The healing of the ruler's son (Notes)

Saint John - Chapter 4

The healing of the ruler's son. J-J Tissot.

[46] Venit ergo iterum in Cana Galilaeae, ubi fecit aquam vinum. Et erat quidam regulus,[1] cujus filius infirmabatur Capharnaum.
He came again therefore into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain ruler,[1] whose son was sick at Capharnaum.

[1] A certain nobleman. The Latin translator seems to have had in his Greek copies βασιλισκος, i.e., regulus, a little king. The present reading is βασιλικος, i.e., royal, understand counsellor, or public minister, of Herod Antipas; a prefect, or intimate friend of his. The Syriac has, a royal servant: S. Chrysostom says, “because he was of the royal race, or discharged some princely function.” Nonnus says, “he was a courtier, who was over the army.” Origen says, “he was perhaps of the family of Tiberius Cæsar, employed by him in some office of Judea.”

Capharnaum: it is probable that this nobleman’s son lay ill at Capharnaum, because it was his father’s usual place of abode. And his father, hearing that Jesus, who healed so many sick, was come out of Judea into Cana of Galilee, went thither, to ask of Jesus the healing of his son; as is plain from what follows. The nobleman seems to have been a Jew, not a Gentile, as both S. Jerome and Origen think. We may think so, because he had little faith, and for that reason was reproved by Christ; whereas the Gentiles were prompt to believe, and so were praised by Him, as was the case with the centurion, and the woman of Canaan.

Some, as Irenæus, think that this nobleman was the same person as the centurion mentioned in Matthew 8. But they were different persons. For the centurion, when Christ was willing to go to him, asked him to remain where he was. But this nobleman asks Christ to come to his sick son. The former came to Christ as He was descending from the mountain to Capharnaum. The nobleman comes to Jesus as He is going into Cana. The boy of the former was sick with palsy; this one’s child was ill with a fever. Christ was all but present when He healed the former this He healed being absent. The one was a servant, the other a son. So S. Chrysostom, Theophylact, and others.

[47] Hic cum audisset quia Jesus adveniret a Judaea in Galilaeam, abiit ad eum, et rogabat eum ut descenderet, et sanaret filium ejus : incipiebat enim mori.
He having heard that Jesus was come from Judea into Galilee, went to him, and prayed him to come down, and heal his son; for he was at the point of death.

When he had heard, &c. The nobleman having heard the fame of Christ, that He healed all sick persons whatsoever, proceeded from Capharnaum to Cana, to ask Jesus, who was staying there, to come back with him to Capharnaum, to heal his son. This was a journey of fourteen hours, or leagues, and therefore long and difficult. Wherefore he had little faith in Jesus, says S. Gregory, since he did not think He could save unless He were corporeally present.

[48] Dixit ergo Jesus ad eum : Nisi signa et prodigia videritis, non creditis.
Jesus therefore said to him: Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not.

Jesus therefore, &c. Signs and prodigies mean nearly the same thing. Signs, however, are properly what take place in natural things, and by nature, slowly operating, but which Christ wrought in a moment, and therefore miraculously. Such are the healing of the sick. But prodigies are things which surpass the whole power of nature, as the raising of the dead.

Christ reproved the small faith of the nobleman, in order that He might sharpen and augment it. As though He said, “Thou and thine hast heard of certain signs and prodigies which I have wrought; still thou believest not that I am the Messiah, unless I do very many more, and that thou thyself mayest behold them with thine eyes.” “He teaches,” says S. Chrysostom, “that it is not His miracles that we are to attend to, but His doctrine. He shows that signs are especially made gracious to the soul; and in this case He heals the father who was labouring under a disease of the mind, no less than the (bodily) disease of the son.” Indeed, He first cures the unbelief, or the imperfection of faith, in the father, and then the fever of the son.

[49] Dicit ad eum regulus : Domine, descende priusquam moriatur filius meus.
The ruler saith to him: Lord, come down before that my son die.

The ruler saith, &c. My child, Greek, παιδιον μου, i.e., my little son, 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.”

[50] Dicit ei Jesus : Vade, filius tuus vivit. Credidit homo sermoni quem dixit ei Jesus, et ibat.
Jesus saith to him: Go thy way; thy son liveth. The man believed the word which Jesus said to him, and went his way.

