Blessed are you, says He, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven. Let any one who is seeking after the delights of this world and the riches of temporal things under the Christian name, consider that our blessedness is within; as it 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 outwardly revilings, and persecutions, and disparagements are promised; and yet, from these things there is a great reward in heaven, which is felt in the heart of those who endure, those who can now say, “We glory in tribulations: knowing that tribulation works patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope makes not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” For it is not simply the enduring of such things that is advantageous, but the bearing of such things for the name of Christ not only with tranquil mind, but even with exultation. For many heretics, deceiving souls under the Christian name, endure many such things; but they are excluded from that reward on this account, that it is not said merely, “Blessed are they which endure persecution”; but it is added, “for righteousness' sake.” Now, where there is no sound faith, there can be no righteousness, for “the just [righteous] man lives by faith.” Neither let schismatics promise themselves anything of that reward; for similarly, where there is no love, there cannot be righteousness, for “love works no ill to his neighbour”; and if they had it, they would not tear in pieces Christ's body, which is the Church.
But it may be asked, What is the difference when He says, when men shall revile you, and when they shall say all manner of evil against you, since to revile is just this, to say evil against? But it is one thing when the reviling word is hurled with contumely in presence of him who is reviled, as it was said to our Lord, “Say we not the truth that you are a Samaritan, and hast a devil?” and another thing, when our reputation is injured in our absence, as it is also written of Him, “Some said, He is a prophet; others said, Nay, but He deceives the people.” Then, further, to persecute is to inflict violence, or to assail with snares, as was done by him who betrayed Him, and by them who crucified Him. Certainly, as for the fact that this also is not put in a bare form, so that it should be said, and shall say all manner of evil against you, but there is added the word falsely, and also the expression for my sake; I think that the addition is made for the sake of those who wish to glory in persecutions, and in the baseness of their reputation; and to say that Christ belongs to them for this reason, that many bad things are said about them; while, on the one hand, the things said are true, when they are said respecting their error; and, on the other hand, if sometimes also some false charges are thrown out, which frequently happens from the rashness of men, yet they do not suffer such things for Christ's sake. For he is not a follower of Christ who is not called a Christian according to the true faith and the catholic discipline.
Rejoice, says He, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven. I do not think that it is the higher parts of this visible world that are here called heaven. For our reward, which ought to be immoveable and eternal, is not to be placed in things fleeting and temporal. But I think the expression in heaven means in the spiritual firmament, where dwells everlasting righteousness: in comparison with which a wicked soul is called earth, to which it is said when it sins, “Earth you are, and unto earth you shall return.” Of this heaven the apostle says, “For our conversation is in heaven.” Hence they who rejoice in spiritual good are conscious of that reward now; but then it will be perfected in every part, when this mortal also shall have put on immortality. For, says He, “so persecuted they the prophets also which were before you.” In the present case He has used persecution in a general sense, as applying alike to abusive words and to the tearing in pieces of one's reputation; and has well encouraged them by an example, because they who speak true things are wont to suffer persecution: nevertheless did not the ancient prophets on this account, through fear of persecution, give over the preaching of the truth.
Hence there follows most justly the statement, “You are the salt of the earth”; showing that those parties are to be judged insipid, who, either in the eager pursuit after abundance of earthly blessings, or through the dread of want, lose the eternal things which can neither be given nor taken away by men. But if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? i.e., If you, by means of whom the nations in a measure are to be preserved [from corruption], through the dread of temporal persecutions shall lose the kingdom of heaven, where will be the men through whom error may be removed from you, since God has chosen you, in order that through you He might remove the error of others? Hence the savourless salt is good for nothing, but to be cast out, and trodden under foot of men. It is not therefore he who suffers persecution, but he who is rendered savourless by the fear of persecution, that is trodden under foot of men. For it is only one who is undermost that can be trodden under foot; but he is not undermost, who, however many things he may suffer in his body on the earth, yet has his heart fixed in heaven.
“You are the light of the world.” In the same way as He said above, the salt of the earth, so now He says, the light of the world. For in the former case that earth is not to be understood which we tread with our bodily feet, but the men who dwell upon the earth, or even the sinners, for the preserving of whom and for the extinguishing of whose corruptions the Lord sent the apostolic salt. And here, by the world must be understood not the heavens and the earth, but the men who are in the world or love the world, for the enlightening of whom the apostles were sent. “A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid”, i.e. [a city] founded upon great and distinguished righteousness, which is also the meaning of the mountain itself on which our Lord is discoursing. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel measure. What view are we to take? That the expression under a bushel measure is so used that only the concealment of the candle is to be understood, as if He were saying, No one lights a candle and conceals it? Or does the bushel measure also mean something, so that to place a candle under a bushel is this, to place the comforts of the body higher than the preaching of the truth; so that one does not preach the truth so long as he is afraid of suffering any annoyance in corporeal and temporal things? And it is well said a bushel measure, whether on account of the recompense of measure, for each one receives the things done in his body — that “every one, says the apostle, may there receive the things done in his body”; and it is said in another place, as if of this bushel measure of the body, “For with what measure you measure, it shall be measured to you again”: — or because temporal good things, which are carried to completion in the body, are both begun and come to an end in a certain definite number of days, which is perhaps meant by the bushel measure; while eternal and spiritual things are confined within no such limit, for “God gives not the Spirit by measure.” Every one, therefore, who obscures and covers up the light of good doctrine by means of temporal comforts, places his candle under a bushel measure. But on a candlestick. Now it is placed on a candlestick by him who subordinates his body to the service of God, so that the preaching of the truth is the higher, and the serving of the body the lower; yet by means even of the service of the body the doctrine shines more conspicuously, inasmuch as it is insinuated into those who learn by means of bodily functions, i.e. by means of the voice and tongue, and the other movements of the body in good works. The apostle therefore puts his candle on a candlestick, when he says, “So fight I, not as one that beats the air; but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I preach to others, I myself should be found a castaway.” When He says, however, that it may give light to all who are in the house, I am of opinion that it is the abode of men which is called a house, i.e. the world itself, on account of what He says before, “You are the light of the world”; or if any one chooses to understand the house as being the Church, this, too, is not out of place.
“Let your light,” says He, “so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” If He had merely said, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, He would seem to have fixed an end in the praises of men, which hypocrites seek, and those who canvass for honours and covet glory of the emptiest kind. Against such parties it is said, “If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ”; and, by the prophet, “They who please men are put to shame, because God has despised them”; and again, “God has broken the bones of those who please men”; and again the apostle, “Let us not be desirous of vainglory”; and still another time, “But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.” Hence our Lord has not said merely, that they may see your good works, but has added, “and glorify your Father who is in heaven”: so that the mere fact that a man by means of good works pleases men, does not there set it up as an end that he should please men; but let him subordinate this to the praise of God, and for this reason please men, that God may be glorified in him. For this is expedient for them who offer praise, that they should honour, not man, but God; as our Lord showed in the case of the man who was carried, where, on the paralytic being healed, the multitude, marvelling at His powers, as it is written in the Gospel, feared and glorified God, which had given such power unto men. And His imitator, the Apostle Paul, says, “But they had heard only, that he which persecuted us in times past now preaches the faith which once he destroyed; and they glorified God in me.”
.jpg)
.jpg)
