EVANGELIUM SECUNDUM LUCAM

( Vide inter ejus opera. )

VERS. 1.-- Forasmuch indeed, etc. (BEDA.) Luke, concerning all the things which Jesus did and taught, etc., as far as they were setting a narrative in order rather than weaving the truth of history.

243DVERS. 3.-- All things. (ID.) Not all the things which he had attained, but out of all those which he judges apt for confirming the faith of his readers. For of set purpose he passes over many things which the others tell, so that a varied grace might shine out in the Gospel, and that in the several books the marvels of the mysteries and of the deeds might stand out, each by certain things of its own. Theophilus. Theophilus, one loving God, etc., as far as he ought to know the faith of the everlasting Godhead and the order of his dispensation in time.

VERS. 5.-- There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea. (AMBR.) The calf is the priestly victim. By the calf, therefore, this Gospel is figured, in which the beginning is made from the priests and the end is made in the calf, that is, in Christ, who is offered up for the life of the world.

A certain priest. He has filled out the order: he has named the king, and the region in which he was; he points out the priest and his nation and his wife. Zacharias. Zacharias, mindful of the Lord: to whom an Angel appears at the right of the altar, because to him who is mindful of the Lord the mystery is shown.

Of the course of Abia. (BEDA.) Abia, the Lord is Father, etc., 244Das far as just as by the seven the Old Testament is declared.

Elizabeth. Elizabeth, the fullness of my God, signifies Mary, who was full of God.

VERS. 6.-- And they were both. (BEDA, AMBR.) A full praise, which comprehends birth in his forebears, character in fairness, office in the priesthood, deed in the commandments, judgment in the justifications. Just before God. (AMBR.) For not everyone who is just before men is just before God; for men see in one way, God in another: men in the face, God in the heart. And therefore it can come about that someone, by an affected popular goodness, should seem just to me, and yet not be just before God, if his justice is not formed out of simplicity of mind but is feigned by flattery.

245AVERS. 7.-- And there was not unto them. (BEDA.) It was divinely provided that John should be born of parents advanced in years and long deprived of the fruit of wedlock, so that by the unlooked-for birth of the child the gift of God might touch them the more gratefully, and the astonishment of the miracle might prepare the rest for the hearing of the prophecy to come. Whence afterwards it is added: All they that had heard laid it up in their heart, saying: What manner of child, thinkest thou, shall this be?

VERS. 8.-- And it came to pass. Whereas by the precept of Moses, when one priest died, one is bidden to succeed him, in David's time it was appointed that, ministering by turns for eight days at a time from sabbath to sabbath in the time of their course, they should each give themselves to chastity, and should not meanwhile touch their house.

VERS. 9.-- By lot. (BEDA.) He was not then chosen by a new lot, when the incense was to be burned, etc., as far 245Bas he is foretold while that other is promised as one who will go before.

VERS. 12.-- And Zacharias was troubled at the sight, and fear fell upon him, etc. (AMBR.) We are wont to be troubled and estranged from our own feeling when we are shaken by the encounter of a higher power. But as it belongs to human weakness to be terrified, so it belongs to angelic kindness to console with soothing one who is afraid at its appearing; on the contrary, the demons, if they have perceived any terrified by their presence, shake them with a larger horror.

VERS. 13.-- Because thy prayer is heard: and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name. It was heard for more than thou didst ask. Thou didst pray for the deliverance of the people, and a forerunner is given thee.

(AMBR.) Many divine benefits are heaped together here. First, the fruit of the prayer; then the childbearing of a barren woman. 245CThen the gladness of very many, and greatness of virtue, and even the prophecy of the Most High is promised. Moreover, that there might be no doubt, the name of the child to come is appointed. Since therefore so many things flow beyond what he had prayed for, not undeservedly is his diffidence punished with the penalty of silence.

VERS. 14.-- And there shall be joy, etc. (BEDA.) It is a token of singular merit as often as a name is either imposed upon men by God or changed, etc., as far as because this one preaches salvation to many, but that one gives it to all. (AMBR.) Joy and exultation. The parents are admonished to give thanks no less, etc., as far as mothers, because they are honoured with the rewards of wedlock.

VERS. 15.-- Wine and strong drink, etc. (BEDA.) It is of great virtue before God to preach heavenly joys in the desert, etc., as far as and already there was the spirit of grace.

245DVERS. 16.-- And he shall convert many of the children of Israel. (ID.) Since John, bearing witness to Christ and baptizing in the faith of Christ, is said to have converted the children of Israel to God, it is plain that Christ is the Lord God of Israel.

VERS. 17.-- He shall go before. (ID.) As Elias is the herald of the judge, etc., as far as he is made manifest in glory with him. In the spirit and power. (AMBR.) Spirit and power are rightly joined. For there is no spirit without power, nor power without spirit. Elias had the power of abstinence, and of patience, and of turning the minds of peoples from faithlessness to faith; and the spirit of prophesying he had.

That he may turn, etc., (BEDA.) He turns the hearts of the fathers unto the children, 246Aetc., as far as almost the same words which the angel foretold of John, Malachi foretold of Elias.

VERS. 18.-- Whereby, etc. (ID.) If it were a man who was promising, it would be allowable to seek a sign unpunished, etc., as far as and it would be the penalty of unbelief which he deserved.

VERS. 19.-- Before God. (ID.) When angels come to us, they so fulfil their ministry outwardly that nevertheless they stand within, before God, by contemplation. For although an angel is a circumscribed spirit, the highest Spirit, who is God, is uncircumscribed, and within him the angel runs wherever he is moved or sent.

VERS. 22.-- And he was making signs to them, and remained dumb, etc. Labouring to indicate bodily acts without a voice, and not expressing his will. Like to him is the people of the Jews, 246Bunable to render an account of their own acts.

VERS. 23.-- When they were fulfilled, etc. Because in the time of their course the priests of the temple, given over to its offices alone, abstained not only from the embrace of their wives but even from entering their houses. But to our priests, from whom not a carnal succession but a spiritual perfection is sought, who ought to be daily at hand at the altar, perpetual chastity is enjoined.

VERS. 24.-- She hid herself. (AMBR.) She hides herself because she blushes at the age of her childbearing, etc., as far as for neither would she who would not blush at intercourse in old age blush at the childbearing.

VERS. 25.-- Because thus hath he done. (BEDA.) These things were done, says John Chrysostom, etc., as far as because through him the affliction of penance was to be preached.

VERS. 26.-- And in the sixth month. (HIER.) As in the sixth 246Cmonth the angel Gabriel was sent by God into a city of Galilee, so in the sixth millennium Christ was sent,

Gabriel. (BEDA.) For this reason angels are sometimes marked out by a name, so that from the name itself it may be shown what they come to minister. Gabriel is the strength of God, because he announces him who was coming to war down the devil.

VERS. 27.-- To a virgin. A woman seduced by the devil brought in death: on the contrary, a woman taught by an angel brought forth salvation.

VERS. 28.-- The Lord is with thee. Whom by a new love of chastity he raised up to heavenly things, and afterwards, human nature mediating, consecrated with all the fullness of the Godhead. Blessed art thou among women. Who, without example in the condition of women, is both virgin and mother, and brought forth God.

VERS. 29.-- She was troubled, etc. Because she did not know whether 246Dwhat the angel said was past or to come.

VERS. 30.-- And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary. Her, troubled by the unwonted salutation, he calls by name as one more familiarly known. He bids her not to fear, and more fully explains why he had called her full of grace.

VERS. 31.-- Jesus. Jesus is called saviour, or salutary. For he himself shall save, not the people of Israel, but his own people, whether from the uncircumcision or from the circumcision, gathered into one fold under one shepherd.

VERS. 32.-- The throne of David his father. (BEDA.) That is, the Israelite people, etc., as far as in those who, cut from the wild olive, have been grafted into the good olive.

VERS. 35.-- The Holy One shall be called the Son of God. Jesus is born holy, who was to overcome the condition of corruptible nature, 247Aand he was not conceived by the mingling of carnal union. We, bound fast by the condition of corruptible nature, can be sanctified through grace. And it is fitting that she who conceived as a virgin against custom should bring forth the Son of God above the custom of human usage.

VERS. 36.-- And behold, etc. (BEDA.) Lest the virgin should despair of the childbearing, etc., as far as she might know that the forerunner too was to be born of a barren old woman.

Thy cousin. Because she was of the tribe of Levi, that is, of the tribe of God.

(BEDA.) We read that Aaron, who was of the tribe of Levi, etc., as far as which according to God did not lack the fellowship of a spiritual kinship.

VERS. 38.-- Behold the handmaid of the Lord. She does not exalt herself for the singularity of her merit, but, mindful in all things of her own condition and of the divine kinship, she confesses herself to be the handmaid 247Bof him whose mother she is chosen to be, and with great devotion desires the angel's promise to be fulfilled.

VERS. 39.-- And Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste into a city of Juda. (AMBR.) Not incredulous of the oracle, etc., as far as when it is added: And it came to pass, that when she heard.

VERS. 40.-- And she entered into the house of Zachary. From this let holy women learn what attentiveness they ought to show to kinswomen with child.

And saluted Elizabeth. (BEDA.) She salutes first, because it is fitting that the chaster she is, the humbler she should be.

VERS. 41.-- He exulted, etc. Because he could not with the tongue, he salutes with an exulting spirit, and begins the office of his forerunning. Behold, there appears what the angel had said: He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb.

247CVERS. 42.-- Blessed art thou. (BEDA, AMBR.) The words of the Gospel agree with the words of the psalm in which it is promised to David: Of the fruit of thy womb I will set upon thy throne (Psal. CXXXI). And Mary is blessed by Elizabeth with the same voice as by Gabriel, so that she may be shown venerable both to angels and to men, and to be preferred before our women.

VERS. 43.-- The mother of the Lord. I perceive the miracle, I acknowledge the mystery: the mother of the Lord, teeming with the Word, full of God.

VERS. 44.-- As was made. In the very moment in which the voice enters the ears of the body, a spiritual power enters the heart of the hearer, and kindles not only the mother but also the offspring with love of her who comes.

He exulted. (BEDA.) By the revealing of the Spirit with whom she was filled, etc., as far as the virgin believed where the priest denied.

247DVERS. 46.-- My soul doth magnify the Lord. (ID.) First she professes the gifts spiritually granted to her, etc., as far as I spend in the keeping of his commandments.

VERS. 47.-- And hath exulted. (ID.) (ID.) Because I do not care for earthly things, prosperity does not soften me, adversity does not break me, but the memory of him alone delights me, from whom eternal salvation is hoped for; I rejoice in the Godhead of him by whose conception in time my flesh is made fruitful.

VERS. 48.-- Because he hath regarded. (ID.) Behold how lowly are the things she feels concerning herself, etc., as far as and out of the small and the weak he makes them great and strong.

Because he hath done great things to me. Because in me he took flesh, and cleansed me from sins, and conferred upon me the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

248AAnd mercy. (BEDA.) From the special gifts she turns herself to the general judgments of God, etc., as far as he adds what the despisers deserve.

VERS. 53.-- He hath filled the hungry with good things. (ID.) They who desire eternal things with all zeal; shall be filled, when Christ shall have appeared in glory. But they who rejoice in earthly things are sent away at the last empty of all blessedness. In the present life also we see the humble filled with divine grace, and the proud deprived of the light of truth.

VERS. 55.-- As he spoke to our fathers. Making mention of the fathers to whom this salvation was revealed, she names Abraham expressly, to whom the incarnation itself was first made manifest. And to his seed for ever. Not so much to those born of the flesh as to those who have followed the footsteps of faith, to whom the coming of the Saviour was promised for ever, 248Bbecause the promise of the inheritance itself shall be closed by no end. For both unto the end of the world believers shall not be lacking, and the glory of blessedness shall be everlasting.

VERS. 56.-- And Mary abode. (BEDA.) She abode so long, until she should see the nativity of the forerunner, for the sake of which above all she had come. Nor did she abide so long for the sake of familiarity alone, but that in so long a time the advancement both of Elizabeth and of John might grow. For if at Mary's first coming they were filled with the Holy Ghost, much was added to them over and above by so long a delay of her stay.

VERS. 59.-- On the eighth day. By circumcision the resurrection of the Lord is figured, because it too was made on the eighth day, that is, after the sabbath. And as the one was wont to absolve from 248Cthe guilt of death, so the other both exhibited in our author the birth of immortal life, and showed that it is to be hoped for in us.

And they called him. (BEDA.) The celebrated nativity of John is the grace of the New Testament begun, etc., as far as it expresses the grace of the Gospel, if it be rightly understood.

VERS. 62.-- And they made signs to his father, etc. They who make signs to the father about the child's name signify those who by the testimony of the law aim to build up the grace of faith.

VERS. 67.-- And he prophesied, saying. (BEDA.) Great is the bounty of the divine mercy. Behold, the speech which alone was taken away from him while he doubted is restored, together with the spirit of prophecy, to him now believing.

VERS. 68.-- Blessed. Who, while he besought the goodness of God, 248Dwas given a forerunner in place of deliverance.

He hath visited. What he had known was shortly to be done, he relates after the manner of the prophets as though it were already done.

VERS. 69.-- A horn of salvation to us. (BEDA.) By the horn, which rises above the flesh, since all the bones are covered with flesh, the kingdom of Christ is signified, by which the world and the joys of the flesh are overcome. In figure of which David and Solomon were consecrated to the glory of the kingdom with a horn of oil, as Saul before them with a vial.

VERS. 71.-- Salvation from our enemies, and from the hand, etc. He hath raised up for us salvation from our enemies; and it is an explanation of the earlier verse, in which he had briefly set the same thing before: And he hath raised up a horn of salvation to us.

VERS. 72.-- To perform mercy to 249Aour fathers, and to remember his testament, etc. He hath spoken, and hath raised up salvation for us, to perform mercy: that the mercy which he promised to the fathers he may fulfil in us, and that the oath which he made to the fathers concerning our deliverance may be accomplished in us through Christ.

VERS. 76.-- And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare, etc. (BEDA.) It is no wonder if he addresses an infant of eight days, etc., as far as which he acknowledged that he had received among his sons.

VERS. 79, 80.-- To direct our feet into the way of peace. And the child grew, etc. That in all things the steps of our works may accord with the grace of him who enlightens us, until we enter into the dwelling of perpetual peace.

• 249B

VERS. 1.-- There went out a decree from Caesar. (AUG., BED.) Augustus reigned in peace for twelve years about the nativity of Christ, etc., as far as here first Judaea was made tributary to the Romans.

VERS. 2.-- The first. (BEDA.) Already at various times very many parts of the world are read to have been enrolled, but this is the first of those which took in the whole world; and it is a profession of minds, because no one is shut out. Or certainly it then first began, when Cyrinus was sent by Caesar into Syria, to be an assessor of patrimonies.

VERS. 4.-- Nazareth. (ID.) Daily the Lord is conceived in Nazareth, etc., as far as the insistence of the teacher who speaks avails nothing unless it has received the increase of help from above 249Cthat it may be heard.

VERS. 6.-- And it came to pass. The Lord willed to be conceived in one place and born in another, that he might the more easily escape the fury of the plotting Herod. The humility of Christ is commended, because he willed not only to be made flesh, but even to be born at that time in which, as soon as he was born, he should be made subject to Caesar's census for the sake of our deliverance.

VERS. 7.-- She wrapped him up in swaddling clothes. He is clothed in mean cloths, that we might receive the robe of immortality. His hands and feet are bound fast, that our hands may be directed to working well, and our feet into the way of peace; he was made a little one, that we might be perfect.

VERS. 8.-- And there were shepherds. (BEDA.) The highest shepherd being born, the shepherds from the snares of the night, etc., as far as upon whom the divine grace flashes more abundantly.

249DVERS. 9.-- And behold an angel of the Lord. (ID.) The citizens of heaven bear witness to the Lord both as to be conceived, and as conceived, and as born, that they may both sufficiently instruct mortals and pay their own service to their author.

VERS. 12.-- An infant wrapped in swaddling clothes. (ID.) The infancy of the Saviour has been pressed home by frequent testimonies both of the angels and of the evangelists, that it may be fixed the more deeply in our minds what he was made for our sake: in which his humility is commended: Because, whereas he was rich, he became poor for us, that by his own poverty he might enrich us (II Cor). [Vulg. 2 Cor 8:9 reads propter vos egenus factus est, "for your sakes he became needy," and ut illius inopia vos divites essetis, "that by his poverty you might be rich"; Migne's clause has pauper for egenus and puts in the first person what the Vulgate puts in the second.]

VERS. 14.-- And on earth peace. When by sinning we were strangers to God, the angels reckoned us strangers; but because we have known our king, the angels 250Ahave recognized us as their own fellow citizens. And the angel fears to be adored by a human nature which he beholds in his own king.

To men of good will. (BEDA.) Who receive Christ when born; not to those who at the hearing of his nativity were troubled and persecuted him. There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord (Isa. XLVIII).

VERS. 16.-- And they came with haste. (BEDA.) The presence of Christ is not to be sought with sloth, etc., as far as they will find him as it were in a manger.

VERS. 17.-- And seeing. It is the vision or knowledge of God, and this alone is the life of men, that they should know the true Father, and that Jesus Christ, whom he sent, is one God.

VERS. 18.-- They wondered. They wonder both at the mystery of the incarnation and at so great a testimony of shepherds, who 250Bdid not know how to feign what they had heard, but with a simple eloquence proclaimed true things. But the Lord appointed not orators but fishermen to preach the Gospel. So too in the Old Testament he ordained shepherds as the messengers of his dispensation. Therefore the testimony of the shepherds is not to be lightly esteemed.

VERS. 20.-- And returning, etc. (BEDA.) Thus spiritual shepherds, while others sleep, are borne up by contemplating heavenly things, etc., as far as when they say: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.

VERS. 22.-- They carried him. The little ones who from the whole kingdom of the Jews were carried to the temple, if they were of the tribe of Levi, were kept back perpetually for the ministry of the house. If of another tribe, the firstborn were redeemed by a price given by their parents, to be carried back to their own homes.

250CVERS. 23.-- As it is written. (BEDA.) It is written in the law: A woman who, having received, etc., as far as she enters upon the joys of heavenly blessedness with the fruits of good works.

VERS. 24.-- A pair of turtledoves. (ID.) This was the offering of the poor, who were not able to offer a lamb, so that in all things the humility of the Lord might be plain.

VERS. 25.-- And behold there was a man. Not only the angels, but every age and sex render testimony to the child that is born. And as he was foretold by the faithful of all ages, so at his coming he is proclaimed with the praise of all the saints.

VERS. 27.-- The child. Since boyhood begins after the seven years of infancy, Jesus is frequently called a child, 250Dnot so much for his age as for his service; whence the Prophet: Behold my child, [Vulg. Isai 42:1 reads Ecce servus meus, "Behold my servant"; the gloss's whole argument turns on puer.] because the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister (Isa. XLII).

VERS. 29.-- Now thou dost dismiss thy servant. (AMBR.) He who wishes to be dismissed, let him come into Jerusalem, etc., as far as then he shall be dismissed so that he may not see death, because he had seen life.

VERS. 34.-- Behold this child is set. For the ruin of those who had stood, and the resurrection of those who had fallen; or for the ruin of vices, and for the resurrection of virtues. Not in himself alone, but in his preachers also is he set for ruin and resurrection; whence the Apostle: We are the good odour of Christ unto God, in them that are saved, and in them that perish. For by the good odour some are saved, others perish (II Cor. II).

251AVERS. 35.-- A sword. (BEDA.) The sorrow of the Lord's passion, etc., as far as she beholds the cockle springing up.

That may be revealed. Before, it was uncertain which of the Jews would receive the grace of Christ, and which would spit upon it: but at the hearing of the nativity the thoughts are revealed, and Herod and others are troubled, while certain men come to the teaching of Christ.

VERS. 36.-- And there was Anna, etc. Because through a man and a woman the life of the whole world was lost, in the testimony of life returning through Christ Anna is joined to Simeon. It agrees with the mysteries of the Church that Anna is interpreted grace, who is the daughter of Phanuel, who is called the face of God; whence above: The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us (Psal. IV). Of the tribe of Aser. That is, of the blessed, she is descended, from him who among the twelve 251Bpatriarchs is eighth in the order of birth, on account of the mystery of the resurrection. There are five Annas. The first the mother of Samuel, the second the wife of Raguel, the third the mother of Tobias, the fourth the daughter of Phanuel, the fifth the mother of Mary.

She had advanced in days. (BEDA.) According to the history, Anna, and of a devout manner of life, etc., as far as they are multiplied on account of the apostolic teaching.

VERS. 38.-- To all who, etc. To all the faithful who, weighed down by the yoke of the foreigner Herod, were awaiting the deliverance of the city and of the people, she promised through the coming of Christ a redemption close at hand from the tyranny of the stranger.

VERS. 40.-- And the child. (BEDA.) In that he was a child, etc., as far as he had begun to be made man, he was perfect 251Cas God.

VERS. 41.-- And his parents went, etc. (ID.) Deservedly Luke is compared, among the four living creatures, to the calf, etc., as far as at the end of his Gospel he concludes with the disciples of the Lord praising in the temple.

VERS. 45.-- And not finding him. (ID.) If it is asked how he could be left behind by his parents through forgetfulness, etc., as far as returned with the other parent.

VERS. 46.-- In the midst. (ID.) As a fountain, he sits in the midst of the doctors; but as a pattern of humility, he asks and hears before he instructs, lest little ones should blush to be taught by their elders, lest one who is weak should dare to teach.

VERS. 49.-- How is it that you sought me? (ID.) He does not find fault with their seeking him as a son, but 251Dhe suggests who is his true Father, and compels them to lift the eyes of the mind to what is rather owed to him whose eternal Son he is. For because he is God and man, now he sets forth the lofty things of the Godhead, now the weak things of the humanity. As the Son of God he stays in the temple; as the Son of man he goes back with his parents whither they bid.

VERS. 51.-- And his mother kept all these words in her heart. All the things which she knew to have been done concerning the Lord or by the Lord, whether those she understood or those she could not yet understand, she laid up all in her memory, so that, when the time should come for his incarnation to be preached or written, she might be able sufficiently to set forth to those who asked all things just as they had been done. So let us, by frequent meditation on the deeds and words of the Lord, 252Adrive off importunate thoughts and labour to instruct others.

VERS. 52.-- He advanced in wisdom. (BEDA.) As it belongs to the flesh to advance in age, etc., as far as both alike might be saved.

VERS. 2.-- The word was made, etc. (BEDA.) About to gather the Church, the Son of God works first in his little servant, etc., as far as he therefore said one thing, and declared all.

VERS. 3.-- Preaching the baptism of penance, etc. (ID.) John preached the baptism of penance, and even gave it to some, etc., as far as there will be a going before by his own baptism, by which sins cannot be loosed.

VERS. 4.-- The voice of one crying. A voice, because he is the herald 252Bof the Word. In the desert. Because he announces the consolation of redemption to a deserted and forsaken Judaea. No word is heard without a voice, nor does a voice avail without the understanding of the word. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, etc. He who preaches faith and good works, what else than for the Lord who comes? He prepares a way to the hearts of his hearers, that this force of grace may give light, that it may make straight paths for God, while by the word of preaching it forms clean thoughts in the mind.

VERS. 5.-- And the crooked shall be. (BEDA.) The crooked, that is, the hearts of the wicked, twisted by injustice, shall be directed to the rule of justice.

VERS. 6.-- And shall see. (ID.) In this life not every man could see Christ, but on the day of judgment, on the seat of majesty, both the elect and the reprobate alike shall see him, that 252Cthe just may be rewarded and the wicked groan for ever. Whence there is also added:

VERS. 7.-- Who hath shewed, etc.? (AMBR.) Who hath shewed, in the prudence poured in by the mercy of God, etc.? as far as which he prophesies is to be transferred to the Gentiles.

VERS. 8.-- For I say to you. (ID.) They who, having lost the sense of reason, etc., as far as they are filled with fruits, they are clothed with leaves.

VERS. 11.-- He that hath two. (BEDA). The tunic is more necessary of itself than the cloak, etc., as far as but let him share what he has with the poor man.

VERS. 12.-- The publicans. (ID.) They who exact the public tolls, etc., as far as they might at length attain to sharing their own goods with their neighbours.

VERS. 15.-- And while they were supposing. (ID.) Not only 252Dwere they thinking, etc., as far as they do not believe that he came through a virgin.

VERS. 16.-- But there shall come. Therefore I baptize with water, because he comes who will baptize with the Spirit, and it is fitting that a way be prepared for him.

Whose I am not worthy. (BEDA.) I am not worthy to search out the mystery of the incarnation, etc., as far as the evangelical preaching, with which the apostles are shod.

VERS. 19.-- Herod. Before Luke relates anything of the acts of Jesus, he says that John was seized by Herod, in order to show that he will describe only those deeds which were done in that year in which John was either seized or punished.

VERS. 21.-- And Jesus being baptized. (BEDA.) The Lord is baptized, 253Anot needing to be cleansed, etc., as far as now taught, he openly preaches the Son of God.

VERS. 22.-- In thee I am well pleased. Not what is another's in the Son, but his own, is praised, as though he should say: Whatsoever things thou hast are mine.

VERS. 23.-- Thirty years of age. (BEDA.) That he is baptized in his thirtieth year, etc., as far as as in Jeremias and Daniel.

VERS. 26.-- Who was of Mathathias, who was of Amos, who was of Nahum, who was of Hesli. (BEDA.) Mathath, who is descended through Solomon, etc., as far as who through carnal generation is shown to have been made the Son of man.

VERS. 29.-- Who was of Levi. But these four who are brought in in this place were not the sons of Jacob, but they shared in their names.

253B(BEDA.) As if alluding by the names to what was figured in them, etc., as far as diverse kinds of virtues might go before.

VERS. 31.-- Nathan. (ID.) That Matthew, through Solomon, etc., as far as to whom judgment is given by God the king: He is a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech. [Vulg. Psal 109:4 opens the clause Tu es sacerdos, "Thou art a priest"; Migne reports in the third person what the psalm addresses in the second.]

VERS. 37.-- Mathusale. (AMBR.) The years of Mathusale are numbered beyond the flood; it signifies Christ, whose life knows not age.

Who was of Enoch. (BEDA.) Ascending from the baptized Son of God as far as God the Father, he sets Enoch at the seventieth step, etc., as far as whom he shows to be joined, in the resurrection, through the ages, 253Cto the contemplating of the unchangeable wisdom of God.

VERS. 38.-- Seth. Seth, the later son of Adam, is not passed over in silence, so that, since there are two generations of the people, it may signify that Christ is to be numbered in the later rather than in the earlier generation.

Who was of God. The generation begins from the Son of God, and is ended in the Son of God; the created goes before in figure, that the born may follow in truth; he who was made to the image goes first, that for his sake the image may come down.

VERS. 1.-- And he was led. (AMBR.) He was led into the desert with this purpose, that he might provoke the devil; for unless that one had contended, this one would not have conquered for me; with this mystery, 253Dthat he might free Adam from exile; with this example, that he might show us that the devil envies those who reach out toward better things.

Into the desert. Historically: into that desert which is between Jerusalem and Jericho, where he had figuratively said that Adam had been overcome by the devil.

VERS. 2.-- He was hungry. (BEDA.) It is not written of Moses or of Elias, etc., as far as but he hungers not so much for the food of the body as for the salvation of the soul.

VERS. 3.-- If thou be the Son of God. (AMBR.) He had known that the Son of God would come, but he did not think that he had come through the weakness of the body, etc., as far as he who is not fed with this word does not live.

VERS. 4.-- It is written. He teaches that one must fight rather with doctrine than with miracles, with humility rather than with power, 254Aand that nothing is to be done at the devil's pleasure, nor out of any regard for displaying his power.

VERS. 5.-- And he brought him. Luke follows the thing as it was done, setting avarice in the middle and pride last, according to the manners of the present time, because pride rages after all the virtues. Matthew does not follow the order of the history, but that of the temptations of Adam.

VERS. 6.-- To thee will I give. He says these things out of arrogance, not because the whole world is his, for there are some good men. It is delivered to me. Power is not from the devil, but it is nevertheless exposed to the snares of the devil. Nor is the ordering of the powers evil on that account, because the powers are exposed to evil.

VERS. 7.-- Thou therefore. (BEDA.) The devil, saying to the Saviour: If falling down thou wilt adore me, hears in return that he himself ought rather to adore him, his Lord and 254Bhis God.

VERS. 8.-- If thou be the Son of God. In all the temptations he does this, that he may learn whether he be the Son of God. But Christ so tempers his answer as to leave it in doubt: Cast thyself down. Him whom neither gluttony nor avarice overcame, vainglory tempts, in case perhaps the very boasting of his own victory might avail to cast him down. Cast. This word befits him who busies himself to hurl all men headlong. In which he is shown to be weak, since he can harm no one unless that one has first cast himself down.

VERS. 9.-- It is written. Because he had put forward an example from the Scriptures, he is overcome by examples from the Scriptures. But the devil uses the testimonies of the Scriptures through the heretics, not to teach, but to deceive.

VERS. 10.-- To the angels. (BEDA.) This prophecy is not 254Cof Christ, but of a holy man. And even if it were of Christ, he ought also to have remembered what follows: Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon (Psal. XC). But of the help of the angels he speaks as though to one who is weak; of his own treading down he keeps silence, like a shuffler.

VERS. 13.-- And being ended. (ID.) The three temptations being overcome, he says that every temptation was ended, etc., as far as yet he dreads to press on, lest he be more often triumphed over.

VERS. 14.-- And the fame went out. He is honoured not only by those present because of the miracles they had seen, but among the absent his fame was being spread abroad.

VERS. 15.-- He taught. After the miracles, behold wisdom, by which he teaches, and by which teaching, through the preceding miracles, 254Dhe magnifies.

VERS. 16.-- And he rose up to read. (BEDA.) He who had come not to be ministered unto but to minister, etc., as far as or he might correct them by the testimony of the reading of the prophecy.

VERS. 18.-- The Spirit. (ID.) In the earlier parts of the prophecy the Saviour, speaking of the calling of the Gentiles and the confirmation of the Church, etc., as far as because the Spirit of the Lord is upon him.

To preach the gospel to the poor, etc. He understands the Gentiles, who were truly poor. For they had neither the knowledge of God, nor the law, nor the prophets, nor anything else among their goods, and they were destitute of all the other spiritual riches.

VERS. 20.-- And when he had folded. (BEDA.) He read in the hearing 255Aof those who were present, etc., as far as but according to the capacity of the hearers he commits the word to the teacher to be dispensed.

VERS. 23.-- Physician. As [they call him] the son of a carpenter, so by the same madness of error; they call him a physician, but in their error the truth lies hidden. For he was truly the son of a carpenter: of one who through him made all things in the beginning, who works in the Holy Ghost and in fire, who in the great house of this world makes vessels of diverse kinds. He is a physician also, because through him all things that are in the heavens and that are on earth have been restored. Who says of himself: They that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill (Matth. IX).

VERS. 24.-- Amen I say to you. (BEDA.) Not only the Lord and head of the prophets, etc., as far as he turned away the miracles of his power.

VERS. 25.-- In the days of Elias. (ID.) As if he should say: It is not 255Bcontrary to the example of the prophets, etc., as far as because there was no abundance for the knowing of the Godhead.

VERS. 26.-- A widow. (ID.) The widow to whom Elias is sent figures the Church of the Gentiles, etc., as far as in which the bread of eternal life is prepared for us.

VERS. 27.-- Naaman the Syrian. (ID.) Naaman, who is interpreted comeliness, signifies the people of the nations, etc., as far as because it behoves the baptized to be confirmed by partaking of the Lord's body.

VERS. 29.-- And they led him. (ID.) The Jews, worse disciples, with the devil for their master, etc., as far as they are preserved as though shaped by the hand of the divine Sculptor.

VERS. 31.-- And he went down, etc. (ID.) Neither moved by indignation, nor offended by their crime, etc., as far as nor is the law dissolved, if there be a renewal of a man now falling.

255CVERS. 33.-- And in the synagogue. (ID.) In the synagogue there is a man having an unclean spirit, because he had lost the Holy Spirit. For the devil had entered in, whence Christ had spiritually gone out.

VERS. 34.-- I know thee. By his works he could be proved the Son of God. But did he not say to the Apostles: Greater things shall you do? The solution: by works, that is, by the manner of the working. Others were saying: In the name of Jesus, etc. He himself was saying: I have said to thee, etc.

VERS. 35.-- And when he had thrown him. (BEDA.) He who was to be cured is allowed to be thrown into the midst by the demon, so that the power laid open may invite more to salvation.

VERS. 36.-- And with power. Not as men, who cast out demons in the word of God, but by his own authority 255Dhe works mighty deeds.

VERS. 38.-- Into Simon's house. The house of Peter is the circumcision committed to his apostolate. The mother-in-law is the Synagogue, which is in a manner the mother of the Church committed to Peter. She is sick of a fever, because she laboured under the heats of envy, persecuting the Church. But Jesus, standing over her, heals her, because where the fear of God begins to be, such burning is wont to depart.

VERS. 40.-- And when the sun was down. (BEDA.) The setting of the sun is the passion of Christ, through which more possessed by demons are healed than he had healed sick people while living before in the flesh; because living in the flesh he taught few of the Jews, but after the resurrection he appeared to the Gentiles.

VERS. 41.-- Thou art the Son of God. (ID.) When the devil saw him wearied 256Awith fasting, etc., as far as because, if they had known the Lord of glory, they would never have crucified him (Matth. I).

VERS. 42.-- And when it was day. Mystically: in the manifest light of the resurrection he is sought by the companies of believers; and being found in the desert of the Gentiles, he is held back, that he may not go away.

VERS. 1.-- And it came to pass. Neither by time nor by place is the crowd restrained from its zeal for being healed; evening presses on, and yet it follows; the lake meets them, and the crowd presses, and therefore he went up into Peter's ship.

He stood beside. (BEDA.) The lake signifies the present world. But the Lord is now no longer in the lake, as being now no longer in passible flesh, but beside the lake, because in that flesh in which he suffered he came to the stability of perpetual 256Brest.

VERS. 2.-- He saw two ships. (ID.) The two ships, mystically, signify the circumcision and the uncircumcision, which he saw, because in each people he knoweth who are his, whose hearts comes forth from the waves of the world to the tranquillity of the life to come, as it were to the shore, by living mercifully.

VERS. 3.-- He asked him. (ID.) That he first asks the ship to be drawn back a little from the land, etc., as far as it pertains to the more remote Gentiles to whom it was afterwards preached.

VERS. 4.-- Launch out into the deep. (AMBR.) Although it is commanded to others that they let down their nets, etc., as far as or the Church is instructed and armed from the flowing gifts of the Holy Ghost.

VERS. 5.-- At thy word, etc. (BEDA.) Unless by the word of grace 256Cthe instruments of disputations have been let down, etc., as far as even amid the scandals of persecutors.

VERS. 7.-- And they filled. (ID.) This filling grows even unto the end of the world, etc., as far as and such humility deserves the merciful consolation of the Lord.

VERS. 10.-- From henceforth. (ID.) This pertains specially to Peter himself, to whom is expounded what the catch of fishes signifies. But as then he took fishes by nets, so at some time he shall take men by words, wherein Peter is a type of the whole Church.

VERS. 12.-- In one of the cities. Here two comings into Capharnaum are noted. The first, when John had been imprisoned, when he wrought those three miracles in succession; the second, when he came down from the mountain, the apostles having been chosen, when this miracle of the leper is wrought.

256DVERS. 13.-- He touched. Because of humility, that he might teach us to despise no one for any blemish of the body. He touches, not disdaining; he commands, not distrusting; he adds the testimony of the work. I will. He says it because of Photinus, he commands because of Arius, he touches because of Manichaeus.

VERS. 14.-- He charged him. (BEDA.) He bids it be kept silent, and it cannot be kept silent. Not that he willed something and could not, but he gives an example that his own should wish to lie hidden in the great things they do, yet that they may profit others, be published against their will.

VERS. 15.-- And the crowds came together, etc. (BEDA.) The healing of this man drives many crowds to the Lord. For that he might show himself healed within and without: he does not keep silent the benefit received, even when bidden. But 257AMark also says, discharging the evangelist's office: Straightway going forth, he began to publish and to spread abroad the word (Marc. I). [Vulg. Mc 1:45 reads At ille egressus coepit praedicare, et diffamare sermonem, "But he going out began to publish and to spread abroad the word."]

VERS. 16.-- And he was praying. When he prays, he forms the contemplative life; when he heals, the active.

(BEDA.) He heals as God, he prays as man. In the city, etc., as far as let him speak silently through inward desires.

VERS. 17.-- And it came to pass. etc., (ID.) Where he sat and taught Luke passed over for the sake of brevity, etc., as far as which he had made his own not by being born, but by making it illustrious with his powers.

And there were. (AMBR.) Among the remedies of the other weak ones, as they came together, etc., as far as and let the halting steps of our actions be reformed by the remedy of the heavenly word.

VERS. 18.-- Men carrying. Allegorically: that is, raising to higher things the mind of men, though sluggish through the weakness of 257Bthe outward man; by whose supports in turn one is taught both to lift himself up and to humble himself more easily before Jesus, worthy to be seen by the Lord's regard. For God looks upon humility.

And they sought, etc. (BEDA.) They desire to offer, but with the crowd interposed they are shut out, because often the soul, etc., as far as because it is by the devotion of faith that one descends to Christ's humility, and comes to the knowledge of Christ.

VERS. 19.-- And through the tiles. (ID.) The house of Jesus is described as roofed with tiles, because under the contemptible veil of the letter, if there be present a teacher to unlock divine things, the power of spiritual grace is found. And that he is let down with his bed signifies that Christ must be known by a man still set in this flesh.

257CVERS. 20.-- Whose faith. (BEDA.) Each man's own faith avails much, since through another's faith a man has been saved within and without.

(ID.) This healing of the paralytic signifies the salvation of a soul sighing after God, etc., as far as which are prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice.

Man, they are forgiven, etc. Thou art a man, a sinner; I am God, who forgive sins, who by the merit of others release thy sins for thee. Let him therefore who is burdened with sins call in the Church to pray for him.

Because for the fault of the soul the body also was made infirm, therefore, about to heal the body, he first heals the soul.

