The Douay-Rheims with the Glossa Ordinaria

¹Take heed that you do not your justice before men, to be seen by them: otherwise you shall not have a reward of your Father who is in heaven.

v.1

VERS. 1.-- *Take heed,* etc. He who hitherto has given precept concerning mercy, now gives precept concerning cleanness of heart, by which God is seen. For if not with a simple intention but for the praise of men, the works of mercy are not approved by God. The praise of men ought not to be sought, but to follow, that by example it may invite others. Thus far concerning the justice of the Gospel, which is above the justice of the Scribes and Pharisees. Now with what cleanness of heart that same justice ought to be fulfilled: which is observed in almsgiving and in prayer. For he does not here admonish either to pray or to give alms: but with what mind we ought to do it. For the matter here is of cleansing the heart. *With your Father.* Whose glory sons ought to seek, and to refer all good things to this, that they may please him.

²Therefore when thou dost an alms-deed, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be honoured by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.

³But when thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth.

⁴That thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee.

⁵And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men: Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.

v.5

VERS. 5.-- *And when you pray.* This sentence is joined to what goes before. He had said above: *Take heed that you do not your justice before men;* here he adds: *And when you pray.* He does not forbid to pray, but to be like the hypocrites in praying. *In the corners.* As it were hiders of prayers, and yet in the streets that they may be seen, and by this a fuller glory. Allegorically. He prays in a corner who feigns to pray in secret: and yet in the street, when he catches at fame. The corners of the streets are where a way is led through by the crossing of a way, and makes a crossroads. For it is not wrong to be seen, but to desire to be seen. *They have received.* In these men not only is the true reward emptied out by a depraved intention: but the vice of dissimulation and of mockery against God is increased.

⁶But thou when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret, and thy father who seeth in secret will repay thee.

v.6

VERS. 6.-- *But thou.* This, simply understood, teaches that the vainglory of the world is to be fled. But it seems rather to be enjoined that, the thought of the breast being enclosed and the lips pressed together, one should pray to God. Now the chamber is the secret place of the heart. The door, the carnal sense through which these outward things shamelessly thrust themselves in, and the crowds of phantasms make a din against those who pray. It is little therefore to enter the chamber, if the door stands open to importunate thoughts. But the carnal sense must be resisted, that spiritual prayer may be directed to God out of the inmost parts of the heart. *The door being shut.* The senses being shut, lest the crowds of outward phantasms should meet him. Or he calls the door the love or the fear of this world. For as every good thing is of the fear and love of God, so every evil is of the love and fear of the world. These being shut, that is, taken away, pray. What then, sayest thou? ought one not to pray in the church? And very much indeed, but with this will, that thou look upon that one alone who has the power of granting what thou shalt have asked. For God everywhere beholds with what regard thou doest anything. *The Father.* Whom thou hast within by faith; whence: *With me is prayer to the God of my life*.

⁷And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard.

v.7

VERS. 7.-- *But praying.* As it is of hypocrites to be shown and to please men, so it is of the Gentiles to use much speaking, from whom also it began. For these give more pains to exercising the tongue than to cleansing the mind: so that they transfer this kind of trifling office even to the bending of God by prayer, thinking that as an orator bends a judge, so they too can bend God. If we must pray in few words, why did Luke set forth a parable that we must always pray upon the mountain, etc., *as far as* If indeed both Christ and Paul commanded that prayers be made short, but frequent, at short intervals. They (the Fathers) judge it more useful that prayers be short indeed, but very frequent, etc., *as far as* let us avoid by a concise brevity. *For they think.* Thinking that God is soothed by persuasive words. Or that if he is absent he is called: and that what he does not know he is taught by the windings of words.

