Matthew 5:5

Ver 5. "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."

[ed. note, b: Verses 4 and 5 are transposed in the Vulgate.]

Ambrose, in Luc. c. v. 20: When I have learned contentment in poverty, the next lesson is to govern my heart and temper. For what good is it to me to be without worldly things, unless I have besides a meek spirit? It suitably follows therefore, "Blessed are the meek."

Aug., Serm. in Mont. i, 2: The meek are they who resist not wrongs, and give way to evil; but overcome evil of good.

Ambrose: Soften therefore your temper that you be not angry, at least that you "be angry, and sin not." It is a noble thing to govern passion by reason; nor is it a less virtue to check anger, than to be entirely without anger, since one is esteemed the sign of a weak, the other of a strong, mind.

Aug.: Let the unyielding then wrangle and quarrel about earthly and temporal things, "the meek are blessed, for they shall inherit the earth," and not be rooted out of it; that earth of which it is said in the Psalms, "Thy lot is in the hand of the living," [Psalms 142:5] meaning the fixedness of a perpetual inheritance, in which the soul that hath good dispositions rests as in its own place, as the body does in an earthly possession, it is fed by its own food, as the body by the earth; such is the rest and the life of the saints.

Pseudo-Chrys.: This earth as some interpret, so long as it is in its present condition is the land of the dead, seeing it is "subject to vanity;" but when it is freed from corruption it becomes the land of the living, that the mortal may inherit an immortal country.

I have read another exposition of it, as if the heaven in which the saints are to dwell is meant by "the land of the living," because compared with the regions of death it is heaven, compared with the heaven above it is earth. Others again say, that this body as long as it is subject to death is the land of the dead, when it shall be made like unto Christ's glorious body, it will be the land of the living.

Hilary: Or, the Lord promises the inheritance of the earth to the meek, meaning of that Body, which Himself took on Him as His tabernacle; and as by the gentleness of our minds Christ dwells in us, we also shall be clothed with the glory of His renewed body.

Chrys.: Otherwise; Christ here has mixed things sensible with things spiritual. Because it is commonly supposed that he who is meek loses all that he possesses, Christ here gives a contrary promise, that he who is not forward shall possess his own in security, but that he of a contrary disposition many times loses his soul and his paternal inheritance. But because the Prophet had said, "The meek shall inherit the earth," [Psalms 36:11] He used these well known words in conveying His meaning.

Gloss. ord.: The meek, who have possessed themselves, shall possess hereafter the inheritance of the Father; to possess is more than to have, for we have many things which we lose immediately.