Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Christ teaches, first, that hypocrisy is to be shunned, and that men are not to be feared — men who can kill the body — but God, who is able to destroy the soul; secondly, at verse 13, He teaches that avarice and excessive anxiety about food, clothing, and the like are to be avoided, and that one should rather devote oneself to almsgiving; thirdly, at verse 35, He warns us that we ought always to be prepared for the day of death and judgment, since it is uncertain and unexpected; fourthly, at verse 49, He asserts that He has come to send fire, the cross, and separation from friends upon the earth.
We have heard the first part at Matthew 16:6, and 10:26 ff., and 12:32; the second in large part at Matthew 6:20 ff.; the third at Matthew 24:43 ff.; the fourth in part at Matthew 10:34 ff. Wherefore the second and fourth parts remain here to be explained.
Vulgate Text: Luke 12:1-59
1. And when great multitudes were standing about Him, so that they trod one upon another, He began to say to His disciples: "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2. For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, nor hidden that shall not be known. 3. For whatever things you have spoken in darkness shall be said in the light; and that which you have spoken in the ear in bedrooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. 4. And I say to you my friends: Be not afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. 5. But I will show you whom you shall fear: fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him. 6. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? 7. Yea, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: you are of more value than many sparrows. 8. And I say to you, Whosoever shall confess Me before men, the Son of Man also will confess him before the Angels of God; 9. but he that shall deny Me before men shall be denied before the Angels of God. 10. And every one that speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but to him that shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven. 11. And when they shall bring you into the synagogues, and to magistrates and powers, be not anxious how or what you shall answer, or what you shall say: 12. for the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what you must say. 13. And one out of the crowd said to Him: Master, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. 14. But He said to him: Man, who has appointed Me judge or divider over you? 15. And He said to them: Take heed and beware of all covetousness, for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses. 16. And He spoke a similitude to them, saying: The land of a certain rich man brought forth plentiful fruits; 17. and he thought within himself, saying: What shall I do, because I have no place where to store my fruits? 18. And he said: This I will do: I will pull down my barns and build greater; and thither I will gather all things that have grown for me, and my goods, 19. and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years: take your rest, eat, drink, feast. 20. But God said to him: You fool, this night they require your soul of you; and whose shall those things be which you have provided? 21. So is he that lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. 22. And He said to His disciples: Therefore I say to you: Be not anxious for your life, what you shall eat; nor for your body, what you shall put on. 23. The life is more than the meat, and the body more than the raiment. 24. Consider the ravens, for they sow not, neither do they reap, who have neither storehouse nor barn, and God feeds them. How much more are you of value than they? 25. And which of you, by taking thought, can add to his stature one cubit? 26. If then you are not able to do so much as the least thing, why are you anxious for the rest? 27. Consider the lilies, how they grow: they labor not, neither do they spin: but I say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. 28. Now if God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith? 29. And seek not what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; and be not lifted up on high. 30. For all these things do the nations of the world seek. But your Father knows that you have need of these things. 31. But rather seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. 32. Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom. 33. Sell what you possess and give alms. Make to yourselves bags that grow not old, a treasure in heaven that fails not, where no thief approaches, nor moth corrupts. 34. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 35. Let your loins be girt, and lamps burning in your hands; 36. and you yourselves like to men who wait for their lord, when he shall return from the wedding: that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately. 37. Blessed are those servants whom the lord, when he comes, shall find watching: amen I say to you, that he will gird himself and make them sit down to meat, and passing by will minister to them. 38. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. 39. But know this, that if the householder knew at what hour the thief would come, he would surely watch and not allow his house to be broken into. 40. You also be ready, for at the hour when you think not, the Son of Man will come. 41. And Peter said to Him: Lord, do You speak this parable to us, or also to all? 42. And the Lord said: Who, do you think, is the faithful and prudent steward, whom his lord has set over his household, to give them their measure of wheat in due season? 43. Blessed is that servant whom his lord, when he comes, shall find so doing. 44. Verily I say to you, he will set him over all that he possesses. 45. But if that servant shall say in his heart: My lord delays his coming; and shall begin to strike the menservants and maidservants, and to eat and drink and be drunken: 46. the lord of that servant will come in a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour when he does not know, and will cut him asunder, and appoint his portion with the unbelievers. 47. And that servant who knew his lord's will, and did not prepare, nor act according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; 48. but he who did not know, and yet did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few. To every one to whom much is given, much shall be required of him; and to whom they have committed much, they will ask the more of him. 49. I have come to send fire upon the earth, and what do I wish but that it be kindled? 50. And I have a baptism with which to be baptized; and how am I straitened until it be accomplished! 51. Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but separation: 52. for there shall be henceforth five in one house divided, three against two and two against three 53. shall be divided: father against son, and son against his father; mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 54. And He said also to the crowds: When you see a cloud rising in the west, at once you say: A shower is coming; and so it happens; 55. and when the south wind blows, you say: There will be heat; and it comes to pass. 56. Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of sky and earth, but how is it that you do not discern this time? 57. And why do you not judge even of yourselves what is right? 58. As you go with your adversary to the magistrate, make an effort on the way to be delivered from him, lest he hale you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer cast you into prison. 59. I say to you, you shall not go out from there until you pay even the very last mite.
Verse 1: When Great Multitudes Stood About Him
1. AND WHEN GREAT MULTITUDES (in Greek tōn myriadōn tou ochlou, that is, of myriads of the crowd: myrias strictly contains ten thousand, but from this is then taken for an innumerable multitude, as is the case here; correct with the Roman manuscript to "running together") STOOD ABOUT HIM. — In Greek episynachtheisōn, that is, gathered together, collected, and united.
Verse 2: Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
2. BEWARE OF THE LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES, WHICH IS HYPOCRISY. FOR THERE IS NOTHING COVERED THAT SHALL NOT BE REVEALED. — That is to say, as Bede writes: "Take heed not to imitate dissemblers, for the time will surely come in which both your virtue will be revealed to all, and their hypocrisy." The rest I have explained at Matthew 10:26.
Verse 6: Are Not Five Sparrows Sold for Two Farthings
6. ARE NOT FIVE SPARROWS SOLD (venduntur) FOR TWO FARTHINGS. — In Greek, for two assaria. The as or assarion is a kind of bronze coin, which was also called the libella, because it had the weight of a libra (pound), ten of which the denarius, a silver coin, was worth: since therefore the denarius was worth five Belgian stuivers or ten Roman baiocchi, it follows that the assarion was equivalent to the baiocco; and double the assarius was called dipondius or dupondius, from the two weights, because it weighed two asses. So Varro. Further, Matthew, chapter 10, verse 29, says: "Are not two sparrows sold for an as?" Whence Luke here rightly and consistently says: "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings?" that is, for two asses. And Jansenius rightly notes that this is to be understood not of the libral asses, but of the sextantal or uncial asses, and therefore in Greek they are called diminutively assaria.
For the assarion, as Euthymius says, does not denote the as, since it is a diminutive of it, but rather a kind of very small coin, an obol. See what is said at Matthew 10:26.
Verse 13: Master, Tell My Brother to Divide the Inheritance
13. AND ONE OUT OF THE CROWD SAID TO HIM: MASTER, TELL MY BROTHER TO DIVIDE THE INHERITANCE WITH ME. — That is to say: My brother is wronging me; he alone wishes to take possession of our father's inheritance, and will not share it with me: command him therefore to do so. For You by Your authority will accomplish by a word what I cannot accomplish through judges and many lawsuits: for it is Yours to defend justice and to raise up the oppressed; for You are the patron of justice.
Verse 14: Man, Who Has Appointed Me Judge or Divider
14. BUT HE SAID: MAN, WHO HAS APPOINTED ME JUDGE OR DIVIDER OVER YOU? — "Man": in the Hebrew manner He thus addresses one whom He does not know, just as Peter, at 22:58, says: "O man, I am not"; and at verse 60: "Man, I know not what you say." The sense is: This judgment belongs to the courts, which deal with earthly inheritance; it is not Mine, for I teach and distribute a heavenly inheritance. Christ therefore does not here deny that He has judicial authority; for He was King of kings and Lord of lords: but He was unwilling to use it here in the presence of a covetous man, in order to remove his covetousness from him, and to teach him to despise earthly things in comparison with heavenly, and to yield them willingly, according to the passage of chapter 6:29: "From him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either." "Rightly does He decline earthly things," says St. Ambrose, "who had come down for the sake of divine things," etc. Hence this brother is not without reason refused, who sought to engage a dispenser of heavenly things with corruptible affairs; at the same time that He might teach ecclesiastical and spiritual men, that they ought not to deal with worldly matters but with divine ones, according to that saying of Paul, 2 Timothy 2:4: "No one engaged in God's warfare entangles himself in worldly affairs." So St. Ambrose, Euthymius, Bede, and Lyranus, following St. Augustine, Sermon 196. Understand this, unless the peace, charity, and piety of the faithful require otherwise; for which cause of old bishops used to adjudicate the secular disputes of the faithful, as St. Augustine testifies he himself did, in his book On the Work of Monks, chapter 29.
Verse 15: Beware of All Covetousness
15. AND HE SAID TO THEM (both to His disciples, as the Syriac has it, and to the crowd present; especially to the man who was contending with his brother about the division of the inheritance): SEE (in this contention of brothers what great harm avarice brings; for while one, in his greed, does not wish to share the inheritance with his brother, and the other too greedily and unseasonably urges the division, lawsuits and quarrels arise among brothers — or "see to it") AND BEWARE (that is, attentively beware, so that it is a hendiadys) OF ALL COVETOUSNESS. — In Greek pleonexias, that is, of avarice; as if to say: Not only beware of the desire to seize what belongs to others, but also of excessive eagerness to acquire your own; for those who gape too much after earthly riches neglect heavenly ones. Thus Augustine, in Sermon 28 On Various Subjects, explains the phrase "of all": "Not only," he says, "is he avaricious who seizes what belongs to another, but he too is avaricious who greedily keeps what is his own." Further, the Arabic renders it: "see and beware of all evil," because the cause of every evil is avarice, according to that saying of 1 Timothy 6: "The root of all evils is covetousness."
BECAUSE A MAN'S LIFE DOES NOT CONSIST IN THE ABUNDANCE (in Greek en tō perisseuein, that is, in abounding) OF THE THINGS WHICH HE POSSESSES. — That is to say: It is not because one abounds in riches that his life also is abundant, such that it should be longer and happier because of the many things he possesses; rather it is shorter and more miserable, because of the anxiety and luxury which are wont to follow or accompany great wealth. Whence the Syriac translates: "life does not consist in the abundance of riches"; the Arabic: "because man has not abundance in his many goods," that is, abundance does not prolong life, but rather shortens it. Hear Theophylact: "The measure of life is not contained in abundance; for neither does he who possesses much live longer, nor does a long life accompany a multitude of riches." And Euthymius: "It is not because some man abounds in riches that his life abounds from such abundance; the measure of life is not reckoned according to this."
The sense is, as if to say: You, O man, who eagerly demand your share of the inheritance from your brother, you demand it in order to live longer and more comfortably. But you are mistaken, because the rich, on account of the anxieties and banquets in which they indulge, are often of a short and miserable life; if then you wish to live long and comfortably, despise riches, be poor in spirit, place your hopes and your wealth in God alone, for God alone is the giver of long life and happiness; to show this, Christ introduces the following parable. Hear St. Ambrose, On Abel and Cain, Book I, chapter 5, at the end: "If you seek treasures, take the invisible and hidden ones, which you should look for in the highest heavens, not in the veins of the earth. Be poor in spirit, and you will be rich, whatever your rating may be; because the life of man does not consist in the abundance of riches, but in virtue and faith. These riches will make you truly rich, if you are rich toward God."
