Gospel according to Saint Matthew, commented on verse by verse

Chapter 8

Miscellaneous miracles of Jesus, 8, 1-9, 34.

Immediately following the Sermon on the Mount, we find in the first Gospel the account of several miracles performed by Our Lord Jesus Christ during the first year of his Galilean ministry. St. Matthew's intention in grouping these numerous wonders, which follow one another like a solemn procession, shines through his compelling narrative. He has shown us the Lawgiver, the King of minds and hearts; he now wishes to present to us the King of bodies and physical nature. He has portrayed Jesus as Prophet and Teacher of humanity; he will now describe him as the Savior who came from heaven to heal all our suffering.

has. Miracles of Our Lord Jesus Christ considered as a whole.

As promised above, we will now give a general overview of the Savior's first special miracle, encompassing all similar events. Naturally, this note will not address the nature of the miracle, its probative force, or other points concerning its theological character; we will confine ourselves to a few purely exegetical indications, limited to the miraculous power of Christ. Elsewhere, no doubt, we will discuss the miracles prior to Jesus, recounted in the Old Testament, as well as those performed by his disciples after his death, accounts of which are found either in the Acts of the Apostles, or in some letters of the New Testament.

1. Jesus had to perform miracles. This was a necessity for him, since he was the Messiah and the Prophets, speaking in God's name, had long foretold that Christ would reveal himself to the Jews through many wonders. “God himself will come and save you; then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will hear. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongues of the mute will be loosed,” Isaiah 35:5-6 (cf. 43:7, etc.). Miraculous power was so integral to the messianic role, according to the popular opinion rightly formed on this matter, that we will constantly see crowds either proclaiming aloud that Jesus is the Messiah when they have seen him perform some striking wonder, or asking him for a miracle when they want to be sure that he is truly the awaited Christ. Cf. Matthew 12:23; John 7:31, etc. Miracles were therefore the complement and the seal of his doctrine, the authentic mark of his heavenly mission and of his divinity cf. John 5, 36; 10, 37 et seq.; 16, 11 et seq. 

2. In fact, Jesus performed many miracles, as the four Gospels repeatedly attest. He performed not only those recounted in detail by his inspired biographers, but also others that could have been counted in the thousands (cf. John 2, 23; Matt. 4, 23; 8, 16 and parallel; 9, 35; 12, 15 and parallel; 14, 14, 36; 15, 30; 19, 2; 21, 14; Luke. 6, 19, etc.

3. These miracles of Jesus They bear different names in the Gospel, depending on the point of view from which the evangelists assessed them. They are called: virtue, acts of strength, insofar as they are the manifestation of a superior power; sign, when they are considered in their relation to the facts which the Lord intends to countersign by them; Vulg. wonder or miracle, (Matthew 21:15), because they arouse the admiration of men by the wonders of which they are composed; ; works, especially in the fourth Gospel, cf. Matthew 11:2. This last appellation is mysterious and profound. It is useful to note concerning these names that Jesus Christ never performed any miracles properly speaking, and that he even vehemently refused all the requests made to him by his friends, his enemies, and the devil. Miracles The works of Christ must have had a purpose other than to dazzle: they were always "signs." Thus, the divine Master never performed them for his own satisfaction, for the sake of his own well-being. If we study them one by one in their motives, we will see that they all lead back to the glory of God and the salvation of humankind.

4. Miracles The specific details that the evangelists took care to describe to us in varying degrees of detail number around forty. They can be divided into two categories depending on whether they originate more directly from love or the power of Jesus. Miracles Love is subdivided into three classes: the resurrection of the dead, mental healings, and physical healings. They all aim to alleviate physical or emotional suffering and originate from charity compassionate of the Savior. The Gospel cites three cases of resurrection, and about six cases of mental healing, that is to say, expulsion of demons, and about twenty bodily healings which concern almost all kinds of diseases, fever, leprosy, anemia, dropsy, hemorrhage, blindness, deafness, muteness, paralysis, etc. Miracles of power, which attest in Jesus Christ to an absolute right of control over all the energies of nature, whatever they may be, are in turn subdivided into four groups. There are miracles of creation, such as the changing of water into wine and the multiplication of loaves. There are miracles produced by the abrogation of the ordinary laws of nature, for example the Transfiguration, Jesus walking on water, miraculous catches of fish, the sudden calming of the storm. There are miracles which presuppose a triumph won over hostile forces, including the double expulsion of the money changers from the temple, and the fall of the armed men who came to arrest Our Lord in Gethsemane. Finally, there is miracles of destruction; but only one example is mentioned, that of the dried-up fig tree, unless one wishes to include in this class the suffocation of the pigs of Gadara, which in reality falls on the demons rather than on Jesus Christ.

5. Since the evangelists only recorded such a limited number of miracles in detail, one may wonder what motives determined their selection. Father Coleridge, Public Life of Jesus, establishes the following rules on this: “Sometimes we have a series of cures of different kinds grouped together as if by way of specimens; more often, miracles The stories recounted are those that have some importance beyond themselves, for example, those associated with a particular doctrine, those that have given rise to a discussion, those that have influenced to some extent the actions of Our Lord or his adversaries.” miracles As with preaching, if God did not allow everything to be preserved for us, at least he was pleased that samples of the various kinds be transmitted to us, so that we can judge what is lacking by the little we possess.

b. Curing a leper, 8, 1-4. Parallel. Mark., 1, 40-45; Luke, 6, 12-16.

Mt8. ¹ When Jesus came down from the mountain, a great multitude followed him. – When he came down“After preaching and expounding doctrine, the opportunity arises to perform miracles to confirm the teachings of the Savior by their power and splendor,” St. Jerome in hl Miracles Actions are thus added to the word, complementing and authenticating it in a way. Our Lord Jesus Christ thus does for himself what he will do for his disciples after his Ascension: “The Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.” Mark 16:20. – The miracle of the leper's healing is recounted in almost the same terms by the three Synoptic Gospels; however, they do not give it the same place in their arrangement of events. St. Luke reports it immediately before the Sermon on the Mount, St. Matthew immediately after; in the second Gospel, it follows the healing of St. Peter's mother-in-law. The very precise indication of time, which exists in St. Matthew's account while it is lacking in the other two, seems to give the upper hand to the first evangelist. a large crowd followed him. A beautiful procession of people, which we will now very often find alongside Jesus. The awestruck crowd accompanies the Orator who has just charmed them, and they bring him this modest triumph. 

 Mt8.² And a leper approached him, knelt before him, and said, «Lord, if you are willing, you can heal me.» – St. Luke supposes that the miracle took place in a city, which he does not name, "Jesus was in a city," 5:12: it was either Capernaum or some nearby town located at the foot of the Mount of Beatitudes. A leperLeprosy, which hideously covered this unfortunate man (“a man covered with leprosy,” Luke 5:12), is a well-known disease, which has always been one of the most terrible scourges of the East, especially of Egypt and the Syriaincluding Palestine. Four types are distinguished: elephantiasis, which was probably Job's disease; black leprosy; red leprosy; and white leprosy. The latter has always been the most common in Palestine; it is also called Mosaic leprosy because Moses describes its symptoms and different phases throughout chapters 12 and 14 of Leviticus. It begins with whitish spots, no larger than needle points when they first appear, but soon cover the entire surface, or at least large parts, of the body. From the outside, the disease penetrates inward, gradually reaching the flesh, the nervous system, the bones, the marrow, and the tendons. Its dissolving action is such that the limbs eventually fall off literally in pieces. However, it acts with a certain slowness, devouring and consuming its victims in the long run, who eventually die after enduring terrible physical and mental suffering. Although nature has sometimes managed to overcome this sad disease, human art is incapable of curing it. Epidemic, or at least regarded as such in antiquity (doctors (They have not yet been able to agree on this point), it transformed those it afflicted into pariahs or outcasts from social life, forbidden from residing in cities. Today, as in the time of Elisha, they are found gathered in groups at the gates of Palestinian towns, trying to arouse the pity of passersby by displaying their sores. All pilgrims to Jerusalem have seen those whom the Turkish police have relegated to miserable huts on Mount Zion. Let us also note some curious traditions of the Rabbis concerning leprosy: "Men are punished by leprosy because of slander and calumny"... "Man is formed half of water and half of blood. As long as someone lives righteously, there is no more water than blood in him." When he sins, either the water is too abundant and he becomes dropsical, or the blood overwhelms the water, and he becomes leprous,” Otto, Rabbinic Lexicon. According to public opinion, leprosy was always the punishment for some secret or manifest crimes; thus, it was emphatically called “the finger of God.” He adored her ; «falling at his knees,» Mark 1:40; «he fell facedown to the ground,» Luke 5:12; three expressions to describe the same gesture of profound reverence, practiced in the Eastern manner. By saying: Master. This was the honorific title given to all those to whom one wished to show respect. – In this context, the leper adds a simple but moving prayer: If you wish, you can purify me., Or, even more delicately, from the Greek: «If you would, you can heal me.» You can, that is an undeniable fact of which I am perfectly certain; will you consent? I hope so, given your kindness, but I have no right to trouble you. «He who appeals to the will does not doubt virtue,» St. Jerome in hl. What a great act of faith! Perhaps this leper had heard of Jesus’ earlier miracles (cf. Matthew 4:23-24); perhaps, standing some distance from the crowd, he had been one of the listeners of the Sermon on the Mount, which had instilled in him a high opinion of the Speaker, presenting him as a Prophet, or even as the Messiah. He does not say: You can heal me; but, alluding to the nature of his affliction, You can cleanse me. Leprosy, in fact, rendered one legally impure, Leviticus 13:8; and it is partly for this reason that, according to a Mosaic prescription, ibid. 9:45, lepers had to, when they saw a passerby approaching them, warn him of their infirmity by shouting: Tamé, tamé «"Impure, impure!". 

