The Unity and Completion of the Beatitudes

These Beatitudes are not spoken of different kinds of people, but of one and the same person advancing step by step. For they are so ordered that each one prepares the way for the next, and none can be attained unless what precedes it has already been received. Thus the whole course of blessedness is unfolded in an orderly ascent. — Book I, Chapter 3

It is not without reason that the Lord both begins and ends with the kingdom of heaven. For the first Beatitude promises the kingdom, and the eighth returns to the same promise, enclosing all the rest within it. The intervening Beatitudes describe the progress of the soul within that kingdom, until it is perfected by perseverance. — Book I, Chapter 4

For humility opens the way, and perseverance brings the work to completion. The soul that begins by becoming poor in spirit must endure even to the end, lest it fall away while striving upward. Therefore persecution is placed last, because it proves whether the earlier virtues are truly possessed. — Book I, Chapters 8–9

In this way the ascent is complete. The soul is first humbled, then purified by sorrow, made meek, filled with righteousness, rendered merciful, cleansed in heart, brought into peace, and finally perfected through trial. And thus the same person, who was first made poor in spirit, is crowned by the kingdom of heaven. — Book I, Chapter 10

For the kingdom of heaven is both the beginning and the end of blessedness: the beginning, because no one enters it except through humility; the end, because nothing remains to be sought beyond it. Thus the Lord has set forth in these Beatitudes the whole way of life that leads to perfect blessedness. — Book I, Chapter 10

Source: St. Augustine, On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Book I, Chapters 3–10.