Hegemonius

The Pharisees looked to the “tithing of anise and cummin, and left undone the weightier matters of the law.” While devoting great care to the things which were external, they overlooked those which bore upon salvation of the soul. For they also paid much attention to “greetings in the marketplace,” and to the “uppermost seats at feasts.” To them the Lord Jesus, knowing their perdition, made this declaration: that they attended to those things only which were external, and despised as strange those things which were within, and did not understand that he who made the body made also the soul.

For here I perceive that Jesus also looks on willingly at the gifts of the rich men, when they are put into the treasury. All too little, at the same time, is it if gifts are cast into the treasury by the rich alone; and so there are the two mites of the poor widow which are also received with gladness; and in that offering verily something is exhibited that goes beyond what Moses prescribed on the subject of the receipt of moneys. For he received gifts from those who had; but Jesus receives them even from those who have not.