Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
First, from verse one to the seventh, He teaches that ostentation in good works and vain glory among men must be avoided. Second, from verse 7 to 16, He hands down the manner of praying and prescribes to all the Lord's Prayer. Third, from verse 16 to 19, He assigns the manner of fasting, so that in it we strive to please God in secret, not men. Fourth, from verse 19 to 24, He teaches us to store up heavenly treasures. Fifth, from verse 24 to the end of the chapter, He forbids avarice and anxiety about food, clothing, and other temporal things, and commands that we resign them to God: "Seek," He says, "first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you."
Vulgate Text: Matthew 6:1-34
1. Take heed that you do not your justice before men, to be seen by them: otherwise you shall not have a reward of your Father who is in heaven. 2. Therefore when you do an almsgiving, sound not a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be honored by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. 3. But when you do alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does; 4. that your alms may be in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you. 5. And when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. 6. But you, when you pray, enter into your chamber, and having shut the door, pray to your Father in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you. 7. And when you pray, speak not much, as the heathens; for they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. 8. Be not you therefore like to them; for your Father knows what is needful for you, before you ask Him. 9. Thus therefore shall you pray: Our Father, who art in heaven; hallowed be Thy name. 10. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11. Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. 12. And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. 13. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. Amen. 14. For if you will forgive men their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offenses. 15. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offenses. 16. And when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad; for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. 17. But you, when you fast, anoint your head, and wash your face, 18. that you appear not to men to fast, but to your Father who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you. 19. Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth, where rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. 20. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither rust nor moth consumes, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. 21. For where your treasure is, there is your heart also. 22. The lamp of your body is your eye. If your eye be single, your whole body shall be lightsome. 23. But if your eye be evil, your whole body shall be darksome. If then the light that is in you be darkness, how great shall the darkness be? 24. No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will sustain the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. 25. Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body more than the raiment? 26. Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of more value than they? 27. And which of you by thinking, can add to his stature one cubit? 28. And for raiment, why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labor not, neither do they spin. 29. But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. 30. And if the grass of the field, which is today and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God so clothes; how much more you, O you of little faith? 31. Be not solicitous therefore, saying: What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or with what shall we be clothed? 32. For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your Father knows that you have need of all these things. 33. Seek therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34. Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself: sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.
Verse 1: Take Heed Not to Do Your Justice Before Men
1. TAKE HEED THAT YOU DO NOT YOUR JUSTICE BEFORE MEN, TO BE SEEN BY THEM: OTHERWISE YOU SHALL NOT HAVE A REWARD OF YOUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN. — Instead of "justice," some Greek Codices, along with the Syriac, Vatablus, and others, read δικαιοσύνην, that is "justice," as our translator renders it; yet the Complutensian, Royal, and other Codices read ἐλεημοσύνην, that is "almsgiving" (whence the Arabic translates "mercy"), about which Christ speaks immediately after; for this word, κατ' ἐξοχήν, or by excellence, claims for itself in Scripture the common name of justice, as I have shown at II Corinthians IX, 10, and Daniel IV, 24. Hence St. Chrysostom, reading "justice," understands by it almsgiving. But more correctly our translator and others read "justice"; for Christ, after He had in the preceding chapter explained in detail the precepts of the law, which prescribe all justice — that is, all that is just, equitable, and holy, namely all good works — now in this chapter teaches the manner of doing them rightly and holily, namely that we do them with right intention and with the desire of pleasing God, not men. Then in what follows He explains this justice in detail through almsgiving, prayer, and fasting; He begins with almsgiving, then at verse 7 teaches the same to be done in prayer, and at verse 24 in fasting: for in these three things vainglory is most accustomed to dwell, says Chrysostom; otherwise, if they are done with the desire of pleasing men, Christ asserts that they will not be pleasing to God, nor will they merit any reward from Him.
TO BE SEEN BY THEM. — The word "that" (ut) denotes intention and purpose, not consequence and result; that is to say: Do not perform just and holy works with this intention and purpose, that you may be seen and praised by men; for this is vain self-display. He does not therefore forbid them to be done publicly and in such a manner that men may see them and glorify God. For He commanded this to be done in chapter v, 16. Hence St. Gregory, homily 11 on the Gospels: "Let the work, he says, be in public, so long as the intention remains hidden, so that we may both offer to our neighbors an example of good works, and yet through the intention by which we seek to please God alone, may always desire secrecy."
Furthermore, vainglory erodes all the dignity, power, and merit of a good work, just as the worm did the ivy (Jonah, chapter IV); if, that is, the good work is directed to vainglory as to its end; for an evil intention suffices to make all its malice flow into the work, as theologians teach, and specifically Gabriel Vasquez, I-II, Disputation LXXI, no. 11. It is otherwise if, while one intends the glory of God in a good work, vainglory merely creeps in and attaches itself, as it were, from the side as a companion, so that there are two acts — one of the good work done with good intention, the other of vainglory attaching itself — which does not infect or corrupt the former.
OTHERWISE YOU SHALL NOT HAVE A REWARD OF YOUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN. — That is to say: The reward of vain display and glory is human applause and favor, not divine; for he who desires to please men displeases God. For God, as the author of good works, wills to be their aim and end, so that we may perform them and direct them to God and to God's glory; for all right and duty demands this. Hence Paul: "If I yet pleased men," he says, "I should not be the servant of Christ" (Galatians I, 10).
Note: Christ does not say "Otherwise you will be damned," because vain display and glory is often only a venial sin, not a mortal and damnable one, unless it drives a person into envy, ambition, quarrels, and other crimes, as not infrequently happens. Hence by St. Chrysostom, homily 17 on the Epistle to the Romans, vainglory is called "the mother of hell"; and by St. Bernard, sermon 6 on Psalm Qui habitat: "A subtle evil, a secret poison, a hidden plague, the artisan of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, the origin of vices, the kindling of crimes, the rust of virtues, the moth of holiness, the blinder of hearts, creating diseases from remedies, generating languor from medicine."
Who is in heaven. — He indicates that the reward of a good work directed to God is heavenly, divine, and eternal, while the reward of the same work directed to the applause of men is earthly, human, and of brief duration. Hence St. Basil, in his Monastic Constitutions, chapter XI, calls vainglory the robber of good works: "Let us flee, he says, vain glory, the sweet plunderer of spiritual riches, the pleasant enemy of our souls, the moth of virtues, the most beguiling despoiler of our goods, who with the coating of honey colors the poison of her fraud and the deadly cup to the minds of men. Which I think she does for this reason, that they may gorge themselves more greedily on vice, nor ever be satisfied with any amount of it. A sweet thing indeed is human glory to the foolish."
Verse 2: Sound Not a Trumpet Before You
2. THEREFORE WHEN YOU DO ALMSGIVING, SOUND NOT A TRUMPET (the Syriac has: do not cry out with a horn) BEFORE YOU, AS THE HYPOCRITES DO IN THE SYNAGOGUES AND IN THE STREETS (that is, in the public squares, where people gather), THAT THEY MAY BE HONORED BY MEN. AMEN I SAY TO YOU, THEY HAVE RECEIVED THEIR REWARD. — The Scribes and Pharisees, when about to give alms in the public streets or synagogues, would send ahead a trumpeter to sound the trumpet, or they themselves would blow a trumpet or horn — under the pretense, indeed, that the poor, drawn by the sound of the trumpet, might flock together to receive the alms; but in reality it was for the public display of their almsgiving, so that their generosity might be seen and celebrated by those who gathered. He alludes to a theatrical summoning: for the people are called by trumpet to watch plays in the theater, since a hypocrite is like an actor and a stage player.
Note: Holy Scripture and the Prophets detest hypocrisy and hypocrites, who intend one thing in their heart but pretend and simulate another outwardly — but especially Christ detests them, because Christ is Truth itself, Simplicity, Sincerity. Hence He hates all falsehood, duplicity, and pretense; for hypocrites have a false, deceitful, and, as it were, double heart — one in the mouth, another in the heart; for they say one thing, and feel and intend the contrary. They are therefore double-hearted and double-tongued. Hence therefore the courtly and political spirit is contrary to Christ, who gave man a mouth so that through it he might lay open his heart to another, not so that he might conceal and deceitfully cover it. For, as Jeremiah says, chapter XVII, 9: "The heart of all is perverse and unsearchable." Hence Momus wished that man had a window in his breast, so that his counsels and secrets might not be craftily hidden, but might be inspected at close range, as through an open window.
Furthermore, hypocrites are like the monstrous locusts that St. John saw, Apocalypse chapter IX; for these had the faces of women, but the tails of scorpions. For in a similar way, hypocrites at first flatter with their countenance and fawn with their words, but in the end they secretly oppose, sting, and strike. But these very people, while wishing to harm others, harm themselves more. "For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed" (Luke XII, 2). Therefore their pretense, hypocrisy, and fraud are easily detected; once this happens, they are confounded, lose trust and reputation, and become hateful to all. Wherefore David, in Psalm CXIX, implores and at the same time hurls curses at hypocrites, saying: "Lord, deliver me from wicked lips, and a deceitful tongue. What shall be given to you, or what shall be added to you, for a deceitful tongue? The sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of desolation." See Jeremiah thundering against hypocrites, IX, 3, and XI, 19; and Christ, Matthew XXIII, 13, 14, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29, where He repeatedly threatens the Scribes with the woe of damnation, and seven times repeats "Woe to you, Scribes and hypocrites," and against such people commands us to be wise as serpents, yet simple as doves. Hence St. Paul, Romans XII, 9: "Let love, he says, be without dissimulation." And John, I Epistle, chapter III, 18: "My little children, he says, let us not love in word nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth."
THEY HAVE RECEIVED THEIR REWARD. — Their own, namely the one they were seeking. Again, their own — that is, one fitting for them and their vanity, of which alone they are worthy: that they might feed themselves on the most fleeting breeze of popular opinion, like chameleons on the wind. How foolish are these merchants, who, when they could purchase with their alms heavenly and eternal riches, neglect these and prefer to buy the empty praise of men — that is, empty words that beat the air and immediately pass away!
Verse 3: Let Not Your Left Hand Know What Your Right Hand Does
3. BUT WHEN YOU DO ALMS, LET NOT YOUR LEFT HAND KNOW WHAT YOUR RIGHT HAND DOES. — Setting aside the various interpretations of different authors that Maldonatus here collects, I say briefly: The meaning is, as if He said: So thoroughly flee the display of your almsgiving and virtue, and, as far as it depends on you, seek secrecy, lest your virtue be seen and celebrated by men, so that if, per impossibile, your left hand had eyes, it still could not see what good your right hand does, and what kind and how great the alms it distributes: it is a parabolic hyperbole, and a hyperbolical parable of the Syrians. We heard similar expressions in chapter v, 29. So say St. Chrysostom, Theophylactus, and others. He wills that almsgiving be so hidden and secret that we conceal it not only from our neighbor, but even from ourselves, as far as possible, lest we handle it too long with both hands, contemplate it, admire it, celebrate it, and feed and delight our eyes and mind with its sight and praise. For, as St. Jerome says in the Epitaph of Fabiola: "Hidden virtue rejoices in God as its judge."
Verse 4: Your Father Who Sees in Secret Will Repay You
4. THAT YOUR ALMS MAY BE IN SECRET, AND YOUR FATHER (heavenly), WHO SEES IN SECRET, WILL REPAY YOU. — The Greek adds ἐν τῷ φανερῷ, that is, openly, in public. So the Syriac, Arabic, and St. Augustine; which St. Luke, XIV, 14, explains as being at the resurrection: "Blessed shall you be, he says, because they (the poor) have nothing to repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just," when the Lord, as the Apostle says, I Corinthians IV, "will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of hearts, and then shall every man have praise from God." The just and fitting reward for a secret work is public praise at the judgment. For Christ will publicly reveal, celebrate, and reward with eternal glory your secret work at the judgment before God, the Angels, and men — just as Christ celebrated the almsgiving of St. Martin, namely the half of his cloak which he had cut off for himself and given to a poor man: the following night, Christ appeared to St. Martin wearing that cloak, and celebrated it before the Angels, saying: "Martin, still a catechumen, has clothed Me with this garment."
If therefore you display your almsgiving or any other good work, God hides it, so that no one may behold it, admire it, or remember it; but if you hide it, God Himself will display it to the whole world, especially on the day of judgment. Thus St. Gregory, when an Angel in the guise of a shipwrecked man asked for alms a second and third time, always generously and secretly giving, merited from him public and supreme honor. For the Angel afterward revealed that he, by this generosity, had merited and obtained the supreme pontificate of the Church, as his Life records. Similarly Christ, in the guise of a naked beggar, asked from St. Catherine of Siena first her tunic, then her undergarment, third her shift, fourth her sleeves, and when she generously and secretly gave all, the following night He appeared to her, displaying that tunic resplendent with gems, and promised that He would give her an invisible garment that would ward off all cold from her (whence afterward she felt no cold) and in heaven a public and eminent glory. So Raymund records in her Life.
Verse 5: Do Not Pray as the Hypocrites
5. AND WHEN YOU PRAY, YOU SHALL NOT BE AS THE HYPOCRITES, SAD, WHO LOVE TO STAND AND PRAY IN THE SYNAGOGUES AND CORNERS OF THE STREETS (namely at the bends of roads, at crossroads of two, three, or four ways, where the multitude of people flows together from two, three, or four streets), THAT THEY MAY BE SEEN BY MEN. AMEN I SAY TO YOU, THEY HAVE RECEIVED THEIR REWARD. — Stupid and shameless is this vanity and ostentation of the Scribes, by which they sought out public squares and crossroads, where the crowd of people was greater, so that standing before it they might display their prayer and devotion, when rather in prayer one should seek a secret place, in which the one praying may collect his mind without distraction, to converse with God alone. What is commonly said about three kinds of vain study — study is vain at the window, in the public square, by the hearth, because of the various incidents that occur there and distract the mind from study — the same may be said even more of prayer: prayer is vain at the window, in the public square, by the hearth.
Standing to pray. — From this passage and from Mark XI, 23, and Luke XVIII, 11, Jansenius supposes that the Jews prayed standing, not kneeling. But I say that the priests and Levites stood while sacrificing to God and singing psalms; the people also stood while watching these things: for if they had knelt, because of the partition three cubits high between them and the altar, they would not have been able to see the sacrifices, especially in a great crowd. Again, the people stood when they heard and received a sermon or a public blessing from Solomon or another; likewise when a solemn thanksgiving was offered to God for a victory or similar benefit, just as we stand when the Te Deum laudamus is sung. So Azarias, remaining unharmed with his companions in the Babylonian furnace, singing "Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord," stood (Daniel III, 25).
At other times, however, the Jews prayed kneeling, especially in the act of adoration or penance, when they begged pardon for sins from God. Thus Solomon at the dedication of the temple prayed and worshipped kneeling: for "both (let courtiers and the effeminate take note of this, who with the Jews bend only one knee to Christ) knees he had fixed upon the ground" (III Kings VIII, 54). Daniel, VI, 10, bending his knees three times a day, worshipped God. So Micah says, VI, 6: "I will bow my knee to God most high." For this is the rite of adoration among all nations. Hence that saying: "I will leave Me in Israel seven thousand men, whose knees have not been bowed before Baal" — that is, who have not worshipped Baal (III Kings XIX, 18). Hence God, Isaiah XLV, 23: "To Me, He says, every knee shall bow," that all nations may worship and adore Me. And II Paralipomenon XXIX, 30: "Bowing the knee, he says, they worshipped." Esdras did the same, book I, chapter IX, 5. Moreover, the captain of fifty sent by King Ahab worshipped Elijah on bended knee (IV Kings I, 13). Likewise all knelt and worshipped Haman, except Mordecai (Esther III, 2). That therefore the Scribes and Pharisees prayed standing was a matter of proud and pharisaical haughtiness, as is clear here and from Luke XVIII, 11; for they considered themselves worthier and holier than the rest of the people.