VERS. 21.-- Who can forgive? No one forgives sins but God, who forgives also through those to whom he has given the power of forgiving. Since therefore Christ 257Dforgives, he is truly proved God. They render true testimony to God, but by denying the person of Christ they are deceived. For faithlessness can confess, it cannot believe. And so testimony is not wanting to the Godhead, faith is wanting to salvation. But God, willing to save sinners, both shows himself God by the knowledge of hidden things, and, answering them by the wonder of his deeds: Why do you think evil things in your hearts? [Vulg. Lc 5:22 reads Quid cogitatis in cordibus vestris?, "What is it you think in your hearts?"; mala, "evil things," stands at Mt 9:4.] By the same majesty and power by which I behold your thoughts, I can forgive men their offences. From yourselves understand what the paralytic obtains. But because you do not know spiritual grace, nor believe what has been done within, let it be proved by a visible sign that it is of no less power, that in the Son of man 258Ayou may know the hidden power of majesty whereby he can forgive sins as God.

VERS. 22.-- But when he knew, etc. (AMBR.) The great priest saw leprosy in the hearts of the Jews, and showed them worse than that leper whom, when cleansed, he bade offer himself to the priest. But these the high priest rejects, lest their leprosy defile others also.

VERS. 24.-- I say to thee, arise. (BEDA.) To arise is to draw the soul away from carnal desires. To take up the bed, etc., as far as by the release of the penalty understand the remission of the fault.

VERS. 26.-- And astonishment. (AMBR.) The unbelieving look on him as he rises, they marvel at him as he goes away, and they choose rather to fear the miracles of the divine work than to believe; for if they believed, they would not fear, but would love. For perfect 258Blove casteth out fear (I Joan., IV). [Vulg. 1 Jo 4:18 reads perfecta caritas foras mittit timorem; Migne prints dilectio, "love", for caritas, and adds enim.]

VERS. 27.-- Levi. (BEDA.) The same Levi who is also Matthew. But Luke, etc., as far as he was changed from a publican into an evangelist.

(BEDA, AMBR.) He left his own, who was seizing what was another's. Nor did he only leave the gains of the tolls, but he also despised the danger that could come from the princes of the world, because he had left the accounts of the tolls unsettled. And because he reserved to himself absolutely no regard or thought of this life, he deserved to be a faithful steward of the Lord's talents.

(BEDA.) By the election of Matthew is expressed the faith of the Gentiles, who before gaped after worldly things, but now refresh the body of Christ with assiduous devotion. By the pride of the Pharisees is intimated the envy of the Jews, 258Cwhich is tormented at the salvation of the Gentiles.

VERS. 30.-- Why, etc. (AMBR.) Every question from the law, which is tenacious of justice, has not, etc., as far as and his walking and all that he did serve for salvation.

(AMBR., BEDA.) He who receives Christ into the inward dwelling is fed with the greatest delights of overflowing pleasures. And so the Lord enters, and reclines in the affection of him who has believed. But again the envy of the faithless is kindled, and a likeness of the punishment to come is prefigured. For while the faithful feast and recline in the kingdom of heaven, faithlessness shall be tormented with fasting. It is shown also how great a difference there is between the rivals of the law and of grace, because they who follow the law shall suffer an everlasting hunger of mind. But they who have received the word in their inward parts, refreshed by the abundance of the heavenly nourishment and fountain, 258Dcannot hunger and thirst; and therefore they who fast in mind murmur, saying: Why with publicans, etc.? Sons of the devil, they pour abroad the venom of the serpent. The serpent uttered the first word, saying to Eve: What indeed did God say: Eat ye not of every tree? (Gen. III.) [Vulg. Gn 3:1 reads Cur praecepit vobis Deus ut non comederetis de omni ligno paradisi?, "Why hath God commanded you that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?"] These men imitate him.

VERS. 31.-- A physician. Christ the physician who, by a wondrous manner of healing, was wounded for our iniquities. By this medicine the venom of the serpent is shut out. He who uses this medicine does not remain fasting.

VERS. 32.-- To call the just. (BEDA.) He calls those just who, not knowing the justice of God and willing to establish their own, are not subject to the justice of God; [Vulg. Rom 10:3 reads Ignorantes enim justitiam Dei, et suam quaerentes statuere, "For not knowing the justice of God, and seeking to establish their own."] and, presuming upon the law, 259Ado not seek the grace of the Gospel; but sinners, who, attending to their own evils and thinking that they cannot be justified by the law, submit themselves by repentance to the grace of Christ.

VERS. 33.-- Why do the disciples. (BEDA.) Matthew says that the disciples themselves asked this. But it must be known that both asked.

(ID.) Spiritually: the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, because they who the works of the law, etc., as far as he eats with sinners, that thou mayest understand the grace and the power.

VERS. 34.-- For can you. (ID.) As long as the bridegroom is with us and we are in gladness, neither can we fast, etc., as far as then shall the children of the bridegroom fast, desiring the coming of the Judge.

259BVERS. 35.-- But the days will come. (ID.) As if he should say: You will bring it about that mourners fast, because you are, etc., as far as as long as the Lord dwelt in the flesh with the disciples.

Then they shall fast, etc. Concerning both fasts, that which is in tribulation and that which is in joy, he answers: When the bridegroom shall be taken away, then shall they be in sorrow and in mourning, until consolation be granted through the Holy Ghost; and when that gift has been received, the fast which is made through gladness they, being now renewed unto the spiritual life, shall celebrate. And here he treats first of the fast which pertains to the humility of tribulation. But that which pertains to the joy of the mind (when the mind is suspended toward spiritual things, and is therefore estranged from bodily foods) he signifies by the similitudes that follow, showing that 259Cto the carnal, and for that reason still drawing the old sense with them, this kind of fasting is not fitting.

VERS. 36.-- From a new garment. (BEDA.) To the old garment are compared the disciples, who are still the old man. To whom the new piece, etc., as far as whence the Apostle: Put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new (Ephes. IV). [Vulg. Col 3:9 reads expoliantes vos veterem hominem cum actibus suis, "stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds," and Eph 4:24 et induite novum hominem, "and put on the new man"; the quotation joins words from the two places.]

VERS. 37.-- Wine. By wine we are refreshed within, by the garment we are covered without. The garment therefore is the good works which we do outwardly, by which we shine before men. The wine is the fervour of faith, of hope and of charity, by which we are reformed within, in newness of sense, in the sight of God.

Into bottles. (BEDA.) They are compared also to old bottles, which are more easily burst by new wine, that is, by spiritual precepts, than they contain it. But they shall be 259Dnew bottles when, after the ascension, having received the Spirit, they shall be renewed by praying with desire of his consolation.

Otherwise: to a soul not yet renewed, but persevering in the oldness of malice, the sacraments of the new mysteries ought not to be committed. Otherwise: the old bottles are the scribes and Pharisees; the new piece and the new wine, the precepts of the Gospel, which the Jews cannot bear, lest a greater rent be made, with whom the Galatians mingled the precepts of the law, new wine into old bottles. But they suit the apostles, not those who, depraved by the traditions of the elders, are unable to keep the sincerity of Christ's precepts; whence it is subjoined: And no man, because to the Jews, steeped in the spittle of the old life, the precepts of the new grace were loathsome, because, heaped up with the traditions of the elders, 260Athey were not able to perceive the sweetness of spiritual words.

VERS. 38.-- But wine. The frailty of the human condition is laid open, when our bodies are compared to the cast-off skins of dead animals. But when the bottles have been renewed, new wines are brought in, when we keep unviolated the sacraments which we have received. These bottles, if they are full, grace preserves; if empty, moth and rust consume: therefore let them always be full.

VERS. 1.-- And it came to pass, etc. (BEDA.) He says that the letter of the sabbath had begun to be loosed, etc., as far as after the second, from that on which the preceding things were said or done.

260BThrough the corn, etc. Mystically: the field is the world; the crop of the field, the fruitfulness of the human race; the ears, the fruits of the Church, with which the apostles are filled, feeding themselves on our progress.

The disciples plucked, etc. The disciples, not having space to eat because of the importunity of the crowds, hungered as men, but by plucking the ears they solace their want, which is a sign of a more austere life, to seek not prepared dishes but simple foods. And note that the apostles already destroy the letter of the sabbath, against the Ebionites, who receive the other apostles, but reject Paul as a transgressor of the law.

(BEDA.) Mystically: the disciples, hungering for the salvation of men, pass through the corn, that is, through the regions which, etc., as far as convicting the doctors of the law of not knowing 260Cthe law.

VERS. 2.-- They said to them, etc. Others say that these things were objected to the Lord himself. But they could have been objected by different persons both to the Lord himself and to the disciples, and to whomsoever it was objected it looks chiefly to him. On the sabbaths. The sabbaths signify keepings of feast; either those which are kept in this world by those who give themselves to the superstitions of the Jews; or those which shall be kept in the world to come, when in perpetual solemnity we shall eat the good things of the earth.

VERS. 3.-- Have you not read this, etc. (BEDA.) How is that objected to the Lord as a crime, which in a servant is not held for a crime? The true king, etc., as far as all the sons of the Church are priests, anointed with the Holy Ghost that they may offer themselves.

VERS. 4.-- He went into the house of God. Great is the grace 260Dof hospitality: with the peril of death set before it, the mind of the priest does not turn the guest away. And so we ought to take upon ourselves the perils of others. But the true priests do not shut out the true David from the hospitality of the mind, not even for the peril of death.

VERS. 6.-- A man. (BEDA.) Mystically this man signifies the human race dried up in the fruitfulness of good work, through the hand stretched out to the tree in the first parent, which the innocent hand stretched out on the cross heals. And well was the hand withered in the Synagogue, because where there is a greater gift of knowledge, there the transgressor lies under a greater fault.

VERS. 7.-- They watched. (ID.) Because he had excused, by the probable example of the master, the destruction of the sabbath which they were charging against the disciples, 261Anow, watching the master himself, they wish to calumniate him, that if he heal not, they may accuse him of cruelty or of weakness; if he heal, of transgression.

VERS. 9.-- I ask you. (BEDA.) Forestalling the calumny which they were preparing for themselves, he reproves them, etc., as far as God is not the author of evil, but those whom he does not save he is said to destroy.

VERS. 10.-- Stretch forth. (ID.) The weakness of an unfruitful soul is cured by no better order than by the bounty of alms; whence it is said: Let not thy hand be stretched out to receive, and drawn back to give (Eccles., IV). For he stretches out his hands to God in vain, being about to pray for his sins, who does not stretch these out to the poor according to his power.

VERS. 11.-- Folly. Because they were moved by envy alone, 261Bfor there was no fault either in a man's stretching out his hand, or in Jesus' healing. It was great folly to plot the death of him whose benefits they very greatly needed.

VERS. 12.-- He went out into a mountain to pray. The mountain on which he chooses and teaches the apostles signifies the height of justice, because they were to be instructed and to preach, that they might not remain among the weak, but be raised to things above. So also the law was given on a mountain. He leads the apostles up more eminently, that from the mountain the mountains may first receive the peace to be announced to the people. So also Moses, alone understanding the law spiritually, ascended the summit of the mountain on which God was.

VERS. 13.-- Disciples. Of whom he chose twelve, whom he named apostles, that is, sent in his own place; whence: As the Father hath sent me, I also send you (Joan. XX). Ascending into the mountain he calls to himself, he chooses whom he wills, 261Cbecause it is not of their zeal but of divine grace that they were called to the apostleship; whence: You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you (Ibid., XV). He chose not the wise, not the rich, not the noble, lest he should seem to have chosen them for prudence, or to have redeemed them with riches, or to have drawn any to grace by the authority of power and nobility.

VERS. 14.-- He surnamed. Not then for the first time, but long before, when he is said to have been brought by Andrew: Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter. But Luke, wishing to name the names of the twelve apostles, since he had need to say Peter, wished briefly to hint that he was not so called before; but that the Lord so surnamed him, that it should not be thought done by chance, but that from the change the sacrament of the rock might be commended to the hearers.

261DVERS. 15.-- Matthew. Matthew, for humility's sake, places himself in the order beneath his fellow Thomas, though by the other evangelists he is set before him.

VERS. 17.-- And coming down, etc. The Lord, about to choose apostles, went up into the mountains; about to teach the crowds, he returns to the plains, because the crowds are not able to see Christ except in what is lowly, and rarely is it found either that a crowd follows the Lord to higher things, or that any weak man is cured on the mountain; but when the fever of lusts has been quenched and the light of knowledge kindled, each one step by step goes up to the height of the virtues.

The sea coast. Not from the neighbouring sea of Galilee, because they do not set this in the place of the miracle, but it is named from the great sea. In which Tyre and Sidon also 262Acould be comprehended. But because they are cities of the Gentiles, they are deliberately set down by name, that it may be intimated how great is the power of Christ, which stirs even foreign cities.

VERS. 18.-- That they might hear. If we say that there are two discourses, he went up into the mountain, and had his disciples there; and afterwards he came down and made this one to the crowd. If we say there was one, it must be understood thus, that he went up into the mountain, and after a little came down, and there made the discourse, where there was a level place.

VERS. 19.-- To touch him. He touches Christ who faithfully believes in him. He is touched by Christ who is made firm in him. He who so touches and is touched is healed by the power of his spirit.

VERS. 20.-- And he, lifting up, etc. Although he speaks generally to all, he lifts his eyes specially upon the disciples, 262Bthat they who receive the word of God with the intent ear of the heart may more widely receive the light of the inward savour; to whom, sitting on the mountain, he opens his mouth, that he may utter great things upon them; standing on the plain he directs his eyes, that they may patiently understand what they hear. Blessed are the poor, etc. They who cannot yet climb the citadel of consummated virtue are meanwhile to be cherished with the beatitude of a general perfection, that little by little advancing to better things, while they gladly listen to the Lord standing on the plain, they may at some time loftily ascend to him sitting on the mountain. For those upon whose hearts he still presses to tame them, these he addresses as it were standing. Those whom he finds exercised by long endeavour and now teachable, to these he imparts mystical things as one resting at ease.

(BEDA.) What in Matthew is fully said by eight 262Cbeatitudes in the sermon of perfection to the apostles on the top of the mountain, this in Luke, etc., as far as but because he excelled in faith, by faith he deserved the primacy before the rest.

VERS. 21.-- You that now hunger. He who hungers has compassion on him that hungers: by compassion he gives freely, by giving freely he becomes just; he makes himself equal to his inferiors, he shuts out guile, he seeks the truth. You that now weep. He who for the riches of Christ's inheritance, for the bread of eternal life, for the hope of heavenly joys, desires weeping, hunger and poverty, is blessed; much more blessed he who does not fear to keep these virtues amid adversities.

VERS. 23.-- Rejoice and be glad. Amid the hatreds of hearts, amid the reproaches of tongues, amid the hands of persecutors, 262Dbe conversant with a gladder heart, in view of the reward on high. For according to these things. By the example of the prophets he strengthens them, because those who speak the truth are wont to suffer persecution.

VERS. 24.-- But woe, etc. Matthew on the mountain describes only the beatitudes of the upright; but Luke on the plain describes also the woe of the wicked, because hearers still untrained are to be driven to good things by threats and terrors, while for the perfect it is enough to be invited by rewards. But woe. Since above the kingdom of heaven is said to be the poor's, it appears by the contrary that he estranges himself from this kingdom who seeks his consolation in temporal things. Nor are riches so much in fault as the love of riches.

263AMystically: the rich man is the Jewish people, or the heretic, or the philosopher of the world, who, delighted with the abundance of words and the patronage of eloquence, having gone beyond the simplicity of the true faith, have laid up useless treasures, disputing according to the usage of the world about the generation of Christ; who in the world to come shall recognize the neediness of their faith, and, wasted with eternal fasting, shall know that the food of faithlessness which they belch forth in the present is the cause of so great a punishment. And there shall be a time when they shall bewail their laughter. To whom it is well said: Woe, when men shall bless you; because while here they please the powerful, they subject themselves to a perpetual curse, because as the poor, the hungry, the weeping are proved by the wickedness of the evil, so those given to riches, to feasts and to laughter, by the evil retinue of those who fawn upon them, are cherished unto a greater punishment.

263BVERS. 25.-- You that are filled, etc. You who among the rich abound the more, like the rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and with feasts, who seeks a drop of water from Lazarus' finger.

Woe to you that now laugh, etc. Solomon: The heart of the wise man is where there is sadness, the heart of fools where there is gladness (Eccl. VII); teaching that folly is to be ascribed to those who laugh, prudence to those who weep.

VERS. 26.-- Shall bless you, etc. A great part of the punishment of sinners is that their crimes are not only not reproved, but are moreover praised as though well done.

VERS. 27.-- Love your enemies. When it has been said what they can suffer from enemies, he adds how they ought to bear themselves toward those enemies. And here the Church is not fed with milk, but strengthened with the stronger food of charity. It is not 263Cenough not to hate, but what is beyond human nature is commanded, to love. And whereas the law commands a return of vengeance, the Gospel bestows charity for enmities, kindness for hatreds, prayers for curses, patience for persecutors, and even the grace of recompense for those who hunger.

VERS. 28.-- Pray for them that calumniate you. That the prophets seem to imprecate, these are not the wishes of men desiring it, but foretellings of things to come: for they themselves prayed for their enemies.

VERS. 29.-- And to him that striketh thee. Since charity is patient, it ought to sustain the patient bearing of him that beats; and since it is kind, it ought not to answer curses. If it seeketh not her own, it ought not to resist him that plunders; if it envieth not (I Cor. XIII), it ought not 263Dto hate an enemy. Offer them, etc. The physician of souls commands those whom he instructs to heal their neighbours to bear all things that can avail for the salvation of their neighbours. And it pertains to mercy that, as from sick and frenzied sons, they should suffer many things, if their health require it, until the infirmity pass. What is so wonderful as to offer the cheek to him that strikes? Nay, every assault of the angry man is broken, wrath is calmed; and through patience he is invited to repentance. A garment. What is said of the garment and the coat is to be done also in other things which by any right we call temporally our own. For if this is commanded concerning necessary things, much more is it enjoined to despise superfluous things.

264AVERS. 30.-- Ask not again. Because charity is patient, is kind (I Cor. III); it not only bears bravely the injuries of an enemy, but also kindly anticipates the favour of a friend, that they may be drawn by other kindnesses.

VERS. 31.-- And as you would. Lest he should seem to dissolve the law, he keeps in benefits the return which he neglects in injuries. Nor does he say, as they do, but as you would that men should do to you, that you also should do to them, that the return may be the fuller, since the act is matched with the wish. And now extend the works of charity not only to friends, but even to enemies, that they may begin to be friends; and first extend the affection of love, and afterwards the works of charity.

VERS. 32.-- And if you love. The more eminent your degree of profession, the more needful it is that the care 264Bof virtue be more abundant, that you embrace in the bosom of charity even those who do not love.

There are two kinds of benefit: either when we give kindly what we give, or when we lend to one who will repay.

VERS. 35.-- But yet, etc. After he has reproved as unfruitful the love and mutual benefit of sinners, he now shows how these are to be done fruitfully by the faithful, as if he should say: Although such love and mutual benefit profit not sinners, yet do you love, not only by the leading of nature, as they love friends, but by a higher degree of virtue, your enemies. The philosophers divide justice into three parts: one toward God, which is called piety; another toward parents, or the rest of the human race; the third 264Ctoward the dead, that the due rites of burial be paid to them. But the Lord, having gone beyond the oracle of the law and the summit of prophecy, extended the office of piety even to those who have done hurt.

Hoping for nothing thereby: and it shall be. Not fixing the hope of a reward in man. For whether he repay what you have lent, God will nevertheless repay also, at whose bidding you did it; or whether he repay not, your inheritance shall be for ever.

VERS. 36.-- Be ye therefore merciful, etc. He rains upon the evil, the earth does not deny its produce, the same sun enlightens the good and the evil.

Mystically: he waters the people of the Jews with prophetic rains, and upon those not deserving it the ray of the eternal sun has shone. If therefore they have believed, be merciful to them, by teaching and by lifting them up, and do not rashly judge, 264Dlest anyone conscious of his own offence be compelled to pass sentence upon another.

VERS. 37.-- Judge not. There are certain middle and uncertain things, in what mind they are done, because they can be done well and ill. We know not either what he will be like who now appears evil, of whose correction to despair, and to reprove him as though cast off, is rash.

Concerning open things which cannot be done with a good mind, it is permitted us to judge.

VERS. 38.-- For with the same measure. It can be taken generally of all things which are done by mind, by hand, by tongue, because God will render according to the works of each.

265AFor with the same, (AMBR.) God will not repay with an unjust measure, but it is as if he should say: The very rashness of judging and the unjust measure hurts thee, punishes thee, and often not him about whom thou doest this. Or if thou judgest and measurest rightly, it profits thee, it saves thee, even though sometimes not him upon whom thou bestowest these things.

VERS. 39.-- He spoke. By which he invites to the giving of alms and to the forgiving of injury. Can he. If anger has blinded thee against a violent man: if thou shalt be covetous against him that asks, canst thou, with thy mind vitiated, heal his vice? And not only he who has done thee injury, but thou also who knowest not how to bear it, shalt be guilty. But if his wickedness finds thee tranquil, both he shall repent, and thou shalt be crowned for thy patience, because thou hast taken care to lead the blind man with a seeing eye, that is, with a serene heart, 265Bto the light.

VERS. 40.-- As the master. God does not avenge his own injuries, but by bearing with persecutors he willed to make them milder; the disciples, who are men, ought to imitate this rule of perfection.

VERS. 41.-- And why seest thou, etc. Truly a sinner is not able to chastise a sinner, because they who, forestalled by pride, or by hatred, or by some other vice, judging these things light or nothing, gravely rebuke those whom they see disturbed from the state of the mind, either by anger or by some slight sin, such men as these love rather to blame and to condemn than to correct and to amend. Thou considerest not. The open eye sees ill, namely its own boasting, while it wishes to heal others, but being blind it is not able to look upon itself, while in this it falls the worse.

265CVERS. 42.-- Hypocrite. If thou wilt reprove anyone, first see whether thou art like him. And if thou art, groan alike with him, and be not willing that he should obey thee, but admonish him to strive alike. But if thou art not like him, yet because thou once wast, or couldst have been, condescend, and reprove not out of hatred but out of mercy. Rarely therefore, and not without great necessity, are rebukes to be applied, and not save out of regard for God, when the beam has been removed from the eye.

For these men undertake to accuse all things out of hatred or envy, and wish to seem counsellors, without the example of their own amendment. But they ought first to take away the beam of envy, or of malice, or of dissimulation, from the hidden place of their heart, that they may be able to cast out the mote of anger, or of any fault of envy, from their brother's eye.

265DVERS. 43.-- There is no tree, etc. A tree good or bad is not nature, which was created good by God in all things, but a good or a bad will. The fruits are the works, which can neither be good of a bad will, nor bad of a good will. Nor a tree. If thou wilt have true justice and not feigned, fulfil in deeds what thou showest in words, that thou mayest be a good tree, and be adorned with good fruits. Because although the hypocrite feign, he is not good who does evil works; and if he reprove the guiltless, he is not therefore evil who does good works. And note that here the discussion is of manifest things.

VERS. 44.-- For every tree. The evil are known by their own fruit, while they oppress the good, and blaspheme God by their deeds if not by their words: and chiefly they are discerned by their impatience 266Ain the time of adversity. For fasts and prayer and things of this kind belong to the feigning as also to the good: but the sheep ought not to lay aside their own fleeces, even if sometimes wolves cover themselves with them. Is known. Not by the garment, but by the works which are done by them, are they known. Because as the thorn does not make a grape, so a good tree makes what is good, a bad tree what is bad, and not the contrary. For neither of thorns. Not of thorns, that is, of the cares of the world, figs, that is, the sweetness of the resurrection, nor of the bramble, that is, of the pricking of vices, a grape, that is, the fruit of the soul. Which, as a grape near to earthly things is corrupted, in higher places ripens. Or from the flesh, which brings forth thorns and thistles, we do not gather Christ, who hung upon the tree like a grape.

The thorn and the bramble, to the heretics, from whom 266Bno wise man will be able to find holiness or virtue, but they tear and bloody those that draw near. Or the thorns and brambles are the cares of the world and the prickings of vices. The grape and the fig, the sweetness of the new manner of life which Christ hungers for in us, and the fervour of love which gladdens the heart of man.

Not of thorns and brambles a grape or a fig, because the mind still pressed by the custom of the old man can indeed feign, but cannot bear the fruit of the new man. But if at any time the deeds or words of the evil profit the good, the evil do not do this, but it comes of them by the counsel of God.

VERS. 45.-- Bringeth forth good. He loves his enemy. He gives to everyone that asks, and things of this kind.

Bringeth forth evil, etc. He hates his friend, he takes away what is another's, 266Che does not give his own, and things of this kind, which God judges according to the intention of the heart. And truly, because it proceeds from a good or a bad heart, the fruit ought to be judged good or bad, because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks what lies hidden within, that is, the effect proceeds outwardly, as well in words as in deeds. This is as regards the divine examination, to which the mouth of the heart speaks, because he is not ignorant from what intention words proceed. Because even the words which outwardly seem good, because they proceed from an evil root, he judges not to be good; whence he subjoins: And why call you me Lord? As if he should say: Why do you boast that you put forth the leaves of a right confession, who show no fruits of good work? Out of the abundance. By the speech of the mouth the Lord signifies all the things which are brought forth from the heart by act or by thought. 266DFor a word is wont to be put for a deed; whence: There was no word which he did not show them (Isa. XXXIX).

VERS. 46.-- And why, etc. This calling seems the fruit of a good tree, but because it does not proceed from the fatness of charity, God judges it not good. But what the true discernment of good or of evil fruits may be, he sets forth under another figure:

VERS. 47.-- Everyone that cometh, etc. After he has long disputed of the openly evil, and of the truly and the feignedly good, he likens good hearers of the word to himself, the evil to the devil. Because as Christ builds, instructs and governs one Church out of the various persons of men, being about to lead it into life eternal; so the good hearer builds for himself by various virtues a dwelling on high, 267Abeing about to rejoice in the world to come with Christ at its dedication. And as the devil draws those who obey him from the heavens to earthly things and to sins, where there is no foundation, because evil is without substance, and always casts them down into worse things: so the evil hearer, whether he be initiated in the mysteries of Christ, or wholly a stranger, cast down as it were into a well without a bottom, finds not where to hold himself, but when he has come into the depth of evils, he despises.

VERS. 48.-- He digged deep. He digs deep who by the precepts of humility roots out utterly from the hearts of his own all earthly things, that he may not serve God for the sake of anything fleeting, that he may have in them an unshaken dwelling. He laid a foundation. Foundations in the plural, the doctors; in the singular, the foundation, the doctor of doctors 267BChrist.

Morally. The foundations of the house are the intentions of a good manner of life, which through Christian humility, the rubbish of superfluous thoughts having been drawn off, the perfect hearer sets within himself, doing spiritually in himself what Christ does generally in the whole Church.

A flood. This flood he elsewhere calls the gates of hell. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matth. XVI). This flood happens in three ways, because each man is tempted by his own concupiscence, or by the wickedness of false brethren, or by the open assault of those without. Beaten upon. By the rush of the river can be understood the crisis of the last judgment, when each Church has been consummated. Everyone that exalteth himself 267Cshall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Luc. XIV). That house. Our several houses are daily beaten by the unquiet of unclean spirits, or of wicked men, or of one's own mind, or of the flesh. And in so far as they trust in their own strength, they are bowed down: in so far as they cleave to the most unconquered rock, they cannot be shaken.

VERS. 49.-- Upon the earth, etc. The devil builds upon the earth the world which is set in wickedness, because he draws it to the love of earthly things. He builds without a foundation, because sin does not subsist in its own nature, since evil is not a substance, which nevertheless, wherever it happens, grows together in a good nature, or without a foundation, that is, without a bottom. As therefore he who is plunged into a well is held at the bottom of the well, so 267Dthe fallen soul stands as it were in a certain place of the bottom, if it holds itself within some measure of sin. But since it cannot be content with the sin into which it falls, while it is daily led to worse things, as in a well into which it has fallen it does not find a bottom whereon it may be fixed. It fell down, and there was made a ruin, etc. [Vulg. Lc 6:49 reads et continuo cecidit: et facta est ruina domus illius magna, "and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great."] Every conscience which does not remain with its hope fixed in God is not able to persist in temptations, and is the more driven the more it is disjoined from things above in those things which are of the world. And truly all the evil, or the feignedly good, become worse when any temptation presses in.

VERS. 1.-- When he had fulfilled. Beautifully, where he has completed his precepts, 268Ahe teaches the form of carrying out his precepts. For at once the servant of a Gentile centurion is offered to the Lord to be healed, in whom the Gentiles, who were held sick in worldly servitude, are set forth as those to be saved by the benefit of God. He entered into Capharnaum. Of a centurion, etc. He did not enter before he had brought his words to an end, although he did not enter immediately after these words. For before he entered, in that very interval the leper was cleansed, as Matthew sets it down.

VERS. 3.-- He sent to him the elders, etc. By divine providence the elders of the Jews are sent, and in their presence the sick man is healed, that they may be without excuse if they have refused to believe.

The centurion sends friends, lest by his own presence he should seem to burden the Lord's modesty, and to have challenged 268Bservice with service. But it signifies that we who from among the Gentiles believe in the Lord cannot ourselves come to him whom we cannot see in the flesh, but to him who sits at the Father's right hand. The Gentile people, like a centurion, is thronged about with the soldiery of the virtues and with the perfection of spiritual things, which is signified in the hundred. Lofty, seeking nothing earthly from the Lord for himself and for his own, but only the joys of eternal salvation: and these make supplication to the Lord for servants, that is, for those who are still pressed down in fear by the spirit of servitude, that, as they are little by little advanced to higher things, perfect love may cast out fear (I Joan. IV).

Matthew says that the centurion came near, which is to be understood of faith. For by faith one truly draws near to God, and that faith is commended in the centurion by the Lord: 268CI have not found so great faith in Israel. But Luke follows out the order in which it was done, that we might be compelled to understand in what manner Matthew says he came near.

VERS. 5.-- Our nation. Mystically. The Gentile people (whose figure the centurion bears) has Jesus not far from the house, although it does not dare to invite him under the roof, because, near to them that fear him is his salvation. He who rightly uses the natural law, so as to work the good things he knows, draws near thereby to him who is truly good. But to those whom the crimes of Gentile error had bound, that can be fitted which is said elsewhere: for some of these came from afar (Marc. VIII).

VERS. 6.-- And Jesus went. Being about to heal powerfully by his word alone, he deigns, for the commendation of humility, to visit 268Dthe sick man; and he who would not go to heal the ruler's son, lest he should seem to have honoured riches, goes to a servant, lest he should be thought to have despised the servile condition. Faith shines out in his works while he heals, but humility works more in the affections while he goes. I am not worthy. Because of the conscience of his Gentile life, he thought himself to be burdened rather than helped by the Lord's condescension, and that he could not have Christ as a guest, since, although endowed with faith, he was nevertheless not yet steeped in the sacraments. But because divine grace knows how to give what human weakness does not presume, as a figure of the Gentile people he deserved, not yet catechized, both that his faith should be praised by the Lord and that his servant should be healed.

VERS. 8.-- For I also, etc. If I, a man set under another, 269Acan command those beneath me, how much more thou, who, having angels serving thee over all things, canst through their ministries, without the presence of thy body, say to sickness that it depart, and it will depart, and to health that it come, and it will come.

VERS. 9.-- Not even in Israel. This man's faith is set even before the more chosen and those who see God. Even in this one man the faith of the Gentiles is preferred to Israel.

VERS. 10.-- And they returned. Matthew explains it more plainly, that when the Lord said: As thou hast believed, so be it done to thee; let the boy be healed (Matth. VIII) [Vulg. Matt 8:13 "Et sanatus est puer in illa hora," and the boy was healed in that hour; the printed reading has the subjunctive]. But it is the custom of blessed Luke to abridge what has been plainly set out by others, or even of set purpose to pass over what has been briefly said by others, or to elucidate more skilfully what has been omitted. They found the servant. The master believing, the servant is healed, because the merit of the master 269Bcan avail even for servants, not only by the merit of faith, but also by zeal for discipline.

VERS. 11.-- And it came to pass, etc. After the sick man healed he raises the dead, because sickness goes before death.

Which is called Naim. Naim is a city of Galilee at the second milestone from Thabor toward the south, next to Endor, which is a large village. And Naim is interpreted a wave or a commotion.

VERS. 12.-- And when he drew near, etc. (BEDA.) When the Word made flesh, the Gentile people through the gates of faith, etc., as far as which he commands both meanwhile in the few of the Jews converted, and at last in the fulness.

269CBehold a dead man was carried out, etc. The dead man, who is carried out before many outside the gate, signifies him who sins criminally, and who does not cover his sin in the chamber of the heart, but by the evidence of deed or of speech publishes it abroad to others, as it were through the doors of his own city. Whom mother Church bewails as an only son, for although she is gathered out of many persons, yet mother Church is one virgin, while the sons are single. The gate by which he is carried out is some one of the senses, by which a man falls into sin. As he who looks in order to lust, and he who [lends himself] to hearing idle or filthy things, and he who lends his tongue to quarrels.

The only son to his mother. (AMBR.) Adam is carried from the earth by the four elements, of which man consists. The bier is touched, etc., as far as when he thinks upon avarice, or when for excess of fever 269Dhe cannot be touched.

VERS. 13.-- And a crowd. Many with the Lord, many with the widow, so that, the miracle being seen, many may become praisers and witnesses of God.

VERS. 15.-- And he sat up. The Lord raised three dead: the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue in the house, that is, in thought; the only son of his mother at the gate, that is, in word; Lazarus in the tomb, that is, in deed.

VERS. 16.-- He hath visited. Since he both appointed the Word to be embodied once, and daily sends the Holy Spirit into the hearts of men, that they may be raised up.

VERS. 18.-- And they told. (AMBR.) Not with a simple heart, but at the prompting of envy, etc., as far as 270Aand, being corrected, they may believe in Jesus and, at their master's questioning, say for themselves: Thou art he that is to come.

(BED., GREG.) He does not say, who hast come, etc., as far as because a lapse of love does not hinder faith, for such a lapse is religious.

VERS. 22.-- And answering he said to them: Go and relate to John what you have seen, etc. [Vulg. Luke 7:22 "quae audistis et vidistis," what you have heard and seen] Jesus, knowing that no one can fully believe without the Gospel, because as faith begins from the Old Testament, so it is fulfilled in the New. Being questioned about himself, he signified what he was, not by any word, but by his deeds, answering not to the things about which he was questioned, but to the scandal of the messengers.

VERS. 23.-- Blessed. As if he should say: I do indeed marvellous things, but I do not disdain to suffer abject ones, and men must beware lest they despise death in me, who 270Bvenerate the signs.

He that shall not. (GREG.) He who shall not have doubted of the power of the godhead. This is not against John, whom he presently commends so highly, but he calls back from faithlessness those who believe not, and he sets forth to John what he was asking, because God of saving; and of the Lord, of the Lord are the issues from death (Psal. LXVII). So many signs and mighty works having been seen, the faithful man could not doubt concerning his death, but only wonder; but the mind of the unbelieving bore a scandal in him, when it saw him dying even after the miracles.

VERS. 24.-- What. When he had admonished John's disciples that they must believe in the Lord's cross, turning to the crowds he summons the poor to virtue, lest, lifted up in heart, unstable in mind, weak in counsel, they should prefer specious and fleeting things to things eternally useful, but that they should rather take up the cross 270Cthan the world's trappings. And therefore he praises the person of John, who, setting aside the love of life, did not change the form even of justice through fear of death. The world is compared to a desert, because it is still untilled and barren, into which one must not so go forth as to think that men puffed up with the mind of the flesh and empty of virtue, and boasting of the glory of a frail world, are to be imitated.

A reed by the wind. (BED.) By the reed is meant the carnal mind, which, when it is touched by favour or by detraction, is bent to whatever side. But John is not a reed shaken by the wind, because neither did favour make him soft nor any man's anger make him harsh, nor did prosperity lift him up, nor did adversity bow him down.

VERS. 25.-- Clothed in soft garments. By the 270Dgarment the human body is understood. Therefore by the prophetic example he exhorts to the virtue of a virtue to be undergone. Behold they who are in costly apparel. Those whose limbs are loosed and made flabby by riches, strangers to the heavenly kingdom, grow old under the sway of demons (who are the kings of darkness) within the dwellings of this world.

VERS. 26.-- More than a prophet. Because he is an angel: not by nature, but by office, who is sent to announce the judge from on high.

VERS. 28.-- But I say. In this he is not preferred before the patriarchs and all men, but is shown equal to the rest of the saints. But he that. Every saint who is already with God is greater than he who is still in the world. Or: I, whom the opinion of many makes the lesser, 271Aam in the Church of the saints set before him. Or, the least angel of heaven is better than any man whatsoever.

VERS. 29.-- And all the people. If this is understood to have been said by the Lord, the people is understood to be designated as hearing John. If it is said to have been interposed by the evangelist, it remains to be understood as hearing the Lord himself, discoursing upon John's greatness.

VERS. 31.-- To whom then, etc. John being praised, he passes to the rebuking of those who neither were moved by John's preaching, or who despise the preaching of Christ himself.

VERS. 32.-- They are like to children. The children are teachers humble in spirit. The marketplace is the synagogue, or Jerusalem itself, in which the ordinances of God's precepts were established, because they were wont to reproach their fellow tribesmen that neither, 271Bdrawn by psalms, did they rise up to the praises of God with a devout heart and with agility of limbs (which the dancing denotes), nor by threnodies (that is, by the lamentations of the prophets over the destructions already wrought or yet to be wrought) were they turned to penance.

VERS. 34.-- The Son of man is come eating and drinking. He comes as then, so now also; you spurn both ways of salvation. We have lamented to John, we have sung to Christ.

VERS. 35.-- Wisdom is justified. He shows that the sons of wisdom understand that justice lies neither in abstaining nor in eating, but in the evenness of mind that bears want and temperance, and does not corrupt itself through abundance. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink (Rom. XIV). Of which not the use but the 271Cconcupiscence is reproved. Justified, etc. Whatever you think me, I nevertheless, the power of God and the wisdom of God, am understood to act justly by the apostles, to whom the Father revealed the things he hid from the prudent.

