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brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

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Angry with his brother.—By brother, our Lord means ANY ONE, any human being. By the term brother the Jews understood only an Israelite; and by a neighbour," a proselyte, in opposition to a Samaritan or a heathen: and as our Lord taught, in the parable of the good Samaritan, that all men were neighbours, so here the very reason and principle of the precept shows that he regarded all men as brethren; thus destroying all those distinctions of a false casuistry among the Jews, to which they resorted, in order to justify their selfishness, bigotry, and malevolence.

Without a cause.-Although εικη is wanting in the Vulgate, and in two Greek Mss. ; yet, as the Syriac, and also all the other Greek Mss., have it, the majority of critics, following Chrysostom, and all the earliest Fathers, both Greek and Latin, retain it. The reason why some have been disposed to reject a word which has so weighty an evidence in its favour, as a part of the pure text, appears to have arisen from refined notions concerning anger. En, rendered by us, without cause, signifies, lightly, or intemperately, sine modo, as Grotius says, as well as sine causa. It is, indeed, necessary to the perfection of the precept to comprise both ideas; since persons who are rashly angry are often so without cause, and also often carry it beyond the measure when a real grievance has been sustained. The intention of our Lord was obviously to incul. cate self-command, the complete subjection of the passion of anger to REASON and to CHARITY; and he therefore condemns all that excess which violates the rules of each. But the passion itself is not sinful when thus governed. It is then the warm repulsion of whatever is

injurious and unworthy, in word or deed, by a pure and honourable mind, but accompanied by no malignity against the offender, and along with which the spirit of forgiveness is maintained. Hence anger is attributed to our Lord; and we are exhorted to be " angry and sin not:" plain proofs that the existence of this passion may consist with the highest moral state of the mind, and that it is not to be destroyed in the Christian, but sanctified.

Shall be in danger of the judgment.—That is, shall be guilty of a capital offence, and liable to capital punishment, which the Jewish courts of twenty-three had anciently the power to inflict. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca,—vain, worthless fellow, a term of great contempt among the Jews, except when used in solemn religious reproofs,―shall be in danger of the council; that is, the Sanhedrim, which had the power of inflicting death by stoning, a still more aggravated form of punishment. Whether at this time the power of life and death had been taken away from the great council by the Romans or not, as we know it was at the time of our Lord's condemnation, they had still the power of declaring that by their laws a criminal" ought to die;" so that the allusion still held good. But whosoever shall say, Thou fool, a stronger word than Raca, and which implied a higher degree of anger, and that of a more malignant character, as importing a charge of moral turpitude, of wicked and reprobate principle, shall be in danger of hell fire, the severest punishment of all. Gehenna, the word here used by our Saviour, is compounded of two Hebrew words, signifying the valley of Hinnom, which is a part of the valley which bounds Jerusalem, where in ancient idolatrous times children were offered to Moloch, an Ammonite deity, and consumed by fire. The place was therefore called Tophet, which signifies,

23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;

24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

m

25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.

m Luke xii. 58, 59.

"a loathsome abomination." To this place, afterwards, the refuse and offal of Jerusalem was carried, and consumed by perpetual fires. It is doubtful whether the Jews in our Lord's time punished malefactors by burning; but in some cases this was enjoined by the Mosaic law, and the passage before us makes it probable that this was not then a punishment wholly unknown, though unfrequent.

The intention of our Lord in comparing the degrees of punishment to be inflicted upon sinful anger to the different capital punishments of the Jews, simply putting to death, then death by stoning, and in the third degree by burning, is obvious. He speaks figuratively; for no temporal punishments of the kind he mentions were inflicted upon anger by the Jews, and so his hearers were not obnoxious to them; but he teaches us, that intemperate and malevolent anger is such an offence as excludes men from heaven, and renders them liable to future punishment; and that, according to the degree in which it may be indulged, and the injury it may prompt those who unhappily subject themselves to its influence to inflict upon others, either by exposing them to contempt, or blighting their moral character, or by any other means, it shall be visited with proportionate punishments, even to that which is most extreme. So necessary is it for us to acquire and maintain an entire government over this dangerous element of our nature.

Verse 23. Therefore, if thou bring thy gift, &c.-Severe as our Lord's condemnation of sinful anger may appear, he here

opens a way of escape from its consequences to those who have been guilty of it. No gifts at the altar are acceptable to God, or available to the worshipper, without penitence and charity. This was first levelled against the formalists of the time, who regarded the mere acts of worship and ceremonial service as in themselves meritorious; but we are to remember there, that is, before the altar, whether our brother has anything against us; which supposes a habit of examination into the state of our hearts, and our past conduct, when we approach God; and if an honest conscience suggests the charge of any offence against a brother, leave there thy gift, thy sacrifice or offering, before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother; that is, reconcile thyself to him, as the verb signifies; use every means to render him propitious to thee; and seek his forgiveness by due acknowledgment and reparation of the offence.