Verse 16: The Land of a Certain Rich Man Brought Forth Plentiful Fruits
16. AND HE SPOKE A SIMILITUDE (in Greek a parable) TO THEM, SAYING: THE LAND OF A CERTAIN RICH MAN BROUGHT FORTH PLENTIFUL FRUITS. — "Land"; in Greek chōra, that is, a region, a multitude of fields.
Verse 17: What Shall I Do, Because I Have No Place
17. AND HE THOUGHT WITHIN HIMSELF, SAYING: WHAT SHALL I DO, BECAUSE I HAVE NO PLACE WHERE TO STORE MY FRUITS? — Behold cares for you, behold the poverty of the rich man; he who abounds in wealth and strong-boxes is in need of space. "He is distressed," says Euthymius, "and anguished like one very poor, because he is too wealthy": he needs a place in which to store his crops. And St. Basil, in his homily on these words of Christ: "The earth itself," he says, "does not bear increase, but brings forth groans. For just like one pressed by want, this wretch is tormented and laments, saying: What shall I do? Does he not utter the same cry as one who, on account of poverty, is in straits and a beggar? Out of all the things with which his house overflows he gathers no joy, but these very things prick and lacerate his mind."
MY FRUITS. — "He has not yet," says St. Basil, "gathered his fruits, and already he incurs the judgment of avarice (by calling them his own): for how many dangers threaten before the gathering of fruits! For hail often breaks them down, and heat snatches them from the very hands, and rain bursting unseasonably from the mountains makes them useless."
Verse 18: I Will Pull Down My Barns, and Build Greater
18. AND HE SAID: THIS I WILL DO: I WILL PULL DOWN MY BARNS, AND BUILD GREATER (in Greek, I will build greater) AND I WILL GATHER THERE ALL THINGS THAT HAVE GROWN FOR ME (this year), AND MY GOODS — the rest which I have collected in previous years. He takes counsel from covetousness, not from charity, which would have told him: Give them to the poor. Do you seek barns? "You have barns, namely the bellies of the poor," says St. Basil; and St. Ambrose, in his book On Naboth, chapter 7: "You have storehouses," he says, "the bosoms of the needy, the homes of widows, the mouths of orphans and infants; let these be your storehouses, which remain with you for eternity." Again St. Basil, in the homily already cited: "He is a plunderer," he says, "who, having received things to be distributed, considers them his own: the bread of the hungry is what you hold; the tunic of the naked is what you keep; the silver of the needy is what you possess buried in the earth: wherefore you do injury to as many as you could feed." And he adds: "And when you have filled your barns, what will you then do with the next year's harvest? Again you will tear down the barns and always build new and greater ones: you will therefore always spend and exhaust your fruits and wealth in tearing down old buildings and constructing new ones, so that the fruits, which were born of the earth, return into their own earth, because you do not wish to distribute them to the poor, because you begrudge their use to men, so that, with everything drawn back to yourself, you deprive all of their benefit — indeed, yourself as well: for just as grain falling into the earth yields profit to the one who casts it, so bread cast to the hungry will return to you much benefit hereafter."
Verse 19: Soul, You Have Much Goods Laid Up for Many Years
19. AND I WILL SAY TO MY SOUL: SOUL, YOU HAVE MUCH GOODS LAID UP FOR MANY YEARS: TAKE YOUR REST, EAT, DRINK, FEAST. — Again this rich man errs and sins: first, in promising himself many years, though on the following night he is to die. He who was promising himself long times did not see the following day, says St. Gregory, Moralia, Book 22, chapter 6. Whence St. Cyril, in the Catena, says: "You have indeed, O rich man, fruits in your barns, but many years — whence have you them?" Secondly, by giving himself over to gluttony and luxury, saying: "Eat, drink, feast," like an Epicurean, because after death there is no pleasure.
TAKE YOUR REST. — With the plague of avarice is joined the plague of sloth, says the Gloss. Whence St. Basil: "If," he says, "you had a pig's soul, what else could you have announced to it? Are you then so bestial, so ignorant of the soul's goods, that you appoint it as something to be entertained with carnal banquets and with whatever the bowels take in, etc.? Now, since you savor earthly things and have your belly as your God, and, become wholly flesh, you serve vicious affections, hear the appellation that is fitting for you: 'You fool, this night they will require your soul from you.'" Thus far Basil.
Wisely St. Ambrose warns, in Book 2 of the Interpellations on Job, chapter 5: "A great enticement to sin," he says, "is the abundance of prosperous things; it lays one on one's back, it puffs up, it pours in forgetfulness of the Creator," etc.
Verse 20: You Fool, This Night They Require Your Soul
20. BUT GOD SAID TO HIM: YOU FOOL, THIS NIGHT THEY REQUIRE YOUR SOUL OF YOU: AND THE THINGS YOU HAVE PROVIDED, WHOSE SHALL THEY BE? — "He said," not by a word, but by deed, sending him a fever or some other fatal illness, by which He brought it about that the rich man's own conscience dictated these things to him. Whence Euthymius: "He said these things to him," he says, "through his conscience: for then the conscience, sensing death, discourses on such things."
FOOL. — Because in your counsel, in which you seemed wise to yourself, you now see that you have been foolish.
THIS NIGHT. — In the night his soul was taken away, the soul which had been unwilling to have the light of consideration, says St. Gregory, Moralia, Book 15; and which was tending toward the darkness of hell, as the same Gregory notes, Moralia, Book 2, chapter 2.
THEY REQUIRE (namely God and His angels, as God's collectors: not by chance, but by God's just judgment they "require," as it were, from one who is unwilling) YOUR SOUL FROM YOU — so that you may render Him an account of all the fruits and riches which God has given you, and of all that is yours. So Toletus. Again, "they require"; because your soul does not die with the body, but is immortal. Moreover, your soul is not yours, but God's, who breathed it into you and entrusted it to you as a deposit: therefore rightly, through imminent death, He now requires it from you.
Hear St. Jerome on death's imminence for every man, in his Epistle 3 to Heliodorus: "Xerxes, that most mighty king who tore down mountains and paved the seas, when from a lofty place he had beheld an endless multitude of men and an innumerable army, is said to have wept, because after a hundred years not one of those whom he then saw would survive. Oh, if we could ascend to such a watchtower, from which we might see the whole earth beneath our feet! I would already show you the ruins of the whole world, nations dashed against nations, and kingdoms against kingdoms: and not Xerxes' army alone, but the men of the whole world who now live would in a brief space be no more."
AND THE THINGS YOU HAVE PROVIDED, WHOSE SHALL THEY BE? — "Not only will they not come to you," says Euthymius, "not only will they not be yours, but neither is it clear to you whose they will be — whether an heir's or a stranger's? a friend's or an enemy's? which itself also increases grief." St. James adds, chapter 5:3: "They will eat your flesh as it were fire." See what is said there.
Truly St. Ambrose says: "Those things are not ours which we cannot carry away with us. Virtue alone is the companion of the dead, mercy alone follows us, which obtains for the dead eternal dwellings." See St. Augustine, homily 38 among the 50, where among other things he says: "What Christ does not receive, the treasury takes." Truly wise: "What fortune has lent, it will take back; what nature has loaned, it will demand again; what virtue has prepared, it will retain." See what I have gathered from the Fathers on the vanity and perniciousness of riches at Isaiah 5:9.
Verse 21: He Who Lays Up Treasure for Himself, and Is Not Rich Toward God
21. SO IS HE WHO LAYS UP TREASURE FOR HIMSELF, AND IS NOT RICH TOWARD GOD. — That is to say: Such a faith, such an end will the covetous rich man obtain, who lays up treasure for himself, not for God. You will ask who is "rich toward God?" I answer, first: "toward God," that is, rich in God's sight, or, as one may translate from the Greek ploutōn, "growing rich," is he who through almsgiving and other good works has many merits and protections laid up with God as hidden riches, and is daily laying up greater ones, as the Apostle teaches at length in 1 Timothy 6:17 and following. See what is said there.
Secondly, "toward God," that is, in God, as the Arabic translates: he is rich who strives to please God alone, who fixes all his hope and love in God, who reposes wholly in God, so that he may be beatified by Him and enjoy Him eternally. Whence the Gloss: "He is rich toward God," it says, "whose expectation is the Lord, and whose substance is with God." "Rich toward God," says St. Augustine, in Sermon 28 On the Words of the Apostle, "is one who is destitute of gold" — that is, poor in spirit, as Peter was when he said to the lame man: "Silver and gold I have none; but what I have, this I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ, rise and walk," Acts 3. The same, on Psalm 39: "Christ, though He was rich, became poor, so that by His poverty you might be enriched." He enriches the truly poor, He impoverishes the falsely rich, according to that saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven," Matthew 5.
"Let us therefore strive," says Theophylact, "to become rich toward God, that is, to place our trust in Him, and that He may hold our riches and the storehouse of our riches; and let us not call the goods 'ours,' but 'God's': and if the goods are God's, let us not deprive God of His own goods. This is to be enriched in God, to believe that if I give away everything and empty myself completely, nothing of necessary things will fail me. For my storehouse is God: I will open it and take out the necessaries of which I shall have need."
Thirdly, "rich," that is, generous "toward God," is he who is liberal toward the poor: for what is done for them, God accounts as done for Himself, and rewards. Whence Bede: "He who wishes to be rich toward God," he says, "should not lay up treasure for himself, but distribute his possessions to the poor." This sense is good, but partial. For Christ is not here dealing precisely with almsgiving, but with true riches, which He teaches are not the fruits and wealth of the earth, but virtues and good works; for these bring forth a long and blessed life, both in this age, and still more in the age to come.
Fourthly, St. Augustine, Sermon 44 On the Seasons, teaches that he is rich toward God who is full of charity, and therefore of God: "For God is charity, and he who has charity abides in God, and God in him," 1 John 4. Hear St. Augustine: "If you have charity, you have God. What does the rich man have, if he does not have charity? The poor man, if he has charity, what does he not have? Do you perhaps think that he is rich whose strongbox is full of gold, and that he is not rich whose conscience is full of God? Truly he seems to be rich in whom God deigns to dwell."
Finally, a man rich toward God is one abounding in every virtue, as St. Ambrose beautifully and fully explains in Book 4, epistle 27 to Simplicianus, whose words I have cited at 1 Peter 3:4, on the passage: "In the incorruptibility of a quiet and modest spirit, which is rich in the sight of God."
Anagogically: rich toward God are the blessed, who enjoy God and all the riches of God. Whence St. Augustine, Sermon 74 On the Seasons, concludes that only the Blessed are rich, both because they possess God and because they have need of nothing. "He," he says, "is truly rich who has need of nothing; but only the Blessed have need of nothing: therefore only the Blessed are rich." Hence the same Augustine, in the first preface to Psalm 40: "Christ," he says, "was rich with the Father, and poor with us; rich in heaven, poor on earth; rich as God, poor as Man."
