The Power of the Word

He answers, not having the sense of a legalistic reply, but making his answer brief. Listen to me, he says, all of you, to the long-standing disease and the many-year reclining, the boundless misery. None of you ever showed care by taking me and first putting me into the bath so that I might be healed. Even if then you did not show care, how now you have received the legislative command, saying, 'Is it not permitted to you to take your bed?' Therefore I make my answer to you brief: he who made me well said this to me. If you despise me, take astonishment at the matter. He did not apply plaster, he did not use medical machines or aids. He spoke a word, and the work followed. He commanded, and I fulfill the command. I have become obedient to this, to the command of him who healed through commands. For if the one who commanded was powerless in his commands, it would not have been necessary to obey these. Since he has commanded in clear words to stop a long-standing suffering, I hear this most justly, he of whom even the disease, having heard, was healed. He who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your bed' (Mark 2:11).

16 The one healed did not know who the healer was. Much of the unostentatious nature of our Savior is presented. For having healed, he departed,

so that he might not be made known through the healing. But we do the exact opposite. If it ever happens to us to behold visions, or to help through the hands, or to drive away a demon by calling upon him, we refrain so much from hiding the miracle that even without being asked, we boast. But Jesus, teaching us through his works not to speak about himself, while providing the healing, deviated at once so that he might not be known, withdrawing at an opportune time and being present at an opportune time. For when it was necessary for the fame of the miracle to be shut up, then he withdraws. But when the departure of the crowds had happened, so that he might lead them after the bodily healing to the things of the soul having been healed, then being present he said: 'See, you have become well; sin no more.'

For the physician is varied, sometimes first healing the soul and then the body, and sometimes conversely. 'Sin no more, so that nothing may happen to you.' He teaches many through one. For the word is not toward that one alone, but indeed toward all of us. For if ever we fall into sufferings or sorrows or necessities, let no one write it down to God. For God is infinite of evils, but he himself tests no one. But each of us, being squeezed by rows of sins, is flogged. 'Sin no more, so that nothing may happen to you.' Let every man hear the spoken word, and let him who is committing fornication before this cast off the passion, and he who before...

Let the greedy man become merciful. Let the paralytic hear: sin no more. God's forgetfulness of sin is great, and His grace is abundant. But do not take the excess of His forbearance as an excuse for contempt, nor sin because God is long-suffering.

Rather, be healed of fleshly passions, and you also speak of what was read at the opportune time. For when we were in the flesh, the sufferings of sins were working through the law in our members; but when the apostle says, 'when we were in the flesh' (Romans 8:9), he was not speaking of this flesh which we are clothed in, but of fleshly deeds. He still said 'flesh' while wearing flesh, when he said 'when we were in the flesh.' But regarding the manner in which the flood was about to come, God said, 'My spirit shall not abide in these men, because they are flesh' (Genesis 6:3), because they were changing from the Spirit into a fleshly will; in this same way, here the apostle says, 'when we were in the flesh.'

Therefore, let no one be in the flesh (2 Corinthians 5:7), but being in the flesh, let him not walk according to the flesh (Galatians 5:16). For the apostle does not want us, having brought ourselves completely out of the world, to do no evil, but rather, being in the flesh, to enslave the flesh and not be ruled by it. Let us not be enslaved, but let us rule. Let us use food in moderation, not being carried away by gluttony, but bridling it.

[...regarding] the stomach, so that we may also begin from those things under the stomach. Let the body be ruled by the soul, and let not the soul be dragged under the fleshly pleasures. Sin no more, so that nothing worse may happen to you. Indeed the word preaches to all, but let all ears be capable of hearing. For not every hearing of the flesh that receives the word already receives it into the mind. Because of this the Savior was saying: 'Let the one having ears to hear, hear' (Matt 13:9), while conversing with those having ears of the flesh. Let everyone then hear Jesus and sin no more (John 8:11), but let us run to the one who forgives the transgressions. And if we are sick, let us flee to him; whether we are suffering...