According to some, the sixth age of the world began in Christ Jesus from his Nativity, which occurred in the forty-second year of the rule of Augustus Octavian and in the 5,199th year from the beginning of the world according to the Septuagint and Bede, but in the 3,865th year according to the Hebrews and Jerome.
According to others, the sixth age of the world begins from Christ’s baptism, because at that time regenerative power was bestowed upon the waters in baptism. According to others, it begins with his Passion, when the door of paradise was opened.
Both his baptism and Passion occurred under the emperor Tiberius, Octavian’s immediate successor.
Our Lord Jesus, having assumed flesh, descended from the royal and priestly tribes through patriarchs, priests, and kings. He is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek and a high priest of the good things to come, entering the Holy of Holies by his own blood; and he is King of kings and Lord of lords, as is said in the Apocalypse.
In him the Christian empire and the supreme pontificate have their origin and true foundation, as is said in Distinction 10, chapter Quoniam idem mediator, in the text and gloss.
Just as there are two great lights in the firmament, the greater sun and the lesser moon, so in Christ the pontificate was established as the greater light and the empire as the moon. As the moon is illuminated by the sun, so the empire is instructed and directed by the priesthood, as is stated in Distinction 96, chapter Duo sunt.
In this chapter, therefore, Christ’s life and miracles will be treated according to the Evangelists’ narration, with their chapters cited, and afterward the supreme pontiffs, emperors, and notable deeds of their times.
Our Lord Jesus was born from the Virgin Mary on Sunday, as Vincent says in the Historical Mirror. On that day light arose for those dwelling in the region of the shadow of death, as Isaiah 9 says. On that day God said at the beginning of the world, “Let there be light,” and light was made, as is stated in Genesis 1.
For as Pope Leo says, “On this day, namely Sunday, the world took its beginning, death received its destruction, and life received its beginning,” namely through the Resurrection, as is found in Distinction 75, chapter Quo die.
Every creature, even heavenly creation, marvels at this mystery, Jerome says. The oracles of the prophets and predictions of the Sibyls foretold it.
For it is said in Jeremiah: “The Lord will make a new thing upon the earth: a woman shall encompass a man.” It is indeed new beyond all novelties that Mary should encompass in the womb, by conceiving, a man perfect in every grace and glory, receiving him not from a human source but from the Holy Spirit.
Isaiah 66 also says: “Before she was in labor, she gave birth; before her delivery came, she bore a male. Who ever heard such a thing, and who saw anything like it?”—as though to say, no one.
For before Mary labored, before the doorway of her modesty was opened—which was never opened but was always closed forever, like the gate in the Lord’s house through which the Lord alone entered and went out, as the prophet Ezekiel saw in spirit and foretold—Mary bore her firstborn son with the seal of her virginity preserved, just as, when risen, he came forth from the closed tomb with the priestly seal preserved.
Who heard or saw anything like this? Certainly no one. Bernard says that in this mystery things were joined together: God and man, mother and virgin, faith and the human heart. There never was and never will be anything similar.
Hence Maximus says in a sermon on the Nativity: “Our fathers indeed saw marvelous and innumerable works of God. Heaven rained angelic foods for them; the hardest rock supplied sweet drinks; the strongest wall of their enemies fell at the blare of trumpets; the river Jordan turned its perpetual course back toward its source; and the sun, having delayed in heaven, granted victory to the people fighting.”
“But it was granted to none of them to see this: that the Only-Begotten of the Most High, whom the trembling powers of the archangels receive, would show himself to human beings as a human being.” Thus Maximus.
“All these things happened to them in a figure,” as 1 Corinthians 10 says. Because light is more excellent than shadow and truth than figure, if that which you admire is the shadow, how much more must that of which it is the shadow be admired? Thus Ambrose, in On Consecration, Distinction 2, chapter Revera.
The aforesaid marvels prefigured the marvels accomplished through Christ’s Nativity. God gave the human race from heaven the dew of divinity and an abundance of every perfection from the richness of the earth, that is, from Christ’s human nature.
The rock, which is the most steadfast Christ, offered the people sweet drinks of doctrines and sacraments. At the trumpet of the apostles’ preaching, which went out into all the earth to announce this mystery, the walls of vices fell.
The Jordan of the sensitive power, which flows downward toward things to be desired and toward death, turned itself back toward seeking higher things and life. The Sun of Justice, delayed in the airy heaven upon the cross, triumphed against the powers of the air.
“This is the day the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it,” says the Psalmist. Ambrose expounds this concerning Christ’s Nativity: “For human nature assumed by the Word is wholly day, knowing neither the sunset of sin nor the darkness of ignorance. The Lord Trinity made that day—that flesh and soul and their union with the Word.”
“Therefore, let us exult in body by singing praises and psalms; let us rejoice by exulting in mind.” Hence Pope Leo also says in a sermon: “Our Savior is born today; let us rejoice. No one is excluded from the gladness of this day. Let the just person exult because he is invited to the palm; let the sinner rejoice because he is called to pardon; let the Gentile take courage because he is summoned to life.”
Hence Faustus says in a sermon on the Nativity: “Lead forth, faithful people, your most festive joys, for today a new thing which was once promised has been completed for us. The Maker of the world enters the narrowness of a human womb. An untouched mother becomes pregnant, and behold, like a bridegroom from his chamber, Christ proceeds from Mary’s womb.”
“O new and unheard-of mingling! O marvelous and unsearchable joining! God and man, Word and flesh, are united. No created intellect and no science can grasp so ineffable a mystery.”
As another says: “Nature does not possess it; experience does not know it; reason does not comprehend it; the mind does not grasp it; speech is silent; talent grows dull; earth is astonished; heaven trembles; creation marvels; all things keep a profound silence, and on this day they are fulfilled.”
Alan says in the Anticlaudianus:
The force of logic is banished; all judgment of rhetoric perishes, and reason totters, so that night shines and the sun grows dark in eclipse. The true Sun grows weak so that he may lead the stars back to their rising. The physician falls sick that he may heal the diseased patient. Heaven joins itself in covenant with earth: cedar with hyssop, the giant himself with the smallest, king with servant, rich man with pauper, purple with sackcloth.
Thus Alan.
Likewise another says:
Heaven is enclosed in a potsherd; the world is held in a fist. The sphere is encircled by its center; the circle lies in its center. The stream exceeds its source; the potter comes forth from the vessel. The eternal Sun is obscured; light and life are darkened. He who bears every creature is borne; he who bears the care of all is governed. The diameter of the infinite joins itself to a parallel side. The Word becomes an infant of a girl and is silent; standing above, he lies below; he is silent and thunders in the clouds.
Thus he.
§ I. The Gospel Narratives Begin
Matthew describes the genealogy of Christ’s generation according to his humanity at the beginning of his Gospel, beginning it with Abraham and ending it with Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom Christ was born.
John the Evangelist, however, began his Gospel from Christ’s eternal generation according to divinity, saying, “In the beginning was the Word,” and from there descended to his temporal generation according to humanity, saying, “And the Word was made flesh.”
Luke begins his Gospel from the conception of Christ’s precursor, namely John the Baptist. It was announced to his father Zechariah in the temple by the archangel Gabriel on the Feast of Propitiation, when entry was made into the Holy of Holies.
Gabriel foretold John’s name, his sanctification in the womb, the austerity of his life, and his office of preaching. Because Zechariah doubted and asked for a sign, he received a sign by being made mute until John’s birth.
After Zechariah returned to his home, his barren wife Elizabeth conceived John the Baptist by him.
Note that Zechariah was chosen by lot to place incense in the temple. From this it cannot be argued that lots are lawful. For as Master Gratian says in Cause 26, Question 1, chapter His ita: “Before the Gospel became clear, many things were permitted which, in the time of a more perfect one, as of Zechariah or of blood relations, was prohibited neither by legal nor by evangelical or apostolic authority. It is nevertheless forbidden by ecclesiastical law.”
Thus the use of lots was permitted in the Old Testament, as is evident there, but lots were prohibited by the Church lest the faithful return to the rites of idolatry under the appearance of divination, especially in ecclesiastical elections.
In the sixth month after John’s conception, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to Nazareth, a city of Galilee, to the Virgin Mary betrothed to Joseph.
When Mary was terrified by the angel’s greeting, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you,” and so forth, the angel comforted her and announced that she would conceive the Son of the Most High.
The Virgin asked him, not because she doubted the word announced to her as Zechariah had, but so that she might hear the manner of this conception, for she said, “I do not know a man”—that is, “I have resolved that I shall not know one,” as is expounded in Cause 27, Question 2, section 1.
The angel answered by explaining the manner: she would conceive not by human seed, but through the operation of the Holy Spirit. He adduced as an example the conception of the barren Elizabeth, which had been hidden from Mary, not to make her believe as though she had been doubtful, but to heap joy upon joy and to make the young woman think of service to the old woman, namely at Elizabeth’s delivery.
Then, when Mary said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word,” in that moment the Word was made flesh. From the Virgin Mary—that is, from her purest blood—the matter of Christ’s body was formed and at once distinguished into the lineaments of all its members. A soul newly created by God was infused into that body and united to the Godhead, filled with all grace, wisdom, and glory. All these things occurred together in an instant.
After conceiving, Mary arose and went into the hill country to Zechariah’s house. When she greeted Elizabeth, the infant John leapt miraculously in Elizabeth’s womb. With his use of reason hastened, as is said, he recognized the Savior’s advent in the Virgin’s womb and revered him. He was then sanctified from original sin, that is, cleansed.
Elizabeth, too, through a revelation made to her concerning the Word of God conceived in the Virgin, exclaimed that this merit and grace had befallen her: that the mother of the Lord had come to visit her. The most blessed Virgin, seeing that the mystery hidden from everyone was now being made manifest, was filled with a fervent spirit and poured herself out in incomprehensible thanksgiving, singing that most devout canticle, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” and so forth.
Mary remained with Elizabeth for three months, namely until John’s birth, which, as is piously said, she awaited. When Elizabeth then gave birth to John, all her neighbors and relatives rejoiced with her. On the eighth day they came for the child’s circumcision. Although he had been cleansed from original sin through sanctification in the womb, it was nevertheless fitting that he should be circumcised so as to conform to the others of that people.
A pious dispute arose between his relatives and his mother about the imposition of a name. His mother wished him to be called John, but the others refused and sought to give him another name. When they approached his father Zechariah for a decision, he asked by a sign for a writing tablet and wrote, “John is his name.” Immediately the mouth of him who had been mute was opened, and he prophesied, declaring the mystery of the Incarnation that had until then been secret and saying, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,” and so forth. Everyone marveled at this, and it was reported throughout the region.
After John was born, Mary returned to her own home, and Joseph perceived that Mary, his betrothed, was pregnant. Since he was just and knew that he had not known her, yet did not wish to expose her—that is, to accuse her, according to Augustine in Cause 2, Question 1, chapter Si peccaverit—and since he did not believe that one so holy and chaste had committed adultery, he resolved to dismiss her.
But an angel revealed to him in a dream that he should not fear to receive her, because she had conceived by the Holy Spirit a son whom he was to call Jesus, because he would save the people. “Do not fear to receive Mary your wife.” Chrysostom explains “receive” as “retain in your house.” He already had her at home according to the ancient custom by which betrothed women were kept in their spouses’ homes with all chastity, but he had already dismissed her in his mind. This is found in Cause 27, Question 2, chapter Priusquam.
“Your wife,” Origen explains, means: “the woman betrothed to you, whom I nevertheless call your wife—not because of a union accomplished or yet to come with you, but so that I may conceal her virginity from the devil and not destroy the institutions of the law.” This is found in Cause 27, Question 2, chapter Inventam.
Gregory says: “The Lord wished Mary to have a betrothed before his birth, although he did not attain to marriage with her. For just as the disciple Thomas, by doubting and touching, became a witness of the true Resurrection, so Joseph, Mary’s betrothed, became the guardian of her wholly inviolate virginity.” This is found in Cause 27, Question 2, chapter Sic quippe.
§ II. Christ’s Nativity, Circumcision, and Presentation
When a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that is, Octavian, that the whole world should be enrolled, this meant those who were subject to the Roman Empire, for the whole world without qualification was never subject to anyone. The decree ordered everyone to go to the city from which he drew his origin, so that each might be enrolled there and pay a silver denarius in acknowledgment of subjection to the emperor.
Mary and her betrothed Joseph, to provide an example of obedience to superiors even when they are pagans, went from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the little city from which David had arisen and from whom they themselves were descended. Because many people had gathered there and, being poor, they found no house to receive them, they entered a certain lodging place: not a habitable dwelling, but a place to which people resorted in rainy weather or to converse together.
There, at about midnight on Sunday, Mary gave birth—not with pain like other women, but with supreme joy incomprehensible to us—in accordance with Isaiah’s words, “Budding, it shall bud with rejoicing and praise.” Just as the earth produces plants without being opened, so she bore her firstborn son: not one after whom other sons were born, but one before whom there was none, that is, her only-begotten. Immediately after bearing him, she adored him.
There was no midwife there, no maidservant, and no nurse, as Jerome says. The Virgin alone suckled him at a breast full from heaven. She wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger between an ox and an ass, as is commonly said. This agrees with Abachuc 3: “In the midst of two animals you shall be made known.” The newborn child was warmed by the animals’ warm breath.
An angel of the Lord appeared with a great light to shepherds keeping watch over their flocks in that region and announced the birth of the Savior of the world. At this there was heard a multitude of the heavenly army with him, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest,” and so forth.
Speaking to one another, the shepherds said, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this word that has come to pass, which the Lord has made and shown to us.” They came in haste and saw the infant with his mother. Nor is Joseph believed to have been absent, since he enjoyed so great a mystery of the newborn child. After adoring him, the shepherds returned to their own affairs, glorifying God and spreading word of what had happened.
Mary preserved all these words, pondering them in her heart. As Bede says, she compared what she knew the prophets had foretold about the Son of God and her son with the things she saw fulfilled in him each day. She committed them to memory so that, at the proper time, she might disclose them to the apostles and evangelists who had not been present at these events.
On the eighth day after his birth the child was circumcised, and his name was called Jesus. Here Gratian says, in Cause 25, Question 1, final section, that Christ both gave the law and himself fulfilled it carnally: he was circumcised on the eighth day and presented in the temple on the fortieth, so that in his own person he might sanctify it. Later, to show himself Lord of the law, he cleansed a leper by touching him, contrary to the letter of the law. Many reasons are assigned for his circumcision, although he had no need of it, but this is not the place to discuss them. Thus Luke.
§ III. The Magi and the Presentation in the Temple
On the thirteenth day after his birth the Magi—that is, wise men foremost in astrology and kings—came from the East to Jerusalem, led by a star that had appeared to them either on the very day of the Nativity, as is commonly said, or on that same date in the preceding year. Believing that a child so excellent, whose birth had been revealed to them, had been born there, they asked, “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?”
When Herod, king of Judea, heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. He gathered those learned in the law and asked them about the birthplace sought by the Magi. When it was explained to him from Micah’s prophecy that it was Bethlehem—“And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,” and so forth—he pointed out the place to the Magi and urged them to make the child known to him when they had found him. He pretended that he wished to adore the one whom he intended to kill.
After leaving Jerusalem, they saw again the star whose sight they had lost upon entering the city. The star went before them until it reached the place where the child had been born and stood still there. From this they recognized that the child whom they found with his mother Mary was true God, and they adored him. Each offered gifts—there are said to have been three of them, Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior—of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
According to Bernard, the gold was for relief of poverty, the frankincense to remove the stable’s stench, and the myrrh to strengthen the child’s limbs. According to Leo, gold signified royal power, frankincense divine majesty, and myrrh his mortality. By these gifts they professed what they believed about him; or they honored him as the author of all philosophy or wisdom, which is divided into natural, moral, and rational philosophy, according to Gratian in Distinction 37.
After adoring him, they were warned in dreams not to return to Herod and went back to their own country by another road. Augustine says that interpreters of the stars—that is, of the constellations under which people are born—were then called Magi but are now called mathematicians. We read in the Gospel of those who announced Christ’s birth; knowledge of their art was permitted until Christ, so that after Christ appeared no one should thereafter interpret any person’s birth from the heavens. This is found in Cause 26, Question 3, chapter Igitur genus.
On the fortieth day Christ was presented in the temple by Mary and Joseph according to the law of purification. A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons were offered for him in sacrifice, and he was redeemed for five silver shekels. The aged Simeon recognized the Savior when he was presented in the temple, took him in his arms, blessed God, and said, “Now you dismiss,” and so forth. Restoring him to his mother, Simeon prophesied concerning him: “Behold, this child is set for the fall,” and so forth, and that the sword of his Passion would pierce her soul.
Anna the prophetess, who was eighty-three years old and remained continually in the temple, also recognized him and made him known to others. Faithful women still observe this custom by not entering a church for forty days after giving birth. They do this not because it was commanded in the Old Law, for that would be to Judaize, but from a certain reverence toward the church. Yet, as Gregory says in Distinction 5, if a woman wishes to enter a church in the very hour in which she has given birth—not in contempt, but to give thanks to God—she must not be prohibited.
§ IV. Herod and the Holy Innocents
When the Magi told Herod nothing about the child they had found, at first he thought that they had been deceived and had not found him and therefore were ashamed to return to him or send a messenger. But afterward he heard the reports about the newborn King of the Jews increase through the words of the shepherds, Simeon, and Anna the prophetess. Thinking that the Magi had deliberately concealed the child they had found, and seeing that they had mocked him, he became exceedingly angry and began to devise a way of killing the child Jesus.
