Commentary on Matthew 10

We must look into the force of the words no less than that of the deeds: because, as we have said, the weight of meaning is equal in what is said and in what is done. The Lord has pity on the crowds, harassed and lying down, like a flock scattered without a shepherd. And he says that the harvest is great and the laborers few, and that the Lord of the harvest must be asked to send out more laborers into the harvest. And calling his disciples together, he gave them power to cast out unclean spirits and to heal every infirmity and every sickness. Although these things were done for the present, we must consider what they signify for the future. No harasser had burst in upon the crowds, nor were they lying struck down by some accident or upheaval: how, then, does he pity them as lying down and harassed? The Lord pities the people harassed, namely, by the ruling violence of the unclean spirit and sick under the burden of the law, because they had as yet no shepherd to give them back the protection of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of this gift was most abundant, but not yet reaped by anyone. For its abundance surpasses the multitude of those who draw from it: however much is taken by all, it always overflows for giving. And since it is useful that there be many through whom it is ministered, he commands that the Lord of the harvest be asked to send out more laborers into the harvest: that is, that God supply an abundance of reapers to take up the gift of the Holy Spirit that was being prepared; for this gift is poured out on us by God through prayer and petition. And to indicate that numerous reapers were to be spread into that harvest, beginning with these twelve apostles, he called them together and gave them power to cast out spirits and to heal every infirmity. For by the powers of this gift both the troubler could be expelled and the sick healed. It is worthwhile to look at the meaning of each of the precepts. They are told to keep away from the ways of the Gentiles: not that they would not be sent also for the salvation of the Gentiles, but that they should keep away from the works and life of Gentile ignorance. They were forbidden to enter the cities of the Samaritans. Did he not himself rather heal a Samaritan woman? But they are warned not to go to the churches of the heretics. For perversity differs in nothing from ignorance. Then they are sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And yet these raged against him with the tongues and jaws of wolves and vipers. But the giving of the law was to have the privilege of the Gospel: so that Israel would have the less excuse for its crime, the more care it had experienced in being warned. Then the whole power of the Lord’s might is transferred to the apostles: and those who in Adam had been formed in the image and likeness of God now obtain the perfect image and likeness of Christ, differing in nothing from the powers of their Lord; and those who were before earthly now become heavenly. Let them preach that the kingdom of heaven is drawing near, that is, that the image and likeness of God is now being taken up into fellowship with the truth, so that all the saints, who are called heavens, may reign with the Lord. Let them heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons: whatever evils the prompting of Satan had brought upon the body of Adam, let them in turn cleanse these from their communion in the Lord’s power. And so that they may attain the likeness of God fully, according to the prophecy of Genesis, they are commanded to give freely what they have freely received: so that the ministering of a free gift may be free. They are forbidden to possess gold, silver, or money in their belts, to carry a bag on the road, two tunics, and sandals, and to take a staff in their hands: and the laborer is worthy of his wage. A treasure in a belt is not, I think, a thing to be envied; and what does the forbidden possession of gold, silver, and bronze in a belt mean? The belt is the equipment of ministry, the girding for effective work. So we are warned that nothing in our ministry should be for sale, and that this work of our apostleship should not become the possession of gold, silver, and bronze. Nor a bag on the road: that is, care for worldly substance must be left behind, because all treasure on earth is harmful, since our heart will be where the treasure is stored. Not two tunics. For it is enough for us to have put on Christ once; nor should we, through a perversity of our understanding, afterward be clothed with another garment, either of heresy or of the law. Not sandals. Is the weakness of human feet able to bear nakedness? But, about to stand with bare feet on holy ground, not beset with the thorns and stings of sins, as was said to Moses, we are warned to have no other equipment for our entering than what we have received from Christ. Nor a staff in the hands, that is, not to seek the rights of an outside power that we do not need, since we have a staff from the root of Jesse; for whatever else there may be will not be Christ’s: equipped by all the preceding words for making the journey of the world with grace, provision, clothing, footwear, and power; for working in these we shall be found worthy of our wage, that is, we shall receive the rewards of heavenly hope through the observance of these things. “Into whatever city you enter, ask who in it is worthy,” and the rest. Perhaps the Lord will be thought to have given the apostles