one, he was leaving the charity of a son in the disciple.

What the faith and gifts of the Magi indicate.—The rising of the star, understood first by the Magi, indicates that soon the nations would believe in Christ, and that men whose profession was far removed from the knowledge of divine understanding would come to know the light which appeared straightway at his birth.

Finally, the offering of the gifts expressed the understanding of his whole nature: confessing him king in the gold, God in the frankincense, man in the myrrh. And thus, through their veneration, the entire knowledge of the mystery was completed: in the man, of death; in God, of resurrection; in the king, of judgment. But as for the fact that they are forbidden to retrace their journey and return to Herod in Judea: we are permitted to seek nothing of knowledge and recognition from Judea, but, placing all our salvation and hope in Christ, we are warned to abstain from the road of our former life.

What the flight of Christ into Egypt signifies.

The Innocents, martyrs.—While Herod was preparing the slaughter of the little ones, Joseph is warned by an angel to carry the child into Egypt: Egypt, full of idols, and venerating the monstrous shapes of every kind of god. Now, after the persecution of the Jews, and after the assent of the profane people to his extinction, Christ passes over to the nations given up to the emptiest of religions; and leaving Judea, he is brought to be worshipped by a world that did not know him, while Bethlehem, that is, Judea, overflows with the blood of martyrs. But the fury of Herod and the slaughter of the infants is a figure of the Jewish people raging against Christians: thinking that by the killing of the blessed martyrs they can extinguish the name of Christ in the faith and profession of all.

The Church grieves over the ruin of the Jews.—But a glorious honor is rendered to their death through the prophet, who says: "A voice was heard in Rama, weeping and much wailing, Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because they are not". Rachel was the wife of Jacob, long barren; but she lost none of those she had borne. But this, in Genesis, prefigured the type of the Church. It is not therefore her voice and weeping that is heard, who had no grief for lost children, but that of this Church, long barren, but now fruitful. This weeping over her children is heard, not because she grieved that they were slain, but because those were being slain by whom she had wished to keep her firstborn children. Finally, she who grieved was unwilling to be comforted. For those who were thought dead were not truly not; for they were being carried forward, unto the advancement of eternity, through the glory of martyrdom.

But comfort is to be given for a thing lost, not for one increased.

Joseph as a type of the apostles.—After these things, Herod having died, Joseph is warned by an angel to return into Judea with the child and his mother. And returning, when he heard that Archelaus, son of Herod, was reigning, he feared to go there; and he is warned by an angel to pass over into Galilee, and to dwell in the city of that region, Nazareth. He is warned, then, to return to Judea; and having returned, he fears. And again, warned in a vision, he is ordered to pass over into the region of the Gentiles. But either he ought not to have feared, having been warned, or the warning delivered by the angel ought not to have needed soon to be changed. But a typical meaning is preserved here. For Joseph bears the likeness of the apostles, by whom Christ was entrusted to be carried about.

They, as it were after Herod's death

that is, after his people had perished in the Lord's Passion, were bidden to preach to the Jews; for they had been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel: but, the hereditary dominion of unbelief still remaining, they fear and withdraw. Warned in a vision—that is, beholding the gift of the Holy Spirit among the Gentiles—they transfer to them Christ, who had been sent to Judea, but was called the life and salvation of the Gentiles.

John's place, preaching, clothing, food.—"In those days came John preaching in the desert of Judea, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,". In John, the place, the preaching, the clothing, the food are to be considered: and so, that we may remember that the truth of the events is not thereby corrupted, if the account of an interior meaning is subjected to the events themselves. For there had been for the preacher both a more suitable place, and a more useful clothing, and a fitter food; but beneath the events lies an example, and in it the very working is a meditation. For he comes to the deserted Judea—deserted of the frequenting of God, not of the people; and empty of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not of men: so that the place of preaching might attest the solitude of those to whom the preaching was sent.

He also proclaims repentance as the kingdom of heaven draws near, through which there is a return from error, and a recourse from sin, and, after the shame of vices, the profession of ceasing from them: so that deserted Judea might remember that she would receive him in whom is the kingdom of heaven; and that she would not remain empty thereafter, if she should cleanse herself from her old vices by the confession of repentance. The garment woven of camel's hair also designates the foreign character of this prophetic preaching: since the preacher of Christ is clothed with the hides of unclean beasts, to which we are reckoned equal; and whatever in us had before been either useless or filthy becomes sanctified by the prophetic habit. The girding of the loins, moreover, is preparation effective for every good work: that we might be girded in will for every ministry of Christ.

For food, moreover, locusts are chosen, creatures that flee from men, and that fly away at every sense of our approach: namely, we ourselves, who by certain leaps of our bodies, as it were, were carried away from all discourse and company of the prophets. Wandering in will, useless in works, querulous in words, foreign in faith, we are now chosen as the food and satisfaction of the saints, together with wild honey of the prophets: we who will furnish the sweetest food, not from the hives of the law, but from the trunks of wild trees.

Faith or unbelief makes men sons of Abraham or of the devil.—John, therefore, preaching in such attire, calls the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to baptism a brood of vipers: he warns them to bring forth fruit worthy of repentance, and not to boast that they have Abraham for their father, since God is able from stones to raise up children unto Abraham. For it is not succession of the flesh that is sought, but inheritance of faith. The dignity, then, of one's origin consists in examples of works; and the glory of lineage is retained by imitation of faith. The devil is faithless, Abraham faithful. For the former was faithless in the transgression of man, but the latter was justified from faith.

Therefore the character and life of each one procures the nearness of kinship: so that those who are faithful may be the offspring of Abraham through faith; but those who are faithless may be changed by their unbelief into the progeny of the devil: since the Pharisees also are called a brood of vipers, and their boast of a sanctified parent is forbidden them, and children of Abraham are raised up from stones and rocks, and they are warned to work fruits worthy of repentance: so that they who had begun to have the devil for their father might again, along with those who were to be raised up from stones, become sons of Abraham through faith.

Christ our savior and judge.—The axe laid to the roots of the trees attests the right of present power in Christ, signifying by the cutting down and burning of the unfruitful trees that the destruction of useless unbelief is being prepared for the conflagration of judgment. And since the work of the Law was now ineffectual for salvation, and John had come forth as a herald to baptize unto repentance (for the office of the prophets was to recall men from sins, but Christ's own office was to save believers); he says indeed that he baptizes unto repentance, but that a stronger one is to come, of whose sandals to be carried he is unworthy of the office: leaving to the apostles the glory of carrying abroad the preaching, to whom it was owed to announce the peace of God with beautiful feet.

He designates, therefore, in the Lord the time of our salvation and of judgment, saying, He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire: because for those baptized in the Holy Spirit, it remains that they be consummated by the fire of judgment. Having his winnowing-fan in his hand, and he will purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. It is the work of the winnowing-fan to separate the fruitful from the unfruitful. That it is in the hand of the Lord indicates the judgment of his power, storing up in barns his wheat, that is, the perfect fruits of believers; but the chaff, that is, the emptiness of useless and unfruitful men, he burns with the fire of judgment.

By assumption he sanctified man, by the laver the waters.—Then Jesus comes from Galilee to the Jordan to John, that he might be baptized by him; and the rest. In Christ Jesus there was a whole man; and therefore, the body having been assumed into the service of the spirit, he fulfilled in himself every mystery of our salvation. He came, therefore, to John, born of a woman, made under the law, and through the Word made flesh. He indeed had no need of the laver, since it is said of him, He did no sin; and where there is no sin, remission also of it is idle. But the body and the name of our creation had been assumed by him: and thus he had no necessity of being washed, but through him the purification of our washing was to be sanctified in the waters. Finally he is also forbidden by John to be baptized, as God: and yet he teaches, as man, that it ought to be done in himself.

For through him all righteousness was to be fulfilled, through whom alone the law could be fulfilled. And thus he both, by the prophet's testimony, has no need of the laver, and by the authority of his own example he consummates the mysteries of human salvation, sanctifying man both by assumption and by the laver.

The effect of our baptism foreshadowed in the baptism of Christ.—The order also of the heavenly mystery is expressed in this.

For when he was baptized, the gates of heaven having been opened, the Holy Spirit is sent forth, and is recognized as visible in the appearance of a dove, and he is bathed with an anointing of this kind of paternal affection. Then a voice speaks thus from the heavens: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.

The Son of God is shown by hearing and by sight, and testimony concerning their Lord, both of contemplation and of voice, is sent to the unbelieving people and to the disobedient prophets: and at the same time, so that from those things which were being consummated in Christ we might know that, after the washing of water, from the heavenly gates the Holy Spirit flies down upon us, and we are bathed with the anointing of heavenly glory, and by the adoption of the paternal voice we become sons of God; since the truth has thus prefigured for us, by the very effects of the things, the image of the sacrament arranged in us.

Then Jesus was led up into the desert by the Spirit, to be tempted by the devil, and the rest.

Both the leading into the desert, and the forty days' fast, and the hunger after the fast, and Satan's temptation, and the Lord's response, are full of the effects of a great and heavenly counsel. For that he was led into the desert signifies the freedom of the Holy Spirit, now offering his own man to the devil, and permitting him occasion for tempting and for taking him up, which the tempter would not have had unless it had been given. There was, therefore, in the devil a suspicion born of fear, not knowledge born of suspicion: for he was moved by the forty days' fast.

He knew that in the same number of days the waters of the abyss had been poured out, that the promised land had been explored, that the law had been written by God to Moses in that number, and that the number of years during which the people had remained in the wilderness in the life and habit of angels had likewise been fulfilled. Therefore, by fear of this time span, in tempting him whom he beheld as man, he took up boldness. For he had beguiled Adam, and by deceiving had led him over into death. But it was fitting for his wickedness and crime that he should be conquered in that man by whose death and calamities he had gloried; and he who had envied man the benefits of God could not, before the temptation, understand God in man.

The Lord, therefore, is tempted immediately after his baptism, indicating by his own temptation that the devil's temptations rage most fiercely against us when we have been sanctified

because victory over the saints is more greatly desired by him.

What sort of hunger Christ's was.—He did not hunger even for the food of men, but for salvation: for after forty days, not during the forty days, did he hunger, whereas Moses and Elijah did not hunger during the same period of fasting. Therefore, when the Lord hungered, it was not the work of want that stole upon him: but that power, unmoved by the forty days' fast, left the man to his own nature. For the devil was not to be conquered by God, but by the flesh: which surely he would not have dared to tempt, unless in it, through the weakness of hunger, he had recognized the things that belong to man. Perceiving this indeed in him, he thus began: If thou art the Son of God. It is an ambiguous saying, if thou art the Son of God. Though he saw him hungering, he still greatly feared in him the forty days' fast.

By this reasoning of the matter he indicates that, after a sojourn of forty days, during which after the passion he was to remain in the world, he would then have hunger for the salvation of men. At which time, he brought back to God the Father, as a long-awaited gift, the man whom he had assumed.

What the devil attempts, to explore Christ's deity, or to break his patience.

Christ God and man.—It must now, then, be considered what sort of questions he in fact used. He says: If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. The deceitful devil, and most cunning artificer of deception, knew that Christ could do all things, and perceived hunger in the man from the very time of the fast, not knowing what was truly hungering. He proposed, therefore, in tempting him, a condition of work by which he might recognize, in God, the power of might from the changing of stones into bread; and, in the man, mock the patience of hunger by the enticement of food.

But the Lord, hungering not so much for bread as for the salvation of men, said: Man does not live by bread alone

because he himself was not only man, but also God, and though he abstained from man's food up to the day of temptation, he was nevertheless nourished by the Spirit of God: showing that the sustenance of eternity is to be hoped for not in this solitary bread, but in the Word of God.

The devil is silent about what is against him: boastfulness to be avoided.—The following question likewise is this, when he had set him upon the pinnacle of the temple: If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down, and the rest. He labors by temptation to draw the Lord down from the heights to the depths: and, having placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, that is, eminent above the law and the prophets, to confine him to lowly things. He knew indeed that the ministries of angels stand ready for the Son of God, and that he could not stumble against a stone: since indeed he would walk over the asp and the basilisk, and tread upon the lion and the dragon. Of these things which had been said about himself he kept silent; but by recalling the higher things, he wishes somehow to elicit obedience from the one tempted; intending to derive glory from this, if the Lord of majesty had obeyed him, even out of mere presumption.

But no occasion of so great a fraud fell to the devil, as the Lord himself testifies to this at a later time, when he says: The prince of this world comes, and finds nothing in me. Worthy, therefore, was the Lord's response that followed this insolence of his: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Crushing the devil's efforts and temptings, he protests that he is both God and Lord: teaching that boastfulness ought to be absent from the faithful, because though all things are possible to God, nothing ought nevertheless to be dared against his temptation.

The temptations of Christ follow the same order as those of Adam.

The honor of the world is the devil's work.—But now for the third time the whole ambition of diabolical power is stirred. Having therefore placed the Lord upon a high mountain, he offered all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, if only he himself would be worshipped. Already by the twofold answer he had exceeded the expectation of his suspicion. He had beguiled Adam by food, and had led him from the glory of paradise into the place of sin, that is, into the region of the forbidden tree: thirdly he had corrupted him by ambition for the divine name, promising that he would be like the gods. Therefore the whole power of the world now fights against the Lord, and possession of this entire universe is offered to its Creator: that, keeping the order of the ancient fraud, which he had not been able to beguile by food, nor move by place, he might now corrupt at least by ambition.

But the Lord's response gave a fitting outcome to what had gone before.

For he says: Go, satan. For it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve. So great a rashness bore a fitting outcome, when he heard the name of satan given to his own crimes, and recognized in the man that the Lord his God was to be worshipped. The Lord also, by the effect of this response, offered us a great example: that, having despised the glory of human power, and set aside the ambition of the world, we might remember only that God and the Lord are to be worshipped; 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, both the ministries of angels and the offices of the heavenly Powers toward us will not be lacking.

What the calling of the first apostles signifies.—Now when Jesus had heard that John was delivered up, he withdrew into Galilee.

The passage into Capernaum, and the prophecy of Isaiah, are the order of the event as it happened. But in the choice of fishermen, from the human craft is disclosed the work of their future office; that as fish are drawn from the sea, so men afterward would be drawn from the world into a higher place, that is, into the light of the heavenly dwelling. And since they left both their craft and their homelands and their houses, we are taught that those who are to follow Christ are not to be held fast either by the anxiety of worldly life, or by the custom of the paternal home. But in the choosing of the first four apostles, besides the trustworthiness of the event, because it did indeed happen thus, the number of the future Evangelists is prefigured.

He goes about Galilee, therefore, and preaches in the synagogues the gospel of the kingdom: and by healing the infirmities of every sickness he displays himself by deeds: so that they who had been accustomed to read of him in the volumes of the prophets might behold him present in his works.

Christ on the mountain, what it means.—Therefore, when many crowds had gathered together, he went up onto the mountain, and taught them: namely, being set in the loftiness of the Father's majesty, he established the precepts of heavenly life. For he would not have handed down the ordinances of eternity, unless he had been set in eternity. Hence it is thus written: He opened his mouth, and taught them. It would have been more ready to say that he had spoken. But because he had stood in the glory of the Father's majesty, and was teaching eternity, therefore the service of the human mouth is shown to have obeyed at the motion of the speaking Spirit.

The cause and reward of humility.—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 abandoned, saying: You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve. And since through the prophets he had foretold that he would choose a humble people, one trembling at his words; he placed in the humility of spirit the beginning of perfect blessedness.

Therefore those who breathe humble things, that is, who remember that they are men, being established in the possession of the heavenly kingdom, conscious that they have grown from base and slight beginnings into this form of a perfected body, and proceed, with God supplying the increase, into this capacity for perceiving, beholding, judging, acting: that nothing is anyone's own, nothing is proper to him, but that to all, by the gift of the one Parent, the same beginnings of coming into life are granted, and the substance for using them is furnished: and that we ought, by the example of that best One who has bestowed these things upon us, to be emulators of his goodness poured out upon us; that we may be good to all, that we may reckon all things common to all; that no insolence of worldly pride, no desire of riches, no ambition of empty glory may corrupt us: but that we may be subject to God, and be held by the charity of common life toward all in the fellowship of living, reckoning also that in this very fact, that we were born, there will be a great advance of divine goodness, whose reward and honor must be earned by the works of the present life: and thus through this humility of spirit, by which we remember concerning God both all things granted and thereafter greater things to be hoped for, the kingdom of heaven will be ours.

Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.

To the meek he promises the inheritance of the earth, that is, of that body which the Lord himself assumed as a dwelling. Because through the meekness of our mind Christ has dwelt in us, we too shall be clothed with the glorified glory of his body.

Whose mourning shall have consolation.—Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.

To those who mourn he promises the comforts of eternal consolation. Not for bereavements or insults or losses being mourned, but for those weeping over old sins, and grieving under the consciousness of the crimes by which we are defiled, this diligent consolation is prepared in heaven.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice; for they shall be filled.

To those hungering and thirsting after justice, he grants blessedness: signifying that the eagerness of the saints, stretched out toward the teaching of God, is to be fulfilled with the goods of perfect satiety in heaven.

Blessed are the merciful; for God shall have mercy on them.

For the merciful he prepares the gifts of mercy. For God so delights in the disposition of our benevolence toward all, that he will bestow his mercy only upon the merciful.

The unclean cannot bear the sight of God.—Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.

To the pure in heart he promises the sight of God. For nothing polluted and sordid presses forward to the encounter with the divine brightness, and at the sight of God the gaze of a dulled mind grows blunt: namely, that those are open both to the sight and to the encounter of God, to whom, through cleanness of soul and purity of life, the power of beholding is granted. For only if perfected in spirit, and changed by immortality—which is arranged for the pure in heart alone—shall we discern that which in God is immortal.

Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called children of God.

The blessedness of the peacemakers is the reward of adoption, that they may remain children of God; for the one Parent of all is God. Nor will it be permitted to pass into the naming of his family otherwise than if, having taken up forgetfulness of those things by which we might be offended, we live in the peace of mutual brotherly charity.

Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice's sake, and the rest.

At last he rewards with perfect blessedness those whose ready disposition it is to suffer all things for Christ: because he himself is justice. For these, then, both the kingdom is reserved, and abundant reward is promised in heaven—for those who, in contempt of the world poor in spirit, and reproached by the losses and forfeitures of present things, and confessors of heavenly justice against the curses of men, and thereafter glorious martyrs of the promises of God, shall have expended the whole use of life in testimony to his eternity.

The apostles, salt of the earth.—You are the salt of the earth.

But if the salt shall have lost its savor, it is good for nothing but to be trodden underfoot. Salt of the earth, as I judge, there is none: how then did he call the apostles salt of the earth? But the propriety 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 element of water and of fire; and this out of two is one. This, then, having been made for a single use of the human race, imparts incorruption to the bodies to which it has been sprinkled, and is most fitted for every sense of the seasoned savor. But the apostles are preachers of heavenly things, and, as it were, sowers of eternity: sowing immortality into all bodies upon which their word shall have been sprinkled, and, as John testifies above, made perfect by the sacrament of water and fire.

Rightly, therefore, they have been called salt of the earth, preserving bodies for eternity by the power of doctrine, after the manner of salting.

But the nature of salt is always the same, and can never be changed. Yet because man is subject to change, and only he is blessed who shall have persevered to the end in all the works of God; therefore he warns those called salt of the earth to persist in the strength of the power entrusted to them, lest, having lost their savor, they salt nothing, and, having themselves lost the sense of the savor received, be unable to give life to what is corrupted, and be cast out of the storehouses of the Church, to be trodden underfoot, together with those whom they had salted, by the feet of those who walk.

They put to flight the darkness of the world.—You are the light of the world.

It is the nature of light to send forth brightness wherever it is carried about, and, once brought into houses, to destroy the darkness, with light prevailing. So the world, set apart from the knowledge of God, was darkened by the shadows of ignorance: into which, through the apostles, the light of knowledge is brought in, and the knowledge of God shines forth, and from their small bodies, wherever they shall have gone, light is furnished to the darkness.

The city is the flesh assumed by Christ, its citizens are men.—A city built upon a mountain cannot be hidden, neither do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel, and the rest. He calls the flesh which he had assumed a city: because, just as a city consists of the variety and multitude of its inhabitants, so in him, through the nature of the body he took on, a certain gathering of the whole human race is contained. And thus he becomes a city from our gathering together into himself, and we, through fellowship in his flesh, are the dwelling place of that city. It cannot, then, now be hidden: because, set in the height of God's loftiness, he is lifted up to be beheld and understood by all, in admiration of his works.

The Synagogue, a bushel concealing the light.

Christ the lamp.—Nor is a lamp lit, to be hidden under a bushel. For what profit is there in confining, shut up, the expenditure of light? But the Lord fittingly compared the Synagogue to a bushel: which, receiving into itself the fruits it took up, contained a fixed measure of prescribed observance; yet now, at his coming, it is emptied of all fruit, yet not still capable of hiding the light. And therefore now the lamp of Christ is not to be hidden under a bushel, nor concealed by the covering of the Synagogue: but, hung up in the suffering of the wood, it will furnish eternal light to those dwelling in the Church.

He likewise admonishes the apostles to shine with an equal light; that praise may be given to God through admiration of their work: not that glory ought to be sought from men, since all things are to be done for the honor of God; but that, though we ourselves make no show of it, our work may shine forth among those with whom we live.

The law foretells Christ.—Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets: I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. The virtue and power of these heavenly words embrace great weights within themselves. For the law was laid down as one of works, and enclosed all things in faith of those things which were to be revealed in Christ: whose teaching and passion is the great and profound decision of the Father's will. But the law, under the veil of spiritual words, spoke of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of his bodily nature, and passion, and resurrection: and that this was thus already arranged, before the ages of the world, for the time of our own age, is the frequent testimony of both prophetic and apostolic authority. Therefore after the fasting of forty days, Satan, anxious with such great suspicions, burst forth even to the audacity of tempting: greatly fearing in Jesus the hidden mystery of a heavenly design.

For "Jesus" is the name belonging to our Lord from the body. And so both his bodily nature and his passion are the will of God and the salvation of the world: and it is beyond the utterance of human speech, that God from God, the Son from the substance of the Father and abiding within the substance of the Father, first was made bodily into man, then was made subject to the condition of man's death, and finally, after three days, returning from death into life, brought back to heaven the matter of his assumed body, joined to the eternity of the Spirit and of his own substance.

What was fulfilled by Christ.

The cross of Christ not to be blushed at.—Lest, therefore, we should suppose that anything else was contained in his works than was contained in the law; he professed that he did not destroy the law, but fulfilled it: heaven indeed and earth, chiefly, as we judge, are the elements that are to be dissolved: but that not even the least of the commandments of the law can be left unfulfilled; for in him every law and prophecy is fulfilled. In the passion, and now about to give up his spirit, certain of this great mystery in himself, having drunk the vinegar, he professed that all things were accomplished: for the fulfillment of the deeds of that time was taken up by all the sayings of the prophets. And so he established that not even the least of God's commandments is to be dissolved except at the cost of a penalty, declaring that those who dissolve the least commandments would be the least, that is, the last, and almost nothing.

But nothing can be less than these which are the least.

Now the least of all is the Lord's passion and the death of the cross: which if anyone, as though it were something to be blushed at, shall not confess, he will be least; but to him who confesses it, he promises the glory of a great calling in heaven.

The Gospel exceeds the law.—But I say unto you, that unless your justice shall abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. By a most beautiful approach, the work of the law began to be exceeded, so that he might not dissolve it, but go before it by a better advance: declaring that entrance for the apostles into heaven would not be, unless they should surpass the justice of the Pharisees in equity. Having thus set forth those things which are prescribed in the law, he goes beyond them by advancement, not by abolition.

Anger without cause is guilty of homicide.—The law forbade killing, requiring the guilt of homicide to be expiated by the severity of judgment.

But the same disposition of mind, wrongly moved against another, has the same penalty in the Gospels; and by the precept of faith, anger conceived without reason is no less guilty than homicide is among the works of the law. And whoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be guilty before the council. "Raca" is a reproach of emptiness: and whoever charges one full of the Holy Spirit with the insult of emptiness becomes guilty before the council of the saints; he will pay for the insult to the Holy Spirit by the condemnation of the judgment of the saints: But whoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be guilty of the fire of hell.

It is the danger of a great sin, to provoke with the insult of a foolish sense him whom God has called salt: and to exasperate with a curse the understanding of the wise man, who salts, calling him foolish in his understanding.

Of this sort, therefore, will be the fuel of eternal fire.

Thus whatever the law did not condemn even in the works themselves, the faith of the gospels condemns merely for the injurious ease of words.

Peace with brothers is to be preferred before peace with God.—Binding all together therefore by mutual charity, he permits no prayer to be made

that is unpeaceful; but for those offering gifts at the altar, if they remember that they have some quarrel with their brothers, he commands that, reconciled by human peace, they return to divine peace, so that they may pass over from the charity of men into the charity of God.

You have heard that it was said to the ancients, You shall not commit adultery.

The order of the precept runs its own course, and, the works of the law being passed over, now in the Gospels the mere motion of an eye falling upon something is made equal to adultery: and along with the act of fornication is punished the enticing affection of the glance passing over.

Members to be cut off, kinsfolk who scandalize.

In vain is the body cut, and not the heart.—But if thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. A loftier degree of innocence comes about, and faith takes on advancement. For we are admonished to be free not only from our own vices, but also from those that befall us from without. For it is not on account of the faults of the sinning members that damage to the body is prescribed: for the right eye would err no less than the left. Certainly a foot lacking the sense of concupiscence suffers no loss, since no cause of punishment falls upon it.

But because the members, though diverse from one another, are yet all one body which we are; we are admonished to cast away from us, or rather to pluck out, the near relations even of our dearest names, if we discern in them anything of this kind, lest through familiarity we come into partnership with their crime: it being better to be without things useful and even most necessary, as members like the eye and the foot, than to be held by the affection of a vicious kinship even into fellowship with Gehenna. But the cutting off of members would be useful, if the cutting out of the heart also could take place. For since concupiscence is compared to the counterfeit, the loss of the body is idle, if the instinct of the will is left untouched.

Now it was said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce.

Reconciling equity toward all, he commanded that it above all remain in the peace of marriages: adding more to the law, taking away nothing. Nor indeed can he be charged with progress in a wrong sense. For whereas the law had granted the freedom of giving a bill of divorce by the authority of a document, now the evangelical faith has not only enjoined upon the husband the will of peace, but has even imposed upon him the guilt of the wife driven into adultery, if she must marry another out of the necessity of the separation: prescribing no other cause for ending the marriage than that which would defile the husband by association with a prostituted wife.

The custom and necessity of swearing removed for Christians.—Again you have heard that it was said to the ancients: You shall not perjure yourself.

The law had set a penalty on perjury, so that the sanctity of an oath might restrain the deceit of those who lie; and at the same time the rude and unaccustomed common people would have frequent mention of their God through the familiarity of swearing. But faith removes the custom of oath-taking, establishing the affairs of our life in truth, casting away the disposition to deceive, prescribing simplicity in speaking and hearing; so that what was should be, and what was not should not be: because between "is" and "is not" there would be open matter for deceiving, and whatever is beyond that is of evil. For what is, is such that it should always be; but what is not, it is the nature of it not to be.

Therefore for those living in simplicity there is no need of the sanctity of oath-taking, since with them what is, always is; and what is not, is not: and through this, both their work and every word of theirs stands in truth.

The superstition of the Jews is condemned.—Neither shalt thou swear by heaven, for it is the throne of God, and so on.

He not only does not permit us to render oaths to God, since all the truth of God is to be maintained by the simplicity of our word and deed: but he condemns the superstition of the old obstinacy. For it was a religious practice among the Jews to swear by these names of the elements; and by heaven, and by earth, and by Jerusalem, and even by their own head, by which, to the injury of God, they paid veneration through an oath. For what weight was there in swearing by heaven, the throne of God, in swearing by earth, the footstool of his feet, in swearing by Jerusalem, a city soon to be destroyed on account of 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?

But why would they wish to swear by their head?

Could the one swearing have any power even of changing a single hair, since nature, proceeding from God, supplies its color to all? And thus it shows that these pledges of oaths were full of guilt among them: since, their maker being ignored or neglected, they bestowed religious devotion upon works instead.

The desire for vengeance is restrained.—You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and so on. The Lord wills that the extended hope of our faith unto eternity be proved by facts themselves: so that the very endurance in dissembling an injury may be a witness of the judgment to come. The law restrained faithless Israel by fear within fear, and checked the will to injure by the requital of injury. But faith allows that no pain of injury is so grave that one should seek vengeance, and be an avenger of the insult inflicted on oneself: because in the judgment of God there is more consolation for those who have suffered injury, and a severer punishment for the injurious. And thus the Gospels command not only that we abstain from wrongs, but even require the dissembling of vengeance for injury.

For having received a blow on the cheek we are bidden to offer the other cheek also, and, bearing a burden for a thousand paces, to proceed the space of two thousand paces, gaining advancement of vengeance through the increase of the injury, since the Lord himself of the heavenly virtues, for the increase of his glory, offered both his cheeks to blows and his shoulders to scourges.

The causes of lawsuits are cut away.

Generosity is commanded. Let the grace of God be a gratuitous dispensation.—He commands not only that the arbitrations of human judgment are to be avoided, but even to be avoided along with the will to cause loss; so that to one wishing to strip us of our tunic by judgment we should also relinquish our cloak: and by the hope of good things to come, holding worldly furnishings in contempt, we should reprove the empty desire of the nations and the vanity of fruitless avarice.

He also commands that all things be given to those who ask, and that we not turn away our mouth and mind from the prayers of those wishing to borrow; so that those who are in need may be supplied through our generosity, and we may keep off from them thirst by drink, or hunger by food, or nakedness by clothing bestowed: and thus we may be found worthy of those good things of which we stand in need from God; since the habit of granting wins the merit of obtaining. Also in the duty of dispensing the grace which we have received, those bowing down and swearing by the city of Jerusalem and the temple and the elements, were venerating creatures and carnal things with the honor and service due to God…it demonstrates that it ought to be so; that the dispensation of a gratuitous good be gratuitous, and that we should not deny to those wishing to borrow what we ourselves borrow from God, always about to perform, without loss to ourselves, the ministry of bestowing.

Love of enemies.—You have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy, and so on.

He has enclosed everything in perfect goodness. For the law required that a neighbor be loved, and gave license for hatred toward an enemy. But faith commands that enemies be loved, and breaks the wanton motions of human minds by the affection of public charity; not only driving away anger from vengeance, but even softening it into love for the one who does injury: because it belongs to the nations to love those who love them, and it is a common thing to love those who love. He calls us therefore into the imitation of God, as well as into his inheritance: at the coming of his Christ, bestowing sun and rain upon good and unjust alike, in the sacraments of baptism and of the Spirit. Thus he trains us toward the perfect life, through this harmony of public goodness, since our Father who is in heaven is to be imitated as perfect.

Boasting to be fled.—Take heed that you do not do your righteousness before men.

He removes all concern for present things, and bids us be intent only upon the hope of what is to come, and to pursue neither the favor of men through the display of goodness, nor the boasting of religion through an abundance of public prayer, but to keep the fruit of the good work contained within the conscience of faith: because the pursuit of human praise will receive only that reward which it sought from men; whereas the expectation of meriting God will obtain the reward of long patience. Also, that the left hand should not know the work of the right. But does the nature of the body allow this? Or do the ministries of the hands possess a sense of understanding? Rather, it means that our works should stand in the knowledge of God: since, under the naming of members, in the things which we do, the awareness of those things which are ours and which are with us should be kept away.

The place of prayer, the heart.—We are also bidden to pray with the door of our chamber closed, and are taught to pour out prayer in every place: and the prayer of the saints has been offered amid wild beasts, prisons, flames, and from the depth of the sea and the belly of the beast. We are admonished, therefore, to enter not the hidden room of a house, but the chamber of our own heart, and to pray to God with the secret of our mind closed, not by much speaking, but by conscience, because every work surpasses the words that are spoken. Cyprian, a man of holy memory, has freed us from the necessity of commenting on the sacrament of prayer. Although Tertullian too wrote a most fitting volume on this subject: but the man's subsequent error took away authority from writings otherwise commendable.

Let the fasting person's conscience be pure, and his works good.—But when you fast, be not, as the hypocrites, sad: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. He teaches that the fruit of fasting ought to be beyond boasting for the body worn down, and that the favor of the nations is not to be pursued by the display of hardship; but that all fasting is to be placed in the beauty of holy conduct. For that oil is the fruit of mercy is both a heavenly and a prophetic saying. Therefore our head, that is, the sense of our life, is to be adorned with the works of goodness; because all understanding is in the head: and the filth is to be washed from the face, so that there be nothing of horror from vices, but rather the grace of brightness in one's countenance: and thus, washed into the splendor of a good conscience, and anointed into the grace of a merciful work, let our fastings commend us to God.

Otherwise, in fleeing the conscience of men in our fasts with anointed heads, we shall be both ridiculous and found out.