Moreover, Christians from the very beginning have been accustomed to pray kneeling. For Christ, about to go to His death, prayed kneeling, indeed prostrate on the ground, in the garden (Matthew XXVI, 39). Likewise St. Peter (Acts IX, 40); and St. John (Apocalypse XIX, 10, and XXII, 8); and St. Paul (Acts XX, 36; and Ephesians III, 14): "For this cause, he says, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Christians therefore pray kneeling on all weekdays and feast days — and this in remembrance of the fall of Adam and of all his posterity — except on Sundays and during the Paschal season, when they pray standing in honor of and to represent the resurrection of Christ, as St. Justin teaches, Question CXV: "Whence, he asks, this custom in the Church? Because it was fitting that we retain a constant remembrance of both things — both of our own fall through sin, and of the grace of our Christ, through which we rose from the fall. Therefore the bending of the knees for six days is the symbol and mark of the fall through our sins. But the fact that on Sunday we do not bend the knee is a sign and designation of the resurrection, through which by the grace of Christ we have been set free both from sins and from death, which was slain by Him." And that this custom began from the times of the Apostles, St. Irenaeus teaches in his book On Easter. Tertullian enjoins the same custom in his book On the Soldier's Crown, chapter III.
Verse 6: Enter into Your Chamber and Shut the Door
6. BUT YOU, WHEN YOU PRAY, ENTER INTO YOUR CHAMBER (in Greek ταμεῖον, that is, into a secret place where one hides oneself or one's belongings, such as a pantry, a private room, a chamber. Vatablus translates it as "cell") AND HAVING SHUT THE DOOR, PRAY TO YOUR FATHER IN SECRET. AND YOUR FATHER, WHO SEES IN SECRET, WILL REPAY YOU. — The Greek again adds ἐν τῷ φανερῷ, that is, openly, or in public. St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. Ambrose, in his book On Cain and Abel, chapter IX, understand by "chamber" the heart and mind and its secret place, as if one who prays should enter it and close it, lest distractions creep in that call the mind away from God; or, as St. Jerome says: Shut the door — that is, close your lips and pray secretly in your mind, as Anna, the mother of Samuel, did (I Kings I, 13). Hear St. Ambrose at the passage already cited: "The Savior says: Enter into your chamber — not one enclosed by walls, in which your body may be shut, but the chamber that is within you, in which your thoughts are enclosed, in which your senses dwell. This chamber of prayer is everywhere with you, and everywhere secret, and no one is its judge except God alone, who, as Cyprian says in his treatise On Prayer, is the hearer not of the voice but of the heart." Hence in prayer the utmost attention is required, so that, with all other thoughts excluded, we think of God alone, and converse with Him reverently and ardently. Hence after much else, St. Cyprian adds: "What slothfulness it is to be distracted and captured by foolish and profane thoughts while you are praying to the Lord, as if there were something else you ought to think about more than what you are saying to God! How do you ask to be heard by God when you yourself do not hear yourself? You want God to be mindful of you when you ask, while you yourself are not mindful of yourself?" Here also belongs the saying of St. Francis: "The body is the cell, and the soul is the hermit, who dwells in the cell wherever she is, even among men, to pray to the Lord and meditate upon Him." So Luke Wadding reports in the Annals of the Minors, year of Christ 1216, no. 5. Cassian gives another reason, Collation IX, chapter XXXIV: "One must pray, he says, in silence, so that our enemies (demons) may not know the intent of our petition and impede it."
This meaning is true and fitting, but symbolic and mystical rather than literal; for nothing prevents "chamber" here from being taken properly, as it sounds. By "chamber," however, He equivalently signifies any secret place; but understand this insofar as is necessary and as pertains to avoiding vainglory and ostentation, and to collecting the mind so that it may be wholly intent upon God alone, especially in private prayer. Hear St. Cyprian, treatise On Prayer: "He commands us to pray in secret, in hidden and remote places, in chambers themselves, which better befits faith, so that we may know that God is present everywhere, hears all and sees all, and with the fullness of His majesty penetrates into hidden and secret places as well, as it is written: 'I am a God at hand, and not a God afar off'" (Jeremiah XXIII). Christ does not, therefore, condemn public prayer in church, which by the common practice of Jews and Christians has been laudably received, as is clear from III Kings VIII, 29; Acts I, 24, and VI, 6. First, by public prayer God is publicly worshipped and honored; second, in it each person is more aroused and enkindled to prayer by the example of others; third, in it we, as it were with united minds and prayers, do violence to God and obtain what we ask. Hence Tertullian, in his Apology, chapter XXX, says thus: "Looking thither (to heaven), Christians with hands outstretched, because innocent, with heads bare, because we are not ashamed (for the Jews, especially the priests, prayed with covered heads, as I said in my commentary on the Pentateuch; our own missionaries also in China, when they celebrate Mass, cover their heads by an indult of Pope Paul V, because among the Chinese it is shameful and disgraceful to bare the head), and finally without a prompter, because we pray from the heart, and we are always praying for all emperors." And fourthly: "We pray as though with joined hands; this pious force is welcome." St. Chrysostom has many beautiful things on this subject, homily 3 On the Incomprehensible Nature of God. And Origenes, homily 7 on Joshua. Finally, the temple is the proper place for prayer, in which all and each one secretly pray to God, just as if they were praying in their chamber.
Ridiculous therefore is the heresy that recently arose in Holland from a misunderstanding of this passage, from a certain innovator who rejects all churches and conducts the assemblies of his sect only in a chamber. Indeed even the Calvinists, when the blessing is said over the table before dinner, cover their face with their hat, so as to pray secretly; but a hat is not the chamber of which Christ speaks here; and the more orthodox pray secretly under their face in the mind and in the chamber of the heart, as I said shortly before from St. Ambrose.
WILL REPAY YOU. — The Greek, Syriac, and Arabic add "in public," that is: If you pray in secret, God will publicly repay you the reward of devout prayer, especially on the day of judgment. Hence against Calvin, learn from this the merit and reward of prayer. Hear St. Chrysostom: "If therefore you pray thus, you will indeed receive a very great reward. He does not say 'He will give to you,' but 'He will repay,' He says; for He has made Himself your debtor."
Verse 7: Do Not Use Vain Repetitions as the Heathens
7. AND WHEN YOU PRAY, SPEAK NOT MUCH, AS THE HEATHENS; FOR THEY THINK THAT IN THEIR MUCH SPEAKING THEY MAY BE HEARD. — That is, on account of much speaking (διά is used for ἐν in the Hebrew manner); or as the Greek has it, on account of battology — that is, trifling talk and futile pouring out and repetition of words, as if by this rhetoric of theirs they were going to inform and instruct God about their affairs, and at the same time move Him to grant what they ask — just as orators with their embellished speech inform and persuade judges to acquit the defendant.
Christ therefore teaches here that the essence of prayer does not consist in words poured forth and lavished from the mouth, but in the conversation of the mind with God, whose cause and, as it were, soul is desire and the pious affection of the spirit. Yet He does not deny that it can be expressed and fostered by words — both so that, as we praise God interiorly with the heart, so also we may praise Him exteriorly with mouth and tongue; and so that by the voice the affection of the mind may be aroused, sharpened, and continued. St. Augustine discusses prayer at length in epistle 121 to Proba, which is entitled On Praying to God; Jansenius here, chapter XLI, accurately sets forth the manner of praying, as well as the benefits of prayer.
Verse 8: Your Father Knows What You Need Before You Ask
8. BE NOT THEREFORE LIKE TO THEM; FOR YOUR FATHER KNOWS WHAT IS NEEDFUL FOR YOU, BEFORE YOU ASK HIM. — That is to say: The heathens think that God is ignorant of, or at least does not consider or esteem, their miseries and needs; and in order to be freed from them, they pray to God: they therefore use many words in order to recount them, as though about to teach Him concerning them. But they err; for God knows, considers, and weighs those things more than those who pray themselves. Yet He wills to be prayed to, and often does not come to our aid unless asked, so that men may recognize their own miseries as well as God's mercies, and may know that they are delivered from them not by their own merit, but by God's gift and grace. St. Augustine adds, epist. 121, ch. viii: "God wills that our desire be exercised in prayers, so that we may be able to grasp what He is preparing to give. For that is very great, yet we are small and narrow for receiving it." And a little later: "For we shall grasp that which is very great — which no eye has seen, because it is not color, nor ear has heard, because it is not sound, nor has entered into the heart of man, because the heart of man ought to ascend thither — by so much the more capably, the more faithfully we believe it, the more firmly we hope for it, and the more ardently we desire it."
Verse 9: Our Father, Who Art in Heaven
9. THUS THEREFORE SHALL YOU PRAY: OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN. — Here Christ delivers to Christians the manner of praying; yet He does not command that we should pray altogether in these words, but only teaches what things are to be sought from God, and in what order and with what brevity of words they should be sought. Yet the Church rightly uses even the very words of Christ Himself, inasmuch as they are divine, most brief, most clear, and most effective. Whence St. Cyprian, in his tract De Oratione Dominica: "What," he says, "is a truer prayer before the Father than that which was brought forth from His mouth by the Son, who is the Truth?" And soon after: "Let the Father recognize the words of His Son when we make our prayer; let Him who dwells within our breast also be in our voice. And since we have Him as our advocate with the Father for our sins, when as sinners we ask pardon for our offenses, let us bring forth the words of our advocate. For since He says that whatever we ask of the Father in His name, He will give us, how much more effectually do we obtain what we ask in the name of Christ, if we ask with His own prayer?"
Note: this Lord's Prayer embraces all the things to be sought from God; whence Tertullian (lib. De Oratione, ch. i), and following him St. Cyprian (lib. De Oratione), call it the breviary of the Gospel — just as the ecclesiastical office, which priests recite daily, is a compendium of the whole of Holy Scripture, and is therefore commonly called the Breviary.
Moreover St. Augustine, epist. 121, and lib. II De Verbis Domini in monte, and after him the theologians, distinguish in this prayer seven petitions, of which the first three regard the honor of God, and the remaining four our own benefit. For first of all, before all else, we must seek the honor of God; for this is our end (just as it is of all creatures), and it likewise involves our own beatitude and the means necessary or suitable for attaining it.
Our Father
OUR FATHER. — "This appellation is both of piety and of power," says Tertullian, lib. De Oratione. By "Father," St. Cyprian, Chrysostom, and the author of the Opus Imperfectum take it to mean the first Person of the Holy Trinity; for to Him, as to the principle of the Holy Trinity, the Church in the Mass directs most of her prayers or collects, and asks to be heard by Him through the merits of the Son, saying: "Through our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son," etc. Others better take it to refer to the whole Holy Trinity, or God, because all three Persons work all outward things equally, and therefore all are equally to be invoked.
Moreover, God is our Father: first, by creation, by which He created us from nothing as rational and free men after His own likeness; secondly, by redemption, by which He redeemed us through Christ's death from death and hell; thirdly, by regeneration, by which He regenerated us in baptism, dead to sin, unto a new life; fourthly, by adoption, by which He adopted us to Himself as sons through grace; fifthly, by vocation, by which He called us to the heavenly inheritance and appointed us as His heirs.
Therefore by the word "Father" we are reminded of all God's benefits, and of the greatest of them, and consequently of the supreme reverence, confidence, and charity which we owe to God, so that we may strive to please Him as a Father. For what can be dearer to a son than a father, or whom should he strive more to please than a father? Again, what does a son not hope for from a father? "By the name of Father," says St. Augustine, "charity is stirred up (for what is dearer to sons than a father?) and a suppliant affection, and a certain presumption of obtaining: for what will He not give to sons, who has given that they should be sons?" And there is signified, as Chrysostom says, the remission of sins, adoption, inheritance, brotherhood with Christ, and the bestowal of the Spirit.
St. Cyprian, tract. De Oratione Dominica, notes the marvelous condescension of God, who commands us to pray in such a way that "we call God Father, and as Christ is the Son of God, so also we should be named sons of God, to whom eternity is promised." Hence he concludes: "We ought to remember that when we call God Father, we ought to act as sons of God, so that as we are pleased with God the Father, so He may be pleased with us. Let us conduct ourselves as temples of God, that it may be evident that God dwells in us. Nor let our action be unworthy of the Spirit, so that we, who have begun to be heavenly and spiritual, may think and do nothing but what is spiritual and heavenly."
"Our"
OUR. — Christ does not say, "My Father." "For this is proper to Christ, who alone is the Son of God the Father by nature," says the Gloss; but "Our Father," because He addresses all, so that He may teach that God is the Father of all, and consequently that we are all brothers, and therefore ought to love one another and pray for one another, and not for ourselves alone. "Thus," says St. Cyprian, tract. De Oratione, "He willed that one should pray for all, just as He Himself bore all in one." And the Author of the Opus Imperfectum: "Sweeter before God is the prayer which is sent not by the necessity of the matter, but which the charity of brotherhood commends." St. Ambrose, lib. De Cain, ch. ix, adds another reason and another advantage: "Now," he says, "because individuals pray for all, all also pray for individuals, etc. Thus there is a great reward, that by the prayers of individuals the suffrages of the whole people are gained for each one." That is to say: Christ willed that individuals should pray for all, so that all might pray for individuals; thus each one gains not only his own prayers but those of all, and claims them for himself, which is indeed a great spiritual profit and interest.
Who Art in Heaven
WHO ART IN HEAVEN. — As if to say: You who rule in the heavens, and from there govern and direct the whole world at Your command. This phrase therefore signifies: First, the supreme power and dominion of God, so that He can and wills to grant all that we ask, as our Father, who is as good as He is great. Second, it signifies our inheritance, which from this divine sonship we hope to receive from God the Father as heavenly, not earthly. Third, it admonishes the one praying to transfer his mind from earthly things to heavenly things, where God displays His glory to the Angels and the blessed. So St. Chrysostom. Hence when praying we turn toward the East, whence the sky rises, says St. Augustine, so that all may be reminded to turn themselves to God. Fourth, it suggests to the one praying that nothing else should be sought except what leads to heaven; for all other things are vain, nothing but smoke and shadow.
Hallowed Be Thy Name
HALLOWED BE THY NAME. — First, St. Cyprian and St. Ambrose explain it thus, as if to say: May the sanctification of God, which we received in baptism, remain in us; for we need, says Cyprian, daily sanctification, "so that we who sin daily may cleanse our offenses by continual sanctification." Second, Tertullian interprets it thus, as if to say: Make men holy. But in this sense the first petition would be the same as the second: "Thy kingdom come." Third, therefore St. Augustine, Chrysostom, and others better explain it thus, as if to say: Grant, O Lord, that not the name of idols, or of demons, or of Muhammad, or of Arius, Luther, Calvin, etc., but Your holy name may be revered by men.
Furthermore, "name" here can be taken properly, and figuratively for the thing named; and this in three ways: first, for the Godhead itself and God, as if to say: Hallowed be Your name, that is, may You be sanctified, O Lord our God; second, for the fame and glory of God, for we ask that this be celebrated by all; third, for the attributes of God, such as omnipotence, justice, wisdom, mercy, etc., on account of which God is named and worshiped as omnipotent, supremely just, wise, merciful, etc. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Grant, O Lord, that men may know, worship, and sanctify Your name, that is, Yourself, or God who is one in essence and three in persons, and Your fame and glory, and Your omnipotence, justice, wisdom, mercy, and other attributes; and that they may esteem nothing holier, that is, more august, more complete, more divine than these, and consequently nothing more worthy of reverence, worship, and glorification, and therefore may they perpetually celebrate and glorify these with mind, tongue, life, and conduct — not only Christians, but also Pagans, Jews, and Heretics, through true faith in You, and true religion, love, adoration, and worship of You, so that You may convert them to that same faith.