While he was arranging the children’s slaughter, however, Caesar Augustus summoned him by letter to go to Rome and answer the accusation of his sons, as the Historian says. While traveling, Herod learned that the Magi had crossed in ships of Tarshish, and he had those ships burned, in accordance with the words, “With a vehement spirit you shall shatter the ships of Tarshish.”
When father and sons had argued their case before Augustus, they were reconciled on the condition that the sons should honor their father and remain subject to him, while he could dispose of the kingdom as he pleased. Returning to Judea, Herod informed the people that by Augustus’s decree he had been constituted judge concerning his successor to the kingdom.
And, as is said, lest Herod himself, ignoble and alien to the Israelite stock, should be regarded as a foreigner, he had all the books in which the nobility of lineage was recorded and preserved in the temple burned, so that when the proofs were gone he might appear to belong to that lineage. To mingle his offspring with the royal family of the Jews, he cast off his wife Doside and married Mariagnem, the granddaughter of Aristobulus and daughter of Hyrcanus.
After returning from the aforesaid victory, he became bolder and ordered the cruel plan for slaughtering the children, intended to reach Christ, to be carried out, as the Historian says. Sending men into Bethlehem and all its territory, he had all that region’s children two years old and under—meaning from two years of age down to one day old—gathered, as can be imagined, into one place and brought by their mothers or nurses under the pretext of some work of piety and munificence.
A year had already passed since the Magi’s adoration, because Herod had been occupied with his journey to Rome; and it was thought that so royal a child, King of the Jews, would be more beautiful and larger than the rest. Herod therefore sought to include him among all those killed.
Thus very many little children were killed for Christ and became and were called martyrs. They bore witness not by speaking but by dying. Their number is unknown. For when the Apocalypse text sung in their office to their praise says, “One hundred and forty-four thousand, having the Lamb’s name written on their foreheads,” a definite number is there put for an indefinite one, comprehending under it the great mystery of the elect. It is not said that their precise number was this.
Before the Innocents were killed, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Take the child and his mother and flee into Egypt, because Herod will seek the child to destroy him.” Rising by night, Joseph went to Egypt with the mother and child.
When Jesus entered Egypt, as the Historian says, just as at Israel’s departure from Egypt there was no house in which the firstborn had not died, so at Jesus’s entrance into Egypt there was no temple in which an idol did not fall. This accorded with the prophetic words of Isaiah 19: “Behold, the Lord will ascend upon a light cloud”—that is, the Virgin, who knew neither the burdens of marriage nor those of any sin—“and will enter Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall fall.” The Lord is said to have remained there for seven years.
Here Augustine says: “Let Christ’s minister flee, as Christ fled into Egypt from Herod’s face. Let him who is specially sought flee, while the Church’s safety remains firm through others.” This is found in Cause 7, Question 1, section Hoc tunc, after chapter Adversitas.
After Herod later died, an angel of the Lord told Joseph in a dream to return with the mother and child to the land of Israel, because those who sought to take the child’s soul—that is, his life—were dead. Upon returning, Joseph heard that Archelaus, Herod’s son, reigned in Judea in place of his father, and he was afraid to go there. He withdrew into the province of Galilee and dwelt in the city of Nazareth with Mary and the little child.
§ V. Christ at Twelve Years and John the Baptist
When Jesus had reached twelve years of age, Mary and Joseph went up to the temple in Jerusalem for the feast according to the law’s command, and the child Jesus went with them. Laypeople remained in the temple’s porticoes, although the men were separate from the women. It may piously be believed that Mary wished Jesus to follow her, but while she was withdrawn from sensible things in prayer and did not notice, the child Jesus removed himself from her presence.
Coming back to herself and not seeing the child with her, she supposed that he had gone to Joseph, for children were permitted to travel and remain with either their male or female relatives. When Mary and Joseph met each other as they left the temple and neither had Jesus, they thought he was in the company of their other relatives. After searching among them for a day without finding him, they began to grieve, fearing that he might have fallen into Archelaus’s hands or had abandoned them for some other reason.
They therefore returned to Jerusalem and, after three days, found him in the temple—that is, in the temple’s portico, where the doctors taught—sitting in their midst and questioning them, while everyone marveled at his words. It may piously be imagined that he was discussing the Messiah’s advent.
His most blessed mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Behold, I and your father”—that is, his putative or nurturing father—“have sought you sorrowing.” He answered them, “Why is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in the things that are my Father’s?” They did not understand.
He then went down with them to Nazareth and was subject to them. Jesus advanced in age, wisdom, and grace. This is not to be understood as an advance in the habit of wisdom or grace, for he possessed their fullness from the beginning of his conception, but as an advance in the act of outward manifestation, since he performed works demonstrating ever greater wisdom and grace.
Here Gratian says in Distinction 36, section Ecce quod sacrarum: “Our Savior first sat in the temple among the doctors, listening to and questioning them, and afterward began to preach, because one must first learn and afterward assume the office of preaching.”
Nothing else about the Lord Jesus’s infancy and childhood is found in the Gospels besides what has been stated. Certain other things are found in the book On the Savior’s Infancy, but because that book is placed among the apocrypha in Distinction 16, chapter Sancta Romana, those things are omitted as doubtful in their truth. Nowhere is it recorded what he did or where he lived in his adolescence up to the thirtieth year of his age. In Distinction 78, chapter Presbyter, it is said that the Lord Jesus was baptized at age thirty and began to preach.
Mark the Evangelist begins his Gospel from John the Baptist’s preaching, saying that Malachi had prophesied concerning John, “Behold, I send my angel”—that is, John—and Isaiah had said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness.” Luke says that John’s preaching began in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Octavian’s successor, when Pontius Pilate governed Judea as the emperor’s representative there, Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and Annas and Caiaphas were high priests.
All the evangelists attest John’s preaching and baptism. Matthew and Mark describe the austerity of his food and clothing: he ate locusts and wild honey—some understand “locusts” as certain roots of herbs—and his garment was made of camel hair.
Matthew gives his preaching in general: he told everyone, “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.” He also records John’s rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees: “Brood of vipers,” and so forth. Luke relates the different instructions he gave to the crowds, publicans, and soldiers who came to him.
Thus Ambrose says: “The holy Baptist gave a reply appropriate to each class of people. He told publicans not to exact beyond what was prescribed, and he taught soldiers not to make false accusations; they seek plunder, showing that military stipends were established lest, while expenses are sought, the robber be enlarged.”
The exercise of mercy is common to all and is therefore a common precept. Everyone alike is moved to give to one who has nothing. This is found in Distinction 86, chapter In singulis. By the second tunic, superfluity is understood. Note also what is said about stipend-receivers and officials in Cause 23, Question 1, chapter Militare.
Mark says that John baptized and preached a baptism of penance for the remission of sins, and that many were baptized by him in the Jordan while confessing their sins. John the Evangelist says that when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him whether he was the Christ, as many believed, he affirmed that he was neither the Christ nor Elijah nor the prophet, but the voice crying in the wilderness foretold by Isaiah.
He explained why he baptized: he baptized in water specifically to dispose people to penance, but after him would come the one who baptized inwardly, namely Christ. He was also told that a sign would be given to him by which to recognize Christ.
Matthew relates more explicitly that Christ approached John while John was baptizing people in the Jordan and asked to be baptized by him. When John refused out of humility, saying, “I ought to be baptized by you,” Christ commanded him, “Thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all justice,” that is, the most perfect humility.
John then baptized him. In that act he saw the heavens opened and a dove—that is, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove—descending upon Christ, and he heard the Father’s voice thunder, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Mark relates the same very briefly.
Luke also adds Christ’s age then: he was beginning to be about thirty years old and was thought to be the son of Joseph, who was of Heli, and so forth. By ascending he sets out seventy-seven generations from which Christ was descended as far as Adam, touching upon profound mysteries that are not to be explained here.
Note that on January 6, the Epiphany, the thirteenth day after his birth, Christ was adored by the Magi. After thirty years had passed, he was baptized by John the Baptist on the same date. After another year had passed, on that same day he performed the first of his signs at the wedding, changing water into wine. The Church sings this firmly. According to Bede, in the following year, on the same date, he fed five thousand men from five loaves and two fish.
§ VI. The First Disciples and Early Ministry
The next day, John was standing with his disciples near the Jordan. Seeing Christ pass by, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Upon hearing this, two of his disciples followed Christ, one of whom was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. They approached with him the house of his dwelling, namely Christ’s, and remained with him that day. Andrew found his brother Simon and told him that he had found the Messiah; then he brought him to Christ. Christ first said to him, “You are Simon Bariona”; then, “You shall be called Cephas,” which is interpreted Peter.
The following day, while walking through Galilee, Jesus found Philip and said to him, “Follow me,” which Philip did. Philip afterward found Nathanael, a man learned in the law, told him that he had found the Messiah, and led him to Jesus. Jesus praised him highly, saying, “Behold a true Israelite in whom there is no guile.”
When Nathanael asked how Jesus knew him, Jesus answered, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I knew you.” Nathanael then confessed him to be the Messiah, saying, “You are the Son of God,” and so forth. Christ said that they would see angels ascending and descending over him.
When Jesus heard that John had been imprisoned by Herod, he withdrew into Galilee and came to Capernaum. He began to preach, saying, “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near,” according to Matthew, so that what had been spoken by Isaiah might be fulfilled: “The people of the nations who walked in darkness saw a great light,” and so forth, namely the light of Christ’s doctrine.
Walking beside the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers, Andrew and Peter, who were fishermen, and called them. Leaving everything, they followed him. Then he saw two other brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, mending their nets with their father. He called them, and they left their father and their nets and followed him.
They nevertheless returned to their own affairs. Later, on another occasion, after they had fished all night and caught nothing, Christ preached from Simon’s boat near the shore. At Christ’s command Simon Peter let down his net and enclosed so great a multitude of fish that they filled both his own little boat and those of his partners John and James. After seeing this miracle they followed Christ wholly from then on. The Historian, however, places this last calling second and the second calling just described third.
Ambrose says that Peter alone was told, “Lead the boat into the deep,” that is, into the depth of disputations. For what is so deep as to see the depth of the riches, know the Son of God, and take up the confession of divine generation? Although the human mind cannot comprehend it fully through rational investigation, the fullness of faith embraces it. This is found in Cause 24, Question 1, chapter Non turbatur.
Jesus went throughout all Galilee, preaching and healing all the sick who were brought to him from every place.
At the wedding celebrated at Cana of Galilee, which is commonly said to have been that of John the Evangelist, the Virgin Mary attended as a relative, and Jesus was invited with his disciples. There he changed water into wine, and his disciples believed in him, that is, were more firmly established in the faith. John, without consummating the marriage, followed Christ as a virgin.
Jesus then went to Nazareth and entered the synagogue. The book of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and opening it he read the first passage he encountered: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me and sent me to evangelize,” and so forth, from Isaiah 61. When he had read it, he said that it was then fulfilled. Thus Luke.
Luke also relates that the Pharisees said, “Do here in your own country the many things we have heard were done in Capernaum.” He did not do so but introduced the examples of Elisha and Elijah performing miracles for foreigners rather than Israelites because of the Israelites’ unbelief. Angered, they led him to the brow of the hill to cast him down, but he escaped.
Jesus afterward called Matthew as he stood at the tollbooth, saying, “Follow me,” and Matthew followed him. Matthew gave him a banquet in his house, where many sinners ate with them. When the Pharisees murmured about this to his disciples, Jesus answered that he had come to call sinners, because the healthy have no need of a physician.
§ VII. The Sermon on the Mount
Seeing the crowds, Jesus ascended the mountain. When he sat down, his disciples—that is, the twelve apostles already chosen by him—approached him. He delivered to them a long sermon, which Matthew alone reports continuously over three chapters, setting out the entire life of the Christian religion.
Luke touches upon some of these things, but they are commonly held, according to Augustine, to belong to another sermon that Jesus gave when he came down from the mountain and stood on a level place, where both the disciples and a great crowd of people were gathered around him.
There, after an admonition to love one’s enemies, Christ added, “Give loans, hoping for nothing from them, and your reward shall be great.” From this even mental usury is prohibited, as is clear in the chapter Consuluit of the title On Usury in the Extravagantes, and throughout Cause 14, Question 3. There Christ also urges mercy, saying, “Be merciful,” and so forth. The manner of giving alms is given in Distinction 86, chapter Non satis, and fully in the fourth part under the title On Mercy.
Returning to the sermon delivered on the mountain, Christ first sets down the seven Beatitudes, which, according to Thomas, are acts of the virtues, and their rewards. The one placed eighth is not a distinct Beatitude but a kind of trial and perfection of the others.
Gratian says in Cause 22, Question 4, chapter Ex his omnibus, after chapter Haec autem vita: “In the Old Law a bodily punishment was appointed; in the law of the Gospel pardon of every sin is promised through penance. Hence the former began from terror, saying, ‘I am a jealous God, visiting sins’—that is, punishing them—‘to the third and fourth generation.’ The latter, however, begins from the mildness of gentleness and mercy, saying, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are the meek; blessed are the merciful.’ In the former it is said, ‘Whoever has done this or that shall die the death.’ In the latter, ‘I rejoice over one sinner who does penance,’ and, ‘I came not to call the just but sinners.’ The beginning of the preaching both of the Savior and of his precursor invited sinners to penance, saying, ‘Do penance.’” Thus Gratian.
Christ then shows that prelates ought to be perfect, calling them by similitudes: salt, because of prudence and wisdom; the light of the world, because of the shining example of their lives; a city set upon a mountain, because of their instruction and providence toward subjects; and a burning lamp, because of the eminence of their fervor and reputation. He concludes that whoever teaches and loosens—that is, acts contrary to—God’s commandments shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, meaning no one, according to Gregory.
Among other things Christ says, “I came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it.” Isidore says: “It is just for a prince to obey his own laws, and then let him think that his laws should be observed by everyone when he first shows them reverence.” This is found in Distinction 10.
According to Thomas in the Summa, Christ fulfilled the laws in five ways: first, by observing the legal provisions according to the letter; second, by fulfilling in himself through his works the things that they prefigured; third, by rightly expounding the moral precepts and excluding the scribes’ false understandings; fourth, by perfecting them, that is, by instituting the sacraments of grace; and fifth, by adding counsels to the moral precepts.
Then he invalidated the scribes’ false interpretations of the law, declaring that one must abstain not only from evil outward works but also from evil thoughts. He said, “Unless your justice abounds,” and so forth, and prohibited anger, the appetite of carnal concupiscence, and the bill of divorce.
Chrysostom says: “God judges not only from works but also from thoughts.” This is found in Cause 22, Question 5, chapter Qui periurare, and in On Penance, Distinction 1, chapter Si cui.
Chrysostom also says: “Many strive for chastity in body but commit adultery in their will, since the Lord says, ‘Whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery.’ Therefore the will frequently sins without the work.” This is found in Cause 32, Question 5, chapter Sicut enim. As he says in the same place, a work performed without the will does not make sin; likewise, justice is not perfected by a work unless the will is present.
Ambrose says: “Anger often leads even the innocent into guilt, because when we become angry beyond what is just and wish to restrain the sins of others, we ourselves commit more serious ones.” This is found in Cause 11, Question 3, chapter Ira.
Christ deals with occasions of sin when he says, “If your eye scandalizes you, pluck it out,” and so forth. By the eye understand some object of contemplation, by the hand an action, and by the foot an affection. Or understand by the eye a doctor or counselor, by the hand an administrator, and by the foot a servant. If they scandalize, that is, lead to sin, they must be plucked out, that is, removed, even if they appear necessary.
Jerome says: “Putrid flesh must be cut away; a diseased sheep must be driven from the folds, lest the whole house, lump, body, and flock burn, be corrupted, putrefy, and perish.” This is found in Cause 24, Question 3.
Christ prohibits an unlawful and vain oath when he says not to swear at all, that is, without an urgent cause, either by the Creator or by creatures. Augustine says in Cause 22, Question 1: “The Lord is understood to have commanded that one not swear lest anyone pursue oath-taking as though it were a good, and through habitual swearing be carried by custom into perjury.”
What Christ adds bears upon this: “Let your speech be ‘Yes, yes; no, no’”—that is, simple, truthful speech affirming or denying without an oath, so that what is felt in the heart as yes or no is expressed by the mouth as yes or no, that is, as affirmation or negation. “And whatever is more”—that is, to swear—“is from evil,” namely from the infirmity or unbelief of the person to whom one speaks, because he does not believe what is said.
It is not evil to swear when one ought to do so, but the oath proceeds from the evil of human infirmity, which does not believe a person speaking simply unless he swears. Thus Augustine there. That one must not swear by creatures is treated in the chapter Considera and the four chapters following it.
Christ commands love of enemies, excluding hatred of them from the heart, mouth, and deed, when he says, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall love your friend,’” and so forth. Christ says in the Gospel: “You have heard that it was said in the law”—namely, concerning the mode of vengeance established by the law—“an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I, taking away this reciprocal requital and inviting you to gentleness and the perfection of charity, tell you not to resist evil, but love your enemies,” and so forth.
Every wicked person is an enemy of the good; every friend of this world is an enemy of God. One who is an enemy of God is an enemy of justice and goodness. Gratian says this in Cause 23, Question 4, chapter Haec autem, in the following section. Augustine says: “I exhort you to love your enemies, because I know no medicine more effective for healing the wounds of sinners.”
