Matthew 18:18–19:15

This then is what we have heard the Lord advising, and with such great particularity that he himself adds, "Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." So the very moment you begin to hold your brother as an outsider to the covenant community, "you bind him on earth." But see to it that you bind him justly. For unjust bonds will by justice soon be burst apart.… When you have admonished him and have been "reconciled to your brother," you have thereby "loosed him on earth." And when "you shall have loosed him on earth, he shall be loosed in heaven" also. So this is a weighty matter. You do this not for yourself but for him. For the harm he has done is not primarily to you but to himself.

(ubi sup.) Otherwise; When you begin to hold your brother as a publican you bind him on earth, but take heed that you bind him with just cause; for an unjust cause breaks rightful bonds. But when you have corrected him, and agreed with him, you have loosed him upon earth, and when you have loosed him upon earth, he shall be loosed also in heaven. You confer a great boon not on yourself, but on him, as he had done the hurt not to you but to himself.

That same thing which is said to Peter in Matthew 16, I will give to you the keys, and whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, etc., is also said to the other Apostles in Matthew 18: Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, etc. Yet it was said far differently to them and to Peter. For to Peter it was said separately and singularly, because in him the fullness of power was to be placed principally and singularly: but to the others it was said collectively; Whatsoever you shall bind, etc., because they were called "into a share of the solicitude." Whence although they had a similar power, they did not however have an equal one: and therefore that word had to be said to the Apostles and to Peter; not however at the same time nor under the same context, but in one way and another.

To hold out a great and terrible fear, by which all men should be reached in this present life, He pronounces that the judgment of the Apostles should be ratified, so that whosoever they bound on earth, i. e. left entangled in the noose of sin, and whosoever they loosed, i. e. accorded the pardon of God's mercy to their salvation, that these should be bound and loosed in heaven.

(Verse 18.) Truly I tell you: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. For it was said: If, however, he does not listen to the Church, let him be to you like a Gentile and a tax collector, and it could be a hidden response of contempt for a brother, or a silent thought, if you despise me, I despise you, if you condemn me, you will be condemned by my judgment: he gives the power to the apostles, so that they may know that those who are condemned by such are confirmed by human judgment, and whatever is bound on earth is bound equally in heaven.

Because He had said, If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen, and a publican, whereupon the brother so contemned might answer, or think within himself, If you despise me, I also will despise you; if you condemn me, you shall be condemned by my sentence. He therefore confers powers upon the Apostles, that they may be assured that when any are condemned after this manner, the sentence of man is ratified by the sentence of God. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose upon the earth shall be loosed in heaven.

But why did He set him with these? To soothe the person wronged, and to alarm him. Is this only then the punishment? Nay, but hear also what follows. "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven." And He did not say to the ruler of the church, "Bind such a man," but, "If thou bind," committing the whole matter to the person himself, who is aggrieved, and the bonds abide indissoluble. Therefore he will suffer the utmost ills; but not he who hath brought him to account is to blame, but he who hath not been willing to be persuaded.

Seest thou how He hath bound him down with twofold constraint, both by the vengeance here, and by the punishment hereafter? But these things hath He threatened, that these circumstances may not arise, but that fearing, at once the being cast out of the church, and the danger from the bond, and the being bound in Heaven, he may become more gentle. And knowing these things, if not at the beginning, at any rate in the multitude of the tribunals he will put off his anger. Wherefore, I tell you, He hath set over him a first, and a second, and a third court, so that though he should neglect to hear the first, he may yield to the second; and even if he should reject that, he may fear the third; and though he should make no account of this, he may be dismayed at the vengeance to come, and at the sentence and judgment to proceed from God.

After stating that the one judged is viewed as a heathen and tax collector, something else is added which is well put: "Truly, I say to you"—clearly to those judging someone to be as a heathen and tax collector—"whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." For he who has three times admonished him and not been heard has justly bound him, and that man is then to be thought judged as a heathen and tax collector. Therefore when a man like this has been bound and condemned by someone, he remains bound insofar as none of those in heaven rescinds the judgment of the man by whom he was bound. So too the man who has once been warned and does things worthy of being won back is released through the warning of the one who wins him back. He is no longer bound by the bonds of his sins for which he was warned and bound; he will be judged by those in heaven as set free.

Well introduced were the words "whatever you loose," since he shows that if they loose those who repent, their action has power, since the church in heaven and on earth is one. Anyone who does not want to be loosed from the bond of his sin but draws it to himself by the alienation of the saints is alienated also from the church in heaven and accordingly is also bound by it. Hence, if one is earnest about being loosed and receives the loosing of the saints when they "ratify their love for him," as Paul teaches, he will belong in the heavenly church and be loosed from the bondage of the judgment.

Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. If you, He says, who have been wronged deem the wrongdoer a publican and a Gentile, he shall be so in heaven as well. And if you loose, that is, forgive him, he shall be forgiven in heaven as well. For it is not only what the priests loose that is loosed, but also whatever we who have been wronged bind or loose, those things too shall be either bound or loosed.

Amen I say to you, etc. Here the efficacy of this sentence is set forth. For someone might say: what do I care if it is told to the Church and I am excommunicated? Therefore he shows this efficacy: amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven. Above, these things were said to Peter; but here they are said to the whole Church. And one is said to bind either because one does not loose, or because one excommunicates. Origen says that here he says in heaven in the singular, but when he spoke to Peter, he said in the heavens, to designate that Peter has universal power. But here he says in heaven, because their power is not universal, but in a certain place, because to Peter he gave universal power.

How important a place the unanimity and harmony of brothers hold with God! We can know from this very fact that the Lord has clearly said that when two or three pray in unanimity, the Father grants everything from heaven. For with God nothing is more pleasing than brotherly peace, nothing better than unanimity and harmony, according to what is written: "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. And again: "There is great peace among those who love your name, and there is no stumbling block for them." And in another place: "The God who makes us live in harmony in the house." So Isaiah also testified: "Lord," he said, "our God, give us peace. For you have given us everything." That this harmony of brothers is pleasing to God, the Holy Spirit declared through Solomon, saying, "There are three things which are pleasing to God and men: harmony of brothers, love of one's neighbors and the union of man and woman." So quite rightly the Lord in this passage testifies that when two or three come together on earth, whatever they ask for, all is granted by the Father.

(ap. Anselm.) But He holds out a ratification not only of sentences of excommunication, but of every petition which is offered by men holding together in the unity of the Church; for He adds, Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree upon earth, whether in admitting a penitent, or casting out a forward person, touching any thing which they shall ask, any thing, that is, that is not against the unity of the Church, it shall be done for them by my Father which is in heaven. By saying, which is in heaven, He points Him out as above all, and therefore able to fulfil all that shall be asked of Him. Or, He is in the heavens, that is, with saints, proof enough that whatever worthy thing they shall ask shall be done unto them, because they have with them Him of whom they ask. For this cause is the sentence of those that agree together ratified, because God dwells in them, For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

(Verse 19, 20.) Again I say to you: if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. The above discourse has encouraged us towards harmony. Therefore, it promises a reward so that we may hasten eagerly towards peace, as it says that it will be present among two or three. Similar to the example of a tyrant, who wanted to prove that he had captured two friends (when one returned to see his mother and gave his friend as a surety for himself), so he wanted to test one, and release the other. And when he returned on the appointed day, marveling at the faith of both, he asked that they have a third. We can also understand this spiritually, that where the spirit and soul and body agree and do not have war between themselves of different desires (or pleasures); with the flesh desiring against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, they obtain from the Father whatever they seek about any thing. And there is no doubt that the request of good things is certain, where the body wants to have those things which the spirit wants.

(vid. Origen. in loc.) We may also understand this spiritually; where our spirit, soul, and body are in agreement, and have not within them conflicting wills, they shall obtain from My Father every thing they shall ask; for none can doubt that that demand is good, where the body wills the same thing as the spirit.

"And again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

Seest thou how by another motive also He puts down our enmities, and takes away our petty dissensions, and draws us one to another, and this not from the punishment only which hath been mentioned, but also from the good things which spring from charity? For having denounced those threats against contentiousness, He putteth here the great rewards of concord, if at least they who are of one accord do even prevail with the Father, as touching the things they ask, and have Christ in the midst of them.

"Are there then indeed nowhere two of one accord?" Nay, in many places, perchance even everywhere. "How then do they not obtain all things?" Because many are causes of their failing. For either they often ask things inexpedient. And why marvellest thou, if this is the case with some others, whereas it was so even with Paul, when he heard, "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is perfected in weakness." Or they are unworthy to be reckoned with them that heard these words, and contribute not their own part, but He seeks for such as are like them; therefore He saith "of you," of the virtuous, of them that show forth an angelic rule of life. Or they pray against them that have aggrieved them, seeking for redress and vengeance; and this kind of thing is forbidden, for, "Pray," saith He, "for your enemies." Or having sins unrepented they ask mercy, which thing it is impossible to receive, not only if themselves ask it, but although others having much confidence towards God entreat for them, like as even Jeremiah praying for the Jews did hear, "Pray not thou for this people, because I will not hear thee."

But if all things are there, and thou ask things expedient, and contribute all thine own part, and exhibit an apostolical life, and have concord and love towards thy neighbor, thou wilt obtain on thy entreaty; for the Lord is loving towards man.

Then because He had said, "Of my Father," in order that He might show that it is Himself that giveth, and not He who begat Him only, He added, "For wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

What then? are there not two or three gathered together in His name? There are indeed, but rarely. For not merely of the assembling doth He speak, neither this doth He require only; but most surely, as I said before also, the rest of virtue too together with this, and besides, even this itself He requires with great strictness. For what He saith is like this, "If any holds me the principal ground of his love to his neighbors, I will be with Him, if he be a virtuous man in other respects."

But now we see the more part having other motives of friendship. For one loves, because he is loved, another because he hath been honored, a third because such a one has been useful to him in some other worldly matter, a fourth for some other like cause; but for Christ's sake it is a difficult thing to find any one loving his neighbor sincerely, and as he ought to love him. For the more part are bound one to another by their worldly affairs. But Paul did not love thus, but for Christ's sake; wherefore even when not loved in such wise as he loved, he did not cease his love, because he had planted a strong root of his affection; but not so our present state, but on inquiry we shall find with most men anything likely to produce friendship rather than this. And if any one bestowed on me power in so great a multitude to make this inquiry, I would show the more part bound one to another by worldly motives.

Concord occurs in two kinds: first, in agreement of thought, when two minds think the same ideas (as the apostle called it) and have the same thoughts. Second, in agreement of will, in living similar lives. But since "If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by Jesus' Father in heaven," if something is asked of the Father in heaven and is not granted, it is clear that the two here on earth are not in harmony. The reason why we do not achieve our desires and prayers is our own fault: we do not agree either in our thoughts or in our way of life. Besides, if we are the body of Christ and "God arranged the members in the body, each one of them … so that the members may have the care for one another, and if one member suffers all suffer together; if one member is honored all rejoice together," then we must practice the harmony that comes from God's music, so that when we are gathered in Christ's name, Christ may be in our midst, who is God's word and wisdom and power.

And this also is the reason why our prayers are not granted, because we do not agree together in all things upon earth, neither in doctrine, nor in conversation. For as in music, unless the voices are in time there is no pleasure to the hearer, so in the Church, unless they are united God is not pleased therein, nor does He hear their words.

Or, In whatever the two testaments are in agreement, for this every prayer is found acceptable to God.

Again verily I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father Who is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them. By these words He draws us together in love. After forbidding us to give offence to each other, either to harm and to be harmed, now He speaks of mutual agreement and harmony. Those who agree are those who collaborate, not in evil, but in good. Mark what He said: "if two of you," that is, of believers who are virtuous. For Annas and Caiaphas also agreed, but in a manner deserving blame. This is why we often pray but do not receive, because we do not agree among each other. He did not say, "I will be there," for He does not merely intend to be there at some future time, nor does He delay, but rather He said, "there am I," that is, I am present at once. You may also understand that when the flesh and the spirit agree, and the flesh does not desire something in opposition to the spirit, then is the Lord there in the midst. And so also do the three faculties of the soul - the abilities to reason, to be stirred to action, and to desire - all agree. But the Old and the New agree as well and Christ is in their midst, proclaimed by both.

Again I say to you, etc. Here he sets forth the efficacy of prayer. And first he does this; secondly, he gives the reason, at for where there are two, etc. He says again I say to you, etc. But against this you can object, because we ask for many things that we do not obtain. This happens first because of the unworthiness of those asking; hence he says two of you, namely, who live according to the Gospel. James 4:3: you ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss. Likewise, because they do not agree, because they do not have the bond of peace: for it is impossible that the prayers of many not be heard, if from many prayers there is made as it were one; 2 Cor 1:11: that from many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf for the gift granted to us. Likewise, because some ask for things that are not expedient for their salvation: for the petition should be for something useful; below, 20:22: you know not what you ask.

But who are the two or three gathered in the name of Christ in whose midst the Lord is? Does he not by the "three" mean husband, wife, and child? For a wife is bound to her husband by God. If, however, a man wishes to be undistracted, and prefers to avoid begetting children because of the business it involves, "let him remain unmarried," says the apostle, "even as I am." They explain that what the Lord meant was this. By the plurality he means the Creator, the God who is the cause of the world's existence; and by the one, the elect, he meant the Saviour who is Son of another God, the good God. But this is not correct. Through his Son, God is with those who are soberly married and have children. By the same mediation the same God is also with the man who exercises continence on rational grounds.

Christ gives to those who are allotted the duty of teaching the power to loose and to bind. So when those who have once fallen do not convert to the pursuit of virtue, they must fear the voices of the saints, even if they are not many who make the petition to bind or loose. For Christ has assured us of this, saying that there will be strength in the prayers of many, but that even if only two in number harmoniously and deliberately define their requests, they will come to their goal. "For I will be with you," he says, "and will support you if only two are gathered, because of me." For it is not the number of those gathered but the strength of their piety and their love of God that is effective.

"If thy brother sin against thee in word, and make amends to thee, receive him seven times in a day." Simon, His disciple, said to Him, "Seven times in a day?" The Lord answered and said to him, "I say unto thee until seventy times seven."

For He who is peace and charity, will set His place and habitation in good and peaceable dispositions.

Or otherwise; All His foregoing discourse had invited us to union; now to make us embrace peace more anxiously, He holds out a reward, promising to be in the midst of two or three.

And He said not, I will be, but I am in the midst of them; because straightway, as soon as they have agreed together, Christ is found among them.

There are those who presume that the congregation of the church can be disregarded. They assert that private prayers should be preferred to those of an honorable assembly. But if Jesus denies nothing to so small a group as two or three, will he refuse those who ask for it in the assemblies and congregation of the church? This is what the prophet believed and what he exults over having obtained when he states, "I will confess to you, O Lord, with my whole heart, in the council and congregation of the righteous." A man "confesses with his whole heart" when in the council of the saints he hears that everything which he has asked will be granted him.Some, however, endeavor to excuse under an appearance of faith the idleness that prompts their contempt for assemblies. They omit participation in the fervor of the assembled congregation and pretend that they have devoted to prayer the time they have expended upon their household cares. While they give themselves up to their own desires, they scorn and despise the divine service. These are the people who destroy the body of Christ. They scatter its members. They do not permit the full form of its Christ-like appearance to develop to its abundant beauty—that form which the prophet saw and then sang about: "You are beautiful in form above the sons of men." Individual members do indeed have their own duty of personal prayer, but they will not be able to fulfill it if they come to the beauty of that perfect body wrapped up in themselves. There is this difference between the glorious fullness of the congregation and the vanity of separation that springs out of ignorance or negligence: in salvation and honor the beauty of the whole body is found in the unity of the members. But from the separation of the viscera there is a foul, fatal and fearful aroma.

In a company of two is the church; but the church is Christ.

For if "in the mouth of three witnesses every word shall stand: " -while, through the benediction, we have the same (three) as witnesses of our faith whom we have as sureties of our salvation too-how much more does the number of the divine names suffice for the assurance of our hope likewise! Moreover, after the pledging both of the attestation of faith and the promise of salvation under "three witnesses," there is added, of necessity, mention of the Church; inasmuch as, wherever there are three, (that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, ) there is the Church, which is a body of three.

Where two (are), there withal (is) He Himself. Where He (is), there the Evil One is not.

(The Spirit) combines that Church which the Lord has made to consist in "three." And thus, from that time forward, every number (of persons) who may have combined together into this faith is accounted "a Church," from the Author and Consecrator (of the Church).

It shall be done to them by my Father, who is in heaven, i.e., in the heights: or in heaven, i.e., in us. For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them; a gathering of saints, not of worldly people. Ps 110:1: in the counsel of the just and in the congregation, great are the works of the Lord. Where then two or three. Charity is not in one alone, but among several; hence 1 John 4:16: he who abides in charity, abides in God, and God in him. Therefore I am in the midst of them.

