Commentary on Matthew, Chapter 10

While almost all of the works in this vault use Victorian translations, due to the only English translation of this commentary being in copyright, it was machine-translated (by Claude, 2026) from the public-domain Latin. It has not been checked by a human translator.

Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, written about 353–356, before his exile to the East. Chapter 10: Where He sends the twelve disciples ahead with His teaching.

1. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they were harassed and lying down, and the rest. We must look into the force of the words no less than into that of the events: because, as we have said, the weight of meaning in what is said and in what is done is equal. The Lord has compassion on the multitudes, harassed and lying down, as a flock scattered without a shepherd. And He says that the harvest is plenteous and the labourers few, and that the Lord of the harvest must be prayed to send forth more labourers into His harvest. And calling His disciples together, He gave them power to cast out unclean spirits, and to heal all sickness and every disease. Though these things were done for the present, then, we must consider what they signify for the future.

2. No harasser had burst in upon the crowds, nor were they lying down struck by any accident or commotion: how, then, does He pity them as lying down and harassed? The Lord pities a people harassed, that is, by the overmastering violence of the unclean spirit, and sick under the burden of the Law, because as yet there was no shepherd for them to give back to them the guardianship of the Holy Spirit. Now the fruit of this gift was most abundant, but not yet reaped by anyone. For its plenty outdoes the multitude of those who draw from it. For however much is taken by all, it always overflows to give itself. And because it is profitable that there be many through whom it is ministered, He bids the Lord of the harvest be asked to send forth more labourers into the harvest: that is, that for the gathering in of the gift of the Holy Spirit which was being prepared, God may grant a plenty of reapers; for it is through prayer and supplication that this gift is poured out on us by God. And to show that many reapers were to be spread abroad into that harvest, beginning from these twelve apostles, He called them together and gave them power to cast out spirits and to heal every infirmity. For by the powers of this gift both the troubler could be driven out and the sick could be healed. And it is fitting to consider the meaning of each of the precepts.

3. They are warned to keep away from the way of the Gentiles: not that they were not to be sent for the salvation of the Gentiles too, but that they should keep away from the works and life of Gentile ignorance. They are forbidden to enter the cities of the Samaritans. Did He not rather Himself heal the woman of Samaria? But they are warned not to go to the churches of the heretics. For perversity differs nothing from ignorance. Then they are sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And yet these raged against Him with the tongues and throats of wolves and vipers. But the giving of the Law was owed the privilege of the Gospel: so that Israel would have the less excuse for its crime, the more diligence it had felt in the warning.

4. Then the whole power of the Lord’s might is passed over to the apostles: and those who in Adam had been formed after the image and likeness of God now obtain the perfect image and likeness of Christ, differing in nothing from the powers of their Lord; and those who before were earthly now become heavenly. They are to preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand: that is, that the image and likeness of God is now taken up into fellowship with the truth; so that all the saints, who have been called heavens, may reign with the Lord. They are to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils: whatever evils the instigation of Satan had brought on Adam’s body, these they themselves are to cleanse away again by their sharing in the Lord’s power. And that they may wholly attain the likeness of God, according to the prophecy of Genesis, they are bidden freely to give what they have freely received: so that, that is, the ministering of a free gift may be free.

5. They are forbidden to possess gold, silver or money in their purses, to carry a scrip for the journey, or two coats, or shoes, or to take a staff in their hands: for the workman is worthy of his meat. A treasure in one’s girdle is not, I think, a thing to be grudged: and what is the meaning of forbidding the possession of gold, silver and brass in the girdle? The girdle is the equipment of service, the girding up for the effectiveness of the work. We are warned, then, that there should be nothing for sale in our ministry, and that the possession of gold, silver and brass should not become the work of our apostleship. Nor scrip for your journey: that is, care for worldly goods is to be left behind; because all treasure on earth is harmful, since our heart will be there where the treasure is laid up. Neither two coats. For it is enough for us to have put on Christ once; and we must not, through the perversity of our understanding, afterwards put on another garment, either of heresy or of the Law. Neither shoes. Is the weakness of men’s feet able to bear going bare? But being about to stand barefoot on holy ground, not beset with the thorns and prickles of sins, as was said to Moses, we are warned to have no other furnishing for our going than what we have received from Christ. Nor yet staves in your hands: that is, not needing to seek the rights of a power that is not ours, since we have the rod from the root of Jesse; for any other will not be Christ’s. We are furnished, by the whole discourse before this, to complete the journey of this world with grace, provision for the way, clothing, shoes and power; and working in these we shall be found worthy of our wages, that is, we shall receive the rewards of the heavenly hope through keeping these things.

