Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
First, Christ turns back upon the Pharisees themselves and their crimes the accusations which they made, that the Apostles ate with unwashed hands. Second, at verse 25, He frees the Syrophoenician woman's daughter from the demon. Third, at verse 32, He restores hearing and speech to the deaf and mute man.
Vulgate Text: Mark 7:1-37
1. And the Pharisees and some of the Scribes, coming from Jerusalem, gathered together to Him. 2. And when they had seen some of His disciples eating bread with common, that is, unwashed, hands, they found fault. 3. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands often, holding the tradition of the elders; 4. and when they come from the market, they do not eat unless they are washed; and there are many other things which they have received to keep, the washings of cups, and pitchers, and bronze vessels, and couches; 5. and the Pharisees and Scribes asked Him: Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with common hands? 6. But He, answering, said to them: Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. 7. And in vain do they worship Me, teaching doctrines and precepts of men. 8. For leaving the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washings of pitchers and cups; and many other such things you do. 9. And He said to them: Well do you make void the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition. 10. For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and: Whoever curses his father or mother, let him die the death. 11. But you say: If a man shall say to his father or mother, Corban (which is a gift) whatsoever is from me, shall profit you; 12. and beyond that you do not allow him to do anything for his father or mother, 13. making void the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down; and many similar things of this kind you do. 14. And calling the crowd again, He said to them: Hear Me, all of you, and understand. 15. There is nothing from outside a man entering into him that can defile him, but the things which come out of a man, those are what defile a man. 16. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. 17. And when He had entered into the house, away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable. 18. And He said to them: So are you also without understanding? Do you not perceive that whatever from without enters into a man cannot defile him, 19. because it does not enter into his heart, but goes into the belly, and passes out into the drain, purging all foods? 20. And He said: That which comes out of a man, that defiles a man. 21. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22. thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 23. All these evils come from within and defile a man. 24. And rising from there, He went into the region of Tyre and Sidon; and entering a house, He wished no one to know it, but could not be hidden. 25. For immediately, when a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard of Him, she came in and fell at His feet. 26. For the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she asked Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27. Who said to her: Let the children first be filled; for it is not good to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. 28. But she answered and said to Him: Yes, Lord, for even the little dogs eat under the table from the children's crumbs. 29. And He said to her: For this saying, go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter. 30. And when she had gone to her house, she found the girl lying on the bed, and that the demon had gone out. 31. And again going out from the region of Tyre, He came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the midst of the region of Decapolis. 32. And they brought to Him one deaf and mute, and they asked Him to lay His hand on him. 33. And taking him aside from the crowd, He put His fingers into his ears; and spitting, He touched his tongue; 34. and looking up to heaven, He groaned, and said to him: Ephphetha, that is, Be opened. 35. And immediately his ears were opened, and the bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly. 36. And He charged them to tell no one. But the more He charged them, the more they published it, 37. and so much the more they were astonished, saying: He has done all things well: He has made the deaf hear and the mute speak.
Verse 2: With Common Hands, That Is, Not Washed, to Eat
2. WITH COMMON HANDS, THAT IS, NOT WASHED, TO EAT. — "Common hands" are those not washed, that is, unclean, because unclean, profane and polluted things were common to Jews and Gentiles, to the clean and unclean. Note that the Apostles were not so boorish as not to wash their hands when about to dine or sup, since both farmers and workmen wash them before food, but they abstained from the religious, or rather superstitious, washing of the Pharisees, which they themselves scrupulously kept as received from the rite and tradition of their elders. Their rite, says Theophylact, was this: that they washed up to the elbow.
Verse 3: Often
3. OFTEN. — The Syriac, betilaith, that is, diligently or carefully; the Greek, πυγμῇ, that is, eagerly (as in a contest). The Hebrew כף אל כף caph el caph, that is, hand to hand, namely by frequently rubbing together, as those do who wish to cleanse soiled hands. For the Pharisees, whenever they had touched even the smallest unclean thing, or scrupulously feared that they had touched it, at once washed their hands, and that as often as this fear or scruple occurred to them.
Verse 4: And From the Market
4. AND FROM THE MARKET, — namely, when coming and returning home they wash their hands, because in the market there is every kind, both of things and of men, clean and unclean, by the touch of whom they feared to be polluted, and therefore they thought that they ought to wipe away the uncleanness by this washing not of their hands, but of their whole body; whence follows:
UNLESS THEY ARE BAPTIZED. — That is, unless they immerse and wash their whole body in water, as the Jews still often do. For "to be baptized" is more than to wash the hands: because therefore in the market they were compelled to touch and address Gentiles, and also to handle certain unclean things, hence on returning home they washed themselves entirely, says Vatablus.
OF CUPS. — The Greek, ποτηρίων, that is, drinking cups.
OF PITCHERS. — The Greek, ξεστῶν, that is, of sextarii: for ξέστης is a sextarius, or cyathus; the Syriac, anophoram, that is, of vessels in which wines are brought or poured out. Vatablus understands wooden vessels, which are called ξεστά because they are polished on a lathe, or adorned with carvings: for ξέω is to rub, polish, scrape, carve: whence ξεστός, that is, polished, smoothed, finished. An urceus is properly a vessel by which water is poured into an urn or caldron, says Paulus the Jurisconsult; hence the word is transferred to any similar vessels.
OF BRONZE VESSELS, — vessels of bronze in which foods were either cooked or brought to the table.
AND OF COUCHES, — on which they reclined at table. Vatablus translates it as "bedsteads." The rest I have expounded at Matthew 15 and the following.