What then does "seventy times seven" mean? Listen, my friends, to this great mystery, this wonderful gift. When the Lord was baptized, Luke the holy Evangelist there noted down his ancestry, in what order, series and stems that generation had been reached in which Christ was born. Matthew began from Abraham and came as far as Joseph in descending generations. But Luke began to count by going back up in ascending order. Why does the one reckon in a descending and the other in an ascending order? Because Matthew set forth the generations of Christ by which he came down to us, and so he began to reckon when Christ was born from a descending order. Luke begins to reckon in reverse from when Christ was baptized. In this is the beginning of an ascension, for he begins to reckon in an ascending order. Note that in his account he enumerates seventy-seven generations! With whom did he begin his reckoning? Note carefully! He began to reckon from Christ up to Adam himself, who was the first sinner and who parented us into bondage to sin. Luke reckoned up to Adam, and so there are enumerated in toto seventy-seven generations—from Christ up to Adam and from Adam up to Christ. Note seventy-seven! So then if no generation was omitted, there is no exemption of any trespass that ought not to be forgiven. For therefore did he reckon up his seventy-seven generations, which number the Lord mentioned as to the forgiveness of sins; since he begins to reckon from the baptism, where all sins are remitted.

(Serm. 83. 3.) I am bold to say, that if he shall sin seventy-eight times, thou shouldest forgive him; yea, and if a hundred; and how oft soever he sin against thee, forgive him. For if Christ found a thousand sins, yet forgave them all, do not you withdraw your forgiveness. For the Apostle says, Forgiving one another, if any man hath a quarrel against any, even as God in Christ forgave you. (Col. 3:13.)

(ubi sup.) Yet not without reason did the Lord say, Seventy times seven; for the Law is set forth in ten precepts; and the Law is signified by the number ten, sin by eleven, because it is passing the denary line. Seven is used to be put for a whole, because time goes round in seven days. Take eleven seven times, and you have seventy. He would therefore have all trespasses forgiven, for this is what He signifies by the number seventy-seven.

Take another case: the complicated question of charity, which some highly uncharitable idealists seem to think quite easy. Charity is a paradox, like modesty and courage. Stated baldly, charity certainly means one of two things--pardoning unpardonable acts, or loving unlovable people. But if we ask ourselves (as we did in the case of pride) what a sensible pagan would feel about such a subject, we shall probably be beginning at the bottom of it. A sensible pagan would say that there were some people one could forgive, and some one couldn't: a slave who stole wine could be laughed at; a slave who betrayed his benefactor could be killed, and cursed even after he was killed. In so far as the act was pardonable, the man was pardonable. That again is rational, and even refreshing; but it is a dilution. It leaves no place for a pure horror of injustice, such as that which is a great beauty in the innocent. And it leaves no place for a mere tenderness for men as men, such as is the whole fascination of the charitable. Christianity came in here as before. It came in startlingly with a sword, and clove one thing from another. It divided the crime from the criminal. The criminal we must forgive unto seventy times seven. The crime we must not forgive at all. It was not enough that slaves who stole wine inspired partly anger and partly kindness. We must be much more angry with theft than before, and yet much kinder to thieves than before. There was room for wrath and love to run wild. And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

Who, moreover, was able to forgive sins? This is His alone prerogative: for "who remitteth sins but God alone? " and, of course, (who but He can remit) mortal sins, such as have been committed against Himself, and against His temple? For, as far as you are concerned, such as are chargeable with offence against you personally, you are commanded, in the person of Peter, to forgive even seventy times sevenfold. And so, if it were agreed that even the blessed apostles had granted any such indulgence (to any crime) the pardon of which (comes) from God, not from man, it would be competent (for them) to have done so, not in the exercise of discipline, but of power.

Jesus said to him: I say not to you, seven times, but seventy times seven times. In one way this can be taken aggregately, so that the sense is: not seven times, but seventy times. Or it can be taken multiplicatively, so that seven multiplied by seventy: and thus Jerome explains it. According to the first exposition, which is Augustine's, it is given to understand that we should forgive everything, just as Christ forgave all things. Col 3:13: forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against another, even as the Lord has forgiven you, so do you also. Or it can be said that a finite number is used for an infinite one, as in the Psalms: the word which he commanded to a thousand generations. According to Jerome, the same is the meaning; yet the reason for the number is added. For by six, perfection is signified; by one hundred, which is multiplied by ten, the Decalogue is signified. The first number that departs from ten is eleven. And because by six the universality is signified, therefore the universality of sins is signified; as if to say: whatever your brother has sinned against you, forgive him. Hence according to Jerome, he seems to wish to say that one can forgive more than the other can offend.

(Verse 23.) Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is likened to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. It is customary for the Syrians and especially the Palestinians to connect all their speech with parables, so that what cannot be understood by the listeners through a simple commandment may be understood through similarity and examples. Therefore, he instructed Peter using the comparison of a king and master, and servants. The servant, who owed ten thousand talents, begged the master for forgiveness and obtained it; so he also should forgive his fellow servants for their lesser sins. That king and lord forgave the servant debtors ten thousand talents as easily as he did. How much more should servants forgive their fellow servants lesser debts? To make it more clear, let's say it with an example: If one of us commits adultery, murder, sacrilege, greater crimes worth ten thousand talents, they are forgiven when asked, so should we forgive lesser sins of others. But if we, because of an insult, remain unforgiving and perpetuate discord because of a bitter word, don't we seem to be rightly sent to prison? And using our own work as an example, shouldn't we act in such a way that we don't receive forgiveness for greater offenses?

For it is customary with the Syrians, especially they of Palestine, to add a parable to what they speak; that what their hearers might not retain simply, and in itself, the instance and similitude may be the means of retaining.

Wherefore also He went on to say, "The Kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, he commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and his children, and all that he had."

Then after this man had enjoyed the benefit of mercy, he went out, and "took by the throat his fellow-servant, which owed him an hundred pence;" and having by these doings moved his lord, he caused him to cast him again into prison, until he should pay off the whole.

Seest thou how great the difference between sins against man and against God? As great as between ten thousand talents, and a hundred pence, or rather even much more. And this arises both from the difference of the persons, and the constant succession of our sins. For when a man looks at us, we stand off and shrink from sinning: but when God sees us every day, we do not forbear, but do and speak all things without fear.

But not hereby alone, but also from the benefit and from the honor of which we have partaken, our sins become more grievous.

"For there was brought unto Him," it saith, "one which owed ten thousand talents, and when he had not to pay, He commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and his children." Wherefore, I pray thee? Not of cruelty, nor of inhumanity (for the loss came back again upon himself, for she too was a slave), but of unspeakable tenderness.

For it is His purpose to alarm him by this threat, that He might bring him to supplication, not that he should be sold. For if He had done it for this intent, He would not have consented to his request, neither would He have granted the favor.

Wherefore then did He not do this, nor forgive the debt before the account? Desiring to teach him, from how many obligations He is delivering him, that in this way at least he might become more mild towards his fellow servant. For even if when he had learnt the weight of his debt, and the greatness of the forgiveness, he continued taking his fellow-servant by the throat; if He had not disciplined him beforehand with such medicines, to what length of cruelty might he not have gone?

What then saith the other? "Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And his Lord was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt."

Seest thou again surpassing benevolence? The servant asked only for delay and putting off the time, but He gave more than he asked, remission and forgiveness of the entire debt. For it had been his will to give it even from the first, but he did not desire the gift to be his only, but also to come of this man's entreaty, that he might not go away uncrowned. For that the whole was of him, although this other fell down to him and prayed, the motive of the forgiveness showed, for "moved with compassion" he forgave him. But still even so he willed that other also to seem to contribute something, that he might not be exceedingly covered with shame, and that he being schooled in his own calamities, might be indulgent to his fellow-servant.

Up to this point then this man was good and acceptable; for he confessed, and promised to pay the debt, and fell down before him, and entreated, and condemned his own sins, and knew the greatness of the debt. But the sequel is unworthy of his former deeds. For going out straightway, not after a long time but straightway, having the benefit fresh upon him, he abused to wickedness the gift, even the freedom bestowed on him by his master.

For, "he found one of his fellow-servants, which owed him an hundred pence, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me what thou owest."

Seest thou the master's benevolence? Seest thou the servant's cruelty? Hear, ye who do these things for money. For if for sins we must not do so, much more not for money.

What then saith the other? "Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all." But he did not regard even the words by which he had been saved (for he himself on saying this was delivered from the ten thousand talents), and did not recognize so much as the harbor by which he escaped shipwreck; the gesture of supplication did not remind him of his master's kindness, but he put away from him all these things, from covetousness and cruelty and revenge, and was more fierce than any wild beast, seizing his fellow-servant by the throat.

What doest thou, O man? perceivest thou not, thou art making the demand upon thyself, thou art thrusting the sword into thyself, and revoking the sentence and the gift? But none of these things did he consider, neither did he remember his own state, neither did he yield; although the entreaty was not for equal objects.

For the one besought for ten thousand talents, the other for a hundred pence; the one his fellow-servant, the other his lord; the one received entire forgiveness, the other asked for delay, and not so much as this did he give him, for "he cast him into prison."

"But when his fellow-servants saw it, they accused him to their lord." Not even to men is this well-pleasing, much less to God. They therefore who did not owe, partook of the grief.

What then saith their lord? "O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me; shouldest not thou also have had compassion, even as I had pity on thee?"

See again the lord's gentleness. He pleads with him, and excuses himself, being on the point of revoking his gift; or rather, it was not he that revoked it, but the one who had received it. Wherefore He saith, "I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me; shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant?" For even if the thing doth seem to thee hard; yet shouldest thou have looked to the gain, which hath been, which is to be. Even if the injunction be galling, thou oughtest to consider the reward; neither that he hath grieved thee, but that thou hast provoked God, whom by mere prayer thou hast reconciled. But if even so it be a galling thing to thee to become friends with him who hath grieved thee, to fall into hell is far more grievous; and if thou hadst set this against that, then thou wouldest have known that to forgive is a much lighter thing.

And whereas, when he owed ten thousand talents, he called him not wicked, neither reproached him, but showed mercy on him; when he had become harsh to his fellow-servant, then he saith, "O thou wicked servant."

Let us hearken, the covetous, for even to us is the word spoken. Let us hearken also, the merciless, and the cruel, for not to others are we cruel, but to ourselves. When then thou art minded to be revengeful, consider that against thyself art thou revengeful, not against another; that thou art binding up thine own sins, not thy neighbors. For as to thee, whatsoever thou mayest do to this man, thou doest as a man and in the present life, but God not so, but more mightily will He take vengeance on thee, and with the vengeance hereafter.

"For He delivered him over till he should pay that which was due," that is, for ever; for he will never repay. For since thou art not become better by the kindness shown thee, it remains that by vengeance thou be corrected.

And yet, "The graces and the gifts are without repentance," but wickedness has had such power as to set aside even this law. What then can be a more grievous thing than to be revengeful, when it appears to overthrow such and so great a gift of God.

And he did not merely "deliver" him, but "was wroth." For when he commanded him to be sold, his were not the words of wrath (therefore neither did he do it), but a very great occasion for benevolence; but now the sentence is of much indignation, and vengeance, and punishment.

The servants in this case are the dispensers of the word. When he demands an account of the servants, the king also asks those who have borrowed from the servants, whether a hundred measures of grain or a hundred jars of oil or whatever those outside the king's stewardship have received. For the fellow servant of the unjust steward, according to the parable, will not be found to be the one who owes a hundred measures of grain or a hundred jars of oil, as is clear from the words "How much do you owe my master?" Consider that each good and fitting deed is like a profit and a gain, but each bad one is like a loss. And just as one gain can be a gain of more money and another of less and there is a difference between the more and the less, so in the case of good deeds there is a kind of valuing of greater or lesser gains.

The Son of God, as He is wisdom, righteousness, and truth (vid. 1 Cor. 1:30.), so is He a kingdom; not indeed any of those which are beneath, but all those which are above, reigning over those in whose senses reigns justice and the other virtues; these are made of heaven because they bear the image of the heavenly. This kingdom of heaven then, i. e. the Son of God, when He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, was then like to a king, in uniting man to himself.

The servants, in these parables, are only they who are employed in dispensing the word, and to whom this business is committed.

It is one thing to give pardon to a brother when he seeks it, that he may live with us in social charity, as Joseph to his brethren; and another to a hostile foe, that we may wish him good, and if we can do him good, as David mourning for Saul.

Allegorically; The servant here who owed the ten thousand talents, is the Jewish people bound to the Ten Commandments in the Law. These the Lord oft forgave their trespasses, when being in difficulties they besought His mercy; but when they were set free, they exacted the utmost with great severity from all their debtors; and of the gentile people which they hated, they required circumcision and the ceremonies of the Law; yea, the Prophets and Apostles they barbarously put to death. For all this the Lord gave them over into the hands of the Romans as to evil spirits, who should punish them with eternal tortures.

Or, by the kingdom of heaven is reasonably understood the holy Church, in which the Lord works what He speaks of in this parable. By the man is sometimes represented the Father, as in that, The kingdom of heaven is like to a king, who made a marriage for his son; and sometimes the Son; but here we may take it for both, the Father and the Son, who are one God. God is called a King, inasmuch as He created and governs all things.

Or, by the servants of this King are signified all mankind whom He has created for His own praise, and to whom He gave the law of nature; He takes account with them, when He would look into each man's manners, life, and deeds, that He may render to each according to that He has done; as it follows, And when He had begun to reckon, one was brought unto Him which owed Him ten, thousand talents.

Therefore is the kingdom of the heavens likened unto a man who was a king, who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. The gist of the parable teaches us to forgive our fellow servants who have sinned against us, especially if they fall down before us begging forgiveness. To interpret the parable in its particulars should be done only by one who has the mind of Christ. Nevertheless, we shall attempt it. The kingdom is the Word of God, but it is not a kingdom of small extent, but of the heavens. The Word is likened to a man who was a king, that is, He Who became incarnate for our sake and appeared in the likeness of men, and He settles accounts with His servants as a Good Judge. He does not punish without first judging: that would be cruel.

Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened, etc. Here the similitude is set forth, and he does three things. First, the divine mercy is indicated; secondly, the ingratitude is touched upon, at but when that servant had gone out, etc.; thirdly, the punishment of the ingratitude, at and his fellow servants seeing, etc. Regarding the first: first, the examination of the debtors is set forth; secondly, the magnitude of the debt, at and when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents; thirdly, the justice of exacting payment, at and as he had not wherewith to pay it, etc.; fourthly, the remission of the debt, at and the lord of that servant being moved with pity, etc. He says therefore: because you should always be ready to forgive, therefore you should understand this similitude: the kingdom of heaven is the law of the kingdom: the Word of God himself is justice and truth; 1 Cor 1:30: who is made unto us wisdom, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption. This therefore is likened to a man who is a king, when the Word was made flesh. Or by the kingdom is designated the present Church, as above, 13:41: they shall gather out of his kingdom all scandals. And rightly is it called a kingdom, if we consider all the things that are in a kingdom. In a kingdom there is a king, servants, and the like. To a man who is a king. This king is God, whether it be understood of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit. Who would take an account with his servants. By the servants of the Lord are understood prelates of the Church, to whom the care of souls has been committed. Luke 12:42: the faithful and wise steward, whom his lord sets over his family. What then is it to settle accounts on matters committed, except that they bind themselves to render an account? Heb 13:17: they watch as having to render an account for your souls. Since also to each person his own soul has been committed, therefore everyone can be called a servant; hence Job 1:8: have you considered my servant Job? etc. Hence each one has been placed so as to render an account of all things: for even of every idle word it will be necessary to render an account, as above, 12:36.

(Serm. 83, 6.) Therefore let us say, that because the Law is set forth in ten precepts, the ten thousand talents which he owed denote all sins which can be done under the Law.

(Quæst. Ev. i. 25.) This signifies that the transgressor of the decalogue deserves punishment for his lusts and evil deeds; and that is his price; for the price for which they sell is the punishment of him that is damned.

(Verse 24 onwards) And when he began to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed ten thousand talents. But since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, 'Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything.' And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, 'Pay what you owe.' And his fellow servant falling down, besought him, saying: Have patience with me, and I will render thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him; and said to him: Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me. Therefore, should you not also have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you? And his master, being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he should pay back all the debt. I know certain individuals who owed ten thousand talents, interpreting the devil, whose wife and children they wanted to sell while he persisted in wickedness, to represent foolishness and evil thoughts. For just as the wife of the righteous is said to be wisdom, so the wife of the unjust and sinner is called foolishness. But how will the master forgive him ten thousand talents; and he did not forgive us, his servants, one hundred denarii, neither is it of Ecclesiastical interpretation, nor should it be accepted by prudent men.

I know that some interpret the man who owed the ten thousand talents to be the devil, and by his wife and children who were to be sold when he persevered in his wickedness, understand foolishness, and hurtful thoughts. For as wisdom is called the wife of the righteous man, so the wife of the unrighteous and the sinner is called foolishness. But how the Lord remits to the devil ten thousand talents, and how he would not remit ten denarii to us his fellow-servants, of this there is no ecclesiastical interpretation, nor is it to be admitted by thoughtful men.

The moment of beginning the reckoning starts with the household of God, as is it written in Ezekiel: "Begin at my sanctuary." This judgment begins as quickly as the twinkling of an eye. In thinking of the demanding of accounts, let us not forget what we have said before, that these accounts are spiritually conceived. And the moment of demand begins understandably with those who owe the most. This is why the passage does not begin generally with a reckoning of all accounts but a specific one: one was brought to him. Here is the moment. He is beginning to demand an account of one who owed him ten thousand talents! It is as if the servant had lost a vast amount and much had been loaned and entrusted to him but had brought no gain to his master. Rather, he ended up losing a vast sum so as to owe him an incredible debt of talents. Remembering the prophet Zechariah, it may be that he owed so many talents for this reason: he had often sought out the woman hidden in a barrel with a lead cover, whose name is Iniquity.

