Sitting And Teaching

Videns autem Jesus turbas, ascendit in montem... Ut vitaret eas, quia coram eis tam alta non erant praedicanda. In his ergo docet quod praedicator debet dicere juxta capacitatem audientium. Et cum sedisset, accesserunt ad eum discipuli ejus. Ideo sedit, ut doceret se esse magistrum. Magistrorum enim et docentium est sedere. Accedunt discipuli, ut vicinius audiant quae adimplenda properant. Et aperiens os suum. Per hoc quod dicit aperiens, significat quod non pauca sed multa, non humilia sed profunda, quasi thesaurum aperiens, dicturus erat. Allegoria. Christus ascendit in montem, id est, in Ecclesiam, ut impleretur quod dictum erat per David: Ego autem constitutus rex ab eo super Sion montem. Quod significat ibi Sion, hic et mons iste. Sedere, est humiliari per humanitatem assumptam. Aliter non doceret nos, nisi formam nostram assumendo sederet, id est, se nobis inclinaret, et via sessione ejus humilitatis, potuerunt ei discipuli accedere, quia quandiu erat in throno majestatis suae, non poterant eum homines comprehendere. Unde dicitur: In mundo erat, et mundus eum non cognovit. Et qui prius nobis erat locutus in prophetis, in Filio suo locutus est, et proprium os Filius nobis modo aperuit. Alia lex data est in terrore, quia fumus et turbae et procellae fuerunt circa montem. In datione vero Novi Testamenti nihil horum, sed totum in tranquillitate fuit factum, ut doceret hanc legem non timore, sed amore complendam esse. Alia lex scripta in lapididus, ista in cordibus. Aliter enim Novum a Veteri Testamentio non distaret. Unde Apostolus: Multo melioris Testamenti mediator est. Et per prophetam ait Dominus: Hoc Testamentum quod disponam domui Israel, post dies illos, dando leges meas in mentes eorum, et in corde eorum superscribam eas etc. Anselmus Laudunensis, Enarrationes In Matthaeum, Caput V Source: Migne PL 162.1283b-1284a

And seeing the crowds Jesus went up the mountain... 1 That He might avoid them, because in their presence high things should not be preached. With this, then, He teaches that the preacher should speak according to the capability of the hearers. And when He sat, His disciples came to Him. Therefore He sits that He may teach, He who is the teacher, for it is of teachers and instructors to sit. And the disciples came that they might listen closely to what should be swiftly fulfilled. And He opened His mouth. This opening signifies that the things to be said were not few but many, and not common but profound, as with the opening of a treasury. Allegorically Christ went up the mountain, that is, into the Church that He might fulfill what was written through David, 'I have been established as a king by Him over mount Sion.' 2 And what Sion signifies is this mount. To sit is to be humble through the assumption of humanity. And He could not teach us unless He sat in the form He had taken up, that is, when He inclined Himself to us, and by the way of the sitting of His humility the disciples were able to draw near Him, because while He was enthroned in His majesty, no man was able to grasp Him. Hence it is said, 'In the world He was, and the world did not know Him.' 3 And He who previously spoke to us through the prophets, now spoke in His Son, and the Son opened His own mouth to us. Another law was given in fear because there was smoke and turmoil and storms around the mountain, 4 but in the giving of the New Testament there was none of these things, but all was done peacefully, so that He might teach that this law was not to be fulfilled through fear but love. Another law was written in stone, this law in the heart. But He did not separate the New and Old Testaments, hence the Apostle says, 'He is the mediator of the much better Testament.' 4 And through the prophet the Lord says, 'This testament which I shall give to the house of Israel after those days shall be a giving of my laws into their minds, and I will inscribe it in their hearts.' 5 Anselm of Laon, Commentary On The Gospel of Saint Matthew, Chapter 5 1 Mt 5.1 2 Ps 2.6 3 Jn 1.10 4 Exod 19.16-18 5 Heb 5.8 6 Heb 8.10, Jerem 31.33