Mt8.³ Jesus reached out his hand, touched him, and said, «I will it; be healed.» And instantly his leprosy was healed. The Lord is always ready to help those who suffer when they implore his mercy. The poor leper's request is barely uttered before it is granted. Jesus' hand anticipates his word; he extends it as a sign of his power and his will. Approaching the sick man, he touched himwithout fear of defilement by this contact (cf. Leviticus 5:3), because the superior power that suspends the laws of nature can all the more readily suspend a ceremonial law (cf. 1 Kings 17:21; 2 Kings 4:34). – We will frequently see Our Lord Jesus Christ healed in this way. the sick who addressed themselves to Him and used His adorable body as an instrument for the transmission of supernatural favors, just as today, in the SacramentsHe uses matter to communicate grace. I want it, be purified“This testifies to the maturity of the leper’s faith. All the words of the desired answer were contained within it.” Jesus thus honors the supplicant by using the very terms of his request to grant him the favor he asks for. “I do it”: who, apart from God, had ever uttered this commandment in similar circumstances? This is not how Moses spoke when he wished to heal his sister. MarriedShe too was afflicted with leprosy; cf. Numbers 12:13. And immediately… The effect is immediate: no evil can resist this heavenly physician for a single moment.

Mt8.⁴ Then Jesus said to him, «See that you tell no one, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift prescribed by Moses, to testify to the people that you are healed.» – Before leaving, Jesus gave the man he had just healed two pieces of advice that initially surprised us. The first contained a prohibition, the second a command. Don't talk about itThis is the prohibition; we will hear it many times later, in connection with similar miracles. Cf. Matthew 3:12; 5:43; 7:86; 8:26, etc.; Luke 8:56; 9:21. The reasons that led Jesus to impose this prohibition on a number of the sick people he healed have been interpreted in very different ways. See Maldonat in hl St. Mark, however, clearly indicates the true reason for this prohibition when he adds, following the words of Our Lord: “The leper went out and began to preach and spread the word, so that he (Jesus) could not openly enter a town, but stayed far away in deserted places, and people ran to him from everywhere.” Cf. Luke. 5, 15. By opposing the proclamation by trumpet of the healing wonders which he performed, Jesus wanted to avoid overexciting the spirits and thereby causing the messianic agitations which tended to occur after his miracles, Cf. John 614-15. By provoking, albeit unintentionally, the enthusiasm of the crowds at this stage of his ministry, he feared harming his work, either by appearing to indulge the secular and political hopes his compatriots associated with the name of the Messiah, or by developing too early and too intensely the jealousy of his enemies; later, when his time had come, he would cease to oppose the disclosure of his miracles. For the moment, he wanted to be the first to practice what he had taught concerning good works: "He gives this as an example, for he had taught earlier to conceal good works," St. Thomas Aquinas. – Several commentators believe that this recommendation of the Savior was also made in the personal interest of the one who had been miraculously healed. To prove this, they rely on the fact that Jesus sometimes gave those he had healed an entirely opposite instruction (see Mark). 5:19: “Go home to your family and tell them all that the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you,” or about what miracles whose publication he forbade had witnessed considerable crowds. The divine Master would therefore have then intended to bring the miraculously healed man back to himself, to encourage him not to flaunt his supernatural cure, but to thank God with a more fervent life. – We see, according to St. Mark, that the leper had nothing more pressing than to go and recount the miracle he had just experienced. Go, show yourself to the priest..With these words, Jesus Christ commands two things of the leper; first, he must present himself to the district priest to obtain a declaration of complete healing. Since leprosy caused legal defilement, the priests were naturally the judges of its onset and cessation. – Second, the healed man must offer the gift that Moses prescribedIt was a proper sacrifice, consisting for the rich of a one-year-old ewe and two lambs, for the poor in a single lamb accompanied by two turtledoves. Cf. Leviticus 14:10, 21-22: this passage contains interesting details on how these different victims were to be sacrificed and offered to the Lord, as well as on the ceremonies that accompanied the leper's reintegration into all his rights as a citizen. In short, Jesus instructs the leper to act as if he had been healed according to the ordinary laws of nature. This serves as their testimony This last statement has received very discordant interpretations. As evidence of this, exegetes have wondered. Some have answered, with St. John Chrysostom, that by acting according to his instructions, the leper would be demonstrating Jesus' respect for Mosaic Law. Others have said—and their opinion seems much more probable to us—that it is not a question of something so extraordinary, but simply of attesting to the sick man's healing. The pronoun "their" has given rise to a second discussion. Does it refer to the priests or to the people? It can be linked to "priest," although this noun is singular, by admitting the use of a figure of speech frequent in the Bible and in classical works; then, the meaning would be: Your offering, taken to Jerusalem, will prove to the priests that you are healed. Or, according to others: She will prove my miraculous power to them, and you yourself will be a living testimony against them if they refuse to believe. "So that they might be inexcusable for not believing in him, the priests who had verified his miracles," Maldonat. We can also connect "their" to the collective noun "person," which gives the following meaning, which we believe preferable: Your sacrifice, received by the priests, will be, in a way, your authentic certificate of healing for your compatriots, who will restore to you your rights to communal life.

c. Healing of a centurion's servant, 8, 5-13. Parall. Luke, 7, 1-10.

This account is one of the many gems that adorn the Gospel narrative. St. Luke, who also included it in his biography of Jesus, places it immediately after the Sermon on the Mount, which makes little difference. There are more significant discrepancies between the two narrators, which have, on the one hand, led to cries of contradiction among rationalists, and on the other hand, to the belief that the events were distinct. But it is indeed one and the same story that St. Matthew and St. Luke recount, and they recount it in exactly the same way; only St. Luke provides more complete details, while St. Matthew, in his usual manner, abridges and summarizes, limiting himself to the necessary information, in order to get straight to what fit best within his Christological plan.

