Mark well how Jesus goeth upward with His disciples, and downward to the multitude. How should the multitude behold Christ, save in a lower place? Such go not up to the things which are above; such attain not to the things which are high. And when Jesus cometh down, He findeth such as are diseased, for such like go not up to the heights. Hence also Matthew saith that there were there all sick people, iv. 23. Of these every man had need of healing, that, when he had received strength, by and by, he might go up into the mountain. And therefore, being Himself come down, He healeth them in the plain, that is to say, He calleth them away from their lust, and freeth them of their blindness. He cometh down to our wounds, to the end that by a certain use of His nature, and by the abundance thereof, He might make us joint-heirs of the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Saint Luke giveth us but four of the Lord's Beatitudes, and Saint Matthew eight, but in those eight are contained these four, and in these four those eight. For in these four are embraced the cardinal virtues and in those eight they are set forth in a number full of mystery. It is written at the head of more than one of the Psalms that they are for the octave, and thou hast received the commandment. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; to seven or eight what? Perchance degrees of blessedness. For as this eighth Beatitude doth name the most glorious realization of our hope the kingdom of Heaven, so doth it also name the most royal exertion of our strength: “blessed are they which are persecuted”.
But let us first consider the fuller of the forms of these Beatitudes. “Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” Both of the Evangelists give to this Beatitude the first place. Yea, surely, for poorness, at least in spirit, is the first in order, the mother, and procreatrix of virtues; since he that setteth no store by temporal things, winneth toward eternal things; neither is any man able to gain the kingdom of heaven, on whom the love of this present world doth so press, that he cannot rid himself thereof.
- Homily by St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. (Bk. v. on Luke vi.)