Wherefore St. Ambrose wisely says, in Epistle 33 to Demetrias: "At what price," he says, "is the repose of this present time more suitably purchased than that all riches, all dignities, and the material of all lusts should be poured back upon the world itself, and by a holy and blessed exchange Christian liberty should be bought, and the Sons of God should become rich out of poverty, strong out of patience, sublime out of humility?" And after a few intervening words: "Whence, if a genuine contempt of these present things is understood, to what it tends and what things it desires, nothing more upright than such minds will be found, nothing more choice; minds which with most sacred desires transcend all things, and seek not any creature, however powerful and wonderful, but the Creator Himself of all things visible and invisible — to approach whom is to grow bright; whom to fear is to rejoice; whom to serve is to reign."
Verse 29: And Be Not Lifted Up on High
29. AND BE NOT LIFTED UP ON HIGH. — In Greek mē meteōrizesthe, which the various commentators explain in various ways. First, Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogue Book 2, chapter 10, explains it thus: Be not drawn away from the truth, so as to wish to have a loftier understanding than faith and truth teach.
Secondly, St. Augustine, Book 2 of the Questions on the Gospels, Question 29, explains thus: Do not be proud because you have an abundance of food and clothing. For to be proud in this way, when one has plenty of provisions, is like a wounded man boasting because he has many bandages at home, when it would be better for him not to be in need of even one, says St. Augustine.
Thirdly, Euthymius, thus: Do not be dragged down from lofty and heavenly things to earthly ones, so that you savor and seek not heavenly but earthly things.
Fourthly, Theophylact, thus: Do not be unstable in mind, always imagining something more lofty, as do those who, not content with present things, are always looking toward greater.
Fifthly, and best of all, mē meteōrizesthe, that is, do not anxiously contemplate the meteors which are above you — for example, the constellations and conjunctions of the stars, the movements of the clouds, the blasts of the winds, etc. — so as from them to judge and forecast about the future abundance or scarcity of the harvest; according to Jeremiah 10: "Fear not the signs of heaven, which the Gentiles fear." And Ecclesiastes 11:4: "He who observes the wind does not sow; and he who regards the clouds will never reap." So Toletus, Vatablus, and others. Whence Vatablus renders: "do not be anxious," as though out of anxiety turning one's face up to the sky. Or, as if to say: Do not hang in mind as if suspended in the air, looking in various directions to various human and created aids, rather than being fixed on God's providence. Whence the Arabic translates: "do not be anxious." For all these things look to this: that Christ should remove from us excessive anxiety about food and clothing, and imprint upon us firm confidence in God, so that from His paternal providence we may securely await all these things. For in Greek one is called meteōros who is uncertain in mind, suspended, not yet fixed in mind, but waiting to take counsel from the outcome, and, as Gaza translates, "hanging." Hence others translate: "do not look out from on high," which as we commonly say, do not make long speculations, as if leaving no room for divine providence, or doubting it. And Franciscus Lucas: "Let it not come to pass," he says, "that you are carried up on high, that is, anxiously looking far ahead to things to come, so that you consult for the future needs of the body over a long time and provide, stretching your anxiety about food and clothing into the distant future," which Matthew 6:34 clearly explains, saying: "Be not solicitous for the morrow." All these sayings come to the same point, forbidding excessive concern for the future, and commanding that things to come be resigned to divine providence, and to trust in it and rest securely. Following this precept of Christ, St. Francis willed and ordained that his brethren should live from day to day, keeping nothing in reserve for the morrow, but giving whatever remained beyond the day's sustenance to the poor, confidently trusting that God would provide for the next day's food: just as God sent bread daily by a raven to Elijah and to Paul the first hermit, and rained down manna from heaven sufficient for the daily sustenance of the children of Israel (who were easily some three million souls) in the desert for 40 years, and moreover preserved their garments whole and unworn, indeed making them grow together with the growing children.
Verse 32: Fear Not, Little Flock
32. Fear not (lest food and clothing should fail you, if, laying aside anxiety, you sell your possessions and give to the poor, and lest these things should not be added unto you, if you first seek the kingdom of God), LITTLE FLOCK, — that is, small: first, because at that time the faithful were few, and they were poor either in condition and wealth, or in choice and disposition, that is, in spirit; for they despised the riches of earth that they might pant after those of heaven, and therefore before the world they were "little," that is, vile and despised: but now, with the faith and religion of Christ spread throughout the whole world, so that kings and princes also subject themselves to Him, it is no longer a little flock, but a most ample and most powerful Church. Secondly, the flock of faithful men is little if it be compared with the angels, who are innumerable, says Euthymius, according to that text: "Thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him." Daniel VII. Thirdly, the flock of the faithful is little if it be compared with the great multitude of unbelievers and the impious.
Bede adds: it is called a little flock because of humility, or in comparison with the greater number of the reprobate. For at that time all the faithful, following the example of Christ, willingly humbled themselves to Christian humility and poverty, especially the Apostles and disciples of Christ; whence Christ says to them: "Sell what you possess." In Greek it is mē phobou, to mikron poimnion, that is, "Fear not, small flock," or "little one": whence it is clear that "little" is in the nominative case; but the nominative is put here, as often elsewhere, for the vocative; for here Christ is immediately calling and addressing the Apostles. Thus Livy says, in Book I: "Hear, people of Alba." And Virgil: "Cast down your weapons, blood of mine," that is, my blood. And: "Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world," that is, O Lamb of God: for the nominative is here more forceful and more meaningful than if the vocative were placed as such. Wherefore, though it might be expounded by supplying certain words — as if He said: "Fear not, you who are a little flock," so that it may remain a nominative — nevertheless it is shorter and more forceful to supply nothing, and so the nominative is put for the vocative. Therefore fear not, O faithful ones, because although you are a little flock, yet God holds you in great esteem and bears a great and singular care for you, and Christ the Lord is your shepherd, who will abundantly feed you, according to that saying: "I am the good shepherd," John 10:11; and: "The Lord ruleth me, and I shall want nothing; He hath set me in a place of pasture," Psalm 22. Hear Blessed Peter Chrysologus, sermon 22: "A flock little to the world is great to God;" and sermon 33: "Humility has acquired what pride lost, and the little and gentle flock by its own meekness has subdued all the various wildnesses of beasts: the little flock has conquered and broken as many kinds of beasts as it has subjected nations under the yoke of Christ;" and this it did not by striking but by suffering, not by fighting but by dying for Christ.
BECAUSE IT HATH PLEASED YOUR FATHER TO GIVE YOU A KINGDOM. — "To you," not to the lazy, not to those at leisure, not to those who presume upon the mercy of God alone, but to those who hear My words and commands and truly carry them out, and who therefore take up the cross and follow Me, mortifying your passions and devoting yourselves assiduously to good works. "To give," not absolutely, but conditionally, namely if you persevere in My faith, love, and obedience unto death; for this kingdom was not given to Judas when he afterwards fell away from Christ. Christ gives the reason why the disciples, though little and poor, ought not to fear lest necessities fail them, as if to say: Since God so loves you that He destines you for heavenly riches, and for the very kingdom of God and heaven, surely He will not deny you these vile earthly goods insofar as they are necessary so that you may strive toward the heavenly kingdom and evangelize it by word and life. So St. Cyril says in the Catena: "He who gives such precious things, how will He not be willing toward you as to feed you, and not let you die of hunger?"
Verse 33: Sell What You Possess, and Give Alms
33. SELL WHAT YOU POSSESS, AND GIVE ALMS. — This is counsel, not a precept, as Pelagius wanted, saying that all Christians must be poor by the precept of Christ. For that this is counsel is plain from Christ's own words, Matthew 19:17 and 21: "If thou wilt be perfect," he says, "go, sell all, etc." The sense therefore is, as if He said: That you may strive for evangelical perfection, sell what you possess, and give the price to the poor, that you may follow Me, who am poor in spirit, in a like poverty, and may despise with Me earthly goods, that you may obtain heavenly ones. Moreover, do this for this end — to show that you are not anxious about food and clothing, but depend entirely upon God's providence, and await from Him the necessities of life which He has promised to those who seek His kingdom. For this reason this counsel of Christ the first Christians followed, selling all their goods and laying the price at the feet of the Apostles, that they might distribute it among the poor faithful, Acts 2:3-4. So Bede says: "Fear not," he says, "that the necessaries of life will fail you; nay, even sell your possessions for the sake of almsgiving; which is then worthily done, when, all things being despised, one lives by the labor of his hands and gives alms."
MAKE FOR YOURSELVES PURSES (in Greek balantia, that is, bags, money-pouches, wallets) THAT DO NOT GROW OLD (and therefore from which the spiritual money of almsgiving cannot fall out or be lost, as temporal money often falls out and is lost from the bags and wallets of the rich, worn out and torn by age. These purses that grow not old are the bosom of the poor, and more especially the mind and memory of God, in which, as in a purse, God preserves your alms and good works, so as to repay you their most ample reward on the day of judgment. He explains this, adding): A TREASURE THAT FAILETH NOT IN HEAVEN (that is, make and prepare for yourselves through works of piety and charity), WHERE NO THIEF APPROACHETH, NOR MOTH CORRUPTETH. — Hence Chrysologus rightly infers, sermon 25: "What then has he to do with earth who possesses heaven? what with human things, he who has already obtained the divine? unless perchance groans are pleasing, labors are chosen, dangers are loved, the worst death gives delight, and evils inflicted are more welcome than blessings bestowed."
Verse 34: Where Your Treasure Is, There Will Your Heart Be Also
34. FOR WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, THERE WILL YOUR HEART BE ALSO. — This is the reason a priori why He said: "Sell what you possess, and give alms;" namely, to show that your heart is not fixed on bronze but on heaven, because where the treasure is, there the heart is also: if therefore you lay up your treasure in heaven through almsgiving, you will likewise show that your heart is fixed in heaven, not on earth; in God, not in gold. For a man's treasure is that which he himself loves, holds dear, values highly, in which he places his hope, etc. For the rest, see Matthew 6:20.
Verse 35: Let Your Loins Be Girt, and Lamps Burning in Your Hands
35. LET YOUR LOINS BE GIRDED, AND LAMPS BURNING IN YOUR HANDS, AND BE YOURSELVES LIKE MEN WAITING FOR THEIR LORD, WHEN HE SHALL RETURN FROM THE WEDDING. — The Syriac reads: Let your loins be girded and your lamps be lit. So also the Arabic, Egyptian, Ethiopic, and Persian. Connect this passage with what precedes as follows. Christ had said it pleased the Father to give them the kingdom; sell therefore what you possess and give alms, that through almsgiving you may purchase this kingdom: now He urges that they earnestly prepare themselves for this kingdom as though it were at hand, and gird their loins and, casting aside every other care, enter upon and seize the way toward it; as if to say: Be prepared, and furnished with all virtues and good works and merits, especially almsgiving and contempt of riches, so that when Christ the Lord returns from heaven and the heavenly wedding and its joys to you at death, to the judgment of your soul, you may be worthy to meet Him, and may deserve to be adjudged to heaven and to be led into heaven.
He alludes to the custom of the Orientals, such as the Hebrews and Syrians, among whom it was the practice to wear longer garments and tunics, which those about to travel, or labor, or serve would gird up, so as to be unimpeded for their journey and service, lest they be hindered by their garments constantly flapping against their knees and shins, as is clear from Tobias 5:5; and 3 Kings 18:46; below, verse 37.
