1 And again he entered into Capharnaum after some days.
2 And it was heard that he was in the house. And many came together, so that there was no room: no, not even at the door. And he spoke to them the word.
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VERS. 2.-- *So that there was no room,* etc. While the Lord preached, they are not contained in the house, nor at the door: because, while Christ preached in Judaea, the Gentiles did not yet wish to enter in to hear, yet to them (though set without) he directed the words of his doctrine by his preachers.
3 And they came to him, bringing one sick of the palsy, who was carried by four.
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VERS. 3.-- *The paralytic.* The palsy is a type of that torpor in which the slothful man lies in the softness of the flesh, having a desire of health: but by the crowds, etc., *as far as* that by another way he may return with the Magi into his own country. *He was carried by four.* Because by four virtues the confidence of the mind is raised up to the Lord. Of which it is said in the book of Wisdom: *She teacheth sobriety and wisdom, and knowledge and strength*, which others call prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice.
4 And when they could not offer him unto him for the multitude, they uncovered the roof where he was: and opening it, they let down the bed wherein the man sick of the palsy lay.
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VERS. 4.-- *They uncovered the roof where he was.* The roof of the house in which Christ teaches is the sublimity of Scripture, *by which a young man correcteth his way, in keeping thy words*. The house of Jesus, according to another evangelist, is said to be roofed with tiles, because by the meanness of the letter the spiritual sense is covered. He is let down with his bed before Jesus, because a man ought to know Jesus even while set in this flesh.
5 And when Jesus had seen their faith, he saith to the sick of the palsy: Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.
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VERS. 5.-- *And when he had seen.* A man's own faith avails much with God, where another's availed so much: so that the man, healed within and without, rose up suddenly, and by the merits of others his own faults were loosed for him. *Son.* Wonderful humility, him who was despised by all, loosened in all his limbs, he calls son. Or else for this reason, because his sins are forgiven him.
6 And there were some of the scribes sitting there and thinking in their hearts:
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VERS. 6.-- *Thy sins are forgiven thee.* He shows that he had been stricken with disease on account of sins, and therefore could not be healed unless these were first forgiven. As to the paralytic at the pool: *Behold thou art made whole, sin no more, lest worse befall thee*. For five causes are men afflicted with troubles of the flesh. Either that their merits may be increased, as Job and the martyrs. Or for humility's sake, etc., *as far as* Lazarus, whose infirmity was not unto death, but for the glory of God, or unto the beginning of eternal damnation, as Herod.
7 Why doth this man speak thus? He blasphemeth. Who can forgive sins, but God only?
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VERS. 7.-- *Who can forgive.* They say true: God alone can do this, and he alone forgives through those to whom he has given the power of forgiving sins, therefore he is truly God. They bear witness to the truth, but they are deceived in denying the person of Christ. They err, therefore, because, though they believe him to be God and to forgive sins, yet they do not believe that he is Christ. But more madly the Arians, who dare not deny that he is Christ and that he forgives sins: they fear not to deny that he is God.
8 Which Jesus presently knowing in his spirit that they so thought within themselves, saith to them: Why think you these things in your hearts?
9 Which is easier, to say to the sick of the palsy: Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say: Arise, take up thy bed and walk?
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VERS. 9.-- *Which is easier.* As if he should say: By the same power by which I behold the secrets of the heart, by that same I forgive sins. As if he should say: From yourselves understand what the paralytic obtains.
10 But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins (he saith to the sick of the palsy):
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VERS. 10.-- *The Son of man.* God alone forgives sins, and the Son of man has power to forgive sins: therefore the same is both God and the Son of man. So Christ the man forgives sins through his divinity, and through his humanity can die for sinners.
11 I say to thee: Arise. Take up thy bed and go into thy house.
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VERS. 11.-- *Go into thy house.* He who had been sick carries his bed back home, when the soul, healed by the remission of sins, betakes itself together with the body itself to a long keeping of itself: lest it again admit anything whereby it may be smitten.
12 And immediately he arose and, taking up his bed, went his way in the sight of all: so that all wondered and glorified God, saying: We never saw the like.
13 And he went forth again to the sea side: and all the multitude came to him. And he taught them.
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VERS. 13.-- *And he went forth,* etc. After the healing of the paralytic in Capharnaum he goes forth to the sea, because he instructs not only citizens, but the dwellers of the sea also, and the wave-wandering motions of the world by the firmness of faith, etc., *as far as* and them that are separated from the waves of covetousness he draws to solitude, by the quiet of that conversation which is in the hope of heavenly things.
14 And when he was passing by, he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at the receipt of custom; and he saith to him: Follow me. And rising up, he followed him.
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VERS. 14.-- *Levi.* Levi is "added," because from the custom-house of worldly business he follows only the word which he speaks: for *he that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple*. Mark and Luke, for modesty's sake and out of honour for the evangelist, do not set down the name commonly known. He himself (according to that which is written: *The just man is first of all the accuser of himself*; names himself Matthew and a publican: that he may show that no convert ought to despair of salvation, since of a publican he was suddenly made an apostle and an evangelist. *He followed him.* Luke more fully: *And leaving all things he followed him*. He follows, who leaves all things that he may be able to follow Christ the poor not so much with the step of the body as with the affection of the mind, etc., *as far as* rightly therefore he who by obeying despised human business was made the steward of divine talents.
15 And it came to pass as he sat at meat in his house, many Publicans and sinners sat down together with Jesus and his disciples. For they were many, who also followed him.
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VERS. 15.-- *And it came to pass.* Luke: *Levi made a great feast for them in his own house*. For he who receives Christ within is delighted with an abundance of pleasures, and the Lord gladly enters in, and reclines in his affection. This is the spiritual banquet of the good poor, which the rich man lacks and the poor man feasts upon. *Publicans.* They who exact the public taxes, or those pursuing the gains of the world, who, converted by the example of the publican, now presume upon salvation, and slander not as the Pharisees do, remaining in vices, but repenting. He goes to the banquet of sinners: that he may have occasion of teaching, and may impart spiritual food. In going to sinners the humility of the Lord is shown: in the conversion of the penitent the power of his doctrine is made plain. By the calling of Matthew, the faith of the Gentiles: who, having left the gains of the world, feast with the Lord at the banquets of charity and of good works. By the pride of the Pharisees, the envy of the Jews at the salvation of the Gentiles is signified, to whom it is said: *Publicans and harlots shall go before you in the kingdom of God*.
16 And the scribes and the Pharisees, seeing that he ate with publicans and sinners, said to his disciples: Why doth your master eat and drink with publicans and sinners?
17 Jesus hearing this, saith to them: They that are well have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. For I came not to call the just, but sinners.
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VERS. 17.-- *They have no need.* If he calls him a physician, who by a wondrous manner of healing was wounded for *our iniquities, and by his bruises we are healed*.
18 And the disciples of John and the Pharisees used to fast. And they come and say to him: Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast; but thy disciples do not fast?
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VERS. 18.-- *And the disciples were.* Other evangelists say that the Pharisees and the disciples of John asked this. He seems here to say that others asked it, whom a concern for the same matter had moved. Whence it is gathered that this was objected by many, by the Pharisees, by the disciples of John, by the guests, or by any others whatsoever. The disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, because they who glory in the works of the law, or (which is worse) follow traditions, etc., *as far as* he ate with sinners, that thou, beholding the grace, mightest acknowledge the power.
19 And Jesus saith to them: Can the children of the marriage fast, as long as the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
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VERS. 19.-- *Can they.* Matthew thus: *Can the children of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them,* etc. The bridegroom is Christ, the bride the Church, of which spiritual wedlock the apostles were created, who cannot mourn and fast as long as they see the bridegroom with the bride. When the nuptials shall have passed, and the time of the passion and of the resurrection shall have come, then shall they fast. As long as the bridegroom is with us, we are in gladness, and we can neither fast nor mourn; but when for sin he withdraws and flies away, then a fast is to be proclaimed, then mourning is to be multiplied.
