For unto everyone that has shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that has not shall be taken away even that which he has.
All Commentaries on Matthew 25:29 Go To Matthew 25
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
For unto every one that hath, &c. The Arab. Isaiah , Unto him that hath shall be given, and shall be added; and from him that hath not shall be taken away that which is with him.
To every one that hath. S. Chrysostom and S. Augustine explain this to mean, all who rightly use their talents. For Hebrews , in truth, possesses a talent who rightly uses it. For the idle person, who does not make use of it, does not appear really to have it.
But he who hath not, that is to say, the gain of the talents and the grace acquired by him; or, he who has not, in the sense that he does not use his talent, as I have said, even that which he seemeth to have, that Isaiah , the talent which he has suffered to lie idle, so that he has not so much had it, as seemed to have it, shall be taken away from him. After a like fashion saith the comic poet, "The covetous man lacks that which he hath as much as if he had it not." He hides it in his chest, so that it is the chest which hath it, not himself. The covetous man does not so much possess his gold, as he is possessed and owned by his gold. He is its slave.
From this passage Theologians derive the maxim, that "God is never wanting to him who does his best." Nor does He refuse to add even more and more grace to him who heartily co-operates with it, even to the final gift of perseverance and glory. How this is to be understood, see Suarez, Vasquez, Bellarmine, and others in their works on Grace.
