71. (Verse 33.). First, therefore, a rational similitude is introduced, when it is said: No one lights a lamp and places it in a hidden place nor under a bushel. A lamp is called a vehicle of light or a vessel containing light, which, whether it be material or spiritual, ought not to be hidden. For a material lamp, when hidden, gives no light but is utterly useless, and likewise neither does a spiritual one; whence Sirach 20: "Hidden wisdom and an unseen treasure, what profit is there in both? Better is the man who conceals his foolishness than the one who hides his wisdom." And therefore this lamp ought not to be hidden but made manifest. — Whence he adds: But upon a lampstand, that is, he places it, so that those who enter
may see the light. Moreover, the higher lamps are placed, the more brightly they shine; and therefore they ought to be placed upon a lampstand, as upon a lofty place, according to the vision of Zechariah 4: "I looked, and behold, a golden lampstand and its seven lamps upon it."
72. (Verse 34). Second, there is added the application of the similitude, when it says: The lamp of your body is your eye. For of the material body, the bodily eye is the lamp, because it rules, directs, and illuminates the whole body; but of the spiritual body, that is, of the aggregate of good works, the lamp is the spiritual eye, that is, the intention. For the intention is called both an eye and a lamp: an eye, insofar as it is illuminated by God for the direction of the whole person; but a lamp, insofar as it directs every action, thought, and affection — as though it "directs" the steps of a person "into the way of peace," according to that passage above in the first chapter: "To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death," etc. — For it belongs to a lamp to illuminate, and therefore the word of God is called a lamp, according to that passage of the Psalm: "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths," as regards things to be believed: Second Peter 1: "We have the more firm prophetic word, to which you do well to attend as to a lamp shining in a dark place"; and as regards things to be done through commandments: Proverbs 6: "The commandment is a lamp, and the law is light." Lamp is said of the preacher: John 5: "He was a burning and shining lamp"; and Philippians 2: "Among whom you shine as luminaries in the world." It is said of the gift of the Holy Spirit: Exodus 25: "You shall make also seven lamps and place them upon the lampstand," that is, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit upon Christ. It is also said of a work: below in the twelfth chapter: "Let your loins be girded and lamps burning in your hands." It is also said of the intention, which, if it is feigned, is extinguished, according to that passage of Job 18: "The light shall be darkened in his tabernacle, and the lamp that is over him shall be extinguished"; but if it is right, it illuminates the whole body of good works. — Hence lamp first properly belongs to the word of God and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and through this it properly belongs to the intention of the heart, and from there it descends into the work of true preaching and into the work of holy conduct; hence it is said of these according to a certain kind of analogy. Therefore the lamp of right intention is, as it were, a mean, receiving from what is above and overflowing into the whole aggregate of works.
73. For which reason he adds: If your eye be simple, that is, your intention right, your whole body will be full of light. For as Ambrose says: "Intention gives its name to your work"; from which it is clear that he understands this of the eye of the heart, whose best disposition is simplicity, according to that passage of 1 Chronicles, last chapter: "I know, O Lord, that you test hearts and love simplicity." Now the eye is called simple which aims at the one and highest good, which is indivisible; and such alone is upright, which tends toward that good. Hence it is said of Job, in chapter one, that "that man was simple and upright"; and such a one loves God, according to that passage of Song of Songs, chapter one: "The upright love you"; and Song of Songs, chapter four: "You have wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, with one of your eyes and with one hair of your neck," that is, in the unity and simplicity of right intention, which alone is pleasing to God. And because such persons, whatever they do, do it from charity, therefore the whole is right and good and luminous, according to that passage of Ephesians, chapter five: "Walk as children of light. For the fruit of light is in all goodness and justice and truth"; and since from a heart thus illuminated nothing proceeds except works of light, just as "a good tree cannot bear bad fruit," nor a luminous one dark fruit, nor conversely a bad tree good fruit.
74. And therefore it is added: But if it be evil, your whole body also will be dark. For the evil eye depraves the will and makes it wicked; and when that is depraved, the work also is depraved. Hence Sirach, chapter fourteen: "Evil is the eye of the envious, turning away his face," namely from God, "and despising his own soul"; and a little later: "The evil eye is toward evil things"; hence when intention is depraved,
it strays from the way of light and walks through darkness, according to that passage of Sirach, chapter eleven: "Error and darkness were created together with sinners." But when intention is darkened and deformed, the work also is darkened and deformed. Hence in the Gloss: "If a perverse intention preceded, a wicked work follows, even if it seems just." And therefore the body is called dark, which indeed is called the work of sin, concerning which it is found in Romans, chapter thirteen: "Let us cast off the works of darkness." - In this, therefore, the similitude of the lamp is applied, so that, just as a lamp upon the lampstand is luminous, but under a bushel is dark — and therefore no one lighting it "places it under a bushel, but upon the lampstand" — so a simple intention directed upward is luminous, but directed downward it is bent, evil, and dark. Therefore no one ought to proceed in his works with duplicity and the pretense of hypocrisy, but rather with the light and simplicity of intention. For Proverbs, chapter eleven: "The justice of the simple shall direct his way, and the impious shall fall in his own impiety."