Note: the holiness of God is the most sacred majesty, integrity, perfection, and divinity of God; likewise His purity, generosity, fidelity, goodness, and other divine attributes, which the Seraphim, seeing and contemplating, are so rapt in ecstasy that they continually sing nothing else but: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6). See what is said there. And the Psalmist says: "Glory and riches are in His house" (Ps. 111:3); and Ps. 5:6: "Holiness and magnificence are in His sanctuary." And Psalm 144:3: "Great is the Lord and exceedingly worthy of praise, and of His greatness there is no end, etc. They shall speak of the magnificence of the glory of Your holiness, and shall declare Your wonders." Hence the Blessed Virgin, when she had conceived the holiness of God, indeed the Eternal Word, in her mind and in her womb, astounded and exultant, exclaimed: "My soul magnifies the Lord, etc. Because He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name."
HALLOWED therefore BE THY NAME. — That is, Your holiness, O Lord: Your holy majesty, divinity, omnipotence, justice, clemency, etc., may it be celebrated and glorified by all; by which we indirectly and consequently petition for the sanctification of all men. Therefore when we say "Hallowed be Your name," we implore both the sanctification of God and our own. For we cannot sanctify God in Himself, nor can we increase His internal and immense glory (by which immense praise the Father glorifies the Son, and the Son the Father, and both are glorified by the Holy Spirit, and They in turn glorify the Holy Spirit), nor add anything to God. But when we sanctify God, holiness comes to and grows in us — namely holy faith, holy charity, holy religion, holy worship of God, etc. — through which we ourselves are sanctified intrinsically, and we sanctify God extrinsically, because through our holiness the holiness of God is praised and celebrated among men. Finally, all our sanctification of God is finite and meager: learn therefore that the manner of sanctifying God infinitely is twofold. The first is by saying: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." That is, I attribute to God a glory commensurate with Him and His infinity, which He had from the beginning, that is, from eternity, by which the Father, Son, and Spirit continually glorify one another with divine and infinite praise. The second is that by which we offer the crucified Christ in the Mass; for Christ, because He is God and man, is a divine victim, commensurate with God and infinite. Repeat and practice often both of these methods, so that you may sanctify God as much as He deserves, and as much as He is worthy to be sanctified and glorified.
Verse 10: Thy Kingdom Come; Thy Will Be Done
10. THY KINGDOM COME. — This is the second petition of the Lord's Prayer, by which we ask God for His kingdom, just as in the first we asked Him for the sanctification of His name, because through this kingdom the name of God is sanctified and glorified.
Furthermore, the kingdom of God is fourfold. The first is the dominion of God over absolutely all creatures, concerning which Psalm 146 says: "Your kingdom is a kingdom of all ages; and Your dominion endures throughout all generations." The second kingdom of God is mystical, by which He reigns through faith and grace in the souls of the faithful and the saints; and some think that we are asking for such a kingdom here, so that the Devil may cease to reign in the world, and sin may not reign in our mortal body. So St. Jerome, Ambrose, and Euthymius. Hear St. Ambrose, Book VI On the Sacraments, chapter 5: "The petition is that the kingdom of Christ may be in us. If God reigns in us, the adversary can have no place; guilt does not reign, sin does not reign, but virtue reigns, chastity reigns, devotion reigns." The third kingdom of God is in heaven, where He happily reigns in glory among the blessed; and this is understood here by Tertullian and St. Cyprian, in his treatise On the Lord's Prayer: "That with Christ reigning, we too may reign, who previously served the world." "Rightly, then," says Cyprian, "we ask for the kingdom of God, that is, the heavenly kingdom, because there is also an earthly kingdom. But he who has already renounced the world is greater than its honors and its kingdom; and therefore he who dedicates himself to God and Christ desires not earthly but heavenly kingdoms." The fourth kingdom of God, the most full and most perfect, is that in which, with the kingdom of the Devil, sin, and death completely conquered and destroyed, God alone will perfectly rule both over His friends, namely the Saints, and over His enemies, that is, the impious and the reprobate, which will happen at the resurrection and the day of judgment, and will last for all eternity, concerning which see 1 Corinthians 15:28. So St. Augustine, Chrysostom, and Theophylactus; for then all the power of demons and of impious men who now dominate in the world and persecute and attack God and the servants of God will be taken away, and this is best understood and sought here; for, as I have said, these first three petitions directly concern only the honor of God, and not our glory, except as a consequence. The sense therefore is not, as if to say: Reign, O Lord, in our hearts through grace, or make us reign with the blessed in heaven; for this properly pertains to us, not to God; but rather, as if to say: We pray, O Lord, that You may reign absolutely and without an adversary, so that all creatures and men without exception may be subject to You, and thus You may gloriously reign among the pious through grace and glory, and among the impious through justice and eternal retribution. From this, however, we consequently ask for ourselves that we may soon be transferred from this world, as from a burdensome pilgrimage and dangerous warfare, to the kingdom of glory and eternal happiness, so that we may reign forever with Christ and His Saints. For then God will fully reign in us, and we in God, according to Revelation 5:10: "You have made us a kingdom and priests to our God, and we shall reign on earth." And Wisdom 5: "Therefore the just shall receive the kingdom of beauty and the crown of splendor from the hand of the Lord, because with His right hand He will cover them and with His arm He will defend them." For then "God will be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28).
Thy Will Be Done, on Earth as It Is in Heaven
THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. — This is the third petition, although Tertullian, in his book On Prayer, places it as the second, and makes the one that preceded it — "Thy kingdom come" — the third. This petition too concerns God and the kingdom of God, because the more the will of God is done, the more the kingdom of God is spread, as more people voluntarily subject themselves to Him. For it is a great honor to God, a great dominion and kingdom of God, that all people and all things be subject to His will, and that it be fulfilled in all things.
Now, the will of God is twofold, namely, of good pleasure and of sign; or absolute and optative. The will of good pleasure in God is that by which God absolutely wills something to be done, which is always fulfilled and which no force can impede, halt, or delay, according to Psalm 113: "Whatever the Lord willed, He has done in heaven and on earth." And Isaiah 46: "All My counsel shall stand, and all My will shall be done." And Esther 13: "There is no one who can resist Your will." In this will, therefore, we must acquiesce, either by rejoicing with it, or by enduring the adversities which it sends upon us.
The will of sign is that by which God signifies what He wills to be done by us through His laws and precepts, which He imposes on us. All the Fathers understand this petition as referring to this second will. Therefore the discourse here is not properly about the efficacious will and will of good pleasure, for this cannot fail to be fulfilled, but about the optative and imperative will of God, which theologians call the will of sign. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Give us, O Lord, Your abundant and efficacious grace, by which men may obey Your commands and desires so eagerly, completely, and harmoniously in all things, both in acting and in suffering, just as the Angels obey them in heaven. So St. Jerome, Chrysostom, Theophylactus, Euthymius here, and St. Augustine, Book 11 of his work On the Sermon of the Lord on the Mount. Christ seems to allude to Psalm 102:20-21: "Bless the Lord, all you His Angels, mighty in strength, who do His word, hearkening to the voice of His commands. Bless the Lord, all you His hosts, you who do His will." We must therefore imitate the promptness, swiftness, efficacy, and perfection of the Angels in fulfilling the will of God, so that we may venerate and honor that will, and consequently benefit ourselves. For, as the Apostle says in 1 Thessalonians 4: "This is the will of God, your sanctification." And Christ, in Matthew 12: "Whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother, and sister, and mother." Hear St. Cyprian, in his treatise On the Lord's Prayer: "The will of God is what Christ both did and taught: humility in conduct, steadfastness in faith, modesty in words, justice in deeds, mercy in works, discipline in morals, not to know how to do injury, and to be able to endure it when done, to keep peace with the brethren, to love God with one's whole heart, to love in Him the fact that He is a Father, to fear the fact that He is God, to put absolutely nothing before Christ, because He put nothing before us; to cling inseparably to His charity, to stand firmly and faithfully by His cross; when there is a contest concerning His name and honor, to show constancy in speech by which we confess, confidence in examination by which we engage in combat, patience in death by which we are crowned: this is to will to be a co-heir of Christ, this is to do the commandment of God, this is to fulfill the will of the Father."
Note first: the optative will of God, which is called the will of sign, is twofold — one commanding, by which He orders or forbids something to be done: we are always bound to fulfill this; the other counseling and advising, by which He counsels poverty of spirit, virginity, the state of perfection, etc.: we are not bound to fulfill this, for we may decline it for some particular honest reason, for example, weakness, temptation, the obligation of helping parents or the commonwealth — that is, what God counsels in general. The reason is that what God counsels, He does not will with an absolute will, nor does He will to bind me to it: hence I am not bound to fulfill it; it is otherwise with the commanding will itself.
Note second: our will must be conformed to the divine will: first effectively, because for our will to be good, it must will what God wills it to will — namely, it must will what the law of God wills it to will and to do. For our will must subject itself to the law and will of God, as to the creator and ruler of all things. Second objectively; for our will must agree with the divine will in the formal object, or in the reason for willing. For in order to be right, it must will what is honorable and conformed to right reason, and therefore to the divine will; for this wills everything honorable and what right reason dictates should be done. For the eternal law, which is in the mind and will of God, is the norm and rule of all that is honorable and of all virtue, which right reason dictates.
Note third, our will, in order to be good, need not conform itself to the divine will in the object or material thing willed, even when that is known. This is clear from examples in Sacred Scripture. For God willed to destroy Sodom; and Abraham, so far as it lay in him, did not will this: hence he begged the Lord not to do it. God willed that the child whom David had begotten from adultery should die, but David grieved vehemently over this. God did not will Christ to come in the flesh before four thousand years had elapsed, but the Prophets desired Him to come sooner. He willed to abandon the Jewish nation and to turn His beneficence to the Gentiles, but Paul grieved so much over this that he would have wished to be anathema from Christ. Indeed this is so true that God can command me to will something that He Himself nevertheless does not will, just as He commanded Abraham to will to slay his son, whom He Himself nevertheless did not will to be slain. The reason is that what God wills can be inconvenient and detrimental to a man; for different things befit God and man, as St. Augustine says, Enchiridion 101: hence insofar as it is inconvenient, a man can refuse it and grieve over it, and this disposition will be consonant with the divine will in the general reason for willing, which is the reason of what is honorable. For charity and piety dictate that it is honorable for us to desire the salvation of ourselves and of our own, and to procure it as much as we can. But if we then see that God's absolute will is that the contrary should happen, we must not resist it, nor murmur against it, but rather humbly subject ourselves to it and rest in it, and say with Christ in the garden: "Not my will, but Yours be done." The first will of ours, therefore, that dissents from the will of God in the material thing willed, is rather a velleity than an absolute will: hence this condition must be added to it either explicitly or implicitly: if it pleases God, or: if the divine will permits it; or, as if to say: I would wish that God would will this, which is advantageous to me and mine, if it pleased Him. For if He absolutely does not will it, we must rest in His most just and most holy will.
From this it further follows that we are not bound to will those things that happen from the sole permission of God, and indeed we cannot will certain things, such as sins, because God Himself in no way wills these; other things, however, which are not sins, we are not bound to will, but with all our affection we can desire that they not happen and, as much as lies in us, avert them — such as slaughter, destruction of cities, violations of virgins — which to suffer is not a sin and which are not absolutely decreed by God, at least not before the foresight of secondary causes. Nevertheless it seems holier even in these cases to say with the Psalmist: "You are just, O Lord, and Your judgment is right." Therefore it is generally better to consider that by the just judgment of God these things are permitted for the glory of God, and to acquiesce in the divine ordinance, than to vex oneself by grieving much over them, because this helps one to bear patiently whatever evils come — especially since it is not always certain whether it is a permissive will, or an ordaining and decreeing will, although it must also not be denied that a certain displeasure at these effects is consonant with nature itself, and with piety and charity; only moderation must be applied.
We can therefore refuse those things insofar as so many evils follow from them; we can also will them insofar as God wills them to happen for the just punishment of crimes. For this is the absolute will of God, which is called the will of good pleasure, to which we must assent in good things by rejoicing and congratulating; in evil things by enduring and not murmuring, but humbly accepting God's scourges, as when God chastises us with plague, famine, or war. Hence Maldonatus says: "We ask that the will of God be done by us, but also in us; for it is of greater moment that even the least will of God be fulfilled than all the good of any creature, insofar as it is a creature." So St. Cyprian, in his treatise On Mortality, when he was exhorting the people to bear with equanimity the pestilence that was then raging in that province: "We ought to remember, he says, that we must do not our own will, but God's, according to what the Lord has commanded us to pray daily."
Similarly, in Acts 21, when the disciples could not restrain St. Paul from going to Jerusalem, where he was to be bound, they said: "The will of the Lord be done," because, as St. Augustine says in Sermon 121 On the Seasons: "They most devoutly submitted their mind to the lofty and divine decree." Thus St. Mary of Oignies, when she had heard from God that her mother had been condemned to hell for unjustly possessed goods, said: "The will of God be done," let what God has justly decreed be done, as Cardinal Jacques de Vitry reports in her Life, which is found in Surius, volume III.
It is memorable what we read in the Life of St. Christina the Marvelous (in Surius before June 24), chapter 20: on the very day that Jerusalem, along with the Cross and Sepulcher of Christ, was captured by Saladin and the Saracens, she, dwelling in Belgium, learned of it by divine revelation, and therefore was not saddened but exulted in spirit, and when asked the reason, gave this answer: "Christ judged it fitting, on account of the outrage inflicted upon Him, that that land should be afflicted with this disgrace — though sanctified by His Passion, it will nevertheless return to Him at the end of the world: when, for the sake of recovering it, souls that shall live forever, redeemed by His blood, will be converted from iniquity to the pursuit of justice, and men will shed their own blood and with great devotion repay a certain recompense for the death of the Savior." Thus when we see cities being captured by Turks or heretics, let us not be distressed, but rest in the will and providence of God, whose justice and mercy are there glorified in part: "Mercy and judgment I will sing to You, O Lord," says the Psalmist, Psalm 100.
Add to this that infidels sometimes live more honorably and offend God less than the faithful, who know God better and have received greater benefits from Him. Accordingly, Marinus Sanutus of Venice, in his book entitled Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross, Book III, Part VIII, chapters 2, 5, 6, and following, vividly narrates and demonstrates that the Holy Land was delivered by God to Saladin and the Saracens on account of the manifold and enormous crimes of the Christians inhabiting it — crimes which not even the Turks committed.
Finally, Luther foolishly inferred from this that the Turk should not be resisted, because the Turk, he said, is a scourge of God, and invades and chastises us by the will of God. Reply: The Turk is a scourge of God not in a positive sense, as when a teacher's rod scourges a negligent pupil, but only in a permissive sense; for God wills to permit the Turk to tyrannically invade and afflict us; but at the same time He wills that we resist his tyrannical invasion — namely so that by fighting and conquering the Turk, we may learn to fight against vices and overcome them.
Finally, Rabbi Gamaliel says splendidly in Pirke Avoth, chapter 2: "Do the will of God as though it were your own, indeed set aside your own will in order to fulfill God's. For thus God will likewise make the wills of others agree with yours." For this is the fitting reward of obedience: that just as we obey the divine will, so others obey and agree with our will.
ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. — As if to say: Just as the Angels in heaven most promptly and most fully do the will of God, so also let men do the same on earth, so that just as God is served in heaven by the blessed out of pure love, constantly and perseveringly for the glory of God, so also may He be served by mortals on earth. "He commands," says Chrysostom, "those dwelling here to have a common manner of life with the inhabitants of heaven, and before that heavenly dwelling is granted, He wills in a way that earth become heaven and that the earth show us other Angels" — so that we may obey God on earth just as if we were moving among the Angels in heaven.