Where the heart is here, there it will be after this life.—Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, and so on.

Setting aside, therefore, concern for human glory and wealth, he shows that all care must be taken to please God: because human praise is corrupted either by the faults of the body, or by the detraction of those who envy; and this treasure of money is either endangered by loss, or by theft. But heavenly praise is eternal, neither to be taken away by the theft that creeps upon it, nor eaten away by the moth or rust of envy: our heart being destined to have its seat of treasure according to which it has followed, and, by the light of our understanding, to be destined either for ruin with perishable money, or for the eternal with God.

The brightness of bodies or eternal darkness according to the different disposition of souls.—The lamp of thy body is thy eye.

This is a continuous sense. For from the function of the light of the eye he has expressed the light of the heart. If it remains simple and clear, it will bestow the brightness of eternal light upon the body, and pour the splendor of its origin into the corruptibility of the flesh. But if it becomes dark through sins, and evil in will; the nature of the body will lie subject to the vices of the mind. And if the light that is in us be darkness, how great of necessity must the darkness of that darkness itself be?

Because already it is customary, dangerously, for the vicious origin of earthly flesh to dominate over the nobility of the soul, and much more do the sins of bodies grow heavy, if they are even assisted by the desires of souls: and from this it comes that our bodies become dark contrary to their own nature, if in them the light of the mind is extinguished; but if we retain it through simplicity of spirit, it must, by its own light, illuminate the body as well.

God and the world cannot be served together.—No man can serve two masters.

The service of two masters is unfaithful, nor can equal care be given both to the world and to God. For toward the one there must needs be hatred, toward the other love: because the same work cannot suit the diverse will of masters, nor can those who are poor in spirit and pleasing to God be fit at the same time for the ambition of this world's boasting.

Through contempt of the world let the soul sigh after heaven alone.—Therefore I say unto you, take no thought in your heart what ye shall eat; neither for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the soul more than meat, and the body more than raiment? He had, throughout the whole preceding discourse, enjoined contempt of the world and confidence in things to come. For when He bids us be prone to endure injury, willing to suffer loss, careless of revenge, indiscriminate in love, and unconcerned for human glory, He labors to confirm us in the hope of eternal goods. For it is love of present things, and despair of things to come, that renders many uncertain: and this either ensnares them by allurements, or confounds them by unbelief. Therefore the kingdom of heaven, which the prophets announced, which John preached, and which our Lord professed to be placed in Himself, He wills to be hoped for without any wavering of uncertain will: otherwise justification by faith is null, if faith itself becomes doubtful.

Therefore He commands that there be no care for clothing and food, saying that the soul is more precious than food, and the body than raiment.

A deeper sense lies hidden in the foregoing words.—And indeed it is a fair thing, through contempt of present things, to bestow care only upon things divine: but the discourse descends deeper, and the reasoning subjoined to the words extends to the understanding of a heavenly saying. The Lord bade a treasure be laid up in heaven, and promised also brightness 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 say unto you, take no thought in your heart what ye shall eat; neither for your body, what ye shall put on. What follows does not sufficiently agree with the premises. Could not even the servant of one master be anxious about clothing and food? Will the body be darkened because the light of the eye is dimmed by ill health? Or how can there be a light of the body from the eye? Could nakedness or hunger alone enable one to lay up treasure in heaven?

Certain doubts concerning the resurrection are resolved.—But

because the understanding of unbelievers is corrupted regarding care for the things to come, cavilling as to what form the resurrection of bodies is to have, and what nourishment there is to be for the substance of eternity; and since, out of the difficulties of unprofitable questions, a certain rationale for using present pleasures has been sought out, and men, lingering in a needless fear concerning reverence for God, pass over into the joys of the world; and so it happens that the service of one to two masters is unfaithful; therefore, out of the highest affection of piety, having beforehand foretold the gravest peril of distrust, He thus admonishes: Is not the soul more than meat, and the body more than raiment? In God's sayings is truth, and the efficacy for creating all things lies in the word. Thus neither is what He promised uncertain, nor ineffectual what He has spoken.

There is nothing

that is not corporeal 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 forms of souls, whether possessing bodies or exiled from bodies, nevertheless receive a bodily substance proper to their nature; because whatever has been created must needs be in something. And therefore God, refuting the folly of a most useless question, does not allow, when soul and body are to be established in the substance of eternity, that our hope of the future should linger in anxiety over food and clothing at the resurrection: lest, to Him who is rendering things so precious—namely body and soul—an insult be offered by our not trusting Him for lesser things.

Demons do not labor in order to have that whereby to live.—Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Under the name of birds He exhorts us, by the example of unclean spirits, to whom, without any labor of seeking and gathering, sustenance is nevertheless granted to live, by the power of eternal counsel. And that He might show this ought to be referred to unclean spirits, He added: Are not ye of more value than they? Showing, by the excellence of the comparison, the difference between wickedness and holiness.

Bodies are to be raised up in the stature of a perfect man.—Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? He established the faith of our vital substance by the proof drawn from spirits: but He left the notion of the future condition to the judgment of common understanding. For since He is going to raise up, into one consummated and perfect man, the diversity of all bodies that have drawn life, and He alone is able to grant to the stature of each one one cubit, or another, or a third; how great an insult it is to Him that we doubt concerning raiment, that is, concerning the appearance of bodies, seeing that, in order to make every man equal and uniform, He is going to add so great a measure to human bodies.

The lilies that labor not are the angels.

Why the angels are compared to lilies.—Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. But I say unto you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. The lilies toil not, neither do they spin: and Solomon was not arrayed with their glory—Solomon, a great prophet, and dear to God for his beloved wisdom. But lilies are rather born than clothed. Now clothing is a covering of the body, not the body itself. But if it is to be 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 toil not, neither spin, we must understand the brightnesses of the heavenly angels, to whom, apart from human learning and the wage of their own labor, the brightness of glory has been granted by God: lest they should be thought to have gotten anything from their own labor or skill.

And since in the resurrection men shall be like the angels, He wished us to hope for the covering of heavenly glory by the example of angelic brightness. Now it is in the nature of this plant that it be most fittingly compared to the heavenly substances of the angels. For this flower, when torn away from the stock of its root held in the earth, hides the power of its nature, though it be thought to have withered, and when the season returns, is again clothed with the honor of its lily-bloom. For it flowers of itself, and what it is, it can owe neither to root nor to earth, since the sap that rises within it is of itself. And so, granted by the example of this greenness, it emulates the power of its own heavenly substance, since it is nourished into bloom only from that which it had received within itself.

Therefore the lilies toil not, neither spin: because the Virtues of angels, by the lot of the origin they have obtained, receive continually to be what they are.

The grass, the Gentiles.

They will rise again unto eternal fire. The resurrection of the just far less to be doubted.—Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more you, O ye of little faith? He confirms the inviolable confidence of our faith by the authority of examples: so that it is a matter of the greater peril to doubt, the more diligently He has removed every occasion of unbelief. Grass is not born for the purpose of being given to the fire; nor is God's particular care in clothing it exercised so that it may be burned: but we frequently find that the Gentiles are designated by God under the name of grass. Now that plant is one whose flower of vigor, once fallen away, withers under the heat of the sun.

Therefore no rest is given to the Gentiles, nor, as some would have it, is repose granted by the shortcut of death: rather bodily eternity is destined even for them, so that the matter of eternal fire may be everlasting in them, and everlasting vengeance may be exercised upon everlasting beings throughout all ages. If, then, bodily eternity is granted to the Gentiles only for this, that they may soon be destined for the fire of judgment; how profane it is for the saints to doubt concerning the glory of eternity, when even to the wicked the work of eternity is granted for punishment. He requires, therefore, that our whole expectation be placed in faith in His promises and in the power of His might: so that, care for the things we need being set aside, we should rather look for all things from Him from whom we ourselves took our vital beginning, and should seek the kingdom of God as the wages of our life.

And this is the reward of those who live rightly and perfectly, that they be transferred, out of this matter of a corruptible body, into a new and heavenly substance, and that earthly corruption be exchanged for heavenly incorruption. It belongs, therefore, to the Gentiles to be racked with this care of unbelief; for, held fast by love of the world and occupied with the joys of the body, they seek and desire no path, through faith and confession of God, into the heavenly kingdom.

What "day" means.

Anxiety does not fall upon the day. About what a man's whole care ought to turn.—Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. It is the common judgment that a day is the passing course of time lit by the light of the sun, which the intervening night distinguishes, and by its intervention substitutes one day for another; but the significance of future time is contained in "the morrow." Therefore God has forbidden us to be anxious about the future. Now the relaxation of anxious care belongs not to negligence but to faith. For why should we be anxious about tomorrow, when tomorrow shall be anxious for itself? Therefore the very day, anxious on our behalf, drives away our own anxiety. But anxiety, as I judge, is properly an affection of man: for it is stirred up either by care, or by fear, or by the distress of grief.

But a day is a course of time: and only beings endowed with foresight receive the affection of anxiety.

It would follow, then, that a day be constituted a living creature, one that both takes heed, and looks ahead, and cares; to which its own evil is sufficient, and which need not be burdened by sin coming from without. But the nature of the thing does not admit of attributing a mental affection to a day: therefore both that it is anxious for itself, and that its own evil suffices for it, and that we are forbidden to be anxious about the morrow—all this is contained under words of heavenly meaning.

We are bidden, then, not to be in doubt about things to come; for the evil of our own life, and the sins of the days in which we live, are sufficient, so that all the meditation and labor of our life should be occupied about purging and meriting these things, lest even from distrust of the future an inexpiable irreligion be contracted: since, our own care ceasing, the things that are to come are anxious of themselves in their own office, and the advance toward eternal brightness is prepared for us, by the providing goodness of God, even for us who are no longer anxious.

To judge concerning God's promises is impious.

Why.—Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. God utterly removes every office of judgment, and allows none whatsoever to be assumed. But what follows seems to conflict with what was proposed, when He says: With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. Yet above He had said: Judge not, that ye be not judged. Must not, then, the exercise of good judgment be permitted? And yet He declares that men are to be judged according to the condition of their judgment, and are to be measured by the same standard by which they measured others. Therefore judgment will never be rightly exercised, if there is to be no judgment at all. But, as has already been recognized above, nothing in the words of God is treated lightly or emptily: and the whole discourse here goes beyond the understanding of Gentile ears.

For He forbade judgment to be passed concerning His own promises: because just as judgments are formed among men out of uncertain matters, so too this judgment against God is undertaken out of the uncertainty of opinion and conjecture, which He wholly repels from us, that steadfast faith should rather be retained; because it is not, as in other matters, a sin merely to have judged wrongly; but in these matters alone, judgment concerning God is itself the beginning of guilt.

What sort and how great a sin unbelief is.

In vain does one uncorrected correct others.—But why do you see the mote in your brother's eye, and do not see the beam in your own eye, and the rest? In what follows He taught that blasphemy against the Spirit alone would be beyond pardon, God granting indulgence to all others. Now the sin against the Spirit is to deny to God the power of virtue, and to take away from Christ the substance of eternity: through whom, because God came into man, man in turn will become in God. Therefore, as great as the difference is between a mote and a beam, so great does He show the sin against the Spirit to exceed the condition of all other crimes: so that, while unbelievers reproach others for bodily faults, they do not see beforehand in themselves the burden of the sin by which they doubt the promises of God, the beam of unbelief lying in their eye as it were fixed in the keenness of the mind.

For it often happens that we assume for ourselves the authority of rebuking others, without any example of our own amendment; and we prefer the vainglory of curing another's blindness, while ourselves established in darkness with corrupted light: whereas it is difficult for anyone to supply what he himself lacks, and it is best to teach rather by example than by words. Care must be applied to one's own blindness: because it is of the nature of things that no one can be made a fit teacher for purging the mote from his brother's eye, before he has cast out from the light of his own mind the beam of perfidy that weighs upon it.

The mysteries of Christ must be opened cautiously to the Gentiles and to heretics.—Do not give what is holy to dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, and the rest. Nothing is more precious or more holy than the precepts and promises of God, which bestow upon us, once sanctified, the treasure of immortality. Therefore we are not permitted either to carry out the sacraments and virtues of these before the Gentiles, or to confer them with heretics. For dogs are so named on account of the rabid barking of the Gentiles against God. But the name of swine belongs to heretics: because although their hoofs are cloven, they do not, by chewing the cud, dispose of the knowledge of God they have received.

Therefore it is fitting that we not treat indiscriminately, nor bring forth unskillfully and carelessly, either the embodiment of the Word of God, or the mystery of the passion, or the power of the resurrection: lest, if the instruction of perfect knowledge be lacking, they trample and tread down our ignorance, and mock the weakness in God of the passion; and, turning against us, break apart our unskillfulness and our faith with the stings of contradictions.

The power of prayer against unskillfulness.

The law of charity.—But in those things which we shall not know, the way of attaining truth is opened to us: which is to be obtained only by persistence in prayer. That we may therefore feel and believe all things, and be swayed by no uncertainty of doubtful will, we must pray, we must seek, we must knock: mercy is found by prayer, progress by inquiry, entrance by trial. Indeed we are also taught, by the example of human affection, to hope of obtaining. For since we, when our children ask for a fish or a bread, will not give a serpent or a stone; how much more will God, the best and most excellent Father, bestow the gifts of perfect faith upon us when we pray; nor will He give a stone of Gentile hardness in place of the bread of life, or a serpent of heretical poison in place of the keeping of baptism?

He then consummated all things by the example of goodness, joining all together in the peace of mutual love: establishing in this the commandments of the law and the prophets, that, desiring the goodness of all toward us, we ourselves may be good to all.

The way of heaven trodden by few, and the contrary.—Enter through the narrow gate.

How broad and spacious is the way that leads to destruction! Arduous is man's path to heaven, and the entrance narrow and slight: but the way of destruction is broad. This many hold, but few find that other. For to few are the losses of present things dear: for whom it is the greatest gain of heavenly hope to conquer desires and to break the passions of the soul and body, and to pass by, exposed to all the strength of the age, the enticements of all allurements. But to those for whom the only good is to fornicate, to feast, to seek ambitiously, to grow insolent, to disdain, to hate, to plunder, the crowded company on such a path is very great.

The servant of God is known not by words but by deeds.—And

because it would be given to few to find the narrow way, He exposes the fraudulence of those who would falsely claim to seek it, saying: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing. He warns that the flatteries of words and the pretense of gentleness ought to be weighed by the fruit of action: so that we look not at what someone declares himself to be by words, but at what he makes himself to be by deeds; because in many, wolfish rage is covered by the clothing of sheep. Therefore, just as thorns do not produce grapes, nor thistles figs, and just as bad trees do not bring forth useful fruits: so He teaches that the effect of good work does not consist even in these things; and therefore that all are to be recognized by their fruits.

For the kingdom of heaven is not obtained by the offices of words alone: nor will he who says, Lord, Lord, be its heir. For what merit is there in saying to the Lord, Lord, Lord? Will He not be Lord unless He is called so by us? And what sanctity of office is the naming of a name; since the path of the heavenly kingdom will rather be found by obedience of will, not by the naming of God?

Heaven is granted not for wonders but for good works.—Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? And the rest.

Here too He condemns the fraudulence of false prophets and the pretenses of hypocrites, who presume glory for themselves from the power of the word, in the prophecy of teaching, and the expulsion of demons, and the powers of works of this kind: and from this they promise themselves the kingdom of heaven. As though anything they say or do were their own, and not all accomplished by the power of God invoked:

He who has been purged should offer to God; but that this gift should not be from birds, but that the man himself, cleansed from the filth of the sin of the body, should pass over into a sacrifice to God; because what Moses commanded in the law is a testimony, not the effect.

The tribune, the prince of the Gentiles who would believe.—After these things, when He had entered Capharnaum, a certain tribune came to Him, asking Him and saying: My servant lies at home paralyzed. The healing of the paralytic boy follows the cleansing of the leper. But what is this, that the tribune declares himself unworthy that Christ should enter his house, see the boy, and, being present, bring aid to one present; and that he himself has soldiers, commands what he wishes, and that very many, being placed under his authority, obey him, and that likewise the Lord could grant healing by a word? Let it suffice for me to have set forth concerning the tribune, that he is the prince of the Gentiles who would believe. Whoever wishes to know who this prince is, to whom many are subject, let him read the song of Moses in Deuteronomy, and the book of Solomon called Ecclesiasticus, where certain things are spoken concerning the dispersion of the Gentiles: for us let the treatise be only concerning the boy.

The salvation of the Gentiles from faith.—There follows then, in this boy, after the healing of the paralysis, in succession to the healing of the people descending from the mountain, the salvation of the Gentiles. For the boy lay dissolved in a lowly, corruptible house, and its entrance was unworthy of the Savior, though he needed it. And the tribune knows the boy can be healed by a word: because the salvation of the Gentiles is wholly from faith, and in the precepts of the Lord is the life of all. Therefore the Gentiles lying in the world, dissolved by the diseases of sins, are to be reckoned: with all their limbs everywhere fluid, and corrupted for the office of standing and walking. Whose sacrament of salvation is fulfilled in the tribune's boy, Christ nevertheless not entering the house. For although He tarried in the world, He did not, however, approach the vices and sins of the world.

The tribune was not of the Gentiles.—Then, marveling at his faith, He said, I have not found so great faith in Israel.

This tribune was not of the Gentiles: and how then was such faith not found in Israel, since he who believed was an Israelite? But so that this very truth might emulate the likeness of what was to come, therefore the reason of the word is subjoined, that such faith as is found among the Gentiles is not to be found in Israel, and that with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, those from the farthest Gentiles would rest. Indeed, the truth of health was perfected in the boy according to the faith of the one believing: but the efficacy of things present is shown to serve also as an image of things to come, since, both the tribune believing and the boy being saved, such faith was not found in Israel, and fellowship in the kingdom of heaven with Abraham is destined for the Gentiles.

Peter's mother-in-law, the disposition of unbelief.

Peter, the prince of faith and of the apostolate.—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 is reckoned the vicious disposition of unbelief, to which the freedom of the will is joined, which unites us to it by a certain society of marriage. Therefore, by the entrance of the Lord into Peter's house, that is, into the body, unbelief is healed, seething with the heat of sins, and sick under the dominion of vices. Then, soon healed, she ministers with the service of an office. For he first believed, and is the prince of the apostolate: and what before languished in him, growing strong by the word of God, was worked out, as it were, in the ministry of the public salvation.

Rightly, moreover, is this likeness from Peter's mother-in-law fitted to the disposition of unbelief, a matter which we shall treat in the place that follows concerning the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law. But for now, she will be called the mother-in-law of unbelief, because, until she believed, she was held in the servitude of her own will.

Christ, by His passion, healed our infirmities.—And when evening was come, they brought to Him many possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word. In this indiscriminate healing at the evening hours, we recognize the gathering of those whom He taught after His passion: forgiving the sins of all, taking away the infirmities of all, and driving out the incitements of evil pleasures lying within, absorbing, through the passion of His own body, according to the sayings of the prophets, the infirmities of human weakness.

By what reasoning these things are to be explained.—And Jesus, seeing great crowds about Him, ordered His disciples to go over to the other side. And a certain Scribe, coming to Him, said, Master, I will follow you wherever you go, and the rest. Many things occur which can move common sense. And we do not invent the understanding, but the deeds themselves impart understanding to us. For it is not the understanding that follows the thing, but the understanding of the thing that follows next. The crowds are many, and the Lord commands His disciples to go across the strait. I do not think it falls within the goodness of the Savior that He should wish to leave those thronging about Him, and choose some secret for the bestowal of salvation. Then the Scribe follows, saying that he will follow the Master wherever He goes: but nothing is read as having been said or done by the Scribe that could give offense.

The Lord answered, that foxes have dens, and the birds of heaven nests to rest in, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay His head. And a disciple had asked that time be given him to bury his father: this was refused, and the observance of a pious and human duty was forbidden. Therefore the reason for so many, and so diverse, matters must be brought forth: and in such a way that, according to the coherent order of things, and the weightiest causes of the truth itself, the understanding of the inner significance may be explained.

The type of the election of the faithful.

The ship of the Church.—The name "disciples" is not to be thought as pertaining only to the twelve Apostles. For besides the Apostles, we read that there were many disciples. From the whole crowd, therefore, a certain election is commanded to be made: namely, of those who would follow the Lord through the many dangers and tossings of this age. For the Church is the likeness of a ship, and in very many places is so named: which, having received passengers of the most diverse kind and nation, is subject both to the blasts of the winds and to the movements of the sea. And thus it is troubled both by the attacks of the age and of the unclean spirits. For, with the dangers of all these movements set before us, we enter the ship of Christ, that is, the Church: knowing that we are to be tossed by sea and wind.

That therefore the order of the typical significance might cohere, and that the portion of the faithful embarking on the ship, and the crowd of the unbelieving remaining behind, might be understood; the person of the Scribe and of the disciple is subjoined.

The Scribe, a teacher of the law, foreshadows the unbelievers.

The foxes, the false prophets. The birds of the air, the demons. God is the head of Christ. All are invited into the Church.—And indeed the Scribe, who is one of the teachers of the law, asks whether he is to follow. As though it were not contained in the law that this was the Christ whom it would be profitable to follow. Therefore he expressed the disposition of unbelief under the diffidence of his question: because the assumption of faith is not to be questioned, but followed. But that this very questioning of unbelief might be punished by judgment, the Lord answered that foxes have dens, and the birds of the air have nests in which to rest, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head. The fox is a treacherous animal, hiding itself near the burrows of houses and lying in ambush for domestic birds; and we read that in several places false prophets are called by this name.

We have also learned that the birds of the air are often given the name of unclean spirits.

The Son of God, therefore, beholding the small number of his followers, and the teacher of the law hesitating whether to follow him, reproaches that there are dens for false prophets, and nests of rest for unclean spirits; because those left outside the ship, that is, placed outside the Church, have become the dwelling-place of false prophets and the habitation of demons: but the Son of man, that is, he himself whose head is God, finds none in whom, once the knowledge of God has been placed, he might rest: all being invited, as into the ship, so into the Church; but few, secure from fear of the sea, that is, of the world.

Whether an unfaithful father has any right over a faithful son.—After these things a disciple comes forward, not asking whether he should follow (for he already believed that he ought to follow), but praying that he be allowed to bury his father. We have learned that at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer it is thus to be prayed first: Our Father who art in heaven. Therefore, because in the disciple there is the figure of the believing people, he is admonished to remember that he has a living father in heaven. He is bidden to follow the Lord, because he also wished it, so that the dead might bury the dead. But I judge that no service can be expected from the dead. How then shall the dead bury the dead? First, then, he shows that perfect faith in himself is bound by no bond of worldly religious duty toward another; then, that between a faithful son and an unfaithful father the right of the paternal name is not left.

He did not, then, refuse the office of burying the father: but by adding, "Let the dead bury their dead," he warned that unbelieving dead should not be mingled with the memorials of the saints: and that they too are dead who live outside of God. And therefore mutual offices are to be left to the dead, that the dead may be buried by the dead: because through faith in God the living ought to cling to the living.

When and in how great a danger Christ sleeps in us.—"And when he entered into a boat, his disciples followed him.

And behold, a great tempest arose in the sea," and so forth. When the disciples had entered the boat, a tempest arises, the sea is stirred, and those sailing are troubled. He himself, lulled in sleep, is roused by the fear of those who are afraid, and is prayed to bring help. And having rebuked them for being of little faith, he commanded calm to the wind and the sea, with the men marveling that the wind and sea had obeyed his commands. According to this, then, those churches within which the word of God has not kept watch are shipwrecked: not that Christ is relaxed into sleep, but that he is lulled to sleep in us by our own sleep. And this happens especially, that we hope in God chiefly in the fear and vexation of danger.

And would that even a late-arriving hope might trust that it can escape danger, while the power of Christ keeps watch within it.

He has, moreover, left us the perpetual memory of his rebuke, saying: "O ye of little faith, why are ye afraid?" that is, that there ought to be no fear of worldly commotions, with which the faith of Christ keeps watch.

Why the disciples are now called men, not disciples.—There follows then the admiration of men saying: "What manner of man is this, that the winds and the sea obey him?" This is not the speech of the disciples, but of the Gentiles. For whereas above he had said that only the disciples had entered the boat, and that he had been roused only by the disciples; now he signifies that men were amazed, men calling him a man, precisely in the very act of wondering. By this change of names it is understood that all the works of Christ, and all his powers, are to be praised as belonging to God: because it shows the folly of the gentile error, most wretched and guilty, in that they call him rather a man on account of the humility of his passion, than God on account of his powers.

"And when he had come across the strait into the region of the Gerasenes, there met him two men having demons, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly dangerous," and so forth. The meeting of the two men, the long possession of demons in two men, the dangerous way for travelers, the entreaty to pass over into swine, and, once the men were cleansed, the headlong fall of that herd into the sea, then the flight of the herdsmen into the town, the coming forth of the people from the city, and the embassy that the Lord not enter the city, and his return into his own country, and there the offering of the paralytic lying on his bed, and, on account of the merit of faith, the remission of sins at that very moment, and the murmuring of the Scribes, and the confession of his power, and the return of the paralytic, even under the burden of his pallet, into his house, and the wonder of the people—all these have this cause.

Demons cast out from the Gentiles take hold of heretics.

Christ, rejected by the Jews, Goes to the gentiles.—At the beginning of the human race there was a threefold division of the human race, namely the sons of Noah, of whom, according to the prophecy of Genesis, Shem was chosen into the possession of God. But outside the city, that is, outside the synagogue of the law and the prophets, demons held two men fast in the tombs: namely the origins of two nations had beset the seats of the dead and the remains of the deceased, making the way of the present life dangerous for those who passed by. Therefore, that there might be, in the events transacted, a full contemplation of the future, two men come to meet the Lord as he comes: that by their meeting him the will of those running together unto salvation might be signified. But in these men the demons cry out, asking why he begrudges their abode, why he harasses them before the time of judgment.

There was also close by these two Gentile peoples a people of the race of Shem, the Sadducees, whose heresy is the crime of denying the resurrection, drawn from the Jews. Seeing then that the demons no longer had a place left among the Gentiles, they beg to be allowed to dwell in the heretics: and while these were occupied, the whole herd was driven headlong with rapid impulse into the sea: that is, they are hurled down by the instigation of demons into worldly desire, in many waters, that is, to die along with the unbelief of the remaining nations. And in this too a typical meaning is preserved, so that it was not enough to say that they were cast headlong into the sea, unless it were also added, "And they died in the many waters." Their leaders and shepherds, disturbed by amazement at these events, come to the city, and report what has happened.

That city bears the likeness 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 its city; for indeed the law does not receive the Gospels: rejected by which, he returns to his own city. For God, the city is the faithful people. Into this, therefore, borne in the ship, that is, the Church, he entered.

Adam obtained pardon.—And now, in the paralytic, the universality of the Gentiles is offered to be healed.

But the very words of the cure must also be considered. It is not said to the paralytic, "Be well"; it is not said, "Rise and walk"; but it is said, "Have confidence, son, thy sins are forgiven thee". In the one Adam sins are forgiven to all the Gentiles. Thus he is offered to be healed by the ministering of the Angels, thus he is called son, because he is the first work of God: to him the sins of the soul are forgiven, and the indulgence of the first transgression is out of pardon. For we have not learned that the paralytic had committed any sin, especially since elsewhere the same Lord said that blindness from birth was not contracted from any sin, either his own or his father's.

That Christ is God.—Next, the order of truth follows in the deeds, although the pattern of the future is fulfilled in the sayings.

The Scribes are moved by sin being forgiven by a man: for they beheld in Jesus Christ only a man. And it was forgiven by him what the law could not loosen; for faith alone justifies. Then the Lord perceives their murmuring, and says that it is easy for the Son of man on earth to forgive sins. For truly no one can forgive sins except God alone: therefore he who forgives is God. Because no one forgives except God, God, remaining in man, was granting healing to man: and there was no difficulty for him in acting and speaking, to whom belongs the whole power of what he speaks.

How many things are taught by the healing of the paralytic.—Moreover, that he might be understood as being placed in a body who both forgave sins to souls and would grant 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, "Arise, and take up thy bed". It would have been enough to say, "Arise": but because the whole plan of the work being accomplished had to be set forth, he added, "Take up thy bed, and go into thy house." First he grants the remission of sin, then he shows the power of resurrection, then by the lifting up of the pallet he teaches that weakness and pain will be absent from bodies, and lastly, by the return to one's own house, he teaches that the way to paradise is to be restored to believers, from which Adam, the parent of all, departed, dissolved by the fall of sin.

All need pardon.

The power of forgiving sins in Christ is not to be wondered at.—"But when the crowds saw it, they feared". This deed ought rather to have been followed by admiration, not fear; but even now the order of the mystery remains: so that to the truth of things present a figure of things to come is joined; the crowd fears the power of the Lord's words and deeds. For it is a matter of great fear, that one, whose sins are not forgiven by Christ, be dissolved into death: because there is no return into the eternal home, if pardon of sins has not been granted to one. "And they glorified God, who had given such power to men." All things are concluded in their order, and now, the fear of despair ceasing, honor is rendered to God, because he gave such power to men: but this was owed to Christ alone, to him alone it was proper to do these things, from the communion of the paternal substance.

This, then, did not become a matter of wonder, that he could do these things (for what would God be believed not to be able to do?); otherwise the praise would have arisen concerning one man, not concerning many: but the reason honor was rendered to God is this, that power and a way have been given to men through his word, both of the remission of sins, and of the resurrection of bodies, and of the return into heaven.

"And as Jesus passed by from there, he saw a man sitting in the custom-house, named Matthew, and said to him, Follow me," and so forth. He bids Matthew the publican, sitting in the custom-house, to follow him. And going into the house he arranges a feast, and a crowd of publicans and sinners sits down at table with him: the Pharisees rebuking the disciples, why their master ate with publicans. To whom he answers, that the healthy have no need of a physician, but the sick have need of healing; and he bids them go and learn what it means, "I desire mercy rather than sacrifice."

The publicans.

The calling of Matthew. Salvation is necessary for all, and afforded by the law to none.—The name of publicans comes from their manner of life, since, having abandoned the works of the law, they preferred to conduct themselves according to common and public custom. Therefore the Lord called Matthew forth from his house, that is, from the sins of the flesh, and entering into his mind, reclined at table there. For there the writer of this very Gospel is the same man, and going forth from the house of his own sin, he himself receives the Lord, illumined by his inward dwelling, within whom a banquet is prepared with rich abundance of evangelical food for sinners and publicans. Then jealousy stirs the Jews, that the Lord should share table-fellowship with publicans and sinners. To them, under the veil of their hidden unbelief, he brought forth the words of the law, saying that he indeed brings aid to the sick and provides medicine to the needy; but for those who reckon themselves healthy, no healing is necessary.

But so that they might understand that none of them was healthy, he admonished them to learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice

that is, that the law, bound to the observance of sacrifices, could not bring aid; 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 he did not come for the righteous? Were there then some for whom it was not necessary that he come? But no one is righteous by the law. He shows, therefore, that the boasting of righteousness is empty: because, while sacrifices were powerless unto salvation, mercy was necessary for all who were placed under the law. For if righteousness had come from the law, pardon through grace would not have been necessary.

Christ the bridegroom.

The food of life, in whose presence no one hungers.—Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast frequently, but your disciples do not fast? The Pharisees and the disciples of John used to fast, and the Apostles did not fast. But he answers them spiritually, and shows himself to be the bridegroom to the disciples of John. For John had promised that all hope of life was laid up in Christ; and yet the disciples of John, while he was still preaching, could not be received by the Lord. For up to him are the law and the prophets; and unless the law were ended, none of them would pass over into evangelical faith. But when he answers that, while the bridegroom is present, there is no necessity of fasting for the disciples, he teaches the joy of his own presence, and the mystery of the holy food, of which no one who holds Christ present, that is, in the sight of the mind, will have need.

But he says that they will fast when he is taken away

because all who do not believe that Christ rose again would not have the food of life. For in the faith of the resurrection is received the mystery of the heavenly bread; and whoever is without Christ is left in the fasting of the food of life.

The old man does not receive this food.—But so that they might understand that these perfect sacraments of salvation cannot be entrusted to those still placed in old things, he set forth an example by way of comparison. A raw patch is not sewn onto an old garment, because the strength of the raw patch taken up would tear apart the weakness of the old cloth; and new wine is not poured into old wineskins, for the heat of the fermenting must bursts the old skins: that is, souls and bodies weakened by the age of sin do not receive the mysteries of the new grace. For a worse tear will result, and the wine being poured out the old skins will perish. For a double guilt will belong to such people, if, besides the old age of their sins, they cannot sustain the power of the new grace: and thus both the Pharisees and the disciples of John would not receive the new things, unless they themselves became new.

