ACC ~ Mark 4 v11

THOSE UNREADY TO HEAR

ORIGEN: Sometimes it does not turn out to be an advantage for one to be healed quickly or superficially, especially if the disease by this means becomes even more shut up in the internal organs where it rages more fiercely. Therefore God, who perceives secret things and who knows all things before they come to be, in his great goodness delays the healing of such persons and defers the remedy to a later time. If I may speak paradoxically, God heals them by not healing them, lest a premature recovery of health should render them incurable. This pertains to those whom our Lord and Savior addressed as “those outside,” whose hearts and reins [1] he searches out. Jesus covered up the deeper mysteries of the faith in veiled speech to those who were not yet ready to receive his teaching in straightforward terms. The Lord wanted to prevent the unready from being too speedily converted and only cosmetically healed. If the forgiveness of their sins were too easily obtained, they would soon fall again into the same disorder of sin which they imagined could be cured without any difficulty. ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.1.7. [2]

[1] Deepest thoughts and feelings.

[2] OFP 190-191* (from the Latin version); cf. TLG 2042.002, 3.1.17.1-16. “Those outside” are those unready to hear.