Hence the hieroglyph of prayer is a golden chain let down from heaven with this motto: "Thus we are drawn to the stars." For a chain (catena) is so called because it holds itself by grasping, since in it ring grasps ring. Homer imagined a golden chain hanging from heaven, sent down by Jupiter, so that the other gods who dwelt on earth, clinging to it, might draw him down from heaven: but all of them, undertaking this noble task with their entire strength, inadvertently ascended into heaven as if by a ladder. This is a symbol of prayer. For prayer is the ascent of the mind to God, and Dionysius affirmed that it is a golden chain by which we draw God Himself to us and are drawn to Him, when we subject our will to His infallible and most just will; and this is the chief effect of our prayer, which Christ Himself expressed for us in the Lord's Prayer with those words: "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
Mystically: first, St. Augustine, Tertullian, and Cyprian take "heaven" to mean the spirit, and "earth" to mean the flesh. As if to say: Since the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, grant, O Lord, that the flesh may subject itself to the spirit, so that just as the spirit serves the law of God, so also the flesh may no longer serve the law of sin, but the law of God.
Second, St. Cyprian takes "heaven" to mean the just, and "earth" to mean sinners, as if to say: Grant, O Lord, that sinners may do Your will, just as the just do.
Third, St. Augustine takes "heaven" to mean Christ, who descended from heaven to earth, in order to betroth and unite to Himself the earth, that is, the earthly Church, in the Incarnation, as if to say: Grant, O Lord, that just as Christ does Your will in all things, so also may the Church do likewise; for she is the bride of Christ, and it is therefore fitting that she be conformed to her Bridegroom Christ in all things.
Morally: the holiness, peace, joy, and perfection of a Christian consists in the denial of one's own will, and in the conformity of one's will with the divine will in all things, both adverse and prosperous: for St. Bernard says, Sermon 3 On the Resurrection: "What does God hate or punish except self-will? Let self-will cease, and there will be no Hell. For against what will that fire rage, if not against self-will?" Therefore the ancient ascetics and religious who were devoted to perfection continually exercised themselves in this conformity, so that they would will nothing except what God wills, and they used to say that this was the only path to peace and perfection: "For such conformity weds the soul to the Word," says St. Bernard, Sermon 28 on the Song of Songs. Just as a bride, therefore, wills nothing except what the bridegroom wills, and so what she wills always comes to pass; so the soul that strips off its own will and puts on the divine will experiences that what it wills always happens. This is what the instructor of Tauler taught him, as I have narrated at length on Romans 12:2. Therefore St. Gertrude used to recite and repeat these words most devoutly: "Your will be done" — three hundred and sixty-five times — and she understood this to be a most pleasing sacrifice to God. Hence when she was commanded by God to choose health or sickness, she replied: "I most ardently desire that You not do my will," but Yours. And in this way she remained in the deepest peace and joy. For whoever knows that he has all things in God, and esteems everything else as nothing, and considers that His will is the best, the most powerful, and the most beneficial, rests entirely in it and says with the Psalmist: "In peace, in the selfsame, I will sleep and rest." And with St. Augustine, Book I of the Confessions, chapter 1: "You have made us, O Lord, for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You." For God is every good, and therefore the sole and sweetest consolation, and the rest and center of the soul united to Him: the soul therefore, fixed in God as at the summit of all things, beholds everywhere the one God above all, and below itself its own appetite and all other things, and rests in the divine will as in the bosom of God. On this subject there exists a brief but remarkable dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, in which she teaches that supreme peace and perfection consist in conformity with the divine will, so that one may fully and completely resign one's own will, indeed one's entire self and all that one has, in all things and through all things, into that will, and always and everywhere, in whatever turn of events, say: "Your will be done." Therefore she had built in her heart a little room vaulted with the planks of the divine will, and in it, as in heaven, she dwelt most joyfully and most holily at all times, and enclosed herself, so that she thought, said, or did nothing except what she believed pleased God and was in accordance with His will; and therefore the Holy Spirit taught her whatever needed to be done. For she had heard from God: "Believe, my daughter, that your God can, knows, and wills your good more than you yourself, and therefore He orders and directs all things, both prosperous and adverse, toward your good, much more than a father and mother in every way care for and procure the good of their only beloved child."
Verse 11: Give Us This Day Our Supersubstantial Bread
11. GIVE US THIS DAY OUR SUPERSUBSTANTIAL BREAD (many read "daily"). — This is the fourth petition, in which, as also in the three following, after the first three petitions that concern God, we ask for the things that pertain to us, and first of all for our bread — that is, bread appointed by You, O Lord, not for Angels, nor for beasts of burden, but for us men; not stolen or seized from others, but given or to be given to us by You through our labors, our income, our alms, or otherwise. Hence St. Chrysostom connects this petition with the preceding one by this reasoning, as if Christ were saying: I commanded you to pray that the will of God be done by you, as it is done by the Angels, but I do not equate you with the Angels; for you need bread, they do not, because they are immortal and incapable of suffering, while you are mortal and fragile. Hence again Rupert, Book XVII on Genesis, chapter 25, concludes that all men, even the rich, princes, and kings, are beggars of God and daily beg bread from Him. For just as God rained manna from heaven daily for the children of Israel for 40 years in the desert, and thereby fed six hundred thousand men; so daily, while we sit at table, God as it were rains food for each of us from heaven. Hence David, though a king, said: "But I am a beggar and poor. The Lord is concerned for me" (Ps. 39:18). "Let us therefore say, all of us beggars," says Rupert, "before the gates of divine grace: Give us this day our daily bread." Hear St. Augustine, Sermon 15 On the Words of the Lord according to Matthew: "A beggar asks you for something, and you are a beggar of God; for when we pray, we are all beggars of God. We stand before the door of the great Father of the household — indeed we even prostrate ourselves, we groan as suppliants, wishing to receive something, and that something is God Himself. What does a beggar ask of you? Bread. And what do you ask of God, except Christ, who says: I am the living bread that came down from heaven?"
Our. — Bread, says St. Gregory, Book 29 of the Moralia, chapter 7, is God's by gift, but ours by reception. St. Chrysostom however says: "He who eats what was acquired justly, eats his own bread; but he who eats with sin, eats another's."
Supersubstantial. — You will ask: what is supersubstantial bread? Reply: In Greek the word is epiousion (which is found nowhere else but here and in Luke 11:3), which first Angelus Caninius, in his book On Hebrew Names of the New Testament, translates as "of tomorrow," for epiousa hemera means the following or next day, as if to say: Just as on the Preparation Day, or the sixth day of the week, the Hebrews in the desert collected manna for the Sabbath, on which they had to rest; so You, O Lord, give us today bread for tomorrow: for we are not anxious beyond that, but after tomorrow we await and, as it were, prepare ourselves for the Lord's Day of the resurrection and for the eternal jubilee. We therefore gather our baggage, and we ask only for bread for tomorrow. This is supported by what St. Jerome writes: that in the Hebrew Gospel of the Nazarenes the word machar is found, meaning "tomorrow." Hence St. Athanasius, in his treatise On the Incarnation of the Word, considers that we here ask for the Holy Spirit, who is the divine bread on which we hope to feed and take our delight in heaven, and whose first-fruits we receive and taste in the Eucharist.
Secondly, St. Jerome explains epiousion as periousion, that is, principal, outstanding, exceptional, special; Symmachus translates it as chosen, or that which is above all substances and surpasses all creatures. So also Cassian, Conferences IX, ch. 20; and Cyril, Catechesis V of the Mystagogy; and St. Ambrose, On the Sacraments, Book V, ch. 4, who by this bread understand the Eucharist, which in Zechariah ch. 9, last verse, is called the grain of the elect.
Thirdly, taken literally, epiousios is the same as ousiodes, that is, pertaining to substance — namely, substantial, essential, substantive bread, which is necessary each day for preserving man's substance and life. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, and St. Basil in his Questions briefly explained, Question 252; St. Cyril, who in Catechesis V of the Mystagogy, and many others with Suidas, interpret epiousion as "suited and sufficient for our substance and nourishment" — namely, such as does not serve pleasure but necessity, and is neither too dainty nor too abundant, but frugal and moderate, that is, daily; for that which is daily necessary for our sustenance, and which we daily need, is what we call "daily." Hence the Syriac renders it "the bread of our need"; the Arabic, "sufficient bread" (likewise the Egyptian, Ethiopic, and Persian versions), which the Latins call cibarium, whence also the Latin translator in Luke 11:3 plainly renders it "daily," and so too the Fathers who preceded St. Jerome's version translate and read it as "daily" in this passage of Matthew — St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose in On the Sacraments V, ch. 4, St. Augustine in the Enchiridion ch. 115, and others; indeed, the Church, when reciting the Our Father according to St. Matthew in the Office and Mass, speaks and prays from the old version prior to St. Jerome: "Give us this day our daily bread," and thus teaches the faithful to pray.
Furthermore, St. Jerome, who by order of Damasus corrected the Latin version of the New Testament against the Greek text, in this passage put "supersubstantial" in place of "daily," so as to express the force of the Greek word faithfully and word-for-word. For epiousion is derived from epi ousian, that is, "above substance," that is, pertaining to or next to substance — namely, such as is fitting and necessary for sustaining our substance: not superfluous, dainty, or fancy, but substantial, simple, and ordinary. Hear Gregory of Nyssa in his treatise On Prayer: "Give bread — not luxury, not delicacies, not golden ornaments, not the sparkle of jewels, not fields, not governorships of nations, not silken robes, not musical entertainments, not anything by which the soul is drawn away from its divine and higher care — but bread." And further on: "Little is what you owe to nature; why do you multiply tributes against yourself? The belly is a perpetual tax-collector. Say to Him who brings forth bread from the earth, say to Him who feeds the ravens, who gives food to all flesh, who opens His hand and fills every living thing with good will: From You is my life, from You also let the sustenance of my life come. You, give bread — that is, that I may obtain food from honest labors. For if God is justice, he does not have bread from God who has his food from something acquired by fraud."
Again, epiousion can be derived from epeimi and epienai, that is, "I approach, I come upon, I am at hand," so that it signifies the bread that is near at hand, that is, today's bread — the bread we daily ask for in the morning for the coming day and for the approaching lunch or supper. So our Lessius teaches in On Justice, Book II, ch. 37, doubt 4, and St. Ambrose in On the Sacraments, Book V, ch. 4 favors this view; where note that the Evangelists sometimes coin new words and form new expressions, especially where the thing itself is new — as in the Gospel we have "eucharist," "baptism," epiousion, periousion, etc., and that by a compounding similar to that by which the Greeks formed from ousia the words hyperousios, heteroousios, homoousios, etc.
Supersubstantial bread, therefore, is the same as daily bread — by which we must preserve our substance each day — which the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, recently published, calls "amriri temidi," that is, "continual," such as we constantly need: for this word is coined from tamid, meaning "always, continually." Others call it debar iom, that is, "the word" or "the thing of the day" — that is, daily bread, which we must ask from God each day as necessary for our sustenance. For Christ immediately forbids that we be anxious about tomorrow, concerning which we are uncertain whether we shall be alive: "Willing," says Chrysostom, "that we be girt about on every side, and equipped as it were with the wings of faith, always to fly aloft to heavenly things, and no longer indulge nature beyond what the very use of necessity demands from us." And St. Cyprian in his treatise On the Lord's Prayer: "Rightly," he says, "does Christ's disciple ask his sustenance for the day, being forbidden to think about tomorrow, because it would be contrary and repugnant to ourselves to seek to live long in this world, when we ask the kingdom of God to come swiftly." Through the word "daily," therefore, anxiety about tomorrow is excluded.
Again, St. Jerome translates it "supersubstantial" to indicate that what is asked for here above all is the heavenly bread, such as is the Eucharist — of which more presently.
You will ask, secondly: what in particular is this supersubstantial or daily bread? Calvin, in Institutes Book III, ch. 20, and Philip Melanchthon in his Loci Communes, under the heading On Invocation and Prayer, take it to refer only to bodily bread. Some Catholics understand it only as spiritual bread. But surely, as St. Jerome, Cyril, Ambrose, and Cassian express in the places to be cited shortly, I say truly that here both the material bread necessary for sustaining the body, and the spiritual and heavenly bread suitable for nourishing the soul — such as the Word of God and the Eucharist — are being requested; for we need both, and therefore we ought to ask for both, and all the more for the second than for the first, inasmuch as the soul surpasses the body. And this is what the word "supersubstantial" signifies, which St. Jerome interprets as "chief, excellent, and surpassing all created substances," because, as Cassian says (Collat. IX, ch. 20), the sublimity of its magnificence and sanctification exceeds all created things. So also St. Cyril, Mystagogical Catechesis V. Whence in the Greek the article is added, indeed doubled, when it says ton arton, ton epiousion, as if to say: Give us not common bread, but that singular, excellent, heavenly, and divine bread. For He alludes to the manna given to the Hebrews in the desert, which was a type of the Eucharist. For of the manna it is said, Ps. LXXVII, 24: "He gave them bread from heaven. Man ate the bread of Angels." Just as the manna was epiousion food, that is, heavenly and angelic, so much more is the Eucharist. Whence in Wisdom XIX, 20, both are called ambrosia in the Greek, which is said by the poets to be the food of the gods. This therefore is bread properly called supersubstantial. Thus by "bread" here, both the spiritual and the corporeal are understood by St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, Augustine, Tertullian, and Cyprian, in his treatise On the Lord's Prayer. Wherefore St. Ambrose, in Book V of On the Sacraments, ch. 4, understanding the Eucharist by the supersubstantial bread, says: "If it is daily bread, why do you receive it only once a year? Live in such a way that you may deserve to receive it daily," as the first faithful communicated daily, as is evident from Acts II, 46. And St. Cyprian, On the Lord's Prayer: "We ask, he says, that this bread be given to us daily, lest we who are in Christ, and who daily receive the Eucharist as the food of salvation, should by the intervention of some graver sin, being kept away and not communicating, be forbidden the heavenly bread and separated from the Body of Christ, He Himself preaching and admonishing: I am the bread of life, who came down from heaven. If anyone eats of My bread, he shall live forever." John VI.
Note that under "bread," by a Hebrew phrase and by synecdoche, is understood whatever is necessary for food, clothing, habitation, and the sustaining of life both of body and soul; for we ask here that all this be given to us, or if it has already been given to us who are wealthy, that it be preserved and guarded. "We ask for sufficiency, says St. Augustine, Epistle 121, signifying the whole under the name of bread."
GIVE US THIS DAY. — The word "give" asks not only that bread be given, but also that the salutary power and vigor of nourishing and strengthening be infused into the bread, so that the bread may benefit the body in health and strength, by which the body may better serve the soul in the service and obedience of God. So St. Chrysostom. Also, as St. Augustine teaches, Sermon 135, because we desire to receive food from the hand of God, that is, sanctified by Him, tempered, measured, so that it may benefit the body and not harm the soul, if we speak of bodily bread; and conversely, that it may nourish the mind and not destroy the body, if we speak of spiritual bread.
Today. — Because at every moment we need some sustenance from God.
Verse 12: Forgive Us Our Debts
12. AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS, AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS. — The Arabic version: And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Up to this point, in the four petitions there has been a prayer for good things; now in the three last follows a deprecation of evils. Luke, XI, 4, interprets these "debts" as hamartias, that is, sins; for sin is the greatest debt on account of the supreme injury it inflicts on God, which, because it is infinite, neither man nor Angel could make satisfaction for it and its debt out of strict justice, but only Christ, who is God and man. These debts therefore are faults, which bring about guilt or the obligation of punishment and hell; for they constitute a man a debtor while he sins. The sinner therefore owes his soul to the devil, to death, and to hell; but to God he owes a thousand, indeed infinite souls, deaths, and hells, if he had them or could endure them.
