18:3. “Amen I say to you: Unless
you are converted so that you become as little children, you will not enter
into the kingdom of heaven.” The apostles are not being commanded to have
the age of little children, but to possess their innocence by means of their
own diligent effort, an innocence that children possess because of their years.
Thus they become children not in respect to wisdom, but to malice. (Jerome,
Commentary on Matthew, Book 3, Chapter 18, in Jerome, Commentary on Matthew, [trans. Thomas P.
Scheck; The Fathers of the Church 117; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2008], 207)
