Gospel Reading : Matthew 5:38-42
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’
But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.”
What do the Fathers say?
St AUGUSTINE. This law, an Eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, was enacted to repress the flames of mutual hate, and to be a check on their undisciplined spirits.
For who when he would take revenge, was ever content to return just so much harm as he had received? Do we not see men who have suffered some trifling hurt, straightaway plot murder, thirst for blood, and hardly find evil enough that they can do to their enemies to satisfy their rage? To this limitless and cruel fury the Law puts bounds when it says that whatever wrong or hurt any man has done to another, he should suffer just the same in return. This is not to encourage but to check rage; for it does not rekindle what was extinguished, but hinders the flames already kindled from further spread. It enacts a just retaliation, properly due to him who has suffered the wrong.
Since he sins who seeks limitless vengeance, but he does not sin who desires only a just one; he is therefore further from sin who seeks no retribution at all.
I might state it thus; It was said to them of old time, You shalt not take unequal retaliation; But I say to you. You shall not retaliate; this is a completion of the Law,
That which the Law sought to do, namely, to put an end to unequal revenge, is more safely secured when there is no revenge at all.
PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. For without this command, the commands of the Law could not stand. For if according to the Law we begin all of us to render evil for evil, we shall all become evil, since they that do hurt abound.
But if according to Christ we do not resist evil, even though they that are evil are not amended, yet they that are good will remain good.
St JEROME. Thus our Lord by doing away all retaliation, cuts off the beginnings of sin. So the Law corrects faults, the Gospel removes their occasions.
St AUGUSTINE.
– The Lord then, the Physician of souls, teaches His disciples to endure with patience the sicknesses of those for whose spiritual health they should provide. For all wickedness comes of a sickness of the mind; nothing is more innocent than he who is sound and of perfect health in virtue.
– Now there is no example of patience more perfect than that of the Lord; yet He, when He was smitten, said not, ‘Behold the other cheek,’ but, If I have spoken amiss, accuse me wherein it is amiss; but if well, why smitest thou me? (John 18:23.) hereby shewing us that that turning of the other cheek should be in the heart.
– The Lord judges that another’s weakness should rather be borne with compassion, than that our own should be soothed by another’s pain. For that retribution which tends to correction is not here forbidden, for such is indeed a part of mercy.
– And holy men have punished some sins with death, in order that a wholesome fear might be struck into the living, and so that not his death, but the likelihood of increase of his sin had he lived, was the hurt of the criminal. Thus Elijah punished many with death, and when the disciples would take example from him they were rebuked by the Lord, who did not censure this example of the Prophet, but their ignorant use of it, seeing them to desire the punishment not for correction’s sake, but from angry hate.
– It is indeed better that men should be led to serve God by right teaching than by penalties; yet has it benefitted many, as experience has proved to us, to be first coerced by pain and fear, that they might be taught after, or to be made to conform in deed to what they had learned in words. The better men indeed are led of love, but the more part of men are wrought on by fear. Let them learn in the case of the Apostle Paul, how Christ first constrained, and after taught him.
– The Lord teaches that the Christian mind is most patient, and prepared to endure yet more than is offered; If a man constrain thee to go with him a mile, go with him two. This likewise is meant not so much of actual service with your feet, as of readiness of mind.
– He says not, ‘Give all things to him that asks;’ but, Give to every one that asks; that you should only give what you can give honestly and rightly. For what if one ask for money to employ in oppressing the innocent man? What if he ask your consent to unclean sin? We must give then only what will hurt neither ourselves or others, as far as man can judge; and when you have refused an inadmissible request, that you may not send away empty him that asked, show the righteousness of your refusal; and such correction of the unlawful petitioner will often be a better gift than granting his request.
– And of this last kind of showing mercy it is well said, Turn not away, that is, do not be backward to lend, as though, because man shall repay you, therefore God shall not; for what you do by God’s command cannot be without fruit.
– Some object that this command of Christ is altogether inconsistent with civil life;
Who, they say, would suffer, when he could hinder it, the pillage of his estate by an enemy; or would not repay the evil suffered by a plundered province of Rome on the plunderers according to the rights of war?
But these precepts of patience are to be observed in readiness of the heart, and that mercy, not to return evil for evil, must be always fulfilled by the will.
And in this way, if the earthly commonwealth will keep the Christian commandments, even war will not be waged without good charities.
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
Artwork ex Wikimedia Commons