They persecuted Jesus not only because he broke the Sabbath but also because he said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God,^[1] which is a far more drastic declaration. He confirmed this through his own actions. . . . The scribes themselves had devised this definition.^[2] They themselves had introduced the precept. They themselves had interpreted the law. But he proceeded to entangle them in their own words. In effect he said: It is you yourselves who have confessed that forgiveness of sins is given to God alone.

How can sins be rightly remitted unless the very One against whom one has sinned grants the pardon?^[1]

If Christ forgives sins, Christ must be truly God because no one can forgive sins but God alone.^[1]

In their ministry of the forgiveness of sin, pastors do not exercise the right of some independent power. For not in their own name but in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit do they forgive sins. They ask, the Godhead forgives. The service is enabled by humans, but the gift comes from the Power on high.

The scribes asserted that only God could forgive sins, yet Jesus not only forgave sins, but showed that he had also another power that belongs to God alone: the power to disclose the secrets of the heart. THE GOSPEL OF ST.

The physician’s art, according to Democritus, heals the diseases of the body; wisdom frees the soul from its obsessions. But the good Instructor, Wisdom, who is the Word of the Father who assumed human flesh, cares for the whole nature of his creature. The all-sufficient Physician of humanity, the Savior, heals both body and soul conjointly. Stand up, he commanded the paralytic; take the bed on which you lie, and go home; and immediately the paralytic received strength.^[1]

Whenever there was need to punish or to honor, to forgive sins or to make laws, Christ was fully authorized to do it.^[1] Whenever Christ had to do any of these much greater things, you will not characteristically find him praying or calling on his Father for assistance. All these things, as you discover in the text, he did on his own authority.

Take up your bed. Carry the very mat that once carried you. Change places, so that what was the proof of your sickness may now give testimony to your soundness. Your bed of pain becomes the sign of healing, its very weight the measure of the strength that has been restored to you.

He charged the man to perform an action of which health was the necessary condition, even while the patient was still praying for a remedy for his disease. . . . It was our Lord’s custom to require of those whom he healed some response or duty to be done.^[1]

You have been a paralytic inwardly. You did not take charge of your bed. Your bed took charge of you.

The Apostle Matthew, if you consider his former life, did not leave a holy occupation, but came from those consumed with tax-gathering and overreaching one another.^[1]

Jesus found him sitting in the tax collector’s place, with his stubborn intellect avid for temporal gain. His new name was Matthew, the gospel says. The name Matthew in Hebrew means granted in Latin, a name aptly corresponding to one who received the favor of heavenly grace.

By follow he meant not so much the movement of feet as of the heart, the carrying out of a way of life. For one who says that he lives in Christ ought himself to walk just as he walked,^[1] not to aim at earthly things, not to pursue perishable gains, but to flee base praise, to embrace willingly the contempt of all that is worldly for the sake of heavenly glory, to do good to all, to inflict injuries upon no one in bitterness, to suffer patiently those injuries that come to oneself, to ask God’s forgiveness for those who oppress, never to seek one’s own glory but always God’s,^[2] and to uphold whatever helps one love heavenly things. This is what is meant by following Christ. In this way, disregarding earthly gains, Matthew attached himself to the band of followers of One who had no riches. For the Lord himself, who outwardly called Matthew by a word, inwardly bestowed upon him the gift of an invisible impulse so that he was able to follow.

When Jesus is attacked for mixing with sinners, and taking as his disciple a despised tax collector, one might ask: What could he possibly gain by doing so?^[1] Only the salvation of sinners. To blame Jesus for mingling with sinners would be like blaming a physician for stooping down over suffering and putting up with vile smells in order to heal the sick.

What competent doctor, when asked to cure a sick person, would simply follow the desires of the patient, and not act in accordance with the requirements of good medicine? The Lord himself testified that he came as the physician of the sick, saying, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. How, then, are the sick to be made strong? How are sinners to repent? Is it by merely holding fast to what they are presently doing? Or, on the contrary, by undergoing a great change and reversal of their previous behavior, by which they had brought upon themselves serious illness and many sins? Ignorance, the mother of intractability, is driven out by knowing the truth. Therefore the Lord imparted knowledge of the truth to his disciples, by which he cured those who were suffering, and restrained sinners from sin. So he did not speak to them in accordance with their previous assumptions, nor answer according to the presumptions of inquirers, but according to sound teaching, without any pretense or pandering.

They who use the knife or heat to remove certain unnatural growths in the body, such as cysts or warts, do not bring to the person they are serving a method of healing that is painless, though certainly they apply the knife without any intention of injuring the patient. Similarly whatever material excrescences are hardening on our souls, which have been made carnal by collusion with inordinate passions, will be, in the day of the judgment, cut and scraped away by the ineffable wisdom and power of him who, as the Gospel says, healed those that were sick. For as he says, they who are well have no need of the physician, but they that are sick. Just as the excision of the wart gives a sharp pain to the skin of the body, so then must there be some anguish in the recovering soul which has had a strong bent to evil.

