1. 1. If anyone considers piously and soberly the sermon which our Lord Jesus Christ spoke on the mount, as we read in the Gospel according to Matthew, I think he will find in it, as far as concerns the best moral conduct, the perfect measure of the Christian life. This we dare to promise not rashly, but inferring it from the very words of the same Lord; for the sermon is so concluded that it appears that in it are all the precepts that pertain to the forming of life. For he speaks thus: everyone, therefore, who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it did not fall; for it was founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them, I will liken him to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell; and great was its ruin (Mt 7, 24-27). Since, then, he did not say, who hears my words only, but added the words, who hears these words of mine, he sufficiently signified, I think, that these words which he spoke on the mount so perfectly instruct the life of those who are willing to live according to them that they are rightly compared to one building upon the rock. I have said this so that it may appear that this sermon is perfect in all the precepts by which the Christian life is formed. For about this passage there will be a more careful treatment in its own place.

1. 2. The beginning of this sermon, then, is taken up thus: and when he saw the great crowds, he went up onto the mountain; and when he had sat down, his disciples came to him. And opening his mouth he taught them, saying (Mt 5, 1-2). If it is asked what the mountain signifies, it is rightly understood to signify the greater precepts of righteousness, because the precepts given to the Jews were lesser.

Yet one and the same God, through his holy prophets and servants, according to a most well-ordered distribution of the times, gave lesser precepts to a people that still needed to be bound by fear, and through his Son gave greater precepts to a people that it was now fitting should be set free by love. But when lesser things are given to the lesser and greater things to the greater, they are given by him who alone knows how to offer to the human race the medicine suited to its times.

Nor is it any wonder that greater precepts are given for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, and lesser precepts were given for the sake of an earthly kingdom, by the same one God who made heaven and earth. Of this righteousness, then, which is greater, it is said through the prophet, your righteousness is like the mountains of God (Ps 36 (35), 7), and this is well signified by the fact that it is taught on the mountain by the one master (See Mt 23, 8) alone fit to teach such great matters.

And he teaches sitting, which pertains to the dignity of a master. And his disciples come to him, so that those who drew near to him in mind by fulfilling his precepts might be nearer to him also in body for hearing his words. He opened his mouth and taught them, saying (Mt 5, 2). This circumlocution by which it is written, and opening his mouth, perhaps by its very delay suggests that the sermon to come would be somewhat longer; unless perhaps it is not without meaning that he is now said to have opened his mouth, since he himself was accustomed in the Old Law to open the mouths of the prophets.

1. 3. What, then, does he say? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5, 3). We read it written of the craving for temporal things, all is vanity and presumption of spirit (Eccl 1, 14); and presumption of spirit signifies audacity and pride. Commonly, too, the proud are said to have great spirits, and rightly, since spirit is also called wind, whence it is written, fire, hail, snow, ice, the wind of the storm (Ps 148, 8). And who does not know that the proud are called puffed up, as though distended with wind? Whence comes also that saying of the apostle, knowledge puffs up, love builds up (1 Cor 8, 2). Therefore the poor in spirit are here rightly understood as the humble and those who fear God, that is, those who do not have a puffed-up spirit. Nor should blessedness have begun from anywhere else at all, since it is destined to arrive at the highest wisdom. But the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Sir 1, 16; Ps 111 (110), 10), since, on the contrary, the beginning of all sin is pride is written (Sir 10, 15). Let the proud, then, crave and love the kingdoms of the earth; but blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5, 3).

2. 4. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land by inheritance (Mt 5, 4)—that land, I believe, of which it is said in the Psalms, you are my hope, my portion in the land of the living (Ps 142 (141), 6). For it signifies a certain solidity and stability of the everlasting inheritance, where the soul, through good affection, rests as in its own place, just as the body rests in the land, and is there nourished with its own food, just as the body is from the land. This is the rest and the life of the saints. But the meek are those who yield to wrongs and do not resist evil, but overcome evil with good (See Rom 12, 21). Let the unmeek, then, quarrel and contend for earthly and temporal things; but blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land by inheritance (Mt 5, 4), from which they cannot be driven out.

2. 5. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Mt 5, 5). Mourning is sadness over the loss of loved things. But those who have turned to God lose the things they used to embrace as dear in this world; for they no longer rejoice in those things in which they rejoiced before, and until the love of eternal things is formed in them, they are wounded by a certain sadness. They will be comforted, then, by the Holy Spirit, who is for this reason chiefly named the Paraclete, that is, the Comforter, so that, losing temporal joy, they may fully enjoy eternal joy.

2. 6. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied (Mt 5, 6). Now he calls these the lovers of the true and unshaken good. They shall be satisfied, then, with that food of which the Lord himself says, my food is to do the will of my Father (John 4, 34), which is righteousness, and with that water of which whoever drinks, as he likewise says, it will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4, 14).

2. 7. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy (Mt 5, 7). He says that those are blessed who come to the aid of the wretched, since it is repaid to them in such a way that they are freed from wretchedness.

2. 8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Mt 5, 8). How foolish, then, are those who seek God with these outward eyes, when he is seen with the heart, as it is written elsewhere, and in simplicity of heart seek him! (Wis 1, 1) For this is a pure heart, which is a simple heart. And just as this light cannot be seen except by pure eyes, so neither is God seen unless that by which he can be seen is pure.

2. 9. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God (Mt 5, 9). In peace there is perfection, where nothing is in conflict; and therefore the peacemakers are sons of God, since nothing resists God, and surely sons ought to bear the likeness of their Father. But the peacemakers are at peace within themselves, who, ordering and subjecting all the movements of their mind to reason, that is, to mind and spirit, and having their carnal desires subdued, become the kingdom of God, in which all things are so ordered that what is foremost and most excellent in a man commands the rest, which do not resist and which we have in common with the beasts,

and that very thing which is most excellent in a man, that is, mind and reason, is subjected to a still mightier one, which is Truth itself, the only-begotten Son of God. For he cannot command what is below him unless he subjects himself to what is above him.

And this is the peace that is given on earth to men of good will (See Luke 2, 14), this the life of the consummate and perfect wise man. From a kingdom of this sort, most peaceful and most well-ordered, the prince of this world has been cast out (See John 12, 21), who lords it over the perverse and disordered. With this peace established and made firm within, whatever persecutions he who has been cast out stirs up from without, he increases the glory that is according to God, weakening nothing in that building, but, as his engines fail, making known how great is the firmness raised up within. Therefore there follows, blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5, 10).

3. 10. Now there are all these eight sentences. For now, addressing the rest, he speaks to those who were present, saying, blessed shall you be when they revile you and persecute you (Mt 5, 11). The earlier sentences he set out in general terms; for he did not say, "blessed are the poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven," but, for theirs, he says, is the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5, 3); nor, "blessed are the meek, for you shall possess the land," but, for they shall possess the land (Mt 5, 4); and so with the rest, down to the eighth sentence, where he says, blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5, 10).

From there he now begins to speak addressing those present, since both the things said above pertained also to those who were present and hearing, and these things afterward, which seem to be said specifically to those present, pertain also to those who were absent or were to come later. Therefore this number of the sentences is to be considered carefully.

For blessedness begins from humility: blessed are the poor in spirit, that is, the not puffed up, while the soul, fearing God, submits itself to the divine authority, lest after this life it go on to punishments, even if perchance in this life it seems blessed to itself.

From there it comes to the knowledge of the Divine Scriptures, where it must show itself meek through piety, lest it dare to find fault with what seems absurd to the unskilled, and through obstinate disputes be made unteachable.

From there it now begins to know by what bonds of this world it is held through carnal habit and sins. And so in this third step, in which there is knowledge, the loss of the highest good is mourned, because one clings to the lowest things.

In the fourth step there is labor, where one strives vehemently so that the mind may tear itself away from those things to which it is bound by a deadly sweetness. Here, then, righteousness is hungered and thirsted for, and fortitude is very necessary, because what is held with delight is not relinquished without sorrow.

In the fifth step, to those persevering in labor counsel for escape is given, because unless one is helped by a higher power, one is in no way fit of oneself to extricate oneself from such great entanglements of miseries. But it is a just counsel that he who wishes to be helped by a more powerful one should help the weaker in that wherein he himself is more powerful. And so, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

In the sixth step is purity of heart, arising from a good conscience of good works, able to contemplate that highest good which can be discerned only by a pure and serene understanding.

Finally is the seventh, wisdom itself, that is, the contemplation of truth, making the whole man peaceful and taking on the likeness of God, which is concluded thus: blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

The eighth returns, as it were, to the head, because it shows and proves what is consummated and perfect.

And so in the first and in the eighth the kingdom of heaven is named: blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and, blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, when it is now said, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? (Rom 8, 35) There are, then, seven that perfect; for the eighth makes clear and demonstrates what is perfect, so that through these steps the rest too may be perfected, beginning again, as it were, from the head.

4. 11. It seems to me, then, that the sevenfold activity of the Holy Spirit too, of which Isaiah speaks (See Isa 11, 2-3), corresponds to these steps and sentences. But the order differs: for there the enumeration began with the more excellent, here with the lower; for there it begins with wisdom and ends with the fear of God, but the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Sir 1, 16; Ps 111 (110), 10). Therefore, if we count step by step as though ascending, first there is the fear of God, second piety, third knowledge, fourth fortitude, fifth counsel, sixth understanding, seventh wisdom.

The fear of God corresponds to the humble, of whom it is said here, blessed are the poor in spirit, that is, the not puffed up, not proud, to whom the apostle says, do not be high-minded, but fear (Rom 11, 20), that is, do not be exalted.

Piety corresponds to the meek. For he who seeks piously honors Holy Scripture and does not censure what he does not yet understand, and therefore does not resist, which is to be meek; whence it is said here, blessed are the meek.

Knowledge corresponds to those who mourn, who have now learned in the Scriptures by what evils they are held bound—evils that, not knowing them, they craved as though they were good and useful—of whom it is said here, blessed are those who mourn.

Fortitude corresponds to those who hunger and thirst. For they labor, desiring joy in the true goods and longing to turn their love away from earthly and bodily things, of whom it is said here, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Counsel corresponds to the merciful. For this is the one remedy for escaping such great evils: that we forgive as we wish to be forgiven, and help others in what we can, as we ourselves desire to be helped in what we cannot, of whom it is said here, blessed are the merciful.

Understanding corresponds to the pure in heart, as to an eye that has been purified, by which can be discerned what the bodily eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man (Isa 64, 4; 1 Cor 2, 9), of whom it is said here, blessed are the pure in heart. Wisdom corresponds to the peacemakers, in whom all things are now set in order and no movement is in rebellion against reason, but all things obey the spirit of a man, since he himself also obeys God, of whom it is said here, blessed are the peacemakers.

4. 12. Now one reward, which is the kingdom of heaven, is named in various ways for the several steps. In the first, as was fitting, the kingdom of heaven is set down, which is the perfect and highest wisdom of the rational soul. And so it was said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, as though it were said, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

To the meek an inheritance is given, as a Father's testament to those who seek with piety: blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land by inheritance.

To those who mourn, consolation, as to those who know what they have lost and in what they have been submerged: blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted;

to those who hunger and thirst, satisfaction, as refreshment to those who labor and contend bravely for salvation: blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied;

to the merciful, mercy, as to those using true and excellent counsel, so that what they show to the weaker may be shown to them by a more powerful one: blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy;

to the pure in heart, the power of seeing God, as to those bearing a pure eye for understanding eternal things: blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God;

to the peacemakers, the likeness of God, as to those perfectly wise and formed to the image of God through the regeneration of the renewed man: blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

And these things indeed can be fulfilled in this life, as we believe they were fulfilled in the apostles; for that wholesale change into angelic form, which is promised after this life, cannot be set forth in any words.

Blessed, therefore, are those who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This eighth sentence, which returns to the head and declares the perfect man, is signified perhaps both by the circumcision on the eighth day in the Old Testament, and by the Lord's resurrection after the Sabbath, which is certainly the eighth and likewise the first day, and by the celebration of the octave days which we celebrate in the regeneration of the new man, and by the very number of Pentecost. For when seven is multiplied by seven, by which forty-nine is made, an eighth is added, as it were, so that fifty may be completed and there may be, as it were, a return to the head. On that day the Holy Spirit was sent, by which we are led into the kingdom of heaven and receive the inheritance and are comforted and are fed and obtain mercy and are made pure and are made peaceful. And so, being made perfect, we endure all the troubles brought upon us from without for the sake of truth and righteousness.

5. 13. Blessed shall you be, he says, when they revile you and persecute you and say every evil against you, lying, for my sake. Rejoice and exult, for your reward is great in heaven (Mt 5, 11-12). Let whoever seeks the delights of this world and an abundance of temporal things under the Christian name take note that our blessedness is within, just as it is said of the soul of the Church, by the mouth of the prophet, all the beauty of the king's daughter is within (Ps 45 (44), 14). For from without are promised revilings and persecutions and slanders, of which nonetheless there is a great reward in heaven, which is felt in the heart of those who endure, of those who can now say, we glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience trial, and trial hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5, 3-5). For to suffer these things is not fruitful, but to endure these things for Christ's name not only with an even mind but even with exultation. For many heretics, deceiving souls under the Christian name, suffer many such things; but they are for this reason excluded from this reward, because it was not said only, blessed are those who suffer persecution, but it was added, for the sake of righteousness. But where there is not sound faith, there cannot be righteousness, because the just man lives by faith (Hab 2, 4; Rom 1, 17). Nor let schismatics promise themselves anything from this reward, because likewise where there is no love, there cannot be righteousness; for love of neighbor does no evil (Rom 13, 10), and if they had it, they would not tear apart the body of Christ, which is the Church (See Col 1, 24).

What the Difference Is Between to Revile and to Speak Evil

5. 14. Now it can be asked what difference there is between his saying, when they revile you, and, they will say every evil against you, since "to revile" is the same as "to speak evil." But a reviling is cast in one way with insult in the presence of him who is reviled, as it was said to our Lord, do we not say truly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? (John 8, 48), and in another way when the reputation of one absent is injured, as it is likewise written of him, some said, "he is a prophet"; others said, "no, but he leads the people astray (John 7, 12)." But to persecute is to inflict force or to attack with snares. This those did who betrayed him and who crucified him.

Indeed, that this too was not set down bare, so that it would be said, and they will say every evil against you, but that there was added, lying, and added also, for my sake—this was added, I think, on account of those who wish to glory over persecutions and over the disgrace of their reputation, and therefore to say that Christ pertains to them because many evil things are said about them, even though true things are said, when they are said about their error. And if sometimes some false things too are bandied about, which generally happens through the rashness of men, they nonetheless do not suffer these things for Christ's sake. For he does not follow Christ who is called a Christian otherwise than according to the true faith and Catholic discipline.

5. 15. Rejoice, he says, and exult, for your reward is great in heaven (Mt 5, 12). I do not think the heavens here mean the upper parts of this visible world—for our reward, which ought to be unshaken and eternal, is not to be placed in things that roll and pass away—but I think in heaven means in the spiritual firmaments, where everlasting righteousness dwells (See 2 Pt 3, 13). In comparison with these, the wicked soul is called earth, to which, when it sinned, it was said, you are earth, and into the earth you shall go (Gen 3, 19). Of these heavens the apostle says, for our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3, 20). They feel this reward already, then, who rejoice in spiritual goods; but it will be perfected in every part when this mortal too has put on immortality (1 Cor 15, 53-54). For so, he says, they persecuted the prophets also, who were before you (Mt 5, 12). Now he has set down persecution in general, both in revilings and in the tearing of reputation. And he has well exhorted by an example, because those who speak the truth are wont to suffer persecution. Nor for this reason, however, did the ancient prophets, from fear of persecution, fail in the preaching of the truth.

6. 16. Most rightly, then, there follows, you are the salt of the earth (Mt 5, 13), showing that those are to be judged foolish who, whether pursuing an abundance of temporal goods or fearing want, lose eternal things, which can neither be given nor taken away by men.

And so, if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted?—that is, if you, through whom the peoples are in a manner to be seasoned, should from fear of temporal persecutions lose the kingdoms of heaven, who will be the men through whom error may be taken away from you, when God has chosen you, through whom he takes away the error of the rest?

Therefore, salt that has lost its savor is good for nothing, except to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by men. It is not, then, the one who suffers persecution who is trodden underfoot by men, but the one who, by fearing persecution, loses his savor. For one cannot be trodden underfoot unless he is lower; but he is not lower who, although in body he endures much on earth, is nonetheless fixed in heart upon heaven.

6. 17. You are the light of the world (Mt 5, 14). As above he said, the salt of the earth, so now he says, the light of the world. For neither above is that earth to be understood which we tread with bodily feet, but men, who dwell on the earth, or even sinners, for the seasoning and the suppressing of whose rottenness the Lord sent the apostolic salt. And here too the world must be understood not as heaven and earth, but as men who are in the world or love the world, for the enlightening of whom the apostles were sent. A city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden, that is, founded upon a notable and great righteousness, which the very mountain on which the Lord discourses also signifies. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but upon a lampstand (Mt 5, 15). What do we think? Was it said, under a bushel, so that only the hiding of the lamp is to be understood, as though he said, "no one lights a lamp and hides it"? Or does the bushel also signify something, so that to put the lamp under a bushel is this: to make the conveniences of the body higher than the preaching of the truth, so that for this reason one does not preach the truth, while he fears lest he suffer some trouble in bodily and temporal things?

And it is well called a bushel: whether on account of the repayment by measure, because each one receives the things he has done in the body—that there, says the apostle, each one may receive the things he has done in the body (2 Cor 5, 10), and as though of this bushel of the body it is said in another place, for with what measure you have measured, it shall be measured back to you (Mt 7, 2)—;

or because temporal goods, which are carried out through the body, are both begun and pass away within a fixed measure of days, which perhaps the bushel signifies. But eternal and spiritual things are confined by no such limit; for God does not give the Spirit by measure (John 3, 34).

Under a bushel, then, anyone puts his lamp who obscures and covers the light of good doctrine with temporal conveniences, but upon a lampstand he who subjects his body to the ministry of God, so that the preaching of the truth is higher and the service of the body lower.

Yet through that very service of the body, let the loftier doctrine shine, which through bodily offices, that is, through the voice and the tongue and the other movements of the body, is conveyed to learners in good works.

Upon a lampstand, then, he puts his lamp, when the apostle says, I do not so fight as one beating the air, but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, while preaching to others, I myself should be found reprobate (1 Cor 9, 26-27).

But as for what he says, that it may give light to all who are in the house (Mt 5, 15), I think the house means the dwelling of men, that is, the world itself, on account of what he said above, you are the light of the world (Mt 5, 14). Or if anyone wishes to take the house as the Church, neither is this absurd.

7. 18. So let your light shine, he says, before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Mt 5, 16). If he said only, so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds, he would seem to have set the goal in the praises of men, which hypocrites seek, and those who strive after honors and chase the emptiest glory.

Against whom it is said, if I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ (Gal 1, 10), and through the prophet, those who please men have been put to shame, because God has brought them to nothing, and again, God breaks the bones of those who please men (Ps 53 (52), 6); and again the apostle, let us not become greedy for empty glory (Gal 5, 26); and he again, but let a man prove himself, and then he will have glory in himself and not in another (Gal 6, 4).

He did not say only, that they may see your good deeds, then, but added, and glorify your Father who is in heaven, so that this very thing—that a man pleases men through good works—should not set its goal there, in pleasing men, but should refer this to the praise of God, and for this reason please men, that in him God may be glorified. For this is to the advantage of those who praise, that they honor not the man but God, just as the Lord showed in the man himself who was being carried, when the crowds marveled at his powers over the paralytic who was healed, as it is written in the Gospel, they feared and glorified God, who gave such power to men (Mt 9, 8). The apostle Paul, imitating him, says, but they only kept hearing that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith he once laid waste, and they glorified God in me (Gal 1, 23-24).

7. 19. After he has exhorted his hearers, then, to prepare themselves to endure all things for truth and righteousness, and not to hide the good they were to receive, but to learn it with such benevolence that they might teach others, referring their good works not to their own praise but to the glory of God, he now begins to form them and to teach them what they should teach, as though they were asking and saying, "Behold, we are willing both to endure all things for your name and not to hide your teaching. But what is this very thing that you forbid to be hidden? And for what do you bid that all things be endured? Are you going to say other things against what is written in the Law?" No, he says. For do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill (Mt 5, 17).

8. 20. In this sentence there is a twofold sense; it must be treated according to each. For he who says, I have not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill, either says it by adding what it lacks or by doing what it contains.

Let us first consider the former, which I set down first. For he who adds what it lacks does not abolish what he finds, but rather confirms it by perfecting it. And so he goes on and says, amen I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota or one tittle shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished (Mt 5, 18). For while even those things are accomplished which are added for perfection, much more are those things accomplished which were set down first for a beginning. And as for what he says, not one iota or one tittle shall pass from the Law, nothing else can be understood except a forceful expression of perfection, since it is demonstrated by the individual letters, among which letters the iota is smaller than the rest, because it is made by a single stroke, while the tittle is some little part even of the iota itself, at the top. By these words he shows that in the Law even the least things are carried through to their effect.

Then he adds, for whoever shall abolish one of these least commandments and shall so teach men, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5, 19). The least commandments, then, are signified by the one iota and the one tittle. Whoever, therefore, shall abolish and shall so teach, that is, according to what he abolishes, not according to what he finds and reads, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; and perhaps for this reason he will not be in the kingdom of heaven, where none but the great can be. But whoever shall do and shall so teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever shall do is this: but whoever shall not abolish and shall so teach, according to what he does not abolish. But that he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven, it follows that he will also be in the kingdom of heaven, into which the great are admitted. For to this pertains what follows.

9. 21. For I say to you that, unless your righteousness shall abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5, 20); that is, unless you fulfill not only those least precepts of the Law which begin a man, but also these which are added by me, who have not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

But you say to me, "If, when he was speaking above of those least commandments, he said that whoever should abolish one of them and teach according to his abolition is called least in the kingdom of heaven, but that whoever should do them and so teach is called great, and that for this reason he will already be in the kingdom of heaven because he is great, what need is there to add to the least precepts of the Law, if one can already be in the kingdom of heaven because whoever does them and so teaches is great?" Therefore that sentence is to be taken thus: but whoever shall do and shall so teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven, that is, not according to those least things, but according to those which I am going to say. And what are these? That your righteousness, he says, may abound beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees, because unless it abound, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Therefore he who shall abolish those least things and so teach shall be called least; but he who shall do those least things and so teach is not yet to be held great and fit for the kingdom of heaven, yet not so least as the one who abolishes them. But that he may be great and suited to that kingdom, he ought to do and to teach as Christ now teaches, that is, so that his righteousness abounds beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees.

The righteousness of the Pharisees is that they do not kill; the righteousness of those who are to enter the kingdom of God is that they are not angry without cause. It is the least thing, then, not to kill; and he who abolishes that shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But he who fulfills it, so as not to kill, will not at once be great and fit for the kingdom of heaven, yet he has climbed some step. He will be perfected, however, if he is not even angry without cause; and if he perfects this, he will be much farther removed from murder. Therefore he who teaches that we should not be angry does not abolish the Law that we should not kill, but rather fulfills it, so that both outwardly, in not killing, and in the heart, in not being angry, we may guard innocence.

9. 22. You have heard, then, he says, that it was said to the ancients, "you shall not kill; but whoever shall kill shall be liable to judgment." But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother without cause shall be liable to judgment; and whoever shall say to his brother, "raca," shall be liable to the council; and whoever shall say, "you fool," shall be liable to the fire of Gehenna (Mt 5, 21-22). What is the difference between one liable to judgment, one liable to the council, and one liable to the fire of Gehenna? For this last sounds most grave and points to certain steps made from the lighter to the graver, until one comes to the fire of Gehenna.

And therefore, if it is lighter to be liable to judgment than to be liable to the council, and likewise lighter to be liable to the council than to be liable to the fire of Gehenna, it follows that it must be understood as lighter to be angry with one's brother without cause than to say, raca, and again lighter to say, raca, than to say, you fool. For the liability itself would not have steps unless the sins too were recalled step by step.