Mt8. ⁵ As Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him – Entered Capernaum. This city was the scene of the miracle; Jesus was returning there after his great discourse at Kurun al-Hattin. According to St. Luke, the centurion seems not to have come in person to Our Lord and not to have spoken to him directly even once; he merely sent two successive delegations who presented his request. The Manicheans, troubled in their doctrines by the thought expressed in verse 11, were already taking advantage of this apparent contradiction to deny the veracity of the entire event. St. Augustine wittily shows them the injustice of which they were willfully guilty. As if, he says, a narrator who mentions a certain detail contradicted another narrator who omits it. As if someone who attributes an act to a person contradicted another, more accurate narrator who asserts that the person performed it through an intermediary. Is this not how all historians operate? Isn't this how we speak at every moment in private life? "How can we explain that, when we read, we forget the way we usually speak? Is the Scripture of God among us for any other reason than to speak to us in our own language?" (contra. Faust. 33, 7-8). Cf. the Agreement of the Evangelists 2, 20. This answer has lost none of its value. St. Matthew therefore acts in this passage according to the legal axiom: "He who acts through another is considered to have acted through himself." Moreover, the two writings can be reconciled even more perfectly by admitting, with St. John Chrysostom, that the centurion himself came to Jesus following his delegates. A centurionA centurion in the Roman army was an officer who commanded a company of one hundred soldiers, as his name indicates. It is known that in Rome the army consisted of a number of legions; each legion was divided into ten cohorts, each cohort into three maniples, and each maniple into two centuries, making 60 centuries, or 6,000 men, per legion. It is remarkable that all the centurions mentioned in the New Testament are referred to in a very honorable manner: these include, besides our own, the centurion of Calvary (27:54), and the centurion Cornelius, baptized by St. Peter. Acts of the Apostles 10, and the centurion Julius, who treated St. Paul kindly, Acts of the Apostles 27, 3-43. In all times and among all peoples, even when all the great principles had collapsed, some remnants of moral and religious virtues have been found in armies. – The hero of this story was stationed in Capernaum: he was therefore in the service of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, whose army had been organized according to the Roman system and was composed mainly of foreign soldiers. Born into paganism, as verse 10 tells us very clearly, he had felt, like so many others, the emptiness and falseness of his religion; his stay in Palestine had allowed him to study Judaism closely, which at that time was of such keen interest, albeit for different reasons, to the Greek and Roman world. He had become so attached to it that he had a synagogue built at his own expense in Capernaum, cf. Luke 7:5; Perhaps he had even been admitted among the proselytes, those men, pagan by birth, half-Jewish by beliefs and religious practices, whom God was preparing in great numbers among the Greeks and Romans to serve as links between Mosaic law and paganism. In any case, he was a noble and generous soul. It is clear that he had heard of Jesus, of his miracles, of the hopes that were beginning to be placed in him: he might even have seen him in the streets of Capernaum, attended one of his sermons. This had been enough to give him a high opinion of his power; and so it was to him that he immediately thought whenever he needed help. 

Mt8.⁶ and prayed to him, «Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed in my house, suffering terribly.» – My servant: See verse 9 and Luke 7:2. According to Luke, he was an excellent servant whom the centurion held in high regard. Cicero apologized for his profound grief at the death of a faithful slave, so eager were masters at that time to show their antipathy for these unfortunate souls: the centurion's open condescension toward his servant thus denotes kindness of his character. He is lying down… indicates the patient's total helplessness. The physician Celsus, a contemporary of Our Lord Jesus Christ, makes the following reflection on the use of the expression in his works, 3.27 paralysis In his time: «The cessation of nerve activity is a very widespread disease. Sometimes it attacks the whole body, often it only affects a part of it. Ancient writers called the first case apoplexy, and the second paralysis; but I notice that today the name paralysis is used in both cases. Ordinarily, those who suffer from universal paralysis are carried off quickly; otherwise, they may well live for some time longer, but they rarely recover their health and almost always lead a miserable existence. For those who are only partially affected, their illness is never very severe, it is true, but it is often very long and incurable.» The words they are suffering extremely added by St. Matthew and the observation of St. Luke: "he was dying", seem to indicate, from this, that the centurion's servant had recently suffered a stroke.

Mt8.⁷ Jesus said to him, «I will go and heal him.”. The need was urgent and demanded prompt help; Jesus offered his services without delay and, according to St. Luke, went immediately to the centurion's house. This was the only time he himself took the initiative to heal a sick person, and he did so for a poor servant. Ancient exegetes noted that nothing similar occurred with the royal official's son (see John 4:50), although he too was healed from a distance. When faith was very strong, as it was in this instance, Jesus did not test it.

Mt8.⁸ “Lord,” replied the centurion, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”. – It was the centurion's personal friends, sent by him to Jesus as the divine Master approached his house, who delivered this admirable reply. Lord, I am not worthyA feeling of profound humilityHe, a pagan, a sinner, does not consider himself worthy to receive such a visit; Jesus' approach fills him with holy fear. Besides, he continues, apart from the fact that I am unworthy, it is entirely unnecessary. But just say one word and…It is the feeling of a vibrant, entirely spiritual faith that leads him to speak in such a way. «Say… a word,» a Hebraism meaning «command by a word.» – The centurion deserved that his beautiful response, inserted into the liturgical prayers, be repeated every day at the Holy Sacrifice before communion for the priest and the faithful.

Mt8.⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes; and that one, 'Do this,' and he does it.» To the preceding words, he adds, to prove that a single word from Jesus, spoken from a distance, can produce the desired effect, a purely military line of reasoning that lends this scene a perfect air of authenticity. The wisdom of the faithful shines brightly amidst the military harshness. Subject to the power of anotherA fine line ofhumility which St. Bernard notes in the following terms: “Oh, what prudence in this soul. Whathumility in this heart! Before saying that he commands soldiers, to stifle feelings of pride, he admits that he himself is subordinate, or rather, he puts his submission first, because he values obedience more than command,” Letter 392. The centurion argues “from the least to the greatest.” I am but a junior officer, and yet my word is all-powerful over my subordinates; it produces wonders of obedience: all the more so yours, since you are the spiritual emperor, the true Commander-in-Chief of all the heavenly armies. He thus compares the situation of Jesus Christ, in relation to the invisible world and the mysterious forces of nature, to his own situation. Illnesses are soldiers who must obey the command of the Supreme Leader. Perhaps his imagination, still steeped in pagan superstitions, depicted them as evil spirits who would flee at once at the Savior's command. In any case, he perfectly demonstrated that the personal presence of the divine Physician is not essential.

Mt8.¹⁰ When Jesus heard these words, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, «Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. – Jesus was filled with wonderJesus is astonished. The Gospels mention this kind of emotion in the soul of Our Lord Jesus Christ only twice, here and in Mark 6:6, concerning the unbelief of the inhabitants of Nazareth. In what we have just read, there was such a mixture of faith andhumilitythat the Savior himself experiences a feeling of admiration. And yet, "not being astonished by anything" is a rule of divine perfection; but Jesus is man as well as God, and he can be astonished without prejudice to his universal knowledge, just as an astronomer contemplates with admiration an eclipse that he has long foreseen and prophesied (cf. Thom. Aq. Summa Theologica, Tertia Pars, q. 15, a. 18). – The Centurion's faith deserved public praise and reward: Jesus grants him both in succession. We find the praise in the second part of verse 10: And he said… I couldn't find it.... Our Lord attaches a serious warning to the Jews. In Israel, in Greek, "person in Israel." The Israelites were to be preeminently the people of faith in the Messiah. As a privileged nation, they existed only for the sake of Christ; their history, their theocratic institutions were, both in general and in detail, a perpetual preparation for Christ; Christ was to be one of their own even according to the flesh, and here is a pagan preceding them.

Mt8.¹¹ That is why I tell you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven., But that's not all. At that moment, the centurion appeared to Jesus as the representative of those many converts from paganism who had believed and would continue to believe in Him. Broadening his thought, he moved from the specific to the general and affirmed that this captain would be followed by a whole army of soldiers animated by the same spirit., many will come. Instead of the vague "many," Jesus could have said "of pagans," but his sensitivity softened the blow to his fellow citizens. From the East and the West : a Hebrew expression that designates all the peoples of the globe; "without distinction of nationality, including the two most distant parts, it designates them all," says Maldonat, according to St. Augustine. And will take place. This verb means to be seated, or rather to be reclining at the table, according to the Eastern custom. Jesus Christ, following Isaiah 25:6 and the Rabbis, likes to represent the kingdom of heaven in the joyful image of a feast to which he will invite his faithful disciples, just as a father gathers his children around his table (cf. Luke 14:7; Matthew 22:1 ff.; 26:29). Indeed, nothing could better depict the delights, eternal security, and intimate communion of the elect. The pagans, invited in droves to this royal banquet, will have the honor of tasting its sweetness in the holy company of the most illustrious ancestors of the Jews., with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, although they are only the spiritual sons of these great patriarchs. «He insists on this word. It is as if he were saying: all Jews consider themselves so holy that they do not want to eat with a foreigner; and many foreigners, as well as the greatest among them, whose names the Jews are accustomed to despise, will partake of a meal from which the Jews have been expelled,” Grotius, Annotat. in hl.

