Douay-Rheims Bible: Matthew — Introduction, Chapter Summaries and Notes by Richard Challoner
Chapter 12
SummaryChrist reproves the blindness of the Pharisees, and confutes their attributing his miracles to Satan.
[12:4] The loaves of proposition. . .So were called the twelve loaves which were placed before the sanctuary in the temple of God.
[12:31] The blasphemy of the Spirit. . . The sin here spoken of is that blasphemy, by which the Pharisees attributed the miracles of Christ, wrought by the Spirit of God, to Beelzebub the prince of devils. Now this kind of sin is usually accompanied with so much obstinacy, and such wilful opposing the Spirit of God, and the known truth, that men who are guilty of it, are seldom or never converted: and therefore are never forgiven, because they will not repent. Otherwise there is no sin, which God cannot or will not forgive to such as sincerely repent, and have recourse to the keys of the church.
[12:32] Nor in the world to come. . .Prom these words St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, lib. 21, c. 13) and St. Gregory (Dialog., 4, c. 39) gather, that some sins may be remitted in the world to come; and, consequently, that there is a purgatory or a middle place.
[12:32] Nor in the world to come. . . From these words St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, lib. 21, c. 13) and St. Gregory (Dialog., 4, c. 39) gather, that some sins may be remitted in the world to come; and, consequently, that there is a purgatory or a middle place.
[12:36] Every idle word. . . This shews there must be a place of temporal punishment hereafter where these slighter faults shall be punished.
[12:38] A sign. . . That is, a miracle from heaven. St. Luke 11. 16.
[12:40] Three days, etc. . .Not complete days and nights; but part of three days, and three nights taken according to the way that the Hebrews counted their days and nights, viz., from evening to evening.
[12:48] Who is my mother?. . . This was not spoken by way of slighting his mother, but to shew that we are never to suffer ourselves to be taken from the service of God, by any inordinate affection to our earthly parents: and that which our Lord chiefly regarded in his mother, was her doing the will of his Father in heaven. It may also further allude to the reprobation of the Jews, his carnal kindred, and the election of the Gentiles.