9. 23. Now one obscure word is set down here, because it is neither Greek nor Latin: raca; the rest are in common use in our language. Some have wished to draw the interpretation of this word from the Greek, supposing that raca means "ragged," since in Greek "rag" is "rakos." Yet when these are asked what "ragged" is in Greek, they do not answer raca. Then the Latin translator could, where he put raca, have put "ragged," and not used a word that is both nonexistent in the Latin language and unusual in the Greek. More probable, then, is what I heard from a certain Hebrew, when I asked him about it. For he said it is a word signifying nothing in particular, but expressing the movement of an indignant mind. Grammarians call these interjections—particles of speech signifying the disposition of an agitated mind, as when one in pain says "alas," or one who is angry says "hah." These words are proper to their respective languages and are not easily transferred into another language. This is certainly the reason that compelled both the Greek translator and the Latin to set down the word itself, since they could not find how to translate it.

9. 24. There are, then, steps in these sins, so that first one is angry and retains that movement conceived in the heart. Now if the agitation itself wrings from him a cry that signifies nothing in particular, but by its very outburst testifies to that movement of mind by which the one with whom he is angry is struck, this is certainly more than if the rising anger were pressed down in silence. But if not only the cry of one indignant is heard, but also a word that now marks and brands a definite reproach of the one against whom it is uttered, who would doubt that this is more than if only the sound of indignation were emitted? And so in the first there is one thing, that is, anger alone; in the second, two, both anger and the cry that signifies anger; in the third, three, both anger and the cry that signifies anger and, in the cry itself, the expression of a definite reproach.

See now also the three liabilities: judgment, the council, the fire of Gehenna! For in a judgment there is still room given for a defense.

But in the council, although there too there is usually a judgment, yet because the very distinction compels us to admit that there is some difference in this place, the pronouncing of the sentence seems to pertain to the council, when the question is no longer dealt with together with the accused himself, whether he is to be condemned, but those who judge confer among themselves by what punishment one who is agreed to be condemned ought to be condemned.

But the fire of Gehenna has neither a doubtful condemnation, like the judgment, nor the punishment of one condemned, like the council; for in Gehenna both the condemnation and the punishment of the condemned are certain.

There seem to be, then, certain steps in sins and in liability. But in what ways they are invisibly applied to the deserts of souls, who can say? Therefore one must hear how great the difference is between the righteousness of the Pharisees and the greater righteousness which leads into the kingdom of heaven,

namely, that, although it is graver to kill than to inflict abuse with a word, there killing makes one liable to judgment, but here anger makes one liable to judgment, which is the lightest of those three sins; because there they conducted the case of murder among men, but here all things are committed to the divine judgment, where the end of the condemned is the fire of Gehenna. But whoever shall say that murder is punished with a graver penalty under the greater righteousness, if abuse is punished by the fire of Gehenna, compels us to understand that there are differences of Gehennas.

9. 25. Indeed, in these three sentences an implied supplying of words must be noted. For the first sentence has all the necessary words, so that nothing is supplied: whoever is angry, he says, with his brother without cause shall be liable to judgment. But in the second, when he says, but whoever shall say to his brother, "raca," there is supplied, "without cause," and so it is joined, shall be liable to the council. Now in the third, where he says, but whoever shall say, "you fool (Mt 5, 22)," two things are supplied: both "to his brother" and "without cause."

This is the basis on which it is defended that the apostle calls the Galatians fools, whom he also names brothers; for he does not do it without cause. But here "brother" is to be supplied, because of an enemy it is said afterward how he too is to be treated under the greater righteousness.

10. 26. Then there follows here, if, therefore, you offer your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to your brother; and then, coming, offer your gift (Mt 5, 23-24). From this it certainly appears that it was of a brother that the foregoing was said, since the sentence that follows is connected by such a conjunction that it bears witness to the foregoing. For he does not say, "But if you offer your gift at the altar," but he says, if, therefore, you offer your gift at the altar. For if it is not permitted to be angry with one's brother without cause, or to say, raca, or to say, you fool, much less is it permitted to hold something in the mind, so that indignation turns into hatred. To this pertains also what is said in another place, let not the sun go down upon your anger (Eph 4, 26). We are bidden, then, when about to bring our gift to the altar, if we remember that our brother has something against us, to leave our gift before the altar and go and be reconciled to our brother, and then to come and offer the gift.

But if this is taken literally, perhaps someone may believe that it ought to be done thus only if the brother is present; for it cannot be put off any longer, since you are bidden to leave your gift before the altar. If, then, something of this sort should come to mind concerning one who is absent and, as may happen, even set across the sea, it is absurd to believe that the gift is to be left before the altar, which you would offer to God after wandering over lands and seas. And therefore we are altogether compelled to take refuge within, in spiritual things, so that what was said can be understood without absurdity.

10. 27. By the altar, then, we may spiritually understand faith itself, in the inner temple of God, whose sign is the visible altar. For whatever gift we offer to God—whether prophecy or teaching or prayer or hymn or psalm, and if any other such of the spiritual gifts comes to mind—it cannot be accepted by God unless it is supported by sincerity of faith and is, as it were, set firmly and immovably upon it, so that what we say can be whole and unimpaired. For many heretics, not having an altar, that is, true faith, have spoken blasphemies in place of praise, weighed down, that is, by earthly opinions, casting their vow as it were upon the ground. But the intention of the one offering ought also to be sound.

And therefore, when we are about to offer something of this sort in our heart, that is, in the inner temple of God—for the temple of God is holy (1 Cor 3, 17), says the apostle, which you are; and, that Christ may dwell in the inner man through faith in your hearts (Eph 3, 16-17)—if it comes to mind that our brother has something against us, that is, if we have injured him in something, for then he himself has something against us; for we have something against him if he has injured us, where there is no need to go for reconciliation, for you will not ask pardon of one who did you a wrong, but will only forgive, as you desire to be forgiven by the Lord for what you yourself have committed. We must go for reconciliation, then, when it comes to mind that we have perhaps injured our brother in something,

and we must go not with the feet of the body but with the movements of the mind, so that you prostrate yourself with humble affection before your brother, to whom you have run with dear thought, in the sight of him to whom you are about to offer your gift. For thus, even if he is present, you will be able to soothe him with no feigned mind and recall him to favor by asking pardon, if you have first done this before God, going to him not with a sluggish movement of the body but with a most swift affection of love. And then, coming—that is, recalling your intention to what you had begun to do—you will offer your gift.

10. 28. But who does this—either not to be angry with his brother without cause, or not to say raca without cause, or not to call him a fool without cause, all of which is committed most proudly, or, if he should perhaps have fallen into any of these, to beg pardon with a suppliant mind, which is the one remedy—who does this unless he is not puffed up with the spirit of empty boasting? Blessed, therefore, are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5, 3). Now let us see what follows!

11. 29. Be, he says, well-disposed toward your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest perhaps the adversary hand you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Amen I say to you, you will not go out from there until you pay the last farthing (Mt 5, 25-26).

By the judge I understand: for the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son (John 5, 22). By the officer I understand: and the angels, it says, ministered to him (Mt 4, 11); and we believe that he will come with his angels to judge the living and the dead (See 2 Tim 4, 11). By the prison I understand the punishments, namely, of the darkness, which in another place he calls outer (See Mt 8, 12; 22, 13; 25, 30), I believe for this reason: that within, in the mind itself, or even, if anything more hidden can be conceived, is the joy of the divine rewards, of which it is said to the well-deserving servant, enter into the joy of your Lord (Mt 25, 23); just as also in this ordering of the commonwealth one who is thrust into prison is sent out from the chamber or from the praetorium of the judge.

11. 30. But as for paying the last farthing, it can not absurdly be understood either as set down for this, that nothing is left unpunished—just as in speaking we also say, "down to the dregs," when we wish to express something so thoroughly exacted that nothing is left—or so that by the name of the last farthing earthly sins are signified. For the fourth part of the distinct members of this world, and that the last, is found to be earth, if you begin from heaven, count the air as second, the water as third, the earth as fourth. It can fittingly seem, then, to have been said, until you pay the last farthing (Mt 5, 26), "until you expiate your earthly sins"; for the sinner heard this too, you are earth, and into the earth you shall go (Gen 3, 19).

But as for what was said, until you pay, I wonder whether it does not signify that punishment which is called eternal. For from where will that debt be paid, where there is no longer given any room for repenting and living more rightly? For perhaps until you pay is placed here just as in that passage where it was said, sit at my right hand, until I put all your enemies under your feet (Ps 110 (109), 1); for he will not, when the enemies have been put under his feet, cease to sit at the right hand; or that saying of the apostle, for he must reign, until he puts all his enemies under his feet (1 Cor 15, 25); for he will not, when they have been put there, cease to reign. As, then, he is there understood, of whom it was said, he must reign until he puts his enemies under his feet, to be going to reign always, since they will always be under his feet, so here it can be taken that he, of whom it was said, you will not go out from there until you pay the last farthing, is never going to go out, because he will always be paying the last farthing, while he expiates with everlasting punishments the earthly sins. Nor would I say this in such a way that I seem to have removed a more careful treatment of the punishments of sins, how in the Scriptures they are called eternal; though in whatever way they may be, they are to be avoided rather than known.

11. 31. But let us now see who this adversary is, toward whom we are bidden to be well-disposed quickly, while we are with him on the way! For he is either the devil, or a man, or the flesh, or God, or his precept. But I do not see how we are bidden to be well-disposed toward the devil, that is, in concord or in agreement with him; for some have interpreted what is set down in Greek, eunoon, as in concord, others as agreeing. But neither are we bidden to show benevolence toward the devil—for where there is benevolence, there is friendship—nor would anyone say that friendship is to be made with the devil; nor is it of advantage to be in concord with him, against whom, by renouncing him once for all, we have declared war, and by whose conquest we shall be crowned; nor ought we now to agree with him, with whom, if we had never agreed, we would never have fallen into these miseries.

But concerning a man, although we are bidden to have peace with all, so far as is in us (See Rom 12, 18), where certainly benevolence and concord and agreement can be understood, I nonetheless do not see how I should take it that we are handed over to a judge by a man, where I understand Christ as the judge, before whose tribunal all must be presented, as the apostle says (See 2 Cor 5, 10). How, then, will one who will be presented equally before the judge hand another over to the judge?

Or if anyone is handed over to the judge for this reason, that he has injured a man, even though the one injured does not hand him over, it is much more conveniently taken that one is handed over to the judge by the Law itself, against which he acted when he injured the man. For even if someone has harmed a man by killing him, there will now be no time in which he may be in concord with him, since he is no longer with him on the way, that is, in this life. Nor, however, will he for that reason fail to be healed by repenting, and by taking refuge, with the sacrifice of a contrite heart, in the mercy of him who forgives the sins of those who turn to him, and who rejoices more over one penitent than over ninety-nine just (See Luke 15, 7).

But toward the flesh I see much less how we are bidden to be well-disposed, or in concord, or in agreement. For sinners rather love their flesh and are in concord with it and agree with it; but those who subject it to servitude do not themselves agree with it, but force it to agree with them.

11. 32. Perhaps, then, we are bidden to agree with God and to be well-disposed toward him, so that we may be reconciled to him from whom by sinning we have turned away, so that he can be called our adversary.

For those whom he resists he is rightly called the adversary of; for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (Jas 4, 6); and the beginning of all sin is pride, but the beginning of man's pride is to apostatize from God (Sir 10, 14-15); and the apostle says, for if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved in his life (Rom 5, 10). From which it can be understood that no nature is an enemy to God, since the very ones who were enemies are reconciled.

Whoever, then, on this way—that is, in this life—is not reconciled to God through the death of his Son, will be handed over to the judge by him, because the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son (John 5, 22). And so the other things follow that are written in this passage, of which we have already treated.

There is one thing only that makes a difficulty for this understanding: how it can rightly be said that we are on the way with God, if in this place he himself is to be taken as the adversary of the impious, to whom we are bidden to be reconciled quickly—unless perhaps, because he himself is everywhere, we too, when we are on this way, are certainly with him. For if I ascend into heaven, it says, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present; if I take my wings straight ahead and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me down, and your right hand will bring me (Ps 139 (138), 8-10).

Or if it is not pleasing to say that the impious are with God, although God is nowhere not present—just as we do not say that the blind are with the light, even though the light surrounds their eyes—one thing remains: that here we understand the adversary to be the precept of God. For what so opposes those who wish to sin as the precept of God, that is, his Law and the Divine Scripture which has been given to us for this life, so that it may be with us on the way, which we ought not to contradict, lest it hand us over to the judge, but with which we ought to agree quickly? For no one knows when he may depart from this life.

But who agrees with Divine Scripture except one who reads or hears it piously, granting it the highest authority, so that what he understands he does not hate because he perceives it to be opposed to his sins, but rather loves his own correction and rejoices that his diseases are not spared until they are healed; and what sounds to him either obscure or absurd, he does not from it stir up contests of contradictions, but prays that he may understand, yet remembers that benevolence and reverence are to be shown to so great an authority? But who does this except one who has come to open and learn his Father's testament not with the threatening of lawsuits, but meek with piety? Blessed, therefore, are the meek, for they shall possess the land by inheritance (Mt 5, 4). Let us see what follows!

12. 33. You have heard that it was said, "you shall not commit adultery." But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Mt 5, 27-28). The lesser righteousness, then, is not to commit adultery by bodily union, but the greater righteousness of the kingdom of God is not to commit adultery in the heart. But whoever does not commit adultery in the heart guards much more easily against committing it in the body. He confirmed the former, then, who commanded the latter; for he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (See Mt 5, 17).

Indeed, it must be considered that he did not say, "everyone who lusts for a woman," but, who looks at a woman to lust, that is, who looks with this end and this mind, that he may lust for her; which is no longer to be tickled by the delight of the flesh, but plainly to consent to lust, in such a way that the unlawful appetite is not reined in but, if the opportunity is given, is satisfied.

12. 34. For there are three things by which sin is completed: by suggestion, by delight, by consent. Suggestion comes about either through memory or through the senses of the body, when we see or hear or smell or taste or touch something. And if it delights to enjoy it, the unlawful delight must be reined in. As when we fast and, at the sight of food, the appetite of the palate rises, it comes about only through delight; yet to this we do not consent, and we restrain it by the right of ruling reason. But if consent has been given, the sin will be complete, known to God in our heart, even if by the deed it does not become known to men.

These steps, then, are as follows: as though the suggestion comes from the serpent, that is, from a slippery and rolling—that is, temporal—movement of bodies; for even if any such phantasms are turned over within the soul, they have been drawn from the body from without; and if any hidden movement of the body, apart from those five senses, touches the soul, it too is temporal and slippery. And therefore, the more hiddenly it glides in, so as to touch thought, the more fittingly it is compared to a serpent.

These three, then, as I had begun to say, are like that deed which is written in Genesis, so that, as it were, from the serpent comes the suggestion and a certain persuasion, but in the carnal appetite, as in Eve, the delight, and in reason, as in the man, the consent (See Gen 3, 1-7; 2 Cor 11, 3). When these have been carried through, the man is driven, as it were, out of paradise, that is, out of the most blessed light of righteousness, into death.

Most justly, indeed. For he who persuades does not compel. And all natures, in their own order and their own grades, are beautiful, but from the higher things, in which the rational mind is set in order, one must not decline to the lower. Nor is anyone compelled to do this; and therefore, if he does it, he is punished by the just Law of God; for he does not commit it unwillingly.

Nevertheless, delight, before habit, is either nothing or so slight as to be almost nothing; to consent to it is a great sin, when it is unlawful. But when anyone has consented, he commits sin in the heart. And if it has even gone forward into a deed, the desire seems to be satisfied and extinguished. But afterward, when the suggestion is repeated, a greater delight is kindled, which nonetheless is still much less than that which, by repeated deeds, turns into habit. For to conquer this is most difficult. And yet even habit itself, if one does not abandon oneself and does not shrink back from the Christian warfare, one will overcome under that Leader and Helper, and so, into the former peace and order, both the man is subjected to Christ and the woman to the man (See 1 Cor 11, 3).

12. 35. As, then, sin is reached by three steps—suggestion, delight, consent—so of sin itself there are three differences: in the heart, in the deed, in habit, as it were three deaths: one as though in the house, that is, when in the heart consent is given to lust; another now brought forth, as though outside the gate, when the assent goes forward into a deed; the third, when by the force of evil habit the mind is pressed down as though by an earthy mass, as though now stinking in the tomb. That the Lord raised these three kinds of dead, whoever reads the Gospel recognizes. And perhaps he considers what differences the very voice of the one raising them has, when in one place he says, girl, arise! (Mark 5, 41), in another, young man, I say to you, arise! (Luke 7, 14), in another, he groaned in spirit and wept and again groaned, and then afterward cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!" (John 11, 33. 35. 43)

12. 36. Therefore, by the name of those who commit adultery, who are mentioned in this passage, every carnal and lustful desire must be understood. For since Scripture so constantly calls idolatry fornication, and the apostle Paul calls greed by the name of idolatry (See Ezek 16, 15-22; Hos 4, 11-12; Col 3, 5), who would doubt that every evil desire is rightly called fornication, when the soul, neglecting the higher law by which it is ruled, is corrupted by the shameful pleasure of lower natures, prostituted as though for hire? And therefore whoever feels carnal delight rebelling against his right will through the habit of sins, by whose untamed violence he is dragged into captivity, let him recall as much as he can what kind of peace he has lost by sinning, and cry out, wretched man that I am! Who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7, 24-25). For thus, when he cries out that he is wretched, by mourning he implores the help of the Comforter. Nor is the knowledge of one's wretchedness a small approach to blessedness; and therefore blessed also are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Mt 5, 5).

13. 37. Then there follows, and he says, but if your right eye scandalizes you, pluck it out and cast it from you! For it is expedient for you that one of your members should perish, rather than that your whole body should go into Gehenna (Mt 5, 29). Here indeed there is need of great fortitude to cut off the members. For whatever it is that the eye signifies, it is without doubt something that is vehemently loved. For those too who vehemently wish to express their love are wont to say, "I love him as my eyes," or even, "more than my eyes." But that right is added perhaps serves to increase the force of the love. For although these bodily eyes are commonly directed to seeing and, if both are directed, can see equally, men nonetheless fear more to lose the right one. So that this is the sense: "Whatever it is that you so love that you hold it as a right eye, if it scandalizes you, that is, if it is a hindrance to you toward true blessedness, pluck it out and cast it from you! For it is expedient for you that one of those things should perish, which you so love that they cling to you as members, rather than that your whole body should go into Gehenna."

13. 38. But since there follows about the right hand and it is said likewise, if your right hand scandalizes you, cut it off and cast it from you! For it is expedient for you that one of your members should perish, rather than that your whole body should go into Gehenna (Mt 5, 30), it compels us to ask more carefully what he meant by the eye. In which question nothing occurs to me more fitting than a most beloved friend. For this is certainly what we can rightly call a member, what we vehemently love, and this a counselor, because the eye is, as it were, one who points out the way; and in divine matters, because it is the right one, so that the left may be a beloved counselor indeed, but in earthly matters pertaining to the necessity of the body; about which, if it scandalizes, it would be superfluous to speak, since not even the right one is to be spared. But in divine matters a counselor scandalizes if, under the name of religion and doctrine, he tries to lead one into some pernicious heresy. Therefore by the right hand too is taken a beloved helper and minister in divine works—for as contemplation is rightly understood in the eye, so action in the hand—so that by the left hand may be understood works that are necessary for this life and the body.

14. 39. And it was said, "whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a writ of repudiation (Deut 24, 1; Mt 5, 31)." This is the lesser righteousness of the Pharisees, to which what the Lord says is not contrary: but I say to you, "whoever divorces his wife, except for the cause of fornication, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries her who has been set free from her husband commits adultery (Mt 5, 32)."

For he who commanded that a writ of repudiation be given did not command this, that a wife be divorced; but, he who divorces, he says, let him give her a writ of repudiation, so that the thought of the writ might temper the rash anger of the one divorcing his wife. He, then, who sought a delay in divorcing signified, as much as he could to hard men, that he was unwilling for the separation.

And therefore the Lord himself, in another place, when asked about this, answered thus: Moses did this on account of your hardness (Mt 19, 8). For however hard one might be who wished to divorce his wife, when he considered that, the writ of repudiation having been given, she could now without danger marry another, he would easily be appeased.

The Lord, then, to confirm this, that a wife should not easily be divorced, made an exception only of the cause of fornication; but all other troubles whatsoever, if any should arise, he bids to be bravely endured for the sake of marital fidelity and chastity. And he calls an adulterer also the man who marries her who has been set free from her husband. Of which matter the apostle Paul shows the limit, saying that it must be observed as long as her husband lives; but when he is dead, he gives permission to marry (See Rom 7, 2). For this rule he himself held, and in it he showed not his own counsel, as in some admonitions, but the precept of the Lord commanding, when he says, but to those who are in marriage I command, not I but the Lord, that the wife not depart from her husband; but if she has departed, that she remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband; and let not the husband divorce his wife (1 Cor 7, 10-11);

in a like form, I believe, so that if he divorces her he should not marry another, or should be reconciled to his wife. For it can happen that he divorces his wife for the cause of fornication, which the Lord wished to be excepted. But now if it is not granted to her to marry another while the husband from whom she departed lives, nor to him to marry another while the wife whom he divorced lives, much less is it permitted to commit unlawful acts of unchastity with anyone at all.

Indeed, those marriages are to be judged more blessed which, whether children have been begotten, or even this earthly offspring has been despised, have been able to keep continence between themselves by equal consent, because neither is anything done against that precept by which the Lord forbids a spouse to be divorced—for he does not divorce her who lives with her not carnally but spiritually—and that is kept which is said through the apostle, it remains that those who have wives be as though not having them (1 Cor 7, 29).

15. 40. That is more wont to trouble the mind of the little ones, who nonetheless already long to live according to the precepts of Christ, which the Lord himself says in another place: whoever comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and his own soul besides, cannot be my disciple (Luke 14, 26). For to those who understand less it can seem contrary that here he forbids a wife to be divorced, except for the cause of fornication, but elsewhere denies that anyone can be his disciple who does not hate his wife.

For if he said this on account of intercourse, he would not also place father and mother and brothers in the same condition. But how true it is that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and those who do violence seize it! (Mt 11, 12) For how great a violence is needed that a man should love his enemies, and hate father and mother and wife and children and brothers! For he who calls to the kingdom of heaven commands both. And how these are not contrary to each other, it is easy to show under his guidance; but, when understood, it is difficult to fulfill—though even this, with that same one helping, is most easy.

For the eternal kingdom, to which he has deigned to call his disciples, whom he also names brothers (See Mt 12, 49), does not have temporal relationships of this sort. For there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all (Gal 3, 28; Col 3, 11). And the Lord himself says, for in the resurrection they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be like the angels in heaven (Mt 22, 30). It is necessary, then, that whoever wishes already here to meditate on the life of that kingdom should hate not the men themselves, but those temporal relationships by which this life that is to pass away is supported, which is carried on by being born and dying. He who does not hate this does not yet love that life where there will be no condition of being born and dying, which joins earthly marriages.

15. 41. And so if I should ask some good Christian who nonetheless has a wife, although he still begets children with her, whether he would wish to have a wife in that kingdom—mindful, of course, of the promises of God and of that life where this corruptible will put on incorruption and this mortal will put on immortality (See 1 Cor 15, 53)—he will at once, held back by a great or at least some love, answer with execration that he vehemently does not wish it. Again, if I should ask whether he would wish his wife, after the resurrection, the angelic change which is promised to the saints having been received, to live there with him, he will answer that he wishes it as vehemently as he does not wish the other. So the good Christian is found to love in one woman the creature of God, whom he desires to be reformed and renewed, but to hate the corruptible and mortal union and coupling, that is, to love in her what is human, to hate what is wife. So too he loves an enemy, not insofar as he is an enemy, but insofar as he is a man, so that he wishes for him what he wishes for himself, that is, that, corrected and renewed, he may come to the kingdom of heaven.

This is to be understood also of father and of mother and of the other ties of blood (See Luke 14, 26), so that in them we hate what the human race has been allotted by being born and dying, but love what can be brought with us to those kingdoms, where no one says "my father," but all to the one God, our Father (Mt 23, 9); nor "my mother," but to all that Jerusalem is our mother (See Gal 4, 26); nor "my brother," but of all, from among all, our brother (See Mt 23, 8). But the marriage, when together we have been brought into one with him who freed us from the prostitution of this world by the shedding of his blood, will be as it were of one spouse (See 2 Cor 11, 2). It is necessary, then, that the disciple of Christ hate the things that pass away, in those whom he desires to come with him to the things that will always remain; and he will hate these things in them the more, the more he loves them.

