The Lamp And Good Deeds

Lucerna corporis tui est oculus tuus. Si oculus tuus fuerit simplex, totum corpus tuum lucidum erit. Si autem oculus tuus fuerit nequam, totum corpus tuum tenebrosum erit. Si ergo lumen, quod in te est, tenebræ sunt: ipsae tenebræ quantae erunt? Lucerna, etc. Superius insinuavit, quod nulla bona mala intentione debent fieri, et hoc in proximo ubi dixit: Ubi est thesaurus tuus, ibi est cor tuum. Quod ita probatur. Ideo pura intentione omnia debetis facere, quia oculus tuus, id est, bona intentio, est lucerna, id est illuminatio corporis tui, id est congeriei bonarum actionum. Si enim oculus tuus, etc. Determinat quomodo oculus est lucerna, scilicet si simplex est intentio, id est pura, non duplex, id est partim propter temporalia, partim propter coelestia, totum corpus lucidum est, id est, tota actio erit bona. Non tamen intelligendum est de malis, si bona intentione fiant, quod, ideo bona sint. Nullum enim per se malum bonum potest esse, etiamsi bona intentione fiat. Furtum enim facere, ut darem pauperibus, non esset bonum. Sed quaedam sunt quae indifferentia existunt, quae possunt flecti ad bona per intentionem, et ad mala. Sicut levare lapidem ut ponam in aedificio templi, et levare lapidem ut feriam hominem, et si dum bonum facio bona intentione, malum tamen inde contingat alicui, non est imputandum mihi pro peccato, sicut si dum levo lapidem in aedificium ecclesiae, lapis super hominem caderet et eum interficeret. Sed bona, si mala intentione fiant, mala sunt: sicut si jejuno propter laudem. Unde sequitur. Si oculus, id est, intentio, est nequam, id est, prava, et totum corpus, id est, tota actio est mala. Si ergo, etc. Et quandoquidem propter malam intentionem bona fiunt mala, ergo mala, per se facta mala intentione quanta erunt? Et hoc est: Ergo si lumen, id est intentio quae debet esse lumen operum, quod in te est, id est, in tua manu, tenebrae sunt, id est, prava et mala per se mala intentione facta, tenebrae quantae erunt, postquam malae intentioni unitae erunt? Vel aliter: Lumen est intentio dicta, quia nota est illi qui intendit. Exitus vero rei, quia incertus est, tenebrae dicitur. Ille enim qui intendit, licet cognoscat quid intendat, nescit tamen quid de facto eveniat, sive bonum sive malum. Ut cum alicui aliquid do vel ago, nescio utrum bono cedat illi an malo. Dicit ergo: Si intentio qua facis quae tibi nota est, appetitu temporalium sordidatur, quanto magis ipsum factum, cujus exitus dubius est? Quod etsi bene cedat alicui, quod non bona intentione facis, nihil tibi prodest, quia quomodo feceris tibi imputatur, non quomodo illi evenit. Anselmus Laudunensis, Enarrationes In Matthaeum, Caput VI Source: Migne PL 162.1311a-1311d

The eye is the lamp of the whole body. If your eye is clear, the whole of your body will be lit up. But if your eye is wicked, your whole body will be in darkness. If, therefore, the light which is in you is darkness, how great shall the darkness be? 1 'The lamp...' Previously He has said that no good should be done with evil intent, 2 and just before this passage He said, 'Where is your treasure, there is your heart.' 3 Which thus is demonstrated. Therefore you should do everything with pure intent, because your eye, that is, your intent, is the lamp, that is, the illumination of your body, that is, for the acquirement of good acts. 'If your eye...' He determines how the eye is a lamp, that is, if it is simple in intent, pure, not twofold, that is, if it does not have a part for temporal things, and a part for heavenly things, then the whole body is light, that is, all action will be good. Regarding evil it must not be thought that if things are done with good intent, that therefore they are good. For no evil can be good even if it is done with good intent. To become a thief so that you may give to the poor is not a good. But those things which are indifferent, these may be turned to good by intention, or to evil. Just as I may lift up a stone and place it in the building of a temple, and then lift up a stone to cast it at a man. And if I do good with good intent, but evil touches it, sin must not be imputed to me, just as if I were to raise up a stone for the building of a church, but the stone falls on a man and kills him. Yet if goods are done with evil intent they are evils, as if I fast for the sake of praise. Whence it follows, 'If your eye,' that is your intent, 'is wicked,' that is, depraved, 'the whole body', that is the total action, is evil. 'If, therefore...' And whenever on account of evil intent we make goods evil, then how greater are the evils which are done with evil intent? And this is: 'Therefore if the light,' that is your intent, which should be the light of works, 'which is in you,' that is, in your hand, 'is darkness,' that is, depraved and evil, made so by evil intent, 'how great shall the darkness be?' after, when it is united with the evil intent? Or otherwise, the light is spoken for intent because it is known to him who intends, but the outcome of the thing, because it is uncertain, is called darkness. For to him who intends it is possible to know what he intends, however he does not know how the matter will fall out, whether it will be good or bad. Then when I give something to someone or do something to someone, I do not know whether it will turn out good or bad for him. Therefore, He says, if the intention by which you act, which is known to you, is defiled with temporal desire, how much more what is done, of which the outcome is doubtful? Because even if it falls out well for someone, because you did not act with good intent, it profits you not at all, because how you acted is imputed to you, not how things turned out. Anselm of Laon, Commentary On The Gospel of Saint Matthew, Chapter 6 1 Mt 6.22 2 Mt 6.1-18 3 Mt 6.21