The Scribes and Pharisees after all this, continuing still incorrigible, although he will have the doctrine of their Chair obeyed, yet against their works (and namely their ambition) he openly inveigheth, crying to them eight woes for their eightfold hypocrisy and blindness: (34) and so concluding with the most worthy reprobation of that persecuting Generation and their mother city Jerusalem, with her Temple.
THEN Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his Disciples, 2saying: Upon • the chair of Moyses have sat the Scribes and the Pharisees. 3All things therefore • whatsoever they shall say to you, observe ye and do ye: but according to their works do ye not, for they say and do not. 4For * they bind heavy burdens and importable: and put them upon men’s shoulders: but with a finger of their own they will not move them. 5But they do all their works for to be seen of men. For they make broad their (a) phylacteries, and enlarge their * fringes. 6And they • love the first places at suppers, and * the first chairs in the Synagogues, 7and salutations in the market-place, and to be called of men, Rabbi. 8But be not you called Rabbi. For • one is your Master, and all you are brethren. 9And call none Father to yourself upon earth: for one is your Father, he that is in Heaven. 10 Neither * be ye called • Master: for one is your Master, Christ. 11He that is the greater of you, shall be your servitor. 12And he that exalteth himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.
13But woe to you • Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites: because you shut the Kingdom of Heaven before men. For yourselves do not enter in: and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter.
14Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites: because you * devour widow’s houses, • praying long prayers. For this you shall receive the greater judgement.
15Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites: because you go round about the sea and the land to make one Proselyte: and when he is made, you make him the child of Hell • double more than yourselves.
16Woe to you blind guides, that say, whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing: but he that shall swear by the gold of the temple, is bound. 17Ye foolish and blind; for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? 18And whosoever shall swear by the Altar, it is nothing: but whosoever shall swear by the gift that is upon it, is bound. 19Ye blind; for whether is greater, the gift, or the Altar that • sanctifieth the gift? 20He therefore that swears by the Altar, swears by it, and by all things that are upon it: 21And whosoever shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it and • by him that dwelleth in it: 22and he that sweareth by Heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.
23Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites: because you tithe mint, and anise, and cumin, and have left the weightier things of the law, judgement, and mercy, and faith. These things you ought to have done, and not to have omitted those. 24Blind guides, that strain a gnat, and swallow a camel.
25Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites: because you make clean that on the outside of the cup and dish: but within ‘you are full’ of rapine and uncleanness. 26Thou blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and the dish that the outside may become clean.
27Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites: because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear unto men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and all filthiness. 28So you also outwardly indeed • appear to men just: but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites: because you build the Prophets sepulchres, and • garnish the monuments of just men, 30and say: If we had been in our Fathers’ days, we had not been their fellows in the blood of the Prophets. 31Therefore you are a testimony to your own selves, that you are the sons of them that killed the Prophets. 32And fill you up the measure of your Fathers. 33You serpents, viper’s broods, how will you flee from the judgement of Hell? 34Therefore behold I send unto you Prophets, and wise men, and Scribes, and of them you shall kill and crucify, and of them you shall scourge in your Synagogues, and persecute from city into city: 35that upon you may come all the just blood that was shed upon the earth, from the blood of * Abel the just, even unto the blood of * Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom you murdered between the temple and the Altar. 36Amen I say to you, all these things shall come upon this Generation. 37 * Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the Prophets, and stonest them that were sent to thee, how often would I gather together thy children as the hen doth gather together her chickens under her wings, and thou (b) wouldest not? 38Behold, your house shall be left desert to you. 39For I say to you, you shall not see me from henceforth until you say: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of our Lord.
Footnotes
- ↑ These phylacteries were pieces of parchment, wherein they wrote the ten commandments, and folded it, and carried it on their forehead before their eyes, imagining grossly and superstitiously, that so they fulfilled that which is said Deu. 6, They shall be immoveable before thine eyes. Jerom. in 23 Mat.
- ↑ Free will.
ANNOTATIONS. CHAP. XXIII.
↑ 2. Chair of Moyses..) God preserves the truth of Christian Religion in the Apostolic See of Rome, which is in the new Law answerable to the chair of Moyses, notwithstanding the Bishops of the same were never so wicked of life: yea though some traitor as ill as Judas were Bishop thereof, it should not be prejudicial to the Church and innocent Christians, for whom our Lord providing said: Do that which they say, but do not as they do. August. Epist. 165.
↑ 3. Whatsoever they shall say.) Why (saith St. Augustin) doest thou call the Apostolic Chair the chair of pestilence? If for the men, Why? Did our Lord Jesus Christ for the Pharisees, any wrong to the Chair wherein they sat? Did he not commend that chair of Moyses, and preserving the honour of the Chair, reprove them? For he saith: They sit upon the Chair of Moyses, that which they say, do ye. These things if you did well consider, you would not for the men whom you defame, blaspheme the See Apostolic, wherewith you do not communicate. And again he saith: Neither for the Pharisees (to whom you compare us not of wisdom but of malice) did our Lord command the Chair of Moyses to be forsaken, in which Chair verily he figured his own, for he warned the People to do that which they say, and not to do that which they do, and that the holiness of the Chair be in no case forsaken, nor the unity of the flock divided, for the naughty Pastors.
