Commentary on Luke (Greek fragments) 7.11–7.36

“He went to a city called Nain” (7:11). See how he joins wonders to wonders. There he comes when called; here he arrives uncalled; for no one called him to the raising of the dead man, but he comes to it of his own accord. And he seems to me to have joined this to the former most fittingly. For it was not unlikely that someone might some day rise up to fight against the Saviour’s glory and say: “What was the wonder done for the centurion’s servant? He was sick; he was not certainly going to die; and the evangelist wrote this telling things to please rather than for truth.” So, to stop the unbridled tongue of such people, he says that Christ met the dead young man, the only son of a widow—a pitiable suffering, able to move lament and give cause for tears; and the woman followed, drunk with grief and now exhausted, and many with her.

“He came up and touched the bier” (7:14). Why did he not work the wonder by word alone, but also touched the bier? So that you might know that the holy body of Christ is effective for the salvation of man; for it is the body of life and the flesh of the all-powerful Word, and it bore his power. For just as iron brought into contact with fire does the works of fire and fulfils its function, so, since the flesh became the own flesh of the Word who gives life to all things, it is for that reason itself life-giving and destructive of death and corruption. For we believe that the body of Christ is life-giving, since it is the temple and dwelling of the living Word, having all his working. So he was not content with a command alone, though he was accustomed to accomplish by word whatever he wished, but he also laid his hands on the bier, showing that his body too has the life-giving working.

“And fear seized them all, and they glorified God,” and so on (7:16). This too was great from an insensible and ungrateful people; for a little later they did not think him even a prophet, nor one who had appeared for the people’s good, but delivered the destroyer of death to death—not knowing that then, then indeed, he was destroying death, when he worked the resurrection in himself.

“This report about him went out through the whole of Judea” (7:17). The wonder of the miracle escaped no one in the whole of Judea; and some of his acquaintances, that is, his disciples, report it to the holy Baptist himself. He, picking out two from the others, sends them to Jesus to ask him whether he is the one who is coming, or whether another must be expected. Do not suppose that the blessed Baptist was ignorant of the Word of the Father made man; for he knew very clearly that he is the one who is coming. But he was doing something wise and ingenious, which was likely to benefit greatly those being taught by him. For they, not yet having seen Christ, or his power and his pre-eminence over all, were quietly stung when he worked wonders and surpassed the Baptist by the greatness of his deeds. And they came to him once, consumed with envy and grief, with a heart not free of the diseases of the Jews, and said to the blessed Baptist: “Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, see, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” For they did not want anyone else at all to baptize and be exalted above the honour of John. But they were taught by him the surpassing glory of Christ and its incomparable excellence. For they heard him say: “You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; this joy of mine, then, is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.” We do not, of course, say that the blessed Baptist became in any respect less than himself; but the glory of Christ always received increase among those who believed in him, while the blessed John remained within the measures of humanity. For it was not possible for him ever to advance anywhere beyond; but the Word made man, being God by nature and ineffably begotten of God the Father, always rising to the power that befits him, was admired by all; for this reason he says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” For beside one who always advances, the one who stays the same seems to decrease. So, to produce firm faith—in him, that is—in those still wavering and not yet fully assured that he was the Christ, he feigns ignorance; then he sends to him men to ask and say: “Are you the one who is coming, or do we expect another?” “Coming where?” some might perhaps say. And some think something like this: since the Baptist was to suffer death through Herod’s cruelty before the precious cross, and to depart, as it were, before Christ and go ahead of him as forerunner in the descent to Hades, he asks, they say, whether he too will come there, redeeming those in darkness and the shadow of death. But such an opinion must be wholly rejected; for nowhere shall we find the divinely inspired Scripture reporting that the blessed Baptist announced the Saviour’s coming in advance to the spirits in Hades. Yet this too is true to say: since he was not at all ignorant of the whole power of the economy in the flesh of the Only-begotten, he surely knew, above others, that he would also redeem those in Hades and shine on them, having tasted death for all by the grace of God, so that, as Paul says, he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. What, then, does he mean by asking, “Are you the one who is coming, or do we expect another?” I said that he feigns ignorance by the economy, not so that he himself might learn—for as forerunner he knew the mystery—but so that his disciples might be fully assured how great the Saviour’s pre-eminence is, and that the word of the divinely inspired Scripture had foretold that he would come as God and Lord, while all the others were servants sent ahead of the Master, preparing the way of the Lord, as it is written. So the Saviour and Lord of all was called through the prophets “the one who is coming.” The prophet David sings and says: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” that is, in glory befitting God, and in lordship and pre-eminence beyond all things. And he himself made this known again immediately after, saying: “The Lord is God, and he has appeared to us.” For Moses came, and after him Joshua the son of Nun led those of Israel; and after him, in order, the blessed prophets; and none of them is said to have shone on those on earth in the name of the Lord. But the only-begotten Word of God, being God and Lord by nature and in truth, has appeared to us. So God the Father named him, saying to the prophet Habakkuk: “Yet a little while, and the one who is coming will come and will not delay.” Yes, and through another prophet the only-begotten Word of God says thus: “Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Zion; for behold, I am coming, and I will dwell in your midst, says the Lord; and many nations shall flee to the Lord in that day, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” This has come to fulfilment, as can be seen from the events themselves. So the divine Baptist, taking the name from the divinely inspired Scripture, sent some of his followers to ask whether he is the one who is coming.