VERS. 36.-- He asked. As he had set it forth in words, so in deeds also he establishes that wisdom is justified by all her sons, because she is justified even by Mary repenting after her fault.

VERS. 37.-- In the house. In whosesoever inner house thou shalt have known wisdom and justice reclining, run back to the feet, that is, to the furthest part of wisdom; seek with tears, confess thy sins, spread out thy hair, that is, strew before him all the dignities of thy body; kiss, that is, thou shalt speak nothing but wisdom. She brought. As many delights as she had in herself, 271Dso many holocausts she found out of herself.

(HIER.) The alabaster box of ointment, that is, the body with faith, etc., as far as that is, the sins of the Jews.

VERS. 38.-- She began to water. Mary the sister of Lazarus performed the same office twice: once in Galilee, when she first draws near with humility and tears, where she received the remission of sins. The second time, in Bethania, no longer named a sinner, but chaste, and therefore devout: there she anoints the feet, here the head.

VERS. 43.-- He to whom more. According to men, he perhaps offended more who owed more. But by the Lord's mercy the case is changed, so that he who owed more should love more, and yet obtain grace. Thou hast judged rightly. The Pharisee is convicted by his own sentence, 272Abecause, like a frenzied man, he carries the rope by which he is to be bound.

VERS. 44.-- I entered into the house. I entered, flesh being assumed, into the people of the Jews.

VERS. 46.-- My head with oil thou didst not anoint. And although that people confessed that it believed in God and not in a man, yet it neglected to proclaim with worthy praise that very power of the godhead which appeared through the miracles. But the Gentile world, while it believes the mystery of the incarnation, proclaims with the highest praise even his weak things.

VERS. 47.-- Her sins are forgiven her. In the house of the Pharisee, that is, in the keeping of the law and the prophets, it is not the unbelieving Pharisee but the repentant sinful woman who is glorified, because the ardour of charity burned away in her the rust 272Bof her offences.

VERS. 49.-- And they that were together began. The sick woman being healed, they sicken over her salvation, to others.

VERS. 50.-- Thy faith hath made thee safe. Faith made her safe, because she did not doubt that she could receive what she asked, since she had already received hope from him from whom she was seeking salvation.

VERS. 1.-- And it came to pass. After the manner of an eagle stirring up her young to fly, the Lord little by little clothes his own disciples in the nest of faith with the feathers of the virtues, by which afterwards they may be able to fly more loftily and to instruct others. First he teaches in the synagogues, works miracles, spreads his fame everywhere, receives the crowds, heals, instructs; here he makes disciples, out of whom he chose twelve, 272Cwhom at first he teaches with the crowd present, and bestows on the wretched his accustomed benefits; but now he keeps them alone with him, that they may hear him more familiarly; to them alone he expounds the more hidden mysteries; and so at last, when they have been strengthened by the showing of his powers as by the protection of wings, he gives them the power of healing, and sends them to preach the kingdom of God.

VERS. 2.-- Mary who is called Magdalen. When Mary was making the journey with the Lord, and is recorded to minister to him, he calls her by the celebrated name of Magdalen: where he describes the same woman as a sinner, he reverently calls her by the general name of woman, lest the mark of her former error should darken a name of such renown as we venerate today. Mary, a bitter sea, because of the ingrafted roaring of penitence, by which she herself, or we, bewail our several 272Devils. Seven demons. That same Church of the Gentiles, cleansed from the filth of vices, which Mary signifies, Joanna also signifies: formerly given over to the worship of idols, but now redeemed by the mercy of Christ and filled with grace, and which was before as it were the wife of the devil.

VERS. 3.-- And Joanna, etc. Joanna, the Lord her grace, or the Lord merciful. whose is all that we live. Of Herod's steward. When any malignant spirit labours to deceive on behalf of the devil's kingdom, he stands as it were the steward of the most impious Herod. Of their substance, etc. It was an ancient custom of the Jews, and it was not accounted a fault, that women should feed and clothe their teachers out of their own substance. Here, because this could give 273Ascandal among the Gentiles, Paul records that he abstained from it. They ministered therefore carnal things to the Lord, whose spiritual things they reaped, that he might give a form to preachers, that they ought to be content with the food and clothing they receive from the peoples.

VERS. 4.-- And when a crowd, etc. As often as the word "crowd" is inserted in the Gospel, just as a diversity of men, so also a diversity of wills is intimated. For not all followed Christ with the same will, but for different causes: some for good, some for evil; yet to all the Lord bestows his benefits, by teaching, by feeding, by healing. The sower went out, etc. The Son of God went out from the bosom of the Father, to which there was no access for a creature, that he might sow his own seed; he came into the world, that he might give testimony 273Bto the truth. Whence, according to the other evangelists, when about to speak this parable he is recorded to have gone out of the house, to have gone to the sea, and to have gone up into a ship, insinuating by the posture of his body the very thing he insinuated by the course of his discourse.

VERS. 5.-- By the wayside. The way is the heart worn down and dried up by the constant passage of evil thoughts, so that it cannot receive the seed of the word nor make it germinate, but it is trodden down by the worst thoughts, and snatched away by the demons. Who are therefore called the birds of the air, because they are of a heavenly and spiritual nature, or because they course through the air.

VERS. 6.-- Upon the rock. The rock is the untamed heart, pierced by no ploughshare of true faith, in which there is not true love nor the virtue of perseverance.

273CVERS. 8.-- A hundredfold, etc. Since the number ten is wont to be taken for perfection (because the keeping of the law is contained in its ten precepts), the number a hundred, which arises from ten multiplied, is set for great perfection: therefore that heart bears fruit a hundredfold which by the love of its neighbour attains the active life, and by the love of God the contemplative, and is adorned with the perfection of spiritual virtues.

VERS. 9.-- This parable. Note that this is the first parable which is set down with its own interpretation. And one must beware, wherever the Lord, being asked by the disciples privately, expounds his own discourses, lest we should wish to understand either something else, or more, or less, than what has been set forth by him. And therefore he deigns to show this parable by himself, that he might make known that he speaks figuratively, 273Dand might teach that the significations of things are to be sought even in those which he was unwilling to expound.

VERS. 10.-- Seeing. The teachers of the Jews, who, although they have been blinded by the desert of their own perversity, falsely think themselves to be seeing.

VERS. 12.-- But that which by the wayside. They are sown by the wayside who deign to receive it with no faith, with no understanding, not even with any occasion of profit tempting them. But they are sown upon the rock and among thorns who do indeed hear, and approve the profit of the word, and taste the desire of it; but, lest they should come to that which they long for, they hold them back either by terrifying through adverse things or by flattering with prosperous ones. By these three kinds 274Aare designated all who do not do the word they have heard.

VERS. 13.-- For a while they believe. Many, hearing a discourse against avarice or luxury, say that despisers of the world and chaste men are blessed: but when desirable forms are set before their gaze, presently whatever they had rightly thought departs from them.

VERS. 14.-- They are choked. Because pleasures and riches, by their importunate thoughts, strangle the throat of the mind, as it were the entrance of the vital breath, so that a good desire cannot enter to the heart.

VERS. 15.-- On the good ground, etc. Upon good hearers who take pains to hear the word, and lay it up in the belly of memory, and so in due time bring forth the fruit 274Bof working, being patient amid the prosperity and adversity of the world. And the good ground renders fruit with patience, because it does good things, and bears with an even mind the evils of its neighbours; and while they humbly look up to the scourges, after the scourges they are received into rest.

VERS. 16.-- And no man. These words are set down according to the likeness of human custom.

VERS. 17.-- For there is not, etc. As if he should say. Let not the fear of carnal men hold you back, nor yet the evil opinion which is now held of you among unbelievers; because although you appear vile, one day your brightness will appear, when the Lord will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, then you also will be crowned, and your adversaries will be punished.

274CVERS. 18.-- For he that hath, etc. These things seem to be said specially to the apostles, to whom out of charity it is given to know the mysteries, and to the faithless Jews (who through parables hear what they do not understand). It can also be taken generally, because both the clever man, by being negligent, deprives himself of true wisdom, and the simple diligent man, by labouring, tastes it. Because to him who has the love of the word, the sense also of understanding what he loves will be given. But he who has not the love of hearing, even though by natural talent or by studious labour he thinks that he understands, will yet taste no sweetness of true knowledge. And whosoever hath not. Therefore the slothful man often receives talent, that he may be the more justly punished for his negligence, who scorned to know what he could have attained without labour; and sometimes the studious man is pressed by slowness of understanding, that he may find the greater 274Drewards the more studiously he labours.

VERS. 24.-- And it ceased, and there was a calm. Note that every creature perceives its Creator. He commands, he rebukes, and they perceive him commanding; not that, according to the heresy of certain men, they are living things, but that things which with us are insensible are sensible to the majesty of their maker.

VERS. 25.-- They wondered one to another. Not the disciples, but the sailors and the others who were in the ship wonder. Whence Matthew: But those men wondered, saying: What manner of man is this? (Matth. VIII.) But if we say that the disciples wondered, they too are rightly called men.

To the country of the Gerasens. Gerasa, a city of Arabia 275Abeside Mount Galaad in the tribe of Manasses, not far from the lake of Tiberias, signifies the Gentiles whom after his passion and resurrection the Lord visited through his preachers; whence Gerasa, or Gergesi, casting out the settler, that is, the devil by whom it was formerly inhabited, or, a stranger drawing near, who was far off in time.

VERS. 27.-- In the sepulchres. What else are the bodies of the faithless but certain tombs of the dead, in which the words of God do not dwell?

VERS. 28.-- Jesus, Son of God. Arius contends that he is a creature, whom the demon confesses to be the Son of God. The Jews say: In the prince of demons he casteth out demons, whom the demons deny to have anything in common with themselves. It is a torment to the devil to cease from injuring a man, and by how much the longer he had possessed him, by so much 275Bthe more hardly does he let him go. Let anyone therefore who has been injured by the devil take care to break his yoke quickly, because his dominion is escaped the more easily the more quickly it is escaped.

VERS. 29.-- He was bound with chains. The chains and fetters are the hard and heavy laws of the Gentiles, by which, even in their commonwealth, sins were restrained. Yet when these laws were broken, they were led by desire to those crimes which exceeded common usage.

VERS. 30.-- Because many demons entered, etc. The many demons which oppress one man signify the many cults of idolatry in one people of the Gentiles. On the contrary it is said: The multitude of believers had one heart and one soul (Act. IV). Whence fittingly in Babylon the unity of tongues was rent, and in Jerusalem it was made one.

275CVERS. 31.-- And they besought. The demons knew that by the Lord's coming they were one day to be plunged into the abyss: not themselves foreseeing things to come, but recalling the things said of them by the prophets.

VERS. 32.-- A herd of swine. The swine are men devoid of speech and of reason, given over to filthy deeds, feeding on the mountain of pride. And unless a man has lived after the manner of a swine, the devil receives no power over him, or receives it only for proving him, and not for destroying him.

VERS. 34.-- They fled and told it in the city and in the villages. The herdsmen fled, because neither the philosophers of the Gentiles nor the rulers of the Synagogue can bring medicine to the perishing; and although they flee the Christian law, yet by being astonished and by wondering they proclaim its power.

275DVERS. 35.-- And they went out to see what was done, and they came to Jesus, and found the man, etc. It signifies the multitude, delighted with its own comely life, indeed honouring the Christian religion, but unwilling to endure it, while they say that they cannot fulfil it. They wonder also at the faithful people healed of its former manner of life, and sitting at the Lord's feet, that is, with a sound judgment of mind beholding the footsteps of the Saviour which it is to follow, and clothed with the pursuits of the virtues which, being deceived, it had lost.

VERS. 37.-- And they besought him. Conscious of their frailty, they judge themselves unworthy of the Lord's presence, not receiving the word of God, and not sustaining the weight of wisdom in a firm mind; and therefore he was not troublesome to them any longer, but 276Areturns, because he does not deign to heal the unwilling, but quickly leaves the weak, to whom he sees his own presence to be a burden.

VERS. 39.-- Return to thy house, etc. Allegorically. After the remission of sins one must return into a good conscience, and must serve the Gospel, for the salvation of others also, that thereafter he may rest with Christ; lest, when he now wishes to be near with Christ, he neglect the mystery of preaching that is fitted to the deliverance of the brethren. Whence the Apostle: I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ (Philip. I), a thing much better, but to abide in the flesh is needful for you.

VERS. 43.-- Upon physicians. The physicians are the demons, who, as though taking counsel for men, demand to be worshipped in God's stead, and whom the Gentile world had served.

276BVERS. 44.-- She touched the hem. He touches the hem who perfectly loves and believes the mysteries of the Incarnation, until he comes to the grasping of greater things. If we consider how great our faith is, and understand how great the Son of God is, we see that, in comparison with him, we touch only the hem, and cannot reach the upper part of his garment.

And immediately, etc. Being about to raise the dead girl, he returned to make faith; first he heals the woman with the issue of blood. So Elizabeth, barren, is declared as about to bear, that the Virgin about to conceive may be believed.

VERS. 45.-- Who is it. He does not ask that he may be taught what he does not know, but that the woman's faith may appear.

VERS. 46.-- For I also know. Whoever touches is not hidden: 276CGod does not need eyes in order to see, nor does he perceive bodily, but has in himself the knowledge of all things. The power also which is merciful to all our iniquities, and heals all our infirmities, goes forth not from us, but from God.

VERS. 47.-- And the woman seeing. This woman, modest, touches the hem; faithful, she drew near; religious, she believed; wise, she knows herself to be healed: so the people of the Gentiles, which believed in God, blushed at sin that it might forsake it, brought faith that it might believe, showed devotion that it might ask, put on wisdom that it too might perceive its own healing, took confidence that it might confess that it was seizing beforehand what belonged to another.

VERS. 51.-- The father of the girl. The father of the girl is the assembly of the teachers of the law, namely the Scribes and Pharisees, who, if they 276Dshall have been willing to believe, the Synagogue that is subject to them will also be saved.

VERS. 52.-- And they wept. They weep who see the Synagogue estranged from God, who is life, and who grieve, and think that she can no longer be quickened; and she, who has lost the bridegroom's presence by which she ought to live, lying as it were dead among the mourners, does not understand even this very thing, why she is mourned. Weep not. Let them bewail their dead who think them dead; where there is faith of the resurrection there is not death, but the hope of rest. She is not dead, etc. The girl is dead to men who cannot raise her: not to God, to whom the soul lives, and to whom the flesh rests in order to be raised.

VERS. 53.-- They laughed him to scorn, etc. Rightly were they shut out, 277Awho preferred to mock rather than to believe, unworthy to see the miracle of the resurrection.

VERS. 54.-- Holding her hand. He holds her hand, because unless the hands of the Jews (which are full of blood) shall first have been cleansed, the Synagogue will not rise. Maid, arise. Whosoever comes to himself from the death of the soul, Christ strengthening his hand for him, ought to rise from the filth of vices, and (as Mark says) to walk in good works, and it is necessary that he be presently filled with heavenly bread, that is, with the bread of the word of God and of the altar.

VERS. 56.-- Whom he charged. As a public offence needs a public remedy, so light and secret sins can be blotted out by a lighter penance. Whence the girl, lying in the house, rises with few witnesses, and these same are forbidden to publish the miracle abroad.

• 277B

VERS. 1.-- And Jesus, having called them together. The power of signs being first granted, they are sent to preach the kingdom of God, that the greatness of the deeds might also bear witness to the greatness of the promises, and that the power shown might give credit to the words, and that they who preached new things might also do new things.

VERS. 3.-- Take nothing. In Mark it is read, that they should take nothing for the way but a staff only (Marc. VI). But it must be known that both were commanded by the Lord: that they should carry nothing but a staff, and that they should not carry even a staff. Not to carry a staff is not to be anxious about the things which are necessary for human sustenance, because these are owed to preachers by those to whom they preach, when they can be received without scandal. To carry 277Cnothing but a staff is to use that power of receiving necessities which has been given to preachers. Two coats. A single garment is whatever is necessary to a man according to the character of the place or the time. A double one is what is beyond necessity. Allegorically, in the two coats he forbids duplicity.

VERS. 4.-- There abide. Do not run about through the houses and change the rights of an inviolable hospitality. Whence according to Matthew, the house in which they ought to remain must first be chosen, that the necessity of changing lodging may be taken away.

VERS. 5.-- The dust of your feet. The dust is shaken off in testimony of their labour, that they entered into the city, and that the preaching reached as far as them. 277DOr, it is shaken off, that they may receive nothing from those who have spurned the Gospel, not even the necessaries of life.

VERS. 8.-- John is risen. They who said that John, of whom they had seen no sign, had risen again, by the utmost malice denied that Jesus had risen again; they had seen many marvellous works, in whose passion many wonderful things had happened.

VERS. 10.-- They told. The apostles tell the Lord what they had done, and how they had taught, and how John suffered while they themselves were teaching. Whence it follows: And taking them. The nourishment of heavenly grace is imparted not to the idle, not to those residing in the city of the Synagogue, that is, of secular dignity, but to those seeking Christ amid the deserts. For those who do not turn away in loathing are received by Christ, and both spiritually and bodily, 278Aif they have need, they are healed. And note, that after the mention of John's passion is completed, Christ refreshes, because after the failing of the law the food of the Gospel begins. Finally, after the woman who bears the figure of the Church has been healed, and after the apostles have been sent to preach, mention is made of the refreshment, because through the apostles true refreshment takes place in the Church.

VERS. 11.-- They followed him. Not on beasts, not in carriages, but by the proper labour of their feet, that they might show the ardour of their mind. He healed. No one receives the food of Christ unless he has first been healed, because after the remission of sins the heavenly nourishment is bestowed.

VERS. 12.-- Now the day began. He refreshes them when the day has declined, because, either as the end of the ages draws near, or when the sun of justice had set, we were 278Bsaved from spiritual famine. And note the order of the mystery: first medicine is applied to the wounds by the remission of sins; afterwards the nourishment of the heavenly table is dispensed.

VERS. 13.-- Unless perhaps. The apostles had not yet understood that the faith of a believing people is not for sale, but they had known that we are rather to be redeemed by his own free foods.

VERS. 14.-- Five thousand. By the five thousand are signified those who, being still in a secular habit, know how to use well, through the five senses of the body, the outward things which they possess. Who are fed with five loaves, because such must still be instructed by the precepts of the law, and restrained by legal fear. For those who renounce the world entirely both are four thousand, because of the evangelical 278Cdoctrine, and are refreshed with seven loaves, that is, with the grace of the sevenfold Spirit.

VERS. 15.-- And all to sit down. According to another evangelist the five thousand sit down upon the grass, because those who still have bodily senses are delighted with better things. For all flesh is grass. The four thousand recline upon the earth, for it is more to press the earth than to lie upon grass.

VERS. 16.-- He distributed to his disciples. He calls forth the apostles to the breaking of bread, that, while they testify that they have none, the greatness of the sign may become the better known. He insinuates that through their teaching fasting hearts are daily to be fed.

VERS. 17.-- And they were filled. That the people, eating, 278Dis filled signifies that hunger is to be driven away for ever from the elect, because he who has received Christ's food will not hunger. That the apostles minister announces the future distribution of the Lord's body and blood. Twelve baskets. Why is more left over to the five thousand men, and less to the four thousand? Because the four thousand were with Christ for three days, and therefore received more of the heavenly pasture.

VERS. 18.-- And it came to pass. After the miracle, when the crowds wished to make him king, the crowd being dismissed, he fled and went up into the mountain alone to pray; and before the disciples went up into the boat, they were present with him. But he alone prays to the Father. For the saints can be joined to the Lord by faith and love, and can behold him as more excellent than men, and can follow his manner of life 279Ain the flesh with the steps of humility; but he alone penetrates the incomprehensible secrets of the Father's position, and he alone prays what he knows must be prayed. But he is not found to have prayed with the disciples, but prays alone, because human hearts do not grasp the counsel of God, nor can anyone be a partaker of the inner things with Christ. Whom do the crowds say that I am? Being about to search out the faith of the disciples, he first inquires the opinion of the common people, lest the faith of the apostles should seem to be established by common opinion, but by the acknowledgment of the truth. Rightly are they named crowds who bring forward different opinions about the Lord, whose speech and understanding is unstable and wandering; and distinguishing his own from them he says. But whom do you say that I am?

VERS. 19.-- John the Baptist. The opinion about John 279Bwas perhaps for this reason, because, placed in his mother's womb, he perceived the Lord's presence. About Elias, because he was caught up into heaven, and is believed to be about to come. About Jeremias, because he was sanctified in his mother's womb.

VERS. 20.-- But you. He who discourses ought to consider the persons of his hearers, lest he be derided before he is heard. The Christ of God. He embraced all things, who expressed both the nature and the name. For in the name of Christ there is the expression both of the godhead and of the incarnation, and the faith of the passion. The heretic, although he does not deny the name of Christ, nevertheless denies Christ, since he does not confess all the things that are Christ's.

VERS. 21.-- He charged them lest, etc. He bids the disciples be silent, that he may deceive the prince of the world, and that he may avoid boasting and teach humility. At the same time, lest the disciples, still rude 279Cand imperfect, should be crushed by the weight of a greater preaching.

VERS. 23.-- And he said. The things that pertain to faith in the Lord's nativity or passion he opened to the disciples alone, apart; but these things to all. Let him deny himself. Unless a man fall away from himself, he does not draw near to him who is above himself: and he does not lay hold of the newness to which he is called, unless he slay the oldness in which he was born; and when he ceases from vices let him also seek out virtues. Whence there is subjoined:

VERS. 24.-- For he that. (GREG.) As in time of persecution the soul must be laid down, so in peace earthly desires must be broken, that by how much a man seems the more secure, by so much he may be the more careful for his own keeping.

VERS. 26.-- Him the Son of man. The voice of profession does not suffice for the 279Dproof of faith, a voice which the profession of the generality defends from shame.

VERS. 27.-- Some standing here. He who stands with Christ does not taste death, because he who has merited fellowship with Christ will not have even the slightest sense of eternal death, and for him the order of living is not interrupted even in death. Till they see the kingdom. Because it was hard to offer the soul to dangers and the body to death, he sustains the weakness of the human mind by the reward of present things, lest it be broken by despair or weariness. For when the eternal glory has been seen, even in passing and for a brief moment, they are nevertheless rendered stronger against the adversities of the world. He promises therefore that the glory to come is to be seen in passing upon earth, that the eternal glory may be the more surely hoped for in heaven. Or 280Ahe promises that some of the disciples will see the spreading of the Church before they depart from the world by death, so that, raised up in the present against the glory of the world, they may be the more surely believed to be about to reign in heaven.

VERS. 28.-- After these words. Others, who count only six days, signify that after the six ages of the world the saints must rest from labour. Luke, who counts in both the first day on which it is promised and the last on which the promise is fulfilled, hints that we shall rise on the eighth. For as Christ, after the sixth day of the week on which he ascended the cross, and after the seventh day of the week on which he rested in the sepulchre, rose on the eighth day, so we, after the six ages of the world in which we suffer and labour for the Lord, and after the seventh of the rest of souls which meanwhile is passed in another life, shall rise in the eighth age. He took Peter. 280BHe names three only, because many are called, few chosen (Matth. XX), and those who keep the faith of the Trinity inviolate deserve to rejoice in the eternal vision. He who knows merits knows that the three apostles were more perfect than the rest. They signify those who have faith, hope, charity. Or by Peter, prelates or the married; by James, the penitent or the active; by John, virgins or the contemplative.

VERS. 29.-- And he was made. Being transfigured, he did not lose the substance of true flesh, but showed the glory either of his own or of our resurrection; and such as he then appeared to the apostles, such will he appear after the judgment to all the elect. For in the judgment itself he will appear both to the good and to the evil in the form of a servant, that they may see him whom they pierced. 280CAnd his raiment. The Lord's garments are the saints who have put on Christ. Which garment, while the Lord dwelt on earth, seemed contemptible and like that of others, but shines when the Lord ascends the mountain, because it hath not yet appeared what we shall be, but at length we shall be like to him, when we shall see him as he is. [Vulg. 1 John 3:2 "Scimus quoniam cum apparuerit, similes ei erimus: quoniam videbimus eum sicuti est," We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him, because we shall see him as he is] Or the garments of the Word are the discourses of the Scriptures, and certain clothings of the divine understanding. Because as he himself appeared to those apostles in another form and his garment shone, so also to the eyes of thy mind the sense of the divine readings already grows white.

VERS. 30.-- Behold two men. It is to be noted that not the bodies or the souls of Elias or Moses appeared, but that those bodies were formed out of some underlying creature: it can also be believed that this was done 280Dby angelic ministry, so that angels took upon them their persons. A dead man and a living man appear, that they may signify that Christ was to die and afterwards to live, and that we should live to Christ and die to the world. To the apostles also he gives a sign from heaven, that their faith may be increased. But to the scribes tempting him he would not give one, that they might be hardened. And they were Moses and Elias, seen. By Moses are signified those of the lower regions; by Elias, the heavenly; by the apostles, the earthly, who shall come to the judgment.

VERS. 31.-- They spoke of his decease. Moses, that is the lawgiver, and Elias, the most eminent of the prophets, appear with the Word, that they may show that he is the one who spoke in the law and the prophets, and whom the law and the prophets promised. Who were seen not in the lowest places, but on the mountain, 281Abecause only those lofty in mind perceive the majesty of Scripture, which was fulfilled in the Lord.

VERS. 32.-- They were heavy with sleep. They are weighed down with sleep, because the sense of the human body is oppressed by the splendour of the incomprehensible godhead. Or they are weighed down with sleep, that they might see the glory of the resurrection after the rest of the body; and the saints will see the majesty of the Lord the more truly in proportion as they rejoice in the immortality of their flesh, in which they had conquered death. Then they shall behold Moses and Elias in glory, because they will better understand how one iota or one tittle shall not pass from the law (Matth. V), and how the Lord did not destroy the law and the prophets, but fulfilled them.

VERS. 33.-- It is good for us to be here. He who had climbed to the mountains does not wish to descend to earthly things, 281Bbut always to persevere on high; and Peter stands in the person of those entering the kingdom of God. It is good for us to be here. It is good to be in the kingdom of God. As if he should say: We alone shall enjoy this light, not the envious Jews. Three tabernacles. That is, words, thoughts, works. One for Moses. How do they know those whom they had not seen before? By the majesty coming upon them, as in the resurrection to come each one will know the other, and the one will understand through charity the things desired in the other.

VERS. 34.-- There came a cloud, and overshadowed them. Although Peter is ignorant out of weakness, yet the devotion of his service pleases. Whence also the cloud overshadows; this overshadowing is of the divine Spirit, which does not darken the affections of men, but reveals hidden things, whose perfect one is 281Cshown when the voice is heard saying: This is my Son. Because he sought a material tabernacle, he received the shade of a cloud, that he might learn that in the resurrection the saints are to be protected not by the covering of houses, but by the glory of the Holy Spirit. And they were afraid. They fear, because human frailty does not endure to bear the sight of a greater glory; and by how much the greater the things a man has sought, by so much the more does he sink down to lower things, if he has been ignorant of his own measure.

VERS. 36.-- And the voice. The voice of the Father, the terror being taken away, teaches Peter the truth. And note that, as when the Lord was baptized, so also when he was transfigured, the mystery of the Trinity is declared, because the glory which we confess in baptism we shall see in the resurrection. The Spirit in a dove, 281Dhere in a bright cloud, because he who now keeps the faith with a simple heart will then contemplate in the open light of vision what he believed, and by that very grace by which he shall be illuminated he shall be protected. Jesus was found alone. Not Elias, not Moses, but he whom alone you see: for him the tabernacle must be fixed in the heart. They therefore withdraw when the Lord began to be pointed out, lest the Father's voice should be thought to have been sent to the servants.

VERS. 37.-- And it came to pass on the next day, as they came down from the mountain. According to the quality of merits, the Lord daily ascends for some, while by lifting them up more loftily he glorifies the perfect, whose conversation is in heaven, and instructs and teaches them of eternal things which cannot be heard by the crowd. For others he descends, while he comforts and teaches and chastens the earthly and the beginners. There met 282Athem a crowd. On the mountain he prays, teaches, shows forth his majesty, opens the Father's voice to the apostles; coming down, he is received by the crowd, is beset by the weeping of the wretched, reproaches the sins of unbelief, drives out the evil spirits.

VERS. 39.-- And behold a spirit seizeth him. Matthew describes him as a lunatic, Mark as deaf and dumb. But it signifies those who are changed like the moon, never remaining in the same state, but who wax and wane through diverse vices, who neither confess the faith, nor are willing to hear the discourse of that faith.

VERS. 42.-- And as he was coming. While the boy draws near to the Lord he is dashed down, because those converted to the Lord are for the most part more grievously assailed by the demon, that either they may be brought back to vices, or that the devil may avenge himself for his own expulsion. As in the beginning of the Church's birth he set many 282Band grievous struggles against those whom he saw being withdrawn from his kingdom.

VERS. 43.-- And he rebuked. Not the boy suffering violence, but the devil doing violence is rebuked, because he who wishes to heal a sinner ought to reprove and drive out the vice, but to cherish the man by loving him, until he render him healed to the spiritual fathers of the Church.

VERS. 44.-- Lay you up. You who cleave to my discipleship, to whom I have more openly disclosed my secrets, lay up in mind the issue of the precious blood by which the world is to be redeemed, while the rest wonder at such great deeds of the divine loftiness. It shall come to pass that he be delivered. Among the great works of the divine power he the more often repeats the abject things of his human passion, lest, coming suddenly, it should terrify, but that, thought upon beforehand, it may be more lightly borne.

282CVERS. 45.-- But they knew not. This ignorance arises not so much from slowness as from love, because, being still carnal and ignorant of the mystery of the cross, they cannot believe that he whom they had known to be God was to die; but as they were accustomed to hear him speaking through figures, so also they thought that what he spoke concerning his own betrayal signified figuratively something else.

VERS. 46.-- And a thought entered. Because they had seen Peter and James and John led apart into the mountain, and that some secret had been delivered to them. And they thought that above the keys of the kingdom of heaven had been promised to Peter, and that the Church was to be built upon him; or that these three were set before the rest, or that Peter was set before all the apostles: or, because they had seen Peter made equal to the Lord himself in the payment of the tribute, 282Dthey judged that he was to be preferred to the rest. But it must be known that this question was raised both before the tribute and after the tribute was paid.

VERS. 48.-- Whosoever shall receive a child. Or simply: he teaches that Christ's poor are to be received for his honour by those who wish to be greater. Or he teaches that they should be little ones in malice, that they may keep the simplicity of childish innocence, so that the form of virtue which a child observes under nature's leading they themselves may follow of set purpose for the name of Christ. Receiveth me. He who receives an imitator of Christ receives Christ, and he who receives the image of God receives God.

VERS. 49.-- John said. John, loving God and beloved of the Lord, thinks that he is to be shut out from the benefit 283Awho does not use the service; therefore he is taught that no one is to be kept back from the good which he has in part, but is rather to be called forward to that which he has not yet. Such men are judged to be admitted even for the salvation of others. Therefore in heretics or in bad Catholics we ought to detest and forbid, not the sacraments held in common, in which they are with us and are not against us, but the division contrary to peace and to truth, by which they are against us and do not follow the Lord with us.

VERS. 50.-- Forbid not. For he that. John is not reproved, because he acted out of love, but he is taught, that he may know that there is a distance between the weak and the strong, because the Lord, although he rewards the stronger, does not exclude the weak.

283BVERS. 54.-- Lord, wilt thou. (BED.) The apostles, still rude and ignorant of the measure of vengeance, etc., as far as such a power has been conferred by God upon holy men.

We say that fire come down from heaven. At the word of these men fire would come down from heaven, because they are the sons of thunder. And consume them? And turning he rebuked them and said. In the likeness of Elias, who both by his own hand and by fire divinely obtained put the elders of Baal to death. And in this, that the apostles presume to themselves the power of such a prophet, it is shown that the merit of the prophets was in them.

(AMBR.) The apostles do not sin, who follow the law, etc., as far as he does not seek vengeance who does not fear.

VERS. 55.-- You know not of what spirit you are. By whose 283Cspirit you have been sealed, whose deeds you imitate, now taking counsel mercifully, but in the future judging justly.

VERS. 56.-- The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save, etc. Perfect virtue has no zeal for vengeance, nor is there any anger where there is the fulness of charity.

(BED.) Vengeance is not always to be taken upon those who sin, etc., as far as from whom in this place the fire is kept back.

VERS. 57.-- A certain man said. (ID.) This man, moved by the greatness of the signs, wishes to follow, etc., as far as and he feigned the service of a disciple, which feigning is figured by the fox.

VERS. 58.-- The foxes have holes. (ID.) The fox is a deceitful animal, intent upon ambushes, practising the robberies of fraud, 283Ddwelling in holes even amid the very lodgings of men: so the heretic, not having the house of faith, draws others into his own fraud and seduces them from the faith.

VERS. 59.-- And he said to another. Note that the Lord spurned not faults but frauds, because he who rejected the fraudulent man chose the innocent one; but him whose father he knew to be dead, that father of whom it is said: Forget thy father's house (Psal. XLIV), etc.

VERS. 60.-- Suffer that the dead. (BED.) Mystically. The son is not called back from his duty to his father, etc., as far as he ought not to bury the devil's treacheries in himself.

VERS. 61.-- To take leave of those. If a disciple about to follow God is rebuked because he wishes to take leave of his house, what 284Awill become of those who often, with no profit, visits the houses of their own people which they had forsaken.

VERS. 1.-- And after these things, etc. (BED.) Just as in the apostles there is the form of bishops, etc., as far as just as the sun is wont to accomplish the three-day circuit of its light in seventy-two hours.

He sent them two and two. By this, that he sends them two and two, it is intimated that no one ought to take up the office of preaching who has not charity toward another. Or they are sent two by two according as the animals were sent into the ark two by two, that is, male and female, unclean before in carnal generation, but cleansed by the sacrament of the Church through spiritual grace in the preaching of the disciples.

284BVERS. 2.-- The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few. The harvest is the crowd of believers; the labourers are the apostles and those who follow them. And although the harvest has been sown by the word of God, still it requires the toil of tillage and the careful service of a labourer, lest the birds of heaven scatter the seeds that have been sown.

VERS. 3.-- As lambs among wolves. As the wolf lies in wait for the sheep, so does the heretic for the faithful. And as the wolf goes about the sheepfold by night, not daring to enter, scouting out the dog's sleep, the shepherd's absence or sloth, so the heretic tries to deceive the faithful by the night of his own interpretation, not entering the Church, and strives either to avoid the pastors of the Church, or to kill them, or to send them into exile. The wolf, stiff by the nature of its body, cannot easily bend itself; so the heretic is not wont to call back the purpose 284Cof his hard heart from error.

VERS. 4.-- Carry therefore neither purse nor scrip. So great ought a preacher's confidence in God to be, that even if he does not foresee the means of the present life, he yet knows most certainly that they will not fail him, lest, while his mind is taken up with things temporal, he preach the eternal things less. Salute no man by the way. He bids them make haste and press on, lest they be turned aside from the journey enjoined them by conversation with someone they meet. Nor does he say simply, Salute no man, since it is a usage of human kindness to salute others, but he added, by the way, because it is not the diligence of greeting that is taken away, but the obstacle that hinders devotion is done away with, so that, when divine things are commanded, human things may be set aside for a little.

VERS. 7.-- And in the same house. If your peace be 284Dreceived, it is fitting that you remain in it, receiving carnal wages from those to whom you offer heavenly things. Behold, he who forbade purse and scrip grants means from preaching, yet in such a way that they be content with the food and drink set before them. Remain. There must be no removing from house to house with a roving readiness, so that constancy may be preserved in the love of hospitality, lest the close bond of friendship once grown up be easily dissolved. For he is worthy. Note that two wages are owed to the one work of preachers: one on the way, which sustains us in labour; another in the fatherland, which rewards us in the resurrection.

VERS. 8.-- And into whatsoever city. Having described the various lodging of a house, he teaches what they ought to do in cities as well: namely, to have fellowship in all things with the godly, 285Aand to be kept apart in all things from the company of the ungodly.

VERS. 11.-- Even the dust. He bids them shake off the dust: either as a testimony of the earthly labour which they undertook for them in vain; or that they may show that to such a degree do they seek nothing earthly from them, that they do not even suffer the dust from their land to cleave to them.

VERS. 12.-- That for Sodom in that day. The Sodomites, although they burned in vices and were inhospitable, yet among them no guests such as the prophets among the Jews, such as the apostles, were found. Lot, though just among them, still taught nothing, wrought no signs. And therefore to whom much has been given, much is required of him, and the mighty shall mightily 285Bsuffer torments (Sap. VI) [Vulg. Lc 12:48 cui multum datum est, multum quaeretur ab eo, future; the second clause is Sap 6:7, and the two are joined here under one citation].

VERS. 13.-- Woe to thee, Corozaim. Corozaim, Bethsaida, Capharnaum and Tiberias are cities of Galilee, on the shore of the lake of Genesareth. These the Lord laments, because after so many miracles and mighty works they did not repent: and they are worse than the Gentiles, who squander only the natural law, because after their contempt of the written law they did not fear also to trample upon the Son of God and, ungrateful, to spurn his grace. And sitting in ashes. We see the words of the Saviour fulfilled, for whereas those foresaid cities, with the Lord present, would not believe, Tyre and Sidon were once friends of David and Solomon, and afterwards, when the disciples of Christ preached the Gospel, devoutly received the faith. But why it was preached to those who would not believe, and not preached 285Cto those who would believe, he knows who knows all things.

VERS. 16.-- He that heareth you heareth me. In hearing or in spurning a preacher of the Gospel, let each man know that he spurns or hears not persons of no account, but the Saviour himself, because in the disciple the master is heard, and in the Son the Father is honoured.

VERS. 17.-- Lord, even. They confess well, offering honour to the name of Christ: but because, their faith being still weak, they rejoice in mighty works and are lifted up by the working of signs, they are made afraid by an example and called back to humility. For if the devil was cast headlong from heaven for pride, much more shall these, brought forth from the earth, be humbled if they have been proud.

VERS. 19.-- Upon serpents and scorpions. Serpents 285Dare evil men or demons who cast the venom of wicked persuasion against virtues at their beginning. Scorpions are those who strive to corrupt at the end virtues that are to be brought to completion.

