Loading…
VRSZ
This sets the art on your cards and whose commentary you read on each verse. You can change it later in settings.
Translation
Loading…
What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
Cyril of Alexandria
As if to say, O Pharisees, since ye say, Who can forgive sins, but God alone? I answer you, Who can search the secrets of the heart, but God alone, Who says by His prophet, I am the Lord, that searcheth the hearts, and trieth the reins. (Jer. 17:10.)
Western Saints
Ambrose of Milan
The Lord wishing to save sinners shows Himself to be God, by His knowledge of the secret thoughts; as it follows, But that ye may know.
Bede
For He said, answering them, "Why do you think in your hearts?" For to the same God who says, "I am, I am He who blots out your iniquities" (Isaiah 43), the wisest speaker says, "For You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men" (1 Kings 8). Therefore, He said, by the same majesty and power with which I observe your thoughts, I can also forgive men's sins. Understand from yourselves what the paralytic receives.
Bonaventure
And since by thinking these things they were blaspheming, therefore they are detected and reproved, when it is added: But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, as God, because, Sirach twenty-three, "the eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun, surveying all the ways of men and the depth of the abyss and beholding the hearts of men." Nor is this a wonder, because He is the Word of God, of whom in Hebrews four: "The word of God is living and effective and more penetrating than any two-edged sword, and a discerner of the thoughts …
Translation