Christ instructs that alms be given not for show but with sincere intention. There are three kinds of alms. One is corporal: to give the needy whatever you can. Another is spiritual: to forgive the person by whom you have been injured. The third is to correct an offender and lead one who errs back onto the way of truth. Thus Albinus, Distinction 45, chapter Tria.
When Christ says, “Let not your left hand know what your right hand does,” the left hand—that is, an evil intention—must not involve itself in the right hand, that is, in your good work.
He admonishes us to pray in the secret place of the heart and teaches what must be prayed for, forming the Lord’s Prayer with his own mouth. “When you stand at prayer, most beloved brothers, you must keep watch and apply yourselves to prayer with your whole heart. Let every carnal and worldly thought depart, so that at that time the soul thinks of nothing besides the one thing for which it prays. Let the breast be closed against the adversary—that is, let it be open to God alone—lest during prayer it admit God’s enemy to itself.” Thus Cyprian, in On Consecration, Distinction 1, chapter Quando. This is to enter the chamber of the secret heart with the door—that is, the outward senses—closed.
Christ teaches the manner of fasting and that treasures must not be stored up, saying, “When you fast,” and so forth. “When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to people to be fasting,” and so forth.
Fasting must therefore be accompanied by the giving of alms. Hence Gregory says: “What you take away from yourself by fasting, give to the poor.” This is to anoint the head, that is, Christ, with the oil of mercy while removing vices.
Augustine says: “A general fast is to abstain from iniquities.” This is found in On Consecration, Distinction 5. Likewise Pope Pius says: “It avails nothing toward the merit of eternal life to fast and pray and perform other works of religion unless the mind restrains itself from iniquity and the tongue from disparagements.” This is found in On Consecration, Distinction 5. This is to wash the face, that is, the conscience.
Third, a fast must be undertaken with pure intention and discretion. Jerome says: “Let your fasts be pure, continual, and moderate, that is, hunger daily and dine daily. Fasting heals the wounds of the languishing, and sanctifies those who have been healed.” This is found in On Consecration, Distinction 5. This is not to wish to appear to people to be fasting.
“Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth.” Ambrose says: “All the covetous, all the avaricious, possess Gehazi’s leprosy together with their riches. By the evil reward they have acquired, they have gathered for themselves not so much the resources of an inheritance as a treasure of crimes, with eternal punishment and brief enjoyment.” This is found in Cause 1, Question 1, chapter Cum ordinaretur.
Jerome likewise says: “To have received what is to be distributed to the poor, and to reserve it while very many are hungry, is either caution or timidity; or, what is a most manifest crime, to have withheld something from it surpasses the cruelty of every robber.”
That Theban Socrates, once a very rich man, cast away a great weight of gold when he set out to philosophize, nor did he think that he could possess virtues and riches at the same time. Yet we follow Christ loaded down with gold. This is found in Cause 12, Question 2, chapter Gloria.
Ambrose says: “That person truly is the Lord’s treasurer who accomplishes what his blood accomplished,” namely, as gold does, by freeing people from miseries.
“The lamp of your body is your eye,” and so forth, Matthew 6. The eye is the intention; the body is the aggregate of works that are good in themselves. Therefore, if the eye of the intention is simple, namely directed toward God, then the works that follow are also luminous and good. The contrary follows if the intention is evil.
Ambrose says: “It is not enough to do good unless it proceeds from a good source, that is, from a good will and intention.” This is found in Distinction 86, chapter Non satis, and Cause 14, Question 5, chapter Scriptum est.
“All things whatsoever you wish people to do to you, do you also to them,” Matthew 7. Gratian, at the beginning of Distinction 1, shows that this belongs to natural law. The gloss there says that “whatsoever you wish” means what you wish rationally.
“Enter by the narrow gate, because wide is the gate and spacious the way that leads to perdition, and many enter through it,” Matthew 7. The gate through which one goes out onto the road is appetite; the road is the outward work. It is narrow when it accords with reason and consists of virtuous works, because virtue and knowledge concern difficult things.
Adamantius, that is, Origen, says: “Not to sin belongs to God alone; to amend one’s ways belongs to the wise. But rarely will you find someone who corrects himself. Confession of sin is rare, and penance is rare. Nature—that is, sensuality—and shame resist, because all flesh is liable to fault. It weighs present things above future ones, pleasant things above grave ones, joyful things above sorrowful ones, and swift deeds above slower works. Iniquity, which counsels harm, is swift; virtue is slow and delays, judging what is becoming and honorable before it begins, while iniquity rushes everything headlong.” This is found in On Penance, Distinction 3, chapter Inter haec.
The wide gate and way also mean living according to sensuality and doing evil, and this leads many to perdition. Augustine says: “Let sinners not rejoice because they find many like themselves, for they will burn no less because they burn with many.” This is found in Cause 2, Question 1, chapter Multi.
“Do not give what is holy to dogs,” and so forth, Matthew 7. This means that the fellowship of Holy Communion must not readily be given to unclean spirits, namely notorious sinners, according to Ambrose in On Penance, Distinction 1, chapter Hi qui. One must also beware lest the words of preaching or disputation about the more secret matters of faith be disclosed to the unworthy, as Origen says in Distinction 43, chapter In mandatis. Concerning evil persons who prophesy or perform miracles, see Cause 1, Question 1, chapter Prophetavit.
Christ calls people back from excessive and undue solicitude for temporal things, saying, “No one can serve two masters,” that is, God and the world, and concluding, “Seek first the kingdom of God,” and so forth. When the Lord commanded that no thought be taken for tomorrow, he prohibited excessive solicitude, as has been said. This was not commanded so that no money at all would be kept, but so that God would not be served for the sake of temporal things and the way of justice would not be abandoned for fear of poverty. Thus Augustine in Cause 12, Question 1, chapter Habebat.
What Christ adds, “Sufficient for the day is its own evil,” means its own solicitude and labor, which is called evil because it is the evil of punishment and causes affliction. This is found in Cause 14, Question 5, section Sed hoc.
He commands that one not judge, that is, not rashly condemn another person’s offense while being worse oneself, under the likeness of the mote and the beam. “Let us not judge rashly and carelessly in any way without examination,” since the voice of Truth says, “Judge not, that you may not be judged.” Let no one be moved by evils merely heard, nor let anyone ever believe assertions indiscriminately without certain proof.
The Lord’s example is adduced: he did not judge the evils of the Sodomites, whose cry had ascended to heaven, without the proof of faithful witnesses. This is found in Cause 2, Question 1, chapter Deus omnipotens.
Concerning an evil judge Gregory says: “When someone is placed amid grave sins, while he overlooks his own he does not wash away those of others.” This is found in Cause 3, Question 7. Ambrose says: “Let the one who has nothing to condemn in himself judge another’s error; let the one who does not do the same things judge,” and so forth.
Christ exhorts to frequency in prayer under the likeness of a neighbor asking for an egg, bread, and a fish, which signify hope, charity, and faith. Luke gives the same teaching, but first supplies the likeness of a person who has a friend to whom he goes at midnight to ask him to lend three loaves. The friend first refuses but afterward rises because of his persistence and gives him as many as he needs.
The importunate woman in the Gospel, namely the Canaanite woman, at last merited to be heard. Although the door was shut with bolts, a friend received loaves from a friend even at midnight. God, who cannot be overcome within himself by anyone’s powers, is overcome by the publican’s prayers. Nineveh, which had perished through sins, stood firm through tears. Thus Jerome in On Penance, Distinction 1.
Christ says that one must beware of false prophets in sheep’s clothing: “Beware of false prophets.” He thereby intimates that on the day of judgment many who prophesy and perform miracles will be rejected because they were evil.
Finally, in concluding the sermon, Christ compares the person who hears and observes his teaching to a wise man who built his house upon a rock, where it remains firm when beaten by winds, rivers, and rain. He compares the person who hears but does not do what he hears to a fool who builds his house upon sand, and it quickly falls.
§ VIII. Healings and Other Miracles
When Jesus afterward came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him: some because of devotion to his teaching and life, some to obtain healing, others to observe him, and others from curiosity.
A leper met him and said, “If you will, you can cleanse me.” Jesus healed him from leprosy by the touch of his hand and sent him to show himself to the priest, indicating by this that one cleansed from the leprosy of sin must nevertheless present himself to the priest through confession and offer the sacrifice of satisfaction.
After Jesus entered the city of Capernaum, he heard the centurion explaining that his paralytic servant—that is, his servant boy—was badly tormented. Jesus healed him while absent and greatly commended the centurion’s faith above Israel, announcing both the conversion of the Gentiles in the centurion’s marvelous faith and the rejection of the Jews.
On another occasion he healed in the synagogue on the Sabbath a man whose right hand was withered. Indignant at this, the Pharisees considered what they should do about Jesus.
When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he was moved by the apostles’ prayers and healed Peter’s mother-in-law, who was suffering from a fever. After sunset he freed all the sick who were brought to him, together with those possessed by demons. As the demons departed from many, they cried out, “You are the Son of God.” But Christ rebuked them and did not allow them to speak that truth, teaching by this that we should neither seek even truth from demons nor believe it when they utter it, because they intend to deceive.
Jesus went out into the desert. When the crowds sought him and, after finding him, wished to keep him with them, he did not agree, saying, “I must also evangelize the other cities.”
He refused a man who said that he wished to follow him as a disciple, because the man sought this from avarice for gain or from ostentation. Another man offered himself for this purpose but wished first to bury his father; Jesus commanded him to follow and not care for his father’s burial. When another offered to follow him but first wished to go and take leave of those at home, Christ said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
After the girl’s resurrection, Matthew relates that two blind men approached Jesus to receive their sight. When he asked them, “Do you believe that I can do this for you?” and they answered yes, he said, “According to your faith let it be done to you.” He restored their sight by his touch.
He commanded them to tell no one, teaching by this that good works are to be concealed, especially to avoid vainglory. They nevertheless spread the report throughout that entire country.
Crossing by boat over the sea into the Lake of Gennesaret, Jesus slept while a storm arose, because of which his disciples awoke him. Rising, he commanded the winds and the sea, and the storm ceased.
Upon returning to Capernaum he healed a paralytic who had been lowered through the tiles before him. Because Christ said to him, “Your sins are forgiven you,” thereby showing that sin was the cause of his infirmity, the Pharisees said in their hearts that he blasphemed, because this belongs properly to God.
They, however, believed Christ to be a mere man. Christ showed them his divinity by knowing their thoughts, which belongs to God alone, and manifested that he possessed this power by the man’s sudden healing.
Invited to dine by Simon the Pharisee, Christ went with his disciples to Simon’s house. While they were eating, a woman who was a sinner in that city came to his feet, watered them with her tears, wiped them with her hair, and anointed them with ointment. When Simon murmured, Christ commended her love.
According to Gregory, she is commonly believed to have been Mary Magdalene, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. She is called a sinner not because she was a public prostitute, but because otherwise she was very vain and lascivious in mind, and perhaps in body, in accordance with what is found in the hymn: “After the scandals of wanton flesh, from a cauldron she becomes a vial,” and so forth. Some doctors, however, say that this woman was not Mary Magdalene but another.
When Jesus entered a certain village—Bethany, as is commonly said—a woman named Martha received him into her house. Her sister Mary remained at Christ’s feet to hear his words. Martha therefore complained to Jesus that Mary did not help her but left her to minister alone. Christ answered by defending Mary because she had chosen the best part.
The contemplative life, signified by Mary, is safer, more joyful, and longer lasting. Yet Martha’s action is not evil but good, and is even better suited to the present life, in which the human being is born to labor. It is more useful to neighbors and more fruitful in accidental merits. As regards essential merit, however, the greater person is the one more perfect in charity, whether in the contemplative or active life.
§ IX. The Cleansing of the Temple and Christ’s Ministry in Judea and Samaria
Jesus went up to Jerusalem with his disciples at the Jews’ Passover. Entering the temple, that is, its porticoes, and making a whip of cords, he drove from the temple all who bought and sold, in detestation of sacrilege, irreverence toward churches, and simoniacs, who are signified by the buyers and sellers. This is treated in Cause 1, Question 1, and, concerning unjust merchants, in Distinction 88, chapter Eiciens, and the chapter Quam.
When the Jews asked for a sign declaring by whose authority he did these things, he answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” speaking of the temple of his body. “Destroy” means “you will destroy it by inflicting death”; “I will raise it” means “I will raise it from the dead.”
The Jews understood this of Solomon’s temple and said, “This temple was built in forty-six years.” They were speaking not of its construction by Solomon, for that was completed in eleven years, but of its rebuilding by Nehemiah and Zerubbabel after the Babylonian captivity under Darius II.
Nicodemus, a Pharisee and doctor of the law who was Christ’s secret disciple, came to him by night and said, “We know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can perform these signs that you perform unless God is with him.” These words show that this occurred after Christ had performed and publicized many miracles.
Christ answered, “Amen, I say to you, unless a person is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Christ thereby declares that the second birth is spiritual, namely the one accomplished through faith in baptism, either in act or in intention, and that it cannot precede the first, carnal birth from the mother’s womb. This is found in On Consecration, Distinction 4, chapter Qui in maternis.
In what follows he also shows the necessity of baptism; the distinct person of the Holy Spirit, who breathes where he wills; the Ascension into heaven; the figure and benefit of the Passion in the bronze serpent, “because just as Moses,” and so forth; and, in addition, the immensity of divine love toward us: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.”
On another occasion Christ went into Judea and remained there. He baptized, not by himself, John says, but through his disciples. A certain rivalry and indiscreet zeal consequently arose among John’s disciples against Christ, because Christ’s reputation for sanctity and miracles increased more every day, as did the number of his disciples.
John’s disciples therefore approached him and said, “Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore testimony—behold, he baptizes, and everyone comes to him.” To enlighten them and remove their jealousy, John said: “A person cannot receive anything”—namely, lawfully, toward any ministry and beyond the common law—“unless it has been given to him from heaven.”
“You yourselves know that I told you, ‘I am not the Christ,’ namely, as you suppose, but that I was sent to bear witness before him, that is, before the Christ of whom you speak. The one who has the bride, namely the Church, is the bridegroom, that is, this Christ. But I, the bridegroom’s friend, rejoice and am not saddened by his reputation. He must increase, namely in fame, so as to be known and adored as God; but I must decrease, so that it may be known that I am not the Christ but his servant and friend.”
“He who is of the earth speaks of the earth; he who comes from heaven is above all. For God does not give the Spirit by measure. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not believe in the Son shall not see life.” Thus John the Baptist.
When Jesus left Judea and went into another province, namely Galilee, he had to pass through the province lying between them, namely Samaria. Traveling, he came near the city of Sychar, formerly called Shechem, beside Jacob’s estate. Wearied from the journey, Jesus sat by the well there and awaited his disciples, who had gone into the city to buy food, for it was about the sixth hour.
A Samaritan woman then came to draw water. When Christ asked her for water to drink, she answered that Jews—one of whom she recognized him to be from his clothing—had no dealings with Samaritans. Thus, after a long disputation, this wanton woman, who after five husbands was living in concubinage, was converted when she heard that he was the Messiah. Running to the city, she announced to everyone that they should come to see him.
Meanwhile, the disciples returned with food and urged him to dine. He answered that he had another food to eat, speaking of the food of spiritual refreshment that he received from the conversion of the people of that city, who flocked to see and hear him. He remained with them for two days at their request, and many more believed in him as the Savior of the world.
Jesus’s weariness from the journey signifies the Word’s assumption of passible flesh upon the road of the Incarnation. His sitting by the well at the sixth hour and resting in the Virgin signifies the sixth age of the world. The woman signifies either human nature or the Church gathered from the Gentiles, which, after the legitimate exercise of the five senses, when it came to the use of reason, clung by fornication in various errors to the devil. Yet because it naturally thirsted for the true and supreme good, it was converted to Christ by hearing Christ’s teaching. He remains with the converted for two days, that is, in the works of love of God and neighbor.
A ruler then begged Jesus to come to the house where his son lay sick at Capernaum, gravely ill with a fever. Jesus did not go, so that the ruler might understand that he could heal the boy while absent, which the ruler did not believe, and so as to teach that in necessities we ought to regard nature more than fortune. Thus Jesus offered to go to the centurion’s servant without being asked, but refused to go to the ruler’s son even when urgently entreated, as Gregory says.
Finally Jesus told him, “Go; your son lives.” The son was healed at that same hour, as the ruler learned from his servants, namely the seventh hour, because through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit the soul is healed from the fever of sin, which proceeds from the appetite’s disordered heat.
When a feast day of the Jews approached, Christ went up to Jerusalem and entered the porticoes of a certain pool there. There were five porticoes, in which people afflicted with various illnesses lay awaiting the movement of the pool’s water. At an uncertain time an angel of the Lord moved it, and after this movement the first sick person to enter the pool was healed.
Jesus saw a cripple who lay there and had suffered from that infirmity for thirty-eight years. He healed him, saying, “Rise, take up your bed, and walk.” The Jews were scandalized when they saw him carrying his bed on the Sabbath. Christ later found him in the temple and said, “Sin no more, lest something worse happen to you.” This shows that infirmities proceed from sins, as in the chapter Cum infirmitas in the Extravagantes, under the title On Penance and Remission, although this does not always occur.