↑ 6. Love the first places.) He condemneth not due places of Superiority given or taken of men according to their degrees, but ambitious seeking for the same, and their proud heart and wicked intention, which he saw within them, and therefore might boldly reprehend them.
↑ 8. One is your Master.) In the Catholic Church there is one Master, Christ our Lord, and under him one Vicar, with whom all Catholic Doctors and teachers are one, because they teach all one thing. But in Arch-heretics it is not so; where every one of them is a diverse Master, and teacheth contrary to the other, and will be called Rabbi and Master, every one, of their own Disciples: Arius a Rabbi among the Arians, Luther among the Lutherans, and among the Calvinists Calvin.
↑ 10. Masters.) Wycliffe, and the like Heretics of this time, do hereupon condemn degrees of School and titles of Doctors and Masters: where they might as well reprove St. Paul for calling himself Doctor and Master of the Gentiles: and for saying * that there should be always Doctors in the Church. And whereas they bring the other words following, against Religious men who are called Fathers; as well might they by this place take away the name of carnal fathers, and blame St. Paul for calling himself the only spiritual Father of the Corinthians. But indeed nothing is here forbidden but the contentious division and partiality of such as make themselves Ringleaders of Schisms and Sects, as Donatus, Arius, Luther, Calvin.
↑ 13. Scribes and Pharisees.) In all these reprehensions it is much to be noted, that our Saviour for the honour of Priesthood never reprehendeth Priests by that name, Cypr. ep. 65. Whereas our Heretics use this name of purpose in reproach and despite.
↑ 14. Praying long prayers.) They are not reprehended here for the things themselves, which for the most part are good, as, long prayer, making Proselytes, garnishing the Prophet’s sepulchres, &c., but for their wicked purpose and intention, as before is said of fasting, prayers, alms, Mat. 6.
↑ 15. Double more.) They that teach that it is enough to have only faith, do make such Christians, as the Jews did Proselytes, children of Hell far more than before, August. lib. de fide and oper. cap. 26.
↑ 19. Sanctifieth.) Note that donaries and gifts bestowed upon Churches and Altars, be sanctified by dedication to God, and by touching the Altar and other holy things: as now specially the vessels of the Sacrifice and Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood, by touching the same, and the Altar itself whereupon it is consecrated. Whereof Theophylact writeth thus upon this place: In the old law, Christ permitteth not the gift to be greater than the Altar, but with us, the Altar is sanctified by the gift: for the hosts by the divine grace are turned into our Lord’s body, and therefore is the Altar also sanctified by them.
↑ 21. By him that dwelleth in it.) By this we see that swearing by creatures, as by the Ghospel, by Saints, is all referred to the honour of God, whose Ghospel it is, whose Saints they are.
↑ 28. Appear to men.) Christ might boldly reprehend them so often and so vehemently for hypocrisy, because he knew their hearts and intentions: but we that can not see within men, may not presume to call men’s external good doings, hypocrisy: but judge of men as we see and know.
↑ 29. Garnish.) Christ blameth not the Jews for adorning the sepulchres of the Prophets, but rebuketh them of their malice toward him, and of that which by his divine knowledge he foresaw, that they would accomplish the wickedness of their Fathers in shedding his blood, as their Fathers did the blood of the Prophets, Hilar.
Margin Notes
- 1–12. The Ghospel upon Tuesday the 2nd week in Lent.
- 34–39. The Ghospel upon St. Steven’s day, Decemb. 26. And his Invention, Aug. 3.
- annot. 2. The See of Rome preserved in truth.
- annot. 3. The dignity of the See of Rome, notwithstanding some evil Bishops thereof.
- annot. 8. Many masters are many Archheretikes.
- annot. 10. Doctors, Masters, and spiritual fathers.
- annot. 13. The honour of Priesthood.
- annot. 14. The intention.
- annot. 15. Not only faith.
- annot. 19. The altar is sanctified by our Lord’s body thereupon.
Margin References
- 4. Luc. 11, 46. Act. 15, 10.
- 5. Deu. 22, 12. Num. 15, 38.
- 6. Mar. 12, 38.
- 10. Jac. 3, 1.
- 14. Luc. 20, 47.
- 25. ‘they are full’
- 35. Gen. 4, 8.
- 35. 2. Par. 24, 22.
- 37. Luc. 13, 34.
- annot. 3. Contra lit. Petil. lib. 2 ch. 51.
- annot. 3. Contra lit. Petil. lib. 2 ch. 61
- annot. 8. 1 Tim. 2.
- annot. 10. 2 Tim. 1.
- annot. 10. Eph. 4.
- annot. 10. 1 Cor. 4, 15.