Mt8.¹² while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.» – For the Jews will be excluded, at least most of them [Liturgical Bible, 2020, p. 2245: "they will be excluded if they reject Jesus," Jerusalem Bible, Matthew, 1950, p. 65: "they will be replaced by Gentiles more worthy than themselves"]; Jesus Christ clearly announces this, continuing the metaphor he began. The children of the kingdom is a way of speaking entirely Hebrew, of which many examples are found in the New Testament. Cf. Ephesians 22; 5:8; John 27:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Peter 1:14; 2 Peter 2:14, etc. The sons of the kingdom are none other than the presumptive heirs to whom it is destined. This expression here refers to the Jews who, as we have seen, were the first to be called by God to participate in the Messianic kingdom. Sons of the theocracy, which was the typical kingdom, they were also to be sons of the real and figurative kingdom. They will be thrown away, contrary to what had been initially outlined in the divine plan, Cf. Romans 925; but Israel has no right to complain about this change of destiny that put the Gentiles in its own place; the entire blame falls upon it. [This saying of Jesus curses the free and conscious religious choice to deny his messiahship and divinity; the Catholic Church rightly condemns antisemitism. One cannot use the condemnation of a religious opinion to indiscriminately condemn all Jews because invincible ignorance exists.] “Let the proud branches be broken, then, and let the humble wild olive tree be grafted in their place; provided, nevertheless, that the root always remains, despite the breaking of some and the obstinacy of others. Where does the root remain? In the person of the Patriarchs.” », St. August. in Jean Tract. 16, ad. END ; Cf. Matthew, 21, 43. – In the outer darkness, That is to say, "who are outside the kingdom of God." Then, as now, large meals usually took place in the evening, and the banquet hall was splendidly lit; but outside, in the street, complete darkness reigned. Jesus Christ therefore wants to express through this image the expulsion of the Jews from his kingdom. There will be tears there. : a symbol of the despair and violent pain that will afflict the unfortunate souls who have not been invited to the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb. How differently the Savior's compatriots thought! They believed that in the world to come, God would have prepared for them an immense table that the Gentiles would see and be ashamed of.”. And now the opposite will happen.

Mt8.¹³ Then Jesus said to the centurion, «Go, and let it be done to you according to your faith,» and at that very hour his servant was healed. – A fitting reward for the centurion's faith. “Jesus places the oil of mercy in the vessel of belief”, S. Bern. Serm. 3 of Anima.- May it be done to you. Faced with this "fiat," which nothing can resist, the disease immediately fled, and at the very moment it was uttered, at the very moment, The servant has been completely restored to health.

d. Healing of St. Peter's mother-in-law and many other sick people, vv. 14-17. Parallel. Mark.; 1, 29-34; Luke, 4, 38-41.

Mt8.¹⁴ And Jesus came to Peter's house and found his mother-in-law lying in bed, suffering from a fever. From this point onward, St. Matthew temporarily abandons the true order of events to follow a purely logical sequence. According to the parallel accounts of St. Mark and St. Luke, arranged here in chronological order, the healing of St. Peter's mother-in-law took place shortly after Jesus Christ settled in Capernaum, at a date prior to that of the Sermon on the Mount. Its proper place would seem to be following verse 22 of chapter 4. St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine had already noted that the credit for the greatest accuracy here belongs to the second Gospel. In Pierre's houseThis house has greatly puzzled some exegetes, firstly because at that time St. Peter had renounced everything to follow Jesus (Luke 5:11); secondly because St. John the Evangelist seems to place the residence of the Prince of the Apostles in Bethsaida, not Capernaum. The first difficulty is not serious: St. Peter's renunciation was complete, even though he retained possession of his house, because he used his possessions as if they were not, and at the slightest sign from his Master, he left everything to accompany him on his arduous missions. He had not taken a vow of poverty in the strict sense of the expression. The second difficulty is addressed by saying that the note from the fourth evangelist, "in Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter," does not imply that they were living in that town at the time. They were originally from Bethsaida, but they may have settled, probably after the marriage of St. Peter, in the nearby city of Capernaum for the sake of their professional activities. His stepmother. Apart from tradition and this passage, we also know from the testimony of St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 9:5, that St. Peter was married. His mother-in-law was named Cornelia according to some, Clem. Alex. Strom. 7, and Perpetua according to others. His daughter Petronilla is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology (May 31, cf. the "Acta Sanctorum"). Who was in bed?, the victim of a sudden and violent attack; otherwise Jesus, who had already been in Capernaum for some time, would undoubtedly have healed her sooner. And is explanatory and introduces the reason why St. Peter's mother-in-law was bedridden. Had a fever, «She was suffering from a high fever,» said S. Luc with his characteristic medical precision. 

Mt8.¹⁵ He touched her hand, and the fever left her; immediately she got up and began to serve them. – “And approaching, he lifted her up, taking her by the hand,” says St. Mark. The healing was instantaneous and so radical, the three evangelists add in unison, that the sick woman was not only able to get up, but also to serve her distinguished guest at table, thus showing him her gratitude. The doctors Ordinary remedies do not produce such marvelous cures. “Human nature is such that bodies are more weakened when the fever has left them; and that one feels the ills of the disease when one begins to recover health. But the health granted by the Lord is restored in full and instantaneously,” St. Jerome, Comm. in hl. St. John Chrysostom reasons in the same way: “Christ puts diseases to flight by bringing back at once the former vigor; when it is medicine that heals, the weakness caused by the disease remains; but when it is virtue that heals, the exhaustion of the organism leaves no trace,” Hom. 18.

Mt8.¹⁶ That evening, several demon-possessed people were brought to him, and with a word he drove out the spirits and healed them all. the sick : – After the sick house, the sick city. From the house of St. Peter, the healing spread to the whole city of Capernaum. Miracles The successive miracles that Jesus Christ had just performed (see Mark 1:21 ff.) caused a great stir in the city: word spread that the new Prophet was performing many wonders and that his goodness was no less than his power. All the inhabitants gathered before the door of the house (Mark 1:33), but they did not come as mere onlookers; they had great favors to ask. Each family brought its sick and infirm members; many possessed people also came, brought by their friends or relatives. He drove out the spirits. Jesus condescended to all desires: a word of authority was enough for him to expel these unclean spirits. What joy must have reigned that day in Capernaum! When evening came. The three Synoptic Gospels observe that this scene took place in the evening, after sunset. Indeed, it was a Saturday (see Mark 1:21, 29, 32). Now, "religion required Jews to bring their sick before the end of the Sabbath" (Grotius, Annotations). All manual labor was strictly forbidden until the sun had disappeared below the horizon, for only then did the Sabbath rest end.

Mt8.¹⁷ thus fulfilling the words of the prophet Isaiah: "He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases."« – St. Matthew, writing for Jews, strives to connect the events of the Savior's life to the messianic predictions of the Old Testament, and here quotes a famous passage from Isaiah (53:4) with its familiar introduction, so that it may be fulfilled. These multiple healings that he reported are, in his eyes, the fulfillment of what the Prophet had foretold when he said of Christ: «He took upon himself our infirmities and bore our sufferings» (trans. of St. Jerome, Vulgate). We see that, contrary to his usual practice, St. Matthew makes this quotation quite literally from the Hebrew. But hasn't he transformed the meaning of the Prophet's words? The latter, describing the future sufferings of the Messiah, indicated their happy results for humanity: it was seeing in advance our sins erased, removed, by the «vicarious satisfaction» of Christ (reparation for the offenses committed against God, by God who became man), that he exclaimed: «He himself bore our sins…» And this is indeed the interpretation given by St. Peter to this passage (cf. 1 Peter 2:24): how then can the evangelist apply it to the illnesses miraculously healed by Jesus? We will not excuse him, as Maldonat does, by saying that he is simply making an accommodation: that would be a concession as dangerous as it is pointless. Everything can be reconciled very easily, without violence or subtlety of any kind. Isaiah speaks directly, it is true, of our sins, which Jesus Christ deigned to atone for by suffering for us; but is not the effect contained in the cause? Are not our physical illnesses the fatal consequence of the great moral disease, sin? To predict that someone can take away our sins is therefore to predict that they can all the more readily take away our illnesses. We will see, on several occasions, Our Lord highlight this undeniable connection and heal the sick by saying to them: Your sins are forgiven. Let us therefore conclude that, if the evangelist does not take Isaiah's words entirely literally, he at least quotes them in a sense deduced from the letter through reasoning, a perfectly legitimate and justifiable sense. He took, that is to say he seized, took away. Cf. v. 40; Acts of the Apostles 3, 11. – And took charge, same meaning. S. Hilaire makes a profound and delicate reflection on this passage: «Absorbing by the passion of his body the infirmities of human weakness», Comm. in hl – The scene of v. 16 was translated in a grandiose way by the painter Jouvenet; there is on the same subject a striking and popular etching by Rembrandt.

e. Miracle of the calmed storm, 8, 18-27. Parallel. Mark., 4, 35-40; Luke.; 8, 22-25. 