Mystically: we gird our loins when we restrain the lust of the flesh (whose origin, as also of seed, is in the loins) through continence, says St. Gregory, homily 13; and St. Augustine, sermon 39 On the Words of the Lord; St. Basil, on Isaiah 15; Bede and others. Hear Chrysologus, sermon 24: "He commands our loins to be bound by the belt of chastity, and all that is dangling, loose, and relaxed in our flesh to be bound tight by the continuous girdle of virtue, so that with the flesh girt up, the movement of our mind may be rendered free, swift, and ready to meet the Lord."
Moreover, these two sayings, verses 33 and 36, can be joined together with Maldonatus, so that they contain one and the same parable: they can also be separated with Jansenius, so that they contain two, one of girded loins and burning lamps, the other of servants awaiting the return of their lord from the wedding.
Accordingly, this maxim is variously expounded by various commentators: for there are various kinds of persons who gird themselves — namely laborers, servants, travelers, messengers, soldiers, porters, the continent — and their girdles are various: that is, laborers are girded with the girdle of labor, servants with the girdle of service, travelers and messengers with the girdle of the road, soldiers with the girdle of warfare, which is the girdle of vigor, porters with the girdle of constancy and patience, the continent with the girdle of continence, mortification, and penance.
First, therefore, concerning laborers girding their loins for work, Theophylactus explains it thus: "Let your loins be girded," that is, be in all ways prepared for the works of your Lord, and "let your lamps be burning in your hands," that is, do not walk about in darkness and without judgment; but let there be for you the light of the Word, which will show you what is to be done and what is not to be done. This world, therefore, is night. So too Euthymius and Titus explain it; as if to say: Be prepared and ready to undertake every good work.
Secondly, concerning those who serve Christ and the poor through almsgiving (for this was the subject of the immediately preceding discourse), others explain it as follows: Gird your loins, so that you may be ready and nimble to minister to Christ and the poor: on which subject there exists a beautiful vision in the Life of St. John the Almoner, who was always most prompt in giving alms to anyone who asked, chapter 29, where a ruler who was slower in lending was taught by a vision of a hundredfold reward to be swifter.
Thirdly, concerning travelers girding their loins for a journey, others explain it as follows: Gird your loins, so that you may be ready for the journey to heaven, of which the discourse has been about; for toward that a great journey still remains for you. For the empyrean heaven is distant from earth by more than two hundred million miles, as I showed from Clavius on Genesis I. So that even if you ascended directly upward a hundred miles each day, you would not yet reach the empyrean after two hundred years. For which reason, since this is impossible for you, God ordained that you should strive thither not by steps of the body, but by the affections of the soul in great strides.
Wherefore that anchorite, in John Moschus, in the Spiritual Meadow, was admonished about this by a vision. For when he seemed to himself to be approaching heaven and wished to enter it, he heard from an angel: "No lazy man enters here: go, strive, despise the vanities of the world." And Barlaam to Josaphat, in Damascenus, in Historia, chapter 45: "A long journey," he says, "must be undertaken by you, one which requires much provision from this life, in order that you may reach the eternal place in which there are many mansions." To this purpose is that saying of St. Peter, 1 Peter 1: "Having the loins of your mind girt up, being sober, trust perfectly in the grace which is offered you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, as children of obedience, not fashioned according to the former desires of your ignorance, but according to Him who called you, the Holy One, that you also may be holy in all your conduct."
He alludes to the departure and passage (whence in Hebrew it was called Pascha) of the Hebrews from Egypt into the promised land, which was a figure of the saints passing from earth and striving toward heaven: for God thus commanded and ordained for the Hebrews in the eating of the paschal lamb, to be immolated for a blessed passage: "You shall gird your loins, and you shall have shoes on your feet, holding staves in your hands," as though girded and ready for beginning the journey, "and you shall eat in haste; for it is the phase, that is, the passage of the Lord." The same is to be done mystically by Christians. See what was said there.
Fourthly, messengers and ambassadors gird their loins so as to be swift in carrying out their embassy. Hence angels, who are God's messengers, are depicted with loins girded, as though swift and nimble to execute God's commands, according to that text: "Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire," Hebrews 1. Christ therefore says: You, O Apostles and disciples, gird your loins, that you may be My ambassadors throughout the whole world, that is, that you may proclaim the evangelical faith to Greeks, Romans, Italians, Gauls, Spaniards, Indians, Brazilians, Japanese, Chinese, etc. Behold I send you: go therefore courageously, swiftly, and ardently, like angels, according to that saying of Isaiah 17:2: "Go, swift angels, to a nation torn and rent asunder." And chapter 57:7, which Paul cites, Romans 10:15: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!"
Fifthly, soldiers and athletes gird their loins, so that being girded they may be stronger and fight more bravely: for the loins, since they are entirely of flesh and weak, become firm and strong through the girdle. So too you, O Christians, gird your loins with the girdle of vigor and fortitude, so that like soldiers of Christ you may fight bravely against the devil, the flesh, and the world, conquer and triumph, according to that saying of Paul, Ephesians 6:14: "Stand having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, etc." Where I said much on this subject. Thus David says, Psalm 117: "Thou hast girded me with strength unto battle." And Job, chapter 38: "Gird up thy loins like a man." And Exodus 12: "You shall gird your loins;" for they went armed with weapons to conquer the promised land. Whence Origen, homily 9 on the book of Judges, thinks there is an allusion here to the soldiers of Gideon, who went girded against the Midianites, and holding lamps, that is, burning torches in jars, dashing them together, and with the flame flashing forth they terrified the Midianites, driving them to flight, indeed to mutual slaughter.
Sixthly, porters, in order to be strong for carrying loads and not to be ruptured or contract a hernia, gird their loins: so you too, O faithful, gird your loins with the girdle of patience, that you may generously endure all adversity. Thus Cyril, in the Catena: "Be ready," he says, "to endure evils."
Seventhly, the continent, in order to subdue the flesh and generously resist all depraved movements of concupiscence, gird themselves with the girdle of continence, that is, of self-denial and mortification, by which they deny, reject, mortify, and cut away all evil desires that constantly arise from concupiscence. Thus Simeon Stylites bound his bare loins with a rough rope of a water-bucket, which cut him to the bone: for it had entered the flesh so deeply that it was scarcely visible, whereupon the flesh itself rotted, and could hardly be healed and cured, as Antonius his disciple relates in his Life, chapter 3. Theodoretus, however, in the Life of Simeon, affirms that this rope was woven from palm fibers, and therefore extremely rough, which Simeon pressed so tightly to his flesh that the entire area where it had been placed was ulcerated all around and emitted drops of blood. Presently the superior of the monastery, he says, learning of this, with difficulty loosened the bond from him; but even so he could not persuade him to apply any medicine to that ulcer. Therefore he dismissed him from the monastery, lest he become a cause of harm to weaker brethren trying to emulate feats beyond their strength. Thus many saints formerly wore, and even now wear, hairshirt girdles, to subdue the flesh. Hence Judith, chapter 4: "That they might offer sacrifices to God," she says, "girded with hairshirts." St. Jerome mentions this, on Jeremiah 1, and Ezekiel 6, and calls it the girdle of mortification, and affirms that the girdles of Elijah and of John the Baptist were of this kind. Finally Paul, Colossians 3: "Mortify," he says, "your members which are upon the earth: uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, avarice." Whence St. Augustine, sermon 39 On the Words of the Lord, and book 2 On the Harmony of the Gospels, chapter 25: "Gird your loins," he says, "that is, draw together and mortify all your appetites and affections concerning worldly things."
AND LAMPS BURNING IN YOUR HANDS. — Christ commanded us, with loins girded, to be ready for good works and for the journey to heaven; now He fittingly requires burning lamps; for these are needed at night for working, as well as for setting out on a journey: and this life of ours is a mystical night, full of the darkness of ignorance, errors, and concupiscence. Therefore, that we may walk and work in that night, light and lit lamps are needed: but properly He alludes to the wedding feast, which is customarily held at night with lights; as if to say: Just as at night servants await their lord returning from the wedding with burning torches and go before him, so you too should await Me, watchfully, as I return from heaven to you at death, and come to meet Me with spiritual torches, because you know not the day and hour of your death and of Christ's coming to your judgment; that therefore, if you are wise, you should await it prepared at every hour. For thus the virgins with lamps lit await the bridegroom, Matthew 25. For this parable of Luke is nearly the same as that of Matthew.
You ask what the burning lamps signify? Theophylactus answers first that they signify this, as if to say: Let the light of reason and discernment be with you, that you may distinguish what and how things should be done. Again, let there be with you a lamp, that is, faith, but burning with charity and the fervor of the spirit: for this will show what is to be done, what is to be avoided: this also will impel you to heroic acts of virtue; this likewise will urge you to strive to teach others the faith and the way of salvation and to enkindle them with the love of God, and not to allow anyone to live in the darkness of ignorance, says Cyril, and of sins. So St. Augustine, sermon 39 On the Words of the Lord. To this St. Jerome (or whoever the author is) adds, on Jeremiah chapter 1, saying that to hold a lamp in one's hands is the same as to preach the Gospel.
Mystically: "These things have their own mystery: for in the girding of the loins, chastity is indicated; in the staff, pastoral governance; in the burning lamps, the splendor of good works," says Celestine, epistle 2 to the Bishops of Gaul. Likewise St. Gregory, homily 13, takes the burning lamps to mean good examples. "We hold burning lamps in our hands," he says, "when through good works we show the examples of light to our neighbors. Two things are commanded: both to restrain the loins and to hold lamps; so that there may be both the purity of chastity in the body and the light of truth in action; for chastity is not great without good works, nor is any good work of value without chastity."
Again St. Augustine, book 2 of Questions on the Gospels: Girded loins, he says, are abstinence from worldly things; burning lamps are doing this same thing with a true end and right intention. Moreover St. Maximus: "Lit lamps," he says, "are prayer, contemplation, and spiritual love." Finally Origen, homily 9 on the book of Judges, thinks there is an allusion here to the lamps, that is, the torches of Gideon's soldiers: for just as they, by dashing together their jars and with the torches flashing and blazing forth therefrom, terrified the Midianites; so the Apostles and Martyrs, with their bodies dashed and broken through martyrdom, began to shine forth with miracles, by which their persecutors were put to flight, and thus their teaching, as well as their sanctity, became famous throughout the whole world, as Bede beautifully explains in his Questions on the Book of Judges, and St. Gregory at length, book 30 of the Morals, chapter 32 and following. See the history of Judges, chapter 7.
In your hands. — These words are not read in the Greek, the Syriac, or the Arabic, nor by the Greek Fathers, such as Origen, Clement, Cyril, Chrysostom, Basil, Titus; nor by the Latin Fathers St. Ambrose, St. Cyprian, Hilary, and Augustine, sermon 39. However, St. Gregory reads them, homily 13; Irenaeus, book 4, chapter 72; and St. Jerome, on Ephesians 16, and Jeremiah 1; and the codices of the Bible corrected at Rome. "In your hands," then, means "at hand, ready to hand," that is, near you, before you, so that they may provide light for your work as you labor: for workers do not usually hold lamps in their hands, but beside them. Again, properly "in your hands," so that with them, like servants, you may go forth to meet Christ the Lord when He comes. From this saying of Christ arose the custom of placing in the hands of the dying blessed candles lit, to testify that they meet Christ with faith and ardent charity, and so to be stirred up to that end. See Amalarius, Rabanus, and others who have written on Ecclesiastical Offices.
