ACC ~ Mark 2 v17a

THE REVERSAL OF PREVIOUS BEHAVIOR

IRENAEUS: 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. AGAINST HERESIES. [1]

[1] AHR 2:19-20; LCC 1:377**.

THE TEMPORARY HARM DONE BY SURGERY

GREGORY OF NYSSA: 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. THE GREAT CATECHISM 8. [1]

[1] TLG 2017.046, 8.96-108; NPNF 2 5:483-84**. God’s saving action sometimes requires the enduring of pain.

THE DELIRIOUS ATTACK ON THE PHYSICIAN

AUGUSTINE: 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. LETTER 157, TO HILARIUS. [2]

[1] Ps 33:16.

[2] Cetedoc 0262, 157.44.2.453.15; FC 20:323**.