VERS. 20.-- Rejoice not in this, that spirits unto you, etc. To cast out evil spirits and to work other mighty deeds is sometimes not the merit of him who works them, but the invocation of the name of Christ does this, either to the condemnation of those who invoke it, or to the profit of those who see and hear: where, though men despise those who work the signs, they yet honour God, at whose invocation the miracles come to pass. He forbids them to rejoice over the humbling of the devil, who fell through pride, but let them rejoice over their own exaltation: 286Aso that whence those, being lifted up, fell, these, being humbled, may ascend. But rejoice. If anyone has done heavenly or earthly works, by these he is, as though adorned with letters, fastened eternally in the memory of God.

VERS. 21.-- In that same hour. When he was speaking of the subjection of unclean spirits and of the names written in heaven, he showed by what means so great a loftiness was given to men, namely by the humility of the Christian faith. I confess to thee, O Lord. I give thanks, because thou hast opened to the apostles the sacraments of my coming, which the scribes and Pharisees, who seem wise to themselves, do not know. Thou hast revealed them. He does not say, to the unwise and dull, but to little ones, that is, to the humble, to prove that he condemned swelling, not sharpness. For so. He does not render a reason why he chose 286Bthese and reprobated those, but says that it so pleased God. In which we receive an example of humility, that we should not rashly discuss the counsels above.

All things are delivered to me, etc. Humility being commended, through which one comes to faith, a passage concerning that same faith is beautifully joined on, when he says that all things are delivered to him, not the elements which he himself created, but those little ones to whom the Father revealed the sacraments of the Son. When thou hearest all things, thou acknowledgest one almighty, not discoloured, not degenerate from the Father. When thou hearest delivered, thou confessest the Son, to whom by the nature of one substance all things are by right his own, not conferred as a gift through grace.

VERS. 24.-- That many prophets. The prophets and the just saw the glory of the Lord from afar, through a glass 286Cand in a dark manner; but the apostles, having the Lord present and asking of him what they would, were not taught through angels or through various kinds of visions.

VERS. 25.-- A lawyer stood up. The doctor of the law, who was lying in the law without faith, rises that he may stand: he stands while he calls him Master, but even in standing he tempts God by keeping silent about what he was.

VERS. 27.-- He answering said. He said what he had read, but did not fulfil what was written, because he had present with him the Lord whom he ought to love, yet he calls him Master, not God.

VERS. 29.-- But he, willing. The lawyer, that he may be said to have answered wisely, first confesses that he is ignorant of the commandment of the law, because, refusing to be humbled and willing to justify himself, he cannot see the hidden things 286Dthat are revealed to the little ones of Christ; to whom Christ so tempers his answer that both everyone who does mercy may be understood to be a neighbour, and especially the Son of God himself, who through his humanity has been made neighbour to us, may be designated. Who is my. No one is nearer to man than God, who knows him within and without and can care for all things; but every unbeliever or tempter has neither God nor man for a neighbour.

A certain man, etc. (AUG.) That man is understood to be Adam in the human race, etc., as far as he was nearer than the priest or the Levite of the same nation.

VERS. 31.-- And it happened, etc. The priest announces the law of God: the law indeed came down through Moses 287Ainto the world, and conferred no health upon such a one. The Levite came down, who shows the type of the prophets, but he too heals no one, because the law reproves sins, but passes by, since it does not bestow pardon.

VERS. 33.-- Being moved with mercy. This is not said of the priest and the Levite, because the law has not mercy, but judgment and vengeance.

VERS. 34.-- He brought him to an inn. He calls it not a house but a stable, by which name he marks the miseries and the stenches of this life, lest a man rejoice in this exile as though in his fatherland.

VERS. 37.-- He that did. Kinship does not make a neighbour, but mercy, which mercy is according to nature. For nothing is so according to nature as to help a partner of one's nature.

287BVERS. 38.-- It came to pass, as, etc. A discourse having been held about the love of God and of neighbour, an example of both loves is set down, not so much in word alone as in the showing forth of work. For by these two sisters two spiritual lives are signified. By Martha, a devotion busy in works, by which we are joined to our neighbour in charity. By Mary, the religious intention of the mind upon the word of God, by which we sigh in the love of God. The active life gives bread, either bodily to one that hungers, or of doctrine to one that is ignorant; it corrects the erring, calls back the proud to humility, dispenses what is expedient for each. The contemplative holds fast the charity of God and of neighbour, but rests from outward action, cleaves to the desire of the Creator alone, and, all cares being trodden underfoot, burns to see the face of the Creator, and longs to be mingled 287Cwith the citizens above, who rejoice in eternal incorruption in the sight of the Lord. Into her house. When Jesus enters into the house, the wicked life, even if once it had been there, flees away; there remain two innocent lives, the laborious and the leisured, and between them, in the midst, is the very fount of life.

VERS. 39.-- Sitting beside. The more humbly she sits, the more abundantly does it fall. Water flows together into the valley from the swellings of the hill. Mary sits, because the contemplative life, the tumults of the vices being stilled, now enjoys the longed-for quiet of the mind in Christ. Martha stands, because the laborious active life sweats in the contest.

VERS. 40.-- But Martha. Mary was intent on how she might be fed by the Lord; Martha was intent on how she might feed the Lord: the latter prepares a banquet for the Lord, in the Lord's banquet the former already takes her delight.

287DVERS. 41.-- And answering. Mary does not answer, but, as one at leisure, commits her cause to the judge. For if she were preparing words to answer, she would slacken her intentness on hearing. Martha, Martha. The repetition is a token of love, or perhaps of an intention to admonish, that she might listen more attentively.

VERS. 42.-- But one thing is. The one is set before the many. For the one is not from the many, but the many from the one; and yet many things are necessary to those who tend toward the one. Mary the best. Martha's part is not blamed, since it too is good, but Mary's part is praised, and why it is best is added below.

VERS. 1.-- And it came to pass. After the history of the sisters 288A(who signify the two lives) he brings in the Lord as having prayed, and as having instructed the disciples to pray, because both the prayer which he taught contains in itself the mystery of either life, and the perfection of those lives is to be obtained not by our own strength but by prayers. When he ceased. For this reason the Saviour is often brought in praying, that he may lead the disciples on to the pursuit of prayer. Whence, the prayer being ended, he is asked by the disciples, that he may teach how they ought to pray.

VERS. 5.-- Which of you hath a friend. After he had set forth the form of prayer to those who asked, he lays upon them also instancy and frequency in praying, so that prayer may be offered not only by day but also by night; for he who at midnight asks loaves of his friend, and persists in the intention of asking, is not cheated of his prayer.

VERS. 7.-- Trouble me not. He does not take away the hope of obtaining, 288Bbut the more vehemently kindles the desire of praying, by showing the difficulty of obtaining. The door is now. The door which Paul asks to be opened to him for the speaking of the mystery of Christ, and which John saw opened to him, is the understanding of the divine word, which is shut in the time of a famine of the word of God, when understanding is not given. And the children, that is, those who, dealing out evangelical wisdom like bread, preached it through the whole world, are now with the Lord in eternal rest; and yet by praying it is brought about that he who prays receives understanding from the Lord himself, even if there be lacking a man through whom wisdom may be preached. I cannot rise. (AMBR.) No one fears that he may waken a sleeper, whom he knows to be always watching in prayer.

VERS. 8.-- Yet because of his importunity, etc. 288CMany are the snares, and heavy is the sleep of the body, because if the mind begins to sleep, it loses the vigour of its own strength. Shake off therefore thy sleep, that thou mayest knock at the door of Christ, that when thou hast entered there may be opened to thee the treasures hidden and in darkness in Christ Jesus.

VERS. 9.-- Ask, and it shall be given you. If a man who is a friend rises and gives, compelled not by friendship but by weariness, how much more does God give, who without weariness most bountifully bestows what is asked. Lest therefore the soul, turned back from the vanity of error, waste away any longer in spiritual want, let us ask the banquet of the word, let us seek the friend who may give, let us knock at the door where hidden things are kept. For he gives great hope, who in promising does not deceive. For every one that asketh receiveth. There is need of perseverance, that we may obtain. But if it is given to him that asks, and he that seeks 288Dfinds, and to him that knocks it is opened, then as for him to whom it is not given, and who does not find, and to whom it is not opened, it appears that he has not sought and asked and knocked well.

VERS. 10.-- Seek, and you shall find.--The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him in truth, and he will do the will of them that fear him (Psal. XLIV). Others, who do not so ask, James rebukes, saying: You ask and receive not, because you ask amiss (Jac. IV), because you persevere in your sins.

VERS. 11.-- And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone, etc. (BED.) Mystically. Bread signifies charity, on account of the greater appetite for it and its necessary use, etc., as far as let him stretch himself forth to those things which are before.

289AVERS. 13.-- How much more. An open comparison. For if a sinful man, still weighed down with frail flesh, does not refuse to give temporal things to his sons when they ask, much more does the heavenly Father bestow in heaven goods that do not fail upon sons endowed with his fear and his love.

VERS. 14.-- And he was casting out. After the words of preaching which he set before the humble, he works miracles also, so that those who do not believe him preaching may believe when they have seen miracles. Matthew says that this demoniac was blind as well. In whom three miracles are wrought by the Lord: he sees, he speaks, he is freed from the demon. And what was then done carnally in one man is done daily in the conversion of the Gentiles, so that first, the demon being cast out along with all the filth of idolatry, they may see the light of faith, and then mouths that were silent before may be loosed to the praise of God.

289BVERS. 15.-- In Beelzebub. King Ninus, the founder of Nineveh, consecrated a statue to Belus his father, and appointed divine honours for him; and the Chaldeans, receiving the likeness of that image, called it Bel. The Palestinians, receiving it, called it Baal, the Moabites Beelphegor. But the Jews, worshippers of the one God, called it Beelzebub for a derision of the Gentiles. For Baal means man, Zebub a fly; whence Beelzebub, that is, the man of flies, or one having flies, on account of the filth of the gore that was sacrificed in his temple. The Jews also asserted that the prince of demons dwelt in this image, by whose power they said that Jesus drove out demons.

VERS. 18.-- But he, when he saw their thoughts. This the Lord has reserved as proper to himself, that he should behold 289Cand judge thoughts. It is proper to the Jews to seek signs, whence Paul: The Jews require signs, the Gentiles wisdom (I Cor. I) [Vulg. 1 Cor 1:22 et Judaei signa petunt, et Graeci sapientiam quaerunt, "and the Greeks seek after wisdom"]. But he, when he saw. He answers not to their words but to their thoughts: in which he gives a sure sign of his own power, by which he searches out the secrets of hearts. According to the letter it is plain that every kingdom, solid and firm, if it is divided into parts, is reduced to a wilderness, emptied of its inhabitants; and house shall fall upon house, when the inhabitants of one house are either oppressed or punished by the household of another house. But whither these things tend spiritually he sets forth when he adds: And if Satan also be divided against himself. If I, as you say, cast out demons in the prince of demons, then the kingdom of the devil is divided against itself, and so the power of his malice 289Dcannot stand. But if a demon cannot drive out a demon, you say falsely that I cast out demons in the prince of demons. But if he can, as you say, look to yourselves, that you go out from his kingdom which is divided, lest you be involved alike in its ruin. But by what power the Lord casts out demons, lest they think him the prince of demons, let them attend to what follows.

VERS. 19.-- But if I in Beelzebub cast out demons, your sons. He calls the apostles the sons of the Jews, who among the other miracles they had received from the Lord drove out demons also. Which casting out they assigned not to the devil but to God, being conscious to themselves that they had learned nothing of evil arts from the Lord. Therefore they themselves, choosing the ignoble and contemptible things of the world, in which 290Athere was no crafty malice, shall sit upon twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Or, sons, that is, the exorcists of that nation, who by invoking the name of the Lord drove out demons. As though he said: If the casting out of demons in them is imputed not to the devil but to God, why should not the same work in me have the same cause? Therefore they shall be your judges. Not by the power of judgment, but by comparison, since they assign the casting out not to the devil but to God. But if. As though he said: A divided kingdom cannot stand, but the kingdom of Satan is divided, as you say, in that Satan drives out Satan; therefore, etc.

VERS. 20.-- But if by the finger. The Son is called the hand or the arm of the Father; the Holy Ghost is called the finger, on account of the difference of the various gifts which are given 290Bto men through the Holy Ghost, as the fingers are distinct one from another; nor does the inequality of the members do harm. For although the arm is greater than the finger, yet the arm with the finger is one body. By this finger the law was written on the tables. This finger the magicians confessed in Egypt. Assuredly is come, etc., the kingdom. That is, the judiciary power of God: by which he will separate the good from the evil in the day of judgment. Or, Kingdom, that is, the beatitude above. As though he said: If I cast out demons in the Spirit of God, know without doubt that the entrance of the heavenly kingdom is laid open to them that believe.

VERS. 21.-- When the strong man his court. As though he said: If I, as you say, were casting out demons in Beelzebub, then I should be consenting in something to the works of the devil; but in no way do I consent with him, but rather I hasten to overcome him and to cast him out 290Cfrom my faithful ones. When the devil, the strong man, to do harm, armed, with many spiritual wickednesses, keepeth, in his own servitude, his court, that is the world, which is set in wickedness, in which, until the coming of the Son of God, the devil bore rule without contradiction, and used an ill-pacified sovereignty in the hearts of the unbelieving.

VERS. 22.-- But if a stronger. He calls himself the stronger, who laid him low not by a concordant peace and working, as they slanderously alleged, but by a mightier power, and freed the world from his dominion. The arms of the devil which he took away are the most crafty wiles of spiritual wickedness. The spoils are the souls deceived by him, which Christ the victor distributes, which is the mark of one triumphing, because leading captivity captive, he gave gifts to men, 290Dsome indeed apostles, others evangelists (Ephes, IV), etc. [Vulg. Eph 4:8 captivam duxit captivitatem, a finite verb; and Eph 4:11 reads quosdam quidem apostolos, quosdam autem prophetas, alios vero evangelistas — the prophets are absent here].

VERS. 23.-- He that is not, etc. And truly my works do not agree with the works of Satan, because I myself in nothing agree with him, but we are altogether contrary, because I am humble, kindly, willing to save souls; he is proud, envious, desirous to destroy. I by my preaching gather in the virtues; he scatters and severs from the unity of the Church. And he that gathereth not. These things may over and above be understood of all heretics or schismatics, who are all shut out from the kingdom of God.

VERS. 24.-- When the unclean spirit. Because you withdraw yourselves from my kingdom, attributing my works to the devil, 291Atherefore the devil dwells in you, as in his own kingdom, more grievously than at the beginning. Is gone out. The devil went out from the Jews, when that people received the law and the worship of the one God, and he passed over to the Gentiles, who were dry and barren of the fatness of the Holy Ghost and of the love of neighbour. In whom now he does not find rest, because now he is driven out from the hearts of the Gentiles when the faith of Christ has been received, when he says: I will go back to the Jews whom I formerly left. And he finds that people swept with brooms, that is, with the superfluous observances of the Pharisees and the ceremonies of the law, which now avail nothing after the coming of Christ. And that he may possess it the more firmly, he takes to himself the whole company of demons. And the Israelites are now worse, blaspheming Christ in their little assemblies, than they had once been in Egypt before the law was received, because it is a greater unbelief 291Bnot to receive him when he comes than not to believe in him who is to come.

Seeking rest, and he findeth not. Because he who feeds upon depraved thoughts and deeds perceives that in the minds of the faithful all his temptations come to nothing. Then he says: I will return into my house whence I came out. I will return to that man's conscience, whence I had been cast out in baptism, and I will subject my former possession to my accustomed lordship.

VERS. 25.-- And when he is come he findeth it swept with brooms. Because when he has gone back to a reprobate of this kind, his offences compelling it, he finds the conscience of the sinner cleansed from vices in baptism, but heaped up with no good work.

VERS. 26.-- Then he taketh seven. The fulness 291Cof all the vices. Which spirits, namely such as these, are called more wicked than the devil, because, though the devil is evil, yet those who, driven on by their own deserts, are made over to vices, are not only evil, but strive besides to make a display of the appearance of goodness through hypocrisy by affected virtues. And the last state of the man becometh. It were better to be ignorant of the way of truth than after acknowledging it to be turned back again.

VERS. 27.-- Blessed. Here Mary is praised, who bore the Lord. And the perversity both of the Jews then present and of the heretics to come, who deny the true humanity of Christ, is confuted, because she confesses the true Son of God against the blaspheming Jews, and testifies him a true son of man, consubstantial with his mother. For unless he were one flesh with his mother, in vain 291Dwould that womb of the Virgin and those breasts be called blessed. And the paps. According to the natural philosophers, from the same fount there flows both milk for children to be nourished and seed for children to be begotten; therefore he could be conceived of the seed of the Virgin who could be nourished by her milk.

VERS. 28.-- Yea rather. As though he said: Not only is Mary to be praised, because she bore the Word of God in her womb, but she is most of all blessed, because she kept the precepts of God in her work. So also all are blessed who conceive the word of God by the hearing of faith, and bring forth and nourish the keeping of good work in their own heart or in their neighbours'. Who hear. In praise of the Church. On the contrary the Pharisees are condemned, who sought neither to hear nor to fulfil the word of God, but to blaspheme it.

292AVERS. 29.-- He began to say. Certain men were slandering his works, to whom he has replied thus far. Others, tempting him, were seeking a sign from heaven, and to these he replies here. A sign is sought, and a sign shall not be given to it, etc. To the disciples he gave a sign of his divinity, both when he was transfigured before on the mountain, and afterwards when, as they looked on, he was lifted up into heaven. But to unbelievers, a sign from the lower passion of his humanity.

VERS. 31.-- The queen of the south shall rise. Here, the people of the Jews being condemned, the mystery of the Church is set forth, which is gathered together from all the ends of the world: in the Ninevites through penance (which does away with sin), in the queen of the south the zeal of receiving wisdom (which guards against sin), that she may know the words of the true Peaceable One. For the Church stands upon two things: that thou either cease to sin, 292Bor know not how to sin. In the judgment. Not a thousand years before the judgment, as the Jews feign, but in the judgment itself shall she rise. With the men. (BED.) Behold, a common resurrection is shown, of the good as well as of the evil. Shall condemn. Not by the power of judgment, but by the comparison of a better deed, because, leaving her empire behind, she came into Judea to hear a man famed for wisdom, whereas the Jews do not hear but blaspheme the true Wisdom of God dwelling among them.

In the preaching. Jonas preached for a few days, Christ for a long time. He to strangers, Christ to his own fellow-citizens. He wrought no sign, Christ wrought many.

VERS. 33.-- No man. (BED.) He who in the figure of the queen and of the Ninevites set the Church before the Synagogue, etc., as far as they will not enter by believing the open gate of the light.

292CVERS. 35.-- Take heed therefore lest, etc. After the instruction of right faith he instructs also concerning good works and good intention, so that not only works but also the thoughts and intentions of the heart may be made clean; as though he said: I kindle the lamp of faith in your senses and set it in the Church. But you, so far as in you lies, kindle your own lamps, that is, cleanse the intentions of your heart, that from a clean intention your works also may be pleasing. These things, spoken particularly against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who craftily sought signs, instruct us generally according to the moral sense.

VERS. 37.-- And as he was speaking. He does not say, as he was speaking these things, but as he was speaking. In which it is intimated that he turned aside to the Pharisee not immediately when these words were finished, but with other things coming between, because when this 292Ddiscourse was finished, while he was still speaking, behold his mother and his brethren were seeking to speak to him. Concerning whom, after he had answered the man who announced them: He that doth the will of my Father, he is my brother and sister and mother, [Vulg. Mt 12:50 Quicumque enim fecerit voluntatem Patris mei, qui in caelis est, ipse meus frater — Migne's opening and hic frater meus follow Mc 3:35, which however reads voluntatem Dei] he afterwards went in to the Pharisee's banquet.

Why not washed. The Jews frequently wash their hands before they eat, holding the tradition of the elders, and returning from the market place they do not eat unless they be washed.

VERS. 39.-- Of the cup. Mark relates that the Jews were wont to observe the washings of cups and pitchers and beds and brazen vessels. The cup is a glass vessel; the dish is earthenware, of clay. By this is figured the frailty of the human body, in which outwardly they make a show of holiness 293Aand feign justice: what was without they washed, within most wicked. But that which is within you. Let no one think that fornication and bodily vices of this kind are alone grievous, and that spiritual vices are light, such as avarice, anger, pride, and the rest, as the Pharisees thought.

VERS. 41.-- But yet that which remaineth. Now the good teacher teaches how the contagion of the body ought to be cleansed. And here is more fully set out what he had said briefly above about cleansing the eye of the heart. For this whole passage is directed to this end, that it may invite us to the pursuit of simplicity, and condemn the superfluous and earthly things of the Jews, who by understanding the law according to the body are likened to the glass and the dish because of their frailty. In which, although they sin grievously, yet to them the absolution of sin is promised, if they strive to do mercy. 293BWhat remains over from necessary food and clothing, give to the poor. Or, I give counsel: what alone is left after so great crimes, give alms. The first alms is to heal your own souls by believing in me who cleanse hearts; and when hearts have been cleansed through faith, all outward things also will be clean. He who wishes to give alms in an ordered way begins from himself, and gives it first to himself. For alms is a work of mercy, whence it is said: Have mercy on thy own soul, pleasing God.

VERS. 42.-- You pass over judgment. He has briefly touched upon many of their vices, who, intent upon tithing worthless things, have not the fear of the judgment to come nor the charity of God. They pass over judgment, because they do not refer all 293Cthat they do to the judgment. They pass over charity, because they do not love God from affection. But again, lest it make you, zealous for faith, negligent of works, he sets down the perfection of the faithful man, that after faith he may work.

VERS. 44.-- Who are as monuments. Here he rebukes the superstition of those same teachers, who outwardly make a show of the appearance of right doctrine, but hide the foulness which they carry within.

VERS. 45.-- Answering, however. Hearing the word of God, the Pharisee out of an evil conscience thinks that an insult is being done to him, and, the punishment of the faithless being called to mind, understands that he is to be condemned.

VERS. 47.-- Woe to you. They are not reproved because they adorn the monuments of the prophets, but because they imitate the slayers 293Dof the prophets; by building sepulchres they accuse their fathers' crimes. But by persecuting Christ and the apostles they imitate the crimes of their fathers, and the sentence of damnation which they were pronouncing upon their fathers they turn back upon themselves.

VERS. 48.-- Truly. You build for the sake of catching the favour of the common people, as though you shuddered at their crimes; but by the very work you show that you consent to their treachery, because you do not do this good thing well, but for vainglory. But you. For this reason: because you are imitators of them, that you may fill up what was wanting to your fathers, namely that you may persecute me and mine, whom they persecuted in the prophets.

VERS. 49.-- Prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill, 294Aand persecute. Heretics lie, who say that the founder of the Old Testament is one and of the New another.

VERS. 50.-- From the generation. All the evil are one generation, one city, one body of the devil, as all the good are called one generation and one body.

VERS. 51.-- As far as the blood of Zacharias. Why as far as this man, when after him many were slain before the birth of Christ, and, Christ being born, the children were straightway destroyed by this generation? But because Abel was a shepherd of sheep, and was slain in the field, and Zacharias a priest slain in the court of the temple, they signify two orders of martyrs, the laity and those who are made over to the service of the altar.

294BVERS. 52.-- Because you have taken away the key. The key is the humility of Christ, and they who have it understand the Scriptures. This the lawyers neither themselves understand by the law and the prophets, nor do they wish it to be understood by others. To enter the key is not to be content with the surface of the letter but to penetrate as far as the hidden things that are to be understood. Or: a teacher, if he scandalizes by his example those whom he builds up by his word, neither himself enters the kingdom of God and shuts out those who were able to enter.

VERS. 53.-- And as he was saying these things unto them, the Pharisees and the lawyers began. How true were the charges of their treachery and dissimulation and impiety which they heard, they themselves bear witness, who at so great a thundering whirlwind do not come to their senses, but assail the teacher of truth.

294CVERS. 1.-- Beware. To this leaven belong all the things which he disputed above in the house of the Pharisee; whence also the Apostle: Not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice (I Cor. V), etc. Beware of the leaven. A beautiful passage for the holding of simplicity and the emulating of faith, that we may not after the manner of the Jews put forth one thing in affection and feign another with the voice, since we know that in the day of judgment there can be no hiding-place for fraud.

VERS. 2.-- Nor hidden, that shall not be known. Therefore do not emulate dissemblers, because assuredly the time will come, in the day of judgment, in which both your virtue and their hypocrisy shall be revealed to all; whence there follows. For the things which you have spoken in darkness shall be said in the light. Not only in the world to come shall all things lie open, but even in the present time they shall be publicly preached in the whole Church throughout the world 294D: the things which in darkness, that is, in the shadow of oppressions and of prisons, you have spoken, when your acts shall be read on high. For the things which you have spoken in darkness shall be said in the light. (AMBR.) What you have spoken in darkness, that is, in fear, shall be said in the light, that is, in the confidence of truth when the Holy Ghost has been received. And what you have spoken in the ear, that is, in secret, shall be preached upon the housetops, that is, when the dwelling-place of the flesh has been trodden underfoot.

VERS. 4.-- And I say to you. (ID.) Since the cause of faithlessness is twofold, etc., as far as so fortitude is the foundation of faith.

VERS. 5.-- But I will show you. Because there are two kinds of persecutors, one of those who persecute openly, the other of those who fraudulently flatter. As above 295Aagainst hypocrisy, so here he arms against the executioners. This whole passage instructs unto the undergoing of suffering for the confession of the Lord, either by contempt of death, or by hope of reward, or those who will abide, in the denunciation of punishment.

VERS. 6.-- Are not five. (AMBR.) Five sparrows, the five senses of the body; or two according to Matthew, the body and the soul, etc., as far as there is no doubt that the contemplation of the faithful will prevail with him.

They are sold for two farthings. A dipondius is a weight composed of two asses. What in numbers is one, that in weights is the as; what is two, that is the dipondius. And one of, etc. He had breathed in the disposition of simplicity, he had raised up the strength of the mind, faith alone was wavering; this he strengthens from the meaner things. As the Apostle says: 295BDoth God take care for oxen? (I Cor. IX.) But care is one thing, knowledge another.

VERS. 7.-- Yea, and the hairs. Not by the act of counting, but by the faculty of knowing, from the likeness of money which is numbered that it may be kept. Wherein is the great providence of God, that neither small nor idle words lie hidden from him.

VERS. 8.-- Every one whosoever. Lest anyone in the time of persecution should think the faith of the heart sufficient for himself, he says: Every one whosoever shall confess. A man confesses Jesus with that charity which works through love; he denies who does not obey the commandments. The Son of man. The Son confesses before the Father him who through the Son has access to the Father. He is denied by the Son before the Father, to whom the Son and the Father are not made manifest in the power of the Godhead. And lest one condition be thought to belong to all, 295Cboth to those who deny of set purpose and to those who deny out of weakness or ignorance, he adds: And every one that speaketh a word in the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him. [Vulg. Lc 12:10 reads in Filium hominis, the accusative — "against the Son of man". The plate sets the ablative in Filio, read at 400 dpi on leaf n153, so the sentence Migne prints forgives a word spoken in the Son rather than against him.]

VERS. 10.-- But to him. To him also who, being scandalized in the weakness of the flesh, shall have suspected me to be a mere man or a glutton, it shall be remissible; but he who, not acknowledging the grace of the Holy Ghost (by which penance is inspired and a return is made to the congregation), shall have remained with an impenitent heart, since this is now not human but devilish, for him it shall be irremissible.

VERS. 11.-- And when they shall bring you into the synagogues, and to magistrates and powers. The terror of such assemblies is wont to take away freedom of speech. Be not solicitous. Offer your will for Christ. But Christ will speak for himself.

295DVERS. 13.-- Master. Upon one who was commending the grace of the peace and unity above, this man wishes to thrust the trouble of an earthly division; whence also he is called a man, that is, earthly. For those among whom there is a zeal and contention of this kind are men, and walk according to man. Among brethren it is not a judge in the midst but family affection as arbitress that ought to divide a patrimony, although the patrimony of immortality is not money to be sought by men.

VERS. 14.-- Who hath appointed me. I am not the God of dissension but of peace and unity, who came to make men at peace with the angels, that many may have one heart and one soul. Not that they may be divided, but that they may have all things in common, and that there be not anyone in need among them. 296AHe who does not gather with me is a divider of brotherhood and an author of dissension.

VERS. 15.-- Of all covetousness. No one would think it a crime to divide an inheritance, to gather fruits into barns; but the judge above declares that this too is covetousness, whence also he adds: of a certain rich man. As above against the Pharisees and hypocrites, so here, on the occasion of a foolish petition, he disputes against covetousness. Not in abundance. Man liveth not by bread alone, but in the word of God (Deut. VIII) [Vulg. Deut 8:3 non in solo pane vivat homo, sed in omni verbo quod egreditur de ore Dei, "in every word that goeth forth from the mouth of God"], nor is temporal life prolonged by a multitude of riches.

VERS. 16.-- And he spoke, etc. After the precept he subjoins an example for the avoiding of covetousness for temporal things. The plentiful fruits of a certain rich man. The rich man is not blamed because he tilled the ground, or laid up his fruits 296Bin barns, but because he placed the confidence of his life in them, and did not lay them out upon the poor, that he might be received by them into everlasting dwellings.

VERS. 17.-- What shall I do, etc. Reckoning the fruits to be his own and the goods his own, he does not lay out upon the poor what is over and above, but is eager to keep it for his own luxury against the time to come, and knows not who will make use of what he has gathered.

VERS. 19.-- My goods, and I will say. (AMBR.) Those are not a man's goods which he cannot carry away with him. For mercy alone is the companion of the dead.

Take thy rest. Behold, to the plague of covetousness is joined the plague of sloth, so that he did not even call upon God for temporal things.

VERS. 20.-- But he said. For God to speak is to check a man's depraved contrivances by a sudden chastisement. Thou fool. Because thou wast promising thyself long seasons 296Cof riches, this night, snatched away, thou shalt leave to others what thou hast gathered. They require, etc. In the night the soul is taken away, which in the darkness of the heart would not foresee what it could suffer.

VERS. 21.-- And is not rich toward God. He is rich toward God who, despising things transitory, distributes to the poor; whose expectation is the Lord; whose substance, that is, the possession of a conscience by which he is sustained and fed, is with God, not in the purses of earth.

VERS. 22.-- And he said to his disciples. He strengthens the apostles through faith in the hope of things eternal, because there are many whom the love of things present and the despair of things to come make sluggish. Be not solicitous. It would be more perfect to give all to the poor, and to make friends of the mammon of iniquity; but because for the most part the devotion of faith is called back by weakness, 296Dhe does not forbid foresight, by which bread is prepared in the sweat of the face, but he forbids the solicitude which disturbs the mind and calls it back from things eternal.

VERS. 24.-- Consider. The saints are deservedly compared to the birds, who, having nothing in the world and not labouring, seek eternal things by contemplation alone, being already like the angels. How much more. If to the birds, which do not labour, nor claim the common fruits for themselves more particularly by any lordship, the providence of God bestows what is needful, it is true that the cause of our want is shown to be covetousness, in that we claim common things as though our own, and grudge them to others.

VERS. 26.-- If then neither. If you cannot work even in the increase 297Aof your own body, an operation which is the least thing for God in comparison with the spiritual creature, why are you solicitous about the rest, which are greater, that is, about the preservation of the soul.

VERS. 27.-- Consider the lilies. An open comparison. Lilies do not, like other fruits, require any tillage of husbandmen. By the lily also the heavenly beatitude is wont to be signified, to which the Lord invites us. Lilies are born not in the woods but in gardens; so we too ought to be born in the gardens of the virtues. Nor Solomon. (AMBR.) Solomon is here said to be clothed, and elsewhere to be covered with glory: he who used to clothe with the glory of works the weakness of bodily nature, covered over as it were with a certain strength of mind.

Was clothing as one. What purple of kings, what 297Bpainting of weavers can be compared to flowers? The colour itself is called the garment of the flower, as it is said: Redness has covered it.

VERS. 28.-- To-morrow into the oven. To-morrow in the Scriptures is put for the future, as Jacob says: My justice shall hear me to-morrow (Gen. XXX) [Vulg. Gen 30:33 Respondebitque mihi cras justitia mea, "and my justice shall answer for me"].

VERS. 29.-- Seek not what you shall eat, or what you shall drink. He does not say: Seek not, or be not solicitous about food or clothing, but more expressly what you shall eat or what you shall drink. In which those seem to be reproved who, despising the common food or clothing, seek finer or harsher meats or garments than those among whom they live. Be not lifted up on high. Solicitude for food or clothing, which are for necessity, being forbidden, he forbids also the pride which is wont to follow from these things when they are superabundant: therefore do not seek these things, because such solicitude 297Cmakes men like the unbelieving.

VERS. 30.-- And all these things. Because all things belong to the sons, therefore all these things shall be added to you, even when you do not seek them, so that neither in the present nor in the future may any grace be lacking to the faithful; from whom, if these things are taken away, it is for a testing; if they are given, it is for a giving of thanks, because all things work together unto good for the good. [Vulg. Rom 8:28 diligentibus Deum omnia cooperantur in bonum, "to them that love God"]

VERS. 32.-- Fear not. Seek the kingdom, and do not distrust concerning the kingdom; because the Father with a well-pleased goodness will give you the kingdom, not by your own merits. Little. Either on account of the comparison with the greater number of the reprobate, or rather on account of the devotion of humility, through which humility the Church grows, through which one comes to the kingdom.

297DVERS. 33.-- Sell. Not only should you not fear that the necessaries of life may be lacking to those who fight for the kingdom's sake, but sell also what you possess for the sake of alms, which is the way to the kingdom, since through it sins are redeemed. Not only share your food with the poor, but sell also your possessions, so that, when all that is yours has once been despised for the Lord's sake, you may afterwards work with the labour of your hands, whence you may live or may give alms. Give alms. He who for heaven's sake despises all worldly things, let him sell what he has and distribute it; he who is not of so great virtue, let him give alms out of what he has. That faileth not. Temporal things either fail of their own frailty, or, if anything solid remains, such as precious stones, it can be taken away by thieves. 298ABut things given for Christ's sake bring an eternal fruit in the heavens.

VERS. 34.-- For where your treasure is. Universally, both of money and of all pleasures. The glutton's treasure is his belly, where he has his heart; and so of the rest. For if it is on earth, the heart is below; if in things heavenly, it is fixed in Christ. For it is necessary that where the treasure of love has gone before, there the affection of thought should follow.

VERS. 35.-- Let your loins be, etc., and lamps. The one without the other does not please God, when a man either does good things while luxury is not yet bridled, or lives chastely without exercising himself in good works. And that you may be able to be drawn away from the love of things temporal, and may do the good things you do with a simple intention of things eternal, gird your loins, that is, bridle the motions 298Bof carnal desires, and have your lamps burning, that in your working you may burn with the love of God alone and may offer an example to others.

VERS. 36.-- Waiting. Whether you avoid evils or do good, you are cleansed in nothing, but only await the coming of the Redeemer. When he shall return. The Lord went to the marriage when, after the resurrection, the new man joined to himself the multitude of angels: from whom he returns when he is made manifest to us through the judgment. Whence too he fitly subjoins concerning those that wait: That when he cometh, they may open to him immediately. [Vulg. Lc 12:36 reads ut, cum venerit et pulsaverit, confestim aperiant ei, "when he cometh and knocketh"; the gloss at once expounds the knocking (pulsanti) that the lemma as printed does not carry.] He does not wish to open to the judge who knocks, who, fearing to see angry the one whom he despised, dreads to go forth from the body. He opens who bears with the judge glad and untroubled, and rejoices at death drawing near; whence it is subjoined: Blessed are those servants whom, when 298Che cometh, etc.

VERS. 37.-- Watching. He watches who keeps his eyes open in the true light, that he may avoid the darkness of negligence; who also works what he has believed; who is solicitous in the care of the flock committed to him. But what is owed to those that watch he subjoins: Amen I say to you.

VERS. 38, 39.-- And if he shall come in the second, etc. He calls them watches from the likeness of men keeping guard. In the night of this world we ought always to be solicitous against the enemy, and to await the light that is to come, that is, the coming of the judge. The first watch, therefore, is the guarding of boyhood, the second of youth, the third of old age. But if anyone has neglected to watch in boyhood, let him not despair, but let him come to himself even in youth, or at least at last in old age, because the merciful judge 298Dpatiently awaits our delays. He, to shake out the sloth of the mind, brings in the likeness of outward condemned men, that by this the soul may be roused to the guarding of itself. Whence, But this know ye, that if the householder knew. While the householder knows not, the thief digs through the house, because, while the spirit sleeps from the guarding of itself, unforeseen death bursts into the dwelling of the flesh and drags it to punishments. But he would withstand the thief if he watched, because, taking precaution against the coming of the judge who comes secretly, he would meet him by repenting.

VERS. 40.-- At what hour you think not, the Son of man will come? The Lord willed the last hour always to be unknown, that it may always be suspected, and that men may always be prepared for it.

299AVERS. 41.-- And Peter said to him. Since the Lord had set forth two things, namely both that he would come suddenly, and that they by waiting ought to be ready, Peter asks whether those lofty ordinances of the heavenly life, which are necessary for men preparing themselves, pertain to the apostles alone and to such as they, or to all who are to be saved.

VERS. 42.-- And the Lord said. Answering the things asked, the Lord says that the first and the second judgment will be present to all, and that each severally is to be rewarded or condemned according to his merits. Then he adds what he had chiefly asked, namely that the grace of the virtues which he had brought to the world is to be followed by each as far as he can, which is in that place: I came to send fire upon the earth. Who dost thou think to be the faithful steward? As if he said: To you, who have been appointed stewards, this 299Bmore especially belongs concerning watchfulness and preparation, that you may prepare both yourselves and others for the coming of the judge, because few are they who well administer the stewardship committed to them. And prudent, whom the Lord hath set over his household, that, etc. How rare is he that serves the Lord for the Lord's sake, feeding the sheep of Christ not for gain but out of love of Christ, prudent for what is to come, providing for himself, whom he hath appointed; that is, how rare is he who is called by God as Aaron was, and has not rather thrust himself forward, and who feeds not himself more than the sheep!

