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 19: That a man must not put away his wife; on eunuchs; on the little children who were forbidden; that it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.
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And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judaea, and so on. He heals Galileans in the coasts of Judaea. For He could have spared the crowds of sick from weariness, and brought help to the infirm within Galilee itself: but the figurative meaning had to be fulfilled even by the privileges of places, so that He might admit the sins of the Gentiles into the pardon that was being prepared for the Jews.
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The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? In this discourse about a wife and divorce we meet with this: that it is written otherwise in Genesis than the Lord has now spoken in the present place. For there the whole matter is related under the words of Adam; here the Lord shows that all those things were said by Him who both formed the man and made the woman. But following the authority of the Apostle, who declared that this is a great mystery, but that he takes it of Christ and the Church, let us leave this place untouched as it is. Yet we warn the reader that whenever he consults himself on this same question, he should pay careful attention to the force of the words, both those with which the Lord answered and those the disciples used; and that he should weigh the mind of the apostle Paul on this, whether he is silent, or at times treats it in other places. Let our discourse and our purpose be about the eunuchs. In the one He set nature, in the second necessity, in the third will: nature in him who is so born, necessity in him who was made so, will in him who has resolved to be such in the hope of the heavenly kingdom: and He warned us to become like him, if indeed we can.
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Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them, and the rest. It is a strange thing that the disciples should have forbidden the little children to come to Christ, when they were being brought that He might lay His hand on them and pray. The Gospel narrative, as we have said, has struck a mean between the working of the present and of the future, a meaning fitted to both: so that the likeness of what was to come might cling to the things being done. The little children were truly brought, and truly forbidden. But they are a figure of the Gentiles, to whom salvation is given through faith and hearing. Yet out of their eagerness that Israel should be saved first, they are forbidden by the disciples to come. The will to forbid was indeed not in keeping with the gentleness of the apostles; but for the figurative fulfilment the impulse to forbid the children crept in. And the Lord says that they ought not to be forbidden, because of such is the kingdom of heaven: for the gift and bounty of the Holy Spirit, through the laying on of the hand and through prayer, was to be bestowed on the Gentiles when the work of the Law ceased.
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And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? and the rest. Fittingly, after the discourse before, in which the little children were forbidden, and it was answered that of such is the kingdom of heaven, there follows this young man, asking by what good works he might have eternal life. This young man both asked the question, and was insolent, and again was made sorrowful: and all the things that are written were done and came about. But we have pointed out that the things done under God bore, in the working of the present, the figure of what was to follow; and that all speech in the heavenly Scriptures has always been so tempered as to fit no less the things that were done than the likeness of the things that were to be done. This young man, then, bears the figure of the Jewish people, insolent in the Law, and expecting nothing of hope from Christ beyond the precepts of Moses. And the Lord in His very answer declared the severity of the judgment that would come from Him, saying, Why callest thou me good? For He who must punish what is impious and wicked held back from the name of goodness, keeping this name for God the Father alone, who, by giving a judge, has put off from Himself the office of severity: not that He Himself was not good, but that as judge He would use a fitting severity against him.
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This man, then, insolent from the Law and anxious about salvation, He sends back to the Law: so that in that very thing in which he gloried he might understand that he had done no right work by it. For the Lord answered him with the words of the Law. But the young man, like an insolent and boastful people, trusts in the Law, which nevertheless he had obeyed in nothing. For he had been commanded not to kill: he had slain the prophets. Not to commit adultery: he had brought corruption on the faith and adultery on the Law, and had worshipped strange gods. Not to steal: before Christ restored the freedom of believing in faith, he had undone the precepts of the Law by theft. Not to bear false witness: he denied Christ risen from the dead. He was commanded to honour father and mother: he cut himself off from the family of God the Father and of the Church his mother. He was commanded to love his neighbour as himself: he persecuted, even to the punishment of the cross, Christ, who took the body of us all and by the condition of the body He took became neighbour to each one of us. He was bidden, then, to lay these things aside and cut off all his vices, and return to the Law.
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But he answers that he has done all these things from his youth up, and asks what he yet lacks. But, as we have said, he had not done even those earlier things to which he is sent back, and glorying in them, as one who was complete, he says this. The Lord answers him that he must sell all his goods and give to the poor, and that then he will be perfect, and will have treasure in heaven. This young man is indeed answered with that most beautiful and most profitable precept of leaving the world, by which the riches of heaven are to be bought at the loss of earthly goods. But in his being bidden to sell his goods and give to the poor, he is warned to leave behind his confidence in the Law, and to exchange it in a happy bargain; and to remember that in the Law there is a shadow of the truth, which was thereafter to be shared out to the poor, that is, to the Gentiles, under the body of the truth itself; and that no one can do this unless he has begun to follow Christ.
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But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great confidence in his wealth from the Law. And in this too the meaning of the figurative working is kept: that, while He calls him a young man, he himself said above that he had served these precepts contained in the Law from all his youth up: whereas youth lies within the age of a young man, and a later stage of life cannot be contained within the bounds of an earlier. But this is so in order to show, by his serving from his youth, that the people had already spent a long time in the work of the Law.
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Then the Lord, perceiving the young man’s sorrow, answered that it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Israel, then, as we have said, gloried in being rich through confidence in the Law. For it the entrance into heaven is hard, since it holds on to its old riches, under the name of Abraham, with the ambition of an empty ancestry.
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Moreover He added that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. To have is no crime, but a measure must be kept in having. For how can we share, how can we give, if no matter for sharing and giving is left? So it is having harmfully, rather than having itself, that becomes a crime. But the wish to grow rich is a perilous care: and innocence takes up a heavy burden when it is busied with the increase of wealth. For the service of God does not gain the goods of the world without the vices of the world itself. Hence it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And also, because many could use rightly the things they have, this meaning has been kept in the Lord’s saying: not that absolutely no one could enter the kingdom of heaven, but that the fewness of those who would might be understood from the difficulty. And these things belong to the understanding of the simple sense; but the order of the inner meaning must be kept in the same course.
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The young man, as we have said, being insolent, is sorrowful and sad when he is bidden to give up the Law. For to this people the cross and the Passion are an offence; and therefore there is no salvation for them from it. But it glories in the Law, and scorns the Gentiles as fellow-heirs, and refuses to pass over into the freedom of the Gospel; and so it will hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. For few of them, and very rare beside the multitude of the Gentiles, would believe: since only with difficulty would they bend their will, hardened in the Law, to the preaching of the Gospel’s humility.
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But it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. A camel does not fit the eye of a needle; nor can the huge misshapen bulk of a beast be taken into the narrows of the tiniest hole. But at the beginning of this book, in John’s clothing, we pointed out that the Gentiles are signified by the camel. For this beast obeys words, is kept in check by fear, bears fasting, and kneels to its load by a kind of discipline: and by its example the savagery of the Gentiles is softened to obedience to the heavenly precepts. These, then, enter the narrowest road of the heavenly kingdom: that is, the needle, which is the preaching of the new word, by which the wounds of bodies are sewn up, and what is torn in garments is woven together again, and death itself is pierced. So this is the road of this new preaching: into which the misshapen Gentiles will enter more easily than the wealth of the rich man, that is, of the one who glories in the Law.