⁸Be not you therefore like to them for your Father knoweth what is needful for you, before you ask him.

v.8

VERS. 8.-- *Be not therefore like to them.* For with God the business is not to be done with words, but with things, with the intention of the heart, with a simple affection. Which things when we say, we do not teach him, but we ourselves remember at the time of praying. *For the Father knoweth.* Why then do we speak to one who knows? Not that we may make a declaration of our will, but that we may stir up the service of a devout affection. VERS. 9. *Our Father.* Among the other saving and divine admonitions with which he takes counsel for believers, he set forth a form of praying, etc., *as far as* and these are the true adorers, who as Sons by grace adore the Father in spirit and in truth. No prayer is more spiritual than that which proceeded from the mouth of the Son, who is Truth. *Our Father.* Whom we serve not by fear, but by love of the inheritance. While he is called Father, let us think of adoption, that we may repay to the Father a dutiful affection. While it is said *our,* he is admonished of brotherhood, since the adoption is common to all. Let no one say "mine," which belongs properly to the Son, to whom he is Father by nature. Whence elsewhere. *I go to my Father*, specially by nature: and yours, joined by grace. *Our Father is said,* which is common to all, let no one say "mine": which belongs to Christ alone, who is Son by nature; to others is granted the common grace of adoption. The noble and the rich man is admonished not to be proud, etc., *as far as* What will he deny to sons, who has already given that he is Father? Nowhere is a precept found for the people of Israel, that it should say: *Our Father,* or should pray, etc., *as far as* if they did not stray from his commandments. As is that: *I have begotten sons and exalted them*, etc *In the heavens.* The spiritual ones, that we may learn to hasten to the spirituality in which he dwells, and may seek heavenly things from him. *Hallowed be thy name.* The distinction of these seven petitions is to be observed. For since our life is carried on in time and eternal life is hoped for, the former are, etc., *as far as* for liberation makes free men, that is, sons, so that we may say in the spirit of adoption, Abba, Father. *Amen,* signifies that in all these petitions what is asked is granted by the Lord without doubt, if we do not neglect to keep the compact of the last condition. Whence he adds: *If you shall forgive,* etc. *Hallowed be,* etc. Here we pray for the spirit of wisdom, that we may not, first, in anything depart from the sanctification of the name: but that the name of the Father may be shown in the sons by manners and by life.The name of the Father is in us, who are called sons: which we ask to be hallowed. Not that he himself may be holier, but that he may work in us an increase of his sanctification: for the sanctification of the sons is attributed to his name. So he is said to be hallowed as he is glorified and magnified in us: *Hallowed be,* that is, so as it is holy, let it be held by men: and so let God become known to them, that they may not think anything holier.

⁹Thus therefore shall you pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

¹⁰Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

v.10

VERS.10.-- *Thy kingdom come.* Here the spirit of understanding is asked for, by which the heart is cleansed that God may be seen. The hardness and power of the devil is shut out, and in the future more perfectly, when he shall have made void all principality and power, and the kingdom shall be delivered to God the Father. It fittingly follows, that after the adoption of sons we should ask for the kingdom which is due to sons.The kingdom of God always is: but let it come, that is, let it be made manifest to men by whom, as light by the blind, it is not seen, which no one will be able to be ignorant of, when the Son shall have come to judge. In which the saints also shall reign, as it is said, *Receive the kingdom which is prepared for you*, etc. By the spirit of understanding the future kingdom is declared to those entering in, and cleanness of heart is bestowed, through which God, reigning there, shall be seen as he is, where by the spirit of wisdom the seventh sanctification of his name shall be completed. In the perfection of the number six the coming of the kingdom is asked for, that we may all run into the perfect man: then, for those resting in him, may he himself be hallowed in us while we are hallowed in him. His rest we rightly ask to be hallowed in us, that being hallowed in him we may rest perpetually, in which sanctification the peace of blessedness is made firm and full wisdom is given. *Thy will be done.* Here the spirit of counsel is asked for, by which the will of God is sought out, that it may be fulfilled by us. The will of God on earth as in heaven is governed by the spirit of counsel. We too have need of the spirit of counsel: that the will of God may be directed in us, that we may be able to be merciful in deed. The will of God is always done: but we pray that the liberty of our choice may be joined by grace to his will, which is our sanctification and life everlasting. The will of God is the keeping of his commandments. *As in heaven.* As in the angels, so in men. Or as in the just, so in sinners converted. Or as in Christ, so in the Church. Or as in mind I serve the law of God, so also in the flesh. According to the spirit we are heaven, according to the flesh we are earth. We pray therefore that as in heaven, that is, in the spirit, so on earth the will may be done: that flesh and spirit may be a spiritual man, of whom it is said: *My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.* Nor is it only prayed that we may will good things, but that the will may be done in us, that we may live to thee, not to ourselves. These three are had more perfectly in the future, but here meanwhile we pray in part, that afterwards they may be had more perfectly. The four following are the safeguards of the present life.