The ruler entreating life for his daughter, a type of the law.—While he was saying these things, behold, a certain ruler came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, my daughter has just now died; come and lay your hand upon her. The prayers of the ruler, the faith of the woman, the gathering of the crowd in the house, the cry of the two blind men, the offering of the mute, deaf, and demon-possessed man, hold in themselves an order of understanding connected with what was said above. This ruler is understood to be the law, which prays to the Lord on behalf of the people, whom, having proclaimed Christ to them, it had nourished in expectation of his coming, that he might restore life to the one who had died. For we read that no ruler believed: from which the person of this praying ruler will fittingly be fitted into a type of the law. To whom indeed the Lord promised aid, to render which he set out.

The gentiles snatch away beforehand the salvation prepared for the Jews.—But the crowd of sinners is saved before the apostles.

And whereas the election which was appointed from the law ought to have lived first, nevertheless salvation, in the figure of a woman, is rendered earlier to publicans and sinners. She therefore, upon meeting the Lord as he passed by, by touching the Lord’s garment trusts that she will be made whole of the flow of blood: that is, defiled by the filthiness of her body, and dissolved by the uncleanness of inner vice, she hastens through faith to touch the fringe of the garment—namely, the gift of the Holy Spirit, going forth as it were from the fringe of Christ’s body, to touch it in company with the apostles; and she is soon made whole. Thus salvation was rendered to the one, while it was being brought to the other. Her faith and constancy the Lord soon praised: because what was being prepared for Israel, the people of the gentiles seized upon.

The infinite power of Christ.—In the simple understanding there is great admiration for the Lord’s power: since the power remaining within the body added the efficacy of health to perishable things, and the divine working proceeded even into the fringes of the garments. For God was not divisible and comprehensible, so as to be enclosed by a body. For he himself divides the gifts in the Spirit; but he is not divided among the gifts. And his power is attained by faith wherever it is sought: because he is everywhere, and absent nowhere. And the assumption of the body did not enclose the nature of Power, but for our redemption Power took up the frailty of the body; which is so infinite, so free, that the working of human salvation could even be contained in its fringes.

The Jews mock the resurrection.

Few of them will believe.—Then the Lord enters the house of the ruler, that is, the synagogue, in whose canticles of the law a hymn of mourning resounded; and he is mocked by many. For they never believed God to be in a man, but rather laughed at the preaching of the resurrection from the dead. Having therefore taken the girl by the hand, whose death to them was but sleep, he drew her back to life. And so that it might be understood how rare, from the law, is the number of those elected to belief, the whole crowd was put out: whom indeed the Lord would have wished to be saved; but by mocking his words and deeds, they were not worthy of fellowship in the resurrection. And as the report went out into all that land, after the salvation of the elect, the gift and works of Christ are proclaimed.

Faith is required beforehand for salvation.—As the Lord goes out, then, two blind men soon follow.

But how could blind men know both the Lord’s departure and his name? Indeed they even call him Son of David, and ask to be saved. In the two blind men the reasoning of the whole preceding prefiguration is completed. For from these it is shown that the ruler’s daughter—namely, the Pharisees and the disciples of John, who had already above put the Lord to the test in common—is signified. To these, then, not knowing from whom to seek salvation, the law pointed out, and showed them their Saviour in a body from the line of David, and to the blind, by the old sin, since they did not see Christ unless admonished, he instilled the light of the mind.

To whom the Lord, showing that faith is not to be expected from salvation, but salvation 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 sought is to be merited by faith, not that faith is to be taken up from things obtained), if they had believed, he promises sight, and grants it to those who believe, and enjoins silence: because it was the proper task of the apostles to preach.

The gentiles are designated by the demon-possessed man.—Moreover, after these things, in the mute, deaf, and demon-possessed man, the unworthy people of the gentiles are presented for the whole of salvation. For, beset on every side by all evils, they were entangled in the vices of the whole body. And in this the order of things was preserved. For the demon is cast out first, and then the remaining functions of the body follow. For indeed, the knowledge of God having put to flight the madness of all superstitions, sight and hearing and speech of salvation are brought in. Such was the confession of admiration that followed from the crowd at this deed: Never has it so appeared in Israel: since he to whom the law could bring no help was saved by the power of the word, and a man mute and deaf spoke the praises of God.

But salvation being given to the gentiles, all the cities and all the villages are illumined by the power and entrance of Christ, and escape every infirmity of their old languor.

Where he sends forth the twelve disciples ahead with teaching.

1. But seeing the crowds, he had compassion: because they were troubled and lying down, and the rest. It is necessary to look into the powers of the words no less than of the things: because, as we have said, the weight of significations rests equally in words and in deeds. The Lord has compassion on the crowds who are troubled and lying down, like a flock scattered without a shepherd. And he says the harvest is great, the laborers few, that the Lord of the harvest must be prayed to, that he may send out more laborers into the harvest. And having called the disciples together, he gave them power to cast out unclean spirits, and to heal every infirmity and every disease. These things, then, although they took place at the time, it must be considered what they signify for the future.

2. The harvest is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

How abundant it is.

Its power is granted through prayer.—No one had rushed in as an assailant upon the crowds, nor were they lying prostrate from any accident or disturbance: how then does he have compassion on them as troubled and lying down? The Lord has compassion on the people troubled by the dominant violence of unclean spirits, and sick under the burden of the law, because as yet no shepherd was theirs to render the guardianship of the Holy Spirit. But the fruit of this gift was most abundant, yet not yet harvested by anyone. For its abundance surpasses the multitude of those who draw from it. For however much is taken up by all, it still ever overflows to bestow more.

And because it is useful that there be many through whom it may be ministered, he bids that the Lord of the harvest be entreated, that he send forth more laborers into the harvest: namely, that God may supply an abundance of harvesters to seize what was being prepared, the gift of the Holy Spirit; for through prayer and entreaty this gift is poured out upon us by God. And so that he might show that into that harvest numerous harvesters were to be spread abroad, beginning from these twelve Apostles, having called them together he gave them power to cast out spirits, and to heal every infirmity. For by the powers of this gift, both could the disturber be expelled, and the sick be healed. And it is worthwhile to look into the significance of each of the precepts.

Precepts of Christ concerning the apostolic office.—They are admonished to abstain from the ways of the gentiles: not

because they were not also being sent for the salvation of the gentiles, but that they should abstain from the deeds and life of gentile ignorance. They are forbidden to enter into the cities of the Samaritans. Did not he himself heal the Samaritan woman? But they are admonished not to approach the churches of the heretics. For perversity differs in nothing from ignorance. They are then sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And yet against him they raged with the tongues and jaws of wolves and vipers. But the legislation ought to hold the privilege of the Gospel: Israel would have the less excuse for its wickedness, the more diligence it had felt in the admonition.

The perfect image of Christ in the Apostles.—Then the whole power of the Lord’s virtue is transferred to the apostles: and they who in Adam had been formed into 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 they who before were earthly now become heavenly. Let them preach that the kingdom of heaven draws near: that is, that the image and likeness of God is now taken up into fellowship with the truth; so that all the saints, who are called heavens, may reign together with the Lord. Let them heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons; whatever evils the instigation of Satan had brought upon the body of Adam, this again they themselves may cleanse away through fellowship in the Lord’s power.

And so that they might fully attain, according to the prophecy of Genesis, the likeness of God, they are commanded to give freely what they have freely received: so that the ministry of the gratuitous gift might likewise be gratuitous.

Nothing venal in the apostolic ministry.—They are forbidden to possess gold, silver, money in their belts, and to carry a wallet on the way, and two tunics and shoes, and to take up a staff in their hands: and the workman is worthy of his hire. No treasure, I think, is invidious in a belt: and what does the forbidden possession of gold, silver, and bronze in a belt mean for us? The belt is the equipment of ministry, and the girding for the effectiveness of the work. Therefore we are warned that nothing in our ministry should be venal; nor should this work of our apostolate become a possession of gold, silver, and bronze. Nor a wallet on the way, that is, that the care of secular substance is to be abandoned: because every treasure on earth is pernicious, since our heart will be there where the treasure is laid up. Not two tunics.

For it suffices us to have put on Christ once: lest, through the perversity of our understanding, we should thereafter be clothed in another garment, either of heresy or of the law. Not shoes. Is the weakness of human feet capable of nakedness? But on holy ground, and one not beset by the thorns and stings of sins, as it was said to Moses, that he should stand with bare feet, we are warned to have no other equipment for our entry than what we have received from Christ. Nor a staff in the hands, that is, that we do not need external power, seeking rights, having the staff from the root of Jesse; for whatever other staff there might be, it will not be Christ's: instructed by all the foregoing discourse for accomplishing the journey of the world, with grace, provisions, clothing, shoes, power; for working in these things, we shall be found worthy of our reward, that is, through the observance of these things we shall receive the rewards of heavenly hope.

Into whatever city you enter, ask who in it is worthy, and so forth.

Perhaps the Lord will be thought to have given trivial precepts to the Apostles: that he condescended even to instructions about entering, dwelling, staying, and leaving. These things, understood simply, indeed agree with the modesty of the saints, so that hospitality should be with a worthy person, lest through carelessness or ignorance they be polluted by cohabitation with a disgraceful family. But he commands that those entering a city inquire about who is worthy, and dwell with him until their departure: also that the house be peacefully greeted by those entering; which, if it is worthy, let it also be worthy of the communion of peace (even peace); if unworthy, let the peace return to themselves in turn; but those who will not receive them, nor their words; from these, the dust of their feet being shaken off, the seeds of eternal malediction are to be left.

The worthy house, the Church; the worthy host, whose inhabitant is Christ.—These things stir the sense of understanding not slightly.

For if those about to enter hospitality are not going to do so unless they first ask who is worthy, how will an unworthy house be found afterward? And how will he not hear their words, and, not hearing them, not receive them themselves? For either this is not to be feared in the case of one who is just; or, if he be found unworthy, no communion of dwelling ought to be entered into. And what would it profit to have asked and inquired about the worthy man, if against an unworthy host both observance and punishment are commanded?

But the Lord instructs them not to mingle themselves with the houses and intimacies of those who either persecute Christ or do not know him: and in whatever city, to ask who among them is worthy of their dwelling, that is, wherever the Church may be, and Christ the inhabitant: and not to pass by anywhere else, because the house is worthy, and the host just.

How the peace once spoken can return.—But as to his having commanded that the house be greeted with a voice by those entering, saying, Say, Peace be to this house: and that if the house be found worthy, peace ought to come upon it; but if unworthy, the peace should return to themselves: but if peace was already spoken at the very first entry, in the office of greeting, how will it afterward come, or how will it afterward return? For 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 a peace that is both to come and to return cannot cohere by reason with what precedes. Therefore what the proper meaning of these words is must be shown.

The various deceit of those professing the faith of the Jews.

Peace wished for the unworthy, not given.—There would be many of the Jews of such a kind, whose affection for the law was so great that, although through admiration of the works they had believed in Christ, yet they lingered in the works of the law; others, however, curious to explore the liberty which is in Christ, would have pretended to have passed over from the law to the Gospels: and many also would be led over into heresy through perversity of understanding.

And because all such people, deceiving and flattering their hearers, falsely claim that catholic truth resides with themselves; therefore he warned above that one worthy to dwell with must be sought: because through the deceit of words the ignorant might fall in with such a host, he commanded that the house itself, which is said to be worthy, that is, the Church which is called catholic, be used cautiously and diligently; it is indeed to be greeted with the affection of peace, but in such a way that peace is rather said than given. For thus he commanded: Greet it, saying, Peace to this house. Therefore the peace of greeting consists in words and is to be bestowed in the language of prayer. But moreover, that the proper peace, which is the bowels of compassion, ought not to come upon it unless it be worthy: and if it be not found worthy, the sacrament of heavenly peace is to be kept within their own conscience.

Communion of dwelling.—But upon those who, having heard the preaching of the apostles about the kingdom of heaven, have rejected their precepts, let eternal malediction be left, at their departure, with the sign of the dust shaken from their feet. For I know not what sort of communion seems to exist between one standing in a place and the place in which he has stood, and there arises a certain conjunction of body and soil between them. Therefore every sin of that house and dwelling is left behind within it by the shaking off of the dust of the feet, and it borrows nothing of sanctity from the footsteps of the apostles who stood there: so that, whereas by their approach and entry the sins of earthly origin are removed, by their testimony the unfaithfulness may be judged along with all the dust of its own earth.

It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that city: because for those, it was lighter to have erred through not knowing Christ, but for these it is inexpiable, either not to have received what was preached, or, having received it, not to have preached it holily and catholically.

To what extent the serpent's prudence is to be imitated, according to some.—And indeed he signifies that many of these, who will rage with mad fury against the Apostles, are to come, when he says that he sends them out as sheep in the midst of wolves, preaching that they must be simple as doves and prudent as serpents. But the simplicity of the dove is absolute: what the prudence of the serpent is, must be considered.

I do not know what prudence and counsel exist in it, though some have committed certain things to memory from this, namely, that when it perceives that it has come into the hands of men, it withdraws its head by every means from the blow, and either covers it by gathering its body into a circle, or plunges it into a hole, and abandons the rest of its body to slaughter: and that we ought, by this example, if any persecutions should occur, to hide our head, which is Christ; so that, being exposed to every torment, we may secure the faith received from him by the loss of the body.

But all this discourse of the Lord is about the Jews and the heretics: Brother shall deliver up brother, and father the son, and children shall rise up against parents

that is, family of the same kind shall dissent among itself: because under the names of parents and kinships, once the unity of a people is indicated, now mutually diverse by hostile hatred; they will also be brought before judges and kings of the earth, while they attempt to extort either our silence or our connivance. For they shall be witnesses to them and to the Gentiles: by which testimony the excuse of unknown divinity is to be taken away from the persecutors; but for the Gentiles a way is to be opened for believing in Christ, since it was preached, despite the obstinate, by the voices of confessors amid the punishments of those who raged. He warns, therefore, that we must be instructed by the prudence of the serpent.

The serpent is to be imitated by preachers.—Even before he led Adam astray, Genesis already called him wise; and taught his prudence by the order of his malicious counsel. For first he attacked the mind of the softer sex, then enticed it with hope, promised the communion of immortality: and through these such great rewards, he carried out the work of his counsel and will. With similar opportunity, therefore, having inspected the nature and will of each person, the prudence of words is to be employed. The hope of future goods is to be revealed, and thus the heavenly rewards of perfect faith are to be brought forward: so that what he falsely promised, we may proclaim from truth, according to the promise of God that believers would be like angels: so that we may occupy the easy and unencumbered minds of the peoples, though wolves and heretics rage around them, with the promises of the heavenly kingdoms, and hand down the faith of things with the prudence of the serpent, with the simplicity of the dove.

When the Gentiles are to believe, when the Jews.—He also warns that those handed over ought to be free from the care of a response, but rather to wait for what the Spirit of God will suggest; because our faith, intent upon all the precepts of the divine will, will be instructed to the knowledge of a response: having in the example Abraham, to whom, when Isaac was demanded for the sacrifice, a ram was not lacking for the victim. Then he counsels flight from one city into two. Because his preaching, first driven out from Judea, passes over to Greece, then, wearied by the diverse sufferings of the apostles within the cities of Greece, it thirdly lingers among all the nations.

But that he might show that the Gentiles indeed would believe the preaching of the apostles, but that it is owed to his own coming that the remnant of Israel should believe; he says, You shall not have finished with the cities of Israel, until the Son of man comes: namely, after the fullness of the Gentiles, that which will remain of Israel, to fulfil the number of the saints, is to be placed in the Church at the future coming of his glory.

It is a comfort of sufferings, that through them we are made like the Lord.—The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. The knowledge of things impending greatly helps toward the assumption of endurance, especially if the will for patience is anticipated by example. Our Lord, the eternal light, and leader of believers, and parent of immortality, sent ahead to his disciples beforehand the comforts of future sufferings: lest any disciple should think himself better than his master, or the servant above his lord. For if through envy they have added the surname of the demon to the head of the household; how much more will they perpetrate every kind of injury and insult against his household members? But let none of this terrify us, embracing it rather as a place of glory, if we are made equal to our Lord even in the conditions of sufferings.

On the day of judgment hidden things will be brought forth.—Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed.

He shows, namely, the day of judgment, which will bring forth the hidden conscience of our will: and will disclose, by the light of public knowledge, those things which we now suppose hidden. Therefore he warns that neither threats, nor plots, nor the powers of persecutors are to be feared: because the day of judgment will reveal that all these were nothing and vain.

Knowledge of God is to be constantly urged.—And what I tell you in darkness, speak in the light: and what you hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops. We do not read that the Lord was accustomed to converse at night, and to hand down doctrine in darkness. But because all his speech is darkness to carnal men, and his word is night to the unfaithful; and each thing that has been said by him must be spoken with the freedom of faith and confession; therefore he commanded that things spoken in darkness be preached in light, and things entrusted secretly to the ears, upon the housetops, that is, the heights, so that they might be heard by the proclamation of those speaking.

For the knowledge of God must be constantly pressed upon them, and the deep secret of evangelical doctrine must be revealed by the light of apostolic preaching: not fearing those who, though they have license over bodies, nevertheless have no right over the soul; but rather fearing God, who has the power to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Two sparrows for an as, the body and soul sold to sin.—Are not two sparrows sold for an as; and one of them does not fall to the ground without the will of your Father? It is not, I think, a matter of blame to practice fowling; nor does the selling of sparrows involve fault. And what he says: One of them does not fall to the ground without the will of your Father, seems to run contrary to the apostolic saying which states: God has no care for oxen. And much would be taken away from his authority, if he should be found to have thought otherwise than has been handed down in the Gospels. For no great dignity is granted to the apostles, if they are to stand behind sparrows. This passage proceeds from the sense above.

For the iniquities are being magnified of those who will betray, who will persecute, who will drive into flight, on whose account, for the sake of the Lord's name, we must be hated—men who exercise all their right over bodies alone, having no power over the soul. These sparrows, then, are sold for two asses. And indeed the things sold under sin, Christ redeemed from the law: therefore what is sold is body and soul; and that to which it is sold is sin: because Christ redeemed both from sin, and is the redeemer of soul and body. Those, therefore, who sell two sparrows for an as, sell themselves for the smallest sin, though born to fly, and to be borne up to heaven on spiritual wings. But, captured by the prices of present pleasures, and made venal for the luxury of the age, they trade themselves wholly away in such transactions.

Body and soul born so that they might be one in the heavens, though one of them falls to earth.—But it must be asked how one of them is that which will not fall without the will of God. It is the will of God that one of them should rather fly up, but the law, proceeding from God's ordinance, decrees that one of them should rather fall down. Just as, however, if they were to fly up, they would be one—that is, the body would have passed over into the nature of the soul, and that heaviness of earthly matter would be done away with, advancing into and becoming the substance of the soul, so that the body would rather become spiritual: so, for those sold at the price of sins, the subtlety of the soul grows heavy into the nature of bodies, and draws to itself earthly matter from the filth of vices, and one of them becomes that which is handed over to the earth.

And when he says that they stand before very many sparrows, he shows that the election of the faithful is set above the multitude of the unfaithful

because for these there is a falling to earth, for those a flight to heaven.

The fear of death is taken away by the hope of a better life.—To have something gathered into a number is a matter of diligence and careful concern: for it is not a worthy business to number things that will perish. That we might know, then, that nothing of us shall perish, since we are much better than sparrows, it is indicated by the very number of our hairs, computed, that we shall in our entirety remain safe: since what is innumerable in us is numbered, both by affection and by power, for its preservation. No fall of our bodies, therefore, is to be feared, nor is any grief for the destruction of the flesh to be admitted: since, once dissolved according to the condition of its nature and origin, it is poured back into the substance of the spiritual soul.

And because, strengthened by such teachings, it is necessary—for the nature of the body should fall away. Hilarius elsewhere also asserts this general will of God, by which he wills all to be saved, as when in. He says: For he would have wished his people, whom he had chosen in their fathers Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, not to be judged; or above, chapter ix.

The whole crowd was cast out, which the Lord would certainly have wished to be saved; but by mocking his words and deeds, it was not worthy of the fellowship of the resurrection. This same point is explained at length in Psalm. And 18, where it is further declared that that secondary law and will of God is nothing else but a punishment established for those who act unjustly; because indeed, for those to whom, out of the will of freedom, wickedness was more pleasing, vengeance has been appointed. To have free constancy in confessing God; he also added the condition by which we are bound, that he would deny before the Father in heaven the one who had denied him before men on earth: and further, that the one who had confessed him before men, would be confessed by him in heaven; and of whatever quality we had been as witnesses of his name before men, of such testimony from him we would avail ourselves before God the Father.

Various questions are proposed.—Do not think that I have come to send peace on 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 shall be those of his own household. What sort of division is this? For among the first precepts of the law we have received: Honor your father and your mother. And the Lord himself says: My peace I give you, my peace I leave with you. What does it mean that a sword is sent to earth instead, and a son is separated from his father, and a daughter from her mother, and a daughter-in-law set against her mother-in-law, and the enemies of a man are those of his household? Therefore, from that time public authority will be brought forward against impiety.

Everywhere hatreds, everywhere wars, and the sword of the Lord raging between father and son, and between daughter and mother.

And in Luke indeed there is a saying about this: For from now on there will be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three shall be divided. Cannot the family of domestic kinship be spread into a greater number? Or was it limited by a prescribed time, so that from then on there would be only five in one house, and these divided? Therefore what the sword on earth is, what the propriety of the names is, and what the reasoning is in the number five, and how three are divided against two, and two against three, and to what extent the enemies of a man are those of his household, must be considered.

The nature of the sword signifies the Word of God.

In Adam before sin there were three, in his posterity five.—And of each particular matter, and of the whole question, the nature must first be explained: nor will the sense, both above and following, aid our understanding any less. The sword is the sharpest weapon of all weapons, in which there is the right of power, the severity of judgment, and the punishment of sins. And that the preaching of the new Gospel is called by the name of this weapon is a frequent authority in the prophets. Let us remember, then, that the Word of God is named as a sword: which sword, sent to earth, is his preaching poured into the bodies of men. This sword, then, divides five dwelling in one house, and divides three against two, and two against three. But we find only three things in man: that is, body, soul, and will.

For as the soul was given to the body, so also the power of using itself as it wished was granted to each; and for this reason a law was set before the will. But this is discovered in those who were first formed by God, in whom the beginning of the rising origin was an effect, not transmitted from elsewhere. But from the sin and unbelief of the first parent, in subsequent generations, sin began to be the father of our body, and unbelief of the soul its mother; for from these we have received our origin through the transgression of the first parent. For the will belongs individually to each. Therefore now there are five of one house: sin the father of the body, unbelief the mother of the soul, and the judgment of the will coming in besides, which binds the whole man to itself by a certain right of marriage.

To this, unbelief is the mother-in-law, which, receiving us as born from her, and wandering from faith and the fear of God, holds us fast, possessed between unbelief and pleasure, both in ignorance of God and in the delight of all vices.

The effect of regeneration.

The struggle of concupiscence in the regenerate.—When, therefore, we are made new by the washing 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 severing of the sword of God, we are set apart from the affections of father and mother: and putting off the old man with his sins and unbelief, and being made new in soul and body through the Spirit, it is necessary that we should hate the accustomed practice of our begotten and old work.

And because the body itself, mortified through faith, passes over into the nature of the soul, which comes from the breath of God (although it still exists in its own matter), because a communion is brought about between them by means of the Word: therefore it now begins to become one and the same in will with the soul, namely as the soul is spiritual, to which the freedom of the will, set apart from its mother-in-law—the innocent and honorable one—that is, separated from unbelief, yields all its right: so that what was the freedom of the will thereafter becomes the power of the soul. And there arises a grave dissension in one house, and household members become enemies to the new man: because he, divided by the Word of God from them, remains both inward and outward—that is, both body and soul—and rejoices in newness of spirit: whereas those things which are begotten and drawn from a certain ancient lineage will desire to abide in the things in which they took delight.

And the origin of the flesh and the origin of the soul and the freedom of power will be divided into two, namely the soul and body of the new man, which have begun to will one and the same thing: and, divided, the three will be subject to the two, since these are stronger by the newness of the Spirit for dominion over them. And for this reason those who have preferred the domestic affections of names to love of him will be unworthy of the inheritance of the goods to come.

The Cross, the sacrament of faith.—He proceeds then along the same course of precepts and understanding.

For after he had commanded that all things which are most dear in the world be forsaken, he added: He who does not take up his cross, and follow me, is not worthy of me: because those who belong to Christ have crucified the body with its vices and desires. And unworthy of Christ is he who, not taking up his cross, in which we suffer together, die together, are buried together, and rise together, has not followed the Lord, destined to live in this sacrament of faith by newness of spirit.

It brings death to vices, it takes away the fear of death.—He who finds his soul will lose it; and he who loses his soul for my sake will find it. That is to say, by the power of the Word, and by the division of the old vices, the gain of the soul will progress into death, and the loss into salvation. Therefore death must be undertaken in newness of life, and vices must be fixed to the cross of the Lord: and against persecutors, through contempt of present things, the freedom of glorious confession must be retained, and the ruinous gain of the soul must be shunned: knowing that no one has any right left over the soul, and that at the loss of a brief life, the interest of immortality is acquired.

Christ, who is mediator.—He who receives you, receives me; and he who receives me, receives him who sent me.

He devotes to all the affection of his teaching and the diligence of his precepts. And having declared, by the testimony of the shaken-off dust, the danger of those who do not receive the apostles, he commends the merit of those who receive them beyond the grace of the hoped-for office: and he teaches that in himself too there is an office of mediator, since, being received by us, and he having come forth from God, God is transfused through him into us. And thus he who receives the apostles receives Christ; and he who receives Christ receives God the Father: because he receives nothing else in the apostles than what is in Christ, nor is there anything else in Christ than what is in God: and by 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.

Many occasions for attaining eternity.—He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive the reward of a prophet.

He who receives a prophet receives him who dwells in the prophet; and he becomes worthy of the prophet's reward, receiving the prophet under the name of prophet. Equally, to have received a just man is reckoned a reward, and a man becomes just from the honor of justice. And thus justice is completed out of faith, and the duty acquires a reward, God granting many occasions of attaining eternity: since, in receiving the just man and the prophet, one receives both the honor of the just man and of the prophet, by the very affection of reverence.

Homage paid under a supposed opinion of religion to an unworthy person is not defrauded of its reward.—And whoever gives a cup of cold water to drink to one of these little ones, and the rest. He taught that the work of a good conscience is not in vain, nor does the hope of faith suffer harm from the crime of another's unbelief. For foreseeing that many would be glorious only in the name of apostleship, yet reprehensible in every work of their life, and that these same men would long deceive and long lie, nevertheless he does not defraud the homage which is paid to them under the supposed opinion of religion, of the reward of its work and hope. For although they themselves were the least, that is, the last of all sinners (for the least of all is that than which nothing else is smaller), he decrees that even the slight services rendered to them, which he designates under the name of cold water, are not in vain.

For the honor rendered is not to the sins of the man, but to the name of disciple. And thus the uprightness of the one showing homage is not harmed by the reproaches of him who deceives concerning himself: since he obtains his reward by the faith of the giver, not by the falsehood of the receiver.

John did not fail to know Christ.—Now when John had heard in prison of the works of Christ, sending his disciples, he said to him: Art thou he that art to come, or do we look for another? Did John, detained in prison, not know the Lord? And did so great a prophet not know his own God? Yet he had announced him as forerunner when he was to come, had recognized him as prophet when he was present, and had venerated him as confessor when he approached him. Whence, then, did such an error creep into his so varied and so abundant knowledge? But the Lord's testimony which follows concerning him does not allow this to be so understood. Nor indeed can it be believed that the glory of the Holy Spirit was lacking to one placed in prison, since that Spirit's light of power was about to minister to the Apostles when they too were placed in prison.

The Law was a figure.

The work of the Law. Why John sent to Christ.—But a fuller understanding is furnished in what was done in the case of John: and while the effect of the deed itself is felt, the grace expressed in it is also perceived; so that the prophet himself, by the very nature of his condition, might prophesy, since in him the form of the Law was set forth. For the Law announced Christ, and preached the remission of sins, and promised the kingdom of heaven: and John fulfilled the whole of this work of the Law. Therefore, since the Law was now ceasing, which, being enclosed within the sins of the people, and bound by the vices of the people, was kept in chains and prison lest Christ should be understood. Therefore the Law sent to look upon the Gospels: so that unbelief might contemplate the faith of the words in the deeds; and so that what was bound within it by the deceit of sins might be released through the understanding of evangelical freedom.

By such an example, therefore, John provides not for his own ignorance, but for that of his disciples: for he himself had preached that the one to come would bring remission of sins. But that they might know that no other than the one he had preached was meant, he sent his disciples to look upon his works: so that they might confer authority upon his own words by that one's works, and that no other Christ should be looked for than the one to whom the works bore witness.

Christ foretells the scandal of the cross.—And when the Lord had displayed his whole self by the miracles of things—namely, the sight of the blind, the walking of the lame, the healing of lepers, the hearing of the deaf, the voice of the mute, the life of the dead, the preaching to the poor—he said, Blessed is he who shall not be scandalized in me. Was there then already something done in Christ which might have scandalized John? Not at all. For he was still in the very course of his teaching and his work. But the force and proper meaning of the preceding statement must be considered, as to what it means that the poor are well announced to: that is, those who have lost their soul, who have taken up their cross and follow, who will become humble in spirit, whose kingdom is prepared in heaven.

Therefore, since this whole assemblage of sufferings would come together in the Lord, and the cross would be for many a scandal arising from him; he declared blessed those to whose faith the cross, death, and burial would bring no trial. Thus he showed against what matter John had taken precaution, saying blessed are those to whom nothing in him had been a scandal: because out of fear of this, John had sent his disciples to hear and see Christ.

What the reed signifies.—And lest this could be referred to John, as though he had been scandalized at something in Christ, when they had departed, he spoke to the crowds concerning him: What went ye out into the desert to see? A reed shaken with the wind? The desert is to be understood as empty of the Holy Spirit, in which there is no dwelling of God. For in the reed such a man is shown, one who is fair in the emptiness of his life by the glory of the age, but hollow in himself when broken open to truth; pleasing outwardly, and nothing within; moved by every motion of the winds, that is, by the breath of unclean spirits, and having no strength to stand firm, and empty in the marrow of his soul. Therefore when he says: What went ye out into the desert to see? A reed shaken with the wind?

He speaks thus: Did you go out to see a man empty of the knowledge of God, and wandering at the breath of unclean spirits? For he speaks this with the feeling of one rebuking rather than affirming: showing, namely, that it is not such a one—empty and unstable—who is beheld in John.

Bodies dissolved by luxury are the houses of demons.—But what went you out to see?

A man clothed in soft garments? Behold, they that are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings. Garment signifies the covering of the body with which the soul is clothed, in that it grows soft through luxury and wantonness. But those clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings. By kings is meant the designation of the transgressing angels: for these are the powerful ones of the age, and the rulers of the world. Therefore those clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings, that is, those whose bodies have become fluid and dissolved through luxury are the dwelling of demons, choosing a seat consonant with their own purposes and works.

The glory of John.—But what went you out to see?

A prophet? I tell you, yea, more than a prophet. 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 can he be thought to have been ignorant of Christ, who, sent in the power of the angel, prepared the way for the one to come, and than whom, among those born of women, no greater prophet has arisen—unless it be that he who is less than he, that is, he who is questioned, who is not believed, whose own works do not bear witness for him, this one is greater in the kingdom of heaven?

Who among the Gentiles seize the kingdom of heaven from the Jews.—And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away. As the nature of things requires, the stronger brings force; and the weaker will be he upon whom force is brought. What, then, is that which seizes, and that which suffers force, must be considered. The Lord had noticed the unbelief of John's disciples, had also perceived the crowd's opinion of his message, and felt the great danger to faith in the scandal of the cross. He had rather commanded the apostles to go to the lost sheep of Israel: they themselves ought to be established in the kingdom, and to be retained in the family and kinship of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But all this preaching brought advancement to publicans and sinners. From these came those already believing, from these already apostles, from these (for instance Matthew) already the kingdom of heaven.

But John is not believed by the people, Christ's works do not win him credit with them, the cross was to be a scandal.

Now prophecy ceases, now the Law is fulfilled, now all preaching is enclosed, now the spirit of Elijah is sent ahead in the voice of John. Christ is preached to some, and recognized by others: born to some, and loved by others. His own reject him, strangers receive him: his own kindred persecute him, enemies embrace him. Adoption seeks the inheritance, the family rejects it. The sons repudiate the testament, the servants acknowledge it. Thus the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and those who bring the force seize it: because the glory of Israel, owed from the fathers, announced by the prophets, offered by Christ, is seized and carried off by the faith of the Gentiles.

The Jews, disowned by the Law and the Gospel, have fallen away.—But whereunto shall I esteem this generation to be like?

It is like unto children sitting in the marketplace, who crying to their companions, and the rest. This whole discourse is a reproach of unbelief, and descends from the feeling of the preceding complaint; because the insolent people were not taught by the various kinds of preachings: signifying by the children the prophets, who in the midst of the synagogue, as in the public gathering of the marketplace, convict the people, because they did not, by the office of the body, comply with those singing to them, that is, because they did not obey their words. For to the manner of those singing, the motion of those dancing is fitted.

