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July 2026
New article: “The Book of Revelation” (Revelation).
New article: “The Letters to the Seven Churches” (Revelation).
New article: “The Liturgy of Heaven” (Revelation).
New article: “The Woman, the Dragon, and the Lamb” (Revelation).
New article: “Babylon and the Judgment” (Revelation).
New article: “The New Jerusalem” (Revelation).
New article: “The Catholic Letters” (Catholic Letters).
New article: “The Letter of James” (Catholic Letters).
New article: “The Letters of Peter” (Catholic Letters).
New article: “The Letters of John” (Catholic Letters).
New article: “The Letter of Jude” (Catholic Letters).
New article: “The Book of Acts” (Acts).
New article: “Pentecost” (Acts).
New article: “The Church of the First Days” (Acts).
New article: “The Gospel to the Nations” (Acts).
New article: “To the Ends of the Earth” (Acts).
New article: “The Book of Hosea” (Hosea).
New article: “The Book of Micah” (Micah).
New article: “The Book of Jonah” (Jonah).
New article: “The Book of Habakkuk” (Habakkuk).
New article: “The Book of Zephaniah” (Zephaniah).
New article: “The Book of Malachi” (Malachi).
New article: “The Book of Daniel” (Daniel).
New article: “Faith in the Trial” (Daniel).
New article: “The Kingdoms That Pass” (Daniel).
New article: “The Son of Man and the Resurrection” (Daniel).
New article: “Susanna and the Wisdom of God” (Daniel).
New article: “The Book of Jeremiah” (Jeremiah).
New article: “Jeremiah, the Tested Prophet” (Jeremiah).
New article: “The New Covenant” (Jeremiah).
New article: “The Fall of Jerusalem and the Lamentations” (Jeremiah).
New article: “Baruch and the Hope of Exile” (Jeremiah).
New article: “The Song of Songs” (Song of Songs).
New article: “The Movement of Love” (Song of Songs).
New article: “The Garden of Symbols” (Song of Songs).
New article: “Love Strong as Death” (Song of Songs).
New article: “The Senses of the Song” (Song of Songs).
New article: “The Book of Job” (Job).
New article: “The Prologue and the Trial” (Job).
New article: “Job and His Friends” (Job).
New article: “God’s Answer” (Job).
New article: “My Eyes Have Seen You” (Job).
New article: “The Book of Ecclesiastes” (Ecclesiastes).
New article: “The Quest for Happiness” (Ecclesiastes).
New article: “A Time for Everything” (Ecclesiastes).
New article: “The Joy That Is God’s Gift” (Ecclesiastes).
New article: “Remember Your Creator” (Ecclesiastes).
New article: “The Book of Wisdom” (Wisdom).
New article: “The Righteous, the Wicked, and Immortality” (Wisdom).
New article: “Wisdom, the Breath of God” (Wisdom).
New article: “Wisdom, Guide of History” (Wisdom).
New article: “Knowing God and the Folly of Idols” (Wisdom).
New article: “The Book of Sirach” (Sirach).
New article: “The Fear of the Lord, Source of Wisdom” (Sirach).
New article: “Wisdom and the Law” (Sirach).
New article: “The Choice of Life and Everyday Wisdom” (Sirach).
New article: “The Praise of the Ancestors” (Sirach).
New article: “The Book of Proverbs” (Proverbs).
New article: “The Fear of the Lord and the Two Ways” (Proverbs).
New article: “Personified Wisdom” (Proverbs).
New article: “Wisdom for Daily Life” (Proverbs).
New article: “The Valiant Woman” (Proverbs).
