And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that power had gone out of him, turned about in the crowd, and said,
Who touched my clothes?
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And Jesus . . . had gone out of Him, and had healed her; not as if any quality had gone out from Christ"s hem, or as if this virtue had gone from place to place, from the hem into the woman who had the issue of blood, but by reason of the effect which it produced in the woman. For the virtue abiding in Christ wrought the effect of healing in the woman. Like as, saith Theophylact, the learning of doctors is said to be communicated to their disciples, when, nevertheless, the learning itself remains in the doctors, and produces its effect only, that Isaiah , a like knowledge in the disciples.
Observe, this virtue of healing and working miracles conferred by the Word upon the humanity of Christ, was not a physical quality. For that would have been infinite, as having divine and infinite efficacy, of which the humanity of Christ was not capable, being created. But it was a moral quality, that is to say, an instrumental virtue. For the humanity of Christ did these things as an instrument of...
Virtue that hath proceeded from him. Virtue to heal this woman's malady proceeded from Christ, though she touched but his coat: so when the saints by their relics and garments perform miracles, the grace and force thereof cometh from our Saviour; they being but the means of instruments of the same. (Bristow)