VERS. 43.-- Blessed. As if he said: Few are the faithful. But he who shall have been found faithfully ministers the allowance of the word, and, watching in the care of the flock, shall be glorified with eternal blessedness.

299CVERS. 44.-- Over all that he possesseth. As great as is the distance of merits between good hearers and good teachers, so great is that of rewards also. The good hearers he makes to sit down, and passing by he ministers to them; the stewards he sets over all that he possesses, not that they alone, but that beyond the rest they may have things eternal, both for their own life and for the guarding of the flock.

VERS. 45.-- But if the servant shall say. Note that it is reckoned among the vices of the servant that he thinks his lord's return slow. Among the virtues of the good it is not counted that he hoped for it soon, but only that he ministered faithfully. Nothing therefore is better than that we patiently bear to be ignorant of what cannot be known, yet labour that we may be found fit.

And to eat. That is, to be taken up with all the crimes and enticements 299Dof the world, which make the mind to go astray; or literally, if he be given over to gluttony and drunkenness.

VERS. 46.-- And his portion. The wicked shall be punished with the unfaithful, but with a difference. For those who sin knowingly shall be punished more grievously; less grievously, those who sin out of ignorance. And among the unjust each shall have a damnation the more tolerable, the less iniquity he had.

VERS. 48.-- With few. The mildest punishment of all is that of those who beyond original sin have added no offence besides.

(AMBR.) Many, thinking that they shall be beaten less if they know not, etc., as far as but they are judged as despisers.

300AAnd to everyone. Deservedly the wicked man who knows shall be beaten more, and he who knows not, less, because to the one more, to the other less, has been committed: and of everyone to whom more is committed, more is required.

VERS. 49.-- Fire, etc. As if he said: Thou wast asking whether I admonish all men, with loins girt and lamps burning, to await the coming of the Lord? But I, who came into the world only for this, that I might kindle men from the desires of the world to heavenly things, will nothing else save that the radiance of this burning may light up all the parts of the world as far as the end of the age, and that it may so blaze in the hearts of the faithful that it be not quenched by any onset of waves or of blasts.

But I have a baptism, etc. And that this fire may be able to be kindled in the hearts of the faithful, so that they may be able perfectly to despise all temporal things 300Band themselves also, I must first be baptized with a baptism, that is, be steeped in the anointing of my own blood: for the Spirit would not be given unless Jesus were first glorified. And how. So great is the condescension of the Lord that he testifies there to be in him an eagerness for devotion to be poured into us, and for perfection to be consummated in us, and for the passion to be hastened for us: he who, though he had in himself nothing whereat to grieve, was yet straitened by our troubles, and at the time of death put forward a sadness which he had taken on not from the fear of his own death, but from the delay of our redemption. Until it be accomplished. He who is straitened as far as the accomplishment is untroubled about the accomplishment, nor is he straitened about it; but rather the death of the body is the loosing of anxiety, not the heaping up of grief.

300CVERS. 51.-- Think ye. How, after the baptism of the passion and after the coming of the fire, the earth is to burn, he says: Because for the faith of Christ the whole world is divided against itself, and every house had faithful and unfaithful, these fighting against the faith, those for the faith.

VERS. 52.-- In one house. Each single man is one house, either God's or the devil's. And so a spiritual man is a spiritual house. Divided. The first cause is that of religion toward God, the second that of dutifulness toward one's neighbour. For thou oughtest to set human things after divine. Kindred pledges are not therefore to be renounced, but God is to be preferred to all. For indeed the pledges of nature are God's benefits, nor ought the benefit that is received to be loved more than God, by whom the benefit received is preserved. Three against two. That is, the son and the daughter and the daughter-in-law, against the father and 300Dthe mother; and two against three, that is, the father and the mother, where the mother-in-law also is understood, against the son and the daughter and the daughter-in-law.

VERS. 54.-- And he said. When he had instructed the apostles also concerning his first coming, intimating what was done in it, and had admonished them concerning the coming to be, how they ought to await it, he turned his discourse to the crowds, among whom were the Pharisees, as Matthew indicates: because, neither believing the first coming to have taken place nor rightly awaiting the second, they were seeking a sign from heaven, tempting him. These therefore he reproves, because if they were willing to attend, they could have from the words of the prophets a sure sign of both comings. When you see. Mystically. The cloud rising from the west signifies the flesh 301Aof Christ rising again from death, from which time the shower of the Gospel preaching has been poured out upon all lands. The south wind blowing before the heat signifies the lighter tribulations before the judgment.

A shower cometh. Literally the sense is plain: they who from the changing of the elements can foreknow the state of the breezes could also know the time of both comings, both from the sayings of the prophets and from the magnificence of his works.

VERS. 56.-- Hypocrites, etc. And lest any unlearned men in the crowd, flattering themselves upon their want of skill, should excuse themselves, saying that they knew not the law and the prophets, he adds that they can discern by natural reason either that he who does works which no other had done is above man and is God, or that after so many injustices of the age 301Bthe just judgment of the Creator will come.

VERS. 58.-- And when thou goest. When in this life thou preparest thyself to see the appeased face of the judge, although the word of God be contrary to thy flesh, yet use it as a guard given thee on this journey, lest, being despised, it accuse thee. With the adversary. Our adversary in the way is the word of God, contrary to our carnal desires in the present life, from which he is set free who is humbly subject to its precepts: otherwise the sinner, guilty from his contempt of the word, will be held at the judge's examination, and the judge will deliver him to the exactor, that is, to the devil; because he will permit the devil to drag his soul to punishment, and the exactor himself, who exacts the punishment for the guilt which he suggested, will thrust it back into hell.

301CGive diligence, etc. These things too pertain to the treading down of the world's enticements and to the awaiting of the judge's coming. As if he said: Since it is certain that a strict judge will come, live therefore here in such wise that you be not condemned in that judgment.

VERS. 59.-- Thou repay. He repays always by suffering punishments for his sins, but never by obtaining pardon.

VERS. 1.-- And there were present. While the master of truth was instructing those present how they ought to prepare themselves for the coming of the judge, and how they that do not prepare themselves are to be condemned, tidings are brought him of the Galileans, who as it were justly sought this for the cause that they had not well prepared themselves: and the Lord answers both that they truly 301Dhad been sinners and had justly perished, and that other sinners shall likewise perish, if they take no heed that they are sinners. Bringing tidings. As if they said: It appears that these men were sinners and to be condemned for ever, who by so wicked a death were slain by an impious governor in the midst of their own sacrifices. Of the Galileans. The Galileans pay the impious penalties of their own crimes by a wicked death; yet it was not that death itself that harmed them, so that they should be sent into the second death, but their wicked life. And they were punished for the correction of the living, that when the pestilent man is scourged the fool may become wiser, or for an example to those who will not be corrected, and who therefore shall perish most wretchedly.

VERS. 3.-- All, etc. This was fulfilled after the Lord's passion, when the Romans so laid waste the impenitent 302AJews, beginning from Galilee, that not only the courts of the temple but even the inner parts of the house, whither the Galileans had no access, were defiled with human blood.

VERS. 4.-- As those eighteen. These men of Jerusalem, like the Galileans also, were not the only sinners, but were punished for the terror of the rest; and they, crushed by the fall of the tower, signify that the Jews who would not repent were to perish together with their own walls. Nor is it without purpose that they are eighteen, which number among the Greeks is expressed by iota and ita, that is, by the same letters with which the name Jesus begins. And it signifies that those Jews chiefly were to perish who would not receive the name of the Saviour. That tower signifies him who is the tower of strength, which is rightly in Siloe, because Siloe, which is interpreted 302Bsent, signifies him who, sent by the Father, came into the world, who shall crush all upon whom he shall fall.

VERS. 6.-- A fig tree. In the beginning of the human race Adam and Eve, when they had sinned, made themselves aprons of fig leaves. By the leaves of the fig tree, therefore, sins are understood. And they were under the fig tree as under the shadow of death, of whom it is said: They that sat under the shadow of death, light is risen to them (Isa. XI). [Vulg. Is 9:2 reads habitantibus in regione umbrae mortis, lux orta est eis, "to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen"; the qui sedebant form belongs to Mt 4:16, and neither witness has sub umbra or lumen.]

VERS. 7.-- Seeking fruit. The vineyard of the Lord sabaoh is the house of Israel, in which house the Synagogue was founded as a fig tree in a vineyard. But he who permitted the one sinning in the vineyard to be plundered by wayfarers commanded this fig tree also to be cut down. In it he seeks fruit, not as one who did not know that it was there, but he shows in a figure that in the Synagogue 302Cit ought by now to have fruit. Nor does he seek before the time, who comes through three years. He who through Moses established the Synagogue, himself appearing in the flesh teaches often in the Synagogue, seeks the fruit of faith, but finds it not in the Pharisees.

And he said to the dresser of the vineyard. The dresser of the vineyard: these are the teachers and the apostles, by whose prayers and admonitions the unceasing care of God is supplied; to whom the Lord often complains of the unfruitful nation of the Jews, that through the three years of his visitation, that is, in the edicts of the law, in the testimonies of the prophets, in the grace of the Gospel, it has been negligent.

Why doth it also the ground, etc. By the ground occupied by the barren fig tree may be signified the Jewish people, which is pressed by the harmful shadow of its rulers, that it may not see the light of truth, 302Dand is hindered by their examples, that it may not grow warm with the sun of love; whence (Matth. XXIII): Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, etc. He occupies the ground who does not work with good works the place that he holds, who by the example of his crookedness affords a hindrance to the rest.

VERS. 8.-- Until I dig, etc. That is, until I make the root of the unfruitful mind humble, by striking into it the fear both of present afflictions and of eternal damnation. For a ditch is in the lowest place, and rebuke, while it shows the mind to itself, humbles it. He knows how to till the ground who knows how to reprove vices. He understood that the hardness and pride of the Jews was the cause of their barrenness. And so he promises that hard hearts are to be dug with apostolic mattocks, and proud hearts to be called back to humility. 303AAnd put on dung. That is, I will bring back to their mind the abomination of the evils they have done, and will rouse up the grace of compunction, with the fruits of good work, as it were from the richness of the dung. For the sins of the flesh are called dung, which are laid to the root of the tree when the memory of the thought touches the conscience of its own crookedness; and while a man repents thereof, he returns, as it were by the touch of dung, to the fruitfulness of work.

VERS. 9.-- And if indeed. Although the order of repentance required that he should add "it shall be spared," or something of the kind, yet he subjoined nothing, but left the sentence hanging.

But if not. That is, if it shall not bear fruit, he at once annexed the judgment of the damnation to come, because he saw men more prone 303Bto deny than to believe.

VERS. 10.-- And he was teaching. This similitude of the fig tree the Lord is said to have taught in the synagogue, that it might be intimated that the parable belonged to the Synagogue itself. For that he seeks fruit in the fig tree and finds none signifies that he lends the word to the Synagogue and she does not receive it; yet understanding that she is not to be rooted out wholly, but that a remnant is to be saved through faith, straightway in the same place there follows the healing of the primitive Church under the figure of the bowed woman. For the fig tree spared signifies the same thing as the woman set upright. On the sabbaths. On the sabbaths he teaches and raises up her that was bowed, because through the word of preaching he leads those raised up from temporal things to eternal into the rest of the resurrection.

303CVERS. 11.-- And behold a woman, etc. This woman could not be raised up save after eighteen years, because human nature will not be able to lay aside this corruption and be raised up to put on the incorruption of eternal blessedness, unless it first fulfil the law which is contained in the ten precepts, and the grace in which the resurrection of Christ has been wrought and our own is awaited.

Years, etc. The number six, in which the creature of the world was perfected, signifies the perfection of works, and multiplied by three it renders eighteen; and it signifies those who in the three times of the Lord's visitation, namely before the law, and under the law, and under grace, have perfection of works. In this time therefore Judea was bent away from the uprightness of her mind, she who had known earthly things rather than heavenly, works.

303DVERS. 14.-- Because on the sabbath. God rested on the sabbath from the works of the world. Whence Moses also commanded that on the sabbath men should keep holiday from servile and harmful action, prefiguring the time in which our secular works, but not indeed the religious, that is, of praising God, shall cease. In sign of this thing the Lord heals on the sabbath also. But the ruler of the synagogue, not understanding this, is deceived and deceives, because the law forbade not to heal a man on the sabbath, but to do servile works, that is, to be weighed down with sins.

VERS. 15.-- Hypocrites. He rightly calls them hypocrites, that is, dissemblers, who, while they desire to be seen as masters of the people, are not ashamed to put the healing of a man after the care of a beast. Doth he not loose his ox. Mystically. The ox that knew its owner and the ass that knew 304Aits master's crib signify the Jewish and the Gentile people, each of which, loosed from the bonds of sin, laid aside the thirst and the heat of this world by a draught from the Lord's fountain. In these two animals, therefore, the Lord foretells the calling of the two peoples, the Jews withstanding it.

VERS. 16.-- And this woman, etc. A daughter of Abraham: every faithful soul is a daughter of Abraham, the Church gathered to the faith out of both peoples, which, the time of the law and of the Lord's resurrection being fulfilled, broke the bonds of a long captivity through the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit: and so it is the same thing for the ox or the ass to be loosed from the manger and led to drink, as for the daughter of Abraham to be raised up from the bond of a harmful bowing down

VERS. 17.-- All were ashamed. They who are ashamed of the sayings 304Bof the Saviour show themselves like to the barren fig tree. They therefore who rejoice at the miracles belong to the daughter of Abraham, that is, to the Church, glorifying God for her raising up. The adversaries. The Scribes and Pharisees, who can neither openly gainsay the truth nor, because of envy, are willing to believe. All the people rejoiced. The simple and the humble, who love the words of truth and the miracles; and these are a figure of the Gentiles, who, the Jews being blinded, are to be gathered to the faith through humility. Whence the Saviour also commends their faith under the comparison of the grain of mustard seed.

VERS. 18.-- He said therefore. Since there were present those who rejoiced and glorified, he spoke to the commendation and the instruction of those who through humility and fervour of faith are to be exalted in the Church.

304CVERS. 19.-- It is like, etc. The grain of mustard seed is a cheap and simple thing, but if it be crushed it pours out its own strength. The kingdom of heaven, therefore, that is, the faith through which one comes to the kingdom, is compared to a grain of mustard seed: because at first it is humble and as it were abject and of bitter savour, because of the weakness of Christ and the scandal of the cross; but crushed by adversities it pours forth the grace of its own power and fills those standing about with its odour, since even after death it preached the glory of the resurrection and of the ascension through the whole world. Or the body of Christ is the grain of mustard seed, which Joseph took and buried in the garden, and which afterwards grew in the resurrection and the ascension. It spread out its branches, sending preachers through the whole world, in whose words and consolations the faithful take breath from the weariness of the world.

304DVERS. 21.-- Which being taken, etc. The woman is the Church, whose meal we are, as many of us as are ground, by the exercise of fear and of hope, as by an upper and a nether millstone, that we many may be one bread in Christ. The Church therefore hides the leaven of love in three measures of meal, because she bids us love God with the whole heart, with the whole soul, with the whole strength.

VERS. 22.-- And he went, etc. Everywhere he preached without distinction, not discerning persons, but seeking salvation for them that believe.

VERS. 24.-- Strive to enter, etc. As if he said: Truly they are few, and those with great labours, because unless the intention of the mind be fervent, the wave of the world is not overcome, by which the soul is always called back to the depths.

305AVERS. 25.-- But when, etc. Christ the householder, though by his Godhead he is everywhere, is said to be already within to those whom, present in heaven, he gladdens by the sight of himself; but he is as it were without to those whom, hidden, he helps as they strive in this pilgrimage. He will enter therefore when he shall bring the whole Church to the contemplation of himself. He will shut the door when he shall take away from the reprobate the place of repentance, who, standing without, shall knock; that is, being separated from the just, they shall implore in vain the mercy which they despised. You shall begin to stand without. Strive now, in the time of mercy, because in the time of judgment the place of repentance is taken from the reprobate, which is now open to all that seek it dutifully.

I know you not. The light knows not the darkness, that is, it does not look upon it, because if it looked upon it, there would be no darkness.

305BVERS. 26.-- We have eaten, etc. The feasting of festivals does not profit, which the piety of faith does not commend. The knowledge of the Scriptures does not make him known to God whom the iniquity of his works shows to be unworthy. Or it is to be understood simply of the Jews, who, spurning the mysteries of the faith, think themselves acceptable to God because they feast before the Lord in the temple upon the victims offered, and give ear to the reading of the prophets. Or mystically: he eats and drinks before the Lord who eagerly receives the food of the word.

In the streets, etc. Scripture in its more obscure places is food, because it is broken as it were by expounding and is swallowed by eating. For it is drink in the more open places, where it is drunk down just as it is found. Both the hidden things, therefore, and the open they testify that they have 305Cunderstood, who, when the judge reproves them, complain of what they have eaten.

VERS. 28.-- There shall be weeping, etc. Weeping is wont to be stirred up by heat, the gnashing of teeth by cold, because there they shall pass from the waters of snow to excessive heat. Or the gnashing betrays the feeling of one indignant, that he repents too late of what he stubbornly did amiss. Or they shall gnash with their teeth who here shall rejoice in gluttony. Those eyes shall weep which here shall wander through concupiscences. And note, through the weeping which belongs to the eyes and the gnashing of the teeth, the true resurrection of the wicked.

VERS. 29.-- And they shall come. Many who are fervent at first grow torpid afterwards. Many who are cold at first suddenly take fire. Many despised in this world are to be glorified in the world to come. Others glorious among men are to be condemned in the world to come. 305DOr the Gentiles, who had long lived without faith, are to be called to the faith, and the Jews to be execrated.

VERS. 32.-- Say ye to the fox, etc. The fox is a crafty animal, lurking in a hole for ambush, foul of smell, never going by straight paths. All these things suit the heretics, whose type Herod holds, who strive to quench Christ, that is, the humility of the Christian faith, in them that believe. Behold I cast out demons, etc. As if he said: Neither Herod nor the heretics, of whom he himself is the figure, shall be able to disturb what I purpose to do. And I purpose to cast out demons from the hearts of men, that, leaving vanities behind, they may believe in me; and to perfect healings, that they may live according to my precepts; afterwards I am consummated in my body, 306Awhich is the Church, which, glorified on the day of the resurrection, I shall bring to the fellowship of the angels.

VERS. 33.-- Nevertheless I must. Herod shall not be able to disturb it but that I so act and am so consummated; nor shall he be able to work the death of my body, which must come to pass in Jerusalem, where not he but Pilate bears rule. To-day and to-morrow, etc. The first day is to renounce vanities through the grace of God. The second, to be in accord with the truth in manners and in life. The third is the final glorification.

VERS. 34.-- Jerusalem, etc. Where my prophets are, there I, the head of the prophets, must be sacrificed; for which sin she herself shall justly be destroyed, and with that destruction of theirs I grieve as a devoted father. How often would I have gathered. As if he said: I would, and thou wouldest not: and as many as 306BI have gathered by my will, which is always effectual, I did it while thou wast unwilling, because thou hast always been ungrateful. Thy children. In this, that he says: How often would I have gathered thy children, etc., he bears witness to all the prophets sent by him in time past. Even as a bird, etc. Beautifully does he who had called Herod a fox, while he was plotting his death, compare himself to a bird, because the deceitful fox always lays ambushes for birds.

VERS. 35.-- Your house. The temple or the city, because, the Lord being slain, the Romans, plundering as it were an empty nest, took away both the place and the nation. You shall not see me, etc. Unless you do penance and confess me to be the Son of the almighty Father, you shall not see my face at the second coming. When you shall say, etc. This indeed the crowds said when the Lord was coming into Jerusalem. 306CBut because Luke does not say that the Lord afterwards returned to the Galileans, so that this might be chanted to him by them, he compels it to be understood mystically of the coming of his brightness.

And it came to pass, etc. Ὕδωρ , water, whence the dropsy, a watery disease beneath the skin, born of a defect of the bladder, with swelling distension and fetid breath. And it is proper to the man with the dropsy that the more he drinks, the more he thirsts; and therefore he is compared to the man whom the overflowing flux of carnal pleasures weighs down, and he is compared also to the covetous rich man.

VERS. 3.-- Is it lawful, etc. On the sabbaths especially Jesus teaches and works, not only because of the spiritual sabbath, but also because of the more crowded gathering of the people, 306Dseeking the salvation of all.

VERS. 4.-- But they held their peace. Rightly do they hold their peace, who see that whatever he had said would be said against them. For if it is lawful, why do they watch him? If it is not lawful, why do they care for their cattle? But he. He therefore heals the man with the dropsy before the Pharisees, and straightway disputes against avarice, that he may convict them of the avarice through which they violate the sabbath and ill interpret the law. For on the sabbath one must keep holiday not from good but from evil works, whence it is said: No servile work shall you do therein (Lev. XXIII), that is, sin. So in the eternal rest there shall be holiday from evils only, not from good things.

VERS. 5.-- Which of you. By a fitting example he solves the question, that he may show that they violate the sabbath 307Ain a work of covetousness who accuse him of violating it in a work of charity. An ox into a pit. Fittingly does he compare the man with the dropsy to an animal that has fallen into a pit, because he was perishing by a harmful humour. And well does he name the ox and the ass, that he may signify either the wise or the dull, or both peoples, namely the Jewish, pressed by the yoke of the law, and the Gentile, tamed by no reason but stolid and brutish; all of whom, sunk in the pit of concupiscence, he draws out: For all have sinned and do need the grace of God (Rom. XXXV). [Vulg. Rom 3:23 reads egent gloria Dei, "do need the glory of God."]

VERS. 7.-- And he said. After he had convicted them of avarice and of the violation of the sabbath, he begins to teach concerning the grace of the Gospel those present who were fit, inviting them to humility against the swelling which the Pharisees had in the law, or intending in his teaching 307Bhow they ought to choose the places at table in the Church.

VERS. 8.-- When thou art invited: When, called through the grace of faith by a preacher, thou hast joined thyself to the members of the Church, do not, by glorying in thy merits, exalt thyself as though loftier than the rest. Lest perhaps one more honourable. He gives place to one more honourable invited after him, who, made too secure by confidence in his own manner of life, is quickly outstripped by the nimbleness of those who followed him in Christ. And he holds the last place with blushing, etc., when, coming to know better things of others, he humbles whatever lofty thing he had thought of his own working, saying with the Prophet: But being exalted, I have been humbled and have confessed (Psal. LXXXVII). [Vulg. Ps 87:16 reads conturbatus sum, "I have been troubled"; the plate prints confessus, read at 450 dpi on leaf n159.]

VERS. 9.-- And then thou begin, etc. And then, blushing that thou didst once presume greater things of thyself, thou shalt begin to be humbled unto repentance, and to know thyself 307Cof lesser merit, lest thou now begin to seek what is kept for thee at the end, because the inheritance to which men hasten in the beginning shall be wanting in the last blessing.

VERS. 10.-- Then shalt thou have glory, etc. Daily the Lord, while he visits and judges his guests, bestows such gifts of his Spirit upon the humble that the company of the faithful glorifies them with wonder; and, astonished, it leaps forth into the praise of its author, saying: But to me thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honourable (Psal. CXXXVIII).

VERS. 12.-- And he said. According to the order of the letter. After he had admonished those invited how they ought to sit at table, he admonishes the inviter also whom he ought to invite, lest the temporal spending of goods which he makes 307Dpass away in vain, or perhaps increase his sin: but let him so spend temporal things that through them a way may lie open to things eternal. And to him that had invited him. He speaks to the chief of the Pharisees, who perhaps might grow proud because he had called so many to the banquet as though out of mercy; or, as may be gathered from the Lord's words, he had rather invited them for this, that he might be invited by them in turn, and so no special recompense would follow. Do not call thy friends. That brethren and friends and the rich should hold banquets for one another he does not forbid as though it were a crime, but he shows that it does not avail for the rewards of life. And there are certain banquets of such rich men which receive not only requitals in the present but even damnation in the time to come; whence the Apostle: Not in rioting 308Aand drunkenness (Rom. VIII), that is, in luxurious banquets, which are either celebrated by the contribution of all or are wont to be furnished by turns among companions, where no man is ashamed to do or say anything unseemly. Lest perhaps. As if he said: If thou purposest to invite that thou mayest be invited, therein thou canst be cheated; but if thou distribute to the poor, thou shalt not be cheated of thy reward.

VERS. 13.-- Call the poor. He that calls the poor shall receive a reward in the time to come. He that calls friends and brethren and the rich has received his reward. But if he does this for God's sake, after the example of the sons of Job, then, as in the other offices of brotherly love, he himself who commanded it rewards it. He that calls the wanton for the sake of lasciviousness shall not lack punishment.

VERS. 14.-- In the resurrection. Though all are to rise again, 308Byet the resurrection of the just is called singular and as it were their own, since they are to be changed in it.

VERS. 15.-- When one had heard these things, etc. Allured by the sweetness of the resurrection he had heard of, he breaks forth into the praise of it, and asserts that men shall be truly blessed therein, although he does not well understand by what merits that blessedness may be attained. Blessed, etc. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever (Joan. VI). If any man, perfectly incorporated into the sacrament of the incarnation, shall have deserved to enjoy the vision of the divine majesty, he shall rejoice in eternal blessedness. But because many receive it only so far as faith, as it were by praying, yet loathe to attain its sweetness truly, their torpor is reproved.

VERS. 16.-- A certain man, etc. The Word incarnate 308Chas prepared for many the fulness of inward sweetness, but few come, because many who are subject to him through faith gainsay him continually by living ill. A great supper. This banquet is called not a dinner but a supper, because after the dinner of which Matthew treats a supper remains, and after the supper no banquet remains: from the dinner many are cast out, and from the supper no one.

VERS. 17.-- And he sent his servant. The hour of the supper is the end of the world; whence the Apostle: We know upon whom the ends of the ages are come (I Cor. X). In this end the servant is sent, that is, the order of preachers, to those invited through the law and the prophets, that, loathing being put away, they might prepare themselves to taste the supper, because all things are now ready. For Christ being sacrificed, the entrance of the kingdom 308Dlies open.

VERS. 18.-- And they began, etc. They therefore make excuse, because the kingdom is shut against no man save him whom the profession of his own voice shall have shut out. And every man excuses himself who loves earthly things more than heavenly, even if he say that he is reaching toward heavenly things. I have bought a farm. The farm is earthly substance. He goes out therefore to see the farm who thinks of outward things alone for the sake of substance; and this is what is first sought by the lovers of the world, namely the substance of the body.

(AUG.) In the farm that is bought, lordship and pride are noted. For to have a farm, etc., as far as the love of earthly things is birdlime to spiritual wings.

309AI pray thee. While he says: I pray thee, hold me excused, humility sounds in his voice while he scorns to come, pride in his deed.

VERS. 19.-- Yokes of oxen. The five yoke of oxen are the five senses of the body, which are rightly called yokes, since they are doubled in either sex; and because they know and touch not inward things but outward only, by them curiosity is rightly designated, which, while it searches out the life of a neighbour without, knows not its own inward parts. And the mind of a curious man, the more skilled it is in what is another's, the more ignorant it is of its own. Nor do the words of the man excusing himself disagree with the signification of his own vice, when he says: I go to try them. For trying is wont to belong to curiosity.

VERS. 20.-- I have married a wife. Because many take wives not for the sake of fruitfulness but for the desires of the flesh, 309Btherefore by this thing the pleasure of the flesh is designated, for the sake of which the fastidious man refuses to come to the supper of God.

VERS. 22.-- It is done, etc. Many such of the Jews have we gathered to thy supper, but these do not fill the place of thy banquet; there remains a place where the great number of the Gentiles may be received.

VERS. 23.-- Go out into the highways and hedges, etc. Note that in this third invitation it is not said, Invite, but Compel them to come in. For they who, broken by the adversities of this world, return to the love of God, and are corrected from the desires of the present life, do not enter unless compelled. But some are called and despise it, who receive the house of understanding but do not fulfil it in work. Some are called and come, who fulfil in work the 309Cunderstanding they have received.

VERS. 25.-- And there went crowds, etc. The crowds that follow Jesus as he makes his way to Jerusalem signify those who, invited or compelled, come to the supper, and with their whole intent imitate Jesus going before them to the vision of eternal peace. These therefore he instructs, who ought with sincere love to seek that country, and for its sake to renounce the affections of carnal love.

VERS. 26.-- If any man come. We can at once both hate and love: so that we love both those joined to us by acquaintance and by the divine precept, and those whom we suffer as adversaries in the way of God we may not know, by hating and fleeing them. Yea more. Then do we rightly hate our own soul, when we do not consent to its carnal desires, but struggle against them and break them.

309DVERS. 27.-- And whosoever doth not carry. The cross is carried in two ways: either when the flesh is afflicted by abstinence, or when the mind is afflicted by compassion for a neighbour. And come after me. For if a man tears his flesh for empty glory, or has compassion on his neighbour carnally so as to favour his fault, he seems to bear the cross, but he does not follow God.

VERS. 28.-- For which of you. After the Lord had given to those following him into Jerusalem lofty precepts concerning contempt of the world and the casting away of the body, he adds a precept concerning perseverance, for which patience with humility is necessary. And this by the likeness of one that builds. To build a tower. Because he had given lofty precepts, he subjoins a comparison of a loftiness to be built. 310AReckoneth the charges. He reckons the charges who discerns that temporal money must be paid out, and the heart turned away from the covetous desires of the world, and the soul made ready against the adversities of the world.

VERS. 29.-- All that see. As the Apostle says: We are made a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men (II Cor. IV). And in everything that we do we ought to consider our hidden adversaries, who lie in wait for our works; and unless we watch against them, we suffer as mockers those whom we have as persuaders to evil.

VERS. 31.-- Or what, etc. After the similitude of the tower to be built, he adds the similitude of a greater matter, of a king about to fight. In which it is shown that by the fulfilment of the preceding commandments no man can attain to glory 310Bunless the sentence of the severe judge be tempered by mercy. For in the sight of God every man is imperfect. If he be able. He meets God as it were with ten thousand who offers the works of the ten commandments which he has performed outwardly. But God comes against him as it were with a doubled number, when he examines him, scarcely prepared in work alone, at once concerning both work and thought. And therefore, while he is still far off through the delay of the judgment, we, considering the insufficiency of our frailty, ought to send before us, for the obtaining of the severe judge's peace, an embassy of tears, of good works, of holy affection.

VERS. 33.-- So likewise, etc. He infers this from the foregoing similitudes. Since he cannot build well who does not reckon the charges, nor can he safely go to meet another 310Cwho does not send an embassy before him, therefore neither can he be my disciple who does not renounce all things.

VERS. 34.-- Good. Truly, whoever wishes to be my disciple must renounce all things, for so he will be good salt, that is, worthy to be set in the number of the apostles, for the seasoning of the hearts of his hearers with spiritual wisdom.

VERS. 35.-- Nor into the dunghill. Salt makes the ground barren. Whence the wrath of conquerors used to sow with salt the cities they had destroyed, that no shoot might spring up in them. So the apostles, the kingdom of sin being destroyed, restrain the shoot of vices. Salt seasons food and dries flesh. Preaching keeps human nature unharmed for its Creator from the worms and the rottenness of vices.

• 310D

VERS. 4.-- Who of you, etc. In what went before thou hadst learned to renounce negligence, to shun arrogance, to take up devotion, not to be held fast by worldly occupations, not to prefer things that fall to things that abide. But because human frailty cannot keep a firm footing on so slippery a world, the physician there shows a remedy against error also, namely, that the judge does not deny the hope of pardon. A hundred sheep. Because the number of a hundred is a perfect number. God had a hundred sheep, that is, a perfect number, when he created the substance of angels and of men; but one perished, when man by sinning forsook the pastures of life: therefore, because 311Athe number of the rational creature was diminished by the perishing of man, he seeks man on earth that the sum may be made whole.

Doth he not leave. As if he said: You murmur, because I receive sinners, but I came not save to gather those going astray, as each one of you labours to bring back a straying sheep.

VERS. 5.-- He layeth it upon his shoulder. He set the sheep upon his shoulders, who, taking up human nature, himself bore our sins: whence the shoulders of Christ are the arms of the cross; there he laid down our sins, on that neck of the noble gibbet he rested.

VERS. 6.-- And coming. When man was repaired, the shepherd returns to heaven; there he finds the choirs of angels. They are friends, because in their steadfastness they keep his will continually; 311Band they are neighbours, because they enjoy the brightness of his vision. And note that he does not say: Rejoice with the sheep that is found, but with me, because his joy is our life.

VERS. 7.-- I say to you. In the ninety-nine, the number of the just is understood; in the one sheep, that of sinners. Joy. The angels, because they are rational, rejoice over a man reconciled to them, which sets us on fire toward uprightness: let us do what is pleasing to them, whose patronage we ought both to court and whose offence we ought to fear. Than over. If in the ninety-nine just who have not erred nor need penitence the angels are understood, it seems a greater thing to justify the impious than to create and preserve the just, because although each is of equal power, here there is greater mercy and greater joy.

311CVERS. 8.-- Or what woman. The woman, that is, the Wisdom of God, had ten drachmas, when she created men and angels to her own image. But she lost one, when man withdrew from the likeness of his Creator. But the Wisdom of God kindled a lamp to seek with, when she appeared in the flesh, because a lamp is a light in an earthen vessel, that is, the Word in flesh. And when this shone forth among men, it overturned the house, because it troubled the consciences of men concerning their own guilt, and so the drachma is found again, while in man the likeness of the Maker is repaired. Having ten drachmas. The nature of angels and of men, which the Lord willed to subsist unto eternity, he created to his own likeness. Ten drachmas therefore the woman had, when to the nine orders of angels man was added, that the tenth 311Dnumber of the elect might be completed. And that number did not perish from its Creator even after the fault, because the Wisdom of God, flashing with miracles through the flesh, repaired it from the light of the earthen vessel. She calleth together. The friends and the neighbours are the powers above, which are near to God in the measure that they contemplate him more nearly. And she calls them, while through the showing of the grace bestowed upon men she kindles them more vehemently to the love of herself.

VERS. 11.-- A certain man. By the two parables set before, he intimates how greatly he himself with the angels rejoices over the salvation of the penitent. In this third one he not only shows the joy, but also rebukes the murmur of the envious.

VERS. 12.-- And he said, etc. As God has no other by whom he may be formed, by whom he is denied, so this man wishes to use his own power, 312Athat he may live with none forming him, none ruling him. Father, give. The half of the patrimony is given to those who ask, nor is it the fault of the father who gives to the younger. No age is weak in the kingdom of God, nor is faith weighed down by years, unless indeed he who asks has judged himself unfit. If this man had not withdrawn from his father, he would have known no hindrance of age, but having journeyed into a far country he deservedly wastes the patrimony. And he divided. To the faithful, by imparting the protection of his grace which they desired: but to the unfaithful, by granting only the natural benefit of native wit, with which they were content.

VERS. 13.-- Not after many. Not long after the institution of the human race, it pleased the soul to carry off with it free choice, as a kind of power of its own nature, and to desert him by whom it was founded, 312Btrusting in its own strength. And it consumes those strengths the more swiftly, the more it deserts the giver. This is the prodigal life, which loves to pour itself out and to range abroad in outward shows, leaving him who is more inward to it

VERS. 14.-- And he began. Because nothing is enough for prodigal pleasure, because pleasure always has a hunger of itself; deservedly therefore is he in want who has left behind the treasures of wisdom and the height of heavenly riches.

VERS. 15.-- To one of the citizens. That one of the citizens is he who, being set over earthly concupiscences by the desert of his own depravity, is called the prince of the world. Who sends him into a farm, because he subjects him to the greed of worldly substance. He feeds swine, when he works those things in which unclean spirits rejoice. That he might feed swine. The swine is an unclean animal, which delights in filth; so the devil, 312Cwho is fed in idols with the blood of cattle, and with the death of man himself. He sent him therefore into the farm, that is, made him his own servant, that he might feed swine, sacrificing to him his own soul.

VERS. 16.-- And he desired. The food of demons is drunkenness, fornication and the like, which are enticing and provoke to their own use. Nor have the wanton any other care save to fill their belly, whose god is their belly (Philip. III). But he cannot be satisfied with them, because pleasure always has a hunger of itself. No man gave unto him. Because when the devil makes any man his own, he takes no further trouble for an abundance of vices, knowing him to be already dead.

VERS. 17.-- How many hired servants. They who with an eye to the reward to come are busy to work worthy things, are refreshed with the daily 312Dnourishment of grace from above. But he perishes of hunger who, living outside the father's house, that is, without faith, seeks the blessed life in empty philosophy.

VERS. 18.-- Father, I have sinned. Although God knows all things, yet he awaits the voice of confession. Without danger thou mayest disclose what thou knowest is already known: thou hast a cause why Christ should intercede for thee, nor has he died for thee in vain; the Father too has a cause for pardoning, because what the Son wills the Father also wills.

VERS. 19.-- Make me, etc. He does not presume to aspire to the affection of a son, who does not doubt that all that is the Father's is his own, but he desires the station of a hired servant, now about to serve for wages, and yet he testifies that he cannot earn even this except by the father's condescension.

313A(AMBR.) There is a difference between a slave, a hired servant and a son. A slave, etc., as far as which after the father's kiss he most nobly disdains.

VERS. 20.-- But when he was yet a great way off, etc. Before he understood God, but yet when he was already seeking him dutifully, yet was not yet returning worthy in works, through the Word incarnate he anticipates the son's return. He came to the earth before that man came to the house of confession, not deserting the Word itself, but in the Word condescending as far as our pilgrimage. The arm, that is, the Son, he humbled into the embrace of the one returning. The father fell upon the son's neck, when he laid upon him the light yoke of his own love, and kissed him, that there might be shown what is said elsewhere: Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth (Cant. I). Returning, 313Bhe receives the kiss of charity from the father, when through grace he is made certain of pardon.

VERS. 22.-- Bring forth quickly, etc. The first robe, the garment of innocence, in which the first man was founded, but after the fault he knew himself naked, and took a garment of skin, that is, a mortal one. A ring. That is, the seal of faith, with which the promises are sealed in the hearts of believers. In the hand. That is, in working: that through works faith may shine out, and through faith works may be made firm. And shoes. That is, fortify the examples of those before you in the office of preaching, that both the work may be adorned by living well, and the course by preparing for things eternal.

