And after these things he went forth, and saw a tax collector, named Levi, sitting at the tax office: and he said unto him,
Follow me.
All Commentaries on Luke 5:27 Go To Luke 5
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Now St. Luke seems to have related this somewhat different from the other Evangelists. Forhe does not say that to our Lord alone it was objected that He eat and drank with publicans and sinners, but to the disciples also, that the charge might be understood both of Him andthem. But the reason that Matthew and Mark related the objection as made concerning Christto His disciples, was, that seeing the disciples ate with publicans and sinners, it was the rather objected to their Master as Him whom they followed and imitated; the meaning therefore is the same, vet so much the better conveyed, as while still keeping to the truth, it differs incertain words.
Hence He adds, to repentance, which serves well to explain the passage, that no one should suppose that sinners, because they are sinners, are loved by Christ, since that similitude of the sick plainly suggests what our Lord meant by calling sinners, as a Physician, the sick, in order that from iniquity as from sickness they should be saved.