15. 42. A Christian, therefore, can live in concord with his spouse, whether supplying with her carnal need, which the apostle says is by way of concession, not of command (See 1 Cor 7, 3-6), or for the propagation of children, which can now in some degree be praiseworthy, or in a brotherly fellowship without any commixture of bodies, having a wife as though not having one (See 1 Cor 7, 29)—which is most excellent and sublime in the marriage of Christians—so that nonetheless he hates in her the name of temporal necessity and loves the hope of everlasting blessedness. For we hate, without doubt, what we wish at some time not to be, just as this very life of the present time, which, if we did not hate it as temporal, we would not desire the life to come, which is not subject to time. For it is for the sake of this life that the soul is set down, of which it was said there, he who does not hate his own soul besides cannot be my disciple (Luke 14, 26). For this life that corruptible food is necessary, of which the Lord himself says, is not the soul more than food? (Mt 6, 25), that is, this life, for which food is necessary (See John 10, 15). And what he says, that he lays down his soul for his sheep, he certainly means this life, when he declares that he will die for us.

16. 43. Here another question arises: "Since the Lord permits a wife to be divorced for the cause of fornication, how far is fornication to be understood in this place: whether as far as all understand it, that is, that we believe the fornication spoken of is that committed in acts of unchastity, or in the way the Scriptures are wont to call fornication, as was said above, every unlawful corruption, such as idolatry or greed, and, from this, now every transgression of the Law on account of unlawful desire." But let us consult the apostle, lest we say anything rashly! To those who are in marriage, he says, I command, not I but the Lord, that the wife not depart from her husband; but if she has departed, that she remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband (1 Cor 7, 10-11). For it can happen that she departs for the cause for which the Lord permitted. Or if it is permitted to a woman to divorce her husband even apart from the cause of fornication, and not permitted to the man, what shall we answer about what he says afterward, and let not the husband divorce his wife (1 Cor 7, 11)? Why did he not add, except for the cause of fornication, which the Lord permits, unless because he wishes a like form to be understood, so that if he divorces her—which is permitted for the cause of fornication—he should remain without a wife or be reconciled to his wife?

For the man would not wrongly be reconciled to that woman whom, when no one had dared to stone her, the Lord said to, go, see that henceforth you do not sin (John 8, 3-11). For even he who says, it is not permitted to divorce a wife except for the cause of fornication, compels one to retain the wife if there has not been the cause of fornication; but if there has been, he does not compel one to divorce her, but permits it;

just as it is said: it is not permitted to a woman to marry another except when her husband is dead; if she marries before the husband's death, she is guilty; if she does not marry after the husband's death, she is not guilty; for she was not commanded to marry, but permitted (See 1 Cor 7, 39).

If, then, the form is equal in this right of marriage between man and woman, so much so that the same apostle said not only of the woman, the woman does not have power over her own body, but the man, but also did not keep silent about the man, saying, likewise also the man does not have power over his own body, but the woman (1 Cor 7, 4)—if, then, the form is alike, it must not be understood that it is permitted to a woman to divorce her husband except for the cause of fornication, just as it is for the man.

16. 44. And so it must be considered how far we ought to understand fornication, and the apostle must be consulted, as we had begun. For there follows, and he says, but to the rest I say, not the Lord (1 Cor 7, 12). Here first it must be seen to which rest; for he was speaking above, in the person of the Lord, to those who are in marriage, but now in his own person he speaks to the rest. So perhaps to those who are not in marriage. But this does not follow; for he adds thus: if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to dwell with him, let him not divorce her. So even now he speaks to those who are in marriage.

What, then, does he mean by saying, to the rest, except that above he was speaking to those who were so joined that they were equally in the faith of Christ, but now he speaks to the rest, that is, to those who are so joined that they are not both believers? But what does he say to them? If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to dwell with him, let him not divorce her; and if any woman has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to dwell with her, let her not divorce her husband (1 Cor 7, 12-13). If, then, he does not command in the person of the Lord, but advises in his own person, this is a good thing, so that if anyone does otherwise, he is not a transgressor of a precept.

Just as a little later he says of virgins that he does not have a precept of the Lord, but gives counsel; and so he praises virginity in such a way that she who wishes may seize it, yet not so that, if she does not do so, she is judged to have acted against a precept (See 1 Cor 7, 25-28). For one thing is commanded, another advised, another conceded.

The woman is commanded not to depart from her husband; but if she has departed, to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. To do otherwise, then, is not permitted. But the believing husband is advised, if he has an unbelieving wife who consents to dwell with him, not to divorce her. It is permitted, then, even to divorce her, because it is not a precept of the Lord not to divorce her, but the counsel of the apostle; just as a virgin is advised not to marry, but if she marries, she will indeed not hold to the counsel, but she will not act against a precept. Yet it is conceded, when he says, but this I say by way of concession, not of command (1 Cor 7, 6). Therefore, if it is permitted that an unbelieving spouse be divorced, although it is better not to divorce, and yet according to the precept of the Lord it is not permitted that a spouse be divorced except for the cause of fornication, unbelief itself is also fornication.

16. 45. For what do you say, O apostle? Certainly that a believing husband should not divorce an unbelieving wife who consents to dwell with him. So it is, he says. Since, then, the Lord too commands this, that a husband not divorce his wife except for the cause of fornication, why do you say here, I say, not the Lord (1 Cor 7, 12)? Because, namely, the idolatry which unbelievers follow, and any harmful superstition, is fornication.

But the Lord permitted a wife to be divorced for the cause of fornication; yet because he permitted and did not command it, he gave room for the apostle to advise that whoever wishes should not divorce an unbelieving wife, so that perhaps in this way she may become a believer. For the unbelieving husband, he says, is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother (1 Cor 7, 14).

I believe it had already come about that some women came to the faith through believing husbands and some men through believing wives; and although not naming names, he nonetheless exhorted by examples to confirm his counsel.

Then there follows, otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy (1 Cor 7, 14). For there were already little Christians who, whether by the agency of one of the parents or with the consent of both, had been sanctified. This would not happen if, with one believing, the marriage were dissolved, and the unbelief of the spouse were not borne until the opportunity for believing. This, then, is his counsel, to whom, I believe, it was said, whatever you spend beyond, on my return I will repay you (Luke 10, 35).

16. 46. Furthermore, if unbelief is fornication, and idolatry is unbelief, and greed is idolatry, it must not be doubted that greed too is fornication. Who, then, can now rightly separate any unlawful desire from the class of fornication, if greed is fornication? From which it is understood that on account of unlawful desires—not only those committed in acts of unchastity with other men's or women's spouses, but any whatsoever that make the soul, misusing the body, stray from the law of God and corrupt it perniciously and shamefully—both a husband can without crime divorce his wife and a wife her husband, because the Lord makes the cause of fornication an exception. Which fornication, as was considered above, we are compelled to understand generally and universally.

16. 47. But when he says, except for the cause of fornication, he did not say whose fornication, the man's or the woman's. For it is granted not only to divorce a wife who fornicates, but whoever divorces also that wife by whom he himself is compelled to fornicate divorces her certainly for the cause of fornication. For instance, if a wife compels someone to sacrifice to idols, he who divorces such a one divorces her for the cause of fornication, not only hers but also his own: hers because she fornicates, his own lest he fornicate.

But nothing is more unjust than to divorce a wife for the cause of fornication, if he himself too is convicted of fornicating. For that saying occurs: for in that wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself, for you do the same things that you judge (Rom 2, 1). Therefore whoever wishes to cast off his wife for the cause of fornication ought first to be purified of fornication; which I would say likewise of the woman too.

16. 48. But as for what he says, whoever marries her who has been set free from her husband commits adultery (Mt 5, 32), it can be asked whether, as he who marries her commits adultery, so too she whom he marries. For she too is bidden to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband; but if she has departed, he says, from her husband (See 1 Cor 7, 11). Now there is a great difference whether she divorces or is divorced. For if she herself has divorced her husband and married another, she seems, from a desire of changing her marriage, to have left her former husband, which is without doubt an adulterous thought.

But if she is divorced by her husband with whom she desired to be, he indeed who marries her commits adultery, according to the Lord's sentence; but whether she too is held by such a crime is uncertain. Although it can much less be found how, when a man and a woman are joined together by equal consent, one of them should be an adulterer and the other not.

To this is added that, if he commits adultery by marrying her who has been set free from her husband, even though she has not divorced but has been divorced, she herself makes him commit adultery, which the Lord no less forbids. From which it is gathered that, whether she has been divorced or has divorced, she ought to remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.

16. 49. Again it is asked whether, if with his wife's permission—she being either barren or unwilling to endure intercourse—a husband takes to himself another, not another man's wife nor separated from her husband, he can be without the crime of fornication. And in the history of the Old Testament indeed an example is found (See (of Abraham and Sarai) Gen 16, 1-3).

But now the precepts are greater, to which the human race arrived through that step. Those things are to be treated for distinguishing the ages of the dispensation of divine providence, which came to the aid of the human race in a most orderly way, but not to be appropriated as rules for living.

But nonetheless, whether what the apostle says, the woman does not have power over her own body, but the man; likewise also the man does not have power over his own body, but the woman (1 Cor 7, 4), can avail so far that, with the wife's permission, who has power over the marital body, a husband may lie with another, who is neither another man's wife nor separated from her husband? But it must not be so supposed, lest a woman too should seem able to do this with the husband's permission, which the judgment of all excludes.

16. 50. Although certain cases can arise where even a wife, with her husband's consent, would seem bound to do this for her husband's sake, as is reported to have happened at Antioch some fifty years ago, in the times of Constantius. For Acindynus, then prefect, who was also consul, when he was demanding from a certain debtor of the treasury a pound of gold, moved by I know not what—which is generally dangerous in those holding such powers, to whom anything is permitted, or rather is thought to be permitted—threatened, swearing and vehemently affirming that, if on the fixed day he had appointed the said gold were not paid, he would be killed.

And so, since the man was held in harsh custody and could not free himself from that debt, the dreaded day began to loom and draw near. And he happened to have a most beautiful wife, but with no money by which she could help her husband. When a certain rich man was inflamed by this woman's beauty, and had learned that her husband was set in that peril, he sent to her, promising that for one night, if she would be joined to him, he would give a pound of gold.

Then she, knowing that she did not have power over her own body but her husband did, carried the matter to him, saying that she was ready to do it for her husband, if only he, the master of the conjugal body, to whom all that chastity was owed, should wish, as of his own property, for the sake of his life, that it be done.

He gave thanks and ordered that it be done, judging the intercourse in no way adulterous, since no lust and the great love of her husband, with himself willing and commanding it, demanded it.

The woman came to the villa of that rich man. The shameless man did what he wished. But she gave her body only to her husband, who desired not to lie with her, as usual, but to live.

She received the gold. But he who gave it withdrew by fraud what he had given, and substituted a similar packet with earth. When the woman, now set in her own home, found this, she sprang out into public to cry out, by that same love of her husband, what she had done, by which she had been compelled to do it.

She appealed to the prefect, confessed everything, showed what fraud she had suffered. Then indeed the prefect, first pronouncing himself guilty, because it had come to this by his threats—as though giving sentence against another—decreed that a pound of gold from Acindynus's goods be brought into the treasury, but that woman be made mistress of that land from which, in place of gold, she had received earth.

I argue nothing from this in any direction. Let each be allowed to judge what he will; for the story is not drawn from divine authorities. But nonetheless, the deed having been narrated, human judgment does not so reject what was committed in that woman by her husband's command as we shuddered before, when the matter itself was set down without any example. But in this passage of the Gospel nothing is more forcefully to be considered than that the evil of fornication is so great that, although marriages are bound to each other by so great a bond, this one cause of dissolution is excepted. But what fornication is has already been treated.

17. 51. Again, he says, you have heard that it was said to the ancients: you shall not swear falsely, but you shall render to the Lord your oath. But I say to you not to swear at all, neither by heaven, because it is the throne of God, nor by earth, because it is the footstool of his feet, nor by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great king, nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your speech be: yes, yes; no, no. But what is more than this is from evil (Mt 5, 33-37). The righteousness of the Pharisees is not to swear falsely. This he confirms who forbids swearing, which pertains to the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven. For as he who does not speak cannot speak falsely, so he who does not swear cannot swear falsely. But nonetheless, since he swears who calls God to witness, this passage must be carefully considered, lest the apostle seem to have acted against the precept of the Lord, who often swore in this way, when he says, but the things I write to you, behold, before God, that I do not lie (Gal 1, 20), and again, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I do not lie (1 Cor 11, 31). Such also is this: for God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the Gospel of his Son, how without ceasing I always make mention of you in my prayers (Rom 1, 9-10)—unless perhaps someone says that an oath is to be reckoned only when it is sworn by something through which one swears, so that he did not swear, because he did not say, "by God," but said, God is witness. It is ridiculous to think this.

Yet on account of the contentious or the very slow, lest anyone think there is some difference, let him know that the apostle swore also in this way, saying, I die daily, by your glory (1 Cor 15, 31). And lest anyone suppose this was said as though it were said, "your glory makes me die daily"—as it is said, "by his teaching he was made learned," that is, by his teaching it came about that he was perfectly taught—the Greek copies decide the matter, in which is written ne tan hymeteran kauchesin, which is said only by one swearing.

So the Lord is understood to have commanded that one not swear, lest anyone should crave an oath as a good thing, and by the constancy of swearing slip through habit into perjury. Therefore he who understands that an oath is to be reckoned not among good things but among necessary things, let him rein himself in as much as he can, so that he does not use it except from necessity, when he sees that men are sluggish to believe what it is useful for them to believe, unless they are made firm by an oath. To this, then, pertains what is said thus: but let your speech be: yes, yes; no, no. This is good and to be sought.

But what is more than this is from evil (Mt 5, 37); that is, if you are compelled to swear, know that it comes from the necessity of the weakness of those to whom you are urging something. Which weakness is certainly an evil, from which we daily beg to be freed, when we say, deliver us from evil (Mt 6, 13). And so he did not say, "but what is more than this is evil"; for you do not do evil, who use well an oath, which, though not good, is nonetheless necessary, to persuade another of what you usefully urge; but it is from the evil of that one, by whose weakness you are compelled to swear. But no one knows, except one who has experienced it, how difficult it is both to extinguish the habit of swearing and never rashly to do what necessity sometimes compels us to do.

17. 52. But it can be asked, since it was said, but I say to you not to swear at all, why it was added, neither by heaven, because it is the throne of God, and the rest, down to what was said, nor by your head (Mt 5, 34-36). I believe for this reason: that the Jews did not think themselves bound by an oath if they swore by these things; and since they had heard, but you shall render to the Lord your oath (Mt 5, 33; Ex 20, 7; Lev 19, 12; Deut 5, 11), they did not think they owed the Lord an oath if they swore by heaven or earth or Jerusalem or by their head; which came about not by the fault of the one giving the precept, but by their misunderstanding. And so the Lord teaches that nothing among God's creatures is so cheap that anyone should think he may swear falsely by it, since from the highest down to the lowest they were created and ruled by divine providence, beginning from the throne of God down to a white or black hair.

Neither by heaven, he says, because it is the throne of God, nor by earth, because it is the footstool of his feet (Mt 5, 34-35), that is, when you swear by heaven or earth, do not think you do not owe the Lord your oath, because you are convicted of swearing by him whose throne heaven is (See Mt 23, 22), and whose footstool earth is. Nor by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great king (Mt 5, 35); better than if he said "mine," though he is understood to have said this. And since he himself is certainly the Lord, he owes his oath to the Lord who swears by Jerusalem. Nor shall you swear by your head (Mt 5, 36). For what could anyone think pertained more to himself than his own head? But how is it ours, when we do not have the power of making one hair white or black? Therefore whoever wishes to swear even by his own head owes his oath to God, who ineffably holds all things and is everywhere present. And from this the rest too are understood, all of which certainly could not be said, as that saying which we mentioned, said by the apostle, I die daily, by your glory. To show that he owed this oath to the Lord, he added, which I have in Christ Jesus (1 Cor 15, 31).

17. 53. Nevertheless, on account of the carnal I say: it must not be supposed that what was said—that heaven is the throne of God and earth the footstool of his feet—means that God has limbs so placed in heaven and on earth as we have when we sit; but that seat signifies judgment.

And since in this whole body of the world heaven has the greatest beauty and earth the least, as though the divine power were more present to surpassing beauty, but orders the least in the outermost and lowest places, it is said to sit in heaven and to tread the earth.

But spiritually the name of heaven signifies holy souls and that of earth sinful ones. And since the spiritual man judges all things, but is himself judged by no one (See 1 Cor 2, 15), he is fittingly called the seat of God. But the sinner, to whom it was said, you are earth, and into the earth you shall go (Gen 3, 19), because through justice, which renders to merits what is worthy, he is ordered among the lowest and, because he was unwilling to remain in the Law, is punished under the Law, is fittingly taken as the footstool of God's feet.

18. 54. But now, to conclude this summary too, what more laborious and toilsome thing can be said or thought, on which the faithful soul exercises all the sinews of its industry, than the overcoming of vicious habit? Let it cut off the members that hinder the kingdom of heaven and not be broken by sorrow! Let it endure in conjugal fidelity all things which, however most troublesome they are, nonetheless do not have the crime of unlawful corruption, that is, of fornication! As, for instance, if anyone has a wife, whether barren, or deformed in body, or feeble in her limbs, or blind, or deaf, or lame, or whatever else, or worn out by diseases and pains and infirmities, and whatever, fornication excepted, can be conceived as vehemently horrible, let him endure it for the sake of fidelity and fellowship.

And not only let him not cast off such a one, but even if he has no wife, let him not marry her who has been set free from her husband, beautiful, healthy, rich, fruitful. And if it is not permitted to do this, let him judge that it is much less permitted to him to approach any other unlawful intercourse; and let him so flee fornication that he draws himself away from all shameful corruption. Let him speak the truth and commend it not by frequent oaths but by uprightness of conduct!

Taking refuge in the citadel of the Christian warfare, let him cast down, as from a higher place, the innumerable hosts of all evil habits rebelling against him, of which, so that all might be understood, a few have been mentioned. But who would dare to undertake such great labors except one who so burns with love of righteousness that, as though most vehemently inflamed with hunger and thirst, and reckoning that he has no life until he is satisfied with it, he does violence to the kingdom of heaven? For he cannot otherwise be strong to endure all the things that lovers of this world think laborious and arduous and altogether difficult in cutting off habits. Blessed, therefore, are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied (Mt 5, 6).

18. 55. Nevertheless, in these labors, when anyone suffers difficulty and, making his way through hard and rough things, surrounded by various temptations and seeing the masses of his past life rising up on this side and that, fears that he cannot fulfill what he has undertaken, let him seize upon counsel, that he may deserve help! But what other counsel is there than that he should bear the weakness of others, and help, as much as he can, the one for whom he desires that his own may be relieved by God?

And so let us consequently look at the precepts of mercy! The meek and the merciful seem to be one. But this is the difference: that the meek man, of whom there was treatment above, out of piety does not contradict the divine sentences which are brought forth against his sins, nor those words of God which he does not yet understand, but bestows no benefit on the one whom he does not contradict or resist; but the merciful man so does not resist that he does it for the correction of the one whom by resisting he would make worse.

19. 56. The Lord goes on, then, and says, you have heard that it was said, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But I say to you not to resist evil; but if anyone strikes you on your right cheek, offer him the other also; and to him who wishes to contend with you in judgment and take away your tunic, let go to him your cloak also; and whoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him another two. Give to everyone who asks you, and from him who wishes to borrow from you do not turn away (Mt 5, 38-42). The lesser righteousness of the Pharisees is not to exceed measure in vengeance, so that no one repays more than he received; and this is a great step.

For no one is easily found who, having received a blow, is willing to return only a blow, and, having heard one word from one reviling him, is content to return one word of equal weight; but either, disturbed by anger, he takes vengeance immoderately, or, because he thinks it just that the one who injured first should be more grievously injured than the one injured who had not injured.

The Law in great part reined in such a mind, in which it is written, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (Ex 21, 24), by which names measure is signified, so that the vengeance may not exceed the injury. And this is the beginning of peace; but perfect peace is to be utterly unwilling for such vengeance.

19. 57. Between that first thing, then, which is beyond the Law, that a greater evil be returned for a lesser evil, and this which the Lord says for the perfecting of his disciples, that no evil be returned for evil, a certain middle place is held, that only as much be returned as was received, through which a transition was made, according to the distribution of the times, from the highest discord to the highest concord.

Whoever, then, inflicts evil first, in eagerness to injure and harm, see how far he is from the one who, even when injured, does not repay! But whoever has first done evil to no one, yet, being injured, repays more grievously, whether in will or in deed, has withdrawn somewhat from the highest iniquity and advanced toward the highest justice, and yet does not yet hold to what the law given through Moses commanded.

He, then, who returns only as much as he received, already concedes something, for the one who harms does not deserve so great a punishment as the one who, injured by him, suffered though innocent. This justice, then, begun—not severe but merciful—he perfects who came to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it (See Mt 5, 17).

He left, then, two further steps that lie between to be understood, and chose rather to speak of the very highest summit of mercy. For there is still something for him to do who does not fulfill that greatness of the precept which pertains to the kingdom of heaven, so that he returns not only no more but less, as, for two blows, one, or, for a plucked-out eye, cut off an ear.

Ascending from this, he who returns nothing at all draws near to the Lord's precept, yet is not yet there. For it still seems too little to the Lord if for the evil you have received you return no evil, unless you are also prepared to receive more. Therefore he does not say, "But I say to you not to return evil for evil," although this too is a great precept, but he says, "not to resist evil, so that you not only do not repay what was inflicted on you, but also do not resist, so that nothing else be inflicted." For this is what he also consequently sets forth: but if anyone strikes you on your right cheek, offer him the other also (Mt 5, 39). For he does not say, "if anyone strikes you, do not strike him," but, "be prepared for the one still striking."

That this pertains to mercy, those especially feel who serve those whom they greatly love, as their sick children or any of their most beloved, or little ones, or those who are frenzied, from whom they often suffer many things and, if their welfare requires it, offer themselves even to suffer more, until the weakness of age or of disease passes. Those, then, whom the Lord, the physician of souls, was instructing for the care of their neighbors, what else could he teach them than that they should bear with an even mind the infirmities of those for whose welfare they wished to provide? For all wickedness comes from weakness of mind, since nothing is more innocent than one who is perfect in virtue.

19. 58. But it can be asked what the right cheek means. For so it is found in the Greek copies, to which greater trust is to be given. For many Latin ones have only "cheek," not also "right."

But the face is that by which each one is recognized. And we read in the apostle, for you endure it if anyone reduces you to slavery, if anyone devours you, if anyone takes from you, if anyone exalts himself, if anyone strikes you in the face (2 Cor 11, 20-21); then immediately he adds, I speak according to dishonor, to set forth what it is to be struck in the face, that is, to be despised and looked down upon. Which indeed the apostle says not so that they should not put up with those men, but so that he himself rather, who loved them as himself, should wish to be spent for them (See 2 Cor 12, 15). But since the face cannot be called right and left, and yet there can be nobility both according to God and according to this world, it is assigned as though to a right cheek and a left, so that, in whatever disciple of Christ that which is Christian is despised, he should be much more prepared for it to be despised in himself, if he has any honors of this world.

As the same apostle, when men persecuted in him the Christian name, if he kept silent about the dignity which he had in the world, would not offer the other cheek to those striking the right. For in saying, I am a Roman citizen (Acts 22, 25), he was not prepared for that to be despised in him—which he held as the least thing—by those who in him had despised so precious and saving a name.

For did he therefore afterward any less endure the chains which it was not permitted to impose on Roman citizens, or did he wish to accuse anyone of this wrong? And if some spared him on account of the name of Roman citizenship, he did not for that reason fail to offer what they might strike, since by his patience he desired to correct from so great a perversity those whom he saw honoring in him the left parts rather than the right.

For only this is to be considered: with what mind he did all things, how benevolently and gently toward those from whom he suffered these things. For even when struck with the palm at the high priest's command, what he seemed to say insultingly, when he said, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall (Acts 23, 2-3), sounds to those who understand less like a reproach, but to those who understand it is a prophecy. For a whitewashed wall is hypocrisy, that is, pretense putting forward priestly dignity, and under this name, as under a white covering, hiding the inner, as it were muddy, shamefulness.