trivial precepts, in that he lowered himself even to instructions about entering, lodging, staying, and leaving. Understood simply, these things suit the modesty of the saints: that hospitality should be with a worthy person, and that they should not, through carelessness or ignorance, be defiled by living with a disreputable household. But he commands them, when they enter a city, to ask about the worthy man and to live with him until they leave; and also that the house be greeted peaceably by those entering; if it is worthy, it should be worthy of the communion of peace; if unworthy, the peace should return; and as for those who did not receive them and their words, the dust of their feet being shaken off, the seeds of eternal cursing are to be left with them. These things trouble the understanding not a little. For if they are not to enter hospitality unless they have first asked who is worthy, how will the house afterward be found unworthy? And how will he not hear their words, both not hearing them and not receiving them? Either this is not to be feared in one who is righteous; or, if he has been found unworthy, the communion of dwelling will not be entered upon. And what would it profit to have asked and sought the worthy man, if observance and penalty are commanded against an unworthy host? But the Lord instructs them not to mix with the houses and familiarity of those who either persecute Christ or do not know him; and in whatever city, to ask who is worthy of their lodging, that is, where there is a church and Christ dwells in it; and not to pass anywhere else, since that is the worthy house and the righteous host. As to his command that those entering greet the house with their voice, saying, “Peace to this house,” and that if the house is found worthy the peace should come upon it, but if unworthy the peace should return to them: if peace has already been spoken at the first entry in the office of greeting, how will it afterward come, or how will it afterward return? Either peace ought not to have been spoken before it was proved whether the house was worthy; or, if it was worthy and was greeted with peace, the condition of peace coming and returning cannot logically fit with what preceded. So the proper meaning of the sayings must be shown. Many of the Jews would come to be whose affection in favor of the law would be so great that, although they had believed in Christ through wonder at his works, they would nevertheless linger in the works of the law; others, curious to spy out the freedom that is in Christ, would pretend that they had passed from the law to the Gospels; and many would also be led into heresy through perversity of understanding. And since all deceivers of this kind, flattering their hearers, falsely claim that the catholic truth is with them, he therefore warned above that the worthy man with whom one should dwell must be sought; but since the ignorant could fall in with a host of this kind through deceitful words, the very house that is called worthy, that is, the church which is called catholic, must be dealt with cautiously and carefully; it is to be greeted with a disposition of peace, but in such a way that peace is spoken rather than given. For he commanded thus: “Greet it, saying, Peace to this house.” So the peace of greeting is in words and is to be given in the speech of prayer. But our own peace, which is the heart of mercy, ought not to come upon it unless it is worthy: if it is not found worthy, the mystery of heavenly peace is to be kept within their own conscience. Against those who, having heard the preaching of the heavenly kingdom, spurn the precepts of the apostles, eternal cursing is to be left by their departure and by the sign of the dust shaken from their feet. For there seems to be, I know not how, a kind of communion between one who stands in a place and the place on which he has stood, and a certain joining of body and ground arises between them. So all the sin of the house and of the dwelling is left within it with the shaking off of the dust of the feet, and it borrows nothing of holiness from the footprints of the apostles standing there: so that those by whose entry and coming the offenses of earthly origin are taken away, by their testimony unbelief is judged together with all the dust of its land. “It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that city”: because for them to have erred without knowing Christ is lighter, but for these it is inexpiable either not to have received him when preached, or, having received him, not to have preached him holily and in a catholic manner. And indeed he signifies that many would come who would rage with insane fury against the apostles, when he says that he sends them like sheep into the midst of wolves, proclaiming that they must be simple as doves and prudent as serpents. The simplicity of the dove is plain; but what the prudence of the serpent is must be considered. I do not know what prudence and counsel stands out in it, although some have recorded this: that when it perceives it has come into men’s hands, it withdraws its head from the blow in every way, and either covers it by coiling its body into a circle or plunges it into a hole, and leaves the rest of itself to the beating; and that by this example we must, if any persecution befalls us, hide our head, which is Christ, so that, exposed to every torture, we may protect the faith received from him at the cost of the body. But all this speech of the Lord is about Jews and