The water’s healing power arose partly from the angel’s ministry, partly from the power of the wood of the future cross that Solomon had hidden there and that later floated up, according to the Historian, and partly from its figure of baptism. One who descends into baptism is healed, namely by remaining in the unity of faith and love. The five porticoes signify the Mosaic Law in five books, which revealed sins but did not heal them.
Christ afterward said many things to the Jews against their unbelief and concerning his divinity: that the Father works even until now, namely works of governing the world, and that he works with the Father according to his divinity; that the Father gave him the power to raise the dead and to judge; and that the hour comes in which all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
Those who have done good will come forth into the resurrection of life, but those who have done evil into the resurrection of judgment. John the Baptist had borne witness concerning Christ; John was a burning and shining lamp, and the Jews had wished to rejoice in his light for a time, namely by regarding John as the Christ. Yet Christ possessed testimony greater than John’s.
He told them to search the Scriptures, because they bore witness concerning him. But they could not believe because they sought glory from people, not from God. They did not receive him when he came in the name of God the Father, namely by believing in him. Another would come in his own name, namely Antichrist, and they would receive him as the promised Messiah.
§ X. The Calling and Mission of the Apostles
Concerning the calling and mission of the apostles, it must be known that the apostles were called by Christ three times. First, they were called to some knowledge of him, a calling treated in John 1. Second, they were called to familiarity, when at Christ’s word they cast the net and enclosed so many fish that they filled both little boats; they then followed him.
Third, they were called to his discipleship. This occurred when, walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Peter and Andrew fishing and called them, saying, “Come after me; I will make you fishers of men.” Later on that same day he similarly called James and John, who were mending their nets with Zebedee their father, and they followed him. This concerns Peter, Andrew, James, and John.
The calling of Philip and Matthew is recorded individually. Concerning the other apostles, when or how their calling occurred is not recorded in detail. Matthew, Mark, and Luke chiefly narrate that after the twelve had heard the sermon on the mountain discussed above, they were appointed to the apostolate and sent to preach and perform miracles, while observing austerity and poverty.
Mark says that Christ went up the mountain, called to himself those whom he wished, and appointed twelve to remain with him and to be sent to preach. Like the other evangelists, he gives the names of the twelve apostles: Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter; John and James, sons of Zebedee, whom he called Boarges, which is interpreted “son of thunder”; Andrew, Peter’s brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew, Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, that is, James the Less; Thaddeus, also called Judas; Simon the Canaanite, his brother; and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
After the sermon on the mountain, however, he sent the twelve to preach, according to Matthew and Luke. Matthew says: “Jesus sent these twelve, commanding them and saying, ‘Do not go into the way of the Gentiles,’ namely for the present, ‘nor into the cities of the Samaritans; but go rather to the sheep that have perished from the house of Israel. As you go, preach that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near. Heal the sick; cleanse lepers; raise the dead; cast out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. Do not possess gold or silver or money, nor a traveling bag, two tunics, shoes, or a staff, for the worker is worthy of his reward.’”
There is a fourfold manner of expounding these instructions given to the apostles. First, they may not have been given as precepts binding the apostles to observe them under mortal sin, but as admonitions directing their life, like the ceremonial observances of religious, because they lived like religious under Christ’s discipleship.
Second, although they were precepts, they were nevertheless temporary and Christ relaxed them at the time of the Passion and thereafter.
Third, Christ intended through them to remove from the apostles and their successors in prelacy and preaching an inordinate affection for earthly things, and also in practice to cut away from them excessive wealth, signified by not carrying gold, silver, or money; bodily delights, signified by not possessing shoes and two tunics; flatteries and blandishments, when he says, “Greet no one along the way”; and excessive solicitude in providing for themselves, signified by carrying no traveling bag, purse, or bread on the way.
They were also to eat what was set before them, namely those things that openly came to them as food. They were to cut away vengeance for injuries by carrying no rod, as Ambrose says concerning this last point in Cause 11, Question 3, chapter Ira.
Fourth, these things may be understood as prohibited according to a mystical sense. Gold signifies worldly wisdom; silver, vain eloquence; and money, a profit-seeking intention in preaching. In footwear, the affection is commanded to be stripped of bestial passions. A double manner of life, or hypocrisy, is forbidden in the two tunics. They are not permitted to carry bread, lest they chiefly intend to obtain the sustenance of life from these things.
They must not carry the staff upon which a traveler sometimes leans, namely their own or human confidence. They must greet no one by rendering either themselves or another certain and secure of salvation, because “the Lord knows those who are his,” says the Apostle, and, as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 9, “No one knows whether he is worthy of hatred or love.”
They are commanded not to pass from house to house, lest they inquisitively seek to know the lives of others, or become wanderers and bearers of news.
Mark adds that Christ prohibited them from having or carrying these things except a staff alone, and said that they should go shod with sandals. This may perhaps be reconciled as follows: Mark speaks of a staff, meaning a walking stick for support, while those who prohibit a staff speak of a rod, meaning a cudgel for striking. Under the staff that is permitted are understood the authority of governance and the power of demanding necessities.
Christ also foretold the adversities they would suffer, exhorting them to constancy and prudence and saying: “Behold, I send you as sheep among wolves. Be therefore prudent as serpents and simple as doves.” Explaining this, Jerome says in Cause 16, Question 1, chapter Si cupis, that they should neither be overthrown by others’ snares nor devise deceits against anyone, but be like doves without gall.
He makes them wary of their persecutors, before whom they were to flee from one place to another when their presence was not necessary for the flock’s salvation, as is explained in the final section of Cause 7, Question 1. Against those who refused to receive them or hear their teaching, they were even to shake the dust from their feet and depart.
He then sets down the destruction that would follow for those who did not receive them, greater at the judgment than that of the Sodomites. He foretold woes prepared for Corrozaim, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, where he had preached and performed many miracles, because they were not converted to penance and faith by such teaching and miracles, although Sodom, Tyre, and Sidon, cities of unbelievers, would have been converted if they had seen them.
No reason can be given why he did not perform those miracles or teach there; one can only marvel, while holding that the whole was done most justly, as Augustine says in Cause 23, Question 4, chapter De tiris.
Christ strengthens them toward patience by his own example, since, although he was the master and householder, he was not heard but was mocked and called belzebub. When they were brought before kings and governors because they preached his doctrine, they were not to take much forethought about what they should answer, because the Holy Spirit would speak through their mouths.
Unbelieving relatives and parents would also sometimes betray them and procure their death, and they would be hated by all people, namely by the reprobate. “But do not fear,” he says, “those who kill the body. Rather fear him who can destroy soul and body in hell.”
Nor were they to withdraw from pursuing Christ’s teaching and life because of affection for kindred, father, mother, wife, children, or others, because one who loves them more than his own salvation or than Christ is not worthy of him, and a person’s enemies are those of his own household.
When Christ says, “I came not to send peace but a sword,” he speaks of the carnal peace that sinners seek in the world. Christ came to send its contrary, the sword of God’s word, which destroys such peace. Yet he commanded that true peace be announced to everyone and that they greet a house with it upon entering, saying, “Peace to this house.”
Those who received them would receive a reward even if they gave them a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple. What Christ says, “Nothing is covered that shall not be revealed,” is understood either of this life or of the future judgment.
Mark alone relates that when the sermon to the disciples was finished and they came to the house, great crowds gathered around Jesus, seeking either to speak with him or to be healed, so that they could not eat because they were occupied with the people. When the disciples heard, they went out to restrain him, saying that he had been turned to madness. Thus the Evangelist.
It seems that one should imagine that, from consideration of the divine honor resulting from the miracles he had performed and the people’s devotion, Jesus gave some unusual sign of fervor. But the apostles, still inexperienced and unacquainted with such things, suspected madness.
Mark also adds that when the apostles went out they cast out demons, anointed the sick with oil, and healed them.
On another occasion, as Luke alone relates, Jesus also appointed seventy-two other disciples and sent them two by two before his face, saying: “The harvest indeed is great, but the workers are few. Ask therefore the Lord of the harvest to send workers into his harvest.” He imposed upon them almost all the commands he had given the twelve when sending them to preach.
When the aforesaid envoys returned from preaching, they reported to Christ with a certain vain and proud joy, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.” Bringing them back to humility and fear, Christ said, “I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven,” namely because of pride. He saw this according to his divinity.
“Do not therefore rejoice,” he says, “that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven,” according to predestination and present justice.
Note here that just as bishops hold the place of the apostles, so priests succeed in the place of the seventy-two disciples, as is found in Distinction 21, chapter In novo. Jesus then adds what extends to all prelates: “He who hears you hears me,” namely by obeying; “and he who despises you despises me,” namely by transgressing your just commands.
§ XI. The Miraculous Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish, and Christ’s Walking upon the Sea
Concerning the loaves and fish miraculously multiplied by Christ when he broke them to satisfy many thousands of people, and concerning his walking upon the sea, it must first be known that all four evangelists relate the multiplication of the five loaves and two fish.
When the Jews’ Passover was approaching, a very great crowd followed Christ as he ascended the mountain with his disciples. Christ took the five barley loaves and two fish that a boy had, multiplied them by breaking them, and gave them to the apostles to set before the crowds, who ate upon the grass in groups of fifty.
When all were satisfied, numbering five thousand apart from the children and women, the apostles collected the fragments that remained at Christ’s command and filled twelve baskets.
In narrating this miracle, John states more explicitly Christ’s question to Philip, Philip’s response that two hundred denarii would not suffice for buying food, and Andrew’s information to Christ that one boy was there who had five loaves. Thus John expresses what the other three evangelists passed over.
What Mark and Luke state about arranging the crowds in groups of fifty to sit and eat, Matthew and John omit. From this varied narration, neither falsity nor contradiction can be alleged among the evangelists, just as none arises when several people recounting deeds performed by one person narrate some matters more briefly and others more fully in their circumstances.
This banquet signifies the spiritual refreshment that occurs in the Church Militant through the teaching of the five books of the Mosaic Law, with the Prophets and Psalms as though they were two fish. For Gratian says in Distinction 36, section 2: “By discoursing, Christ expounded the sacred writings of the Law and the Prophets.” This is to break the loaves and fish. Afterward he gave the knowledge of them to his disciples and through them dispensed those things to the faithful.
The twelve baskets of gathered fragments signify the difficult mysteries of Scripture of which the people are not capable, which the doctors themselves must gather and contemplate by themselves. This can also be expounded of the banquet of the Church Triumphant.
On another occasion the crowds remained with Christ for three days to hear his words in a desert place. Jesus said, “I have compassion upon the crowd,” because they had nothing to eat and he did not wish to send them away fasting to their own homes, lest they fail on the way.
From seven loaves found among the disciples and a few small fish, broken and multiplied by Christ, four thousand people were satisfied, apart from the children and women. Seven baskets of fragments remained.
This signifies the spiritual refreshment received from the Church’s seven sacraments by those who are perfectly masters of a body composed of four elements and of the four passions of the sensitive part through the four cardinal virtues. For a thousand signifies perfection.
After the miracle of the five loaves and two fish, John relates that, upon seeing the sign, the people said, “This truly is the prophet who is to come into the world,” that is, the Messiah promised in the Law. Jesus knew that they wished to seize him and make him king, and fled to the mountain, teaching us to avoid lordships because they are dangerous.
Because he had commanded the disciples to cross before him in a boat, they sailed without him. Their boat was in the middle of the sea, tossed by waves because of the contrary wind. About the fourth watch of the night, they saw Jesus walking upon the waters of the sea and approaching them. Thinking him a phantom, they cried out in fear. He exhorted them not to fear, saying, “Have confidence; it is I.”
Peter alone, as Matthew relates, said: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you upon the waters.” Jesus said, “Come.” As Peter walked upon the waters, he saw the strong wind, became afraid, and began to sink. Crying out, “Lord, save me,” he was grasped by Christ’s hand. Christ said, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” When Christ entered the boat, the storm ceased.
Here is a great mystery concerning the ship of the Church, which is shaken by the waves of tribulations and temptations but is not submerged and does not fail.
Ambrose says of this little boat in Cause 24, Question 1, chapter Non turbatur: “The ship that has Peter is not disturbed; the one that has Judas is disturbed. Although the merits of many disciples sailed there, nevertheless the betrayer’s perfidy still agitated it. Peter was in each, but one who is firm through his own merits is disturbed by those of another. Let us therefore beware of the perfidious person; let us beware of the betrayer, lest many of us be tossed because of one.”
“Therefore the ship in which prudence sails is not disturbed. Perfidy is absent; faith overcomes. For how could it be disturbed when the one presiding over it is the foundation of the Church? Disturbance is there where faith is small; security is there where love is perfect.” Thus Ambrose there.
What Ambrose says about Peter’s boat, that it is not disturbed, is understood of Peter’s own boat when, casting the net at Christ’s command, he enclosed an exceedingly great multitude of fish.
§ XII. The Sacrament of the Eucharist
Concerning the sacrament of the Eucharist, commended in many ways, the Jews’ murmuring, and the disciples’ withdrawal on account of it: when other disciples withdrew because Christ had said, “My flesh is truly food,” and so forth, he asked the twelve apostles whether they too wished to depart. Peter answered for them all, “You have the words of eternal life; to whom shall we go?”—that is, where shall we be comforted unless with you?
Here Ambrose says in Cause 24, Question 1, chapter Quae dignior: “This is the only one whom no one ought to forsake or exchange, to whom it is rightly said, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go?’ You see the executor of the heavenly commands: because he did not exchange this lodging, he merited the dwelling of heavenly fellowship.” John alone narrates the aforesaid things concerning the sacrament.
After the miracle of the five loaves and the crossing of the sea that follows it, John alone writes that the crowds sought Jesus. He told them: “You seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate of my loaves.” In this he signifies those who seek Christ in the clergy or religious life for temporal things.
He adds, “Labor not for food that perishes, but for that which remains unto eternal life,” that is, labor in such a way that you can attain the abiding life of the homeland, not merely so that you may have temporal life.
When they asked what they should do to work the works of the Father, he answered that they should believe in the one whom the Father sent, that is, love him by believing.
They asked what sign he would give so that they ought to believe in him, since their fathers had received the sign of manna from heaven so that they might believe God and Moses as one sent by him. He answered that Moses had not given them the true bread from heaven, but that his Father would give the true bread from heaven. For the true bread is the one who descends from heaven and gives life to the world, namely Christ himself.
Not understanding him but thinking of material bread, they said, “Lord, give us this bread always.” He declared that he was that bread of life, and that whoever came to him, namely to receive him, would not hunger for worldly things. But because they did not come to him, namely by believing in him, they could not eat that bread.
He adds: “Everything that the Father gives me shall come to me; and the one who comes to me,” namely by believing, “I shall not cast outside,” that is, outside the Church, “because I came not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” This is the Father’s will: that those given to Christ by predestination and present justice should not be cast out but should live in the body of the Church.
He adds: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I shall raise him up,” and so forth. Here Augustine greatly commends grace: “No one comes unless drawn by God. Why he draws this person and does not draw that one, do not judge if you do not wish to err. If you are not yet drawn, pray that you may be drawn.”
Augustine also says: “If we are drawn, therefore, do we believe unwillingly? Do not think that you are drawn unwillingly, for the soul is drawn not unwillingly but by love. You show a green branch to a sheep and draw it. You show nuts to a child and draw him. Moreover, if the poet was permitted to say, ‘His own pleasure draws each person,’ with love, not necessity, inviting him, how much more do we say that a person is drawn to Christ when he delights in justice, delights in truth, delights in blessedness, and delights in eternal life—all of which is Christ.”
Christ then says that he is the living bread who descended from heaven, and that whoever eats it will not die, namely eternally. The bread that he would give was his flesh.
When the Jews disputed, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” he showed the necessity of eating it: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Understanding this badly, namely of his visible flesh as meat from a butcher’s stall is eaten, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can hear it?” Scandalized by this, some of the disciples withdrew from him.
But note that Christ is eaten for life in two ways. In one way, he is eaten spiritually alone, which occurs through the habit of charity by which Christ is united to us. This is necessary for everyone who is to be saved. In this way baptized children eat Christ’s flesh, as do even those not baptized who already truly believe.
In the other way he is eaten sacramentally and worthily. This is necessary for baptized adults at its proper place and time, namely as the Church commands and when there is an available minister. Yet Christ’s flesh is not then eaten materially, as the Jews understood, but spiritually, that is, hidden beneath those species.
Hence he said: “The words I speak to you are spirit and life; the flesh profits nothing,” that is, the words I have spoken, when understood spiritually, will justify you, but when understood carnally will profit nothing. This is found in On Consecration, Distinction 2, chapter Prima haeresis.
From the aforesaid words of Christ are shown the truth of Christ’s body in the sacrament, its necessity and usefulness, and the fitness required for eating: that one come to Christ with the foot of the intellect by believing and with the foot of the affection by loving him. Concerning all these things, see On Consecration, Distinction 2, chapter Revera, and many other chapters.
§ XIII. John the Baptist’s Disciples, Christ’s Commendation of John, Fasting, and John’s Death
When John the Baptist had been imprisoned by Herod and heard of Christ’s marvelous works, he sent two of his disciples to say, “Are you he who is to come, or do we await another?” This statement is expounded in four ways.
The first is Chrysostom’s. He says that John asked this question—whether Christ was the promised Messiah whom the Jews awaited—not for himself but for his disciples. John saw that his disciples had a higher estimation of him and a lower one of Christ than they ought. Hence they envied Christ, whose reputation increased more than John’s. So that they would not remain in error after John’s death, he sent them to question Christ, so that John’s disciples might perceive from the miracles of Christ that they saw that he was the Messiah who was to come.
