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.
επυθετο ουν παρ αυτων την ωραν εν η κομψοτερον εσχεν και ειπον αυτω οτι χθες ωραν εβδομην αφηκεν αυτον ο πυρετος
11 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Thus, although he believed, he did not believe perfectly or firmly. This is clear from his curiosity about the hour in which the illness left his son. He wanted to find out whether this happened by itself or by Christ’s command. Then at last this man, freed from fear, bends toward faith. Yet wishing to show that this was the result of his journey, he is concerned that his labor not be considered useless. Therefore he wants to learn everything carefully.
Having learned from the servants the hour in which his son became better, that is, when his son came into a better and healthy condition...
He asks them the hour at which the sick man’s improvement began, wishing to know whether it coincided with the time of grace, when Christ said, “Go; your son lives.”
He reproves a man sluggish or cold in faith, or not yet believing at all, who wished to test through his son’s health what Christ was, who He was, and what He could do. We hear the words of the petitioner, but we do not see the heart of the despairing man.
Yet He who heard the words and saw the heart tells us. Finally, the Evangelist himself bears witness by his narrative that the man had not yet believed when he wanted the Lord to come into his house to heal his son.
For after he was told that his son was well, and after he learned that he had recovered at the very hour when the Lord said, "Go; your son lives," he himself believed, and his whole house (Jn 4:53).
If he himself and his whole house believed because he was told that his son was well, and because he compared the hour of the report with the hour of the proclamation, then when he was asking, he did not yet believe.
The Samaritans waited for no sign. They believed only His word. But His own fellow countrymen deserved to hear, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe." Yet when such a wonder was performed there, no one believed except him and his house.
After one word from Him, many Samaritans believed. After His miracle, only that one house believed in which the miracle was wrought.
What, then, brethren, does the Lord show us? Galilee of Judea was then the Lord’s native country, for He was brought up there. Yet now these events foretold something special.
For prodigies are not called prodigia without reason, but because they foretell something. A prodigy, prodigium, is as it were something spoken beforehand, porrodicium: what is said beforehand is indicated beforehand and foretells some future thing.
Since all those events foretold something, and since they all predicted something, let us for the moment consider Galilee the native country of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.
For He had no native country on earth except according to the flesh which He assumed on earth. Let us then consider the Jewish people to be the Lord’s native country.
See: He has no honor in His own country. Consider the multitude of the Jews. Consider that this people is now scattered throughout the whole circle of the lands, and that it has been torn from its roots.
Consider that they are branches broken off, cut away, scattered, and dried up. After these branches were cut off, the wild olive was counted worthy to receive grafting (cf. Rom 11:17).
Look at the multitude of the Jews. What do they say now? "He whom you worship, He whom you honor, was our brother." Let us answer them: a prophet has no honor in his own country.
In short, they saw the Lord Jesus walking upon the earth and working miracles. He gave sight to the blind, opened the ears of the deaf, loosened the mouths of the mute, and gave life to the limbs of the paralytics.
He walked upon the sea, commanded the winds and waves, and raised the dead. They saw Him performing such miracles, and only a few of them believed in Him.
I speak to the people of God: how many of us believe, and what miracles have we seen? What was done then foretold what is happening now.
The Jews then were, and now remain, like the Galileans. We are like the Samaritans. We have heard the Gospel, accepted the Gospel, and through the Gospel believed in Christ. We have seen no miracles, and we ask for none.
For Thomas, although he was one of the twelve chosen and holy ones, nevertheless belonged to the Israelites, that is, to the Lord’s people. He wished to put his fingers into the Savior’s wounds.
The Lord reproved him just as He reproved that royal official. He said to that royal official, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe" (Jn 4:48). To Thomas He said, "You have believed because you have seen" (Jn 20:29).
He came to the Galileans after the Samaritans, who believed His word. Among them He worked no miracles, and soon He calmly left them strengthened in faith, for He remained with them by His divine presence.
When the Lord said to Thomas, "Come, put your hand here, and do not be unbelieving, but believing" (Jn 20:27), Thomas touched the wounds and cried out, saying, "My Lord and my God!" (Jn 20:28).
Then He reproved him and said to him, "You have believed because you have seen" (Jn 20:29). Why did He say this to him, unless because a prophet has no honor in his own country (Jn 4:44)?