¹¹Give us this day our supersubstantial bread.

v.11

VERS. 11.-- *Bread.* The hunger of justice, that it may attain to fullness, is propped up by the spirit of fortitude. Therefore we pray: Give us this day our daily bread: without which we should die of hunger. Bread is the body of Christ, or the word of God, or God himself, of whom we daily have need, or that which is above all substances. *This is the living bread which came down from heaven*, the sublimity of whose nature is above all substances. *Our.* Because Christ has been made ours, and God the Father with Christ has given us all things. Therefore we pray that what is ours by gift may daily be given by effect. *Supersubstantial.* Or daily. Because *they that eat me shall yet hunger*. Here daily, in the fatherland eternal. This bread ought continually to refresh us inwardly by faith and charity: because without it no one can live. Or spiritual precepts are called bread, which must always be practised or kept.

¹²And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.

¹³And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. Amen.

v.13

VERS. 13.-- *And lead us not.* But enlighten us with the spirit of knowledge, that we may know by what evils we are entangled, and we ask that our tears may profit: *Forgive us our debts. And lead us not,* etc. Not that he himself leads in, but because he deserts and permits us to go. Nor indeed does he pray not to be tempted, but not to be overcome even a little. For temptation is necessary for the crown. *And lead us not,* etc., deserting us in temptation, do not suffer us to be overcome: even though thou suffer us to be tempted, without which no one is proved. *But deliver us from evil.* This one petition contains as much as all the foregoing. That by the spirit of the fear of God all hurtful things within and without may be driven away: and that under poverty we may live blessedly. *But deliver us.* Into that which is not yet, suffer us not to be led, and from that into which we have been led, deliver us: which being done, nothing is to be feared, nothing remains to be prayed for. *From evil,* from all evil, visible and invisible. This deliverance is daily necessary, since without evil of soul and body there is no living, but it shall be completed in the end, when we shall be immortal and impassible. From the lowest to the highest the ascent is thus made by degrees. From evil, through the spirit of fear, we are delivered: thence being delivered we desire to be poor in spirit and in goods, while we say, Lead us not into temptation. We ask for the spirit of piety, that the inward man may grow gentle and become meek, lest he be moved by temptation.

¹⁴For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences.

¹⁵But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences.

¹⁶And when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.

v.16

VERS. 16.-- *When you fast.* After he taught how one must pray, he teaches concerning fasting, which again pertains to cleanness of heart, lest it be not simple toward God, while it is carried away to outward things. *Be not made.* He does not forbid the virtue, but the feigned appearance of virtue. It is good to be sorrowful by fasting for sins unto repentance, and to humble our soul; whence: *A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise*. But the sadness that is for praise, he forbids. Whence he does not say simply: Do not fast, but adds: like the hypocrites, sad. *They drive beyond bounds.* That is, they draw them beyond the bounds of the human condition. As there is boasting from the sheen of garments: so from excessive squalor and leanness. To demolish is as it were to destroy: and to reduce as it were to nothing the comeliness of the countenance. *Their faces.* With mournful filth in which also there is boasting: and the more do they deceive under the appearance of religion. Note that sheep ought not to lay aside their own skins, but to be clothed, if sometimes wolves cover themselves with them.

