Chapter 7

Chapter 7. — On the Disciples Eating With Unwashed Hands. On the Transgression of the Commandment of God. On the Syrophoenician Woman. On the Deaf-mute

¹ And the Pharisees gather together unto him, and certain of the scribes, having come from Jerusalem; and seeing some of his disciples eating bread with common, that is, with unwashed, hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees and all the Jews, unless they wash their hands with the fist, do not eat, holding the tradition of the elders; and on coming from the marketplace, unless they bathe, they do not eat; and there are many other things which they have received to hold, the washings of cups and pots and bronze vessels and couches. Then the Pharisees and the scribes ask him: Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? The disciples of the Lord, having been taught to cling to virtue alone, and to busy themselves with nothing else besides, ate with unwashed hands, without fuss and simply. The Pharisees, therefore, wishing to find a pretext for mockery, lay hold of this; and they do not blame them as transgressing the law, but the tradition of the elders. For it is not written in the law to wash with the fist — that is, up to the elbow (for the term fist denotes the part from the elbow to the very tips of the fingers) — but they had this handed down to them from the elders.

² And he answering said unto 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. And in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washings of pots and cups, and many other such like things you do. And he said unto them: Full well do you set aside the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition. For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and, He that speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death. But you say: If a man shall say to his father or his mother, Corban, which is, A gift, by whatsoever you might have been profited by me; and you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or his mother, making void the word of God by your tradition which you have delivered; and many such like things you do. The Lord, reproving the Jews more weightily, brings forward the prophet also as accusing them. They, then, charged the disciples with transgressing the tradition of the elders; but the Lord brings against them a more vehement charge, namely, the transgressing of the law of Moses. For the law, he says, declares: Honor your father and your mother; but you teach the children to say to their parents that it is Corban — that is, A gift and a thing dedicated to God — which you seek from me. For the Pharisees, wishing to devour the goods of the simpler folk, taught the children, if they had, as it were, some private store [peculium] and the parents sought it, to say: I have already consecrated this to God, and seek it no longer, as a thing dedicated to the Lord. Thus, then, deceiving the children and prevailing on them to consecrate, forsooth, to God what they had, they made them despise their fathers, while they themselves devoured the things consecrated. This, then, is what the Lord charges them with, that for gain’s sake they transgress the law of God.

³ And calling all the multitude unto him, he said unto them: Hear me, all of you, and understand. There is nothing from outside the man, entering into him, that can defile him; but the things that come out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. And when he entered into a house from the multitude, his disciples asked him concerning the parable. And he said unto them: Are you also so without understanding? Do you not perceive that whatsoever from outside enters into the man cannot defile him, because it enters not into his heart, but into the belly, and goes out into the privy, purging all the meats? And he said: That which comes out of the man, that defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetings, wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things proceed from within, and defile the man. The Lord, teaching men that the law’s prescriptions about the observances of foods we ought not to understand carnally, begins here to disclose, in measure, the intent of the law. And he says that none of the things that enter in can defile — that is, pollute — anyone, but that the things proceeding from the heart, those are they that pollute; and he enumerates them. By an evil eye he means either envy or wantonness; for indeed the envious man casts an evil and malignant eye upon the one envied; and the wanton man, beholding the evil through the eye, pursues it. By blasphemy he means insolence toward God, as when one says that there is no providence — this is blasphemy; wherefore he joins to it pride; for pride is, as it were, a contempt of God, when a man, having wrought some good, ascribes it not to God but to his own power. And by foolishness understand insolence toward men. All these passions, then, defile the soul, springing up and coming forth out of it. To the multitude, then, the Lord spoke more obscurely, wherefore also he said: He that has ears to hear, let him hear — that is, He that understands, let him understand. But to the apostles, who supposed that the Lord was saying something deeper, and who came forward and asked concerning the parable, the dark saying, first he rebuked them, saying —[1]

