The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
Chapter 2
On the third day , &c. The third day , that is, from Christ's departure for Galilee, and the calling of Philip. For this was the last date mentioned by S. John.
The following is the sequence of these days in the life of Christ. He was baptized by John in the thirty-first year of his age, on the 6th of January, as the tradition of the Church declares. On the same day, after dinner, He retired into the desert, where He fasted forty days. This fast thus began on the 7th of January, and ended on the 15th of February. Then he returned to Nazareth, where He abode fifteen days. Directly afterwards, that is to say, on the fifty-sixth day after His baptism, as S. Epiphanius says (Hares. 51), or the 1st of March, the Jews sent messengers to John the Baptist, to ask him whether he were the Christ or not? The day following, on March 2, Jesus came to John, when he pointed Him out with his finger, saying, Behold the Lamb. On the 3d of March, John repeated this testimony before two of his disciples, of whom Andrew was one. On the morrow, or March 4, Jesus went into Galilee, where He called Philip. Since this was the second day from the coming of Andrew with his brother Peter to Christ, it must have been on the third day, or March 5, when the wedding-feast took place. Wherefore S. Epiphanius, in the place already cited, says that it took place on the sixtieth day from Christ's baptism. However, the same Epiphanius, contrary to the rest of the Fathers, and the general consent of the Church, says that Christ was baptized on the 8th of November. This would bring the marriage at Cana to the 6th of January, or the same festival of the Epiphany, on which thirty years previously the Magi had been led by a star to worship Christ at Bethlehem. He adds that in memory of so great a miracle as this conversion of water into wine, even in his own time, on the 11th of the month Tybus, which answers to our 6th of January, certain fountains ran with wine. He testifies this of the fountain of Gerasa in Arabia. He says that he himself had drank of the fountain of Cibyris in Caria thus turned into wine on the day and hour when the miracle was wrought. He says that many in Egypt bear the same testimony with regard to the Nile. What Epiphanius says has led some to think that it was in the thirty-second or following year of Christ's ministry, and on the 6th of January, that the marriage-feast and the miracle took place. But the chronological table given above shows this to be a mistake.
You will say then, Why did God renew the miracle of the conversion of water into wine yearly on the 6th of January? I reply, because the Church commemorates the miracle on that day, though it did not actually take place upon it. For the Church wished to celebrate on the same feast of the Epiphany, or manifestation of Christ, the three miracles by which Christ first made Himself manifest to the world : the first, the leading of the Magi by a star ; the second, His baptism, when the Father’s voice was heard like thunder, This is My Beloved Son; the third, the turning water into wine. Two of these miracles happened on the same day of the month, or the 6th of January ; the third, two months afterwards, or the 6th of March. When therefore the Church sings, on the Feast of the Epiphany, “ To-day water was made wine,” it is as though she said, “ To-day is this event recalled to the memory of the faithful.” So S. Austin and Baronius.
As a parallel to this miracle, in many places of the West at the season of the Passover, when solemn baptism was wont to be conferred in the Church, copious streams of water have been known to flow out of a dry and arid font or fountain ( fonte ) to be used at the baptism. This was done, not because it was the day when Christ was baptized, but because of the solemn baptism then conferred by the Church.
Marriage , Syriac, Feast, sc. of a marriage . You will ask, Whose marriage was this ; and who was the bridegroom ? Bede, Ruperti, Lyra, S. Thomas, and others, think that the bridegroom was S. John the Evangelist. They are influenced by the authority of S. Augustine, who says on this passage, “ The Lord called John from the wave-tossing tempest of marriage.”
But I say that this bridegroom was not S. John. For S. John was always a virgin, and never married to a wife. For this reason he was most dear to Christ, and was “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” a Virgin loving a virgin. He would never have broken his purpose of virginity by marriage ; yea, he would never have thought of breaking it : but he remained constant to his purpose all through his life. This is the teaching of SS. Ignatius, Jerome, Augustine, and others. Wherefore, what S. Augustine has said, as quoted above, is to be understood not of marriage entered into, but of marriage about to be entered into, or rather that he might have entered into, and which, according to the custom of his nation, he ought to have entered into. Christ called the youthful John to Himself, that he might not think of marriage.
With more probability, Baronius, following Nicephorus (Hist. l. 8, c. 30), thinks that the bridegroom at this marriage was the Apostle Simon, who was surnamed the Cananite from Cana. And Baronius adds from the same Nicephorus that the place where the marriage was celebrated was adorned by a famous church built there by S. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. As soon as Simon had seen this miracle of Christ at his wedding, he bade farewell to his bride and the world, and followed Him, and was chosen to be one of His twelve Apostles. This was the reason why Christ came to this wedding ; and by coming, indeed, honoured marriage ; but by calling him to Himself, He showed that celibacy and the apostolate were better than marriage.
Tropologically, a holy soul by faith, hope, chastity, and charity is like a bride married to Christ. She becomes the bride of Christ, who, leaving all the allurements of the world, transfers her whole love to Christ, and for Him covers and veils her head, that is, her mind, and all her senses, so as to converse with Him continually above the clouds in heaven, and dedicates and consecrates her whole self to Him. With this idea the etymology of nuptials , as given by Festus, most admirably agrees. Some he says derive nuptia from the Greek, for the Greeks call a bride νύμφη. S. Isidore, however, derives nuptia from obnubere, to cover , because women when married were accustomed to cover their head with a veil. An unmarried woman, on the contrary, was called innuba , or one whose head was not covered.
Such a bride of Christ was S. Dympna, virgin and martyr, who, on account of her beauty, being asked in marriage of her father, an Irish king, fled into Brabant, and was beheaded by her own father at a town called Geel, not far from Antwerp. Thus she died a noble martyr for chastity. Therefore those who are possessed, and visit her sacred relics, are delivered from the devil. I myself once visited her shrine, and did her reverence.
Cana of Galilee. This is added to distinguish it from another Cana, or Chana, which was situated in the tribe of Aser, near Sidon. Hence it was called Cana of the Sidonians, though it also was in Galilee. And the woman of Canaan, from whose daughter Christ drove out the demon, was an inhabitant of it. But this Cana where the marriage took place was in the tribe of Zabulon, above the valley of Cas-melon, and about three leagues from Nazareth. (So Jerome in Locis Hebr.)
And the Mother, &c. “ She was invited as a friend by those who were celebrating the marriage,” says Euthymius. For Simon the Cananite, who was the bridegroom, was the son of Cleophas, the brother of Joseph the husband of the Blessed Virgin. There is no mention of Joseph in this place, nor subsequently ; for he was now dead, as S. Epiphanius (Hares. 78), Baronius, and others gather from the silence of this passage.