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Healing a mute demoniac

Matt 9:32–34 · Later ministry in Galilee

Scripture

Matthew 9:32–34

s they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil. 33And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel. 34But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.

King James Version · public domain

Mateu 9:32–34

dhe ata kur po dilninë, ja tek i prun’ ati një njeri shurth të-djallosurë. 33Edhe djalli si unxuar, foli i-shurdhëri; edhe gjindja uçuditnë, dyke thënë, Se kurrë ndonjëherë nuk’ është parë kështu ndë Israilt. 34Po Farisenjtë thoshinë, se Me anë të të-parit të djajvet nxjer djajtë.

Kristoforidhi, Dhiata e Re Toskërisht 1879 · zotërim publik

Summary

With the demon cast out, the man speaks, and the crowds marvel that nothing like it has been seen in Israel, while the Pharisees answer with the blasphemy that He casts out demons by the prince of demons. The Fathers see here the parting of the ways: the same act draws wonder and worship from some, hardened slander from others, and it sets up the Beelzebul controversy that follows.

The tradition notes that this man's affliction was not natural but demonic: the spirit had bound his tongue, and with his tongue his soul, so that he could neither beg for himself, being speechless, nor send others to plead on his behalf. For this reason, the Fathers observe, Christ asks no faith of him before healing, as He had just asked it of the blind men who came crying after Him. Here there is no one able to ask, and the Lord simply looses what was bound, showing His mercy reaching even where the sufferer can make no movement toward Him.

Set against the crowds' amazement, the Pharisees' charge is exposed as both foolish and malicious. It is self-contradicting, for a kingdom of demons would not war against itself, and the very wholeness of the man witnesses against them. The Fathers trace the root to envy: the people were comparing Christ not only to the men of their own day but to all who had gone before, and this the Pharisees could not bear.

Read morally, the mute man is every soul that sin and the enemy have struck dumb, unable to confess God or call upon Him, until Christ frees the tongue and it speaks. And in the Lord's own bearing under slander the Fathers find a rule for us: to answer calumny not with fresh accusations but with greater kindness, overcoming malice by good.

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

Public-Domain Patristic Commentary

As the two blind men go out, a man is brought to Christ who cannot speak, because a demon has bound his tongue. He cannot ask for himself and must be carried by others. Christ casts out the demon, and at once the mute man speaks. The crowds marvel, saying, "It was never so seen in Israel," but the Pharisees mutter, "He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils." Luke records a like healing that opens into the larger dispute over Beelzebul. This miracle, like the two blind men before it, is given by Matthew alone in this place. The texts below are quoted verbatim from public-domain translations. Chrysostom's commentary is primary; Jerome, Hilary, and Augustine are given as preserved in the Catena Aurea on Matthew (St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. J. H. Newman, 1841). Nothing is paraphrased.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Note on sources and other Fathers

The Fathers take the miracle in complementary directions. Chrysostom stays close to the event and to the demon's cruelty: the affliction "was not natural, but the device of the evil spirit," which had "bound his tongue, and together with his tongue had fettered his soul," so that the man cannot even ask, and Christ, requiring no words he could not speak, "straightway heals the disease." Then Chrysostom turns to the Pharisees, exposing the folly of their slander (a demon does not cast out a demon, "for that being is wont to repair what belongs to himself, not to pull it down"), and noting that Christ answered their malice not with rebuke but by going on to teach and heal, "to requite our calumniators, not with fresh calumnies, but with greater benefits." Jerome, by way of the Catena, reads the loosened tongue as confession: it is freed "that he may confess Him whom before he denied," the crowd's wonder is "the confession of the nations," and the Pharisees' scoff "the unbelief of the Jews."

Hilary draws out both the order and the allegory: "the daemon is first cast out, and there the functions of the members proceed," and in the dumb, deaf, and possessed man he sees the whole Gentile world "needing health in every part," until "by the knowledge of God the frenzy of superstition being chased away," sight, hearing, and "the word of salvation" are brought in; he too hears in the crowd's wonder a confession that one "for whom there was no help under the Law, is saved by the power of the Word." Augustine, with the eye of a careful harmonist, warns that "many actions of our Lord are very much like one another," yet "are proved not to be the same action," and so this present cure is "of a different transaction" from the other healings of the blind.

The Catena gathers still other voices on the same scene. Remigius admires the sequence of cures (sight, then speech, then deliverance) as the fulfilment of Isaiah, "the tongue of the dumb loosed," and reads those who carried the man as the apostles who brought the nations to be healed; the same allegory of this one man as the Gentile race appears in Rabanus. In Luke the same kind of miracle opens the dispute over Beelzebul, where Christ answers at length that "a kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation." For verbatim public-domain English, Chrysostom's homily and the Catena Aurea (Jerome, Hilary, and Augustine) are the principal sources.

Patristic sources

Read the sources: Chrysostom, Homily 32 on Matthew (New Advent)