Catena Aurea on Matthew
Lecture 4
6. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
Ambrose As soon as I have wept for my sins, I begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness. He who is afflicted with any sort of disease, hath no hunger.
Jerome It is not enough that we desire righteousness, unless we also suffer hunger for it, by which expression we may understand that we are never righteous enough, but always hunger after works of righteousness.
Pseudo-Chrys. All good which men do not from love of the good itself is unpleasing before God. He hungers after righteousness who desires to walk according to the righteousness of God; he thirsts after righteousness who desires to get the knowledge thereof.
Chrys. He may mean either general righteousness, or that particular virtue which is the opposite of covetousness. As He was going on to speak of mercy, He shows before hand of what kind our mercy should be, that it should not be of the gains of plunder or covetousness, hence He ascribes to righteousness that which is peculiar to avarice, namely, to hunger and thirst.
Hilary The blessedness which He appropriates to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shows that the deep longing of the saints for the doctrine of God shall receive perfect replenishment in heaven; then “they shall be filled.”
Pseudo-Chrys. Such is the bounty of a rewarding God, that His gifts are greater than the desires of the saints.
Aug. Or He speaks of food with which they shall be filled at this present; to wit, that food of which the Lord spake, “My food is to do the will of my Father,” that is, righteousness, and that water of which whoever drinks it shall be in him “a well of water springing up to life eternal.”
Chrys. Or, this is again a promise of a temporal reward; for as covetousness is thought to make many rich, He affirms on the contrary that righteousness rather makes rich, for He who loves righteousness possesses all things in safety.
Lecture 5
7. “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.”
Gloss. Justice and mercy are so united, that the one ought to be mingled with the other; justice without mercy is cruelty; mercy without justice, profusion—hence He goes on to the one from the other.
Remig. The merciful is he who has a sad heart; he counts others’ misery his own, and is sad at their grief as at his own.
Jerome Mercy here is not said only of alms, but is in every sin of a brother, if we bear one another’s burdens.
Aug. He pronounces those blessed who succour the wretched, because they are rewarded in being themselves delivered from all misery; as it follows, “for they shall obtain mercy.”
Hilary So greatly is God pleased with our feelings of benevolence towards all men, that He will bestow His own mercy only on the merciful.
Chrys. The reward here seems at first to be only an equal return; but indeed it is much more; for human mercy and divine mercy are not to be put on an equality.
Gloss. ap. Anselm Justly is mercy dealt out to the merciful, that they should receive more than they had deserved; and as he who has more than enough receives more than he who has only enough, so the glory of mercy is greater than of the things hitherto mentioned.
Lecture 6
8. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”
Ambrose, in Luc., vi, 22 The merciful loses the benefit of his mercy, unless he shows it from a pure heart; for if he seeks to have whereof to boast, he loses the fruit of his deeds; the next that follows therefore is, “Blessed are the pure of heart.”
Gloss. ap. Anselm Purity of heart comes properly in the sixth place, because on the sixth day man was created in the image of God, which image was shrouded by sin, but is formed anew in pure hearts by grace. It follows rightly the beforementioned graces, because if they be not there, a clean heart is not created in a man.
Chrys. By the pure are here meant those who possess a perfect goodness, conscious to themselves of no evil thoughts, or again those who live in such temperance as is mostly necessary to seeing God according to that of St. Paul, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see God.” For as there are many merciful, yet unchaste, to show that mercy alone is not enough, he adds this concerning purity.
Jerome The pure is known by purity of heart, for the temple of God cannot be impure; and this is what is said: for they shall see God.
Pseudo-Chrys. He who in thought and deed fulfils all justice sees God in his heart, for justice is an image of God, for God is justice. So far as any one has rescued himself from evil, and works things that are good, so far does he see God, either hardly, or fully, or sometimes, or always, according to the capabilities of human nature. But in that world to come the pure in heart shall see God face to face, not in a glass, and in enigma as here.
Aug., Serm. in Mont., i, 2 They are foolish who seek to see God with the bodily eye, seeing He is seen only by the heart, as it is elsewhere written, “In singleness of heart seek ye Him;” the single heart is the same as is here called the pure heart.
Aug., City of God, book 22, ch. 29 But if spiritual eyes in the spiritual body shall be able only to see so much as those we now have can see, undoubtedly God will not be able to be seen of them.
Aug., de Trin., i, 8 This seeing God is the reward of faith; to which end our hearts are made pure by faith, as it is written, “cleansing their hearts by faith;” (Acts 15:9) but the present verse proves this still more strongly.
Aug., de Genesi ad Literam. xii. 26 No one seeing God can be alive with the life men have on earth, or with these our bodily senses. Unless one die altogether out of this life, either by totally departing from the body, or so alienated from carnal lusts that he may truly say with the Apostle, “whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell,” he is not translated that he should see this vision.
Gloss. non occ. The reward of these is greater than the reward of the first; being not merely to dine in the King’s court, but further to see His face.