“In that same hour he healed many” (7:21). Knowing, then, as God, the intention with which John had sent them, and the economy of the matter, and the reason for their coming, at that very moment he worked divine signs many times more than those already done, and healed many—teaching not John (for how could he teach one already persuaded?) but these who were in doubt. Having become eyewitnesses and spectators of his majesty, then, and having gathered in themselves great wonder at his power and working, they put the question, saying as from John, “Is he the one who is coming?” Here, I pray, see the skill of the Saviour’s economy: he did not simply say, “I am,” but rather leads them to full assurance through the events themselves, so that, readily receiving faith in him, they might return to the one who sent them; hence he answered not to the words

but to the intention of the one who sent them. “Go,” he says, “and tell John” what you heard through the prophets and saw fulfilled through me. For by the economy he was doing at that very moment the things that the prophets had announced he would accomplish when he came to us. And what are these? The restoring of the blind, the cleansing of lepers, hearing for the deaf, the raising of the dead, and what follows; to which he adds, as befits God: “And blessed is he who is not offended at me.” What does he mean by this, if not to show that his eyelids too, as the divine David says, examine the sons of men, and that nothing turning in their hearts escaped him? For they themselves were plainly the ones offended. “He began to speak to the crowds about John” (7:24). See again here what an economy the Saviour made. He set in motion a long and ample discourse about the holy Baptist: he repelled the opinion by which he was likely to be wronged; and by saying that he had something more than a prophet, he showed him to his hearers as worthy of admiration and love. Then, having set him up, as it were, as an image of the virtue in him, which holds the highest place among those born of women, he sets beside it the greater good: the one who has just laid hold of the kingdom and been born again as a son of God through the Spirit. For we say that the kingdom of heaven is the gift of the Spirit, according to the saying, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” Greater, then, than everyone born of a woman is the one honoured with rebirth by the Spirit; for the former are still called children of the flesh, while the latter inscribe the God of all as their Father, no longer called born of women, like John and those before him, but born of God and made partakers of the divine nature. … even though we are less than those who achieved the righteousness in the law—in holiness of life, I mean—yet we have come to be among greater things through Christ. And we must remember that the Baptist, though so great in virtue, plainly confesses that he needs holy baptism: “For I,” he says, “need to be baptized by you.” He would not have needed it unless there were something more in it, surpassing the righteousness in the law. And the saying that from the days of John the kingdom of heaven is seized by force is not said as though no one before him had seized it. For where will the hope of the prophets go? And what will the great choir of the saints do, if it lies outside the kingdom of heaven? But it means that from John’s time onward the gift of the Spirit and the rebirth to God through holy baptism are seized by faith.

“But what did you go out to see?” and so on (7:25). Has he a splendid appearance? A royal rank? Did he have royal commissions? Did he carry royal letters and decrees and laws? Was he brilliant to look at? Did he not wear a garment of hair? Did he not have makeshift food? Did anything of this kind urge you to go out there? But if you went out profitably as to a prophet, yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. For the prophet only foretells; but he not only announced that the Christ would come, but also pointed him out, saying: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” He calls John a messenger (angel) not because he was an angel—for he was a man by nature—but because he did the work of a messenger, announcing the coming of Christ. Then, setting down “more than a prophet,” he explains “Behold, I send my messenger before you.” For he is greater than a prophet to whom God bears witness that, being his messenger, he is sent before the face of Christ to prepare his way. For “more than a prophet” is a great testimony about John: because when Christ was prophesied as coming, John too was prophesied with him, as the messenger who would go before him. “Among those born of women there is no greater prophet than John the Baptist” (7:28).