VERS. 23.-- Bring the calf. Preach Christ and make known his death, that a man may both believe in his heart, 313Cby imitating him who was slain, and receive with his mouth the sacrament of the passion unto amendment.

VERS. 24.-- And they began to feast. Not only is the son refreshed for whom the calf was slain, but the father also and his servants, because the refreshment of God and of the saints is the salvation of sinners. And note that after the robe, the ring, the shoe were given, the calf is sacrificed, because unless a man has put on the hope of the first immortality, unless he has fortified his works with the ring of faith, unless he has preached that very faith by confessing it, he cannot take part in the heavenly sacraments.

VERS. 25.-- Now his son was, etc. The son, that is, the people of Israel, who had not gone far off to the worship of idols. Neither was he in the house, because he did not penetrate the inward things of the law: in the literal sense, content, working earthly things, 313Dawaiting earthly things. This is he who bought a field, and five yoke of oxen, who, pressed by the burden of the law, enjoys earthly senses, and took a wife in the affection of the flesh. And when he came. The son draws near to the house when someone among that people, understanding the law spiritually, condemns the labours of servile work, and considers the liberty of the Church. He hears music and a choir, that is, men full of the Spirit preaching the Gospel with concordant voices. He calls one of the servants, when he takes up some one of the prophets to read. And he questions him, while he searches in him what these feasts of the Church may be in which he does not see himself to be.

VERS. 26.-- He asked. And now Israel asks why God rejoices in the taking up of the Gentiles, and by reason of 314Aenvy he does not know the father's will, and stands outside, although he is entreated through heralds.

VERS. 28.-- Being indignant. The Jews were indignant and complained, because Jesus feasted with the Gentiles. And still they are indignant at the salvation of the Gentiles and will not go in. But when the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, the father will go out to entreat Israel, when the calling of the Jews shall be made manifest.

VERS. 29.-- Behold, so many years. (HIER.) Following the righteousness of the law, he is not subject to the righteousness of God. For what greater righteousness of God is there than to pardon the penitent?

Thy commandment, etc. As though it were not to transgress it, to envy another's salvation, or to boast oneself of one's righteousness.

VERS. 30.-- Thou hast killed for him the calf. They confess that 314BChrist has come, but envy wills not to be saved. So it is of the Jew and the Gentile. But generally it can be taken of the just man and the sinner. He hath devoured his substance, etc. The harlots are the superstitions of the Gentiles, with whom he squanders his substance who, having left the wedlock of the Word of God, fornicates with the demon in foul greed. Son, thou art always, etc. He does not refute him as one lying, but approving his perseverance with himself, and inviting him to the full enjoyment of a mightier exultation. All that is mine, etc. In eternal blessedness, both the single things of all and all the things of each single one.

VERS. 1.-- To the disciples. Because the Pharisees, being proud and avaricious, just as they denied pardon to those who asked it, so 314Cdenied money to those in need; therefore the Saviour now speaks to them, now in their hearing speaks to the disciples, concerning mercy. A certain man. A bailiff, properly, is the keeper of a farm, but the word is put here for a steward, that is, a dispenser, who dispenses the whole substance of the house. For in this dispenser we ought not to take all things for imitation, namely that we should act fraudulently toward God. But on the contrary these similitudes are given, that we may understand that if he who wrought fraud could be praised by his lord, how much more does he please God who does those works according to his precept.

VERS. 6.-- A hundred cadi. A cadus in Greek is called in Latin an amphora, holding three urns. A chorus is filled with thirty pecks. It can simply be taken thus: whoever 314Drelieves the need of a poor man, whether by a half or by a fifth part, is to be endowed with the wages of his own mercy.

VERS. 8.-- And the Lord commended. If the dispenser of the unjust mammon is praised by the Lord's own voice because out of an unjust thing he made ready righteousness for himself, and, though he suffered loss, yet he praises his prudence, not because he had acted fraudulently against his lord, but because he had acted prudently for himself: how much more shall Christ, who can sustain no loss and is inclined to clemency, praise the disciples, if they have been merciful toward those entrusted to them. The children of this world. Whose works a man does, his son also he is called; whence: The children of this world, that is, of darkness; and the children of light, of eternal life.

315AVERS. 9.-- Make unto you. Mammon, in the tongue of the Syrians, is the riches of iniquity, because they were gathered out of iniquity. If therefore iniquity well dispensed is turned into righteousness, how much more do the feasts of the divine word, in which there is no iniquity, lift up a good dispenser into heaven.

VERS. 10.-- He that is faithful. In money that is to be shared with the poor man. And in that which is greater. Cleaving to the Creator, and made one spirit with him. But he who does not well dispense the temporal things he possesses, empties out for himself the glory of eternal things, over which he swells.

VERS. 11.-- If therefore, etc. He who does not give to his brethren for their use what was created by God for all, will be unjust in dividing spiritual money, so that he divides the Lord's 315Bteaching not according to need, but according to persons.

VERS. 12.-- And if in that which is another's. If you do not well dispense the carnal riches which slip away, who will give you the true and eternal riches?

VERS. 13.-- No servant. Rebuking avarice, he says that the lovers of money are not able God with love; he therefore who loves God despises money: for it avails not to love things transitory and things eternal at once.

Or he will hold to the one. (AUG.) He will not indeed love. For no man loves, etc., as far as and he flatters himself concerning his goodness and his impunity.

You cannot, etc. He does not say to have riches, but to serve them. He serves who guards them as a servant; but he who has shaken off the yoke of servitude distributes as a lord. He who serves mammon assuredly serves him who, being set over these things by the desert of his own perversity, 315Cis called by the Lord the prince of the world.

VERS. 14.-- Now they heard. The Lord was admonishing the scribes and Pharisees not to be proudly wise, not to presume upon their own righteousness, but to receive penitent sinners: and to redeem by alms their own sins into which they might chance to fall. But they deride the teacher of mercy, of humility and of thrift, as though, being harmful, he were commanding things less useful and never to be done, or else things useful indeed, but, being superfluous, were pressing upon them things already accomplished by themselves.

VERS. 15.-- And he said, etc. While you despise sinners as weak and as men without hope, and believe yourselves perfect in all things and free of every frailty, and to have no need of the remedy of almsgiving. But how justly this height of swelling 315Dis to be condemned, he sees who enlightens the hidden things of darkness, and makes manifest the counsels of hearts.

VERS. 16.-- The law and the prophets. They derided him as he disputed against the love of money, as though it were contrary to the law and the prophets: since in the law many rich men pleased God, and since the law promises to those who keep it the good things of the earth; whom he meets, teaching that there is a distance between the law and the Gospel: because in the law lesser things are commanded to carnal men for the sake of the earth, and in the Gospel greater things are commanded to spiritual men for the sake of heaven.

And every one. Great is the violence, when by birth from earth he seeks to possess by virtue heaven, which he could not hold by nature, when he despises even 316Athe tongues of those who deride, as the Lord is made void by the Pharisees. Every one who does violence hastens with vehement zeal, he does not slacken with a torpid affection. There is therefore a religious violence of faith, and a criminal sloth. Let us then do violence to nature, that it may not sink us to earthly things, but raise itself to things above.

VERS. 17.-- It is easier. Although I say, The law and the prophets until John, yet I do not preach the destruction of the law: because it is easier for the greatest elements of the world to pass than the least precepts of the law, because even those which seem light or superstitious are not empty of spiritual sacraments, since all things are recapitulated in the Gospel also.

VERS. 18.-- Every one etc. (AMBR.) Not every wedlock is from God. For Christian women are not 316Bjoined to Gentiles, since the law forbids it. Where there is an unequal wedlock, the law of God is not there.

VERS. 19.-- A certain man. Against the avaricious mockers he builds up by an example what he had set forth, namely that the rich man is tormented among those below, who did not make Lazarus his friend, by whom he might have been received into eternal tabernacles; and it seems rather a narrative than a parable.

Who was clothed in purple, etc. (GREG.) Purple is the colour of royal apparel, from sea-shells, etc., as far as because he knew nothing of the bowels of pity, because he was unwilling to redeem the precepts with a price.

VERS. 20.-- And there was a certain. If we see anything blameworthy in the poor, we ought not to despise them, because perhaps those whom weakness of manners wounds, the medicine of poverty heals. Full of sores. At this man's 316Csores the fastidious rich man shudders, lest amid precious banquets and perfumed guests he should endure the stench of sores with the dogs licking them.

VERS. 21.-- Desiring. In one thing two judgments of God are fulfilled: from the sight of the poor man a heap of damnation is brought upon the rich man who does not pity; and again from the sight of the rich man the poor man, tempted daily, is proved, whom, for his own greater proving, poverty together with sickness, and the beheld plenty of the rich man, and no consolation applied to him, afflict. The dogs. In the tongue of the dogs there can be signified the tongue of flatterers who lick wounds, while with wicked favour they praise the evils which we blame in ourselves.

VERS. 22.-- Into Abraham's bosom. Abraham's bosom is the rest of the blessed poor, whose is the kingdom 316Dof heaven, into which after this life they are received. The burial of hell is the depth of punishments, which devours the proud and the unmerciful after this life. And he was buried. In the law not niggardliness but rapine is condemned; in the Gospel the rich man is tormented because he did not give what was his own.

VERS. 23.-- And lifting up. The unfaithful see afar off, while, set in the depth before the day of judgment, they mark the faithful above them in rest, whose joys afterwards they cannot behold. What they descry is far off, because they do not reach thither by merit.

He saw Abraham. (GREG.) It is to be believed that before the retribution of the last judgment the unjust in rest, etc., as far as and they are tormented by the punishment of those whom they loved uselessly.

317AVERS. 24.-- That he may dip. He who did not give to Lazarus the crumbs falling from the table, desires that water be distilled into his mouth from the tip of that man's finger; and he who gave not the least things in life, in hell seeks the least things.

VERS. 25.-- Because thou hast received. (AUG.) Note that this rich man had something of good, out of which he received a transitory good in this life, and Lazarus had something of evil, but the want of fire purged it.

VERS. 26.-- And in all these things. Just as the reprobate wish to pass over from their punishments to the glory of the saints, so the just wish in mind through mercy to go to those set in torments, that they may free them; but they cannot, because the souls of the just, though in the goodness of their own nature they have mercy, are yet now joined to the righteousness of their Author and are bound with so great a rectitude that they are moved by no 317Bcompassion toward the reprobate.

VERS. 27.-- I beseech thee therefore. After hope for himself is taken from the burning man, his mind runs back to his kinsmen, because the punishment of the reprobate sometimes uselessly instructs their mind unto charity, so that then at last they love even their own spiritually, who here, while they loved their sins, did not even love themselves. There is kept therefore for the rich man unto punishment both the knowledge of the poor man whom he despised, and the memory of the brethren whom he left behind, that he may be the more tormented by the beheld glory of the despised and by the punishment of those he uselessly loved. That thou wouldst send. Too late does this rich man begin to be a master, when he has now neither time for learning nor for teaching.

VERS. 31.-- If Moses. They who despise the words of the law, by how much the more subtle the precepts of the Redeemer, who rose from the dead, are, by so much the more hardly will they fulfil these, 317Cand him whose sayings they refuse to fulfil, him without doubt they refuse to believe.

VERS. 1.-- And he said to the disciples. It is to be known that when the Lord was speaking of mercy, the avaricious Pharisees persevered in mockery, wherein they made a scandal for weak hearers, that these might not attend. These therefore he rebukes while speaking to the apostles, namely for what they were doing by their own vice, so that scandals came about through them which were not able not to come about in a world most full of hardships and errors.

VERS. 2.-- If a millstone, etc. According to the custom of the province where this punishment of crimes obtained, that with a stone bound to them they should be plunged into the deep. And truly it is more profitable for an innocent man to end his life by the heaviest punishment, than by harming a brother to earn 317Dperpetual death. Of the little ones. Not in age, but in faith and mind, who seek occasions how they may be scandalized; therefore you must take counsel for these, lest by occasion of you they fall away from faith and from salvation.

VERS. 3.-- Take heed to yourselves. He intimates by what order we may turn aside scandals and escape the everlasting woe. But if we take heed that we harm no one, if we rebuke the penitent with the zeal of justice, if from the heart we forgive him who repents, we are not commanded to forgive one who sins at random, but one who does penance. First therefore is it to rebuke him who sins, that afterwards we may be able to forgive him who repents. For he who sees a man sinning and is silent sins as much 318Aas he who does not pardon a penitent. And if he do penance. We are bidden to give pardon in one way to a penitent brother, in another to a persecuting enemy. To a brother we impart fellowship in charity with the remission granted; to a persecutor who wills evil to us, or who does it if he can, we will good things and do what we can.

VERS. 4.-- Seven times. Universality is wont to be designated by the number seven. It is commanded therefore that all sins be forgiven, or that it be always forgiven to one who repents.

VERS. 5.-- Increase. Since he had said above (Luc. XVI): He that is faithful in that which is least, etc. The apostles, who in that which was another's and in that which was least, that is, in the contempt of earthly things, had been faithful, ask that faith be increased in what is their own and greater, that they who from faith already have the beginnings of virtue may advance in the same, until they come to perfection.

318BVERS. 6.-- To the mulberry tree. By the mulberry, of blood-red colour, whose fruit and twigs are ruddy, the Gospel of the cross is expressed, which by the faith of the apostles was uprooted out of the nation of the Jews (in which, as in the stock of the race, the word of preaching was held) and transplanted into the sea of the Gentiles; to which the parable subjoined concerning the ministers of the word also fits. The leaves of the mulberry laid under a serpent bring death, and the word of the cross, as it confers all wholesome things, takes away all noxious ones. The fruit of the mulberry is white in flower, when formed grows red, in ripeness turns black: so the devil, of one shining red with the flower of the angelic nature and with power, by prevaricating bristled up, a terror, in odour, who is shut out through faith.

VERS. 7.-- But which of you, etc. The servant ploughing or feeding is the doctor of the Church, of whom it is said: No man 318Cputting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom (Luc. IX) of God. And the Lord says to Peter: Feed my sheep (Joan. XXI). Which servant returns from the field when, the work of preaching being intermitted, returning as it were to the court of conscience he goes over his own words or deeds; whom the Lord does not at once bid to pass out of this life and be cherished in eternal rest, but to prepare at home what he may sup on, that is, after the labour of open speech, to display the humility of his own manner of life, for in such a conscience God sups.

VERS. 8.-- And minister to me. He ministers to his Maker who, considering his nature and greatly fearing his judgments, humbles himself from his own virtues. For a minister is so called from a lesser estate.

VERS. 10.-- So you also. After he has exhorted to the perfection 318Dof faith, through which wonderful works are done even against the nature of things, he warns that no one should glory of his own works, but that by how much faith is outwardly more excellent in virtues, by so much the conscience within should be more humble, because we owe obedience to the Lord by right. Unprofitable servants. If a man exacts from a man who is his servant not a uniform but a manifold ministry, and gives him no thanks, how much more ought you who without me can do nothing not to practise the use of one work or one labour only, but always to increase former things with new zeal, nor should you boast, because you serve well.

What we ought to do. He who came to minister and not to be ministered unto has made us debtors to himself, that not trusting in our own works, but fearing his examination, when all things 319Aare fulfilled which have been commanded, we may recognize that we are unperfected, so long as we are pilgrims from God.

VERS. 11.-- And it came to pass. After the parable by which he invites to kindness and to perseverance in the diverse offices of God, the ungrateful are reproved concerning benefits bestowed.

VERS. 12.-- There met him, etc. The lepers are heretics, who, having as it were various colours in the same body, mingle various sects, now of falsehood, now of truth, in the same preaching. But because these are shunned and removed far from the Church, they must needs cry out with a great clamour.

Who stood, etc. They who have sinned against the Decalogue, loving neither God (of whom they think ill) nor the neighbour, from whom they are divided, cry under the number ten to God 319Band are healed, while in the fellowship of the Church they attain a whole and true teaching, and expound all things according to the rule of the Catholic faith, and are free of the variety of lies as of leprosy. But one gives thanks, that is, they who remain in the unity of the Church through humility; but they who, puffed up through pride, are ungrateful to him who cleansed them, are nine, because by one unit they fall short of the perfection of the number ten.

VERS. 13.-- And they lifted up their voice. Because they acknowledge that they have erred in the words of the Saviour, they call upon the master who is to save them, and through the knowledge of the master they return to the form of salvation.

VERS. 14.-- Go, etc. Whoever, cleansed by the grace of God, has been rid of heretical depravity, or of Gentile superstition, or of Jewish faithlessness, or of brotherly schism, 319Cmust needs come to the Church, and show a true colour of faith like to that of others.

VERS. 15.-- But one. And the one who returned signifies the devout humility in Christ of the one Church, who, falling at his feet and giving thanks, because with the thoughts of presumption repressed he sees how weak he is, ascribes nothing of virtue to himself; the good things which he does he understands to be of mercy.

VERS. 16.-- And he fell on his face. He falls on his face who blushes for the evils he has committed. For a man falls there where he is put to confusion. He who falls on his face sees whither he falls; he who falls backward does not see. The good therefore fall on their face, because they humble themselves in these visible things, that they may be raised to the invisible; the evil fall backward, because they fall among invisible things, where they do not see what follows them.

319DVERS. 19.-- Arise. He who, acknowledging his own weakness, has lain humbly before God, is bidden by divine consolation to rise to stronger works, and to go on increasing as far as things more perfect. Thy faith. The faith which inclined him to give thanks; on the contrary, faithlessness condemns those who are ungrateful for benefits received. Hath made thee whole. In the parable above it is determined that faith ought to be increased through humility. In this one it is manifestly shown by the facts themselves, that it is not the acknowledged reason of faith only, but the executed working of faith, that makes the believer whole.

VERS. 20.-- Being asked. They ask for this reason, because, as Luke discloses further on, they thought that, when the Lord came 320Ato Jerusalem, his kingdom would forthwith be made manifest.

The kingdom of God cometh not, etc. Because, when it shall come, it can be observed neither by angels nor by men, as the time of the Lord's incarnation was both foreappointed by the oracles of the prophets and made manifest by the proclamations of angels, so that he was declared conceived, born, baptized, preaching, dying, rising, ascending to the heavens, with the tokens either of angels, or of men, or certainly of miracles unceasingly accompanying him.

VERS. 21.-- For behold the kingdom. It will not be able to be observed, because my kingdom is not bodily, as you think, but spiritual, which has already begun by faith.

The kingdom of God. Or the Lord's answer can be taken thus: 320BThe kingdom of God is within you, who, one day to come as the Judge of all, even now reigns in the hearts of the faithful. But when heretics trouble the Church with depraved teachings, the faithful desire that the Lord, returning to the earth for one day, if it could be, would make known the truth of the faith. But they shall not see it, because that which has once been displayed by the brightness of the Gospel has no need to be confirmed by a bodily vision of the Lord.

VERS. 22.-- The days shall come. He would not say when he should come, but he said that he would come, that he might strike into all the terror of the imminent judgment, and not bring the security of a delay.

You shall desire. After my ascension, when you, groaning in this exile of the world, shall desire to see me in my glory, which will is to be praised, yet not 320Cto be fulfilled in this world. One day. Well does he say one, because in that glory, of which the prophet says: Better is one day in thy courts above thousands (Psal. LXXXIII), there is no interruption of darkness, no memory even of misery or of grief. It is good to desire the presence of this day, yet not by the greatness of desire to feign dreams for ourselves, as though the day of the Lord were at hand, which he foretells will be done by some.

VERS. 23.-- And they will say, etc. There have been some who, reckoning the courses of the ages, said that they had found the certain year, day and hour of the consummation of the world.

VERS. 24.-- For as, etc. Do not believe them, because the second coming will be sudden, and so manifest that none will be able to be ignorant of it from under heaven, 320Dbecause the crisis of the judgment is carried on under heaven, that is, in the midst of the air.

VERS. 25.-- But first, etc. Speaking of the glory of his coming, he inserts something also of the passion, so that when they saw dying him whom they had heard was to reign, they might soften the grief of the passion by the hope of the promised brightness.

VERS. 26.-- And as it came to pass. He builds up the sudden day of his coming by many examples, and that which he had compared to lightning (which swiftly flies across all things) he makes equal to the days of Noe or of Loth, when a sudden destruction came upon mortals.

VERS. 27.-- They did eat, etc. It is not marriages or foods that are condemned, since in these are set the supports of succession, in those the supports of nature, but the immoderate 321Ause of things lawful is reproved. For because by giving themselves wholly to these they were despising the judgments of God, they perished by fire or by water. Until the day. Allegorically: Noe builds the ark, when the Lord gathers the fideres into the Church. And when it is finished he enters it, when on the day of judgment he lights it up with his presence. But while the ark is being built the wicked are wanton, and while it is being entered they are struck with eternal damnation.

VERS. 28.-- In like manner, etc. Passing over the greatest crime of the Sodomites, he mentions those things alone which might be thought either light or nothing at all, that thou mayest understand with what punishment things unlawful are struck, if things lawful and those without which life is not led, when done more immoderately, shall be punished with fire and brimstone.

Loth. Allegorically: Loth, who is interpreted declining, is the people of the elect, who while they dwell in Sodom, 321Bthat is, among the reprobate as a stranger, decline their crimes as far as they can. When Loth goes out, Sodom perishes, because in the consummation of the world the angels shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire (Matth. XIII).

VERS. 30.-- The Son of man. He who, appearing in the meantime, sees all things, then appearing will judge all things, when he shall have beheld all men, forgetful of his judgments, made bondsmen to this world, so that they may deservedly be blotted out together with the very world they inhabit.

VERS. 31.-- In that day. [Vulg. Lc 17:31 In illa hora, "in that hour"] Thus far concerning this, that the kingdom, that is, Christ, comes not with observation but unlooked for: now, by what sort of men that coming ought to be awaited. He is on the housetop who, going beyond carnal things, lives spiritually as it were in the open air. His vessels 321Cin the house are the carnal concupiscences which he had loved before, but, seeking things above, had left behind in the world, and which, with the judgment imminent, he must needs not seek again.

And he that shall be in the field. What he had said, that he who is in the field ought not to turn back, lest it should seem to have been said only of those who are openly to return from the field, that is, who are to deny the Lord openly; he shows that there are many who, while they seem to keep their face toward the things before, yet look backward in mind.

VERS. 32.-- Be mindful. Loth's wife signifies those who look backward in tribulation, and turn themselves away from the hope of the divine promise, and therefore she was made a statue of salt, because by admonishing men not to do the like, she seasons their hearts that they be not foolish.

VERS. 33.-- Whosoever. He who shall wish to save the carnal life (by denying 321DChrist) in the world, shall lose it in the world to come; or he who seeks the eternal salvation of his soul, let him not hesitate to give it up unto the death of this present time.

VERS. 34.-- In that night. That is, in that tribulation so dark that they may be led into error, if it be possible, even the elect (Matth. XXIV). Two in a bed. Those, namely, who choose leisure, occupied neither with secular nor with ecclesiastical business.

VERS. 35.-- The other shall be left. He who, whether by human praise or by any corruption whatever, forsakes the state of life in which he was steeped. Of whom Jeremias says: The enemies saw her, and mocked at her sabbaths (Thren. I). There shall be two, etc. Two differences, of those who follow the round of moveable things. Which are designated by the feminine gender, 322Abecause they are ruled by the counsel of their elders, as women by men; which nevertheless grind together in so far as out of their own business they serve the uses of the Church. But some only for the sake of things eternal, who have as though not having, [Vulg. 1 Cor 7:29 et qui habent uxores, tamquam non habentes sint, "and they that have wives, as though they had none"] some for the sake of things temporal, who hope in the uncertainty of riches (I Tim VI).

VERS. 37.-- Who said to them. To those asking two things he answers one, namely that the saints are to be taken up with him; the other he intimates by subjoining, namely that the evil, driven back from him, are to be damned with the devil. Wheresoever, etc. Wheresoever the Lord shall be bodily, thither shall the elect be gathered, who by humbly imitating his passion are filled as it were from his flesh, whose youth shall be renewed as the eagle's through the resurrection.

322BVERS. 2.-- A certain judge. This parable exhorts to praying and to believing, and to presuming not upon ourselves but upon God.

VERS. 3.-- And a widow. This widow can bear a likeness of the Church, which seems desolate until the Lord come, who nevertheless even now bears care for her in secret. Avenge me. Although the just are admonished to pray for their persecutors, yet, righteousness being safe, they seek this vengeance upon the evil: that all the evil may perish, either by being converted to righteousness, or by the loss through punishment of that power by which they now, against the good, so long as this very thing is expedient for the good, are able to do somewhat even temporally. And when the just desire this end to come, although they pray for their enemies, yet they are not absurdly said to desire vengeance.

322CVERS. 8.-- But yet. I say that I will execute the vengeance of the just, but they will be exceedingly few, because when on the day of judgment I shall appear in the form of the Son of man, so great will be the rarity of the just that the ruin of the whole world must then be hastened, not so much for the cry of the faithful unjustly condemned, as for the torpor of those justly to be condemned. Thinkest thou. In the word the unbelief of doubting is rebuked; the Divinity does not form an opinion. For he through whom all things are knows all things, but by doubting he rebukes the hearts of the unbelieving.

VERS. 10.-- Two men. Because the parable by which he invited to prayer he so concluded as to say that, when the Judge comes, faith would hardly be found on earth. Lest anyone should flatter himself with a superfluous knowledge of faith, or even with a confession of it, in this parable he shows more diligently 322Dthat not the words of faith but the works are to be examined by God, among which humility chiefly reigns; and because the proud do not have it, presuming upon their own righteousness and despising the weak, they, as though empty of faith, are not heard when they pray.

VERS. 11.-- God, I give thee thanks, etc. There are four kinds of swelling: when either a man reckons that the good which he has he has of himself; or, if he believes it given by God, he thinks it given for his merits; or when he boasts that he has what he has not; or when, despising the rest, he seeks to be seen singularly to have what he has. With this plague the Pharisee laboured, who therefore went down not justified, because ascribing to himself singularly the merits of good works, he set himself before the publican.

323AVERS. 12.-- I fast twice. Behold, the Pharisee has an eye to the showing of abstinence, to the obtaining of mercy, to the returning of thanks to God; to the keeping of humility he has none. And what does it profit if the whole city be guarded, and one opening be left through which the enemies may enter?

VERS. 13.-- And the publican. As a humble man, he does not dare to draw near, that God may draw near to him: he does not look up, that he may be looked upon; he presses down his conscience, but lifts up his hope; he strikes his breast, he exacts penalties of himself that God may spare; he confesses that God may pardon; God pardons what he acknowledges. God, be merciful. The publican praying humbly belongs to those of whom it is said: Shall not God revenge his elect crying to him? The Pharisee boasting of his merits belongs to those of whom it is added: 323BThe Son of man coming, thinkest thou, shall he find faith on earth?

VERS. 14.-- For every one, etc. The controversy of the Pharisee and the publican being set down, the sentence of the judge is set down, that pride may be shunned.

VERS. 15.-- And they brought. After the controversy spoken, after the sentence given by the humble master, infants are offered, that it may be shown that an innocent and simple age belongs to grace. The apostles rebuke, not because they were unwilling that infants should be blessed by the hand and voice of the Saviour, but because, not yet perfect in faith, they thought that he was wearied, after the likeness of men, by the importunity of those who offered them.

They rebuked. This perhaps for the reason that they wished the people of the Jews, from whom they were according to the flesh, to be saved first; yet they also made supplication for the Chanaanite woman. 323CThey knew therefore the mystery, that the calling of both peoples was due, but perhaps they did not yet know the order.

VERS. 16.-- Suffer the children. Let no one forbid the sick to come to the physician. These have as yet committed nothing in the branch, but they have perished in the root. They who cannot plead for themselves have committed their cause to their elders. Let the physician touch, and let him bless the little ones with the greater (Psal. CXIII). For of such is. He does not say, of these, but of those who have from endeavour the innocence and simplicity which these have by nature, because it is not age that reigns, but manners. For it is not a virtue not to be able to sin, but not to will it. As a child does not persevere in anger, when hurt does not remember it, does not covet a woman, does not think or speak evil, so you, unless you have such innocence and purity of mind, 323Dshall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

VERS. 17.-- The kingdom of God. That is, we are bidden to receive the teaching of the Gospel as a child does. A child in learning does not contradict his teachers. He does not compose reasonings and words to resist, but faithfully receives, obeys and rests.

VERS. 18.-- And he asked him. (BEDA.) This ruler had heard that those like children were worthy, etc., as far as to those who wish to be perfect he adds: Sell all and give to the poor (Marc. X).

Good master. Because he said a good master, and did not confess him God or the Son of God he [Christ] says that even a holy man, in comparison with God, is not good. But Christ does not refuse the testimony of goodness, 324Abut excludes the goodness of a master apart from God.

VERS. 19.-- And he said. (AMBR.) A crafty question, and therefore a keen answer. For the tempter, etc., as far as since by these words it is defined that a merciful rich man is against nature.

Thou knowest the commandments. This is the chastity of childish innocence, which is set before us for imitation, if we wish to enter the kingdom of God.

VERS. 23.-- He was rich. No rich man, that is, none trusting in his riches, shall enter in, as Jesus expounds according to Matthew. Not therefore those who remain rich, but those who have ceased to be so, shall enter in.

VERS. 25.-- For it is easier. Mystically. It is easier for Christ to suffer for the lovers of the world, than for the lovers of the world to be converted to Christ. Christ is called a camel, 324Bbecause, humbled of his own will, he took up the burdens of our infirmity. The needle is a pricking, by which he signifies the straits of the passion, by which passion, as by a needle, he deigned to sew up again the as it were rent garments of our nature, that is, to repair them after the fall. Otherwise: it is easier for the Gentile people, deformed by the hump of sins, to enter by the narrow way of life, than the Jew who glories in his merits and is unwilling to humble himself to take up the light burden of Christ.

VERS. 26.-- Who can? They understand that all who love riches, even if they have them not, are to be reckoned in the number of the rich: for otherwise, since the crowd of the poor is greater, they would not say: Who can be saved?

VERS. 29.-- No man. He who shall have let go carnal things for the Lord shall receive spiritual things. Mark says: A hundred times as much 324Cnow, etc. (Marc. X), that is, in this life full of persecutions they taste the joy of the kingdom, and enjoy the sincere love of all the elect.

VERS. 30.-- He shall receive, etc. He who shall have let go all riches for the Lord, and shall have despised the affections of the flesh, will receive much more in the present, and from brethren and sisters bound together by the spiritual glue of his own purpose he will receive in this life a much more gracious charity.

VERS. 31.-- He took. Foreseeing that the disciples would be troubled by his passion, he foretells both the penalty of the passion and the glory of the resurrection, that when they beheld him dying they might not doubt that he would rise again. And they shall be accomplished. In this he shows that whatever the prophets foretold had regard to the mystery of his dispensation. In which he strikes the heretics, who say that 324DChrist preached a thing contrary to the law and the prophets, and that the God of the Old Testatamenti is one and of the New another. He confutes also the madness of the pagans, because they deride his cross, since he both showed the time of his approaching passion as one foreknowing things to come, and approached the place as one not fearing death.

VERS. 34.-- And they, etc. The disciples are not able to understand the discourse of the Lord's passion, so often repeated, for this cause, that of him whom they most desire to see they cannot bear to hear the death, and him whom they know to be not only an innocent man but also true God, they do not think able to die.

VERS. 35.-- A blind man. The blind man signifies the human race, which, shut out from the brightness above, suffers the darkness of its own 325Adamnation, but is healed by the Lord drawing near to Jericho. Jericho is interpreted moon, by which the failing of mortality is understood. When therefore the Word of God takes up the infirmity of our flesh, man returns to the things that are to be known. The blind man sits by the way when he begins to believe in him who says: I am the way (Joan. XIV). He begs, when he asks.

VERS. 39.-- And they that went before, etc. They who go before Jesus as he comes signify the blind man of carnal vices, which scatter the thought of man and disturb the voice of prayer, that Jesus may not be able to come to enlighten the heart of man; but he, now feeling himself weighed down by the phantasm of his former vices, and the voice of his prayer hindered, lest [the Lord] be entreated on his behalf, cries out the more ardently.

VERS. 40.-- And standing, etc. Passing by, he hears the blind man; standing, he enlightens him, because through his humanity he suffers with the voices of our 325Bblindness, but through the power of his Divinity he pours into us the light of grace. To be brought unto him. He who somewhat perceived him passing by, while in prayer he suffers crowds of phantasms, pressing the more vehemently upon prayer is led to him as he stands, and receives light, because God is fixed in a firm heart, and so the lost light is repaired.

VERS. 41.-- What wilt thou, etc. He does not ask out of ignorance, but for this cause, that he may be asked, that he may rouse the mind to prayer. Understanding which, the blind man subjoins: Lord, that I may see. The blind man does not ask for gold or anything temporal, but only for light. Let us therefore imitate him whom we have heard was healed in mind and in body; let us ask of the Lord the light of the eternal vision, and he will say to us: Receive thy sight, thy faith hath made thee whole.

VERS. 43.-- And immediately he saw. He sees and follows, 325Cwho works the good which he understands, and imitates Jesus present or passing by. And such a one not only profits toward God for what he has obtained, but also kindles others to the praise of God. And all the people. The people praises God not only for the obtained gift of light, but also for the merit of the faith that obtained it, because it praises not only that he enlightens powerfully and mercifully, but because he hears the cry of a faith that cries firmly.

VERS. 1, 2.-- And entering in, etc. Behold, the camel, having laid down the burden of its hump, passes through the eye of the needle, while, despising the revenue got by frauds, it climbs up to the narrow gate which leads to life. And because by the devotion of faith he supplies, by the climbing of a tree, what he had too little of by nature for seeing the Saviour, 325Djustly he receives what he did not dare to ask, the blessing of the Lord's welcome which he had desired. Mystically, Zacchaeus, who is interpreted justified, signifies those believing from among the Gentiles, who had been pressed down by the business of temporal things, and were least, but were sanctified by the Lord.

And he was rich. Who should despair of himself, when this man came to God whose revenue was from fraud? By him it appears that not every rich man is covetous.

VERS. 3.-- Because of the crowd. What crowd, but the confusion of an unskilled multitude, which cannot see the summit of wisdom? Zacchaeus therefore, not in the crowd, but having passed beyond the common people, beholds the Messiah whom he desires.

VERS. 4.-- A sycomore. The sycomore is a tree, 326Alike the mulberry in its leaves, but surpassing it in height, and it is interpreted the foolish fig, that is, the cross. Which, as a fig, feeds believers; as foolish, is mocked by unbelievers. The little man climbs it when anyone humble and conscious of his own weakness glories in the virtue of the cross, and through this praiseworthy foolishness discerns the Lord passing near; because if not yet so solidly as he now is, yet hastily, and as it were in passing, he strains toward the light of heavenly wisdom.

Because he was to pass that way. (ISID.) In that part where the sycomore was, or where he was to believe, etc., as far as he stood out as in the fruitful height of a work.

VERS. 5.-- And when he was come. Through the heralds of his word sent before, in whom Jesus was and was speaking, he came to the people of the nations, which, already lifted on high by faith in his passion, burns to acknowledge his divinity also; 326Blooking up he sees, for he chose him who through faith had been raised from earthly things and who was choosing him, and loves him who loves him. Come down. That he is bidden to come down from the sycomore, and so to make ready a lodging in his house, this is what the Apostle says: Although we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him not. For if he died of weakness, yet now he lives by the power of God (II Cor. V, XIII) [Vulg. 2 Cor 13:4 crucifixus est ex infirmitate, "was crucified out of weakness"; and 2 Cor 5:16 sed nunc jam non novimus]. To abide. The Lord once abode in the house of the chief of the Pharisees, that is, he was teaching in the synagogue of the Jews.

VERS. 7.-- They murmured. It is manifest that the Jews always hated, or did not understand, the salvation of the Gentiles. Whence also it is said against Peter: Why didst thou go in to the Gentiles that have uncircumcision (Act. IX) [Vulg. Acts 11:3 ad viros praeputium habentes, "to men that have uncircumcision"]?

VERS. 8.-- But standing, etc. While others were calumniating him as a sinful man, Zacchaeus himself also standing, 326Cthat is, persisting in that truth of faith which he had begun, proves that he was not only converted from a sinner, but had even lived among the innocent, since he lived innocently even before his conversion, and he who before his conversion could give the half, after his conversion can give the whole also. If I have taken anything, etc. The first thing is to restore according to the law, then to give out to the poor what remains. This fruit of life the publican gathers from the sycomore through wise folly, in that he restores what he has seized, leaves what is near, despises things visible, and longs to follow the footsteps of him whom he does not yet see.

VERS. 9.-- He is a son. Not by flesh, but by faith, because as Abraham at God's command forsook his country for the hope of a future inheritance, so also this man, who acquires by hope a treasure in the heavens.

326DVERS. 10.-- He came, etc. Even to those murmuring he does not disdain to expound his mysteries: that he himself came upon earth chiefly for the sake of the repentance of sinners, which is to be looked upon, where also he calls himself the Son of man, that he may intimate to us the dispensation of his mercy.

VERS. 11.-- These things to them, etc. The repentance of the rich publican having been received and commended, he teaches by a parable that the repentance of sinners pleases him more than the righteousness of the proud, and that he will reign more widely among the Gentiles, who are humble concerning their ignorance of the law, than among the Jews, who are proud concerning the righteousness of the law.

Because that. Not only those who persevere as just, but also those who are converted from injustice, belong to the children of the promise.

327AVERS. 12.-- A nobleman went away. This is the nobleman to whom the blind man cried: Have mercy on me, son of David, and to whom the trumpets cried: Hosanna to the son of David: blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel, [Vulg. Matt 21:9 ends hosanna in altissimis, and rex Israel stands only at Jo 12:13] who was appointed king by the Father, to whom the Gentiles were given for an inheritance. A far country. Leaving the blinded Jews, he passes over to enlighten the Gentiles, who cry to the Lord from afar (because from the ends of the earth), or because salvation is far from sinners (Psal. CXVIII): God, who is everywhere present, is far from those who worship idols; but they too have been made near in the blood.