New article: “The Psalter, Prayer of Israel” (Psalms).
New article: “The Psalms of Praise and Thanksgiving” (Psalms).
New article: “The Psalms of Supplication and Trust” (Psalms).
New article: “The Royal and Messianic Psalms” (Psalms).
New article: “The Psalms of Ascents and Wisdom” (Psalms).
New article: “The Psalms on the Lips of Christ” (Psalms).
New article: “The Crisis and the Profanation of the Temple” (1 Maccabees).
New article: “Eleazar and the Seven Brothers” (2 Maccabees).
New article: “Judas Maccabeus and the Dedication of the Temple” (1-2 Maccabees).
New article: “Jewish Independence” (1 Maccabees).
New article: “Tobit” (Tobit).
New article: “Judith” (Judith).
New article: “Esther” (Esther).
New article: “The Return and the House of God” (Ezra).
New article: “Ezra and the Return to the Law” (Ezra, Nehemiah).
New article: “Nehemiah and the Rebuilt City” (Nehemiah).
New article: “Samuel and the Rise of Kingship” (1-2 Samuel).
New article: “Saul and the Rise of David” (1 Samuel).
New article: “David, the Covenant, and the Promise” (2 Samuel).
New article: “Solomon and the Temple” (1 Kings).
New article: “The Schism and the Northern Kingdom” (1-2 Kings).
New article: “Judah until the Exile” (2 Kings, 2 Chronicles).
New article: “The Entry into the Promised Land” (Joshua).
New article: “The Division of the Land and the Covenant at Shechem” (Joshua).
New article: “The Time of the Judges” (Judges).
New article: “In Those Days There Was No King” (Judges).
New article: “Ruth the Moabite” (Ruth).
New article: “Abraham, Father of Believers” (Genesis).
New article: “Isaac and Jacob” (Genesis).
New article: “Joseph” (Genesis).
New article: “The Creation and the Rest” (Genesis).
New article: “The Garden and the Fall” (Genesis).
New article: “From Cain to Babel” (Genesis).
New article: “Personal Responsibility” (Ezekiel).
New article: “The Ministry of the New Covenant” (2 Corinthians).
New article: “The Collection for the Saints” (2 Corinthians).
New article: “Strength in Weakness” (2 Corinthians).
New article: “The Decalogue.”
New article: “The Law of the Neighbor.”
New article: “The Law of Worship and Holiness.”
New article: “The Law and Christ.”
New article: “The Law, Gift of the Covenant.”
New article: “Freedom and idols” (1 Corinthians 8-10).
New article: “The charisms and the assembly” (1 Corinthians 12 and 14).
New article: “The Cardinal Virtues”.
New article: “Prudence”.
New article: “Temperance”.
The French Bible of the site is now the Chérubin translation, with section headings in the reader.
New article: “Resentment and Forgiveness”.
New article: “Judging One’s Neighbour”.
New article: “The New Temple and the River of Life” (Ezekiel).
New article: “The Restoration of Israel” (Ezekiel).
New article: “The Oracles Against the Nations” (Ezekiel).
New article: “The Symbolic Actions and the Judgment of Jerusalem”.
New article: “Ezekiel, the Prophet of the Exile”.
New article: “Anger and Meekness”.
New article: “Love”.
New article: “The Desire to Feel the Spirit”.
New article: “The Dark Night of the Soul”.
June 2026
New article: “Consolation and Desolation”.
New article: “Discerning the Movements of the Heart”.
New article: “The Fall of Nineveh”.
New article: “The God Who Judges and Who Saves”.
