While almost all of the works in this vault use Victorian translations, due to the only English translation of this commentary being in copyright, it was machine-translated (by Claude, 2026) from the public-domain Latin. It has not been checked by a human translator.
Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, written about 353–356, before his exile to the East. Chapter 9: On Matthew the publican, on the fasting of the Pharisees and of John’s disciples, on the new cloth sewn on, on the woman with the issue, on the ruler’s daughter raised from the dead, on the two blind men, and on the deaf and dumb man.
-
And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me, and the rest. He bids Matthew the publican, sitting at the receipt of custom, to follow Him. And going into the house He makes a feast, and a crowd of publicans and sinners sits at meat with Him, while the Pharisees rebuke the disciples because their Master ate with publicans. He answers them that the whole have no need of a physician, but the sick need healing; and bids them go and learn what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.
-
The name of publicans comes from their way of life: men who, leaving the works of the Law, preferred to conduct themselves by the common use of the people. So it was out of his house, that is, out of the sins of the body, that the Lord called Matthew, into whose mind He entered and sat at meat. For this same man is the writer of this Gospel, and, going out from the house of his sin, he received the Lord into himself, enlightened by His dwelling within; and within him a feast of the Gospel’s foods is made ready in rich abundance for sinners and publicans. Then jealousy stirs up the Jews that the Lord should keep company with publicans and sinners. To them He brought out the words of the Law, covered as they were by the veil of unbelief: that He brings help to the sick and gives medicine to those who need it; but for those who think themselves whole there is no necessary healing. But that they might understand that none of their own was whole, He warned them to learn what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: that is, that the Law, bound up in the observance of sacrifices, could bring no help; but that salvation was reserved for all in the indulgence of mercy. For I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He had come for all; how then does He say that He had not come for the righteous? Were there, then, some for whom it was not needful that He should come? But no one is righteous by the Law. He shows, then, that the boasting of righteousness is empty: because, since sacrifices were too weak to save, mercy was needful for all who were set under the Law. For if righteousness had been by the Law, pardon through grace would not have been needful.
-
Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not? The Pharisees and John’s disciples fasted, and the apostles did not fast. But He answers them spiritually, and shows John’s disciples that He is the Bridegroom. For John had promised that all the hope of life was laid up in Christ; and his disciples could not be received by the Lord while John was still preaching. For the Law and the prophets are until John; and unless the Law were finished, none of them would pass over into the faith of the Gospel. And in answering that while the Bridegroom is present there is no need for the disciples to fast, He teaches the joy of His presence and the mystery of the holy food, which no one will lack while He is present, that is, while he holds Christ in the sight of his mind. But when He is taken away, He says, they will fast: because all who do not believe that Christ has risen would not have the food of life. For it is in faith in the resurrection that the mystery of the heavenly bread is received; and whoever is without Christ will be left fasting from the food of life.
-
And that they might understand that these perfect mysteries of salvation could not be entrusted to them while they were set in old things, He gave the example of a comparison. Rough new cloth is not sewn on to an old garment, because the strength of the rough patch tears apart the weakness of the old; and new wine is not poured into old bottles, for the heat of the fermenting must bursts the old bottles: that is, souls and bodies made weak by the oldness of sins do not hold the mysteries of the new grace. For the rent is made worse, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles perish. For such men’s guilt will be double, if, besides the oldness of their sins, they will not bear the power of the new grace: and therefore the Pharisees and John’s disciples would not receive the new things unless they were made new.
-
While he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, saying, My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and so on. The ruler’s prayers, the woman’s faith, the gathering of the crowd in the house, the cry of the two blind men, the bringing of the dumb and deaf and possessed man, keep an order whose meaning is linked to what was said before. This ruler is understood to be the Law, which prays the Lord for the people whom it had itself nourished by expectation of His coming, by preaching Christ, that He would give life back to the dead girl. For we read of no ruler who believed: and so the person of this ruler who prays will rightly be fitted to a figure of the Law. To him the Lord indeed promised help, and set out to give it.
-
But first the crowd of sinners is saved, together with the apostles. And whereas the elect, who were appointed out of the Law, ought to have been brought to life first, yet salvation is given first, in the figure of the woman, to publicans and sinners. She, then, coming to meet the Lord as He passed, trusts that by touching the Lord’s garment she will be healed of the issue of blood: that is, defiled with the filth of her body, and undone by the uncleannesses of inward vice, she hastens by faith to touch the hem of His garment — that is, having kept company with the apostles, to touch the gift of the Holy Spirit going out from the body of Christ as from the hem of a garment; and she is presently made whole. So salvation was given to one while it was being brought to another. And the Lord at once praised her faith and her steadfastness: because what was being prepared for Israel the people of the Gentiles seized.
-
And in the plain sense there is great wonder at the Lord’s power: that a power abiding within a body should add the effect of healing to perishable things, and that the divine working should go forth even to the hem of His garments. For God was not divisible or capable of being comprehended, so as to be shut up in a body. For He Himself divides gifts in the Spirit; but He is not divided in the gifts. And faith attains His power wherever it is, because He is everywhere and absent nowhere. And the taking of a body did not shut up the nature of the Power; but the Power took the frailty of a body for its redemption; and it is so infinite and so free that the working of man’s salvation was held even in the hem of His garment.
-
Then the Lord enters the ruler’s house, that is, the synagogue, in which a hymn of mourning was sounding in the songs of the Law; and He is laughed to scorn by many. For they never believed God to be in man; rather they laughed at the preaching of the resurrection from the dead. So, taking the girl by the hand, whose death was with Him a sleep, He drew her back to life. And so that it might be understood that the number of the elect among those who believe out of the Law is small, the whole crowd was put out: which the Lord would surely have wished to be saved; but by laughing at His words and deeds it was not worthy of fellowship in the resurrection. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that land: after the salvation of the elect, the gift and works of Christ are preached.
-
As the Lord went out, then, two blind men presently follow. But how could the blind know both of the Lord’s going out and of His name? Moreover they call Him Son of David, and ask to be saved. In the two blind men the meaning of the whole foreshadowing that went before is completed. For by them is shown what the ruler’s daughter is: that is, the Pharisees and John’s disciples, who had already tempted the Lord together above. To these, then, not knowing from whom they should ask salvation, the Law pointed Him out, and showed them their Saviour in the body of the stock of David; and to those blind from their old sin, because they did not see Christ unless they were told, it gave the light of the mind. And the Lord, showing them that faith is not to be expected from health, but health through faith — for the blind saw because they had believed, they did not believe because they had seen; from which it is to be understood that what is asked must be won by faith, not that faith is to be taken up because of what has been obtained — promises them sight if they believed, gives it to them when they believe, and commands silence: because preaching was the apostles’ proper office.
-
Moreover, after this, in the dumb and deaf and possessed man, the people of the Gentiles, in need of salvation in everything, is brought to Him. For it was beset on every side by all evils, and entangled in the vices of the whole body. And in this the order of the events was kept. For the devil is first cast out, and then the other services of the body follow. For when the madness of all superstitions has been put to flight by the knowledge of God, sight and hearing and the speech of salvation are brought in. Wonder at this deed was followed by such a confession from the crowd as this, It was never so seen in Israel: that he to whom no help could be brought by the Law was saved by the power of the word; and that a dumb and deaf man spoke the praises of God. And salvation being given to the Gentiles, all the cities and all the villages are enlightened by the power and the coming of Christ, and escape every infirmity of their old sickness.