The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 1.1–1.8

If anyone will consider piously and soberly the sermon which our Lord Jesus Christ spoke on the mount, as we read it in the Gospel according to Matthew, I think he will find in it, as far as the best morals are concerned, the perfect pattern of the Christian life. This we do not venture to promise rashly, but infer it from the very words of the same Lord. For the sermon itself is concluded in such a way that it is clear that all the precepts that pertain to forming the life are in it. For he says thus: “Everyone therefore who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock: the rain came down, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it did not fall; for it was founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them, I will liken him to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand: the rain came down, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell; and great was its fall.” Since, then, he did not say only “who hears my words,” but added, saying “who hears these words of mine,” he indicated clearly enough, I think, that these words which he spoke on the mount so perfectly instruct the life of those who are willing to live according to them that they are rightly compared to one who builds upon the rock. I have said this so that it may be clear that this sermon is perfect in all the precepts by which the Christian life is formed; for this passage will be treated more carefully in its place.

The beginning of this sermon, then, is taken up thus: “And when he saw the great crowds, he went up into the mountain; and when he had sat down, his disciples came to him; and opening his mouth he taught them, saying.” If it is asked what the mountain signifies, it is well understood to signify the greater precepts of righteousness, since those that had been given to the Jews were lesser. Yet the one God, through his holy prophets and servants, according to a most orderly distribution of times, gave the lesser precepts to a people that still had to be bound by fear, and through his Son the greater ones to a people whom it was now fitting to set free by love. And when the lesser are given to the lesser and the greater to the greater, they are given by him who alone knows how to provide the human race with the medicine suited to its times. Nor is it surprising that greater precepts are given for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, and that lesser ones were given for the sake of an earthly kingdom, by the same one God who made heaven and earth. Of this righteousness, then, which is greater, it is said through the prophet, “Your righteousness is like the mountains of God”; and this well signifies that it is taught on a mountain by the one Master who alone is fit to teach such great things. He teaches sitting, which belongs to the dignity of the teacher’s office; and his disciples come to him, so that those who were drawing near in mind to fulfil his precepts might also be nearer in body to hear his words. “And opening his mouth, he taught them, saying.” This circumlocution, in which it is written “And opening his mouth,” perhaps by its very delay signals that the sermon will be somewhat long; unless perhaps it is not without meaning that it is now said that he opened his own mouth, because in the old Law he was accustomed to open the mouths of the prophets.

