It is the mark of a bashful debtor to discharge his promises promptly, and neither to mock the creditor's mind by delay, nor to keep it in suspense by long waiting.
Since the narrative concerning the ruler of the synagogue, or the woman with the issue of blood, being connected together and drawn out, was departing from the accustomed brevity of our discourse, we preferred to halve the treatment, lest your hearing be burdened as much as it should be refreshed. The ruler of the synagogue meets the Lord, and falls wholly to the ground, states his cause, discloses his grief, moves the affection of the Bestower, entreats him to hasten and come to the healing; on the contrary, the Lord meets the woman unsought, and, passing by, offers her the occasion of salvation; being silent, he recognized the cause of one who was silent; even of one who concealed it, he beheld the hidden wound. Between the Lord and the woman so great a commerce of stolen salvation is transacted; and while, being entreated, he makes his way at a public petition, the thought of faith penetrates the divine, and reaches the secret.
Happy woman, who in so great a multitude is alone with Christ, so that she alone is conscious both of the salvation restored to her and of the surpassing power! Blessed she, who found such an approach as none could withstand! Blessed she, who by such a way burst through and crept in to her own Author; who, before she should be confounded by man concerning her wound, was rid of the foulness of that very wound, knowing that with men and through men every access to healing was closed to her—men who are wont rather to shrink from wounds than to cure them! God wipes away human wounds, does not despise them; neither does he shudder at the sicknesses of men, but drives them off, nor does he loathe the uncleannesses of the human body, but amends them: because God knows not how to be defiled toward what he has made; God cannot be soiled.
But the evangelist raises a question, when he says: 'And immediately Jesus, knowing in himself the power that had gone out from him, turning to the crowd, said: Who touched my garments?' (Mark 5). While he asks, he seems, as it were, to profess ignorance: does he feel that power went out from himself, and yet not know to whom it went out? Does he know what he bestowed, yet not know on whom he bestowed it? Is he in doubt about the person, who is certain about the salvation conferred? But it is not through the error of one ignorant, but by his majesty, that the Lord here asks as one who knows and foreknows; nor does he inquire after what was hidden from himself, but he thus demonstrates that it was well known to himself, while by asking in such a way he alone lays open to all the ignorant what lay hidden.
The silent petitioner, who made suggestion by her thoughts alone, and who clung, behind his back, to the counsels of his power—her he brings forward into the midst, not as an examiner ignorant, but as an inquirer foreknowing, and makes her stand before his sight, so that she who had carried salvation away for herself might carry back faith also for all; and that she who had proved his power might acknowledge his majesty; nor should she return, as she supposed, unrecognized, she who had given full knowledge of herself.
While she blushes at her wound, while in such a healing she reveres him as God, the woman endured no small clouds of faith, and in the very light of her mind she herself was darkened by the mists of confusions. Therefore the voice of the inquiring Lord, like a saving breath, put the clouds to flight, scattered the mists, illumined her faith, and rendered her who had lain hidden in the darkness of night brighter than the sun itself. Or is she less than the sun, she who radiates over the whole world, who shines and gleams in the whole assembly of the Church? If she had thus returned unseen—grant me pardon—she would have deluded the physician, not proved him; and she could have ascribed to herself what she had obtained, not to the healer; she who had believed that she had snatched her cure from the fringe of the healer, not from his mind.
Or what did she believe to belong to him, whose power she had felt within herself, yet by her intention judged to be a stranger? She indeed—even if, before her cure, it was of modesty that she hid herself, and of humility that she judged herself unworthy—why, after her cure, did she not of her own accord come forward, to give thanks, to render honour, to report the glory of so great a work? But after she saw the Lord persist in his inquiry, and, while the disciples were making excuses and objecting the crush of the crowd, perceived that she could not lie hidden, after fear and the trembling of conscience began to accuse her, she came into the midst, so that she might openly profess him whom she had secretly felt to be her physician, and adore him as God, and become a medicine for so great a sickness of hers to those present as well as to those to come, the evangelist saying:
'But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had been done in her, came and fell down before his feet, and told him all the truth.' But because a historical narration is always to be lifted up to a higher understanding, and by present figures future mysteries are to be known, what the ruler of the synagogue, or his daughter, or the woman afflicted with an issue of blood hold under the appearance of these persons is now to be unfolded in allegorical discourse of the sacrament. The daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, to whom Christ comes, goes and hastens and makes the journey with a human step—she who cannot by divine power be advanced from her place—is without doubt the Synagogue, the Lord saying:
'I am not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel' (Matthew 15). But while Christ is journeying toward her, the Church, which is set among all the nations, having lost the good of her nature, was losing and pouring out the blood of the human race; whose sickness, while human skill strives to cure it, it was rather heaping up: for the censure of human frailty, and the severity of worldly discipline, always poured out the blood of the peoples.
And yet it could neither do away with enemies, nor quell the wars of the citizens, nor blot out the madness of crimes; she, therefore, pierced through with such cares, when she saw that whatever was and had been of her substance was consumed—that is, her spirit, mind, sense, genius, labour, industry, reason, which indeed we commit to our rulers for our advancement as to physicians—when she felt the presence of Christ passing by, came behind, because, polluted with blood, she did not deserve to see him. She comes behind, that is, she follows the hearing of the Word, and, as it were, touches the very fringe of Christ, his last part, while she is not honoured in the fathers, not sanctified in the Law, not vaunted in the prophets, not honoured in the Lord's own body.
while she is held a stranger to that order of Christ's lineage. Behind his back—that is, in the last time—she follows Christ, and is sanctified by the hidden sacrament of faith, and she truly touched the garment which she found in the sepulchre, through which she believed and proclaimed the tokens of the rising Lord. But while Christ is occupied about her with his powers, in the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue he fails, and the Synagogue dies: so that she too may return to life through faith, she who had died through the Law and had perished through nature. Meanwhile there come from the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and they say, 'Trouble not the Master, the girl is dead.' And to this day the Jews will not have Christ troubled, whom they desire not to come, and they pronounce death, who have unfaithfully lost the hope of resurrection;
But this too, how well it agrees with our assertion, that the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue is reported to have spent twelve years in life, and this woman is recorded to have persevered twelve years in her wound, since for each, at the last and completed time, salvation and life were restored. For this number encloses the span of human life: which, that it may make a year, is distinguished and numbered in twelve months: whence also the prophet indicates that Christ came in the accepted year of the Lord; and the Apostle proves that Christ came in the fullness of time, saying: 'After the fullness of time was come, God sent his Son' (Galatians 4). Pray, brethren, that as the Synagogue died to itself and to the Law, that it might live to Christ;