And Jesus rebuked the demon; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.
All Commentaries on Matthew 17:18 Go To Matthew 17
Jerome
AD 420
In saying, “And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not heal him, "he covertly accuses the Apostles, whereas that a cure is impossible is sometimes the effect not of want of power in those that undertake it, but of want of faith in those that are to be healed.
Not that we must think that He was overcome by weariness of them, and that The meek and gentle broke out into words of wrath, but as a physician who might seethe sick man acting against his injunctions, would say, How long shall Ifrequent your chamber? How long throw away the exercise of my skill, while I prescribe one thing, and you do another? That it is the sin, and not the man with whom He is angry, and that in the person of this one man He convicts the Jews of unbelief, is clear from what He adds, “Bring him to me.”.
He rebuked him, that is, not the sufferer, but the daemon.
Or, His reproof was to the child, because for his sins he had been seized on bythe daemon.