What then does he say? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” We read it written concerning the craving for temporal things, “All is vanity and presumption of spirit”; and presumption of spirit signifies boldness and pride. Commonly, too, the proud are said to have great spirits; and rightly, since the wind too is called spirit. Hence it is written, “Fire, hail, snow, ice, the spirit of the storm.” And who does not know that the proud are said to be puffed up, as though swollen with wind? Hence also that saying of the Apostle: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Wherefore the poor in spirit are rightly understood here as the humble and those who fear God, that is, those who do not have a spirit that puffs up. Nor was it fitting for blessedness to begin from anywhere else at all, since it is to arrive at the highest wisdom; “and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” just as, on the other hand, “Pride” is written to be “the beginning of all sin.” Let the proud, then, seek and love the kingdoms of the earth; but “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” That earth, I believe, of which it is said in the Psalm, “You are my hope, my portion in the land of the living.” For it signifies a certain solidity and stability of a perpetual inheritance, where the soul through a good disposition rests as in its own place, as the body rests on the earth, and is fed from there with its own food, as the body is fed from the earth: that is the rest and life of the saints. Now the meek are those who yield to acts of wickedness and do not resist evil, but overcome evil with good. Let those who are not meek, then, quarrel and fight for earthly and temporal things; but “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” from which they cannot be driven out.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Mourning is sorrow over the loss of what is dear; but those who have turned to God lose the things they embraced as dear in this world. For they do not rejoice in the things in which they rejoiced before; and until love of eternal things comes to be in them, they are wounded by some sadness. They will therefore be comforted by the Holy Spirit, who is chiefly for this reason named the Paraclete, that is, the Comforter, so that, losing the temporal, they may enjoy eternal gladness.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Now he calls these lovers of the true and unshaken good. They will be filled, then, with that food of which the Lord himself says, “My food is to do the will of my Father,” which is righteousness; and with that water of which, as the same one says, whoever drinks, it will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” He says that those are blessed who come to the help of the wretched, because it is repaid to them in such a way that they are set free from wretchedness.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” How foolish, then, are those who seek God with these outward eyes, since he is seen with the heart, as is written elsewhere, “And seek him in simplicity of heart.” For this is a pure heart, which is a simple heart; and just as this light cannot be seen except with pure eyes, so neither is God seen unless that by which he can be seen is pure.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” In peace is perfection, where nothing fights against it; and therefore the peacemakers are sons of God, because nothing resists God, and sons certainly ought to have the likeness of their father. Now they are peacemakers within themselves who, setting in order all the movements of their soul and subjecting them to reason, that is, to the mind and spirit, and having their carnal desires tamed, become a kingdom of God; in which all things are so ordered that what is chief and excellent in man commands, without resistance, the other things which we have in common with the beasts; and that very thing which excels in man, that is, mind and reason, is subjected to what is better, which is the truth itself, the only-begotten Son of God. For one cannot command what is inferior unless he himself is subject to what is superior. And this is the peace which is given on earth to men of good will; this is the life of the consummate and perfect wise man. From a kingdom of this kind, most peaceful and most ordered, the prince of this world, who rules the perverse and disordered, has been cast out. When this peace has been established and made firm within, whatever persecutions he who was cast out stirs up from outside increase the glory that is according to God; they do not shake anything in that building, but, as his siege engines fail, they make known how great a firmness has been built within. Therefore there follows: “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

There are, then, eight sayings here in all. For from now on he addresses the rest to those who were present, saying, “Blessed shall you be when they revile you and persecute you.” But the earlier sayings he directed in general terms: for he did not say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven,” but “for theirs,” he says, “is the kingdom of heaven”; nor “Blessed are the meek, for you shall inherit the earth,” but “for they shall inherit the earth.” And so with the others up to the eighth saying, where he says, “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” From there he now begins to speak addressing those present, although the things said above also pertained to those who were present and listening, and these later things, which seem to be said specially to those present, pertain also to those who were absent or were to come afterward. Wherefore this number of sayings is to be carefully considered.

For blessedness begins from humility: “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” that is, those not puffed up, when the soul submits itself to divine authority, fearing lest after this life it go on to punishment, even if perhaps in this life it seems to itself to be blessed. From there it comes to the knowledge of the divine Scriptures, where it must show itself meek in piety, lest it dare to find fault with what seems absurd to the unlearned and become unteachable through obstinate disputes. From there it now begins to know by what knots of this world it is held through carnal habit and sins; and so in this third step, in which there is knowledge, the loss of the highest good is mourned, because it clings to the lowest things. In the fourth step there is toil, where one strives vehemently so that the mind may tear itself away from the things in which it is entangled by a pestilent sweetness; here, then, one hungers and thirsts for righteousness, and fortitude is very necessary, because what is held with delight is not abandoned without pain. In the fifth step, counsel for escape is given to those who persevere in toil; because unless one is helped by a superior, he is in no way able by himself to free himself from such great entanglements of miseries. And it is just counsel that he who wishes to be helped by one more powerful should help one weaker in that in which he himself is more powerful. Therefore, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” In the sixth step is purity of heart, which from a good conscience of good works is strong enough to contemplate that highest good which can be seen only by a pure and serene understanding. Last is the seventh, wisdom itself, that is, the contemplation of truth, which brings peace to the whole man and takes on the likeness of God; and it is concluded thus: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” The eighth returns, as it were, to the beginning, because it shows and proves what is complete and perfect. Therefore in the first and in the eighth the kingdom of heaven is named: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”; as it is now said, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or distress? Or persecution? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or peril? Or the sword?” There are seven, then, that make perfect; for the eighth glorifies and shows what is perfect, so that through these steps the others too may be made perfect, beginning again, as it were, from the start.

