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Matthew 19
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214 ST. JEROME 18.24. “One was brought to him who owed ten thousand talents.” I know that some152 interpret that man who owed ten thousand talents to be the devil. They think that the selling of his wife and children, as he persevered in malice, refers to his folly and evil thoughts. For just as wisdom is called the wife of a just man,153 so folly is called the wife of the unjust and the sinner.154 But how is it that the Lord forgives him ten thousand talents and he refused to forgive us, his fellow servants, one hundred denarii? This is no ecclesiastical interpretation, nor is it one that should be received by prudent men. 18.25. “So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if each of you does not forgive your brother from your heart.” It is an alarming sentence of judgment, if God’s verdict is changed and altered on the basis of our attitude of mind. If we do not forgive our brothers trivial things, God will not forgive us great things. And since anyone could say: “I have nothing against him; he himself knows it; he has God as his judge; it does not matter to me; whatever he wants to do, I pardon it”; he confirms his own verdict and undermines all pretense of a feigned peace by saying: “If each of you does not forgive your brother from your heart.” Chapter 19 19.3. And the Pharisees came to him, testing him and saying: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” He had come from Galilee to Judea. That is why the sect of the Pharisees and scribes asks him whether it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause. They want to catch him between the horns of a dilemma , as the saying goes.155 Whatever he responds will expose him to a quibble. If he says that a wife ought to be divorced for any cause and another can be married, this preacher of chastity will seem to be teaching contradictions. But if he responds that for no cause should she be divorced, he will be held guilty of 152. Cf. Origen, In Matth. 14.10. 153. Cf. Prv 4.5–9. 154. Cf. Prv 7.6–27. 155. For the expression “horns of a dilemma” (cornuato syllogismo), cf. Jerome ’s Ep. 69.2 to Oceanus. BOOK THREE (16.13–22.40) 215 blasphemy and as acting contrary to the doctrine of Moses, and, through Moses, to that of God. Therefore, the Lord tempers his response in such a way that he evades the trap. He cites Holy Scripture as testimony and opposes natural law and God’s first sentence of judgment to the second judgment that was conceded not by the will of God but as a necessity for those who sin. 19.4. “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made male and female?” This is written at the beginning of Genesis .156 Now by saying “male and female,” he shows that second marriages should be avoided. For he does not say: male and females , which were demanded from the repudiation of the former ones, but “male and female,” in order to link partnerships together by a single marriage.157 19.5. “For this reason a man leaves father and mother and will cleave to his wife.” In a similar way,158 he says: “he will cleave to his wife,” not wives. 19.5. “And the two will be in one flesh.” The reward of marriage is the making of one flesh out of two. Chastity, when united with the Spirit, makes one spirit.159 19.6. “Therefore, what God has joined together let no man separate.” God has joined them together by making one flesh of the man and woman. Man cannot separate this flesh, only perhaps God alone. Man separates it when, out of the desire for a second wife, we divorce the first one. God separates the one he had also joined together when, by consent and on account of service to God, since the time is short, we have wives in such a way as though not having them.160 19.7. They say to him: “Why then did Moses command a bill of divorce to be given and to divorce?” They betray the calumny that they had been preparing. And surely the Lord had...