For the blessed John, together with all the others who were before him, is born of a woman; but those who have accepted faith are no longer called born of women, but sons of God: “For as many as received him,” it says, “to them he gave power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, but of God.” And Paul: “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into their hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” For when Christ came back to life after despoiling Hades, then he gave the Spirit of adoption to those who believed in him, and first of all to his own disciples: “For he breathed on them, saying, Receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them,” and what follows. For since they had altogether become partakers of the divine nature, having been enriched with the Spirit that is sovereign and has authority over all things, for this reason he also invested them with a dignity befitting God, namely, to forgive the sins of whomever they wish, and to retain those of others. That the Spirit of adoption was not among men before his return to heaven, the all-wise evangelist John shows, saying: “For the Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified,” meaning by glory the resurrection from the dead and the ascent into heaven. For having gone up there, the only-begotten Word of God sent us the Paraclete in his place, and he is in us through him; and he taught us this, saying: “If I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you.” So then, even if we are less than those who had the righteousness in the law—in the excellence of life, I mean—yet through Christ we are among things greater than those born of women.

“They are like children sitting in the marketplace” (7:32). There was perhaps a kind of game among the children of the Jews, which went like this: a crowd of children divided into two parts, as though mocking the turmoil of life, the unevenness of its affairs, and the terrible and sudden change of some things into others; some piped, others lamented; but neither did those lamenting share the joy of those piping and rejoicing, nor did those with the pipe join in the weeping of those who wept. Then they accused one another, in a way, of want of sympathy or of feeling. Christ maintained that the crowds of the Jews, together with their leaders, had suffered something of this kind. For the prophets came, foretelling the gloomy things to come and stirring to lament; then after them came Christ and the apostles, sounding forth like a pipe the proclamation of the kingdom and the grace of repentance. But the hard-hearted Jews not only did not mourn at the former, but did not dance at the latter either, doing no work of virtue. “For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine” (7:33).

By what means will you be caught for faith, foolish Pharisee, who disparage everything indiscriminately and think nothing worthy of praise? The blessed Baptist went before the Saviour, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He was fit to persuade, attested by his very life, so splendid and admirable; and then you dare to slander such a man, who ought rather to be deemed worthy of all admiration? Did you say that he had a demon, who by fasting was putting to death the law of sin that lurks in the members of the flesh and wars against the law of our mind? The blessed Baptist was a road to godliness toward Christ. But let us look at the other, who seems in some way to go the opposite path to the way of life of the holy Baptist. Christ was not in the desert, but rather made his stay in the town with the holy apostles; and his diet did not have such hardship as that of the holy Baptist. Do you praise him, then, at least? Not at all; you have become a fault-finder in the case of Christ himself too. For you said: “Behold, a glutton and a drunkard.” But where can you show this? On the contrary, when Mary and Martha once received him at Bethany, and one of those named was distracted with much serving, Christ is seen checking what went beyond measure and training us to sufficiency; for he said, “You are anxious and troubled about many things,” but few things are needed, or one. And such he always was, everywhere. He stayed with tax collectors, being himself wholly untouched by sin; for he said, “Which of you convicts me of sin?” So he would not have been harmed by being with sinners; on the contrary, he became the procurer of every benefit and salvation for them; for he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” For the law given through Moses commanded you not to live with the wicked, so that you, as weak and prone to sin, might not easily fall into the same abyss of impiety. For if you had been firm in virtue and had your mind set steady in godliness, it would not have forbidden it. But what could Christ suffer from those disposed to do wrong? But you have been wholly ignorant of the mystery concerning him. For being God the Word he came to be with us, that is, he was made flesh for us, not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. It belonged to one who condemns to be unwilling to be with those in sins; but to one who wishes to save, both to be with them and to admonish, to persuade them to depart from their shameful ways and to choose, in place of the road to wickedness, the path to eternal life. He did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. The sun is not defiled when it illumines the whole world under heaven and comes into contact with many unclean bodies; nor would the sun of righteousness be harmed in any way by keeping company with wicked men. But let no one seek to make his own measure rival the dignities of the Master; rather, let each, reckoning his own weakness, flee familiarity with such people: “For bad company corrupts good morals.” But nothing prevents admonishing such people.

“One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him” (7:36). The Lord was invited, then, by one of the Pharisees; and since he is kind and loves humankind, and cares that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, he granted the favour asked and went in and reclined. Then a woman runs in, who had been licentious in her life but showed a believing intention; and, not unaware of the blame for what she had done before, she entreated Christ, as one able to wash her clean and free her from every charge and grant her forgiveness of her sins. She did this standing behind; for she could not yet stand in front before the forgiveness of her sins.