VERS. 13.-- And having called ten. He calls ten servants, when he chose disciples steeped in the letter of the Decalogue. He gives ten pounds, when after the resurrection he rises and opens their understanding, that it may spiritually understand 327Bthe sayings of the law The mna weighs ten drachmas. And every word of Scripture, because it suggests the perfection of the heavenly life, shines as with the weight of the hundredfold number. Trade ye. Offer to the peoples the words of the law sifted by mystical interpretation, and receive from them the confession of faith and uprightness of manners.

VERS. 15.-- And it came to pass. Daily Christ, having received the kingdom from the Father, returns, because he always beholds the state of the Church journeying on earth. To this servant he lends money for trading; in another he examines the measure of the work accomplished. This one, labouring prudently, he endows with ampler grace; that one, following after wanton things, he deprives even of what he had given. But in the judgment many who seemed fit for teaching will, for their own negligence, 327Cbe reckoned among the unlearned. Certain men, a devotion of simpler observance, will receive the highest rewards among the apostolic. For he that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive the reward of a prophet (Matth. X).

VERS. 16.-- And the first came. The first servant is the order of teachers sent into the circumcision, who received one pound to trade with, because he was sent to preach one God, one faith, one baptism. But he gains ten while by teaching he joins to himself the people set under the law.

VERS. 17.-- Thou hast been faithful in a little. Little is whatever of gifts we receive in the present, in comparison with those to come. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part (I Cor. XIII). Ten 327Dcities. The ten cities are souls coming through the words of the law to the grace of the Gospel, over whom he is then set to be glorified who shall have worthily commended to God the money of the word for them; whence the Apostle: What is our hope, or joy, or crown of glory? Are not you before the Lord Jesus (I Thes. II)?

VERS. 18.-- And another, etc. A good order: being about to call the Gentiles, and about to send the Jews to be slain, who would not have Christ reign over them, he set this comparison first, lest it should be said: He had given nothing to the people of the Jews whereby they might be made better, so that what should be exacted from him who receives nothing? Out of one pound he makes five, who has moral things on account of the five senses.

VERS. 20.-- And another, etc. He who was sent 328Ato the uncircumcision, to whom the Lord entrusted one pound, and the same faith which was committed to the circumcision, to be preached. Which makes five pounds, because it converts to the grace of the evangelical faith the Gentiles that were enslaved to the five senses of the body. In a napkin, etc. He lays up the money in a napkin who, being fit for preaching, either refuses to undertake the office of preaching, or, having undertaken it, does not discharge it well, but hides with himself the gifts he has received under the idleness of the time, saying: It is enough for me that I render an account of myself; why should I preach to others, or be compelled to render an account of others? since even with God those are inexcusable to whom the law was not given, nor did they sleep when the Gospel had been heard, because through the creature they were able to know the Creator.

VERS. 21.-- Thou reapest what. For God reaps where he did not 328Bsow, that is, he holds guilty of impiety even those to whom he has not ministered the word of the law or of the Gospel. Fearing therefore the peril of the judgment, I will rest from the administration of the word.

VERS. 22.-- Thou knewest, etc. What he had thought to have said for an excuse is turned into a fault. If thou hadst known me so hard and cruel, why did that thought not strike fear into thee, that thou shouldst know I would seek my own the more diligently?

VERS. 23.-- The money. That is, the evangelical preaching, and thou didst not make it known to the prepared hearts of the faithful. Mine to the bank. Not thine. Whence the Apostle: If any man speak, let it be as the words of God (I Petr. IV). With usury. He who buys the money of the word from a teacher by believing must needs pay it back with usury by working. Or, 328Che pays usury on the loan of the word he has received who, from what he hears, studies to understand other things also.

VERS. 24.-- Take away, etc. He loses the grace conferred who has neglected to share it with others by preaching. But it is increased to him who has laboured in it. As the royal chrism which Saul lost by being proud, David merited by obeying. For the Spirit of the Lord who departed from Saul was directed from that day forward into David.

VERS. 26.-- And he shall abound. Mystically: when all Israel shall be saved, then the fulness of spiritual grace, which now we exercise sluggishly, shall be abundantly conferred upon the teachers of that time.

VERS. 28.-- And having said these things. The parable finished, he goes to Jerusalem, to show that the parable had been set forth concerning the fate of that same greatest city, which 328Dnot long after, being itself also about to kill him for hatred of his kingdom, was to perish by an enemy's slaughter.

VERS. 29.-- To Bethphage. Bethphage is a hamlet of priests on the Mount of Olives, and is interpreted the house of the mouth. Bethany is a farmstead or city on the side of the same mountain, and is called the house of obedience. These the Lord, being about to come to Jerusalem, exalted by his presence, because before his passion he filled many, by teaching, with the gifts of devout confession and of spiritual obedience. Which are well placed on the Mount of Olives, that is, in the Lord himself, who cherishes us with the unction of spiritual chrisms and with the light of conscience and of mercy. And because he does not wish a city set above itself to be hidden, he sends the disciples into the village which is over against them, that through 329Athem he may penetrate the fortifications of the whole world set over against him.

VERS. 30.-- Entering in you shall find. The preachers, entering into the world, find the people of the nations, entangled in the bonds of unbelief, free and wanton. Upon whom no man, etc., that is, no rational teacher has put the bridle of correction, who might either restrain its tongue from evil, or compel it to go into the narrow way of life. No man, by persuading what was useful, bestowed the garments of salvation whereby it might be warmed. No man sat, because none corrected its folly by pressing it down. Tied. Tied with the bonds of unbelief, in which, made over or bound fast, he was serving a lord by error; but he whom not nature but fault had made lord could not claim the mastery for himself. And therefore when the Lord is spoken of, one is acknowledged. For, 329Balthough there be many gods and lords, yet in general there is one God and one Lord.

VERS. 33.-- And as they were loosing him, etc. Despise not this little ass, because as under the clothing of sheep there are ravening wolves, so under the spoils of the body (which is common to us with the beasts) a mind full of God is quickened. They said. He had many masters, who, given over not to one superstition, but at the pleasure of unclean spirits, was hurried away to various errors. Why do you loose him. Those who had spoken against the loosing of the colt are quiet when the name is heard, because the masters of errors, who withstand the teachers coming for the salvation of the Gentiles, defend their own darkness, until, with miracles bearing witness, the power of the true owner stands forth. But after the power of the Lord's faith appears, the complaints of the adversaries giving way, 329Cthere is brought forward an assembly that may bear God in its heart.

VERS. 35.-- The garments. The garments of the apostles are the teaching of the virtues, or the discernment of the Scriptures, and grace spiritually, wherewith they cover the hearts of men, before naked and cold, that they may deserve to have Christ for their rider. They laid them on. While the people of the Gentiles carries Christ, the disciples strew their garments in the way, because, putting off the covering of their own body, they make ready a way for the simple by their own blood, that with unhindered step of mind they may press on to Jerusalem, whither Christ leads, that is, to the true vision of peace.

VERS. 37.-- At the descent. As the Lord came down from the Mount of Olives, that is, as he who was in the form of God humbled himself to the weakness of our flesh, the crowds come down with him, 329Dthat is, he is humbled who need his mercy, that they may be exalted by him. Rejoicing. Often he entered the city of Jerusalem, but was not called king, which he had always fled, save only now when he went up to suffer. Which was done for this reason, that he might the more stir up their envy against himself, because the time of the passion was now at hand. For. Chiefly for the raising of Lazarus, which had lately been done. For on that account also the crowd came to meet him, because they had heard that this sign had been done by him. They praise him also for the signs and the teaching which he wrought when he went up for the day of the feast of tabernacles, which John relates.

VERS. 38.-- Blessed. The crowd, that after a little was to crucify him, calls him king, and declares that the awaited son of David according 330Ato the flesh has come, so that a testimony against themselves is wrung from them unwilling. Peace. As at the Lord's birth the heavenly companies of men and of angels sang: Glory to God in the highest. And on earth peace to men, etc. [Vulg. Luke 2:14 Gloria in altissimis Deo; in excelsis is the reading of Luke 19:38, the verse here glossed], so to the same, soon to triumph, men sing together: Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.

VERS. 39.-- Master. Wondrous madness of the envious! Him whom they had known to teach true things, when they hear him called master, they judge that his disciples are to be reproved, as though they themselves were the better taught, those disciples whom he had instructed who by his miracles appears to be God.

VERS. 40.-- The stones. When the Lord was crucified and the apostles held their peace for fear, the rocks that were rent, the tombs being opened, openly 330Bcried out that he was God and the Lord of the world.

Mystically: if blindness has befallen Israel, so that it falls silent from the praise of God, the people of the Gentiles, their stony heart softened, shall believe and announce their Creator.

VERS. 44.-- And they shall not leave. For when the perverse man adds perversion, he builds as it were stone upon stone. But when the soul is hurried away to vengeance, such a building of thoughts is scattered, and this for this cause, because thou hast not known the time. For God visits the perverse soul, sometimes by a precept, sometimes by a miracle. But because in its pride it despises, and does not blush for its own evils, at the last it shall be delivered to its enemies, with whom in the eternal judgment it is gathered into the fellowship of damnation. Unto peace, etc. While thou givest the flesh to pleasures, not foreseeing the evils to come, thou hast present goods 330Cwhich can be for a temporal peace. And why this, he subjoins, namely, because it does not foresee the evils that are to come upon it. For if it did foresee them, it would not have rejoiced in present prosperities.

VERS. 45.-- And going in. After the evils had been enumerated, going into the temple he cast out those that sold and bought, intimating by this that the ruin of the people was chiefly from the fault of the priests; for while he strikes those that sell and buy, he shows whence the root of perdition proceeded.

VERS. 47.-- And he was teaching. The house of God is the conscience of the faithful, which he makes a den of thieves who, having left the simplicity of holiness, plots to do that whereby he may be able to hurt his innocent neighbour. But on the contrary the Lord instructs the minds of the faithful to beware of evils. They sought to destroy him. Therefore they were not able 330Dto destroy him, because they feared the tumult of the people; or therefore they wished to destroy him, because, their own office of teaching being neglected, they saw the whole people flowing together to his doctrine.

VERS. 2.-- By what authority. They doubt of God's power, and would have it understood that what he does is the devil's. Whence they add: Or who is he, etc. In which they plainly deny the Son of God, whom they believe to work signs not by his own powers, but by another's.

VERS. 3.-- I will ask you, etc. He could have refuted the calumny of the tempters by an open answer, but he prudently asks a question, that they may be condemned either by their own silence or by their own sentence.

331AVERS. 4.-- The baptism of John, etc. He whom you confess to have had his prophecy from heaven bore witness to me, and from him you have heard by what authority I do these things. Understanding which, they doubt what they ought to answer.

Neither do I, etc. For two causes the truth is to be hidden from those who ask it. Either because they are less able to hear it; whence it is said: I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (Joan. XVI). Or because they ask out of hatred and contempt; whence it is said: Give not that which is holy to dogs (Matth. VII).

VERS. 9.-- And he began. The chief priests and scribes having been refuted out of their own question, the Lord pursues what he had begun, and, in their hearing, addresses the common people, which hears his words more gladly, bringing in 331Ba parable whereby he may both convict them of impiety and show that the kingdom of God is to be transferred to the Gentiles.

A vineyard. Morally: The vineyard of the Lord of sabaoth, the house of Israel (Isa. V): [Vulg. Isa 5:7 Vinea enim Domini exercituum domus Israel est, "of the Lord of hosts"] the husbandmen are the labourers who were hired to till it at the first hour, the third, the sixth and the ninth. And he into a far country, etc. He who is everywhere is the more present to those who love him, and is absent to those who neglect him; and he was absent a long time, lest the exaction should seem wrongful. For the more indulgent the liberality, the more inexcusable the obstinacy.

VERS. 10.-- And at the season. The first servant who is sent is Moses the lawgiver. Who for forty years sought from the tillers the fruit of the law which he had given, but they beat him and send him away empty.

VERS. 11.-- And he added, etc. The second servant is David 331Cthe prophet, who after Moses invited the husbandmen of the vineyard by the measure of psalmody and the sweetness of the harp to the exercise of good work; but him also they treat with contumely and send away empty, saying: What part have we in David, or what inheritance in the son of Isai (Reg. XII)? Yet he entreats for this vineyard, that it be not utterly rooted up: O Lord God of hosts, turn and look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vineyard (Psal. LXXVII). The third servant is the choir of the prophets. Who rebuked the people, and foretold the evils that hung over the vineyard; but them also they persecuted and killed.

VERS. 14.-- Whom when they had seen. He plainly proves that the Jews crucified the Son of God not through ignorance, but through envy. For they understood that this was he to whom it was said: Ask of me, and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, 331Dand the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession (Psal. CXVII). And therefore, taking counsel for themselves, they say: Behold, the whole world is gone after him (Joan. XII), etc. The inheritance of the Church, therefore, which the Father did not leave by dying, but which he himself, bought by his own death, possessed by rising again, this the Jews wish to snatch away, while they endeavour to extinguish the faith which is through him, not being subject to the justice of God, but wishing to establish their own. This is the heir: Christ is the heir, because he outlived his own death, and of the testaments which he himself made he obtains, as it were by inheritance, the profits in our advances.

VERS. 15.-- And having cast him out. Mark changes the order: They killed him and cast him out of the vineyard (Marc. 332AXII). In which their obstinacy is noted, who after the resurrection had refused to believe the apostles preaching, but, casting him out as it were a useful corpse, gave him to the Gentiles to be taken up.

VERS. 16.-- God forbid. They contradict the sentence which they know was spoken against their own unbelief. For what they were carrying in their mind they understand to be contained in the parable. Since therefore the Jews deny that it would be just that the divine knowledge of the law (which they themselves despised) be transferred to the Gentiles, mark what the Saviour answers.

VERS. 17.-- What is this, etc. How shall this prophecy be fulfilled? Except that Christ, rejected by you, is to be preached to the Gentiles who will believe, so that in himself, the one corner stone, he may found two walls. The builders. Those who above are husbandmen are here called builders, 332Bbecause they who were bidden to till the people that it might bear fruit were bidden to set it up as a house worthy of the Lord himself for its indweller.

VERS. 18.-- Every one that shall fall. He who believes and yet sins falls upon the stone, and is not ground to powder, but is broken, because by patience he is reserved unto salvation. But he upon whom the stone falls, that is, he who utterly denies, is ground to powder, so that not even a shard remains. Or he falls upon it who now despises and does injuries: he does not yet utterly perish, but is shaken, so that he does not walk upright. The stone falls upon him whom, coming in judgment, it crushes.

VERS. 19.-- And they sought, etc. They seek to kill him as a liar, in which the things he had said are proved true. For he himself is the heir, and they the wicked husbandmen, who 332Care held back by human fear alone until his hour should come.

VERS. 20.-- And watching him. What for fear of the people they cannot do by themselves, they wish to accomplish by empty helps, so that they may seem free from his death.

VERS. 22.-- Is it lawful for us, etc. When lately under Augustus Judaea had been made tributary to the Romans, the Pharisees, who applauded themselves for their righteousness, who gave tithes and first-fruits to God, denied that tributes were to be paid to a man; for which sedition their kingdom and their whole country were afterwards destroyed.

VERS. 24.-- Whose image hath it, etc. One is the image of God, another that of the world. If then Christ had not the image of Caesar, why did he pay the tribute? He did not pay of his own, but rendered to the world the things that were the world's. And thou, if thou dost not wish 332Dto be liable to Caesar, do not have the things that are the world's. If thou hast riches, thou art liable to Caesar. If thou wishest to owe nothing to an earthly king, leave all that is thine and follow Christ. And well does he determine that first the things that are Caesar's are to be rendered. For no one can be the Lord's, unless he has first renounced the world.

VERS. 25.-- Render therefore. As Caesar exacts the impress of his own image, so also does God the soul sealed with the light of his countenance.

VERS. 27.-- And there came to him, etc. There were two heresies among the Jews: that of the Pharisees, who set foremost the righteousness of traditions and observances, whence also they were called the separated from the people; and that of the Sadducees, who likewise claimed for themselves what they were not, that is, just men.

333AVERS. 28.-- Master. They who do not believe the resurrection of bodies, and think that souls perish with bodies, invent the baseness of a tale, which convicts of raving those who assert the resurrection. But it may be that this once happened in their own nation. That he may take, etc. In the law of the letter one was compelled to marry in this life. But in the law of the spirit chastity is commended.

VERS. 35.-- But they, etc. Although all, both good and bad, are to rise again and to remain without marriage, yet the Lord, that he may stir men up to the glory of the resurrection, discourses of the elect alone. But if in the resurrection they shall neither take wives, then those bodies shall rise which are able to marry and to take in marriage. Which is said of those who have generative members, but shall be enslaved by no pleasure or necessity 333Bof marrying. And note that although he speaks secret mysteries with liers-in-wait and tramplers, yet he does not give what is holy to dogs; but there were present many fit persons who ought not to be neglected because of the uncleanness of others. Neither shall they marry, etc. Since marriages are for the sake of children, children for the sake of succession, succession for the sake of death, where therefore there is no death, neither are there marriages.

VERS. 37.-- But that the dead shall rise again. After he had satisfied the question proposed concerning the conditions of the resurrection, he treats of the resurrection itself against their unbelief.

VERS. 40.-- And after that, etc. Refuted in argument they ask no more, but openly seize him and deliver him to the Roman power; from which we understand 333Cthat the poisons of envy can indeed be overcome, but hardly be laid to rest.

VERS. 41.-- How do they say, etc. The Lord, being about to complete his precepts, at the end of his testament concludes the faith, that we should believe the Lord Jesus, true God and true man, to sit at the right hand of the Father.

VERS. 43.-- Till I make. That his enemies are made subject by the Father signifies not the weakness of the Son, but the unity of nature, whereby in the one he works otherwise. For the Son also makes the enemies subject to the Father, because he glorifies the Father upon earth.

VERS. 46.-- Beware of the scribes. For a twofold reason we are bidden to beware of those greedy of vainglory: lest either we be deceived by their pretence, or be inflamed by their example to the love of temporal things. And they love salutations 333Din the marketplace. He does not forbid being saluted in the marketplace, nor the first seats, to those to whom they are due by the order of their office, but to those who love them unduly. For he reproves the mind, not the rank. Nor indeed is he without fault, if he wishes to take part in the lawsuits of the marketplace who desires to sit in the chair of Moses.

Who devour, etc. Mark: Under the pretence of long prayer, they who, that they may appear the more religious, pray at greater length, where from any weak persons whatsoever, and from those troubled by the conscience of their own sins, they may receive as patrons both praises and moneys; whose prayer is turned into sin, so that not only can they not intercede for others, but neither profit themselves unto salvation; nay rather, for those very prayers they shall be the more damned. These shall receive damnation. In this he intimates that those also who stand praying in corners, 334Athat they may be seen by men, do indeed deserve damnation, but these a greater.

VERS. 1.-- And looking on, etc. He who had warned that the seekers of primacy and of vainglory must be guarded against, discerns also with a sure weighing those who bring gifts into the house of the Lord, that he may repay each one according to the intention of the heart.

VERS. 4.-- Out of their abundance. The Jew casts in out of abundance, who, presuming upon his own righteousness, prays thus within himself (Luc. XVIII): God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men. The Church casts all her living into the gifts of God, she who understands all that she intimates to be not of her own merit but of the divine gift, saying: God, 334Bbe merciful to me a sinner.

VERS. 5.-- And some. After the widow's offering, in which the Church of the Gentiles is signified, the destruction of the temple is subjoined, so that, with the veil of the concealing letter, the hidden sacraments of the Church may begin to be disclosed. For God took care to overthrow the city and the temple and all figurative things, lest anyone after the coming of Christ should run back to them.

VERS. 7.-- They asked him. Because to those praising the buildings of the temple he had foretold that all was to be destroyed, the disciples (as Mark says), Peter, James, and John and Andrew, ask apart the time and the signs of the foretold destruction.

VERS. 8.-- For many. When the destruction of Jerusalem was at hand, there were many leaders who said that they were Christs 334Cand that the time of liberty was drawing near. In the times of the apostles also many heresiarchs came forth, who among their other falsehoods preached that the day of the Lord was at hand, whom the Apostle also refuted.

VERS. 9.-- Wars and seditions. These abounded in Judaea from the passion of the Lord; and lest the apostles, terrified by them, should forsake Jerusalem and Judaea, they are warned that the end is not immediately, but after the forty-second year.

VERS. 10.-- Then he said. Of these, some are from heaven, some from the earth, some from the elements, some from men. Mystically. Kingdom against kingdom, and the pestilence of those whose speech creeps like a canker, and the famine of hearing the word of God, the shaking of the earth, the separation from the true faith, ought to be understood of heretics, who, fighting against 334Done another, make the victory of the Church. And great signs. These also are found fulfilled at that time in Josephus, who relates that a star like a sword hung over Jerusalem for a year, and that chariots and armed horsemen fought in the air for forty days, and that a heifer brought forth a lamb among the hands of those sacrificing.

VERS. 13.-- And it shall happen, etc. Of those who either persecute, or are not changed by their living. For the death of the just is to the good a help, to the wicked a testimony of damnation, so that the perverse may perish without excuse from that whence the elect take an example that they may live.

VERS. 16.-- By parents, etc. It is a greater torment when a man suffers from those upon whom he counted, 335Abecause along with the loss of the body the evils of lost charity torment him. And because the things foretold of the affliction of death are hard, a consolation concerning the joy of the resurrection is subjoined.

VERS. 18.-- And a hair. As if he said: Why do you fear that that should perish which hurts when cut, seeing that not even there can that perish in you which does not hurt when cut? For the flesh when cut hurts, the hair does not hurt.

VERS. 19.-- In your patience. Patience is the root and the guardian of all the virtues. In it therefore we possess our souls, which possess the body, when we govern those souls by reason unto suffering. But true patience is to endure with equanimity the evils of another, and to be moved by no grief against him who inflicts the evils.

VERS. 21.-- And they that are in the countries. The Ecclesiastical 335BHistory relates that the Christians who were in Judaea, when the destruction was at hand, were warned by an angel, and dwelt beyond Jordan in the city of Pella, until the desolation of Judaea should be fulfilled.

VERS. 23.-- For there shall be distress, etc. This distress and wrath endures to this day for that people scattered through all the nations. Yet it will not endure for ever.

VERS. 24.-- Until they be fulfilled, etc. That is, Until the fulness of the Gentiles shall have come in, and so all Israel be saved (Rom. XI), and as it were return rejoicing to the throne of its own birth. For what follows when the times of the nations are fulfilled and all Israel is saved, the Lord sets down in order. For these things also the apostles asked according to Matthew: not only the time of the overthrowing of the temple, but also the sign of his coming and 335Cof the consummation of the world.

VERS. 25, 26.-- And there shall be signs. These things are of his coming itself, when all the virgins, wise and foolish, roused by an unwonted cry, trim their lamps, that is, count over their works with themselves, for which with the greatest fear they await the now impending outcome of the eternal decision. As the last judgment draws near, the sound of the sea and of the waves is confounded, and the round world is stained with husbandmen pressing on every side; the greatest lights of heaven, their rays struck with a new horror, veil their troubled face, because, as their own end draws near, the elements as if in dread waver and roar.

VERS. 27.-- And then they shall see. Him whom, set in humility, they would not hear, so that they may then feel his power the more strictly, the more that now they do not incline their hearts to his 335Dpatience. But because these things were said against the reprobate, he presently subjoins matter for the consolation of the elect.

VERS. 28.-- But when these things begin to come to pass. That is, when the plagues grow thick, when the terror of the judgment is shown by the shaking of the powers. Lift up your heads. Gladden your hearts, because, while the world to which you are not friends is being ended, the redemption which you seek is at hand. But that the world ought to be despised is made plain by a provident comparison.

VERS. 29.-- See the fig tree. He compares the kingdom of God to summer, because then the clouds of our sorrow shall pass away, and the days of eternal life shall shine under the brightness of the sun. For as from the fruit of the trees the nearness of summer 336Ais known, so also from the ruin of the world the kingdom of God is known to be near. From these words it is shown that the fruit of the world is ruin. For it grows to this end, that it may fall; it buds to this end, that whatsoever it shall have budded it may consume with disasters.

VERS. 33.-- Heaven and earth. Nothing in the nature of bodies is more lasting than heaven and earth. Nothing passes more swiftly than speech. Words, so long as they are unfinished, are not words; if they be finished, they now are not at all: for they cannot be finished save by passing away. He says therefore: Heaven and earth shall pass away. As if he said: Everything that with you is lasting and without change is not lasting unto eternity, and everything that with me is seen to pass is held fixed and without passing, because my speech, which passes, expresses abiding 336Bjudgments. But my words shall not pass away. And since my words are thus without doubt to be fulfilled, see that, against the attestation of my words, you be not given over to surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this world, as certain men will be in the time of the impending judgment: of whom it is said: When they shall say: Peace and security, sudden destruction shall come upon them (I Thess. V).

VERS. 37.-- And he was, etc. What he taught by word he confirms by example. He who, before the universal judgment and the uncertain departure of each man, warned men to renounce the pleasures and cares of the world, and to watch and to pray, himself, when his own passion was at hand, presses on with teaching, with watchings and with prayers, and those for whom he was to suffer he calls forth by his word and commends to the Father by his prayer. So we also, when among prosperous things we live justly and devoutly, let us not among 336Cadverse things despair of the divine mercy. By day we teach in the temple, because we offer to the faithful the form of good work; by night we abide on the Mount of Olives, because in the darkness of straits we breathe again with the consolation of spiritual joy.

VERS. 1.-- It drew near, etc. Which is called the Pasch, etc. The Pasch is named not from the passion, but from the passing over, because on that day the destroyer passed through Egypt, or the Lord, delivering his people; by which name it was signified that the Lamb was on this day to pass out of the world to the Father. But between the Pasch and the unleavened bread this is the difference, that the Pasch is called that day alone on which the lamb was slain at evening, that is, the fourteenth moon 336Dof the first month. The days of the unleavened bread were from the fifteenth moon to the twenty-first day of the same month. But the evangelists set them down indifferently, both the day of the Unleavened Bread for the Pasch, and the Pasch for the days of the Unleavened Bread; whence Luke here: The feast day of the Unleavened Bread, which is called the Pasch (Luc. XII), because the days of the Pasch also were commanded to be celebrated with unleavened loaves. And we too, as it were keeping a perpetual Pasch, are bidden always to pass out of this world: the lamb having been immolated at evening on one day, there follow the seven days of the Unleavened Bread, because Christ, having suffered once for us in the fulness of times, commanded that throughout the whole time of the world (which is run in seven days) men should live in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

337AVERS. 2.-- And they sought, etc. Matthew witnesses that these things were done two days before the Pasch, when the chief priests and scribes were gathered into the hall of Caiphas.

VERS. 3.-- He entered. John says that after the morsel had been given by the Lord, Satan entered into Judas. But Satan had assailed him before the morsel also; and him whom he had first entered that he might deceive him, he afterwards entered that he might more fully possess one now delivered over to him.

VERS. 7.-- And the day came. Although he was crucified on the following day, that is, on the fifteenth moon, yet on this night on which the Lamb was immolated he both delivered to his disciples the sacraments of flesh and blood to be celebrated, and, held and bound by the Jews, hallowed the beginning of that same immolation, that is, of his passion.

337BVERS. 10.-- Behold, as you go in. As God, foreknowing all things, he speaks with his disciples of the things that are done elsewhere. And well does a man carrying a pitcher of water meet those who are to prepare the Pasch, that it may be shown that the mystery of this Pasch is to be celebrated for the washing of the world through the water of baptism, where for the worshippers of the true Pasch the typical heat is taken away from the threshold, and the baptism of the life-giving font is consecrated for the taking away of sins. The pitcher signifies the perfect measure of the fulfilled time in which it was fitting that these things be done. A man a pitcher. He is designated without a name, that he who is chosen by the Lord may be reckoned poor and ignoble. Whose holiness appears in this, that in his chamber the Lord with his disciples rests, with the delight of sublime virtues. Follow him. The names are of set purpose passed over, 337Cboth of the water-bearer and of the master of the house, that it may be signified that leave is to be given to all who wish to be steeped in the sacraments of Christ (which is to celebrate the Pasch), and who seek to receive Christ into the lodging of their own mind.

VERS. 12.-- A large dining room. Spiritual is the law, which, going forth out of the straits of the earth, receives the Saviour in a lofty place. He who remains in the letter keeps the Pasch in the innermost places; but he who follows the water-bearer, that is, the herald of grace, into the house of the Church, passing beyond the surface of the letter, prepares a refreshment for Christ on the throne of the mind, while he understands that all the sacraments of the Pasch, and the other decrees of the law, were written of him.

VERS. 15.-- With desire I have desired, etc. He desires first to eat the typical Pasch, and so to declare to the world the mysteries of his 337Dpassion, that he may both stand forth as the approver of the ancient Pasch, and, showing that this had belonged to the figure of his own dispensation, the shadow should now cease at the coming of the truth. In figure of which thing the manna failed after the children of Israel had eaten of the fruits of the land, nor did they use that food any more.

VERS. 16.-- I will not eat. I will no longer celebrate the Mosaic Pasch, until it be fulfilled, spiritually understood, in the Church, which is the kingdom of God. In this kingdom Christ eats to this day, when he exercises spiritually in his own members those things which Moses commanded the untaught people to observe carnally.

VERS. 17.-- And having taken the chalice. This chalice belongs to the old Pasch, to which he was setting an end. Having taken which, 338Ahe gives thanks, namely for this reason, because the old things had passed away and all new things were to come. He gave thanks. He shows what each man ought to do under the scourge of his own fault, since he himself bore with equanimity the scourges of another's.

VERS. 18.-- For I say to you. As the typical eating of the lamb, so also he denies that he will drink the typical drink of the Pasch, until, the glory of the resurrection being shown, the kingdom of God, that is, the faith of the world, shall come; that by the changing of these two sacraments he may teach that the other sacraments or commands of the law are to be transferred to a spiritual observance. Yet it can be taken simply, that from the hour of the supper until the time of the resurrection, at which he was to come in the kingdom of God, he was not to drink wine. For after the resurrection he ate and drank with his disciples.

338BVERS. 19.-- And having taken. The solemnities of the old Pasch being finished, he passes over to the new, which he desires to be frequented in the Church in memory of his own redemption, that in place of the flesh and blood of the lamb he may substitute the sacrament of his own flesh and blood under the figure of bread and wine. He breaks it and reaches it out, to show that the breaking of his own body would not be without his own will. He gives thanks for the old things ended and for the new to be begun. Bread, etc. Because bread strengthens the body, wine produces blood.

VERS. 21.-- But yet, etc. As he foretold of the passion, so he foretold also of the betrayer, that, seeing he could not lie hid, he might repent of the deed. Nor does he mark him out by name, lest, being openly corrected, he should become the more shameless. He casts the fault therefore into the number, that he who is conscious of it may do penance 338Che foretold the penalty also, that whom shame had not convicted, the punishments denounced might restrain. The hand of him that betrayeth me. After the example of Judas he betrays the Son of man who presumes to violate that inviolable sacrament of the Lord's body. He sells him who, having neglected the fear and the love of him, is convicted of loving things fallen and criminal

VERS. 24.-- And there was, etc. (BEDA.) The cause of the strife is unknown to us, but it is not incredible, etc., as far as let us see what the spiritual master has commanded.

(AMBR.) Let us therefore beware exceedingly, etc., as far as that there be no boasting about preferment, but a contention about humility.

VERS. 25.-- And he said to them. The kindly master does not 338Daccuse them of the strife begun, but describes the form of humility which they should follow; as if he said: You, after the manner of worldly men, wish to arrive at the possession of the kingdom through preferment; but the summit of the virtues is reached not by power, but by humility. But it is needful that the subject show correction, and mercy a mother, and discipline a father, or lest strictness be rigid, or mercy be remiss.

VERS. 27.-- For which is greater, etc. To the words of the exhortation to be fulfilled he sets forth an example from himself. Hence John writes (Joan. XIII): If I have washed your feet, I your Lord and master, etc. And in the word of ministering there can also be all the things which the Lord did in the flesh, not only by preaching or by bringing miracles to bear, but 339Aalso by laying down the soul which he took for us, that we too may learn to lay down our lives for one another.

VERS. 28.-- You have continued with me. My weakness did not trouble you, but you persevered in the good you had begun. As therefore to me persevering unto death the Father gave a name which is above every name (Phil. III), so I also will lead you persevering with me to the eternal kingdom. It is to be understood that Judas had already withdrawn, and that many others had already gone back, when the words of the incomprehensible sacrament had been heard, at the time when the Lord was speaking these things.

VERS. 30.-- And may sit upon thrones. This is the change of the right hand of the Most High: that they who, being humble, now rejoice to minister to their fellow servants, may then, being exalted, be fed at the table of the Lord with perpetual banquets; and that they who in temptations, 339Bbeing unjustly judged, remain with the Lord, may there come with him as just judges over their own tempters. For by how much they are the more despised here, by so much shall they rise there to a greater height of power. Judging the twelve. By the twelve, not twelve persons, but the multitude of those judging is signified, on account of the two parts of the sevenfold number, by which universality is signified, that is, three and four, by which twelve is multiplied.

VERS. 31.-- And the Lord said. Lest the twelve should glory that they alone out of so many thousands were said to have continued with the Lord in temptations, he warns them that they could have been crushed by the same storm, had they not been protected by divine grace. But when Satan desires to tempt, and to shake them as one who cleanses wheat by winnowing, 339Cwe are taught that no one is tempted by the devil except by God's permitting it. Behold, Satan, etc. Satan asks for the good that he may sift them, when he pants with the heats of malice for their affliction. For wherein, envying, he seeks their temptation, therein, entreating, he asks as it were their proving.

VERS. 32.-- But I have prayed. Not that thou shouldst be tempted, but that thy faith fail not, that after the fall of denial thou mayest rise again by penance to thy former state. For it is profitable for the saints to be tried by temptations also, that either it may appear, when they are tempted, how strong they were, or that, their own weakness being known through temptation, they may learn to become stronger, and so, when they have been proved, may receive the crown of life.

VERS. 33.-- Who said to him, etc. Because the Lord had said that he had prayed for Peter, Peter, conscious of his present affection 339Dand of his fervent faith, but ignorant of the fall to come, does not believe that he can fall away from him. But he who knows what is in man, lest anyone should incautiously trust in his own state, or the more incautiously distrust because of a fall, as God foretells the manner, the time and the number of his denial, and as merciful promises the help of his own defence.

VERS. 35.-- When I sent you. He does not instruct the disciples by the same rule of living in the time of persecution as in the time of peace. For when the disciples were sent to preach, he commanded that they should take nothing on the way, ordaining namely that he who announces the Gospel should live by the Gospel. But when the moment of death was at hand, and that whole nation was persecuting both the shepherd and the flock together, he decrees a rule suited to the time, 340Apermitting the necessaries of living, until, the madness of the persecutors being lulled, the time of evangelizing should return.

VERS. 36.-- But now, etc. In this an example is given to us also, that sometimes, when a cause presses, we may without fault leave off certain things from the strictness of our purpose. For example: if we journey through inhospitable regions, it is lawful to carry more for provision than we should have at home. And he that hath not. He bids them either to take the sword they have, or, not having it, to buy it; that readers may know that the power of resisting was not wanting to the disciples, but that rather the love of suffering was in the master; where, even if there were no other cause for drawing the sword, this one can suffice, that, the servant's ear having been cut off, it should be healed by the Lord's touch. In which we are warned 340Bthat we, being struck, should not maintain anger, but rising again should take up faith.

VERS. 38.-- Behold two swords. Two swords are brought forth, one of the New, the other of the Old Testament, wherewith we are fortified against the snares of the devil. And it is said: It is enough. Two swords suffice for a testimony that the Saviour suffered willingly. The one, which should teach both that boldness to contend for the Lord was in the apostles, and that, the ear having been torn off by the stroke of the sword, mercy and the power of healing were in the Lord even when he was about to die. The other, which, being by no means drawn from the scabbard, should show that they were not permitted to do all that they could for his defence.

VERS. 39.-- And going out. The Lord, about to be betrayed by a disciple, goes to the accustomed place, where he could easily be found, lest he should be thought to have feared death. And well does he lead out 340Cto the Mount of Olives the disciples steeped in the mysteries of his blood and of his body, that he might mark out all who are baptized in his death as to be confirmed by the highest charism of the Holy Spirit.

VERS. 40.-- Pray. It is impossible for a man not to be tempted; nor does he say, that you be not tempted, but, lest you enter into temptation. Pray, that is, that temptation may not overcome you and hold you within its nets.

VERS. 41.-- And he himself, etc. The precept of praying having been given to the apostles, he himself also was drawn away from them. He alone prays for all who alone was about to suffer for all, intimating that his prayer stands as far from ours as his passion also does. A stone's cast, etc. In this he mystically intimates that they should direct the stone unto the selfsame point, that is, 340Dthat they should carry as far as him the intention of the law, which had been written on stone: for as far as him can that stone reach, since the end of the law is Christ to everyone that believeth unto justice (Rom. X).

VERS. 42.-- He prayed, saying. He prays not so much from fear of suffering as from mercy toward the former people, that he might not drink from that people the cup proffered him. Whence he says also pointedly: This one, that is, the cup of the people of the Jews, who have no excuse of ignorance in the matter of my death, since I am daily announced to them in the law and the prophets. If therefore it can come to pass that the multitude of the Gentiles believe without the destruction of the Jews, I refuse the passion. But if they must be blinded that others may see, not my will but thine be done.

Father, if thou wilt, etc. (AMBR.) For me he grieved, when for 341Ahimself he had nothing to grieve over. For he took upon him my sadness that he might lavish upon me his own gladness. Confidently therefore do I name sadness, I who preach the cross.

Nevertheless, etc. As the Lord drew near to the passion, he took upon himself the voice and the fear of the weak, that he might draw them off: and again through obedience he showed the fortitude of the mind, so that when what we do not wish to be done presses upon us, we may so ask through weakness that it be not done, that yet through fortitude we may be ready to fulfil the Creator's will rather than our own.

VERS. 44.-- And his sweat became. With death drawing near he expressed in himself the struggle of our mind, we who deservedly suffer a certain force unto terror, when after a little while we are about to find what may last for ever. 341BOf blood running down to the ground. By the earth watered with blood it is declared that he was already obtaining the effect of his prayer: namely, that he might cleanse by his own blood the faith of the disciples, which earthly frailty was still convicting; and that whatever of scandal that faith had endured from his death, all this he might himself blot out by dying; and moreover might raise up to life the whole world, dead in its sins.