75. (Vers. 35.). Third, there is added a commendable instruction, when he says: See therefore that the light which is in you be not darkness, that is, lest the intention by which you ought to be light be obscured by the darkness of vices. He speaks, moreover, to those converted to himself, of whom the Apostle says in Ephesians 5: "You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord: walk as children of light," that you may be children of that light "which enlightens every man coming into this world," John 1: not children of man, of whom John 3 says: "The light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, for their works were evil." Since, therefore, a depraved intention corrupts the whole work, he teaches that it must above all be guarded against, when he says: See etc.
76. (Vers. 36.). But again, because intention cannot be lucid unless good operation is present, therefore he adds: If therefore your whole body be lightsome, having no part of darkness, so that namely there be no depravity in intention nor in thought nor in affection nor in speech nor in action, which are the parts of our totality and of meritorious or demeritorious operation.
If therefore in these there be no impurity from any part, then that which follows will be true: The whole shall be lightsome, and as a bright lamp shall enlighten you, that is, your conscience, according to the prophetic petition: "For you light my lamp, O Lord: my God, enlighten my darkness," as is found in the Psalm. It will also enlighten you for building up the Church of Christ, according to that command of the Lord in Matthew 5: "So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." It will also enlighten you for confuting the wickedness of others, according to that in Philippians 2: "That you may be sincere in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life." It will also enlighten you for having divine knowledge, according to that in Ecclesiasticus 2: "You who fear the Lord, love him, and your hearts shall be enlightened." It will also enlighten you for beholding the divine glory: Tobit 13: "You shall shine with a splendid light" etc.
77. And as he was speaking, one asked him etc. After the Evangelist commended the simplicity of right intention, in this part he confutes the deceitfulness of malignant dissimulation. This part has two sections. In the first of which there is set forth a rebuke of duplicity: in the second there is added a threatening of calamity, at: But woe to you, Pharisees etc.
Regarding the rebuke of duplicity, three things are introduced: the first is the malignity of Jewish dissimulation, the second is the severity of the rebuke, the third is the gentleness of charitable admonition.
78. (Vers. 37.). First, therefore, regarding the malignity of simulation on the part of the Pharisee, he says: And as he was speaking, a certain Pharisee asked him to dine with him. In which deed he outwardly displayed piety toward relieving Christ's poverty, of which he himself says in the Psalm: "But I am a beggar and poor"; to relieve which, Christ accepted alms, and not only accepted them but even begged, when he was still twelve years old, as Bernard says in a certain Sermon: "When Jesus had reached" etc., where he asks who fed him during those three days, and speaks thus: "So that you might conform yourself in all things to our poverty and take upon yourself all the calamities of lowly human life, like one of the crowd of paupers you begged alms from door to door. Who will grant that I might become a partaker of those begged morsels, or be nourished on the remnants of that divine food?" Whence the Gloss on that passage of Second Corinthians chapter eight: "He became poor for your sake" etc.: "Do not be ashamed to approach him in your begging, who was made poor for our sake." Whence, to relieve his need, he accepted alms not only from the good but also from the wicked; whence it is added: And entering, he reclined at table.
In which he gives us an example that hidden sinners are not to be shunned; and that alms may be licitly received from the wicked, so that they may become good, provided they do not give from others' property or from ill-gotten goods; and that sinners are to be drawn in through kindness; and that we ought to be benevolent toward our enemies and detractors, just as he who reclined at table with the one by whom he knew himself to be despised and judged in his heart.
79. (Vers. 38.). On account of which it is added: But the Pharisee began, pondering within himself, to say, that is, to seek the reason and cause, namely, why he had not been baptized, that is, washed according to the custom of the Jews, before the meal, and thereby to judge him as unclean and a despiser of the traditions of the fathers. Whence similarly the Pharisees are read to have objected to the Lord and his disciples in Matthew chapter fifteen: "Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat." Now this was of chief importance among the Jews; whence it is said in Mark chapter seven: "For the Pharisees and all the Jews wash their hands frequently when they eat, holding the tradition of the elders, and coming from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash." And the reason for this was that they placed the greatest emphasis on preserving bodily cleanliness. Whence a twofold simulation is shown from this in the Pharisee: first, because the one whom he outwardly refreshed with piety, he inwardly judged with impiety; second, because he was zealous for bodily cleanliness but paid no attention to spiritual cleanliness. And therefore he was a hypocrite both in the sight of men and of God, against that passage of Sirach chapter one: "Do not approach her with a double heart, and do not be a hypocrite in the sight of men."