For what belonged to humility he wonderfully guarded, when it was said to him, do you revile the high priest?, he answered, I did not know, brothers, that he is the high priest; for it is written, "you shall not revile the prince of your people (Acts 23, 4-5; Ex 22, 28)." Here he showed with how great a tranquillity he had said what he seemed to have said in anger, in that he answered so quickly, so gently—which cannot be done by the indignant and disturbed. And in this very thing he spoke the truth to those who understand: I did not know that he is the high priest, as though he said, "I knew another high priest, for whose name I endure these things, whom it is not lawful to revile, and whom you revile, when in me you hate nothing but his name."

So, then, one ought not to boast of these things in pretense, but to be, in the very heart, prepared for all things, so that one can sing that prophetic verse, my heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready (Ps 57 (56), 8). For many have known how to offer the other cheek, but do not know how to love the one by whom they are struck. But the Lord himself, who certainly first fulfilled the precepts he taught, did not offer the other cheek to the priest's officer who struck him on the cheek, but rather said, if I have spoken evil, reproach me for the evil; but if well, why do you strike me? (John 18, 23) Yet he was not for that reason unprepared in heart not only to be struck on the other cheek for the salvation of all, but even to be crucified in his whole body.

19. 59. Therefore that too which follows, and to him who wishes to contend with you in judgment and take away your tunic, let go to him your cloak also (Mt 5, 40), is rightly understood as a precept for the preparation of the heart, not for the display of the deed. But what was said of the tunic and the cloak is to be done not in these alone, but in all things that by some right we call temporally ours. For if this is commanded concerning necessities, how much more is it fitting to despise superfluous things! Nevertheless, those things which I called ours are to be included in that kind which the Lord himself prescribes, saying, if anyone wishes to contend with you in judgment and take away your tunic. Let all those things, then, be understood concerning which one can be contended with against us in judgment, in such a way that they pass from our right into the right of the one who contends or for whom he contends, such as clothing, a house, a farm, a beast of burden, and, generally, all property.

Whether this is to be taken also of slaves is a great question. For a Christian ought not to possess a slave as he does a horse or silver, although it can happen that a horse is worth a greater price than a slave, and much more some object of gold or silver. But if that slave is brought up or governed more rightly and honorably and more suitably for the worship of God by you, his master, than he can be by the one who desires to take him away, I do not know whether anyone would dare to say that he ought to be despised like a garment. For one man ought to love another as himself, since by the Lord of all, as the things that follow show, he is commanded even to love his enemies.

19. 60. Indeed, it must be noted that every tunic is a garment, but not every garment is a tunic. The name garment, then, signifies more than the name tunic. And therefore I think it was said thus, and to him who wishes to contend with you in judgment and take away your tunic, let go to him your cloak also; as though he said, "to him who wishes to take away your tunic, let go also any other clothing you have." Therefore some have interpreted as cloak what is set down in Greek as himation.

19. 61. And whoever shall compel you, he says, to go a mile, go with him another two (Mt 5, 41), and this certainly not so much that you may act with your feet, as that you may be prepared in mind. For in the Christian history itself, in which there is authority, you will find nothing of the sort done by the saints or by the Lord himself, when, in the man whom he deigned to take up, he offered us an example of living; though nonetheless in almost all places you will find them to have been prepared to bear with an even mind whatever was wickedly heaped upon them. But do we think it was said for the sake of the word, go with him another two? Or did he wish three to be completed, by which number perfection is signified, so that each one may remember, when he does this, that he is fulfilling perfect righteousness by mercifully bearing the infirmities of those whom he wishes to be made whole? It can seem for this reason that he conveyed these precepts also by three examples, of which the first is, if anyone strikes you on the cheek; the second, if anyone wishes to take away your tunic; the third, if anyone compels you a mile, in which third example the single is doubled, so that the triple is completed.

If this number in this place does not, as was said, signify perfection, let it be taken thus: that in commanding, beginning as though with the more tolerable, he gradually increased, until he came down to the bearing of another double.

For first he wished the other cheek to be offered, when the right had been struck, so that you may be prepared to bear less than you bore—for whatever the right signifies is certainly dearer than what the left signifies, and he who has borne something in the dearer matter, if he also bears it in the cheaper, bears less—;

then to him who wishes to take away the tunic he bids the cloak also to be let go, which is either equal or not much more, yet not double; third, concerning the mile, to which he says two miles are to be added, he bids you bear up to another double; so signifying that, whether a wicked man wishes to be somewhat less against you than he already was, or equally, or more, it is to be borne with an even mind.

20. 62. In these kinds of three examples I see indeed that no kind of injury has been passed over. For all things in which we suffer some wickedness are divided into two kinds; one of which is that which cannot be restored, the other that which can. But in that which cannot be restored, the solace of vengeance is wont to be sought. For what does it profit that, having been struck, you strike back? Is what was injured in the body therefore restored to wholeness? But a swollen mind desires such poultices; the sound and firm mind, however, these things do not help, but rather it judges that another's infirmity is to be borne mercifully, than that its own—which is none—is to be soothed by another's suffering.

20. 63. Nor is that vengeance forbidden here which avails for correction. For it too pertains to mercy, nor does it impede that resolve by which one is prepared to bear more from the one whom he wishes to be corrected. But for exercising this vengeance no one is fit except one who has overcome, by the greatness of love, the hatred with which those are wont to burn who desire to avenge themselves. For it is not to be feared that parents should seem to hate a little son when he is whipped by them while sinning, lest he sin further.

And certainly the perfection of love itself is set before us in the imitation of God the Father (See Mt 5, 48), when in the following it is said, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you (Mt 5, 44). And yet of him it is said through the prophet, for whom the Lord loves he chastens, and he scourges every son whom he receives (Prov 3, 12). The Lord also says, the servant who does not know his Lord's will and does things worthy of blows shall be beaten with few; but the servant who knows his Lord's will and does things worthy of blows shall be beaten with many (Luke 12, 47-48).

Nothing else is sought, then, but that he too take vengeance to whom by the order of things the power has been given, and that he take it with that will with which a father takes it on a little son, whom on account of his age he cannot yet hate. For here a most apt example is given, by which it may sufficiently appear that sin can be avenged out of love rather than left unpunished, so that he wishes the one on whom he takes vengeance to be not wretched through punishment but blessed through correction; yet prepared, if need be, to bear with an even mind more things inflicted by the one whom he wishes to be corrected, whether he has over him the power of coercing or has it not.

20. 64. But great and holy men, who already knew very well that this death, which dissolves the soul from the body, is not to be dreaded, nonetheless, according to the mind of those who feared it, punished certain sins with death, so that both a useful fear might be struck into the living, and to those who were punished with death not death itself might do harm but the sin, which could be increased if they lived. Those did not judge rashly to whom God had granted such judgment.

Hence it is that Elijah put many to death, both by his own hand and by fire obtained from God, when many other great and divine men too, by the same spirit, in consulting for human affairs, acted not rashly.

When the disciples had given this example of Elijah to the Lord, recalling what had been done by him (See 1 Kgs 18, 40), that he too might give them the power of asking fire from heaven to consume those who would not offer them lodging, the Lord reproved in them not the example of the holy prophet but the ignorance of taking vengeance, which was still in those untrained, noting that they desired not out of love correction but out of hatred vengeance (See Luke 9, 54-55).

And so, after he had taught them what it was to love one's neighbor as oneself (See Mt 19, 19), the Holy Spirit also having been poured in, whom, ten days being completed after his ascension, he sent from above as he had promised (See Acts 2, 1-4), such acts of vengeance were not lacking, although much more rarely than in the Old Testament. For there, for the greater part, those serving were pressed down by fear, but here those who were free were chiefly nourished by love. For at the words of the apostle Peter, Ananias and his wife, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, fell down lifeless, and were not raised up but buried (See Acts 5, 1-10).

20. 65. But if the heretics who are opposed to the Old Testament are unwilling to believe this book, let them look at the apostle Paul, whom they read with us, saying of a certain sinner whom he handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved (1 Cor 5, 1-5). And if they are unwilling here to understand death—for perhaps it is uncertain—let them confess that some vengeance was done by the apostle through Satan, which that added phrase makes clear he did not out of hatred but out of love: that the spirit may be saved.

Or in those books to which they themselves attribute great authority, let them note what we say, where it is written that the apostle Thomas called down upon a certain man, by whom he had been struck with the palm, the punishment of a most atrocious death, yet commended his soul, that in the world to come he might be spared. When he had been killed by a lion, a dog brought his hand, torn from the rest of his body, to the tables at which the apostle was feasting (See Act. Thomae 6 and 8). Although it is permitted to us not to believe this writing—for it is not in the Catholic canon—nonetheless those very men both read it and honor it as most incorrupt and most true, who, by I know not what blindness, most fiercely rage against the bodily acts of vengeance that are in the Old Testament, being altogether ignorant with what mind and in what distribution of the times they were done.

20. 66. In this kind of injuries, then, which is expiated by vengeance, this measure will be held by Christians: that, an injury having been received, hatred does not arise, but out of mercy for the weakness the mind is prepared to suffer more; nor does it neglect the correction which it can use whether by counsel or by authority or by power.

There is another kind of injuries which can be restored to wholeness, of which there are two species: one pertains to money, the other to labor. Therefore of the former the examples about the tunic and the cloak were set down, of the latter about the compulsion of one mile and two miles; because both a garment can be returned, and one whom you have helped by labor can himself, if there is need, help you in turn.

Unless perhaps it is rather to be distinguished thus: that the first thing, set down about the struck cheek, signifies all things that are so heaped on by the wicked that they cannot be restored except by vengeance; the second, set down about the garment, signifies all things that can be restored without vengeance, and therefore perhaps it was added, who wishes to contend with you in judgment (Mt 5, 40), because what is taken away through a judgment is not thought to be taken away by that force to which vengeance is owed;

but the third is made up of both, so that it can be restored both without vengeance and with vengeance. For he who violently exacts undue labor without any judgment, as does one who wickedly compels a man and forces himself to be unlawfully helped by an unwilling person, can both pay the penalty of his wickedness and return the labor, if he who put up with the wicked man demands it back.

In all these kinds of injuries, then, the Lord teaches that the mind of a Christian ought to be most patient and most merciful and most prepared to bear more.

20. 67. But since it is too little not to harm, unless you also bestow a benefit as much as you can, he consequently adds and says, give to everyone who asks you, and from him who wishes to borrow from you do not turn away (Mt 5, 42). To everyone who asks, he says, not, "everything to the one who asks," so that you may give what you can give honorably and justly. For what if he asks for money by which he may try to oppress an innocent person? What if, lastly, he asks for an act of unchastity? But, not to pursue many things, which are innumerable, that surely is to be given which harms neither you nor another, as far as can be known or believed by a man.

And to him to whom you justly deny what he asks, the justice itself is to be made known, so that you do not send him away empty. So you will give to everyone who asks you, although you will not always give what he asks. And sometimes you will give something better, when you have corrected the one asking for unjust things.

20. 68. But as for what he says, from him who wishes to borrow from you do not turn away, it is to be referred to the mind: for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor 9, 7; Sir 35, 11). But everyone who receives borrows, even if he himself is not going to repay. For since God restores more to the merciful, everyone who bestows a benefit lends at interest. Or if one is not pleased to take as a borrower except one who receives intending to repay, it is to be understood that the Lord embraced those two kinds of bestowing. For either we give benevolently what we give, or we lend to one who will repay. And generally men who, with the divine reward set before them, are prepared to give, become sluggish to give what is asked as a loan, as though they would receive nothing from God, since the thing that is given is repaid by the one who receives it. Rightly, then, does the divine authority exhort us to this kind of bestowing a benefit, saying, and from him who wishes to borrow from you do not turn away, that is, do not for this reason alienate your will from the one who asks, because both your money will be idle and God will not repay you, when the man has repaid. But when you do this from the precept of God, with him who commands these things it cannot be without fruit.

21. 69. Then he adds and says, you have heard that it was said, "you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, who bids his sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and rains upon the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even the tax collectors do this? And if you greet only your brothers, what more do you do? Do not even the heathen do this very thing? Be therefore perfect, as your Father who is in heaven is perfect (Mt 5, 43-48). Without that love, by which we are commanded to love even our enemies and persecutors, who can fulfill the things that were said above? But the perfection of mercy, by which most help is given to a laboring soul, cannot be extended beyond the love of an enemy. And therefore it is closed thus: be therefore perfect, as your Father who is in heaven is perfect (Mt 5, 48); yet in such a way that God is understood as perfect in the way that God is, and the soul as perfect in the way that a soul is.

21. 70. That there is nonetheless some step in the righteousness of the Pharisees, which pertains to the old Law, is understood from this: that many men hate even those by whom they are loved, as dissolute sons hate their parents who restrain their dissoluteness. He climbs some step, then, who loves his neighbor, although he still hates his enemy. But by the command of him who came to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it (See Mt 5, 17), he will perfect benevolence and kindness, when he has carried it as far as the love of an enemy. For that step, although it is something, is nonetheless so small that it can be held in common even with the tax collectors. Nor is what was said in the Law, you shall hate your enemy (Deut 7, 2), to be taken as the voice of one commanding the just, but of one permitting the weak.

21. 71. Here indeed there arises a question by no means to be passed over: that to this precept of the Lord, by which he exhorts us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, and to pray for those who persecute us, many other parts of the Scriptures seem, to those considering less carefully and soberly, to be contrary, because in the prophets too are found many imprecations against enemies, which are thought to be curses, such as this, let their table become a snare (Ps 69 (68), 23), and the rest that are said there; and that, let his children become orphans and his wife a widow (Ps 109 (108), 9); and the other things said, whether above or below in the same Psalm, in the person of Judas through the prophet. Many other things are found everywhere in the Scriptures which seem to be contrary both to this precept of the Lord and to that apostolic one in which he says, bless and do not curse (Rom 12, 14), since of the Lord too it is written that he cursed the cities which did not receive his word (See Mt 11, 20-24; Luke 10, 13-16), and the said apostle said of a certain man, the Lord will repay him according to his works (2 Tim 4, 14).

21. 72. But these things are easily resolved, because, as the prophet by an imprecation foretold what was to be, not by the wish of one desiring but by the spirit of one foreseeing, so too the Lord, so too the apostle; although in their words too there is not found what they desired but what they foretold. For when the Lord says, woe to you, Capernaum, it sounds nothing else than that some evil would befall it deservedly for its unbelief, which the Lord did not wish by malevolence but discerned by divinity.

And the apostle does not say, "may the Lord repay," but, the Lord will repay him according to his works, which is the word of one foretelling, not of one imprecating; just as also of that hypocrisy of the Jews, of which it has already been said, whose overthrow he discerned to be impending, he said, the Lord will strike you, you whitewashed wall (Acts 23, 3).

But the prophets are especially wont to foretell things to come under the figure of one imprecating, just as under the figure of past time they often sang of things that were to come, as is that, why did the nations rage, and the peoples plot vain things? For he did not say, "why will the nations rage, and the peoples plot vain things?" (See Ps 2, 1), since he did not remember these things as already done, but foresaw them as to come.

Such also is that, they divided my garments among themselves, and over my garment they cast lots (Ps 22 (21), 19). For here too he did not say, "they will divide my garments among themselves, and over my garment they will cast lots." Yet no one quibbles about these words, except one who does not perceive that this variety of figures in speaking takes nothing from the truth of things, and adds very much to the dispositions of minds.

22. 73. But those things press this question more, which the apostle John says: if anyone knows that his brother sins a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him life, to the one who sins not unto death; but there is a sin unto death, I do not say that one should pray for that (1 John 5, 16). For he openly shows that there are certain brothers for whom we are not commanded to pray, although the Lord bids us pray even for our persecutors (See Mt 5, 44). Nor can this question be resolved unless we confess that there are some sins in brothers which are graver than the persecution of enemies.

But that Christian brothers are signified can be proved by many documents of the Divine Scriptures. Most manifest, however, is that which the apostle sets down thus: for the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother (1 Cor 7, 14). For he did not add, "our," but considered it manifest, since by the name brother he wished a Christian to be understood who had an unbelieving wife. And therefore a little after he says, but if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; for a brother or sister is not subjected to slavery in such cases (1 Cor 7, 15).

A sin of a brother unto death, then, I think it is, when, after the acknowledgment of God through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, someone attacks the brotherhood and, against the very grace by which he was reconciled to God, is driven by the firebrands of envy; but a sin not unto death, if anyone has not alienated his love from his brother, but, through some weakness of mind, has not rendered the offices owed to brotherhood.

Therefore the Lord too on the cross says, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do (Luke 23, 34). For, not yet made partakers of the grace of the Holy Spirit, they had not entered the fellowship of the holy brotherhood. And blessed Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles prays for those by whom he is stoned (See Acts 7, 59-60), because they had not yet believed in Christ, nor were they fighting against that common grace.

And the apostle Paul for this reason, I believe, does not pray for Alexander, because he was already a brother and had sinned unto death, that is, by attacking the brotherhood out of envy. But for those who had not broken off their love, but had succumbed through fear, he prays that they be forgiven. For he says thus: Alexander the coppersmith did me many evils; the Lord will repay him according to his works. Avoid him too, for he greatly withstood our words. Then he adds those for whom he prays, saying thus: at my first defense no one stood by me, but all forsook me; may it not be charged against them (2 Tim 4, 14-16).

22. 74. This difference of sins distinguishes Judas who betrayed (See Mt 26, 47-50) from Peter who denied (See Mt 26, 69-75), not because pardon is not to be granted to one who repents—lest we go against that sentence of the Lord by which he commanded that pardon must always be granted to a brother who asks (See Luke 17, 3-4), so that the brother may forgive him—but because the stain of that sin is so great that it cannot undergo the humility of beseeching, even if by an evil conscience it is compelled both to acknowledge and to declare its sin. For when Judas had said, I have sinned in that I betrayed innocent blood, he nonetheless more easily ran in despair to the noose (See Mt 27, 3-5) than in humility besought pardon.

Therefore it makes a great difference to what kind of repentance God grants pardon. For many much more quickly confess that they have sinned and are so angry with themselves that they would vehemently wish not to have sinned, yet nonetheless do not lay down their mind to humbling and crushing the heart and imploring pardon. And this disposition of mind, on account of the magnitude of the sin, must be believed to belong to them already from their condemnation.

22. 75. And this is perhaps to sin against the Holy Spirit, that is, through malice and envy to attack brotherly love after the grace of the Holy Spirit has been received, which sin the Lord says is forgiven neither in this age nor in the age to come (Mt 12, 31-32). Whence it can be asked whether the Jews sinned against the Holy Spirit when they said that the Lord cast out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons: whether we should take this as said against the Lord himself, because he says of himself in another place, if they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more those of his household? (Mt 10, 25; 12, 24) Or whether, since they had said it out of great envy, ungrateful for benefits so present, although they were not yet Christians, they are nonetheless to be believed to have sinned against the Holy Spirit on account of the very magnitude of the envy.

For this is not gathered from the Lord's words. For although in the same place he said, but whoever shall speak a wicked word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the age to come (Mt 12, 32), nonetheless it can seem that he warned them for this, that they should come to grace and, after grace is received, not sin as they now sinned. For now they have spoken a wicked word against the Son of man, and it can be forgiven them, if they are converted and believe in him and receive the Holy Spirit; which having been received, if they should wish to envy the brotherhood and attack the grace they received, it is not forgiven them, neither in this age nor in the age to come. For if he held them so condemned that no hope remained for them, he would not have judged them still to be warned, when he added, saying, either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad (Mt 12, 33).

22. 76. And so let it be taken thus, that enemies are to be loved, and good is to be done to those who hate us, and we are to pray for those who persecute us, in such a way that, for certain sins even of brothers, it is understood that it is not commanded that we pray, lest through our ignorance the Divine Scripture should seem—which cannot be—to disagree with itself. But whether, as for certain people one is not to pray, so also one is to pray against some, has already appeared to some sufficiently. For it was said generally, bless and do not curse (Rom 12, 14); and that, rendering to no one evil for evil (Rom 12, 17). But for whom you do not pray, neither do you pray against him. For you can see his certain punishment and his utterly despaired-of salvation, and you do not for this reason fail to pray for him because you hate him, but because you perceive that you can profit nothing, and you do not wish your prayer to be repelled by the most just judge.

But what do we make of those against whom we find prayer made by the saints, not that they might be corrected—for in that way prayer is rather made for them—but for that final condemnation; not as against the Lord's betrayer through the prophet (See Ps 109 (108), 6-19)—for that, as was said, was a prediction of things to come, not a wish for punishment—nor as by the apostle against Alexander (See 2 Tim 4, 14)—for of that too enough has now been said—but as in the Apocalypse of John we read the martyrs praying that they be avenged (See Rev 6, 10), when that first martyr prayed that his stoners be forgiven (See Acts 7, 59-60)?

22. 77. But one ought not to be moved by this. For who would dare to affirm, when those holy white-robed ones asked that they be avenged, whether they asked against the men themselves or against the reign of sin? For this is the sincere vengeance of the martyrs, full of justice and mercy: that the reign of sin be overthrown, by whose reigning they suffered so much. To the overthrow of which the apostle strives, saying, let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body (Rom 6, 12). But the reign of sin is destroyed and overthrown partly by the correction of men, so that the flesh is subjected to the spirit, partly by the condemnation of those who persevere in sin, so that they are so ordered that they cannot be troublesome to the just reigning with Christ.

Look at the apostle Paul! Does he not seem to you to avenge in himself the martyr Stephen, when he says, I do not so fight as one beating the air, but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection (1 Cor 9, 26-27)? For he certainly cast down and weakened and brought into ordered subjection in himself that from which he had persecuted Stephen and the other Christians.

Who, then, convicts the holy martyrs of not having begged such vengeance of their own from the Lord, since they could even gladly have desired the end of this world, in which they endured such ruin, for their own vengeance? And those who pray for this both pray for their enemies who are curable, and do not pray against those who have willed to be incurable, because God too, in punishing them, is not a malevolent torturer but a most just orderer. Without any doubt, then, let us love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who persecute us.

23. 78. But what is consequently set down, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven (Mt 5, 45), is to be understood by that rule by which John too says, he gave them power to become sons of God (John 1, 12). For there is one who is naturally the Son, who knows not how to sin at all; but we, the power having been received, are made sons, insofar as we fulfill the things that are commanded by him. Whence the apostolic teaching calls "adoption" that by which we are called to the eternal inheritance, so that we can be coheirs of Christ (See Rom 8, 17). We are made sons, therefore, by spiritual regeneration and are adopted into the kingdom of God, not as strangers but as made and created—that is, founded—by him, so that there is one benefit by which he made us to be through his omnipotence, when before we were nothing, and another by which he adopted us, so that with him, as sons, we might enjoy eternal life according to our participation. And so he does not say, "do these things, because you are sons," but, "do these things, that you may be sons."

23. 79. But when he calls us to this through the Only-begotten himself, he calls us to his own likeness. For he, as he consequently says, makes his sun rise upon the good and the evil and rains upon the just and the unjust (Mt 5, 45). Whether you take his sun not as that one visible to fleshly eyes, but as that wisdom of which it is said, for it is the brightness of eternal light; of which it is likewise said, the sun of righteousness has risen for me (Wis 7, 26); and again, but for you who fear the name of the Lord the sun of righteousness shall rise (Mal 4, 2), so that you take the rain too as the watering of the teaching of truth, because Christ appeared to the good and the evil and was preached to the good and the evil.

Or whether you prefer to take it as that sun, displayed to the bodily eyes not only of men but also of cattle, and that rain by which are produced the fruits that have been given for the refreshment of the body. Which I judge to be more probably understood thus: that that spiritual sun rises only on the good and holy, because this very thing is what the wicked lament in that book which is inscribed the Wisdom of Solomon, and the sun did not rise for us (Wis 5, 6); and that that spiritual rain waters only the good, because the evil were signified by the vineyard of which it was said, I will command my clouds not to rain upon it (Isa 5, 6).

But whether you understand the one or the other, it comes about by the great goodness of God, which is commanded to be imitated by us, if we wish to be sons of God. For how great a solace of this life this visible light and bodily rain bring, who is so ungrateful as not to feel? Which solace we see shown in common both to the just in this life and to sinners. But he does not say, who makes the sun rise upon the good and the evil, but added, his, that is, the one which he himself made and established, and from no one took anything in order to make it, as in Genesis is written of all the luminaries (See Gen 1, 16)—he who can properly call his own all the things which he created from nothing, so that from this we might be admonished with how great liberality we ought, by his precept, to bestow on our enemies the things which we did not create but received from his gifts.