St. Cyril adds, book 4 On Worship in Spirit and Truth: "And shod on your feet." But all the others do not have this: wherefore it seems that St. Cyril transcribed it here from Paul, Ephesians 6:15, through inadvertence.
Verse 36: And Be Yourselves Like Men Waiting for Their Lord
AND BE YOURSELVES LIKE MEN WAITING FOR THEIR LORD. — This is the third precept of Christ, or rather the third part of the same precept: for the first is to gird the loins; the second, to hold lamps; the third, to await the Lord. For the two former things are referred to this. The sense is, as if to say: And be yourselves in such a way prepared and composed, just as servants are accustomed to be at night awaiting their lord; namely, watchful, with loins girded, holding burning lamps. Whence Maldonatus thinks that this is one and the same parable, but with three members; Jansenius thinks it is a different one; but it comes to the same thing: because, as I said, this is a different and third part of the parable, toward which the two previous parts tend and are directed. Those await the Lord, says Toletus, who, reckoning themselves as pilgrims here, burn with desire for Christ, frequently and almost continually think of Him, keep their mind intent upon Him, patiently bear adversities and all discomforts through love of Him and hope in Him, fear to offend Him whom they already have before their eyes as one coming: they easily despise all those things that do not serve His coming; they delight in those things they know to be pleasing to Him: they scorn temporal things for the hope of eternal ones.
Symbolically: the phrase "let your loins be girded" teaches us to strive here as pilgrims toward the heavenly fatherland, according to that saying of 1 Peter 2: "I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, to abstain from carnal desires which war against the soul." Secondly, the phrase "and lamps burning in your hands" signifies that we ought to shine before all through virtues, according to that which Peter adds: "Having your conduct among the Gentiles good." Thirdly, the phrase "and be yourselves like men waiting for their lord" admonishes us that we ought to be fixed in hope upon heaven, according to that which Peter adds: "Hope perfectly in the grace which is offered you."
Again St. Augustine, sermon 39 On the Words of the Lord, affirms that these three are those about which Paul admonished Felix the governor, Acts 24. Paul taught them, he says, about continence, about justice, and about the hope of eternal life; for in these the whole substance of the evangelical life is comprehended. Secondly, by these three things the three duties of the apostolic life are signified. For first, the girded loins signify the Apostles being sent by Christ to evangelize throughout the whole world, and at the same time to fight against all demons, tyrants, infidels, and vices, according to that text: "I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy," Luke 11. For this reason they are here girded with the girdle of Christian and Apostolic warfare, as though they were heading into the fiercest battle. Secondly, the burning lamps signify that they ought to illumine the world by their preaching and teaching, according to that text: "You are the light of the world," Matthew 5. Thirdly, the phrase "and be yourselves like men waiting for their lord" signifies that they ought to despise and trample upon the present life and all things in the world, and to lead a heavenly and divine life, so that in mind and heart they may be fixed in heaven, according to that text of Philippians 3: "Our conversation is in heaven." Paul adds the end, the fruit, and the reward: "From whence also we look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowliness, made like to the body of His glory," as if to say: Therefore we despise earthly things, we aspire to heavenly things, because with sure hope we await Christ, who will make us blessed and glorify us forever. So Toletus.
These three things the first Christians always kept fixed in their minds, who, as pilgrims of earth and citizens of heaven, freely poured forth riches, honors, pleasures, and even life itself for Christ, because they firmly expected, after this brief life, the Lord's coming close at hand, namely the blessed and eternal life to be given them by Christ: which is indeed true wisdom and prudence. This can be seen in the Pontiffs, Virgins, and Martyrs of Rome for three hundred years, from St. Peter to St. Sylvester, who in continuous persecutions rejoiced to be stripped of goods, imprisoned, scourged, slain, burned, that they might enjoy Christ in heaven. Among others, St. Cecilia stood out, who, flourishing in youth, beauty, wealth, and nobility, freely and most joyfully lavished all for Christ, and to those who marveled at, pitied, and wept over her exalted spirit, going forth joyful and exultant to the place of martyrdom, she gave this explanation: "This," she said, "is not to lose youth, but to exchange it: this is to give clay and receive gold; to give a dwelling vile and small and receive a palace great and most spacious, built of precious stones and gold; to give a thing that will perish and receive a thing that knows no end and is ignorant of death." And a little later: "Our God Jesus Christ does not give weight for weight, but for what He has received singly, He returns a hundredfold, and eternal life besides." So her Acts relate.
Wherefore the life of a Christian ought to be nothing other than an expectation of Christ, that He may free him from this life miserable, vile and meager, subject to so many fears and dangers, and lead him to His kingdom in the heavens and eternal glory. Hence the Prophets and Paul everywhere teach the faithful that they ought to live so piously and holily, and despise all worldly things, as eagerly and ceaselessly to await the coming of Christ.
Thus the patriarch Jacob, dying, yearning for the coming of Christ: "I will wait for Thy salvation, he says (that is, for Thy Savior), O Lord," Genesis 49. Job, chapter 14: "All the days in which I now serve, he says, I wait until my change shall come." The Psalmist: "With expectation, he says, I have waited for the Lord," Psalm 39:1. And: "Wait for the Lord, act manfully, let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord," Psalm 26:14. Isaiah, chapter 8:17: "I will wait for the Lord," he says. And chapter 25:9: "We will wait for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord, we have waited for Him, we shall exult and rejoice in His salvation." Jeremiah, Lamentations 3:24: "The Lord is my portion, he says, therefore I will wait for Him." Micah 7:7: "But I will look toward the Lord, I will wait for God my Savior."
Thus Joseph of Arimathea, scorning the fear of the Jews, buried Christ, because he "was waiting for the kingdom of God," Luke 23:51. Paul, Romans 8:19: "The expectation of the creature, he says, waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God." And verse 23: "We ourselves, having the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our body." Galatians 5:5: "Waiting for the hope of justice." Philippians 3:20: "From whence also we look for the Savior." To Titus 2:13: "Let us live soberly, justly, and piously in this world, looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God." St. Peter, 2 Peter 3:11: "Seeing then, he says, that all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of the Lord." And verse 13: "But we look for new heavens and a new earth according to His promises, in which justice dwelleth. Wherefore, dearly beloved, waiting for these things, be diligent that you may be found before Him unspotted and blameless in peace."
Wherefore Climacus, in the step On Death: A just man, he says, is he who does not fear death; but a saint and a perfect man is he who expects it daily. He awaited the Lord, St. Francis, whence as he lay dying, reciting Psalm 141, verse 8: "The just wait for me, until Thou reward me," he breathed his last. And Blessed Bernard exulted:
I desire Thee a thousand times,
My Jesus, when wilt Thou come,
When wilt Thou make me glad,
When wilt Thou satisfy me with Thyself?
Memorable and terrifying is what St. Bridget writes, book 4 of the Revelations, chapter 7: that in Purgatory there is a third and uppermost place, where there is no other punishment than the desire of reaching God and His beatific vision. And that there those are tormented by this desire who in this life did not have a perfect desire of reaching the presence of God and enjoying the vision of Him. Bede mentions a similar place in Purgatory, book 5 of the History, chapter 13; and St. Gregory, book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 36; and Denis the Carthusian, in the Dialogue on the Particular Judgment, article 31; and Bellarmine, book On Purgatory, chapter 6. For there is a certain unworthiness, a kind of disdain for so great a vision and glory of God, in that it is not ardently desired by the faithful and the saints, and a sign that they do not sufficiently consider, weigh, and penetrate His riches and joys, as was fitting.
Live therefore, O Christian, for your Christ, not for the world; live for the spirit, not for the flesh; live for heaven, not for hell; live not for time, but for eternity.
WHEN HE SHALL RETURN FROM THE WEDDING. — This seems to be an emblem of the parable, and therefore not necessarily to be applied to the thing signified by it. It can, however, be applied to it in this way: that Christ in the Incarnation celebrated His betrothal with the Church and all the faithful; but ascending into heaven He there consummated the marriage with the same, because through the glory of the beatific vision He is intimately and inseparably united with all the Blessed for all eternity. When therefore He returns from heaven to the judgment of each soul, He seems to return from the heavenly wedding, in order to lead a new bride to the same: the wedding, therefore, is the supreme union, the supreme joy, which Christ has with the Blessed in heaven. So St. Gregory, Bede, Theophylactus, Euthymius, Toletus, and others.
THAT WHEN HE COMETH AND KNOCKETH, THEY MAY OPEN TO HIM IMMEDIATELY. — Christ means that in life we ought to prepare virtues and merits, adorned with which at death we may meet Christ joyful and rejoicing: for then there will be neither place nor time for working, and scarcely for repenting; for then the senses are dulled, and the mind, oppressed by illness, can scarcely think of sins and of salvation. Wherefore they act most imprudently who indulge in pleasures during their life and say they will do penance at death; for penance at death is late and forced, and therefore rarely true, earnest, and sincere. Hear St. Gregory, homily 13: "The Lord comes when He hastens to judgment: He knocks when, through the afflictions of sickness, He signifies that death is near; to whom we open at once if we receive Him with love. For he who trembles at leaving the body does not wish to open to the Judge who knocks, and dreads to see the Judge whom he remembers having despised. But he who is secure in his hope and his works immediately opens to Him who knocks, because he gladly awaits the Judge; and when the time of approaching death arrives, he is made joyful by the glory of the reward."
Verse 37: Blessed Are Those Servants Whom the Lord Shall Find Watching
BLESSED ARE THOSE SERVANTS WHOM THE LORD WHEN HE COMETH SHALL FIND WATCHING, — namely, with loins girded, holding lamps, and awaiting their lord, as was said above: for to these He will give the reward of merit, namely eternal blessedness, that they may possess and enjoy the vision of God in all glory and joy forever and ever. Whence, explaining this, He adds:
AMEN I SAY TO YOU, THAT HE WILL GIRD HIMSELF, AND MAKE THEM SIT DOWN TO MEAT, AND PASSING WILL MINISTER UNTO THEM. — Christ repays His own in kind: in heaven He will gird Himself for those who girded themselves, He will serve His servants; those who labored in His service He will make to rest, to recline at table, to feast, and to the servants who served Him, He Himself, the King of kings and Lord of lords, will with wondrous condescension minister.
"Passing." — For servants and the bridegroom are accustomed to go around the tables, to see if anything is lacking to anyone, and to offer it to him. Note: These things are to be taken parabolically, not literally, as is obvious; for in heaven there are no girdles, no girded servants, no tables, no reclining, no passing around, no serving. Christ therefore means to say only this: first, that He will show to His faithful servants in heaven an honor such as no good master ever showed, infinitely greater; that is, that there He will make them from servants into lords, as it were, to whom He will communicate and administer a share of His nuptial banquet, that is, of heavenly felicity and glory. And secondly, that He will do this with manifold and unending courses, that is, pleasures and delights both of soul and of body; and thirdly, that He will provide that nothing be lacking to anyone, not only what is necessary, but also what is pleasant, or wished and desired: for He will cause no one to desire anything, because all things desired, indeed all things that can be desired, He will bestow superabundantly, according to that saying: "We shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear." And: "They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy house, and Thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of Thy pleasure." Fourthly, He will set before each one different delights according to each one's merits: for "passing" signifies that the supper will be various and most sumptuous according to each one's merits; and "he will minister" signifies that it will be most honorable; "he will make them recline," meaning eternally, says Toletus.
