Concerning the happiness of the blessed under the names of the places in which those dwell who are truly happy and blessed — that is, the kingdom of God, the city of God, the house of the Lord, and the paradise of delights — I have written thus far what God has deigned to suggest to me in meditation. I will now add something on the same happiness under the names of the things to which the Lord compared the happiness of the blessed in parables. At the outset, however, it must be understood that those words of the Lord, "The kingdom of God is like," which the Lord employs throughout His parables, do not always refer to the words immediately following — as if, when the Lord says, "The kingdom of God is like a merchantman," the sense were that the kingdom of God is like a merchantman — but to the whole narrative, in which the way to the kingdom of God is shown by means of a likeness; and sometimes the kingdom of God itself, that is, the beatitude of the heavenly kingdom, is described more obscurely, sometimes more clearly, and sometimes not touched upon at all. I shall explain each part in turn.
When the Lord in Matthew sets forth the parable of the sower (Matt. 13), He describes the fruit which the preaching of the Gospel bears according to the various dispositions of the soil, and this He calls the mystery of the kingdom of God; but of the beatitude of the blessed He says nothing. When, however, the same Lord in the same place adds the parable of the cockle, He briefly touches the happiness of the blessed, saying that the wheat is to be gathered into the Lord's barn, while the cockle is to be bound in bundles for burning. But when in the same place He tells the parables of the man seeking good pearls and of the man finding a treasure hidden in the field, He now more clearly compares the kingdom of God to the pearl and the treasure. And of this third kind I find only six among the parables of the Lord: one of the treasure hidden in the field, another of the precious pearl, a third of the day's wage, a fourth of the master distributing the talents, a fifth of the great supper, and a sixth of the royal wedding feast. To these we shall add two similitudes from the Apostle: one of those who run for the prize, and another of those who strive in the contest. Thus there will be eight considerations on the blessed life of the saints drawn from the names of the parables.
The first parable, then, which is found in St. Matthew, makes the kingdom of God like a treasure hidden in a field (Matt. 13:44); and it briefly teaches how it may be acquired when it says: "Which a man, having found, hides; and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." Treasure signifies an immense store of gold, silver, and precious stones; and, as the jurist Paul teaches (Digest, On the Acquisition of the Ownership of Things, law Nunquam), it must be so ancient that no memory of it survives; and therefore it has no proper owner, but by right belongs to the finder. This treasure is the Divinity itself, which is hidden in the field of Christ's humanity, as St. Hilary and St. Jerome rightly explain in their commentaries on the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. For in Christ, as the Apostle says, "are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God" (Col. 2). Now the Divinity is the truest treasure of all goods, and truly so ancient that no memory of it can exist, since it is eternal and has preceded all ages; nor has this immense treasure ever had an owner, since it is itself the Lord of all. Yet it is said to come under the right of finders, because it freely gives itself to those who, having sold all they have, strive to acquire it. It is said, moreover, to be hidden — buried, as it were, in a field — in the humanity of Christ: for although the Divinity is everywhere, yet it is nowhere more properly than in the humanity of Christ, to which it is so united that God and man are one Person; wherefore the Apostle says: "God indeed was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Cor. 5). And although nowhere is it so present as in Christ's humanity, yet it seemed so hidden in it that it was necessary to light a lamp which might point out God in Christ. That lamp was John the Baptist, of whom, as St. John writes, "He was a burning and a shining light" (John 5), and of whom David foretold in the person of God the Father: "I have prepared a lamp for My anointed" (Ps. 131). For John the Baptist manifested Christ and truly showed Him to be God, the only-begotten Son of God, when he said: "No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him" (John 1). And again: "He who comes from above is above all" (John 3). And a little after: "The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has life everlasting; but he who is unbelieving toward the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him." But although this burning and shining light so openly manifested Christ as the Son of God, yet the blinded Jews could not, or would not, recognize the Divinity hidden in Christ; for, as the Apostle says, "if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor. 2).
This treasure, therefore, which the man enlightened by God finds, "he hides; and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." To hide the treasure thus found is nothing else than to cover the grace received under the veil of humility: not to put oneself forward on account of the light divinely received, nor to boast of divine consolations and revelations, lest vainglory corrupt the true glory. And so Isaiah used to say: "My secret to myself" (Isa. 24). And the Apostle: "If I must glory (though it is not expedient), I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord" (2 Cor. 12): "I know a man in Christ above fourteen years ago," etc. For the extraordinary revelation which he received when caught up into paradise he covered with silence for a full fourteen years; and he would always have covered it, had not the necessity of manifesting it compelled him. And he openly says that it is not expedient to disclose such gifts, and he discloses it under another's name, to show how unwillingly he did so. Something of this kind happened to St. Francis when the sacred stigmata were divinely impressed upon him (Life of St. Francis, ch. 13); for, as St. Bonaventure relates in his Life, at other times he was wont to cover divine revelations in silence and to say with Isaiah, "My secret to myself"; but then, when he saw that the matter could not be hidden, with great fear he related the whole account to the brothers who asked him.
Moreover, to sell everything with joy and buy that field where the treasure lay hidden means nothing else than this: that he who wishes to have the fruition of God and of Christ in the kingdom of heaven must utterly renounce all attachment to temporal things, and devote all his goods and his very self to the service of God — and this not out of sadness or necessity, but with great joy; for God loveth a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7). But to one who has truly known how great a treasure is the fruition of Christ in the eternal fatherland — to behold His divinity with the eyes of the mind and His humanity with the eyes of the body, to be made a sharer in all the good things of God and of Christ, and to be secure forever in the possession of so great a good — it will not seem much, nor any great thing, to despise all temporal goods and even life itself for the love of God and everlasting happiness. Let St. Ignatius the Martyr be our witness, who writes in his Epistle to the Romans: "Fire, the cross, the onslaught of wild beasts, the cutting off, the tearing apart, the breaking and scattering of my limbs, the destruction of my whole body, and all the scourges of the devil — let them come upon me, that I may be found worthy to attain Jesus Christ." He who speaks thus would surely fear poverty, disgrace, exile, and imprisonment far less than the loss of that incomparable treasure. Whoever, then, seriously desires to acquire the treasure of eternal life, let him also seriously think and think again whether he is prepared to despise all other goods; otherwise he will never obtain — neither living nor dead — that treasure without which he will be forever most miserable and most poor. But whence does it happen, let us ask, that so many anxiously search out treasures of gold and silver and, not content with human diligence, even employ the aid of demons through wicked arts, at great peril to their good name and to their life — while Your treasure, O Lord my God, which alone can make a man most rich, and which can be found without toil, without expense, without danger, is sought by so few?
For my part, I find no other cause than either the little faith of Your people, or their excessive preoccupation with acquiring temporal things, which leaves men no room to think upon and ponder the divine promises. Therefore, good Lord, increase in us faith in Your promises, and extinguish our thirst for possessing temporal riches; for so it will come to pass that we seek Your treasure with greater zeal, and obtain it with Your help.