The answer
St. John Chrysostom says, “Since not by grace only, you see, ought we to become His children, but also by our works. And nothing makes us so like God, as being ready to forgive the wicked and wrong-doers; even as indeed He had taught before when He spoke of His ‘making the sun to shine on the evil and the good’ (Matt. 5:45).”240
“For as when a man gazes upon the beauty of the heavens, he says, Glory be to you, O God; so likewise when He beholds a man’s virtuous actions, seeing that the virtue of man glorifies God much more than the heavens.”241
“As if He says, ‘Enable us, O Lord, to follow the heavenly life, that whatever You will, we may will in also.’”242
St. Augustine says, “Nor are we indeed carelessly to pass by the circumstance, that of all those sentences in which the Lord has taught us to pray, He has judged that that one is chiefly to be commended which has reference to the forgiveness of sins: in which He would have us to be merciful, because it is the only wisdom for escaping misery. For in no other sentence do we pray in such a way that we, as it were, enter into a compact with God: for we say, “Forgive us, as we also forgive.’”243
St. Cyprian says, “He has clearly joined herewith and added the law, and has bound us by a certain condition and engagement, that we should ask that our debts be forgiven us in such a manner as we ourselves forgive our debtors, knowing that that which we seek for our sins cannot be obtained unless we ourselves have acted in a similar way in respect of our debtors. Therefore also He says in another place, ‘With what measure you use, it shall be measured to you again’ (Matt. 7:2). And the servant who, after having had all his debt forgiven him by his master, would not forgive his fellow-servant, is cast back into prison; because he would not forgive his fellow-servant, he lost the indulgence that had been shown to himself by his lord … There remains no ground of excuse in the day of judgment, when you will be judged according to your own sentence; and whatever you have done, that you also will suffer.”244
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
240 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew Homily 19.11 (NPNF I/10:134).
241 St. John Chrysostom, quoted in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Volume 3, Part 2 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1843) On Luke 11:1–5: p. 387, amended.
242 St. John Chrysostom, quoted in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Volume 3, Part 2 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1843) On Luke 11:1–5: p. 388, amended.
243 St. Augustine of Hippo, Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount 2.11.39 (NPNF I/6:46).
244 St. Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 4: On the Lord’s Prayer 23 (ANF 5:453–454) amended.