Mt8.¹⁸ When Jesus saw a large crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. – Jesus, seeing…These words contain the motive for the order that Jesus is about to give. The divine Master has around him, as a result of his miracles, an enthusiastic crowd, whose untimely ovations he wishes to avoid: he will place the Sea of Galilee between them and himself. – When one reads the account of St. Matthew, it seems that this event takes place on the same evening as the numerous healings in Capernaum recounted in the two preceding verses; but a glance at the parallel accounts in the other two Synoptic Gospels is enough to show that here again the first Evangelist allowed himself to be guided by the analogy of events rather than by the order of dates. The miracle of the calming of the storm was performed only at a later time (cf. Mark 4:35 ff.; Luke 8:22 ff.). Cross to the other side, on the other side of the lake, on the eastern shore. The province of Perea was more isolated, calmer, and Jesus had a much smaller number of followers there: it was therefore perfectly suited for the purpose that Our Lord had in mind at the time.

Mt8.¹⁹ Then a scribe approached him and said, "Master, I will follow you wherever you go."« – St. Matthew inserts here an interesting dialogue that supposedly took place between Jesus and two of his disciples at the time of his departure. St. Luke also recounts this event, even adding some details, but much later and only towards the end of Jesus' Public Life, when he was about to face the attacks of his enemies in Jerusalem (cf. Luke 9:57 ff.). It is impossible to say with certainty which of the two sequences is better. Perhaps it would be that of St. Luke, given that in the last months before his death, Jesus Christ had a greater need for courageous and determined disciples. Several exegetes, however, give preference to the order established by St. Matthew, among them M.J.P. Lange, according to whom the third Evangelist used this dialogue for purely psychological purposes. A Scribe. «One» is synonymous with «a certain one.» Hebrew is used in both a definite and an indefinite sense. – This doctor of the Law seems to have been among Jesus« followers for some time already; this can at least be inferred from the expression »another of his disciples« in verse 21, where »another« appears to be contrasted with »one.” At least now, he desires to enter into the company of the disciples proper who regularly followed Our Lord, and he boldly expresses his intention. Master, That is to say, Rabbi. The Pharisees themselves often gave this title to Jesus Christ. Wherever you go. It was the ancient custom of close and devoted disciples to accompany their master on all his journeys; moreover, teachers of that era were frequently itinerant, traveling from country to country to further their studies or to give lessons. This enthusiastic Scribe certainly foresaw some of the difficulties he would face by offering to accompany the Savior everywhere on his missions; but he was far from understanding everything. He spoke the language of fleeting, unreflective emotion, which considers obstacles as nothing as long as they remain at a distance and which, without having received a call from on high, puts itself forward to brave them. Were his intentions truly pure? Was not the hope of holding a high rank in the messianic kingdom, which he imagined in entirely secular terms, like his compatriots, his principal motive? We can well assume so, following the Fathers.

Mt8.²⁰ Jesus answered him, «Foxes have their dens and birds of the air their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.» – The Savior, by his reply, casts a little cold water on this overly ardent soul. Without accepting the Scribe's offer and without rejecting it, he simply paints a vivid picture of the life of renunciation destined for all those who follow him. Foxes have their dens..Even the poorest people, those who live from day to day without provisions for tomorrow, nevertheless have guaranteed shelter. Son of man : an important and famous name that Jesus Christ likes to use for himself in the Gospel. The apostles never give it to him; only the deacon St. Stephen uses it in his apologetic discourse. Acts of the Apostles 7, 56. Ezekiel also uses it in his Prophecy, 2:1, 3-8; 3:1-3, etc.; but there it is simply the expression his heavenly interlocutor applies to him to designate the distance that separates their respective natures: on one side he is an angel, on the other a mere "son of man," that is to say, a mortal. To fully understand the meaning of this appellation when Jesus uses it, one must refer to an ecstatic vision of Daniel, during which this Prophet had the joy of contemplating the future Messiah clothed in human form: "I was watching in the night vision, and behold, with the clouds of heaven came one like a son of man," Dan. 7, 13. “Son of Man” certainly means Messiah in this passage: this will be confirmed by reading the rest of the Prophet's narrative: it is also as Messiah that Jesus calls himself “the Son of Man” by antonomasia. Several Gospel texts leave no doubt about this. In the account in St. Matthew, 26:63 ff., Caiaphas summons Jesus in the name of the living God to tell him if he is the Christ, Son of God. What does Our Lord reply? “You have said so. For I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven…” cf. Mark 14:61-62; Luke 22:66-69. Moreover, this was the meaning that the Jews themselves attributed to this expression. John 12:34, and especially Luke 12:70, where they draw the following conclusion from the Savior's aforementioned response: "So you are the Son of God?", which amounts to saying: "So you are the Messiah?" However, as has been rightly repeated following most of the Fathers, this title "Son of Man" is far from being a glorious designation. "The word 'man' often designates a man of low condition, e.g., Jude 16:7, 11; Psalm 82 (Vulg. 81):7; and Psalm 49 (Vulg. 48):3. A distinction is made between 'son of man' and 'son of man' (ordinary men and courageous men)," Rosenmüller, Schol. In hl, “Because God was also the son of God, by a kind of antithesis, when he speaks of himself as a man, he calls himself the son of man,” Maldonatus. All other interpretations are inaccurate, from Fritzsche’s, which reduces our expression to a simple “I” (“I, it is I, the son of human parents, who speaks to you now, this man whom you know well, that is to say: I”: what a platitude!), to the one that has it designate Jesus as man par excellence, the ideal man. “of man” must be taken in a general sense and does not specifically represent Adam, as St. Gregory of Nazianzus believed, Orat. 30, c. 21. Where to rest your headMen desire dwellings primarily to find rest. But those that give rest to the body serve first and foremost to rest the mind. According to some, they express the most absolute destitution; according to others, simply the restless life of the missionary, incompatible with the comfort one can enjoy under one's own roof. The first interpretation, supported by the Fathers, is undeniably the most in accordance with reality; the second would deprive the Savior's thought of much of its power. St. Jerome develops Jesus' reasoning as follows: "Why do you desire to follow me for riches and luxury when I am of such great poverty that I don't even have a hovel, that I don't have a roof over my head?" – What was the result of this answer? The Evangelist does not say, but it seems that the severity of these words must have frightened the weak and rash soul to which they were addressed; such is the impression left by this story.

Mt8.²¹ Another disciple said to him, «Lord, first let me go and bury my father.» – Another of his disciples. This other disciple would be St. Philip according to Clement of Alexandria, Strom, 3, 4, St. Thomas Aquinas according to JP Lange: but these are unfounded hypotheses; the first is even in flagrant contradiction with the Gospel, for St. Philip had long been attached to the person of Jesus, Cf. John 1, 43 et seq. – He said. According to the more accurate account in Luke 9:59, Jesus first addressed this hesitant disciple, saying to him, «Follow me.» He replied: Master, allow me first of all…Before leaving everything to follow you, allow me to return to my family and to bury my father. Commentators do not all agree on the second disciple's request. Theophylact, Kypke, Paulus, Rosenmüller, and several others believe that the father, though elderly, was still alive and that his son was asking Jesus for permission to care for him until his death. "Let me take care of my father until his death," Thalemann. But this view seems hardly tenable. To respond to someone who begs you to accompany them immediately with a request for a reprieve that could last several years would be excessive. Moreover, for Jesus Christ's response to retain its full force, the death must have already occurred, and the disciple, who had only recently learned of it, must simply be imploring the divine Master for a delay of a few hours to go and perform his last rites for his father. The delay, in fact, would not have been very long, since the Jews customarily buried their dead on the very day of death. This is how the words "bury my father" are commonly interpreted, retaining their literal meaning, since there is no serious reason to abandon him. 