The second exposition is Ambrose’s. He says that John doubted not in faith but in piety, that is, he spoke in the manner of one doubting and asked whether Christ was the one who would come to undergo the Passion for the world. It was as though he said: “Will your condescension be so great that, just as you came into the world, so you will also deign to suffer, although you are the most innocent Lamb, not guilty of death like others? The world does not merit this.”
The third is Gregory’s, in a homily. John did not ask whether Christ would come to redeem the human race by his Passion, for he had foretold this when he said, “Behold the Lamb of God,” and so forth, namely the Lamb to be sacrificed upon the altar of the cross. Rather he asked whether, when Christ died, he would deign personally to visit the fathers in limbo and lead them out, or would send another for this purpose, so that John, knowing the answer before going to his own death and to that limbo, could announce it to those fathers.
The fourth is Hilary’s. He expounds the first part of the statement affirmatively rather than interrogatively, as though John said, “You are certainly the one who is to come to save the world.” He expounds the second part negatively: “Or do we await another?” as though to say, “Certainly we do not await another, as the faithless Jews now do.”
When John’s disciples came to Christ and asked the aforesaid question, Jesus then performed many of the miracles related here, as Luke says. He answered those disciples: “Go and report to John the things you have heard and seen. The blind see,” and so forth. It was as though he said: “From these things you can perceive that I am the Messiah, because I have performed the marvels that Isaiah foretold Christ would perform when he came.” Isaiah 35 says: “God himself will come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,” and so forth.
Those miracles also signify the effects of Christ’s grace in our soul when it comes. It enlightens the intellect, directs the limping affection, cleanses leprosy—that is, sin—restores the hearing of obedience, raises to life the act of producing merits, and evangelizes by instructing one’s neighbor.
After John’s disciples departed, Christ commended John wonderfully: for his constancy in truth, because he was not a reed shaken by the wind of doubts; for his austerity of life and sincerity of teaching, because he was not clothed in soft garments and did not use flattery; for the greatness of his wisdom, because he was more than a prophet; and for the purity of his conscience, because he was the angel foretold to him: “Behold, I send my angel,” and so forth, Malachi 3.
Christ also commended the excellence of John’s merit and glory, adding, “Among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist.” According to Augustine, two are excepted. The Virgin Mary was born, but not as a male, that is, she was a woman. Second, Christ was much greater; he was not born of a woman, meaning one corrupted, but of a virgin.
Hence Christ adds: “He who is less in the kingdom of heaven,” that is, in the Church Militant, “is greater than he,” namely in perfection. Christ was then less in age and in people’s estimation. Or this can be understood otherwise: the least angel in heaven—for at that time no human being was yet in heaven—is greater than John in natural perfection and the perfection of grace, because grace had been consummated in the angels.
Christ adds: “From the days of John, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent”—namely those resisting sensuality—“seize it.”
He then inveighs against the Jews who murmured both about John and about him: “To what shall I liken this generation? It is like children playing in the marketplace,” and so forth. “John came not eating,” namely common foods, “and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man, Christ, came eating and drinking,” namely like others, “and they say, ‘Behold a gluttonous man and a drinker of wine, a friend of publicans.’ And wisdom is justified by all her children,” that is, regarded as just by her disciples.
Here Augustine says: “He shows that the children of wisdom understand that justice lies neither in abstaining nor in eating, but in equanimously enduring want and in temperance amid abundance, in not being corrupted, and in taking or not taking at the proper time those things whose use is not reprehensible but whose desire is.” This is found in Distinction 41, chapter Quod dicit.
When on one occasion the disciples questioned him about the advent of Elijah, who was to precede the Messiah’s advent, Christ answered: “Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they wished. And if you are willing to receive it, John himself is Elijah.” John was not Elijah in person, but in zeal, office, and solitude. Each rebuked the wicked, even kings, with great zeal for God. Just as Elijah will precede Christ’s second advent to instruct and dispose everyone for Christ, so John preceded the first.
At another time the Pharisees and John’s disciples asked Christ why his disciples did not fast as they did. Jesus answered by assigning two reasons. The first was that the bridegroom’s children cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them—that is, it is not fitting to fast but to rejoice. Christ is the Church’s bridegroom and the apostles are the bridegroom’s children. As long as he dwelt with them, he did not wish to afflict them with fasts.
The other reason was to teach that those who are inexperienced on God’s way and beginning to serve God must not be burdened with abstinences or harsh precepts that they cannot bear. He introduced the example of wine not being put into old wineskins.
John rebuked Herod for incest and adultery, saying: “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife,” namely Philip’s wife, whom Herod had taken away from him. Herodias herself, who had left her lawful husband and adhered to Herod, hated John, plotted against him, and wished to kill him. But she could not do so openly.
Herod himself, as Mark relates, feared John, knowing that he was a just and holy man. Upon hearing him Herod did many things and listened to him gladly. Finally, at Herodias’s instigation, he seized John and imprisoned him.
On Herod’s birthday, Herodias’s daughter danced before him and the princes of Galilee. She pleased them all so greatly that Herod promised to give her whatever she asked, even if she sought half his kingdom, confirming this with an oath. Instructed by her mother, she asked that John the Baptist’s head be given to her immediately.
The king was saddened by her request because of his oath, lest he appear perjured by not keeping his promise. He commanded John’s head to be cut off in prison and given to the girl. The head was brought on a dish and given to the girl, who presented it to her most wicked mother. Upon hearing this, John’s disciples took his body and buried it. The history concerning where his head was found is counted among the apocrypha in Distinction 15, chapter Sancta Romana.
Concerning Herod’s oath, Ambrose says in his book On Duties: “Herod shamefully promised a reward to the dancer and cruelly paid it. It was shameful that a kingdom was promised for a dance; it was cruel that a prophet’s death was given out of reverence for an oath. How much more tolerable it would have been to commit perjury with such an oath—if it can even be called perjury—than to fulfill what he had sworn while drunk amid wine and had promised under oath among dancing choirs.” This is found in Cause 22, Question 4, chapter Unicuique.
When Herod heard of Christ’s miracles, he falsely thought that Christ was John raised from the dead and therefore performed miracles. He said: “John, whom I beheaded, has risen from the dead, and therefore powers work in him.”
When some people told Jesus that Herod wished to kill him and that he should therefore withdraw, Jesus said to them: “Go and tell that fox: Behold, I cast out demons and accomplish healings today and tomorrow,” that is, for a short time, “and on the third day I am consummated.” John the Evangelist also says that John the Baptist performed no sign while he lived.
§ XIV. The Institution of the Sacraments of the New New Law
According to Thomas in the fourth book, there are two opinions concerning the institution of the sacraments of the New Law. One is that Christ did not institute all the sacraments personally, but only certain more principal ones, such as baptism and the Eucharist, and instituted the others through the apostles after the Holy Spirit’s coming.
The other and better opinion is that Christ personally instituted all the Church’s sacraments. For since the sacraments are the foundations of the evangelical law and causes of grace, and since the Lord Jesus is the lawgiver of that law and the bestower of grace, according to John 1, “Grace and truth were made through Jesus Christ,” it is more fittingly said that he personally instituted all the sacraments, though not in the same manner.
He instituted the more principal and necessary sacraments more explicitly by determining their matter, form, and usefulness, as with baptism, the Eucharist, and penance. He instituted the others personally but implicitly and figuratively, to be explained and promulgated through the apostles.
He instituted baptism, which is first and greatest in usefulness, by conferring upon it its cleansing power when he was baptized by John in the River Jordan. Then, by the touch of his most pure flesh, he bestowed regenerative power upon all waters.
Thus Christ’s baptism and the sacrament of circumcision operated together to cleanse sins until Christ’s Passion. Then the power of circumcision was made void, as all the other legal observances—that is, the ceremonial ones—became dead, and the power of baptism alone remained.
Christ expressed baptism’s matter when he said in John 3, “Unless a person is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Here its necessity is also expressed: without baptism in act for those lacking the use of reason, or in intention when a minister or opportunity is lacking for adults, the kingdom of God cannot be possessed.
He expressed the form after his Resurrection when, as Matthew relates, he said to the disciples: “Teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The act of baptism or washing is expressed when “baptizing” is said, that is, saying, “I baptize.” The person baptized is expressed when “baptizing them” is said, that is, saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
“In the name” means “in the power,” for the power of the Trinity produces baptism’s effect. Hence the Trinity also appeared at Christ’s baptism. “I” does not belong to the substance of the form, although it ought to be said.
Christ also shows baptism’s effect when he says: “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved,” namely if he believes truly and not fictitiously and preserves baptismal grace. This is found in the first chapter and chapter Maiores of the title On Baptism in the Decretals.
As to the Eucharist, he expressed the matter when it is said that he took bread and afterward took the chalice in which there was wine. He expressed the form when he said, “This is my body,” and, “This is the chalice,” and so forth. The explanation of these things is found in chapter Cum Marthae of the title On the Celebration of Mass in the Decretals. He expressed its usefulness when he said, “He who eats this bread shall live forever,” John 6, which is understood of a worthy reception of the Eucharist.
Concerning the sacrament of penance, he showed its necessity by saying, “Unless you do penance, you shall all perish,” and its usefulness by saying, “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.”
He declared figuratively that confession must be made to priests even after sins have been cleansed through contrition, when he sent the leper cleansed of leprosy away in Matthew 8, saying, “Show yourself to the priest.” But he delegated to James the Less the promulgation of this precept concerning vocal confession. Hence James 5 says: “Confess your sins to one another,” that is, to priests who have the keys of the Church, and not to others.
He gave the apostles the power of binding and loosing in the person of all priests when, after his Resurrection, he said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. The sins of those whom you retain”—namely, by not absolving them—“are retained; and the sins of those whom you forgive are forgiven.”
Again, before his Passion, he said to them, as Matthew relates: “Whatever you loose upon earth shall be loosed in heaven, and whatever you bind upon earth shall be bound in heaven.” This is understood when the key does not err. Hence Cause 25, Question 1, chapter Manet, says: “Peter’s privilege remains,” namely concerning the aforesaid absolution or binding, “when judgment is rendered according to equity.”
In this binding and loosing is also included the sentence of excommunication.
Christ instituted the sacrament of confirmation tacitly and, as it were, figuratively when certain little children were brought to him so that he might bless them. When the apostles, out of reverence for their master, repelled them, Jesus said: “Let the little children come to me and do not prevent them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” As Matthew, Mark, and Luke attest, Jesus laid his hands upon each of them and blessed them. Hence that sacrament is also called the imposition of hands, as in On Consecration, Distinction 4, chapter Manus quoque.
The apostles were confirmed on the day of Pentecost by the power of the Holy Spirit from on high. Christ expressly ordained through the apostles that this sacrament be instituted as to its matter, form, and mode, as in the first chapter of the title On Sacred Unction in the Decretals.
He similarly instituted the sacrament of extreme unction, namely by a figure, also expressing its matter when, as Mark alone relates, he sent the apostles to preach and to anoint the sick with oil, and they were healed. There the sacrament’s power or effect is also shown, namely the health of soul and body. But James explained the sacrament more fully, saying: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him bring in the priests of the Church, that they may pray for him, anointing him with oil.”
Although marriage was instituted at the beginning in the earthly paradise, Christ instituted it as a sacrament of the Church: an act signifying not merely the aptitude for the indissoluble union of Christ with the Church, or of the divine nature with the human in Christ, and conferring grace like the other sacraments, although not so much. He did this when the Jews asked him whether it was lawful to put away a wife and he said: “What God has joined”—namely through true marriage—“let no man separate,” that is, by dissolving a bond of this kind, whoever that man might be, whether a judge, a private person, or the spouses themselves.
The sacrament of orders is more obscure. Nevertheless, according to the doctors and the gloss on the Decree, Christ, who was the high priest of good things to come, is said to have instituted it at the Last Supper when he told the disciples, “Do this in memory of me,” and then to have given all the orders to the disciples. There is no doubt concerning the power to confect his true body.
Here, according to Thomas in the fourth book, it must be noted that there is a threefold power in conferring the effect of the sacraments.
The first is the power of authority, which belonged to Christ according to his divinity: to remove sins and confer grace by his own power together with the Holy Spirit. This cannot be granted to any creature.
The second is the power of excellence, granted to Christ alone according to his humanity: that his Passion should operate meritoriously in the sacraments; that the sacraments could be given in Jesus’s name; and that he could give any sacrament without its form and matter, or the effect of a sacrament without the sacrament itself, such as the remission of sins without baptism or confession, and the like. Through this power he conferred the sacrament of orders upon the apostles without matter and form by its institution.
Third, he conferred ministerial power upon the apostles, which all priests possess. Concerning the number, effects, matter, and form of the sacraments, a full treatment is found in many places in the third part.
§ XV. Christ’s Miracles, First Concerning Those Freed from Demons
Near the beginning of Christ’s preaching, Luke relates that in the synagogue there was a man possessing an unclean spirit who cried out: “What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know that you are the Holy One of God.” When Jesus said, “Be silent and come out of him,” the man was freed.
In the country of the Gerasenes, as Matthew, Mark, and Luke write, Christ freed a demoniac who had a legion of demons. A legion is said to contain the number six thousand six hundred and sixty-six.
Mark narrates this more fully. He says that this demoniac lived naked day and night among the tombs and mountains and was so savage that no one could tame him. He cut himself with stones, and when bound with chains he broke them.
Seeing Jesus from afar, he ran to him, adored him, and said: “What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God not to torment me.” For Jesus was saying to him, “Come out of him, unclean spirit.” When Jesus asked his name, he answered, “Legion, because we are many.”
Those demons begged him not to cast them out of the region, or, if he did cast them out, at least to permit them to enter a herd of swine that was there. When permission was given, they entered the swine, which suddenly threw themselves into the nearby sea, about two thousand in number.
Their herdsmen fled and announced this in the city and countryside. Those who went out to see found the man freed from the demon, clothed, and of sound mind with Jesus. Upon hearing what had happened, they asked Jesus to depart from them.
When Jesus entered the little boat to cross the sea, the man who had been freed began to ask to remain with him. Jesus refused but told him to go to his own people and relate how much the Lord had done for him.
Matthew says that there were two such demoniacs. There is no falsity here, but the grammatical figure in which the plural is put for the singular. Likewise, when he says that the two thieves crucified with Christ reproached him, only one did so. He put two to designate the human race in its two first parents, or the Jewish people and the Gentile people as two distinct peoples possessed by many demons through many vices and freed by Christ.
Note also that the devil can harm neither people nor even swine without permission given him by Christ. Nor was the swine’s owner harmed in this without a just cause. Hence Isidore says in On the Supreme Good: “According to the Catholic faith, no one can harm the nature of God; the nature of God cannot unjustly harm anything; nor does it permit anyone to harm unjustly.” This is found in Cause 11, Question 3.
It is signified that the demon receives power especially over the lustful, whom it submerges headlong into vices.
A Canaanite woman also cried out for her demon-possessed daughter, saying: “Have mercy on me, Son of David; my daughter is grievously tormented by a demon.” At first he showed himself harsh toward her. In the house where she approached him, he answered her nothing. On the road, when the disciples entreated him for her because she cried after them, he answered, “I was sent only to the sheep that have perished from the house of Israel.”
When she herself approached, he said: “It is not good to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.” She answered patiently: “Yes, Lord, for the little dogs also eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” At last he heard her, saying, “O woman, great is your faith; let it be done to you as you wish.”
Her faith was great in the height of truth, because she confessed Christ as God and man when she said, “Have mercy on me,” and so forth, although she had not seen signs or heard the Law. It was great in the breadth of charity, because she labored for her neighbor’s deliverance, namely her daughter’s, by coming to Christ and crying after him. It was great in the length of long-suffering, because she persevered when repulsed, even amid insults. Her daughter was healed in that hour.
He delayed hearing her so that he might more greatly arouse her affection, as frequently happens in all our affairs. The bread was the abundant refreshment of Christ’s teaching and miracles, which, as to those more fit to receive it, was to be given first to the Jews, who honored the true God, rather than to the Gentiles as dogs made unclean through idolatry. Nevertheless, it was not unfitting to give at least crumbs—that is, a few miracles and some of his words—even to Gentiles such as this Canaanite woman.
As Chrysostom says, she did not go to diviners, seek amulets, or summon deceitful women, but abandoned every diabolical invention and came to Jesus.
For, as Gregory says in the seventh book, one must first flee to him who can heal the passions of our soul. Yet people, in a perverse order, first summon help from human beings, namely improperly; only when human aids have failed do they think that the grace of divine favor must be requested. This is found in On Consecration, Distinction 1, chapter Omnis.
To follow superstitions and incantations is not to go to Christ but to the devil, as Augustine shows in Cause 26, Question 2, chapter Illud quidem.
A certain man also brought Christ his son to be healed, who had a mute spirit and whom Matthew calls a lunatic. When the spirit seized him, it dashed him down, made him foam, grind his teeth, and grow rigid. The father had first brought him to the disciples, but they had not been able to cast this demon out as they had others.
Approaching Jesus for deliverance, the father heard him answer: “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I endure you? Bring him to me.” When the boy was brought before Jesus, the spirit dashed him down and made him roll about.
Jesus asked how long it had tormented him. The father said: “From infancy; and it has frequently cast him into fire and water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, help us.” Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to one who believes.” The boy’s father said: “I believe, Lord; help my unbelief.”
