The evangelist today, about to disclose the Jews' envy concerning Christ, thus began: He came, he says, Jesus into His own country, and taught them in their synagogues, so that they were astonished and said: 「Whence hath this man this wisdom and power? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?」 (Matt. XIII). Not so does the cloud blind the sky, night the day, or gloom the sun, as envy blinds and darkens the mind.
This the Jewish malice proves, which marvels at Christ's wisdom, is amazed at His mighty works, extols His deeds, receives His sayings, and yet, lest divinity should be seen in Him and Godhead be perceived, calls to mind and spreads abroad the names of His carnal parents. He came, he says, Jesus into His own country. Let no one marvel if the Founder of all things, the Lord of heaven, the God of all, is allotted a country and a place, seeing that He shut Himself within a womb, was measured in a manger, took His place at the breasts, was cramped in the lap, and given into arms; and that He might take away human straitnesses, He gave and fitted Himself to human straitnesses. O man, through these things God lowers Himself to you, through these things He follows you, through these straitnesses He seeks you out; that Him whom He formed by His work He might reform by His example; that Him whom He rejected by judgment He might lead forth by love,
and might keep within Himself the one whom He beheld perishing outside Himself. He came, he says, Jesus into His own country, and taught them in their synagogues. Not in His own temple, but in their synagogues. The synagogues could not be His, in which they were gathering the crowds of unbelief, not of faith; in which the people came together in envy, not in love; in which sat the counsel of the malignant, not the counsel of good instruction. He taught in their synagogues, so that they were astonished. They were astonished with indignation, not with grace; they were amazed out of envy, not out of praise; they raged, because that which the proud benches could not comprehend, humility standing before them brought forth—so that they were astonished, and said: 「Whence hath this man this wisdom?」
So speaks he who is ignorant of God, from whom is wisdom, from whom is power; so speaks he who knows not that Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God. Whence wisdom comes, Solomon proves, who, when as a little child he had received the summit of the kingdom, that he might rule the people entrusted to him by virtue, not by pride; by wisdom, not by arrogance; by the heart, not by the head—willed, begged, and received wisdom from God.
Whence hath this man this wisdom and power? The power that gives eyes which nature did not give, that restores hearing shut up by infirmity, that in the dumb looses the bonds of their speech, that brings the lame back to running, that compels souls already bound among the dead to return to their own bodies—that this power is from God, none but one who envies salvation would deny. Yet the Jews knew that Christ's works were of divine power, not of human possibility; but the cloud of envy, the smoke of malice, dimmed the sight of the beholders, lest they should see clearly the light of Christ, the season of the Gospel, when they said: 「Is not this the carpenter's son?」 They said, This is the carpenter's son; but whose son of a carpenter, they did not say;
they said 「the carpenter's son,」 that by a lowly craft the Craftsman's art might lie hidden, and the carpenter's name might conceal the name of the Godhead. Christ was indeed the carpenter's Son, but of that Carpenter who made the fabric of the world not with a hammer but by His command; who fitted together the members of the elements not by skill but by His bidding; who forged the mass of the age by His authority, not by coal; who kindled the sun not with earthly fire but with heavenly warmth; who formed the moon, the darkness, the night, and the seasons; who distinguished the stars with varied light; who made all things out of nothing, and made them, O man, for you, that you might weigh the Maker by the esteem of His work. But you, O Jew, brand Him the son of this carpenter, to whom for such great benefits you ought to repay the return due to a son:
hence it is that you do not receive things to come, because you have proved ungrateful for things present. 「Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary?」 Again, O Jew, you cry aloud the mother's name, but hide the Father's; you name a father, but do not tell his name; you say 「carpenter,」 but do not tell his work. O Jew, these things deceive you, but they do not deceive those who will believe. 「Is not His mother called Mary, and His brethren James and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?」 If the mother, if the brethren, if the sisters are with you, where is the Father? He is not with you, because God hates the false, forsakes the envious, turns away from the ungrateful, and does not suffer the cruel and impious to abide with Him. 「And His brethren and His sisters, are they not all with us?」
Craftily you thrust in brethren and display sisters, that by a numerous offspring the virginity of the holy Mother may lie hidden, her integrity be obscured, and everything in the Son be reckoned human, nothing divine. O Jew, those whom you call the brethren and sisters of Christ are the sons of Cleophas' wife, Mary the sister, not of Mary the Mother; and both the divine law and human kinship call the sons of brothers and sisters 「brethren.」 Therefore it was not the mother's virginity—which remained a virgin after the birth—that made them Christ's brethren, but the assertion of kinship through His aunt made them so. Blessed Mary, had she had other sons besides Christ, would not, in the very hour of the cross, in that very article of death, have been handed over to a disciple, nor commended to a stranger. Envy cast the angel down from heaven (Isa.
XIV), and shut man out of paradise (Gen. III). It first defiled the earth with a brother's blood (Gen. IV). It compelled brothers to sell their brother (Gen. XXXVII). It put Moses to flight (Exod. II), it stirred up Aaron to wrong his brother, it stained Miriam with envy of her brother (Num. XII); and—not to be long—that which the mind dreads, at which the sight trembles, which the hearing cannot bear, envy aimed at Christ Himself and came even to His blood. Envy is worse than all evils: those whom it seizes cannot be freed; those whom it wounds do not come to healing, do not return to salvation. Envy is the poison of transgressions, the venom of crimes, the mother of sins, the origin of vices: he who does not see it, sees good; he who has not known it, knows no evil; he who has fled it, lives.
Envy can be avoided by flight, but cannot be overcome in open combat. But let us now hear what the Lord answered: 「A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country and in his own house.」 Christ indeed came into His own country and into His own house, for it is written: 「He came unto His own, and His own received Him not」 (John I, 11). But by saying, A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and house, He teaches that among one's own there is biting, there is scorching; to be eminent among fellow-citizens galls one's neighbors, and burns up the glory of one's kinsmen: if near ones owe honor to a near one, they reckon it as servitude. 「And He did not,」 he says, 「there many mighty works, because of their unbelief.」 No mighty work is done there, where unbelief does not deserve it.
And although Christ, when He heals, exacts no wage, yet He is indignant when injury is offered to Him in place of honor—He who is God over all, blessed and glorious unto the ages of ages. Amen.