Mt8.²² But Jesus answered him, «Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.» – But Jesus said to him. Our Lord deliberately frightened the first disciple, who was either too zealous or too ambitious; on the contrary, he urged the second, who was too hesitant. His request, however, was perfectly legitimate: the feeling of nature, and to a certain extent of religion (cf. Genesis 25:9; 35:29; Tobit 6:15), had dictated it to him. But Jesus, who knew this man's irresolute character, saw that if he yielded to his desire, his vocation would be lost. He had to choose "here and now," or he would never choose. That is why he gave him this answer, seemingly severe, although it was inspired by love the most sincere: Follow me, without the slightest delay. – Leave the dead…There is an easy-to-grasp play on words in this last sentence. «It is clear that Christ wanted to subtly play on the ambiguity of this word. When he names the dead twice, there is no doubt that he does not give them the same meaning,» Maldonat. The first «dead» should be understood figuratively, the second literally. The latter refers to ordinary death, the former to spiritual death. Jesus Christ therefore means that inner death must go hand in hand with outer death: they are like sisters, and they help each other. «Leave it to the people of the world, most of whom are dead to grace, to goodness, to the kingdom of heaven, to bury the lifeless bodies of their brothers: it is a role that suits them perfectly. For you, there are more serious and pressing obligations: to follow me and preach the Gospel with me.» This is the true thought of Jesus. Does it destroy filial piety, as Celsus claimed? It would be as absurd as it is unjust to maintain such an assertion; for this is by no means a general rule, but only a particular case in which the vocation, and consequently the salvation of a soul, was in danger.

The storm and its miraculous calming, vv. 23-27.

Mt8.²³ He then got into the boat, followed by his disciples. – The momentous event that follows, unique in the life of Jesus, is recounted by the three Synoptic Gospels. St. Mark, who seems to have given it its historical place, relates it after the parables Relating to the kingdom of God, spoken by Jesus during the course of the second Galilean mission. – After the instructive dialogue we have witnessed, Jesus embarks in the boat that had been prepared at his command; “into this vessel which was likened to a path,” Fritzsche; cf. v. 18. His closest disciples, those who usually accompanied him, boarded the boat with him. Was Christ’s second interlocutor among them? The sacred narrative remains silent on this point; it is generally believed that he responded to the divine call and broke, in order to follow Jesus, the last tie that bound him to the world.

Mt8.²⁴ And suddenly there was a great commotion in the sea, so that the waves covered the boat: but he, however, was asleep.A very beautiful description in its simplicity and as swift as the storm that broke over the lake. At first, nothing foreshadowed the storm; but it is known that all inland seas, surrounded by mountains, are subject to very sudden gusts of wind that unleash terrible hurricanes. This is particularly true of the Sea of Galilee, as ancient and modern travelers tell us. Besides the common reason we have just stated, there is also the particular reason of the extraordinary situation of this sea: the winds rush furiously into the deep cavity that contains it and sometimes seem to want to overturn everything. It is therefore not necessary to admit that this storm was supernatural in its origin ("the storm does not come from atmospheric conditions, but from divine providence," St. Thomas Aquinas; cf. Glossa Ord., Jansenius, Sylveira); it suffices to say that it was providential. The boat was covered by the waves.…; Mark 4:37 is even more explicit: «The waves were coming into the ship, threatening to fill it with water.» They were therefore soon in real danger of being swallowed by the waters. Cf. Luke 8:23. – However, what became of Jesus? A striking contrast. He was asleep. Tired from the day's many and arduous tasks (cf. Mark 4:1-35), he had lain down in the bottom of the boat and slept peacefully. But he also intended to impart a useful lesson to his disciples: "He sleeps to awaken those who are awake. For if this had happened while he was awake, either they would not have been afraid, or they would not have asked anything, or they would have thought that he could do nothing" (St. John Chrysostom, Hom. 28 in Matthew). 

Mt8.²⁵ His disciples came to him, woke him, and said, «Lord, save us, we are perishing!» The danger must have been very great for them to resort to such an extreme, they who were so respectful and attentive to their Master. Lord, save us. The magnitude of the peril is also evident in the rapid, broken form of their prayer. One more moment and it will be too late; therefore, quickly, help! The hurricane must have been truly terrible to so terrify even fishermen accustomed to the lake's storms.

Mt8.²⁶ Jesus said to them, «Why are you afraid, you of little faith?» Then he got up and commanded the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. – Men of little faith: See 6:30. As if they could perish, with Jesus with them. SO. According to St. Mark and St. Luke, Jesus, on the contrary, only rebukes the disciples after he has calmed the storm. He commanded ; The verb in the Greek text can also be translated as "apostropha," since it often indicates a command reinforced by threats. These commands and threats addressed to inanimate creatures imply something more than a simple rhetorical personification of the sea and the wind. Nature, troubled by sin, often delivered into the hands of rebellious spirits who use it in a thousand ways to harm us, has become hostile to fallen humanity; Jesus commands it as an enemy power. Compare this passage to verse 9 of Psalm 105, where it is said that God "rebukes the Red Sea" so that it will open a way for his people. And he became very calm., all of a sudden, without transition; a circumstance which highlights the greatness of the prodigy: for, after a storm, the sea remains agitated for a long time and only gradually regains its usual calm, while here the lake suddenly became smooth as a mirror.

Mt8.²⁷ And filled with admiration, they all said, "Who is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?"« – filled with admiration. This verse describes the effect the miracle had on those who witnessed it. But who are these "men" the evangelist speaks of? This question has been answered in many ways. For Fritzsche, it would be "the men who considered all these things as omens," the subsequent listeners of the prodigy; an interpretation contradicted by St. Matthew himself, whose account assumes that there was no interval between the event and the astonishment it caused. According to St. John Chrysostom, this expression, despite its generality, would designate the apostles themselves; but this seems rather difficult, for why would they not here bear their usual name of "disciples"? Cf. vv. 23 and 25. And then, the disciples of Jesus, who had already seen him perform so many miracles, who had even just obtained from his all-powerful goodness, v. 25, the sudden calming of the storm, could hardly have demonstrated such extraordinary admiration as that described here. We therefore prefer to believe that the men in question were either foreigners piloting the boat, or curious onlookers who had followed Jesus at some distance in other boats, as can be inferred from the account in Mark 4:36. They may well have witnessed with their own eyes in Capernaum one of the Savior's miraculous healings; but the marvel they had just witnessed on the lake had a grander, more directly divine character, as it were; for the Bible seems to reserve for God the power to stir or calm the waves of the seas at will (cf. Psalm 64:8). After this, we understand the exclamation that escaped their lips: Which one is it?. which can be translated from the Greek as "Who is this, and how great is this one!" The sea and the wind Even the sea, even the winds, those impetuous beings that no hand but God's could tame, are obedient to his voice. – The moral applications that could be drawn from this episode were too obvious and striking to be ignored by moralists and exegetes. The most beautiful are those concerning the human soul and especially the Church. “This ship was an image of the Church, which, in the sea, i.e., in the world, is tossed about by the waves, i.e., by persecutions and temptations, patience of the Lord resembling sleep. Awakened at last by the prayers of the saints, Christ subdues the world and restores peace to his own,” Tertullian of Baptism 12. Is this not, today more than ever, the image of the Church of Jesus? – Among the works of art inspired by this miracle, let us mention, besides numerous frescoes in the catacombs, a painting by Rembrandt and a rich oratorio by Gounod.

f. Healing of the demonic Gadara, vv. 28-34.