New article: “Nahum and the Assyrian Empire”.
New article: “Justice, the Day of the Lord, and Hope”.
New article: “The Visions and the Rejected Worship”.
New article: “The Judgment of the Nations and of Israel”.
New article: “Amos, the Shepherd Prophet”.
New article: “The Glory of the Second Temple”.
New article: “The Four Oracles”.
New article: “Haggai and the Rebuilding of the Temple”.
New article: “The Expansion of Christianity”.
New article: “All Under Sin”.
New article: “The Epistle to the Romans”.
New article: “Sinai and the covenant”.
New article: “The deliverance”.
New article: “The bondage and the call”.
New article: “The oracles against the nations”.
New article: “Sadness”.
New article: “Fear”.
New article: “The finger of God”.
New article: “The baptism of Christ”.
New article: “The Resurrection and the Glorification”.
New article: “Holy Week”.
New article: “The third year: the opposition”.
New article: “The second year: popularity”.
New article: “The first year: the inauguration”.
New article: “The preparation for the ministry”.
New article: “The prologues and the coming of Christ”.
New: the “Memorise” tool.
New article: “The Real Presence.”
New article: “The four Servant Songs”.
New article: “Trito-Isaiah”.
New article: “Deutero-Isaiah”.
New article: “Proto-Isaiah”.
New article: “Predestination”.
New article: “The Angel of the Lord”.
New article: “Wars of Extermination in the Bible”.
New article: “Slavery in the Bible”.
New article: “The Nature of God”.
New article: “The Age of the Martyrs”.
New article: “The Abode of the Dead”.
New article: “The Canon and the Deuterocanonical Books”.
New article: “The Deacon”.
New article: “The Priest”.
New article: “Sola Scriptura”.
New article: “The Angels”.
New article: “Sola Fide”.
New article: “Once Saved, Always Saved”.
New article: “Elijah at Horeb”.
New article: “Turning the Other Cheek”.
New article: “Buy a Sword”.
New article: “Let the Dead Bury Their Dead”.
New article: “Jesus before Pilate”.
New article: “Jesus and Nicodemus”.
New article: “Invincible Ignorance”.
New article: “The Prophet and His Time”.
New article: “The Eight Night Visions”.
New article: “Joshua, the Branch and the Crown”.
New article: “Fasting and Restoration”.
New article: “First Oracle: The King Who Comes”.
New article: “The Book of Obadiah”.
New article: “Second Oracle: The Pierced One”.
New article: “The Day of the Lord”.
New article: “The Plague and the Day of the Lord”.
New article: “Conversion and the Spirit Poured Out”.
New article: “The Judgment of the Nations and the Salvation of Zion”.
New article: “The Three Ways of the Interior Life”.
New article: “Freedom and Responsibility”.
New article: “The Moral Conscience”.
New article: “Doubt and the Moral Systems”.
New article: “Doing Evil for a Good”.
New article: “Adoration and Praise”.
New article: “Why God Asks for Adoration”.
New article: “Faith and Science”.
New article: “The Theory of Evolution”.
New article: “The Woes of Isaiah”.
New article: “The Dwelling, the Priesthood and the Sacrifices”.
New article: “The Forty Years in the Desert”.
New article: "The Discourses of Moses".
New article: "The Death of Moses".
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Turning the Other Cheek, the Cloak and the Mile