23. 80. But who can be even prepared to bear injuries from the weak, so far as it profits their welfare, and to prefer to endure more of another's iniquity than to return what he has endured; to give to everyone who asks something of him, either what he asks, if it is had and if it can rightly be given, or good counsel or a benevolent mind, and not to turn away from one who wishes to borrow; to love enemies, to do good to those who hate him, to pray for those who persecute him? Who, then, does these things except one who is fully and perfectly merciful? By which one counsel wretchedness is avoided, with the help of him who says, I desire mercy more than sacrifice (Hos 6, 6). Blessed, therefore, are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy (Mt 5, 7). But I think it now fitting that here the reader, wearied by so long a volume, take a little breath, and refresh himself for the rest to be considered in another book.

1. 1. Mercy, to the treatment of which the first book received its limit, is followed by the cleansing of the heart, whence this one takes its beginning. But the cleansing of the heart is, as it were, of the eye by which God is seen; and there ought to be as great a care to have it single as the dignity of that thing demands which can be beheld by such an eye. But for this eye, cleansed in great part, it is difficult for some filth not to creep in from those things which are wont to accompany our good actions, such as human praise.

For if indeed it is pernicious not to live rightly, yet to live rightly and not to wish to be praised—what else is this than to be an enemy to human affairs, which are certainly the more wretched the less the right life of men is pleasing? If, then, among those with whom you live they do not praise you living rightly, they are in error;

but if they praise you, you are in peril, unless you have a heart so single and pure that you do not do the things you do rightly for the sake of the praises of men, and rejoice more in those who rightly praise—to whom what is good is pleasing—than in yourself, except that you live rightly even if no one were to praise you; and you understand that your praise is then useful to those who praise, if they honor not you yourself in your good life but God, whose most holy temple is whoever lives well, so that that may be fulfilled which David says, in the Lord my soul shall be praised; let the meek hear and rejoice (Ps 34 (33), 3).

It pertains, therefore, to a pure eye not to look, in doing rightly, at the praises of men, and to refer to them what you do rightly, that is, to do something rightly for the purpose of pleasing men. For thus it will even be pleasing to feign good, if nothing is attended to except that a man may praise—who, since he cannot see the heart, can also praise false things. And those who do this, that is, who feign goodness, are of a double heart. He, then, does not have a single heart, that is, a pure heart, except one who transcends human praises and looks to him alone, when he lives rightly, and strives to please him who alone is the inspector of conscience. Whatever proceeds from the purity of such a conscience is the more praiseworthy the less it desires human praises.

1. 2. Beware, therefore, he says, of doing your righteousness before men, to be seen by them; that is: Beware of living justly with this mind, and of setting your good there, that men may see you! Otherwise you will not have a reward with your Father who is in heaven (Mt 6, 1); not if you are seen by men, but if you live justly for this reason, that you may be seen by men. For where then will be what was said at the beginning of this sermon, you are the light of the world? A city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but upon a lampstand, that it may give light to all who are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds. But he did not set the goal there, for he added, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Mt 5, 14-16). But here, because he censures this—if the goal of right deeds is there, that is, if we do right for this reason, that we may only be seen by men—after he said, beware of doing your righteousness before men, to be seen by them (Mt 6, 1), he added nothing. In which it appears that he did not forbid this, that what is right be done before men, but that what is right be done before men for this reason, that we may be seen by them, that is, that we look to this and set the goal of our resolve there.

1. 3. For the apostle too says, if I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ (Gal 1, 10), although in another place he says, please all men in all things, just as I too please all men in all things (1 Cor 10, 32-33). Those who do not understand this think it contrary, since he said that he did not please men, because he did not do right for this reason, that he might please men, but that he might please God,

to whose love he wished to turn the hearts of men by that very thing in which he pleased men. And so he both rightly said that he did not please men, because in that very thing he looked to pleasing God, and rightly commanded that men be pleased, not that this be sought as the reward of right deeds; but because he could not please God who did not offer himself as a model for imitation to those whom he wished to be saved; but no one can in any way imitate one who has not pleased him.

As, then, he would not speak absurdly who said, "in this work by which I seek a ship I do not seek a ship but my homeland," so the apostle would fittingly say, "in this work by which I please men I please not men but God, because I do not seek this, but refer it to this, that those whom I wish to be saved may imitate me." As he says of the offering that is made to the saints, not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit (Phil 4, 17); that is, "as for my seeking your gift, I do not seek this but your fruit." For by this sign it could appear how much they had advanced toward God, since they did gladly what was sought from them not for the sake of joy over the gifts but for the sake of the communion of love.

1. 4. And yet, even when he adds and says, otherwise you will not have a reward with your Father who is in heaven (Mt 6, 1), he shows nothing else than that we ought to beware of seeking human praise as the reward of our works, that is, of thinking ourselves to be made blessed by them.

2. 5. When, therefore, you give alms, he says, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be glorified by men (Mt 6, 2). Do not, he says, wish to become known as the hypocrites do. But it is manifest that hypocrites do not carry in the heart that also which they hold out to the eyes of men. For hypocrites are dissemblers, like those who voice the persons of others, as in stage plays. For he who acts the parts of Agamemnon in a tragedy, for example, or of some other person belonging to the history or fable that is being acted, is not truly himself, but feigns him and is called a hypocrite.

So in the Church, or in all human life, whoever wishes to seem what he is not is a hypocrite. For he feigns a just man and does not exhibit one, because he places the whole fruit in the praise of men, which even dissemblers can receive, while they deceive those to whom they seem good and by whom they are praised.

But such men receive from God, the inspector of the heart, no reward except the punishment of their deceit. But from men, he says, they have received their reward (Mt 6, 2). And most rightly will it be said to them, depart from me, you workers of deceit (Mt 7, 23); for you had my name, but you did not do my works. They, then, have received their reward who give alms for no other reason than to be glorified by men; not if they are glorified by men, but if they do it for this reason, that they may be glorified, as was treated above. For human praise ought not to be sought by one doing right, but ought to follow one doing right, so that those may profit who can also imitate what they praise, not that one here should think that those whom he praises profit him anything.

2. 6. But when you give alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does (Mt 6, 3). If you understand the left hand to mean unbelievers, it will seem that there is no fault in wishing to please the faithful, since nonetheless we are no less forbidden to set the fruit and goal of a good work in the praise of any men whatsoever. But as for what pertains to this, that those to whom your right deeds are pleasing may imitate you, it is to be shown not only to the faithful but also to unbelievers, so that, in praising our good works, they may honor God and come to salvation.

But if you think the left hand to be an enemy, so that your enemy may not know when you give alms, why did the Lord himself mercifully heal men with the hostile Jews standing around? Why did the apostle Peter, having healed the man whom he pitied, crippled, at the Beautiful Gate, endure even the wraths of enemies against himself and against the other disciples of Christ (See Acts 3, 1-8)? Then, if an enemy ought not to know when we give alms, how shall we do it with the enemy himself, so that we may fulfill that precept, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink (Rom 12, 20)?

2. 7. There is wont to be a third opinion of the carnal, so absurd and laughable that I would not mention it, had I not found by experience that not a few are held in that error who say that by the name of the left hand a wife is signified; so that, since in household matters women are wont to be more tenacious of money, it may be hidden from them, on account of domestic quarrels, when their husbands mercifully spend something on the needy. As though indeed only men were Christians, and this precept were not given also to women. To what left hand, then, is a woman bidden to hide her work of mercy? Or will the husband too be the left hand of the woman? Which is most absurdly said.

Or if anyone thinks they are mutually left hands to each other, if something of the household property is paid out by one against the will of the other, such a marriage will not be Christian. But it must be that whoever of them wishes to give alms from the precept of God, whomever he has as an opponent, that opponent is an enemy to the precept of God and therefore is to be reckoned among unbelievers. But it is commanded concerning such, that by his good conversation and conduct a believing husband may win his wife, or a believing woman her husband (See 1 Cor 7, 14). Therefore they ought not to hide their good works from each other, by which they are to be invited by one another, so that one may be able to invite the other to the communion of the Christian faith.

Nor are thefts to be committed in order to earn God's favor. But if something is to be hidden, as long as another's weakness cannot bear it with an even mind—which nonetheless is done neither unjustly nor unlawfully—it nonetheless easily appears, from the consideration of the whole passage, that the left hand is not now signified by this, in which passage it will at the same time be found what he calls the left hand.

2. 8. Beware, he says, of doing your righteousness before men, to be seen by them; otherwise you will not have a reward with your Father who is in heaven (Mt 6, 1). Here he named righteousness in general, then pursues it in particular. For the work that is done through almsgiving is some part of righteousness, and therefore he connects it by saying, when, therefore, you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be glorified by men (Mt 6, 2). This looks back to what he said above, beware of doing your righteousness before men, to be seen by them. But what follows, amen I say to you, they have received their reward, looks back to what he set down above, otherwise you will not have a reward with your Father who is in heaven.

Then there follows, but when you give alms. When he says, but you, what else does he say than, "not as they do"? What, then, does he bid me? But when you, he says, give alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does (Mt 6, 3). So they do it in such a way that their left hand knows what their right hand does. What, then, was censured in them, this you are forbidden to do. But in them this was censured, that they do it in such a way as to seek the praises of men. Therefore nothing more consistently seems to signify the left hand than the very delight in praise. But the right hand signifies the intention of fulfilling the divine precepts. And so, when the appetite for human praise mingles itself with the conscience of one giving alms, the left hand becomes conscious of the work of the right. Let not, therefore, your left hand know what your right hand does, that is, "let not the appetite for human praise mingle itself with your conscience, when in giving alms you strive to fulfill the divine precept."

2. 9. That your almsgiving may be in secret (Mt 6, 4). What is in secret except in the good conscience itself, which cannot be shown to human eyes nor opened by words? Since indeed many lie about many things. Therefore, if the right hand acts within, in secret, to the left hand pertain all the outward things that are visible and temporal. Let your almsgiving, then, be in the conscience itself, where many give alms with a good will, even if they do not have money or anything else that is to be bestowed on the needy. But many do it outwardly and do not do it within, who, whether from ambition or for the sake of some temporal thing, wish to seem merciful, in whom the left hand alone is to be reckoned to work. Likewise others hold, as it were, a middle place between the two, so that they both give alms with the intention that is toward God, and yet there inserts itself into this excellent will some desire also of praise or of some frail and temporal thing. But our Lord much more vehemently forbids the left hand alone to work in us, when he forbids it even to mingle with the works of the right hand, namely, so that not only do we beware of giving alms from the desire of temporal things alone, but neither do we so look to God in this work that the appetite for outward conveniences mingles or joins itself. For the matter concerns the cleansing of the heart, which, unless it is single, will not be pure. But how will it be single if it serves two masters (See Mt 6, 24), and does not purify its gaze by the one intention of eternal things, but clouds it with the love also of mortal and frail things? Let, therefore, your almsgiving be in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you (Mt 6, 4). Most rightly indeed and most truly. For if you expect a reward from him who alone is the inspector of conscience, let the conscience itself suffice you for earning the reward! Many Latin copies have it thus: and your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you openly. But because in the Greek, which are earlier, we do not find openly, we did not think anything was to be discussed from this.

3. 10. And when you pray, he says, you shall not be as the hypocrites, who love to stand in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets to pray, that they may be seen by men (Mt 6, 5). Here too it is not wrong to be seen by men, but to do these things for this reason, that you may be seen by men. And the same things are said so often to no purpose, since there is now one rule to be kept, by which it is recognized that it is not to be dreaded or fled if men know these things, but if they are done with this mind, that the fruit of pleasing men be sought in them. The Lord himself keeps the same words, when he likewise adds, amen I say to you, they have received their reward, hereby showing that he forbids this, that the reward be sought in which fools rejoice when they are praised by men.

3. 11. But you, when you pray, he says, enter into your inner chambers (Mt 6, 6). What are those inner chambers but the very hearts, which are also signified in the Psalm, where it is said, the things you say in your hearts, be pricked with remorse also in your chambers (Ps 4, 5)? And shutting the doors, pray, he says, to your Father in secret. It is too little to enter into the inner chambers, if the door lies open to the importunate, through which door the things that are outside wickedly thrust themselves in and seek out our inner parts. But we have said that all temporal and visible things are outside, which through the door, that is, through the carnal sense, penetrate our thoughts and, with a crowd of empty phantasms, clamor against those praying. The door, then, must be shut, that is, the carnal sense must be resisted, so that spiritual prayer may be directed to the Father, which is made in the inmost parts of the heart, where the Father is prayed to in secret.

And your Father, he says, who sees in secret, will repay you (Mt 6, 6). And this had to be concluded with such a clause. For now he does not admonish that we pray, but how we pray; nor above that we give alms, but with what mind we do it (See Mt 6, 2-4), since he gives a precept about the cleansing of the heart, which nothing cleanses except one and single intention toward eternal life, with the sole and pure love of wisdom.

3. 12. But when you pray, do not, he says, be of many words, as the heathen are, for they think that in their much speaking they will be heard (Mt 6, 7). As it is the way of hypocrites to offer themselves to be watched in prayer, whose fruit is to please men, so it is the way of the heathen, that is, of the gentiles, to think themselves heard for their much speaking. And indeed all much speaking comes from the gentiles, who give effort rather to exercising the tongue than to cleansing the mind. And this kind of trifling zeal they try to transfer even to the bending of God by prayer, supposing that, like a human judge, he is brought by words to a verdict. Do not, therefore, be like them, says the one true master; for your Father knows what is necessary for you before you ask him (Mt 6, 8).

For if many words are brought forth for this, that one ignorant may be instructed and taught, what need is there of them for the knower of all things, to whom all things that are, by the very fact that they are, speak and show themselves as made? And the things that are to come are not hidden from his skill and wisdom, in which both the things that have passed and all the things that are to pass are present and not passing.

3. 13. But since, although few, he too is going to say words, by which he may teach us to pray, it can be asked why there is need even of these few words for him who knows all things before they are done, and knows, as was said, what is necessary for us before we ask him. Here it is first answered that we ought to deal with God not by words, that we may obtain what we wish, but by the things we bear in mind and by the intention of thought, with pure love and single affection; but that our Lord taught us the things themselves by words, so that, committed to memory, we may recall them at the time of praying.

3. 14. But again it can be asked—whether one is to pray by things or by words—what need there is of prayer itself, if God already knows what is necessary for us, except that the very intention of prayer makes our heart serene and cleanses it, and makes it more capable of receiving the divine gifts, which are poured into us spiritually. For God does not hear us through the ambition of our prayers, who is always ready to give us his light, not visible but intelligible and spiritual; but we are not always ready to receive, since we are inclined toward other things and darkened by the desire of temporal things.

There comes about, then, in prayer a turning of the heart to him who is always ready to give, if we receive what he has given, and in that turning a cleansing of the inner eye, when the things that were temporally desired are shut out, so that the gaze of the single heart can bear the single light, divinely shining without any setting or change, and not only bear it but also remain in it, not only without trouble but even with ineffable joy, by which the truly and sincerely blessed life is perfected.

4. 15. But now it must be considered what he commanded us to pray, through whom we both learn what to pray and obtain what we pray for. So, therefore, pray, he says: "Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come; your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (Mt 6, 9-13)."

Since in every prayer the benevolence of him whom we beseech is to be won, and then what we beseech is to be said, benevolence is wont to be won by the praise of him to whom the prayer is directed, and this is wont to be placed at the beginning of the prayer. In which our Lord bade us say nothing else than, Our Father who are in heaven. Many things have been said in praise of God, which anyone will be able to consider, variously and widely diffused throughout all the Holy Scriptures, when he reads; yet nowhere is it found commanded to the people Israel that they should say, Our Father, or pray to God the Father; but the Lord was made known to them as to servants, that is, to those still living according to the flesh.

But I say this with reference to when they received the commands of the Law, which they were bidden to observe; for the prophets often show that the same Lord God could also have been their Father, if they had not strayed from his commands, as is that, I have begotten sons and exalted them; but they have spurned me (Isa 1, 2); and that, I said, "you are gods and sons of the Most High; but you shall die like men, and shall fall like one of the princes (Ps 82 (81), 6-7)"; and that, if I am Lord, where is my fear? And if I am Father, where is my honor? (Mal 1, 6), and very many others, where the Jews are reproached because by sinning they were unwilling to be sons—except those things that are said in prophecy of the future Christian people, that it was to have God as Father, according to that Gospel saying, he gave them power to become sons of God (John 1, 12). But the apostle Paul says, as long as the heir is a little one, he differs in nothing from a servant (Gal 4, 1); and he records that we have received the spirit of adoption, in which we cry, "Abba, Father (Rom 8, 15)."

4. 16. And since the fact that we are called to the eternal inheritance, so that we may be coheirs of Christ and come into the adoption of sons (See Rom 8, 17 and 23), is not of our merits but of the grace of God, we place this very grace at the beginning of the prayer, when we say, Our Father. By which name both love is stirred up—for what ought to be dearer to sons than a father?—and a suppliant affection, when men say to God, Our Father, and a certain presumption of obtaining the things we are about to ask, since, before we asked anything, we have received so great a gift, that we are allowed to say, Our Father, to God. For what would he not now give to sons who ask, since he has already given this very thing before, that they should be sons? Lastly, how great a care touches the mind, that he who says, Our Father, may not be unworthy of so great a Father? For if some commoner were permitted by a senator of advanced age to call him father, he would without doubt tremble and would not easily dare it, considering the lowliness of his birth and the lack of his means and the cheapness of his plebeian person; how much more, then, must one tremble to call God Father, if there is so great a defilement and so great filth in one's conduct that God much more justly expels it from his union than that senator the poverty of any beggar—since indeed that man despises in the beggar that to which he himself can come down through the frailty of human affairs, but God never falls into filthy conduct? And thanks to his mercy, who demands this of us, that he be our Father, which can be procured at no cost but by good will alone! Here too the rich, or those noble by birth according to the world, are admonished, when they have become Christians, not to be proud against the poor and the ignoble, since together they say to God, Our Father, which they cannot truly and piously say unless they recognize that they are brothers.

5. 17. Let the new people, then, called to the eternal inheritance, use the voice of the New Testament and say, Our Father who are in heaven (Mt 6, 9), that is, in the saints and the just; for God is not contained by spaces of places. But the heavens are indeed the most excellent bodies of the world, yet bodies, which cannot be except in a place. But if God's place is believed to be in the heavens, as in the upper parts of the world, the birds are of better merit, whose life is nearer to God. But it is not written: The Lord is near to lofty men or to those who dwell on the mountains, but it is written, the Lord is near to those who are crushed in heart (Ps 34 (33), 19), which pertains more to humility. But as the sinner was called "earth," when it was said to him, you are earth, and into the earth you shall go (Gen 3, 19), so, on the contrary, the just man can be called "heaven." For to the just it is said, for the temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor 3, 17). Therefore, if God dwells in his temple, and the saints are his temple, it is rightly said, who are in heaven: who are in the saints.

And this comparison is most apt, so that there may seem to be as great a difference spiritually between the just and sinners as there is bodily between heaven and earth.

5. 18. For the signifying of which thing, when we stand for prayer, we turn toward the east, whence the sky rises; not as though God dwelt there, as if he had deserted the other parts of the world, who is everywhere present, not by spaces of places, but by the power of his majesty; but so that the mind may be admonished to turn to a more excellent nature, that is, to God, when his own body, which is earthly, is turned toward a more excellent body, that is, toward a celestial body. It is fitting also to the grades of religion, and is of much advantage, that in the senses of all, both little ones and great, there should be a good opinion of God.

And therefore those who are still given to visible beauties and cannot conceive anything incorporeal, since they must prefer heaven to earth, their opinion is more tolerable if they believe God, whom they still conceive bodily, to be in heaven rather than on earth; so that, when at some time they have recognized that the dignity of the soul surpasses even a celestial body, they may seek him in the soul rather than in a body, even a celestial one, and, when they have recognized how great a distance there is between the souls of sinners and of the just, just as they did not dare, when they still thought carnally (See Rom 8, 5), to place him on earth but in heaven, so afterward, with a better faith or understanding, they may seek him more in the souls of the just than in those of sinners.

Rightly, then, is what was said, Our Father who are in heaven (1 Cor 3, 17), understood to be said to be in the hearts of the just, as in his holy temple. At the same time also, so that he who prays may wish him whom he invokes to dwell in himself too; and when he aims at this, let him hold to righteousness, by which gift God is invited to inhabit the mind.

5. 19. Now let us see what things are to be asked! For it has been said who it is that is asked and where he dwells. But the first of all the things that are asked is this: hallowed be your name (Matt 6:9). Which is not asked as though God's name were not holy, but that it may be held holy by men, that is, that God may so become known to them that they think nothing holier, which they more fear to offend. For not because it was said, God is known in Judea, in Israel his name is great (Ps 76 (75):2), is it so to be understood, as though elsewhere God were lesser, elsewhere greater; but his name is great there where it is named according to the greatness of his majesty. So his name is said to be holy there where it is named with veneration and the fear of offending. And this is what is now being done, while the Gospel, by still becoming known through the various nations, commends the name of the one God through the administration of his Son.

6. 20. Then there follows, your kingdom come (Matt 6:10). As the Lord himself teaches in the Gospel, the day of judgment will then be, when the Gospel has been preached in all nations; which matter pertains to the hallowing of God's name. For here too it was not so said, your kingdom come, as though God did not now reign. But perhaps someone may say that come was said with reference to the earth; as though indeed he himself did not even now reign on earth, and had not always reigned in it from the foundation of the world. Come, then, is to be taken as: let it be made manifest to men. For just as even present light is absent to the blind and to those who close their eyes, so the kingdom of God, although it never departs from the earth, is nonetheless absent to those who are ignorant of it. But it will be permitted to no one to be ignorant of the kingdom of God, when his Only-begotten shall come from heaven, not only intelligibly but also visibly in the Lordly man, to judge the living and the dead.

After which judgment, that is, when the distinction and separation of the just from the unjust has been made, God will so dwell in the just that there will be no need for anyone to be taught through a man, but all, as it is written, will be taught by God (John 6:45; Isa 54:13; Jer 31:33-34; 1 Thess 4:9). Then the blessed life will be perfected in every part in the saints forever, just as now the celestial angels, most holy and most blessed, are wise and blessed by the illumination of God alone, because the Lord promised this too to his own: in the resurrection they will be, he says, like the angels in heaven (Matt 22:30).

6. 21. And therefore, after that petition in which we say, your kingdom come, there follows, your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth (Matt 6:10), that is, as your will is in the angels, who are in heaven, so that they cleave to you in every way and fully enjoy you, no error clouding their wisdom, no wretchedness impeding their blessedness, so let it be done in your saints, who are on earth, and were made of earth as concerns the body, and, although they are to be taken up into a heavenly dwelling and change, are nonetheless of earth. To this looks also that proclamation of the angels, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will (Luke 2:14), so that, when our good will has gone before, which follows the one who calls, the will of God may be perfected in us, just as it is in the celestial angels, so that no adversity may resist our blessedness, which is peace.

Likewise, your will be done is rightly understood: let your precepts be obeyed, as in heaven, so on earth, that is, as by the angels, so by men. For that the will of God is done when his precepts are obeyed, the Lord himself says, when he says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me (John 4:34), and often, I have not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (John 5:30; 6:38; Matt 26:39); and when he says, behold my mother and my brothers. And whoever does the will of God, he is to me brother and mother and sister (Matt 12:49-50). Those, then, who do the will of God—in them certainly the will of God is done, not because they themselves bring it about that God wills, but because they do what he wills, that is, they do according to his will.

6. 22. There is also that understanding: your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth (Matt 6:10): as in the saints and the just, so also in sinners. Which can be taken in two ways: either that we may pray also for our enemies—for what else are those to be reckoned against whose will the Christian and Catholic name is increased?—so that it is said, your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth, as though it were said: Let sinners do your will, as the just do, so that they may be converted to you; or thus, your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth, so that to each may be assigned his own; which will happen at the last judgment, so that to the just may be repaid reward, to sinners condemnation, when the lambs will be separated from the goats (See Matt 25:32-33).