HE WILL GIRD HIMSELF. — God therefore will gird Himself, says Theophylact, inasmuch as He does not supply us with the outpouring of all good things, but restrains it. For who can grasp how great God is? This is also manifest from the Seraphim, who cover themselves because of the excellence of the divine light.
AND HE WILL MAKE THEM RECLINE. — Hear St. Dionysius the Areopagite, Epistle 9 to Titus: "We consider reclining to be a rest from many labors, a safe life and divine manner of living in the light and region of the living, full of all holy delight: a generous supply of every kind of blessed goods, by which they are filled with all joy; and this with Jesus gladdening them, placing them at table, ministering to them, granting them eternal rest, and perfectly bestowing and pouring forth good things."
Symbolically: St. Gregory, hom. 43: "He will gird Himself, that is, He will prepare Himself for recompense, and He will make them recline, that is, be refreshed with eternal rest. For our reclining is to rest in the kingdom. Hence again the Lord says: They shall come and recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But the Lord, passing, ministers, because by the illumination of His light He satisfies us. He is said to pass over when He returns from judgment to the kingdom; or certainly the Lord passes over to us after judgment, because from the form of humanity He lifts us up to the contemplation of His divinity. And His passing over is to lead us into the beholding of His brightness, when we see in divinity after judgment the One whom we behold in humanity at judgment."
Verse 38: And If He Shall Come in the Second Watch
AND IF HE SHALL COME IN THE SECOND WATCH, AND IF HE SHALL COME IN THE THIRD WATCH, AND SHALL FIND THEM SO, BLESSED are those servants. — The first watch begins in the evening, or the start of night, and lasts three hours: when these are completed, the second watch begins and ends at midnight; from which the third watch starts and lasts three hours: after which the fourth watch begins and lasts until dawn or sunrise. By these watches Christ signifies that at every age and every time we ought to be watchful and prepared for the Lord's coming, because the day of death is uncertain, and we have not even one certain day or hour of life. The first watch therefore is childhood; the second, youth; the third, manhood; the fourth, old age. So Titus and St. Gregory. Christ did not mention, says Franciscus Lucas, the fourth watch, nor the first either, because one does not usually return from a wedding so early nor so late — weddings are most often concluded around midnight, with the bride brought into the bridal chamber. Meanwhile He signifies that we must be watchful at every time, even in advanced and decrepit age; and that it is not enough to be watchful sometimes or for a season in youth and manhood, but one must persevere as long as this life lasts, because the hour of death is uncertain, and the coming of the Lord must be awaited with long-suffering. So St. Basil, homily On Not Clinging to Worldly Things: "We ought," he says, "to be daily prepared to depart from this life, and to await the Lord's bidding with fixed eyes," etc., so that each one may immediately open to the Lord when He comes and knocks.
Add this: Christ mentioned only the second and third watches because in them sleep is usually surer and deeper, so as to hint that He will come when men least expect it, when they are immersed in other thoughts and cares and as it were deeply asleep: wherefore prudent servants ought then most of all to watch and be ready, so that, when they seem to themselves most healthy and prosperous, they should expect death standing by in ambush.
Toletus gives another reason: He did not mention, he says, the fourth watch, because very few are found who, postponing good works to the end of life, actually do them; and also lest He make men lazy if He had mentioned it.
From this St. Gregory concludes, in hom. 13, and exhorts all to the pursuit of virtue, saying: "Our Lord willed the last hour to be unknown to us for this reason, that it might always be something to be suspected; so that, since we cannot foresee it, we may be preparing for it without intermission. Since, then, the hours flee by their moments, act, dearest brothers, so that you may be held in the reward of good work. Hear what wise Solomon says: Whatever your hand can do, do instantly; for there is no work, nor knowledge, nor reason, nor wisdom in the grave, whither you are hastening. Since therefore we do not know the time of coming death, and after death we cannot work, it remains that we seize the times granted before death: for thus death itself, when it comes, will be conquered, if before it comes it is always feared."
Verse 41: And Peter Said to Him: Lord, Do You Speak This Parable to Us?
AND PETER SAID TO HIM: LORD, DO YOU SPEAK THIS PARABLE (of the watches) TO US, OR ALSO TO ALL — men, especially the faithful, those now living as well as those yet to come? Peter doubted about this because Christ used to give some teachings only to the Apostles, others to all the faithful, and here He had said some things that seemed to concern the Apostles and perfect men alone, as in verse 32: "Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom: sell what you possess." And verse 37: "Amen I say to you, that He will gird Himself, and will make them recline, and passing will minister to them." But the other things concerning watching and awaiting the Lord's coming seemed to pertain to all the faithful.
Verse 42: Who, Do You Think, Is the Faithful Steward, and Prudent
AND THE LORD SAID: WHO, DO YOU THINK, IS THE FAITHFUL STEWARD, AND PRUDENT, WHOM THE LORD HAS SET OVER HIS HOUSEHOLD, TO GIVE THEM THEIR MEASURE OF WHEAT IN DUE TIME? — Christ answers Peter that He is indeed speaking to all the faithful, but especially to Peter and the Apostles. For upon these a greater watchfulness and care lies, so that they should save not only themselves but also the other faithful; and Peter was the steward, in Greek oeconomus (household-manager), whom Christ has set over His household, that is, His Church; and likewise the other Apostles, according to Paul's saying: "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and dispensers of the mysteries of God," 1 Cor. 4:1.
TO GIVE THEM THEIR MEASURE OF WHEAT IN DUE TIME. — He alludes to the custom of the ancients, among whom slavery was common and harsh; they had abundance of slaves, which Christians now lack. So they would appoint one of the slaves over the other slaves, who each month distributed to them the measure (whence the word "demensum" — allotment) of provisions and food, namely wheat, or barley if the persons were of lowly rank, as I noted on Hosea 3:2.
Secondly, "of wheat" can be referred to "time." For it is the mark of a good steward, in the manner of Joseph, when the time of wheat harvest comes, to dispense it frugally by measures to each individual in the household, lest it be sold off or given away to the poor, and so not suffice for the domestics.
The rest up to verse 46 I have explained on Matthew 24.
Note "dispenser and measure." For the fair steward of a household does not give the same measure to all, but to each his own, proportioned and adjusted according to age, dignity or merit; for this is the proper duty of a steward, that he dispense and distribute what is fitting to each. For one ration and measure of food suits an infant, another an adolescent, another a man, another an old person; one suits a woman, another a wife, another daughters, another maidservants, another sons, another male servants.
From this matter, morally, Christ teaches Bishops, Pastors, Confessors, and Preachers, that they should not offer the same food of doctrine to all the faithful, nor speak only in general terms to all about the virtues, but in particular should instill in each those virtues which are fitting and proper to that person's age, state, and rank. Hence St. Paul taught by his own example the practice of this parable and saying of Christ: in Ephesians 6:1 ff. he gives different admonitions and precepts to sons, to fathers, to slaves; and instructing Timothy, Bishop of Ephesus, Epistle 1, chap. 5:1: "Rebuke not an elder," he says, "but entreat him as a father; younger men as brothers; old women as mothers; young women as sisters, in all chastity; honor widows that are truly widows: but if any widow has children or grandchildren, let her first learn to rule her own house," etc. He prescribes similar things to Titus, chap. 2:2 ff.
St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neocaesarea, followed Christ and Paul in this. Of him Nyssen writes thus in his Life: "One who was mourning heard from him what consoled him: a young man was reproved and taught temperance; to the old man medicine was offered with fitting words; slaves were taught to be well-disposed toward their masters; those who held authority, to be kind and merciful toward those subject to their rule; the poor man was taught to consider virtue alone as riches; the man boasting of his wealth was fittingly admonished to be a steward, not a master, of what he possessed; distributing to women what was profitable, to boys what was suitable, and to fathers what befitted them." Also St. Cyprian, who, as Pontius the Deacon writes in his Life, exhorted virgins to a discipline befitting chastity and an attire worthy of sanctity: he taught the lapsed penance, heretics truth, schismatics unity, sons of God peace and the law of evangelical prayer; he consoled Christians of softer disposition over the loss of their relatives with the hope of things to come; he restrained the blackness of envy with the sweetness of a saving remedy; he raised up martyrs by the exhortation of divine discourse; he animated Confessors marked by a brand on their forehead with the spur of the heavenly trumpet. Finally St. Gregory the Pope exactly accomplished this more than others, for he had in writing the names of all the poor of Rome and of the places nearby, and distributed to each what was necessary. Moreover, he fed three thousand nuns existing in Rome, and many more outside Rome. Wherefore of him you may truly say: "The whole Church of the Saints shall declare his alms," Ecclesiasticus 31:11. How great a care for souls he had, and how he suggested to each precepts of salvation suited to his state, is clear from his homilies and from his epistles, in which he admonishes the Emperor Maurice not to call soldiers away from the religious life; John, Patriarch of Constantinople, not to usurp the proud name of Universal Bishop; Venantius, Chancellor of Italy, to resume the monastic habit he had cast off; John, Bishop of Ravenna, to lay aside the pallium he had rashly usurped; to Augustine, sent as Apostle to England, he prescribes reasons and ways by which to convert England to the faith of Christ; he teaches the Bishops of Ireland not to rebaptize those baptized by heretics in the name of the Trinity, and very many such things. Run through the fourth volume of his Epistles, and you will marvel that one man, occupied with so many affairs, burdened with so many infirmities, could prescribe to individuals so many and such particular and fitting admonitions of the virtues. For prudence consists not in the universal, but in directing prudently each particular work; for actions of the virtues are singular, and demand singular direction and teaching.
Verse 46: And He Shall Divide Him
AND HE SHALL DIVIDE HIM, — that is, He shall separate him from Himself and His household, namely from the Church triumphant, from the fellowship of the Blessed and from blessedness itself, which is promised to faithful servants. Hence St. Jerome, on Matthew 24: "He shall divide him," he says, that is, He shall separate him from the fellowship of the Saints. St. Hilary: "He shall divide him" from the promised blessings. Origen: "He shall divide him" from the gift of the Holy Spirit, and from the fellowship and protection of the angels; for Christ will deprive him of all grace, all virtue, all help, all hope of salvation.
AND SHALL APPOINT HIS PORTION WITH THE UNBELIEVERS, — that is, He shall punish him with the other servants who were unfaithful to him, even though they pretended to be faithful. Hence Matthew 24:50 has "with the hypocrites." Here "unbelievers" can also be taken to mean the unbelieving, who refuse to believe in Christ, of whom it is said: "He who does not believe is already judged," John 3:18.
Verse 47: That Servant Who Knew His Lord's Will
BUT THAT SERVANT, WHO KNEW HIS LORD'S WILL, AND DID NOT PREPARE (himself for his lord's coming, by preparing and distributing to the servants entrusted to him their measure of wheat in due time, but rather beating them, and eating, drinking, and getting drunk, wasted his lord's goods), AND DID NOT DO ACCORDING TO HIS WILL (already mentioned), SHALL BE BEATEN WITH MANY STRIPES. — He shall be struck with many scourges and blows.