⁴ And rising up from there, he departed into the borders of Tyre and Sidon; and entering into a house, he would have no man know it. And he could not be hid. For a woman, whose little daughter had an unclean spirit, having heard of him, came and fell down at his feet; now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by race; and she besought him that he would cast the demon out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her: Let the children first be filled; for it is not good to take the children’s bread and cast it to the little dogs. But she answered and said unto him: Yea, Lord; for even the little dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. And he said unto her: For this saying, go your way; the demon is gone out of your daughter. And departing to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed. After the Lord had spoken concerning foods, and saw the Jews disobedient, he passes over to the borders of the heathen. For, the Jews having disbelieved, salvation was about to come to the nations. He himself, however, of set purpose strives to be hidden, that the Jews might not afterward have ground to accuse him of having run to the unclean nations. Yet he could not be hidden; for it was not possible for him to be hidden and not to be known by someone. The woman, then, having heard of him, displays a fervent faith. For this cause, therefore, the Lord does not at once hearken, but defers the gift, that he may show the woman’s persevering faith, and that, though sent away, she persists; that we too may learn not to leap away at once whenever, having prayed, we do not immediately obtain, but to persevere until we receive. By little dogs he names the heathen, as accounted polluted by the Jews; and by bread, the benefaction which God had set apart for the children, that is, for the Hebrews; for the benefactions he sent to the Hebrews. The Lord says, then, that the heathen ought not to partake of the benefaction which is set apart for the Jews; but since the woman answered wisely and faithfully, she obtained her desire. For the Jews, he says, have the bread — that is, you whole and entire, who came down from heaven — and your benefactions; but I ask for crumbs, that is, a partial benefaction. And mark the Lord also, how he said not, My power has saved you. But what does he say? For this saying — that is, for your faith — go your way; for your daughter has been cleansed. Learn, then, you also from here a profitable lesson. For each of us, whenever he sins, is a woman, that is, a weak soul; and a Phoenician woman, as having for her daughter a sin that is scarlet [phoenician] and bloody and murderous. Such a soul has the wicked deed, which it has as a demon. For wicked deeds are demons; being sinners, then, we are also named little dogs, full of uncleanness; for this cause we are not even worthy to receive the bread of God, that is, to partake of the undefiled mysteries; if, however, we recognize ourselves, and confess, and openly avow this — that is, the demoniac deed.

⁵ And again, going out from the borders of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the borders of Decapolis. And they bring unto him one deaf, who had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to lay his hand upon him. And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears; and spitting, he touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly. And he charged them that they should tell no man; but the more he charged them, so much the more abundantly they proclaimed it, and were beyond measure astonished, saying: He has done all things well; he makes both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. He does not linger in the places of the heathen, but quickly removes, that, as I said, he might not give the Jews occasion to say that he transgresses the law by mingling with the heathen. Removing, then, from the borders of Tyre and Sidon, he draws near to Galilee. And seeing one deaf and with an impediment in his speech — and the affliction was from a demon — he heals him. Taking him aside privately; for he who had humbled himself even to our poverty was no lover of display, nor did he wish, for the most part, to work wonders before many, save only for the profit of the beholders. And spitting, he touched his tongue, that he might show that all the members of his holy flesh were divine and holy, even as the spittle also now loosed the bonds of the tongue. Taking him, then, privately, he put his fingers into his ears; one of the right hand into this ear, and one of the left into that. And spitting, and so forth; and although all spittle is a superfluity, yet in the Lord all things are newer and divine. Looking up to heaven he sighs — perhaps both as beseeching the Father to have mercy on the man, and teaching us, whenever we are about to work a wonder, to look toward God, and thence to ask for the power of wonders; and perhaps also as pitying human nature, how it was so delivered over to the devil as thus to be mocked and to suffer such things. Whence also, having healed him, he is proclaimed by those who were healed, even though he charges and commands them to say nothing. For we are taught from here that, when we do good, we ought not to demand applause and renown; but when we are benefited, to proclaim and to noise abroad those who have done us good, even though they wish it not.