Jesus saith, &c. “This one word,” saith Rupert, “was a true declaration concerning things present, and a command of life.” For this word of Christ was not only declaratory, but effectual: for it produced that which it declared, namely, the life and healing of the sick. So in the Eucharist, the words, This is My Body, enunciate in such manner that the Body of Christ is there, that they cause It to be there present.

Moreover, Christ went to the servant of the centurion: He was not willing to go to the son of the ruler, because there was in the centurion confirmed faith, but in the ruler faith was imperfect.

He believed the word which Jesus spake. “The Saviour cured two persons,” says Cyril, “by the same words. He brought the mind of the ruler to believe, and He delivered the youth from bodily disease.”

[51] Jam autem eo descendente, servi occurrerunt ei, et nuntiaverunt dicentes, quia filius ejus viveret.
And as he was going down, his servants met him; and they brought word, saying, that his son lived.

As he was going, &c. “His servants met him,” says Cyril, “telling of the swiftness and power of the words of Christ, the Lord so ordering that by the sequence of events the faith of the ruler might be confirmed.”

[52] Interrogabat ergo horam ab eis in qua melius habuerit. Et dixerunt ei : Quia heri hora septima reliquit eum febris.
He asked therefore of them the hour wherein he grew better. And they said to him: Yesterday, at the seventh hour, the fever left him.

He asked therefore, &c. “He studies to be informed concerning the hour,” says Cyril, “to see if it coincides with the time when the Saviour’s favour was bestowed upon him.”

Yesterday, at the seventh hour: this was an hour after noon, when, the child being healed, the servants had immediately set out to tell the glad news to the father. But they could not reach him on the same day. They travelled therefore the rest of that day, and all through the night, and came to him the next morning, for, as we have said, Capharnaum was fourteen leagues or hours distant from Cana.

[53] Cognovit ergo pater, quia illa hora erat in qua dixit ei Jesus : Filius tuus vivit; et credidit ipse et domus ejus tota.
The father therefore knew, that it was at the same hour that Jesus said to him, Thy son liveth; and himself believed, and his whole house.

The father therefore knew. “From hence we may understand,” says Bede (in Catena), “that there are degrees of faith, as well as of other virtues. There is the beginning, the increase, and the perfection of faith. This man’s faith had its beginning when he asked for his son’s safety: its increase when he believed the word of the Lord saying, Thy son liveth: it was perfected by the announcement of his servants.”

Moreover, because this nobleman dwelt at Capharnaum, as well as the centurion, we need not doubt that they were friends; and that the centurion through this miracle, which was prior in point of time, conceived so great faith in Christ that he said, “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed” (Matt. 8:8).

Tropologically, listen to Theophylact, “The little king (regulus) is every man, not only because, according to the soul, he is nigh to the King of all, but because he has assumed dominion over all things. The son is a mind fevered with depraved pleasures and desires. The going down of Christ is His merciful condescension. Christ saith, Go thy way, i.e., show continual progress in good things: then thy son shall live. Otherwise he will die, if thou ceasest to walk (aright).”

Finally, he was healed at the seventh hour, 1. because, as Origen says, seven is the symbol of the Sabbath, and of rest, in which is health. 2. Because the same number is the symbol of the sevenfold Holy Spirit, in Whom is all salvation.

[54] Hoc iterum secundum signum fecit Jesus, cum venisset a Judaea in Galilaeam.
This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judea into Galilee.

This is again, &c. The word again must be joined with when He was come. Meaning, this was the second miracle which Christ wrought in Cana of Galilee, when again—that is, a second time—He was come thither out of Judea. For the first miracle was the conversion of water into wine, which Christ did, when He came the first time out of Judea into Galilee. He came, therefore, twice out of Judea into Galilee, and illustrated each of His comings by a new miracle. “It is called the second,” says Euthymius, “not because after the first He had done no other miracle in the whole of Palestine (for He had already done many in Judea), but because, after the first, this was (only) the second which He had done in Cana.” John says this, indicating that an abundance of miracles were performed subsequently by Christ in Galilee, which Matthew relates (4:23, &c.), and which after this are related by S. John.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam