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 6: On pearls cast before swine, on the false prophet, and on the house built upon the rock.
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Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, and the rest. Nothing is more precious and holier than the precepts and promises of God, which bestow on us, when we have been sanctified, the treasure of immortality. Their mysteries and powers, then, we are not permitted either to carry out among the Gentiles or to discuss with heretics. For the Gentiles are called dogs, from the madness with which they bark against God. And the name of swine belongs to the heretics: because, although their hoofs are cloven, yet they do not arrange the knowledge of God which they have received by chewing it over. So it is not fitting for us to handle without discrimination the embodying of the Word of God, and the mystery of the Passion, and the power of the resurrection, nor to bring them out unskilfully and carelessly: lest, if the furnishing of perfect knowledge be wanting, they trample and tread down our ignorance, and mock at the weakness of suffering in God, and, turning upon us, tear apart our unskilfulness and our faith with the stings of their contradictions.
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But in those things of which we are ignorant, a way of attaining the truth is opened to us, and the gaining of it lies only in perseverance in prayer. So, that we may understand and believe all things, and not be held back by any uncertainty of a wavering will, we must ask, we must seek, we must knock: by prayer we shall find mercy, by seeking advance, by trying entrance. Moreover, we are taught to hope that we shall obtain by the example of human affection. For since we, when our sons ask for fish or bread, will not give them a serpent or a stone, how much more will God, the best and most excellent of fathers, bestow on us, when we pray, the gifts of a perfect faith; and will not give, instead of the food of life, the stone of Gentile hardness, or, instead of the keeping of our baptism, the serpent of heretical venom? Then He completed all things with the example of goodness, joining all men together in the peace of mutual love: setting the commandments of the Law and the prophets in this, that, as we wish all men to be good to us, so we ourselves should be good to all.
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Enter ye in at the strait gate: how wide and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction! Man’s road to heaven is steep, and the entrance strait and narrow; but the way of destruction is broad. Many take this one; the other few find. For few hold dear the loss of present things: few for whom it is the greatest gain of the heavenly hope both to conquer the desires of the soul and to break those of the body, and to pass by the allurements of every enticement which the whole strength of the world sets before them. But those whose only good is to whore, to revel, to seek office, to grow insolent, to disdain, to hate and to plunder, have a very great company on so well-trodden a road.
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And because it was for few to find the narrow way, He lays bare the fraud of those who would falsely claim to be seeking it, saying, Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, and so on. He warns us that smooth words and a show of gentleness must be weighed by the fruit of their working: so that we may look, not at what sort of man someone declares himself in words, but at what sort he makes himself in deeds; because in many the rage of the wolf is covered with the clothing of sheep. So, as thorns do not bear grapes nor thistles figs, and as evil trees do not bring forth good fruit, so He teaches that the effect of a good work does not lie in these men either; and therefore that all are to be known by their fruits. For the mere services of words do not obtain the kingdom of heaven; nor will he who says Lord, Lord be its heir. For what merit is there in saying to the Lord, Lord, Lord? Will He not be Lord unless He is called so by us? And what holiness of duty is there in the naming of a name, when the road to the heavenly kingdom is to be found by the obedience of the will rather than by naming God?
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Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and the rest. Here too He condemns the fraud of the false prophets and the pretences of the hypocrites, who presume to take glory to themselves from the power of the word, in the prophesying of their teaching, and the putting to flight of devils, and the mighty works of that kind; and on that account promise themselves the kingdom of heaven. As though any of the things they say or do were their own, and it were not the power of God, when invoked, that accomplishes all things: when reading brings the knowledge of doctrine, and the name of Christ drives the devils to flight. That blessed eternity, then, must be earned from what is ours, and something must be given of our own: that we will the good, avoid all evil, and obey the heavenly precepts with our whole heart; and that by such services we be known to God, and rather do what He wills than boast of what He can do: for He rejects and drives away those whom works of iniquity have turned aside from knowing Him.
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Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock, and the rest. The sense is joined to what went before. For, rebuking the boasting of the false prophets and the inventions of the hypocrites, He sets out by the example of a comparison the man who has perfect faith in Him: that he who both hears and does His words is built upon the rock, and stands on a stable and firm foundation, and cannot be overthrown by the onset of the storms that fall upon him; the Lord signifying Himself by the rock, the strong foundation of the building. And He shows that the man who has grown up from it into a lofty work cannot be moved by rains, or floods, or wind. By the rains He signifies the allurements of pleasures that are soft and steal in little by little, with which faith is first soaked through its open cracks: after them comes the rush of the torrents, that is, the movement of graver desires; and after that the whole force of the surrounding winds rages, that is, the whole spirit of the devil’s power is brought to bear. But the man built on the foundation of the rock will stand fast, and will not be moved from his place. But the fool who hears these things and pays no heed, as though he had spent the work of building upon the sand, stands faithlessly: soon to be undermined by the rains as they steal in, and swept away by the floods, and scattered by the winds, according to the nature of the sand on which he was built, and to be brought down in the heavy wreck of his fall.
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And so by the example of the comparisons above the Lord willed us both to do what He commanded and to believe what He promised. When all was finished, then, the multitudes were astonished at His doctrine, because He had not taught after the manner of the scribes and Pharisees. For they measured the effect of His power by the might of His words.