Chapter XV.
49. “Therefore,” says He, “I say unto you, Have not anxiety384
| 384 Habere sollicitudinem; Vulgate, sollicitæ sitis.
|
for your
life, what ye shall eat;
385
| 385 Edatis; Vulgate, manducetis.
|
nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.” Lest perchance, although it is not now superfluities that are sought after, the
heart should be made double by reason of necessaries themselves, and the aim should be wrenched aside to
seek after those things of our own, when we are doing something as it were from
compassion;
i.e. so that when we wish to appear to be
consulting for some one’s good, we are in that matter looking after our own
profit rather than his
advantage: and we do not seem to ourselves to be
sinning for this reason, that it is not superfluities, but necessaries, which we wish to obtain. But the
Lord admonishes us that we should remember that
God, when He made and compounded us of body and
soul, gave us much more than
food and
clothing, through care for which He would not have us make our
hearts double. “Is not,” says He, “the
soul more than the
meat?” So that you are to understand that He who gave the
soul
will much more easily give
meat. “And the body than the
raiment,”
i.e. is more than
raiment: so that similarly you are to understand, that He who gave the body will much more easily give
raiment.
50. And in this passage the question is wont to be raised, whether the food spoken of has reference to the soul, since the soul is incorporeal, and the food in question is corporeal food. But let us admit that the soul in this passage stands for the present life, whose support is that corporeal nourishment. In accordance with this signification we have also that statement: “He that loveth his soul shall lose it.”386
And here, unless we understand the expression of this present
life, which we ought to lose for the
kingdom of
God, as it is clear the martyrs were able to do, this
precept will be in contradiction to that sentence where it is said: “What is a man
profited, if he shall
gain the whole
world, and lose
387
| 387 Detrimentum faciat; Vulgate, detrimentum patiatur.
|
his own
soul?”
388
51. “Behold,” says He, “the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them: are ye not much better than they?” i.e. ye are of more value. For surely a rational being such as man has a higher rank in the nature of things than irrational ones, such as birds. “Which of you, by taking thought,389
| 389 Curans; Vulgate, cogitans.
|
can add one
cubit unto his stature?
390
| 390 The term ἡλικία, translated by Augustin and the Vulgate statura, and by the English version stature, more probably means the measure of life, or age (American notes to Revised Version, Tholuck, De Wette, Trench, Alford, Meyer, Schaff, Plumptre, Weiss, etc.) A cubit was equal to the length of the forearm. The force of the Lord’s words would be greatly
diminished if such a measure was conceived of as possible to be added to the stature. The idea is, that human ingenuity and labor cannot add the least measure.
|
And why take ye thought for
raiment?” That is to say, the providence of Him by whose
power and sovereignty it has come about that your body was brought up to its present stature, can also clothe you; but that it is not by your care that it has come about that your body should arrive at this stature, may be understood from this circumstance, that if you should take thought, and should wish to add one
cubit to this stature, you cannot. Leave, therefore, the care of
protecting the body to Him by whose care you see it has come about that you have a body of such a stature.
52. But an example was to be given for the clothing too, just as one is given for the food. Hence He goes on to say, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon391
| 391 To the Jew the highest representative of splendour and pomp.
|
in all his
glory was not arrayed
392
| 392 Vestitutus; Vulgate, coopertus. “As the beauties of the flower are unfolded by the divine Creator Spirit from within, from the laws and capacities of its own individual life, so must all true adornment of man be unfolded from within by the same Spirit. This hidden meaning must not be overlooked” (Alford). The law of spiritual growth is mysterious and spontaneous.
|
like one of these. Wherefore, if
God so clothe the
grass of the
field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the
oven; shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little
faith?” But these examples are not to be treated as
allegories, so that we should inquire what the
fowls of
heaven or the
lilies of the
field mean: for they stand here, in order that from smaller matters we may be
persuaded respecting greater ones;
393
| 393 The argument, so called, a minore ad majus.
|
just as is the case in regard to the
judge who neither
feared God nor regarded man, and yet yielded to the
widow who often importuned him to consider her case, not from
piety or
humanity, but that he might be
saved annoyance. For that
unjust judge does not in any way allegorically represent the person of
God; but yet as to how
far God, who is good and just, cares for those who supplicate Him, our Lord wished the inference to be drawn from this circumstance, that not even an
unjust man can despise those who assail him with unceasing petitions, even were his motive merely to avoid annoyance.
394
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