But in simplicity of sense, like children, they preached, and provoked them to the confession of singing psalms to God, as is held in the canticle of Moses, as of Isaiah, as of David, as of the rest of the prophets: and again, neither did the preaching of John bend them to repentance of sins, and to sorrow and mourning for their old offenses: to whom even the Law seemed burdensome, being difficult and troublesome in its prescriptions of drink and food, having in itself the sin which he calls a demon: because through the difficulty of observance it was necessary for them to sin within the Law: and again, the preaching of the Gospel in Christ does not please them by the freedom of life, through which the difficulties and burdens of the Law have been loosened, and already publicans and sinners have believed: and thus, so many and such great kinds of admonitions having been held in vain, they are neither justified by grace, nor were they cast off from the Law.

They were justly reprobated.

Christ is Wisdom itself, not merely a work of Wisdom.—And Wisdom is justified by her children: namely by those who, doing violence, seize the kingdom of heaven itself by the justification of faith: confessing that the just work of Wisdom is this, that she has transferred her gift from the contumacious unbelievers to the faithful and obedient. It is not idle in this place to consider the force of the saying. And Wisdom is justified—he has spoken, of course, of himself. For he himself is Wisdom, not from effects, but from nature: for he has power over every thing. But every operation is an effect of power: and the work of virtue is not the same as virtue itself, and the one causing is distinguished from the effect.

For many are wont to evade the apostolic saying in which he calls Christ the wisdom of God and the power of God, in this way: that in his creation from the Virgin, the wisdom and power of God were efficaciously present, and that in his birth is understood a work of divine wisdom and power, and that in him there is rather an operation than a nature of wisdom. Lest anything of this sort could be understood, he named himself Wisdom; showing wisdom in himself, not merely the things that are hers. For faith, hope, charity, chastity, fasting, continence, humility, kindness, are works of Wisdom: but these are works of nature, not nature itself; and the thing itself which acts does not consist in the things that are done. Why, then, did the Apostle call him the power of God and the wisdom of God, unless because from that Wisdom which existed, wisdom was created?

How guilty is the unbelief of the Jews.—Woe to thee, Corozain; woe to thee, Bethsaida: for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, and the rest. The curse of disobedience is set against the blessing of obedience. For it was fitting that the first preaching should be to the Jews; but the privilege of the preaching heightens the envy of their unbelief, since they are convicted by the example of those who believed, for whom, without any wondering admiration of deeds set before them, salvation was wholly from faith. For in Bethsaida and Capharnaum the mute praise the Lord, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame run about, the dead perceive; and no admiration of such great deeds moved anyone to the will of faith, though the mere hearing of the report of the deeds ought to have called them to fear, and drawn them to faith.

But the sins of Tyre and Sidon, and even those of Sodom and Gomorrah themselves, shall be lighter

because perhaps in them there would have been an inclination to believe, had the contemplation of such powers befallen them.

The joy of Christ concerning the faith of the Gentiles.—At that time, Jesus answering said, I confess to thee, Lord, Father of heaven and earth

because thou hast hid these things from the wise, and hast revealed them to little ones, and the rest. Fittingly is such a confession joined to what was said above. For although the salvation of Israel was to be desired, yet the faith of the Gentiles had been foretold of old not without the joy of the Lord. For the secrets and powers of heavenly words are hidden from the wise, and revealed to little ones: to little ones by wickedness, not by understanding; to the wise, however, by the presumption of their own folly, not by 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 thereafter become fools in their own wisdom.

The Father and the Son are of one substance.—And lest anything less than what is in God should be thought of him, he says that all things have been delivered to him by the Father, and that he alone is known to the Father, and the Father alone known to him, or to whomsoever he should wish to reveal him: about to reveal him to the one by whom he is asked that he might wish to reveal. By this revelation he teaches that the substance of both is the same in their mutual knowledge, since he who should know the Son would also come to know the Father in the Son: because all things have been delivered to him by the Father. But the things delivered are none other than those which are known to the Father in the Son alone. And what is known to the Son alone is what belongs to the Father. And thus in this secret of mutual knowledge it is understood that nothing existed in the Son which was unknowable in the Father.

Whence the yoke of Christ is sweet.—Then he calls to himself those laboring under the difficulties of the law, and burdened with the sins of the age: and he promises to take away their labor and burden, if only they will take up his yoke, that is, receive the precepts of his commandments, and approach him through the sacrament of the cross: because he is humble and meek of heart, and in these things their souls shall find rest: setting forth the allurements of a sweet yoke and a light burden, that he might grant to believers 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 the good, to refuse evil, to love all, to hate none, to attain eternal things, not to be taken captive by present things, to be unwilling to inflict on another what would be grievous for oneself to suffer.

The deeds of Christ portend something else.—At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the sabbaths: and his disciples being hungry began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. Both the going out into the cornfield, and the day of the sabbath, and the disciples' hunger, and the plucking of the ears, and the accusation of the Pharisees, and the Lord's response have, like the rest, an underlying understanding of an inner cause. For all the truths of the deeds, as we have said, attain, in the very effects of the actions themselves, an image resembling and to be understood from itself of a future truth.

The faith of the Gentiles and the unbelief of the Jews are foreshown.—And first it must be considered that this discourse began thus: At that time Jesus went through the cornfields

that is, at that time when he confessed to God the Father the grace of salvation given to the Gentiles: so that the same sense might contain both what precedes and what follows. Let us then run through the rest. The field is the world, the sabbath is rest, the corn is the advance of believers into the harvest. Therefore, having gone out into the field on the sabbath, the Lord's progress into this world took place amid the rest of the law, visiting that corn, that is, the sowing of the human race. And because hunger is the 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 neither does the food of an ear befit man, nor is the eating of plucked grains useful: but the appearance of the deed carries out the faith of what is to come, and the power inserted in the words fulfills the mystery both of the hunger and of the satisfaction.

The Pharisees, who reckoned that the key of the heavens was in their possession, accuse the disciples of doing what is unlawful: whom the Lord reminded of that deed, in which under the guise of the facts the reasoning of prophecy is contained, that David together with those who were with him, being hungry, had been satisfied with unlawful loaves. For if it had not been lawful to be done, David would not have been believed to have done it without blame. But without the guilt of a crime he prophesies in the deed within the law; so that he himself, along with the others, was satisfied with the loaves of proposition: thus showing that Christ, together with the apostles, was to be satisfied with the salvation of the Gentiles, a thing which seemed unlawful to the Jews.

He also reminds them of another prophecy, that they might know that all the things earlier said in the law were being fulfilled in him; namely, that the priests in the temple violate the sabbath without blame; indicating that he himself is the temple, in which, through apostolic teaching, while the people of the law unfaithfully rests, salvation is given to the Gentiles: because he himself is greater than the sabbath, and without the guilt of a violated law, evangelical faith operates in Christ.

With the law ceasing, we are saved by the goodness of God.—And to show that every efficacy of these things contains this image of the future work, he added: But if you knew what this meaneth, I will have mercy and 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 the goodness of God. Had they understood the gift of this thing, they would never have condemned the innocent, that is, the apostles: whom they were about to accuse through the envy of a transgressed law, since, with the antiquity of sacrifices ceasing, the newness of mercy came to the aid of all through them; nor would they have thought that the Lord of the sabbath was bound by the prescription of the sabbath. These things were said and done in the field.

The healing of the withered man.—And after these things, having entered the synagogue, they bring to him a man with a withered hand, asking whether it was lawful to heal on the sabbath: seeking occasion to accuse him from his answer. He confounded them with the example of a sheep falling into a pit, which they are careful to draw out without blame on the sabbath: and that it is more right that a man, who is worth more than a sheep, be healed; nor should it be thought that the sabbath can be violated by the ministry of human salvation, when the concern to draw a sheep out of a pit does not violate it.

He signifies those to whom Christ gave the power of virtues.—Rightly is such a healing of the Lord subjoined. For after the return from the cornfield, from which the apostles had already received the fruits of the sowing, he comes to the synagogue: there also about to prepare workers of his harvest, who afterward arose in greater numbers together with the apostles. These, then, are healed in the withered man. For they did not have the substance of giving salvation, and the office of the hand was idle, and the ministry of the body, by which something is done and imparted, had withered. The Lord therefore commanded him to stretch out his hand, which was restored to him like the other.

The whole healing is in the word, and the hand is restored like the other

that is, it is made like unto the ministry of the apostles for the office of giving salvation: and he teaches that the Pharisees ought not to take ill the working of human salvation in the apostles; since their own hand must be restored for the ministry of that same office, if they should believe.

But the envy of the deed stirs up the Pharisees, and they take counsel against him

because, looking upon the man in the body, they did not understand God in the works. And knowing their counsels he withdrew; that he might be known to be far removed from the counsels of the malicious. And many crowds followed him: to him withdrawing, indeed, from the unbelieving, the company of the faithful attends.

Why Christ orders silence concerning himself to those healed.—But to those whom he healed he enjoined silence.

But was silence about the healing really being enjoined? Not at all; for the health restored to each was itself a witness. But by enjoining secrecy, he both avoids the boastfulness of glorying about himself, and nonetheless provides knowledge of himself in the very act of admonishing them to be silent about him; because the observance of silence proceeds from the very thing which is to be kept silent.

He who does not break the bruised reed. He who does not quench the smoking flax.—Moreover, through this very will to be silent about himself, the effect of the things said through Isaiah is fulfilled: concerning whose prophecy we now note only this much, that he is both beloved by God, and in him is the good pleasure of the Father's will, and the Spirit of God is upon him, and judgment is announced by him to the Gentiles, and the bruised reed shall not be broken, and the smoking flax shall not be quenched: that is, the fallen and bruised bodies of the Gentiles were not crushed, but rather reserved for salvation; nor was the small remnant of fire now smoking in the flax altogether extinguished, that is, the small remnant of Israel, from the remaining spirit of the old grace, was not taken away; because there is the possibility of resuming the whole light in the time of repentance.

But this is prescribed within the limits of a certain fixed time, until he bring forth victory unto judgment

that is, when, the power of death having been taken away, he shall bring in the judgment of his glory at his return, in his name, unto the Gentiles who shall believe through faith.

The healing of the demoniac who was blind and dumb, the salvation of the Gentiles.—Then was brought to him one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb, and the rest. There follows the fitting healing of the demoniac, blind and dumb. For not without reason, having said that all the crowds were healed in common, is there now presented, from outside, one having a devil, blind and dumb: so that without any ambiguity the same order of understanding might be followed. The Pharisees accused the apostles of plucking the ears of corn, that is, of gathering in the men of the age; mercy above sacrifice was preached; the man with the withered hand was brought and healed in the synagogue: and these things not only profit nothing toward converting Israel, but the Pharisees even enter upon a plan of murder.

It was necessary, then, that after these things, in the form of this one man, the salvation of the Gentiles should come to pass: that he who was the dwelling of a demon, and blind and dumb, should be made capable of God, and should behold God in Christ, and should praise the works of Christ with the confession of God. The crowds were astonished at the working of this deed; but the envy of the Pharisees grows heavier. For because these so great works of his exceeded human weakness, they avoid the shame of their own confession by a greater crime of unbelief: so that, because they could not think these to be the works of a man, and were unwilling to confess them to be of God, they said that all this power of his over demons was from Beelzebub, the prince of demons.

How rich is the word of God.—But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them: Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation.

The word of God is rich, and, set forth as a matter for understanding, offers a very great abundance of examples of itself: and whether understood simply, or examined more deeply within, it is necessary for every kind of progress. But leaving aside those things which are open to common understanding, let us dwell upon the inner causes.

The loss of the kingdom of Israel is foretold.—Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation.

About to answer to what had been said concerning Beelzebub, he turned back the very condition of his answer upon those 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 origin and coming of Christ are from the law. If the kingdom of the law is divided against itself, it must necessarily be dissolved. And all power is diminished by division; and the strength of a kingdom separated against itself is consumed: and thus the kingdom of Israel lost its title from the law, when the people of the law fought against the fulfillment of the law in Christ.

The destruction of Jerusalem.—But also every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.

The same reasoning applies to a house and a city as to a kingdom. But here the city indicated is Jerusalem, ever glorious in dominion among the nations. Now, after it burned with the fury of the people against its own Lord, and drove out his apostles together with the crowds of believers, it shall not stand, by the division of those departing from it: and thus, what soon followed through this division, the destruction of that city, is announced.

By divine power Christ casts out demons.—For if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself.

He condemns the ill-will of the preceding saying, by which, when they said these things were done in Beelzebub, they condemn themselves by the very manner in which they spoke: not understanding that they had confessed Beelzebub to be divided; and that if he was compelled to such division, so that a demon should drive out demons, and the division itself should stand against him; then it must also be reckoned that there is more power in him who divides than in those who are divided. Therefore he is already divided, and is compelled against himself, and his kingdom is dissolved by such division. But if Christ casts out demons by the power of Beelzebub, by whom do their sons, that is, the apostles, cast them out, in whose name they cast them out?

And therefore they are rightly appointed judges over those to whom it will be found that Christ gave that power against demons which he himself is denied to have had. Therefore, if the disciples work in Christ, and Christ works from the Spirit of God, the kingdom of God is present, already transfused into the Apostles by the office of the Mediator. But when Christ is accused of being able to act through Beelzebub, God is blasphemed in Christ: and thus, through the Pharisees, the reproach of an inexpiable insult against God is contrived under the name of Beelzebub.

How can one enter the house of a strong man, and plunder his goods?

And the rest. He shows that all the power of the devil was crushed by him in the first temptation, because no one enters the house of a strong man and plunders his goods unless he has first bound the strong man, and then he will plunder his house: and it is necessary that he who does this be stronger than that strong man. He was bound, then, at that time when, being called Satan by the Lord, he was constrained by that very naming of his wickedness: from whom, thus bound, he took away the spoils and carried off the house—that is, us, once his weapons and the soldiery of his kingdom—and brought them under his own right, and, having conquered and bound him, procured for himself out of us a house empty and useful.

But 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 which it is understood to be a matter of very great danger to think ill of him, since not to be with him is the same as to be against him; and not to gather is to scatter.

Blasphemy of the Spirit is to deny to Christ the divinity which he displays by his works.—Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men; but blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. He condemns with a most severe pronouncement the opinion of the Pharisees, and the perversity of those who agree with them in this, promising pardon for all sins, and denying indulgence for blasphemy of the Spirit. For while other sayings and deeds are forgiven with generous pardon, there is no mercy if God is denied in Christ. And in that in which the sinner is without pardon, he bestows the kindness of a repeated admonition: that sins of every kind whatsoever 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 paternal Spirit subsisting 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? Therefore whatever insult exists against Christ, all of it exists against God: because God is in Christ, and Christ is in God.

Against Jews and Arians.

Those who worship Christ but deny that he is God are worse than those who do not know him.—Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree evil, and its fruit evil, and the rest. This saying both discloses its bearing on the present and reaches forward into the future. For with regard to the present it refutes the Jews, who, though they understood that Christ's works were beyond human power, were nevertheless unwilling to confess that they were of God. But with regard to the future it convicts every perversity of faith, namely of those who, withdrawing from the Lord his divinity and communion of the paternal substance, have boiled over into diverse pursuits of heresy: doing neither the one thing nor the other, neither dwelling among the nations under the pardon of ignorance, nor abiding in the knowledge of the truth. He signifies himself as a tree set in the body: because through the interior fruitfulness of his power all abundance goes out into fruits.

Therefore either the tree must be made good along with good fruits, or it must be set as evil with evil fruits; because the tree itself will bear witness of itself from its fruits: not that, according to the nature of trees, an evil tree could be made which is good, or that the same tree with its branches be good if it is evil; but so that through this figure we might understand that Christ is either to be abandoned as useless, or to be retained as good on account of the usefulness of good fruits: because things said against the Son of man are under pardon, but blasphemy of the Spirit lacks pardon.

But for the rest, to hold a middle course, and to grant Christ some things while denying the greatest—to venerate him as God, yet to strip him of communion with God—this is blasphemy of the Spirit: so that, while through admiration of such great works you do not dare to withdraw the name of God, yet through the ill-will of mind and sense you cut away, by denying the communion of the paternal substance, that nobility of his which in name you were compelled to confess.

And therefore even in this the Lord extends the gift of his goodness, saying that either an evil tree with evil fruits, or a good tree with good fruits, must be made: because in the reputation of an evil tree there lies hidden, under secret, the pardon of God's indulgence (since every sin is to be forgiven); in the confession of the good tree there is eternal fruit: lest, falling into a middle opinion between the two, since we do not dare to declare it evil, we should also be unwilling to confess it good, and so be left to the irrevocable judgment of a corrupt opinion about ourselves.

He taught that all such corruption of judgment proceeds from a defect of nature, saying: that from an evil treasure only evil things can be brought forth, and that account must be rendered to God for every idle, that is, foolish and useless, word: because by the words of our confession we are either to be condemned or justified; we shall receive such benevolence of the future judgment as the opinion we have held concerning the Lord of heavenly glory.

By the faith of the Gentiles the unbelief of the Jews is convicted.—A sign is then asked of him to provide, which he answered he would give from the sign of Jonah: and just as Jonah was held three days and as many nights in the belly of the whale, so he himself would remain in the heart of the earth for an equal span of time. But he shows that the faith of the Gentiles will be greater. For the Ninevites, at Jonah's preaching, did penance, and by confession of repentance obtained pardon from God. But also the queen of the South, now taken up as an example of the Church, marveling at the wisdom of Solomon, came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom she had marveled at. The comparison thus heaps up the reproach, and the faith of the Gentiles leaves the Jews without excuse: since those believed the prophets, that is, Jonah and Solomon, while these do not believe Christ, who is greater than Jonah and Solomon.

And therefore they will judge them at the resurrection, because the fear of God was found in those to whom the law had not been preached: those who are unbelieving from the law are the more unworthy of pardon, the more faith was found in those who did not know the law.

But when an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none, and the rest.

This reading is continuous, and is indicated, from the very opening of the utterance, to proceed from the preceding sense: for it begins with a connecting word. But the reasoning of the whole proposed comparison must be examined. The unclean spirit, going out from the man, roams through dry and waterless places, in which no fountain of life flows. And when he finds no rest, then he will say within himself that it is fitting for him to return to his house from which he came out; which he will find empty, swept and adorned; and he will take with him seven spirits worse than himself, and entering they will dwell there, and the last state of that man will be worse than the first.

And indeed the Lord concludes, saying: So shall it be also to this most wicked generation.

The above is fitted to the Jews.

The demon possessed the Israelites before the law. Expelled by the law, he invaded the Gentiles.—We cannot doubt, then, that all this is to be referred to the person of this people: but it must be considered how the several points fit the several times and matters. Above, namely in the name of the Ninevites and the queen of the South, the faith of the Gentiles was justified: but long before, after many grave sins against God, the law was given to the Jews. And their sins indeed are contained in the books of Moses.

But after so many proofs of divine power—that is, Egypt struck with ten plagues, and the pillar of cloud and light serving day and night, and passage given through the Red Sea, and springs flowing from broken rocks, and manna ministered to the hungry, and, at the last, the people living for a space of forty years in the life and manner of angels—they afterward worshiped and supplicated cattle and stones, and danced before these with choruses and songs, and called metals gods. Therefore the law, which was given afterward, by its intervention cast out the unclean spirit sitting in the hearts of this people, and shut him out as it were by a certain guard of surrounding power. He, going out from there, wandered around the deserted and dry Gentiles, abandoning his old house: so that in these he might rest, without disturbance in his habitation, until the day of judgment.

The grace granted to the Gentiles returned to the Jews.

Why he takes seven with him.—But again, God's grace having been imparted to the Gentiles, after the living fountain flowed forth in the washing of water, there is no place left for him to dwell among these: and since he now has no rest among them, reasoning within himself, he judges it best to return into the house from which he had departed. This house, cleansed by the law, and 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 withdrawn (for all the law is until John), and Christ has not been received to dwell in it. And so it is both empty of an inhabitant, and deserted of guards: though, with the coming inhabitant, it has been, by the diligence of those preceding, both cleansed and adorned.

Seven spirits, then, worse than himself, are taken

because so many were the gifts of graces destined to be with Christ, which the manifold wisdom of God placed in him with sevenfold glory: so that the possession of iniquity might become as great as the gifts of grace would have been. And so the last state of that man will be worse than the first: because the unclean spirit had departed from the Jews out of fear of the law, but now he will return upon them with vengeance for the grace repudiated by them.

Whence the right of kinship is now to be taken.

Christ's kinsfolk standing outside, the Synagogue.—And because he was speaking all this by the power of the paternal majesty, when it was announced to him that he was awaited outside by his mother and brothers, extending his hand toward the disciples, he answered that they were his brothers and mother; and that whoever should have followed the paternal will, that one was both brother and sister and mother: establishing himself as the pattern for all in acting and thinking, that the right and the name of all kinship is now to be held not from the condition of birth, but from the communion of the Church. Yet he is not to be thought to have felt disdainfully of his mother, to whom, placed in his passion, he showed the affection of the greatest solicitude. But there is also preserved in this a typical meaning, in that his mother and brothers stood outside, though they had, like the rest, the power of going in to him.

But because he came unto his own, and his own received him not, in his mother and brothers the Synagogue and the Israelites are prefigured, abstaining from entrance and approach to him.

The Jews lost the law on account of a want of faith.—For whoever has, to him it will be given, and he will abound; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Faith perceives the mysteries of the kingdom. In those in whom it has been present it will advance, and it will abound with the increase of its own progress; but in those in whom it has not been present, even what they have will be taken from them. He is declaring, evidently, the loss of the law from the want of faith: which faith the Jews, not having it, lost also the law which they had had. And therefore evangelical faith has a perfect gift; because when received it enriches with new fruits, but when rejected it even takes away the resources of the old substance.

But blessed are your eyes which see, and your ears which hear.

He is teaching the blessedness of the apostolic time, to whose eyes and ears it fell to behold and hear the Salvation of God: while the prophets and the just longed to see and hear, unto the fulfillment of the appointed times, and the joy of that expectation was reserved for the apostles.

The Lord, a grain of mustard seed.

The words of the prophets, herbs. How the apostles are as branches.—The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, and the rest. The Lord compared himself to a grain of mustard seed, most pungent, and the smallest of all seeds, whose power and strength is kindled by tribulations and pressures. This grain, therefore, after it has been sown in the field—that is, where, having been seized by the people and delivered up to death, he was buried, as it were, in the field, by a certain sowing of the body—grows up beyond the measure of all the herbs, and exceeds the whole glory of the prophets. For in place of the herb, as for one sick, was given to Israel the preaching of the prophets. But now, from the branches of the tree raised up from the ground on high, the birds of heaven dwell.

We shall understand the apostles, evidently, spread abroad by the power of Christ, and overshadowing the world, as the branches: into which the Gentiles will fly for the hope of life, and, tossed by the whirlwind of the air, that is, by the spirit and breath of the devil, they will find rest, as it were, in the branches of the tree.

Christ in the law, the prophets, and the gospels.—The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened. Leaven comes from meal, which imparts the power received to the whole mass of its own kind. To this the Lord compared himself, in that a woman—the synagogue, that is—took him and hid him through the judgment of death, arguing that the law and the prophets were being dissolved by the gospels. But this, covered by an equality of three measures of meal, that is, of the law, the prophets, and the gospels, makes all one: so that what the law established, and the prophets announced, the same thing is fulfilled by the progress of the gospels. And all things come about through the Spirit of God, of the same power and meaning; nor will anything, leavened by equal measures, be found differing from another.

The foregoing is not rightly referred either to the unity of the Trinity or to the calling of three nations.—Although I recall that many have thought the three measures of meal should be referred to the sacrament of the faith, that is, to the unity of the Father and 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 permits this to be so understood: since, although the calling of all nations be equal, yet in these Christ is not hidden but shown; and in so great a multitude of unbelievers the whole is not leavened; whereas in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, without the need of any leaven mixed in from without, all things are one in Christ.

The treasure in the field, Christ in the flesh.—Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden, and the rest.

By the likeness of the treasure in the field he shows the riches of our hope laid up within itself: because God is found in man, for whose price all the resources of the age are to be sold, so that by clothing, food, and drink for the needy we may procure the eternal riches of the heavenly treasure. But it must be considered that the treasure found was also hidden; since indeed he who found it could, in the very secrecy and moment when he hid it, have taken it away, and by taking it would have had no need to buy it. But as with the fact, so with the saying, the reason must be explained. For 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 to be Christ in the flesh, whom to have found is gratuitous.

For the preaching of the gospels is free; but the power of using and possessing this treasure together with the field cannot be without a price; because the heavenly riches are possessed only at the cost of the age.

The merchant, passing from the law to the gospel.—And the same reasoning applies to the pearl.

But this saying applies to a merchant already long engaged in the law, who by long and lasting labor has arrived at the knowledge of the pearl, and abandons what he had obtained under the burden of the law. For he has traded a long time, and at last found the pearl such as he desired; to which the price of this one desired stone is to be compared with the loss of the remaining labor.

Preaching, which is the net.—Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea, and the rest.

Rightly did he compare his preaching to a net, which, coming into the age, gathered together those dwelling within the age without loss to the age—after the manner of a net, which, penetrating the sea, is so drawn from the depth that, passing through the whole body of that element, it draws out those enclosed within its circuit, and leads us out of the age into the light of the true sun: showing, in the choice of the good and the rejection of the wicked, the trial of the future judgment.

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. He spoke not to the crowds but to the disciples; and he renders worthy testimony to those understanding the parables, comparing them, evidently, to himself under the name of the head of a household, in that they had obtained from his treasure the teaching of new things and old; and he calls them scribes on account of their knowledge, because they understood the things which he brought forth, both new and old—that is, in the Gospels and in the law—and that both are of the same head of the household, and of one treasure.

And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence, and came into his own country, and the rest.

The Lord is dishonored by his own. Although both the prudence of his teaching and the power of his working stirred admiration, yet their unbelief does not receive the truth of the judgment. For they do not believe that God is acting in this man; indeed they name his father, mother, and brothers, and provoke him with a certain reproach of his father's trade. But plainly here was the son of a smith, of one conquering iron by fire, refining by judgment all the strength of the age, and forming the mass into every work of human usefulness—that is, shaping the unformed material of our bodies into the diverse services of members, and into all the works of eternal life. In these things, therefore, all were scandalized; and among so many and such magnificent things which he was doing, they were disturbed by the contemplation of his body.

To whom 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 because the power of God belongs only to the faithful, on account of their unbelief he withheld from all of them the divine works of power.

The Gospels have also an inner meaning.—At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the report of Jesus, and said to his servants, and the rest. We have frequently warned that all diligence ought to be applied to the reading of the Gospels: because in the things which are narrated as having happened, there is found to lie beneath them the reasoning of an inner understanding.

For the narration of all the works has its own order; but beneath the effects of the deeds the form of an underlying cause is prefigured, as is understood in Herod and John. For Herod was a prince of the people, and had taken to himself in marriage, by right of his power, Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. And to this Herodias there was a daughter, who, on the day of the birthday feast, when by dancing she pleased, received, by the oath of the one swearing, the power to ask 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 platter. And Herod, though sorrowful, kept faith with his oath, and granted the girl's mother the gift; and, when he was buried, his disciples passed over to the Lord.

Having heard these things, the Lord withdrew in a boat to desert places, and, having pity on the distress of the crowds following him, the apostles advise that they be dismissed into the villages to buy food. And the Lord answers that they have no need to return there, and orders that food be given to them. And they plead that they have only five loaves and two fish. And he ordered them to be brought to him, and the crowd to sit down upon the spread grass. And he blessed the offerings, and broke them for the crowd to eat, and gave them to the disciples to distribute; and when all were satisfied, the leftovers filled twelve baskets, although, besides the number of women and children, five thousand men had been fed.

And he orders the disciples to board the boat and go ahead across the strait, and having dismissed the crowd he himself went up alone into the mountain to pray; and when evening had come he was alone; and the boat, in the midst of the sea, with the wind against it, was tossed by the waves. And in the fourth watch the Lord came, walking upon the sea; and seeing him they were troubled, and, believing it an empty apparition, a phantom, they cried out for fear. To whom the Lord soon spoke, and bade them be steadfast. And of the many, Peter, answering, asked that he might come to the Lord upon the waters. Who, descending from the boat, and having gone forward a little, when the wind grew strong, began both to fear and to sink. Whom the Lord, taking hold of, rebuked for being of little faith; and, entering the boat, he restored calm, the wind and the sea becoming still.

These things, therefore, as we have recounted, were done; but in all these persons, effects, causes, and numbers there lies a further meaning, so that the things they did, beyond the office and instinct of doing which each took from his own nature, they did all outwardly as an example: this being the more reverently to be supposed, if one and the same understanding follows the working of such diverse causes. The discourse, therefore, must be referred to the origin of its statement.

John, the law.

Herod and his brother, the Jews and the Gentiles. The Gentile's wife, unbelief. The daughter, pleasure.—John, as we have often noted, bore the figure of the law: because the law preached Christ, and John proceeded from the law, foretelling Christ from the law. Herod, indeed, is prince of the people; and the prince of a people embraces the name and cause of the whole community subject to him. John, therefore, warned Herod not to join to himself the wife of his brother. For there are, and were, two peoples, that of circumcision and that of the Gentiles. But the law warned Israel not to join to itself the works and unbelief of the Gentiles. For unbelief is the companion of the Gentiles, joined to them as it were by the bond of conjugal love. These, therefore, are brothers from the same parent of the human race. Therefore, on account of this truth of a harsh warning, John, as the law, was kept in prison.

But on the day of the birthday

that is, in the joys of bodily things, the daughter of Herodias danced: for pleasure, as though born from unbelief, was carried forth through all the joys of Israel by the full courses of its own allurement. To which the people, even by oath, pledged itself as venal; for under sins and the pleasures of the age, the Israelites sold the gifts of eternal life. This one, at the prompting of her mother, that is, of unbelief, asked that the head of John—that is, the glory of the law—be brought to her: because the law, by the authority of the divine precepts, accused an unclothed Israel.

The law perished by unbelief and pleasure.—But above, Herod was signified as wishing to kill John, and delaying through fear of the people

because he was held to be a prophet. But now, his death having been sought, since he was especially held back by reverence for the oath, how does he become sorrowful? It is indeed a contradiction, that then he wished it, now he does not wish it: and the present distress does not agree with the former will. But in the earlier passage there is the order of the事 as it happened, while in these that follow, the aspect of the consequent cause is now set forth. Pleasure, arising from unbelief, seized the glory of the law. But the people, conscious of the good which was in the law, connives at the conditions of pleasure not without some grief at its own certain peril.

And it knows that it ought not to have yielded to such glory of the precepts: but, compelled as it were by an oath through its sins, and corrupted and overcome by the fear and example of the neighboring princes, it obeys, even while grieving, the enticements of pleasure. Therefore, among the other rejoicings of the dissolute people, John’s head is brought on a platter; that is, by the loss of the law, the pleasure of bodies and worldly luxury is increased: and thus it is carried by the girl to the mother. And so shameful Israel gave over the glory of the law both to its own pleasure and to the unbelief of its own household, that is, formerly of the Gentiles. Therefore, the times of the law having ended, and being buried together with John, his disciples announce to the Lord the things thus done, namely coming to the Gospels from the law.

The end of the law, the beginning of the Church.—Therefore, the Word of God, the law having ended, embarking on a ship approaches the Church, and withdraws into the desert: having left

that is, the manner of life of Israel, about to pass over into breasts empty of the knowledge of God. This crowd, hearing, follows the Lord on foot from the city into the desert: that is, it withdraws from the Synagogue to the Church. Seeing which he had compassion, and heals every sickness and infirmity of it: that is, he cleanses the minds and bodies besieged by the old age of unbelief, for the understanding of the new preaching.

The food of the legal teaching.

What the five loaves and two fish signify.—And when the disciples advised that the crowds be dismissed into the neighboring 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 legal teaching, nor any need to go back to Judea and buy food; and he commands the apostles that they give them food. Did he not know that there was nothing that could be given; and, beholding the inner things of human minds, was he ignorant of the measure of food kept by the apostles? But the whole typical account was to be unfolded. For it was not yet granted to the apostles to complete and to minister the heavenly bread, the food of eternal life. Their answer tends toward the order of spiritual understanding.

For they answered that they had only five loaves and two fish: because they were still contained under the five loaves, that is, the five books of the law, and were nourished by the preachings of the two fish, that is, of the prophets and of John. For in the works of the law, life was as it were from bread: but the preaching of John and of the prophets, in the power of water, nourished the hope of human life. These things therefore, because they were still in them, the apostles first offered: but from these it is shown that the preaching of the gospels proceeded, and, drawn from these origins, grows into a greater abundance of its own power.

Christ turned into food.

Why the loaves are given to the apostles.

