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Translation
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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
She believed in Christ, but she believed not as she ought. She did not speak as if He were God: If Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
Cyril of Alexandria
What Martha says, amounts to this. "Not for this reason," she says, "did my brother die, because the nature of man is subject to death; but because Thou wast not present, Who art able by Thy word to conquer death." But in her grief, wandering beyond propriety, she considered that the Lord was no longer able to do anything, as the time for help had gone by; and she thought that He had come, not for the raising again of Lazarus, bat that He might console them. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
Martha had faith in Christ, but not complete, not proper faith. Therefore she also says: "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." She said this, undoubtedly, because she did not believe that He, if He had wished, could have prevented the death of her brother even without being personally present.
Western Saints
Thomas Aquinas
1511 Martha is shown to have an extraordinary devotion; Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Here she reverently mentions two things to Christ: one of these look to the past, and the other to the future. She looks to the past when she says, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died: for she believed that there would be no place for death when the Lord was present, since she had seen the woman healed by merely touching the fringe of Jesus' garment (Matt 9:20). …
Bonaventure
Martha therefore said. Here the second point is touched upon, namely Martha's faithful confession, in which she confesses the Lord to be powerful and benign, so that he both could and would deliver and now raise him; therefore she says: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died: because you would have willed and been able to deliver him; but even now you can raise him.
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