Which qualifications accompany the controversies and warnings?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The chapter records sabbath arguments, withdrawal, exorcism controversy and signs while the annotations preserve repentance, day-counting and possible-allusion limits.

Chapter breakdown

On the sabbath Jesus passes through corn and hungry disciples pluck and eat ears. Pharisees object that this is unlawful. Jesus recalls hungry David and his companions eating priest-reserved loaves in God’s house. The separate note describes twelve loaves before the temple sanctuary, without an added table location. He cites blameless priests breaking the sabbath in the temple, says a greater than the temple is present, and that knowledge of mercy rather than sacrifice would have prevented condemnation of innocents. The Son of man is lord even of the sabbath.

In their synagogues he encounters a withered-hand man. Asked about lawful sabbath healing in order to accuse him, he compares rescuing one’s sheep from a pit: a person is worth more, and good deeds are lawful then. He orders the hand stretched; the man does so and it is restored like the other. Pharisees leave to consult how to destroy him. Knowing it, Jesus retires, heals all the many followers and commands nonpublicity. Matthew links this to Isaias’s chosen, beloved servant with the Spirit, judgment for Gentiles, no contention or street cry, preservation of bruised reed and smoking flax till judgment’s victory, and Gentile hope in his name. Frustration and a formal legal proceeding are not supplied motives or events.

A possessed man, blind and unable to speak, is brought and healed, speaking and seeing. Crowds wonder whether he is David’s son; Pharisees attribute exorcism to Beelzebub. Knowing their thoughts, Jesus argues that divided kingdoms become desolate and divided cities or houses fail. Satan expelling Satan would divide his kingdom. If Jesus works by Beelzebub, by whom do their children work? Those will judge them. If by God’s Spirit, God’s kingdom has come upon them. A strong man must first be bound before his house can be robbed. Those not with Jesus oppose him; those not gathering scatter.

He says sins and blasphemies are forgiven except blasphemy of the Spirit. The separate note identifies attributing Spirit-wrought miracles to Beelzebub and describes its usual accompanying obstinacy and willful opposition to known truth: such people seldom or never convert and are unforgiven because they do not repent. It expressly adds that no sin is beyond God’s forgiveness for sincere penitents having recourse to the church’s keys. This qualification must not become a claim that repentance is impossible. Jesus contrasts forgiven speech against the Son of man with unforgiven speech against the Holy Ghost in this world or the next. The edition separately cites Augustine, City of God 21:13, and Gregory, Dialogues 4:39, inferring some remission in the next world and a purgatory or middle place.

Tree and fruit should be good together or evil together, since fruit identifies the tree. Calling his hearers vipers, Jesus asks how evil people speak good: mouth speaks heart’s abundance; good or evil treasure produces its corresponding things. Every idle word requires judgment-day accounting; words justify or condemn. The separate note infers a place of later temporal punishment for lesser faults. Scribes and Pharisees request a sign; a note defines a heavenly miracle, citing Luke 11:16. Jesus calls the generation evil and adulterous and offers only Jonas’s sign: his three days and nights in the whale parallel the Son of man in earth’s heart. The note specifies partial, not complete, days and nights, counted by Hebrews evening to evening. Ninive’s men will condemn the generation because they did penance at Jonas’s preaching, and the southern queen because she traveled from earth’s ends for Solomon’s wisdom: greater than both is here.

An unclean spirit leaving a man seeks rest in dry places without success. It returns to its house, empty, swept and garnished, brings seven worse spirits, and their dwelling makes the man worse than before; so with this generation. The metaphorical house is not silently replaced by an assertion about an empty soul. As Jesus speaks, mother and brethren wait outside to speak. Told this, he asks who his mother and brethren are. The separate note says he does not slight his mother but warns against inordinate parental affection displacing God’s service, chiefly regarding her doing the Father’s will. It adds a possible, not certain, allusion to Jewish reprobation as carnal kin and Gentile election. Jesus stretches his hand toward disciples, identifying them as family: whoever does his heavenly Father’s will is brother, sister and mother.

The story inside

The good-deed argument leads to restoration and a plot. Divided-kingdom reasoning includes the accusers’ children and binding the strong man. Notes explicitly allow forgiveness for sincere penitents and distinguish partial days and possible family allusion.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Usually and seldom-or-never do not mean impossible repentance.
2
Retain the church’s keys in the forgiveness note.
3
A possible Gentile-election allusion is not certain narrative identification.