heretics: “Brother will hand over brother, and father son, and sons will rise against parents”: that is, a family of the same kind will be at variance within itself: because by the names of parents and kin the former unity of the people is indicated, now divided against itself by hostile hatred; and that we will be brought before judges and kings of the earth, while they try to extort either our silence or our connivance. For they will be witnesses to them and to the nations: by this testimony the excuse of not having known the divinity is to be taken from the persecutors, and for the nations a way is to be opened to believing in Christ, proclaimed by the voices of confessors persevering amid the punishments of those who rage. So he warns that we must be equipped with the prudence of the serpent. Before it misled Adam, Genesis already called it wise; and it taught its prudence by the order of a malicious plan. For first it attacked the mind of the weaker sex, then enticed by hope, promised a share in immortality, and through these great rewards carried out the work of its plan and will. With like fitness, then, having looked into each person’s nature and will, prudence of words must be applied. The hope of future goods must be revealed, and so the heavenly rewards of perfect faith set forth: so that what he lied about we may proclaim truly, that according to God’s promise those who believe will be like angels; so that, though both wolves and heretics rage around, we may take hold of the easy and simple minds of the peoples with the promises of the heavenly kingdoms, and hand on the truth of things with the prudence of the serpent and the simplicity of the dove. He also warns that those handed over must have no care about their answer, but must rather wait for what the Spirit of God suggests; because our faith, inward to all the precepts of the divine will, will be equipped with the knowledge of how to answer: having the example of Abraham, who, when Isaac was demanded as an offering, was not without a ram for the sacrifice. Then he advises flight from one city into two. Because his preaching, first driven from Judea, passes over to Greece; then, wearied by the various sufferings of the apostles within the cities of Greece, it dwells thirdly among all the nations. But to show that the nations would believe the preaching of the apostles, but that the believing of the remnant of Israel was reserved for his coming, he says: “You will not finish the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes”: that is, after the fullness of the nations, what will remain of Israel, to complete the number of the saints, is to be placed in the church at the future coming of his glory. “The disciple is not above the teacher, nor the servant above the master.” Knowledge of what is coming helps greatly toward taking up endurance, especially if the will to patience is taken up by example. Our Lord, the eternal light, the leader of believers, and the parent of immortality, sent ahead to his disciples consolations for their future sufferings: lest any disciple should think himself better than the teacher or a servant above the master. “For if they have given the master of the house, out of envy, the name of a demon, how much more will they do every kind of injury and insult against those of his household?” But let these things not frighten us at all; let us rather embrace it as glory if we are made equal to our Lord even in the conditions of suffering. “Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed.” He shows the day of judgment, which will bring out the hidden conscience of our will and uncover by the light of public knowledge the things we now think hidden. So he warns that neither the threats nor the plans nor the powers of persecutors are to be feared, because the day of judgment will reveal that these were nothing and empty. We do not read that the Lord was accustomed to speak at night and hand on his teaching in darkness. But since all his speech is darkness to the carnal, and his word is night to unbelievers, and what he has said is to be spoken by each with the freedom of faith and confession, he therefore commanded that what was said in darkness be preached in the light, and what was entrusted secretly to the ears be preached on the housetops, that is, on the heights, so that it may be heard by the proclamation of those who speak. For the knowledge of God is to be pressed on steadily, and the deep secret of gospel teaching revealed by the light of apostolic preaching: not fearing those who, though they have license over bodies, have no right over the soul; but rather fearing God, who has power to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them falls to the ground without the will of your Father.” It is not, I think, a crime to go bird-catching, nor has the sale of sparrows any fault. And what he says, “Not one of them falls to the ground without the will of your Father,” seems to go against the apostle’s saying: “God has no care for cattle.” And his authority will be much lessened if he is found to have thought otherwise than is handed down in the Gospels. Nor is much dignity given to the apostles if they stand ahead of sparrows. This passage proceeds from the preceding sense. For the iniquities of those are being heaped up who will hand over, who will persecute, who will drive into flight, by whom we must be hated for the Lord’s name, who exercise all their right over bodies alone, having no power over the soul. These, then, sell two