The demoniacs have already been mentioned several times in the Gospel we are interpreting (cf. 4:24 and 8:16); but it was natural to wait until the continuation of St. Matthew's narrative presented us with a specific case of possession, in order to provide the reader with the general information it is important to know on this subject. – 1. The name most commonly used in the Gospel to designate the mysterious phenomenon of possession is that to have a demon (Vulg.). See also Mark 5:18; 1:23; Luke 4:23; 8:27; 6:18. – 2° Its nature, though fundamentally very mysterious, is expressed quite clearly either by these various names or by its terrible effects, which we sometimes find described in detail in the Synoptic Gospels. The demoniac has ceased to be his own master; he is penetrated, dominated by one or more evil spirits that have entered him, that have taken the place of his soul and substituted their usurped direction for the legitimate action that the latter previously exercised. The possessed person is therefore nothing more than an instrument in the hands of the demon. One hears his voice, but it is another who speaks through his mouth. His nervous system, his intelligence, are in the power of this other, of whom he is the plaything. Hence these violent movements, these dreadful convulsions imprinted on his limbs; Hence these dreadful blasphemies and this terror of holy things or people; hence this clairvoyance that reveals to him facts he could not know on his own, for example, the messianic character of Jesus. However, the demon can never, according to philosophical terminology, become the form of the body over which he has taken such strange power: the will remains inalienable in its innermost sanctuary. This is why the demoniac sometimes have lucid intervals during which they regain possession of themselves: they are then seen rushing to Jesus' feet to implore their deliverance; but soon, it is true, they rise up furiously to heap insults upon him, as if there were two persons within them, one devoted to a harsh slavery that he endures against his will, while the other dominates everything at will. Possession is therefore a bizarre mixture of psychic effects. Almost always in the Gospel, we see the spiritual phenomena it produces grafted, as it were, onto illnesses of various kinds, but especially onto nervous disorders. It suited the frivolous skepticism of our time to deny or distort these facts, and, by means of its own rationalist methods of interpretation or outright elimination, to reduce the possessions of the Gospel to the pathological symptoms that accompany them, that is to say, sometimes to epilepsy, sometimes to madness, sometimes to deafness, muteness, paralysis, etc. 3° – Demons exist: we do not need to prove this proposition here, the truth of which is so perfectly demonstrated by the Bible, by theology, and by experience. Now, given the existence of evil spirits, rebellious against God, opposed to the establishment of his kingdom among men, and endowed by nature with considerable, though limited, power, the possibility of demonic possession is simply a problem to be solved. Enemies of God, but unable to attack him directly, demons prey on humanity, which God, in his merciful designs, wishes to save. But man, composed of body and soul, is attackable in both ways. If the role played by demons in temptation—the assault on the soul—is already a great mystery, even though it is an indisputable fact, why would anyone want to reject possession—the assault on the body—because it also contains aspects that human intelligence cannot explain? 4. Possession is not only possible; its historical reality is quite certain. To confirm our assertion, we need not resort to any testimony other than that of the Gospels. It is important to emphasize that the Gospel's survival is at stake here. To deny the truth of the possessions it describes, and consequently, their cure, to suppose that the sacred writers, and Jesus before them, either erred about the nature of these phenomena, mistaking for satanic effects what were simply cases of mania or nervous breakdown, or else accommodated themselves to the popular superstition of their time and country, thus willfully deceiving both their contemporaries and posterity, is to directly attack the veracity of the Gospel account. If it is, on a point of such gravity, the result of error or deception, why would it not be so elsewhere? But, since the veracity of the Gospels is a recognized fact, it remains to be said, on the contrary, that the possessions they recount were truly the work of the devil. The inspired narrators occasionally demonstrate that they were perfectly capable of distinguishing between an ordinary infirmity, a natural illness, and the terrible effects produced by the angels of Satan. For them, not every mute person is demon-possessed, although they mention muteness stemming from the evil spirit (cf. Matthew 9:32 and Mark 7:32). It is true that the books of the Old Testament, as well as the Gospel of John, do not report a single case of demonic possession. But these various writings, far from containing anything that contradicts the reality of this phenomenon, grant in several places to the infernal powers similar to, or even greater than, those they manifest in possession (cf. Job 1 and 2; Tobit 6 and 7; John 13:27). Moreover, if the fourth evangelist omits mentioning the demon-possessed healed by Our Lord Jesus Christ, it is by virtue of the principle that leads him to omit almost all the events of public life already recounted by the three Synoptic Gospels. It is also true that the possessed seem to have been far more numerous in the time of the Savior than at any other time, but this is due to the fact that, to use the words of Jesus himself, “the hour and the power of darkness” reigned then more than ever (Luke 22:53). The depravity that had infected both Jews and Gentiles had opened the way for demons to enter spirits and bodies; they ruled the world like kings. Moreover, at the very moment when Jesus Christ founded the Church, “hell, so to speak, had to concentrate its forces and unleash them in all their energy, to contest the dominion with the one who was about to crush the head of the serpent” (Encyclopedic Dictionary of Catholic Theology, published by Wetzer and Welte, trans. by Goschler, Art. Possessed). Baptism and the other sacraments protect countless people today from satanic invasions, even those who live in direct opposition to the title of Christian they have received. – 5. The terrifying state of possession has appeared in several circumstances without its victims having brought it upon themselves as a punishment of divine justice; St. John Chrysostom explicitly teaches this. Nevertheless, it most often presupposes a certain degree of moral culpability, especially grave sins in which the body has played a predominant part. It has been observed that shameful sins predispose one in a particular way to demonic possession.

Mt8.²⁸ When Jesus landed on the other side of the lake, in the country of the Gerasenes, two demon-possessed men came out of the tombs and approached him. They were so furious that no one dared to pass that way. After this necessary digression, let us return to the healing of the demoniacs of Gadara. We find the account in the first three Gospels; but while St. Mark and St. Luke go into great detail, St. Matthew confines himself to an abridged account, which does not prevent him from noting all the principal facts of this famous miracle. In the land of the GadarenesGadara, one of the cities of the Decapolis, was only 60 stadia from Tiberias (Joseph, Vita, ch. 65): its ruins, which travelers have rediscovered, are only a league southeast of the lake; it could therefore easily extend its territory to the shore. It was seat on a hill jutting out at the northern end of the Gilead mountains. At its foot flowed the river Hieromax in a deep bed. Its remarkable strategic position had been exploited by surrounding it with powerful fortifications, the remains of which can still be found. It is therefore near there, cf. v. 33, in all likelihood, that the scene described by St. Matthew took place. Two possessed people. How is it that St. Matthew mentions the presence of two demoniacs at Gadara, while St. Mark and St. Luke speak of only one? St. Matthew clearly speaks of two possessed men, so it is possible to consider admitting only one. St. Mark and St. Luke are therefore referring either to the more ferocious one, according to St. John Chrysostom, or the more well-known one, as St. Augustine believes, or even to the one who played the principal role in this scene and who, after his healing, expressed the desire to accompany Jesus (Mark 5:18; Luke 8:38). Whatever the reason, it is evident that one of the possessed men soon faded into the background and did not long before disappear completely from the Gospel narrative. But neither the account of St. Mark nor that of St. Luke absolutely requires the presence of only one demoniac at Gadara. Further on, in a similar situation, St. Matthew speaks of two blind men healed by Our Lord, while the other Synoptic Gospels again mention only one person miraculously healed. They came to meet him. St. Peter Chrysologus offers a beautiful reflection on this subject: «They do not appear of their own free will; they come at the command of those who lead them, not of their own initiative. They are drawn against their will; they do not come spontaneously. Then, in the presence of Christ, men come out of their tombs and in turn take captive those who had taken them captive. They inflict punishment on those who had tortured them. They bring to trial those by whom they had been confined to tombs.» Emerging from the tombs. The tombs of the Jews could offer, in times of need, vast and excellent shelters, since they consisted either of natural caves or artificial cellars dug into the earth or hewn from the rock, depending on the nature of the soil. Their location outside the cities gave them an added attraction for those who wished to avoid all human contact. A great many of them exist in the limestone cliffs of Gadara; St. Epiphanius already mentions them in his work "adv. haeres," 1, 131: the largest form chambers that are up to twenty square feet in size. It is there that the current inhabitants of Um-Keïs live, having become troglodytes like the demoniacs of the Gospel. So furious The more detailed accounts in St. Mark and St. Luke fully justify this epithet; they depict these unfortunate men as possessing superhuman strength, breaking the chains that were sometimes placed on them to make them less dangerous, running naked through the mountains and striking each other with stones. That no one could pass. This is a characteristic peculiar to St. Matthew and easily understood after the preceding information. But where ordinary men experienced a very natural fear, Christ, and his followers protected by his omnipotence, had no peril to fear. 

