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The man with dropsy

Luke 14:1–6 · Journey to Jerusalem

Scripture

Luke 14:1–6

nd it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him. 2And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy. 3And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? 4And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go; 5And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day? 6And they could not answer him again to these things.

King James Version · public domain

Lluka 14:1–6

dhe një ditë të-shëtunë, kur erdhi ay ndë shtëpit të njëj nga të-parët’ e Farisenjvet për të ngrënë bukë, ata ishinë dyke vënë re atë. 2Edhe ja një i-idhropikasurë tek ishte përpara ati. 3Edhe Jisuj upërgjeq e u tha nomtarëvet edhe Farisenjvet, dyke thënë, A ësht’ e udhësë njeriu të shëronjë ditën’ e-shëtunë? 4Edhe ata nukë bënë zë. Atëherë ay e zuri edhe e shëroj, edhe e lëshoj. 5Pastaj upërgjeq e u tha atyre, Kujt prej jush t’i bjerë gomari a kau ndë pus, edhe nuk’ e nxjerrë sa-kaqë-herash ditën’ e-shëtune? 6Edhe ata nukë muntnë t’i përgjigjeshinë mbë këto fjalë.

Kristoforidhi, Dhiata e Re Toskërisht 1879 · zotërim publik

Summary

At a Pharisee's table on the Sabbath, where men are watching Him closely to catch Him in a fault, Christ heals a man swollen with dropsy and silences the lawyers with a question they cannot answer: would they not pull out a son or an ox that had fallen into a pit on the Sabbath? The Fathers take this as one more assertion that mercy is the fulfillment of the Sabbath, not its violation, against a legalism that would let a man suffer for the sake of a rule. St. Cyril notes that the Pharisees lay in wait out of malice, hoping He would seem to dishonor the Law; their own readiness to rescue what is theirs on the Sabbath exposes the inconsistency of their zeal.

The Sabbath itself the Fathers read as a sign. St. Cyril urges that it be kept "rationally," not by mere idleness but by resting from sin, by ceasing from covetousness and from the impure love of the flesh. The true rest is thus not the suspension of good works but of evil ones, and the healing of a body broken by disease belongs to that rest rather than offending it.

The tradition also dwells on the disease. Dropsy is a swelling fed by the very water it cannot expel: the more the sufferer drinks, the more he thirsts, while the body grows large and the man grows weak. The Fathers see in it a fitting image of covetousness and the passions, which swell the soul without nourishing it, since each indulgence enlarges the craving it was meant to satisfy. Christ, who is the living water, does not feed this false thirst but drains it, restoring the man and showing that He came to loose the swollen and the bound on the day appointed for God's rest.

In their own words

Paying then no further heed to the envyings of the Jews, He delivers from his malady the man afflicted with the dropsy, and tyrannized over by an incurable disease.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke, Sermon CI (101) on Luke 14:1-6; in Cyril, Commentary on Luke (R. Payne Smith, 1859)

The Healing of the Man with Dropsy (Luke 14:1–6)

Public-Domain Patristic Commentary

As Jesus went to eat bread in the house of one of the chief Pharisees on the Sabbath, they watched him, and there before him was a man with dropsy. He asked the lawyers and Pharisees, "Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?" They held their peace; "and he took him, and healed him, and let him go." Then he answered them: "Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day? And they could not answer him again to these things." This is the companion of the healing of the woman bent for eighteen years, the same Sabbath controversy met with the same argument from the rescue of an animal. It is found only in Luke.

The Fathers read the scene on two levels. On the surface it is a lesson in what the Sabbath is for: the Law was given for mercy, not against it, so the silence of the lawyers and the rescue of their own beasts both convict them. Beneath the surface they find a figure in the disease itself. The dropsical man, whose thirst grows the more he drinks, is an image of the covetous, whose desire swells the more they gain; and so the healing in the Pharisee's house, where the bodily sickness of the one mirrors the inward sickness of the other, opens fittingly into the chapter's teaching on humility and almsgiving that follows. Gathered below are five Fathers, two from the East and three from the West, each quoted verbatim from a public-domain translation. A note on the sources follows.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444)

From his Commentary on Luke (Homily 101, on Luke 14:1–6), trans. R. Payne Smith, 1859. Public domain.

On the Sabbath as shadow and type, and the true rest, which is to cease from sin:

But, O senseless Jew, understand that the law was a shadow and type, waiting for the truth: and the truth was Christ, and His commandments. Why then do you arm the type against the truth? why do you set the shadow in array against the spiritual interpretation? Keep your sabbath rationally ... Let us cease from our sins; let us rest from our offences; let us wash away our stains; let us abandon the impure love of the flesh; let us flee far from covetousness and extortion; and from disgraceful gains, and the love of lucre.

On the silence of the lawyers, who could find nothing in the Law against doing good:

But why, O lawyer, were you silent? Quote something from the scriptures; show that the law of Moses ever blamed the doing good on the sabbath: prove to us that it wishes us to be hardhearted and unmerciful, because of the rest for our bodies; — that it forbids kindness, in order that we may honour the sabbath. But this you can not prove from any part of it.

