Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas - Matthew
CHAP . 5
5:1–3
1. And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain: and when He was set, His disciples came unto Him.
2. And He opened His mouth, and taught them, saying,
3. Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM . Every man in his own trade or profession rejoices when he sees an opportunity of exercising it; the carpenter if he sees a goodly tree desires to have it to cut down to employ his skill on, and the Priest when he sees a full Church, his heart rejoices, he is glad of the occasion to teach. So the Lord seeing a great congregation of people was stirred to teach them.
AUGUSTINE . (de Cons. Ev. ii. 19.) Or He may be thought to have sought to shun the thickest crowd, and to have ascended the mountain that He might speak to His disciples alone.
CHRYSOSTOM . (Hom. xv.) By not choosing His seat in the city, and the market place, but on a mountain in a desert, He has taught us to do nothing with ostentation, and to depart from crowds, above all when we are to be employed in philosophy, or in speaking of serious things.
REMIGIUS . This should be known, that the Lord had three places of retirement that we read of, the ship, the mountain, and the desert; to one of these He was wont to withdraw whenever He was pressed by the multitude.
JEROME . Some of the less learned brethren suppose the Lord to have spoken what follows from the Mount of Olives, which is by no means the case; what went before and what follows fixes the place in Galilee. aMount Tabor. we may suppose, or any other high mountain.
CHRYSOSTOM . He ascended a mountain, first, that He might fulfil the prophecy of Esaias, Get thee up into a mountain; (Is. 40:9.) secondly, to shew that as well he who teaches, as he who hears the righteousness of God should stand on an high ground of spiritual virtues; for none can abide in the valley and speak from a mountain. If thou stand on the earth, speak of the earth; if thou speak of heaven, stand in heaven. Or, He ascended into the mountain to shew that all who would learn the mysteries of the truth should go up into the Mount of the Church of which the Prophet speaks, The hill of God is a hill of fatness. (Ps. 68:15.)
HILARY . Or, He ascends the mountain, because it is placed in the loftiness of His Father’s Majesty that He gives the commands of heavenly life.
AUGUSTINE . (de Serm. Dom. in Mont. i. 1.) Or, He ascends the mountain to shew that the precepts of righteousness given by God through the Prophets to the Jews, who were yet under the bondage of fear, were the lesser commandments; but that by His own Son were given the greater commandments to a people which He had determined to deliver by love.
JEROME . He spoke to them sitting and not standing, for they could not have understood Him had He appeared in His own Majesty.
AUGUSTINE . Or, to teach sitting is the prerogative of the Master. His disciples came to him, that they who in spirit approached more nearly to keeping His commandments, should also approach Him nearest with their bodily presence.
RABANUS . Mystically, this sitting down of Christ is His incarnation; had He not taken flesh on Him, mankind could not have come unto Him.
AUGUSTINE . (de Cons. Ev. ii. 19.) It causes a thought how it is that Matthew relates this sermon to have been delivered by the Lord sitting on the mountain; Luke, as He stood in the plain. This diversity in their accounts would lead us to think that the occasions were different. Why should not Christ repeat once more what He said before, or do once more what He had done before? Although another method of reconciling the two may occur to us; namely, that our Lord was first with His disciples alone on some more lofty peak of the mountain when He chose the twelve; that He then descended with them not from the mountain entirely, but from the top to some expanse of level ground in the side, capable of holding a great number of people; that He stood there while the crowd was gathering around Him, and after when He had sate down, then His disciples came near to Him, and so to them and in the presence of the rest of the multitude He spoke the same sermon which Matthew and Luke give, in a different manner, but with equal truth of facts.
GREGORY . (Moral. iv. 1.) When the Lord on the mountain is about to utter His sublime precepts, it is said, Opening his month he taught them, He who had before opened the mouth of the Prophets.
REMIGIUS . Wherever it is said that the Lord opened His mouth, we may know how great things are to follow.
AUGUSTINE . (de Serm. in Mont. i. 1.) Or, the phrase is introductory of an address longer than ordinary.
CHRYSOSTOM . Or, that we may understand that He sometimes teaches by opening His mouth in speech, sometimes by that voice which resounds from His works.
AUGUSTINE . (ubi sup.) Whoever will take the trouble to examine with a pious and sober spirit, will find in this sermon a perfect code of the Christian life as far as relates to the conduct of daily life. Accordingly the Lord concludes it with the words, Every man who heareth these words of mine and doeth them, I will liken him to a wise man, & c.
AUGUSTINE . (De Civ. Dei, xix. 1.) The chief good is the only motive of philosophical enquiry; but whatever confers blessedness, that is the chief good; therefore He begins, Blessed are the poor in spirit.
AUGUSTINE . (Id. de Serm. in Mont. i. 1.) Augmentation of ‘spirit’ generally implies insolence and pride. For in common speech the proud are said to have a great spirit, and rightly—for wind is a spirit, and who does not know that we say of proud men that they are ‘swollen,’ ‘puffed up.’ Here therefore by poor in spirit are rightly understood ‘lowly,’ ‘fearing God,’ not having a puffed up spirit.