CHAPTER 6 1 _Christ is contemned of his countrymen_. 7 _He giveth the twelve power over unclean spirits_. 14 _Divers opinions of Christ_. 27 _John Baptist is beheaded_, 29 _and buried_. 30 _The apostles return from preaching_. 34 _The miracle of five loaves and two fishes_. 48 _Christ walketh on the... [ Continue Reading ]
_And He could not do any miracles there. Could not_, i.e., _would not_, because He did not think it proper to give what was holy to dogs, that is, to force His miracles upon unbelieving and ungrateful citizens. So _could not_ is used for _would not_ (Gen. xxxvii. 4, and John vii. 7). "Because," says... [ Continue Reading ]
_Which Herod hearing_, _said, John whom I beheaded_, _he is risen again from the dead._ It was as if he said, The soul of John has passed into Jesus, and so there, as it were, by rising again, has become more divine, and works such great and stupendous miracles. Luke (ix. 7) says that Herod doubted... [ Continue Reading ]
_The king was sorry_, _i.e._, he pretended to be so, say SS. Hilary and Jerome. For he really wished John to be killed, as Matthew says. Wherefore the _Gloss_ on the fourteenth of S. Matthew says, "Herod's sorrow was like Pilate's repentance" And the _Interlinear_, "The dissembler showed sorrow in h... [ Continue Reading ]
_But sending an executioner_, that is, a hangman; for soldiers were executioners and attendants of the prætors, and were armed with javelins (_spicula_). Hence they were called _spiculators_. (the word in the Vulgate translated _executioner_ is _spiculator_). Our Gretzer (_lib._ 1, _de Cruce, c._ 25... [ Continue Reading ]
_And brought his head in a dish: and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother._ S. Chrysostom (_in_ _Matt. Hom._ 49), S. Austin (_Serm_. 36, _de Sanctis_), S. Ambrose (_lib_. 3, _de Virgin_.) enlarge upon the indignity, yea, the sacrilege, of this murder. Apostrophising Herod, the... [ Continue Reading ]