On the rescue of the son or the ox, which the Pharisees themselves would not refuse:

And as they were silent from malice, Christ refutes their immitigable shamelessness by the convincing arguments which He uses. For "whose son of yours," He says, "or whose ox shall fall into a pit, and he will not immediately draw him out on the sabbath day?" If the law forbids the showing mercy on the sabbath, why do you yourself take compassion on that which has fallen into the pit?

On the God who is good and loving, whose Law was given to lead us to love:

But you will not assent to such reasonings; you will stretch out your hand to one who is distressed, esteeming him of more account than the honour due to the law, or rather than a senseless rest ... The God of all ceases not to be kind: He is good and loving unto men: He instituted not the law of Moses as the mediator of harshness, nor appointed it as a teacher of cruelty, but rather to lead you on to the love of your neighbour.

Theophylact of Ohrid (c. 1055–1107)

From his Explanation of the Gospel of Luke, as compiled in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On the question that exposes their folly, and the day that admits no good:

But by His question He exposes their folly. For while God blessed the sabbath, they forbade to do good on the sabbath; but the day which does not admit the works of the good is accursed.

On the son and the ox they would not leave in danger:

As though He said, If the law forbids to have mercy on the sabbath-day, have no care of thy son when in danger on the sabbath-day. But why speak I of a son, when thou dost not even neglect an ox if thou seest it in danger?

Blessed Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

From his Questions on the Gospels (Book 2, ch. 29), as compiled in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On the dropsical man and the bound woman, both likened to a beast led to water:

Now He has aptly compared the dropsical man to an animal which has fallen into a ditch, (for he is troubled by water,) as He compared that woman, whom He spoke of as bound, and whom He Himself loosed, to a beast which is let loose to be led to water.

On the dropsical man as a figure of the covetous, whose thirst grows with his wealth:

Or we rightly compare the dropsical man to a covetous rich man. For as the former, the more he increases in unnatural moisture the greater his thirst; so also the other, the more abundant his riches, which he does not employ well, the more ardently he desires them.

St. Bede the Venerable (c. 673–735)

From his Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, as compiled in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On the silence of the watchers, against themselves whichever way they answered:

But they who were asked, are rightly silent, for they perceived that whatever they said, would be against themselves. For if it is lawful to heal on the sabbath day, why did they watch the Saviour whether He would heal? If it is not lawful, why do they take care of their cattle on the sabbath?

On the covetousness that rescues an animal but begrudges a man:

By these words He so refutes His watchers, the Pharisees, as to condemn them also of covetousness, who in the deliverance of animals consult their own desire of wealth. How much more then ought Christ to deliver a man, who is much better than cattle!

On the dropsy as a figure of the soul weighed down by carnal pleasure, and the Lord who draws all from the pit:

Mystically, the dropsical man is compared to him who is weighed down by an overflowing stream of carnal pleasures. For the disease of dropsy derives the name of a watery humour ... In this example also He well refers to the ox and the ass; so as to represent either the wise and the foolish, or both nations; that is, the Jew oppressed by the burden of the law, the Gentile not subject to reason. For the Lord rescues from the pit of concupiscence all who are sunk therein.

St. Gregory the Great (c. 540–604)

From his Morals on the Book of Job (Book 14, ch. 6), as compiled in the Catena Aurea on Luke. Public domain.

On why the dropsical man is healed in the Pharisee's presence:

Rightly then is the dropsical man healed in the Pharisees presence, for by the bodily infirmity of the one, is expressed the mental disease of the other.

Note on sources and other Fathers

The two readings divide neatly. Cyril gives the fullest treatment of the Sabbath itself: the Law was "a shadow and type, waiting for the truth," and to keep the Sabbath rightly is to "cease from our sins" and "flee far from covetousness," not to stand guard against an act of mercy; he presses the silence of the lawyers, who can quote no text against doing good, and turns their own practice against them, since the God who gave the Law did not appoint it "as a teacher of cruelty, but rather to lead you on to the love of your neighbour." Theophylact sharpens the same point, that a day which forbids good is accursed, and that the Pharisees would not leave even an ox in danger. Bede adds that the watchers are trapped whichever way they answer, and that their care for animals over a man convicts them of covetousness. Then the figural reading gathers the Western Fathers: Augustine and Bede both see in the dropsical man, parched the more he drinks, an image of the covetous, parched the more they gain; and Gregory observes that the bodily sickness of the one, healed in the Pharisee's presence, lays bare the inward sickness of the other.

This is the last of the Sabbath healings recorded in Luke, and the Fathers set it beside the woman bent for eighteen years (Luke 13:10–17), where the Lord makes the same appeal to the loosing of an ox or ass; Augustine draws the two scenes together expressly. The Catena Aurea on this passage does not draw on Ambrose, so the voices here are Cyril and Theophylact from the East, and Augustine, Bede, and Gregory from the West. Cyril is quoted from his own Commentary on Luke in Payne Smith's translation; the others come through the Catena Aurea on Luke, as marked in each attribution, with Augustine's words drawn from his Questions on the Gospels and Gregory's from his Morals on Job.

Patristic sources

Read the sources: Cyril on Luke, Sermons 99–109 (Tertullian.org)