Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew Mark and Luke John Calvin
HARMONY OF THE EVANGELISTS
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Who shall entrust to you what is your own? Spiritual riches, on the other hand, which relate to a future life, are pronounced by him to be our own, because the enjoyment of them is everlasting. But now he employs a different comparison. There is no reason, he tells us, to expect that we shall make a proper and moderate use of our own property, if we have acted improperly or unfaithfully in what belonged to another. Men usually care less about abusing, and allow themselves greater liberty in squandering, their own property, because they are not afraid that any person will find fault with them; but when a thing has been entrusted to them either in charge or in loan, and of which they must afterwards render an account, they are more cautious and more timid.
We thus ascertain Christ's meaning to be, that they who are bad stewards of earthly blessings would not be faithful guardians of spiritual gifts. He next introduces a sentence: You cannot serve God and mammon; which I have explained at Matthew
6:24. There the reader will find an explanation of the word Mammon 909
14. And the Pharisees, who were covetous, heard all these things. They who imagine that Christ was ridiculed by the Pharisees, because he chose to employ a plain and familiar style, and made no use of swelling words, 910 do not sufficiently comprehend what Luke means. Haughty and disdainful men, I do acknowledge, view the doctrine of the Gospel with contempt; but Luke expressly declares the reason why
Christ was the object of their derision to have been, that they were covetous Entertaining a firm and deep-seated conviction that the rich are happy, and that there is nothing better for men than to increase their wealth by every possible method, and earnestly to guard whatever they have acquired, they reject as foolish paradoxes 911 all the sayings of Christ which had a contrary tendency. And, certainly, any one that speaks of despising riches, or bestowing alms on the poor, is regarded by the covetous as a madman. Horace's words on this subject are well known: 912 "The people hiss at me, but I am well satisfied with myself." 913 But if, even when they are condemned by universal opinion, they continue to flatter themselves, how much more will they ridicule as a fable that philosophy of Christ which is far removed from the ordinary belief?
Some other pretense, I have no doubt, was held out by the Pharisees for ridiculing and evading a doctrine which opposed their vice. But we must attend to the motive
909"Et la aussi on trouvera la signification de ce mot Mammona, lequel est ici mis, et que nous avons traduit Richesses" — "And there will also be found the meaning of the word Mammon, which is used here, and which we have translated Riches."—In an earlier portion of this Commentary, to which our author refers, (Harmony, vol. 1 p. 337,) no direct or formal explanation of the word Mammon is to be found; but a careful reader of the expository remarks on Matthew 6:24 will easily perceive that Calvin understands riches to be one of the two masters spoken of in that passage. An indirect definition of the term is afforded by his French version of the text, both in Matth. 6:24, and in Luke 16:13, "Vous ne pouvez servir a Dieu et aux richesses;" — "you cannot serve God and riches."
910"En affectant des termes exquis, et bien remplissans la bouehe;"— "by affecting nicely chosen words, and that fill the mouth well."
911"Comme choses absurdes, et contre l'opinion commune;" — "as absurd statements, and opposed to the common belief."
912"Horace, Poete Latin, dit parlant en la personne d'un avaricieux;" — "Horace, a Latin Poet, says, speaking in the person of a covetous man."
913"Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo."— Sat. 1. 1:66.