Jesus rebuked the demon and ordered it to depart. It came out, tearing the boy, so that people said he was dead. But Christ took him by the hand and raised him up healthy.
When the disciples went into the house and asked why they had been unable to cast out that demon, he answered: “This kind of demon is not cast out except by prayer and fasting.” Yet, as Matthew says, he first told them that they had been unable to cast it out because of their unbelief.
He said that if they possessed faith like a mustard seed—humble, constant, and fervent, qualities signified by a mustard seed’s being small, tenacious, and hot—they would say to this mountain, “Be removed,” that is, “Devil, depart,” and it would happen, and nothing would be impossible to one who believes.
Luke relates that when the disciples said to Christ, “Increase our faith,” Jesus answered: “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and transplanted,’ and it would happen.”
Ambrose explains that the mulberry tree signifies the devil, because it first has white mulberries, but afterward they become black through heat. Likewise, the devil was created by God with innocent powers, but through the heat of pride they became black and vicious.
A person tells the mountain or mulberry tree to pass from here or to be transplanted when he resists the devil—called a mountain because of pride, or a mulberry tree because of wickedness—as the devil tempts him or another, commanding it to depart either from himself or from another who is tempted. Or when the devil has already taken root in someone through consent, it departs when that person returns to penance from humble and fervent faith, according to James’s words: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
The evangelists do not contradict each other because one speaks of a mountain and another of a mulberry tree, for Christ spoke many times about faith, once of a mountain and another time of a mulberry tree. It is also said that this was done literally by Alexander the Great.
From the fact that the father of this demoniac said, “I believe, Lord; help my unbelief,” that is, by increasing the smallness of my faith, Gregory argues in On Penance, Distinction 2, chapter Cum sanctam, that in faith, as in the other virtues, there are degrees of beginners, those advancing, and those completed or perfect, according to Job’s words, “Through each of my degrees I shall declare him.” He demonstrates this diffusely in many ways.
Matthew and Mark also relate, but Luke more fully: “Jesus was casting out a demon, and it was mute,” and so forth. In that Gospel are shown Christ’s kindness, the Jews’ wickedness, and a woman’s fervent faith.
Christ’s kindness is manifested in that he healed the mute demoniac, that is, the person whom the devil had made mute. Matthew adds that he was also blind. Hence Christ performed three miracles at once: he restored his speech and sight and freed him from the demon.
Christ performs this miracle daily in penitent sinners, restoring the lost light of the mind to them, restoring speech for a threefold confession—praises of God, admonitions to one’s neighbor, and confession of one’s own sins—and absolving the person detained by the devil from the devil’s works. The crowds of Jews rightly marveled at these things.
Their wickedness is shown because some of them said, “He casts out demons through belzebub, prince of demons.” Others, for the sake of testing and calumny, sought a sign from heaven, such as making thunder roar, lightning flash, and the like. Christ did not do this, because they would not have believed on that account but would have made false accusations, attributing the signs either to natural causes or to invocations of demons.
Instead, by his knowledge of hidden things he indicates the truth of his divinity. He proves the falsity of their statement in many ways, amid their faithless obstinacy and most wicked perversity.
First he shows his divinity because he knew their thoughts. They said in their heart, or so quietly among themselves that he could not hear, that he cast out demons through belzebub. But it belongs to God to know the hidden things of hearts, according to Solomon’s words to God, “You alone know the hearts of the children of men,” and the Psalm, “God, who knows the hidden things of the heart.”
If demons sometimes appear to know such things, this is only conjecturally, insofar as from certain signs—not only words, but gestures too—they infer an interior disposition, as Augustine says in Cause 26, Question 4, chapter Sciendum. When Christ therefore showed through the words that follow that he knew their thoughts, he proved clearly that he was God. Hence the Evangelist says, “But when he knew their thoughts.”
Second, Christ refutes the falsity of the Jews’ statement in four ways. First, by reducing it to an impossible consequence: if Christ cast out a demon by the power of the prince of demons, it would follow that the devil’s kingdom and dominion, by which he ruled worldly people, was divided and therefore desolated and annihilated, because experience, the teacher of things, teaches that “every kingdom divided against itself shall be desolated,” and so forth.
But to say this is impossible, because the contrary clearly appeared: in Christ’s time the devil’s dominion in the world was neither desolated nor diminished, but reigned especially among the Gentiles through idolatry and among the Jews through disobedience to the commandments and faithlessness. If the devil’s kingdom was not desolated, therefore, it was not divided. If it was not divided, one demon did not expel another. And if one did not expel another, Christ did not cast out demons by belzebub’s power.
The second argument is from the lesser. Certain others who cast out demons, such as the apostles or exorcists, were lesser than Christ, for he had given them that power. He had also given Solomon the knowledge of exorcisms for adjuring and expelling demons, as is said in Distinction 21, section 1.
Yet the Jews did not say of the apostles or exorcists that they cast out demons by belzebub’s power. Much less, therefore, should they have said this of Christ, who was greater. This is what he means when he says: “If I cast out demons through belzebub, through whom do your sons”—the apostles or exorcists descended from you—“cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges,” to convict you of your false estimation.
“But if I cast out demons by the finger of God,” which Matthew expounds by saying, “If by the Spirit of God”—the Spirit who is called the finger, who proceeds from the Son called the hand of God, as a finger proceeds from a hand, and who has distinct gifts as a finger has several joints or distinct parts—“then certainly the kingdom of God has come upon you.” You ought to enter that kingdom by believing and depart from the devil’s kingdom, which is to be destroyed.
The third argument is from examples. We see that a victor in a battle against another certainly has no need of the help of one whom he has completely defeated. The devil, who is called strong in natural powers and armed in malice, guarded his court—that is, the world in which he dwelt—lest he lose it. All things were in carnal peace, because there was no one to resist the vices he suggested.
But the Son of God, stronger than he, came into the world and waged a mighty contest against him, because, as John 3 says, “The Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil.” He conquered him, according to Augustine’s saying: “With an unarmed hand fastened to the cross he vanquished the powers of the air.”
He conquered him so completely that he took away the devil’s arms, namely by exposing his malice through teaching and weakening it through the merit of the Passion. He distributed the spoils: that is, he removed from the devil the souls that the devil had taken away from God and subjected to himself, and by their conversion assigned them to the Church. Christ therefore needs no help from belzebub, since belzebub has been utterly conquered by him.
The fourth argument is from contraries, for it is a rule of contraries that they mutually expel one another, not that one helps the other produce its effect. Health, for example, does not help sickness make the body sick, nor the reverse.
Christ and the devil are contraries in themselves and in their works. Christ is supremely good and full of all holiness; the devil is supremely evil and full of all wickedness. Christ desires and works for the salvation of people; the devil desires and labors for their destruction by inciting them to vices.
Therefore, when Christ procures people’s deliverance from the devil by casting out demons, he does not use belzebub’s help, since the demons intend through the effect of malice to enter people, not to depart from them. This is what he means when he says: “He who is not with me”—that is, conformed to my will in procuring people’s salvation, as the devil is not—“is against me; and he who does not gather with me” by cooperating to lead people to good “scatters,” by separating people from unity as the devil does.
Third, as a principal point, Christ foretells the utmost wickedness into which the Jews would come through their faithlessness and obstinacy when he adds: “When an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he walks through dry and waterless places,” and so forth.
This spirit is the devil. He went out from the Jewish people when, after receiving the Law, they abandoned the rites of Egyptian idolatry. Cast out through the due worship of the true God, the devil approached the minds of the Gentiles, which were dry for want of the moisture of grace and waterless through privation of the water of true wisdom. There he rested for a time.
Later, disturbed by the apostles’ preaching and driven from the Gentiles through their conversion, he found no rest there. He said in effect, “I shall return to my house from which I came out,” that is, to the Jewish people. Finding it swept, ornamented, and empty, he took seven spirits more wicked than himself, and they entered the former house.
The devil found the Jewish people empty of faith and grace, swept as to the Law’s outward uncleannesses, and ornamented with legal ceremonies. He entered that people with seven spirits, that is, with the wickedness of all vices. For the number seven signifies universality. Hence Christ concludes, “So shall it be with this most wicked generation.”
Morally, the unclean spirit that dwells in a person before baptism, or in one who sins mortally after baptism, is cast out through baptism or through true penance. Once cast out, it runs about to deceive others, namely those who are dry of devotion and waterless, empty of the teaching of wisdom.
But when the devil perceives that the baptized or penitent person from whom it departed acts more sluggishly, is idle, and remains alone, it returns to him with seven demons, that is, with a plurality of vices, now tempting and overcoming through one and now through another. Hence that person’s latter state becomes worse than the former because of ingratitude and negligence.
Therefore Bede, treating the words “I shall return to my house,” and so forth, says: “This verse is to be feared, not expounded, lest the fault that we believed extinguished in us oppress us while we remain empty through carelessness.” This is found in On Penance, Distinction 4, chapter Revertar.
In the following chapter he likewise says: “Whomever heretical perversity or worldly desire seizes after baptism, it immediately casts down into the depths of every vice.”
Finally, a woman’s great devotion and fervor are indicated. She is said to have been Martha’s maidservant, named Marcella. Raising her voice from the crowd, she said, “Blessed is the womb that bore you,” blessing not only Christ who was teaching but also his mother.
Other women are not blessed in conceiving, carrying children in the womb, and nourishing them, but are wretched because of the labor, pain, and lust they suffer in these things. The Virgin alone was blessed, because she lacked all these and bore one through whom all who believe in him are blessed.
Christ approved her statement as most true and added: “Indeed, blessed are those who hear,” and so forth. It was as though he said: “Not only she who bore me is blessed, but all who hear God’s word and keep it.” Because the Virgin Mary heard and kept God’s word above all others by observing it, she is therefore most blessed above all.
Each person conceives Christ through a good purpose of conversion, gives birth to him through the execution of a good work, and nourishes him through frequent prayer and Holy Communion. Hearing or reading the divine word is the beginning of this. “Blessed therefore are those who hear,” and so forth.
From what was said above, that the unclean spirit takes with it seven spirits more wicked than itself, this can be understood of the seven kinds of sin against the Holy Spirit: presumption, despair, assault upon acknowledged truth, envy of a brother’s grace, obstinacy, final impenitence, and contempt for the precepts of one’s superiors. Concerning this last, see Cause 25, Question 1, chapter Violatores.
Matthew adds that after the discourse on blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, Pharisees approached Christ and said, “Master, we wish to see a sign from you.” He answered them: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign shall be given it except the sign of Jonah,” and so forth.
While he was saying these things, someone told him: “Behold, your mother and your brothers stand outside, wishing to speak with you.” Extending his hand toward the disciples, he said: “This is my mother, and these are my brothers. For whoever does my Father’s will is my brother, sister, and mother.”
Matthew and Mark also add that, in the aforesaid refutation of the Jews, to aggravate the guilt of their false accusation or blasphemy from the gravity of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit into which they had fallen, Jesus said: “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man shall be forgiven; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven, either in this age or in the next.”
According to Thomas in the Secunda Secundae, Question 14, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is understood in three ways.
In one way, it means common blasphemy against God, which consists in attributing to God what does not belong to him or denying what does belong to God, insofar as each of the three divine persons is spirit and is holy. The Jews fell into this crime by attributing to the devil what belongs to God alone, namely the performance of miracles. They spoke a word against the Son of Man when they called him a glutton, a drinker, and the carpenter’s son, statements contrary to the reverence due his humanity.
In the second way, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit arises from malice—not just any malice, but that which rejects the impediments to sin. It has six species, concerning which see Thomas in the place cited and the Master near the end of the second book of the Sentences. Among them are assault upon acknowledged truth and envy of a brother’s grace increasing in the world. The Jews fell into sins of this kind when they attacked the truth of Christ’s teaching and works out of envy.
In the third way, according to Augustine, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is final impenitence. This does not mean the intention never to repent in the future, for in that sense it is one of the six species of blasphemy taken in the second way. Rather, it means remaining in any mortal sin continuously until death.
Hence Eusebius says: “The holy fathers have said that this is the unforgivable sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: to persevere in crimes until the end of life.” This is found in On Penance, Distinction 3, the second chapter Inter haec. Christ foresaw and foretold that many of them would fall into this blasphemy.
It is called unforgivable because, in the first and second senses, it is forgiven rarely or with difficulty because of its gravity, since such people are converted only with difficulty. In the third sense it is simply not forgiven, because such a person never repents. This is found in On Penance, Distinction 1, in the section Quod autem after chapter Importuna.
From this statement Gregory also argues in Distinction 25, chapter Qualis, that some sins are forgiven in the other life. This is true of venial sins, which are expiated by punishments even in purgatory. For when Christ says that sin against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven even in the future, it is implied that some sins are forgiven there, although only venial ones, as Gregory exemplifies there. These things are treated diffusely in the second part.
That Christ also cast out other demons is evident from what was said above from Luke 4, that demons went out from many people, and so forth. When Mark says at the end that Christ had cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene, to whom he first appeared after rising, this is understood of the seven kinds of vices by which the devil possessed her soul, not her body, and not of bodily torment.
Concerning another person who cast out demons but did not follow Christ, perhaps by the power of exorcisms: when the apostles told Christ that they had forbidden the man to do this, Jesus answered, “Do not forbid him. He who is not against you is for you.”
§ XVI. A Deaf and Mute Man Healed
Apart from the demoniacs who were freed, some of whom were also mute, Mark alone relates the healing of one man who was mute and deaf but not demon-possessed. He says that Jesus left the borders of Tyre, came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, and so forth.
Certain people brought him a deaf and mute man and entreated him on the man’s behalf. Jesus drew him apart from the crowd, put his fingers into his ears, touched his tongue with his own spittle, and said, “epheta,” which is interpreted in Latin as “Be opened.” Immediately the man was freed from deafness and muteness and spoke correctly.
Although Jesus commanded them to tell no one, the more he commanded, the more widely they proclaimed it, saying, “He has done all things well,” and so forth.
In the statement that “they entreated him on the man’s behalf,” it must be noted, according to Gratian in On Penance, Distinction 1, section Denique, that all whom Christ healed are read to have been preceded by a request from their own voice or by the prayers of friends.
Christ’s drawing the man apart from the crowd indicates that if a sinner, deaf to hearing—that is, obeying—God’s law and mute in praising and confessing, is to be healed in mind, he must be separated from the crowd of vices as regards both the cessation of the act and the tumult of the passions. This accords with Ambrose’s words: “When wickedness is renounced, virtue immediately stands by, for the departure of malice effects the entrance of virtue.” This is found in Cause 27, Question 1.
In that what Christ did to this man when he said “epheta” is done in baptism, according to Rabanus it is given to be understood that, through the figurative saliva and the priest’s touch, divine wisdom and power work the salvation of that catechumen. Let his nostrils be opened to receive the fragrance of the knowledge of God, and let his ears be opened to hear God’s commandments. This is found in On Consecration, Distinction 4.
Christ afterward commanded that this be told to no one because the command referred to the mystery, not to the vocal sound, namely that no one should seek human praise in his own good and marvelous works, according to Ambrose’s saying: “It is a rule of truth that one do nothing for the sake of commending oneself.” This is found in Cause 11, Question 3, chapter Si quis vero non obediat.
Those who spread the report therefore did not act contrary to the command. Rather, it is noted there that the more a person truly flees human glory, the more glory follows him, as Tullius says of Cato.
§ XVII. Concerning the Blind Illuminated by Christ
In addition to the mute demoniac who was also blind, Christ gave sight to four people in particular. Matthew relates of the first, after the raising of the synagogue ruler’s daughter, that two blind men followed Jesus as he traveled, crying, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.”
When they came to him in the house, he asked: “What do you wish me to do for you?” They answered, “That our eyes may be opened.” Jesus said, “Do you believe that I can do this for you?” They said, “Indeed, Lord.” He answered, “According to your faith let it be done to you,” and they immediately received sight.
Although he commanded that the deed be kept hidden, they spread it throughout that whole land.
Mark relates another blind man who was brought to Jesus at Bethsaida while others entreated on his behalf.
Jesus led him outside the village, spat upon his eyes, and touched them with his hand. When he asked whether the man saw anything, the man answered, “I see men like trees.” Jesus again laid his hand upon his eyes. The man began to see and was restored so that he saw everything clearly. Jesus commanded him to go home and tell no one.
The three Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke relate the illumination by the Lord Jesus of a blind man at Jericho. Matthew, however, says that there were two, putting the plural for the singular on account of the mystery, to signify the blindness of the human race derived from our first parents in both sexes and in both peoples.
Mark and Luke speak of one man, whose name Mark also gives, saying: “batinnus, the son of Timaeus,” sat begging beside the road. Hearing that Jesus was passing by, he began to cry, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” When the crowds rebuked him and told him to be silent, he cried out much more, “Have mercy,” and so forth.
Jesus stopped and commanded him to come. Casting off his garment, he sprang up and came to him. When Jesus asked what he wanted, he answered, “Lord, that I may see.” Jesus said to him, “Look; your faith has saved you.” When he saw, he followed him, and all the crowd praised God for it. For it is said that he immediately saw and followed him, magnifying God.
Three things can be considered in true and perfect conversion: sudden illumination, because he immediately saw; devout thanksgiving, because he magnified God; and third, upright conduct, because he followed him.
