compared with the rest they were not many in number : for the epithet blessed frequently implies both the excellence and rarity of a thing (as in Ecclus. xxxi. 8), from which the expressions, theirs, they, etc., exclude those otherwise disposed : cf. Luke vi. 24, 25, 26, where the woes are denounced. Seven however of the paxapiff/Aoi, or predications of blessedness, are absolute, declar ing the condition of the godly, as far as regards themselves ; two are relative, having respect to the conduct of men towards them. In both cases the kingdom of heaven is placed first, as embracing the whole of the beatitudes. All are enumerated in a most beautiful order. With these may be compared the matter and order of the eight woes, which are denounced against the Scribes and Pharisees, in ch. xxiii. 13—16, 23, 25, 27, 29. In both cases mention is made of the kingdom of heaven, here ver. 3, there ver. 13 ; of mercy, here ver. 7, there ver. 23 ; of purity, here ver. 8, there ver. 25 ; and of persecu tion, here ver. 10, 11, and there ver. 29, 30 : and undoubtedly the other clauses may also be respectively compared with each other. In the subject, the saints are described as they are now in this life ; in the predicate, as they will be hereafter on that day : see Luke vi. 25, 23. Our Lord, however, frames His wrords in such a manner, as at the same time to intimate the blessedness of individual saints already commencing in the pre sent life, and to signify prophetically the blessedness of the holy people, which will hereafter be theirs also upon earth : see ver. 5. — oi Troi^o/, the poor) A vocative, either expressly or such in meaning (cf. ver. 11, and Luke vi. 20). Nor does the pronoun aurSv, theirs, oppose this view. Cf. Gnomon on xxiii. 37. Poverty is the first foundation. He is poor, who has it not in his power to say, this is mine ;l and who, when he has anything for the present, does not devise what he will have for the future, but depends on the liberality of another. The riches which are dis claimed by such poverty, are either spiritual or natural, and are either present or absent. Such cardinal and fundamental virtues are despised by the world : whereas those which the world ad mires as such, are either no virtues, or false ones, or merely the offshoots and appendages of Christian virtues. —
1 i.e., Has nothing which he can call his own. — (I. B.)