“And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”
And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. The right hand parallel to the right eye continues the hyperbole: the most valuable, most capable, most relied-upon instruments of life are worth sacrificing if they are instruments of sin. The right eye and right hand are the dominant eye and hand — the best of human physical resources — and even these are less valuable than the integrity of the whole person before God. The hell (Gehenna, the valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem that became a metaphor for the place of final destruction) represents the ultimate consequence against which any sacrifice is worth making.
Church Fathers on Matthew 5:30
Because we ought not only to avoid actual sin, but even put away every occasion of sin, therefore having taught that adultery is to be avoided not in deed only, but in heart, He next teaches us to cut off the occasions of sin.
But if according to that of the Prophet, 'there is no whole part in our body,' [Ps 38:3] it is needful that we cut off every limb that we have that the punishment may be equal to the depravity of the flesh.
Therefore by the right eye and the right hand we must understand the love of brethren, husbands and wives, parents and kinsfolk; which if we find to hinder our view of the true light, we ought to sever from us.
Read all 11 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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