But woe unto you, Pharisees! for you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over justice and the love of God: these ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
He also rebukes the arrogance and showy display of the Jews when they seek the first places at feasts. The sentence of condemnation is also pronounced on those who, skilled in law, are as “sepulchers that are not seen.” They cheat with their show and deceive with their practice, so that when they speak fair words outwardly, they are full of foulness within. Very many teachers do this when they demand from others what they themselves cannot imitate. They are tombs, as elsewhere it says, “Their throat is an open sepulcher.”
Those who desire to be greeted by everyone in the marketplace and anxiously consider it a great matter to have the foremost seats in the synagogue do not differ in any way from graves that do not appear as graves. On the outside, they are beautifully decorated but are full of all impurity. See here, I pray that hypocrisy is utterly blamed. It is a hateful malady toward God and humanity. The hypocrite is not whatever he seems to be and is thought to be. He borrows the reputation of goodness and conceals his real shame. He will not practice the very thing that he praises and admires. It is impossible for you to hide your hypocrisy for long. Just as the figures painted in pictures fall off as time dries up the colors, so also hypocrisies, after escaping observation for a very little time, are soon convicted of being really nothing. Commentary on Luke, Homily
The transgression of one commandment transgresses the law. It proves the man to be without the law. When anyone disregards those commandments, which especially are important above the rest, what words will he find able to save him from deserved punishment? The Lord proved that the Pharisees merited these severe censures, saying, “Woe to you, Pharisees, who tithe mint, rue and all herbs and pass over judgment and the love of God!” You should have done these things and not passed by the others, that is, to leave them undone. They omitted as of no importance those duties which they were especially bound to practice, like justice and the love of God. They carefully and scrupulously observed, or rather commanded the people subject to their authority to observe, only those commandments that were means of great revenues for themselves. Commentary on Luke, Homily
