Commentary on Matthew 7–9

“And when he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came and worshiped him, saying: Lord, if you will, you can make me clean,” and the rest. At the beginning of our discourse we warned that no one should think anything is to be taken away from the truth of the events if we teach that the events themselves contain in themselves the course of the events that would follow. For it takes nothing from the truth that the truth has achieved an imitation. In the whole preceding discourse the Lord had handed on the precepts of faith and gone beyond the law, signifying by going beyond it that it was now useless and ineffective. He had required the observance of the commandments and before that had commanded a most faithful hope in his promises; so we must consider what he did first after these things. A leper is present; he asks to be cleansed; he is purged by the power of the word together with a touch; he is ordered to be silent, but nevertheless to show himself to the priest and to offer the gift that Moses commanded to be made as a testimony. So in the leper is shown the healing of the crowd that heard and believed and came down from the mountain with the Lord: which, defiled by the vicious stain of the body, having heard the preaching of the kingdom of heaven, asks to be healed; it is visited by the touch of a body, it is healed by the power of the Word; and, so that this salvation might be sought rather than offered, silence is imposed, and he is ordered to show himself to the priests: so that he who was foretold in the law might be discerned by his deeds and works, and that in the matter in which the law was weak the power of the word might be understood; and that he who has been cleansed might offer to God the reward of the health he received; but so that that gift might not be made from birds, but that the man himself, cleansed from the filth of the body’s sin, might pass over into a sacrifice to God; because what Moses commanded in the law is a testimony, not the effect. “After this, when he had entered Capernaum, a tribune came to him asking him and saying: My servant lies at home paralyzed,” and so on. The healing of the paralyzed servant follows the cleansing of the leper. But what does it mean that the tribune, the servant’s master, professes that he is not worthy for Christ to enter his house, see the servant, and, present to one present, bring help; and that he has soldiers and orders what he wills, and many, set under his authority, obey him, and that likewise the Lord can supply healing by a word? Concerning the tribune let it be enough for me to have stated that he is the chief of the nations that would believe. Who this chief is, to whom many are subject, let whoever wishes to know read the song of Moses in Deuteronomy and Solomon’s book Ecclesiasticus, where they have said certain things about the dispersal of the nations: let our treatment concern only the servant. In this servant, then, after the health from paralysis, the salvation of the nations follows the healing of the people coming down from the mountain. For the servant lay disabled in a lowly, corruptible house, unworthy of the entry of the Savior whom he nevertheless needed. And the tribune knows that the servant can be healed by a word, because all the salvation of the nations is from faith, and in the precepts of the Lord is the life of all. So the nations are to be considered as lying in the world and disabled by the diseases of sins, with all their limbs everywhere loose and spoiled for the office of standing and walking. The mystery of their salvation is fulfilled in the tribune’s servant, Christ not entering the house. For although he lived in the world, he did not go into the vices and sins of the world. Then, marveling at his faith, he says: “I have not found such faith in Israel.” This tribune was not from the nations; and how is such faith not found in Israel, when the one who believed was an Israelite? But in order that this very truth might imitate the likeness of the future, the reason of the word was laid underneath: that such faith as belongs to the nations would not be found in Israel, and that men from the farthest nations would rest with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. The truth of health was indeed perfected in the servant according to the faith of the believer: but the effect of present things is shown to serve also as an image of the future, when, the tribune believing and the servant being saved, such faith was not found in Israel and fellowship in the kingdom of heaven with Abraham is destined for the nations. “When Jesus had come into Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever,” and the rest. In Peter’s mother-in-law the vicious disposition of unbelief is considered, to which is joined the freedom of the will, which binds us to itself by a kind of fellowship of marriage. So at the Lord’s entry into Peter’s house, that is, into the body, unbelief is healed, burning with the heat of sins and sick with the dominion of vices. Then, at once healed, she ministers in the service of duty. For he first believed and is the chief of the apostleship; and what was formerly languishing in him, growing strong by the word of God, worked by its ministry as if for the public salvation. That this likeness from Peter’s mother-in-law is rightly applied to the disposition of unbelief we shall treat in the passage that follows about the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law. Now she will be called the mother-in-law