The King takes account of our, whole life then, when we must all be presented before the judgment-seat of Christ. (2 Cor. 5:10.) We mean not this so as that any should think that the business itself must needs require a long time. For God, when He will scrutinize the minds of all, will by some undescribable power cause every thing that every man has done to pass speedily before the mind of each. He says, And when he began to take account, because the beginning of the judgment is that it begin from the house of God. (1 Pet. 4:17.) At His beginning to take account there is brought unto Him one who owes Him many talents; one, that is, who had wrought great evils; one on whom much had been enjoined, and had yet brought no gain; who perhaps had destroyed as many men as he owed talents; one who was therefore become a debtor of many talents, because he had followed the woman sitting upon a talent of lead, whose name is Iniquity. (Zech. 5:7.)

And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, who owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. It is we ourselves who owe ten thousand talents, receiving benefaction every day yet giving back nothing good to God in return. He who owes ten thousand talents is also that ruler who has received from God the protection and allegiance of many men, each man being like a talent, and then does not employ his sovereignty well. Selling the debtor along with his wife and children indicates alienation from God, for the one who is sold goes to another master. And is the wife not the flesh, being the mate of the soul, and the children, the evil deeds done by the soul and the body? He commands the flesh to be given to Satan for ravaging, that is, to be given over to illnesses or to the torment of the demons, but the children, that is to say, the doing of evil deeds, are given over to torture on the rack, as, for example, when God withers the hand that has stolen, or constricts it by means of a demon. See how the woman, which is the flesh, and the children, which is the doing of evil, have been given over to affliction so that the spirit might be saved, as in the case of that man who can no longer steal because his hand is crippled.

And when he had begun to take the account. The end of this accounting will be on the day of judgment; the beginning, when he first brings about some tribulation. 1 Pet 4:19: wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God, commend their souls in good deeds to the faithful Creator. Ezek 9:6: begin at my sanctuary. Likewise, a diligent examination of merits is touched upon. Lam 3:40: let us search our ways, by which is understood the examination of consciences. And in this examination one was brought to him who owed ten thousand talents. If we refer these talents to prelates, we understand the sins of their subjects: because as often as a subject sins through his negligence, he becomes a debtor of talents. Hence it is said in 3 Kings 20:39: your life shall be for his life. Or it can be said that a thousand is a perfect number, because it is a cube. Likewise, by ten is understood the number of the Decalogue. Likewise, by the talent is understood the weight of sin. Zech 5:7: and behold a talent of lead was carried, etc. Hence is signified a man having a multitude of the greatest crimes; hence when God wishes to settle accounts and examine his conscience, he finds a mass of crimes. 1 Chron 21:8: I have sinned exceedingly.

The sale of his wife and the rest of his family shows the complete and utter separation from the joys of God. For the sale shows quite clearly alienation from God. Those alienated from God are those who hear those bitter, fearful words, "Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, for I do not know you."

Man who sinned of his own will and choice, has no power to rise again by his own endeavour, and has not wherewith to pay, because he finds nothing in himself by which he may loose himself from his sins; whence it follows, And when he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The fool's wife is folly, and the pleasure or lust of the flesh.

But when this examination of the debt is made, three things are sought. First, the cause of the examination, or the cause of the punishment, is signified; secondly, the punishment is described; thirdly, the fruit of the punishment. Someone is punished when of himself he does not have the means to make satisfaction; hence he says and as he had not wherewith to pay it, since all that he has does not suffice. Hence Micah 6:6: what worthy thing shall I offer to the Lord? etc. Therefore, as he had not wherewith to pay, his lord commanded that he should be sold, etc., because when the Lord settles accounts with a man, and the man does not have the means to pay, and considers the justice of God, which is punishment, he commands that he be sold. When he is sold, the price of sin is the punishment: the price is what one receives for it, and so he is sold when punishment is inflicted. Isa 50:1: in your iniquities you were sold. And his wife and children. From his wife he begets children. But the children are works, the wife is concupiscence, or the root of sin. And all that he had, which are the gifts of God. Hos 2:8: I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, etc. He is therefore punished for his wife, and children, and the gifts given to him. Wis 14:9: but to God the wicked and his wickedness are hateful alike. Ps 108:9: may his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

So we recognize that in the person of this king is signified the Son of God, who held the whole human race guilty in the infinite debt of sin, since through the original sin we were all debtors of sin and death. In the ten thousand talents the serious sins of the human race are signified. And though all men by natural law were debtors to this heavenly king and guilty—since the apostle says about the same natural law that "all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin"—yet in this debt of sin the people of the Jews were particularly held guilty. After so many great benefits they could not keep the law received through Moses. Since they did not have the wherewithal to repay such debt, that is, how to make it good, the lord had ordered them to be tormented, along with their wives and children. That is, this same people along with their synagogue and all their offspring were to be thrashed, to the point of death. But in no way could either the people of the Jews, who had received the law, nor the Gentiles, that is, we ourselves, pay off such a great debt of sin. Hence the heavenly King, moved by pity and mercy, forgave us all our sins. And what are these sins? Those that every day in our prayers we ask to be forgiven, saying, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Therefore, since in no way—that is, with no satisfaction and no worthy penitence—could we pay off this debt of sin and eternal death, that eternal King came down from heaven and by remitting the human race its sins forgave all the debt of every one who believes in him. How he forgave it the holy apostle clearly shows when he says, "having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross." For we are held in sin-guilt as if under the debt of some creditor note. The Son of God has annulled this note written against us by the water of baptism and the drops of his blood.

That he says, falling down, shows how the sinner humbled himself, and offered amends. Have patience with me, expresses the sinner's prayer, begging respite, and space to correct his error.

The servant therefore fell down prostrate before him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. Behold the power of repentance and the Lord's love for mankind. For repentance caused the servant to fall down prostrate before the king and cease from wickedness, since he who stands firmly in wickedness cannot be forgiven. In His love for man God forgave the debt entirely although the servant was not asking for complete forgiveness of the debt, but for an extension of time in which to repay it. Learn, therefore, that God gives more than we ask for. His love for man is such that even what seems to be severe, the command that the servant be sold, God did not speak out of severity, but to terrify the servant in order to induce him to fix all his hope on entreaty and supplication.

But that servant falling down, besought him, saying. Here the mercy of the lord is set forth. And first, that which provokes mercy is presented: for what greatly provokes mercy is prayer. Hence when a man feels himself in danger, he should have recourse to prayer. Sir 21:1: son, have you sinned? Do not do so again, but for your former sins pray that they may be forgiven you. Moreover, his humility is commended; likewise his discretion is commended; likewise his justice. His humility, because falling down. Ps 101:18: the Lord has had regard for the prayer of the humble. Hence he besought him. Origen writes he prayed to him. Likewise, his discretion is touched upon, because he did not ask that the whole debt be forgiven, but only asked for time; hence he says: have patience with me, i.e., give me time, so that I may be able to make satisfaction. So Job asked, 10:20: let me alone a little, that I may lament my grief. Likewise, his justice is touched upon: and I will pay you all. Ps 50:21: then shall they lay calves upon your altar.

Abundant is the bounty of God, and His clemency to sinners converted, seeing He is ever ready to forgive sins by baptism or penitence, as it follows, But the lord of that servant had mercy upon him, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.

Likewise, the compassion of the lord who remits is presented: and the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go, and forgave him the debt. Hence it is not the sorrow of the penitent that causes the remission, but the mercy of the Lord; hence Rom 9:26: so then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. And the lord being moved with pity, etc. Note that the Lord gives more than a man would dare to ask: as it is said in that prayer: "you who exceed the merits and desires of your suppliants." Hence he let him go, i.e., absolved him, and forgave him the debt of sin. For contrition can be so great that it remits the whole debt.

(Serm. 83. 6.) That He says he owed him a hundred denarii is taken from the same number, ten, the number of the Law. For a hundred times a hundred are ten thousand, and ten times ten are a hundred; and those ten thousand talents and these hundred denarii are still keeping to the number of the Law; in both of them you find sins. Both are debtors, both are suitors for remission; so every man is himself a debtor to God, and has his brother his debtor.

(ubi sup.) But this unworthy, unjust servant would not render that which had been rendered to him, for it follows, And he laid hands on him, and held him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou, owest.

The God of all releases us from the difficulties of our faults, according to the parable. This is what is signified by the ten thousand talents. But this happens on the proviso that we ourselves release our fellow servants from the hundred denarii, that is, from the few minor faults they have committed against us. The angels who stand over us and are under the same yoke of service as we are make accusations before God. They do not speak to God as if God does not know—for God knows everything. Rather, in the interest of justice, they demand the proper punishment for those who choose to despise and dishonor the command that we love one another. When we meet our proper deserts, either we receive punishment in our present life, such as being visited with some pain or trouble or infirmity, or if not, we will certainly be punished in the future life. God punishes the obstinate, intractable person with a view to improving and changing him for the better. This is easy to see. Holy Scripture is pertinent here, in these wisely spoken words: "the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son," and again: "Abide instruction."

He therefore, as I suppose, took him by the throat, because he had come forth from the king; for he would not have so handled his fellow servant, if he had not gone forth from the king.

So by him who owed ten thousand talents are represented those that commit the greater crimes; by the debtor of a hundred denarii those who commit the lesser.

That is, he pressed him hardly, that he might exact vengeance from him.

But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow-servants, who owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. He who had been forgiven "went out," departed, and as a consequence, took his fellow servant by the throat: the one who lacks compassion is not he who remains in God, but rather he who departs from God and is a stranger to Him. So great was the servant's inhumanity that, although he had been forgiven the greater amount (ten thousand talents), he could not at all forgive the smallest amount (a hundred pence), nor even grant a postponement. And this despite the fact that the fellow servant spoke the very same words to him, reminding him of the words by which he himself had been saved: "Have patience with me and I will pay thee all."

There follows the ingratitude: but when that servant had gone out, etc., and five things are presented which aggravate his ingratitude. First, it is aggravated by the time, because if it had happened after nine or ten years, it would not be surprising; but because he sinned on the same day, he becomes ungrateful; just as the sinner who, when his sins have been forgiven, returns to sins on the same day. Hence it says going out; James 1:24: for he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was. Likewise, by dissimulation, since in the consideration of the Lord he was humble, but going out, he immediately showed what he was. 3 Kings 22:22: I will go forth, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. Likewise, it is shown from the kinship, since he found one of his fellow servants. Sir 28:3: man to man reserves anger, and does he seek remedy of God? Likewise, from the smallness of the debt, because he owed him a hundred pence; hence the difference was in number, because the first owed ten thousand: and in weight, because the second owed pence and the first talents. Hence the sins committed against God are both more numerous and more grievous than the sins committed against man, which are light, because they are from weakness; hence the difference in gravity is like that between talents and pence. For it would be more grievous to strike the king than one servant. Likewise, his cruelty in exacting is indicated, because he took him, because he dragged him into court and harassed him and throttled him, and would not let him breathe.

Observe the exactness of Scripture; the servant who owed many talents fell down, and worshipped the king; he who owed the hundred denarii falling down, did not worship, but besought his fellow servant, saying, Have patience. But the ungrateful servant did not even respect the very words which had saved himself, for it follows, but he would not.

Likewise, from his cruelty, because he was unwilling to forgive. Hence first the supplication of the debtor is presented; secondly, his cruelty, at but he would not, etc. Note that all the things that the first servant did before the Lord, this one did before him; hence falling down he besought him. Above it says he prayed, here he besought, because above he rendered the honor due to God; but here it is the honor due to man: therefore it says he besought.

(Quæst. Ev. i. 25.) That is, he nourished such thoughts towards him that he sought his punishment. But he went his way.

When Peter asked this, the Lord commanded that the sinning brother should be forgiven not seven times but seventy times seven. He then added a parable, making the comparison of a king and his servant. The servant, though unworthy, had received such mercy from his master that even an immense debt was forgiven him. But he himself refused to show mercy to a fellow servant for his small debt. So, quite rightly, he was handed over to the torturers and received the just punishment of condemnation. For what would such a wicked servant not deserve to suffer? Though he had experienced such pity from his master, he was himself unjust and cruel to his fellow servant. By this example, we are clearly instructed and advised that if we do not forgive our fellow servants—that is, the brothers who sin against us—the debt of their sins, we will be condemned with like punishment. And though the comparison may seem to have been introduced for the present occasion, yet the parable itself has within it an integral logic and manifest truth.

That is, his wrath was the rather inflamed, to exact vengeance of him; And he cast him into prison, until he should pay the debt; that is, he seized his brother, and exacted vengeance of him.

But nothing availed him; hence it says but he would not. Prov 12:10: the bowels of the wicked are cruel. And he cast him into prison, i.e., into tribulation, till he paid the debt, i.e., for the purpose of paying the debt. Prov 6:34: the anger and fury of a man will not spare in the day of revenge.

(Quæst. Ev. i. 25.) By the fellow-servants is understood the Church, which binds one and looses another.

Or perhaps they represent the Angels, or the preachers of the holy Church, or any of the faithful, who when they see a brother whose sins are forgiven refusing to forgive his fellow-servant, they are sorrowful over his perdition. And they came, and told their lord, what was done. They came not in body, but in spirit. To tell their Lord, is to show the woe and sorrow of the heart in their carriage.

So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorrowful, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. The fellowservants are the angels, who are shown here to be haters of evil and lovers of good. They do not tell these things to the Lord as if He were unaware of them, but in order for you, O reader, to learn that the angels watch over us and are angered by man's inhumanity.

And his fellow servants seeing. Here four things are touched upon. First, the reprobation of this sin is presented; secondly, the reproach of the sin on the part of God, at then his lord called him; thirdly, the punishment, and his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers; fourthly, the similitude is applied, at so also shall my heavenly Father do to you, etc. He says therefore and his fellow servants seeing, etc. For we see that if one member suffers, the others have compassion; hence seeing a man afflicted, they naturally have compassion for him. Ps 118:158: I beheld the transgressors, and I pined away. Hence they were grieved. Rejoice with them that rejoice, weep with them that weep, Rom 12:15. And they came and told their lord, i.e., they implored divine justice. The Lord has heard the desire of the poor; your ear has heard the preparation of their heart, Ps 10:17.

It follows, Then his lord called him. He called him by the sentence of death, and bade him pass out of this world, and said unto him, Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou prayedst me.

Then his lord, after he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? The master in his love for mankind takes issue with the servant, to show that it is not the master, but the savagery and the ingratitude of the servant that has revoked the gift.

Consequently, the reproach is set forth: then his lord called him, etc. The Lord calls through death. Job 19:16: you will call me, and I will answer you. And he said to him. First he reproaches his wickedness; secondly, the benefit conferred; thirdly, he recalls what he ought to have done. He says therefore you wicked servant. Above, when he owed him, he did not address him with reproach; but now, when he did what he should not have done, he said you wicked servant; because that man should sin is human; but that he should persist is diabolical. I forgave you all the debt. Here he reproaches the benefit conferred, which he had not done above.

He seeks to instruct us, that we should be ready to show clemency to those who have done us harm, especially if they offer amends, and plead to have forgiveness.

And it is to be known, that we read no answer made by that servant to his lord; by which it is shown us, that in the day of judgment, and altogether after this life, all excusing of ourselves shall be out off,

Should you not then have had compassion also on your fellow servant? As if to say: you received great things, and you are unwilling to bestow small ones? Even as I had compassion on you.

When they do not tolerate our wickedness, our fellow servants are angels who accuse us before God. They do not accuse to God as to one who does not know of our sins but because of their anger at those who break the laws of human love. By "jailers" he means the angels entrusted with our punishment. "Till he should pay all his debts" means in effect that he has handed him over to be punished for all time. For he could never pay it back. For when he corrects a person in the present life, God hands him over to bonds, sickness and tortures, but in the future he hands him over to anguish without remission for all time. He did not say, "So also will your Father do to you," but "my Father." For such people are unworthy to be called sons of God. So the parable describes in summary the indescribable love of God. Anyone who does not imitate this love as far as he can will suffer severe punishment from the just Judge. Even though it has been said, "Not to be regretted are God's blessings," yet wickedness is so strong that it blocks out these words. So the story demands two things of us: to remember our own faults and not to bear a grudge on one who stumbles.

For God is said then to be wroth, when he takes vengeance on sinners. Torturers are intended for the daemons, who are always ready to take up lost souls, and torture them in the pangs of eternal punishment. Will any who is once sunk into everlasting condemnation ever come to find season of repentance, and a way to escape? Never; that until is put for infinity; and the meaning is, He shall be ever paying, and shall never quit the debt, but shall be ever under punishment,

And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all his debt. To what tormentors does he deliver him? To the punitive powers for eternal punishment. For the meaning of "till he should pay all his debt" is this: "let him be punished till that he should pay all that was due." But he will never be able to pay his debt, and therefore his punishment will never end.

And his lord being angry, etc. And first he treats of the punishment, through which separation from God occurs. When above the Lord commanded that he be sold, he did not say that he was angry, because admonitions are not from divine justice, but from mercy; but the reproach is from the anger of God. Prov 19:12: as the roaring of a lion, so also is the anger of the king. Secondly, because he is subjected to demons; hence he delivered him to the torturers. Sir 33:14: he will repay them according to his judgment. Likewise, the perpetuity of the punishment is touched upon, till he paid all the debt; and this will be forever. For if the punishment should not cease until satisfaction of the debt is made, and no one without grace can make satisfaction, he who departs without charity will not be able to make satisfaction.

