That your alms may be in secret: and your Father who sees in secret himself shall reward you openly.
All Commentaries on Matthew 6:4 Go To Matthew 6
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Hom. xv: He opposes three chief virtues, alms, prayer, and fasting, to three evil things against which the Lord undertook the war of temptation. For He fought for us in the wilderness against gluttony; against covetousness on the mount; against false glory on the temple. It is alms that scatter abroad against covetousness which heaps up; fasting against gluttony which is its contrary; prayer against false glory, seeing that all other evil things come out of evil, this alone comes out of good; and therefore it is not overthrown but rather nourished of good, and has no remedy that may avail against it but prayer only.Ambrosiaster, Comm. in Tim. 4, 8: The sum of all Christian discipline is comprehended in mercy and piety, for which reason He begins with almsgiving.
The trumpet stands for every act or word that tends to a display of our works; for instance, to do alms if we know that some other person is looking on, or at the request of another, or to a person of such condition that he may make us return; and unless in such cases not to do them.Yea, even if in some secret place they are done with intent to be thought praiseworthy, then is the trumpet sounded.
“Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth,” is said as an extreme expression, as much as to say, If it were possible, that you should not know yourself, and that your very hands should be hid from your sight, that is what you should most strive after.
The Apostles in the book of the Constitutions, interpret thus; The right handis the Christian people which is at Christ’s right hand; the left hand is allthe people who are on His left hand. He means then, that when a Christian does alms, the unbeliever should not see it.
For it is impossible that God should leave in obscurity any good work of man; but He makes it manifest in this world, and glorifies it in the next world, because it is the glory of God; as likewise the Devil manifests evil, in which is shown the strength of his great wickedness. But God properly makes public every good deed only in that world the goods of which are not common to the righteous and the wicked; therefore to whomsoever God shall there show favour, it will be manifest that it was as reward of his righteousness. But the reward of virtueis not manifested in this world, in which both bad and good are alike in their fortunes.
If therefore you desire spectators of your good deeds, behold you have not merely Angels and Archangels, but the God of the universe.