It seems to me also that the sevenfold operation of the Holy Spirit, of which Isaiah speaks, corresponds to these steps and sayings. But there is a difference of order: for there the enumeration began from the more excellent, but here from the lower. For there it begins from wisdom and ends at the fear of God; but “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Wherefore if we count step by step, as though ascending, first there is the fear of God, second piety, third knowledge, fourth fortitude, fifth counsel, sixth understanding, seventh wisdom. The fear of God corresponds to the humble, of whom it is said here, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” that is, not puffed up, not proud: to whom the Apostle says, “Do not be high-minded, but fear,” that is, do not be lifted up. Piety corresponds to the meek: for he who seeks piously honours holy Scripture and does not find fault with what he does not yet understand, and therefore does not resist, which is to be meek; hence it is said here, “Blessed are the meek.” Knowledge corresponds to those who mourn, who have now learned in the Scriptures by what evils they are held bound, which in ignorance they sought as good and useful: of whom it is said here, “Blessed are those who mourn.” Fortitude corresponds to those who hunger and thirst: for they toil, desiring joy from true goods and longing to turn their love away from earthly and bodily things: of whom it is said here, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Counsel corresponds to the merciful: for this is the one remedy for escaping from such great evils, that we forgive as we wish to be forgiven, and help others in what we can, as we desire to be helped in what we cannot: of whom it is said here, “Blessed are the merciful.” Understanding corresponds to the pure in heart, as to a cleansed eye, by which can be seen what the bodily eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man: of whom it is said here, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” Wisdom corresponds to the peacemakers, in whom all things are now set in order and no movement rebels against reason, but all things obey the spirit of man, since he himself also obeys God: of whom it is said here, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

But the one reward, which is the kingdom of heaven, is named variously according to these steps. In the first, as was fitting, is placed the kingdom of heaven, which is the perfect and highest wisdom of the rational soul. Thus it was said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” as if it were said, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” To the meek an inheritance is given, as to those who seek a father’s testament with piety: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” To those who mourn, comfort, as to those who know what they have lost and in what they are sunk: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” To those who hunger and thirst, fullness, as refreshment for those who toil and strive bravely for salvation: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” To the merciful, mercy, as to those who use true and excellent counsel, so that what they show to the weaker may be shown to them by one more powerful: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” To the pure in heart, the power to see God, as to those who carry a pure eye for understanding eternal things: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” To the peacemakers, likeness to God, as to those who are perfectly wise and formed to the image of God through the regeneration of the renewed man: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” And these things indeed can be fulfilled in this life, as we believe they were fulfilled in the apostles. For that complete change into angelic form which is promised after this life cannot be set forth in any words. “Blessed, therefore, are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This eighth saying, which returns to the beginning and declares the perfect man, is perhaps signified by circumcision on the eighth day in the Old Testament; and by the Lord’s resurrection after the sabbath, which is certainly the eighth day and also the first; and by the celebration of the eight festal days which we celebrate at the regeneration of the new man; and by the very number of Pentecost. For when the number seven is multiplied by seven, which makes forty-nine, an eighth is as it were added, so that fifty is completed and there is, as it were, a return to the beginning: on which day the Holy Spirit was sent, by whom we are led into the kingdom of heaven, and receive the inheritance, and are comforted, and are fed, and obtain mercy, and are cleansed, and are made peaceful; and, thus made perfect, we endure all troubles brought upon us from outside for the sake of truth and righteousness.