of unbelief because, until he believed, he was held in the service of his own will. “When evening came, they brought to him many who had demons, and he cast out the unclean spirits,” and so on. In the indiscriminate healing at the evening hours we recognize the gathering of those whom he taught after the passion: forgiving the sins of all, taking away the infirmities of all, and driving out the incitements of evil pleasures that sit upon them, absorbing by the passion of his body the infirmities of human weakness, according to the sayings of the prophets. “When Jesus saw great crowds around him, he ordered his disciples to go across the sea. And a scribe came to him and said: Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go,” and the rest. Many things occur that can trouble common sense. Yet we do not invent the understanding; the events themselves give us the understanding. For the thing does not follow the understanding, but the understanding follows the thing. The crowds are many, and the Lord commands the disciples to go across the sea. I do not think it befits the Savior’s goodness that he should have wished to leave those running around him and to choose some secret place for giving salvation. Then a scribe follows, saying that he will follow the teacher wherever he goes: but nothing is read to have been said or done by the scribe that could give offense. The Lord answered that foxes have holes and the birds of the sky nests for resting, but the Son of Man has no place where he may lay his head. And a disciple asked that time be given him to bury his father: this was refused, and the religious duty of a devoted and human office was forbidden. So the reason for such great and such different things must be brought out, and in such a way that the understanding of the inner meaning is unfolded according to the connected order of events and the weightiest causes of the truth itself. The name of disciples must not be thought to apply only to the twelve apostles. For we read that besides the apostles there were many disciples. So from the whole crowd a certain choice is commanded to be made: of those, namely, who would follow the Lord through the many dangers and tossings of this world. For the church is like a ship, and is called so in many places: which, having taken on passengers of the most different kind and nation, is subject to all the blasts of the winds and the movements of the sea. And so it is troubled by the attacks of both the world and the unclean spirits. For with the movements of all dangers set before us, we enter the ship of Christ, that is, the church, knowing that we will be tossed by sea and wind. So, that the order of the typological meaning might hold together, and the portion of the faithful going on board the ship and the crowd of the unfaithful remaining behind might be understood, the persons of the scribe and of the disciple are added. And indeed the scribe, who is one of the teachers of the law, asks whether he should follow. As if it were not contained in the law that this is the Christ whom it would be profitable to follow. So he expressed the disposition of unbelief under the distrust of a question: because the taking up of faith is not to be asked about but followed. And so that this same question of unbelief might be punished by judgment, the Lord answered that foxes have holes and the birds of the sky nests in which they rest, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. The fox is a crafty animal, hiding in holes around houses and lying in wait for domestic birds: and we read in several places that false prophets are called by this name. And we have learned that the birds of the sky are very often a name for unclean spirits. So the Son of God, seeing the fewness of those following, and the teacher of the law distrusting whether he should follow him, reproaches that the false prophets have holes and the unclean spirits nests for resting; because those left outside the ship, that is, placed outside the church, have become the lodging of false prophets and the dwelling of demons: but that the Son of Man, that is, he whose head is God, finds none in whom, the knowledge of God being placed, he may rest: all being invited into the church as into the ship, but few, for fear of the sea, that is, of the world, about to follow. After this a disciple is present, not asking whether he should follow (for he already believed that he must follow), but praying to be allowed to bury his father. We have received in the opening of the Lord’s Prayer that we must first pray thus: “Our Father who are in heaven.” So since the disciple bears the person of the believing people, he is reminded to remember that his living Father is in heaven. And he is ordered to follow the Lord, since he also wished to, in such a way that the dead should bury the dead. But I think no service can be expected from the dead. How, then, will the dead bury the dead? First, then, he shows that a faith perfect in itself is bound by no worldly religious duty toward another; next, that between a faithful son and an unfaithful father the right of the paternal name is not left. So he did not refuse the duty of burying a father; but by adding, “Let the dead bury their own dead,” he warned that the unfaithful dead are not to be mixed with the memorials of the saints, and that those too are dead who live outside God. And therefore mutual services are to be left to the dead, that the dead may be buried by the dead: because through faith in God the living must cling to the Living.