(Serm. 83, 7.) or God says, Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven; (Luke 6:37.) I have first forgiven, forgive you then after Me; for if you forgive not, I will call you back, and will require again all that I had remitted to you. For Christ neither deceives nor is deceived; and He adds here, Thus will my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. It is better that you should cry out with your mouth, and forgive in your heart, than that you should speak smoothly, and be unrelenting in your heart For the Lord adds, From your hearts, to the end that though, out of affection you put him to discipline, yet gentleness should not depart out of your heart. What is more beneficial than the knife of the surgeon? He is rough with the sore that the man may be healed; should he be tender with the sore, the man were lost.

(Verse 35) In this way, my heavenly Father will also do to you, unless each one of you forgives his brother from your heart. This is a frightening statement, if the divine judgment is turned and changed according to our own judgment. If we do not forgive our brothers for small offenses, God will not forgive us for great offenses. And because each one can say: I have nothing against him, he knows: he has God as judge, I do not care what he wants to do, I have forgiven him; he confirms his own judgment and destroys all pretense of false peace, saying: Unless each one of you forgives his brother from your heart.

That this may be made plainer, let us speak it in instances. If any one of you shall have committed an adultery, a homicide, or a sacrilege, these greater sins of ton thousand talents shall be remitted when you beg for it, if you also shall remit lesser offences to those that trespass against you.

Also this, from your hearts, is added to take away all feigned reconciliations. Therefore the Lord's command to Peter under this similitude of the king and his servant who owed him ten thousand talents, and was forgiven by his lord upon his entreaty, is, that he also should forgive his fellow-servants their lesser trespasses.

What then means the parable? "So likewise shall my Father do also unto you," He saith, "if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."

He saith not "your Father," but "my Father." For it is not meet for God to be called the Father of such a one, who is so wicked and malicious.

Two things therefore doth He here require, both to condemn ourselves for our sins, and to forgive others; and the former for the sake of the latter, that this may become more easy (for he who considers his own sins is more indulgent to his fellow-servant); and not merely to forgive with the lips, but from the heart.

Let us not then thrust the sword into ourselves by being revengeful. For what grief hath he who hath grieved thee inflicted upon thee, like thou wilt work unto thyself by keeping thine anger in mind, and drawing upon thyself the sentence from God to condemn thee? For if indeed thou art watchful, and keepest thyself under control, the evil will come round upon his head, and it will be he that will suffer harm; but if thou shouldest continue indignant, and displeased, then thyself wilt undergo the harm not from him, but from thyself.

Say not then that he insulted thee, and slandered thee, and did unto thee ills beyond number; for the more thou tellest, so much the more dost thou declare him a benefactor. For he hath given thee an opportunity to wash away thy sins; so that the greater the injuries he hath done thee, so much more is he become to thee a cause of a greater remission of sins.

For if we be willing, no one shall be able to injure us, but even our enemies shall advantage us in the greatest degree. And why do I speak of men? For what can be more wicked than the devil; yet nevertheless, even hence have we a great opportunity of approving ourselves; and Job showeth it. But if the devil hath become a cause of crowns, why art thou afraid of a man as an enemy?

See then how much thou gainest, bearing meekly the spiteful acts of thine enemies. First and greatest, deliverance from sins; secondly, fortitude and patience; thirdly, mildness and benevolence; for he that knoweth not how to be angry with them that grieve him, much more will he be ready to serve them that love him. Fourthly, to be free from anger continually, to which nothing can be equal. For of him that is free from anger, it is quite clear that he is delivered also from the despondency hence arising, and will not spend his life on vain labors and sorrows. For he that knows not how to hate, neither doth he know how to grieve, but will enjoy pleasure, and ten thousand blessings. So that we punish ourselves by hating others, even as on the other hand we benefit ourselves by loving them.

Besides all these things, thou wilt be an object of veneration even to thy very enemies, though they be devils; or rather, thou wilt not so much as have an enemy whilst thou art of such a disposition.

But what is greater than all, and first, thou gainest the favor of God. Shouldest thou have sinned, thou wilt obtain pardon; shouldest thou have done what is right, thou wilt obtain a greater confidence. Let us accomplish therefore the hating no one, that God may forgive us also all our trespasses by the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father and the Holy Ghost be glory, might, honor, now and always, and world without end. Amen.

So likewise shall My heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. He did not say "your Father," but "My Father." For such as these are unworthy to have God as their Father. He wants us to forgive from our hearts and not only from our lips. Understand, then, what a great evil is remembrance of wrongs, since it revokes the gift of God; though God does not repent of His gifts, nevertheless they are revoked.

So also shall my heavenly Father do to you. Here he applies the similitude. The Father is God, as above, 6:9: Our Father, who art in heaven. He will do to you, i.e., he will not forgive your sins, if you forgive not everyone his brother from your hearts. Here he seems to suggest that sins once forgiven return, as Origen holds, that forgiven sins return in some cases, such as in apostasy. Likewise, if one is sorry for having repented. But this does not seem to be the case, inasmuch as the remission derives its efficacy from the sacraments: therefore sins both manifest and hidden are forgiven; however, they are said to return through ingratitude.

(Cont. Faust. xix. 29.) Behold now out of the books of Moses it is proved to the Jews that a wife may not be put away. For they thought that they were doing according to the purport of Moses' law when they did put them away. This also we learn hence by the testimony of Christ Himself, that it was God who made it thus, and joined them male and female; which when the Manichæans deny, they are condemned, resisting the Gospel of Christ.

(V. 4.) And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female? This is written in the beginning of Genesis. But in saying male and female, he pointed towards monogamous marriages. For he did not say males and females, which was sought after due to the repudiation of the former, but male and female, so that the bond of one spouse might be established.

But He so frames His answer as to evade their snare. He brings in the testimony of Holy Writ, and the law of nature, and opposing God's first sentence to this second, He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female? This is written in the beginning of Genesis. This teaches that second marriages are to be avoided, for He said not male and females, which was what was sought by the putting away of the first, but, male and female, implying only one tie of wedlock.

See a teacher's wisdom. I mean, that being asked, Is it lawful? He did not at once say, It is not lawful, lest they should be disturbed and put in disorder, but before the decision by His argument He rendered this manifest, showing that it is itself too the commandment of His Father, and that not in opposition to Moses did He enjoin these things, but in full agreement with him.

But mark Him arguing strongly not from the creation only, but also from His command. For He said not, that He made one man and one woman only, but that He also gave this command that the one man should be joined to the one woman. But if it had been His will that he should put this one away, and bring in another, when He had made one man, He would have formed many Women.

But now both by the manner of the creation, and by the manner of lawgiving, He showed that one man must dwell with one woman continually, and never break off from her.

And see how He saith, "He which made them at the beginning, made them male and female," that is, from one root they sprung, and into one body came they together, "for the twain shall be one flesh."

After this, to make it a fearful thing to find fault with this lawgiving, and to confirm the law, He said not, "Sever not therefore, nor put asunder," but, "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

But if thou put forward Moses, I tell thee of Moses' Lord, and together with this, I rely upon the time also. For God at the beginning made them male and female; and this law is older (though it seem to have been now introduced by me), and with much earnestness established. For not merely did He bring the woman to the man, but also commanded to leave father and mother. And neither did He make it a law for him merely to come to the woman, but also "to cleave to her," by the form of the language intimating that they might not be severed. And not even with this was He satisfied, but sought also for another greater union, "for the twain," He saith, "shall be one flesh."

Then after He had recited the ancient law, which was brought in both by deeds and by words, and shown it to be worthy of respect because of the giver, with authority after that He Himself too interprets and gives the law, saying, "So that they are no more twain, but one flesh." Like then as to sever flesh is a horrible thing, so also to divorce a wife is unlawful. And He stayed not at this, but brought in God also by saying, "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder," showing that the act was both against nature, and against law; against nature, because one flesh is dissevered; against law, because that when God hath joined and commanded it not to be divided, ye conspire to do this.

If then God created the male and female out of one, to this end that they should be one, why then henceforth were not they born man and wife at one birth, as it is with certain insects? Because God created male and female for the continuance of the species, yet is He ever a lover of chastity, and promoter of continence. Therefore did He not follow this pattern in all kinds, to the end that, if any man choose to marry, he may know what is, according to the first disposition of the creation, the condition of man and wife; but if he choose not to marry, he shall not be under necessity to marry by the circumstances of his birth, lest he should by his continence be the destruction of the other who was not willing to be continent; for which same cause God forbids that after being joined in wedlock one should separate if the other be unwilling.

There, while prohibiting divorce, He has given us a solution of this special question respecting it: "Moses," says He, "because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to give a bill of divorcement; but from the beginning it was not so" -for this reason, indeed, because He who had "made them male and female" had likewise said, "They twain shall become one flesh; what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Now, by this answer of His (to the Pharisees), He both sanctioned the provision of Moses, who was His own (servant), and restored to its primitive purpose the institution of the Creator, whose Christ He was.

What then does Christ say? He shows that monogamy is the work and law of Him Who created us at the beginning. For at the beginning, He says, God joined together one man and one woman. So it is not right that one man should be joined to many women, or one woman to many men. But as they were joined together at the beginning, so they should remain, not sundering the marital union without good cause. Jesus did not say, "It is I Who made them male and female," not wanting to vex the Pharisees; but He phrased it more indefinitely, "He Who made them."

Therefore the answer follows: who answering said to them. The Lord gives the best manner of responding: because when someone asks in order to learn, the truth should be told at once; but to one who asks in order to bring a charge, the truth should not be said immediately, but first certain things should be said that cannot be denied. Therefore the Lord first inquires about the law; hence first he takes up the words of Scripture; secondly, he shows how they are relevant to the question; thirdly, he draws the principal conclusion. And regarding the first he does three things. First he shows the companionship of male and female, which God instituted; secondly, the affection which he implanted; thirdly, the manner in which he joined them. He intends to prove that the union of male and female was instituted by God. Have you not read that he who made man from the beginning made them male and female? For this is read in Genesis 1:27: and God created man to his image and likeness. This is not to be understood as some understood it, that first he made man male, and afterwards female, and then separated them; but first he made one man, and in him he made that from which the woman would come. But why did the Lord will it to be done in this way, namely that the multitude of men should come from man and woman? I answer, so that it would be signified that the form of marriage is from God. Likewise so that they would love each other more. But then Chrysostom asks why he does not always do it this way, that man and woman are born at the same time. He answers that if it were so, marriage would seem to be a necessity. And because the Lord wills that using marriage be lawful, or not using it, and that it not be necessary, he first created male and female, to signify that marriage was lawful; afterwards, however, he allowed a male to be born without a female, and conversely, so that they would have the free choice of both using marriage and not using it. According to this, a twofold error is excluded. For some said that marriage was not from God: and this is excluded, because if he made them male and female, and it is clear that he made nothing in vain, therefore neither any of these things, and not except for the companionship of marriage. Others said that if man had not sinned, God would not have made woman, but rather men would have been multiplied in another way; but this is nothing, because they were created before sin. And he says in the singular male and female, so that one man should have one woman.

(Gen. ad lit. ix. 19.) Whereas Scripture witnesses that these words were said by the first man, and the Lord here declares that God spake them, hence we should understand that by reason of the ecstasy which had passed upon Adam, he was enabled to speak this as a prophecy.

(Civ. Dei, xiv. 22.) For they are called one, either from their union, or from the derivation of the woman, who was taken out of the side of the man.

The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ's words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism - for that is what the words 'one flesh' would be in modern English. And the Christians believe that when He said this He was not expressing a sentiment but stating a fact - just as one is stating a fact when one says that a lock and its key are one mechanism, or that a violin and a bow are one musical instrument. The inventor of the human machine was telling us that its two halves, the male and the female, were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on the sexual level, but totally combined. The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union. The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again.

I think there is also a confusion. We don't really want grief, in its first agonies, to be prolonged: nobody could. But we want something else of which grief is a frequent symptom, and then we confuse the symptom with the thing itself. I wrote the other night that bereavement is not the truncation of married love but one of its regular phases—like the honeymoon. What we want is to live our marriage well and faithfully through that phase too. If it hurts (and it certainly will) we accept the pains as a necessary part of this phase. We don't want to escape them at the price of desertion or divorce. Killing the dead a second time. We were one flesh. Now that it has been cut in two, we don't want to pretend that it is whole and complete. We will be still married, still in love. Therefore we shall still ache. But we are not at all—if we understand ourselves—seeking the aches for their own sake. The less of them the better, so long as the marriage is preserved. And the more joy there can be in the marriage between dead and living, the better.

It does really mean that a section of the human race is asking whether the primary relations of the two human sexes are particularly good for modern shops. The human race is asking whether Adam and Eve are entirely suitable for Marshall and Snelgrove. If this is not topsy-turvy I cannot imagine what would be. We ask whether the universal institution will improve our (please God) temporary institution. ... They do not ask if the means is suited to the end; they all ask (with profound and penetrating scepticism) if the end is suited to the means. They do not ask whether the tail suits the dog. They all ask whether a dog is (by the highest artistic canons) the most ornamental appendage that can be put at the end of a tail.

But Christ in his view of marriage does not in the least suggest the conditions of Palestine in the first century. He does not suggest anything at all, except the sacramental view of marriage as developed long afterwards by the Catholic Church. It was quite as difficult for people then as for people now. It was much more puzzling to people then than to people now. Jews and Romans and Greeks did not believe, and did not even understand enough to disbelieve, the mystical idea that the man and the woman had become one sacramental substance. We may think it an incredible or impossible ideal; but we cannot think it any more incredible or impossible than they would have thought it. In other words, whatever else is true, it is not true that the controversy has been altered by time. Whatever else is true, it is emphatically not true that the ideas of Jesus of Nazareth were suitable to his time, but are no longer suitable to our time. Exactly how suitable they were to his time is perhaps suggested in the end of his story.

So it is in this case of the sacrament of marriage. We may not believe in sacraments, as we may not believe in spirits, but it is quite clear that Christ believed in this sacrament in his own way and not in any current or contemporary way. He certainly did not get his argument against divorce from the Mosaic law or the Roman law or the habits of the Palestinian people. It would appear to his critics then exactly what it appears to his critics now; an arbitrary and transcendental dogma coming from nowhere save in the sense that it came from him. I am not at all concerned here to defend that dogma; the point here is that it is just as easy to defend it now as it was to defend it then. It is an ideal altogether outside time; difficult at any period; impossible at no period. In other words, if any one says it is what might be expected of a man walking about in that place at that period, we can quite fairly answer that it is much more like what might be the mysterious utterance of a being beyond man, if he walked alive among men.

Thus, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an intelligent man in other matters, says that there is only a "theological" opposition to divorce, and that it is entirely founded on "certain texts" in the Bible about marriages. This is exactly as if he said that a belief in the brotherhood of men was only founded on certain texts in the Bible, about all men being the children of Adam and Eve. Millions of peasants and plain people all over the world assume marriage to be static, without having ever clapped eyes on any text. Numbers of more modern people, especially after the recent experiments in America, think divorce is a social disease, without having ever bothered about any text. It may be maintained that even in these, or in any one, the idea of marriage is ultimately mystical; and the same may be maintained about the idea of brotherhood. It is obvious that a husband and wife are not visibly one flesh, in the sense of being one quadruped. It is equally obvious that Paderewski and Jack Johnson are not twins, and probably have not played together at their mother's knee. There is indeed a very important admission, or addition, to be realised here. What is true is this: that if the nonsense of Nietzsche or some such sophist submerged current culture, so that it was the fashion to deny the duties of fraternity; then indeed it might be found that the group which still affirmed fraternity was the original group in whose sacred books was the text about Adam and Eve. Suppose some Prussian professor has opportunely discovered that Germans and lesser men are respectively descended from two such very different monkeys that they are in no sense brothers, but barely cousins (German) any number of times removed. And suppose he proceeds to remove them even further with a hatchet; suppose he bases on this a repetition of the conduct of Cain, saying not so much "Am I my brother's keeper?" as "Is he really my brother?" And suppose this higher philosophy of the hatchet becomes prevalent in colleges and cultivated circles, as even more foolish philosophies have done. Then I agree it probably will be the Christian, the man who preserves the text about Cain, who will continue to assert that he is still the professor's brother; that he is still the professor's keeper. He may possibly add that, in his opinion, the professor seems to require a keeper.

And that is doubtless the situation in the controversies about divorce and marriage to-day. It is the Christian church which continues to hold strongly, when the world for some reason has weakened on it, what many others hold at other times. But even then it is barely picking up the shreds and scraps of the subject to talk about a reliance on texts. The vital point in the comparison is this: that human brotherhood means a whole view of life, held in the light of life, and defended, rightly or wrongly, by constant appeals to every aspect of life. The religion that holds it most strongly will hold it when nobody else holds it; that is quite true, and that some of us may be so perverse as to think a point in favour of the religion. But anybody who holds it at all will hold it as a philosophy, not hung on one text but on a hundred truths. Fraternity may be a sentimental metaphor; I may be suffering a delusion when I hail a Montenegrin peasant as my long lost brother. As a fact, I have my own suspicions about which of us it is that has got lost. But my delusion is not a deduction from one text, or from twenty; it is the expression of a relation that to me at least seems a reality. And what I should say about the idea of a brother, I should say about the idea of a wife.

