ACC ~ Luke 8 v40 - 56

OVERVIEW:

His power over the death of a twelve-year old girl and over the twelve-year sickness of a hemorrhaging woman demonstrates that Jesus is the resurrection and the life (CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA). The accounts bring out several parallels and similarities: the girl at twelve years old is about to die at an age when she would have entered womanhood, and a woman has been hemorrhaging for twelve years, as long as the little girl had been alive. Jesus vivifies the one and heals the other (EPHREM THE SYRIAN).

The dying daughter represents the synagogue and the woman with the flow of blood the church as it reaches out in faith to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment (AMBROSE). The woman with the flow of blood is also unclean, which is why she stays hidden and steals the healing from the hem of Jesus’ garment (CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA). Yet in her hiddenness, Jesus’ divinity is revealed, and he sees in her a hidden faith that is proclaimed to the crowds (EPHREM THE SYRIAN).

Jesus has shown his power over nature, demon possession and sickness. These three miracles lead up to the final miracle: the passion of Jesus and his resurrection from the dead (AMBROSE). The woman touches the tassel of Jesus’ garment, his sacred hem, and she is healed (PRUDENTIUS). The power to heal is inherent in Jesus’ very nature as God, and flows out of him to heal this woman (CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA). The reason Jesus heals her womb is to show that clothed in our humanity he might reveal his divinity through the art of healing. Jesus says to the woman healed of a twelve-year flow of blood, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” Faith is the means by which anyone now may enter the family of Jesus, [1] and peace is the crown of victory she receives because of her faith (EPHREM THE SYRIAN). These words of Jesus are spoken to the girl’s father to give him comfort. To believe in the possibility of resurrection for his daughter requires faith that in Jesus there is the cause of life (CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA).

The people laugh at Jesus when he says that the girl is not dead but sleeping, but Jesus does not lie, for those who die in Christ will arise from the dead (CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA). So when Jesus awakens her he orders that food be given to her to show that she is fully alive and well (EPHREM THE SYRIAN). Jesus’ command to silence, before his resurrection, alerts catechumens to the significance of Jesus’ resurrection as central to the mystery of the faith and to those mysteries—the sacraments—through which their bodies as well as their souls are fed holy food and touched with Christ’s resurrection power (AMBROSE).

[1] Lk 8:19-21.

8:40-42 | Jairus’s Daughter Near Death

TWO MIRACLES TESTIFY THAT JESUS IS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Christ foreknew his mystery, even before the foundations of the world. It was in the last ages of the world that he arose for the inhabitants of earth. Having borne the sin of the world, he abolished both it and death, which is its consequence and was brought upon us by its means. He plainly said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” [1] and “he that believes on me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death unto life.” [2] We will see this fulfilled in facts. The ruler of the synagogue of the Jews came near and, embracing the Savior’s knees, begged him to deliver his daughter from the bonds of death. Look, she already was brought down to this and was in extreme danger! The Savior consented and set out with him. He was even hurrying on to the house of the one who invited him and was aware that what was being done would profit many of those who followed him and would also be for his own glory. On the way, he saved the woman who was the victim of a severe and incurable malady. No one could stop her issue of blood that ruined the art of physicians. No sooner had she touched the hem in faith, than he immediately healed her. A miracle so glorious and revealed was, so to speak, the work merely of Christ’s journey. COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 46. [3]

[1] Jn 11:25.

[2] Jn 5:24.

[3] CGSL 200**.

TWELVE YEARS

EPHREM THE SYRIAN: When the woman with a hemorrhage learned that the Lord said to the leader of the synagogue, “Believe, and your daughter will live,” she thought to herself that he who could bring back the soul of a little girl of twelve into her body would also be able to take away an illness of twelve years and expel it from the body. When she heard him say, “Believe firmly and your daughter will live,” this woman reflected, “I can give the faith he requires as the price.” The healing came forth from his mouth, and he negotiated as its price the faith expressed by the woman’s mouth. He gave a clear healing and demanded a clear price. The healing that came out from his lips could be heard publicly, and he required from the lips a faith openly professed. Although the woman professed before everyone, they did not believe her, especially since her pains were hidden. When the Lord opened the eyes of the blind man, they called him a madman, [1] and when he restored Lazarus to life, certain people, even among those who had seen for themselves, did not believe. This is why he restored the little girl of twelve years to life. He who was able to put the continued vitality of twelve years in the body back into its place was also able to arrest and banish from its place a flow of blood that continued for twelve years. He who was able to alleviate one illness was also able to banish another. He who was able to vivify all the dead members of this little girl was also able to heal the woman’s womb. COMMENTARY ON TATIAN’S DIATESSARON 7.26. [2]

[1] Jn 10:20.