¹⁷But thou, when thou fastest anoint thy head, and wash thy face;

v.17

VERS. 17.-- *Anoint thy head.* Refresh thy mind with spiritual gladness on the days of abstinence: that the odour of love may be fragrant in works of mercy. Wash thy conscience with tears: that it may be clean before God. For the work of mercy does not suffice without a clean conscience: nor this without that. It was the custom among the Palestinians to anoint the head at feasts: therefore anoint thy head, that is, show thyself festive and cheerful: and refresh thy mind with spiritual oil: and seek not praise outwardly for thy fasting. But because thou art thus turned away from the world, rejoice before God: and so shalt thou cleanse thy face, that is, thy heart, from filth: which being removed, it will be permitted to see God. *Anoint thy head.* Behold, not yet all things in the New Testament according to the letter. For they would be ridiculous who were smeared with oil in fasting: but of the spirit of his love, in whose sufferings we ought to share, ourselves being to be mortified, the mind ought to be anointed, and not with the oil of flattery: otherwise fastings are vain. Christ was made an ointment for us: which being poured out through the passion of his death filled his Church with his odour. Therefore we ought not to fast for another's sake: but being poured over with his spirit, mortifying the flesh by abstinence, let us share in his passion. Let us then be anointed with him: that the works of mercy may be heaped up: and charity be poured abroad within: because without him the cup of our fasting is not made drunk with the affection of piety.He fasts to God who mortifies himself for love of him and bestows on another what he withdraws from himself.

¹⁸That thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father who is in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret, will repay thee.

¹⁹Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through, and steal.

v.19

VERS. 19.-- *Lay not up treasures.* He commands that earthly things be paid out unto cleanness of heart. VERS 20.-- *But to lay up treasures.* As if: When you fast or do any good work: lay it up there where corruption cannot come. *In heaven.* That is, place all your hope in heavenly things: walking by faith, embracing charity. *In heaven,* that is, in the spiritual firmament: which does not pass away: *Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.* If therefore the heart is in heaven, it is clean, because heavenly things are clean. But if it is rolled about upon the earth, how is it clean? that is, if it does anything in order to obtain earthly things, how is it clean? For if those things are clean in their own kind, yet the worthier thing grows foul while it is mingled with the lower: as gold with silver, silver with lead.

²⁰But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal.

²¹For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.

²²The light of thy body is thy eye. If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome.

v.22

VERS. 22.-- *The lamp.* He pursues cleanness of heart. As the eye directs the members to work, so do intention and the light of faith direct all the virtues. A lamp is a light in an earthen vessel, so is charity in faith. When faith shall cease, charity alone will be the light. From the outward, he teaches the office of the inward man, by the intention of the mind and the light of faith all the virtues are illuminated, that they may render the body lightsome. Likewise this chapter is of itself unto cleanness of heart, or by reason of the former works which appear openly. *If the eye be,* etc. If with a pure intention thou doest the good things thou canst, the works are of light, even if it does not so appear to men. If the intention is perverse, whatever is done is depraved, even though it seem right. The eye is one and simple, namely charity, which now shines in faith as in an earthen vessel.

²³But if thy eye be evil thy whole body shall be darksome. If then the light that is in thee, be darkness: the darkness itself how great shall it be!

v.23

VERS. 23.-- *But if the eye.* If the intention is not of faith, the whole inward man is dark. Because what is not of faith is sin. *Shall be darksome.* Since indeed the intention that follows forms the work. Therefore if the good things which thou doest, because they are done with an evil intention, are darkness, what of those which are of themselves evil, and are done with an evil intention? *If then the light.* The intention with which we do whatever we do, which is known within us, is called light; but the outcome of the thing is uncertain, as when I give or do something to someone I know not whether it turn out to him for good or for evil: and therefore he calls it darkness. He says therefore: If the intention with which thou doest (which is known to thee) is soiled by an appetite for temporal things: how much more the deed itself, whose outcome is doubtful? because even if it turn out well for another, what thou doest not with a good intention will profit thee nothing: because it is imputed to thee how thou hast done it, not how it has turned out for him.

