St Cyril of Alexandria Commentary on Luke (First Part)

Translated by R. Payne Smith

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This Part: 128 Pages

Page 100

But the miracle did not remain hid; for the Saviour, though knowing all things, asked as if He knew it not, saying, 'Who touched Me?' And when the holy apostles with good reason said, "The multitudes throng Thee and press Thee [14]," He sets before them what had been done, saying, "Somebody touched Me: for I know that power has gone forth from Me." Was it then for love of glory that the Lord did not allow this instance of His godlike working----the miracle, I mean, that had happened to the woman to remain concealed? By no means do we say this, but rather, that it was because He ever keeps in view the benefit of those who are called to grace through faith. The concealment then of the miracle would have been injurious to many, but being made known, it benefited them in no slight degree; and especially the ruler of the synagogue himself. For it gave security to the hope to which he looked forward, and made him firmly trust that Christ would deliver his daughter from the bonds of death.

But it is itself a fit subject for our admiration. For that woman was delivered, being saved from a state of suffering thus bitter and incurable; and thereby we again obtain the firm assurance, that the Emmanuel is very God. How and in what manner? Both from the miraculous event itself, and from the words which with divine dignity He spake. "For, I know, He said, that power has gone forth from Me." But it transcends our degree, or probably that even of the angels, to send forth any power, and that of their own nature, as something that is of themselves. Such an act is an attribute appropriate solely to the Nature That is above all, and supreme. For every created being whatsoever that is endued with power, whether of healing, or the like, possesses it not of itself, but as a thing given it by God. For to the creature all things are given, and wrought in it, and of itself it can do nothing. As God therefore He said "I knew that power has gone forth from Me."

And the woman now made confession; and inasmuch as with her malady, with the disease, I mean, which had afflicted her, she had put off the fear, which made her wish to remain concealed, she proclaimed the divine miracle: and therefore was very fitly deemed worthy of His tranquillizing words, and received security that she should suffer from her malady no more; for our Saviour Christ said unto her, "Daughter, thy faith hath saved thee: go in peace."

And this too was for the benefit of Jairus, though it was indeed a hard lesson. For he learns, that neither the legal worship, nor the shedding of blood, nor the slaying of goats and calves, nor the circumcision of the flesh, nor the rest of the sabbaths, nor ought besides of these temporary and typical matters, can save the dwellers upon earth; faith only in Christ can do so, by means of which even the blessed Abraham was justified, and called the friend of God, and counted worthy of especial honours. And the blessing of God has been given also to those, who according to the terms of the promise were to be his sons: even unto us. "For they are not all Israel; who are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all sons: but the children of the promise are accounted as the seed." To us then this grace belongs: for we have been adopted as Abraham's sons, "being justified not so much by the works of the law, as by faith in Christ;" by Whom, and with Whom, to God the Father be praise and dominion with the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever, Amen [15].  

14. [x] Of this portion of the commentary Mai has recovered but very little: this passage, however, is found by him in one Catena A. f. 130, but with three or four slight additions; of which the most important is, that it inserts here, "which was a very great sign of the reality of His flesh, and of His trampling down pride; for they did not follow Him at a distance, but closed Him round on all sides."

15. [y ]Mai adds from H. f. 30. an allegorical interpretation of the two miracles given there under the names both of Origen and Cyril, and in Corderius under those of Cyril and Geometra. In the appendix however to vol. xiv. of the Bibliotheca vet. Patrum Gallandii, p. 95, it is found in Origen's Commentaries, and to him therefore it should be assigned.

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