Hence the Fathers prove against the Pelagians that no one is without sin. The Pelagians responded that the just pray and say: "Forgive us our debts," not for themselves, but for others, namely their neighbors, who have sinned; or if they say it for themselves, they say it not from truth, but from humility and modesty. St. Augustine refutes both arguments, in Book II of On the Merits of Sinners, ch. 10, and in Book II Against the Letter of Parmenian, ch. 10. "For we do not say: Forgive others their debts, but forgive us our debts." But far be it that we should lie before God; for this is not humility, but hypocrisy and pretense. Whence St. Cyprian, On the Lord's Prayer: "Lest anyone, he says, be pleased with himself as though innocent, and by exalting himself perish the more, he is instructed and taught that he sins daily, since he is commanded to pray daily for his sins." Finally, the Council of Milevis, II, ch. 1, pronounces anathema on those who wish the words of the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our debts," to be said by the Saints in such a way that it is said humbly, not truthfully: "For who, it says, would tolerate one who prays and lies not to men, but to the Lord Himself, who says with his lips that he wishes his debts to be forgiven, and says in his heart that he has no debts to be forgiven." The Council of Africa says the same thing in the same words, ch. 76.
AS WE ALSO FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS — namely debts not of money, nor of restitution of reputation and honor, but of injury inflicted upon us, so that on account of it we do not pursue them with hatred, nor desire private vengeance, nor even public vengeance, except when the public good or right reason demands otherwise. The word "as" does not signify a rule or measure which God follows in forgiving sins; for we owe and ask to have forgiven us by God more than others owe us, but rather an inducing cause, which moves God to forgive. Whence Luke, XI, 4, has: "Forgive us our debts, since we also forgive all our debtors." For this is the condition which God requires of us, which being granted, He easily forgives; but if it is lacking, He does not forgive, according to what follows: "For if you forgive men their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your offenses; but if you do not forgive, He will not forgive." This is therefore as it were a pact of God with the sinner: If you forgive, I forgive; if you do not forgive, I do not forgive. So St. Augustine, Enchiridion LXXIII. Whence St. Cyprian, On Prayer: "He added, he says, a law, binding us by a fixed condition and pledge, that we ask our sins to be forgiven in the same way as we ourselves forgive our debtors. How great is the crime (of not wanting to forgive) which cannot be expiated even by martyrdom!" For thus we read that Sapricius lost the martyrdom which he already had, as it were, in his hands. For when, being steadfast in the faith, he was about to be beheaded and was ordered to kneel, he denied the faith, because he refused to pardon the offense when Nicephorus asked forgiveness; who therefore, substituting himself in his place, snatched and obtained the palm of martyrdom from him, as his Life records in Surius under February 9. Thus "the life of the Saints is the interpretation of the Scriptures," as St. Jerome says. Wherefore St. John the Almsgiver, in order to bring a prince who harbored anger to reconciliation, while celebrating Mass before him and saying: "Forgive us our debts," immediately fell silent, and this deliberately. The prince therefore continued: "As we also forgive our debtors." Then the Patriarch, turning to him, said: "See, in what a terrible hour, what you say to God: As I forgive, so also do You forgive me." Struck as if by a thunderbolt by these words, the prince said: "Whatever you command, Lord, your servant will do," and immediately was reconciled with his enemy. So Leontius in his Life, ch. 38.
Those therefore who refuse to forgive their neighbors' injuries lie before God and here tacitly condemn themselves, and show themselves unworthy of forgiveness, and as it were pronounce sentence against themselves, namely, that God should not remit their debts. Some judge this falsehood, because it is made to God, to be a grave sin. Whence some who are unwilling to forgive, when reciting the Our Father, omit this petition, but wrongly and against the institution of Christ. So Cassian, Collation IX, ch. 22, and our Salmeron, vol. V, tract. 51, where he teaches that they do not sin by reciting it, because they say it in the person of the Church, which forgives debts to debtors; and because through this they are incited to forgive, and tacitly ask grace from God to do the same thing. Therefore, "as we also forgive," that is, as many among us forgive their debtors. Add that these words are understood recitatively, as a formula of praying prescribed by Christ, so that by them we may be admonished to forgive our debtors. Furthermore, "we forgive," that is, as we ought and desire to forgive; but because our weakness cannot accomplish this, You, Lord, give us strength, change our heart, that we may accomplish it. There is therefore here a tacit prayer, by which we ask from God the grace of forgiving injuries inflicted upon us. So St. Francis explained it, whose words I shall cite below.
Finally, if these words are taken strictly, they sound like a lie, but one that seems to be only venial; for it is harmful to no one. Just as, therefore, if someone in confession, which is made to a priest as God's vicar, says something false in a small matter, he sins venially, provided he gives true matter for absolution, namely, he confesses sins he has truly committed — so also in this case the same seems to be said. For such a person truly asks all the petitions from God, but lies in only the circumstance of one.
Verse 13: Lead Us Not into Temptation, but Deliver Us from Evil
13. AND LEAD US NOT (in Greek eisenenkeis, that is, bring us not) INTO TEMPTATION. — "Lead" not by impelling, as Calvin would have it: "For God is not a tempter of evil, and He Himself tempts no one," James I, 13; but by permitting us to be led. So all the Fathers and all Catholics. For God is often said to do what He permits, because it cannot happen unless He consents and relaxes the hand of His omnipotence. The sense therefore is, as if to say, first: Do not permit us to be led into temptation, in such a way, that is, that we are caught and overcome by it, as fish and birds are led into a net, when they are enclosed and caught by it. That is to say, as St. Augustine explains, Epistle 121: "lest, abandoned by Your aid, we either consent to some temptation being deceived, or yield to it being afflicted." Secondly, as if to say: Do not permit temptation to befall us. For although in the Lives of the Fathers we read that some Saints desired temptations, as material for increasing virtue and merit, from great strength of soul and trust in God — whence James, I, 2, says: "Count it all joy, brethren, when you fall into various temptations" (see what was said there) — for by temptation we are proved, exercised, we struggle, we advance and are perfected; nevertheless, ordinarily it is safer to flee and pray against temptations. Christ therefore admonishes us of our weakness, and that on account of it we should not thrust ourselves into temptations, but as far as possible ward them off and pray against them. So Tertullian, SS. Cyprian, Ambrose, Chrysostom, On the Lord's Prayer; and St. Augustine, On the Good of Perseverance, ch. 6. Hence learn that the devil can do nothing in tempting, unless God permits it to him. So St. Cyprian. A clear example is in Job, ch. 1, to tempt whom the devil three times sought permission from God.
Again, that temptations cannot be overcome by us except through the help and grace of God; wherefore this must be invoked constantly and ardently in every temptation. Whence Blessed John Chrysostom, Sermon 44, says: "He goes to temptation who does not go to prayer." And St. Gregory of Nyssa, Oration I on the Lord's Prayer: "If prayer precedes the business, he says, sin does not enter the soul. But if anyone carelessly departs from himself, and does not watch for the occasion of sin, and approaches a matter without invoking God, he becomes a slave of the devil; but he who not only flees temptation, but also takes refuge in prayer, the devil will not be able to overcome him."
One may ask what temptation is and how many kinds there are. I answer: temptation is a certain impulse toward evil or sin. The author and cause of temptation is threefold: namely, the flesh, the world, and the devil. And it is chiefly against this threefold temptation that we pray when we say: "Lead us not into temptation." Whence some think that the three last petitions correspond to the three temptations, namely, that the fifth, in which we ask our debts to be forgiven, corresponds to the temptation from the flesh, from which sins of the flesh chiefly arise; the sixth, in which we ask not to be led into temptation, corresponds to the temptation from the devil; the seventh, in which we ask to be delivered from evil, corresponds to the temptation from the world. So Cassian, Collation IX, ch. 23, and our Salmeron, vol. V, tract. 51. Others distribute it differently.
For example, St. Francis expounds these seven petitions so that to each corresponds one gift of the Holy Spirit, one Beatitude, and one vice or sin opposed to it, from which he asks to be freed. So his Life has it in Surius, vol. V, tract. 51, and in his Opuscula. In a similar way Peter of Blois, Epistle 28, and Alanus, On the Art of Preaching, accommodate all these petitions to the individual seven capital sins, virtues, Beatitudes, gifts of the Holy Spirit, etc.
But rather, of these seven petitions, the first three pertain to the glory of God, the four latter to our benefit, according to Deuteronomy V, 22: "These words the Lord spoke to your whole multitude, and He added nothing more." Hence the Council of Trent, Session 25, ch. 1, teaches that through these seven petitions all things of which we have need in this life are briefly comprehended.
That is, Do not permit — that is, do not allow us to be imperiled, nor suffer us to be tempted beyond our strength and merits; do not allow the foul and evil temptations of Satan and the demons to rise up against us; but put the devil to flight and reprobation, dissipating all assaults and helping us, that we may resist and overcome him. So St. Augustine, Book II of On the Sermon of the Lord on the Mount, ch. 9, and Epistle 121.
Morally: what are the most proven weapons against temptations, St. Augustine teaches — flight and prayer: flight, namely, from sins, from occasions of sinning, and from temptations; and prayer to God, that God may extend His hand and protect us, strengthen us, help us. Christ also admonishes us of our weakness, and that on account of it we should not thrust ourselves into temptations, but as far as possible ward them off and pray against them. So Tertullian, SS. Cyprian, Ambrose, Chrysostom, On the Lord's Prayer; and St. Augustine, On the Good of Perseverance, ch. 6.
BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL. — First, that is, from temptation; for the discourse about this has preceded. Second, from evil, that is, from the devil, who is the chief and craftsman of temptation, as Tertullian and Chrysostom say: for he is called in Greek ὁ πονηρὸς (the evil one), as in 1 John 5: "The evil one (ὁ πονηρὸς) does not touch him;" 1 John 2: "You have overcome the evil one," and elsewhere: for the devil tempts everyone through wicked people, and through the flesh and the world. Third, more generally and fully, St. Cyprian, in De Oratione, takes all evil here to mean whatever either draws one to sin or is an impediment to virtue and perfection. And thus it is clearer that this petition is distinguished from the preceding one and is the seventh and last. Hear St. Cyprian: "When we say: Deliver us from evil, nothing remains that should still be asked for, since once we seek God's protection against evil, having obtained it, we stand secure and safe against everything that the devil and the world work. For what fear of the world is there for him whose protector in the world is God?"
Anagogically: St. Augustine, Epistle 121, teaches that here we ask to be delivered from evil, that is, from concupiscence and every misery through the glory of eternal happiness: "When we say, Deliver us from evil, we are reminded to consider that we are not yet in that good where we shall suffer no evil. And indeed this last petition, which is placed in the Lord's Prayer, extends so broadly and so evidently and manifestly, that a Christian person placed in any tribulation whatsoever may utter groans in this petition, may pour out tears in it, may begin from it, may linger upon it, and may end his prayer with it."
The same, in Book II of De Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione, chapter 4: "Then, he says, we add what will be perfected at the end, when what is mortal will be swallowed up by life; but deliver us from evil. For then there will be no such concupiscence with which we are commanded to struggle and to which we are commanded not to consent." Hence Franciscus Lucas refers these last three petitions to concupiscence, as if we pray thus: Forgive us, Lord, those things in which we have been drawn away by concupiscence, for this is the greatest temptation; take concupiscence from us, for this is a great evil, which will not be taken from us except in heaven. St. Augustine, in Book II of De Sermone Domini in Monte, matches these seven petitions to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and the eight beatitudes, each one to each.
AMEN. — This, says St. Jerome, is the seal of the Lord's Prayer, of one approving and desiring that it be so. Hence the Septuagint, in Psalm 71, the last verse and elsewhere, translates it γένοιτο, that is, "let it be done."
Note: in the Greek codices there is added here: "For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever." And so read the Syriac, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius; but the Greeks seem to have added this from pious and solemn custom, just as they also add to the Angelic Salutation: "For you gave birth to our Savior." And to the Psalms: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit." For the Greek Vatican codex and that of Robert Estienne, likewise the Latin writers Tertullian, Cyprian, St. Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose do not read it.
Again observe: in this prayer no mention is made of talent, health, wisdom, strength, wife, family, children, riches, honors, or other natural goods, because these are indifferent things and are to be sought only insofar as they contribute to our salvation and that of others. And thus they are comprehended under the daily bread, or under the first petition, "hallowed be Thy name;" namely, that we may sanctify God. Finally, it is not necessary to ask for these things, because they will be added to us of their own accord if we first seek the kingdom of God, as Christ promises in verse 33: "For, as St. Augustine says, Epistle 121, one does not live profitably in time except for acquiring the merit by which one may live in eternity, etc. Why then do we scatter ourselves through many things, and do we not rather say with Psalm 26: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life."
Furthermore, in Volume V of the Library of the Holy Fathers there exists a paraphrastic exposition of the Lord's Prayer, composed by St. Francis, which is partly literal, partly mystical, and which, because it is sublime, savory, and fervent, and acceptable to God, as it seems (for he himself was taught by God), it seemed fitting to append here.
"Most Holy Father, our Creator, our Redeemer, our Savior, our Consoler." Who art in heaven, "in the Angels, in the Saints, enlightening them to the knowledge of Thee, because Thou, Lord, art light, inflaming them to Thy divine love; because Thou, Lord, art love, dwelling in and filling them for blessedness; because Thou, Lord, art the supreme good and the eternal good, from whom all good things come, without whom there is no good." Hallowed be Thy name: "May Thy knowledge be clarified in us, that we may know what is the breadth of Thy benefits, the length of Thy promises, the height of Thy majesty, and the depth of Thy judgments." Thy kingdom come, "that Thou mayest reign in us by Thy grace, and make us come to Thy kingdom, where there is the manifest vision of Thee, the perfect love of Thee, the blessed fellowship of Thee, the everlasting enjoyment of Thee." Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, "that we may love Thee with our whole heart, always thinking of Thee; with our whole soul, always desiring Thee; with our whole mind, directing all our intentions to Thee and seeking Thy honor in all things, and with all our strength, devoting all the powers and senses of soul and body to the service of Thy love, and to nothing else: and that we may love our neighbors as ourselves, drawing all to Thy love as far as we can, rejoicing in the good things of others as in our own, sharing in their evils, and giving no offense to anyone." Give us this day our daily bread: "Give us today Thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the memory, understanding, and reverence of the love that He had for us, and of those things which He did, said, and suffered for us." And forgive us our debts, "through Thy mercy and the ineffable power of the passion of Thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the merits and intercessions of the most blessed Virgin Mary and of all the elect." As we forgive our debtors; "and because we do not fully forgive, do Thou, Lord, make us fully forgive, that we may love our enemies for Thy sake and devoutly intercede for them before Thee, render evil to no one for evil, and strive to be of benefit to all in Thee." And lead us not into temptation, "whether hidden or manifest, sudden or untimely." But deliver us from evil, "past, present, and future." Amen, "spontaneously and freely." In the aforesaid manner this blessed one used to say the Our Father at all the hours.
Verse 14: If You Forgive Men Their Offenses
14. FOR IF YOU FORGIVE MEN THEIR SINS (in Greek ἁμαρτίας, that is, offenses), YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER WILL ALSO FORGIVE YOU YOUR TRESPASSES. — If, that is, the other things elsewhere required for this are present, namely contrition and confession.