6. 23. There is also that not absurd, indeed most fitting understanding for our faith and hope, that we take heaven and earth as spirit and flesh. And since the apostle says, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin (Rom 7:25), we see the will of God done in the mind, that is, in the spirit. But when death has been swallowed up in victory, and this mortal has put on immortality, which will happen at the resurrection of the flesh and that change which is promised to the just according to the preaching of the same apostle (See 1 Cor 15:53-54), the will of God will be done on earth too as in heaven; that is, so that as the spirit does not resist God, following and doing his will, so also the body may not resist the spirit or the soul, which now is vexed by the weakness of the body and is prone to carnal habit.

This will belong to the highest peace in eternal life, so that not only the willing but also the perfecting of the good may be present to us. For now to will, he says, is present to me, but to perfect the good is not (Rom 7:18), because not yet on earth as in heaven, that is, not yet in the flesh as in the spirit, is the will of God done. For even in our wretchedness the will of God is done, when we suffer through the flesh those things that are owed to us by the right of mortality, which our nature deserved by sinning. But this is to be prayed for, that as in heaven so on earth the will of God may be done, that is, that as we are delighted together with the law of God according to the inner man, so also, the change of the body having been made, no part of us may oppose this our delight with earthly pains or pleasures.

6. 24. Nor does this shrink from the truth, that we take your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth (Matt 6:10): as in the Lord Jesus Christ himself, so also in the Church, as in the man who fulfilled the Father's will, so also in the woman who is betrothed to him. For heaven and earth are fittingly understood as, in a manner, man and woman, since the earth is made fruitful by the heaven making it fertile.

7. 25. The fourth petition is, give us this day our daily bread (Matt 6:11). The daily bread is said either for all those things that sustain the necessity of this life, of which, when he gave a precept, he said, do not be anxious about tomorrow (Matt 6:34), so that for this reason it was added, give us this day; or for the sacrament of the body of Christ, which we receive daily; or for the spiritual food, of which the same Lord says, work for the food that does not perish (John 6:27), and that, I am the bread of life, who came down from heaven (John 6:41). But which of these three is more probable can be considered. For perhaps someone may be moved as to why we should pray for obtaining the things that are necessary for this life, such as food and clothing, when the Lord himself says, do not be anxious about what you may eat or what you may put on (Luke 12:22). Or can anyone be unanxious about that thing for the obtaining of which he prays, when prayer is to be directed with so great an intention of mind that to this is referred all that which was said about shutting the inner chambers (See Matt 6:6), and that which he says, seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you (Matt 6:33)? For he certainly did not say, "seek first the kingdom of God, then seek these things," but, all these things, he says, shall be added to you, namely even to those not seeking them. But how anyone can rightly be said not to seek what he most intently beseeches God to receive, I do not know whether it can be found.

7. 26. But concerning the sacrament of the Lord's body, let those not raise a question who, very many in the eastern parts, do not daily communicate at the Lord's supper, since this bread is called daily! So let those be silent, and neither defend their practice by ecclesiastical authority itself—since they do these things without scandal, and are neither forbidden to do so by those who preside over the churches, nor condemned for not complying! Whence it is proved that this is not understood in those parts as daily bread; for those who do not receive of it daily would be charged with the crime of a great sin. But, as was said, that we may discuss nothing about these in any direction, this at least ought to occur to those considering it, that we have received from the Lord a rule of praying, which we ought not to transgress either by adding anything or by passing over anything. Since this is so, who is there who would dare to say that we ought to pray the Lord's Prayer only once, or at any rate, even if a second or third time, yet only up to that hour at which we communicate at the body of the Lord, but afterward not so to pray through the remaining parts of the day? For we shall no longer be able to say, give us this day, what we have already received. Or will anyone be able to compel us to celebrate that sacrament even in the last part of the day?

7. 27. It remains, then, that we take the daily bread as spiritual, namely the divine precepts, which we ought daily to meditate on and to work at. For of them the Lord says, work for the food that does not perish (John 6:27). But this food is now called daily, as long as this temporal life is carried on through days departing and succeeding. And indeed, as long as the affection of the mind alternates now toward higher, now toward lower things, that is, now toward spiritual, now toward carnal things, like one who is sometimes fed with food, sometimes suffers hunger, daily bread is necessary, by which the hungry may be refreshed and the failing raised up. And so, just as our body in this life—before that change, of course—is refreshed with food, because it feels loss, so too the mind, since through temporal affections it suffers, as it were, loss of its intention toward God, is refreshed with the food of the precepts.

But give us this day (Heb 3:13) was said as long as it is called today, that is, in this temporal life. For so we shall be satisfied with spiritual food after this life forever, that it will not then be called daily bread, because there the rolling of time, which makes day succeed day, whence it is called daily, will be none. But as it was said, today, if you hear his voice (Ps 95 (94):8), which the apostle interprets in the epistle that is to the Hebrews, as long as it is called today (Matt 6:11), so here too it is to be taken, give us this day.

But if anyone wishes to take this sentence also of the necessary food of the body or of the sacrament of the Lord's body, all three must be taken together, namely that we ask at once for daily bread both necessary for the body and the consecrated visible bread and the invisible bread of the word of God.

8. 28. There follows the fifth petition, and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12). That debts means "sins" is manifest, either from that which the same Lord says, you will not go out from there until you pay the last farthing (Matt 5:26), or from that he called debtors those who were reported to him as killed, whether by the fall of a tower, or whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifice (See Luke 13:1). For he said that men thought those were debtors beyond measure, that is, sinners, and he added, amen I say to you, unless you repent, you will likewise perish (Luke 13:5).

Here, then, no one is pressed to forgive money to his debtors, but whatever another has sinned against him. For we are bidden to forgive money rather by that precept which was said above, if anyone wishes to take away your tunic and contend with you in judgment, let go to him your cloak also (Matt 5:40). Nor is it there necessary to forgive the debt to every money-debtor, but to him who is unwilling to repay, so far that he even wishes to go to law. But the servant of the Lord, as the apostle says, ought not to go to law (2 Tim 2:24).

He, then, who, whether of his own accord or when appealed to, is unwilling to repay the money owed, is to be forgiven. For he will be unwilling to repay for two reasons: either because he does not have it, or because he is greedy and covetous of another's property. But both pertain to want; for the former is want of household property, the latter of mind. Whoever, therefore, forgives the debt to such a one, forgives one in want and works a Christian work, that rule remaining, that in mind he be prepared to lose what is owed to him. For if he acts modestly and gently in every way, so that it be restored to him, aiming not so much at the profit of the money as at correcting the man—for whom it is without doubt pernicious to have the means of repaying and not to repay—he will not only not sin but will even profit very much, lest the other, while wishing to make profit of another's money, suffer loss of faith. Which is so much graver that there is no comparison.

From which it is understood that in this fifth petition too, in which we say, forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12), it is not said indeed of money, but of all the things in which anyone sins against us, and through this of money too. For he sins against you who refuses to repay you the money owed, when he has the means of repaying. And if you do not forgive this sin, you will not be able to say, forgive us, as we also forgive; but if you pardon it, you see that he too is admonished about forgiving money, who is bidden to pray with such a prayer.

8. 29. This indeed can be discussed: that, since we say, forgive us, as we also forgive, we are then convicted of having acted against this rule, if we do not forgive those who ask pardon, since we too, asking pardon, wish to be forgiven by the most kind Father. But again, by that precept by which we are bidden to pray for our enemies (See Matt 5:44), we are not bidden to pray for those who ask pardon. For now those who are such are not enemies. But in no way could anyone truly say that he prays for one whom he has not pardoned. Therefore it must be confessed that all sins committed against us are to be forgiven, if we wish ours, which we commit, to be forgiven us by the Father. For about vengeance enough has been discussed above, I think.

9. 30. The sixth petition is, and lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:13). Some manuscripts have bring us not, which I think is of the same value; for from the one Greek word that was said, eisenenkes, both have been translated. But many in praying say thus, do not allow us to be brought into temptation, setting forth, namely, in what way lead was said. For God does not by himself lead in, but allows him to be led in whom by a most hidden order and by deserts he has deserted by his help. Often, too, for manifest causes, he judges worthy to be deserted and allowed to be led into temptation the one whom he deserts. But it is one thing to be led into temptation, another to be tempted. For without temptation no one can be proved, whether to himself, as it is written, he who has not been tempted, what does he know? (Sir 34:9. 11), or to another, as the apostle says, and your temptation in my flesh you did not despise (Gal 4:14). For from this he himself recognized them firm, in that by those tribulations which had happened to the apostle according to the flesh they were not turned aside from love. For we are known to God even before all temptations, who knows all things before they are done.

9. 31. Therefore what is written, the Lord your God tempts you, that he may know whether you love him (Deut 13:3), is set down by that manner of speaking, that he may know, in place of, "that he may make you know"; just as we call a day glad, because it makes glad, and cold sluggish, because it makes sluggish, and innumerable things of this kind, which are found whether in the custom of speaking or in the discourse of the learned or in the Holy Scriptures.

Not understanding this, the heretics who oppose the Old Testament think that he, of whom it was said, the Lord your God tempts you, is to be marked, as it were, with the fault of ignorance—as though in the Gospel it were not written of the Lord, but this he said tempting him; for he himself knew what he was about to do (John 6:6). For if he knew the heart of the one whom he tempted, what is it that he wished to see by tempting? But surely that was done so that he who was tempted might become known to himself, and might condemn his own despair, the crowds having been satisfied with the Lord's bread, which he had supposed they did not have to eat (See John 6:7-13).

9. 32. Here, then, it is not prayed that we be not tempted, but that we be not led into temptation; as if someone for whom it is necessary to be tried by fire should pray not that he not be touched by the fire, but that he not be burned up. For the furnace proves the vessels of the potter, and the temptation of tribulation just men (Sir 27:6). Joseph, then, was tempted by the enticement of unchastity, but was not led into temptation (See Gen 19:7-12). Susanna was tempted, nor was she herself led or brought into temptation (See Dan 13:19-23); and many others of either sex, but Job especially.

When those heretics, enemies of the Old Testament, wished with sacrilegious mouth to mock his admirable stability in God his Lord, they bandy about, before the rest, that Satan asked that he be tempted (See Job 1:9-12). For they seek from inexperienced men, who are by no means able to understand such things, how Satan could speak with God, not seeing—for they cannot, since they are blinded by superstition and contention—that God does not occupy a space of place by the mass of a body, and so be in one place and not in another, or at any rate have one part here and another elsewhere, but is present everywhere by his majesty, not divided into parts but everywhere perfect. And if they look carnally at what was said, heaven is my throne, and earth the footstool of my feet (Isa 66:1), to which place the Lord too bears witness, saying, do not swear, neither by heaven, because it is the throne of God, nor by earth, because it is the footstool of his feet (Matt 5:34-35), what wonder if the devil, set on earth, stood before the feet of God and spoke something in his presence (See Job 1:7)? For when are they able to understand that there is no soul, however perverse, which nonetheless can in any way reason, in whose conscience God does not speak? For who wrote the natural law in the hearts of men except God? Of which Law the apostle says, for when the gentiles, who do not have the Law, naturally do the things that are of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves; who show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or even excusing them, on the day when God will judge the hidden things of men (Rom 2:14-16).

Therefore, if every rational soul, even one blinded by desire, nonetheless, when it thinks and reasons, whatever is true in that reasoning is to be attributed not to it but to the very light of truth, by which it is illumined, even if faintly according to its capacity, so that it perceives something true in reasoning,

what wonder if the soul of the devil, perverse with depraved desire, is nonetheless reported to have heard, by the voice of God himself, that is, by the voice of truth itself, whatever true thing it thought about the just man when it wished to tempt him (See Job 1:8; 2:3), but whatever was false is attributed to that desire from which it received the name of devil?

Although also through bodily and visible creation God has often spoken, whether to the good or to the evil, as Lord and ruler of all and orderer according to the merits of each thing: as through the angels, who appeared also to the sight of men, and through the prophets, saying, "thus says the Lord." What wonder, then, if, although not in the very thought, yet at least through some creature suited to such a work, God is said to have spoken with the devil?

9. 33. Nor let them think it to be of dignity and, as it were, a merit of righteousness that God spoke with him, since he spoke with an angelic soul, although foolish and covetous, just as if he spoke with a human soul foolish and covetous. Or let them themselves say how God spoke with that rich man, whose most foolish covetousness he wished to reprove, saying, fool, this night your soul is demanded of you; these things that you have prepared, whose will they be? (Luke 12:20) Certainly the Lord himself says this in the Gospel, to which these heretics, willing or unwilling, submit their necks.

But if they are moved by this, that Satan asks of God that the just man be tempted, I do not set forth why it was done, but I compel them to set forth why it was said in the Gospel by the Lord himself to the disciples, behold, Satan asks to sift you like wheat (Luke 22:31), and he says to Peter, but I have prayed that your faith may not fail (Luke 22:32). But when they set this forth to me, they at the same time set forth to themselves that which they ask of me. But if they are unable to set this forth, let them not dare to find fault rashly, in any book, with what they read in the Gospel without offense.

9. 34. Temptations, then, are brought about through Satan not by his power but by the permission of the Lord, upon men, either to punish them for their sins or, by the mercy of God, to prove and exercise them. And it makes a great difference into what kind of temptation each one falls. For Judas, who sold the Lord (See Matt 26:14-16 and 50), did not fall into such a temptation as that into which Peter fell, when, terrified, he denied the Lord (See Matt 26:69-75). There are also human temptations, I believe, when anyone with a good mind, yet according to human frailty, slips in some counsel, or is irritated against a brother out of zeal for correcting him, yet a little more than Christian tranquillity demands. Of these the apostle says, let no temptation take hold of you but a human one, while he likewise says, God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but will with the temptation also make a way out, that you may be able to endure (1 Cor 10:13). In which sentence he sufficiently shows that we ought to pray not that we be not tempted, but that we be not led into temptation. For we are led in if such temptations happen as we cannot bear. But since the dangerous temptations, into which it is pernicious to be brought and led, arise either from prosperous temporal things or from adverse ones, no one is broken by the trouble of adverse things who is not captivated by the delight of prosperous ones.

9. 35. The last and seventh petition is, but deliver us from evil (Matt 6:13). For it is to be prayed that not only we be not led into the evil we lack, which is asked in the sixth place, but that we be also delivered from that into which we have already been led. When this has been done, nothing will remain to be dreaded, nor will any temptation at all be to be feared. Which nonetheless, in this life, as long as we carry about this mortality, into which we have been led by the serpent's persuasion (See Gen 3:4-5 and 13), is not to be hoped to be able to come about; but nonetheless it is to be hoped that at some time it will be, and this is the hope which is not seen. Of which, when the apostle spoke, he said, but hope that is seen is not hope (Rom 8:24). But nonetheless the wisdom which has been granted in this life too to the faithful servants of God is not to be despaired of. And it is this: that what, by the Lord's revelation, we have understood is to be fled, we flee with most cautious watchfulness, and what, by the Lord's revelation, we have understood is to be sought, we seek with most ardent love. For so, the remaining burden of this mortality laid down by death itself, in every part of the man, at the opportune time, blessedness will be perfected, which was begun in this life, and to the grasping and obtaining of which now all effort is at some time expended.

10. 36. But the distinction of these seven petitions is to be considered and commended. For since our life is now carried on temporally, while eternal life is hoped for, and since eternal things are prior in dignity, although, temporal things being first carried on, one passes over to those, the obtainings of the first three petitions, although they take their beginning in this life which is carried on in this world—for both the hallowing of God's name began to be carried on from the very coming of the Lord in humility; and the coming of his kingdom, in which he is to come in glory, will be made manifest not when the world is already ended but at the end of the world; and the perfection of his will, as in heaven so on earth, whether you understand heaven and earth as the just and sinners, or as spirit and flesh, or as the Lord and the Church, or all together, will be completed by the very perfection of our blessedness and therefore by the ending of the world—yet all three will remain forever. For both the hallowing of God's name is everlasting, and of his kingdom there is no end, and to our perfected blessedness eternal life is promised. These three, then, consummated and heaped up, will abide forever in that life which is promised to us.

10. 37. But the remaining four things we ask seem to me to pertain to this temporal life. Of which the first is, give us this day our daily bread (Matt 6:11). For by this very thing, that it was called daily bread—whether spiritual is signified, or this visible bread in the sacrament or in food—it pertains to this time, which he called today; not because spiritual food is not everlasting, but because this, which is called daily in the Scriptures, is presented to the soul whether in the sound of speech or by any temporal signs, all of which will certainly not be then, when all will be taught by God and will drink in the ineffable light of truth itself, not signifying it by movements of bodies, but drawing it in by purity of mind. For perhaps for this reason it was called bread and not drink, because bread, by breaking and chewing, is turned into nourishment, as the Scriptures, by opening and discussing, feed the soul, while drink, when prepared as it is, passes into the body, so that at this time truth is bread, when it is called daily bread, but then drink, when there will be need of no labor of disputing and discoursing, as of breaking and chewing, but only of the drinking in of sincere and clear truth. And sins are now forgiven us and we now forgive, which is the second of these remaining four petitions; but then there will be no pardon of sins, because no sins. And temptations infest this temporal life; but they will not be when that is perfected which was said, you will hide them in the secret of your face (Ps 31 (30):21). And the evil from which we wish to be freed, and the very deliverance from evil, certainly pertain to this life, which by the justice of God we deserved as mortal, and from which by his mercy we are freed.

11. 38. It seems to me also that this sevenfold number of these petitions corresponds to that sevenfold number from which this whole sermon flowed. For if it is the fear of God by which the poor in spirit are blessed, since theirs is the kingdom of heaven, let us ask that God's name be hallowed among men by a chaste fear remaining forever and ever (See Matt 5:3-9. 6:9-13; Isa 11:2-3). If it is piety by which the meek are blessed, because they shall possess the land by inheritance, let us ask that his kingdom come, whether into ourselves, that we may grow meek and not resist him, or from heaven to earth in the glory of the Lord's coming, in which we shall rejoice and be praised, as he says, come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the origin of the world (Matt 25:34). For in the Lord, says the prophet, my soul shall be praised; let the meek hear and rejoice (Ps 34 (33):3).

If it is knowledge by which those who mourn are blessed, since they shall be comforted, let us pray that his will be done, as in heaven, so on earth, because when the body, as earth, has consented to the spirit, as heaven, with the highest and entire peace, we shall not mourn; for there is no other mourning of this time except when these things conflict against each other and compel us to say, I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind (Rom 7:23), and to testify to our mourning with a tearful voice, wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? (Rom 7:24) If it is fortitude by which those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed, because they shall be satisfied, let us pray that our daily bread be given us this day, by which, supported and sustained, we may be able to come to that fullest satisfaction.

If it is counsel by which the merciful are blessed, since they shall obtain mercy, let us forgive the debts of our debtors, and pray that ours be forgiven us. If it is understanding by which the pure in heart are blessed, since they shall see God, let us pray not to be led into temptation, lest we have a double heart by not seeking the single good, to which we may refer all that we do, but pursuing temporal and eternal things at once. For temptations from those things which seem grave and calamitous to men have no power over us, if those have no power which befall through the allurements of the things that men think good and to be rejoiced in.

If it is wisdom by which the peacemakers are blessed, since they shall be called sons of God, let us pray that we be delivered from evil; for that very deliverance will make us free, that is, sons of God, so that in the spirit of adoption we may cry, Abba, Father!

11. 39. Indeed, it must not be passed over negligently that, of all these sentences in which the Lord commanded us to pray, he judged that one especially to be commended which pertains to the forgiveness of sins, in which he wished us to be merciful, which is the one counsel for escaping miseries. For in no other sentence do we so pray that we, as it were, make a pact with God; for we say, forgive us, as we also forgive. In which pact, if we lie, there is no fruit of the whole prayer. For he says thus: for if you forgive men their sins, your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offenses (Matt 6:14-15).

12. 40. There follows the precept about fasting, pertaining to the same cleansing of the heart of which we are now treating. For in this work too one must beware lest some ostentation and appetite for human praise creep in, which doubles the heart and does not allow it to be pure and single for the understanding of God. But when you fast, he says, do not become sad like the hypocrites; for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men to be fasting. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your heads and wash your faces, that you may not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you (Matt 6:16-18). It is manifest that by these precepts all our intention is directed to inner joys, lest, seeking the reward outwardly, we be conformed to this world, and lose the promise of a blessedness so much more solid and firm as it is more inward, by which God chose us to be conformed to the image of his Son.

12. 41. But in this passage it must especially be noted that boasting can be not only in the splendor and pomp of bodily things but even in mournful filth itself, and the more dangerous the more it deceives under the name of the service of God. He, therefore, who shines forth with immoderate care of the body and dress or with the splendor of other things is easily convicted of being a follower, in the things themselves, of the pomps of the world, and deceives no one with a deceitful image of holiness; but he who, in the profession of Christianity, by unusual squalor and filth makes the eyes of men intent upon himself, since he does this by will and does not suffer it by necessity, can be judged by his other works whether he does this from contempt of superfluous care or from some ambition, because the Lord too commanded that wolves under a sheep's skin be guarded against.

But by their fruits, he says, you shall know them (Matt 7:15-16). For when, by certain temptations, those very things begin to be withdrawn or denied to them which by that veil they have either obtained or desire to obtain, then it must appear whether it is a wolf in a sheep's skin or a sheep in its own. For a Christian ought not, for this reason, to soothe the sight of men with superfluous adornment, because dissemblers too often usurp that sparing and necessary habit, to deceive the incautious—just as those sheep ought not to lay aside their skins, if at some time wolves cover themselves with them.

12. 42. It is wont to be asked, then, what it is that he says, but you, when you fast, anoint your heads, and wash your faces, that you may not appear to men to be fasting (Matt 6:17-18). For no one would rightly command that, although we wash our faces by daily custom, we ought also, with heads anointed, to be when we fast. And if all confess this to be most disgraceful, it must be understood that this precept of anointing the head and washing the face pertains to the inner man. To anoint the head, then, pertains to gladness, but to wash the face to cleanness; and therefore he anoints his head who rejoices inwardly in mind and reason.

For we rightly take this as the head, which is preeminent in the soul and by which it is manifest that the rest of the man is ruled and governed. And he does this who does not seek gladness outwardly, so as to rejoice carnally over the praises of men. For the flesh, which ought to be subject, is in no way the head of the whole of human nature. No one, indeed, ever hated his own flesh (Eph 5:29), as the apostle says, when he gives a precept about loving one's wife; but the head of the woman is the man, of which man the head is Christ (See 1 Cor 11:3).

Let him, then, rejoice inwardly in his fasting by this very thing, that by so fasting he turns himself away from the pleasure of the world so as to be subject to Christ, who, according to this precept, desires him to have an anointed head. For thus he will also wash his face, that is, cleanse his heart, with which he is to see God, with no veil interposed because of the weakness contracted from filth, but firm and stable, since pure and single. Wash yourselves, he says, be clean: take away wickednesses from your souls and from before my eyes (Isa 1:16). From these filths, then, our face is to be washed, by which the sight of God is offended. For we, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, shall be transformed into the same image (2 Cor 3:18).

12. 43. Often, too, the thought of things necessary to this life wounds and defiles our inner eye, and generally doubles the heart, so that the things we seem to do rightly with men we do not do with that heart which the Lord commanded, that is, not because we love them, but because we wish to obtain from them some advantage on account of the necessity of the present life. But we ought to do good to them for the sake of their eternal salvation, not for the sake of our temporal advantage. Let God, then, incline our heart to his testimonies and not to gain (See Ps 119 (118):36)! For the end of the precept is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned (1 Tim 1:5). But he who, on account of his own need from this life, consults for a brother, does not consult out of love, because he consults not for him whom he ought to love as himself, but for himself—or rather not even for himself, since from this he makes for himself a double heart, by which he is hindered from seeing God, in which seeing alone is sure and perpetual blessedness.

13. 44. Rightly, then, there follows, and he commands, who insists on the cleansing of our heart, saying, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves dig through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not dig through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matt 6:19-21). Therefore, if the heart is on earth, that is, if anyone does something with this heart, that he may obtain earthly advantage, how will that be pure which is rolled in the earth? But if it is in heaven, it will be pure, because whatever things are heavenly are pure. For something becomes filthy when it is mingled with a lower nature, although in its own kind not filthy, because even from pure silver gold becomes filthy if it is mingled with it. So too our mind becomes filthy by the desire of earthly things, although the earth itself in its own kind and order is pure.