But before they make this attempt, it would be well to ask why such a dignity ever appeared or in what it consisted. And I fancy we shall find ourselves confronted with the very simple truth, that the dignity arose wholly and entirely out of the fidelity; and that the glamour merely came from the vow. People were regarded as having a certain dignity because they were dedicated in a certain way; as bound to certain duties and, if it be preferred, to certain discomforts. It may be irrational to endure these discomforts; it may even be irrational to respect them. But it is certainly much more irrational to respect them, and then artificially transfer the same respect to the absence of them. It is as if we were to expect uniforms to be saluted when armies were disbanded; and ask people to cheer a soldier's coat when it did not contain a soldier. If you think you can abolish war, abolish it; but do not suppose that when there are no wars to be waged, there will still be warriors to be worshipped. If it was a good thing that the monasteries were dissolved, let us say so and dismiss them. But the nobles who dissolved the monasteries did not shave their heads, and ask to be regarded as saints solely on account of that ceremony. The nobles did not dress up as abbots and ask to be credited with a potential talent for working miracles, because of the austerity of their vows of poverty and chastity. They got inside the houses, but not the hoods, and still less the haloes. They at least knew that it is not the habit that makes the monk. They were not so superstitious as those moderns, who think it is the veil that makes the bride.

(interlin.) Or, one flesh, that is in carnal connection.

"What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder." God "has joined" in making one flesh of man and woman; this no man can put asunder, unless perhaps God alone. Man "puts asunder" when we dismiss our first wife in desire of a second; God, who also had joined together, puts asunder, when by consent for God's service, we so have our wives as though not having them.

(Vers. 5, 6.) And he said: Because of this, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Likewise, he said, a man must be united to his wife, not wives. And the two will become one flesh. The reward of marriage is for two to become one flesh. Chastity joined to the spirit makes one spirit.

Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate. God has joined, by making one flesh of man and woman: this the man cannot separate, unless perhaps by the power of God alone. Man separates, when, due to desire for a second spouse, he dismisses the first. God separates, who had also joined, when by consent due to the service of God (because time is limited) we have wives as though we have none (I Cor. VII).

In like manner He says his wife, and not wives, and adds expressly, and they twain shall be one flesh. For it is the reward of marriage that one flesh, namely in the offspring, is made of two.

But since the Apostle understands the words, "And they twain shall be one flesh," of Christ and the church, we must say that Christ keeping the saying, "What God hath joined together let not man put asunder," did not put away His former wife, so to speak—that is, the former synagogue—for any other cause than that that wife committed fornication, being made an adulteress by the evil one, and along with him plotted against her husband and slew Him, saying, "Away with such a fellow from the earth, crucify Him, crucify Him." It was she therefore who herself revolted, rather than her husband who put her away and dismissed her; wherefore, reproaching her for falling away from him, it says in Isaiah, "Of what kind is the bill of your mother's divorcement, with which I sent her away?" And He who at the beginning created Him "who is in the form of God" after the image, made Him male, and the church female, granting to both oneness after the image. And, for the sake of the church, the Lord—the husband—left the Father whom He saw when He was "in the form of God," left also His mother, as He was the very son of the Jerusalem which is above, and was joined to His wife who had fallen down here, and these two here became one flesh. For because of her, He Himself also became flesh, when "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us," and they are no more two, but now they are one flesh, since it is said to the wife, "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members each in his part;" for the body of Christ is not something apart different from the church, which is His body, and from the members each in his part. And God has joined together these who are not two, but have become one flesh, commanding that men should not separate the church from the Lord. And he who takes heed for himself so as not to be separated, is confident as one who will not possibly be separated and says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"

For when the soul hath intercourse with the body, this intercourse is adultery and fornication; but if the body be united unto the soul in one agreement, and be raised above from below in a right union, it is the intercourse which is according unto the law, which is implanted naturally in the person of each one of us by the Creator. For behold the connection which men have with women according to nature was ordained by the command of the Creator at the beginning, and when it taketh place according to the will of the Creator, it is called lawful connection; but if it be performed in any other way it is called adultery and fornication, and as in a mystery this parable is depicted in reference unto the soul and body. For if the soul hath intercourse with the body it is fornication, but if the body hath intercourse with the soul, it is an union according to the law, and towards this meaning also inclineth the words of the Book which saith, "A man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave unto his wife." Now it doth not say concerning the woman that she shall leave her parents, and cleave unto the man, although according to the custom of the world women do actually leave their natural parents, and cleave unto their husbands, and it appeareth that, according to custom, the opposite of the words of the Book are done in nature; so therefore that which is said of the man is a parable which is based on the body, which shall leave everything in which it hath gratification, and shall be united unto the soul. For if the Book had said, "A woman shall leave her parents, and cleave unto a man," it would have taught that the soul should have intercourse with the body, but now that it hath spoken concerning the man, "He shall leave his parents and be united unto his wife," the words indicate to us a mystery of doctrine, and exhort the body to deny itself its pleasures, and to hate its lusts, and to have connection with the soul in all good things.

If then because the wife is made of the man, and both one of one flesh, a man shall leave his father and his mother, then there should be yet greater affection between brothers and sisters, for these come of the same parents, but man and wife of different. But this is saying too much, because the ordinance of God is of more force than the law of nature. For God's precepts are not subject to the law of nature, but nature bends to the precepts of God. Also brethren are born of one, that they should seek out different roads; but the man and the wife are born of different persons, that they should coalesce in one. The order of nature also follows the appointment of God. For as is the sap in trees, so is affection in man. The sap ascends from the roots into the leaves, and passes forth into the seed. Therefore parents love their children, but are not so loved of them, for the desire of a man is not towards his parents, but towards the sons whom he has begot; and this is what is said, Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.

For by the wholesome design of God it was ordained that a man should have in the woman a part of his own body, and should not look upon as separate from himself that which he knew was formed out of himself.

The Apostle says that this is a mystery in Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:32.); for the Lord Jesus Christ left His Father when He came down from heaven to earth; and He left His mother, that is, the synagogue, because of its unbelief, and clave unto His wife, that is, the Holy Church, and they two are one flesh, that is, Christ and the Church are one body.

Let them see to that, who, among the rest of their perversities, teach the disjoining of the "one flesh in twain; " denying Him who, after borrowing the female from the male, recombined between themselves, in the matrimonial computation, the two bodies taken out of the consortship of the self-same material substance.

What kind of yoke is that of two believers, (partakers) of one hope, one desire, one discipline, one and the same service? Both (are) brethren, both fellow servants, no difference of spirit or of flesh; nay, (they are) truly "two in one flesh." Where the flesh is one, one is the spirit ton.

The goodness of wedded union is of such importance to God that He even permitted women to leave their parents and to cleave to their husbands. But why is it written in Genesis (Gen. 2:24) that Adam said, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother," while here Christ says that it was God Who said, "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother." We say, therefore, that what Adam spoke, he spoke from God, so that the speech of Adam is of God.

For this cause a man shall leave father and mother. Here he presents the affection which he implanted. And he said. Who said? He who made them. But this does not seem right, because it seems that Adam said it. Augustine says that the Lord sent a deep sleep upon Adam and took one of his ribs. This sleep was an ecstasy; hence there he revealed many good things; hence the Lord also revealed to him what is said here; hence above at 10:20 it was said: for it is not you who speak, but the spirit of your Father who speaks in you. Because therefore Adam spoke at God's command, it is said that God spoke; hence 2 Esdras 4: a man leaves his father, who nourished him. And cleaves to his wife. What is the reason? A brother and sister are born of one, and they separate; but a husband and wife are from different families, and yet they do not separate. Chrysostom says that this is from divine ordinance. Likewise, naturally every cause has a return to its effect, as sap from the root to the branches; hence fathers love their children more than conversely; therefore husband and wife, although they are from different families, are nevertheless united in one effect. And the two shall be in one flesh. Jerome says: namely in the flesh of offspring. And this is the fruit of marriage. Chrysostom explains: in one flesh, i.e., in one carnal affection, just as in spiritual affection there is unity, as in Acts 4:32: and the multitude of believers had but one heart and one soul. Or the two shall be in one flesh, i.e., in one carnal act. The Philosopher says that man and woman in that act are always related in such a way that just as active and passive power are always joined in an effect, so in that act action and passion are joined.

Of the Sacrament of matrimony there are three goods, namely fidelity, offspring, and the Sacrament. And there are twelve impediments, which impede marriage from being contracted and dissolve one already contracted.

The Church neither ought nor is able to annul a marriage that has been legitimately contracted, because those whom God has joined together no man, however great his power, can separate, since all remain to be judged by the judgment of God himself.

That conjugal chastity is to be approved according to the evangelical law is shown by authority, as follows. Matthew 19, the Lord responding to the question put to him concerning marriage: Have you not read, that he who made men from the beginning made them male and female: and afterward: What God has joined together, let not man separate? The joining therefore of male and female according to the undivided companionship of life is from the institution of God and approved in the law of the Gospel by the judgment of Christ: and according to this the act of conjugal chastity is understood: therefore this virtue and its act is consonant with divine law.

Conjugal chastity accords with the law of grace by reason of the Lord's definition, not only through the deed by which He was present at the wedding, but also through the word by which He authoritatively defined it, Matthew 19: What God has joined together, let not man separate.

The real situation is skilfully concealed by saying that the question of Mr A.'s "right" to desert his wife is one of "sexual morality". Robbing an orchard is not an offense against some special morality called "fruit morality". It is an offense against honesty. Mr A.'s action is an offense against good faith (to solemn promises), against gratitude (toward one to whom he was deeply indebted) and against common humanity.

Our sexual impulses are thus being put in a position of preposterous privilege. The sexual motive is taken to condone all sorts of behaviour which, if it had any other end in view, would be condemned as merciless, treacherous and unjust.

Architecture is a very good test of the true strength of a society, for the most valuable things in a human state are the irrevocable things--marriage, for instance. And architecture approaches nearer than any other art to being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get rid of. You can turn a picture with its face to the wall; it would be a nuisance to turn that Roman cathedral with its face to the wall. You can tear a poem to pieces; it is only in moments of very sincere emotion that you tear a town-hall to pieces. A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like a dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence like a dogma.

They are trying to break the vow of the knight as they broke the vow of the monk. They recognise the vow as the vital antithesis to servile status; the alternative and therefore the antagonist. Marriage makes a small state within the state, which resists all such regimentation. That bond breaks all other bonds; that law is found stronger than all later and lesser laws. They desire the democracy to be sexually fluid, because the making of small nuclei is like the making of small nations. Like small nations, they are a nuisance to the mind of imperial scope. In short, what they fear, in the most literal sense, is home rule.

What is respected, in short, is fidelity to the ancient flag of the family, and a readiness to fight for what I have noted as its unique type of freedom. I say readiness to fight, for fortunately the fight itself is the exception rather than the rule. The soldier is not respected because he is doomed to death, but because he is ready for death; and even ready for defeat. The married man or woman is not doomed to evil, sickness or poverty; but is respected for taking a certain step for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness or in health. But there is one result of this line of argument which should correct a danger in some arguments on the same side.

Anyhow, to vary the legendary symbolism, it never seems to occur to the king in this fairy tale that the gold crown on his head is a less, and not a more, sacred and settled ornament than the gold ring on the woman's finger.

So the unfortunate man, who cannot tolerate the woman he has chosen from all the women in the world, is not encouraged to return to her and tolerate her, but encouraged to choose another woman whom he may in due course refuse to tolerate. And in all these cases the argument is the same; that the man in the intermediate state is unhappy. Probably he is unhappy, since he is abnormal; but the point is that he is permitted to loosen the universal bond which has kept millions of others normal. Because he has himself got into a hole, he is allowed to burrow in it like a rabbit and undermine a whole countryside.

One word should be added to this hasty sketch of the elements of the case. I have deliberately left out the loftiest aspect and argument, that which sees marriage as a divine institution; and that for the logical reason that those who believe in this would not believe in divorce; and I am arguing with those who do believe in divorce. I do not ask them to assume the worth of my creed or any creed; and I could wish they did not so often ask me to assume the worth of their worthless, poisonous plutocratic modern society. But if it could be shown, as I think it can, that a long historical view and a patient political experience can at last accumulate solid scientific evidence of the vital need of such a vow, then I can conceive no more tremendous tribute than this, to any faith, which made a flaming affirmation from the darkest beginnings, of what the latest enlightenment can only slowly discover in the end.

But if my association of divorce with slavery seems only a far-fetched and theoretical paradox, I should have no difficulty in replacing it by a concrete and familiar picture. Let them merely remember the time when they read "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and ask themselves whether the oldest and simplest of the charges against slavery has not always been the breaking up of families.

While free love seems to me a heresy, divorce does really seem to me a superstition. It is not only more of a superstition than free love, but much more of a superstition than strict sacramental marriage; and this point can hardly be made too plain. It is the partisans of divorce, not the defenders of marriage, who attach a stiff and senseless sanctity to a mere ceremony, apart from the meaning of the ceremony. It is our opponents, and not we, who hope to be saved by the letter of ritual, instead of the spirit of reality. It is they who hold that vow or violation, loyalty or disloyalty, can all be disposed of by a mysterious and magic rite, performed first in a law-court and then in a church or a registry office. There is little difference between the two parts of the ritual; except that the law court is much more ritualistic. But the plainest parallels will show anybody that all this is sheer barbarous credulity. It may or may not be superstition for a man to believe he must kiss the Bible to show he is telling the truth. It is certainly the most grovelling superstition for him to believe that, if he kisses the Bible, anything he says will come true. It would surely be the blackest and most benighted Bible-worship to suggest that the mere kiss on the mere book alters the moral quality of perjury. Yet this is precisely what is implied in saying that formal re-marriage alters the moral quality of conjugal infidelity. It may have been a mark of the Dark Ages that Harold should swear on a relic, though he were afterwards foresworn. But surely those ages would have been at their darkest, if he had been content to be sworn on a relic and forsworn on another relic. Yet this is the new altar these reformers would erect for us, out of the mouldy and meaningless relics of their dead law and their dying religion.

A man's dealings with women can be purely physical (they cannot really, of course: but I mean he can refuse to take other things into account, to the great damage of his soul (and body) and theirs); or 'friendly'; or he can be a 'lover' (engaging and blending all his affections and powers of mind and body in a complex emotion powerfully coloured and energized by 'sex'). This is a fallen world. The dislocation of sex-instinct is one of the chief symptoms of the Fall. The world has been 'going to the bad' all down the ages. The various social forms shift, and each new mode has its special dangers: but the 'hard spirit of concupiscence' has walked down every street, and sat leering in every house, since Adam fell. We will leave aside the 'immoral' results. These you desire not to be dragged into. To renunciation you have no call. 'Friendship' then? In this fallen world the 'friendship' that should be possible between all human beings, is virtually impossible between man and woman. The devil is endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favourite subject. He is as good every bit at catching you through generous romantic or tender motives, as through baser or more animal ones. This 'friendship' has often been tried: one side or the other nearly always fails. Later in life when sex cools down, it may be possible. It may happen between saints. To ordinary folk it can only rarely occur: two minds that have really a primarily mental and spiritual affinity may by accident reside in a male and a female body, and yet may desire and achieve a 'friendship' quite independent of sex. But no one can count on it. The other partner will let him (or her) down, almost certainly, by 'falling in love'. But a young man does not really (as a rule) want 'friendship', even if he says he does. There are plenty of young men (as a rule). He wants love: innocent, and yet irresponsible perhaps. Allas! Allas! that ever love was sinne! as Chaucer says. Then if he is a Christian and is aware that there is such a thing as sin, he wants to know what to do about it.

There is in our Western culture the romantic chivalric tradition still strong, though as a product of Christendom (yet by no means the same as Christian ethics) the times are inimical to it. It idealizes 'love' — and as far as it goes can be very good, since it takes in far more than physical pleasure, and enjoins if not purity, at least fidelity, and so self-denial, 'service', courtesy, honour, and courage. Its weakness is, of course, that it began as an artificial courtly game, a way of enjoying love for its own sake without reference to (and indeed contrary to) matrimony. Its centre was not God, but imaginary Deities, Love and the Lady. It still tends to make the Lady a kind of guiding star or divinity – of the old-fashioned 'his divinity' = the woman he loves – the object or reason of noble conduct. This is, of course, false and at best make-believe. The woman is another fallen human-being with a soul in peril. But combined and harmonized with religion (as long ago it was, producing much of that beautiful devotion to Our Lady that has been God's way of refining so much our gross manly natures and emotions, and also of warming and colouring our hard, bitter, religion) it can be very noble. Then it produces what I suppose is still felt, among those who retain even vestigiary Christianity, to be the highest ideal of love between man and woman. Yet I still think it has dangers. It is not wholly true, and it is not perfectly 'theocentric'. It takes, or at any rate has in the past taken, the young man's eye off women as they are, as companions in shipwreck not guiding stars. (One result is for observation of the actual to make the young man turn cynical.) To forget their desires, needs and temptations. It inculcates exaggerated notions of 'true love', as a fire from without, a permanent exaltation, unrelated to age, childbearing, and plain life, and unrelated to will and purpose. (One result of that is to make young folk look for a 'love' that will keep them always nice and warm in a cold world, without any effort of theirs; and the incurably romantic go on looking even in the squalor of the divorce courts).

