And if you have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man"s, who shall give you that which is your own? The wording of this verse is different, but the sense is the same as that of the preceding. The mammon which in the verse above Christ called unrighteous, he here calls "another man"s." For temporal possessions are another"s:
1. Because they are in their nature totally different from the nature of man. They are of the earth, given to man for his use in this life, to revert again to the earth after death.
2. They are another"s as regards God, for we are not absolute masters of what we possess but administrators only, bound to dispose of our goods according to His will. So Titus says, "He describes much riches as that which is another man"s, because to abound in riches Isaiah , considering human nature, foreign to men. For if any man possesses them, they are external to him, and as it were, an accident." "They are," says S. Ambrose, "foreign to the nature of Prayer of Manasseh , ...
And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's: so again is called false worldly wealth, which passeth from one to another; so that it cannot be called a man's own, who will give you that which is your own? i.e. how can you hope that God will bestow upon you, or commit to your care, spiritual riches or gifts, which, when rightly managed, would be your own for all eternity? See St. Augustine, lib. ii. qq. Evang. q. 35. p. 263. (Witham)
That which is another's. Temporal riches may be said to belong to another, because they are the Lord's; and we have only the dispensing of them: so that when we give alms, we are liberal of another's goods. But if we are not liberal in giving what is another's, how shall we be so in giving our own? Nothing one would have thought so properly belonged to the Jews, as the kingdom of heaven, the preaching of the gospel, and the knowledge of heavenly things. But they were deprived of all for their infidelity in the observance of the law, which w...
"In the unrighteous mammon "that is to say, in unrighteous riches, not in the Creator; for even Marcion allows Him to be righteous: "And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who will give to you that which is mine? "
