Matthew 15:1–6

Some of the Jews were coming forward and were eager to consecrate their own souls to God — still in type and shadow, yet according to the law — confessing as their own the honors owed to those allotted to priestly service and attending the divine altar. But some longed for that sort of glory (I mean being sanctified, holy, and a divine offering) while lack of money cut short the desire.

When Pharisees and scribes urged them that they must pursue this — for those men are exceedingly fond of money — the people put forward reverence toward parents and, speaking truthfully, said they could scarcely provide the means of life for themselves and for their parents. The Pharisees dared to persuade them to count the matter as nothing for God’s sake: even if those who begot them approached seeking the customary help from them, they taught that one must say to father or mother, “It is a gift — whatever you would be helped with from me,” (Matthew 15:1–6) that is, “Whatever you would take from me, know that you are harming the divine offering and laying hands on sacred funds; for I have dedicated myself and promised myself to God as a gift.”

But the parents, fearing the harm that comes from temple-robbery and shuddering at the laws about it, kept enduring while they wailed, and insisted that piety toward God had become a pretext of famine for them — crying out, perhaps, that the divine command itself was wronging them in what mattered most. “Why then,” he says, “did you make void the command of God through your tradition?” For it was necessary — necessary — to honor those who begot them, not to destroy the law concerning them for the sake of piety toward God. Therefore one must neither neglect what befits God because of human affairs, nor wholly neglect humans because of God; rather, assigning love’s exceptional share to the beginning of all — that is, to God — one should next, as in a second and neighboring rank, also convey to the helpers of one’s birth the honors most fitting to them.