[2] ECTD 141-42**.

8:43-48 | Healing the Woman with the Flow of Blood

THE DAUGHTER REPRESENTS THE SYNAGOGUE, THE WOMAN THE CHURCH

AMBROSE: The assembly of the nations is like the woman who spent all her money on physicians. The assembly of nations also lost all the gifts of nature and squandered the inheritance of life. It was holy, shy, pious, ready in faith, and hesitant in modesty, because it is a sign of modesty to recognize the weakness of faith and not to despair of pardon. The shy woman touched the hem, the faithful approached, the pious believed, the wise knew she was healed. The holy people of the nations that believed in God were so ashamed of their sin that they abandoned it. Brought faith, they believed. They showed devotion, so that they entreated. They put on wisdom, so that they perceived their own health. They took confidence, so that they confessed the alien truth that they snatched. [1]

Why is Christ touched from behind? Is it because it is written, “You shall follow the Lord your God”? [2] Why is it that the twelve-year-old daughter of the ruler was dying and the woman with a flow of blood was afflicted for twelve years, except that it is understood that as long as the synagogue flourished, the church suffered? The weakness of the one is the virtue of the other, because by their offense salvation has come to the Gentiles. [3] The consummation of the one is the beginning of the other, the beginning not of nature but of salvation. EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 6.56-57. [4]

[1] Eph 2:12.

[2] :1–24:53 PRELIMINARY REMARKS | ON THE GOSPEL

[3] Rom 11:11.

[4] EHG 212**.

THE WOMAN REMAINS HIDDEN

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: What made that sick woman wish to remain hidden? The law of wise Moses imputed impurity to any woman who was suffering from a flow of blood and everywhere called her unclean. Whoever was unclean could not touch any thing that was holy or approach a holy man. For this reason the woman was careful to remain concealed, for fear that having transgressed the law she should have to bear the punishment which it imposed. When she touched, she was healed immediately and without delay. COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 45. [1]

[1] CGSL 198**.

THE WOMAN TESTIFIES TO JESUS’ DIVINITY, AND JESUS TO HER FAITH

EPHREM THE SYRIAN: Glory to you, hidden offspring of Being, because the hidden suffering of her that was afflicted proclaimed your healing. Using a woman whom they could see, he enabled them to see the divinity that cannot be seen. The Son’s divinity became known through his healing, and the afflicted woman’s faith was revealed through her being healed. She caused him to be proclaimed, and she was proclaimed with him. Truth was being proclaimed together with its heralds. If she was a witness to his divinity, he in turn was a witness to her faith.

She poured faith on him by way of reward, and he bestowed healing on her as the outcome of her reward. Since the woman’s faith had become public, her healing also was proclaimed in public. The physicians were put to shame about their remedies because his power became resplendent and magnified the Son. It became evident how great faith surpasses the healing art and how hidden power surpasses visible remedies. COMMENTARY ON TATIAN’S DIATESSARON 7.1-2. [1]

[1] ECTD 129**.

SIGNS OF JESUS’ PASSION AND RESURRECTION

AMBROSE: It says, “Servants came to the ruler, saying, ‘Do not trouble him.’” Still they were without faith in the resurrection, which Jesus foretold in the law [1] and fulfilled in the gospel. When he came into the house, he approved a few eyewitnesses to the imminent resurrection, because many did not immediately believe the resurrection. [2] Then, as the Lord said, “ ‘The girl is not dead but sleeps,’ they laughed him to scorn.” Whoever does not believe, jeers. Those who think they are dead will weep for their dead, but when there is faith in resurrection, there is the appearance not of death but of sleep. EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 6.61-62. [3]

HIS SACRED HEM

PRUDENTIUS:

Then a woman, weak and timid, touched his sacred garment’s hem:

Instant was his blessed healing, and the pallor left her cheek,

As the hemorrhage she had suffered

Through so many years was stopped.