“Turning the other cheek” belongs to the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ takes up the ancient law to bring it to its fulfilment. By this word he calls to renounce personal vengeance and to overcome evil with good.

Eye for eye

The word starts from the ancient law, which Christ quotes before carrying it further: “You have heard that it was said: Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. But I say to you not to resist the wicked. On the contrary, if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well.” Matthew 5:38-39 The original rule came from Moses: “eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” Exodus 21:24 It is usually heard as a harsh law, hungry for reprisal. It was a measure of restraint: in a world where men killed for an offence, it forbade the penalty to exceed the wrong, an eye for an eye and no more. The law of retaliation curbed vengeance by making it proportionate. Where the law limited the riposte, Christ asks that it be given up.

The right cheek

The detail of the right cheek makes the sense precise. When two men face each other, a slap of the right hand, given with the open palm, lands on the other’s left cheek; to reach his right cheek, one must strike him with the back of the hand. That backhanded blow was the gesture of contempt, the hand a master raised against a servant: an insult, more than a blow to wound. The word therefore aims at the affront and the humiliation, where the injury touches honour more than the body.

To turn the other cheek is to offer the left: to give oneself to a second blow instead of returning the first. The disciple shows himself ready to bear the affront once more rather than send it back. There lies the point: not to enter the spiral of offence. The one who returns the insult he received revives the quarrel and lets himself be led by the one who struck him; the one who turns the other cheek breaks that chain and stays free, master of his response instead of obeying his aggressor.

The sense of the word

This word reaches the heart first. It asks the disciple to renounce avenging himself, to accept suffering a wrong rather than returning it, not to take justice into his own hands. It does not for all that abolish justice: authority keeps the duty to punish crime and to protect the innocent, and no one is bound to hand a weak man over to the blows of a violent one in the name of gentleness. Turning the other cheek concerns the way one answers an offence received in one’s own person, not the abandonment of those one has the charge to defend. This limit has its ground in Paul: public order belongs to another hand than the offended disciple’s, that of the authority of which it is said: “it is not for nothing that it bears the sword. For it is in the service of God to do justice and punish the one who does evil.” Romans 13:4 To renounce avenging oneself does not abolish the justice that protects the innocent.

The example of Christ

Christ himself shows how to understand it. At his trial, when a guard strikes him on the face, he neither keeps silent nor turns the other cheek to the letter, but answers with dignity: “If I have spoken wrongly, show what was wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” John 18:23 He does not return the blow, and he exposes the injustice instead of avenging it: his question places the guard before his act and forces him to justify it, which he cannot. Brought into full light, the violence loses all appearance of right. Scripture will say of him that, insulted, he did not return the insult: “when he suffered, he did not threaten, but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.” 1 Peter 2:23

Leaving vengeance to God

To renounce avenging oneself does not give the wrong over to oblivion: the disciple hands it to God, the only judge just enough to set it right. “Do not take revenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written: Vengeance is mine, I will repay each one, says the Lord.” Romans 12:19 The disciple does not resign himself to evil, he fights it with the opposite weapons: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21 Good set against evil breaks the chain that vengeance would keep going.

The Cloak and the Mile

The same word extends at once to goods. “To the one who wants to take you to court to take your tunic, leave your cloak as well.” Matthew 5:40 The tunic is the undergarment; the cloak, the large outer piece, more valuable, which the Law protected. To the gift of the cloak and the second mile, Christ at once adds generosity toward the one who asks: “Give to the one who asks you; do not turn your back on the one who wants to borrow from you.” Matthew 5:42 The disciple does not merely refrain from returning evil; he opens his hand. “If you take your neighbour’s cloak in pledge, you are to return it to him before sunset, for it is his only covering.” Exodus 22:25-26

The word then passes to compulsion. “If someone forces you to go one kilometre, go two with him.” Matthew 5:41 The Greek verb used here, angareuō (ἀγγαρεύω), denotes the requisition of the occupier: a Roman soldier could compel an inhabitant to carry his load over a fixed distance, one mile (about 1.5 km). This verb reappears at the Passion, for Simon of Cyrene. “On the way out, they came upon a man of Cyrene named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross of Jesus.” Matthew 27:32

These commandments ask for a gratuitous kindness toward the one who has wronged us. Received where retaliation was expected, this goodness can touch the heart of the offender, lead him to question himself, let him glimpse God, who is its source, and opens a door to conversion. “If your enemy is hungry, give him food; if he is thirsty, give him drink: in doing so you heap coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.” Proverbs 25:21-22 The coals heaped on his head are not a disguised revenge: they figure the burning of remorse that unmerited kindness kindles in the offender.

To be children of the Father

The end of these words is likeness to God. A few lines further on, Christ widens the commandment as far as the enemy: “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat and persecute you.” Matthew 5:44 And he gives the reason: to act thus makes one like the Father, whose goodness does not depend on merit. “Thus you will be sons of your Father who is in the heavens, for he makes his sun rise on the wicked and the good.” Matthew 5:45 The one who does not return evil imitates God’s patience toward sinners, and draws near to the measure he sets them: “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48

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