And if your right eye causes you to offend, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is better for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell.
All Commentaries on Matthew 5:29 Go To Matthew 5
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Thus, lest you should say, But what if she be akin to me? What if in any other way she belong to me? therefore He has given these injunctions; not discoursing about our limbs—far from it—for nowhere does He say that our flesh is to be blamed for things, but everywhere it is the evil mind that is accused. For it is not the eye that sees, but the mind and the thought. Often, for instance, we being wholly turned elsewhere, our eye sees not those who are present. So that the matter does not entirely depend upon its working. Again, had He been speaking of members of the body, He would not have said it of one eye, nor of the right eye only, but of both. For he who is offended by his right eye, most evidently will incur the same evil by his left also. Why then did He mention the right eye, and add the hand? To show you that not of limbs is He speaking, but of them who are near unto us. Thus, If, says He, you so lovest any one, as though he were in stead of a right eye; if you think him so profitable to you as to esteem him in the place of a hand, and he hurts your soul; cut off even these. And see the emphasis; for He says not, Withdraw from him, but to show the fullness of the separation, pluck it out, says He, and cast it from you.