“And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, a great storm arose on the sea,” and the rest. When the disciples have entered the ship, a storm arises, the sea is stirred up, those sailing are troubled. He, sunk in sleep, is roused by the fear of the frightened and is begged to bring help. And having rebuked them for being of little faith, he commanded calm to the wind and the sea, the men marveling that wind and sea obeyed his commands. According to this, then, churches within which the word of God has not kept watch are shipwrecked: not that Christ relaxes into sleep, but that he is lulled to sleep in us by our sleep. And this happens most of all, that we hope in God chiefly in fear of danger and in distress. And would that even a late hope may trust that it can escape the danger, the power of Christ keeping watch within it. He left us a perpetual remembrance of his rebuke, saying: “You of little faith, why are you afraid?”, meaning that there should be no fear of worldly upheavals for those with whom the faith of Christ keeps watch. Then follows the wonder of the men, saying: “What kind of man is this, that the winds and the sea obey him?” This speech is not the disciples’ but the nations’. For whereas above he had said that only the disciples entered the ship and that he was roused only by the disciples, now he indicates that men marveled, men calling him a man in their very wonder. By this change of names it is understood that all the works of Christ and all his powers are to be praised as God’s: because it shows the folly of pagan guilt and most wretched error that they call him a man from the humility of the passion rather than God from his powers. “And when he had come across the sea into the region of the Gerasenes, two men possessed by demons met him, coming out of the tombs, very dangerous,” and the rest. The meeting of the two men; the long possession of two men by demons; the road dangerous to passers-by; the entreaty to pass over into the pigs; the fall of that herd headlong into the sea after the men were cleansed; then the flight of the herdsmen into the town; the coming out of the people from the city; the embassy asking that the Lord not enter the city; his return to his own country; and there the bringing of a paralytic lying on a bed; the forgiveness of sins at that very time for the merit of faith; the murmuring of the scribes; the confession of his power; the paralytic’s return home even under the burden of his bed; and the wonder of the men: these have this cause. At the beginning of the human race there was a threefold division of mankind, namely into the sons of Noah, of whom, according to the prophecy of Genesis, Shem was chosen for God’s possession. Outside the city, that is, outside the synagogue of the law and the prophets, demons held two men in the tombs: they had besieged, that is, the origins of two nations in the dwellings of the dead and the remains of the departed, making the road of present life dangerous for passers-by. So, in order that there might be in the events a full meditation of the future, two men meet the Lord as he comes: so that by their meeting the will of those running together to salvation might be indicated. But the demons in the men cry out, asking why he grudges them their seat and why he harasses them before the time of judgment. Next to these two peoples of the nations lay also a people of the race of Shem, the Sadducees, whose heresy among the Jews is the guilt of denying the resurrection. So the demons, seeing that no place is now left for them among the nations, beg that he allow them to dwell in the heretics: when these are occupied, the whole herd is driven headlong into the sea with a rapid rush: that is, they are cast down into worldly desire at the prompting of the demons, in many waters, that is, to die together with the unbelief of the remaining nations. And in this too the typological meaning was kept, that it was not enough to have said they were cast into the sea, without adding, “And they died in many waters.” Their leaders and herdsmen, troubled by wonder at such things, come to the city and announce what was done. That city bears the figure of the Jewish people, which, having heard of the works of Christ, goes out to meet its Lord, forbidding him to touch its borders and city; for the law does not receive the Gospels. Rejected by it, he returns to his own city. To God the city is the faithful people. Into this, then, he entered, carried by the ship, that is, the church. And now in the paralytic the whole of the nations is brought to be healed. But the words of the healing itself must be considered. It is not said to the paralytic, “Be healthy”; it is not said, “Rise and walk”; but it is said: “Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven you.” In one Adam sins are forgiven to all the nations. So he is brought to be healed by angels ministering; he is called son because he is God’s first work; to him the sins of the soul are forgiven, and the indulgence of the first transgression comes from pardon. For we have not received that the paralytic had sinned at all: especially since in another place the same Lord said that blindness from birth had not been contracted from sin, either his own or his father’s. Then the order of truth follows in the events, though the image of the future is fulfilled in the words. It troubles the scribes that sin was forgiven by a man: for they saw in Jesus Christ only a man. And it was forgiven by him, which the law could not loosen; for faith alone justifies. Then the Lord looks into their murmuring and says that it is easy for the Son of Man to forgive sins on earth. For truly no one can forgive sins but God alone: therefore he who forgives is