HYMN FOR EVERY DAY 9.33-44. [4]

[1] See Ps 15:10 LXX.

[2] See Acts 17:32.

[3] EHG 214**.

[4] FC 43:62.

THE POWER TO HEAL IS INHERENT IN JESUS’ NATURE AS GOD

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: “For I know,” he said, “that power has gone out from me.” It transcends our order, or probably that even of the angels, to send out any power of their own nature, as something that is of themselves. Such an act is an attribute appropriate only to the nature that is above everything and supreme. Every created being God endows with power, whether of healing or something similar, does not possess it of itself but as a thing given it by God. All things are given and worked in the creature, and it can do nothing of itself. As God he said, “I know that power has gone forth from me.” COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 45. [1]

[1] CGSL 199**.

THE REASON JESUS HEALS HER WOMB

EPHREM THE SYRIAN: “Who touched me? For a power has gone forth from me.” A detail such as this is not reported about our Physician in any other place. This is because in no other place did our Physician encounter an affliction such as this. This affliction was presented to many physicians, yet only one Physician encountered this affliction to heal it. Many physicians encountered and wearied her. Only one encountered her who was able to give her rest from the toil of many physicians. The art of healing encountered a shameful affliction but added pain after pain to it. The more they came, the worse the affliction got. [1] The fringe of the Lord’s cloak touched her [2] and uprooted this suffering from its root. She perceived within herself that he healed her affliction. [3]

Since the art of healing clothed with all our practical wisdom was reduced to silence, the divinity clothed with garments was proclaimed. He clothed himself in the body and came down to humanity, so that humanity might loot him. He revealed his divinity through signs, so that faith in his humanity alone could not be explained. He revealed his humanity that the higher beings might believe that he was a lower being, and he revealed his divinity so that the lower beings would accept that he was a higher being. He took on a human body so that humanity might be able to attain to divinity, and he revealed his divinity so that his humanity might not be trampled under foot. COMMENTARY ON TATIAN’S DIATESSARON 7.16-17. [4]

[1] Cf. Mk 5:26.

[2] Mt 9:20.

[3] See Mk 5:29.

[4] ECTD 136-37*.

DECLARATION OF PEACE A CROWN OF HER VICTORY

EPHREM THE SYRIAN: If the woman once cured had withdrawn from him in secret, our Lord would have deprived her of a crown of victory. It was fitting that the faith that shined out brightly in hidden agony was publicly crowned. He wove an eloquent crown for her, because he said to her, “Go in peace.” [1] The peace he gave was the crown of her victory. When he said, “Go in peace,” he did not end here but also added, “Your faith has saved you,” [2] so that they would know who was this crown’s Lord. This would make known that the peace his mouth wove was the crown that crowned her faith. “Your faith has saved you.” If it was faith that restored her to life, it is clear that he crowned her faith with a crown. This is why he cried out, “Who touched my garments?” [3] He said this so all the people might know who touched more than anyone else did. She chose to honor him more than others do, first, by approaching from behind, and second, in that she touched the fringe of his cloak. It was also fitting that he would honor her before all of these, she who chose to honor him more than all these. COMMENTARY ON TATIAN’S DIATESSARON 7.10. [4]

[1] Mk 5:34.

[2] Mt 9:22.

[3] Mk 5:30.

[4] ECTD 133**.

8:49-56 | The Raising of Jairus’s Daughter

A WORD OF COMFORT TO THE FATHER

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: A messenger from the synagogue ruler’s house met them saying, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher.” What was Christ’s answer, seeing that he possesses universal sovereignty? He is Lord of life and death. By the all-powerful detemination of his will, he accomplishes whatever he desires. He saw the man oppressed with the weight of sorrow, fainting, stunned, and all but despairing of the possibility of his daughter being rescued from death. Misfortunes are able to disturb even an apparently well constituted mind and to estrange it from its settled convictions. To help him, he gives him a kind and saving word that is able to sustain him in his fainting state and work in him an unwavering faith: “Fear not, only believe, and she shall live.” COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 46. [1]

[1] CGSL 200-201**.