Women really have not much part in all this, though they may use the language of romantic love, since it is so entwined in all our idioms. The sexual impulse makes women (naturally when unspoiled more unselfish) very sympathetic and understanding, or specially desirous of being so (or seeming so), and very ready to enter into all the interests, as far as they can, from ties to religion, of the young man they are attracted to. No intent necessarily to deceive: sheer instinct: the servient, helpmeet instinct, generously warmed by desire and young blood. Under this impulse they can in fact often achieve very remarkable insight and understanding, even of things otherwise outside their natural range: for it is their gift to be receptive, stimulated, fertilized (in many other matters than the physical) by the male. Every teacher knows that. How quickly an intelligent woman can be taught, grasp his ideas, see his point – and how (with rare exceptions) they can go no further, when they leave his hand, or when they cease to take a personal interest in him. But this is their natural avenue to love. Before the young woman knows where she is (and while the romantic young man, when he exists, is still sighing) she may actually 'fall in love'. Which for her, an unspoiled natural young woman, means that she wants to become the mother of the young man's children, even if that desire is by no means clear to her or explicit. And then things are going to happen: and they may be very painful and harmful, if things go wrong. Particularly if the young man only wanted a temporary guiding star and divinity (until he hitches his waggon to a brighter one), and was merely enjoying the flattery of sympathy nicely seasoned with a titillation of sex – all quite innocent, of course, and worlds away from 'seduction'.

You may meet in life (as in literature) women who are flighty, or even plain wanton — I don't refer to mere flirtatiousness, the sparring practice for the real combat, but to women who are too silly to take even love seriously, or are actually so depraved as to enjoy 'conquests', or even enjoy the giving of pain – but these are abnormalities, even though false teaching, bad upbringing, and corrupt fashions may encourage them. Much though modern conditions have changed feminine circumstances, and the detail of what is considered propriety, they have not changed natural instinct. A man has a life-work, a career, (and male friends), all of which could (and do where he has any guts) survive the shipwreck of 'love'. A young woman, even one 'economically independent', as they say now (it usually really means economic subservience to male commercial employers instead of to a father or a family), begins to think of the 'bottom drawer' and dream of a home, almost at once. If she really falls in love, the shipwreck may really end on the rocks. Anyway women are in general much less romantic and more practical. Don't be misled by the fact that they are more 'sentimental' in words – freer with 'darling', and all that. They do not want a guiding star. They may idealize a plain young man into a hero; but they don't really need any such glamour either to fall in love or to remain in it. If they have any delusion it is that they can 'reform' men. They will take a rotter open-eyed, and even when the delusion of reforming him fails, go on loving him. They are, of course, much more realistic about the sexual relation. Unless perverted by bad contemporary fashions they do not as a rule talk 'bawdy'; not because they are purer than men (they are not) but because they don't find it funny. I have known those who pretended to, but it is a pretence. It may be intriguing, interesting, absorbing (even a great deal too absorbing) to them: but it is just plumb natural, a serious, obvious interest; where is the joke?

They have, of course, still to be more careful in sexual relations, for all the contraceptives. Mistakes are damaging physically and socially (and matrimonially). But they are instinctively, when uncorrupt, monogamous. Men are not. .... No good pretending. Men just ain't, not by their animal nature. Monogamy (although it has long been fundamental to our inherited ideas) is for us men a piece of 'revealed' ethic, according to faith and not to the flesh. Each of us could healthily beget, in our 30 odd years of full manhood, a few hundred children, and enjoy the process. Brigham Young (I believe) was a healthy and happy man. It is a fallen world, and there is no consonance between our bodies, minds, and souls.

However, the essence of a fallen world is that the best cannot be attained by free enjoyment, or by what is called 'self-realization' (usually a nice name for self-indulgence, wholly inimical to the realization of other selves); but by denial, by suffering. Faithfulness in Christian marriage entails that: great mortification. For a Christian man there is no escape. Marriage may help to sanctify & direct to its proper object his sexual desires; its grace may help him in the struggle; but the struggle remains. It will not satisfy him – as hunger may be kept off by regular meals. It will offer as many difficulties to the purity proper to that state, as it provides easements. No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial. Too few are told that — even those brought up 'in the Church'. Those outside seem seldom to have heard it. When the glamour wears off, or merely works a bit thin, they think they have made a mistake, and that the real soulmate is still to find. The real soul-mate too often proves to be the next sexually attractive person that comes along. Someone whom they might indeed very profitably have married, if only —. Hence divorce, to provide the 'if only'. And of course they are as a rule quite right: they did make a mistake. Only a very wise man at the end of his life could make a sound judgement concerning whom, amongst the total possible chances, he ought most profitably to have married! Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the 'real soul-mate' is the one you are actually married to. You really do very little choosing: life and circumstance do most of it (though if there is a God these must be His instruments, or His appearances). It is notorious that in fact happy marriages are more common where the 'choosing' by the young persons is even more limited, by parental or family authority, as long as there is a social ethic of plain unromantic responsibility and conjugal fidelity. But even in countries where the romantic tradition has so far affected social arrangements as to make people believe that the choosing of a mate is solely the concern of the young, only the rarest good fortune brings together the man and woman who are really as it were 'destined' for one another, and capable of a very great and splendid love. The idea still dazzles us, catches us by the throat: poems and stories in multitudes have been written on the theme, more, probably, than the total of such loves in real life (yet the greatest of these tales do not tell of the happy marriage of such great lovers, but of their tragic separation; as if even in this sphere the truly great and splendid in this fallen world is more nearly achieved by 'failure' and suffering). In such great inevitable love, often love at first sight, we catch a vision, I suppose, of marriage as it should have been in an unfallen world. In this fallen world we have as our only guides, prudence, wisdom (rare in youth, too late in age), a clean, heart, and fidelity of will.....

My own history is so exceptional, so wrong and imprudent in nearly every point that it makes it difficult to counsel prudence. Yet hard cases make bad law; and exceptional cases are not always good guides for others.

[...]

Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. .... There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires.

God has joined by making man and woman one flesh; this then man may not put asunder, but God only. Man puts asunder, when from desire of a second wife the first is put away; God puts asunder, who also had joined, when by consent for the service of God we so have our wives as though we had them not. (1 Cor. 7:29.)

And accordingly, those whom God "from the beginning" conjoined, "two into one flesh," man shall not at the present day separate. The apostle, too, writing to the Ephesians, says that God "had proposed in Himself, at the dispensation of the fulfilment of the times, to recall to the head" (that is, to the beginning) "things universal in Christ, which are above the heavens and above the earth in Him.

Therefore, since they have become one flesh, joined together by means of marital relations and physical affection, just as it is accursed to cut one's own flesh, so is it accursed to separate husband and wife. He did not say, "Let not Moses put asunder," so as not to scandalize them, but simply "Let not man," showing the gap between God Who joins together and man who dissolves.

Understand this also, that "he that is joined unto the Lord is of one spirit with Him" (I Cor. 6:17) and a union takes place between the believer and Christ. For we have all become one body with Him and we are, each one of us, members of Christ. So indeed no one can separate such a union, as Paul said, Who can separate us from the love of Christ? For what God has joined together, nothing can separate, as Paul says, neither man nor any other created thing, not angels, principalities, or powers (See Rom. 8:38-39).

Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. Then he draws the principal conclusion: what therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder, because it was done by God's will. If it is from God, man cannot separate; because if God joined, let God separate. For separation can be made by God or by man: and this either for pleasure, or to have some other woman, and this does not avail; or by mutual consent, so that one may serve God more freely, and so it is from God.

(Verse 8.) He said to them: because Moses allowed you to divorce your wives due to the hardness of your hearts, but it was not like that from the beginning. This is what he meant: Can God be opposed to himself, so that he would command one thing before and then nullify his own command with a new one? It should not be understood this way. Rather, Moses, seeing that because of the desire for second wives, who were either richer, younger, or more beautiful, the first wives were being killed or leading a bad life, preferred to tolerate discord rather than continue with hatred and murders (Deut. XXIV). At the same time, consider that God did not allow it because of the hardness of your hearts, but Moses did, so that, according to the Apostle's counsel (1 Corinthians 7), it may be a human choice, not a commandment from God.

What He says is to this purpose. Is it possible that God should so contradict Himself, as to command one thing at first, and after defeat His own ordinance by a new statute? Think not so; but, whereas Moses saw that through desire of second wives who should be richer, younger, or fairer, that the first were put to death, or treated ill, he chose rather to suffer separation, than the continuance of hatred and assassination. Observe moreover that He said not God suffered you, but, Moses; showing that it was, as the Apostle speaks, a counsel of man, not a command of God. (1 Cor. 7:12.)

Nevertheless, unspeakable wisdom maketh a defense even for these things, and saith, "Moses for the hardness of your hearts" thus made the law. And not even him doth He suffer to remain under accusation, forasmuch as He had Himself given him the law; but delivers him from the charge, and turns the whole upon their head, as everywhere He doth.

For again when they were blaming His disciples for plucking the ears of corn, He shows themselves to be guilty; and when they were laying a transgression to their charge as to their not washing their hands, He shows themselves to be the transgressors, and touching the Sabbath also: both everywhere, and here in like manner.

Then because the saying was hard to bear, and brought on them much blame, He quickly directs back His discourse to that ancient law, saying as He had said before also, "But in the beginning it was not so," that is, God by His acts at the beginning ordained the contrary. For in order that they may not say, Whence is it manifest, that "for our hardness Moses said this?" hereby again He stoppeth their mouths. For if this were the primary law, and for our good, that other would not have been given at the beginning; God in creating would not have so created, He would not have said such things.

Therefore said He well, Moses suffered, not commanded. For what we command, that we ever wish; but when we suffer, we yield against our will, because we have not the power to put full restraint upon the evil wills of men. He therefore suffered you to do evil that you might not do worse; thus in suffering this he was not enforcing the righteousness of God, but taking away its sinfulness from a sin; that while you did it according to His law, your sin should not appear sin.

There, while prohibiting divorce, He has given us a solution of this special question respecting it: "Moses," says He, "because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to give a bill of divorcement; but from the beginning it was not so" -for this reason, indeed, because He who had "made them male and female" had likewise said, "They twain shall become one flesh; what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

So true, moreover, is it that divorce "was not from the beginning," that among the Romans it is not till after the six hundredth year from the building of the city that this kind of "hard-heartedness" is set down as having been committed.

Then the Lord, turning every accusation upon their own head, defends Moses by saying, "Moses did not set this law in contradiction to God, but rather he addressed this law to your depravity, so that when you in your licentiousness desired to come together with other women, you would not put to death your first wife." For the Israelites, being cruel, would have murdered their wives if they were constrained to keep them. So Moses provided in the law for a writ of divorce to be given to those wives who were hated by their husbands.

And he said to them. Here he answers the objection. And first he presents the answer; secondly the confirmation, because the Lord proves that a wife should not be put away from the authority of God, which is greater; therefore against the authority of God there is no authority of Moses. But against this: did not the Lord give the law through Moses? See, as the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 7:25: concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give counsel. Hence sometimes he was saying what he had received from the Lord, sometimes from his own divinely inspired judgment: so also Moses. But this he permitted, not because he had heard it from the Lord, but from divine inspiration, yet not confirmed by authority. Because of the hardness of your hearts he permitted you to put away your wives. They had said that Moses commanded; but he did not command, but permitted. Concerning their hardness, Acts 7:51: stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. Here there is usually a question, whether those who put away their wives sin mortally. Some said that those who put them away sinned mortally. For permission is taken in four ways. Something is said to be permitted when the contrary is not commanded, as a lesser good is permitted because a greater good is not commanded, as the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 7:6: I speak by way of indulgence. Likewise sometimes by the privation of prohibition; and so venial sins are permitted. But sometimes by the privation of impediment: and so all the evils that are done in the present life are sometimes also said to be permitted, because punishment is not applied. Therefore certain things were permitted to the Jews which were mortal sins, because punishment was not inflicted on them. But this has a place in worldly matters: for so we see that according to human laws simple fornication is not punished; hence if the Old Law only looked to the present life, the solution is good. But because although according to the letter it pertains to the present life, yet according to the substance it pertains also to eternal life, Exodus 15:25: I gave them my precepts; and the Lord says to the young man below in the same chapter: if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments; therefore others say that it would have been poorly provided for that people if they did not know what was a sin, since nevertheless it is written, Isaiah 58:1: declare to the people their sins. Therefore Chrysostom says that he removed from the sin the guilt of sin. And although it was something disordered, he did not wish it to be imputed to them as guilt, as the Lord commanded Hosea to take a wife of fornication: hence the permission was not from a precept, but to avoid a greater evil. But from the beginning it was not so. Hence it was something actual, not instituted from the beginning: hence for many years no one put away his wife.

To commit adultery is to have relations with a woman who is not one's proper spouse. A man commits adultery if he brings another woman in, instead of the one to whom he was lawfully bound. The law forbade obvious adultery, which is when another man seduces the woman in the house. But the Savior includes also that adultery that has not become known to everyone or that has not been proven as having occurred physically, because it is still adultery. Moreover, Christ agrees that the unfaithful wife has rebelled because she herself has destroyed the natural yoking and is no longer treated as a wife by her husband.

If a layman divorces his own wife, and takes another, or one divorced by another, let him be suspended.

A person should either remain as he was born, or be content with one marriage; for a second marriage is only a specious adultery. "For whosoever puts away his wife," says He, "and marries another, commits adultery;" [Matthew 19:9] not permitting a man to send her away whose virginity he has brought to an end, nor to marry again. For he who deprives himself of his first wife, even though she be dead, is a cloaked adulterer, resisting the hand of God, because in the beginning God made one man and one woman, and dissolving the strictest union of flesh with flesh, formed for the intercourse of the race.

(De Conjug. Adult. ii. 9.) For a reunion of the wedlock, even after actual commission of adultery, is neither shameful nor difficult, where there is an undoubted remission of sin through the keys of the kingdom of heaven; not that after being divorced from her husband an adulteress should be called back again, but that after her union with Christ she should no longer be called an adulteress.

Christianity teaches that marriage is for life. There is, of course, a difference here between different Churches: some do not admit divorce at all; some allow it reluctantly in very special cases. It is a great pity that Christians should disagree about such a question; but for an ordinary layman the thing to notice is that the Churches all agree with one another about marriage a great deal more than any of them agrees with the outside world. I mean, they all regard divorce as something like cutting up a living body, as a kind of surgical operation. Some of them think the operation so violent that it cannot be done at all; others admit it as a desparate remedy in extreme cases. They are all agreed that it is more like having both you legs cut off than it is like dissolving a business partnership or even deserting a regiment. What they all disagree with is the modern view that it is a simple readjustment of partners, to be made whenever people feel they are no longer in love with one another, or when either of them falls in love with someone else.

Now that the Scripture counsels marriage, and allows no release from the union, is expressly contained in the law, "Thou shalt not put away thy wife, except for the cause of fornication;" and it regards as fornication, the marriage of those separated while the other is alive. Not to deck and adorn herself beyond what is becoming, renders a wife free of calumnious suspicion, while she devotes herself assiduously to prayers and supplications; avoiding frequent departures from the house, and shutting herself up as far as possible from the view of all not related to her, and deeming housekeeping of more consequence than impertinent trifling. "He that taketh a woman that has been put away," it is said, "committeth adultery; and if one puts away his wife, he makes her an adulteress," that is, compels her to commit adultery. And not only is he who puts her away guilty of this, but he who takes her, by giving to the woman the opportunity of sinning; for did he not take her, she would return to her husband. What, then, is the law? In order to check the impetuosity of the passions, it commands the adulteress to be put to death, on being convicted of this; and if of priestly family, to be committed to the flames. And the adulterer also is stoned to death, but not in the same place, that not even their death may be in common. And the law is not at variance with the Gospel, but agrees with it. How should it be otherwise, one Lord being the author of both? She who has committed fornication liveth in sin, and is dead to the commandments; but she who has repented, being as it were born again by the change in her life, has a regeneration of life; the old harlot being dead, and she who has been regenerated by repentance having come back again to life. The Spirit testifies to what has been said by Ezekiel, declaring, "I desire not the death of the sinner, but that he should turn." Now they are stoned to death; as through hardness of heart dead to the law which they believed not. But in the case of a priestess the punishment is increased, because "to whom much is given, from him shall more be required."

I say this in passing, to point out that while I do not dream of suggesting that there are only happy marriages, there will quite certainly, as things work nowadays, be a very large number of unhappy and unjust divorces. They will be cases in which the innocent partner will receive the real punishment of the guilty partner, through being in fact and feeling the faithful partner. For instance, it is insisted that a married person must at least find release from the society of a lunatic; but it is also true that the scientific reformers, with their fuss about "the feeble-minded," are continually giving larger and looser definitions of lunacy. The process might begin by releasing somebody from a homicidal maniac, and end by dealing in the same way with a rather dull conversationalist. But in fact nobody does deny that a person should be allowed some sort of release from a homicidal maniac. The most extreme school of orthodoxy only maintains that anybody who has had that experience should be content with that release. In other words, it says he should be content with that experience of matrimony, and not seek another. It was put very wittily, I think, by a Roman Catholic friend of mine, who said he approved of release so long as it was not spelt with a hyphen.

To put it roughly, we are prepared in some cases to listen to the man who complains of having a wife. But we are not prepared to listen, at such length, to the same man when he comes back and complains that he has not got a wife. Now in practice at this moment the great mass of the complaints are precisely of this kind. The reformers insist particularly on the pathos of a man's position when he has obtained a separation without a divorce. Their most tragic figure is that of the man who is already free of all those ills he had, and is only asking to be allowed to fly to others that he knows not of. I should be the last to deny that, in certain emotional circumstances, his tragedy may be very tragic indeed. But his tragedy is of the emotional kind which can never be entirely eliminated; and which he has himself, in all probability, inflicted on the partner he has left. We may call it the price of maintaining an ideal or the price of making a mistake; but anyhow it is the point of our whole distinction in the matter; it is here that we draw the line, and I have nowhere denied that it is a line of battle. The battle joins on the debatable ground, not of the man's doubtful past but of his still more doubtful future. In a word, the divorce controversy is not really a controversy about divorce. It is a controversy about re-marriage; or rather about whether it is marriage at all.

