Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
All Commentaries on Matthew 5:11 Go To Matthew 5
John Chrysostom
AD 407
As if He said, Though they should call you sorcerers, deceivers, pestilent persons, or whatever else, blessed are you: so He speaks. What could be newer than these injunctions? Wherein the very things which all others avoid, these He declares to be desirable; I mean, being poor, mourning, persecution, evil report. But yet He both affirmed this, and convinced not two, nor ten, nor twenty, nor an hundred, nor a thousand men, but the whole world. And hearing things so grievous and galling, so contrary to the accustomed ways of men, the multitudes were astonished. So great was the power of Him who spoke.
However, lest you should think that the mere fact of being evil spoken of makes men blessed, He has set two limitations; when it is for His sake, and when the things that are said are false: for without these, he who is evil spoken of, so far from being blessed, is miserable.