God. Since no one forgives but God, God remaining in a man was supplying healing to a man; and there was no difficulty in doing and speaking for him in whom lies the whole power of what he says. Moreover, so that it might be understood that he, placed in the body, both forgives sins to souls and supplies resurrection to bodies, he says: “That you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, he says to the paralytic: Rise and take up your bed.” It would have been enough to have said “Rise”; but since the whole reason of the work to be accomplished had to be unfolded, he added: “Take up your bed and go into your house.” First he granted forgiveness of sin; then he showed the power of resurrection; then, by the taking up of the bed, he taught that weakness and pain will be absent from bodies; finally, by the return to his own house, that the way into paradise is to be given back to believers, from which Adam, the parent of all, dissolved by the stain of sin, had gone out. “When the crowds saw it, they were afraid.” Wonder rather than fear ought to have followed this work; but the order of the mystery still remains, so that the image of the future is added to the truth of the present: the crowds fear the power of the Lord’s words and deeds. For it is a matter of great fear to be dissolved in death without sins forgiven by Christ, because there is no return into the eternal home for anyone to whom pardon of offenses has not been granted. “And they glorified God, who had given such power to men.” All things have been concluded in their order, and, the fear of despair now ceasing, honor is rendered to God because he has given such power to men: but this was owed to Christ alone; to him alone, from communion in the Father’s substance, it was natural to do these things. So it is not this that comes into wonder, that he could do these things (for what will God not be believed able to do?); otherwise the praise would have been about one man, not many; but the cause of the honor brought to God is that power and a way have been given to men through his word, of forgiveness of sins, of resurrection of bodies, and of return to heaven.

“And as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and said to him: Follow me,” and the rest. He commands Matthew the tax collector, sitting at the tax office, to follow him. And going into his house, he prepares a banquet, and a crowd of tax collectors and sinners reclines at table with him; the Pharisees rebuke the disciples, asking why their teacher eats with tax collectors. He answers them that the healthy have no need of a physician, but the sick need healing; and he commands them to go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy rather than sacrifice.” The name of tax collectors comes from their way of life: they abandoned the works of the law and preferred to conduct themselves by common and public custom. So the Lord called Matthew out of his house, that is, out of the sins of the body, and entering his mind he reclines there. For this is the same man who is the writer of this Gospel; and, going out of the house of his sin, he himself received the Lord, enlightened by his indwelling within, and within him a banquet of gospel foods is prepared in rich abundance for sinners and tax collectors. Then rivalry stirs the Jews, that the Lord shares with tax collectors and sinners. To them he brought out the words of the law, covered over by the veil of their unbelief: that he brings help to the sick and gives medicine to those in need; but for those who thought themselves healthy no healing was necessary. But so that they might understand that none of them was healthy, he warned them to learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”: namely, that the law, bound to the observance of sacrifices, could not bring help, but that salvation for all is reserved in the indulgence of mercy. “For I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” He had come for all; how, then, does he say that he has not come for the righteous? Were there, then, some for whom it was not necessary that he should come? But no one is righteous from the law. He shows, then, that the boasting of righteousness is empty: because, the sacrifices being powerless for salvation, mercy was necessary for all placed under the law. For if righteousness had been from the law, pardon through grace would not have been necessary. “Then the disciples of John came to him, saying: Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” The Pharisees and John’s disciples fasted, and the apostles did not fast. But he answers them spiritually and shows himself to John’s disciples as the bridegroom. For John pledged that all the hope of life was stored in Christ; and his disciples could not yet be received by the Lord while he was still preaching. For the law and the prophets are until him; and, unless the law were ended, none of them would pass into the gospel faith. That he answers that his disciples have no need of fasting while the bridegroom is present teaches the joy of his presence and the mystery of the holy food, of which no one will be in need while he is present, that is, while holding Christ in the sight of the mind. But he says that when he is taken away they will fast: because all who do not believe that Christ has risen would not have the food of life. For in faith in the resurrection the mystery of the heavenly bread is received; and whoever is without Christ will be left in a fast from the food of life. And so that they might understand that these perfect mysteries of salvation could not be entrusted to them, set as they were in old things, he set out the example of a comparison. Unshrunk cloth is not sewn onto an old garment, because the strength