While free love seems to me a heresy, divorce does really seem to me a superstition. It is not only more of a superstition than free love, but much more of a superstition than strict sacramental marriage; and this point can hardly be made too plain. It is the partisans of divorce, not the defenders of marriage, who attach a stiff and senseless sanctity to a mere ceremony, apart from the meaning of the ceremony. It is our opponents, and not we, who hope to be saved by the letter of ritual, instead of the spirit of reality. It is they who hold that vow or violation, loyalty or disloyalty, can all be disposed of by a mysterious and magic rite, performed first in a law-court and then in a church or a registry office. There is little difference between the two parts of the ritual; except that the law court is much more ritualistic. But the plainest parallels will show anybody that all this is sheer barbarous credulity. It may or may not be superstition for a man to believe he must kiss the Bible to show he is telling the truth. It is certainly the most grovelling superstition for him to believe that, if he kisses the Bible, anything he says will come true. It would surely be the blackest and most benighted Bible-worship to suggest that the mere kiss on the mere book alters the moral quality of perjury. Yet this is precisely what is implied in saying that formal re-marriage alters the moral quality of conjugal infidelity. It may have been a mark of the Dark Ages that Harold should swear on a relic, though he were afterwards foresworn. But surely those ages would have been at their darkest, if he had been content to be sworn on a relic and forsworn on another relic. Yet this is the new altar these reformers would erect for us, out of the mouldy and meaningless relics of their dead law and their dying religion.

(ord.) He says this to the terror of him that would take her to wife, for the adulteress would have no fear of disgrace.

(Verse 9.) But I say to you, that whoever divorces his wife, except for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery. And he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery. Only fornication is what overcomes a wife's affection: indeed, when she divides one flesh into another, and separates herself from her husband through fornication, she should not be held: lest she also make her husband subject to a curse, as Scripture says: Whoever holds onto an adulteress, is foolish and wicked. Therefore, whenever there is fornication, or even suspicion of fornication, the wife is freely dismissed. And because it could happen that someone falsely accuses the innocent person and implicates them in an old crime due to a second marriage, the husband is commanded to divorce the first wife so that he does not have a second wife while the first one is still alive. For what he says is as follows: If you divorce your wife not for lust but for injury, why do you expose yourself to the danger of unhappy previous marriages by entering into new ones? Moreover, because it could happen that, according to the same law, a wife could also give a divorce to her husband, the same caution is prescribed so that she does not marry a second man. And because a prostitute, and one who has once been an adulteress, does not fear disgrace, the same caution is prescribed for the husband, that if he marries such a woman, he is subject to the crime of adultery.

It is fornication alone which destroys the relationship of the wife; for when she has divided one flesh into two, and has separated herself by fornication from her husband, she is not to be retained, lest she should bring her husband also under the curse, which Scripture has spoken, He that keepeth an adulteress is a fool and wicked. (Prov. 18:23.)

For it might be that a man might falsely charge an innocent wife, and for the sake of another woman might fasten an accusation upon her. Therefore it is commanded so to put away the first, that a second be not married while the first is yet alive. Also because it might happen that by the same law a wife would divorce her husband, it is also provided that she take not another husband; and because one who had become an adulteress would have no further fear of disgrace, it is commanded that she many not another husband. But if she do marry another, she is in the guilt of adultery; wherefore it follows, And whoso marrieth her that is put away, committeth adultery.

"But I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife except it be for fornication, and marry another, committeth adultery." For since he had stopped their mouths, He then gives the law with His own authority, like as touching the meats, like as touching the Sabbath.

For with regard to the meats likewise, when He had overcome them, then, and not till then, He declared unto the multitude, that, "Not that which goeth in defileth the man;" and with regard to the Sabbath, when He had stopped their mouths, He saith, "Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day;" and here this self-same thing.

Concerning chastity, He uttered such sentiments as these: "Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart before God." And, "If thy right eye offend thee, cut it out; for it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of heaven with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into everlasting fire." And, "Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced from another husband, committeth adultery." And, "There are some who have been made eunuchs of men, and some who were born eunuchs, and some who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake; but all cannot receive this saying." So that all who, by human law, are twice married, are in the eye of our Master sinners, and those who look upon a woman to lust after her. For not only he who in act commits adultery is rejected by Him, but also he who desires to commit adultery: since not only our works, but also our thoughts, are open before God.

Perhaps some one will say, that Jesus in thus speaking, suffered wives to be put away for the same cause that Moses suffered them, which He says was for the hardness of the hearts of the Jews. But to this it is to be answered, that if by the Law an adulteress is stoned, that sin is not to be understood as the shameful thing for which Moses suffers a writing of divorcement; (Deut. 24:1.) for in a cause of adultery it was not lawful to give a writing of divorcement. But Moses perhaps calls every sin in a woman a shameful thing, which if it be found in her, a bill of divorcement is written against her. But we should enquire, If it is lawful to put away a wife for the cause of fornication only, what is it if a woman be not an adulteress, but have done any other heinous crime; have been found a poisoner, or to have murdered her children? The Lord has explained this matter in another place, saying, Whoso putteth her away, except for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery, (Mat. 5:32.) giving her an opportunity of a second marriage.

Therefore said He well, Moses suffered, not commanded. For what we command, that we ever wish; but when we suffer, we yield against our will, because we have not the power to put full restraint upon the evil wills of men. He therefore suffered you to do evil that you might not do worse; thus in suffering this he was not enforcing the righteousness of God, but taking away its sinfulness from a sin; that while you did it according to His law, your sin should not appear sin.

For as he is cruel and unjust that puts away a chaste wife, so is he a fool and unjust that retains an unchaste; for in that he hides the guilt of his wife, he is an encourager of foulness.

For every thing by whatsoever causes it is created, by the same is it destroyed. It is not matrimony but the will that makes the union; and therefore it is not a separation of bodies but a separation of wills that dissolves it. He then who puts away his wife and does not take another is still her husband; for though their bodies be not united, their wills are united. But when he takes another, then he manifestly puts his wife away; wherefore the Lord says not, Whoso putteth away his wife, but, Whoso marrieth another, committeth adultery.

There is then but one carnal cause why a wife should be put away, that is, fornication, and but one spiritual, that is, the fear of God. But there is no cause why while she who has been put away is alive, another should be married.

"Sir, if any one has a wife who trusts in the Lord, and if he detect her in adultery, does the man sin if he continue to live with her?" And he said to me, "As long as he remains ignorant of her sin, the husband commits no transgression in living with her. But if the husband know that his wife has gone astray, and if the woman does not repent, but persists in her fornication, and yet the husband continues to live with her, he also is guilty of her crime, and a sharer in her adultery." And I said to him, "What then, sir, is the husband to do, if his wife continue in her vicious practices?" And he said, "The husband should put her away, and remain by himself. But if he put his wife away and marry another, he also commits adultery." And I said to him, "What if the woman put away should repent, and wish to return to her husband: shall she not be taken back by her husband?" And he said to me, "Assuredly. If the husband do not take her back, he sins, and brings a great sin upon himself; for he ought to take back the sinner who has repented. But not frequently. For there is but one repentance to the servants of God. In case, therefore, that the divorced wife may repent, the husband ought not to marry another, when his wife has been put away. In this matter man and woman are to be treated exactly in the same way."

But, however, since Patience takes the lead in every species of salutary discipline, what wonder that she likewise ministers to Repentance, (accustomed as Repentance is to come to the rescue of such as have fallen, ) when, on a disjunction of wedlock (for that cause, I mean, which makes it lawful, whether for husband or wife, to persist in the perpetual observance of widowhood), she waits for, she yearns for, she persuades by her entreaties, repentance in all who are one day to enter salvation? How great a blessing she confers on each!The one she prevents from becoming an adulterer; the other she amends.

But I say to you, Christ says, that it is good to divorce as an adulteress a wife who has committed fornication, but if one divorces a wife who has not committed fornication, he becomes in part the cause of adultery for her if she should marry again.

And I say to you etc. Here he introduces the law. First for the husband; secondly for the wife. He says therefore whosoever shall put away his wife etc. But fornication is excepted. But see that fornication is twofold, namely corporal and spiritual. Hence one can put away for either, as is found in 1 Corinthians 7:11: if one is an unbeliever and the other a believer, the believer can put away the unbeliever. It should be noted that by no subsequent impediment can the bond of marriage be dissolved, because it signifies the union of Christ and the Church: hence since the union of Christ and the Church cannot be dissolved, neither can the union of marriage. But on account of fornication one can be separated from the common life, and he ought not to keep her with him, lest he seem to be a consenter to the wickedness; but for other faults he cannot, as for drunkenness. Likewise if she wishes to lead a man to unbelief, he can put her away. But why is mention made more of corporal fornication than of spiritual? Because it is against the fidelity of marriage: and faith need not be kept with one who breaks faith. Another reason is one which Origen gives, because above at 5:32 the Lord said, he who puts away his wife, excepting the cause of fornication, makes her to commit adultery, and therefore he gives her an occasion for committing adultery; but after she has sinned, he does not give her an occasion for committing adultery, and therefore afterwards he can put her away, but not before. And he who shall marry another, commits adultery. But why not, unless he marries another? Because the same thing is bound by those things by which it is loosed. Hence when a man has a separated wife, and no other, the hope still remains that they can be reunited, either through a similar fault, or through a consent of minds; but when he has married another, then he has totally separated his heart and consent from her. Another reason is that if apart from fornication he could put away his wife, it would sometimes happen that a man would impute a crime to his wife, so as to be separated from her and joined to another; therefore the Lord willed that he should not have another. Hence he expressly forbids that a man should have different wives, because having dismissed one and taken another, he commits adultery. And he who shall marry her that is put away, commits adultery. Here he sets forth the law regarding the woman: hence he does not wish that a dismissed wife have a husband. But why does he forbid the man from contracting with her, and not the woman? I answer that women are more headlong toward evil. Jeremiah 3:3: you have had the forehead of a harlot. Therefore by this prohibition she would be headlong into greater evils. Therefore he commands the man not to contract, but does not forbid the woman. But what then? Was it not lawful for a woman who was repudiated to take another husband? Some say no, because the bond still remained: and they cite what is found in Deuteronomy 24, that she could not return to the former husband, because she was defiled; but if she had not sinned, she could return. Others say that she could marry another, but not this one, because if she could return to him, he would more easily repudiate her. What then do you say, that she is defiled? I say that she is defiled to him, because she cannot return to him. Or it can be understood of legal uncleanness, because a priest could not have her.

(Verse 11.) He said to them: Not everyone can understand this word, but only those to whom it is given. No one should think that under this word, either fate or fortune is introduced: these are the virgins to whom it has been given by God, or whom certain circumstances have brought to this, but it has been given to those who have asked, who have desired, who have worked to receive it. For everyone who asks will receive, and the one who seeks will find, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened (Matthew 7:8 and Luke 11:10).

But let none think, that wherein He adds, save they to whom it is given, that either fate or fortune is implied, as though they were virgins only whom chance has led to such a fortune. For that is given to those who have sought it of God, who have longed for it, who have striven that they might obtain it.

What then saith Christ? He said not, "yea, it is easier, and so do," lest they should suppose that the thing is a law; but He subjoined, "Not all men receive it, but they to whom it is given," raising the thing, and showing that it is great, and in this way drawing them on, and urging them.

But see herein a contradiction. For He indeed saith this is a great thing; but they, that it is easier. For it was meet that both these things should be done, and that it should be at once acknowledged a great thing by Him, that it might render them more forward, and by the things said by themselves it should be shown to be easier, that on this ground too they might the rather choose virginity and continence.

And if it is of free choice, one may say, how doth He say, at the beginning, "All men do not receive it, but they to whom it is given?" That thou mightest learn that the conflict is great, not that thou shouldest suspect any compulsory allotments. For it is given to those, even to the willing.

But He spake thus to show that much influence from above is needed by him who entereth these lists, whereof He that is willing shall surely partake. For it is customary for Him to use this form of speech when the good work done is great, as when He saith, "To you it is given to know the mysteries."

And that this is true, is manifest even from the present instance. For if it be of the gift from above only, and they that live as virgins contribute nothing themselves, for nought did He promise them the kingdom of Heaven, and distinguish them from the other eunuchs.

But He said unto them, Not all can receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. Since the disciples had said that it would be better not to enter into marriage, the Lord says that virginity is a great thing but not everyone can achieve it, but only those with whom God acts in synergy. "They to whom it is given" refers to those with whom God acts in synergy. It is given to those who ask. For He says, "Ask, and it shall be given you. For everyone that asketh receiveth" (Lk. 11:9).

Who said to them: he approves the opinion of the disciples. And first by words; secondly by deeds, at then were little children presented to him. And first he approves continence; secondly he assigns the differences among the continent, at for there are eunuchs etc.; thirdly the difficulty, at he that can take, let him take it. He says therefore who said to them: all men take not this word. You say that it is not expedient to marry: this is true for some, but it is not true for all, because not all have so great a virtue that they abstain; but they to whom it is given, because it is given to some not from their own doing, but by a gift of grace. Wisdom 8:21: I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it. For that a man living in the flesh should live apart from the flesh is not of man but of God; 1 Corinthians 7:7: I would that all men were even as myself; but every one has his proper gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that. And because they might believe that all could be continent, therefore he says for there are eunuchs etc.

From these things it is gathered that the voice of the turtledove is also the preaching of chastity. For in the beginning this voice was not heard on earth, but rather that one: "Increase and multiply and fill the earth" (Gen 1:28). In vain indeed would the voice of chastity have sounded, when the homeland of those rising again had not yet been revealed: in which far more happily "men will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven" (Lk 20:35-36). You would say that there was a time for that voice, when every barren woman in Israel was subject to a curse, when the Patriarchs themselves had several wives at the same time, when a brother was compelled by the law to raise up offspring for a brother who had died without children. But when the commendation of those eunuchs "who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God" (Mt 19:12) sounded from the mouth of the heavenly turtledove; and likewise the counsel of another, that same most chaste turtledove, concerning virgins everywhere prevailed (1 Cor 7:25), then for the first time it could be truly said, that "the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land."

That widowed continence according to the evangelical law ought to be vowed is shown by authority, as follows. Matthew 19: There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven; he who can receive it, let him receive it: but to make oneself a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven is done most especially through a vow of continence, and this is proposed to all who wish to undertake it: therefore anyone who wills can vow continence according to the evangelical law.

Christ after a clear allusion to the eunuchs of eastern courts, said there would be eunuchs of the kingdom of heaven. If this does not mean the voluntary enthusiasm of virginity, it could only be made to mean something much more unnatural or uncouth. It is the historical religion that humanises it for us by experience of Franciscans or of Sisters of Mercy. The mere statement standing by itself might very well suggest a rather dehumanised atmosphere; the sinister and inhuman silence of the Asiatic harem and divan. This is but one instance out of scores; but the moral is that the Christ of the Gospel might actually seem more strange and terrible than the Christ of the Church.

The cause in one item he assigns nature; in the next violence, and in the last his own choice, in him, namely, that determined to be so from hope of the kingdom of heaven.

There are three kinds of eunuchs, two carnal and the third spiritual. One group are those who are born this way. Another are those who are made into eunuchs by captivity or for pleasuring older women. The third are those who "have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven" and who become eunuchs for Christ though they could be whole men. The last group are promised the reward. The other two, for whom chastity is not a matter of willing but necessity, are due nothing at all. We can put it another way. There are eunuchs from birth who are of a rather frigid nature and not inclined to lust. There are others who are made eunuchs by men, those who are made so by philosophers, others who are made weak toward sex from their worship of idols, and still others who by heretical persuasion feign chastity so as to falsely claim the truth of religion. None of the above is receptive to the kingdom of heaven. Only the person who for Christ seeks chastity wholeheartedly and cuts off sexual impurity altogether [is the genuine eunuch]. So he adds, "He who is able to receive this, let him receive it," so that each of us should look to his own strength as to whether he can carry out the commands of virginity and chastity. Chastity in itself is agreeable and alluring; but one must look to one's strength so that "he who is able to receive this may receive it." It is as if the Lord with his words were urging on his soldiers to the reward of chastity with these words: He who is able to receive this let him receive it; he who is able to fight, let him fight and conquer.

(Verse 12.) For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it. There are three types of eunuchs: those who are eunuchs from birth, those who are made eunuchs by men, and those who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Some are born eunuchs, others are made eunuchs by men, and others choose to be eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. And those who can accept it should accept it. A reward is promised to these people, but to the previous ones, for whom the necessity of chastity is not voluntary, nothing is owed at all. We can say differently. There are eunuchs who are born from their mother's womb, who are of a colder nature and do not desire lust. And there are others who are made by humans: whom either philosophers make, or they are softened into women because of the worship of idols: or they pretend chastity due to heretical persuasion, in order to lie about the truth of religion. But none of them will inherit the kingdom of heaven unless he has castrated himself for the sake of Christ. Therefore, it is concluded: He who is able to receive this, let him receive it; so that each person may consider his own abilities, whether he can fulfill the commands of virginity and chastity. For chastity is enticing in itself, attracting anyone to itself. But one's abilities must be considered, so that he who is able to receive it, may receive it. It is like the voice of the Lord urging and inciting his soldiers to the reward of chastity. Let whoever is able to understand, understand; let whoever is able to fight, fight, overcome and triumph.

