
John Chrysostom
Catena Aurea · Matthäusevangelium 23
Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
Note, that speaking of tithes He said, These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone: for tithes are a kind of alms, and what wrong is it to give alms? Yet said He it not to enforce a legal superstition. But here, discoursing of things clean and unclean, He does not add this, but distinguishes and shews that external purity of necessity follows internal; the outside of the cup and platter signifying the body, the inside the soul.