Why five thousand are thence satisfied: why twelve baskets are reserved.—Having taken therefore the loaves and the fish, the Lord looked up to heaven, blessed and broke them, giving thanks to the Father that, after the times of the law and the prophets, he himself was turned into gospel food. After this the people are bidden to recline upon the grass; no longer lying on the ground, but supported by the law: and, as though upon the grass of the earth, each one is laid down upon the fruits of his own work. Loaves are also given to the apostles, because through them the gifts of divine grace were to be delivered.

Then the people are fed and satisfied with the five loaves and two fish: and the fragments of bread and fish, when those reclining were satisfied, abounded even 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 of the prophets: and, reserved for the people of the Gentiles from the ministry of the eternal food, the abundance of divine power overflows into the fullness of the twelve apostles. And the same number of those eating is found as was to be the number of the future believers. For as it is contained in the book of Acts, out of the boundless multitude of the people of Israel, five thousand men believed. For the admiration of the matter extends only so far as the measure of the underlying cause.

And the loaves broken together with the fish, the people being satisfied, are thereafter increased to just so great an amount as was destined for the number both of the believing people and of the apostles to be filled with heavenly grace: so that both the measure obeyed the number, and the number the measure; the reckoning, enclosed within its own bounds, being held, by the very governance of divine power, to the condition of the effect that was to follow.

Why Christ looked up to heaven.

By this deed the author of the world becomes known.—But the work of the deed surpasses human understanding: and although there are often things which, conceived by sense, speech does not explain; yet in these matters the very subtlety of sense grows heavier, and is stupefied at the contemplation of the thing, owing to the difficulty of a business so invisible. 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 behold the Father with bodily eyes; but that those who were 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 the pieces broken off always deceive those who break them by always remaining.

Then the material grows: I know not whether in the place of the tables, or in the hands of those taking, or in the mouth of those eating. Do not marvel that springs flow, that grapes are in the vines, and that wine is poured out from the grapes, and that all the riches of the world flow out in a certain yearly, unwearied course: for so great an increase of loaves shows the author of this universe, through whom, by such increase, a measure was added to the material being handled. For in this visible work an invisible working is carried on: and the Lord of heavenly mysteries performs the mystery of the present business. But the power of him working surpasses all nature, and the reason of the power exceeds the understanding of the deed, and only admiration of the power remains. The order also of causes and works follows.

Salvation will belong to the remnant of Israel.—After this he commanded the disciples to embark in the boat, until he himself should dismiss the crowds: and, the crowd dismissed, he went up the mountain to pray, and when evening had come he was alone. The reasoning of these things must be distinguished by their times. That in the evening he is alone shows his solitude in the time of the passion, the rest having slipped away in fright.

But that he bids the disciples embark in the ship, and go across the strait, while he himself dismisses the crowds, and, the crowds dismissed, goes up into the mountain, he bids them be within the Church, and be carried through the strait, that is, through the age, up to that time when, returning in the glory of his advent, he himself will restore salvation to all the people who shall be the remnant of Israel, and forgive their sins: and, having dismissed them, or rather having admitted them into the heavenly kingdom, giving thanks to God the Father, he abides in his glory and majesty.

The four watches of God over the Church.

The terror of Antichrist.—But meanwhile the disciples are being tossed by wind and sea, and by all the motions of the age, the unclean spirit opposing, they are buffeted. But in the fourth watch the Lord comes: for in the fourth he will then return to the wandering and shipwrecked Church. For in the fourth watch of the night is found the same number of his solicitude. For the first watch was that of the law, the second of the prophets, the third of his bodily advent, and the fourth is at the return of glory. But he will find her wearied, and driven about by the spirit of Antichrist and by the motions of the whole age. For he will come especially to those who are anxious and vexed. And because, from the custom of Antichrist, they will be anxious at every novelty of temptations; they will also be terrified at the advent of the Lord, fearing false images of things, and phantasms stealing upon their eyes.

But the good Lord will speak at once, and will address their fear, and will say: It, driving away by the trust in his own advent the fear of the impending shipwreck.

The fervor, fall, and repentance of Peter.—But that, out of the whole number of those standing in the ship, Peter alone dares to answer, and prays to be bidden to come to the Lord over the waters; he designates the disposition of his own will at the time of the passion, when, coming alone behind and clinging to the footsteps of the Lord, and despising the motions of the age, as of the sea, he accompanied him with equal courage for the contempt of death: but his timidity shows the weakness of the temptation to come. For although he had dared to walk, yet 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 for salvation from the Lord. That cry was born of his repentance. For, the Lord not yet having suffered, he returned to confession, and he had, in time, pardon for his denial; Christ afterward about to suffer for the redemption of all.

Why he was not freed from trembling.

Christ the redemption of all.—But as to why the Lord did not grant him the power of coming to him while trembling, but stretched out his hand, and, having taken hold of him, held him up; the reason is this. Peter indeed was not unworthy of the approach of his Lord, for he even attempted to approach; but also a typical order was preserved in him. For no one could be a partaker of the passion of the Lord as he trod upon the motions and tempests of the age; for he alone, about to suffer for all, was releasing the sins of all: nor does he admit a partner in whatever is bestowed on the universe by the One. Thus, since he himself was the redemption of all, Peter too had first to be redeemed, being then reserved, for the faith of that redemption, to be a martyr of Christ.

Peter went before the rest in faith.—And this is to be considered in Peter, that he went before the rest in faith: for while the others were ignorant, he was first to answer: Thou art the Son of the living God. He was first to abhor the passion, while thinking it an evil. He was first to promise both that he would die, and that he would not deny him. He was first to forbid his feet to be washed. He also drew the sword against those who were seizing the Lord.

But that at his stepping into the ship the wind and sea were stilled: after the return of his glory, the eternal peace and tranquility of the Church is indicated.

And because he will then come manifest, all rightly, marveling, said: Truly he is the Son of God. For the confession of all will then be both absolute and public, that the Son of God, no longer in bodily lowliness, but in heavenly glory, had restored peace to the Church.

From Christ the power of the apostles proceeds.—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 intervening matters have occurred, which, after the gathering and satisfying of the five thousand men, have detained us with the zeal of rendering an account: but the sense up to this point is the same. For the times of the law being ended, and five thousand men out of Israel having been placed within the Church, now the people of believing Israelites runs to meet him: now, itself saved through faith out of the law, bringing the rest of its own sick and infirm to the Lord, and, once offered, they desired to touch the fringes of his garments, about to be healed through faith.

But as the fringes come from the whole garment, so from our Lord Jesus Christ the power of the Holy Spirit went forth: which, given to the apostles, they too, as though proceeding from the same body, supply salvation to those who desire to touch it.

. (or Canon xv) And Jesus went out thence and withdrew into the parts of Tyre and Sidon.

And behold a Canaanite woman came out from those borders, and cried out, and so on. Different kinds of healings embrace different effects of causes: but the matter and the discourse take their order from what precedes. For he convicted the unbelief of the Pharisees, both by the reproach of the blind leaders, and by the superstitions of human traditions. And after these things he came to the regions of Tyre and Sidon, and a Canaanite woman, coming out from those borders, cries out and prays, and confesses the Lord as Son of David, and begs help for her daughter. The Lord is silent, the disciples plead for her: to whom he replies that he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But she, worshipping, asks to be helped: to whom the Lord says that it is not lawful to give the bread of the children to the dogs.

And in turn she replies, that the little dogs are wont to be fed with the crumbs falling from the table of their masters.

After which the Lord commends her faith, and at that very hour health was restored to the girl.

The Canaanite woman is a figure of the proselytes.

Who the Canaanites are.—In order therefore that the things which were done may be followed by their inner reasoning, it must be considered from the very force of the words who the person of the Canaanite woman is. It is a sure matter of faith that there was, and even now is, among Israel a people of proselytes: which, coming over from the Gentiles into the works of the law, and having departed from the region of its former life, was contained as it were in the house of a foreign and dominating law. Now the Canaanites were those inhabiting the lands where Judea now is: who, either consumed by war, or scattered into neighboring places, or subjected under the condition of servitude to their conquerors, carry about only the name, without a native seat. This people, therefore, mixed with the Jews, comes from the Gentiles.

And since it is not doubtful that in that crowd which believed, a certain part of proselytes had a share, rightly will this Canaanite woman, bearing the form of the proselytes, be reckoned as having gone out from her own borders—that is, from the Gentiles, passing over into the name of another people—who prays for her daughter, namely for the people of the Gentiles. And because she knew the Lord from the law, she calls him Son of David. For in the law is contained the rod from the root of Jesse, and David's son, king of the eternal and heavenly kingdom.

The Canaanite woman's daughter bears the type of the Church.

The firstfruits of faith from Israel.—She herself indeed no longer needs healing, who confesses Christ as Lord and Son of David: but she asks help for her daughter, namely for the people of the Gentiles, occupied by the dominion of unclean spirits. The Lord is silent, by the patience of silence reserving to Israel the privilege of salvation. And the disciples, taking pity, join their entreaties: but he, keeping the secret of the Father's will, replied that he was sent to the lost sheep of Israel: so that it might be absolutely clear that the daughter of the Canaanite woman held the type of the Church; since she was asking for what was being bestowed on others, not because salvation was not also to be imparted to the Gentiles: but the Lord had come to his own and among his own, awaiting therefore the firstfruits of faith from those from whom he had sprung, the rest thereafter to be saved by the preaching of the apostles.

And therefore he says: It is not lawful to take the bread of the children, and give it to the dogs. The honor conferred on Israel heaps up against them the envy of God's affection toward them: according to which the people of the Gentiles received the name of dogs. But the Canaanite woman, already herself saved through faith, and sure of the inner mystery, answered that the little dogs are fed with the crumbs that fall from the table, the reproach of "dogs" now softened under the endearment of the diminutive name.

Then thereafter the Gentiles are called to faith.—And that we might understand that the Lord's silence proceeded from the reckoning of the time, not from a difficulty of will, he added: O woman, great is thy faith: she herself indeed now being certain of her salvation, may even trust concerning the gathering of the Gentiles: at which time, believing thus, they will soon, like the girl, be freed from all dominion of unclean spirits. And immediately faith is followed by the deed. For after the people of the Gentiles was prefigured in the daughter of the Canaanite woman, immediately on the mountain those beset with various kinds of diseases are brought to the Lord by the crowds—that is, unbelieving and sick people are instructed by believers to worship and fall down; and health is restored to them, and all the ministries both of mind and of body are reformed for perceiving, beholding, praising, and accompanying God.

But Jesus, having called his disciples together, said: I have compassion on this multitude; because they continue with me now three days, and so on.

The order of the course of the working is maintained, but a like reasoning of the discourses also follows upon the same works. For in the daughter of the Canaanite woman we recall that the form of the Church was established: and we have handed down that the healing of the following people is the concourse of the sick Gentiles. Now therefore both the words and the deeds of the Lord must be carefully examined: that we may see whether the preceding matter and discourse, as it has been handed down to be understood by us, receives authority also from the understanding of what follows. The Lord has compassion on the multitude, because they remain with him three days; he does not wish to send them away fasting, lest they faint from hunger on the way. The disciples object that there are not enough loaves to satisfy and fill them.

The Lord asked how many loaves they had.

They answered that there were seven loaves, and a few small fish. The multitudes are bidden to sit down on the ground: and the Lord, taking the loaves and fish, gave thanks, and broke them, and gave them broken to the disciples to distribute. But the fragments of seven loaves and a few fish fill four thousand men: yet in such a way that the broken bread, when all were satisfied, was abundant enough to fill seven baskets.

Above the faith of the Israelites, now that of the Gentiles is expressed.—And indeed many things occur which are new (ompared with what was narrated in). The disciples, pitying a one-day fast, wished that five thousand men be sent away to buy food in the villages: now for a full three days they are silent. And then the earlier crowd was seated upon grass: this one reclines on the ground. There five loaves, here seven, are offered: there two fish, here an indefinite number, though under the mark of scarcity. There five thousand men, here four: there twelve baskets, here seven hampers filled. And to the former things, I think, an answer has been given, and everything has been fittingly assigned according to the person of the people. Now also let us attempt to bring forward a fitting reasoning of the matter and cause: so that just as those things agree with the Jewish believing people, so these may be compared to the people of the Gentiles.

The profession of faith of those to be baptized.

The fast at the time of the Lord's passion.—The same order, then, is in the Lord's discourse as remains in the attaining of grace. For those about to come to baptism first confess that they believe in the Son of God and in his passion and resurrection: and to this sacrament of profession faith is given in return. And that a certain truth of the actual realities might follow this pledge of words, tarrying throughout the entire time of the passion of the Lord in fastings, they are joined to the Lord by a certain fellowship of compassion. Therefore, whether by the sacrament of the pledge, or by fasting, they spend with the Lord that whole time of the Lord's passion.

The apostles' concern for the salvation of Israel.—And the Lord, taking pity on this hope and companionship, says that they had been with him three days. Lest they should be weakened by failing in the course of this secular life, that is, in the work of the way, he wishes to feed them with his own food, and to strengthen them by the power of his bread for enduring the whole journey: the disciples complaining that there was no bread in the desert. And yet in the preceding events they had taken the example that nothing is impossible for God. But they work out the reasoning of the inner meaning of the events. For how great was the apostles' favor toward the saving of Israel, the epistles of the most blessed Paul teach: and therefore, while the same concern lingers, now in the concourse of the Gentiles both the complaint about bread and the silence about fasting are introduced.

The seven loaves are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The indefinite fish, the diverse graces. The Gentiles to be called from the four parts of the world.—Seven loaves, therefore, are offered. For no salvation is taken up for the Gentiles from the law and the prophets, but they live through the grace of the Spirit, whose gift is sevenfold, as is handed down through Isaiah. Therefore salvation for the Gentiles is through the Spirit by faith. They recline on the ground; for they had not previously been laid down by any works of the law: but, clinging to the origin of their sins and of their bodies, they are called to the gift of the sevenfold Spirit. The indefinite number of the fish signifies the distributions and ministrations of the diverse gifts and graces: by which the faith of the Gentiles is satisfied with a diversity of graces.

But the fact that seven hampers are filled indicates the overflowing and multiplied abundance of the sevenfold Spirit, whose bounty overflows with what it bestows: and it becomes ever richer and fuller for us once we are satisfied. But the fact that four thousand men are gathered together signifies a multitude of innumerable people from the four parts of the world. For according to the pattern of what was to come, the people, numbered in so many thousands of parts, is satisfied, as if to signify how many thousands of believers would run together from each part to the gift of the heavenly food. The crowd, therefore, is dismissed satisfied and filled. And because 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 mark for recognizing Christ, the power of works.—And the Pharisees and Sadducees came to him, tempting, and asked him to show them a sign from heaven, and so on. The Pharisees and Sadducees are present, insolent in their trust in the law and disdaining the works of the power of faith, praying that a sign from heaven be shown to them. Beholding the humility of the flesh and body in Christ, they disdain to accept teaching from those things which he was doing under the guise of a man.

Mocking their insolence and vanity, he replied that they were accustomed to conjecture many things about the nature of the sky, when they pronounce fair or stormy weather from a reddish sunrise or evening: but that they did not know the signs of the times, since the whole law and the prophets signify the marks of his coming from the admiration of the works which he was performing: so that just as the redness of morning or evening gave assurance of the weather of the sky, so the marks of powers and works ought to render manifest the knowledge of the times.

Jonah, a figure of Christ.—But he set for them a sign arising from an earthly heaven, so as to keep them within the confession of bodily humility, saying that the sign of Jonah would be given: to whom the Lord compares himself, whom, in like manner, he had sent before to the Ninevites in the preaching of repentance, as a figure of the effect of his coming passion. For Jonah, when the winds raged, was thrown out of the ship, and swallowed by the sea-monster, and after three days sent forth alive, not held back by the monster, not consumed by the condition of being food: but, contrary to the nature of a human body, whole and unharmed, escapes into the upper air by the power of the Lord's prefiguration.

He shows, therefore, that this was established as a sign of his power, himself preaching the remission of sins through repentance, to be cast out from Jerusalem or the Synagogue by the dominating breath of unclean spirits, and to be handed over to the power of Pilate, that is, to the judgment of the age: and to be swallowed by death as by the monster of that same element: and after three days, emerging from it alive and incorrupt, not held back, contrary to the condition of the man he had assumed. Those things, therefore, which in the man taken up from the conception of the virgin were full of divine powers, he wished to be known and understood concerning himself both by the sign of the prophet and by the example of the man.

No hope remains in the works of the law, once the truth has arrived.—And leaving them, he departed.

Not as it is read in other places, that having dismissed the crowds he departed: but because the error of unbelief held the minds of the insolent, it is not written that he dismissed them, but that he left them. And when he had come across the strait, his disciples forgot to take bread. But Jesus said to them: Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. All obscurity concerning the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees is now resolved.

But the fact that the apostles are bidden to abstain from it means they are warned not to be mixed up with the teaching of the Jews

because the works of the law were established for the effect of faith and as a preformation of the things to follow: so that those into whose time and age the truth had come might not think that any further hope was placed in the likeness of truth; lest the teaching of the Pharisees, not knowing Christ, corrupt the effect of the evangelical truth.

The Son is both eternal God and also born.—But Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, and he questioned his disciples, and the rest.

In the progress of his discourse and work he affords the disciples a more complete knowledge of himself (that is, of himself), and establishes a certain form and reasoning for understanding him. Now this is the true and inviolable faith: that God the Son proceeded from the God of eternity (to whom, because he was always Son, there is always both the right and the name of Father; lest, if he were not always Son, he should not always be Father either), so that to him there is eternity from the eternity of his parent. But it was his will to be born, in whose power and might it lay that he should be born. Therefore the Son of God is God from God, one in both: for he received the theotes (which the Latins call deitas) of his eternal parent, from whom by being born he proceeded.

And he received this which he was; and the Word was born which was always in the Father.

And thus the Son is both eternal and born: because nothing else was born in him except that which is eternal.

He is Son of God and Son of man.—That he assumed a body, therefore, and was made man, is a perfect confession: because just as the eternity of our nature received a body, so it must be understood that the nature of our body can assume the power of eternity. Therefore, since this is the highest good in that faith, he asks of the disciples whom men said him to be; and he added, the Son of man. For this is the rule of confession to be held, that we should remember him as Son of God, and likewise as Son of man: because the one without the other bestows no hope of salvation.

Peter’s confession, according to Christ’s pleasure.—When, then, the various opinions men held about him had been set forth, he asks what they themselves think of him. Peter answered: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. But Peter had weighed the terms of the question. For the Lord had said: Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am? And indeed the contemplation of the body suggested the Son of man; but by adding, whom do they say that I am, he signified that, besides what was seen in him, something else was to be understood; for he was the Son of man. What judgment of opinion about himself, then, did he desire? We do not think it was that which he himself confessed; but it was the hidden thing that was being asked about, into which the faith of believers ought to extend itself.

The reward of confession.—And a fitting reward indeed followed Peter’s confession, because he had seen the Son of God in a man.

Blessed is he who is praised for having looked beyond and seen beyond human eyes: not gazing on that which was of flesh and blood, but beholding the Son of God by the revelation of the heavenly Father; and judged worthy to be the first to acknowledge what was of God in Christ. O happy foundation of the Church in the bestowal of a new name, and worthy rock for that building, which would dissolve the laws of hell, and the gates of Tartarus, and all the bars of death! O blessed doorkeeper of heaven, at whose discretion the keys of the eternal entrance are entrusted, whose earthly judgment is authority prejudged in heaven: so that whatever is bound or loosed on earth obtains the condition of that same decree also in heaven.

The witnesses of Christ’s divinity are the law and the prophets, of the resurrection the apostles.—He commands the disciples also that they should tell no one that he is the Christ: for it was fitting that other witnesses of his Spirit should exist, namely the law and the prophets. But the testimony of the resurrection is proper to the apostles. And because the blessedness of knowing Christ in the Spirit had been shown; again the danger of denying his humility and passion is declared.

Christ must be confessed as God and man.—For when he had begun to preach that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and then to suffer many things from the elders of the people, and from the Scribes and chief priests, to be killed even, and after the third day to rise again, Peter, taking hold of him, said: Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be. But he, turning, said to Peter: Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art a scandal to me. As it is a gift of God to know Christ as God in the Spirit; so again it is the devil’s work not to know Christ in man. And it is a matter of the same danger, either to deny the body without God, or to deny God without the body. But the body of this flesh in the eternity of the Spirit is nothing to God: yet for the sake of human salvation Christ is in a body, which he assumed from man.

The devil is the author of Peter’s unfaithfulness.

He is refuted by Christ with reproach.—Therefore, after the preaching of the passion, the devil, receiving the opportunity (for he had departed from him only for a time), since it seemed quite unbelievable to the apostles that he in whom God was should be capable of suffering, taking this occasion of human unfaithfulness, instilled in Peter the affection of this opinion. Accordingly he so detested the passion that he said, Far be it; a word which contains the abhorrence of things to be execrated. But the Lord, knowing the instigation of diabolical art, said to Peter: Get thee behind me: that is, that he should follow him by the example of the passion. But turning to the one through whom this opinion was being suggested, he added: Satan, thou art a scandal to me. For it is not fitting to think that the name of Satan and the offense of scandal were imputed to Peter, after such great proclamations of granted blessedness and power had just been made.

But because all unfaithfulness is the devil’s work, the Lord, offended by Peter’s response, with the reproach of that name, denounced the author of this unfaithfulness.

A happy loss of self.

The cross at least must be taken up willingly.—Then Jesus said to his disciples: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and the rest. O blessed loss, and happy detriment! The Lord wished us to grow rich by the loss of soul and body, and exhorts us to be like himself: because he, being constituted in the form of God, having become humble and obedient even unto death, received the sovereignty of all power which is in God. He is therefore to be followed by taking up the cross: and he is to be accompanied, if not in fact, at least in will, in his passion. For what does it profit to have occupied the world, and to lie brooding over the riches of the age with the whole dominion of earthly power, if the soul must be lost, and the detriment of life must be incurred? But what exchange for the soul shall be sought when it has been lost?

For Christ will be present with the angels, rendering to each according to his deserts. What shall we bring to life? Treasures of earthly wealth prepared, I suppose, for future dealings, ambitious titles of dignity and fame, or the old images of delicate nobility? All these must be renounced, that we may abound in better things: and Christ must be followed with contempt of all things, and the eternity of spiritual things must be purchased at the cost of earthly things.

The foregoing precepts had to be confirmed by no ordinary authority; they are soothed by the granted pledge of glory.—Amen, amen I say to you, that there are some standing here, who shall not taste death, until they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. The Lord teaches both by deeds and by words: and his discourse and his work equally instruct the faith of our hope. For he had laid a heavy burden upon human weakness, that, since men had begun to have the sense of life from the affection of living, they should lose the fruit of that which flattered them present in their bodies, and should deny themselves, that is, be unwilling to be what they had begun to be; since this sense had its beginning from the affection of the will: and then they should follow the opinion of an ambiguous and uncertain hope; since in those things which were held as present, the enticements of a flattering joy existed.

There was need, therefore, 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, by reason of the unambiguous gain of things to come thereafter. Therefore, after he had warned them both to take up the cross, and to lose the soul, and to exchange the eternity of life for the loss of the world, turning to the disciples he said that some of them would be such as would not taste death, until they should behold the Son of man in the glory of his kingdom. But by the condition of “tasting” he shows to the faithful a certain slight libation of death. And so the deed follows the words.

The Transfiguration.

Why three apostles are taken up. Why of the saints only Moses and Elijah are present.—For after six days, Peter, James and John are taken apart, and stand on a high mountain: and while they look on, the Lord is transfigured, and shines round about with the whole array of his brightness. And in this kind of deed, both the reason and the number and the example are preserved. For after six days the appearance of the Lord’s glory is shown: that is, when six thousand years of time have elapsed, the honor of the heavenly kingdom is prefigured. And by the taking of three, from the origin of the three, Sem, Ham and Japheth, the future election of the people is shown.

And that Moses and, of the whole number of the saints, Elijah, stand by him: Christ is in the kingdom midway between the law and the prophets; for with these he will judge Israel, by whose testimony he was proclaimed: and at the same time, that it might be taught that the glory of resurrection was decreed also for human bodies, since Moses stood there visible. But the Lord himself becomes whiter than snow and sun, that is, conspicuous, beyond our conception, with the splendor of heavenly light. But to Peter, offering that three tabernacles should be made there, nothing is answered: for it was not yet the time for remaining in that glory.

Christ’s precepts must be heard.

Why silence is enjoined on the Apostles.—But while he was yet speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and they were encompassed by the spirit of divine power. That this is the Son, this the beloved, this the one in whom he is well pleased, this the one to be heard, the voice from the cloud signifies: so that he himself might be the fitting author of such precepts, who, after the loss of the world, after the willingness of the cross, after the death of bodies, had confirmed by the example of the resurrection from the dead the glory of the heavenly kingdom. Then he raised up the terrified and dismayed disciples: and they saw him alone, whom they had seen standing between Moses and Elijah. For, as a form of the future, and as a confirmation of what had been done, Moses and Elijah had stood on the mountain.

He commands silence about the things they had seen, until he should rise from the dead; (for this reward of faith was reserved, that honor should be rendered to those with whom not merely the authority of precepts was found to be slight); for he had perceived them to be weak in hearing the voice: so that when they should be filled with the Holy Spirit, then they might be witnesses of spiritual deeds.

Anxious also about the times, they ask concerning Elijah.

To whom he answers that Elijah is to come, and to restore all things, that is, to call back to the knowledge of God whatever remnant he shall find from Israel. But he signifies that John came in the power and spirit of Elijah, in whom (against whom) they had exercised all manner of grave and harsh treatment: so that, in foretelling the coming of the Lord, he might also forerun the passion by the example of injury and vexation.

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 is presented by his father, falling on his knees, who often fell into the water and into the fire, whom the disciples had not been able to heal. These being rebuked, and the demon reproved, the boy was made whole.

The faith of the Apostles was at first imperfect.—The Apostles had indeed believed: yet their faith was not yet perfect.

For while the Lord was delaying on the mountain, and they themselves were sitting with the crowd, a certain lukewarmness had relaxed their faith; and for this reason he says: O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? Because, in his absence, the old habit of unfaithfulness had crept in. He teaches, therefore, that they can bring no salvation, who, in the middle time of the Gospels and of his second coming, should have fallen away from faith as though the Lord were absent.

By whom the devil is to be cast into the depth of hell.—Finally, to those asking him why they had not been able to cast out the demon, he answered that it had come about from a lack of faith: which, if it were in them like a grain of mustard seed, they would command this mountain, with the power of accomplishing it, to pass from place to place. But he had already come down from the mountain, and was saying these things among the crowds. And so he called himself the grain of mustard seed, the least of all, and he named the devil the mountain: because in him are the spiritual wickednesses and the heavenly powers to be cast out through them, and to be thrown into the depth of the sea as into the depth of hell, whom fasting and prayer will pursue unto this effect.

Under the name of the Apostles the Pharisees and Scribes are treated.—Let us also keep the order here, so that under the name of the disciples, the person of the Pharisees and Scribes is treated. To whom the law offered the people to be cared for as disciples, as a father his son, while the Lord was absent. Who, with sins ruling over them, now was falling into the fire of judgment, now was being submerged in the water of their daily filthy habit. These therefore brought no help: because, while Moses tarried with the Lord on the mountain, they had become unfaithful. And that the typical sense might be fulfilled, the disciples marvel that they were not able to cast out the demon: though all power, not only of putting demons to flight, but even of raising the dead, had been granted.

But because the law was not going to be with these any longer, he says: O faithless and perverse generation (this does not seem to be said to those whom he had sanctified), how long, he says, shall I be with you? Because, not having faith, they were about to lose that very law which they had. Which faith if they had had in themselves, since he himself is the grain of mustard seed, by the power of the word this burden of sins, and the heavy mass of unbelief, they would have cast out from him who was being offered to them, since he, exalting and lifting himself up against God, casting the people out, as a mountain into the sea, so they would have transferred it to the manner of life of the nations and of the world.

Now while they were dwelling in Galilee, Jesus said: The Son of man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.

Sorrow follows the knowledge of the passion: for the mystery of entering upon the cross had not yet been revealed by the power of the resurrection.

What the payment of the didrachma established by the law signifies.—And when Jesus had come to Capernaum, they that exacted 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 the price of bronze: that by so small an expenditure a certain redemption should be granted for the sins of body and soul. That therefore we, inscribed and professed and sealed with the name of Christ, might be offered in Christ, who is the true temple of God, for the testimony of the Son of God, this offering of the didrachma was established.

Christ the Redeemer has no need of the price of redemption.—And so, after Peter had been silent following the agreement, he anticipated him with such a saying: What thinkest thou, Simon? The kings of the earth, from whom do they receive tribute or census? Is it doubtful that the sons of kings are not liable to tributes; and that those to whom the inheritance of the kingdom belongs, are free from servitude? But the saying intends something deeper. The didrachma was demanded from the people. For the law is enclosed unto that faith which was to be revealed through Christ. Therefore this same didrachma, by custom of the law, was demanded of Christ as though of a man.

But that he might show that he was not subject to the law, and that he might attest in himself the glory of the Father's dignity, he set forth the example of earthly privilege: that the sons of kings are not held by census or tributes, and that he rather is the redeemer of our soul and body, than that anything should be demanded for his own redemption; because it was fitting that the king's son be outside the fellowship of the rest—offense therefore he affords that it be paid, but otherwise he is free from the debt of the law.

Then, by the working of present things, he set forth both the meaning of the law and the constancy of evangelical liberty: so that it might readily be known what the didrachma prefigured in the law. Peter is bidden to go to the sea, and cast a hook, and seek the mouth of the first fish coming up, and, the stater having been found in it, to offer it for himself and the Lord. The Lord is asked for the didrachma, that is, two denarii; why does Peter offer a stater (containing four denarii)? Then, when he is bidden to seek out the first fish, more are also shown as about to come up. Would even the nature of fish allow that one found by chance on the shore should rather hold the stater in its mouth, not conceal it within its bowels? There is therefore an inner reason underlying the accomplishment of these present things.

For Peter, destined for preaching, and made a fisher of men, cast the hook of teaching into the world, by whose sweetness he might draw out those wandering and tossed by it, who were caught upon it. To this hook that blessed first martyr adhered, who held in his mouth the fourfold denarius: that is, in the unity of the evangelical number, beholding the glory of God and the Lord Christ in his passion, he preached it. Stephen therefore came up first, Stephen held the stater in his mouth: in which also the didrachma of the new preaching, as it were two denarii, was contained. This the law prefigured, carrying about the shadow of this truth, as it were the image of a body; by this the redemption of soul and body was designated: and therefore he says, Give for me and for thee: because now it was not such a didrachma, but a stater, that was to be paid both for Christ and for the preaching of Christ.

Believing children.

The disposition of children. In that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Who, thinkest thou, is the greater in the kingdom of heaven? And the rest. The Lord teaches that none but those who have returned into the nature of children enter the kingdom of heaven, that is, the vices of our bodies and soul are to be recalled into childlike simplicity. Now he named all who believe through the faith of hearing, children. For these follow their father, love their mother, know not how to wish evil to their neighbor, neglect the care of riches: they do not grow insolent, do not hate, do not lie, believe what is told them, and hold what they hear to be true. And this custom and will of all these dispositions, taken up in us, affords a passable path to the heavens. We must therefore return to the simplicity of infants: because, established in it, we shall bear about the likeness of the Lord's humility.

It would be better for the Jews, along with the Gentiles, to have not known God, than to have not received Christ.—But if any shall receive such in the name of Christ, they shall obtain the reward of Christ received: But whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones, that is, whoever shall bring in the stumbling-block of temptation, it is expedient for him that a millstone be hanged about his neck, and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea. So many and such great things have not been idly compared: both the millstone, and the ass-driven kind, and being submerged with it in the sea, and this being expedient for him. By the common sense of all, what is expedient is always useful. What use then is there in being submerged with a millstone hung about the neck? For so grievous a death will avail unto punishment: and I know not how it will be useful to seek out that which is the last of evils.

What therefore ought to be understood must be inquired.

The work of the mill is the labor of blindness: for with the eyes of the beasts of burden shut, they are driven around in a circle. And under the name of the ass, we frequently find the Gentiles designated. Therefore the Gentiles do not know what they do: and, held fast in the work of their life, they are kept in the ignorance of blind labor. But to the Jews the path of knowledge was afforded in the law. If these had scandalized the apostles of Christ, it would have been more fitting for them to be drowned in the sea with a millstone bound to their neck, that is, weighed down by the labor of the Gentiles, to remain in the ignorance of the world: because it would have been more tolerable for those not to have known Christ, than for these not to have received him who was prophesied.

The scandal of the cross necessary, and how perilous it is.—Woe to this world because of scandals.

For it must needs be that scandals come; but woe to that man by whom the scandal comes. The humility of the passion is a scandal to the world. For in this above all human ignorance is held fast, that under the deformity of the cross it is unwilling to accept the Lord of eternal glory. And what is so perilous to the world as not to have received Christ? Yet under the designation of "man," he marks out the Jewish people as author of this scandal, through whom all this peril is procured for the world, that they should deny Christ in his passion, whom the law and the prophets had foretold as capable of suffering. Therefore he truly says that scandals must needs come: because unto the mystery of eternity to be restored to us, all the humility of his passion had to be fulfilled in him.