6. And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy, and the rest. It may perhaps be thought that the Lord gave light precepts to the apostles, in that He stooped even to directions about entering, lodging, staying and leaving. These, indeed, taken simply, are in keeping with the modesty of the saints: that they should be guests of a worthy man, and not be defiled, through carelessness or ignorance, by living with a disgraceful household. But He bids them, on entering a city, enquire who is worthy, and lodge with him until they leave; and that the house should be greeted peaceably by those who enter it; and if it is worthy, it should also be worthy of the fellowship of peace; if unworthy, the peace should return to them; and for those who did not receive them and their words, the seeds of eternal cursing were to be left by shaking off the dust from their feet.

7. These things stir the understanding not a little. For if they are not to take up lodging unless they have first enquired who is worthy, how shall the house afterwards be found unworthy? And how shall it not hear their words, both not hearing them and not receiving them? For either this is not to be feared in one who is just; or if he is found unworthy, the fellowship of lodging will not be entered into at all. And what will it profit to have enquired and sought out the worthy man, if both a precaution and a punishment are laid down against an unworthy host? But the Lord instructs them not to mingle with the houses and acquaintance of those who either persecute Christ or do not know Him; and in every city to enquire who is worthy of their lodging, that is, wherever there is a Church and Christ dwells in it; and not to pass anywhere else, because that is the worthy house and the just host.

8. But as for His commanding that the house be greeted aloud by those who enter, saying, Say, Peace be to this house: and that if the house is found worthy the peace must come upon it, but if unworthy the peace returns to them: yet if peace has been spoken at the very first entrance, in the duty of greeting, how shall it afterwards come, or how shall it afterwards return? For either peace ought not to have been spoken until it was proved whether the house was worthy; or, if it was worthy and was greeted with peace, the condition of a peace that is to come and a peace that is to return cannot hang together in reason with what went before. We must show, then, what the proper meaning of the words is.

9. There were to be many among the Jews whose attachment to the Law was so great that, though they had believed in Christ through wonder at His works, yet they would linger in the works of the Law; others, curious to spy out the freedom which is in Christ, would pretend to have passed over from the Law to the Gospels; and many too would be led away into heresy through perversity of understanding. And because all of this kind, deceiving and flattering their hearers, falsely claim that the catholic truth is with them, He therefore warned above that we must seek out one who is worthy to lodge with; and because the ignorant could fall in with a host of this kind through deceitful words, that we must deal cautiously and carefully with the very house which is called worthy, that is, the Church which is called catholic: greeting it indeed with the feeling of peace, but in such a way that peace is spoken rather than given. For so He commanded: Salute it, saying, Peace be to this house. So the peace of greeting is in words, and is to be granted in the speech of prayer. But one’s own peace, which is the bowels of mercy, ought not to come upon it unless it is worthy: and if it is not found worthy, the mystery of the heavenly peace is to be kept within their own conscience.

10. And upon those who, having heard the preaching of the heavenly kingdom, reject the precepts of the apostles, eternal cursing is to be left by their going out and by the sign of the dust shaken from their feet. For there seems to be some kind of fellowship between one who stands in a place and the place in which he has stood, and a sort of joining together of body and soil comes about between them. So all the sin of that house and dwelling is left within it, the dust of the feet being shaken off, and it borrows no holiness from the footprints of the apostles who stood there: so that those by whose entering and coming the offences of earthly origin are taken away may, by their testimony, have the unbelief of that place judged together with all the dust of its land. It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city: because for those it is a lighter thing to have erred while Christ was unknown; but for these it is inexpiable either not to have received Him when preached, or, having received Him, not to have preached Him in holiness and catholic truth.