20 But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them: and then they shall fast in those days.
21 No man seweth a piece of raw cloth to an old garment: otherwise the new piecing taketh away from the old, and there is made a greater rent.
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VERS. 21.-- *No man seweth a piece.* He calls the disciples old garments, that is, still carnal, not yet renewed by firmness of faith, etc., *as far as* the wine is the fervour of faith, of hope and of charity, by which we are inwardly reformed in the sight of God by newness of understanding.
22 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: otherwise the wine will burst the bottles, and both the wine will be spilled and the bottles will be lost. But new wine must be put into new bottles.
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VERS. 22.-- *But new wine.* And they were new, when after the ascension they were being renewed by hoping and praying in the desire of his consolation: then they received the Holy Ghost, with whom, as with new must, the new bottles were filled.
23 And it came to pass again, as the Lord walked through the corn fields on the sabbath, that his disciples began to go forward and to pluck the ears of corn.
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VERS. 23.-- *When on the sabbath days.* Note first that the apostles do away with the letter of the sabbath against the Ebionites, who, though they receive the other disciples, repudiate Paul as a transgressor of the law. *And to pluck the ears of corn.* They hunger as men, having no space for eating because of the crowd. But they set forth an example of a more austere life, they seek not prepared feasts, but simple ones. The disciples pass through the corn, when prelates look upon their subjects with holy solicitude, and how they may draw each one to the faith, diligently, etc., *as far as* this the Lord of the sabbath approves, the foolish defenders of the sabbath disapprove, who love only the surface of the letter, know not the refreshment of the mind, are not acquainted with the rest of souls.
24 And the Pharisees said to him: Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?
25 And he said to them: Have you never read what David did when he had need and was hungry, himself and they that were with him?
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VERS. 25.-- *Have you never read,* etc. Before all others he brings David forward into the midst, who could seem to have opposed the sanctity of the law. And he does this with the design that, through the honour and reverence which they paid to David, he may check the shameless slander which they maliciously aimed at the apostles. As if he should say: Do you not remember that David was bound by the servitude of the law? But I, though I be called the Son of man, am the Lord of the sabbath.
26 How he went into the house of God, under Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the loaves of proposition, which was not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave to them who were with him?
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VERS. 26.-- *Under Abiathar,* etc. Let it not trouble thee that others say Achimelech, for both were then present there. Achimelech the father, and Abrathar the son: who, when his father had been slain by Saul, was made the companion of David's exile, and, in his reign, high priest of greater name than his father: and therefore worthy that the Lord should make mention of him, as of a high priest, even while his father was living. *The loaves of proposition.* As if he should say: If David and Achimelech are not blamed by us, but are excused for hunger's sake, why do you condemn in these the cause which in the rest you approve? although it be, etc., *as far as* and all the sons of the Church are priests, joined into a holy priesthood, offering themselves as spiritual sacrifices to God. *And he gave to them.* Following this. *I will mercy, and not sacrifice*: he judged it better to free men from the peril of famine than to offer sacrifice. The victim well-pleasing to God is the salvation of men.
27 And he said to them: The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.
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VERS. 27.-- *Man for the sabbath.* The sabbath is so commanded to be kept, that if there be necessity, he is not guilty, etc., *as far as* if a sick man break the fast, he is not held guilty.
28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord of the sabbath also.
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VERS. 28.-- *Therefore the Lord.* As if he should say: If David the king and the priests (according to another evangelist), violating the sabbath because of the ministry of the temple, are free from crime, how much more the Son of man, the true King and Priest! and therefore the Lord of the sabbath is not held guilty of the crime of the ears of corn plucked on the sabbath.