But I would not take heaven in this place as bodily, because every body is to be reckoned as earth. For he ought to despise the whole world who lays up treasure for himself in heaven, in that heaven, then, of which it was said, the heaven of heaven to the Lord (Ps 115 (113):16), that is, in the spiritual firmament. For we ought not to set and place our treasure and our heart in that which will pass away, but in that which always remains; but heaven and earth will pass away (Matt 24:35).

13. 45. And here he makes it manifest that he commands all these things about the cleansing of the heart, when he says, the lamp of your body is your eye. If, therefore, your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is wicked, your whole body will be dark. If, then, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? (Matt 6:22-23) Which place is to be understood thus: that we may know that all our works are then pure and pleasing in the sight of God if they are done with a single heart, that is, with an intention toward the things above, with that end of love, because also the fullness of the Law is love (Rom 13:10). Here, then, we ought to take the eye as the very intention with which we do whatever we do. And if it is pure and right, and looking to that which is to be looked at, all our works, which we do according to it, must of necessity be good. All which works he called the whole body, because the apostle too calls certain works our members, which he disapproves and commands to be mortified, saying, mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, greed, and the rest of such (Col 3:5).

13. 46. Therefore not what each one does, but with what mind he does it, is to be considered. For this is the light in us, because this is manifest to us, that we do with a good mind what we do: for everything that is made manifest is light (Eph 5:13). For the very deeds that proceed from us toward the fellowship of men have an uncertain outcome, and therefore he called them darkness. For I do not know, when I hold out money to one needy and asking, what he is going to do with it or suffer on account of it; and it can happen that he either does some evil with it or suffers some evil on account of it, which I, when I gave it, did not wish to happen nor gave with that mind. And so if I did with a good mind what was known to me when I did it, and is therefore called light, my deed too is illumined, whatever outcome it has had. Which outcome, since it is uncertain and unknown, is called darkness.

But if I did it with an evil mind, the very light is darkness. For it is called light, because each one knows with what mind he acts, even when he acts with an evil mind. But that very light is darkness, because the single intention is not directed to the things above, but is bent down to lower things and, with a double heart, makes, as it were, a shadow.

If, then, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? (Matt 6:23), that is: "if the very intention of the heart with which you do what you do, which is known to you, is defiled by the appetite for earthly and temporal things and is blinded, how much more is the deed itself, whose outcome is uncertain, filthy and dark, because even if something turns out well for someone which you do not with a right and pure intention, how you did it is imputed to you, not how it turned out for him."

14. 47. But what follows, and he says, no one can serve two masters, is to be referred to this same intention, which he consequently sets forth, saying, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will bear with the one and despise the other. Which words are to be carefully considered. For who the two masters are he then shows, when he says, you cannot serve God and mammon (Matt 6:24). Mammon is said to be called "riches" among the Hebrews (See ORIGEN, fr. 129 on Mt). The Punic name agrees too; for "gain" in Punic is called mammon. But he who serves mammon serves him who, set over these earthly things by the desert of his perversity, is called by the Lord the magistrate of this world (John 12:31; 14:30). Either, then, a man will hate this one and love the other, that is, God, or he will bear with the one and despise the other. For he bears a hard and pernicious master, whoever serves mammon; for, entangled by his own desire, he is made subject to the devil, and does not love him—for who is there who loves the devil?—but nonetheless bears with him. As in some greater household, one who is joined to another's maidservant on account of his own desire bears a hard servitude, even if he does not love him whose maidservant he loves.

14. 48. But the other he will despise, he said, not, "he will hate." For hardly anyone's conscience can hate God, but he despises him, that is, does not fear him, when he is, as it were, secure about his goodness. From this negligence and pernicious security the Holy Spirit calls us back, when he says through the prophet, son, do not add sin upon sin and say, "the mercy of God is great," not knowing that the patience of God invites you to repentance (Sir 5:5-6). For whose mercy can be recalled so great as his who forgives all sins to those who turn to him and makes the wild olive a partaker of the fatness of the olive? And whose severity so great as his who did not spare the natural branches, but broke them off on account of unbelief (See Rom 11:17-20)? But whoever wishes to love God and to beware of offending him, let him not think that he can serve two masters, and let him disentangle the right intention of his heart from all duplicity! For so he will think of the Lord in goodness, and in simplicity of heart will seek him.

15. 49. Therefore, he says, I say to you, do not be anxious in your soul about what you may eat, nor for your body about what you may put on (Matt 6:25), lest perhaps, although superfluous things are no longer sought, the heart be doubled on account of the necessities themselves, and our intention be twisted toward acquiring these, when we do something as though out of mercy, that is, so that, when we wish to seem to consult for someone, we look there to our own gain rather than to his advantage, and therefore do not seem to ourselves to sin, because the things we wish to obtain are not superfluous but necessary.

But the Lord admonishes us to remember that God has given us much more—that he made and composed us of soul and body—than is food and clothing, the care of which he does not wish to double our heart. Is not the soul, he says, more than food, that you may understand that he who gave the soul will much more easily give food, and the body than clothing (Matt 6:25), that is, it is more, that you may likewise understand that he who gave the body will much more easily give clothing.

15. 50. In which place it is wont to be asked whether this food pertains to the soul, since the soul is incorporeal, but this food is corporeal. But let us know that the soul is here set down for this life, the support of which is this corporeal nourishment. According to this signification was said also that, he who loves his soul shall lose it (John 12:35). Which, unless we take it of this life, which must be lost for the kingdom of God, as it was made clear the martyrs were able to do, this precept will be contrary to that sentence in which it was said, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his soul? (Matt 16:26)

15. 51. Look, he says, at the birds of heaven, for they do not sow nor reap nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than they (Matt 6:26), that is, are you not worth more dearly? Because certainly a rational animal, such as man is, is set higher in the nature of things than irrational ones, such as birds are. But which of you, he says, by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature? And about clothing why are you anxious? (Matt 6:27-28), that is: By whose power and dominion it was brought about that your body was carried to this stature, by his providence it can also be clothed. But that it was not brought about by your care that your body came to this stature can be understood from this, that if you should care and wish to add one cubit to this stature, you cannot. To him, then, leave the care of clothing the body too, by whose care you see it brought about that you have a body of so great a stature.

15. 52. But a proof had to be given about clothing too, as it was given about food. And so there follows, and he says, consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they do not labor nor spin. But I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith? (Matt 6:28-30) But these proofs are not to be discussed as allegories, so that we ask what the birds of heaven or the lilies of the field signify; for they are set down so that from lesser things greater might be made persuasive. As is that about the judge who neither feared God nor reverenced man, and yet often yielded to the widow appealing to him, to consider her case, not on account of piety or humanity, but lest he suffer weariness (See Luke 18:2-5). For in no way does that unjust judge allegorically bear the person of God; but nonetheless how much God, who is good and just, cares for those who beseech him, the Lord wished to be inferred from this, that even an unjust man cannot despise those who beat upon him with constant prayers, even for the avoiding of weariness.

16. 53. Therefore do not, he says, be anxious, saying, "what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or with what shall we be clothed?" For all these things the gentiles seek. For your Father knows that you have need of all these. Seek first the kingdom and righteousness of God, and all these things shall be added to you (Matt 6:31-33). Here he most manifestly shows that these things are not to be sought as such goods of ours, that for their sake we ought to do good, if we do anything, but that they are nonetheless necessary. For what difference there is between the good, which is to be sought, and the necessary, which is to be taken, he declared by this sentence, when he said, seek first the kingdom and righteousness of God, and all these things shall be added to you. The kingdom and righteousness of God, then, is our good, and this is to be sought, and the end is to be set there, for the sake of which we do all that we do. But because in this life we are soldiers, that we may be able to come to that kingdom, which life cannot be carried on without these necessities: these shall be added to you, he says, but you, seek first the kingdom of God and righteousness! For when he said that first, he signified that this is to be sought afterward, not in time but in dignity: the former as our good, the latter as our necessary thing, but necessary for the sake of that good.

16. 54. For we ought not, for example, to preach the Gospel in order that we may eat, but to eat in order that we may preach the Gospel. For if we preach the Gospel for this reason, that we may eat, we hold the Gospel cheaper than food; and our good will now be in eating, but the necessary in preaching the Gospel. Which the apostle also forbids, when he says that it is indeed permitted to him and granted by the Lord that those who announce the Gospel should live by the Gospel, that is, should have from the Gospel the things necessary for this life, but that he nonetheless did not abuse this power (See 1 Cor 9:12-14).

For there were many who desired to have an occasion of acquiring and selling the Gospel, from whom the apostle, wishing to cut it off, sustained his living by his own hands (See Acts 20:34). For of these he says in another place, that I may cut off the occasion from those who seek an occasion (2 Cor 11:12). Although even if, like the other and good apostles, by the Lord's permission he lived by the Gospel, he would not set in that living the end of preaching the Gospel, but would rather place the end of his living itself in the Gospel, that is, as I said above, he would not preach the Gospel in order to come to food and whatever other things are necessary, but would take these in order to fulfill that, lest he preach the Gospel not willing but by necessity.

For this he disapproves, when he says, do you not know that those who work in the temple eat the things of the temple, that those who serve at the altar share with the altar? So also the Lord ordained that those who announce the Gospel should live by the Gospel. But I have used none of these things (1 Cor 9:13-15). Hence he shows that it was permitted, not commanded; otherwise he will be held to have acted against the precept of the Lord.

Then there follows, and he says, but I have not written these things that they should so be done with me. For it is good for me rather to die than that anyone should make my glory empty (1 Cor 9:15). He said this because he had already determined, on account of certain ones seeking an occasion, to provide his living with his own hands (See 2 Cor 11:12). For if I preach the Gospel, he says, it is no glory to me (1 Cor 9:16), that is: If I preach the Gospel, that things should so be done with me, that is, if I preach the Gospel for this reason, that I may come to those things and set the end of the Gospel in food and drink and clothing.

But why is it no glory to him? For necessity, he says, lies upon me, that is: that I preach the Gospel for this reason, because I have nothing to live on, or that I may acquire temporal fruit from the preaching of eternal things. For so there will now be necessity in the Gospel, not will. For woe will be to me, he says, if I do not preach the Gospel (1 Cor 9:16). But how ought he to preach the Gospel? Namely, so that in the Gospel itself and in the kingdom of God he sets his reward. For so he can preach the Gospel not compelled but willing.

For if I do this willingly, he says, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, a stewardship has been entrusted to me (1 Cor 9:17)—that is: if, compelled by want of the things necessary for this temporal life, I preach the Gospel, then others will have through me the reward of the Gospel, namely those who, while I preach it, love the Gospel itself; but I will not have it, because I do not love the Gospel itself but its price, set in those temporal things.

And it is wrong for this to come about—that anyone should minister the Gospel not as a son but as a slave to whom a stewardship has been entrusted, so as to dispense it as something belonging to another and take nothing from it except his food, which is given from outside not as a share in the kingdom but as the support of a wretched servitude. Yet in another place he also calls himself a steward (See 1 Cor 4:1). For even a slave adopted into the number of sons can faithfully dispense to his fellow sharers that very thing in which he has earned the lot of a coheir. But here, where he says but if unwillingly, a stewardship has been entrusted to me (1 Cor 4:2), he meant us to understand such a steward as dispenses what belongs to another and receives nothing from it himself.

16. 55. Therefore whatever thing is sought for the sake of something else is without doubt inferior to that for the sake of which it is sought. And so that first thing is the reason you seek this thing, not this thing the reason you seek that. Accordingly, if we seek the Gospel and the kingdom of God for the sake of food, we make food prior and the kingdom of God posterior, so that, if food were not lacking, we would not seek the kingdom of God. This, then, is to seek food first and afterward the kingdom of God—that is, to put the latter in the prior place and the former in the posterior. But if we seek food in order that we may have the kingdom of God, we do what was said: seek first the kingdom and the righteousness of God, and all these things shall be added to you (Matt 6:33).

17. 56. For those who seek first the kingdom and the righteousness of God—that is, who set this before all other things, so that we seek the rest for the sake of this—there ought to be no underlying anxiety that those things may be lacking which are necessary for this life on account of the kingdom of God. For he said above: your Father knows that you need all these things.

And therefore, when he had said seek first the kingdom and the righteousness of God, he did not say, "then seek these things, although they are necessary," but said all these things shall be added to you (Matt 6:32-33)—that is, they will follow, if you seek those, without any hindrance on your part, lest in seeking these you be turned away from that, or lest you set up two ends, so as to desire both the kingdom of God for its own sake and these necessary things; rather, desire these for the sake of that. So they will not be lacking to you, because you cannot serve two masters (See Matt 6:24). Now whoever desires both the kingdom of God as a great good and these temporal things is trying to serve two masters. But he will not be able to have a single eye and to serve the one Lord God unless whatever else there is—if it is necessary—he takes up for the sake of this one thing, that is, for the sake of the kingdom of God.

Now just as all who serve as soldiers receive their rations and pay, so all who preach the Gospel receive food and clothing. But not all serve as soldiers for the safety of the commonwealth; some do so for what they receive. So too not all minister to God for the safety of the Church; some do so for these temporal things, which they obtain as rations and pay, or else both for this and for that. But it has already been said above: you cannot serve two masters. Therefore with a single heart, solely for the sake of the kingdom of God, we ought to do good to all, and not, in this activity, to think of a temporal reward—either by itself or together with the kingdom of God.

Under the name of all these temporal things he set "tomorrow," saying: do not therefore be anxious about tomorrow (Matt 6:34). For a day is not called "tomorrow" except in time, where the future succeeds the past. Therefore, when we do something good, let us think not of temporal but of eternal things! Then that work will be good and perfect. For tomorrow, he says, will be anxious for itself—that is, so that, when it is fitting, you may take food or drink or clothing, namely when necessity itself begins to press. For these things will be at hand, because our Father knows that we need all these things (See Matt 6:32). For sufficient, he says, to the day is its own evil (Matt 6:34)—that is, "it is enough that necessity itself will press you to take these things," which I think is for this reason called "evil," because it is punitive for us; for it belongs to this frailty and mortality which we earned by sinning. To this penalty, then, of temporal necessity do not add anything heavier, so that you not only suffer want of these things but even serve God as a soldier in order to satisfy that want.

17. 57. But in this place we must be very careful that, when we see some servant of God provide that these necessary things may not be lacking either to himself or to those whose care has been committed to him, we do not judge him to be acting against the Lord's precept and to be anxious about tomorrow. For even the Lord himself, whom the angels served (See Matt 4:11), nevertheless, for the sake of example, lest anyone afterward suffer scandal, when he had noticed that one of his servants procured these necessary things, deigned to keep a purse with money in it, from which whatever was needed might be supplied for necessary uses. The keeper and the thief of this purse, as it is written, was Judas, who betrayed him (See John 12:6).

So too the apostle Paul can seem to have thought about tomorrow when he said: now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of the week each of you is to put something aside, storing up as he has been prospered, so that the collections need not be made when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you approve by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. And if it is fitting that I go too, they shall go with me. I will visit you after passing through Macedonia, for I am passing through Macedonia. Perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may send me on my way wherever I go. For I do not want to see you now in passing; for I hope to stay some time with you, if the Lord permits. But I will remain at Ephesus until Pentecost (1 Cor 16:1-8). Likewise in the Acts of the Apostles it is written that the things necessary for sustenance were procured in advance because of an imminent famine. For we read as follows: in those days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and there was great rejoicing. And when we were gathered together, one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold through the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world, which also took place under Claudius. And the disciples, as each one prospered, each of them determined to send relief to the brethren, the elders living in Judea; and they did so, sending it by the hand of Barnabas and Saul (Acts 11:27-30). And from the fact that, when the same apostle Paul was sailing, supplies that were offered were put on board, this provision of food seems to have been procured not for one day only (See Acts 28:10).

And from the fact that the same apostle writes let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may have something to give to him who is in need (Eph 4:28), it seems to those who understand badly that he does not keep the Lord's precept who says look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns (Matt 6:26), and consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin (Matt 6:28), since he commanded these men to labor, working with their hands, so as to have something they could even give to others. And from the fact that he often says of himself that he worked with his own hands (See Acts 20:34) so as not to burden anyone (See 1 Thess 2:9), and that it is written of him that he joined himself to Aquila because of their common trade, so that they might work together to earn their living (See Acts 18:2-3), he seems not to have imitated the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.

From these and similar passages of the Scriptures it is sufficiently clear that our Lord does not disapprove if someone procures these things in the human manner, but only if someone serves God as a soldier for the sake of these things, so that in his works he looks not to the kingdom of God but to the acquisition of these things.

17. 58. To this rule, then, the whole precept is reduced: that even in the provision of these things we think of the kingdom of God, but in the service of the kingdom of God we do not think of these things. For in this way, even if at some time they are lacking—as God for the most part allows for our training—they not only do not weaken our resolve but even strengthen it, tested and proven. For we glory, he says, in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces patience, and patience trial, and trial hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:3-5). And in recalling his own tribulations and labors, the same apostle recalls that he labored not only in prisons and shipwrecks and many troubles of this kind, but even in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness (See 2 Cor 11:23-27).

When we read this, let us not suppose that the Lord's promises wavered, so that the apostle suffered hunger and thirst and nakedness while seeking the kingdom and righteousness of God, when it has been said to us seek first the kingdom and the righteousness of God, and all these things shall be added to you (Matt 6:33)—since indeed that physician, to whom we have once for all entrusted our whole selves, knows these things as aids, and from him we have the promise of the present life and the life to come; he knows when to add them and when to withdraw them, as he judges to be good for us;

and he governs and directs us, to be consoled and trained in this life, and after this life to be established and strengthened in everlasting rest. For even a man, when he often withholds fodder from his beast of burden, does not thereby abandon his care of it, but rather does this by way of caring for it.

18. 59. And since, when these things are either procured for the future or, when there is no reason to spend them, kept in reserve, it is uncertain with what intention this is done—since it can be done with a single heart and can also be done with a double one—he has fittingly added here: do not judge, lest you be judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured back to you (Matt 7:1-2). In this place I think nothing else is being enjoined on us than that we should interpret in the better sense those deeds about which it is doubtful with what intention they are done. For what is written, by their fruits you shall know them (Matt 7:16), was said of manifest things, which cannot be done with a good intention—such as fornication or blasphemies or thefts or drunkenness and any others of the sort—about which we are permitted to judge, since the apostle says: for what have I to do with judging those who are outside? Is it not those who are inside whom you judge? (1 Cor 5:12)

But as to the kind of food, since any human foods whatever can be taken indifferently, with a good intention and a single heart, without the vice of disordered desire, the same apostle forbids those who ate meat and drank wine to be judged by those who abstained from such foods. Let him who eats, he says, not despise him who abstains, and let him who abstains not judge him who eats. There too he says: who are you to judge the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls (Rom 14:3-4).

For about such things, which can be done with a good and single and great intention—although they can also be done with a bad one—those men, being human, wanted to pass sentence in the hidden things of the heart, about which God alone judges.

18. 60. To this belongs also what he says in another place: do not pronounce judgment before the time, until the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. And then each one will receive his commendation from God (1 Cor 4:5). There are, then, certain intermediate deeds, of which we do not know with what intention they are done, because they can be done both with a good and with an evil one; about these it is rash to judge, especially so as to condemn. But the time will come for these to be judged, when the Lord will bring to light the things hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Likewise in another place the same apostle says: the sins of some men are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later (1 Tim 5:24). He calls those "conspicuous" about which it is clear with what intention they are done; these go before to judgment—that is, because, if judgment follows them, it is not rash. But those things follow later which are hidden, because these too will not stay concealed in their own time. The same is to be understood of good deeds also. For he goes on thus: so too good deeds are conspicuous; and even those that are otherwise cannot be hidden (1 Tim 5:25). Let us therefore judge manifest things; but the judgment of hidden things let us leave to God, since these too cannot be hidden, whether evil or good, when the time comes for them to be made manifest.

18. 61. Now there are two cases in which we ought to guard against rash judgment: when it is uncertain with what intention something has been done, and when it is uncertain what sort of person he will be who now appears either bad or good. If, then, someone, for example, complaining of his stomach, did not want to fast, and you, not believing this, attributed it to the vice of gluttony, you will judge rashly. Likewise, if you came to know manifest gluttony and drunkenness, and rebuked it as though that man could never be corrected and changed, you will nonetheless judge rashly. Let us not, therefore, rebuke those things about which we do not know with what intention they are done; nor let us so rebuke things that are manifest as to despair of their cure, and we will avoid the judgment of which it is now said: do not judge, lest you be judged (Matt 7:1).

18. 62. But it may be a difficulty that he says: for with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured back to you (Matt 7:2). For surely, if we judge with a rash judgment, will God too judge us rashly? Or surely, if we have measured with an unjust measure, is there with God too an unjust measure by which it will be measured back to us? For by the name "measure" I think the judgment itself is signified. In no way does God either judge rashly or repay anyone with an unjust measure. But this was said because the very rashness by which you punish another must of necessity punish you. Unless perhaps we are to suppose that injustice does some harm to the one against whom it proceeds, but none to the one from whom it proceeds. On the contrary, often it does no harm to the one who suffers the wrong, but it must of necessity harm the one who does it. For what harm did the injustice of their persecutors do to the martyrs? Yet it did the greatest harm to the persecutors themselves. For even if some of them were later set right, nevertheless at the time when they were persecuting, their malice was blinding them. So too rash judgment for the most part does no harm to the one who is rashly judged, but the rashness itself must of necessity harm the one who judges rashly.

I think that saying too belongs to this rule: all who take the sword will perish by the sword (Matt 26:52). For how many strike with the sword and yet do not perish by the sword—as Peter himself did not! But lest anyone suppose that he escaped such a penalty through the forgiveness of his sins—though nothing is more absurd than to suppose that the penalty of the sword, which did not befall Peter, could have been greater than that of the cross, which did befall him—what then will he say of the robbers who were crucified with the Lord, since the one who earned forgiveness earned it after he was crucified, while the other did not earn it at all (See Luke 23:32-43)? Or had they perhaps crucified all whom they had killed, and for that reason earned to suffer this themselves? It is ridiculous to suppose this. What else, then, was said by for all who strike with the sword will perish by the sword, except that the soul dies by that very sin, whatever it has committed?

19. 63. And since in this place the Lord warns us against rash and unjust judgment—for he wills that with a single heart, intent on the one God, we do whatever we do; and many things it is uncertain with what heart they are done, about which it is rash to judge, and those especially judge rashly about uncertain matters and readily rebuke who love rather to revile and condemn than to amend and correct, which vice belongs either to pride or to envy—he consequently adds and says: why do you see the speck in your brother's eye, but do not see the beam in your own eye? (Matt 7:3), so that, if for example that man sinned through anger, you rebuke him through hatred. Now as far as the speck is from the beam, so far, as it were, is anger removed from hatred. For hatred is anger grown old, anger which by its very age has gained such strength that it deserves to be called a beam. But it can happen that, if you are angry with a man, you may wish him to be corrected; whereas if you hate a man, you cannot wish to correct him.

19. 64. For how do you say to your brother, "Let me cast the speck out of your eye," and behold, there is a beam in your own eye? Hypocrite, first cast the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to cast the speck out of your brother's eye (Matt 7:4-5)—that is: "first drive hatred away from yourself, and then you will be able to amend the one whom you love." And he says well, hypocrite. For to accuse vices is the duty of good and well-disposed men; and when bad men do this, they play a part that is not their own, like hypocrites who hide under a mask what they are and display in their mask what they are not. By the name "hypocrites," then, you may understand dissemblers. And the kind of dissemblers is truly much to be guarded against and is troublesome—those who, while they undertake their accusations of all vices out of hatred and spite, want even to be seen as advisers. And therefore we must watch piously and carefully, so that when necessity compels us to rebuke or chide someone, we first consider whether the vice is such as we never had or such as we have now been freed from. And if we never had it, let us consider that we too are human and could have had it; but if we did have it and no longer have it, let our common weakness touch our memory, so that not hatred but mercy may go before that rebuke or chiding, so that—whether it avails for the correction of the one for whose sake we do it, or for his perversion (for the outcome is uncertain)—we ourselves may at least be secure in the singleness of our eye. But if, considering ourselves, we find that we are in the same vice as the one we were preparing to rebuke, let us not rebuke or chide, but rather groan together with him; and let us invite him not to obey us but to strive together with us!