Above we explained that in the cutting off of hand or foot, kinship is contained under those names: and therefore it signifies that the kinship of the race of Israel must be forsaken, as by a certain amputation of members, because through it scandals are procured for the world.

The care of angels for us.—See that you despise not one of these little ones, who believe in me.

He has imposed a most strict bond of mutual love, especially toward those who have truly believed in the Lord. For the angels of the little ones daily see God: because the Son of man came to save that which was lost. Therefore both 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 an absolute authority. Therefore the angels daily offer to God the prayers of those saved through Christ. Therefore he is dangerously despised, whose desires and petitions are carried up to the eternal and invisible God by the eager attendance and ministry of angels.

The one straying sheep, man.

The ninety-nine not straying, the angels. Their number is made complete out of men.—And that he might show how great is the joy in heaven at the return of human salvation, he set forth the example of a comparison, of one who left ninety-nine sheep in the mountains, and sought the one that strayed: which being found, there is more joy than was had in the preservation of the ninety-nine. The one sheep is to be understood as man, and under the one man, the whole of understanding is to be taken. But in the error of the one Adam the whole human race went astray; therefore the ninety-nine not straying are to be reckoned the multitude of the heavenly angels, to whom in heaven belongs the joy and care of human salvation.

Therefore both he who seeks the man is Christ; and the ninety-nine left behind are the multitude of heavenly glory: to which, with the greatest joy, the straying man is restored in the body of the Lord. Rightly therefore this number, through the letter, is both added to Abraham and completed in Sarah: for from Abram he is named Abraham, and from Sarai she receives the name Sarah. For in the one Abraham we are all: and through us, who are all one, the number of heavenly glory is to be completed. And therefore all creation also awaits the revelation of the sons of God: and therefore it groans together and grieves, that the number which was added to Abraham through the alpha, and which was completed in the alpha in Sarah, might be fulfilled unto the heavenly constitution by the increase of believers.

The order of correction kept by God toward the Jews.—But if thy brother shall have sinned against thee, go and rebuke him, and the rest. The Lord has imposed on us that order of maintaining charity, which he himself had kept in preserving Israel: for he commands that a sinning brother be rebuked and reproved by him alone, against whom he has sinned. For he himself rebuked the Jewish people, sacrificing to strange gods, by the coming of his majesty, and with all the terror of his present power.

And then, when that same people could not bear the coming approach of God, though placed outside the mountain, he commanded that even to the disobedient one or two be brought in, that in the mouth of two witnesses the faith of the word and the truth might stand: because to the insolent Israel the law and the prophets and John were sent, and, admonished by these witnesses to cease from sinning, they were finally admonished by the third coming of the Lord himself, as it were by the assembly of the Church looking on: and these rebukes having been held in vain, they were disregarded with the vileness of a publican or a heathen.

The power of binding and loosing given to the apostles.—But to instill the terror of the greatest fear, by which all should be restrained for the present time, he set forth beforehand the unshakable judgment of apostolic severity: that those whom they have bound on earth—that is, left entangled in the knots of sins—and those whom they have loosed—namely, received into salvation by confession that brings pardon—these, by the condition of apostolic sentence, should also be either loosed or bound in heaven.

God denies nothing to the merit of unity.—He was so concerned, therefore, for the concord of human peace, that he affirms that by the merit of unity all things which are to be sought from God shall be obtained; and where two or three are gathered together in like spirit and desire, there he promises that he himself will be in their midst. For he himself, being peace and charity, will establish his seat and dwelling in good and peaceable wills.

God forgiving us without measure, wills that we too forgive others without measure.

In Cain the punishment of murderers, in Lamech that of Christ-killers, is foreshadowed.—When Peter then 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 instructs us to the likeness of his own humility and goodness, and, to soften and break the stings of our turbulent passions, he confirms by his own example his placability: granting indeed the pardon of all sins through faith. For the vices of our nature did not merit indulgence. Therefore all pardon comes from him: since even those sins which are against himself he forgives after the return of confession. The penalty to be paid through Cain was fixed at sevenfold: but that sin was against a man; for the sin against Abel his brother had gone as far as murder.

But in Lamech the penalty was fixed at up to seventy times seven; and in him, as we judge, the punishment fixed was against the authors of the Lord’s passion. But the Lord grants pardon for this crime through the confession of believers, that is, through the gift of baptism he grants the grace of salvation even to those who mocked and persecuted him: how much more does he show that pardon ought to be given by us without measure or number, and that we should not reckon how often we forgive; but rather that we should cease being angry with those who sin against us, however often the occasion for anger may arise? This constancy of pardon certainly teaches that there ought to be no time at all among us for anger: since God grants us pardon for absolutely all sins rather by his own gift than by our merit.

For it is not right that we should be confined by the prescription of the law to a fixed number of pardons to be granted, since through the grace of the Gospel it has been granted to us by God without measure.

Moreover, he set forth an example of comparison for the affection of perfect goodness, in which the Lord forgave the entire debt to a servant who had nothing with which to pay: and that servant, exacting from his fellow servant the small sum owed to him, through this fault of his own will lost the gift of the Lord’s munificence and generosity. The reason of this comparison is complete, and has been fully expounded by the Lord himself.

Then the Pharisees came to him, testing him, and saying: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause?

In this discourse, which concerns the wife and divorce, there occurs the fact that it is written otherwise in Genesis than the Lord now speaks in the present instance. 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 both formed the man and made the woman.

But we, following apostolic authority, who has declared this to be a great mystery, and that he himself understands it in Christ and in the Church, let us leave this passage untouched as it is. We advise the reader, however, that whenever he consults himself on this same question, he should carefully note the force of the words, both those with which the Lord answered, and those which the disciples used: and let him weigh the treatment of the apostle Paul on this matter, whether silent about it, or at times dealing with it in other places. In one place he set forth nature, in another necessity, in a third will: nature in him who is born so, necessity in him who has been made so, will in him who by hope of the heavenly kingdom has determined to be such: to whom he admonished us to become like, if indeed we can.

Infants, the Gentiles, are held back by the disciples out of favor toward Israel.—Then infants were brought to him, that he might lay hands on them and pray: But the disciples rebuked them, and so forth. It is a strange thing that the disciples forbade infants from coming to Christ, who were being offered so that he might lay his hand upon them and pray. The gospel事 as we have said, tempered a fitting and intermediate reason between the effect of the present and of the future, so that the appearance of the future adhered to the things being done. The infants indeed were truly brought forward, but truly also held back. But these are the figure of the Gentiles, to whom salvation is given through faith and hearing. But from the affection, first, of wishing Israel to be saved, they are held back by the disciples from approaching. The will to forbid indeed does not fit with apostolic gentleness: but into the typical fulfillment of the forbidding of the infants an instinct steals in.

Of these the Lord says that they ought not to be forbidden

because of such is the kingdom of heaven: for the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands and prayer, the work of the law ceasing, was to be bestowed upon the Gentiles.

The insolence of the Jews foreshadowed in the young man.

In what sense Christ is not "good."—And behold, one came to him, and said: Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? And so forth. Fittingly, after the previous discourse, in which the infants were forbidden, and it was answered that of such is the kingdom of heaven, this young man follows, asking by what good works he might have eternal life. This young man both asked, and was insolent, and again became sorrowful: and all the things that are written happened and were accomplished. But we have noted that the things done under God bore in advance the form of the effects to follow in the present: and thus in the heavenly Scriptures every discourse has always been so tempered that it fits no less the things that were being done than the likeness of the things that were to be done.

This young man, then, bears the figure of the Jewish people, insolent in the law, and expecting nothing from Christ beyond the precepts of Moses. To whom 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, whose office it will be to punish the impious and unjust, refrained from the name of goodness, reserving this name for God the Father alone, who, by appointing him judge, freed himself from the office of severity: not because he himself was not also good, but because as judge he would exercise fitting severity toward him.

The Jews, boasting in the law, are convicted by the law itself of having done nothing right.—He therefore sends back to the law this man, insolent

because of the law and anxious about salvation, so that in that very law in which he gloried he might understand that he had thereby done no right work. For the Lord answered him with the words of the law. But the young man, like the insolent and boasting people, trusted in the law, though he had obeyed none of it. For he had been commanded not to kill: he had killed the prophets. Not to commit adultery: he had brought corruption upon the faith, and adultery upon the law, and had worshiped strange gods. Not to steal: he, before Christ restored the freedom of believing in faith, had by theft dissolved the precepts of the law. Not to bear false witness: he it was who then denied Christ risen from the dead.

He was commanded to honor father and mother: he had cut himself off from the household of God the Father and of the Church the mother. He was commanded to love his neighbor as himself: he persecuted Christ, who assumed the body of us all, and who by the condition of the assumed body became neighbor to each one of us, even unto the punishment of the cross. He was therefore commanded, once these vices were laid down and cut away, to return to the law.

They are urged to pass from the shadow of the law to the truth of the Gospel.—But he answers that he had done all these things from his youth: and asks what more remains to him. But, as we have said, he had not even done those former things to which he is sent back, and, boasting in them as though perfect, he says this. To whom the Lord answers, that all his goods must be sold and given to the poor: and then he would be perfect, and would have treasure in heaven.

This answer is given indeed to this young man—that most beautiful and most useful precept of forsaking the world, by which, at the cost of earthly substance, the riches of heaven are to be bought: but in that he is bidden to sell his goods and give to the poor, he is admonished to abandon confidence in the law, and to exchange it for a happy commerce: and to remember that in the law there is a shadow of that truth which is henceforth to be distributed to the poor, that is, to the Gentiles, under the very body of the truth itself; and that no one can accomplish this except one who has begun to follow Christ.

What it means that the young man testifies he has served the law from his youth.—But the young man, hearing these things, went away sorrowful: for he had great confidence in his wealth from the law. And in this too the reasoning of the typical significance is preserved, that although this is signified to be a young man (adolescens), he himself had earlier said that from all his youth (juventus) he had served these precepts contained in the law: whereas adolescence falls within youth, and the later stage of life cannot be contained within the bounds of the earlier. But this was so ordered, that by this serving "from youth," he might show that the time of the people's labor in the law was already long.

For proud Israel, the entrance to heaven is difficult.—Then the Lord, having learned of the young man's sorrow, answered that it is difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Israel, as we have said, boasted of being rich in the confidence of the law. For him the entrance into heaven is difficult, holding on to old riches under the name of Abraham with the empty ambition of lineage.

The fault lies not in having, but in the manner of having.

The care of riches is perilous.—He added further 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 fault, but the manner of having must be observed. For how is one to share, how is one to give in common, if no material for sharing and giving in common is left? Therefore it becomes a fault to have harmfully, rather than the having itself. But it is a perilous concern to wish to grow rich: and innocence takes on a heavy burden when occupied with the increase of wealth. For a man attains the affairs of the world, in the service of God, not without the vices of the world itself. Hence it is difficult for the rich man to approach the kingdom of heaven.

And also, since many could rightly use what they have, the reasoning in the Lord's saying was kept such that it should not be understood absolutely that no one could enter the kingdom of heaven; but rather that the rarity of those who would do so could be understood from the difficulty. And these things indeed pertain to the understanding of the simple sense: but the same course of the inner meaning must be kept in view.

Why the entrance to heaven is difficult for the Jews.—The young man, as we have said, being insolent, when he is bidden to make loss of the law, becomes sorrowful and sad. But for this people the cross and the passion are a scandal; and for this reason there is for him no salvation from it. But he boasts in the law, and spurns the Gentiles as coheirs, and refuses to pass over into evangelical liberty: and therefore he will enter the kingdom of heaven with difficulty. For few of them, and quite rare in comparison with the multitude of the Gentiles, were to believe: so that it was with difficulty that they would bend their will, hardened in the law, to the preaching of evangelical humility.

It is difficult for the Gentiles. The nature of the camel.—But it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. The camel does not fit with the eye of a needle: nor can the shapelessness of so huge a beast be received into the narrow confines of so tiny an opening. But at the beginning of the book, we noted that under the clothing of John, in the camel, the Gentiles are signified. For this beast obeys words, is restrained by fear, is patient of fasting, and yields to its burden by a certain rule of discipline: by whose example the savagery of the Gentiles is softened into obedience to the heavenly precepts. These, then, enter the very narrow path of the kingdom of heaven: namely the needle, which is the preaching of the new word, through which the wounds of bodies are sewn up, and the torn garments are mended again, and death itself is pierced.

This, therefore, is the path of this new preaching: into which the shapelessness of the Gentiles will more easily enter than the opulence of the rich man, that is, of one glorying in the law.

Summary of the sacred text.—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, but possible with God. Again, in response to the Lord's words, they reply that they have left all things and are with him. To whom the Lord promises that, when he shall sit upon the seat of his majesty, they shall sit upon twelve seats and shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel likewise; and that to all who have left everything for his name's sake, the fruit of a hundredfold reward is reserved: but that many of the last shall be first, and of the first shall be last.

It must be understood spiritually.—There are many things which do not allow us to take the words of the Gospel in a simple sense. For with certain matters interposed which are contrary to themselves according to the nature of human sense, we are admonished to seek the reason of a heavenly understanding. The apostles say both that they follow Christ, and that they have left everything: how then do they become sorrowful, and how do they fear, saying that no one can be saved? For it could have been done by others too, if they had done something. Then, since they themselves had done it, whence and why was this fear taken up? It is added also in the Lord's answer, that these things are impossible with men, but possible with God. Were these things impossible with men, which the apostles both boast of having done, and which the Lord acknowledges they had done: and thereafter many more even unto the blessedness of martyrdom would leave all things?

Or is there anything of which God could stand in need; and is anything left over, which must be pursued at the cost of the loss of what one has, so that it is possible for him alone to do this? Therefore this whole discourse is spiritual.

To the apostles no salvation seemed possible without the Law.—For the apostles, hearing spiritually that no one could be saved from the law, since they themselves were also then in the law; for a vehement love of the law and favor toward it held them fast: these, therefore, not yet having fully discovered the truth of the evangelical mystery, fear that no one can be saved without the law: because even then they placed all salvation in the law. But the Lord, by a brief and complete account, dissolves both their ignorance and their fear, saying, This indeed is impossible with men, but possible with God. For what seems to the Jew so devoid of effect, as that, more than one expecting salvation from man and from the law, in the scandal of the cross the legislation, and the testament, and the adoption, and the inheritance should be set aside?

But what is so possible to the power of God, as that he should save through faith, regenerate through water, conquer through the cross, adopt through the Gospels, and give life through the resurrection out of death?

What regeneration is.

The hundredfold fruit.—Having heard these things the apostles quickly believe, and profess that they have left everything. But the Lord quickly rewards this obedience of theirs, resolving all the difficulty of the earlier question, when he says: You who have followed me in the regeneration shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel. They followed in the regeneration, in the washing 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 upon twelve thrones in judging the twelve tribes of Israel, in the glory of the twelve patriarchs. To the others also who follow him through contempt of the world, he promises the abundance of the hundredfold fruit. This is the hundredfold fruit, which is fulfilled with heavenly joy in the hundredth sheep. This is the hundredfold fruit, which the fertility of the perfect earth attains.

This is the honor of the Church already destined in the surname of Sarah, and which must be earned at the cost of the law and by evangelical faith: and thus the last are to be made first, because the first are made last.

The householder.

The vineyard. The denarius. The marketplace.—The kingdom of heaven is like a man, a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers, and so on. The whole comparison is complete in itself: but it must be distinguished by persons and discerned by times. This householder must be understood as our Lord Jesus Christ: who, having care of the whole human race, has at every time called all to the cultivation of the law. But the vineyard we understand to signify the work and obedience of the law itself; and the denarius, the reward of that obedience. And we have already treated of the denarius above. Concerning the vineyard, however, we shall give a more fitting account in what follows. But that the marketplace is taken for the world, the matter itself instructs us, equally always tumultuous with the crowds of men, with the contentions of slanders and injuries, and with the difficulties of diverse affairs.

The five testaments.

When Christ was born in the flesh.—In the first hour, then, must be known the time of the covenant established with Noah, from the signification of the morning; the third hour points to Abraham, the sixth to Moses, the ninth to David and the prophets. For that many testaments were established for the human race are found, according to each successive going out to the marketplace as they are enumerated day by day. But the eleventh hour shows the time of the Lord's bodily advent; for out of the whole number that is constituted in the span of the present age, his birth from Mary agrees with that proportion which the time of the eleventh hour bears to the day. For, division being made by the number five hundred, in the whole sum of six thousand years, the time of his bodily birth is reckoned at the eleventh count of the whole division.

The Jews begrudge the Gentiles their grace.—And indeed the word to the laborers of the eleventh hour is different.

For to the first, but also to the others, it was said: Go into the vineyard: yet the reward of the denarius was fixed with the first; for to the others there is the promised hope of a just payment, 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 Gentiles was not thereby excluded from the law. Who answered: No man has hired us. For it was owed that the Gospel be preached throughout the world, and that the Gentiles be saved by the justification of faith. These, then, are sent into the vineyard. And when it began to be evening, the first laborers receive from the house the wages fixed for the whole day's labor at the hour of evening.

Indeed no wage is owed as a gift, because it is due for work; but God has granted his free grace to all out of the justification of faith: but according to the insolence of the people already contumacious under Moses, hence comes the murmuring of the laborers, hence the envy at the free wage, that without the difficulty of long labor, and without the heat of a long day burning upon them under the name of the diabolic instigation, the same reward should be given to the laborers. But therefore what is impossible with men is possible with God: that he might bestow, as a gift of grace through faith, upon those who believe as the first out of the last, the reward of the law kept perfectly and blamelessly.

And Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples, and said to them: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and so on.

Now, since the apostles were about to hear it without scandal, the Lord explains the sacrament of the cross (indeed no sorrow follows upon this speech): the earlier discourse having confirmed, namely, that through faith in the cross the last would become first; but that for the rich, that is, for those trusting in the law and taking scandal at that same cross, the path of the kingdom of heaven would be impassable.

The mother of the sons of Zebedee, the law; his sons, the believing Jews.—Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and so on. It is not to be thought that this happened without some deeper significance of things, that the mother of the sons of Zebedee should entreat the Lord. Did not the sons themselves have the familiarity to ask? But it was necessary that this be prophesied by the outcome of events. The apostles indeed had already believed on account of the law, which had nourished them into the evangelical faith. And so in the mother of the sons of Zebedee the law is to be understood, which, out of confidence in its own privilege, entreats on behalf of the peoples believing from it. And because she had heard earlier that the last would be first, and the first last, she prays that this be granted to her sons, that in the Lord's kingdom one might sit at his right hand, the other at his left.

To whom the Lord answered, that she did not know what she was asking.

Nothing indeed was doubted concerning the glory of the apostles, and the earlier discourse had declared that they would judge. Then, in the middle of the discourse, he asks whether they could drink his cup. He was not speaking, of course, of an ordinary drink of a cup; for there is no labor in drinking from a cup: but he asks about the cup of the sacrament of the passion. And they, who already possessed the freedom and constancy of martyrdom, promise that they will drink it. The Lord, praising their faith, says that they indeed could suffer together with him in martyrdom; but that to sit at his left and right had been arranged by God the Father for others.

Who are destined to sit with Christ in the kingdom.—And indeed, as far as we may judge, this honor is reserved for others in such a way that the apostles will not, however, be alien from it: who, sitting in the seat of the twelve patriarchs, will judge Israel. And as far as it is permitted to perceive from the Gospels themselves, in the kingdom of heaven Moses and Elijah will sit. 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; having taken Peter, James, and John, he appeared in the garb of his own glory, with Moses and Elijah accompanying him on the mountain. And we understand these very same two prophets to be those who go before his coming, whom the Apocalypse of John says are to be slain by the antichrist: although various opinions of many have arisen concerning Enoch or Jeremiah, that one of them must die as Elijah did.

But we cannot corrupt, by the opinion of our own understanding, the fidelity of the truth which the Lord revealed by the three witnesses named above: nor should we suppose that others are to come, other than those who have been seen to come to the pledge of faith. And although it is not necessary to conjecture beyond the evangelical truth: yet if anyone diligently examines the condition both of the death and of the burial and of the sepulcher of Moses, and has attained knowledge of the hidden Scriptures, according to the Apostle's authority; he will understand that all things have been so arranged, that Moses could already have been seen. And these things have been said for the sake of instruction.

Two callings from among the Jews; for these the apostles desire fellowship in their glory.—Moreover, that the reasoning of the spiritual understanding might be complete, the mother prayed to the Lord on behalf of two. For there are two callings out of Israel: one of the disciples of John, the other, through the apostles, of the Pharisees. For after the passion of John we read above that his disciples passed over to the Lord. Therefore it is prayed for two, because these twin callings believed in the Gospel of Christ. After this, then, the ten disciples were saddened concerning the two brothers: but there is no sorrow in the two disciples themselves. Reason does not allow that one become sorrowful because of the affront to another. Certainly the ten also could have been sorrowful on their own behalf; for under the names of the two this seemed to be denied to all; but the typical order was preserved.

The apostles were certain concerning themselves: therefore they are sorrowful only concerning the two

because they too desired fellowship in this glory for these two callings, which are from the law. For thus does the account regulate the reason both of the future and of the present, so that it should be written that neither the ten nor the two were anxious for themselves, and that in the anxiety of the ten concerning the two, obedience should be given to the working out of the present matter.

Glory is attained by humility.—Wishing therefore to show us the property of this prefiguration, and this presumption of those who were to come from the law, who wished to presume upon the prerogative of the Israelite name; he teaches that headship is to be seized not merely as the nations do, but that ministers and those who serve, and not those to whom service is rendered, are to be called to the glory of highest honor: namely by the example of the patriarchs and prophets who served, by the example also of the apostles who ministered, by the example too of the Lord who spent his soul for the redemption of our salvation. But he instructs them concerning the glory of this humility by the manner of a supper and a feast: warning that one ought not to recline in the more prominent places, lest perhaps, when one who is more distinguished arrives, being warned by the host of the feast that his place is taken, he depart with fitting shame.

But moreover, if he has reclined in the lowly places, when the more lowly arrive, he shall come to the glory of the loftier place.

And thus it is fitting not to presume upon any honor, but to deserve it by works of humility.

Two blind men, the nations from Ham and Japheth.

They proclaim Christ God.—“And as they went out from Jericho, a great crowd followed him: and behold two blind men sitting by the way heard that Jesus was passing by,”. Above, through the figure of the two sons of Zebedee, the matter of the Israelite people, who had arisen from the seed of Shem, was treated. Fittingly, therefore, two blind men sit by the way: namely the two peoples of the nations, begotten from Ham and Japheth, watch for his going out and his journey, and beg that sight be restored to them who are blind. Then the crowd rebukes them for crying out, and chides them to be silent: not because they demanded silence for the sake of honor, but because they hear bitterly from the blind men what they were denying, that the Lord is the Son of David.

For when the minds of the blind were illumined, God was being proclaimed in the man, so that what was said by the Lord might be true: “I came into the judgment of this world, that those who see might not see, but the blind might see”. But they cry out the more; and while the people of the law delay, they attest the more fervent heat of their faith. But the Lord has mercy, and asks what they wish. They, however, beg that their eyes be opened. Having mercy on them he touched their eyes, and restored to them the sight of knowing God. And that the type of the nations who were to believe might be fulfilled, having received the knowledge of heavenly grace, those who had been blind, now seeing, followed their Lord.

In the previous chapter two callings from Israel were signified; now an equal number from the nations are foreshown.—“Then Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying: Go into the village which is over against you,”. Two disciples are sent to the village, to loose the ass tied, with her colt, and lead them to him: and if anyone should ask why this is done, they are to answer that they are needed by the Lord, and will be sent back at once. After the preceding discourse, in which we recalled that a twofold calling from Israel was signified in the two sons of Zebedee, fittingly now two disciples are appointed to loose the ass and the colt: because a twofold calling of the people was to follow from the nations. For there were, and are, the Samaritans, who had once departed by secession from the law, and who served under a certain custom of their own observance; and there were also the untamed and fierce nations.

Therefore two are sent, to loose those bound and tied, and hindered by the bonds of error and ignorance: and they are sent outside Jerusalem; for outside it these two callings were held. But the mother of the sons of Zebedee prayed to the Lord within Jerusalem: for by two callings Israel is saved either through the apostles or through John from the law. But indeed, they equally through the name of the two callings of their own people have suffered.

Samaria believed through Philip; but through Peter, Cornelius was brought to Christ as the firstfruits of the nations.

But that they are instructed to answer, when asked, that they are needed by the Lord and will presently be sent back, means that these very ones are to be rendered as preachers of the evangelical faith to their own people. Thus the prophecy was fulfilled, which announced that the Lord would come into Jerusalem mounted on an ass and a new colt. But the prophecy is fulfilled by the effects of the deeds. For the ass, which is loosed from the village and brought forth, is Samaria—held indeed by a foreign and alien dominion—loosed through the apostles, and restored to its own Lord. But the colt the same Lord mounts, new, untamed, hard: and all these are the vices of gentile ignorance, which are mastered, and so many ferocities of souls have become a mount for God.

The garments which the patriarchs and prophets spread beneath the Lord.

What the branches cut by the apostles signify.—All this whole spectacle holds the order of the future: and by parabolic significations, and by the conditions of present things, the form of the future is set forth in advance. For the Lord will be, at the coming of his glory, possessing the nations; and sitting as it were mounted upon their minds, he will be proclaimed accompanied by the whole train of his retinue, of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. For the patriarchs spread their glory in garments beneath the Lord: for by their generations, and names, and persecutions the Lord was prophesied. And granting to him all the adornment of their dignity, and spreading themselves as his seat, they teach that all their glory had been laid down in preparation for the Lord’s coming.

There too the Prophets spread their garments upon the road of him as he comes; for they foretold this way by which God would be carried among the nations: and they, having set aside love of the world, by offering themselves to deaths and stonings, in a certain manner stripped themselves of their very bodies, offered for the entrance of such a way. The Apostles also spread branches cut from trees after the garments: but in this there is no regard of human courtesy. For the branches would hinder one walking, and would make the way entangled for the entrance of one in haste: but the whole reasoning of the prophecy is unfolded, and the form of the future is preserved.

Therefore the branches of the unfruitful nations, that is, the fruits of the once unbelieving nations, are spread through the apostles upon the way of the Lord, and are justified by the entrance of the Savior: and through them he proceeds, and it becomes a most pleasing service to God as he advances, made from the branches of a barren root.

The conflicting feelings of the people toward Christ.—“But the crowd, both 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 he merit hatred out of favor? But indeed the words of praise express the power of redemption in him. For hosanna in the Hebrew tongue signifies the redemption of the house of David. Then they call him Son of David, in whom they might acknowledge the inheritance of the eternal kingdom. Finally they confess him blessed who comes in the name of the Lord. And yet it was these very ones who were soon to shout “Crucify the blasphemer.” But present deeds carry out the form of the future; and although the feelings of those among whom these things were done were in conflict, and although diverse outcomes were soon to follow, nevertheless the working of things, even of the unwilling, meditates the faith of heavenly matters.

Then Jerusalem is stirred; for the novelty of the events brought commotion to those astonished.

Those selling doves

that is, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, are cast out of the temple.—He entered the temple, that is, the church, by the entrance of the preaching handed down by himself. From which he first casts out, by right of authority, all the vices of priestly ministry: for he had handed down that all things should be rendered by all freely, which they had received freely: because the liberty of the gift ought not to admit that anything be bought through the corruption of the priest, or sold. He overturns also the seats, especially of those selling doves. For what dignity is there in the market of doves? Or what privilege has been reserved in the commerce of these birds, that those selling them should arrogate to themselves the honor of seats? But we are warned in every place that the powers of the words are to be regarded more deeply in significations of this kind.

In the dove, according to the examples of prophecy, we understand the Holy Spirit; in the seat, is the seat of the priesthood.

Therefore he overturns the seats of those who hold the gift of the Holy Spirit for sale, for whom the ministry committed by God has become trade; recalling the authority of his warning, which is held in the prophet. For it is written: “My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves”. But it is not to be thought that the Jews could either buy in the Synagogue, or sell the Holy Spirit. For they did not have that which could be sold; nor was there anything that anyone could buy: but the prefiguration of things to come is contained in these present words, that the vices of the Church are to be purged at the very coming of the Lord’s glory.

He also healed infirmities of the blind and lame in the temple: and the favor of the people followed his public works. But the chief priests are envious of the cries of the children, and warn him why he hears these things; for the redemption of the house of David was being proclaimed. To whom he answered, that they had not read: “Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise”: for when the judgments of the wise have ceased, this glory of confession has been prepared for himself from children and infants, whose is the kingdom of heaven; because the wise and the princes of the age have rejected the wisdom of God, but Christ was to be proclaimed by the little ones and sucklings of regeneration: “And having said these things he left the city, and went out, and remained in Bethany”. Namely, leaving the unbelieving Synagogue, he dwells in the Church of the nations.

The fig tree lacking fruit, not leaves.

The Synagogue.—“And in the morning, returning into the city, he was hungry: and seeing a fig tree by the way, he came to it,” and the rest. The same order of heavenly things is again set forth in advance. For in the fig tree an example is placed of the Synagogue. For, a space of penitence being granted—namely that time which lies between the passion and the return of glory—he will come hungering for the salvation of this people, and will find it barren, clothed only with leaves, that is, glorying in empty words, but void of fruits, indeed sterile of good works, and bare of the produce expected. And because the time for repentance shall have passed, by the sentence of the heavenly judgment it will wither forever. And in this indeed we shall find an argument of the Lord’s goodness.

For where he wished to withdraw the example of the salvation procured by himself, he exercised the power of his virtue upon human bodies, commending the hope of things to come and the salvation of the soul to the care of present ailments. But now, where he was establishing a form of severity against the obstinate, he indicated the image of the future by the loss of the tree, so that the peril of unbelief might be taught without harm to those for whose redemption he had come.

Sterility’s condemnation is eternal.

The right of faith.—The disciples marvel that the tree withered at that very moment when the word was spoken: because the efficacy of the present deed bore forth the image of the future. For when he shall come in the heavenly kingdom, in that very time of his coming the sterility of Jewish unbelief will be met by the sentence of eternal condemnation. The Lord confirms to them (the disciples), that if they have faith, they shall be able not only to do these things, but even greater than these. They indeed were to judge Israel, according to the promises given before: but they were also to obtain all right over the devil, whom he calls a mountain. For he says thus: “If you have faith, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you shall say to this mountain, Be taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be done”.

O immense reward of faith, by whose merit the power of believers is so greatly exalted, that they, about to judge all, shall by an equal sentence of severity plunge into condemnation the very height and mass of the world’s devil!

By what reasoning the Synagogue is compared to the fig tree.—It must be considered by what reasoning the Synagogue is compared to the fig tree. For this tree flourishes unlike other trees, both in nature and in condition. For its first flower is in the fruit, but not in those fruits which reach maturity as they emerge. For common usage and prophetic authority have called these “green figs” grossae. But afterward, as the power of inner fecundity overflows, fruits of the same kind and form burst forth; and as these burst forth, those earlier ones are cast off, and, the roots by which they were held being loosed, they fall away, while those others coming forth are carried forward even to the maturity of fruit. But of those earlier ones, if it should ever happen that they emerge in the bosom of the small branches proceeding from the same twig, they remain always, and do not fall off like the other green figs, but cling on alone, and outstrip the other fruits in maturity.

And that tree will give from itself these most beautiful fruits, which, emerging along with the other green figs, are put forth from the midst of the little tendril between both branches.

Therefore, from the tree’s own proper condition, a fitting likeness to the Synagogue has been proposed.

The first fruits of the Apostles from the Synagogue.

The infidelity of the others prefigured in Adam and Eve.—For the first fruits of the people, which he had brought forth from the beginning, he lost by the example of the unripe figs: because the people of the gentiles, faithful and steadfast, and remaining even to the consummation of the ages, thrust forward the useless plebs. Nevertheless the first believers from Israel, the Apostles, and the rest who cling in the manner of unripe figs between the Law and the Gospels, will precede the others in the glory and time of the resurrection. And indeed already at the beginning of Genesis, as a figure of this matter, Adam and Eve covered their shame with the leaves of this tree, when they hid themselves at the coming of the Lord who called them: because the unbelieving Synagogue, transgressing the commands of the law, would cover the foulness of its shamelessness and the confusion of its base deeds with the fruitless coverings of words, as with fig leaves.

And indeed these things have been inserted concerning the nature of this tree, so that the propriety of the comparison might be understood.

The remaining order of the events, then, must be considered.