Verse 15: Defile
15. DEFILE. — That is, "pollute," as other codices read. The same is at verses 18 and 20.
Verse 19: Because It Does Not Enter Into His Heart
19. BECAUSE IT DOES NOT ENTER INTO HIS HEART (that is, into his soul, and therefore cannot defile it), BUT GOES INTO THE BELLY (that is, the stomach), (where, after the separation of the purer food, it passes to the liver and heart; but the remainder, which is impure and fecal), GOES OUT INTO THE DRAIN, PURGING (by its exit, that is, leaving pure) ALL THE FOODS. — Because namely this is the dregs and refuse of food: wherefore by the very fact of going out, it cleanses and purges the remaining nourishment.
Verse 26: Gentile
26. GENTILE. — The Greek, Ἑλληνίς, that is, a Greek woman, as the Arabic translates: for while the Greeks held dominion, all Gentiles were called Greeks; hence that in Romans chapter 1: "To the Jew first and to the Greek," that is, to the Gentile.
SYROPHOENICIAN. — The Greek, a Syrian Phoenician; the Syriac, from Punic Syria, that is, from that part of Phoenicia which looks toward Syria. Matthew calls her a Canaanite.
Verse 32: And Mute
32. AND MUTE. — The Greek, μογιλάλον, that is, speaking with difficulty, of impeded tongue, stammering: for when healed by Christ he "spoke plainly," that is, fluently, as is said at verse 35. He was not therefore altogether mute, as are those who from birth are deaf, who in Greek are called ἄναυδοι. For thus there would have been two miracles of Christ here, namely the loosing of the tongue, and the infusion of the knowledge of words. Nevertheless, the contrary is also probable.
Verse 33: And Spitting, He Touched His Tongue
33. AND SPITTING, HE TOUCHED HIS TONGUE. — Christ did this fittingly, as though with His saving saliva about to moisten and loose a mouth mute and bound with dryness; for saliva is in the tongue and is assimilated to it, says Galen, Aphorism 39. Yet He spat not into the mouth of the mute man, but upon His own finger, and with His finger brought the saliva to the mute man's mouth, as is gathered from the Greek: for decency and decorum required this. Moreover, Christ, by opening the ears and tongue of the body, likewise opened the ears and tongue of the mind, so that he might hear His inspirations, and believe Him to be the Messiah, and from Him ask and obtain forgiveness of his sins. For those whom Christ healed in body, those also He healed in mind.
Tropologically: the same must be asked and said by each one with the Psalmist: "O Lord, You will open my lips, and my mouth shall declare Your praise," Psalm 50:17. The same applies to the ears, that we may be able to rejoice with Isaiah 50:4: "The Lord has given me a learned tongue, that I may know how to sustain him who is weary by a word: He raises up early, early He raises up my ear, that I may hear Him as a master. The Lord God has opened my ear;" — and this happens when He Himself with His own finger, that is, the Holy Spirit (for this is the Finger of God, Exodus 8:19), and with the saliva of heavenly wisdom, which is that very One going forth from the mouth of the Most High, touches the tongue of the mind.
Verse 34: And Looking Up to Heaven, He Groaned
34. AND LOOKING UP TO HEAVEN (because from there come words for the mute, hearing for the deaf, and healing for all the sick, says Bede), HE GROANED, — partly out of compassion for the wretchedness of the mute and deaf man, partly praying with a groan and obtaining for him health from God. "For He was pondering," says Victor, "into what calamity and misery the devil, the enemy of every good and honorable action, and the negligence and fall of our first parents, had cast him down."
EPHPHETHA, THAT IS (that signifies) BE OPENED. — That is, let your ears and mouth be opened: where "both," says Bede, "are clearly designated to the nature of one and the same Mediator of God and men. For, looking up to heaven as a man, He groaned, about to pray to God; but soon with a single word, as though powerful in divine majesty, He healed." For we all have eyes, but the blind have them closed and obstructed, which in the Syriac idiom are elegantly said to be "opened" when those coverings are drawn back, says Angelus Caninius in De Nominibus Hebraicis, chapter 10. Moreover, the Hebrew פתח patach means to open: whence in the niphal passive imperative הפתח hippateach, and by crasis hippatach, for which the Syrians say Ephphetha, which is the same as aperire, that is, "be opened," or "let it be opened."
Verse 36: And He Charged Them to Tell No One
36. AND HE CHARGED THEM TO TELL NO ONE. — This command was not strictly speaking a command that bound under guilt, but only courtesy, and an indication of modesty, so that He might signify that He did not wish to make a display of His miracles, or from them to seek the empty glory of men. Wherefore those who, notwithstanding this, published them abroad did not sin. Whence follows: "But the more He charged them, the more they published it." "We are taught in this place," says Theophylact, "that when we are about to do good, we should not seek applause or celebrations from our benefits; but when we have received benefits, that we should praise and proclaim our benefactors, even though they themselves refuse." For as the former befits a generous man, so the latter befits a grateful one, says Franciscus Lucas. And Saint Augustine, On the Consensus of the Evangelists: "The Lord wished," he says, "by forbidding, to teach how much more fervently they should proclaim Him, whom He commands to preach, since those who were forbidden could not keep silence."
Verse 37: He Has Done All Things Well
37. HE HAS DONE ALL THINGS WELL. — The Greek, καλῶς, that is, beautifully, becomingly, fittingly, suitably, blamelessly, as if to say: Christ did nothing which the Pharisees or similar carpers could justly blame. Again, "well" in Hebrew הטיב heteb, that is, beneficently, because He restored hearing to the deaf and speech to the mute. For Christ's whole life was a continual beneficence, Acts 10:38.