²⁴No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

v.24

VERS. 24.-- *No man can,* etc. As if: you will not be able to do good things before the eyes of men, and by these to please God. Not to lay up treasure at once in heaven and on earth, nor to serve both vices and virtues. Whatever thou doest, either of the love of God, or of the servitude of the devil. Since the kingdom of God and of the devil are at variance among themselves, no one can serve as a soldier in both at once: whence they who are baptized renounce the devil and his works. *For either he will hate the one.* There is nothing between. For whatever thou doest, either of the love of God, or of the servitude of the devil. For the devil is always to be held in hatred: but God, etc., *as far as* but they despise, overcome by their own concupiscence and by diabolical persuasion. *Or he will sustain the one.* Not indeed that he loves him: for no one loves the devil, but being entangled by his own cupidity, etc., *as far as* even if he love not him whose handmaid he loves. *He will despise the other.* Not indeed that he will hate him: for no one's conscience can hate God, which the same Augustine retracted, saying: I do not see that it ought to have been said. For there are many of whom it is written: *The pride of them that hate thee*, etc. *And mammon.* Mammon, in the Syrian tongue, riches, to serve which is to deny God. He does not say to have: which is lawful to be done so that one may dispense it well, but to serve, which belongs to the covetous. This is said to be the name of a demon who presides over riches, not because they are in his dominion: but because he uses these for deceiving, ensnaring men in the nets of riches.

²⁵Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment?

v.25

VERS. 25.-- *Therefore I say to you,* etc. *Because you cannot serve God and mammon.* Be not solicitous, which is to serve riches. He has enjoined contempt of the world and confidence in things to come throughout the whole sermon, since he commanded both to bear evils and not to avenge, and to love enemies, and to flee human glory. Now he wishes to confirm it through faith in the hope of eternal things, because there are many whom the love of present things and despair of things to come make torpid. In the sweat of the face bread is got ready, but labour is to be exercised, solicitude is to be removed, which disturbs the mind: while it fears lest either the things possessed perish or the things laboured for do not come to hand. *Your soul.* That is, to the animal nature to which these things are necessary. Commit your whole hope to God, because you can acquire or retain nothing, except what he has decreed. Soul is here put for life, which is sustained by food, as there: *He that loveth his soul shall lose it*. The animal nature is nourished by food: and is here put for life: it lives with the cattle. And he who loses it for Christ's sake shall find it spiritual unto life everlasting. *Is not the soul?* etc. Not life for the sake of food, nor the body for the sake of raiment, but the contrary. Therefore let not the mind be solicitous, that it may receive that for whose sake it was created. As if he should say: He who gave the greater, that is, life and body, will give also the lesser, that is, food and clothing. Let no one doubt in these promises of the truth: Let man be what he ought to be, and forthwith all things are added to him for whose sake they were made.

²⁶Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?

²⁷And which of you by taking thought, can add to his stature one cubit?

²⁸And for raiment why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin.

²⁹But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these.

³⁰And if the grass of the field, which is to day, and to morrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith?

v.30

VERS. 30.-- *For if the grass of the field.* If those things which are for the use of time only, and quickly falling, shall be burnt with fire, God adorns them so beautifully."Tomorrow" is put for the future in the Scriptures, Jacob saying: *My justice shall hear me tomorrow*. *Is cast into the oven.* Other books have: into the fire, or into a heap which has the appearance of an oven. *How much more you,* namely, will he clothe; and therefore all confidence is to be had in him; but if we are not confident even about these things, how do we hope for things invisible? Very small is the faith which is not certain even about the least things. Therefore he both presses upon us confidence about eternal things, and condemns unbelief. *Of little faith.* Whosoever doubts in any promise, is of little faith, and the more he doubts, the less he finds those things for which he was solicitous.

³¹Be not solicitous therefore, saying: What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?

³²For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things.

³³Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.

v.33

VERS. 33.-- *Seek therefore.* Here he plainly shows that these things are not to be sought as our goods, although they are necessary. But the kingdom of God is to be sought, and in it our end is to be placed, for whose sake we should do all things: for example: Let us eat that we may preach the Gospel, we do not preach the Gospel that we may eat. When he says "first," he signifies that this is later, not in time, but in dignity. For that is to be sought, this is necessary for the sake of that: therefore seek first the kingdom of God, that is, set it before all other things. *And all these things.* Because all things are the sons': and therefore all these things shall be added, even to those who do not seek them, from whom if they are withdrawn, it is for a trial; if they are given, it is for thanksgiving; because all things work together unto good.

³⁴Be not therefore solicitous for to morrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.

Matthew 6

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