sparrows for a penny. And indeed Christ redeemed from the law what had been sold under sin: so what is sold is body and soul, and that to which it is sold is sin: because Christ both redeemed from sin and is the redeemer of soul and body. Those, then, who sell two sparrows for a penny sell themselves for the smallest sin, born for flying and to be borne up to heaven on spiritual wings. But, caught by the prices of present pleasures and up for sale for the luxury of the world, they trade themselves wholly in such dealings. But we must ask how it is one of them that does not fall without God’s will. God’s will is that one of them should rather fly away, but the law that proceeded from God’s ordinance decrees that one of them should rather fall down. Just as, if they flew away, they would be one, that is, the body would have passed into the nature of the soul, and that heaviness of earthly matter would be abolished in the advance and substance of the soul, and the body would rather become spiritual: so in those sold for the price of sins the subtlety of the soul grows heavy into the nature of bodies and contracts earthly matter from the filth of vices, and they become one which is handed over to the earth. When he says that they stand ahead of many sparrows, he shows that the elect of the faithful are ahead of the multitude of unbelievers: because for the latter there is a fall to the earth, for the former a flight to heaven. To gather something into a number is the care of diligence and concern: for it is not a worthy business to number what will perish. So that we might know, then, that nothing of us will perish, because we are much better than sparrows, it is indicated by the very number of our hairs being counted, so that we shall be safe entirely: since what in us is countless is counted by the affection and power of preserving. So no fall of our bodies is to be feared, nor is any grief to be admitted at the slaying of the flesh: since, dissolved according to the condition of its nature and origin, it is poured back into the substance of a spiritual soul. And since those strengthened by such teachings must have a free constancy in confessing God, he added also the condition by which we are held: that he would deny before the Father in heaven him who had denied him before men on earth, but would confess in heaven him who had confessed him before men; and that such witnesses as we had been of his name before men, such testimony of his we shall have before God the Father. “Do not think that I have come to send peace on the earth. I have not come to send peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a son against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be those of his household.” What is this division? For among the first precepts of the law we received: “Honor your father and your mother.” And the Lord himself says: “My peace I give you, my peace I leave you.” What does it mean that a sword rather is sent on the earth, a son separated from his father, a daughter from her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s household his enemies? On that reading, public sanction would from then on be given to impiety: everywhere hatred, everywhere wars, and the sword of the Lord raging between father and son and between daughter and mother. And in Luke there is this saying about it: “For from now on there will be five in one house divided, three against two and two against three.” Can the family of a household not spread into a larger number of kin? Or was it laid down for a time that from then on there would be only five in one house, and these divided? So we must consider what the sword on the earth is, what the proper meaning of the names is, what reason there is in the number five, how three are divided against two and two against three, and in what way a man’s household are his enemies. And first the nature of each thing and of the whole question must be unfolded; and the preceding and following sense will help our understanding no less. The sword is the sharpest weapon of all weapons, in which lies the right of power, the severity of judgment, and the punishment of sins. And it is frequent authority in the prophets that the preaching of the new Gospel is called by the name of this weapon. Let us remember, then, that the word of God is named by the sword: and this sword has been sent on the earth, that is, his preaching has been poured into the bodies of men. This, then, divides five living in one house, and divides three against two and two against three. But we find only three things in man, namely body, soul, and will. For as the soul was given to the body, so to both was granted the power to use themselves as they wished: and for this reason the law was set before the will. But this is found in those who were first formed by God, in whom the coming into being of the origin begun was effected, not derived from elsewhere. But from the sin and unbelief of the first parent, in the following generations sin began to be the father of our body and unbelief the mother of the soul; for from these we received our origin through the transgression of the first parent. For each person’s will lies with him as his own. So now there are five in one house: sin the father of the body, unbelief the mother of the soul, and, joined to them, the decision of the will, which binds the whole man to itself by a kind of right of marriage. Its mother-in-law is unbelief, which receives us, born from her and strangers to faith and the fear of God, so