11. And He indicates that there would be many who would rage against the apostles with mad fury, when He says that He sends them forth as sheep in the midst of wolves, and declares that they must be harmless as doves and wise as serpents. But the harmlessness of the dove is plain; what the wisdom of the serpent is must be considered. I do not know what wisdom and counsel there is in it, though some have recorded on this point that when it understands it has come into the hands of men, it withdraws its head from the blow in every way, and either covers it by coiling its body round it, or sinks it into a hole, and leaves the rest of its body to be struck; and that by this example we ought, if any persecution befalls us, to hide our head, which is Christ: so that, when we are given over to every torment, we may protect the faith we have received from Him at the cost of the body.

12. But all this discourse of the Lord’s concerns the Jews and the heretics: And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents: that is, that a family of the same kind is at strife within itself; because under the names of parents and kindred is signified the people that was once united and is now divided against itself in hostile hatred. And they are to be brought before the judges and kings of the earth, while these try to wring from us either our silence or our connivance. For they are to be witnesses to them and to the Gentiles; by which testimony the excuse of not having known the Godhead is to be taken from the persecutors, while a way is to be opened for the Gentiles to believe in Christ, preached by the voices of confessors who hold fast amid the punishments of those who rage. So He warns that we must be furnished with the wisdom of the serpent.

13. Before he led Adam astray, Genesis already called him wise; and it taught his wisdom by the order of his malicious counsel. For first he attacked the mind of the softer sex, then he enticed by hope, he promised a share in immortality: and by these great rewards he carried out the work of his counsel and his will. So with a like seizing of opportunity, having looked into the nature and the will of each man, we must use wisdom in our words. The hope of good things to come is to be revealed, and so the heavenly rewards of a perfect faith are to be set forth: so that what he lied about we may preach truly, that, according to God’s promise, those who believe will be like the angels; so that, though wolves and heretics rage all around, we may take hold of the easy and open minds of the peoples with the promises of the heavenly kingdom, and hand on the truth of the matter with the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove.

14. He warns also that when they are delivered up there must be no care about what to answer, but rather they must wait for what the Spirit of God will put into their minds: because our faith, intent on all the precepts of the divine will, will be furnished with the knowledge of how to answer: having for an example Abraham, who, when Isaac was asked of him for an offering, did not lack a ram for the victim. Next He counsels flight from one city into two. Because His preaching, first driven out of Judaea, passes over to Greece; then, worn down in different cities of Greece by the sufferings of the apostles, the third time it takes up its abode among all the nations. But to show that the Gentiles would believe the preaching of the apostles, but that the believing of the remnant of Israel was reserved for His own coming, He says, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come: that is, after the fulness of the Gentiles, what remains of Israel is to be set in the Church, to fill up the number of the saints, at the future coming of His glory.

15. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. Knowledge of what is coming does much towards taking up endurance, especially if the will to suffer patiently is taken up beforehand from an example. Our Lord, the eternal light, the leader of believers and the author of immortality, sent ahead to His disciples the comfort for the sufferings to come: that no disciple might think himself better than his master, nor a servant above his lord. If they have called the master of the house by the name of a devil out of envy, how much more will they carry out every kind of wrong and insult upon them of his household? But let none of these things frighten us; let us rather embrace them as a glory, if we are made equal to our Lord even in the conditions of suffering.

16. There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed. He points to the day of judgment, which will bring out the hidden knowledge of our will, and will lay bare, in the light of the knowledge of all, the things which we now think hidden. So He warns that we must not fear the threats, nor the plots, nor the powers of the persecutors: because the day of judgment will reveal that all these were nothing and empty.

17. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. We do not read that the Lord was wont to discourse at night and to hand down His teaching in darkness. But because all His speech is darkness to the carnal, and His word is night to unbelievers; and because what He has said is to be spoken by each one with the freedom of faith and of confession; He therefore commanded that what was said in darkness should be preached in light, and what was committed to the secrecy of the ears should be preached upon the housetops, that is, from on high, so as to be heard by the proclaiming of those who speak. For the knowledge of God must be pressed upon men with constancy, and the deep secret of the Gospel’s teaching revealed by the light of the apostles’ preaching: not fearing those who, though they have licence over the body, have no right over the soul; but fearing rather God, who has power to destroy both soul and body in hell.

18. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. It is no crime, I think, to go fowling; nor has the selling of sparrows any guilt in it. And His saying, One of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father, seems to go against the apostle’s saying, Doth God take care for beasts? And his authority will be much lessened if he is found to have thought otherwise than is handed down in the Gospels. Nor is much dignity given to the apostles if they are to be ranked above sparrows. This passage proceeds from the sense of what went before. For the iniquities of those are being set forth who will deliver up, who will persecute, who will force to flight; by whom it is plain that we are hated for the name of the Lord; who exercise all their right over bodies alone, having no power over the soul. These, then, sell two sparrows for a farthing. And Christ redeemed from the Law the things that were sold under sin: so what is sold is body and soul, and that to which they are sold is sin: for Christ both redeemed us from sin and is the Redeemer of soul and body. Those, then, who sell two sparrows for a farthing sell themselves to sin for the smallest price — themselves, born to fly, and meant to be offered up to heaven on spiritual wings. But taken by the prices of present pleasures, and up for sale to the luxury of the world, they put their whole selves on the market in such dealings.

19. But we must ask how it is that one of them is that which does not fall without the will of God. God’s will is that one of them should rather fly away; but the law that proceeds from God’s ordinance decrees that one of them should rather fall. For as, if they flew away, they would be one — that is, the body would have passed into the nature of the soul, and that heaviness of earthly matter would be done away in the advance and substance of the soul, and the body would become rather spiritual — so for those sold at the price of sins, the fineness of the soul grows heavy into the nature of bodies, and takes on earthly matter from the filth of vices, and there comes to be one of them, which is delivered to the earth. And when He says that they are of more value than many sparrows, He shows that the elect of the faithful are better than the multitude of unbelievers: because for the one there is a fall to the earth, for the other a flight to heaven.

20. To gather anything into a number is a matter of diligence and care: for it is no worthy business to count things that are to perish. So that we might know that nothing of us will perish, because we are of more value than many sparrows, it is shown by the very number of our hairs, which are counted, that we shall be saved entire: since what is past numbering in us is numbered by the love and power that will keep it. No falling of our bodies, then, is to be feared, nor is any grief to be admitted at the slaying of the flesh; since, dissolved according to the condition of its nature and origin, it will be poured back into the substance of a spiritual soul.

21. And because those who have been strengthened by such teachings ought to have a free constancy in confessing God, He also added the condition by which we should be bound: that He would deny before the Father in heaven whoever had denied Him before men on earth; but that whoever had confessed Him before men would be confessed by Him in heaven; and that such witnesses as we had been to His name before men, such testimony from Him we should have before God the Father.

22. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. What is this division? For among the first commandments of the Law we have received, Honour thy father and thy mother. And the Lord Himself says, My peace I give unto you, peace I leave with you. What is the meaning of a sword sent rather on the earth, and a son divided from his father, and a daughter from her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s household his enemies? Is public authority, then, to be granted to impiety from this? Hatreds everywhere, wars everywhere, and the Lord’s sword raging between father and son, and between daughter and mother! And in Luke the saying on this is as follows: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. Can a household of kindred not spread to a greater number? Or was it fixed by a set time that from henceforth there should be only five in one house, and these divided? We must consider, then, what the sword on the earth is, what the proper meaning of the names is, what the reason of the number five, how three are divided against two and two against three, and how far a man’s household are his enemies.

23. And first the nature of each thing, and of the whole question, must be unfolded; and the sense both of what goes before and of what follows will no less help our understanding. Of all weapons the sword is the sharpest, and in it lie the right of power, the severity of judgment, and the punishment of sins. And that the preaching of the new Gospel is called by the name of this weapon, the authority of the prophets often declares. Let us remember, then, that the word of God is named in the sword: and this sword has been sent on the earth, that is, its preaching has been poured into the bodies of men. This, then, divides five dwelling in one house, and divides three against two and two against three. But we find only three things in man, that is, body, soul and will. For as the soul was given to the body, so power was granted to both to use themselves as they would: and for that reason a law was set before the will. But this is found in those who were first formed by God, in whom the beginning of their origin was made, not passed on from elsewhere. But from the sin and unbelief of the first parent, in the generations that followed, sin began to be the father of our body, and unbelief the mother of our soul; for from these, through the transgression of the first parent, we have received our birth. For each man has his own will beside him. So now there are five of one house: sin the father of the body, unbelief the mother of the soul, and, joined to them, the choice of the will, which binds the whole man to itself by a kind of right of marriage. To this, unbelief is mother-in-law, which takes us, born of her and strangers to the faith and fear of God, so as to hold us possessed between unbelief and pleasure, both in ignorance of God and in the delight of all vices.

