The Cure of the Demoniac
Commentary:
33-37. Jesus now demonstrates by His actions that authority which was evident in His words.
34. The demons tells the truth here when he calls Jesus "the Holy One of God", but Jesus does not accept this testimony from the "father of lies" (John 8:44). This shows that the devil usually says something partially true in order to disguise untruth; by sowing confusion in this way, he can more readily deceive people. By silencing and expelling the demon, Jesus teaches us to be prudent and not let ourselves by deceived by half-truths.
***********************************************************************
Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland.
***********************************************************************
Commentary:
10-12. "God has revealed to us through the Spirit": meaning the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Blessed Trinity, "which is from God" (v. 12) and knows the very depths of God (vv. 10-11). These words reveal to us the divinity of the Holy Spirit; knowing a person implies having intimacy with him; the Holy Spirit knows the depths of God because by nature he is God, equal to the Father and the Son (cf. Mt 11:25). "The Holy Spirit is equally God with the Father and the Son, equally omnipotent and eternal, infinitely perfect, the supreme good, infinitely wise, and of the same nature as the Father and the Son [...]. Scripture also attributes to him the power to sanctify, to vivify, to search the depths of God, to speak through the Prophets, and to be present in all places--all of which can be attributed to God alone" ("St Pius V Catechism", I, 9, 4).
Jesus had told his Apostles that "when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth" (Jn 16:13); and on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit did open their minds to understand the truth revealed by Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit also acted in St Paul, so that he had the same knowledge of Revelation as the other Apostles (cf. Gal 2:1-10). The same Spirit continues to act in the Church: "The Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of truth, because he proceeds from the Father, eternal Truth, and the Son, substantial truth, receives from each of them, along with his essence, all truth, which he then communicates to the Church, helping never to err" (Leo XIII, "Divinum Illud Munus", 7).
13. The handing on of the faith calls for great care in the terminology used: "The Church, with the long labor of centuries and not without the help of the Holy Spirit, has established a rule of language and confirmed it with the authority of the Councils. This rule, which has more than once been the watchword and banner of orthodox faith, must be religiously preserved, and let no one presume to change it at his own pleasure or under the pretext of new science" (Paul VI, "Mysterium Fidei", 3).
The Church has always been concerned about this need to explain the deposit of faith accurately: "You have received gold," St Vincent of Lerins comments, "let you therefore give gold. I do not want you to give one thing instead of another. I do not want you to be so shameless and deceptive that you give me lead or bronze in place of gold; I do not want something that looks like gold: I want pure gold" ("Commonitorium", 22).
The last part of this verse is unclear and can be translated in various ways as the RSV text and note show.
14-16. The original text says "psychikos". This is not easy to translate. Some versions say "natural man", others "animal man", which is literally what the New Vulgate says. What it means is the person who acts only by using his or her human faculties (intelligence and will) and who therefore can be wise only in the things of this world. The spiritual man is the Christian reborn by the grace of God; grace elevates his faculties to enable him to perform actions which have a supernatural value--acts of faith, hope and charity. A person who is in the state of grace is able to perceive the things of God, because he carries with him the Spirit in his soul in grace, and he has Christ's mind, Christ's attitude. "We have no alternative", Monsignor Escriva teaches. "There are only two possible ways of living on this earth: either we live a supernatural life, or we live an animal life. And you and I can only live the life of God, a supernatural life" ("Friends of God", 200).
St John Chrysostom very graphically contrasts the capacity of the spiritual man and that of the unspiritual man as far as understanding God's plan of salvation is concerned: "He who has sight sees everything, including the person who has no sight; but the sightless person cannot see the things of the person who has sight. We Christians know what our own situation is, and we also know the situation of unbelievers; the unbelievers, however, do not understand ours. Like them we know--and we know better than they do--the nature of things present; unbelievers do not know the sublimity of things to come, whereas we already see what will some day become of the world, and what sinners will suffer, and the righteous enjoy" ("Hom. on 1 Cor", 7, "ad loc."). And St Thomas Aquinas: "A conscious person rightly perceives both that he is awake and that the other person is asleep; but the person who is asleep cannot form a correct judgment concerning either himself or the one who is awake. Therefore, things are not the way they are seen by someone asleep: they are as they appear to be to a conscious person [...]. And so the Apostle says that 'the spiritual man judges all things': for a person whose understanding is enlightened and whose affections are regulated by the Holy Spirit forms correct judgments on particular matters to do with salvation. He who is unspiritual has a darkened understanding and disordered affection as far as spiritual things are concerned, and therefore the spiritual man cannot be judged by the unspiritual man, just as the sleeping person cannot judge the one who is awake" ("Commentary on 1 Cor, ad loc.").
***********************************************************************
Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland.