And when he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he said unto the man,
Stretch forth your hand.
And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
All Commentaries on Mark 3:5 Go To Mark 3
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And looking round upon them with anger. Being angry at their unbelief, says the Interlinear, showing by His countenance that He was wroth with the blind, and obstinate, and perverse minds of the Scribes, in that they ascribed Christ"s miracles of goodness, which He wrought upon the Sabbath, to a breach of the law enjoining the observance of that day. From hence it is plain that there was in Christ real anger, sorrow, and the rest of the passions and affections, as they exist in other men, only subject to reason. Wherefore anger was in Him a whetstone of virtue. "Anger," says Franc. Lucas, "is in us a passion; in Christ it was, as it were, an action. It arises spontaneously in us; by Christ it was stirred up in Himself. When it has arisen in us, it disturbs the other faculties of the body and mind, nor can it be repressed at our own pleasure; but when stirred up in Christ, it acts as He wills it to Acts , it disturbs nothing,—in fine, it ceases when He wills it to cease."
This is what S. Leo (Epist11) says, "The bodily senses were vigorous in Christ without the law of sin; and the reality of His affections was governed by His soul and deity."
Lactantius says (lib. de Ira Dei ex Posidon.), "Anger is the lust of punishing him by whom you think yourself to have been injured." Wherefore anger in other men springs from self-love; but in Christ it sprang from love of God, because He loved God perfectly. Hence He was infinitely grieved and angry at offences against God by reason of sin, and committed by sinners, wishing to compensate for those offences by punishing or correcting sinners and unbelievers. Wherefore Christ"s anger was zeal, or seasoned with zeal, even as in the angels and the blessed it is not anger but zeal. (See S. Thomas, 3 p. q. art9.)
Being grieved at the blindness, Syriac, hardness or callousness, of their hearts. Grieved, Gr. συλλυποÏμενος, i.e, condoling with and commiserating them, because, being blinded and hardened by envy and hatred, they would not acknowledge Him to be the Messiah, but spake evil of His kindness to the sick upon the Sabbath-days. It is meant, therefore, that the anger of Jesus did not proceed from the desire of vengeance, but was mingled with pity; and that Jesus was angry with sin, but sorry for sinners, insomuch as He loved them, and strove to save them. Lastly, all such anger is mingled with sorrow; for he that is angry grieves for the evil at which he is angry. Thus the sorrow for the evil causes and sharpens anger, that it may strive to remove the evil at which it is grieved.