By those who are well he means those being made righteous. Sinners are compared to those who are ill. Let the sick man, then, not presume on his own strength, because he shall not be saved by his great strength.^[1] The strength of self-deceivers is not that strength that well people enjoy, but like those in delirium. They are like those out of their minds, who imagine themselves in such good health that they do not consult a physician, and even fall upon him with blows as if he were an intruder! In the same way, these delirious people, with their mad pride, fall upon Christ with blows, so to speak, because they have felt no need of his kindly help to those who seek to be just according to the prescriptions of the law. Let them, then, put away this madness. Let them understand, as far as they are able, that they have free will, and that they are called not to despise the Lord’s help with a proud heart, but to call upon him with a contrite heart. The free will then will be free in proportion as it is sound, and sound in proportion as it is submissive to divine mercy and grace.

It is a greater work to establish those things that are falling than those that still stand. Thus also did Christ desire to save those who are perishing. He has saved many by coming and calling us just when we were hastening to destruction. 2

There are two ways of interpreting the saying I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. The first is by analogy with the accompanying phrase: Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. The other way is to put a more literal construction on the statement, like this: Since no one is perfectly righteous, Christ has not come to call those who are not there, but the multitudes of sinners who are there, with whom the world is filled, remembering the Psalm which says Help, O Lord, for there is no longer any one who is godly.^[1]

Pray for us that we may be saved by that salvation of which it is said: They that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill; for I am not come to call the just but sinners.^[1] Pray, then, for us that we may be made upright. This is indeed something which one cannot do unless he knows and wishes it; and he will become so as constantly as he wishes it fully—but it will not be through his own effort that he is able, unless he is healed and helped by the grace of the Spirit.

Take heed that you do not make fasting to consist only in abstinence from meats. True fasting is to refrain from vice. Shred to pieces all your unjust contracts. Pardon your neighbors. Forgive them their trespasses. ^[1] NOT BY BREAD ALONE. PSEUDO-BASIL^[1]: True death is not a result of hunger for bread nor a result of thirst for this tangible water, but as a result of a hunger for hearing the word of the Lord. True death arises in the souls of those who do not hear. For one does not live by bread alone, but by every word coming out through the mouth of God.^[2] This is why . . . the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast as long as the bridegroom is with them. ^[3]

It is better to drink wine in moderation than to drink water in excess. Some who are holy drink wine in moderation. Some who squander water immoderately may be depraved and pleasure-loving. So it appears to me. Do not therefore ascribe blame or praise to the eating of food as such, or to the drinking of wine, but rather to those who make proper or improper use of food and drink. Recall Joseph who in patriarchal times drank wine with the Egyptians and was in no way injured in his judgment, having taken heed to the admonitions of his conscience. But then compare the sorrier examples of Pythagoras, Diogenes and Plato, and with them also the Manichaeans, and other sects of philosophers, who did not heed these admonitions. Some of them came to such a pitch of sensuality or pride that they even forgot the God of the universe and worshiped lifeless images. So the blessed Apostle Peter and those who were with him did not hesitate to receive wine and make use of it. It was just because of this that our Lord’s detractors actively reproached the redeemer of all and their teacher, and made complaints against him, saying, Why do not your disciples fast like John?^[1]

Can the children of the bridechamber fast while the bridegroom is present?^[1] Why should they keep a bodily fast who are effectively cleansed by the Word, who came in bodily form as visible Word? The time of his sojourning among us was not one of mourning, but gladness.

From the time that the incarnation of our Savior was first promised to the patriarchs, it was always awaited by many upright souls with tears and mourning—until he came. From that time when, after his resurrection, he ascended to heaven, all the hope of the saints hangs upon his return. It was at the time when he was keeping company with humanity that his presence was to be celebrated. Then it would have been unfitting to weep and mourn. For like the bride, she had him with her bodily whom she loved spiritually. Therefore the bridegroom is Christ, the bride is the church, and the friends of the bridegroom^[1] and of the marriage are each and every one of his faithful companions. The time of his marriage is that time when, through the mystery of the incarnation, he is joining the holy church to himself.^[2] Thus it was not by chance, but for the sake of a certain mystical meaning that he came to a marriage ceremony on earth in the customary fleshly way,^[3] since he descended from heaven to earth in order to wed the church to himself in spiritual love. His nuptial chamber was the womb of his virgin mother. There God was conjoined with human nature. From there he came forth like a bridegroom to join the church to himself.

The souls of some are like an old garment, an old wineskin—not as yet renewed by faith. Not yet renovated in the grace of the Spirit, they remain weak and earthly. All their affections are turned toward this life, fluttering after worldly show, loving a glory that is ephemeral. If such a soul should incidentally hear that if he became a Christian he would immediately become like a servant, as if he had a manacle on his foot, he would recoil with indignity and horror from the word as preached.

By wine we are refreshed inwardly. By a garment we are outwardly covered. Both relate to the dynamics of spiritual life. The garment indicates good works performed outwardly in order to shine in the sight of the world. By wine and new wine we mean that fervor of faith, hope and love by means of which, in the sight of our maker, our souls are recovered inwardly to newness of spirit.

He has prescribed for his new disciples of the New Testament a new form of prayer. For this it was fitting that new wine be stored in new wine skins and that a new patch be sewed upon a new garment.^[1] What had prevailed in days gone by was either abolished, like circumcision, or completed, like the rest of the law, or fulfilled, like the prophecies, or brought to its perfection, like faith itself. Everything has been changed from carnal to spiritual by the new grace of God which, with the coming of the gospel, has wiped out the old era completely.