Verse 15: If You Do Not Forgive Men
15. BUT IF YOU DO NOT FORGIVE MEN, NEITHER WILL YOUR FATHER FORGIVE YOU YOUR SINS. — For "for" gives the reason for what preceded, not immediately, but more remotely, at verse 12, in the Hebrew manner, why He had said: "As we also forgive our debtors;" because indeed this is, as it were, a condition and a law of retaliation, so that what we do to our neighbor, God does and repays to us by a similar right, as I said there. Therefore to those who forgive injuries, offenses are forgiven; those who take vengeance in turn bring God's vengeance upon themselves. Hence Ecclesiasticus 28:3, marveling, indeed indignant, says: "A man reserves wrath for a man, and does he seek remedy from God? He has no mercy on a man like himself, and does he pray for his own sins," etc.? Hence the Gloss here: "He has placed it in our power, with what conscience we may provoke the judgment of God toward us, that we may moderate the sentence: the Judge requires nothing else than that we show ourselves to our brethren such as we wish Him to be toward us."
Verse 16: When You Fast, Do Not Be as the Hypocrites
16. AND WHEN YOU FAST, DO NOT BECOME LIKE THE HYPOCRITES, SAD; FOR THEY DISFIGURE THEIR FACES SO THAT THEY MAY APPEAR TO MEN TO BE FASTING. — The Arabic has: Their fasts. Christ taught the manner of praying; now He teaches the manner of fasting (because prayer without fasting is weak, says St. Chrysostom), namely, that it should be done cheerfully and secretly, with the desire of pleasing God, not men. As He said in verse 1 about Almsgiving, and verse 5 about Prayer. For "sad," the Greek is σκυθρωποί, that is, gloomy-faced, dark, sad, severe, grim, with a grim and fierce Scythian countenance, to which are opposed φαιδροί, that is, cheerful and glad. They are called σκυθρωποί, as if σκυθροί, that is, sorrowful, troubled in countenance; or from σκύζεσθαι, that is, to be angry, to go about with a sad and clouded face, as if they had drunk vinegar; or it alludes to χύτρα, that is, a pot or cauldron, because they have a face that is dark, black, and grim like a cauldron or pot: for fasting, because it dries the body, sharpens both biles, and makes people melancholic and choleric; but food dilutes both, and makes them pleasant, agreeable, and benevolent. Therefore those who try to persuade others to difficult things approach them not when fasting, because then they are peevish and difficult, but at dinner, or after dinner, when cheered by food and drink they are easy, jovial, and pleasant. Now the hypocrites affected and put on a grim countenance so that they might appear to have fasted; this is what Christ censures here, and He advises that they dispel all sadness of countenance and show a pleasant and cheerful face, which may be a sign of cheerfulness and cheerful fasting, or rather a concealment, so that they may appear not to have fasted but to have dined lavishly. "For God loves a cheerful giver." 2 Corinthians 9:7.
They disfigure. — In Greek ἀφανίζουσι, which St. Jerome translates as "they demolish"; St. Hilary, "they destroy"; the Syriac and Chrysostom, "they corrupt." Others more closely: they obscure their faces, by affecting and putting on an appearance of severity, pallor, and sorrow. Others: they undermine, obliterate, ruin, and as it were remove from sight, so that it almost does not appear, which our translator calls "exterminant" (they disfigure). For ἀφανίζειν means to obscure and, as it were, to remove from sight, just as those who use cosmetics conceal their face; so also those who with feigned thinness and sad pallor, looking sallow, simulate holiness — that is, hypocrites, such as the Scribes were. Hear St. Jerome: "The 'exterminati' are exiles who are sent beyond the borders." Then, explaining "exterminant" as "demoliuntur" (they demolish), he explains it further, adding: "The hypocrite demolishes his face so that he may simulate sadness, and while his spirit is perhaps rejoicing, he bears mourning on his countenance."
Verses 17-18: Anoint Your Head and Wash Your Face
17. BUT WHEN YOU FAST, ANOINT YOUR HEAD AND WASH YOUR FACE, 18. SO THAT YOU MAY NOT APPEAR TO MEN TO BE FASTING (the Arabic: Let not your fasts appear to men), BUT TO YOUR FATHER WHO IS IN SECRET (who conceals and hides His essence and majesty, and who is as much in hidden places as in public ones, and who sees the hidden things of the heart as much as the outward show of works); AND YOUR FATHER, WHO SEES IN SECRET, WILL REWARD YOU. — It suffices, says Remigius, that He who is the inspector of conscience be the rewarder. It was customary among the Palestinians, indeed among all Orientals, on festive and joyful days to anoint themselves and to wash and polish their faces, especially at banquets, both for refreshment, for elegance, and for the pleasantness of color and fragrance. For since Palestine is in a hot and sultry climate, the inhabitants sweat, and sweat disfigures the face and makes it malodorous: therefore they wash the face to remove the sweat; they anoint to drive away the stench. This is evident from Ruth 3:3; Judith 10:3; 2 Kings 12:20; Luke 7:46. They anointed themselves, therefore, for reasons of health, recreation, pleasure, fragrance, and softness. Hence the account of Magdalene anointing Christ: "And the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment." John 12:3. But in sorrow and mourning they abstained from anointing and washing.
Note here that there is a catachresis, similar to one we heard in chapter 3, verse 6 and elsewhere; for Christ does not here command an actual anointing, but only cheerfulness and concealment of fasting, as if to say: Anoint your head, that is, be cheerful and display joy, as if you had been anointed with oil, that is, with ointment, which is a cause and symbol of gladness, according to the passage: "That he may make his face cheerful with oil," Psalm 103:15; indeed, so that you may conceal your fasting and simulate a banquet, employ the tokens of banqueters, namely anointing and washing. So St. Jerome, Theophylact, Euthymius. Hear St. Jerome: "He speaks according to the custom of Palestine, where on festive days they are accustomed to anoint their heads. He therefore commands that when we fast, we should show ourselves to be joyful and festive." To this belongs the golden maxim of St. Syncletica, in the Lives of the Fathers, Book V, Booklet VIII, n. 19: "Just as, she says, a treasure that is exposed is quickly spent, so also any virtue, when it has become known or has been publicized, will be destroyed. For just as wax melts before the face of fire, so also the soul is emptied by praises and loses the vigor of its virtues."
Mystically: St. Augustine, Treatise 2 of De Sermone Domini in Monte, chapter 20, by the anointing of the head understands the joy of the mind, which should be employed in every good work; St. Jerome however understands the very practice of the virtues.
Verse 19: Do Not Store Up Treasures on Earth
19. DO NOT STORE UP (the Syriac: Do not lay up; others: Do not gather or heap up) FOR YOURSELVES TREASURES ON EARTH, WHERE RUST AND MOTH DESTROY, AND WHERE THIEVES DIG THROUGH AND STEAL. — He passes from ostentation to avarice, and censures it to the end of the chapter. For the Scribes and Pharisees labored under both vices, indeed the far greater part of mankind, who are busy with nothing but scraping together wealth by every effort, and not rarely by fair means and foul, which is a great vanity and blindness. Therefore Christ here shows which are true riches and which are false; namely, that the true ones are heavenly, the false ones are earthly, so that we should seek not these but those, and fix our heart and mind not on these but on those. For riches on earth "rust and moth destroy." In Greek it is σὴς καὶ βρῶσις, that is, moth and consumption, as rust is to iron, verdigris to copper and gold; for each gradually eats away, corrodes, and consumes. He notes three modes of corruption: for the moth devours garments; rust devours gold and silver; thieves steal and carry off everything else.
Christ here calls men away from the pursuit of riches with three arguments. The first is that riches are fleeting and corruptible. The second, at verse 22, is that they darken and blind the mind. The third, at verse 24, is that they seize the whole mind for themselves, so that one cannot serve God, because no one can serve two masters, namely God and Mammon.
Verse 20: Store Up Treasures in Heaven
20. BUT STORE UP FOR YOURSELVES (not for children, not for grandchildren, not for ungrateful heirs, but for yourselves, that is, for your soul) TREASURES IN HEAVEN, WHERE NEITHER RUST NOR MOTH DESTROYS, AND WHERE THIEVES DO NOT DIG THROUGH NOR STEAL. — As if to say: The riches of heavenly glory are incorruptible, unable to be lost, stable, and eternal; therefore fix your heart and mind on them, acquire them by the whole pursuit of virtue, not earthly ones, which are meager and perishable, and are quickly corrupted and perish in various ways; but distribute them to the poor: "What foolishness, says St. Chrysostom, to leave behind where you are going to depart from, and not to send ahead to where you are going! Store up treasure where you have your homeland." The same here, Homily 48, near the end: "If, he says, you should wish to look at the soul of a man who loves gold, you will find it, like a garment eaten by ten thousand worms, so pierced through on every side by anxieties and putrefied by sins, and full of verdigris. But the soul of the voluntarily poor person is not such; rather it shines like gold, gleams like a gem, blooms like a rose. There is neither moth there, nor thief, nor anxiety about the affairs of this life, but it lives like an angel. It is not subject to demons, does not attend upon a king, but attends upon God: it does not serve with men but with angels; it does not have the earth as its treasure but heaven; it does not need servants, but rather has its passions in place of servants; it has its appetites as servants, which dominate kings, so that they dare not even look upon them. What then is better than this poor man? But he does not have horses and a chariot. But what need of these for one who must ride upon a cloud and be with Christ?"
Verse 21: Where Your Treasure Is, There Is Your Heart
21. FOR WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, THERE ALSO IS YOUR HEART. — "Your treasure," that is, what you hold precious, what you love, what you value, what delights you, what is most dear to you, on which you spend all your time and effort: "there also is your heart." "This is to be understood not only of money, says St. Jerome, but also of all passions. For the glutton, his god is his belly: there therefore he has his heart, where his treasure is. For the voluptuous, treasure is feasting; for the wanton, amusements; for the lover, lust. Each one serves that by which he is conquered."
Do you wish therefore to know what your treasure is, what you love, what you value? Observe what you most often turn over in your heart, what you agitate and think about in your mind. If you frequently think about and ruminate on heavenly things, you love heaven; if on earthly things, your treasure is in the earth — you have buried your heart in the earth like a mole. If therefore you are wise, "let your mind be not in bronze, but in the heavens."
To this pertains what St. Anthony of Padua (as his Life relates), when about to preach at the funeral of a certain usurer, took this theme: "Where your treasure is, there also is your heart," and said: "This rich man has died and has been buried in hell. Go to his treasure, and in the midst of it you will find his heart." The friends went, and they found his heart, still warm, in the midst of his coins.
More holily and wisely, St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola, when Nola was captured by the Vandals, prayed to God: "Lord, let me not be tormented on account of gold and silver; for where all my possessions are, Thou knowest," because, that is, he had his heart fixed on God, not on gold.
Verse 22: The Lamp of the Body Is the Eye
22. THE LAMP OF YOUR BODY IS YOUR EYE. IF YOUR EYE IS SOUND, YOUR WHOLE BODY WILL BE FULL OF LIGHT. — "Bleary eyes, says St. Jerome, tend to see many lamps; a sound and pure eye beholds things that are sound and pure."
23. BUT IF YOUR EYE IS BAD, YOUR WHOLE BODY WILL BE DARK. IF THEREFORE THE LIGHT THAT IS IN YOU IS DARKNESS, HOW GREAT WILL THAT DARKNESS BE? — An eye is called "sound" which is healthy and not mixed with external humors that disturb vision, and therefore is pure, clear, and bright. As if to say: "If your eye is sound," that is, pure, bright, and clean, your whole body will be full of light and, as it were, all-seeing, because by the preceding light and direction of its eye it will perform all its actions rightly. "But if your eye is bad," in Greek πονηρός, that is, badly affected and imbued with a diseased humor, and therefore impure and clouded, "your whole body will be dark," because it will lack the light and guide, namely the illumination and direction of its eye. "If therefore the ocular light that is in you," that is, that ought to be in you, has already been darkened and is not light but darkness and blindness, "how great will that darkness be?" that is, how dark will the rest of the body be, which by its nature is dark and, so to speak, blind, since it has no light except from the eyes — now deprived of its eyes and lights as of its guides, how dark will it be, and how will it wander, grope, and stumble in the darkness? "How great, says St. Hilary, must be the darkness of that very darkness in you!"
This is first of all a parable, as are most of the other maxims of Christ here. By the eye, therefore, following St. Jerome, Chrysostom, Jansen, Maldonatus, and Toledo on Luke chapter 11, and others, understand the mind and interior sense, as if St. Chrysostom says: Learn interior things from bodily ones; for what the eye is to the body, that the intellect is to the soul. For just as the eye directs the body, so the practical intellect directs the soul; for what this perceives and tastes, the soul perceives and tastes. Hence error and vice of the soul in acting arise from error and vice of the intellect; but this vice often arises from a depraved inclination and desire of the affections. For whatever the affection desires, it draws the intellect in the same direction, so as to judge that thing good for itself and to be pursued. This is what He said a little before: "For where your treasure is, there also is your heart." For He here explains that heart and calls it the eye of the mind, that is, the practical intellect, which precedes and directs all actions with its light. For Christ wishes to teach that the spirit cannot be pure and upright, and consequently that the actions flowing from it cannot be pure and upright, when the heart is blinded by avarice and desire for gold: for He dealt with this in the preceding verses and will deal with it in the following ones. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Just as a pure eye clearly illuminates and governs the body and all the body's movements; but if the eye is clouded by a thick and corrupt humor, the whole body is darkened, so that it wanders and stumbles in the darkness: so likewise, if a man's mind is pure, it will illuminate the whole soul and all its actions, so that they may be done rightly and correctly; but if the mind is imbued with a depraved affection and the cupidity of avarice, blinded by it, it will affect the whole soul and all its operations in the same way, so that they look at and desire nothing but earth and earthly riches, and fill and blind themselves with these like moles. For from the love of money the mind is darkened by many errors and practical forms of ignorance, so that it thinks it may do what is truly unlawful, and that what is harmful is useful, and it communicates these blindnesses of its own to its blind and unbridled passions, affections, and actions, so that they rush blindly into plunder, fraud, usury, and other crimes which the mind itself ought to have corrected and restrained; and thus the mind itself blinds those who are already blind in themselves all the more, and drives them into the blind ruins of sins.
Secondly, following St. Augustine and St. Gregory, Book XXVIII of the Moralia, chapter 6, and Bede, the eye can be taken as the intention of the mind; for this moves, governs, and bends the mind and intellect wherever it wishes; and this intention itself, if it purely intends God and divine things as its end and aim, will cause the work flowing from it (understand, if that work is in itself good, or at least not evil) to be entirely pure and holy; but if the intention is depraved and impure, it will cause the work flowing from it, even though good in itself, to be impure, evil, and vicious. For throughout the entire chapter, from verse 1 up to this point, Christ has dealt with right intention and required it in almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, that is, in every good work. Luke 11:36 adds some things to this parable, which are to be explained there as in their proper place.
Verse 24: No One Can Serve Two Masters
24. NO ONE CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS. — Not only contrary ones, but even disparate or merely different ones. It is a proverb signifying that it is rare and difficult to satisfy two masters, who are usually of opposite characters and temperaments, or to be equally devoted, subservient, and obedient to them. He does not say "to work for"; for sometimes someone does work for two masters; but "to serve," that is, to devote oneself, to love in all things, to comply with, and to obey. Christ applies this to avarice and religion and the worship of God, as if to say: You cannot serve God and Dis, heaven and filth, the ether and copper, the Deity and coins. Therefore if it pleases you to serve God and devote your heart to Him, it must be torn away from copper and gold. This is the third argument of Christ, more effective than the others, by which He calls the Scribes and all men away from the pursuit of riches, namely that it is impossible to serve them and God. Do you then wish to serve God? Do not serve Mammon.