19. 65. For that too which the apostle says—to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win the Jews; to those under the Law as one under the Law, though I myself am not under the Law, that I might win those who were under the Law; to those outside the Law as one outside the Law, though I am not outside the Law of God but am under the Law of Christ, that I might win those who are outside the Law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all, that I might win all (1 Cor 9:20-22)—he certainly did not do out of dissimulation, as some want it to be understood, so that their own detestable dissimulation may be fortified by the authority of so great an example; rather, he did this out of love, by which he regarded as his own the weakness of the one he wished to help.

For he prepares the ground for this by saying: for though I am free from all, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more (1 Cor 9:19). And that you may understand this to be done not out of dissimulation but out of love, by which we have compassion on weak persons as though we were they, he gives this warning in another place: you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another (Gal 5:13). This cannot be done unless each one holds another's weakness as though it were his own, so as to bear it with equanimity, until the one whose salvation he cares for is freed from it.

19. 66. Rebukes, then, are to be employed rarely and only under great necessity, yet in such a way that even in these very rebukes we press for God to be served, not ourselves. For he is the end, so that we do nothing with a double heart, removing from our own eye the beam of envy or malice or dissimulation, that we may see clearly to cast the speck out of our brother's eye. For we shall see it with the eyes of a dove (See Song 4:1)—such eyes as are praised in the bride of Christ, whom God chose for himself as a glorious Church having no spot or wrinkle, that is, pure and single (See Eph 5:27).

20. 67. But since the name of singleness can deceive some who desire to obey God's precepts, so that they suppose it to be sometimes a vice to conceal what is true, just as it is sometimes a vice to speak what is false, and in this way, by disclosing those things which they to whom they are disclosed cannot bear, they do more harm than if they concealed them altogether and always, he most rightly adds: do not give what is holy to the dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn to attack you (Matt 7:6). For the Lord too, although he lied in nothing, nevertheless showed that he concealed certain true things when he said: I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12). And the apostle Paul: I could not, he says, address you as spiritual but as carnal. As to little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not able, but neither even now are you able, for you are still carnal (1 Cor 3:1-2).

20. 68. Now in this precept, by which we are forbidden to give what is holy to the dogs and to throw our pearls before swine, we must carefully inquire what is holy, what are pearls, what are dogs, what are swine. The holy is that which it is wrong to violate and corrupt; and the attempt and the will to commit such a crime is held guilty, even though that holy thing remains by nature inviolable and incorruptible. Pearls are whatever spiritual things are to be esteemed as great; and because they lie hidden in secret, they are, as it were, dug up from the deep and found in the coverings of allegories as though in opened shells. So one may understand that one and the same thing can be called both holy and a pearl—holy from the fact that it ought not to be corrupted, a pearl from the fact that it ought not to be despised. Now anyone tries to corrupt what he does not want to remain whole; but he despises what he holds cheap and reckons to be, as it were, beneath himself, and therefore whatever is despised is said to be trampled upon. Wherefore dogs, because they leap forward to tear apart; and what they tear apart they do not allow to remain whole. Do not, he says, give what is holy to the dogs (Matt 7:6), because, even though it cannot be torn apart and corrupted and remains whole and inviolable, nevertheless one must consider what those people intend who resist sharply and most hostilely, and who, so far as in them lies, try, if it could be done, to destroy the truth. Swine, however, although they do not attack with the bite as dogs do, nevertheless defile by trampling here and there. Do not, therefore, he says, throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn to attack you (Matt 7:6). Therefore I think it is not inappropriate that dogs are put for assailants of the truth, and swine for despisers of it.

20. 69. But as for what he says, turn to attack you, he does not say "tear apart the pearls themselves." For by trampling them, even when they turn back to hear something further, they nevertheless tear apart the one from whom they have already trampled the pearls that were thrown. For you will not easily find what could be pleasing to one who has trampled pearls—that is, who has despised divine discoveries gained with great labor. But how the one who teaches such people is not torn apart by their indignation and fretting, I do not see. Now each animal is unclean, both the dog and the swine. We must be careful, therefore, not to disclose anything to one who does not grasp it; for it is better that he seek what is closed than that what is disclosed he should either attack or neglect. Nor is any other cause found why things that are manifest and great are not received, except hatred or contempt; on account of the one men are called dogs, on account of the other swine. Yet all this uncleanness is conceived from love of temporal things—that is, from love of this world, which we are commanded to renounce, so that we may be able to be clean. Whoever, then, desires to have a single and clean heart ought not to think himself guilty if he conceals something which the one from whom he conceals it cannot grasp.

Nor is it to be supposed from this that it is permitted to lie; for it does not follow that, when what is true is concealed, what is false is spoken. We must therefore act first to remove the impediments by which it comes about that he does not grasp it; for surely, if he does not grasp because of his filth, he must be cleansed either by word or by deed, as far as we are able.

20. 70. But as for the fact that our Lord is found to have said certain things which many who were present did not receive, whether by resisting or by despising, he is not to be thought to have given what is holy to dogs or to have thrown pearls before swine; for he did not give them to those who could not grasp them, but to those who could and who were present at the same time, who ought not to be neglected on account of the uncleanness of the others. And when his tempters questioned him, he answered them in such a way that they had nothing to contradict, although they wasted away with their own poisons rather than being satisfied with his food; yet others who could grasp it heard many useful things on the occasion of those men.

I have said this lest perhaps anyone, when he has been unable to answer a questioner, should think himself excused by this saying if he says that he does not want to give what is holy to the dogs or to throw pearls before swine. For he who knows what to answer ought to answer, if only for the sake of others, who are seized by despair if they believe that the question put cannot be solved—and this of useful matters pertaining to the instruction of salvation.

For there are many things which can be inquired into by idle people—superfluous and empty and for the most part harmful—about which nevertheless something must be said: but this very thing must be disclosed and explained, namely why such things ought not to be inquired into. On useful matters, however, we must sometimes answer the very thing we are asked, as the Lord did when the Sadducees questioned him about the woman who had seven husbands, whose of them she would be in the resurrection to come. For he answered that in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven (Matt 22:23-30; Mark 12:18-25; Luke 20:27-36).

But sometimes the one who asks is to be asked something else, which nevertheless, if he states it, will let him answer himself as to what he asked; and if he refuses to state it, it will not seem unjust to those present if he too does not hear an answer to what he asked. For those also who questioned him, tempting him, whether tribute ought to be paid, were asked something else—namely, whose image the coin bore that was produced by them; and because they said what they were asked—namely, that the coin bore Caesar's image—they in a way answered themselves as to what they had asked the Lord. And so from their answer he drew this conclusion: render therefore to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's (Matt 22:15-21).

And when the chief priests and the elders of the people questioned him by what authority he did those things, he questioned them about the baptism of John; and when they were unwilling to say what they saw was being said against them, yet did not dare to say anything bad about John because of the bystanders, he said: neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things (Matt 21:23-27)—which appeared most just to the bystanders. For they said they did not know what they did not fail to know but were unwilling to say. And in truth it was just that those who wanted answered to them what they had asked should first themselves do what they demanded should be done toward them; and if they had done this, they would certainly have answered themselves. For they themselves had sent to John, asking who he was—or rather, priests and Levites had been sent, thinking that he himself was the Christ, when he denied that he was and bore witness about the Lord (See John 1:19-27). And if they had been willing to confess about that testimony, they would themselves have taught themselves by what authority the Christ did those things, which they had asked about as though they did not know, in order to find an opening for slander.

21. 71. Since, then, it had been enjoined that what is holy not be given to dogs and that pearls not be thrown before swine, the hearer could meet this and say—aware of his own ignorance and weakness, and hearing it enjoined on him that he not give what he perceived he had not yet himself received—he could, then, meet this and say: "what holy thing do you forbid me to give to dogs, and what pearls do you forbid me to throw before swine, when I do not yet see that I have them?"

Most opportunely he added, saying: ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened (Matt 7:7-8). Asking pertains to obtaining health and strength of mind, so that we may be able to fulfill what is enjoined; but seeking pertains to finding the truth. For since the blessed life is completed by action and by knowledge, action requires the capacity of strength, and contemplation requires the manifestation of things. The first of these, then, is to be asked for, the second to be sought, so that the one may be given and the other found. But knowledge in this life is of the way rather than of the possession itself. Yet when anyone has found the true way, he will arrive at the possession itself, which nevertheless will be opened to him who knocks.

21. 72. So that these three things—that is, asking, seeking, knocking—may be made plain, let us set down, by way of an illustration, someone who cannot walk because his feet are weak. First, then, he must be healed and strengthened for walking, and to this belongs what he said, ask. But what does it profit him that he can now walk or even run, if he wanders by byways? The second thing, then, is that he find the way that leads where he wishes to arrive. And when he has held to it and traveled it, if he finds the very place where he wishes to dwell closed, it will have profited him nothing to have been able to walk and to have walked and arrived, unless it is opened; to this belongs what was said, knock.

21. 73. Now he gave great hope, he who does not deceive in promising; for he says: everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened (Matt 7:8). Therefore perseverance is needed, so that we may receive what we ask, and find what we seek, and have opened to us what we knock at.

Just as he spoke of the birds of the air and of the lilies of the field (See Matt 6:26-31), so that we might not despair of food and clothing being at hand for us, so that our hope might rise from lesser things to greater, so too in this place he says: or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will hand him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will hand him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matt 7:9-11)

How do evil men give good things? But he called "evil" those who still love this world, and sinners. The good things, however, which they give are to be called good according to their own way of thinking, because they regard these as good. And yet in the nature of things these are also good, but temporal and pertaining to this weak life. And whoever, being evil, gives them does not give of his own; for the earth is the Lord's, and its fullness (Ps 24 (23):1)—who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them (Ps 146 (145):6). How much, then, we ought to hope that God will give good things to us when we ask, and that we cannot be deceived so as to receive one thing for another when we ask of him, since even we, when we are evil, know how to give what we are asked! For we do not deceive our children; and whatever good things we give, we give not of our own but of his.

22. 74. Now firmness and a certain vigor for walking along the way of wisdom is established in good morals, which are brought all the way to cleansing and singleness of heart, about which, speaking now for some time, he concludes thus: all things, therefore, whatever you wish that men should do for you, do so to them; for this is the Law and the prophets (Matt 7:12). In the Greek copies we find it thus: all things, therefore, whatever you wish that men should do for you, do so to them. But I think "good" was added by the Latins to make the meaning plain. For there occurred the difficulty that, if anyone should wish something shameful to be done toward him and should apply this saying to it—as if someone should wish to be challenged to drink immoderately and gorge himself with cups, and should do this first to the one by whom he desires it to be done to himself—it is ridiculous to suppose that this man has fulfilled this saying. Since, then, this raised a difficulty, as I think, one word was added to make the matter plain, so that after it was said all things, therefore, whatever you wish that men should do for you, "good" was added. But if it is lacking in the Greek copies, those too should be emended. But who would dare this? It is to be understood, then, that the saying is full and altogether complete, even if this word is not added. For what is said, whatever you wish, ought to be taken as said not in the customary and loose way but properly. For there is no "willing" except in good things; for in evil and shameful deeds it is properly called desire, not will. Not that the Scriptures always speak so, but where it is fitting, they keep so strictly to the proper word that they allow nothing else to be understood.

22. 75. But this precept seems to pertain to the love of neighbor and not also to the love of God, since in another place he says that there are two precepts on which the whole Law depends and all the prophets (Matt 22:40). For if he had said, "all things whatever you wish to be done to you, these do you also do," by this one saying he would have embraced both of those precepts; for it would readily be said that each one wishes to be loved both by God and by men. And so, when this was enjoined on him—that what he wished to be done to himself he should do—this surely would be enjoined: that he should love both God and men. But when it is said more expressly of men, all things, therefore, whatever you wish that men should do for you, do so to them (Matt 7:12), nothing else seems to be said than: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

But we must not carelessly fail to attend to what he added here: for this is the Law and the prophets (Matt 22:39-40). But in those two precepts he did not merely say the Law depends and the prophets, but added the whole Law and all the prophets, which stands for the whole of prophecy. Since he did not add this here, he has reserved a place for the other precept, which pertains to the love of God. But here, since he is pursuing the precepts of a single heart, and toward those persons especially it is to be feared that anyone might have a double heart, namely those from whom the heart can be concealed—that is, toward men—this very thing had to be enjoined. For there is scarcely anyone who would wish anyone to deal with him with a double heart. But this cannot be done—that is, that a man bestow something on a man with a single heart—unless he so bestows it that he expects no temporal advantage from him, and acts with that intention which we have sufficiently treated above, when we were speaking of the single eye.

22. 76. The eye, then, cleansed and made single, will be fit and suited to behold and contemplate its own interior light. For this eye is the eye of the heart. And such an eye that man has who does not set the end of his good works—so that they may be truly good works—in pleasing men, but, even if it happens that he pleases them, refers this rather to their salvation and to the glory of God, not to his own empty boasting; nor does he work any good thing for the salvation of his neighbor in order to procure from it the things necessary for getting through this life; nor does he rashly condemn the mind and will of a man in a deed in which it does not appear with what mind and will it was done; and whatever services he renders to a man, he renders with that intention with which he wishes them rendered to himself—that is, so as not to expect from him any temporal advantage. So the heart will be single and clean, in which God is sought. Blessed, therefore, are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8).

23. 77. But because this belongs to few, he now begins to speak of investigating and possessing wisdom, which is the tree of life (See Prov 3:18). And surely, to investigate and possess it—that is, to contemplate it—such an eye has been led through all the foregoing, by which the narrow way and the strait gate may now be seen. So what he next says—enter by the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. How strait is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it (Matt 7:13-14)—he does not say because the Lord's yoke is harsh or his burden heavy, but because few are willing to bring their labors to an end, believing too little him who cries out: come to me, all you who labor, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matt 11:28-30)—and from this point this sermon took its beginning, from the humble and gentle of heart (See Matt 5:3-4)—since many refuse that easy yoke and light burden, and few take it up; and so the way that leads to life is narrow, and the gate by which it is entered is strait.

24. 78. Here, then, those especially are to be guarded against who promise the wisdom and knowledge of truth which they do not have, such as heretics, who for the most part commend themselves by their fewness. And therefore, when he had said that there are few who find the strait gate and the narrow way, lest those men put themselves forward under the name of fewness, he at once added: beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves (Matt 7:15). But these do not deceive the single eye, which knows how to discern a tree by its fruits; for he says: by their fruits you shall know them. Then he adds comparisons: are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you shall know them (Matt 7:16-20).

24. 79. In this place the error of those is especially to be guarded against who, from these very two trees, suppose that there are two natures, one of which is God's, but the other neither God's nor from God. About this error there has already been a fuller discussion in other books, and, if that is still too little, there will be; but for now we must show that these two trees do not aid them. First, because it is so clear that he is speaking of men, that whoever reads what precedes and what follows would marvel at their blindness. Next, they attend to what is said, a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit (Matt 7:18), and therefore they suppose that a bad soul can neither be changed for the better nor a good one for the worse, as though it had been said, "a good tree cannot become bad, nor can a bad tree become good." But it was said, a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. The tree, indeed, is the soul itself, that is, the man himself; but the fruit is the works of the man. Therefore an evil man cannot do good works, nor a good man evil ones.

An evil man, therefore, if he wishes to do good works, let him first become good. So in another place the Lord himself says more evidently: either make the tree good, or make the tree bad (Matt 12:33). But if he were figuring two natures by these two trees, he would not say make. For what man can make a nature? Then, there too, when he had made mention of these two trees, he added: hypocrites, how can you speak good things, when you are evil? (Matt 12:34) As long, therefore, as anyone is evil, he cannot bear good fruit; for if he bears good fruit, he will no longer be evil. So it could most truly be said, "snow cannot be warm"; for when it begins to be warm, we no longer call it snow but water. It can come about, then, that what was snow no longer is, but it cannot come about that snow is warm. So it can come about that he who was evil is no longer evil, yet it cannot come about that an evil man does good.

Such a one, even if he is sometimes useful, does not himself do this, but it comes about through him by divine providence ordering it, as was said of the Pharisees: do what they say, but do not do what they do (Matt 23:3). The very fact that they said good things, and that the things they said were usefully heard and done, was not theirs; for, he says, they sit on Moses' seat (Matt 23:2). Therefore, preaching the Law of God through divine providence, they can be useful to those who hear, although they are not useful to themselves. Of such men it was said in another place through the prophet: you sow wheat and reap thorns (Jer 12:13), because they enjoin good things and do evil things.

Therefore those who heard them and did the things that were said by them did not gather grapes from thorns, but gathered grapes from the vine through the thorns; just as if someone should put his hand through a hedge, or should gather a grape from a vine that had been entangled with the hedge, that fruit is not of the thorns but of the vine.

24. 80. It is most rightly asked, indeed, what fruits he wished us to attend to, by which we might know the tree. For many reckon among the fruits certain things that pertain to the sheep's clothing, and in this way are deceived by wolves: such as fasts or prayers or almsgiving; and unless all these could also be done by hypocrites, he would not say above, beware of doing your righteousness before men, to be seen by them (Matt 6:1). Having set forth this saying, he pursues those very three things: almsgiving, prayer, fasting. For many bestow much on the poor, not out of mercy but out of ambition; and many pray, or rather seem to pray, not looking to God but desiring to please men; and many fast and put forward a remarkable abstinence before those to whom these things seem difficult and are reckoned worthy of honor.

And by tricks of this kind they catch them, while they display one thing to deceive and bring forth another to plunder or to kill those who, under this sheep's clothing, cannot see the wolves. These, then, are not the fruits by which he warns us to know the tree. For these things, when they are done in truth with a good intention, are the proper garments of sheep; but when done with an evil intention in error, they cover nothing other than wolves. But sheep ought not for that reason to hate their own clothing, because wolves often conceal themselves in it.

24. 81. What, then, are the fruits by which, when found, we may know a bad tree? The apostle says: now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications, uncleannesses, debaucheries, idol worship, sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envies, drunkenness, carousing, and the like; about which I tell you beforehand, as I have told you before, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God. And what are the fruits by which we may know a good tree, the same apostle says consequently: but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:19-23). It must indeed be known that "joy" is here used properly; for evil men are properly said not to rejoice but to exult, just as we said above that "will" was used properly, which evil men do not have, where it was said, all things whatever you wish that men should do for you, these do you also do to them (Matt 7:12). From this proper use of the word, by which joy is not spoken of except in good men, the prophet also speaks: there is no rejoicing for the wicked, says the Lord (Isa 48:22). So too, where faith is set down, it is certainly not any faith whatever but true faith; and the rest of the things set down here have certain images of themselves in evil men and deceivers, so that they deceive altogether, unless one has now a clean and single eye by which to know these things. And so, in the best order, the eye was first dealt with, to be cleansed, and then the things to be guarded against were stated.

25. 82. But since, however clean of eye anyone may be—that is, however much he lives with a sincere and single heart—he nevertheless cannot behold another's heart, whatever things could not appear in deeds or words are disclosed by temptations.

Now temptation is of two kinds: either in the hope of obtaining some temporal advantage, or in the fear of losing one. And we must especially be careful that, while striving toward wisdom, which can be found in Christ alone—in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:3)—we must, then, be careful that we not be deceived by that very name of Christ, through heretics or through any who understand badly and are lovers of this world. For this is why there follows, and he warns: not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he will enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 7:21)—lest we suppose that it already pertains to those fruits if someone says to our Lord Lord, Lord, and on that account the tree seem good to us. But these are the fruits: to do the will of the Father who is in heaven, the doing of which he deigned to offer himself as an example.

25. 83. But it can rightly raise a difficulty how that saying of the apostle agrees with this, where he says: no one speaking in the Spirit of God says, "a curse on Jesus"; and no one can say, "the Lord Jesus," except in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3); for we can neither say that some who have the Holy Spirit will not enter the kingdom of heaven, if they persevere to the end, nor can we say that those who say Lord, Lord and yet do not enter the kingdom of heaven have the Holy Spirit. How, then, is it that no one says, "the Lord Jesus," except in the Holy Spirit, except that the apostle properly used the word that is says, so as to signify the will and understanding of the one saying it? But the Lord used the word generally where he says, not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 7:21). For even one who neither wills nor understands what he says seems to say it; but he properly says who declares his will and mind by the sound of his voice. So, a little earlier, what was said, "joy," in the fruits of the Spirit was said properly, not in the way in which the same apostle says elsewhere, it does not rejoice over iniquity (1 Cor 13:6), as though anyone could rejoice over iniquity; for that is the elation of a mind turbulently exulting, not joy; for this only the good have.

Therefore those too seem to say who do not discern by understanding and carry out by will what they utter in sound, but only utter it with the voice; and it is in this sense that the Lord says, not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven. But those truly and properly say from whose will and mind the utterance of their speech does not differ; and it is according to this sense that the apostle says, no one can say, "the Lord Jesus," except in the Holy Spirit.

25. 84. And this is especially to the point: that, while striving toward the contemplation of truth, we not be deceived—not only by the name of Christ, through those who have the name and do not have the deeds, but also by certain deeds and miracles. Although the Lord did such things for the sake of unbelievers, he nevertheless warned us not to be deceived by such things, supposing that there is invisible Wisdom where we have seen a visible miracle. He adds, then, and says: many will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty works?" And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity" (Matt 7:22-23). He therefore knows none but him who works equity. For he forbade even his own disciples to rejoice over such things, that is, that the demons were subject to them, but rejoice, he said, that your names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20)—in that city Jerusalem, I believe, which is in heaven, in which none but the just and holy will reign. Do you not know, says the apostle, that the unjust will not possess the kingdom of God? (1 Cor 6:9)

25. 85. But perhaps someone may say that the unjust cannot perform those visible miracles, and may rather believe that those are lying who are going to say in your name we prophesied and cast out demons and did many mighty works. Let him read, then, how many things the magicians of the Egyptians did in resisting God's servant Moses (See Exod 7:11-22)! Or, if he is unwilling to read this, because they did not do it in the name of Christ, let him read what the Lord himself says, speaking thus of false prophets: then if anyone says to you, "behold, here is the Christ," or "there," do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and will give great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you beforehand (Matt 24:23-25).

25. 86. How clean and single an eye is needed, then, that the way of wisdom may be found, against which so many deceptions and errors of evil and perverse men clamor! To escape all these is to come to the most certain peace and the immovable stability of wisdom. For it is greatly to be feared that, through zeal for wrangling and contending, anyone may fail to see what can be seen by few—so that the clamor of those who contradict is slight, unless one also clamors against himself. To this belongs also what the apostle says: the servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, patient, correcting with modesty those who think differently, that perhaps God may grant them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth (2 Tim 2:24-25). Blessed, therefore, are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God (Matt 5:9).

25. 87. How terribly, then, the conclusion of this whole sermon is brought in must be carefully attended to. Everyone, therefore, he says, who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock (Matt 7:24). For no one makes firm what he hears or perceives except by doing it. And if the rock is Christ, as many testimonies of the Scriptures proclaim (See 1 Cor 10:4), he builds on Christ who does what he hears from him. The rain came down, the floods came, the winds blew and beat against that house, and it did not fall; for it was founded upon the rock (Matt 7:25). This man, then, does not fear any dark superstitions—for what else is to be understood by rain, when it is set down in the signification of something evil?—nor the rumors of men, which I think are compared to winds, nor the river of this life with its carnal desires, as though flowing over the earth. For of these three, he who is led on by prosperity is broken by adversity; and none of these does he fear who has his house founded upon the rock, that is, who not only hears the precepts of the Lord but also does them. And to all these dangers he is subject who hears and does not do; for he has no stable foundation, but by hearing and not doing he builds a ruin. For he goes on consequently: and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. The rain came down, the floods came, the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was its fall. And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these words, that the crowds were astonished at his teaching; for he was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes (Matt 7:26-29). This is what I said before was signified by the prophet in the psalms, when he said: I will deal confidently in him. The words of the Lord are pure words, silver tried by fire, purged of earth, seven times refined (Ps 12 (11):6-7). On account of this number I was prompted to refer these precepts too to those seven sayings which he set down at the beginning of this sermon, when he spoke of the blessed, and to those seven workings of the Holy Spirit which the prophet Isaiah recalls (See Matt 5:3-9; Isa 11:2-3). But whether this order is to be considered in these things, or some other, the things we have heard from the Lord are to be done, if we wish to build upon the rock.