Annotation LXXXIX

”Call the laborers, and pay them their wage.” — Matthew 20:8

John Ferus, in the third book of the commentaries on Matthew, after the exposition of this passage, brought in these words: “This parable teaches that whatever is given to us by God is grace, not a debt. For all our righteousnesses [are] as a menstruous cloth; nay, not even the sufferings of this time are worthy of the future glory. But if you sometimes hear a reward promised, know that it is due for no other reason than that, by [his] divine promise, he freely promised [it] and freely renders [it]. If, therefore, you desire to preserve the grace and favor of God, make no mention of your [own] merits.” Jerome, bishop of Verona, in the commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, censures Ferus, [on the ground] that in this and in this [passage], and in very many other places, he overthrows the merits of good works, and those two modes of meriting — of which St. Thomas, in the Prima Secundae, question 114, article 3, calls the one “of congruity,” the other “of condignity.” I judge that Ferus’s words can be bent to that sense in which above — from the doctrine of the same St. Thomas — we expounded certain sentences of Augustine, Basil, and Bernard. Consult Annotations 195, 199, and 217 of book 5.