Matthew 7:12

Firmness and strength of walking by the way of wisdom in good habits is thus set before us, by which men are brought to purity and simplicity of heart; concerning which having spoken a long time, He thus concludes, "All things whatsoever ye would, &c." For there is no man who would that another should act towards him with a double heart.

Otherwise; He had above commanded us in order to sanctify our prayers that men should not judge those who sin against them. Then breaking the thread of his discourse He had introduced various other matters, wherefore now when He returns to the command with which He had begun, He says, "All things whatsoever ye would, &c." That is; I not only command that ye judge not, but "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye unto them;" and then you will be able to pray so as to obtain.

ord.: Otherwise; The Holy Spirit is the distributor of all spiritual goods, that the deeds of charity may be fulfilled; whence He adds, "All things therefore, &c."

Otherwise; The Lord desires to teach that men ought to seek aid from above, but at the same time to contribute what lays in their power; wherefore when He had said, "Ask, seek, and knock," He proceeds to teach openly that men should be at pains for themselves, adding, "Whatsoever ye would &c."

Otherwise; The Lord had promised that He would give good things to them that ask Him. But that He may own his petitioners, let us also own ours. For they that beg are in every thing, save having of substance, equal to those of whom they beg. What face can you have of making request to your God, when you do not acknowledge your equal? This is said in Proverbs, "Whoso stoppeth his ear to the cry of the poor, he shall cry and shall not be heard." [Prov 21:13] What we ought to bestow on our neighbour when he asks of us, that we ourselves may be heard of God, we may judge by what we would have others bestow upon us; therefore He says, "All things whatsoever ye would."

He says not, "All things whatsoever," simply, but "All things therefore," as though He should say, If ye will be heard, besides those things which I have now said to you, do this also. And He said not, Whatsoever you would have done for you by God, do that for your neighbour; lest you should say, But how can I? but He says, Whatsoever you would have done to you by your fellow-servant, do that also to your neighbour.

Some Latin copies add here, "good things," [ed. note: So also S. Cyprian de Orat. (Tr. vii. 18. fin.) and the Latin MSS.] which I suppose was inserted to make the sense more plain. For it occurred that one might desire some crime to be committed for his advantage, and should so construe this place, that he ought first to do the like to him by whom he would have it done to him. It were absurd to think that this man had fulfilled this command. Yet the thought is perfect, even though this be not added. For the words, "All things whatsoever ye would," are not to be taken in their ordinary and loose signification, but in their exact and proper sense. For there is no will but only in the good [margin note: but see Retract. i. 9. n. 4]; in the wicked it is rather named desire, and not will. Not that the Scriptures always observe this propriety; but where need is, there they retain the proper word so that none other need be understood.

Tr. vii: Since the Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ came to all men, He summed up all his commands in one precept, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them;" and adds, "for this is the Law and the Prophets."

For whosoever the Law and the Prophets contain up and down through the whole Scriptures, is embraced in this one compendious precept, as the innumerable branches of a tree spring from one root.

He that thinks he ought to do to another as he expects that others will do to him, considers verily how he may return good things for bad, and better things for good.

Whence what we ought to do is clear, as in our own cases we all know what is proper, and so we cannot take refuge in our ignorance.

This precept seems to refer to the love of our neighbour, not of God, as in another place He says, there are two commandments on which hang the Law and the Prophets. But as He says not here, The whole Law, as He speaks there, He reserves a place for the other commandment respecting the love of God.

Otherwise; Scripture does not mention the love of God, where it says, "All things whatsoever ye would;" because he who loves his neighbour must consequently love Love itself above all things; but God is Love; therefore he loves God above all things.

But as to those who think that not here, that is, not within this environment of earth, nor during this period of existence, nor before men possessing this nature shared by us all, has confession been appointed to be made, what a supposition is theirs, being at variance with the whole order of things of which we have experience in these lands, and in this life, and under human authorities! Doubtless, when the souls have departed from their bodies, and begun to be put upon trial in the several stories of the heavens, with reference to the engagement (under which they have come to Jesus), and to be questioned about those hidden mysteries of the heretics, they must then confess before the real powers and the real men, the Teleti, to wit, and the Abascanti, and the Acineti of Valentinus! For, say they , even the Demiurge himself did not uniformly approve of the men of our world, whom he coun …

28. What wonder is it, beloved brethren, if such is the prayer which God taught, seeing that He condensed in His teaching all our prayer in one saving sentence? This had already been before foretold by Isaiah the prophet, when, being filled with the Holy Spirit, he spoke of the majesty and loving-kindness of God, “consummating and shortening His word,” He says, “in righteousness, because a shortened word will the Lord make in the whole earth.” For when the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, came unto all, and gathering alike the learned and unlearned, published to every sex and every age the precepts of salvation, He made a large compendium of His precepts, that the memory of the scholars might not be burdened in the celestial learning, but might quickly learn what was necessary to a simple faith. …

42. But I shall also offer, to the best of my ability, some expositions of the other words referred to; that is to say, I shall show that Jesus neither said nor did aught that was contrary to Moses. And first, as to the word, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,”, that is the expression of justice. And as to His injunction, that a man, when struck on the one cheek, should offer the other also, that is the expression of goodness. Well, then, are justice and goodness opposed to each other? Far from it! There has only been an advance from simple justice to positive goodness. And again, we have the saying, “The workman is worthy of his hire.” But if a person seeks to practise any fraud therein, it is surely most just that what he has got possession of by fraud should be required of him, most especially when the hire is large. …

