else he will hold to one and despise the other.  Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.[2] Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.  Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?  Behold the fowls of the air:  for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.  Are ye not much better than they?  Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?  And why take ye thought for raiment?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?  Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?  For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.  But seek ye first the kingdom of God,[3] and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.  Take therefore no thought for the morrow:  for the morrow shall take thought of the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."[4]

[Footnote 1:  Compare Talm. of Bab., Baba Bathra, 11 a.]

[Footnote 2:  The god of riches and hidden treasures, a kind of Plutus in the Phoenician and Syrian mythology.]

[Footnote 3:  I here adopt the reading of Lachmann and Tischendorf.]

[Footnote 4:  Matt. vi. 19-21, 24-34.  Luke xii. 22-31, 33, 34, xvi. 13.  Compare the precepts in Luke x. 7, 8, full of the same simple sentiment, and Talmud of Babylon, Sota, 48 b.]

This essentially Galilean sentiment had a decisive influence on the destiny of the infant sect.  The happy flock, relying on the heavenly Father for the satisfaction of its wants, had for its first principle the regarding of the cares of life as an evil which choked the germ of all good in man.[1] Each day they asked of God the bread for the morrow.[2] Why lay up treasure?  The kingdom of God is at hand.  “Sell that ye have and give alms,” said the master.  “Provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not."[3] What more foolish than to heap up treasures for heirs whom thou wilt never behold?[4] As an example of human folly, Jesus loved to cite the case of a man who, after having enlarged his barns and amassed wealth for long years, died before having enjoyed it![5] The brigandage which was deeply rooted in Galilee,[6] gave much force to these views.  The poor, who did not suffer from it, would regard themselves as the favored of God; whilst the rich, having a less sure possession, were the truly disinherited.  In our societies, established upon a very rigorous idea of property, the position of the poor is horrible; they have literally no place under the sun.  There are no flowers, no grass, no shade, except for him who possesses the earth.  In the East, these are gifts of God which belong to no one.  The proprietor has but a slender privilege; nature is the patrimony of all.