Mt8.²⁹ And they began to shout, "What do we have to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?"«They started shouting As we mentioned earlier, it is the demons who speak through the mouths of the possessed, with whom they have, so to speak, identified, the latter's personality seeming to have momentarily disappeared. What do we have to do with you? ? In Hebrew, Cf. 2 Samuel 16, 10; Joshua 22, 24, etc. “If you render this in everyday language, you will only breed contempt. For the Latins also say: what have you to do with me? In Hebrew, the meaning is different: why do you trouble me?” Grotius, Annotat. in hl. The common translation of these words would therefore be: Leave us alone. According to some commentators, the demons meant to say to Jesus: You know very well that we have nothing against you, just as you have nothing against us; pretending to speak this way before the people, to make them believe that there were prior agreements between them and the Savior. But this is too contrived a meaning, which is, moreover, in clear contradiction with the context. Son of God, That is to say, Messiah, cf. 4:6; the demons are no longer unaware that Jesus is truly the Christ who is to save humankind. He came here to torment us before our timeWhat era are the evil spirits referring to here? What kind of torment did Jesus Christ inflict upon them then? These are two interdependent questions, and they can be answered simultaneously. Certainly, demons, from the very first moment of their fall and damnation, suffer perpetual punishment that never grants them rest. Nevertheless, according to several very explicit texts in the New Testament, the sufferings they endure are far from having reached their "maximum" severity. St. Jude and St. Peter teach most clearly that from a certain point onward, there will be a considerable increase in punishment for Satan and his wicked host: "and he kept them bound with everlasting chains in the midst of darkness for the judgment of the great day." the angels who did not preserve their principality, but abandoned their own home.” (Judges 6) St. Peter adds: “For God has not spared the angels who had sinned, but he delivered them, bound with chains, into hell, where they are being kept for judgment” (2 Peter 2:4; cf. 1 Corinthians 6:3). Until now, their sentence, though eternal, has not yet received the degree of solemnity that God reserves for it; moreover, as we have had occasion to say previously, they still enjoy real power over nature and even over humanity, which allows them to spread disorder everywhere here below and to partially satisfy their thirst for vengeance against the kingdom of God. But, after the final sentence of the Last Judgment, they will be deprived of this consolation: relegated forever to the depths of hell, they will suffer torments all the more painful because nothing will distract them. The words “before the time” therefore mean: Before the general judgment. Although the precise hour of these solemn assemblies remained unknown to them, the demons of Gadara nevertheless sensed, when Jesus approached them to expel them, that the end of the world would not be so imminent: they therefore boldly asserted what they believed to be their acquired rights. Moreover, as St. John Chrysostom observes, the mere presence of the divine Master was for them an aggravation of their torments: “They were pierced invisibly, and floated as if tossed about by the waves of the sea. They were burning, and such a presence caused them unbearable pain,” cf. Hom. 28 in Matth. 

Mt8.³⁰ Now there was, at some distance, a large herd of pigs grazing. – St. Matthew, leaving aside the brief dialogue that took place between Jesus and the demoniacs (cf. Mark 4:8-10), goes straight to the conclusion. at some distance has a very relative meaning that can expand or contract depending on the circumstances. It could be very well translated here by the periphrasis: "in the distance," which would establish perfect agreement between the account in the three Synoptic Gospels (cf. Mark 5:11; Luke 8:32). A large herd of pigs. St. Mark specifies their number as "about two thousand." Those who have taken upon themselves the unfortunate task of raising doubts and objections about every detail of the Gospel narrative have not failed to allege here the supposed impossibility of finding such a large herd of pigs in a land inhabited by Jews. It is true that the pig is an unclean animal according to Mosaic law; but the ordinance that forbade eating its flesh did not prohibit raising it for subsequent sale to the pagan Greeks or Romans, who were very fond of it. It is also true that the Rabbis condemned this trade as something utterly indecent and unworthy of an Israelite: "The sages say: cursed be he who feeds dogs and pigs," Maimonides; "It is forbidden to trade with anything that is unclean," Glossa in Kama. There is nothing to prevent this herd of pigs from having belonged to the Pagans who lived mixed with the Jews throughout the Decapolis.

Mt8.³¹ And the demons made this plea to Jesus: «If you drive us out of here, send us into that herd of pigs.» – The demons prayed to him…They know full well that wherever Jesus is, their power has completely ceased; moreover, they anticipate that the Savior will soon expel them from the bodies they have taken possession of: they will at least try to obtain some favor from him. But this very fact forces them to admit their powerlessness: «The legion of demons did not even possess power over the herd of pigs unless they asked God for it,» Tertull. De fuga in persecut. c. 2. If you chase us out of here, That is to say, of these men. And yet, it was through the mouths of the possessed themselves that these words were uttered. Here we clearly recognize the dualism we mentioned earlier. Send us…A singular grace indeed; but were not the demons the best judges of their own convenience? In this way, at least, they could remain in that semi-pagan region of Gadara, which they seem to have greatly cherished (cf. Mark 5:10). Perhaps they had the secondary intention of profiting from their defeat, either by harming the inhabitants of the land through the destruction of the pigs, or by harming Jesus himself by making him odious to the Gadarenes, who would naturally blame him for the damage and would not fail to regard him as an enemy of their interests. The course of events seems to support this conjecture. Moreover, according to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, are not unclean animals an excellent dwelling place for unclean spirits? The ancient exegetes, in particular Sylveira and Maldonatus, point to several other motives, which would be too lengthy to recount here.

Mt8.³² He told them, «Go.» They came out of the bodies of the possessed and went into the pigs. At that very moment, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned. – Come on. This is the only word spoken by Jesus during this entire scene, according to St. Matthew's account. He simply grants the requested permission. God sometimes listens to the petitions of Satan and his ministers (see Job 1 and 2); but it is only to cover them with shame before men. They went out They violently leave the bodies of the demon-possessed, as Our Lord demanded; then, taking advantage of his permission, they entered the pigs. This was a possession of a new kind, which was immediately followed by a very simple and perfectly understandable effect, although it caused a great deal of scandal for the exegetes of a certain school. After the speech given to Balaam's donkey, nothing, in fact, shocked rationalists so deeply as this extraordinary influence of demons on animals. This fact, however, is perfectly consistent with all the known laws of the diabolical world and the animal kingdom. If evil spirits can seize hold of man, why shouldn't they also seize hold of the unreasoning brute to achieve their ends? And is a brute, having become the plaything of the demon, capable of offering much resistance? That being said, the rest of the story presents no further difficulty. The entire herd rushed…It has long been observed that animals that live in herds are excessively impressionable and more prone than others to sudden panics, capable of causing the ruin of an entire flock in an instant. Pigs are particularly susceptible in this respect. They are frequently seen seized by a sudden fright, the causes of which are entirely unknown. It is therefore quite understandable that, in the present circumstance, Gadara's herd, panicked by the invasion of demons, suddenly plunged into the waters of the lake down the steep slope that leads to it from that side. they perished in the waters…The authors we have mentioned feign surprise, sometimes even indignation, upon reading of this fatal outcome. They are astonished to see Jesus, so good and compassionate, cause such considerable harm to the Gadarenes that day; or they go so far as to accuse him of injustice, because he arrogated to himself, they say, the right to damage the property of others. With a little goodwill, they would have understood that there was only an apparent evil for a real good, and that this evil could not fall directly upon Christ. «If indeed the pigs plunged into the sea, it was not by the effect of a divine miracle, but by the action of demons, and with divine permission,» St. Thomas Aquinas. Furthermore, without recalling here the sovereign power of the Son of God over all creation, without resorting to excuses repeated a hundred times and which Jesus has no need of, we will simply say that the inhabitants of Gadara, more interested than anyone else in this affair, having not asked him for an explanation of his conduct, we ourselves have no account to demand of him. See in M. Dehaut, *L'Évangile expliqué*, etc., 2, 434 ff., a good exposition of the objections raised against this account and their solutions. Liseo and Gerlach, following several ancient thinkers, believe that the destruction of the flock was intended to punish the Gadarenes for their disobedience to the Law; but we have seen (note to verse 30) that the case of disobedience is by no means proven.

Mt8.³³ The guards fled and came to the city, where they told all these things and what had happened to the demonic people. – The news of what had just happened was soon communicated to the town by the swineherds who, seized with terror, rushed there in great haste. 

Mt8.³⁴ Immediately the whole town came out to meet Jesus and as soon as they saw him, they begged him to leave their territory. – the whole city… A perfectly natural competition, given the splendor of the double miracle performed by Jesus. Everyone desires to see with their own eyes the author of such an extraordinary prodigy, which testifies to a power unheard of until then. as soon as they saw him Once curiosity was satisfied, another feeling, that of frivolous fear, seized this restless crowd: they dreaded the Thaumaturge, who might well inflict even greater losses on the country, and they begged him to withdraw. They begged him to leave their territorySt. Jerome did, in fact, try to excuse the Gadarenes, claiming that their actions stemmed "from their humilityBecause they considered themselves unworthy of the Lord's presence,” however, his opinion found only a very small number of supporters. It is much more natural to take the request that this people, attached to material wealth, addressed to Jesus in a negative light. The Savior, unable to do anything among such ill-disposed souls, punished them by granting their desire. He is a guest who never imposes himself, although he always arrives with his hands full of gifts. He at least left the demon-possessed people he had just healed as his witnesses in Gadara and the Decapolis; Mark 5:19-20.