28. When, therefore, he did not refuse to practise some of these Old Testament observances, he was not led by his compassion for Jews to feign this conformity, but unquestionably was acting sincerely; and by this course of action declaring his respect for those things which in the former dispensation had been for a time enjoined by God, he distinguished between them and the impious rites of heathenism. At that time, moreover, not with the subtlety of a deceiver, but with the love of one moved by compassion, he became to the Jews as a Jew, when, seeing them to be in error, which either made them unwilling to believe in Christ, or made them think that by these old sacrifices and ceremonial observances they could be cleansed from sin and made partakers of salvation, he desired so to deliver them from that error as if he saw not them, but himself, entangled in it; thus truly loving his neigh …

Those emotions which the Greeks call εὐπαθείαι , and which Cicero calls constantiœ , the Stoics would restrict to three; and, instead of three “perturbations” in the soul of the wise man, they substituted severally, in place of desire, will; in place of joy, contentment; and for fear, caution; and as to sickness or pain, which we, to avoid ambiguity, preferred to call sorrow, they denied that it could exist in the mind of a wise man. Will, they say, seeks the good, for this the wise man does. Contentment has its object in good that is possessed, and this the wise man continually possesses. Caution avoids evil, and this the wise man ought to avoid. But sorrow arises from evil that has already happened; and as they suppose that no evil can happen to the wise man, there can be no representative of sorrow in his mind. …

10. No other thing, then, is chiefly to be regarded in this inquiry, which we make concerning the Trinity and concerning knowing God, except what is true love, nay, rather what is love. For that is to be called love which is true, otherwise it is desire; and so those who desire are said improperly to love, just as they who love are said improperly to desire. But this is true love, that cleaving to the truth we may live righteously, and so may despise all mortal things in comparison with the love of men, whereby we wish them to live righteously. For so we should be prepared also to die profitably for our brethren, as our Lord Jesus Christ taught us by His example. …

6. “Thou hast loved malice above benignity” ( ver. 4 ). Before thee was benignity; herself thou shouldest have loved. For thou wast not going to expend anything, nor wast thou going to fetch something to love by a distant voyage. Benignity is before thee, iniquity before thee: compare and choose. But perchance thou hast an eye wherewith thou seest malignity, and hast no eye wherewith thou seest benignity. Woe to the iniquitous heart. What is worse, it doth turn away itself, that it may not see what it is able to see. For what of such hath been said in another place? “He would not understand that he might do good.” For it is not said, he could not: but “he would not,” he saith, “understand that he might do good,” he closed his eyes from present light. And what followeth? “Of iniquity he hath meditated in his bed;” that is, in the inner secrecy of his heart. …

Sufficiently indeed, then, our discourse of late evinced to you, that a natural law of good and evil is seated within us. But that our proof of it may be more abundantly evident, we will again to-day apply ourselves strenuously to the same subject of discourse. For that God from the beginning, when He formed man, made him capable of discriminating both these, all men make evident. Hence when we sin, we are all ashamed at the presence of our inferiors; and oftentimes a master, on his way to the house of a harlot, if he then perceives any one of his more respectable servants, turns back, reddening with shame, from this untoward path. Again, when others reproach us, fixing on us the names of particular vices, we call it an insult; and if we are aggrieved, we drag those who have done the wrong to the public tribunal. Thus we can understand what vice is and what virtue is. …

12. But our lessons are not such; rather Christ hath taughtus what is just, and what is seemly, and what is expedient, and all virtue in general, comprising it in few and plain words: at one time saying that, “on two commandments hang the Law and the Prophets;”that is to say, on the love of God and on the love of our neighbor: at another time, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

[4.] Let us then think with shame on the great benefits we have already received, the great benefits we are yet to receive. And if a poor man come to us and beg, let us receive him with much good will, comforting, raising him up with [our] words, that we ourselves also may meet with the like, both from God and from men. “For whatsoever ye would that they should do unto you, do ye also unto them.” ( Matt. vii. 12 .) Nothing burdensome, nothing offensive, doth this law contain. ‘What thou wouldest receive, that do,’ it saith. The return is equal. And it said not, ‘what thou wouldest not receive, that do not,’ but what is more. For that indeed is an abstinence from evil things, but this is a doing of good things, in which the other is involved. …

[1.] All things good then have their reward, when they arrive at their proper end, but if they be cut off midway, shipwreck ensues. And as a vessel of immense burden, if it reach not the harbor in time, but founder in the midst of the sea, gains nothing from the length of the voyage, but even makes the calamity greater, in proportion as it has endured more toils; so are those souls which fall back when near the end of their labors, and faint in the midst of the struggle. Wherefore Paul said, that glory, and honor, and peace, should meet those who ran their course with patient continuance in well-doing. A thing which Christ now effecteth in the case of the disciples. ( Rom. ii. …

But you perhaps say here, “Teach me, then, what righteousness is, so that knowing it, I may be able more easily to fully practice it.” Well, I shall briefly explain it to you, as I am able, and shall use the simplicity of common words, seeing that the subject of which we treat is such as ought by no means to be obscured by attempts at eloquent description, but should be opened up by the simplest forms of expression. For a matter which is necessary to all in common ought to be set forth in a common sort of speech. Righteousness, then, is nothing else than not to commit sin; and not to commit sin is just to keep the precepts of the law. Now, the observance of these precepts is maintained in a two-fold way, thus, that one do none of those things which are forbidden, and that he strive to fulfill the things which are commanded. …