This is the difference between God and nature in their works, although God himself, as the first agent, also moves nature to act. Nature does not work suddenly but successively, as is evident in the formation of the bodies of animals and plants. God, however, works in an instant in those things that he alone does directly, as in miracles and in the justification of a sinner. Hence it says that the man immediately saw. For, as Gregory says, “The grace of the Holy Spirit, which illuminates the mind, knows no slow exertions.”
Nevertheless, as Augustine says, “He who made you without you will not justify you without you,” that is, without your cooperation. Therefore, to receive illumination we ought on our part to do certain things that this blind man, illuminated by Christ, did.
Note in order seven things that concur in, or dispose one toward, the illumination of a sinner through grace.
First, if he is not on the road of the commandments, at least let him not sit outside the road through obstinacy, but beside the road through the exercise of works that belong to the class of good things.
Second, let him be a beggar by procuring the intercessions of others. Just as many have been healed by Christ and the saints from bodily infirmities through the prayers of others, so too have many been healed from spiritual infirmities, as is evident in the paralytic healed by Christ and in others.
Third, let him hear about Jesus the Savior, that is, about matters pertaining to salvation. Thus, while Peter was preaching, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard, and they were enlightened in mind, Acts 10.
Fourth, let him cry out by recognizing his misery through desire for pardon. Gregory says in the Moralia: “He cries loudly who loves greatly,” namely by ardently desiring what he asks.
Fifth, when the crowds of companions or passions make a din and wish to hinder him, let him not abandon perseverance in good, according to the saying: “If he continues knocking, the man will rise and give him as many as he needs,” Luke 11.
Sixth, let him cast away the garment of the body through mortification of it. Jerome says: “Let him who is a sinner and is stung by his own conscience be clothed in haircloth and bewail his own sins or those of the people. Let him enter the Church from which he had departed because of his sins and lie in sackcloth, so that by austerity of life he may compensate for the former pleasures through which he offended God.” This is in On Penance, Distinction 1, chapter Qui sacerdos.
Seventh, let him present himself to Jesus by expressing through confession the misery of the blindness of his sins. For the priest represents Christ. Hence Proverbs says: “He who hides his crimes shall not prosper; but he who confesses and forsakes them shall find grace,” and through grace the sinner is illuminated.
§ XVIII. The Man Blind from Birth Illuminated by Christ
John alone relates the healing of the man blind from birth. He says: “As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth,” and his disciples asked him: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
They erred in thinking that every infirmity proceeds from the person’s own actual sin or that of his parents. Christ excluded this opinion as untrue, showing that the man had not been born blind for that reason but “that the works of God might be made manifest in him,” that is, so that God’s glory might be obtained from his illumination.
Then Jesus made clay from the dust of the earth and spittle, anointed the man’s eyes with it, and said: “Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.” When he had done this, he received sight.
Spiritually, this intimates the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation, signified by the clay made from spittle and earth. The spittle signifies the eternal Word proceeding from the Father’s mouth; the dust signifies human nature made from dust. These were joined when the Word was made flesh.
This mystery, therefore, was placed upon the eyes of the human race, blind from birth through original sin—that is, it was received by the understanding through faith—and, with the subsequent washing of baptism, which has its power from Christ’s Passion, it illuminated that race.
Concerning this illumination, as regards the Gentile people, the nation of the Jews was divided. Some of them, believing devoutly that this had been done by God, were converted to Christ; others spoke against Christ, saying that he was not sent by God but was a sinner and a transgressor of the divine Law.
As to the history: when the man returned home, his neighbors who saw him began to dispute among themselves whether he was the blind man who had been accustomed to sit begging in a certain place. Some asserted that it was he; others contradicted them, saying that it was not he but someone like him. Hearing them, and grateful to confess the benefit, he said, “I am he.”
When asked how he had received his sight, he answered that it came from washing in the water of Siloam at Jesus’s command, after clay had first been placed upon his eyes.
They led him to the Pharisees in the synagogue. When these questioned him about the manner of his illumination, he told them what he had already declared to his neighbors. Because that day was the Sabbath, some of them began to say: “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath,” although this deed was not in fact contrary to Sabbath observance. But others who were devout said: “How can a sinful man perform such signs?” Thus there was a schism among them, that is, a division of opinions about him.
Calling the blind man, they asked what he thought of Jesus. He answered, “He is a prophet.” Not believing him, they sent for his parents and asked whether he had been born blind and how he now saw. They said that he was indeed their son and had been born blind, but that they did not know how or by whom he had received sight; they should ask the man himself, for he was of age.
The parents said this because they feared displeasing the Pharisees, since it had already been agreed that whoever confessed Jesus to be the Christ should be cast out of the synagogue as excommunicate.
Questioning him again about the manner of the miracle, they sought a way to slander it. They said, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner”—as though to say: acknowledge that you were illuminated by God, not by this man.
He answered them, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know,” that is, “I do not know him to be a sinner, but rather just.” When they again asked, “What did he do to you?”—as though asking whether he had invoked bezebub—the man, indignant at their dullness, said: “I told you, as you heard. Why do you wish to hear it again? Do you too wish to become his disciples?” It was as though he said: “You do not ask so that you may know the truth and become his disciples, but so that you may slander the miracle. I therefore refuse to explain it further.”
Then they cursed him, saying: “You be his disciple; we are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this man comes from.”
He said to them: “This is the marvelous thing: that you do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not hear sinners,” namely by granting their prayer. Augustine says that he spoke this while his mind was not yet perfectly illuminated, for God does hear sinners even if they do not merit it. Or, according to Thomas, God does not hear sinners precisely insofar as they are sinners, that is, when they ask for unlawful things; it is otherwise when they ask for lawful or necessary things.
Celidonius then added: “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Hearing this, the Pharisees cast him out of the synagogue as a blasphemer, saying: “You were born wholly in sins, and do you teach us?”
Christ found him in the temple and asked whether he believed in the Son of God. When the man asked who he was so that he might believe in him, Christ answered: “You have seen him, and he who speaks with you is he.” Falling down, the man worshiped him and said: “Lord, I believe.”
Then Christ said: “For judgment”—that is, for discernment—“I came into this world, that those who do not see”—the Gentiles who did not know God—“may see” by believing in Christ, as afterward happened; “and that those who see”—the Jews then worshiping the true God—“may become blind” by falling into unbelief.
This is understood consecutively, not causally, because Christ’s advent did not cause the blindness of the Jews; rather, through their own indisposition, blindness followed upon his advent.
When the Pharisees said, “Are we also blind?” he answered: “If you were blind, you would not have sin”—that is, if you understood yourselves to be ignorant of the truth and sought it, you would not have the sin of your unbelief. “But because you say, ‘We see,’” that is, because you suppose yourselves to know the truth, “your sin remains.”
Christ also restored sight to several other blind people, as is evident in Matthew 11: “The blind see,” namely those illuminated by him when John’s disciples came to him. Matthew 15 says that he healed the blind, the lame, and other sick people who were placed before him. After he cast the buyers and sellers out of the temple, blind and lame people came to him and he healed them, as Matthew 21 records.
§ XIX. The Dead Raised by Christ: First, the Synagogue Ruler’s Daughter
The raising of the synagogue ruler’s daughter occurred near the beginning of Christ’s preaching, as Matthew, Mark, and Luke relate—Matthew more briefly and the others more fully. Another miracle coincided with it, namely the healing of the woman with a flow of blood.
While Jesus was speaking to the crowds, a certain ruler of the synagogue, whose name according to Luke was yairus, came to him and asked Jesus to come to his house to raise his daughter, who had by then died. The girl was not yet dead, but her father had left her laboring at the point of death, as Luke and Mark say. Matthew, abbreviating the account, said that she was already dead, because this happened very soon. She was her father’s only daughter and was twelve years old.
As Jesus went with the girl’s father to his house, a certain woman, whom Ambrose says was Martha, inserted herself into the crowd accompanying Jesus. She had suffered a flow of blood for twelve years and had spent all her substance upon physicians for remedies, yet she could not be healed and grew worse, as Mark and Luke say. Seeking to touch Christ’s garment and trusting that she would thereby be healed, she touched its fringe, that is, its lowest part toward his feet, and was immediately cured.
Jesus, who knew all hidden things and knew what had happened, said according to Luke and Mark: “Who touched me?” Peter, as though astonished, answered: “Master, the crowds press upon you, and you say, ‘Who touched me?’”—as though to say: not one person, but many, are doing this.
Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I know that power has gone out from me.” Looking around over the crowd, as Mark relates, he saw the woman approach him with reverential fear, aware that she had been healed, and recount what had happened. Jesus comforted her, saying: “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
As he continued on his way, a messenger came to the synagogue ruler and said: “Your daughter has just died. Why trouble the teacher?”—as though to say: he need not come to heal her, because she is already dead. The messenger did not believe that Jesus possessed power so great that he could raise her.
Jesus comforted yairus and encouraged him to faith, saying: “Do not fear. Only believe, and she shall be saved.” Entering the house where the dead girl lay, he found flute players, that is, people who sang a lament to incite those present to weeping. Christ said to them: “Depart. The girl is not dead but sleeps.” Because she was about to be raised immediately, as though she slept, and to be healed without any difficulty or delay, he said that she slept.
They thought that he spoke of ordinary sleep and mocked him; for this reason they did not merit to see the miracle. When they had been cast out, and only Peter, James, John, and the girl’s father and mother were present, Jesus took the girl’s hand and said: “Girl, arise.” She immediately arose. He ordered that food be given her, to show that she had truly, not phantasmatically, been raised. Although he commanded that this be kept secret, its fame went out through all that land.
Spiritually, this episode signifies the conversion through Christ’s advent first of the Gentile people and afterward of the Jewish people. The synagogue ruler’s daughter is the Jewish people, whose father was Moses the lawgiver. Moses, with the other patriarchs and prophets, understood that the synagogue was sick unto death and could not be healed from sins except by the laying of Christ’s hand upon it—that is, through the mystery of the Incarnation, in which the union of the two natures was made as though by a certain joining. This he prayed for and ardently desired.
When Christ came to heal the synagogue by example and teaching, the woman suffering the flow of blood—that is, the Gentile world—intervened. Her flow of blood was the continual commission of sin. David prayed to be healed from these flows of blood, namely from sins, saying:
“Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation.”
The Gentile world had fallen sick when that little girl was born. For the synagogue was in a certain way born into the light of the virtues when the Law was given to it through Moses. Then the Gentile world became visibly sick, because comparison with the virtues practiced under the commandments exposed the weakness and misery of its vices.
The physicians from whom it had sought healing were philosophers and poets. By their natural or moral teachings they could not heal the Gentile world from sins; instead, it grew worse by multiplying errors each day.
But when the Gentile world heard Christ and the crowd of apostles preaching his mighty works, it conceived the devotion of faith and believed that it would be healed if it touched his garment or its fringe—that is, if it imitated his manner of life, not in the working of miracles, but at least by following the footsteps of the humility with which he lived on earth. Doing this, it was healed by faith and dismissed in peace of mind.
Meanwhile, the girl dies, because the Jewish people, to whom Christ was first sent for healing, fell into the death of unbelief. Yet, once the Gentile world has been healed by conversion to the faith, it is foretold by the prophets that the Jewish people too will be saved, which will occur at the end of the age.
Then the flute players will be cast out—that is, the false teachers of the Jews will be rejected—as will the tumultuous crowd who believe that the synagogue is to be saved not through Christ but through Antichrist. At last Christ will hold its hand, that is, give life to its works through conversion to the faith; and he will command that it be given food, namely evangelical teaching and the Eucharist, which those now dead cannot eat.
Not everyone converted from the Gentiles is healed. Although many outwardly touch the Christian manner of worship, only the one woman who remains in the unity of the Church and of charity, and who imitates Christ’s way of life with faith and humility, is healed.
Hence Bede says: “Whoever in any way separates himself from the unity of the faith or the fellowship of Peter can neither be loosed from the bonds of sins nor enter the gate of the heavenly kingdom.” This is in Cause 24, Question 1. In the next chapter Jerome says that even if such people, namely the wicked, offer holocausts so that they appear to fast, give alms, and promise chastity, God does not accept the offering, since they are not in Christ’s charity.
§ XX. The Widow’s Young Son Raised by Christ
Luke alone relates the raising of the widow’s young son by Christ. He says: “Jesus went to the city of naym, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. When he drew near the city gate, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a great crowd from the city was with her,” that is, they accompanied her, following, as was customary, the bier on which her dead son lay.
When Jesus saw her, he was moved with mercy toward her and said, “Do not weep.” When the bearers had stopped, Jesus came forward, touched the bier, and said: “Young man, I say to you, arise.” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Seeing this, all magnified God, saying: “A great prophet has arisen among us,” and “God has visited his people.”
This resurrection signifies the enlivening of a sinner through grace. Augustine says in On Penance, Distinction 1: “One raised in the body lives while his raiser is absent; but it is not so with one raised in the soul.” Since God is the life of the soul and the soul is the life of the body, just as the body cannot live when the soul is absent, neither can the soul live through grace unless God is present.
The soul therefore dies through sin, according to Ezekiel 18: “The soul that sins shall die.” Augustine says in On Penance, Distinction 2: “Just as sin is reached through three stages—suggestion, pleasure, and consent—so there are three differences of sin: in the heart, in the deed, and in habit,” corresponding to three deaths.
The first is as though in the house, like the girl, when consent is given in the heart to desire, that is, to the pleasure of sin. The second is as though already carried outside the gate, like the young man, when consent proceeds into deed. The third is when the mind is pressed down, as though by the mass of an evil habit, like Lazarus already stinking in the tomb. No one who reads the Gospel is unaware that the Lord raised these three kinds of dead people. Thus Augustine.
Likewise Gratian, in On Penance, Distinction 1, section Et his, says that Christ heard others praying for the three dead whom he restored to life. He heard of a fourth dead man when a certain disciple told him, “Lord, permit me to bury my father and then follow you,” Matthew 9 [read: Matthew 8]. But because no living people prayed for him, he did not merit to be raised. This signifies sin through obstinacy, from which a person is not raised because he places an obstacle to grace.
This young man therefore signifies a person sinning in deed, and this is what it means to be carried outside the gate. The gates of the soul are the external senses, through which sins are committed in deed. Hence the prophet says: “Death has entered through our gates.”
The bearers outside the gate are the four passions about which Virgil speaks, as Augustine relates in The City of God: “Hence they desire and fear, rejoice and grieve.” These induce people to evil deeds, especially the young, for Genesis 6 says: “The sense of man and all his thought are prone to evil from his youth.” And in Cause 12, Question 1, it is said: “Every age is prone to evil from its youth; nothing is more uncertain than the life of the young.” This is also evident from the parable of the prodigal young man, who departed from his father and consumed all his substance by living wantonly, Luke 15.
Alternatively, the four bearers who carry the wicked to burial, that is, into habit, are these: first, the excuse or defense of sins—“Let not my heart incline to words of malice, to make excuses in sins”; second, the flattery of others—“Let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head,” that is, let my mind not be fostered by flattery; third, the companionship of the wicked—“With the perverse you will be perverted”; fourth, avoidance of correction—Ecclesiasticus says, “A foolish man will avoid correction,” and so forth.
If the young man is to rise to the life of grace, these passions directed toward evil, or these inducements, must cease. This is what it means for the bearers to stop, for Christ to address him with a word of inspiration, for Christ to touch the bier through affliction of the body, and for the Church to pray for him.
Hence Ambrose says: “Let Mother Church weep for you; let Christ see you weeping and say, ‘Blessed are those who mourn.’ He loves for many to pray on behalf of one. Finally, moved by the widow’s tears, he raised her son.” This is in On Penance, Distinction 1. Thus the sinner rises.
§ XXI. The Raising of Lazarus
The raising of Lazarus occurred near the time of the Passion and was more remarkable than the other miracles. John alone relates it, saying: “There was a certain sick man named Lazarus, of Bethany,” and so forth.
Lazarus was the brother of Martha and Mary Magdalene, who were of noble Jewish ancestry and possessed great wealth. When their paternal inheritance was divided among them, the fortified town of Bethany was assigned to Martha as her share; to Mary, the town called magalon, from which she was called Magdalene; and to Lazarus, many and large buildings in Jerusalem, for he pursued military service. Martha occupied herself with governing the household, while Mary, being most beautiful, occupied herself with vanities.
Christ loved them because they were devoted to him, and especially Mary, who became his disciple after washing the Lord’s feet with her tears. He was frequently Martha’s guest in her house at Bethany. Bethany was near Jerusalem, fifteen stadia, that is, about two miles away, for according to the doctors a stadium is the eighth part of a mile.
When Lazarus had fallen sick at Bethany, his sisters sent a messenger to Jesus, who was then in the province of Galilee, saying through him: “Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.” They did not go themselves, because it was not fitting for young women to travel about, and because they could not properly abandon their brother in his sickness but had to care for him. Nor did they say, “Come and heal him,” but only made the sickness known, leaving the healing to Christ’s will, for he knew better what was expedient. It is enough to tell a loving person of one’s need; if he truly loves, he will provide.
On hearing this, Jesus said to the messenger: “This sickness is not unto death,” that is, not such that Lazarus would be held by death. For although death followed, Lazarus was raised so quickly that he did not appear to remain dead. “But it is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it,” by manifesting in this deed the power of his divinity. From this deed, utility accrued not to Christ but to human beings.
After the messenger’s words, Jesus remained there for two days so that, from Lazarus’s longer detention in death, the miracle might appear greater and more extraordinary. Lazarus died in the meantime.