80. (Vers. 39.). Second, as regards the severity of the rebuke on the part of the Master, he adds: And the Lord said to him: Now you Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish. The cup is a vessel for drinking, the dish for eating; and these vessels the Pharisees and Jews especially cleansed, because they thought themselves defiled by the uncleanness of vessels. Whence in Mark 7 it is said that "many things have been handed down to them to observe: the washings of cups and pitchers and bronze vessels." For indeed, as Ambrose says, "the cup is a glass vessel, and the dish an earthen vessel"; and because both are fragile, it rightly designates the fragility of the human body, about which the Pharisees were chiefly concerned, having neglected the cleanness of conscience; and this was reprehensible. For it is said in Isaiah 1: "Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your thoughts from before my eyes"; and in Jeremiah 4: "Wash your heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem, that you may be saved"; which the Pharisees did not observe.
On account of which he adds: But that which is within you is full of rapine and iniquity, and thereby unclean and abominable. Whence concerning them could be said that word of Micah 6: "Her rich men are full of iniquity, and her inhabitants spoke falsehood"; Ecclesiasticus 1: "You have come deceitfully to the Lord, and your heart is full of guile and deceit"; because he does not have within what he feigns without. And this was not only malice, but also foolishness, because, having neglected the better, they cared only for the worse.
81. (Vers. 40.). Whence it is added: Fools, did not He who made that which is without, namely the body, also make that which is within? namely the spirit. In which is simultaneously condemned the heresy of the Manicheans, who attribute the spirit to God as author and the body to the devil; although it is said in Genesis 2 that "the Lord God formed man from the slime of the earth and breathed into his face the breath of life." There is also refuted the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who strove to please God by the purification of the body alone, although the Lord made both and is especially the creator of the soul, according to that word of Ecclesiastes last chapter: "The spirit shall return to God, who gave it"; and the Lord especially calls Himself the God of souls: Ezekiel 18: "All souls are mine, says the Lord; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son." And on this account He especially wills the cleanness of souls; and to such a one He promises His presence, according to that word of Matthew 5: "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God"; and therefore the Pharisees, who did not care for this, were as fools. Whence Chrysostom: "God neither praises the cleanness of bodies nor condemns their filth. Suppose, however, that He hates the filth of vessels — how much more does He hate the filth of conscience?" Whence this must be especially attended to, because without cleanness of conscience nothing is clean; Titus 1: "All things are clean to the clean, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is clean, but their mind and conscience are defiled."
82. (Verse 41.). Third, as to the sweetness of the admonition, on the part of the physician, he adds: But yet, that which remains, give alms; that which remains, that is, the remedy which is left is that you may purge wickedness through alms. "For the second plank that remains after shipwreck is penance."
And in this way almsgiving is understood here, which is clear from what follows: And all things are clean to you. It is impossible that all things be cleansed through the giving of exterior almsgiving alone; but here the giving of alms is called any work of ordered mercy, which first begins from oneself, according to that saying of Sirach chapter thirty: "Have pity on your own soul, pleasing God." One bestows this mercy on oneself when one purges oneself of vices through penance, for otherwise one is cruel to oneself, according to that saying of the Psalm: "He who loves iniquity hates his own soul."
Otherwise it can be explained as almsgiving properly so called, so that the sense would be: That which remains, give as alms, that is, from that which is left over, so that the form of almsgiving is touched upon, according to that saying of Second Corinthians chapter eight: "Not that there should be ease for others and affliction for you." And after the form, the efficacy is added, when he says: And all things are clean to you, because almsgiving disposes one to grace, through which the whole soul is cleansed; and on account of this it is said in First Timothy chapter four: "Godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of the life to come."
83. Although almsgiving is said to avail for three things principally, nevertheless its efficacy is shown to be sevenfold in Scripture. The first is that it cleanses the soul from guilt, as is held here, and in Sirach chapter three: "The almsgiving of a father shall not be forgotten"; and shortly after: "And as ice melts in fair weather, so shall your sins be dissolved."
The second is that it delivers from eternal punishment: Tobit chapter four: "Almsgiving delivers from all sin and from death and will not suffer the soul to go into darkness."
The third is that it defends from transitory punishment: Daniel chapter four: "Redeem your sins with almsgiving," etc. — The fourth is that it mitigates the concupiscence of the flesh: Sirach chapter three: "Water quenches a burning fire, and almsgiving resists sins."
The fifth is that it gives victory over the enemy; Sirach chapter twenty-nine: "Enclose almsgiving in the heart of the poor, and it shall entreat for you"; and shortly after: "It shall fight for you against your enemy better than the shield of the mighty and the lance."
The sixth is that it preserves grace, according to that saying of Sirach chapter seventeen: "The almsgiving of a man is as a purse with him, and it shall preserve the grace of a man as the apple of the eye."