Verse 48: He Who Did Not Know Shall Be Beaten With Few
BUT HE WHO DID NOT KNOW (his lord's will) AND DID THINGS WORTHY OF STRIPES, SHALL BE BEATEN WITH FEW, — that is, with fewer than one who knew his lord's will: understand this according to the measure both of ignorance and of the deed and guilt. For there are four degrees of ignorance: namely, first, invincible, which is blameless; second, vincible, but with difficulty, which has little guilt and liability to punishment; third, crass, which has more; fourth, affected, which has the most guilt and punishment, concerning which Psalm 35:5 says: "He refused to understand so as to do good." "This man despised everything," says Euthymius; "but the other was slothful: yet contempt is graver than sloth." For the slothful man "when he could have known, did not know," and, as Titus says, neglected to learn; but the contemptuous man despised and scorned. Hence it is clear, against Jovinian and modern heretics, that there are degrees of sins even of mortal sins, and that some are graver than others, and therefore are punished with a graver eternal punishment in hell. "For, as Basil says, in the Shorter Rules, question 267, "to receive many or few stripes signifies not the end of the punishment but a difference; nor does the difference lie in the extension or completion of time, but in the difference of the punishment, namely that each is worthy of unquenchable fire, but one burns more mildly, the other more fiercely."
AND TO EVERYONE TO WHOM MUCH HAS BEEN GIVEN (e.g., to whom greater knowledge and greater knowledge of the Lord's will has been given), MUCH SHALL BE DEMANDED OF HIM (by Christ the judge at judgment both particular and universal; because, as St. Gregory says, hom. 9, When gifts are increased, the reckonings for the gifts also increase); AND TO WHOM THEY HAVE COMMITTED MUCH (e.g., the care and oversight of many souls), MORE SHALL THEY ASK OF HIM. — Hear Bede: "Much is committed to him to whom, along with his own salvation, the care of feeding the Lord's flock is also entrusted." From him, then, Christ and His assessors the Apostles and the other judges will ask more; that is, they will ask not only for his own care and salvation, but also for that of the faithful entrusted to him, as far as lies in his power. For in a pastor "care is required," says St. Bernard, "not a cure." For the cure is sometimes impossible because of the nature of the disease or the sick person's obstinacy. "These things," says Titus, "clearly show that the judgment of teachers and pastors will be not a little heavier and more perilous than that of others." Wherefore let them not grow proud of their rank and office, but perform their duty with greater humility, zeal, and diligence, and feed their flock. "Therefore," says St. Gregory in the place cited, "each one should be the more humble and the more ready to serve God in virtue of his office, the more obligated he sees himself to be in rendering account."
Moreover, what and how much God requires from Pontiffs, Bishops, and Prelates, St. Bernard sets before the eyes of Pope Eugene III, pointedly and powerfully, in Book IV Of Consideration: "Consider yourself," he says, "a model of justice, a mirror of sanctity, an exemplar of piety, an upholder of truth, a defender of the faith, a teacher of the Gentiles, a leader of Christians, a friend of the bridegroom, an ordainer of the Clergy, a shepherd of the peoples, a teacher of the unwise, a refuge for the oppressed, an advocate of the poor, a hope of the wretched, a guardian of orphans, a judge of widows, an eye to the blind, a tongue to the dumb, a staff of the aged, an avenger of crimes, a terror to the wicked, a glory to the good, a rod of the powerful, a hammer of tyrants, a father of kings, a moderator of laws, a dispenser of the canons, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the priest of the Most High, the vicar of Christ. Who would not fear and tremble upon hearing that all these things are required of this See."
Therefore St. Paul, Hebrews 13:17: "Obey," he says, "your prelates, and be subject to them; for they watch, as having to render an account for your souls." Where St. Chrysostom, homily 34: "I wonder," he says, "whether any of the Doctors can be saved." Cardinal Bellarmine recently said the same of Pontiffs. For this reason wise and holy men fled prelatures, and did not accept them except under compulsion. Hear what St. Cyprian writes of St. Pope Cornelius, Book IV, Epistle 2: "He," he says, "did not seek the episcopate itself, nor desire it, nor seize it by force, as do others whom the swelling of their arrogance and pride puffs up; but, quiet and modest, and such as those are wont to be who are divinely chosen to this office, he suffered violence so that he took up the episcopate under compulsion." In like manner St. Gregory, St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Basil, St. Nazianzen, St. Nicholas, St. Athanasius all fled from the papacy as much as they could, and in our age Pius V, when elected Pope, grew pale and almost fell into a swoon. Asked the reason, he frankly said: When I was a religious of the Order of St. Dominic, I had the best hope of my salvation; when I was made a Bishop, I began to fear for it; but now elected Pope, I almost despair of it: for how shall I render to God an account of so many millions of souls as there are in the whole world, when I can scarcely render an account for my single soul? So his Life has it. Finally, the Council of Trent asserts that the episcopate is a burden fearful even to angelic shoulders.
Verse 49: I Came to Send Fire Upon the Earth
I CAME TO SEND FIRE UPON THE EARTH, AND WHAT WILL I BUT THAT IT BE KINDLED? — The Arabic has, what do I desire except its kindling? So too the Egyptian, Ethiopian, and Persian. It is uncertain whether Christ said this at the same time as the preceding words. For Luke gathers together Christ's sayings, even though they were spoken at different times: yet these can rightly be connected to what precedes and follows in this way, namely that after the various instructions given to the Apostles and the faithful, Christ at last expresses His primary office, for which He was sent by the Father into the world, namely to send divine fire from heaven to earth into the Apostles, so that they, being kindled by it, might in turn kindle all the other faithful: for through this fire the Apostles were to fulfill fully and efficaciously the office of evangelizing and converting the whole world, which had been committed to them by Christ, and the faithful were to carry out perfectly the teachings of Christ preached by the Apostles.
Symbolically: St. Ambrose, in Psalm CXVIII, sermon 8, teaches that God is a light for illuminating and a fire for burning the chaff of vices: "A light," he says, "so that it may shine upon one walking in darkness, like a lamp, lest he who seeks the brightness of light err any longer. A fire, so that it may consume the hay and straw of our works, and save us by a profitable loss: just as gold, which when refined, is the more approved." To this point is that saying of Clement of Alexandria, in his Exhortation to the Gentiles: "The Savior has manifold voices and methods for the salvation of men. By threatening He admonishes, by cursing He converts, by weeping He shows mercy, by singing He speaks through the cloud. He terrifies men by fire, kindling a flame from the pillar, which is at once a sign of grace and of terror: if you obey, light; if you do not obey, fire."
You will ask, what is this fire? First, Tertullian, Book IV Against Marcion, chapter 29; Maldonatus and Francis Lucas answer that it is the hatreds, dissensions, tribulations, and persecutions of unbelievers who persecute the faith and the Apostles and Christ's faithful; for Christ and the Apostles raised these up indirectly and as an occasion by preaching the Gospel and the new religion of Christ crucified. Hear Tertullian: "He (Christ) Himself will better interpret the nature of this fire, adding (verse 51): Do you think that I came to bring peace to the earth? I tell you, no, but division. Therefore He meant a fire of overthrow, He who denied peace: as the battle, so also the conflagration," by which Christ was to overthrow idolatry, crimes, and idols, and reduce them to ashes: wherefore He was to stir up all the Gentiles devoted to their idols against Himself and the Apostles, so that they would with all their strength try to extinguish this fire of their former religion. For to this point all the things that Christ adds in the following verses 50, 51, 52, 53, explaining this fire, are directed.
Second, more aptly St. Cyril, in the Catena, and Jansenius judge this fire to be the preaching of the Gospel; for this Christ directly desired, that through it He might kindle the hearts of men with divine fire, according to that saying of Psalm 118: "Your word is exceedingly fiery."
Third, and best of all, St. Ambrose and Origen here, and St. Athanasius, in the book On the Common Essence of the Father and the Son; St. Cyril, Book V on Leviticus; St. Jerome, Book II of the Apology Against Rufinus; St. Augustine, sermon 103 On the Seasons; St. Gregory, homily 30 on the Gospel, by "fire" understand the Holy Spirit and His gifts, especially of charity, devotion, fervor, and zeal, which He Himself arouses in the souls of the faithful, says Euthymius and Theophylactus. This fire likewise makes the lamps of the faithful burn, according to that saying: "Love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave: its lamps are lamps of fire and of flames," Song of Songs 8:6. See what was said there. Thus the Church explains this fire when on the Saturday of Pentecost she prays in the Mass: "We beseech You, O Lord, may the Holy Spirit inflame us with that fire which our Lord Jesus Christ sent upon the earth and willed to be mightily kindled." With this fire, says St. Ambrose, Cleopas was burning when he said: "Was not our heart burning when He opened the Scriptures and spoke on the way?" Luke 24; and so this fire of love and ardor encompasses the fire of tribulations assigned in the first place. For the Apostles, kindled with love of Christ, overcame and overcome all adversities and every fire of tribulations and persecutions, and even provoke them; for that fire pressed upon them, as Christ foretells in what follows. Such was Paul saying: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? I am certain that neither death, nor life," etc., Romans 8. With this fire also St. Ignatius was inflamed, in his letter to the Romans: "Would that I might enjoy the beasts that are prepared for me, which I pray may be swift for my destruction and punishment, and be enticed to devour me. I am Christ's wheat. Let me be ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may be found pure bread."
Christ fulfilled this desire of His when He sent the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the faithful in the form of tongues of fire at Pentecost, Acts 2, where St. Chrysostom, homily 4, says: "This fire," he says, "shook off the sins of the world like fire." And after some further words: "For just as a man of fire, if he should fall into the midst of straw, will suffer no harm, but rather will put forth his own power; so it happened here as well," that the Apostles, as though men of fire, were not harmed by their persecutors, but on the contrary converted them to the faith of Christ and set them on fire.
See the seventeen properties of fire which I cataloged and applied to the charity of God at Leviticus 9:23, and Acts 2:3; and Dionysius, On the Celestial Hierarchy, chapter 15, where he shows through many analogies that fire is the most fitting symbol and hieroglyphic of God and of the angels, and that it excellently represents their likeness in imitating Him, according to that passage of Deuteronomy 4:24: "The Lord your God is a consuming fire." And Hebrews 1: "Who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire." With this fire Elijah was burning, of whom Ecclesiasticus 48:1 says: "And Elijah the prophet arose as a fire, and his word burned as a torch," and therefore he was caught up to heaven in a chariot of fire, while Elisha cried out: "My father (you are), the chariot of Israel and its driver," 2 Kings 2; and the Bride in Song of Songs 2:5 saying: "Stay me with flowers, encompass me with apples, for I languish with love." Kindled with this fire, the Martyrs scorned bodily fires, indeed they sought them, because either they did not feel them, as the three youths in the Babylonian furnace, or they overcame them by heroic virtue, as St. Lawrence overcame; of whom it is sung: "You have tried me with fire, and no iniquity has been found in me," Psalm 16:3. Hard indeed and severe was this fiery trial; but the love of God conquered the pain of the thing, the torment of the Lamb overcame the torment of the fire; the memory, I say, of Christ who suffered more bitter things for us.
"By your flames, O tyrant," says St. Leo, sermon On St. Lawrence, "the flame of charity could not be overcome: the fire that burned outside was slower than the one that burned within. You raged, O persecutor, against the martyr; you raged and you increased his palm, while you heap up his punishment." And St. Augustine, sermon On St. Lawrence: "Blessed Lawrence, kindled with this fire, does not feel the conflagration of the flames; and while he burns with desire for Christ, he does not feel the persecutor's punishment." So St. Ignatius, writing to the Romans: "Fire," he says, "the cross, beasts, the breaking of bones, the tearing apart of limbs, the crushing of the whole body, and all the torments of the devil — let them come upon me, if only I may enjoy Christ."