After this Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go into Judea again.” He had withdrawn from there for a time, yielding to the malice and fury of the Jews, who had sought to stone him because he preached the truth to them and reproved their vices.
The disciples answered: “Rabbi”—that is, Master—“the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” It was as though they said: “Do not go, lest they kill you. Even if you have no care for yourself, do not choose to leave us orphans in this way.”
Jesus answered: “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” It was as though he said: the day varies through many hours, and in each part of it a person can change his purpose and will, so that at one hour he wants one thing and at another its contrary. So too with the Jews: although they wished to kill me, they could change their purpose.
Moreover, the day contains twelve hours, corresponding to the twelve parts into which the artificial day was then divided. Since I am the spiritual day, wholly luminous, and you twelve apostles are like the twelve hours, receiving light from me, you ought to follow me and my will, not I you.
“For he who walks in the day,” that is, he who works according to my illumination, “does not stumble”—that is, does not sin—because in what he does he is enlightened by the light of grace coming from me. “He who walks in the night,” namely in the absence of the light of grace, stumbles, that is, sins. For according to Thomas in the Summa, a sinner cannot long remain in mortal sin without falling into other sins. It was as though Christ said: “Follow me if you do not wish to err.”
If it is asked how Judas was then an illuminated hour, since Christ called him a devil, one may answer that Judas was good for a time and in the light of grace, although afterward he became evil; or that Christ was speaking of Matthias, who was to be substituted for Judas in the apostolate.
So that the apostles might not think that he wished to go to Judea lightly and without an urgent cause, he assigned the reason for his journey, saying: “Lazarus our friend sleeps, but I go to awaken him from sleep,” because he is our friend. He was speaking of Lazarus’s death.
Scripture calls bodily death “sleep,” according to the saying to the Thessalonians: “I do not wish you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who sleep,” as is also evident in the books of Kings. The reason is that, just as a sleeping person rises from sleep after a time and without difficulty, so all of us shall rise at the end, in which deed there will be no difficulty for God.
Moreover, in sleep one who is well disposed in body and mind has pleasant dreams and rises stronger and more beautiful. One who is badly disposed has terrible dreams that afflict him, and rises exhausted and ugly.
So it is spiritually. One who dies well disposed, namely in grace on earth, has in heaven beautiful visions of God and the saints, in which he rejoices, according to the saying: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” At last he rises stronger and more beautiful, glorified in soul and body. But one who dies badly, namely in mortal sin, thereafter has terrible visions of demons and other evils by which he is cruelly tormented. At the end he rises in a worse condition, because he is tormented in soul and body.
The apostles, being unlearned and understanding his words as bodily sleep, said: “Lord, if he sleeps, he shall be saved”—as though to say: sleep in a grave illness is a good sign of healing, and therefore you need not go.
Jesus then said openly to them: “Lazarus is dead, and I rejoice”—not over the evil of death, but “for your sake,” that is, because of the benefit to you that will follow. Since I was not bodily present when he died, yet now tell you what is hidden, you are to believe—that is, to be confirmed more and more in faith in my divinity. “Let us therefore go to raise him.”
Then Thomas said to his companions: “Let us also go and die with him.” It was as though he said: “Let us by no means abandon him, but expose ourselves with him to the danger of death by going. Why should we wish to outlive him if he dies?”
As Jesus went with his disciples and approached Bethany, Martha was told of it. She went out to meet him and said: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” For where the fountain of life is, death cannot draw near. “But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” She did not believe that he was God, for she thought that God had to ask another, but regarded him as a most holy man.
Jesus said to her, “Your brother shall rise.” Martha answered: “I know by faith that he shall rise on the last day”—as though to say: “I do not know whether you speak of that last resurrection or of a present one.”
Christ said: “I am the resurrection and the life,” namely causally. “He who believes in me,” that is, by loving, “even if he has previously died” in sins, “shall live” by receiving grace; “and everyone who lives and believes in me,” that is, perseveres in grace and love, “shall not die forever,” that is, shall not go to eternal death. “Do you believe this?”
She answered: “Yes, Lord, I have believed,” and so forth.
Martha returned home and told her sister Mary: “The Master is here and calls you.” It appears that Jesus had told her to say this. On hearing it, Mary immediately rose and went to Jesus. She had previously been sitting in the house mourning, accompanied by many who had come from Jerusalem to console the sisters for their brother’s death.
Those who were with Mary thought that she was going to Lazarus’s tomb to mourn there, moved by natural affection, and followed her. But she left the dead man and approached the fountain of life, the Lord Jesus, who was still outside the village where Martha had met him. Falling at his feet, she said: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw Mary weeping, and the others with her, he groaned in spirit and troubled himself—that is, he was saddened and outwardly showed his grief—saying: “Where have you laid him?”
He certainly knew the place, since he knows all things, but he asked in order to show that he did not thrust himself forward to work miracles but was asked by others. It also intimates that the sinner signified by the dead Lazarus is unknown to God, that is, rejected by him and not pleasing to him in his works.
They said: “Lord, come and see.” And Jesus wept, both out of compassion for Lazarus’s sisters, who grieved at being deprived of their brother—for it is human to weep with those who weep—and according to the Wise Man’s saying: “Weep a little over the dead, for his light has failed.”
Devout tears at the death of human beings, especially of the just, are not condemned. The women who followed Jesus to the cross did this. Ambrose too is read to have wept bitterly when he heard of the death of a certain just man, both because that man had preceded him to rest and because it is difficult to find others like such men.
Cyprian, however, inveighs fiercely against those who mourn immoderately or from despair, as though such persons were wholly lost, Cause 13, Question 2, chapter Praeposterum.
Christ wept no less from compassion for Lazarus, who was to be recalled from a safe place to the miseries and dangers of the world, as is said in Cause 13, Question 2, chapter Qui divina.
Some interpreted Christ’s weeping as proceeding from love; others, as pretense, said: “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the man born blind, have caused Lazarus not to die?”
Jesus, showing sadness, came to the tomb made in a cave, where a stone had been placed at its mouth. Jesus said: “Take away the stone.” Certainly he who could raise Lazarus could also have brought him out of the tomb with the stone opened. But to remove the Jews’ slanders concerning the miracle he had the tomb opened. For if it had not been opened, perhaps they would have said that this was not the true Lazarus, but a phantasmal body produced by the devil’s work, and that Lazarus’s own body remained in the tomb. He therefore wished it opened so that they could see that the body had first been there in the tomb and had not remained there after the resurrection.
Martha then said: “Lord, by now he stinks, for he has been dead four days.” A sinner dead in sin can be called four-days-dead because he acts against four luminous laws: the natural law, the law of the Decalogue, the evangelical law, and human law. He stinks through the evil reputation of his wicked works.
Christ said to her: “Did I not tell you that, if you believe, you shall see the glory of God,” that is, the resurrection of your brother, from which the glory of God—the power of the divinity—will be manifested?
When the stone had therefore been removed, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: “Father, I thank you,” and so forth. Afterward he cried with a loud voice: “Lazarus, come forth.” Jesus did many things in this resurrection: he was saddened, shed tears, gave thanks, and cried aloud, showing that many things must be done to rise from sin, especially from habitual sin, since, as the Philosopher says, habit is like a second nature.
Immediately the risen Lazarus came out, his hands and feet bound with grave-clothes, that is, with bands, and his face covered with a napkin. Christ said to the disciples: “Loose him and let him go.” Thus everyone could perceive from his walking that he had truly been raised.
Note what Gregory says in the Register: “The absolution of the one presiding is then true when it follows the judgment of the inner Judge.” The raising of the four-days-dead man aptly signifies this, because the Lord first raised and enlivened Lazarus, saying, “Lazarus, come forth,” and afterward Lazarus, now alive and having left the tomb, was loosed by the disciples. This is in Cause 11, Question 3.
Augustine likewise says: “He presented the risen Lazarus to the disciples to be loosed,” thereby showing that the power of loosing was granted to priests. This is in On Penance, Distinction 1, chapter Quem poenitet. Thus anyone who rises from sin through contrition is loosed through confession; once absolved, let him go forward through satisfaction.
§ XXII. Other Miracles of the Savior Related by the Evangelists
Other miracles of the Savior are related by the Evangelists, although they may seem lesser than those previously described.
Luke alone relates that, as Jesus entered a certain village, ten lepers met him and cried from afar: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them, he said: “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” While they were on their way, they were cleansed.
Only one of them, a Samaritan, returned after being cleansed and gave thanks with a loud voice. Jesus said: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? No one has been found to return and give glory to God except this foreigner.” He said to him: “Arise; your faith has saved you.”
The village is the world, into which the Son of God entered through the Incarnation. Ten leprous men meet him, that is, people infected with sins and errors. They are called ten because they transgress the Ten Commandments and contradict the truth of the faith.
Just as leprosy infects others, and the leper’s body has one part infected and another sound, so heresy, as Bede says, mingles true things with false and infects others. Therefore, just as lepers were separated from others under the Law, so heretics are separated from the Church and from the communion of the faithful, as are wicked people whose crimes are notorious.
But when they acknowledge their error and sins and ask for mercy, Christ teaches the manner of cleansing: they are to show themselves to priests and be reconciled to the Church, and sinners are to show themselves to priests through confession.
Hence Augustine, on the words “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” says: “Since you sinned in your own persons, be ashamed in your own persons by confessing your sins, not by indicating them through others or through letters.” This is in On Penance, Distinction 1, chapter Quem poenitet.
While a person purposes to do this, he is already cleansed before God from the leprosy of sin. But some, once they have received forgiveness, ungratefully pursue their own advantages and do not seek Jesus. The just and elect, however, are signified by the one man because they remain in the unity of faith and love; and by the Samaritan, a name interpreted “guardian,” because they guard themselves and God’s commandments. Acknowledging God’s grace, they seek Jesus and magnify him. This man is praised by Christ, while the others are declared ungrateful and condemned.
This is intimated when it is said, “Where are the nine?” as though they were unknown because they do not attain the number of the Decalogue through observing it.
Luke also writes of a certain woman who was bent over, or bowed down, so that she could not look upward. Jesus said to her: “Woman, you are released from your infirmity,” and, when he laid his hand upon her, she was immediately made upright.
When the ruler of the synagogue indignantly reproved this and said that people should come on other days, not the Sabbath, to obtain healing, Jesus refuted his rebuke as foolish, since on the Sabbaths they rescued their brute animals from dangers. How much more lawfully, therefore, could that woman be healed on the Sabbath from the bond of infirmity in which the devil had held her bound for eighteen years? From this it is inferred that her deformity had been induced by the devil’s work.
This woman signifies human nature, which the weight of earthly solicitude oppressed, so that it did not look toward heavenly things because it attended only to things below. This is in Distinction 49, chapter Hinc etenim. Or she signifies the sinful soul. She was healed by Christ’s hand, that is, by grace touching the mind and freeing it from this curvature produced by the devil’s instigation.
Matthew and Mark say that on the day following Palm Sunday, as Jesus came from Bethany to Jerusalem and was hungry, he approached a fig tree beside the road. It had only leaves, and he went to see whether he might find fruit there. Because he found none—for it was not the season for figs—he cursed it, saying: “May fruit never grow from you.” At this word it immediately withered.
When the disciples marveled, Jesus said: “If you have faith, whatever you ask shall be done for you.” This shows that Christ hungers, that is, desires the fruit of good works in us and in the Jewish people. His going to see whether the tree had fruit indicates free will; the fact that it was not the season of fruits intimates God’s infallible foreknowledge, which nevertheless does not take away our freedom.
Therefore, when Christ finds in us only the leaves of words and not the fruits of works, he finally curses us by condemning us, so that we wholly wither away from grace and can bear fruit no longer. He also condemned the Jewish people, who rested in the leaves of legal observances without the fruit of faith.
Gratian, Cause 23, Question 4, after chapter Nabuchodonosor, says of the Tyrians and Sidonians: “In all these things our vices are ascribed to the judgment of the human mind. Divine clemency mercifully turns this judgment toward good in the elect, but justly leaves it toward evil in the condemned.” Thus Gratian. The devotion of faith ought to believe this, not scrutinize it.
Luke relates of the man with dropsy that Jesus entered a certain Pharisee’s house to eat on the Sabbath. When a man with dropsy had been brought before him, he asked those who were watching him whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. When they remained silent, he took the man and healed him, declaring this to be lawful because they themselves rescued brute animals on the Sabbath. He reproved or admonished them to avoid ambition and pride, signified in that man with dropsy, and also avarice.
Matthew speaks of a stater, that is, a certain coin, perhaps a grosso or a bolognino, miraculously found by Peter in a fish’s mouth. After Christ’s Transfiguration, when he had come to Capernaum, those who collected the didrachma—that is, a certain sum for the toll on passage—approached Peter and said: “Does your master not pay the didrachma?” He answered, “Yes,” that is, he does.
When Peter entered the house, Jesus anticipated him and said: “Simon, what do you think? From whom do earthly kings receive tribute or tax: from their sons or from strangers?” When Peter answered, “From strangers,” Jesus said: “Then the sons are free. But lest we scandalize them, go to the sea and cast in a hook. Take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you shall find a stater. Take it and give it to them for me and for yourself.”
Note what Ambrose says in Cause 11, Question 1: “This is a great and special lesson, by which Christian men are taught that they ought to be subject to higher powers, lest anyone suppose that a just ordinance of an earthly king is to be dissolved. For if the Son of God paid the tax, who are you, so great, that you suppose it should not be paid?”
The gloss there says that tribute or tax is a sign of subjection, but not a full proof of it. This is in the title On Privileges, chapter Recepimus. Because Christ was subject to no one, since he was without sin and supreme over all, he paid not from obligation but to remove scandal. Hence he said to Peter, “Lest we scandalize them, go,” and so forth.
Gregory says in Cause 11, Question 3, chapter Inter verba: “Even detractors and those scandalized through ignorance are to be summoned and admonished calmly, and satisfaction ought to be made to them in every way, because the Lord says, ‘Lest we scandalize them,’” and so forth, as was said. “But if they are unwilling to be satisfied by the truth, you have the consolation you behold in the Gospel,” namely Matthew 15: “Leave them”—that is, leave them to be scandalized—“they are blind,” and so forth.
It should also be noted, as is said in Cause 23, Question 8, chapter Tributum, that Peter was not ordered to give the whole fish or its head, because the Church ought not to be given to the emperor, nor can the pontifical summit, which presides like the head of the Church, be subjected to kings. He was ordered to give the stater found in the fish’s mouth, because the Church pays tribute from those exterior goods of the Church that are evident to all. This was instituted of old for peace and quiet, because they ought to protect and defend us. Thus the text there.
As the gloss there says, the Church gives tribute to kings not as a sign of subjection, as happens with laypeople, since the Church is not subject to them, but as assistance and on account of protection. It is therefore not to be given to them if they do not defend. It says that it is to be given from exterior things, that is, not from the goods of the Church that are dedicated to the Lord, but from those that come to churchmen together with such an obligation, namely that tribute be paid.
The miracles Christ performed at the time of his Passion must not be omitted. When the crowds came to seize him, Jesus asked whom they sought. When they answered, “Jesus of Nazareth,” and he said, “I am he,” they all fell backward to the ground together with their leader Judas, and at his command they arose. This showed that he did not lack power to escape and destroy them, and intimated that through their unbelief they would be delivered into a reprobate sense.
He also restored to the head of the high priest’s servant the right ear that Peter had cut off, as Luke writes.
Note here what Ambrose says in Cause 24, Question 1: “If Peter deliberately struck the ear, he taught that the Jews ought not to possess an ear in spirit, for they did not possess it in the mystery, namely faith. But the good Lord restored hearing even to that man in accordance with the prophetic sayings, showing that those who were wounded in Christ’s Passion could themselves be healed if they were converted, since every sin is washed away in Christ’s Passion.”
“Peter therefore takes away the ear. Why Peter? Because he is the one who received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. He condemns and also absolves.” And below: “Let us take care that no one’s ear be taken away while Christ’s Passion is read. If we refer the weakness of bodily suffering to his divinity, the ear is cut away; and it is cut away by Peter, who did not allow Christ to be regarded as a prophet but taught that he was the Son of God.” Thus Ambrose.
At Christ’s death, the sun was darkened, rocks were split, and the veil of the temple was divided. When the tombs were opened, many bodies arose at his Resurrection to announce the truth of the mystery to many.
For the sun of understanding is darkened at so great an indignity done to Christ; hard hearts, such as those of the centurion and others, were split open to compunction; the veil of ceremonies was removed so that hidden mysteries might be revealed; and innumerable people dead in sins rose to spiritual life.
To these we join the miracle that Christ suddenly gave unlearned fishermen skill in preaching and power to perform miracles, and what is greatest of all: at the Last Supper he gave himself as food in the sacrament.
The turning of water into wine at the wedding; the deliverance of the royal official’s son and Peter’s mother-in-law from fevers; the healing of the centurion’s servant, the paralytic offered to Christ upon a bed, the sick man at the pool, and the man with the withered hand; the twice-calmed storm at sea; Christ’s and Peter’s walking upon the waters; and the two multiplications of the loaves with the fishes have been treated above.
It was not without a miracle that Christ emerged unharmed from the midst of those who wished to cast him down from a mountain and, on another occasion, to stone him. Nor was it without a miracle that he twice cast the sellers and buyers out of the temple with such authority that no one dared oppose him.
So much for the miracles individually related. For, as is said at the end of John: “Jesus performed many other signs that are not written.” Chrysostom says that his miracles are an immeasurable sea.