“Blessed shall you be,” he says, “when they revile you and persecute you and say all evil against you, lying, for my sake. Rejoice and exult, for your reward is great in heaven.” Let anyone who seeks the delights of this world and the wealth of temporal things in the Christian name take note that our blessedness is within; as is said of the soul of the church by the mouth of the prophet: “All the beauty of the king’s daughter is within”; for from outside, revilings and persecutions and disparagements are promised; yet for them there is a great reward in heaven, which is felt in the heart of those who suffer, of those who can already say, “We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience proof, and proof hope; and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” For it is not suffering these things that bears fruit, but bearing them for the name of Christ not only with an even mind but even with exultation. For many heretics, deceiving souls under the Christian name, suffer many such things; but they are excluded from this reward for this reason, that it was not said only, “Blessed are those who suffer persecution,” but there was added, “for righteousness’ sake”; and where there is no sound faith, there cannot be righteousness, because “the righteous lives by faith.” Nor let schismatics promise themselves anything from this reward; because likewise where there is no love, there cannot be righteousness: for “love of neighbour works no evil”; if they had it, they would not tear apart the body of Christ, which is the church.

It may be asked, however, what difference there is in his saying “when they revile you” and “say all evil against you,” since to revile is to say evil. But a reviling is hurled with insult in the presence of the one reviled, as was said to our Lord, “Do we not say truly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”; it is otherwise when the reputation of one absent is injured, as is likewise written of him, “Some said, He is a prophet; but others said, No, but he leads the people astray.” To persecute, again, is to use force or to attack by ambush, as did he who betrayed him and those who crucified him. Certainly the fact that this too is not set down bare, so as to say “and they shall say all evil against you,” but “lying” is added, and “for my sake” is added as well: I think it was added on account of those who wish to glory in persecutions and in the disgrace of their reputation, and therefore to say that Christ belongs to them because many evil things are said of them, when the things said are true when they concern their error; and if sometimes some false things too are hurled, which commonly happens through human rashness, yet they do not suffer these things for Christ’s sake. For he does not follow Christ who is called a Christian not according to the true faith and the catholic discipline.

“Rejoice,” he says, “and exult, for your reward is great in heaven.” I do not think the heavens here mean the upper parts of this visible world. For our reward, which ought to be unshaken and eternal, is not to be placed in changeable and temporal things. But I think “in heaven” means in the spiritual firmaments, where everlasting righteousness dwells; in comparison with which the wicked soul is called earth, to which it was said when it sinned, “You are earth, and to earth you shall go.” Of these heavens the Apostle says, “For our citizenship is in heaven.” Those who rejoice in spiritual goods, then, already feel this reward; but it will be perfected in every part when this mortal too shall have put on immortality. “For so,” he says, “they persecuted the prophets also who were before you.” Here he has set down persecution in general terms, both in revilings and in the tearing of reputation; and he exhorted well by example, because those who speak the truth are accustomed to suffer persecution; and yet the prophets of old did not, for fear of persecution, fall away from preaching the truth.

Most rightly, therefore, there follows, “You are the salt of the earth,” showing that those are to be judged foolish who, either pursuing abundance of temporal goods or fearing want of them, lose eternal things, which can neither be given nor taken away by men. “So if the salt has become foolish, with what shall it be salted?” That is, if you, through whom the peoples are in a sense to be seasoned, lose the kingdom of heaven through fear of temporal persecutions, who will be the men through whom error may be removed from you, when God has chosen you to remove the error of the rest through you? Therefore the salt that has become foolish is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trodden down by men. So it is not he who suffers persecution who is trodden down by men, but he who becomes foolish through fearing persecution. For only one who is lower can be trodden down; but he is not lower who, though he endures many things on earth in the body, is yet fixed in heaven in heart.