The answer of the Pharisees concerning the baptism of John, which is true.—The Pharisees had by this time seen many things worthy of far greater wonders: but now they are especially anxious, and ask by what power he does these things. For the matter, under the effects of the present deeds, embraced a vast secret of things to come. And therefore an instinct is found for asking this particular question, under which a prefiguration of the whole danger was being brought forth. The Lord answers that he would tell by what power he does these things, if only they, on being asked, would answer him whether they thought the baptism of John to be from heaven or from men. But they hesitate, in danger of their answer, considering that if they professed it to be from heaven, they would by their own confession be convicted as guilty, for not having believed the authority of the heavenly testimony: if they had said it was from men, they feared the crowds, for many held John to be a prophet.

They answered, therefore, that they did not know.

They did not indeed not know that it was from heaven, since they feared to be convicted by the truth of their own profession. But they spoke the truth about themselves even with the intention of deceiving. For through their own unbelief they did not know that John’s baptism was from heaven. But that it was from men, they could not know this for the reason that it was not so.

The first difficulty, which son is the elder, which the younger.—A certain man had two sons, and so on.

There are many grave matters which could confuse the understanding, unless we hold to the order of prior and posterior sense. For who could here be reckoned the elder son, who refused to go to the work, and afterward, corrected by repentance, went there again? And yet Israel did not repent, but laid hands upon the Lord, and its whole people crucified their God with impious mouth. Whom, then, shall we consider the younger, who promised that he would go, and did not go? But it is the people of the gentiles and of sinners who accomplished what they had promised. For they went, and went out to the work to which they were called: how then shall it be understood to be the one that did not go?

A second difficulty, which younger son was obedient.—Next, it must be asked what weight the very answer of the Pharisees carries.

They say that the younger obeyed the will of the father. But the reason of things does not allow that a feigned profession should obtain the merit of a perfect truth; so that it would be a greater thing to have deceived the one making the promise than to have accomplished all things while not promising. But who would not rather be refused what he demands, provided that what he had demanded be done, than have it not be done though promised to be done; since the effect of the deed, coming out of despair of it, is more pleasing, while a frustrated hope grieves the more? Unless perhaps the will of those demanding is flattered by the mere adulation of those who promise.

The former son, those of the Pharisees who believed.—It must be remembered, then, that the proposition of this comparison descends from that discourse which was begun concerning John, so as to rebuke, by an example set forth in this manner, the hesitation of unbelief and the necessity of silence arising from it. But as we have noted in other places, here too we must remember that the reasoning of present things sometimes lacks something, under this condition: that the form of things to come may be fulfilled without any loss to the prefigured effect. The first son is the people from the Pharisees, admonished at that time by God through the prophecy of John to obey his precepts.

This son was insolent and disobedient and defiant of the present commands, having confidence in the law, and despising repentance for sins because of the prerogative glory of nobility from Abraham: who afterward, through the miracles of works after the Lord’s resurrection, repenting, believed under the apostles, returning by the faith of the deed to the will of the evangelical work, confessing by repentance the fault of his former insolence.

The younger son, the publicans and sinners.—But the younger son is the people of the publicans and sinners, later in that very condition of sin in which he then dwelt, who was commanded through John to expect salvation from Christ, and, baptized by him, believed. But in that it says he promised that he would go, and did not go; it shows that he indeed believed John, but because he could not receive the evangelical teaching except after the Lord’s passion, through the apostles (for then the sacraments of human salvation were to be accomplished); it signifies that he did not go. Finally, it does not say that he was unwilling, but that he did not go. The matter is free of the fault of unbelief, because it lay in the difficulty of the deed that it should not be done. He did not, therefore, refuse to go at once to the work that was commanded; but because he could not go, he did not go.

For in this the delay of necessity is shown, without any crime of the will.

in Christ.

And in this passage, indeed, we shall admonish, just as in the earlier place where the condition of divorce was treated, to consider carefully what has been signified concerning the reason of the resurrection, and that which was said under the person of Adam to Eve, that it is a great sacrament, lest it be neglected without due care.

Who are they that are sent to invite?—Those who are admonished to come, those invited beforehand, are the people of Israel: for they were summoned through the law into the glory of eternity. The servants who are sent, to call those invited, are the apostles: for it was their proper task to remind those whom the prophets had invited. But those who are sent again, with the condition of the precepts, are apostolic men and successors of the apostles. The fattened oxen are the glorious appearance of the martyrs, who were slain for the confession of God, as chosen victims. But the fatlings are spiritual men, fed as it were on the heavenly bread like birds nourished for flight, who shall fill others with the abundance of the food they have received. For with all these already made ready, and gathered into the number of the multitude pleasing to God, the glory of the heavenly kingdom is announced, as it were a wedding feast.

How they were received and avenged.—But they neglected even the admonition of these, in such a way that some of them were occupied, as by a field, with worldly ambition; while more were held back, through desire of money, by trade. The rest, however, seized the servants who were sent—which was fulfilled in the apostles themselves—and, having done them injury, killed them. But a vengeance worthy of so monstrous a crime follows. The heavenly armies that are sent will burn their whole assembly by the judgment of God, and kindle them with the flames of eternal fire; because, against the affection of humanity, they raged with the hatreds of murderers.

The calling of the gentiles.

Calling, as far as it is in itself, makes men good.—Since indeed he speaks these things concerning the time of judgment and of the resurrection, he refers this same discourse to the gathering of the gentiles. For, those who had first been invited being found unworthy, he commands that men go to the outlets of the roads. For by the gift of grace, the crimes of the former life are set aside. For we have very often admonished that “way” is to be understood as the time of this age. And therefore they are commanded to go to the outlets of the roads; because to all is given remission of what is past. Then he commands that all, without any exception, be called to the wedding feast, and the bad come together with the good. The calling ought indeed to make men good, because it is holy, and proceeds from the best affection of the one inviting: but through the fault of an uncorrected will there is a difference among those called.

It is not given to all to know the wicked.—And because pretense usually has very great skill in deceiving men, which, even if it deceives us either through the secrecy of another’s mind, or through the simplicity of our own judgment, cannot nevertheless escape God: therefore God, having entered the assembly of this blessed resurrection, and seeing a man reclining at table without a wedding garment, asks how he came in. Had he not indicated the dress required of those invited? Then, since he had commanded that whoever be invited; how could one garment suffice for all? Or if there were a fixed custom of dress among those feasting at weddings, this too could have been prevented by those inviting and by the ministers. But because it is not given to all to discern the wicked, and human simplicity has difficulty perceiving the deceit of a feigned mind; for this reason God alone finds this man wicked and unworthy of the wedding assembly.

The wedding garment, moreover, is the glory of the Holy Spirit, and the brightness of the heavenly garb: he who, being received by the confession of a good response, may be kept unspotted and whole even into the heaven of the kingdom of heaven. This man, then, is taken away, and cast into outer darkness, because many are called, but few are chosen. There is, therefore, no scantiness in those invited, but rarity among the elect: because in the one inviting there is the kindness of a public goodness without exception; but among those invited there is an election of uprightness according to the merit of judgment.

Then the Pharisees went away, and took counsel to entrap him in his speech.

Frequently the Pharisees are stirred up, and cannot find occasion of entangling him from things past: for fault could not fall upon his deeds and words. But out of the affection of malice they extend themselves into every inquiry to discover an accusation. For he was calling all men from the vices of the world and from the superstitions of human religions to the hope of the heavenly kingdom. They try, therefore, from the condition of the question they propose, 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 observes nothing that lies hidden within men as unseen), ordered a denarius to be brought to him, and asked whose image and inscription it was

The Pharisees answered, that it was Caesar’s.

To whom he said: that what is Caesar’s must be rendered to Caesar, but what is God’s must be rendered to God

The freedom of minds given wholly to God.

What we owe to God.—O answer full of wonder, and perfect resolution of a heavenly saying! He so tempered all things between contempt of the world and the injury of offending Caesar, that he absolved minds devoted to God from all worldly cares and human duties, when he decrees that what is Caesar’s be rendered back to Caesar. For if nothing of his remains with us, we shall not be bound by the condition of returning to him what is his. But if, on the other hand, we lean upon his affairs, if we make use of the right of his power, and subject ourselves, as hirelings, to the stewardship of another’s patrimony; it is beyond the complaint of injustice, that what is Caesar’s be rendered back to Caesar, but that we ought to render to God the things that are properly his—body, soul, will.

For from him we have received these, both their origin and their increase, and we retain them: and therefore it is fitting that they render themselves wholly to him, to whom they acknowledge they owe both their origin and their increase.

On that day there came to him the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, and so on.

The Sadducees are outside the faith of the resurrection. And because the Lord proclaimed it, they propose, out of the will to make trouble, a calumny concerning divine matters: namely, of seven brothers who had one and the same wife, whose wife she should be in the resurrection, they ask him to answer.

The authority of Scripture.

In what form the female sex shall rise again.—And thus indeed public opinion holds, that nothing is contained in the prophetic scriptures concerning the conditions of the resurrection. But the Lord says: You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. Therefore it is written; and the ambiguity, which so great an authority condemns, ought to cease. For many are wont to bring forward this same calumny, as to in what form the female sex shall rise again, and whether it shall again be reformed with the offices of its own nature and body? We indeed touch rashly upon this passage almost universally passed over: but we admonish that this only was proposed to the Lord, whose wife she ought to be reckoned of the seven; but that the Lord rebuked them, why they erred, not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God, because they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage.

And indeed it had sufficed against the Sadducees so thinking, that he cut off the notion of bodily allurement, and, the offices ceasing, took away these vain joys of bodies: but he added: They shall be like the angels of God. Since, therefore, the mystery of the Scriptures and the power of the divine virtue shows that they shall be like the angels; such as is the authority in the Scriptures for thinking concerning angels, such ought to be our understanding, in the hope of the resurrection, concerning women. And these things indeed he rendered concerning the conditions of the resurrection, in answer to the question proposed.

The truth of the eternal resurrection from the Law.—But concerning the resurrection itself he spoke thus against their unbelief: Have you not read that which was spoken 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 saying had been made to Moses concerning these holy patriarchs, already long at rest. Therefore those whose God he was, these had God. But they could have nothing, if they were not; because it is in the nature of the thing, that that must necessarily be, of which there is another. And thus to have the God of the living is—since God is eternity, and is not of those things which are dead—to have that which is eternal. And how shall those be denied to be, and to be forever, whose being eternity itself declares to be its own?

The Pharisees, puffed up by knowledge of the law.

The proper office of Christ.—But the Pharisees, hearing that he had imposed silence on the Sadducees, gathered together against him, and one of them, a doctor of the law, asked him, and so forth. The Pharisees succeed the tempting Sadducees. And to them indeed an answer had been fittingly given concerning the resurrection, that they might be convinced that the faith of the resurrection to be hoped for was contained in the very law from which they had proceeded. But the Pharisees boasted that they possessed knowledge of the law, which, set forth as an image of things to come, contained the likeness of the truth that was to follow. They ask, moreover, what was the greatest commandment in the law: not perceiving that the meditation of the law had been fulfilled in Christ. And indeed to the ignorance of these insolent men an answer was given from the very words of the law: an answer embracing in itself the whole doctrine of truth.

For it is the proper office of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring the knowledge of God, and to afford understanding of his name and power. For he had come, sent, and led down from eternity, and was fulfilling those things which were pleasing to God. He answered, therefore, that the first commandment was: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. For he was accomplishing nothing other than what the law contained; because the precepts of the law embraced the form of those things which he himself was about to do. He reminds them, therefore, concerning the knowledge of him which they boasted of having in the law, that the almighty God is to be loved with every affection of mind, heart, and soul, so that the commandments of the law, set forth beforehand, might confirm his own admonition.

Christ is commanded to be loved under the name of neighbor.—Then he added: This is the great and first commandment.

And the second is like unto it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But the following commandment, and its likeness, signifies that there is the same office and merit in both. For neither can the love of God without Christ, nor of Christ without God, be profitable. The one, therefore, without the other, brings no profit to our salvation. And therefore on these two commandments the whole law and the prophets hang; because the whole law and prophecy were reckoned toward the coming of Christ, and his coming, through the fulfilment of them, afforded the understanding of the knowledge of God. For we have often admonished that by neighbor none other is to be understood than Christ. For since we are forbidden to prefer father, mother, and children to the love of God, how is the love of one's neighbor a commandment like unto the love of God?

Or shall anything be left which can be equalled to the love of God?

Unless it be because the likeness of the precept required an equal charity in loving the Father and the Son.

Christ, who according to the flesh is the son of David, is the Lord of David.—And that they might be refuted by the words of the law itself, and that a clearer understanding concerning the neighbor might be disclosed; he asks what they thought concerning Christ, whose son he was to be. They answered, David's. To whom he said, how in spirit was the Lord called David's, seeing he was to be his son; and how it was said by him: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.

It was indeed true that Christ was to be begotten of the seed of David: but the likeness of the name, whereby the Lord spoke to the Lord, and whereby he was placed at the right hand, until he should subject all his enemies under his feet, signified both, from the fellowship of the name, the unity of substance, and, from the invitation to sit beside him, judgment, and, from the subjection of all things, power; so that they might remember that in him who arose from David there was contained the substance of eternal power and might and origin, and that God would abide in man.

The doctrine of the law is commended.

The iniquity, ignorance, and pride of the Pharisees.—Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying: The scribes and Pharisees have sat upon the seat of Moses, and so forth. He set forward the glory of the law testifying of itself, which had expressed in itself the image of the truth to come. For in all things it meditated the coming of Christ. For whatever was contained in it was taken up for the advancement of the manifesting of the knowledge of him. He commands, therefore, that the precepts of the Pharisees be obeyed, because they have sat in the seat of Moses: he commands that all the commandments of the law be obeyed, but that men abstain from their deeds and works; so that the morals and unbelief of men, not the doctrine of the law, should be avoided. For they themselves impose the heaviest burdens of the law upon the people subject to them, not even moving their finger to touch them.

Nay, they even command that the Lord be loved with the whole heart, and the neighbor loved as oneself, they themselves, against the testimony of the law given to them, persecuting God in Christ with sufferings. Also enlarging the glory of their words as it were phylacteries, by whom God, the author of eternal life, was not understood in Christ, and magnifying themselves as sent forth from the honor of the law, like fringes from a garment, they who, ignorant of the whole law, recognized neither its works nor its power: loving the first places at feasts, who are rather reckoned for eternal fire (while the Gentiles feast rather with Abraham): and the first seats in the synagogues, they themselves not knowing their own teacher according to the testimonies of the law and the prophets: but also greetings in the marketplace, by which humility of heart and service toward all is commanded. They wish also to be called masters by men, ignorant of the doctrine of the law, and rejecting the Master of eternal salvation.

And because all these things were profane and perverse, they are condemned by the imitation of their deeds. But hearing of the law, and obedience to its sayings, is required, because they spoke of Christ.

Precepts of charity and humility.—But, on the contrary, to the disciples, who already knew, he completes the precepts of all humility, that they might remember that they are all brothers

that is, sons of one Parent, and that through the generation of the new birth they have gone beyond the beginnings of earthly origin, and that there is one Master of heavenly doctrine for them all, and that the glory of eternal honor is to be attained by the consciousness of humility; because God will make insolence humble, and will raise humility into glory.

The Pharisees, by rejecting Christ, shut the kingdom of heaven.—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 word of one grieving. He says, moreover, that they shut the kingdom of heaven, because in the law they hide the meditation of that truth which is in Christ, and, by pretense of teaching, conceal the bodily coming foretold by the prophets; and they themselves, not entering the way of eternity in Christ, do not allow others also to enter.

Those who impose burdens on others.—Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who devour the houses of widows.

Hence come those denials of the truth, hence the hindering of others from entering, and the observance of the heavenly kingdom, so that, in entering the houses of widows, greed is maintained, so that they may be despoiled through the honor paid to long prayer, so that from these men heavenly knowledge is sought as from a treasury of stored wealth, so that the dignity of the law may persist in the silence of grace. And therefore they shall receive greater judgment, because they shall owe both the penalty of their own sin, and the guilt of another's ignorance.

Their hatred of the Gospel.

Who are to be punished with a double penalty.—Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who compass sea and land. By the traversing of sea and land he signifies that in all the bounds of the world they would speak against the Gospel of Christ, and would subject some under the yoke of the law against the justification of faith: for proselytes are those received from the Gentiles into the Synagogue. The rarity of these future ones is indicated in the "one": for after the preaching of Christ, faith was not left to their teaching. But whosoever shall have been acquired to their people becomes a son of Gehenna, an offspring of punishment, and an heir of eternal judgment: because the adoption from the Gentiles was to make the family of Abraham. And he shall be a son of doubled punishment for this reason, because he shall neither have obtained remission of sins as one of the Gentiles, and shall have followed the fellowship of those who persecuted Christ.

The law is a figure of things to come, and is the seat and throne of Christ.

Why, with Christ's coming, it becomes useless.—Woe to you, blind guides, who say: Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing. He reproaches the reverence of human observances, and the contempt of prophetic tradition, in that they gave honor to empty things, and took it away from things to be honored. For he himself had given the law, and the law contained not efficacy, but meditated effects. For the adornment of the altar and of the temple did not confer dignity from the cult, but shaped the image of things to come by its ornament. For gold, silver, brass, orichalc, pearls, crystal, each embraces its own signification according to the nature of each metal.

He rebukes them, therefore, because they venerated the gold of the temple and the gifts of the altar for the religion of the mysteries; whereas the honor was greater of both altar and temple, because for the sake of the appearance of things to come both the gold was dedicated to the temple and the gift to the altar. And therefore, at the coming of Christ, trust in the law becomes useless: because Christ is not sanctified in the law, but the law is sanctified in Christ, in whom, as it were, a seat and a throne has been placed for himself. And since it is held to be sacred, it must needs have received its sanctity from him who sits in it: and thus they are foolish and blind, venerating the things sanctified, while he who sanctifies has passed by.

External works, although not to be omitted, are nevertheless to be set below internal virtues.—Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who tithe mint and dill and every herb, and the rest. He rebukes the hidden and obscure iniquity of their will: for they perform those things which the law prescribes concerning the tithing of mint and dill, so that they may be reckoned by men to fulfil the law; but mercy, justice, faith, and every affection of benevolence—which is the proper duty of man—they have abandoned. For that tithing of herbs, which was useful as a prefiguration of things to come, was not to be omitted; but this ought to have been the result, that having fulfilled the parts of faith and justice and mercy, we should please by the works not of a will feigned in imitation, but of one truly maintained.

And because it was a lesser sin to pass over the tithing of herbs than the duty of benevolence, he mocks their diligence in straining out gnats, while they were careless in swallowing camels—that is, avoiding light sins and devouring grave ones. A like pronouncement of penalty is made against those who, cleansing cups and dishes on the outside, do not cleanse their interior: and who, following the boastful show of useless zeal, abandon the ministry of perfect usefulness. For the use of the cup is internal: if it becomes foul within, what will it profit to have washed it outside? And so the cleanliness of the inner conscience must be obtained, so that the things pertaining to the body may be washed on the outside. He also compared them to sepulchers, which, shining with human labor and adornment, are foul within with the bones of the dead and the uncleanness of corpses: that is, they display outwardly the semblance of righteousness in empty words, but within themselves they have the stench of their conscience and mind.

The Jews are not ignorant that the prophets were killed out of hatred for the truth.—Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who build the sepulchers of the prophets, and the rest.

The form of judgment is absolute, and to each of us there is imposed, from the very nature of our understanding and opinion, a sense of equity: so that the deed has the less excuse of iniquity, the more that equity has not gone unrecognized. For the people of the law killed all the prophets. For they were inflamed against them with hatred, in the bitterness of rebuke: for with public voice the prophets denounced their thefts, murders, adulteries, sacrileges. And because on account of these deeds they declared the people unworthy of the heavenly kingdom, and foretold that the Gentiles would become heirs of God's covenant, they were destroyed by various kinds of punishment. But posterity so detested the deeds of their fathers that they venerate the books of prophecy, adorn the memorials, and restore the sepulchers: and by such reverence they testify that they are free from the guilt of their fathers' crime.

They are all the more guilty of the death of Christ, who is the work of the prophets.

The titles of the Apostles.—Those, then, who confess that the prophets were killed with the gravest crime, by what excuse will they condemn Christ, who is the work of the prophets, since they accomplish, with multiplied crime, the very things they profess to detest? And so they are both serpents and a generation of vipers, because they will fill up the measure of their fathers' will (§ 33). And how will they escape judgment, they who detest the killing of the prophets, yet persecute the Lord even unto the death of the cross?

By them, on account of the apostles—who are prophets by the revelation of things to come, wise men by the recognition of Christ, scribes by the understanding of the law—slain, stoned, crucified, and driven from city to city, all the blood of the just, from Abel even to Zacharias, has overflowed: so that, whereas if they had been obeyed, forgiveness would have been granted for their own crimes, now, because these same men were slain, the punishment for those who slew them was heaped up together with the crimes of their fathers.

Christ's affection toward the Jews.—Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent to thee (§ 37).

Amid the many kinds of rebuke, he always testifies to the affection of his mercy: his whole complaint here is that they refused to return to the salvation he was offering. For Jerusalem had killed the prophets, and had stoned those sent to her. In the naming of the city, the crime of its inhabitants is shown. And therefore the blood of Abel and of Zacharias is shown to be coming upon this posterity of theirs: because Christ, already dwelling and preaching among them, had suffered. But if he had been believed, not only would the faith of believers have been free from the punishment of the prophets' murder, but that very sentence of the Lord's passion would have obtained pardon. But since he was not believed even after the resurrection, vengeance for the blood of Abel and Zacharias will be demanded from these as well.

The work of the hen.

The two kinds of chicks. What Christ offered the Jews. Their punishment.—For although he speaks these things as one having a body, and, having been found as man, shows help to all; yet he frequently willed to gather them together through the preachings of the prophets. But he expended this affection in vain, and to no purpose. Like a hen gathering her chicks, he willed to keep them under her wings: he has now become, so to speak, an earthly and domestic bird, granting, as it were, by the covering of his body like wings, the warmth of immortal life to his chicks, and bringing them forth into flight as by a kind of new generation. For chicks have one manner of being born, another of flying. For at first they are contained within the shells of eggs as within an enclosure of the body: then afterward, warmed by the parent's diligence, they go forth into flight.

In the manner, then, of this familiar and almost earthly bird, he willed to gather them within himself: so that they who had already been brought forth by the condition of natural birth, now reborn by the rising of another generation and warmed by his brooding, might fly forth into the heavenly kingdom as with feathered bodies. And because they were unwilling, their house will be left deserted and empty, that is, they will be unworthy of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. For it began to be their own house, not God's: and remaining in the obstinacy of unbelief, they will not see him until that time when, at his return in the name of the Lord, they will bless him even by the confession of an unwilling unbelief.

Man who is the eternal temple of God.—And he went out from the temple and departed: and his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. After the threat of Jerusalem's abandonment, as though he were to be moved by admiration of the temple, its magnificence and construction are pointed out to him. He says that all these things are to be destroyed, and that, the stones of the whole structure being scattered, they are to be thrown down. For the eternal temple was being consecrated for the habitation of the Holy Spirit: namely, man was to be made, through the knowledge of the Son and the confession of the Father and obedience to the commandments, a worthy dwelling for God.

The time and signs of the overthrow of Jerusalem.

Simon the Samaritan.—And when he had withdrawn to the mountain, the disciples came to him privately and asked when these things would happen, and what sign they might know of his coming and of the consummation of the age. And because these three things were asked together as one, they are separated by distinct indications of time and understanding. An answer is given, therefore, first concerning the fall of the city: and they are strengthened by the truth of doctrine, lest any deceiver should be able to creep in upon the ignorant. For there would come, even in their time, those who would call themselves Christ. So that faith might not be dragged down by pestilent falsehood, this warning came beforehand. For Simon the Samaritan came, equipped with diabolical works and words, and by the miracles of his deeds corrupted many. And because this was to happen in the time of the Apostles, he says: The end is not yet.

But not even then, when nations will rise against one another and kingdoms will clash, and there will be famines and earthquakes: for in these things there is not the dissolution of this whole universe, but the beginnings of sorrows, from which all evils will thenceforth take their start. He strengthens them, then, to endure sufferings, flight, scourging, death: and the public hatred of the nations against them on account of his name. And indeed by these afflictions many will be troubled, and by such rising evils will be scandalized, and will be roused even to mutual hatred. And there will be false prophets (as Nicolaus was one of the seven deacons), and they will pervert many with counterfeit truth: and, wickedness abounding, charity will grow cold. But for those who persevere to the end, salvation is reserved: and then, apostolic men having been dispersed 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 her: so that the faith of the preaching may be followed by both the punishment of unbelievers and the terror of the ruined city. These things, then, were fulfilled upon her just as they had been foretold: and, its Apostles stoned, put to flight, slain, it was consumed by famine, war, and captivity. And then it deserved to cease to be, when, having cast out the preachers of Christ, it showed itself unworthy of the preaching of God.

The sign of Christ's coming.

Why the Antichrist is the abomination of desolation.—There follows next the sign of the future coming, when they will see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place; then is to be understood the return in glory. And concerning this, since the most blessed Daniel and Paul have spoken of it, I think we need say nothing further: for these words were spoken of the times of Antichrist. He is called an abomination from the fact that, coming against God, he claims for himself the honor due to God: but the abomination of desolation, because he will lay the land waste with wars and slaughters and crime. And on that account, being received by the Jews, he will take his stand in the place of sanctification; so that where God was invoked by the prayers of the saints, there he, received by the unbelievers, may be venerated with the honor due to God.

Why Judea is to be abandoned.—And

because this will be the peculiar error of the Jews, that they who rejected the truth should receive falsehood, he counsels that Judea be abandoned, and that flight be made into the mountains; lest, by mingling with that people who would believe in Antichrist, force or contagion should be brought upon them; but that for all who will then be faithful, the deserts of the mountains will be safer than the crowded throngs of Judea.

He who is at the summit of perfection should not descend through desire of earthly things.—But as to what he says: And let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: this precept, according to human understanding, does not admit of a rational account of what is said and done. For he who is on the housetop, if he is to leave Judea, cannot go away unless he first comes down from it. Or what advantage is there in standing on the roof and not remaining in the house? But we have often warned that the proper meanings of words and places must be observed, so that the weight of the heavenly precepts may follow. The roof is the summit of the house, and the lofty perfection of the whole dwelling. For no house can be called or be a house without a roof.

He, then, who has been established at the completion of his house, that is, at the perfection of his body, made new by regeneration, lofty in spirit, and perfected by the fulfillment of the divine gift, ought not to descend to the lower things through desire for worldly matters, nor, provoked by the lower enticements of the body, to come down from the height of his roof. And he who is in the field, let him not return to take his cloak. That is, placed in the carrying out of the precept, let him not return to his former cares: nor let him desire any garments of the body, for the sake of which, returning, he would bring back thence the cloak of his former sins, with which he had before been covered.

Nothing is evil for man except by his own fault.

Those with child; souls heavy with sins.—Woe to them that are with child and that give suck. This can indeed be taken simply as referring to the delay of flight: because it would be troublesome for women burdened with the weight of the womb to flee the impending ruin of the times. But what has their condition, sex, and the order of generation deserved? Unless perhaps that particular age of women, who happened to fall into those times, should be specifically accursed. But far be it that anything should become evil for man except by his own fault. It is not to be believed, then, that the Lord gave this warning concerning the burden of the pregnant, when he says: Woe to them that are with child: but rather he showed the gravity of souls filled with sins, who, neither placed on the housetop nor remaining in the field, would be unable to escape the storm of impending wrath.

For pain follows those with child by nature: and childbirth is not brought forth without the affliction of the whole body. Whatever souls, then, are found to be such, will be held fast in their own burden and pain.

Woe also will be to those who give suck.

Infancy weaned from milk is no less unfit for flight than that which is still nourished with milk. And how is there woe to her who gives suck; since it makes no difference of age or time, whether one is nourished with milk or has left off from milk? But in the same way here too he shows the weakness of souls who are still nourished, as it were, with milk in the knowledge of God: who, lacking the strength for solid food, are imbued only with a thin and feeble taste of the knowledge of God. And therefore woe will be to them: because, being both too heavy to flee the Antichrist and too unskilled to endure him, they will neither have escaped their sins nor received the food of the true bread.

What flight in winter or on the sabbath means.—And therefore we are admonished to pray that our flight be neither in winter nor on the sabbath

that is, that we be found neither in sin through coldness, nor in idleness of good works: because grievous and intolerable affliction will press upon all, except that for the sake of God's elect a shortening of those days will be brought about, so that the compressed time for the raging of the pressing evils may be surpassed.

The attempts of the false prophets.

Eagles, the saints. Where the coming of Christ is to be, namely at the place of the passion.—And because, to those placed in great affliction, false prophets, as though about to point out present help in Christ, will falsely claim in many places that Christ is present and to be found there, so as to lead the oppressed and afflicted into the service of antichrist; now saying he is in the deserts, so as to lead them astray by error; now asserting he is in inner chambers, so that they may be shut in under the power of a ruler: but the Lord declares that he is not to be hidden in a place, nor to be gazed upon by individuals; but that he will be present everywhere and in the sight of all, after the manner of lightning, which, sent forth from the east, scatters its light even to the regions of the west, and flashing from every quarter is seen wherever it appears.

And lest we should even be ignorant of the place in which he would be, he says: Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles be gathered together. He has called the saints eagles, from the flight of the spiritual body: whose gathering, brought about by the angels, he shows will take place in the place of the passion. And fittingly the coming of glory will be awaited there, where he wrought for us the glory of eternity through the bodily passion of his humility.

When and of what kind the glorious coming of Christ will be.—But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall 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 shaking 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 the angels with the trumpet for the gathering of the saints, that is, now by the summons of public freedom

So it will be with the grain of mustard seed becoming a great tree: so with the stone from the mountain, when the image is crushed, the mountain occupying the whole earth: so the city visible to all: so the light shining upon all on the lampstand: so out of the humility of death the glory of God.

By the indication of all these things, he willed us to know the time of our redemption, when we shall be transferred from the corruption of our bodies into the honor of spiritual substance.

The branch of the fig tree, antichrist.

That it puts forth leaves.—But he has set forth the sign for recognizing the time under the likeness of the fig tree: whose branch, when it becomes tender and puts forth leaves, gives understanding that summer is near. But the nature of summer and of the tree are quite different. For in the beginnings of spring it swells; and no small time intervenes between the onset of summer and the tenderness of the tree's branch into leaves. From which it must be recognized that this is not said of the tree. And indeed we have already treated above the property of this tree. We read also that Adam was clothed with its leaves, and covered the shame of his conscience, that is, as though wrapped in the garment of sin under the law. The branch of the fig tree, then, is understood to be antichrist, the son of the devil, the portion of sin, the assertor of the law.

And when he begins to grow tender and put forth leaves, then it will be perceived that summer

that is, the day of judgment, is near. Now the putting forth of leaves will be known by a certain greenness of exulting sinners: for then there will be the flower of the guilty, and the honor of the wicked, and the favor of the profane: for whom nevertheless summer, that is, the heat of eternal fire, is near at hand.

And that the assurance of things to come might be certain, saying amen by the profession of truth, he added that our generation could not pass away unless all these things had come to pass, and that those things which are reckoned firm, namely heaven and earth, would not remain; but that his words could not fail to be: because those things, from the condition of their creation, that is, having proceeded from nothing, have in themselves this necessity, that they should not be; but these words, being drawn from eternity, contain in themselves this power, that they should remain.

Why the end of the times is not defined.—But concerning the end of the times he removed 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 the inestimable mercy of divine goodness! Has God the Father, by the purpose of hiding it from the Son, denied him the knowledge of the day; when it has been said by him: All things have been delivered to me by my Father? Therefore not all things are so, if there is something which is denied.

But because he was carrying over to us all things received from the Father, and the Word of God contains in itself not so much the assurance of what is to come as of what has been done; therefore the day is placed outside of definition, so that God, although granting us ample time for repentance, might nevertheless always keep us anxious through fear of uncertainty; and he himself, by declaring the will of granting this day to no one, might bind it by no definition of his own utterance, because according to the time of the flood, in the very course of our life, while all are doing and enduring their affairs, that great day will be present.

The distinction of the faithful and unfaithful.

Of Jews who are to believe and who are not to believe, of heretics and catholics.—Moreover he shows 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 women grinding, one is rejected and the other chosen; and of two who shall be in one bed, one clings, the other is forsaken. For he teaches the distinction of the unfaithful and the faithful in the leaving of some and the taking of others. For as God's wrath grows heavier, the saints (as the prophet says) shall be stored up in the granaries; but the faithless shall be left for the fuel of the heavenly fire. Two, then, in the field, are two peoples, the faithful and the unfaithful, whom the day of the Lord will find in the world as though in the work of this life; yet they will be separated, one being left, the other taken.

Concerning those grinding also the same reasoning holds.

The mill is the work of the law. But because a part of the Jews, as they believed through the apostles, so are to believe through Elijah, and are to be justified by faith: therefore one, through that same faith, will be taken hold of by good work, while the other will be left in the fruitless work of the law, grinding in vain, and not making the bread of heavenly food. Now the two who are in one bed proclaim the same rest of the Lord's passion: concerning which there is the same and one confession both of heretics and of catholics.