24. When, therefore, we are renewed in the washing of baptism by the power of the word, we are separated from the sins and the authors of our origin; and, cut off as by a kind of severing of the sword of God, we are set at variance with the affections of father and mother: and, putting off the old man with his sins and unbelief, and renewed in soul and body through the Spirit, we must needs hate the habit of the work that was born in us and is old. And because the body itself, put to death through faith, passes into the nature of the soul, which comes from the breath of God (though it still remains in its own matter), since a fellowship between them is brought about by the word, it has therefore now begun to will one and the same thing with the soul, that is, to become spiritual as the soul is; and to these the freedom of the will, divided from its mother-in-law, that is, from unbelief, yields all its right: so that what was the freedom of the will is henceforth the power of the soul. And there comes about a grievous dissension in one house, and those of his household will be enemies to the new man: because he, divided from them by the word of God, will rejoice to remain, both inward and outward man, that is, both body and soul, in the newness of the Spirit; while those things which are born in us, and drawn from a kind of ancient descent, will desire to rest in the things that have delighted them. And the origin of the flesh, and the origin of the soul, and the freedom of the power will be divided against two, that is, against the soul and body of the new man, which have begun to will one and the same thing; and the three, divided, will be subject to the two, who by the newness of the Spirit are stronger, so as to be ruled by them. And therefore those who have preferred the household affections of kinship to the love of Him will be unworthy of the inheritance of the good things to come.

25. Then He goes on in the same course of precepts and meaning. For after He had commanded that all things which are dearest in the world be left behind, He added, He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me: because they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its vices and lusts. And he is unworthy of Christ who has followed the Lord without taking his cross — in which we suffer with Him, die with Him, are buried with Him and rise again with Him — that he may live in this mystery of faith by the newness of the Spirit.

26. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. That is, by the power of the word and the dividing off of the old vices, the gain of the soul will turn to death, and the loss to salvation. Death, then, is to be taken up in newness of life, and vices are to be fastened to the Lord’s cross; and against persecutors, by contempt of present things, the freedom of a glorious confession is to be kept, and a gain that is the soul’s loss is to be shunned: knowing that no one is left any right over the soul, and that by the loss of a brief life the interest of immortality is gained.

27. He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. He spends the warmth of His teaching and the diligence of His precepts on all. And He who had declared, by the testimony of the dust shaken off, the peril of those who do not receive the apostles, commends the merit of those who receive them beyond the favour of the service they hoped for: and He teaches the office of mediator in Himself, since, when He is received by us, and He has come forth from God, God through Him is poured into us. And so he who receives the apostles receives Christ, and he who receives Christ receives God the Father: because he receives nothing else in the apostles than what is in Christ, nor is there anything else in Christ than what is in God; and by this order of graces, to have received the apostles is nothing other than to have received God: because Christ dwells in them, and God in Christ.

28. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. He who receives a prophet receives Him who dwells in the prophet; and he becomes worthy of a prophet’s reward, receiving the prophet in the name of a prophet. An equal reward too is reckoned for having received a righteous man, and he becomes righteous from the honour paid to righteousness. And so righteousness is perfected by faith, and the service gains a reward, God bestowing many occasions of attaining eternity: since in receiving a righteous man and a prophet, the very feeling of reverence receives the honour both of the righteous man and of the prophet.

29. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, and the rest. He taught that the work of a good conscience is not empty, nor does the hope of one man’s faith suffer from the guilt of another’s unbelief. For, foreseeing that there would be many who were glorious only in the name of apostleship, but in the whole work of their life worthy of no approval, and who would long deceive and long lie, He nevertheless does not cheat of the reward of its work and hope the service that has been offered them under the belief in their religion. For though they themselves were the least, that is, the last of all sinners (and the least of all is that than which there is nothing less), yet He decrees that even light services done to them, which He signifies under the name of cold water, are not empty. For the honour was paid not to the sins of the man but to the name of a disciple. And so the disgraces of the deceiver do not harm the uprightness of the one who serves him: since he gains his reward by the faith of the giver, not by the lie of the receiver.