The official said unto him, Sir, come down lest my child die.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
The ruler saith, &c. My child, Greek, παιδιον μου, i.e, my little Song of Solomon , meaning, my most beloved, my only delight. "The ruler," says S. Chrysostom, "being distressed by his son"s affliction, did not pay much attention then to the words of Jesus, but was wholly taken up with the cure. See how he grovels on the earth—Come down, ere my child die—as if Jesus could not raise the dead, or knew not that he had a son."
Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The nobleman saith unto Him,
A mind yet hard dwelleth in them who arc deceived, but mightier will be the more wonder-working power of Him That calleth them unto faith. Wherefore the Saviour says that they need wonders, that they may easily be re-instructed unto what is profitable, and acknowledge Him Who is by Nature God.
Lord, come down ere my child die.
Feeble indeed unto understanding is the nobleman, for ho is a child in his petition for grace, and almost dotes without perceiving it. For by believing that Christ had power not only when present, but that He would surely avail even absent, he would have had a most worthy conception of Him. But now both thinking and acting most foolishly, he asks power befitting God, and does not think He accomplishes all things as God, nor yet that He will be superior to death, although beseeching Him to gain the advantage over him that had all but overcome; for the child was at the point of death.
As though He could not raise him after death, as though He knew not what state the child was in. It is for this that Christ rebukes him and touches his conscience, to show that His miracles were wrought principally for the sake of the soul. For here He heals the father, sick in mind, no less than the son, in order to persuade us to give heed to Him, not by reason of His miracles, but of His teaching. For miracles are not for the faithful, but for the unbelieving and the grosser sort.
3. At that time then, owing to his emotion, the nobleman gave no great heed to the words, or to those only which related to his son, yet he would afterwards recollect what had been said, and draw from thence the greatest advantage. As indeed was the case.
But what can be the reason why in the case of the centurion He by a free offer undertook to come, while here though invited, He goes not? Because in the former case faith had been perfected, and therefore He undertook to go, that we might learn the rig...