VERS. 47.-- That he might kiss him. The Lord receives the kiss, not that he may teach us to dissemble, but that he might not seem to shun even the betrayer, and might the more affect the betrayer, to whom he would not deny the offices of love. Whence it is said: With them that hated peace I was peaceable (Psal. CXIX).

VERS. 49.-- Lord, shall we strike with the sword. 341CThe order is this: when they had asked, saying, Lord, shall we strike with the sword, then he answered: Suffer ye thus far. That is, let not what is to come move you. They are to be permitted to go forward thus far, that they may seize me and the things written of me be fulfilled. But between the delays of the words of those asking and of him answering, Peter, stirred by a greater eagerness of defence, struck on the Lord's behalf. But things which could be done at the same time could not be said at the same time. It is not therefore said, Suffer ye thus far, as though the deed of Peter had pleased the Lord, since in Matthew he is read to have said: Put back thy sword into its place, which it appears Jesus said after the deed.

VERS. 50.-- The servant, etc. Mystically: the servant is the people of the Jews, made over, namely unduly, to their princes, 341Dwho in the Lord's passion lost the right ear, that is, spiritual understanding. Content with the left, that is, with the cheapness of the letter, Peter not taking it away, but the divine judgment disclosing that it had been taken away. Which ear is restored, by the Lord's mercy, in those who chose rather to believe.

VERS. 52.-- They were come to him, etc. According to the other evangelists the chief priests and the magistrates had not come to Jesus, but had waited in the hall of Caiphas. But because these men so dealt with the Lord's slaying that they might seem as it were guiltless, since he was betrayed by a disciple, seized by a tribune and by the crowds, condemned by the governor, crucified by the Romans, and Barabbas even chosen by the peoples, the evangelist, wishing them above all 342Ato be the guilty, by whose counsel all these things were being carried on, says that they came to seize the Saviour, they who came by the power of their own commanding. As to a robber, etc. It is foolish to seek with swords and clubs one who of his own accord offers himself to their hands, and to hunt out by a betrayer, as one lurking by night and shunning your eyes, him who daily teaches in the temple. But for this reason do you gather against me in the darkness, because your power, with which you are armed against the light, is in darkness.

VERS. 54.-- Of the high priest. Of Caiphas, who had bought for himself the pontificate of a single year at a price from the Roman prince: yet first to Annas, as John says. He followed afar off. Deservedly afar off, he who close at hand was about to deny. It signifies that the Church would imitate 342BChrist's passion far differently, because the Church suffers for herself, Christ for the Church.

VERS. 55.-- A fire in the midst. The fire of cupidity, kindled at the prompting of the malignant spirit, was arming in the hall of Caiphas the tongues of the faithless to deny and to blaspheme God. For what the malignant synod was carrying on within, in the house of the high priest, this the fire kindled outside amid the colds of the night was typically showing. Peter, numbed for the hour by this cold, desired as it were to be warmed by the coals of the servants, because he sought the solace of temporal advantage in the fellowship of the faithless. But this faithlessness he left when the Lord looked upon him; and after the resurrection, at the catch of fishes, when he had seen the coals laid and the fish laid upon them, he set his heart aflame with the coals of love.

342CVERS. 56.-- A certain maidservant. Why does a maidservant betray him first, when men could better have recognized him? Unless that this sex might be shown to have sinned in the Lord's slaying, being about to redeem through the passion. And therefore a woman first received the mystery of the resurrection, and keeps the commands, that she might do away the old error of the transgression.

VERS. 57.-- But he denied him. Not on the mountain, not in the temple, not in his own house does Peter deny, but in the praetorium of the Jews, in the house of the high priest, where there is no truth, where Christ is taken and bound. What else than that he should err, whom the doorkeeper of the Jews let in? Eve ill led Adam in; a woman ill brought Peter in.

VERS. 59, 60.-- Man, I know not what thou sayest. Not only does he deny Christ who says that he is not the Christ, 342Dbut also he who, though he be one, denies that he is a Christian; and so is fulfilled what the Lord says: Thou shalt deny me. He is Galliaeus. Men of Jerusalem and Galileans are alike Hebrews and of one tongue, but each several province has its own properties, and cannot change the homeborn sound of its speech. And immediately. After the third denial the cock's crow follows. The sacraments of things are designated by the state of the times. At midnight he denies, at the cock's crow he repents. After the resurrection, under the light, him whom he had thrice denied he thrice professed that he loved; because he who had erred in the darkness of forgetfulness corrected it by the remembrance of the light now hoped for, and by the presence of that same true light fully raised up whatever he had supposed.

343AVERS. 61.-- And the Lord turning. By his look he provoked him to tears, as it were bringing back to his mind how often he had denied, and what he had foretold him; nor could he remain in darkness upon whom the light of the world looked.

VERS. 62.-- And going forth without. Shut off from the council of the impious he washes his guilt, who was permitted not within, and for this reason, to waver: that in the chief of the Church a remedy of penance might be founded, and that no one might dare to trust in his own virtue.

VERS. 63.-- They mocked him, etc. The prophecy was fulfilled: With a rod shall the cheek of the judge of Israel be smitten. And likewise: I have given my cheek to blows. [Vulg. Is 50:6 genas meas vellentibus, "my cheeks to them that plucked them"] But he who was then beaten by the buffets of the Jews is now beaten by the blasphemies of false Christians. They veiled his face, not that he might not see their crimes, but that they might hide from themselves (as they once did 343Bto Moses) the grace of the knowledge of him: For if they believed Moses, they would believe the Lord also (Joan. VIII). This veil remains upon their hearts until this day, but from those who believe it has been taken away: when he died the veil of the temple was rent.

VERS. 64.-- Prophesy. A contumely against him who called himself a prophet. But both heretics and Jews, who until this day deny Christ, and evil Christians who exasperate him by reprobate deeds, while they suppose that their thoughts and works of darkness are not seen by him, say as it were in mockery: Prophesy: Who is it that struck thee?

VERS. 66.-- If thou be the Christ. They do not desire the truth, but prepare a calumny. They understood that the Christ would be born of David a mere man. 343CAccording to this, therefore, they ask, so that if he should say, I am the Christ, they might calumniate him for arrogating royal power to himself.

VERS. 67.-- If I shall tell you. He had often said that he was the Christ. He had also asked them how they said that Christ was the son of David, when David calls him Lord, that by this he might provoke them to believe him God: but they were willing neither to believe him speaking, nor to answer him asking, nor to let him go who was guiltless.

VERS. 69.-- And hereafter it shall be. They who sought to calumniate the seed of David hear yet more: that through contempt he is to come to glory.

VERS. 70.-- You say. So does he temper his answer 343Dthat he both speaks the truth and gives no opening to calumny. He chose rather to prove himself Christ the Son of God than to say it, that the ground of condemning might be taken away from those who confess the very thing they lay against him.

VERS. 71.-- For we ourselves have heard. Where he said: The Son of man shall be sitting at the right hand of the power of God. By their own sentence do they condemn themselves who deliver to death him whom by the testimony of their mouth and of their work they acknowledge to be God.

VERS. 1.-- They led him away. They handed him over to the Roman power, that in this manner the Jews might show themselves strangers to his killing, wherein not their innocence but their madness is shown.

VERS. 3.-- And Pilate. etc. Since two things had been objected 344Aagainst him, namely that he forbade the assigned dues to be rendered, and that he called himself Christ, Pilate was able to hear what he had said about the tributes: Render the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and thence, counting this as an open falsehood of no weight, he asked only about what he did not know.

Thou sayest it. With the same word with which he answered the chief priests he answers the governor also, that by their own sentence both may be condemned.

VERS. 4.-- I find no cause. The day before he suffered, the Lord says to the disciples: The prince of this world cometh, and he hath not anything in me (Luc. XX). But since the prince, that is Pilate, absolves him, in whom he finds nothing worthy of condemnation, see what the Jews do, who search out the truth not from love of equity, but labour to condemn the just man at the goad of envy.

344BVERS. 2.-- He stirreth up the people. They accuse not him, but themselves. For to have taught the people, and by teaching to have stirred them from the former sluggishness of the body, and by such an act to have passed through from Galilee as far as Judea, that is the whole land of promise, from end to end, is a judgment not of crime but of virtue. And so Pilate, thinking that the Saviour was not even to be questioned about this, but rather having got the occasion, desires to make himself free from judging him.

VERS. 7.-- And when he knew it. Lest he should be forced to give sentence against a guiltless man, and one whom he knew to have been handed over out of envy, he sends him to Herod to be heard, that he might be either absolved or condemned by his own tetrarch; but, lest any excuse should remain to the Jews, Herod too, who was a Jew by birth and by religion, was permitted to show what he thought 344Cabout Christ, so that both regions, both Judea, in which Christ was born, and Galilee, in which he had been reared, might be shown to have conspired in his slaying.

But he answered him nothing. He was silent and did nothing, because both Herod's unbelief did not deserve to see divine things, and the Lord was avoiding ostentation. And in Herod are signified all the impious, who do not believe the law and the prophets, and cannot see the works of Christ in the Gospel. Therefore, while the chief priests accuse him, he answers few things before Pilate, none before Herod, lest, washing away the charge and being dismissed by the prince, he should put off the profit of the cross.

VERS. 14.-- And he mocked him. That he is despised and mocked in a white garment signifies that for the sins of the whole world 344Dthe lamb was offered up in chaste flesh, and suffered, and was buried: that he is mocked here clothed in a white garment, and, according to the other Evangelists, in a purple or scarlet one, marks the twofold kind of martyrdom with which the Church is adorned in her sufferings, so that she is white in action, red with blood. For he himself, blooming with the little flowers of his members, brings forth lilies in peace, roses in war. And he sent him back to Pilate. He is sent to Herod, he is sent back to Pilate; and although each of the two does not pronounce him guilty, yet each complies with the goads of another's iniquity.

VERS. 12.-- And they were made friends. The abominable compact which Herod and Pilate struck in the killing of Christ, their successors keep by hereditary right, while Jews and Gentiles, disagreeing in mind as they do in race and religion, nevertheless agree in persecuting Christians 345Aand in destroying the faith of Christ. In the type of Herod and Pilate, who were made friends through Jesus, the figure of the Jews and of the Gentiles is preserved: so that through Christ's passion a concord of both peoples was to come about, yet in such wise that the Gentile should first receive the kingdom of God, and pass on to the Jew the devotion of his own faith, that they too might clothe with the glory of his majesty the body of Christ, whom before they had despised.

VERS. 14.-- You have presented. Mark how great an eagerness Pilate has to release Jesus. First, when they accuse him, he says that he has found no cause in him; then, when they persist in what they have begun, he sends him to Herod, to explore whether he can find any wickedness in him, or whether he decides that he should be released. Then, when Herod's will is known, and no crime found in Jesus, 345Bhe seeks the sentence of the people, to whom one must be released at the Pasch. Again also a third time, wishing to release him, he asks. But the more carefully he seeks to release him, the more criminal does he find them for his death.

VERS. 15.-- No, nor Herod either. To reproach the hardness of the Jews or of the Gentiles, Pilate confesses that neither he nor Herod found anything in killing and mocking Christ, but that he complied with the shouts of another's cruelty.

VERS. 16.-- I will chastise him therefore, etc. Pilate absolves Jesus, whom he proves guiltless; but that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, he absolves indeed by judgment him whom nevertheless he crucifies in a mystery.

VERS. 18.-- Away with this man, etc. Because in place of Jesus they chose a robber, in place of the Saviour a murderer, in place of the giver of life 345Ca taker of it away, they deservedly lost salvation and life; and they gave themselves over to robberies and seditions so far that they lost both the homeland and the kingdom which they had preferred to Christ, and to this day have not received back the liberty of soul or of body which they had sold. Barabbas, etc. Barabbas, who is interpreted the son of their master or of their father, is himself Antichrist, whom they will prefer to Christ, they to whom it is said: You are of your father the devil. Pilate is interpreted the mouth of the hammerer, and signifies the devil, who is the hammer of all matter, through whom God permits the vessels to be tested, and at last crushes him, when he breaks him in the final damnation.

VERS. 21.-- Crucify him, crucify him. Great cruelty: they seek not only to kill but to crucify him, 345Dso that with hands and feet fastened to the wood he might be slain by a lingering death, lest the pain should end too quickly, and that he might long be seen upon the cross.

VERS. 22.-- I will chastise him, etc. This chastisement he offered to the desires of those abominable men by way of mockery and scourging, that they might not rage as far as crucifying. This both the words of John the evangelist and the very column testify, to which the Lord was bound, which to this day shows sure signs of the Lord's blood to those who look upon it. But although Pilate does this, the insatiable fury of the sacrilegious does not cease, but presses the harder, because they had seen the accusation which they had brought against the Lord emptied out by Pilate's careful questioning. At length the shameless men turn themselves to entreaties alone, 346Athat what they had not been able to do by accusing or as it were by reasoning, they now accomplish by demanding and by shouting and by accomplishing.

VERS. 25.-- And he released, etc. The author of sedition and of murders is released to the Jews, that is, the devil, who for his fault had been driven from the homeland of light and sent into the prison of darkness; and therefore they cannot have peace, because they did not choose the author of peace.

VERS. 26.-- They laid hold of one, etc. First the Lord carried the cross, but afterwards it was laid upon Simon, whom they met as they went out; and this fittingly: For Christ suffered for us, that you should follow his steps (I Petr. II). But he who wishes to follow him, let him take up his cross and follow. But because Simon 346Bwas not an Israelite but a Cyrenean, by him the Gentiles are designated, formerly strangers and guests to the testaments, but now in the faith citizens and of the household of God and coheirs of Christ; whence Simon is interpreted obedient, heir of Cyrene. But Simon came from the country place, that is from the village (pagus), from which come the pagans, who, strangers to the city of God, are ignorant of city conversation. But Simon, going forth from the village, carries the cross after Jesus, when the peoples of the Gentiles, having forsaken pagan rites, obediently embrace the footsteps of the Lord's passion.

VERS. 27.-- There followed him, etc. But they do not follow the cross with the same mind: the wicked follow that they may look with gladness on him dying; the women, that they might weep for him whom they desired to live, as about to die, as dying, and as dead. Nor is the lamentation of the women alone brought in on this ground, 346Csince many men also were grieving, but because the female sex, as more contemptible, could the more freely display before the chief priests who were present what it felt against them. But because the Lord knoweth who are his (II Tim. II), passing by the crowd of the raging people, he turns his eyes and his face to the women who loved and lamented him. Who bewailed him. They were sorrowing for a mortal life, which was to be ended by death, not for the blind men who were killing the physician.

VERS. 28.-- Daughters of Jerusalem. Note, when he calls them sons of Jerusalem, that not only those women who had come with him from Galilee, but also many women, citizens of that same city, had attached themselves to him. Weep not. Do not lament me as about to die, whose resurrection can quickly loose death, whose death will destroy death and the very 346Dauthor of death. Rather wash yourselves and your offspring with worthy fountains of tears, lest with the faithless you be condemned in vengeance for my cross.

VERS. 29.-- Behold, the days shall come. The days of the Roman siege and captivity. It is natural, when captivity threatens and the enemy's slaughter rages through the fields and the cities, that all who are able to escape seek out any high or hidden refuges in which they may hide themselves.

VERS. 30.-- Fall upon us. This can be understood, by way of surplus, of those who in either sex have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven.

VERS. 31.-- For if in the green wood. The green wood is Christ and his elect, the dry the impious and sinners; whence he says: If then I, who have committed no sin, who 347Aam deservedly called the tree of life and bear twelve fruits of grace in each several month, do not go out of this world without the fire of the passion, what torments await those who are empty of fruits, and moreover do not fear to give the tree of life to the flames? And if now is the time that judgment should begin at the house of God, and all who wish to live godly in Christ suffer persecution, what is the end of those who do not believe the Gospel? (I Petr. IV; I Tim. III).

VERS. 32.-- And there were led also. That is fulfilled which was said: And he was reputed with the wicked (Isa. LIII). In death he is reputed with the wicked, that in the resurrection he might quicken the wicked, he who, made man for the sake of men, gave to men the power to become the sons of God.

VERS. 33.-- The place of Calvary. Outside the gate of Jerusalem 347Bwere places in which the heads of the condemned were struck off, and they were called places of Calvary, that is, of the beheaded. There he is crucified, that, there was the ground of the condemned, the standards of martyrdom might be raised up. And the robbers, etc. Execrable in the deed is the iniquity of the Jews, which crucifies the Redeemer of all as though a robber; yet in the mystery he is a good robber, who lay in wait for the devil, to carry off his vessels. By him who is on the right hand is signified the mortification of the flesh for heavenly glory; by him who is on the left, the mortification of the flesh for some cause of this world.

VERS. 34.-- And Jesus, etc. Because Luke set himself to write Christ's priesthood, rightly does the Lord intercede with God for his persecutors by the right of a priest, and open paradise to the robber who confesses him; nor does he pray in vain, 347Cbut obtains it for those who believed after his passion. He does not pray for those who through envy and pride understood him to be the Son of God, and deny and crucify him, but for those who, having a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, knew not what they did.

Dividing. Of these John speaks more fully. The fourfold garment signifies the Church, which consists of four parts, spread through the whole world, distributed equally, that is, harmoniously, to all the parts. The tunic allotted signifies the unity of all the parts, which is held together by the bond of charity. Lots. In the lot the grace of God is commended. For thus it came in one to all, when the lot pleased all; because the grace of God also comes to all in unity, and when the lot is cast it is credited not to anyone's person or merits, but to the hidden 347Djudgment of God.

VERS. 35.-- He saved others. By their own sentence they condemn themselves, who even against their will confess that he saved others. He could indeed have saved himself, but because he himself is the Christ, the elect of God, he was unwilling to come down from the cross. For he who came for this, that he might be crucified for us, for this reason neglected to save himself from the cross: because by dying he took care to save, along with the rest of sinners, even those who crucified him.

VERS. 36.-- And the soldiers also mocked him, etc. Note that the Jews deride the name of Christ and of the Son of God, handed down to them by the authority of Scripture. But the soldiers, ignorant of the Scriptures, insult not Christ the elect of God, but the king of the Jews. And offering him vinegar. Vinegar 348Awere the Jews, degenerating from the wine of the patriarchs. With this vinegar the soldiers give the Lord to drink, whom at their prompting they deliver to death.

VERS. 38.-- And there was also, etc. These three tongues were pre-eminent above the rest: Hebrew, because of the Jews glorying in the law; Greek, because of the wisdom of the Gentiles; Latin, because of the Romans holding command. Therefore, will they or nill they, the Jews, every kingdom of the world, all worldly wisdom, and all the divine sacraments of the law bear witness that Jesus is the emperor of those who believe and confess him. This is the king of the Jews. The title which witnesses that Christ is king is set not below but above the cross, because although on the cross he was suffering in the weakness of a man, yet above the cross he was shining in the majesty of a king; and therefore, when he had been sacrificed, the title was set above him, that it might lie open to all who wished to read, 348Bthat is, to believe, that through the cross he did not lose his empire but strengthened it.

VERS. 40.-- He rebuked him. The rebuke itself reveals the coming scandal of the cross even among believers, of whom some are on the right hand, others on the left.

VERS. 42.-- Lord, remember me. Great grace shines out in this robber. He has no member free from the torment except his heart and his tongue; the whole of what he has free, he offers. With the heart he believes, with the mouth he confesses. He had faith, who believed that he would reign whom he saw dying beside him. He had hope, who asked for entrance. He held charity firmly, who both convicted the robber concerning his own iniquity and preached to him the life which he had come to know. Great is his virtue: he confesses him whom he sees dying in human weakness, whom the apostles were denying, 348Cwhom they had seen working miracles by divine power.

VERS. 43.-- Amen I say to thee. A most beautiful example of a conversion to be sought after, in that pardon is so quickly loosed to the robber, and the grace is more abundant than the petition. For the Lord always bestows more than he is asked. He was asking: Remember me, etc. The Lord says: This day thou shalt be with me, etc. Quickly does the Lord pardon, because that man is quickly converted.

VERS. 44.-- And there was darkness, etc. The sun drew back its rays, either that it might not see the Lord hanging, or that the impious blasphemers might not enjoy its light. And note that at the sixth hour, that is, when the sun was about to withdraw from the centre of the world, he is crucified; at daybreak, that is, when the sun rises, he rises again, because he died for our sins, and rose again for our justification (Rom. XVIII). [Vulg. Rom 4:25 qui traditus est propter delicta nostra, "who was delivered up for our offences"] When Adam 348Dhad sinned after midday, that is, when the light of faith had declined, the voice of the Lord is heard; at the same moment of time, therefore, at which he had then shut paradise against the sinning Adam, the Lord now opens it to the penitent robber.

VERS. 45, 46.-- The veil of the temple, etc. This was done as the Lord breathed forth his spirit, but Luke anticipates, wishing to join the miracle of the sun to the miracle of the veil. And the veil is rent, that the ark of the testament and all the sacraments of the law which were covered might appear and pass over to the Gentiles. Josephus says that the angelic powers, once the guardians of the temple, then cried out together: Let us flee from these seats. Father, etc. Calling upon the Father, he declares himself the Son of God. Commending his spirit, he intimates not a failure of power, but confidence in the same 349Atogether with a share of power. For he loves to give glory to the Father, wherein he forms us, that we may give glory to the Creator.

VERS. 47.-- And the centurion seeing. Seeing that he thus had the power of sending forth his spirit, which none has but the Maker of souls, the very man who had crucified him, in the very scandal of the passion, confesses him the Son of God, whom the Jews after so many miracles refused to believe. Whence by the centurion is designated the faith of the Church, which, when the veil of the heavenly mysteries had been unlocked by the Lord's death, straightway affirms him just and the Son of God, while the Synagogue is silent.

VERS. 48.-- Striking their breasts. That they strike their breasts as a sign of penitence and of mourning can be understood in two ways. For either they were grieving that one whose life they had loved 349Bhad been unjustly slain; or, remembering that they had procured his death, they were trembling that he was the more glorified in that death. But whatever cause compelled them to beat the breast, let us see the distance between nation and nation. The Gentiles, fearing God as the Lord died, glorify him with the voice of open confession; the Jews, only striking their breasts, go home in silence.

VERS. 50.-- Named Joseph. Joseph is worthy, through the nobility of his worldly power, to receive the body; through the justice of his merits, to bury it.

VERS. 52.-- This man went, etc. Not the apostles, but Joseph, just and steadfast, and Nicodemus, in whom was no guile, bury him. Such too is the burial of Christ, which has in it no fraud or iniquity; and in this the shuffling of the Jews is blocked. For if 349Cthe apostles had buried him, they would say that he was not buried whom they said was carried off.

VERS. 53.-- In a winding-sheet. From the simple burial of the Lord the ambition of the rich is condemned, who cannot do without riches even when dead.

Mystically: he wraps Jesus in a clean winding-sheet who receives him with a pure mind. Hence also the custom of the Church holds that the sacrifice of the altar be celebrated not on silk, not on dyed cloth, but on pure linen.

And laid him. Well, then, is Christ laid in the tomb of a just man, that the Son of man may have where to lay his head, and may rest in the dwelling of justice. Well in a new one, that he who receives Christ may walk in newness of life. No one buries Christ save he who believes in Christ.

In a monument that was hewn. The Lord alone is enclosed in the tomb, 349Dthat his burial and resurrection might be shown unlike the frailty of our nature. He was buried, but for as long as he willed; he rose again, but when he willed. Wherein not yet. If he were laid in a monument where another had been laid, another would be feigned to have risen. Hewn in the rock, lest, had it been built of many stones, and the foundations of the tomb dug away, he should be said to have been carried off by theft.

VERS. 54.-- And it was the day, etc. On the sixth day man was made; on the sabbath God rested. Crucified therefore on the sixth day, he fulfils the secret of the preparation. Resting on the sabbath in the sepulchre, he awaits the event of the resurrection. So must we in the sixth age of the world suffer for the Lord. In the seventh, that is, when we die, the body remains in the tomb, 350Athe soul with the Lord in rest after its labours, until in the eighth the bodies rise again.

VERS. 55.-- The women. When the other acquaintances of Jesus withdrew after the body was taken down, the women alone, who loved more closely, were looking upon the office of the burial, that at a fitting time they might offer the gift of their devotion, awaiting what Jesus had promised; and therefore they were the first to see him.

VERS. 56.-- And returning. Having looked upon the Lord's burial, they return and prepare spices and ointments: they who, having read, heard and called to mind the Lord's passion, turn themselves to the works of the virtues in which Christ delights, and on the sabbath keep silence. Being about to come to the Lord after the sabbath with their gifts, when the preparation-day of the present life is finished they await, rejoicing in blessed rest, the time 350Bof the resurrection, at which they run to meet Christ with the fragrant spices of their deeds. And on the sabbath, etc. It had been commanded that the silence of the sabbath be kept from evening until evening. Therefore the women, when the Lord was buried, so long as it was lawful to work, are busied on the preparation-day in making ready the ointments until the setting of the sun; and, the sabbath being over at the going down of the sun, that coming in the morning they might anoint him, because on the evening of the sabbath, the moment of night already coming on, they could not go to the monument.

VERS. 1.-- And on the first day of the week, etc. The first of the sabbath is the same as the first day of the sabbath, that is, the one day from the day of the sabbath or of the sabbaths, which is now called the Lord's day. In that the women came very early to the monument, 350Ca great fervour of charity in seeking and finding the Lord is shown.

Mystically: an example is given, that with faith enlightened and the darkness of the vices shaken off, we should approach the sacred body of the Lord. For the sepulchre is a figure of the altar, on which the mystery of the Lord's body and blood is celebrated. The spices which they bring signify the odour of the virtues and the sweetness of prayers, with which we ought to draw near to the altar.

VERS. 2.-- The stone rolled back. The rolling back of the stone signifies the unlocking of the sacraments of Christ, which were covered by the veil of the letter. The law was written on stone; and when its covering is taken away, the body of the Lord is not found dead, but is proclaimed living: because although we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him no more 350D(II Cor. V). And he was able to go forth from a closed sepulchre who went forth from a closed womb.

VERS. 4.-- Cast down in mind. They are cast down in mind, because they were both amazed that a stone of immense size had been rolled back, and grieved that so venerable a body was not found. As, when the Lord was tempted in the wilderness, angels ministered to him when the victory was accomplished, so now, after death had been conquered, angels came, who announce the glory of the triumphant one not only by word but also by their shining habit. And as they stood by the body in the sepulchre, so also they daily stand by the consecrated body upon the altar.

VERS. 5.-- They bowed down their countenance. Note that neither are the holy women read to have fallen to the earth, nor any 351Aof the saints to have adored prostrate on the earth at the Lord's resurrection; whence the custom began in the Church, at paschal time, not to bend the knees in prayer, but to pray with the countenance bowed toward the earth.

VERS. 6.-- Remember. On the third day, as we have from this place, the Lord foretold among the disciples, and to the women also who were following him, that he would rise again. On the preparation-day, at the ninth hour, he expired; in the morning, on the first day of the sabbath, he rose again. And deservedly did he lie one day and two nights in the sepulchre, because he set the light of his own single death (which was in the flesh only) against the darkness of our double death, which was in the body and in the soul, and healed both of ours. For if he had taken both upon himself, he would have freed us from neither.

VERS. 8.-- And they remembered. As the women, standing at 351Bthe Lord's monument, remember the words which he had spoken beforehand concerning his dispensation, so we, amid the mysteries of the Lord's passion that are to be celebrated, ought to remember not only the passion but the resurrection also.

VERS. 9.-- They told. As in the beginning the woman was to the man the author of guilt, and the man was the executor of the error, so now she who had first tasted death saw the resurrection; and lest she should bear among men the reproach of a perpetual guilt, she who had poured guilt into the man poured grace also into him. And because the inferior sex, weaker for carrying a thing through, has not the constancy of preaching, the office of evangelizing is committed to men.

VERS. 11.-- And they did not believe. That the disciples are slow to believe was not so much their weakness as 351Cour own firmness to come; for while they doubted, the resurrection is shown by many proofs, and while we, reading, come to know them, what else are we but made solid out of their doubting?

VERS. 12.-- But Peter rising up. John relates that both he and Peter ran together, and that, while Peter went inside into the monument and saw the linen cloths and the napkin, John himself, stooping down, saw the linen cloths and did not go in. But it is to be understood that Peter first, stooping down, saw what Luke relates and John passes over in silence; but that afterwards he entered, that he might discern the inner things more carefully, yet entered before John went in.

VERS. 13.-- Named Emmaus. Emmaus is itself the metropolis, a notable city of Palestine, which, after the storming 351Dof Judea, was restored under the prince Marcus Aurelius Antonius, and changed its name along with its condition.

VERS. 15, 16.-- While they talked together. The Lord draws near and accompanies them as they speak of him, that he may both kindle in their minds the faith of the resurrection, and fulfil what he had promised he would do: Where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Matth. XXVIII). Drawing near, etc. Their eyes, etc. He appeared indeed in his own form, but did not show the form which they might recognize. As they both loved him within and yet doubted, so he himself is present outside and at hand, and does not show who he is. To those who speak of him, then, he grants his presence; but from those who doubt of him he takes away the appearance by which he might be known.

352AVERS. 18, 19, 20.-- Art thou a stranger, etc. To whom, etc. They think him a stranger whom they do not recognize. And truly he was a stranger to them, from whose frailty he now stood far off through the glory of the resurrection, and from whose faith, ignorant of the resurrection, he remained an alien. A man, a prophet, etc. And how they delivered him up, etc. They confess him a prophet and a great one; of the Son of God they are silent, either because they do not yet believe perfectly, or, if they believe, they fear to be delivered into the hands of the Jews, not knowing with whom they speak.

VERS. 21.-- But we hoped, etc. In a manner they refute themselves, in that they had hoped for redemption in him whom they had seen dead, nor did they believe that he would rise again; and they grieve most of all that he was slain without guilt, whom they had known to be innocent; and from this they were walking sorrowful 352B.

VERS. 22.-- They affrighted us, etc. They are rightly said teruisse those to whom they added more sadness about the body not found than they bring gladness, by the resurrection announced, wherewith they might be refreshed.

VERS. 24.-- Some of us went, etc. Since above he said that Peter ran to the monument, and now Cleophas says: Some of us went to the monument, etc., it is to be understood that two went together. But he mentioned Peter alone first, because Mary announced it to him first.

VERS. 25.-- O foolish and slow of heart. Here a twofold necessity of being humbled presses upon us, who are neither taught in the Scriptures as much as we ought, nor as intent as is fitting on fulfilling the things we know. For if 352CMoses and the prophets spoke of Christ, and had foretold that he would enter through passion into glory, how does he glory that he is a Christian who neither searches out in the Scriptures how they pertain to Christ, nor desires to reach through sufferings the glory which he wishes to have with Christ?

VERS. 28, 29.-- And he himself, etc. Stay with us, etc. He showed himself such in body as he was among them in mind. They were to be tested, whether they would love at least as a stranger him whom they did not yet love as God. But because they cannot be strangers to the brightness, they with whom the Truth was walking call him to lodging, nay compel him. From which example it is gathered that strangers are not only to be invited to lodging, but even to be drawn in.

352DVERS. 30.-- He broke it, etc. Him whom they did not know in the exposition of Scripture they knew in the breaking of bread; because not the hearers of the law but the doers shall be justified, and the truth is better understood by working than by hearing.

VERS. 31.-- Their eyes were opened, etc. The appearance of weakness is withdrawn from the eyes of the flesh, that the glory of the resurrection may begin to appear to their minds.

VERS. 32.-- And they said, etc. Mystically: for this reason another likeness was shown them in Christ, that they might not know him save in the breaking of bread; so that all may understand that they do not recognize Christ unless they become partakers of his body, that is, of the Church, whose unity the Apostle commends in the sacrament of the bread, saying: 353AWe being many are one bread, one body (I Cor. X). When therefore he reaches out the blessed bread, their eyes are opened that they may know him, and the impediment is removed which was upon their eyes from Satan, that Jesus might not be recognized. And this impediment the Lord allows to remain until the sacrament of the bread be come to. But when the unity of the body has been shared, the enemy's impediment is taken away, that Christ may be recognized.

Burning. (GREG.) When the word had been heard, the heart, before cold with the numbness of unbelief and of fear, was kindled with the fire of the Holy Spirit, so that it now burns with a heavenly desire and stretches itself out to believe the truth. By as many precepts as a man is instructed, by so many torches, as it were, is he set aflame.

VERS. 34.-- The Lord is risen. Already there was a report 353Bthat Jesus had risen, made by those women and by Simon Peter, to whom he had appeared; these two found them speaking of these things. But they themselves also had heard earlier that he had risen; yet they feared to say it on the way, when they said only that angels had been seen by the women. For, not knowing him with whom they were speaking, they could fear that they might fall into the hands of the Jews, if they should say anything anywhere about Christ's resurrection.

VERS. 36.-- Jesus stood, etc. This appearance is that of which John says (Joan. XX): When it was late that day, etc., and he said to them: Peace be to you. But as to John's saying that Thomas was not with them, while Luke says that these two found the eleven gathered together, and those who were with them, it is to be understood that Thomas had gone out from there before the Lord 353Cappeared to them as they spoke of these things.

VERS. 37, 38.-- To see a spirit. And he said to them. The disciples had known him to be true man, but after he died they do not believe that true flesh could rise from the sepulchre on the third day. They think therefore that they see the spirit which he sent forth in the passion; but the Lord takes away this error.

Why are you troubled. (AMBR.) The apostles believed, but nevertheless they are troubled, etc., as far as that the Lord, with the doors shut, poured himself in unforeseen with his body.

Thoughts, etc. False ones, not descending from above, but rising up in the heart like an evil weed. I require the faith which I planted in you; what has sprung from yourselves I condemn. If there is no truth of the resurrection, 353Dthe fruit of the passion is lost.

VERS. 39.-- Handle and see. By many proofs he persuades them of the resurrection, offering himself both to be seen by their eyes and to be handled by their hands; and while by their handling he shows bones and flesh, he marks the state of his own resurrection and of ours, in which our body will be both subtle through the effect of a spiritual power, and palpable through the truth of its nature. After the resurrection the Lord showed in his body two contrary things: both what is palpable, of the same nature, that he might form them to faith, and what is incorruptible, of another glory, that he might invite them to the reward.

VERS. 40.-- He showed them his hands, etc. That by showing the scar of his wounds he might heal the wound of unbelief; which 354Ascars he both kept then and will keep in the judgment. First, to establish faith in the resurrection; then, that, entreating the Father for us, he may always show what kind of death he endured for man; thirdly, that he may intimate to those redeemed by his death how mercifully they have been helped, by setting before them the tokens of that same death. But lastly, that in the judgment he may declare how justly the impious are condemned, by showing the scar which he received from them. Not therefore from any inability to heal them did he keep the scars, but that he might carry about the perpetual triumph of his victory.

VERS. 41.-- Have you here anything. To convey the truth of the resurrection, he willed not only to be touched but to eat with them; not that either he or we after the resurrection ought to need food, but that he might make manifest that he was a body, 354Bnot a spirit; he ate by power, not by necessity. In one way the thirsting earth soaks up water, in another the hot ray of the sun: the former by need, the latter by power.

VERS. 42.-- Of a broiled fish. The broiled fish is the Mediator himself who suffered, taken in the waters of the human race by the snare of death, broiled at the time of the passion. He is also to us a honeycomb in the resurrection. The honeycomb in the wax, that is, the Godhead in the manhood. In the eating of this honey it is signified that he receives into his body, unto eternal rest, those who, when they feel tribulations for God, do not withdraw from the love of the inward sweetness. They who are broiled here shall there be filled with the true sweetness.

VERS. 43.-- And when he had eaten. He takes away all evasions 354C: he was seen, he was touched, he ate; and lest in anything he should seem to have deluded the human senses, he puts his hands to the Scriptures, so that even if it should seem, as the pagans say, that by magic arts he was able to do what he willed, they may at least see that he could not have prophesied before he was born.

VERS. 45.-- Then he opened. After the sight, after the touch, after the law recalled to mind, he opened their understanding, that they might understand what they see and read; then, after the truth of his own body had been commended, he commends the unity of the Church: And that there should be preached in his name.

VERS. 46.-- It behoved, etc. It behoved that the ministers who were to preach penance and remission 354Dunto all nations should begin from Jerusalem. Not only because to them were entrusted the oracles of God, and because theirs is the adoption of sons, and the glory the testaments, and the law-giving; but for this reason also, that the Gentiles, entangled in various errors and crimes, might by this token above all of the divine loving-kindness be roused to the hope of pardon: that he grants pardon to those who crucified the Son of God.

VERS. 49.-- But stay you. After he had perfectly instructed the disciples about the power of preaching, although he could of a sudden, if he willed, have strengthened them, he put it off, saying: But stay you. That he might give an example to those who follow, lest the imperfect presume to preach before the time. He sits in the city who binds himself within the cloisters of the mind, lest by speaking he wander abroad outside; so that when he has 355Abeen perfectly clothed with the divine power, then he may go forth as it were out of himself, by instructing others.

VERS. 50.-- And he led them out. Passing over all that was done through the forty days, he silently joins to the first day of the resurrection the last, on which he ascended into heaven. And beautifully, being about to bless the disciples, he leads them out to Bethany, which is called the house of obedience: because he who came down on account of the disobedience of the perverse, ascended on account of the obedience of the converted.

VERS. 53.-- In the temple. That in the place of prayer, amid the devotions of praise, with hearts made ready in all things, they might await the promised coming of the Holy Spirit. So 356Alet us, after the solemnities of the passion and the resurrection have been celebrated in Jerusalem, that is, in the vision of peace, seek Bethany with the Lord for our leader, that with a quiet mind we may be steeped in the sacraments of his body and blood, and may take care to be a house of obedience.

Praising and blessing. Luke, who took upon himself to set forth Christ's priesthood more fully than the rest, and therefore began his Gospel from the ministry of the temple through the priesthood of Zachary, beautifully completed it in the devotion of the temple, when he concludes with the apostles there, ministers, namely, of the new priesthood to come, not in the blood of victims, but in the praise of God and in blessing.