as to hold us, possessed between unbelief and pleasure, both in ignorance of God and in the delight of all vices. So when we are renewed by the bath of baptism through the power of the word, we are separated from the sins and authors of our origin; and, cut off by a kind of cutting of God’s sword, we are at odds with the affections of father and mother: and putting off the old man with his sins and unbelief, and renewed in soul and body by the Spirit, we must hate the habit of our inborn and old work. And since the body itself, mortified by faith, passes into the nature of the soul, which came from the breath of God (though it still exists in its own matter); since communion between them is brought about by the word: therefore it has now begun to will one and the same thing with the soul, that is, to become spiritual as the soul is; to which the freedom of the will, divided from its mother-in-law, that is, from unbelief, yields all its right: so that what was the freedom of the will is henceforth the power of the soul. And a grave dissension arises in one house, and the household will be enemies to the new man: because he, divided from them by the word of God, will rejoice to remain, both inner and outer man, that is, both body and soul, in the newness of the spirit; but those things which are inborn and drawn from a certain antiquity of lineage will desire to remain in the things in which they have delighted. And the origin of the flesh, the origin of the soul, and the freedom of power will be divided against two, namely the soul and body of the new man, which have begun to will one and the same thing: and the three, divided, will be subject to the two, who are stronger by the newness of the Spirit, under their dominion. And therefore those who have preferred the household loves of names to love of him will be unworthy of the inheritance of future goods. Then he continues in the same course of precepts and understanding. For after he had commanded that all that is dearest in the world be left behind, he added: “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me”: because those who are Christ’s have crucified the body with its vices and desires. And he is unworthy of Christ who has not followed the Lord taking up his cross, in which we suffer with him, die with him, are buried with him, and rise with him, so as to live in this mystery of faith in the newness of the spirit. “Whoever finds his soul will lose it; and whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it.” By the power of the word, that is, and the division of old vices, the gain of the soul will issue in death and the loss in salvation. So death must be taken up in newness of life, and vices must be nailed to the Lord’s cross; and against persecutors, by contempt of present things, the freedom of glorious confession must be kept, and the harmful gain of the soul shunned: knowing that no right over the soul is left to anyone, and that by the loss of a short life the interest of immortality is acquired. “Whoever receives you receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.” He spends the affection of his teaching and the diligence of his precepts on all. And having declared, through the apostles’ testimony of shaken-off dust, the danger of those who do not receive, he commends the merit of those who receive beyond the favor of the hoped-for service; and he teaches the office of mediator in himself: since he is received by us, and he has come forth from God, God has been poured through him into us. And so whoever receives the apostles receives Christ; and whoever receives Christ receives God the Father: because he receives nothing else in the apostles than what is in Christ, and nothing else is in Christ than what is in God; and through this order of graces, to have received the apostles is nothing else than to have received God; because Christ dwells in them, and God in Christ. He who receives a prophet receives the one who dwells in the prophet; and he becomes worthy of a prophet’s reward, receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet. An equal reward is reckoned for having received a righteous man, and he becomes righteous from honoring righteousness. And so righteousness is completed from faith, and the service acquires a reward, God granting many occasions of attaining eternity: since in receiving a righteous man and a prophet, the very disposition of reverence receives the honor both of the righteous man and of the prophet. “And whoever gives one of these least a cup of cold water to drink,” and the rest. He taught that the work of a good conscience is not empty, and that the hope of faith does not suffer from the crime of another’s unbelief. For, foreseeing that many would be glorious only in the name of apostleship but disreputable in the whole work of their life, and that they would long deceive and long lie, he nevertheless does not defraud the service offered to them under the belief that they are religious of the reward of its work and hope. For although they themselves were least, that is, the last of all sinners (and the least of all is that than which nothing is less), he still decrees that even light services toward them, which he signifies by the name of cold water, are not empty. For the honor was given not to the man’s sins but to the name of disciple. And so the shameful deeds of the deceiver do not harm the uprightness of the one who serves: since he obtains his reward by the faith of the giver, not by the lie of the receiver.