Verse 25. Agree with thine adversary, &c.-Here our Lord does not introduce a new subject, as some have thought, and exhort debtors to a speedy settlement of their accounts, or the making pecuniary compensation for injuries, which would have been foreign to his purpose; but he enforces the necessity of offering satisfaction to an offended brother: an allusion to the practice of prudent men, who hasten to satisfy the demands of their creditor, or to propitiate accusers, lest they should be exposed to fine, and, in default of that, to arrest and imprisonment. As a creditor or an injured inan may hastily enforce the law upon a care

26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

n Exod. xx. 14.

less debtor or culprit, so the anger of God may suddenly break forth against him who has injured and offended another, and thus broken the divine law as interpreted by our Lord, unless he gain his brother by confession and restitution. Be in haste to be at peace with all mankind. The process here described seems best illustrated, not from purely Jewish, but from foreign customs, which, during the reign of Herod the Great, were largely introduced. There is in this, says Hug, a direct view to the Roman law de injuriis, according to which the complainant, with his own hand, dragged the accused before the judge, without magisterial summons, in jus rapit; yet, according to which, on the road, an agreement, transactio, remains open to him; but should not this be accomplished, the MULCT instantly awaits him; which if he does not discharge, he is cast into prison until its liquidation. AvTikos, rendered adversary, is a plaintiff in a suit at law. Whiles thou art in the way with him, signifies, as you are going with him to the magistrate. (See Luke xii. 58.) The farthing was two leptahs or mites; the value of the farthing, quadrans, a Roman coin, was about three-halfpence.

Verse 28. Whoso looketh upon a woman. -That the guilt of secret inclinations to sin was concluded from the letter of the law, by the ancient Jews, appears from many passages in the Old Testament, and from the manifest strugglings and prayers of the pious against all "secret sins." The law prohibiting adultery would therefore be understood to prohibit also all impure desires; but it was now explicitly enacted, so to speak, by the great

Lawgiver himself, that THE DESIRE OF SIN IS SIN; and that he who indulges that desire comes under the penalty of the law as certainly as he who commits an outward violation of it. It was the more necessary to declare this, because of that delusive casuistry on the subject of moral duties, which had been adopted by the Jewish teachers, before alluded to. Outward acts alone with them were reputed sinful, not thoughts and desires, or even intentions of evil, as before stated. In that respect they fell below the heathen moralists themselves :

Nam scelus intra se tacitum qui cogitat ullum,
Facti crimen habet.
JUVENAL

"For he who conceives any secret wickedness within himself has the guilt of the deed." But against all such attempts to weaken the import of the laws of God, whether by the Pharisees or by corrupt and subtle Christian teachers, our Lord erects this impassable barrier. He requires from his disciples such a purity of heart as shall lead them to abstain, not only from all gross acts of impurity, but from the indulgence of irregular thoughts ; and thus, by this salutary law, man is guarded against the very first step to pollution. Alexander the Great, when he ordered some of his soldiers to be put to death for adultery, was able to enforce his severity in this respect, with this noble declaration, that, for his own part, he had not suffered himself to see the wife of the conquered Darius, his prisoner, nor so much as to think of seeing her; nor had he permitted her beauty to be the subject of conversation in his presence. Bishop Porteus, on this precept of our Lord, justly remarks, "This is wisdom, this is

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29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

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31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:

o Matt. xviii. 8; Mark ix. 47.

morality, in its most perfect form; in its essence, and in its first principles. Bad thoughts quickly ripen into bad actions; and if the latter only are forbidden, while the former are left free, all morality will soon be at an end."

p Deut. xxiv. 1.

* Or, do cause thee to offend.
and it come to pass that she find no fa-
vour in his eyes, because he hath found
some uncleanness in her, then let him
write her a bill of divorcement, and give
it in her hand, and send her out of his
house." On the meaning of this law, the
Jewish schools were divided, and the
dispute was especially ardent about our
Lord's time; the school of Shammai tak-
ing the 17, rendered by us, uncleanness,
to signify whoredom; and that of Hillel
contending that it meant any defect what-
ever, either of person or disposition.
However this might be decided, divorces
had been long frequent among the Jews,
and that for trivial causes; and the gene-
ral interpretation of the law had intro-
duced a laxity far beyond its intention.
Here then our Lord, in his capacity of the
Lawgiver of his own dispensation, settles
this question also; a question of the high-
est importance to the institution of mar-
riage, which is the source of all the
domestic virtues, and the fountain of
public morals. He allows the bill of
divorce, but restrains it absolutely to
cases which directly and essentially vio-
late the marriage covenant. Пoрvela, "for-
nication," is usually distinguished from
adultery; and some difficulties have
therefore been raised as to the exact
meaning of our Lord. These are, how-
ever, removed by considering Topνela as a
generic term signifying criminal sexual
intercourse, and which in the case of a
married woman necessarily became adul-
tery.