FOR HE WILL EITHER HATE THE ONE AND LOVE THE OTHER, OR HE WILL BE DEVOTED TO THE ONE AND DESPISE THE OTHER. — For "sustinebit" (he will be devoted to), St. Augustine reads "patietur" (he will endure), and explains it of Mammon, as if to say: Mammon, that is, riches, is a master so imperious and difficult that misers serve a hard servitude under him, and they do not love him but endure and suffer his lordly and harsh dominion. But the Greeks here, as at Luke ch. 16:13, consistently have ἑνὸς ἀνθέξεται, that is, he will cling to one, as our translator renders it at Luke 16:13; the Syriac and Arabic have: he will honor one; Vatablus: he will give himself to one, fix his heart on one, pay his allegiance to one — that is, he will love one, as I said a little before. For the sense of this disjunctive arrangement is, as if to say: A servant serving two masters will not serve both, but will either hate this one and love that one, or conversely will love this one and support him, and hate that one and despise him — for example, if he hates his master Jacob, he will love his master John; but if he loves Jacob, he will hate John. For whoever is pleased by the character of the one is displeased by the character of the other, since they are different and often contrary: and so he will love the one, obey and serve him, and hate the other, nor will he be willing to obey or serve him readily.
Sustinebit (He will support). — Therefore here this is the same as "he will favor, protect, cherish, sustain." Thus Cicero in Book I of the De Officiis says: "A magistrate is to sustain the dignity and honor of the state." And in the Oration for Flaccus: "You, judges, bear the commonwealth upon your shoulders." And in the Oration for Rabirius: "He caught him as he slipped, did not allow him to fall, propped him up and sustained him with his wealth, fortune, and loyalty, and still supports him today." And Brutus, in his Epistle to Cicero: "You must, he says, uphold Apuleius by your authority." Thus mothers sustain, that is, nourish and support their infants; teachers their pupils, masters their servants, and in turn sons their parents, pupils their teachers, servants their masters. Whence Virgil in Georgics II: "Hence he supports his country and his little grandsons." And so Livy says: "The soldiers were supported by river fish and herbs," that is, they were sustained.
YOU CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON. — As if to say: You cannot devote yourselves at the same time to God and to the pursuit of riches, so as to fix your heart on both and to give both your cares, exertions, and labors; especially because God so wills to be worshiped and loved above all things that He will tolerate no rival nor permit anyone to be set equal or compared to Him in love. Conversely, riches so seize the heart and cares of the greedy rich man that they do not allow them to be devoted to God.
Note: In Hebrew matmon; in Chaldean mamon; in Syriac mamona, says St. Jerome — riches and treasures which the wealthy lay up in their coffers are so called, from the root taman, that is, to hide away. Or, as Angelus Caninius holds in his Names of the Hebrew Words of the New Testament, from the root aman, that is, to make firm, to stabilize. For, as is said in Proverbs 10:15, "The substance of the rich man is the city of his strength." So riches in Hebrew are called chaiil, from strength, because they make the rich man mighty and powerful. Hence also in Punic (for Punic is a language akin to Hebrew) profit is called mammon, says St. Augustine in his book On the Sermon of the Lord on the Mount, chapter 22. Hence also the Persian version renders Mammon as riches and perishable goods.
Moreover, St. Irenaeus in Book III, chapter 10, interprets "mammonas" as "greedy," which his translator explains as though St. Irenaeus derived Mammona from mum, that is, "stain," and on, that is, "riches," so that mammona should mean the same as "the stain of riches"; for such is cupidity or avarice, which stains and indeed ruins riches by hiding them away so that they are consumed by rust, rather than bestowing them on the needy — for that is, as it were, the life, the welfare, the end and the happiness of wealth, which were created by God and nature for this very use.
Note: He does not say: You cannot have both riches and God — for both were had by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, and many Saints, who did not fix their heart on riches, because they used them for pious works; but rather "You cannot serve God and Mammon." For whoever serves Mammon is a slave of riches, and therefore does not rule them as their master, but is ruled by them as a mere chattel, so that he undertakes all the labors and pains that his greed for wealth suggests to him. Truly harsh and wretched is this servitude: "But to serve God is to reign." As St. Bernard truly says in Sermon 21 on the Canticle: "The miser," he says, "hungers for earthly things like a beggar; the faithful man despises them like a lord. The one begs by possessing; the other keeps by despising."
Therefore: "Queen Money either rules or serves every man." She rules the miser; she serves the generous man. And what is gold and silver, but red and white earth? says St. Bernard.
He fittingly sets God against Mammon, because Mammona — that is, Plutus or Pluto (for πλοῦτος is the word for riches), who was also called Dis — was worshiped by the Gentiles as the god of riches. Hence Cicero in Book II of the De Natura Deorum: "All earthly power," he says, "and nature is dedicated to Father Dis, who is called the Rich One, as in Greek Πλούτων, because all things fall back into the earth and rise up out of the earth." The god of the greedy man, therefore, is Mammon, or Pluto, who will drag him with himself down to the underworld (for there is the kingdom and palace of Pluto).
Hear St. Augustine, Book IV of the City of God, chapter 21: The Gentiles commended themselves "to the goddess Pecunia (Money), that they might be wealthy; to the god Aesculanus, and to his son Argentinus, that they might have bronze and silver money. For they set Aesculanus as the father of Argentinus because bronze money came into use first, and silver afterwards. I am astonished, however, that Argentinus did not beget Aurinus, since gold money followed. If they had such a god, then just as they set Jupiter above Saturn, so too they would have set Aurinus above his father Argentinus and his grandfather Aesculanus." The reason that money was made a goddess is its power and dominion: for, as Ecclesiasticus says in chapter 10, "All things obey money." For by money are bought honors, wines, banquets, clothing, horses, chariots — and what not? Hence Hosea, chapter 12:8, says of such men: "Nevertheless, I have become rich, I have found iniquity for myself." Hence Juvenal also, Satire I: "Among us, he says, the majesty of riches is most holy." And Petronius Arbiter makes them equal or even superior to Jupiter: "Whatever you wish, he says, choose it at the price of ready money, and it will come: the strong-box holds Jupiter locked up inside." And the Author of the Anthology: "Now the common folk scarcely think the gods to be gods; doubtless money, heaped up with great care, is the god: it now rules the affairs of men." See Aristophanes in the Plutus.
Most elegantly does St. Jerome say in Epistle 28 to Lucinius: "You cannot," says the Lord, "serve God and Mammon. To lay aside gold is the work of beginners, not of the perfect. Crates the Theban did this, Antisthenes did this; but to offer one's self to God is properly the work of Christians and of the Apostles; and these two, together with the widow who cast into the treasury the coins of her poverty, handed over to the Lord the whole sum which they had, and deserve to hear: You shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Finally, riches (divitiae) are so called because they divide and distract the mind, says St. Ambrose in his book On Abraham, just as they divided Abraham from Lot, Genesis 13.
Verse 25: Be Not Anxious for Your Life
25. THEREFORE I SAY TO YOU, BE NOT ANXIOUS FOR YOUR LIFE, WHAT YOU SHALL EAT, NOR FOR YOUR BODY, WHAT YOU SHALL PUT ON. — "For your soul" (animae); for the soul needs food, not precisely for itself, but in order to be kept in the body and to animate and quicken it. Again, it is in the soul that all sense, taste, and delight in food resides. Or "anima" means life, says St. Augustine, for the soul is the cause of life.
For "be not anxious," the Greek is μὴ μεριμνᾶτε, that is, do not think anxiously, do not be troubled with care, anxiety, and distress: for μεριμνᾶτε is said to come from μερίζειν τὸν νοῦν — because the pursuit of heaping up riches divides the mind, and distracts and as it were dissects it into various thoughts, cares, anxieties, and worries. Christ therefore does not forbid here prudent diligence and labor in procuring the necessities of life for oneself and one's own, as the Euchites wished (who wanted always to pray and never to work), against whom St. Augustine wrote the book On the Work of Monks; but He forbids that anxious, preoccupied, untimely, fearful solicitude which distrusts God, fixes the heart on the earth, and draws one away from the service of God.
And in order to refute it and to free us from it, He adduces seven reasons or arguments: The first is in this verse, in the words immediately following, and is drawn from the care of our body, which God Himself undertakes. The second, verse 26, from the birds, which God cares for and feeds. The third, verse 27, that all our anxiety is vain without God. The fourth, verse 28, from the lilies and the grass, which God clothes and adorns. The fifth, verses 29 and 30, that such anxiety belongs to pagans, not to Christians. The sixth, verse 32, because it belongs to God's knowledge of all things and His providence as governor to provide us with sustenance, so that to those who seek the Kingdom of God He may give food in addition. The seventh, verse 34, because the day's own trouble is enough for the day. Christ uses so many arguments because by far the greater part of mankind labors under this excessive anxiety, and from morning to evening thinks of nothing else and labors at nothing else than to procure food and clothing for themselves and their own — which is great misery and more than asinine toil.
IS NOT THE LIFE MORE THAN THE FOOD, AND THE BODY MORE THAN THE RAIMENT? — This is the first argument against anxious and excessive solicitude for temporal things, drawn from the lesser, or from the less likely to the more likely, as if to say: The God who has given us soul and body — indeed, created them out of nothing, continually preserves them, and as it were continually creates them — He will surely also give the lesser things, namely food and clothing, without which the body and soul cannot subsist. So St. Augustine, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius. Truly St. Chrysostom in Homily 87 to the People says: "When God feeds, there is no need for us to be anxious. For the rich have wanted and suffered hunger; but they that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good." Psalm 33.
Verse 26: Behold the Birds of the Air
26. BEHOLD THE BIRDS OF THE AIR, FOR THEY SOW NOT, NEITHER DO THEY REAP, NOR GATHER INTO BARNS: AND YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER FEEDS THEM. ARE YOU NOT OF MUCH MORE VALUE THAN THEY? — In Greek: "Do you not differ more from them? Do you not much surpass them?"
This is the second argument by which Christ proves that we ought not to be anxious about food and clothing, drawn from the birds, and therefore from the lesser to the greater, as if to say: If God feeds the irrational birds, which take no thought for food, nor labor for it, but are idle and often loathsome — for example ravens, as Luke 12:24 has it — and gives them grain and food for which they have not labored; how much more will He feed you, who are rational men, created in His image, indeed His sons and heirs, redeemed by the blood of Christ, for whose sake He accordingly causes so many farmers to labor — whom He makes to sow, to reap, and to thresh — and so many millers to grind, and so many bakers to knead bread, and so on! He compares men not to earthly oxen, but to heavenly birds, in order to teach them that they should be heavenly, and like the birds should fly up in mind from the earth to heaven, and from there day by day look to God and ask Him for the food needed both for body and for soul. For the birds, content with their daily allowance, are not anxious about tomorrow, but rest peacefully in God's providence, and give themselves only to flying and singing. Christ could, says Chrysostom, "have brought forward examples of men, such as Moses, Elijah, and John, who were not anxious about food, for why should a man not do what birds do? Why should he be anxious, when birds are not anxious?" Wherefore St. Francis was wonderfully delighted with birds, especially larks, and was accustomed to invite them to sing the praises of God. Hence immediately after his death, larks paid their tribute with their song. For a great number of them flew to the roof of the house in which he had died, and circling about with unusual jubilation, celebrated the praises and glory of the Saint. He was accustomed to compare the brothers of his order to larks and to exhort them to imitate them. For the lark: First, he said, has a crest like a cap, whence it is called "galerita" (crested), as Pliny attests, Book XI, chapter 37; so too the Friars Minor wear a cowl or hood, that they may remember they ought to imitate the innocence and humility of children, who wrap their heads in hoods. Second, the lark is ash-colored; the tunic of the brothers is likewise ash-colored, that they may remember that saying of God to the first man: "Remember, O man, that you are dust, or ashes, and to ashes you shall return." Third, larks live in poverty, without anxiety plucking the grains that the earth provides; so too the brothers profess poverty, live by begging without anxiety, placing their hope for sustenance in God's providence and the charity of the faithful. Fourth, larks as soon as they find and eat a grain, are borne heavenward in direct and lofty flight, so that they escape the gaze of onlookers, singing and as it were giving thanks to God, the parent and nourisher of all. The brothers do the same, "because man ate the bread of Angels," that is, bread obtained through almsgiving, for Angels inspire the wealthy to give bread to begging brothers. Fifth, larks are named from "praise" (laus), because they praise God with continual song; so too the brothers despise earthly things, desire heavenly things, as strangers on earth and citizens of heaven, and know that they are called by God for this purpose: to praise God unceasingly, both by psalmody and by preaching and holiness of life. So Lucas Waddingus reports in the Annals of the Friars Minor, year of Christ 1226, n. 39, and others. Hear St. Ambrose, in his sermon on chapter 1 of Malachi, which is found at the end of volume II: "Birds, he says, give thanks for cheap food; you are fed with the most precious banquets, and are ungrateful? Who then would not blush, having human understanding, to close the day without the celebration of psalms, when the very birds exult in the sweetness of the psaltery to give thanks; and not to resound His glory with the sweetness of verses, whose praise the birds proclaim with their melodious song? Imitate therefore, brother, the smallest birds, giving thanks to the Creator morning and evening. And if you are more devout, imitate the nightingale, for whom, since the day alone does not suffice for singing praises, she runs through the nocturnal hours with sleepless song. And so you too, conquering the day with your praises, add nocturnal courses to your work, and console your sleepless industry of undertaken labor with a series of psalms."
The same St. Ambrose says: "The use of food obtained without labor abounds for them (the ravens) for this reason: that they do not know how to claim for themselves by any special dominion the fruits given to them as food in common. We have lost what is common, since we claim what is private; for nothing is one's own where nothing is permanent; nor is there a certain supply where the outcome is uncertain. For why should you value your riches, when God willed that sustenance should be common to you and all other living creatures? The birds of heaven claim nothing special for themselves, and therefore they do not know what it is to lack food, because they do not know how to envy others."
Finally the same St. Ambrose, commenting on Luke chapter XII, on verse 24: "Consider the ravens, for they neither sow, etc., and God feeds them," from this passage teaches that the cause of our want is avarice.
Verse 27: Which of You by Thinking Can Add One Cubit
27. AND WHICH OF YOU BY THINKING (Greek merimnon, that is, being anxious, thinking anxiously, caring with anxiety, that is, by his anxious thought, inquiry, and effort: "for anxiety is a sickness of the mind accompanied by thought," says Cicero, Tusculan Disputations IV), CAN ADD TO HIS STATURE ONE CUBIT? — This is the third argument from the greater or more probable to the lesser. Hence Luke, XII, 26, adds: "If then you are not able to do even the least thing, why are you anxious about the rest?" As if to say: If thought, anxiety, and labor are futile by which anyone would wish to devise a way of adding one cubit to his stature, so that he might become longer and taller than he is by one cubit — for even if he thought for a thousand years, and tormented himself by thinking, he would never accomplish it — how much more vain is the anxious worry by which anyone strives by his own industry to anxiously preserve and prolong his life through food; for it belongs to God alone, just as He increases the body He created so that it grows to its proper stature, so much more to preserve the life He gave and to bring it to the end He has appointed, and consequently to procure and supply the necessary nourishment for this by His fatherly providence.
Euthymius notes that the cubit is mentioned here because the cubit is the proper measure of human stature. For every well-formed man is four of his own cubits in height, and four in width — that is, if his arms are extended, so that this extension is added to the width; for the extension of the arms is the measure of each person's stature, and by this reckoning a man is square, that is, as wide as he is tall, so that he may learn to be square and solid in constancy and virtue.
Verses 28-29: Consider the Lilies of the Field
28. And why are you anxious about clothing? CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD, HOW THEY GROW: THEY DO NOT LABOR, NOR DO THEY SPIN.
29. BUT I SAY TO YOU: THAT NOT EVEN SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY WAS CLOTHED AS ONE OF THESE. — This is the fourth argument, from the elegance of lilies. For if God clothes and adorns lilies with such whiteness, beauty, and loveliness, how much more will He bestow necessary clothing on men who trust in Him!