He speaks of three kinds of eunuchs, of whom two are carnal, and one spiritual. One, those who are so born of their mother's womb; another, those whom enemies or courtly luxury has made so; a third, those who have made themselves so for the kingdom of heaven, and who might have been men, but become eunuchs for Christ. To them the reward is promised, for to the others whose continence was involuntary, nothing is due.

(cf. Orig. in loc.) Or we may say otherwise. The eunuchs from their mothers' wombs are they whose nature is colder, and not prone to lust. And they that are made so of men are they whom physicians made so, or they whom worship of idols has made effeminate, or who from the influence of heretical teaching pretend to chastity, that they may thereupon claim truth for their tenets. But none of them obtain the kingdom of heaven, save he only who has become a eunuch for Christ's sake. Whence it follows, He that is able to receive it, let him receive it; let each calculate his own strength, whether he is able to fulfil the rules of virginity and abstinence. For in itself continence is sweet and alluring, but each man must consider his strength, that he only that is able may receive it. This is the voice of the Lord exhorting and encouraging on His soldiers to the reward of chastity, that he who can fight might fight and conquer and triumph.

For since to speak of virginity seemed to be grievous, by the constraint of this law He drove them to this desire. Then to show the possibility of it, He saith, "There are some eunuchs, who were so born from their mother's womb, there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of Heaven's sake," by these words secretly leading them to choose the thing, and establishing the possibility of this virtue, and all but saying, Consider if thou wert in such case by nature, or hadst endured this selfsame thing at the hands of those who inflict such wanton injuries, what wouldest thou have done, being deprived indeed of the enjoyment, yet not having a reward? Thank God therefore now, for that with rewards and crowns thou undergoest this, which those men endure without crowns; or rather not ever this, but what is much lighter, being supported both by hope, and by the consciousness of the good work, and not having the desire so raging like waves within thee.

For the excision of a member is not able to quell such waves, and to make a calm, like the curb of reason; or rather, reason only can do this.

For this intent therefore He brought in those others, even that He might encourage these, since if this was not what He was establishing, what means His saying concerning the other eunuchs? But when He saith, that they made themselves eunuchs, He means not the excision of the members, far from it, but the putting away of wicked thoughts. Since the man who hath mutilated himself, in fact, is subject even to a curse, as Paul saith, "I would they were even cut off which trouble you." And very reasonably. For such a one is venturing on the deeds of murderers, and giving occasion to them that slander God's creation, and opens the mouths of the Manichaeans, and is guilty of the same unlawful acts as they that mutilate themselves amongst the Greeks. For to cut off our members hath been from the beginning a work of demoniacal agency, and satanic device, that they may bring up a bad report upon the work of God, that they may mar this living creature, that imputing all not to the choice, but to the nature of our members, the more part of them may sin in security, as being irresponsible; and doubly harm this living creature, both by mutilating the members, and by impeding the forwardness of the free choice in behalf of good deeds.

These are the ordinances of the devil, bringing in, besides the things which we have mentioned, another wicked doctrine also, and making way beforehand for the arguments concerning destiny and necessity even from hence, and everywhere marring the freedom given to us of God, and persuading us that evil deeds are of nature, and hence secretly implanting many other wicked doctrines, although not openly. For such are the devil's poisons.

Therefore I beseech you to flee from such lawlessness. For together with the things I have mentioned, neither doth the force of lust become milder hereby, but even more fierce. For from another origin hath the seed that is in us its sources, and from another cause do its waves swell. And some say from the brain, some from the loins, this violent impulse hath its birth; but I should say from nothing else than from an ungoverned will and a neglected mind: if this be temperate, there is no evil result from the motions of nature.

Having spoken then of the eunuchs that are eunuchs for nought and fruitlessly, unless with the mind they too practise temperance, and of those that are virgins for Heaven's sake, He proceeds again to say, "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it," at once making them more earnest by showing that the good work is exceeding in greatness, and not suffering the thing to be shut up in the compulsion of a law, because of His unspeakable gentleness. And this He said, when He showed it to be most possible, in order that the emulation of the free choice might be greater.

For as the deed without the will does not constitute a sin; so a righteous act is not in the deed unless the will go with it. That therefore is honourable continence, not which mutilation of body of necessity enforces, but which the will of holy purpose embraces.

For they are born such, just as others are born having six or four fingers. For if God according as He formed our bodies in the beginning, had continued the same order unchangeably, the working of God would have been brought into oblivion among men. The order of nature is therefore changed at times from its nature, that God the framer of nature may be had in remembrance.

Thus in the Revelation of John it is said: "These are they which have not defiled their clothes with women," -indicating, of course, virgins, and such as have become "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake." Therefore they shall be "clothed in white raiment," that is, in the bright beauty of the unwedded flesh.

Further, if we set down in order the higher and happier grades of bodily patience, (we find that)it is she who is entrusted by holiness with the care of continence of the flesh: she keeps the widow, and sets on the virgin the seal and raises the self-made eunuch to the realms of heaven. That which springs from a virtue of the mind is perfected in the flesh; and, finally, by the patience of the flesh, does battle under persecution.

If, then he shows plainly that even wives themselves are so to be had as if they be not had, on account of the straits of the times, what would be his sentiments about these vain appliances of theirs? Why, are there not many, withal, who so do, and seal themselves up to eunuchhood for the sake of the kingdom of God, spontaneously relinquishing a pleasure so honourable, and (as we know) permitted? Are there not some who prohibit to themselves (the use of) the very "creature of God," abstaining from wine and animal food, the enjoyments of which border upon no peril or solicitude; but they sacrifice to God the humility of their soul even in the chastened use of food? Sufficiently, therefore, have you, too, used your riches and your delicacies; sufficiently have you cut down the fruits of your dowries, before (receiving) the knowledge of saving disciplines.

How many are there who from the moment of their baptism set the seal (of virginity) upon their flesh? How many, again, who by equal mutual consent cancel the debt of matrimony-voluntary eunuchs for the sake of their desire! after the celestial kingdom! But if, while the marriage-tie is still intact, abstinence is endured, how much more when it has been undone! For I believe it to be harder for what is intact to be quite forsaken, than for what has been lost not to be yearned after.

This (even) broader assertion we make: that even if the Paraclete had in this our day definitely prescribed a virginity or continence total and absolute, so as not to permit the heat of the flesh to foam itself down even in single marriage, even thus He would seem to be introducing nothing of "novelty; "seeing that the Lord Himself opens "the kingdoms of the heavens" to "eunuchs," as being Himself, withal, a virgin; to whom looking, the apostle also-himself too for this reason abstinent-gives the preference to continence.

But (now), when the "extremity of the times" has cancelled (the command) "Grow and multiply," since the apostles (another command), "It remaineth, that both they who have wives so be as if they have not," because "the time is compressed; and "the sour grape" chewed by "the fathers" has ceased "to set the sons' teeth on edge," for, "each one shall die in his own sin; "and "eunuchs" not only have lost ignominy, but have even deserved grace, being invited into "the kingdoms of the heavens: " the law of succeeding to the wife of a brother being buried, its contrary has obtained-that of not succeeding to the wife of a brother.

is it that He Himself withal should set upon His own official chair men who were mindful rather to enjoin-(but) not likewise to practise-sanctity of the flesh, which (sanctity) He had in all ways recommended to their teaching and practising?-first by His own example, then by all other arguments; while He tells (them) that "the kingdom of heavens" is "children's; " while He associates with these (children) others who, after marriage, remained (or became)virgins; " while He calls (them) to (copy) the simplicity of the dove, a bird not merely innocuous, but modest too, and whereof one male knows one female; while He denies the Samaritan woman's (partner to be) a husband, that He may show that manifold husbandry is adultery; while, in the revelation of His own glory, He prefers, from among so many saints and prophets, to have with him Moses and Elias -the one a monogamist, the other a voluntary celibate (for Elias was nothing else than John, who came "in the power and spirit of Elias" ); while that "man gluttonous and toping," the "frequenter of luncheons and suppers, in the company of publicans and sinners," sups once for all at a single marriage, though, of course, many were marrying (around Him); for He willed to attend (marriages) only so often as (He willed) them to be.

How long shall we allege "the flesh," because the Lord said, "the flesh is weak? " But He has withal premised that "the Spirit is prompt," in order that the Spirit may vanquish the flesh-that the weak may yield to the stronger. For again He says, "Let him who is able to receive, receive (it); " that is, let him who is not able go his way.

These things, my brother, seem to you perhaps harsh and not to be endured; but recall that God has said, "He who receives it, let him receive it," that is, let him who does not receive it go his way.

For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs by men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. There are few, He says, who can achieve this virginity. For there are some who are eunuchs from their mother's womb, that is, by their physical temperament are never aroused towards sexual intercourse, so they are chaste without thereby deriving any profit. And there are those who have been made eunuchs by men. Those who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake are not those who have castrated themselves (for that is an accursed deed), but those who exercise self-control. You may also understand it this way. He is a eunuch by nature who, on account of his physical temperament, is not easily aroused to carnal pleasures. He who is made a eunuch by men is he who is guided by human teaching to cut off the burning of carnal desires. He who makes himself a eunuch is he who is instructed by no one else but by himself, and who, self-taught, inclines towards chastity. So this one is best who is guided not by another but by himself to the kingdom of heaven. Christ wants us of our own free will to practice virtue, saying, "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." For Christ neither demands virginity, nor dissolves marriage, but He puts virginity first.

Hence he distinguishes that there is continence in some from nature, sometimes from violence, sometimes from the will. Therefore he touches on three kinds of eunuchs: for some by nature who were born so from their mother's womb. Just as some are born deformed from a defect of the hand, so also some without genitals: and this from God's providence, because if all things happened according to the common course of nature, everything would be attributed to nature, and not to divine providence; hence Wisdom 8:8: she knows signs and wonders before they are done. Likewise some by violence, as those who are castrated by tyrants or barbarians, or who are castrated for the guarding of women. Who were made so by men, whom the cruelty of men castrated, or the care of women. And Jerome says he knows this, because boys were taken and castrated and placed in the house of Nebuchadnezzar. But some by the will, as he says, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. Some misunderstood this word, saying that the genitals should be cut off, and certain men are read to have done this, among whom Origen is said to have been. But this has been condemned, and such persons should be separated from the clergy. Hence occasion is given to the error of the Manichaeans, who said that bodily creation was the cause of evil. Likewise occasion is given to the error of the pagans, because some castrate themselves in their sacrifices. Likewise the act is not useful, because such persons, even if they lack the act, are nevertheless not free from concupiscence. Hence Sirach 20:2: the lust of a eunuch shall deflower a young maiden. Therefore it is better for a man to put a bridle on himself than to cut off a member, so as to restrain evil thoughts and desires. Isaiah 1:16: take away the evil of your thoughts from your hearts. Who have made themselves eunuchs, i.e., have given themselves to perpetual chastity, and this for the kingdom of heaven. For sometimes a member is understood by its act, as above at 18:9: if your eye scandalize you, pluck it out and cast it from you. So here the genital members are taken for the act. Hence he castrates himself who dedicates himself to chastity. Or, according to Jerome, those who keep continence were born with a coldness of nature, so that they are not moved to that act. Hence they are called eunuchs on account of the act of eunuchs, which they have on account of the nature they have from the womb. Because some have a certain disposition to some virtue naturally, as Job to mercy, who says in chapter 31:18: from my infancy mercy grew up with me. But some by the will, either through pretense, or taught by heretics, one is made so by men. 2 Timothy 3:5: having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. But some for the reward of eternal life. The first two, namely those who are castrated either naturally or by violence, do not have the merit of eternal life, but only the third group. But is it true of the first that they do not merit? I say that they merit as to the will, although they do not merit as to the act; because although they cannot do it, they can nevertheless will to be able to do it. He that can take, let him take it. Having set forth the difference of continence, here an exhortation is given, as Jerome says. The Lord does as a general does in an army, who when a city is to be taken says: whoever enters the city, this or that will be given to him, as David said to Joab. So he who can take and be continent, let him take it, and not draw back. The Apostle, 1 Corinthians 12:31: be zealous for the better gifts. But what is it that he says? Is not everyone bound to preserve virginity? It seems so, because man is bound to better things. It must be said that it is not a precept but a counsel, as the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 7:25: concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give counsel. But what then? Is not man bound to better things? I say that a distinction must be made, namely what is better as to the act or as to the affection. One is not bound to what is better as to the act, but as to the affection, because every rule and every act is determined to something finite and certain: and if one is bound to the better, one is bound to the uncertain. Hence as to exterior acts, because one is not bound to the uncertain, one is not bound to what is better; but as to the affection, one is bound to what is better. Hence he who does not always wish to be better, could not wish without contempt. But what is it that he says, he that can take, let him take it? For either by natural power, and thus no one can; or by the power of grace, and thus anyone can, because it is said in Luke 11:9: ask, and you shall receive. Likewise the grace of God can do all things. I say that the word can includes the power of the will: for there is a firm will and a weak will. For it is certain that a man who has a firm will does not fear many impulses; but when he does not, he falls from an easy impulse. Hence he who can take by the firmness of will, let him take it, and not from nature but from God. Hence we counsel that he who has this from God should take it and be continent. Or he who can according to the opportunity of the time or the condition of the time, as Abraham: hence the celibacy of John is not preferred to the marriage of Abraham. Likewise according to condition; because one who is married cannot be continent; hence some are excluded either by reason of time or of condition.

Why did the disciples keep the children back? Not because of the children's wickedness but because it was not the right time. They did not want the Lord to be tired by the great crowd. To them he said, "Let the children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." For children are ignorant of wickedness. They do not know how to return evil for evil or how to do someone an injury. They do not know how to be lustful or to fornicate or to rob. What they hear, they believe. They love their parents with complete affection. Therefore, beloved, the Lord instructs us that what they are by the gift of nature, we should become by the fear of God, a holy way of life and love of the heavenly kingdom; for unless we are alien to all sin just like children, we cannot come to the Savior.

And He said distinctly, Of such is the kingdom of heaven, not Of these, to show that it was not years, but disposition that determined His judgment, and that the reward was promised to such as had like innocence and simplicity.

But the Lord exhorting His disciples now become men to condescend to the needs of babes, to be babes to babes, that they may gain babes, says, For of such is the kingdom of heaven. For He Himself also, when He was in the form of God, was made a babe. These things we should attend to, lest in esteeming that more excellent wisdom, and spiritual advancement, as though we were become great we should despise the little ones of the Church, forbidding children to be brought to Jesus.

It is meet for every man that would draw nigh to God that he should possess the mind of a child; and as a child is towards his father and mother, so should he be towards God and towards His dispensation. And as the child receiveth instruction from his master without searching into his words or examining his doctrine, and without judging in his thoughts that which he teacheth him—for he hath not sufficient ability in his own thoughts to be a judge of what he heareth—so also is it meet for the man to be towards God, neither enquiring into Him with his words, nor judging His deeds and actions in secret thoughts; for he is a child, and like a child he should incline his ear unto His instruction, and receive it with faith. And it was also for this reason that God gave birth to us a second time, that He might teach us that we were children and infants of the world born unto faith, for the womb which gave us birth—that is, baptism in which the Spirit is mingled—has been made the means. Now we have been born in faith, and as the natural child who is born from the womb existeth wholly in natural simplicity and knoweth nothing of the world, and seeketh not to know, and enquireth not, and thinketh not, and speaketh not, except that he moveth only with the living motions of nature, being remote from all power of the mind, so also this child, of the Spirit, who hath been brought forth by the womb of baptism instead of by the natural womb, is not bound to enquire concerning Him that begot him while he listeneth to His words with sincerity, and he should become like a child to His doctrine, accepting [His] commands and drawing not nigh to enquire into them. And as that natural child learneth the names of the things of the world without understanding their power, so also let [the child of the Spirit] accept the names and words, and God shall give him the secret of understanding them. For in respect of that knowledge we are children and infants compared to the unspeakable wisdom of God, and thus also are we called by the word of our Redeemer, [Who said], "Suffer little children to come unto Me, and restrain them not, for of those who are like these is the kingdom of God." And again in another place He said, "Whosoever will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter into it."

For who were worthy to come to Christ, if simple infancy were thrust away? Therefore he said, Forbid them not. For if they shall turn out saints, why hinder ye the sons from coming to their Father? And if sinners, why do ye pronounce a sentence of condemnation, before you see any fault in them?

For why is it necessary-if (baptism itself) is not so necessary -that the sponsors likewise should be thrust into danger? Who both themselves, by reason of mortality, may fail to fulfil their promises, and may be disappointed by the development of an evil disposition, in those for whom they stood? The Lord does indeed say, "Forbid them not to come unto me." Let them "come," then, while they are growing up; let them "come" while they are learning, while they are learning whither to come; let them become Christians when they have become able to know Christ.

Consequently he satisfies both parties. And first the zeal of justice; secondly he satisfies the devotion of those offering. He says therefore let the little children come to me, i.e., the humble, or the lowly; 1 Corinthians 14:20: do not become children in sense, but in malice be children. And forbid them not, namely the lowly on account of their innocence. For the imperfect should not be forbidden from coming to perfection. For the kingdom of heaven is for such. He says for such, not of these, namely of those who are thus pure through innocence. Above at 18:3: unless you become as this little child, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Job 22:29: he that has been humbled shall be in glory.