Such were the Christians in the age of Tertullian, who accordingly writes in chapter 1 of his Apology to the Gentiles: "Although you now call us 'Sarmenticians' and 'Semaxians,' because bound to the stake of a half-axle, we are burned in a circle of brushwood. This is the garb of our victory, this is our robe of triumph, in such a chariot we celebrate our triumph." Are these not earthly Seraphim, more ardent and stronger than the heavenly Seraphim? For the latter burn only with the fire of love, while the former burn with the fire of love and of pain, and of martyrdom, since they are living holocausts to God. In our own century the Japanese burned and burn with the same fire, who for the faith of Christ are roasted by a slow fire for many hours, and in those fires, like adamant — that is, unconquerable and invincible — they persevere even unto death. Among them were many from our Society as standard-bearers of the faith; and among others the Reverend Father Camillus Constantius, an Italian, who for three hours stood immovable in the fire, indeed cheerful and exulting, with perpetually raised voice either praising God, or encouraging his companions to constancy, or preaching to the people (which we have not previously read in the Lives of Martyrs) until the fire spreading into the innermost organs of his body snatched his voice along with his life, so that he fell a glorious victim of holocaust to God.
Well done in spirit, renowned heroes, champions of the faith, athletes of Christ! You have been made a spectacle to God, to angels, and to men. Burning with divine fire, for the faith of Christ surrendering your bodies to the flames and your souls to God, and singing with a swan's voice amid the conflagrations, you have filled and adorned yourselves with merits, the tyrants with stupor, Japan with Christians, the Society with heroic examples of virtues, the world with fame, the Church with glory, and heaven with new laurels of new athletes. Your honor shall live, your unconquered fortitude shall live, your glory shall live, the fires of your souls and the ardors of your hearts shall live — by which you illuminated and inflamed Japan — as long as the eternity of all the ages shall live.
Thinking on this, St. Eulalia, burning with desire for martyrdom, ran secretly to the contest without her parents' knowledge, and while she was being torn apart by scourges, she sang, as Prudentius testifies, in Hymn 3:
Come then, torturer, burn, cut,
Tear apart these limbs compacted of clay.
To destroy a fragile thing is easy...
The inner spirit shall not be pierced
By the assailing pain.
Therefore in her thirteenth year, surrounded by flames,
The virgin, desiring a swift departure,
Sought and drank the pyre with her mouth,
and as a martyr in the form of a dove she flew away to heaven.
AND WHAT DO I WILL BUT THAT IT BE KINDLED? — The Arabic has, and what do I desire except its kindling? St. Jerome, to Nepotian, "how I desire that it burn!" Origen, homily 5 on Ezekiel: "Would that it were kindled!" or, "O how much I long to be kindled now!" Philastrius, book On Heresies, last chapter: "How I wish it were kindled at once;" but the Greek has ει ηδη ανηφθη, that is, if it has already been kindled, as the Syriac reads it, St. Hilary on Psalm 119, Theophylactus, Euthymius, and Cyril in the Catena, as if to say: I desire nothing except that this fire be already kindled: wherefore if it has already been kindled, there is nothing more that I desire; for I desire nothing other than that this fire be kindled: this is my sole wish, that this fire burn. Both readings therefore come to the same thing.
"For He urges," says Theophylactus, "that that fire be kindled." Perhaps our translator read ανηφθαι, that is, to be kindled. Let every apostolic man learn and say the same from Christ: "I came to send fire upon the earth, and what do I will but that it be kindled?" So that everywhere he may kindle by word and example with the fire of divine fervor the earthly, tepid, cold, indeed stony, frozen, and rigid hearts of men, and convert them into a fire of love, as our St. Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus, did; for to this end fire, and great fire and zeal, are needed. Wherefore he who desires to breathe this fire upon others must first kindle it greatly in himself:
Let the orator burn, who wishes to kindle the people.
Verse 50: But I Have a Baptism to Be Baptized With
BUT I HAVE A BAPTISM TO BE BAPTIZED WITH (it is a Graecism, that is, I must be baptized; the Arabic has, and there is a baptism for Me, I shall be baptized with it; as if to say, By God's decree and by My own will and desire I must be baptized with it); AND HOW AM I STRAITENED UNTIL IT BE ACCOMPLISHED! — As if to say: This fire of the charity and zeal of the Holy Spirit cannot leap forth unless first the flint of My body be struck upon the cross, or rather unless I be baptized in the font of My own blood; for this is similar to certain springs in which if you immerse extinguished torches, they are kindled by a wonderful power of nature and antiperistasis, such as the spring of Dodona, says Pliny, Book II, chapter 104. Our Conimbricenses add, in the Meteora, tractate 9, chapter 7, that there is such a one also in Epirus, another in the lands of India, by whose water lamps burn. Likewise another formerly called Jupiter Ammon's, which at dawn flows with warm waters, at midday is cold, in the evening is hot, and at midnight boils. So likewise the waters of springs, or of the hot baths and pools of Aachen, continually boil. Similar hot springs exist near Naples, in Gaul, and in many other places. With these, therefore, Christ compares His passion. For it is like a boiling bath, which aroused the fire and conflagration of charity in the minds of the faithful. By the merit of Christ's cross and passion, as well as by its example, this fire leaps forth.
He calls His death and passion a "baptism," because He was utterly immersed and plunged into it, according to that saying of Psalm 68:2: "I am sunk in the mire of the deep, and there is no standing. I have come into the depth of the sea, and the storm has overwhelmed me."
AND HOW AM I STRAITENED UNTIL IT BE ACCOMPLISHED! — That is, I am in anguish, I am tortured by the desire to die for the salvation of men, and through this to kindle that fire. So Euthymius: "I am, as it were, anxious," he says, "on account of the delay;" and Theophylactus: "And how am I constrained, that is, how anxious and distressed I am, and pressed, until it be accomplished!" For I thirst for death for the salvation of all. So too St. Ambrose, Bede, and others. The Arabic has, and I am straitened toward accomplishing it. St. Irenaeus, Book I, chapter 18, reads, and I hasten greatly toward it. For the hearts of the anxious are wont to contract and be, as it were, compressed by desire, but the hearts of the exulting to expand and dilate with joy. Therefore Lyra incorrectly explains it in the contrary sense: "I am straitened," that is, I shrink from it in horror, according to that saying: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death." But this was the natural feeling of Christ's soul, which, overcoming and correcting it by His spirit and zeal, He said: "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will."
Morally: note how great was Christ's zeal, how great His charity and how great His thirst for our salvation; inasmuch as it aroused in Him so great a thirst for passion, death, and the cross, however atrocious, that His heart was squeezed between it and the delay of His passion, as though placed between two millstones in a mill, and was reduced to the utmost straits, or as though set in a winepress, was compressed and nearly crushed by anguish. For where there is love, there is equally pain and anguish, lest the beloved thing be denied or delayed. Therefore Christ was driven by the utmost desire, and as it were scorched, to offer Himself in this holocaust and as a victim for the sins of all men upon the altar of the cross, so that, as far as lay on His part, He might sanctify, save, and bless all.
He impressed this zeal of His, this thirst, upon the Apostles and apostolic men, who thirst for crosses, labors, pains, torments, and martyrdoms for the glory of God, that they might spread the Gospel of Christ throughout the whole world and save as many as they can. This is Evangelical holiness, this is the perfection of virtue, this is the summit of the Apostolate. Well known are St. Andrew's salutations to the cross, and his breathless sighs toward it: "Hail, O beautiful cross, long desired and at last prepared for my longing soul: secure and rejoicing I come to you, so may you also, exulting, receive me, and through you may He receive me, who by dying on you redeemed me."
St. Lawrence said to the Emperor Valerian, who was displaying and threatening fires, wheels, scorpions, and beasts: "This is the banquet I desire, this I thirst for. No hungry man desires food, nor thirsty man drink, as eagerly as I seek and thirst for all these torments, that I may repay love for love, pain for pain, death for death to my Christ." St. Vincent said to Dacian: "No mortal," he says, "has conferred a greater benefit upon me than you, who torture and torment me, because as many torments as you inflict on me, with so many crowns of martyrdom you adorn me." And to the executioners: "How sluggish you are, how feeble! I thought you to be far stronger. Behold, I desire to suffer more, and I far surpass your blows." St. Agatha said to Quintian: "Why do you delay? What do you wait for? Scourge, tear, burn, cut, drown, mangle, kill this body of mine, because the more you torture me, the more good you will have conferred on me, and so much more favor and grace I shall receive from my Spouse, Jesus Christ." Similar were the prayers and similar the words of St. Agnes, St. Lucy, St. Dorothy, St. Cecilia, and other Martyrs.
Verse 51: Do You Think That I Came to Give Peace on Earth?
DO YOU THINK THAT I CAME TO GIVE PEACE ON EARTH? NO, I TELL YOU, BUT DIVISION. — See what was said at Matthew 10:34.
Verse 52: For From Henceforth There Shall Be Five in One House Divided
FOR FROM HENCEFORTH (from this time, that is, hereafter) THERE SHALL BE FIVE IN ONE HOUSE DIVIDED, THREE AGAINST TWO, AND TWO AGAINST THREE. — "Five," namely father, son, mother, daughter, and daughter-in-law; for the mother-in-law is the same as the mother. So St. Ambrose, and it is clear from what follows, as if to say: In the same house three unbelievers will rise up against two believers, or two unbelievers against three believers; for example, a father and son not believing in Christ will rise up against the mother, daughter, and daughter-in-law who believe in Christ, or vice versa.
Verse 53: They Shall Be Divided: The Father Against the Son
THEY SHALL BE DIVIDED (Greek διαμερισθησονται, that is, shall be divided, shall disagree, shall separate and set themselves against one another): THE FATHER AGAINST THE SON, — that is, against the son; and so with the rest.
Verse 54: When You See a Cloud Rising From the West
AND HE SAID ALSO TO THE MULTITUDES: WHEN YOU SEE A CLOUD RISING FROM THE WEST, STRAIGHTWAY YOU SAY (from frequent and continual experience): A STORM IS COMING (Greek ομβρος, that is, a shower, rain); AND SO IT HAPPENS. — As if to say: When you see a cloud from the west, you say: It will rain. So Elijah in the time of the three-year drought, since from boyhood he had understood that a cloud rising from the west and ascending from all sides (as happens to those who are surrounded by sea on every side), says Valesius in Sacred Philosophy, chapter LXXXVI. See what was said at Matthew XVI. Moreover, conjectures from the stars are necessary for human life, says St. Basil in the Catena, provided they are not pursued beyond the limit of what they indicate. It is useful to foresee the dangers of storms, especially when the sun is likewise setting in the west: for then it is weaker than to be able to dissipate these vapors, so that they do not thicken into cloud and dissolve into rain. But to those for whom the sea is equally to the West and to the South and to the North, He likewise foretold that rain was imminent; and it soon followed, 1 Kings 18:44. The physical cause of this is that Judaea has the Mediterranean Sea to its west, from which, by the power of the sun, many vapors are raised on high, which when condensed into cloud, are resolved by the sun's heat into water and produce rain. For the traveler a change in the weather, for the farmer sowing a sign of the sun's position for sowing so that he may gather an abundant harvest: for God placed them "for signs and for seasons," Genesis 1:14.