“You are the light of the world.” As he said above “salt of the earth,” so now he says “light of the world.” For above, too, the earth is not to be taken as this earth which we tread with bodily feet, but the men who dwell on the earth, or even sinners, for the seasoning and extinguishing of whose stench the Lord sent the apostolic salt. And here by world one must understand not heaven and earth, but the men who are in the world or who love the world, for whose enlightening the apostles were sent. “A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden”; that is, one founded on a notable and great righteousness, which the very mountain on which the Lord discourses also signifies. “Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel.” What are we to think? That “under a bushel” was said so that only the hiding of the lamp is to be understood, as if he said, “No one lights a lamp and hides it”? Or does the bushel also signify something, so that to put the lamp under a bushel is to rank the comforts of the body above the preaching of the truth, so that someone does not preach the truth because he fears he may suffer some trouble in bodily and temporal things? And it is well called a bushel, whether on account of the repayment by measure, because each receives what he has done in the body (“that each one,” says the Apostle, “may receive what he has done in the body”; and as though of this bushel of the body it is said in another place, “For with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you again”), or because temporal goods, which are carried out in the body, both begin and pass away within a fixed measure of days, which the bushel perhaps signifies, while eternal and spiritual things are confined by no such limit: “For God does not give the Spirit by measure.” He, then, puts the lamp under a bushel who obscures and covers the light of good teaching with temporal comforts. “But on a lampstand.” And he puts it on a lampstand who subjects his body to the ministry of God, so that the preaching of the truth is higher and the service of the body lower; yet through that very service of the body the teaching shines out more loftily, being conveyed to learners through bodily functions, that is, through voice and tongue and the other movements of the body in good works. The Apostle, then, puts the lamp on a lampstand when he says, “I do not fight as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, having preached to others, I myself should be found reprobate.” And as for his saying, “that it may give light to all who are in the house,” I think the house means the dwelling of men, that is, the world itself, because of what he said above, “You are the light of the world”; or if anyone wishes to take the house as the church, that is not absurd either.

“Let your light so shine,” he says, “before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” If he had said only, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works,” he would seem to have set the goal in the praises of men, which hypocrites seek, and those who canvass for honours and grasp at the emptiest glory. Against them it is said, “If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ”; and through the prophet, “Those who please men have been put to shame, because God has set them at nothing”; and again, “God has broken the bones of those who please men”; and again the Apostle, “Let us not become desirous of empty glory”; and he again, “But let a man prove himself, and then he will have glory in himself and not in another.” So he did not say only, “that they may see your good works,” but added, “and glorify your Father who is in heaven”: so that the very fact that a man pleases men by good works should not make this the goal, to please men; but he should refer it to the praise of God, and please men for this reason, that God may be glorified in him. For this is profitable to those who praise, that they honour not man but God, as the Lord showed in the very man who was carried, where the crowds, wondering at his powers when the paralytic was healed, as is written in the Gospel, “were afraid and glorified God, who had given such power to men.” His imitator the apostle Paul says, “But they were only hearing that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once ravaged; and they glorified God in me.”

After he had exhorted his hearers, then, to prepare themselves to endure all things for truth and righteousness, and not to hide the good they were about to receive, but to learn with such good will that they would teach the rest, referring their good works not to their own praise but to the glory of God, he now begins to form and instruct them in what they are to teach, as if they were asking and saying: “See, we are willing both to endure all things for your name and not to hide your teaching; but what is this very thing which you forbid to be hidden, and for which you command that all things be endured? Are you going to say things contrary to what is written in the Law?” “No,” he says. “For do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfil.”

In this saying there is a twofold sense; it is to be treated according to both. For he who says, “I have not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it,” says it either of adding what it lacks or of doing what it contains. Let us then consider first what I put first. For he who adds what is lacking certainly does not abolish what he finds, but rather confirms it by completing it; and therefore he goes on and says, “Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, one iota or one stroke shall not pass from the Law, until all things come to pass.” For while even the things that are added for completion come to pass, much more do those come to pass that were set down beforehand as a beginning. And as for his saying, “One iota or one stroke shall not pass from the Law,” nothing else can be understood but a vehement expression of completeness, since it is shown by individual letters; among which letters the iota is smaller than the rest, because it is made with one stroke, while the apex is some small part even of it, at the top. By these words he shows that in the Law even the least things are brought to accomplishment. Then he adds: “Whoever therefore abolishes one of these least commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” The least commandments, then, are signified by the one iota and the one stroke. He, then, who abolishes and teaches so, that is, according to what he abolishes, not according to what he finds and reads, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; and perhaps for this reason he will not be in the kingdom of heaven, where only the great can be. “But whoever does and teaches so,” that is, whoever does not abolish and teaches so, according to what he does not abolish, “shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” And of him who shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven, it follows that he is also in the kingdom of heaven, into which the great are admitted: for to this pertains what follows.