of the raw patch would tear apart the weakness of the old; and new wine is not poured into old wineskins, for the heat of the fermenting must bursts old wineskins: that is, souls and bodies weakened by the age of sins do not hold the mysteries of new grace. For the tear will become worse, and, the wine spilled, the old wineskins will perish. For the guilt of such will be double, if, besides the age of their sins, they do not bear the power of the new grace: and so both the Pharisees and John’s disciples would not receive new things unless they became new. “While he was saying these things, behold, a ruler came and worshiped him, saying: Lord, my daughter has just died; come and lay your hand on her,” and so on. The ruler’s prayers, the woman’s faith, the gathering of the crowd in the house, the cry of the two blind men, and the bringing of the dumb, deaf, and demon-possessed man hold, from what was said above, an order of understanding connected with itself. This ruler is understood to be the law, which prays to the Lord for the people whom it had nourished, by preaching Christ, with the expectation of his coming, that he may give life back to the dead girl. For we read that no ruler believed: so the person of this ruler who prays will rightly be fitted to the figure of the law. To him the Lord promised help, and he set out to give it. But first the crowd of sinners is saved together with the apostles. And although the elect, who were destined from the law, ought first to have lived, yet before them, in the figure of the woman, salvation is given to tax collectors and sinners. So she, meeting the Lord as he passes by, trusts that by the touch of his garment she will be healed of her flow of blood: polluted, that is, by the filth of her body and dissolved by the uncleanness of inner vice, she hastens by faith to touch the fringe of the garment, that is, to touch, in company with the apostles, the gift of the Holy Spirit going out from the body of Christ like a fringe; and she is at once made whole. So health was given to one while it was being brought to another. And the Lord at once praised her constancy too: because the people of the nations seized what was being prepared for Israel. In the simple understanding, too, there is great wonder at the Lord’s power: since the power remaining within the body added the efficacy of health to perishable things, and the divine working went out even to the fringes of his garments. For God was not divisible and containable, so as to be shut in by a body. For he himself divides gifts in the Spirit, but is not divided in the gifts. Faith attains his power everywhere, because he is everywhere and absent nowhere. And the assumption of the body did not enclose the nature of the power; rather, the Power took up the frailty of the body for its redemption: a Power so infinite and so free that the working of human salvation was contained even in its fringes. Then the Lord enters the ruler’s house, that is, the synagogue, in which, in the songs of the law, a hymn of mourning was sounding; and he is mocked by many. For they never believed God to be in a man; rather, they laughed at the preaching of the resurrection from the dead. So he took the girl by the hand, whose death was sleep in his sight, and drew her back to life. And so that it might be understood that the number of the elect who believe from the law is small, the whole crowd was put out: which the Lord would certainly have wished to be saved; but, by mocking his words and deeds, it was not worthy of fellowship in the resurrection. “And the report went out into all that land”: after the salvation of the elect, the gift and works of Christ are proclaimed. So as the Lord goes out, two blind men at once follow. But how could the blind know both of the Lord’s going out and his name? And they even call him Son of David and ask to be saved. In the two blind men the reason of the whole preceding prefiguration is completed. For the ruler’s daughter is shown to be from these, namely the Pharisees and John’s disciples, who had already, above, tested the Lord together. To these, not knowing from whom they should seek salvation, the law pointed him out and showed them their Savior in the body, of the line of David; and on those blind from ancient sin, because they did not see Christ unless they were reminded, he placed the light of the mind. To them the Lord, showing that faith is not to be expected from health but health through faith (for the blind saw because they had believed, not believed because they had seen; from which it must be understood that what is asked for is to be earned by faith, not faith taken up from what has been obtained), promises sight if they believed, gives it to them as they believe, and commands silence, because preaching belonged properly to the apostles. And after this, in the dumb and deaf and demon-possessed man, the people of the nations, in need of complete salvation, is brought. For, beset on every side by all evils, it was entangled in the vices of the whole body. And in this the order of events was kept. For the demon is cast out first, and then the other offices of the body follow. For when the madness of all superstitions has been put to flight by the knowledge of God, sight, hearing, and the speech of salvation are brought in. Wonder at this deed was followed by this confession of the crowd: “Nothing like this has ever appeared in Israel”: since one whom the law could give no help was saved by the power of the word, and since a dumb and deaf man spoke the praises of God. And when salvation has been given to the nations, all the cities and all the villages are enlightened by the power and entry of Christ and escape every weakness of the old sickness.