June 20

Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye make clean the outside of the cup, and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.—Matthew 23:23-26.

HERE Christ derides the scribes and Pharisees for their folly, because they disregarded the greater commandments. They were doing every thing for the corruption of those who were subject to them, in little things, requiring strictness, and despising the great.

Here he naturally commends some of their deeds, where it is tithes and almsgiving, for what doth it hurt to give alms? Therefore indeed here he saith, These things ought ye to have done; but where he is speaking about clean and unclean, he no longer adds this, but makes a distinction, and shows that the inward purity is necessarily followed by the outward, but the converse is no longer so.

For where there is a plea of love to man, he passes it over lightly, for this very reason, and because it was not yet time expressly and plainly to revoke the things of the Law. But where it is an observance of bodily purification, he overthrows it more plainly.

So, therefore, while with respect to alms he saith, These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others undone, touching purifications he speaks not on this wise, but what? Ye make clean, he saith, the outside of the cup and the platter, but within they are full of extortion and injustice. Cleanse that which is within the cup, that the outside may be clean also. And he took it from a thing confessed and manifest, from a cup and platter.

Then, to show that there is no harm arising from despising bodily cleansing, but very great vengeance from not regarding the purifications of the soul, which is virtue, he called these a gnat, for they are small and nothing, but those other a camel, for they were beyond what men could bear. Wherefore also he saith, Straining at the gnat, and swallowing a camel. For indeed the one were enacted for the sake of the other, I mean of mercy, and of judgment; so that not even then did they profit being done alone. For whereas the little things were mentioned for the sake of the great, and after that these last were neglected, and labor was spent on those alone, nothing was gained even then by this. For the greater followed not the lesser, but the lesser were sure to follow these greater.

But these things he saith to show, that even before grace was come, these were not among the principal things, or amongst those upon which men should spend their labor, but the matters required were different. But if before the grace they were so, much more when high commandments had come, were these things unprofitable, and it was not meet to practise them at all.

In every case then is vice a grievous thing, but especially when it does not so much as think it needs amendment; and it is yet more grievous, when it thinks itself sufficient even to amend others; to express which Christ called them blind guides. For if for a blind man not to think he needs a guide be extreme misery and wretchedness; when he wishes himself to guide others, see to what a gulf it leads.

But these things he saith, by all intimating their mad desire of glory, and their exceeding frenzy concerning this pest. For this became a cause to them of all their evils, namely, that they did all things for display. This both led them away from the faith, and caused them to neglect what really is virtue, and induced them to busy themselves about bodily purifyings only, neglecting the purifications of the soul. So therefore to lead them into what really is virtue, and to the purifyings of the soul, he makes mention of mercy, and judgment, and faith. For these are the things that comprise our life, these are what purify the soul, justice, love to man, truth; the one inclining us to candor, and not suffering us to be excessively severe and unforgiving to them that sin, and causing us both to sympathize with them that are despitefully entreated, and to assist them; the other not suffering them to be deceitful, and crafty.

But neither when he saith, These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others undone, doth he say it as introducing a legal observance; away with the thought; neither with regard to the platter and the cup, when he said, Cleanse that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also, doth he bring us unto the old regard for little things, but on the contrary indeed, he doth all things to show it to be superfluous. For he said not, Cleanse the outside of them also, but that which is within, and the outside is sure to follow.

And besides, neither is it concerning a cup and platter he is speaking, but of soul and body, by the outside meaning the body, by the inside the soul. But if with regard to the platter there be need of that which is within, much more with regard to thee.

But ye do the contrary, saith he, observing things trifling and external, ye neglect what are great and inward; whence very great mischief arises, for that thinking ye have duly performed all, ye despise the other things; and despising them, ye do not so much as strive or attempt to perform them.