But because the truth of the catholics will preach the unity of the Father and the Son, and their common theotes, which we call deity, and the falsehood of the heretics will again attack that same unity with many insults; therefore of the two in the bed one will be left, and the other taken: because in taking the one and leaving the other, the judgment of the divine decision will test the faith of the confession of each.

The necessity of watchfulness.—And that we might know that this ignorance declared to all is not without the reasoning of a useful silence, he admonished us to watch

because of the coming of the thief, and, held fast by constancy of prayers, to cling to all the works of his precepts. For he shows that the devil is the thief, ever watchful to snatch away spoils from us, and lying in wait at the houses of our bodies, so that, while we are careless and given over to sleep, he may pierce them through with the darts of his counsels and enticements. It is fitting, then, that we be prepared: because ignorance of the day stirs up an intent anxiety of suspended expectation.

Those set over others must especially watch.

The work and reward of a diligent overseer.—For who is that faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath set over his household? Although he exhorts us in common to unwearied care of watchfulness, yet he commits a special concern to the leaders of the people, that is, to the bishops, in the expectation and awaiting of his coming. For by this faithful and wise servant he signifies the one set over the household, caring for the advantages and benefits of the people committed to him.

Who, if he shall be obedient to the word and heedful of the precepts

that is, if by the timeliness and truth of doctrine he strengthens the weak, consolidates what is broken, converts what is perverted, and dispenses the word of life as food unto eternity for the nourishment of the household, and is found doing these things and abiding in them, shall obtain glory from the Lord as a faithful steward and useful bailiff, and shall be set over all his goods, that is, shall be placed in the glory of God, because there is nothing beyond that which is better.

The vices and punishment of the negligent servant.—But if, looking upon the long patience of God, which is extended for the advancement of human salvation, he grows insolent against his fellow servants, and gives himself to the evils and vices of the world, taking care only of present things in the cultivation of the belly: the Lord will come on a day he did not expect, and will divide him from the good things he had promised, and will appoint 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 zealous for present things, because he lived the life of the nations, because in despair of the judgment he vexed the household committed to him with hunger, thirst, and slaughter.

Why Moses received the Decalogue on two tables.—Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, and the rest.

From what has been said above the reasoning of this discourse also can be understood. For the whole discourse is about the great day of the Lord, on which the hidden things of human thoughts will be revealed by the knowledge of divine judgment, and the true faith of one awaiting God will obtain the reward of unambiguous hope. For in the five wise and the five foolish the division of the faithful and unfaithful is absolutely established: by which example Moses had received the ten words written on two tables. For it was necessary that all these be written on each; and the double page, between the property of the right hand and the left, signified the division, under one testament though it be, of the good and the evil.

A brief and keen exposition of the parable of the virgins.—The bridegroom and the bride, is our Lord God in the body.

For as the Spirit is to the flesh, so the flesh is bride to the Spirit. Then, at the trumpet's rousing, only the bridegroom is brought forth to be met; for they were already both one; because the humility of the flesh had passed over into spiritual glory. But at the first onset, by the offices of this life, we are prepared to go forth to meet the resurrection which is from the dead. The lamps, then, are the light of shining souls, which have shone by the sacrament of baptism. The oil is the fruit of good work. The vessels are human bodies, within whose depths the treasure of a good conscience is to be stored up. Those who sell are those who, needing the mercy of the faithful, return in exchange what is asked, selling, that is, the satisfaction of their own need, the conscience of our good work.

For this is the abundant material of an unwearied light, which must be both bought and stored up by the fruits of mercy. The marriage is the assumption of immortality, and the conjunction, out of a new fellowship, between corruption and incorruption. 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, unknown to all, is the voice of the trumpet, of the Lord going before to announce his coming, and rousing all to go forth to meet the bridegroom. The taking up of the lamps is the return of souls into their bodies; and their light is the conscience of good work shining forth, which is contained in the little vessels of the bodies.

At the coming of Christ, another's merits will help no one.

There is now no time for repentance.—These are the wise virgins, who, having embraced the opportune time for working in their bodies, prepared themselves for the first meeting of the Lord's coming. But the foolish ones, who, being dissolute and negligent, had care only for the present, and forgetful of the promises of God, extended themselves to no hope of resurrection. And because the foolish cannot go forth to meet him with lamps extinguished, they beg those who were wise to lend them oil. To whom they answered that they could not give, lest perhaps there be not enough for all: namely, that no one is to be helped by another's works and merits, since each one must buy oil for his own lamp. They exhort them to return to buy: so that even late, by obeying the precepts of God, with the light of lamps they may be made worthy to meet the bridegroom.

While they delay, the bridegroom entered; and together with him the wise virgins, who had covered themselves with the light of lamps they had procured, enter into the wedding feast

that is, they proceed into heavenly glory under the very coming of the Lord's brightness itself. And because there is now no time for repentance, the foolish ones run up, asking that the entrance be opened to them. To whom it is answered by the bridegroom, that he does not know them. For they had not been present in the office of his coming, nor had they run to the sound of the trumpet that roused them, nor had they clung to the company of those entering: but delaying and unworthy, they had lost the time for entering the wedding feast.

Talents distributed according to the measure of faith.—For it is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his servants and delivered to them his goods, and so forth. The division of the money is unequal: but the diversity is not to be referred back to the one dividing; for he says that each received according to his own capacity. Therefore each received in proportion to what he was capable of: and it lies outside the arbiter's discretion, what was in the right of the one receiving. He signifies that the head of the household is himself. The time of the journey abroad is the space of repentance: during which, seated in the heavens at the right hand of God, he has granted to the whole human race the power of faith and of evangelic working. Therefore each one, according to the measure of his own faith, received a talent, that is, the preaching of the Gospel, from the one preaching.

For this is the incorrupt substance, this is the patrimony of Christ reserved for the eternal heirs.

To whom five talents.—But that servant who received five talents is the people of the believers from the Law; setting out from which, he rightly and properly doubled its merit by the working of accomplished evangelic faith. But in the rendering of the account there is the examination of judgment, by which the use of the heavenly word and the return on the talent dispensed is demanded. Therefore he to whom five had been entrusted, when the Lord returned, offered ten out of the five: such indeed found in faith, as he was found in the Law, who fulfilled through the grace of evangelic justification the obedience of the ten words of precepts from the five books of Moses. Therefore he is bidden to enter into the joy of the Lord, that is, he is received into the honor of the glory of Christ.

To whom two.—But that servant to whom two talents were entrusted is the people of the Gentiles, justified by faith and confession both of the Son and of the Father, and confessing our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, both in Spirit and in flesh. For faith is of the heart, and confession is of the mouth. These, then, are the two talents entrusted to him. But as that first one had known the whole mystery in the five talents, that is, in the Law, and had doubled that very thing by the faith of the Gospel: so this one earned it by the increase of two talents, and that by working. Though the reckoning and the return are different, yet the reward from the Lord for both is equal; so that we might know the faith of the Gentiles to be made equal to the knowledge of the believers from the Law. For with the same commendation he is bidden to enter into the joy of the Lord.

Now the doubling of the money received is to have added the working of faith, and to have accomplished in deeds and facts what they had believed in supposition.

To whom one talent.—But he who received one talent and hid it in the earth is the people persisting in the Law, wholly carnal and stupid, and understanding nothing spiritual, and whom the power of evangelic preaching does not enter; but on account of envy at the salvation of the Gentiles, he hid the talent received in the earth; neither using it himself, nor dispensing it for others to use, but reckoning the Law sufficient in itself for salvation. And therefore, when an account was demanded of him, he says thus: I feared thee, as though through reverence and fear of the old precepts he abstains from the use of evangelic liberty, and says: Behold what is thine, as though he had lingered among those things which had been commanded by the Lord.

What it is to hide in the earth.—Now to hide the talent in the earth is this: to conceal the glory of the new preaching under the disparagement of the bodily suffering. For though he cannot deny that Christ the Lord was sent for the salvation of the Gentiles (for both his coming and his passion are from the Law), yet he himself was unwilling to obey the Gospels. For he says: I know that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not scattered. The nature of present things does not admit that there be a harvest without seed, and that things not scattered be gathered: but this whole speech is spiritual.

For we have said that this people is of the Law, not ignorant of the Lord's coming and the salvation of the Gentiles, but unbelieving: since indeed it knows that the fruits of righteousness are to be reaped there where the Law was not sown, and are to be gathered from among the Gentiles, who are not scattered of Abraham's stock: and therefore this man is hard, namely, one who will justify without the Law, will gather without dispersion, and will reap without sowing.

How great the fault.

What is the punishment of this fault.—And therefore this will be all the more unpardonable, that he concealed the preaching, and buried the talent entrusted to him, when he knew that he would reap without seed, and gather what he had not sown: but rather it had been fitting that he give it to the money-changers, that is, to the whole race of mankind, occupied with the business of this age, to share the use of the talent entrusted to him, with the Lord to demand the returns of it from each one individually. On account of this fault the talent is taken from him—not so much that of the Gospel, which he had buried, as that of the Law—and is given to him who had doubled the five, the Lord saying: For to everyone that hath, it shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away.

Indeed the one who has can have abundance; because it is easy, through the increase either of generosity or of labor, for the wealthy to be able to grow richer: but in what way will one who does not have, come to have, to his own loss? This is so, because to those having the use of the Gospels, even the honor of the Law is rendered: but from him not having the faith of Christ, even what he seemed to himself to have of honor from the Law, is taken away.

The distinction of the evil and the good in judgment.—But when the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, and so forth. He himself completes the whole reasoning of this discourse. For he speaks of the time and the coming of judgment, by which he will separate the faithful from the unfaithful, and distinguish the fruitful from the unfruitful, namely the goats from the lambs, and placing each on the right hand and on the left, he will establish each in the seat worthy of his goodness or of his malice: showing that he is present in his least ones, that is, in those who serve him with expectation of his humility, both in feeding the hungry, and in giving drink to the thirsty, and in cherishing the strangers, and in clothing the naked, and in visiting the sick, and in consoling the anxious.

For thus he is poured into the bodies and minds of all the faithful, so that these offices of humanity, either performed, merit his grace, or, being denied, stir up his offense.

After this discourse, in which he had shown that he would come in the return of glory, he now warns that he is about to suffer: so that they might recognize the mystery of the cross to be mingled with the glory of eternity. Meanwhile the counsel of the Jews to destroy him is taken up; and, the chief priests having been gathered together, the occasion for so great a crime is awaited.

Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, there came to him a woman having an alabaster box of precious ointment, and so forth. It is not without meaning 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 angered, and said that it ought rather to have been sold for the use of the poor

then that the Lord both approved the woman's deed, and pledged that with the preaching of the Gospel there would be an everlasting memory of this deed; finally, that after this Judas broke out to sell his salvation.

The woman anointing Christ, the people of the Gentiles.

The disciples' favor for Israel. The poor, the Jews lacking faith.—This woman is, in prefiguration, the people of the Gentiles, who at the passion of Christ rendered glory to God. For she anointed his head: but the head of Christ is God. For the ointment is the fruit of a good work. And on account of the care of the body, it is especially agreeable to the female sex. Therefore she poured out all the care of her body, and the whole affection of her precious mind, into the honor and praise of God. But the disciples are moved, as often, by favor for the salvation of Israel: that this ought to have been sold for the use of the poor. But this woman was not carrying about ointment for sale. And they, by prophetic instinct, called the poor those lacking in faith. And this faith of the Gentiles ought rather to have been bought for the salvation of this needy people.

To whom the Lord says that there is plenty of time in which they might have care of the poor; but that salvation could not be granted to the Gentiles except by his own precept, since they are buried together with him by the pouring out of this woman's ointment

because regeneration is not rendered except to those who have died together in the profession of baptism. And therefore wherever this Gospel shall be preached, her deed shall be told: because, Israel ceasing, the glory of the Gospel is preached by the faith of the Gentiles. By which rivalry, profane Israel, being inflamed in the person of Judas, is incited with every hatred to extinguish the name of the Lord.

When the Christian name was granted.—Now on the first day of the unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover? And so forth. The disciples are bidden to go to a certain man, and to say to him that the Lord wished to keep the Passover with the disciples at his house. Who 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, being uncertain to whom they were sent, how could they, once sent, carry out what had been commanded? But the word of prophecy is mixed in with the effects of present things. For he does not name the man with whom he was going to celebrate the Passover.

For not yet had the honor of the Christian name been granted to believers, who truly are those beholding God with the eyes of mind and faith: so that we might know that the Apostles were preparing the Lord's Passover with him to whom, in the Lord's own time, a new name was to be added.

Judas did not receive the body of Christ.—After these things Judas the betrayer is pointed out, without whom the Passover is completed, the cup having been received and the bread broken: for he had not been worthy of the communion of the eternal sacraments. For it is understood that he departed immediately at this point, since he is shown to have returned with the crowds. Nor indeed could he drink with the Lord, who was not going to drink in the kingdom: since the Lord promised that all those then drinking of the fruit of that vine would afterward drink it with him. And a hymn having been said, they returned to the mountain. All the powers of the divine mysteries being now completed, they are borne up into heavenly glory with common joy and exultation.

Peter's affection towards Christ.—He also warned them of their coming weakness, and that on that same night all would be troubled by fear and unbelief. The truth of this matter was also contained in the authority of the ancient prophecy, that with the shepherd struck the sheep would be scattered: yet that he, rising again, would go before them into Galilee, so that he might console their weakness by the promise of his return. But Peter, out of the warmth of his faith, answered that although the rest might be scandalized (in the passive sense), he himself 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 certainty of the Lord's words: as though what He had said would not be brought to pass. To him He said: Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

But both he and the rest promised that not even for fear of death would they depart from confessing his name: for they had strengthened themselves to every constancy of service by the fearless resolve of faith.

Then Jesus came with them into a place called Gethsemane, and saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I go yonder and pray, and the rest. He had received the faith of the disciples, and the constancy of their devoted will towards him: but he also knew that they were to be troubled and would scatter. He bids them sit in that place, while he went forward to pray. And he took with him Peter, James and John the sons of Zebedee. Having taken them, he began to be sorrowful and troubled: and he said that his soul was sorrowful even unto death.

The opinion of those who attribute sorrow, fear, to the divinity of Christ is refuted.—It is the opinion of some that sorrow could fall upon God on his own account, and that fear of the coming passion broke him down: because he said, My soul is sorrowful even unto death; and this, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; and again, The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak; and at the last twice the same thing, Father, if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done. For they wish that from the weakness of the body distress adhered to the Spirit: as if the taking on of flesh had tainted that power of an incorruptible substance with the lot of its own frailty, and eternity had received the nature of fragility. If that eternity is sorrowful unto fear, weak unto pain, trembling unto death, it will then also be subject to corruption, and the affection of all weakness will fall upon it.

There will then be that which was not: sorrowful from anguish, anxious from fear, terrified from pain: and thus eternity, changed into fear, if it can become what it was not, could likewise at some time cease to be what is in it. But God, without measure of time, always is: and such as he is, such is he eternally. But eternity, remaining in the infinite, is extended as much to those things which have been as to those which shall follow: ever whole, incorrupt, perfect, beyond which nothing that could exist is left external. Not itself in anything, but all things within it: able so to bestow upon us that which is its own, that nothing of what it is should be diminished by the bestowing.

Who are the authors of this opinion.—But the whole sense of these men is this, that they suppose fear of death fell upon the Son of God—those who assert that he was not brought forth of eternity, nor did he exist from the infinity of the Father's substance, but was made out of nothing by him who created all things: so that he was taken up out of nothing, and begun by a work, and confirmed by time. And therefore in him there is anxiety of pain, therefore a passion of the Spirit together with the passion of the body, therefore fear of death: so that he who could fear death, could also die; but he who could die, although he shall exist in the future, is not, however, through him who begot him, eternal from the past.

But if these men, through faith and uprightness of life, had been capable of understanding the Gospels, they would know that the Word in the beginning was God, and this Word was in the beginning with God, and that he was born of him who was, and that this is in him who was born, that he himself is he with whom he was before he was born: that is, that the eternity is the same both of him who begets and of him who is begotten. Nothing therefore could die in God, nor is there in God any fear arising from himself. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.

The sorrow of Christ arose not on his own account, but on account of the disciples.—But this whole discourse must be examined, so that, since we read that the Lord was sorrowful, we may discover the causes of his sorrow. He had earlier warned that all would be scandalized. Peter, trusting in himself, had answered that even if the others were troubled, he would not be shaken: to whom the Lord replied that he would even deny him thrice. But both he and all the other disciples promised that even if placed in death itself, they would not deny him. And going forward, he bade his disciples sit while he prayed. And having taken with him Peter, James and John, he began to be sorrowful. Therefore he was not sorrowful before he took them, and all fear began for him only once they had been taken: and so the sorrow did not arise from himself, but from those whom he had taken with him.

And indeed it must be recalled that none other were taken here than those very ones to whom the coming of the Son of Man in his kingdom had been shown, at the time when, with Moses and Elias standing by on the mountain, he was surrounded with the whole honor of his eternal glory. But the same reason that they were taken then was also the cause now.

Christ's sorrow was "unto," not "on account of," death.

Christ fears for his own the blasphemy against the Spirit.—Finally he says, My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Does he say, My soul is sorrowful because of death? Certainly not so. For if the fear was concerning death, it ought certainly to have been referred to that through which it existed. But it is one thing to fear up to a point, another to fear because of that point. And whatever is at the end does not constitute the cause, when it is only deferred up to the point where something begun by another is concerned. He had said earlier, You shall all be scandalized because of me this night. He knew they would be terrified, put to flight, and would deny him: but because blasphemy against the Spirit is forgiven neither here nor in eternity, he feared lest they should deny him as God, whom they were about to see beaten and spat upon and crucified.

This principle is observed in Peter, who, when he was about to deny, denied thus: I know not the man: because something said against the Son of Man is forgiven. He is sorrowful therefore even unto death. It is not death itself, then, but the time of death that is feared: because after it the faith of believers was to be confirmed by the power of the resurrection.

There follows: Wait and watch with me.

And going forward he fell on his face, praying. He bids them remain awake with him. For he knew that as the devil pressed harder, their faith was to be lulled to sleep: and he enjoins upon them a vigilance equal to his own, since a like passion threatened them.

He prays for the passing of the cup not for his own sake, but for that of his disciples.—Then he prays: My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: yet nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. He asks that the cup pass from him. Does he say, Let this cup pass me by? For this would have been the prayer of one fearing on his own account. But it is one thing to ask that it pass him by, another to ask that it pass away from him. For in that it passes him by, he himself is delivered from the trouble of that which passes; but he who asks that it pass from him does not pray that he himself be passed over, but that what passes from him should pass over onto another. Was it possible for Christ not to suffer? Yet already from the foundation of the world this sacrament of our salvation had been shown forth in him. Was he himself unwilling to suffer?

Yet earlier he had consecrated his blood to be poured out for the remission of sins of his body.

How then does he say, Father, if it be possible? And how, Not as I will, but as thou wilt? Therefore the whole fear here is exerted concerning those who were about to suffer, in a manner not unbecoming to the Man-God.

One of those who were with him, drawing a sword, cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest: and the Lord said to him, Put up thy sword into its place. For all who take the sword shall perish by the sword. Was this one, then, already judged, because using the sword he would perish by the sword? But death by the sword is not the customary lot of all who use the sword. For many are carried off by fever or some other chance event, though they have used the sword either in the office of judgment or in the necessity of resisting robbers. Therefore by the apostle the ear of the servant of the high priest is cut off: that is, from the people that served the priesthood, through the disciple of Christ the disobedient hearing is cut away, and that which was unhearing is amputated to make room for the capacity of the truth. But the whole crowd had come out against the Lord armed with swords.

He commanded the sword to be put away: because he was going to destroy them not with a human sword, but with the sword of his own mouth. For the rest, if according to his statement everyone using the sword were to perish by the sword, it would rightly follow that the sword should be drawn for the destruction of those who were using the same sword for a crime.

The confession of the priest.

The tearing of the garment.—But the rest of the events follow their order. False witnesses were sought out; the priest, ignorant of the very law in which he boasted, sought under oath whether he himself was the Christ: as though the law and the prophets spoke of him only secretly. And indeed Christ himself confessed it, though unwillingly, since the Lord said: Thou hast said it. Having heard this majesty, he tore his garment, breaking apart, that is, the very veil of the law with which he was covered. But in the blows and spittings, to complete the humiliation of the Man, every kind of insult was exercised upon him.

Peter's denial.—It must be carefully considered under what condition Peter denied him: although this has been discussed above.

For first he says that he does not understand what is said: next, that he had not been with him: and third, that he does not know the man. And indeed he was nearly denying without guilt the man whom he had been the first to acknowledge as the Son of God: yet because out of the weakness of the flesh he had even wavered, he wept most bitterly, recalling that he had not been able to avoid the guilt of that trembling, even though he had been warned.

The repentance of Judas convicts the unbelief of the buyers.—He is then handed over to Pilate, the judge of the nations.

For he could not be judged as guilty according to the law, being himself without deceit or sin. Then Judas, who had betrayed him, seeing that he was 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 the sale of righteous blood, yet the very confession of the seller might convict the unbelief of the buyers. Who answered, What is that to us? See thou to it. This is a bold and blind profession. They hear that they have bought the blood of a just man, and yet believe that they will remain outside the guilt of judgment: whereas by saying, See thou to it, they establish the crime itself upon the seller, while conversely, by the testimony of the seller, the wickedness of the buyers is confirmed. Withdrawing then, he hanged himself, with Christ condemned.

So the time of Judas's death was arranged that, under the passion of the Lord, with all things below and above stirred and torn asunder, and the administration of all the elements stupefied in forgetfulness of its office, he might neither be visited among the dead, nor, after the resurrection, have among the living the opportunity of repentance.

The purchase of the potter's field with the price of Christ is full of mysteries.—Concerning the silver coins that were returned, since it was the price of blood, and it was not lawful for it to be mixed into the corbanan, that is, into the money of the offerings, upon deliberation the potter's field is bought, and is appointed for the burial of strangers. In this there is a great mystery of prophecy, and, amid the deeds of iniquity, a meditation full of miracle. It is the potter's work to form vessels from clay: in whose hand it lies, from the same clay, to reshape a vessel either the same or more beautiful. Now that the field is called the world is contained in the very words of our Lord. Therefore with the price of Christ the world is bought, that is, its universality is acquired, and it is appointed for the burial of strangers and of the needy.

Nothing in this pertains to Israel, and the whole use of this purchased world belongs to others: namely, to those who are buried in the price of Christ's blood, by which all things were bought. For he received all things from the Father, both what is in heaven and what is on earth: and therefore this is the potter's field, because all things are God's, in whose hand it lies to reshape us, as a potter, according to his will. In this field, then, having died together with Christ and been buried together with him, we shall obtain the eternal rest of this our pilgrimage. As a pledge of this matter, the prophecy of Jeremiah is added, so that in the working of this deed the authority of the divine voice, foretold so long before, might be shown.

Why to the priest: Thou hast said, but to Pilate: Thou sayest, was the answer.—Now when Pilate asked whether he himself were the king of the Jews, he answered: Thou sayest. But how different is this speech from what had been said to the priest? For to him asking whether he were the Christ, he had said: Thou hast said. This is because the whole law had foretold the coming Christ; the answer is given as it were concerning things past belonging to the priesthood, because it itself had always said that Christ would come, according to the law. But to this man, ignorant of the law, asking whether he himself were king of the Jews, it is said: Thou sayest: because by faith of present confession is the salvation of the Gentiles, and because he who before was ignorant now speaks this of him, which those who before spoke it now deny.

Pilate's wife, the people of the Gentiles.

The washing of Pilate's hands.—Now as Pilate sat upon the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying: Have thou nothing to do with that just man. In her is the figure of the people of the Gentiles: who, already a believer, calls the unbelieving people, with whom she lived, to the faith of Christ. And because she herself was to suffer much for Christ, she invites him with whom she lived into the same glory of the future hope. Finally, Pilate both washed his hands, and testified to the Jewish people that he was innocent of the blood of the Lord: because, while the Jews took upon themselves and their children the crime of the shed blood of the Lord, the people of the Gentiles daily, washed in the confession of the faith, departs from them.

What Barabbas signifies.—Now when Pilate offered, according to the privilege of the solemn day, by which one of the accused ought to be released at their request, to free Jesus: the people, at the urging of the priests, chose Barabbas instead. Now the interpretation of the name Barabbas is "son of the father." Already, then, the mystery of the future faithlessness is shown, in preferring to Christ the son of a father—namely antichrist, the man of sin and son of the devil: and at the urging of their own leaders they choose one reserved for condemnation rather than the author of salvation.

The scarlet and purple cloak.

The crown of thorns. The reed in the hand. On the head.—Then, after the Lord had been scourged, a scarlet cloak is put upon him, and a purple garment, and a crown of thorns, and a reed in his right hand, and, kneeling, he is mocked in adoration. Having taken upon himself, that is, all the infirmities of our body, he is next drenched, in the color of scarlet, with the blood of all the martyrs, to whom the kingdom together with him was owed: and he is clothed, in purple, with the precious honor of the prophets and patriarchs. He is crowned also with thorns, that is, with the sins of the Gentiles which once pierced him: so that from things pernicious and useless, which are wound about his head, that is, about God, 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, moreover, the weakness and emptiness of those same Gentiles, taken hold of by his hand, is made firm.

Indeed, it is also struck against his head. Against the head, as I suppose, there is no great injury from the blow of a reed: but a typical meaning is preserved in it, so that the weakness of the bodies of the Gentiles, previously taken hold of by the hand of Christ, might also come to rest in God the Father, who is his head. In all these things, moreover, while Christ is mocked, he is adored.

Going forth, they lay the wood of the Passion upon a certain man of Cyrene.

For the Jew was unworthy to bear the cross of Christ: since it was left to the faith of the Gentiles both to receive the cross and to suffer together with him. Then the place of the cross is such that, set in the middle of the earth, and standing as it were at the summit of this whole world, it might be equally accessible to all the Gentiles for the grasping of the knowledge of God. Also, when wine mixed with gall was offered him, he refused to drink it: for into the incorruption of eternal glory the bitterness of sins is not mixed. And his garment, divided rather by lot than torn, indicated the incorruption of the body that was to remain.

What the position of the thieves represents.—And thus upon the tree of life the salvation and life of all is hung: to whom two thieves are fastened, one at the left and one at the right, and for this reason together with him, that it might be understood that the death of men differs from the death of the Only-begotten: for he gave up his spirit of his own accord when he willed, while for those others their legs were broken, showing that the whole universality of the human race is called to the mystery of the Lord's Passion. But because, through the diversity of the faithful and the unfaithful, a division of all is made according to right and left: the one of the two placed at the right is saved by the justification of faith. There is added also that reproach by which Israel itself accused itself of unfaithfulness, when it is said: This is he who destroyed the temple of God, and in three days built it up again, and the rest.

It was not difficult to come down from the cross: but the mystery of the Father's will had to be fulfilled. But greater works he was doing while placed on the cross, by the disturbance of the whole of nature: is this then set forth as the greatest of all, and as it were the most difficult? What excuse then will there be, when after three days the temple of God rebuilt shall be seen in the resurrection of the body? But that both thieves reproach him with the condition of his suffering signifies that the scandal of the cross would be for all the faithful as well.

The three days of Christ's death.

The abandonment of Christ by God. The mystery of the drinking of the vinegar.—Now night out of day is a division of the times. For thus the number of three days and as many nights is completed as the third: and the hidden mystery of the divine operation is felt by the astonishment of all creation. The cry to God, however, is the voice of the body, attesting the separation of the Word of God withdrawing from itself. Finally he cries out why he is forsaken, saying: God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But he is forsaken, because he was to accomplish, as man, even death. Moreover, this too must be carefully considered, that when he had drunk vinegar given through a reed upon a sponge, crying out he gave up his spirit. Wine is both the honor and the strength of immortality, which through defect either of neglect or of the vessel turns sour. This, then, having turned sour in Adam, he himself took and drank from the Gentiles.

For it is offered to him to drink through a reed from a sponge, that is, he took from the bodies of the Gentiles the vices of corrupted eternity; and he poured into himself, into the communion of immortality, the vices that were in us. Finally, in John, after he had drunk fully, he said: It is finished: because he had drained off every vice of human corruption. And because nothing remained to be done from without, he sent forth his spirit with a cry and a loud voice: grieving that he was not bearing the sins of all.

What followed upon the death of Christ.—And then the veil of the temple is torn

because from then on the people was divided into parts, and the honor of the veil, together with the guardianship of the protecting angel, is taken away. The earth is moved: for it could not contain this dead one. The rocks were split: for the word of God and the power of eternal strength, penetrating all things then strong and firm, had burst in. And the tombs were opened: for the bars of death were unlocked. And many bodies of the sleeping saints arose: for, illuminating the darkness of death, and lighting up the obscurities of the underworld, in the resurrection of the saints, now beheld in the present, he was stripping away the spoils of death itself. But that the crime of unbelief might be heaped upon Israel, the centurion and the guards, beholding this disturbance of the whole of nature, confess the Son of God.

The burial of Christ.—That, moreover, at the request of Joseph, Pilate gave up the body, and it was wrapped in a linen cloth, and laid in a new tomb hewn out of rock, and a stone was rolled to the door of the tomb: although this is the order of the events, and it was necessary that he be buried who was to rise from the dead; nevertheless the individual details are set forth not without the weight of certain meanings. Joseph bears the figure of the apostles: and therefore, although 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 linen cloth. And indeed in this same linen cloth we find that the kinds of all living creatures were let down from heaven to Peter.

From which perhaps it is not superfluously understood that, under the name of this linen cloth, the Church is buried together with Christ

because then in it, as in the mingling of the Church, was gathered the diversity of clean and unclean animals. The body of the Lord, therefore, is brought, as it were through the teaching of the apostles, into the empty and new resting-place of the hewn stone: namely, into the breast of Gentile hardness, hewn out by a certain work of teaching, Christ is brought in—rough indeed and new, and never before penetrated by any entrance of the fear of God. And because nothing but him ought to penetrate into our hearts, the stone is rolled to the door: so that, because no author of divine knowledge had before been brought into us, none afterward might be brought in apart from him.

Then the fear of the theft of the body, and the guarding and sealing of the sepulcher, is a testimony of folly and unbelief: in that they wished to seal the tomb of him whom, by his own command, they had seen raised up dead from the tomb.

The resurrection on the Lord's day.

Why the angel is its first messenger. Why little women were first made aware of it.—Now the movement of the earth at morning time is the power of the resurrection of the Lord's day: when, the sting of death being crushed, and its darkness illumined, as the Lord of the heavenly Powers rises again, the trembling of the underworld is stirred up. The angel of the Lord, however, descending from heaven, and rolling back the stone, and sitting by the tomb, is the sign of the mercy of God the Father, sending the ministries of the heavenly Powers to the Son rising again from the dead. And therefore he himself is first the herald of the resurrection, so that the resurrection might be announced, as it were, by a certain service of the Father's will.

But immediately the Lord meets the little women, exhorted by the angel, and greets them: so that, for the disciples awaiting the announcement of the resurrection, it might be spoken not by the mouth of an angel rather than by that of Christ. But that the little women see the Lord first, are greeted, fall at his knees, are bidden to announce it to the apostles—the order is rendered contrary to the cause of the principal fault: so that, because death had begun from that sex, to it first should be given the glory, the sight, the fruit, and the message of the resurrection. Now silence about the resurrection of Christ is bought from the guards, who had seen all these things, with silver, and a lie about theft, on account, that is, of the honor and desire of the world—because in money is its honor—the glory of Christ is denied.

And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them.

After the resurrection Jesus is seen on the mountain and in Galilee, and is worshiped there, although some doubted, and their doubt increases our faith.

Then he is shown more plainly to Thomas: and he shows his side wounded by the lance, and his hands pierced with nails.

Jesus came and spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. To him power was given who a little before had been crucified, who had been buried in the tomb, who had lain dead, who afterward rose again. Now power was given in heaven and in earth: that he who before reigned in heaven might, through the faith of believers, reign on earth. Going therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. First they teach all nations, then, once taught, they immerse them in water. For it cannot be that the body should receive the sacrament of baptism, unless the soul has first received the truth of faith.

Now they are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: that as their divinity is one, so their bestowal may be one; and the name of the Trinity is one God.

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

The order is remarkable: he commanded the apostles first to teach all nations, then to immerse them by the sacrament of faith, and after faith and baptism, to instruct them as to what must be observed. And lest we think that what was commanded is slight and small, he added: All things whatsoever I have commanded you: that those who have believed, who have been baptized in the Trinity, may do all things that have been commanded. And behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the world. He who promises that he will be with his disciples even to the consummation of the world both shows that they will always be victors, and that he will never withdraw from those who believe. But he who promises his presence even to the consummation of the world does not fail to know that day, in which he knows that he will be with the apostles.