The Healing of a Mute Demoniac (Matthew 9:32–34; Luke 11:14)

The texts below are quoted verbatim from public-domain English translations; nothing is paraphrased.

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St. John Chrysostom (c. 347–407)

Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 32 (on Matthew 9:32–34) Source: trans. in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 10. Public domain. Full text: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200132.htm

On the demon that had bound the man's tongue and fettered his soul, so that Christ heals without requiring faith:

For the affliction was not natural, but the device of the evil spirit; wherefore also he needs others to bring him. For he could neither make entreaty himself, being speechless, nor supplicate others, when the evil spirit had bound his tongue, and together with his tongue had fettered his soul. For this cause neither does He require faith of him, but straightway heals the disease.

On the crowd's wonder and the envy it stirred in the Pharisees:

And the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel. Now this especially vexed the Pharisees, that they preferred Him to all, not only that then were, but that had ever been. And they preferred Him, not for His healing, but for His doing it easily and quickly, and to diseases innumerable and incurable.

On the folly of the charge that He casts out demons by the prince of demons:

"He casts out devils through the prince of the devils." What can be more foolish than this? For in the first place, as He also says further on, it is impossible that a devil should cast out a devil, for that being is wont to repair what belongs to himself, not to pull it down. But He did not cast out devils only, but also cleansed lepers, and raised the dead, and curbed the sea, and remitted sins, and preached the kingdom, and brought men unto the Father; things which a demon would never either choose, or at any time be able to effect.

On His answering their slander not with rebuke but with greater kindness:

And so far from punishing them for their insensibility, He did not even simply rebuke them; at once both evincing His meekness, and so refuting the calumny; and at the same time minded also by the signs which followed to exhibit His proof more completely... instructing us to requite our calumniators, not with fresh calumnies, but with greater benefits.

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St. Jerome (c. 347–420)

Commentary on Matthew (on Matthew 9:32–34) As preserved in the Catena Aurea, trans. J. H. Newman, 1841. Public domain. Full text: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/catena1.ii.ix.html

On the loosened tongue that now confesses, and on what the wonder and the scoff each reveal:

As the blind receive light, so the tongue of the dumb is loosed, that he may confess Him whom before he denied. The wonder of the multitude is the confession of the nations. The scoff of the Pharisees is the unbelief of the Jews, which is to this day.

On the word Matthew uses for the man's affliction:

The Greek word here is more frequent in common speech in the sense of, "deaf," but it is the manner of Scripture to use it indifferently as either.

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St. Hilary of Poitiers (c. 310–367)

As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Matthew. Public domain.

On the order kept in the miracle, the demon cast out before the members are restored:

The natural order of things is here preserved; the daemon is first cast out, and there the functions of the members proceed.

On the dumb and deaf demoniac as a figure of the whole Gentile world, sick in every part:

By the dumb and deaf, and daemoniac, is signified the Gentile world, needing health in every part; for sunk in evil of every kind, they are afflicted with disease of every part of the body.

On the knowledge of God dispelling the madness of superstition and bringing in salvation:

But by the knowledge of God the frenzy of superstition being chased away, the sight, the hearing, and the word of salvation is brought in to them.

On the crowd's confession, that one helpless under the Law is saved by the power of the Word:

The wonder of the multitude is followed up by the confession ... because he, for whom there was no help under the Law, is saved by the power of the Word.

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Blessed Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

On the Harmony of the Evangelists, Book II, ch. 29 As preserved in the Catena Aurea on Matthew. Public domain.

On why this account stands alone in Matthew, and on the care needed when our Lord's deeds resemble one another:

This account of the two blind men and the dumb daemon is read in Matthew only. The two blind men of whom the others speak are not the same as these, though something similar was done with them. So that even if Matthew had not also recorded their cure, we might have seen that this present narrative was of a different transaction. And this we ought diligently to remember, that many actions of our Lord are very much like one another, but are proved not to be the same action, by being both related at different times by the same Evangelist. So that when we find cases in which one is recorded by one Evangelist, and another by another, and some difference which we cannot reconcile between their accounts, we should suppose that they are like, but not the same, events.