Verse 29. If thy right eye offend thee, &c.—Σkavdaλiseiv, which is usually rendered, in our version, to offend, is from okaydaλov, a stumbling-block, which being placed in the way causes a person to stumble or to fall. By Suidas it is explained, A TRAP. Whatever, therefore, becomes an occasion of our FALLING from a state of purity into sin; whatever would lead us into criminal ENTANGLEMENTS of our consciences and affections, must be resolutely renounced, at the expense of every sacrifice, however painful or costly. Joseph, with respect to Potiphar's wife, is an instance of this kind of sacrifice: he chose to hazard a bad woman's fury and its consequences, and he meekly sustained them in a long imprisonment, rather than desecrate himself by sin. The metaphors of cutting off the right hand and eye, are probably taken from surgery, when a mortified member must be exscinded to save the whole body; and they strongly teach us a rigid, and if necessary, a painful self-denial, in order to escape guilt, and its punishment. See note on Mark ix. 48.

Verse 31. Whosoever shall put away his wife, &c.—The Mosaic law of divorce is found in Deuteronomy xxiv. 1: "When a man hath taken a wife, and married her,

32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

r

33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:

q Luke xvi. 18; 1 Cor. vii. 10.

Verse 32. Causeth her to commit adul tery, &c.-By setting her at liberty to marry another, which was expressly done in the bill of divorce, one of the clauses in the form being, "So as to be free, and at thy own disposal to marry whom thou pleasest, without hinderance from any one," &c.

r Exod. xx. 7; Lev. xix. 12; Deut. v. 11.

Verse 33. Thou shalt not forswear thyself, &c.-Our Lord does not here explain or give an extended sense to the Mosaic law, which prohibits perjury; but he enforces it against a practice of the Jews, which was founded upon distinctions invented to cover deceit and treachery. Our Lord, instead of forbidding oaths to be taken before a magistrate, or on solemn occasions, leaves that as it stands in the decalogue, and in Leviticus xix. 12; for none of the oaths which he prohibits in what follows were by THE NAME of God, which all JUDICIAL oaths were: "Ye shall not swear by my name falsely." He himself, though for a time silent, on his examination before the high priest, answered when ADJURED "by the living God;" and sanctioned the oath by taking it upon himself. See the note on the place. What he forbids is false swearing, in any mode: for as the Jews thought that swearing by heaven, by the temple, or by the head, their usual voluntary oaths, were not as binding as when the name of God was invoked, Christ, on the contrary, shows that such oaths came under the Mosaic prohibition of swearing falsely; and that their violation rendered the offender liable to an equal penalty. That this practice, of adjuring creatures and not God, prevailed among the Jews, appears from Philo, who has a passage forbidding men

to swear in extra-judicial cases by the Supreme Cause; but, if necessary, directs them to record the earth, the sun, or the heavens. And that they trifled with such oaths, we learn from Maimonides, who says, that "if any man swear by heaven or by earth, yet this is not an oath;" meaning not an oath in the highest sense, such as the law regarded, or the violation of which would come under its rule of swearing falsely. It was not unknown to the heathen that this fallacy was practised among the Jews. A curious illustration of this has frequently been cited from an epigram of Martial.

Ecce! negas, jurasque mihi per templa tonantis ;
Non credo: Jura, verpe, per ANCHIALUM.

"Lo, thou deniest it, and swearest by heaven; but I believe thee not. Swear then by Anchialus," that is, ns ns, as God liveth, which, with the Jews, was a binding oath. When, therefore, our Lord says, "Swear not at all," he neither refers to profane swearing by the name of God, which impiety as well as perjury is clearly forbidden by the third commandment; nor does he forbid judicial oaths administered by proper authority, nor adjurations in the name of God, on other solemn occasions, but all such swearing as he immediately specifies; "by heaven," "by the earth," "by Jerusalem," "by the head," and other similar oaths, wherein some creature is adjured. These oaths were often trifled with; and he therefore inhibits them altogether, because they led men into the sin of perjury, under the false casuistry of their teachers, who taught that because in them the name of God was not appealed to, their violation did not amount to any great

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