DEATH IS SLEEP FOR THOSE WHO WILL ARISE IN CHRIST

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Coming to the house of his supplicant, he quiets their funeral songs, silences the musicians, and stops the tears of the weepers, saying, “The girl is not dead but rather sleeps.” “And they,” it says, “laughed at him.” I ask you to observe here the great skill of the management. Although he well knew that the girl was dead, he said, “She is not dead but rather sleeps.” What is his reason? By their laughing at him, they might give a clear and manifest acknowledgment that the daughter was dead. There would probably be some of that group who always resist his glory who would reject the divine miracle and say that the damsel was not yet dead. Delivering from sickness was nothing very extraordinary for Christ. To have the acknowledgment of many that the girl was dead, he said that she was rather sleeping. Let no one affirm that Christ spoke falsely. To him, as being life by nature, there is nothing dead. Having a firm hope of the resurrection of the dead, we call the dead “those that sleep” for this reason. They will arise in Christ, and as the blessed Paul says, “They live to him,” [1] because they are about to live. COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 46. [2]

[1] Rom 6:8.

[2] CGSL 201**.

CHRIST RAISES THE YOUNG GIRL

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: When he came to the house in which the girl was lying dead, he took with him only three of the holy apostles and the father and the mother of the girl. The manner in which he performed the miracle was worthy of God. “Having taken her,” it says, “by the hand, he said, ‘Girl, arise’; and she arose immediately.” O the power of a word and the might of commands that nothing can resist! O the life producing touch of the hand that abolishes death and corruption! These are the fruits of faith, for the sake of which the hand of Moses also gave the law to those of old time. COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 46. [1]

[1] CGSL 201*.

THE GIRL IS GIVEN FOOD

EPHREM THE SYRIAN: When the woman was healed, our Lord said, “Who touched me?” so that she could profess her healing before everyone. Also in the case of the little girl, he said, “She is sleeping” [1] so that the spectators might testify that she was dead, and then seeing her restored to life, these who scorned would be converted into believers. The witness given by them concerning the death of the little girl and her restoration to life performed by the Lord was a witness in anticipation of his death. Those who would see that he was alive again would not deny it. COMMENTARY ON TATIAN’S DIATESSARON 7.27A. [2]

[1] Mt 9:24.

[2] ECTD 142**.

TAKING FOOD PROVES SHE IS ALIVE

AMBROSE: What shall I say about the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, at whose death the people were mourning and the flute players were playing their music? In the belief that she was indeed dead, solemn funeral services were being performed. The spirit returned immediately at the voice of the Lord, she arose with revived body, and she partook of food to furnish proof that she was alive. ON HIS BROTHER SATYRUS 2.82. [1]

[1] FC 22:233.

LIKE THE DAUGHTER, THE CHURCH RISES TO EAT HOLY FOOD

AMBROSE: Jesus took the girl’s hand, healed her, and ordered that she should be given something to eat. This is evidence of life, so that not an apparition [1] but the truth may be believed. Blessed is he whose hand Wisdom holds. I wish that righteousness held my acts and my hands. I want the Word of God to hold me, bring me into his closet, [2] turn away the spirit of error, [3] replace it with that of salvation, and order that I be given something to eat! The Word of God is the Bread of heaven. [4] The Wisdom that filled the holy altar with the nourishment of the divine body and blood says, “Come, eat of my bread, and drink wine that I have mixed for you.” [5] What is the reason for such diversity? Above, Christ raised the son of the widow in public. [6] Here, he dismissed several eyewitnesses. I think that the Lord’s compassion is also revealed since the widowed mother of an only son did not suffer delay. He is prompt; for fear that she would be further afflicted. It is also wise that the church would immediately believe through the widow’s son, but the Jews, albeit a few, would believe through the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue. EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 6.63-64. [7]

[1] Cf. Mt 14:26; Lk 24:37-43.

[2] See Song 1:4.

[3] 1 Jn 4:6.

[4] Jn 6:51.

[5] Prov 9:5.

[6] Lk 7:12.

[7] EHG 214-15**.