Then Jesus answered and said,
O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I endure you? bring him here to me.
All Commentaries on Matthew 17:17 Go To Matthew 17
John Chrysostom
AD 407
But He, acquitting them of the charges before the people, imputes the greater part to him. For, O faithless and perverse generation, these are His words, how long shall I be with you? Matthew 17:17 not aiming at his person only, lest He should confound the man, but also at all the Jews. For indeed many of those present might probably be offended, and have undue thoughts of them.
But when He said, How long shall I be with you, He indicates again death to be welcome to Him, and the thing an object of desire, and His departure longed for, and that not crucifixion, but being with them, is grievous.
He stopped not however at the accusations; but what says He? Bring him hither to me. Mark 9:21 And Himself moreover asks him, how long time he is thus; both making a plea for His disciples, and leading the other to a good hope, and that he might believe in his attaining deliverance from the evil.
And He suffers him to be torn, not for display (accordingly, when a crowd began to gather, He proceeded to rebuke him), but for the father's own sake, that when he should see the evil spirit disturbed at Christ's mere call, so at least, if in no other way, he might be led to believe the coming miracle.
And because he had said, Of a child, and, If you can help me, Christ says, To him that believes, all things are possible, Mark 9:23 again giving the complaint a turn against him. And whereas when the leper said, If You will, You can make me clean, Matthew 8:2 bearing witness to His authority Christ commending him, and confirming His words, said, I will, be thou clean; in this man's case, upon his uttering a speech in no way worthy of His power—If You can, help me,— see how He corrects it, as not rightly spoken. For what says He? If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes. What He says is like this: Such abundance of power is with me, that I can even make others work these miracles. So that if you believe as one ought, even you yourself art able, says He, to heal both this one, and many others. And having thus said, He set free the possessed of the devil.
But do thou not only from this observe His providence and His beneficence, but also from that other time, during which He allowed the devil to be in him. Since surely, unless the man had been favored with much providential care even then, he would have perished long ago; for it cast him both into the fire, so it is said, and into the water. And he that dared this would assuredly have destroyed the man too, unless even in so great madness God had put on him His strong curb: as indeed was the case with those naked men that were running in the deserts and cutting themselves with stones.
And if he call him a lunatic, trouble not yourself at all, for it is the father of the possessed who speaks the word. How then says the evangelist also, He healed many that were lunatic? Denominating them according to the impression of the multitude. For the evil spirit, to bring a reproach upon nature, by wine? For the weaker the vessel, the more entire the shipwreck, whether she be free or a slave. For the free woman behaves herself unseemly in the midst of her slaves as spectators, and the slave again in like manner in the midst of the slaves, and they cause the gifts of God to be blasphemously spoken of by foolish men.
For instance, I hear many say, when these excesses happen, Would there were no wine. O folly! O madness! When other men sin, do you find fault with God's gifts? And what great madness is this? What? Did the wine, O man, produce this evil? Not the wine, but the intemperance of such as take an evil delight in it. Say then, Would there were no drunkenness, no luxury; but if you say, Would there were no wine, you will say, going on by degrees, Would there were no steel, because of the murderers; no night, because of the thieves; no light, because of the informers; no women, because of adulteries; and, in a word, you will destroy all.
But do not so; for this is of a satanical mind; do not find fault with the wine, but with the drunkenness; and when you have found this self-same man sober, sketch out all his unseemliness, and say unto him, Wine was given, that we might be cheerful, not that we might behave ourselves unseemly; that we might laugh, not that we might be a laughingstock; that we might be healthful, not that we might be diseased; that we might correct the weakness of our body, not cast down the might of our soul.
God honored you with the gift, why disgrace yourself with the excess thereof? Hear what Paul says, Use a little wine for your stomach's sake, and your frequent infirmities. 1 Timothy 5:23 But if that saint, even when oppressed with disease, and enduring successive sicknesses, partook not of wine, until his Teacher suffered him; what excuse shall we have, who are drunken in health? To him indeed He said, Use a little wine for your stomach's sake; but to each of you who are drunken, He will say, Use little wine, for your fornications, your frequent filthy talking, for the other wicked desires to which drunkenness is wont to give birth. But if you are not willing, for these reasons, to abstain; at least on account of the despondencies which come of it, and the vexations, do ye abstain. For wine was given for gladness, Yea, wine, so it is said, makes glad the heart of man: but you mar even this excellence in it. For what kind of gladness is it to be beside one's self, and to have innumerable vexations, and to see all things whirling round, and to be oppressed with giddiness, and like those that have a fever, to require some who may drench their heads with oil?
These things are not said by me to all: or rather they are said to all, not because all are drunken, God forbid; but because they who do not drink take no thought of the drunken. Therefore even against you do I rather inveigh, that are in health; since the physician too leaves the sick, and addresses his discourse to them that are sitting by them. To you therefore do I direct my speech, entreating you neither to be at any time over-taken by this passion, and to draw up as by cords those who have been so overtaken, that they be not found worse than the brutes. For they indeed seek nothing more than what is needful, but these have become even more brutish than they, overpassing the boundaries of moderation. For how much better is the ass than these men? How much better the dog! For indeed each of these animals, and of all others, whether it need to eat, or to drink, acknowledges sufficiency for a limit, and goes not on beyond what it needs; and though there are innumerable persons to constrain, it will not endure to go on to excess.
In this respect then we are worse even than the brutes, by the judgment not of them that are in health only, but even by our own. For that you have judged yourselves to be baser than both dogs and asses, revealed to Peter, He does hereby again confirm. And neither at this did He stop, but by His very condescension declares this self-same truth; an instance of exceeding wisdom.