He implies that lilies, as they grow and are nourished, are wrapped in their own coverings as if in garments. Moreover, wonderful is the beauty, splendor, fragrance, order, grace, elegance, and loftiness of lilies, with which God adorns them, about which see Pliny, Book XXI, chapter 5.
Christ mentioned lilies and the garment or clothing of Solomon, because this was white, flowery, and decorated with lilies — that is, interwoven, or embroidered in Phrygian needlework with images of lilies, and it rivaled the brilliance of gleaming white lilies; for this garment in its whiteness, beauty, and loveliness was most elegant, and therefore it was the garment of kings and princes. Hear Pausanias in the Eliacs, Book V, when he describes the statue of Jupiter: "Which, among other things, had a golden mantle: on it, along with various animals, lilies especially, among all kinds of flowers, were engraved." And Marcellinus, Book XIV, inveighing against the luxury of garments: "The tunics with their long fringes, he says, shine with a conspicuous variety of lilies, fashioned into the forms of manifold animals." Hence also Martial, Book VIII, 28, compares with lilies that most noble and exceedingly white toga of his, given to him by Parthenius, the chamberlain of Domitian: "You surpass lilies: the privet not yet faded, and the ivory that gleams on the Tiburtine mount, the Spartan swan shall yield to you, and the Paphian doves, the gem drawn from the Erythraean waters shall yield." So Pineda, Book VI, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 5.
Anagogically: lilies and the lily-embroidered garment represent the robe of immortality and glory with which Christ will clothe His elect in heaven. Hence Psalm 44 is inscribed: "For the lilies; or, for those who shall be changed," namely from death to immortality, from misery to glory. Wherefore Hilary understands here by "lilies that neither labor nor spin" the "splendors of the heavenly Angels, upon whom the brightness of glory has been bestowed by God apart from any instruction of human knowledge; and since in the resurrection all will be like the Angels, He wished us to hope for the covering of heavenly glory, by the example of Angelic brightness. For even a lily plucked from its root and from the earth blooms and grows green of itself, and is again clothed with its beauty. So indeed the virtues of the Angels receive from their origin the power to endure forever."
Moreover, Christ prefers the beauty of lilies to the lily-embroidered garments of Solomon made of silver thread, because the former, being natural and innate, surpasses all the elegance of art, which is, as it were, a shadow and an imitation. For art imitates nature, but does not equal it: hence the beauty of nature is greater than that of art. For art is, as it were, an ape of nature: just as an ape imitates a man and a man's gestures, but does not attain to him — for it never becomes a man, but "an ape is an ape, even if it wears golden insignia" — so art never reaches the dignity and beauty of nature. For art is, as it were, a paint on nature, a shadow and image of nature: as much therefore as truth excels paint, and a shadow excels an image, so much does nature excel art. So St. Chrysostom: "As much, he says, as falsehood is distant from truth, so great is the difference between their garments and these flowers." And St. Jerome: "Truly, he says, what silk, what royal purple, what woven picture can be compared to flowers? What is so red as a rose? What so white as a lily? That the purple of the violet is surpassed by no shellfish dye is a judgment of the eyes rather than of speech."
Finally, a flower of nature is a true and living flower, but a flower woven into a garment is a painted and lifeless flower: they therefore differ from each other as much as a real man differs from a painted man; for art is a painting and a sketch of nature. There is an old saying: "The offspring of art are beautiful, those of nature are golden." Christ tacitly notes here how slight and cheap are garments of gold, silk, and purple, in which the wealthy vainly glory, and which they pursue with so much labor and anxiety. For what, as St. Bernard says, is gold and silver, but white and red earth? What are pearls, but the excretions of shells? What is purple, but the blood of a cheap little fish, which is called the murex? What are silks, but the threads and fibers of worms, namely silkworms?
Tropologically the Gloss says: "Lilies, it says, are virgins, who grow in God through the increase of virtues, and are clothed with garments of grace in the present, and of glory in the future." Hence that passage in the Song of Songs II, 1: "I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys. As a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters." And VI, 2: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine, who feeds among the lilies." See what is said there.
Moreover, how beautiful these things are, and how befitting princely bridegrooms, especially Solomon and Christ, and consequently how much Solomon delighted in them, is evident from his canticles, where he frequently says of the bridegroom: "Who feeds among the lilies." And chapter II, 16, and chapter VI, 2, and chapter VII, 2: "Your belly, he says, is like a heap of wheat surrounded by lilies." Indeed chapter II, 1: "I, he says, am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys."
Verse 30: O You of Little Faith
30. BUT IF GOD SO CLOTHES THE GRASS OF THE FIELD, WHICH IS HERE TODAY AND TOMORROW IS CAST INTO THE OVEN; HOW MUCH MORE YOU, O YOU OF LITTLE FAITH? — To the beautiful lilies He adds the lowly grass and hay, with greater force. For instead of "hay" the Greek has chorton, that is "grass," as if to say: If God clothes the grass in the field with such verdure, and with such beautiful little leaves and coverings — grass which today exists and is green, but tomorrow is cut down and dried, and becomes hay, and is cast into the oven or furnace, to kindle and heat it for baking bread in it — how much more will God clothe you, who are faithful men, His friends and children? You, I say, who are without reason of little faith, Greek oligopistoi, that is, trusting too little in God and in God's fatherly providence.
Note: by this rebuke Christ shows that ordinary anxiety about food and clothing arises from an excessive and intolerable distrust of divine providence; for if men fully trusted in it, they would not be so anxious, but would rest securely in it, and then God would provide for all necessities for those who labor moderately and trust in Him.
Verses 31-32: What Shall We Eat, or What Shall We Drink
31. BE NOT THEREFORE ANXIOUS, SAYING: WHAT SHALL WE EAT, OR WHAT SHALL WE DRINK, OR WITH WHAT SHALL WE BE CLOTHED? — with what garment shall we cover our naked body against the injuries of the weather?
32. FOR AFTER ALL THESE THINGS DO THE GENTILES SEEK. — This is the fifth argument, that this anxiety about earthly things, namely food, drink, and clothing, is pagan, not Christian, and therefore befits pagans, who are ignorant of God and God's providence, not Christians, who believe and hope in both, and indeed daily feel and experience them.
For your Father (the Greek and Syriac add ouranios, that is, heavenly) knows that you need all these things. — This is the sixth argument, as if to say: Do not be anxious and worried about your need for food and clothing; for God well knows it, indeed sees and beholds it, because He is God: therefore He will provide for it, because He loves and cares for you as children, because He is your Father; and He is able to do this, because He is heavenly and omnipotent. Why then do you not cast all your anxiety upon Him? For He knows, He wills, and He is able to help your need: He knows, because He is God; He wills, because He is Father; He is able, because as heavenly King He rules heaven and earth with full authority. St. Luke adds, XII, 29: "And do not be lifted up on high;" Greek me meteorizesthe, that is, do not look to meteors or other human supports, about which see more there. Hence St. Francis used to give his friars no other provision for the journey than that saying of the Psalmist, Psalm 54, 23: "Cast your care upon the Lord, and He will nourish you," where in place of "your care" the Hebrew has iehabcha; which the Chaldean renders "your hope"; St. Jerome, "your charity"; Vatablus, "your weight or burden," that is, your affairs, your anxieties, your troubles, your poverty, and whatever burdens and weighs you down; the Roman Psalter, "your thought." The root iahab signifies the feeling of one who asks, as if to say: Cast whatever stirs and draws out in you anxiety, eagerness, and anxious prayer, and He Himself will nourish you; Hebrew: He will sustain, perfect, and care for you. Indeed St. Peter, in his First Epistle, chapter 5, 7: "Casting, he says, all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you." And St. Paul, Philippians IV, 6: "Be anxious about nothing, but in every prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your petitions be made known to God." See what is said there. For our mind is narrow, our shoulders and strength are slight. But God has the widest eyes of providence, as well as shoulders; for He Himself is the true Atlas, who sustains heaven and earth on His shoulders. So God fed the camp of the Hebrews (there were in it easily two million people besides horses, cattle, and wild animals) in the barren desert with manna, and preserved their garments uncorrupted; indeed He made it so that their garments gradually grew along with the growing children; He did the same with their sandals, and this for 40 years. So even now God everywhere among the nations wonderfully provides and nourishes so many poor craftsmen, who have numerous offspring and family, for whose sustenance their daily labor and meager earnings are by no means sufficient, especially since they are often in poor health; or if they are well, they cannot find work and earnings: which St. Chrysostom elsewhere admires and celebrates as a certain proof of divine providence. For make an account and calculate the balance of both earnings and expenses, and you will find that they have spent far more than they have earned. God therefore does for them what He did for the Hebrews gathering manna in the desert: for those who had gathered less than the measure of a Gomor, God imperceptibly added more, just enough, namely, to suffice for filling a Gomor, Exodus XVI, 18. For the Gomor was the measure of daily sustenance sufficient for each person. Wherefore the Psalmist says: "The Lord rules me (Hebrew: The Lord is my shepherd, or feeds me), and therefore I shall want nothing: in a place of pasture, there He has placed me." Psalm 22. Why then are you anxious about tomorrow? Why do you not trust God? You do injury to God; you, as it were, take away from God His divine providence and care and arrogate it to yourself. Justly therefore God will desert you, and leave you empty, needy, hungry, and naked. Far better therefore is it "to walk solicitously with God alone," Micah VI, 8, and to say to Him: "But I am a beggar and poor; the Lord is careful of me." For God's care for us is far greater than all the care we ourselves can exercise for ourselves. For in God it is divine and immense.
Verse 33: Seek First the Kingdom of God
33. SEEK THEREFORE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS JUSTICE, AND ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE ADDED TO YOU. — First, not so much in time, as in dignity, says St. Augustine, likewise in estimation and valuation, as if to say: Above all and chiefly seek the kingdom of God, esteem it above all else, and regard it as of the highest value, but regard temporal goods as of little worth, as things that are to be sought only in relation to the kingdom of God, and which are added by God as a bonus, namely where it benefits men's salvation. Therefore those err who say: "O citizens, citizens, money must be sought first: virtue after cash." Such are the errors even today of those who with all diligence seek and procure lucrative offices, benefices, dignities, and prelacies, thinking little of their burden and fitness, and of their eternal salvation.
The kingdom of God (heavenly, namely eternal beatitude and glory) and His justice? — namely, of God (for in the Greek it is the masculine autou), that is, the means that lead to the kingdom of God, namely God's grace, virtues, and good and just works, by which we become just or more just before God, and which God has prescribed and commanded for us, so that we may obey Him and His precepts.
AND ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE ADDED TO YOU. — Therefore they will not themselves be the reward of good works, because this entire reward is reserved for us in heaven, says St. Augustine, but they will be added as a small bonus and supplement appended to the weight of the reward: for they are the lowest goods, says St. Chrysostom, in comparison with heavenly things, where "an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure on high" awaits us. 2 Corinthians IV, 17.
Verse 34: Be Not Anxious for Tomorrow
34. BE NOT THEREFORE ANXIOUS FOR TOMORROW (for the future); FOR TOMORROW WILL BE ANXIOUS FOR ITSELF, — that is, about itself. This is the seventh argument, as if to say: Leave to tomorrow, that is, to the future, the care and anxiety of tomorrow, that is, of itself: why do you wish to be worried and miserable before the time? For even if today you summon upon yourselves the cares of tomorrow, the morrow will bring no fewer cares of its own, by which it will be anxious for itself and troublesome to you, so that you will not make its burdens lighter, but will only burden the present day with the additional weight of tomorrow's bundle: therefore let each time keep its own anxiety, today's anxiety for today, tomorrow's for tomorrow; thus anxiety divided into parts will be diminished, and will become lighter and easier to bear. Indeed, if the soul entering the body of a man, as he is born, were to see all the wants, troubles, pains, and anguish that it would undergo throughout its whole life, through each day, hour, and moment, it would shudder with horror, would despair, and would not endure to enter the body. Wherefore God conceals and hides the future hardships that befall us, so that we may pluck them one by one each day, and bear them separately, bit by bit: which is far easier to do. St. Chrysostom wisely says here: "By no means, he says, let the care of a further day wear you down: for since you do not know whether you will see the space of that day, for what reason are you tormented by anxiety about it?" And that holy man Barsidias: "What good does it do to be anxious about future contingencies, which perhaps will never happen?"
Note first: the word "today" signifies the present time; "tomorrow," any future time whatsoever. So St. Hilary and Jerome: similar is verse 6, and the preceding chapter, verses 27 and 29.
Second, by prosopopoeia anxiety is here attributed to tomorrow, because evidently the coming day suggests to man the matter of new anxiety, which must be dealt with according to the time and circumstances. So St. Chrysostom. With a similar figure the Poet says: "You know not what the late evening may bring." And the Psalmist: "Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge." Psalm 18, 3.
Third, Christ here does not forbid all provisions for the morrow, or indeed monthly and yearly provisions of grain, wine, oil, etc.; for these are required by prudent household management, and therefore Joseph prudently made them in Egypt, Genesis 41, 35; and the Apostle, Acts 11, 29. Hence St. Antony, quoted by Cassian, Conference IX, chapter 2, says that some who wished to keep nothing for the morrow were deceived, and were unable to bring the work they had undertaken to a suitable conclusion. See St. Augustine, in his book On the Work of Monks, chapters 28 and 29. But He only forbids useless, anxious, and untimely worries about the future, namely, when someone is anxious about things whose care, according to right reason, does not belong to the present time but to the future: for such a person only does injury to the present day and to himself by needlessly summoning and increasing burdens and cares, and creates futile distress.
Anxiety therefore is twofold: The first is moderate and diligent, which right reason dictates should be applied to a given matter or business, which by the Greeks is called akribeia, that is, diligence, and spoude, that is, zeal. Hence Isidore, Book II of the Etymologies: "Sollicitus (anxious), he says, is said as if solers citus (quickly skillful): inasmuch as someone, by a certain shrewdness of mind, is swift in pursuing things that need to be done;" hence solers (skillful) is said as if solus ars (all art), says Festus, that is, entirely artful, industrious, and ingenious. This anxiety, therefore, is praiseworthy and necessary in all prudence and virtue. The second is immoderate, excessive, premature, and irrelevant, by which a timid or greedy person needlessly torments and afflicts himself about future events, which are entirely uncertain and cannot be foreseen or prevented; this is called by the Greeks merimna (which is the word used here in the Greek), that is, anxious care, anxiety, distress; this is what Christ forbids here, as I said at verse 25. Hence the Interlinear Gloss: "It is not labor, he says, and foresight that is condemned, but anxiety that chokes the mind."
SUFFICIENT FOR THE DAY IS ITS OWN EVIL. — "Evil," that is, trouble, care, and affliction "its own." As if to say: Each day brings its own trouble and anxiety to a man: why then does he needlessly summon upon himself others from the morrow and the future? The Greek kakia, that is, malice, is therefore taken for kakosis, that is, the infliction of evil or affliction. So Jacob says to Pharaoh: "The days of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years, small and evil," that is, miserable. Gen. 47:9. So conversely goodness or good is taken for what is joyful, cheerful and pleasant, as: "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Psalm 132:1. So St. Jerome, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius and St. Augustine, Book II On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, where he expounds this whole sermon of Christ at length. St. Chrysostom gives the reason: "In order that He might rebuke them more sharply, he says, He animated the time itself, and as it were introduced it as afflicted by all, as though it were clamoring superfluously against them concerning the affliction imposed upon it." Hear also St. Augustine: "He calls necessity an evil, because it is penal for us; for it pertains to the mortality which we deserved by sinning. When we see a servant of God providing for necessities, let us not think he is acting against the Lord's precept; for the Lord Himself, for the sake of example, had purses, and in the Acts of the Apostles we read that necessaries were procured for the future because of an impending famine: we are therefore not forbidden to procure things, but to be anxious about them."