Test your recall

How does the edition qualify the three days and nights?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 111614–111735
Matthew Chapter 12 Christ reproves the blindness of the Pharisees, and confutes their attributing his miracles to Satan. 12:1. At that time Jesus went through the corn on the sabbath: and his disciples being hungry, began to pluck the ears, and to eat. 12:2. And the Pharisees seeing them, said to him: Behold thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days. 12:3. But he said to them: Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and they that were with him: 12:4. How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the loaves of proposition, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for them that were with him, but for the priests only? The loaves of proposition.... So were called the twelve loaves which were placed before the sanctuary in the temple of God. 12:5. Or have ye not read in the law, that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple break the sabbath, and are without blame? 12:6. But I tell you that there is here a greater than the temple. 12:7. And if you knew what this meaneth: I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: you would never have condemned the innocent. 12:8. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath. 12:9. And when he had passed from thence, he came into their synagogues. 12:10. And behold there was a man who had a withered hand, and they asked him, saying: Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him. 12:11. But he said to them: What man shall there be among you, that hath one sheep: and if the same fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not take hold on it and lift it up? 12:12. How much better is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do a good deed on the sabbath days. 12:13. Then he saith to the man: Stretch forth thy hand; and he stretched it forth, and it was restored to health even as the other. 12:14. And the Pharisees going out made a consultation against him, how they might destroy him. 12:15. But Jesus knowing it, retired from thence: and many followed him, and he healed them all. 12:16. And he charged them that they should not make him known. 12:17. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaias the prophet, saying: 12:18. Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul hath been well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles. 12:19. He shall not contend, nor cry out, neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. 12:20. The bruised reed he shall not break: and smoking flax he shall not extinguish: till he send forth judgment unto victory. 12:21. And in his name the Gentiles shall hope. 12:22. Then was offered to him one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him, so that he spoke and saw. 12:23. And all the multitudes were amazed, and said: Is not this the son of David? 12:24. But the Pharisees hearing it, said: This man casteth not out devils but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. 12:25. And Jesus knowing their thoughts, said to them: Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate: and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. 12:26. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself: how then shall his kingdom stand? 12:27. And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. 12:28. But if I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you. 12:29. Or how can any one enter into the house of the strong, and rifle his goods, unless he first bind the strong? and then he will rifle his house. 12:30. He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth. 12:31. Therefore I say to you: Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. The blasphemy of the Spirit.... The sin here spoken of is that blasphemy, by which the Pharisees attributed the miracles of Christ, wrought by the Spirit of God, to Beelzebub the prince of devils. Now this kind of sin is usually accompanied with so much obstinacy, and such wilful opposing the Spirit of God, and the known truth, that men who are guilty of it, are seldom or never converted: and therefore are never forgiven, because they will not repent. Otherwise there is no sin, which God cannot or will not forgive to such as sincerely repent, and have recourse to the keys of the church. 12:32. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world, nor in the world to come. Nor in the world to come.... From these words St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, lib. 21, c. 13) and St. Gregory (Dialog., 4, c. 39) gather, that some sins may be remitted in the world to come; and, consequently, that there is a purgatory or a middle place.
Lines 111737–111813
12:33. Either make the tree good and its fruit good: or make the tree evil, and its fruit evil. For by the fruit the tree is known. 12:34. O generation of vipers, how can you speak good things, whereas you are evil? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 12:35. A good man out of a good treasure bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of an evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. 12:36. But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment. Every idle word.... This shews there must be a place of temporal punishment hereafter where these slighter faults shall be punished. 12:37. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. 12:38. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying: Master, we would see a sign from thee. A sign.... That is, a miracle from heaven. St. Luke 11. 16. 12:39. Who answering said to them: An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign: and a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. 12:40. For as Jonas was in the whale’s belly three days and three nights: so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. Three days, etc.... Not complete days and nights; but part of three days, and three nights taken according to the way that the Hebrews counted their days and nights, viz., from evening to evening. 12:41. The men of Ninive shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas. And behold a greater than Jonas here. 12:42. The queen of the south shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold a greater than Solomon here. 12:43. And when an unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walketh through dry places seeking rest, and findeth none. 12:44. Then he saith: I will return into my house from whence I came out. And coming he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. 12:45. Then he goeth, and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is made worse than the first. So shall it be also to this wicked generation. 12:46. As he was yet speaking to the multitudes, behold his mother and his brethren stood without, seeking to speak to him. 12:47. And one said unto him: Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without, seeking thee. 12:48. But he answering him that told him, said: Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? Who is my mother?.... This was not spoken by way of slighting his mother, but to shew that we are never to suffer ourselves to be taken from the service of God, by any inordinate affection to our earthly parents: and that which our Lord chiefly regarded in his mother, was her doing the will of his Father in heaven. It may also further allude to the reprobation of the Jews, his carnal kindred, and the election of the Gentiles. 12:49. And stretching forth his hand towards his disciples, he said: Behold my mother and my brethren. 12:50. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father, that is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.