And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
All Commentaries on Matthew 4:25 Go To Matthew 4
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Kings, when about to go to war with their enemies, first gather an army, and sogo out to battle; thus the Lord when about to war against the Devil, first collected Apostles, and then began to preach the Gospel.
Because they being weak could not come to their physician, He as a zealous Physician went about to visit those who had any grievous sickness. The Lord went round the several regions, and after His example the pastors of each region ought to go round to study the several dispositions of their people, that for the remedy of each disease some medicine may be found in the Church.
By which too He showed the Jews that He came not as an enemy of God, or a seducer of souls, but as consenting with his Father.
Or, He taught natural righteousness, those things which natural reason teaches, as chastity, humility, and the like, which all men of themselves see to be goods. Such things are necessary to be taught not so much for the sake of making them known as for stirring the heart. For beneath the prevalence of carnal delights the knowledge of natural righteousness sleeps forgotten. When then ateacher begins to denounce carnal sins, his teaching does not bring up a new knowledge, but recalls to memory one that had been forgotten. But He preached the Gospel, in telling of good things which the ancients had manifestly not heard of, as the happiness of heaven, the resurrection of the dead, and the like. Or, He taught by interpreting the prophecies concerning Himself; He preached by declaring the benefits that wereto come from Himself.
Or, by disease we may understand any passion of the mind, as avarice, lust, and such like, by malady unbelief, that is, weakness of faith. Or, the diseases are the more grievous pains of the body, the maladies the slighter. As He cured the bodily pains by virtue of His divine power, so He cured the spiritual by the word of His mercy. He first teaches, and then performs the cures, for two reasons. First, that what is needed most may come first; for itis the word of holy instruction, and not miracles, that edify the soul. Secondly, because teaching is commended by miracles, not the converse.
We must consider that when some great change is being wrought, as the introduction of a new polity, God is wont to work miracles, giving pledges of His power to those who are to receive His laws.
Observe the reserve of the Evangelist; he does not give an account of any one of the various cases of healing, but passes in one brief phrase an abundance of miracles, “they brought to him all their sick.”.
In some places it is, “He cured many;” but here, “He cured them,” meaning, ‘all; 'as a new physician first entering a town cures all who come to him to beget agood opinion concerning himself.