But since this Prophet has honor among strangers, what follows? "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (Jn 20:29).
We were foretold, and what the Lord praised beforehand He has deigned to fulfill in us. Those who crucified Him and touched Him saw Him, yet few believed. We have not seen Him or touched Him. We have heard and believed.
Let this be accomplished in us. Let the blessedness promised by Him be fulfilled in us: here, because He preferred us to His own country; and in the age to come, because we have been grafted in place of the cut-off shoots.
For He showed that He intended to cut off the shoots and graft in this wild olive when He marveled at the faith of the centurion. The centurion said to Him, "I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof.
But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does."
Turning, He said to those who followed Him, "Truly I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith" (cf. Mt 8:8-10; Lk 7:6-9).
Why did He not find such faith in Israel? Because a prophet has no honor in his own country (Jn 4:44).
Could the Lord not have said to this centurion what He said to that royal official: "Go; your son lives"? See the difference. That royal official longed for the Lord to come into his house.
This centurion said that he was not worthy for the Lord to come into his house. To this man Jesus said, "I will come and heal him" (Mt 8:7). To the other He said, "Go; your son lives."
To this man He promised to be personally present. The other man’s son He healed by a word. The former pressed Him to come. The latter said he was unworthy of His presence in his house.
Here there was a concession to pride; there, a gift to humility. It was as though He said to that royal official: "Go; your son lives. Do not weary Me.
Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. You want Me to be present in your house, but I can also command by a word. You believe only through signs.
The centurion, a foreigner, believed that I can act by a word, and he believed before I acted. But you will not believe unless you see signs and wonders" (Jn 4:48).
Therefore, if this is so, let the proud branches be cut off, and let the humble wild olive be grafted in. Yet let the root remain when those are rejected and these are received.
Where is the root preserved? In the patriarchs. For the native country of Christ is the people of Israel, since from them He came according to the flesh. Yet the root of this tree is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the holy patriarchs.
And where are they? In rest with God, in great honor. Thus the poor man, received into Abraham’s bosom, received consolation after bodily death. He was seen far away in Abraham’s bosom from the proud rich man (cf. Lk 16:22-23).
Therefore let the root remain. Let it be counted worthy of praise. But the proud branches deserved to be cut off and dried up, while the humble wild olive was grafted in their place (Rom 11:17).
Hear, then, how the natural branches, rami naturales, were cut off, and how the wild olive was grafted in. Hear it in the centurion himself, whom I thought necessary to mention for comparison with that royal official.
"Truly I say to you," He declared, "not even in Israel have I found such faith. And I say to you that many will come from east and west" (Mt 8:10-11).
What vast spaces the wild olive has covered. This world was a bitter forest. Yet because of humility, because of the words, "I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof" (Mt 8:8), many will come from east and west (Mt 8:11).
Suppose that they come. What will happen to them? If they come, they will be cut off from the forest. Where must they be grafted so that they do not dry up?
"And they will recline," He says, "with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" (Mt 8:11). At what feast, lest someone suppose that You have called them not to eternal life, but to abundant refreshment?
They will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Where? "In the Kingdom of Heaven," He says.
What, then, will happen to those who come from the root of Abraham? What will happen to the branches with which the tree abounded? Surely only this: they will be cut off, so that others may be grafted in.
Show that they will be cut off. "But the sons of the kingdom will be cast into the outer darkness" (cf. Mt 8:11-12).
Therefore let the Prophet have honor among us, because He had no honor in His own country. He had no honor in His own country, in which He was born. He had no honor in the country which He Himself brought forth.
For the Creator of all was born there, born in the form of a servant (Phil 2:7). That very city in which He was born, Zion itself, the Jewish people itself, Jerusalem itself, He Himself brought forth.
He did so because with the Father He was the Word of God, for all things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing (cf. Jn 1:3).
Thus concerning that Man of whom we heard today, "there is one mediator between God and men, the Man Jesus Christ" (1 Tim 2:5), there is also the prophetic psalm, where it says, "Mother Zion, a man shall say" (cf. Ps 86:5).
A certain man, the mediator between God and men, the Man Himself, calls Zion mother. Why does He call Zion mother? Because there He received flesh. From there came the Virgin Mary.
From her womb He appeared in the form of a servant (Phil 2:7), in which He deigned to show Himself most humble.
"Mother Zion," says the man. The man who says, "Mother Zion," was born in her. "A man was born in her" (cf. Ps 86:5).
For God was before Zion, but man was born in her. That Man who was born in her Himself established her as the Most High (cf. Ps 86:5), not as the most humble.
A man was born in her as the most humble, for "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1:14). He Himself established her as the Most High, because "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
"All things were made through Him" (cf. Jn 1:1, 3). Since He made this country, let Him have honor here. The country in which He was born rejected Him. Let the country which He has brought forth anew receive Him.
“And as he was already going down, behold, his servants met him and announced to him, saying, ‘Your son lives.’ So he asked them the hour when he got better,” chompsoteron, that is, weaker, freer, easier. “And they said to him, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.’” Capernaum was far from Cana. Therefore the servants could not inform him of his son’s recovery on the same day.
Having returned to Galilee, Jesus Christ soon visited Cana. There He healed from afar the son of the nobleman of Capernaum.
That this miracle and the healing from afar of the servant of the centurion of Capernaum (Mt 8:5-13) are two different events is clear from the following points.
First, in the former case the miracle is performed from Cana, but in the latter it takes place in Capernaum. Second, in the former it concerns a son, but in the latter a servant. Third, in the latter the centurion displays such strength of faith that he considers himself unworthy to ask mercy from Christ in person or to receive Him into his house. He also believes that healing from afar is possible.
In the former case, however, the nobleman only asks Christ to come to him and heal his son. Fourth, for this reason Christ marvels at the centurion and praises his faith in the latter case. In the former, He considers it necessary first to prepare the nobleman’s faith through a rebuke for little faith.
When the nobleman of Capernaum came to Jesus, he asked Him to come and heal his son, who was sick unto death. The Lord says to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
Jesus Christ evidently foresees the soul of the petitioner. He foresees that only his own extreme need, his personal interest in the miracle, has brought the nobleman to Him. Even in such a situation, the man believes not without wavering that the Lord is able to perform the healing.
The purpose of the rebuke is to turn the petitioner’s gaze toward his inner state of soul. It shows that this state is known, exposes his little faith, and strengthens his faith.
The next day his servants met him on the road and told him that his son had recovered. It proved to be at the very hour when Jesus had given him hope.
This was already the second time Christ marked His presence in Galilee by performing an important miracle. “And he himself believed, and his whole household.”
The rank of the nobleman gave the miracle wide renown. This undoubtedly helped ensure that, in this bright period of Christ’s ministry, still darkened by nothing, He was everywhere met with joy and exultation. He had come for the salvation of suffering mankind.
The report of the new and great miracle quickly spread through all the surrounding towns and villages. They thickly dotted the beautiful shore of the magnificent Lake of Gennesaret. The name of Jesus, as a new prophet, was on everyone’s lips.
Yet Christ’s miracles had as their aim the awakening of the people’s dormant consciousness to receive the great truths of the Gospel. Taking advantage of this impression, the Savior began to teach the people in the synagogues and “was glorified by all.”
“Yesterday at the seventh hour”: by our reckoning, at one o’clock in the afternoon. This meeting probably took place early in the morning, perhaps already not very far from Capernaum, so that the servants could say, “yesterday.” Perhaps they did not leave the house immediately after the young master’s recovery, but several hours later, after becoming convinced during that time that he was completely well.
In Galilee, where Jesus Christ was going, He did not stop in Nazareth, His own city. As He Himself said, a prophet has no honor in his own country. Instead, He again visited Cana and Capernaum.
The people everywhere welcomed Him with enthusiasm, since the report of His miracles in Jerusalem had already reached Galilee.
In Capernaum the Lord Jesus Christ healed the nobleman’s son. In order, this was the second miracle performed by Jesus Christ in Galilee.
The Galileans were despised by the Jews of Jerusalem because they associated with Gentiles and did not strictly observe the ritual prescriptions of the law of Moses. They rejoiced that a great teacher and wonderworker had appeared from among them.
The Lord Jesus Christ chose Galilee as the chief place of His preaching activity. He visited Jerusalem only briefly, on the great feasts. The Galileans were not blinded by Pharisaic prejudices and responded more trustingly to Christ’s preaching.
Moreover, many Gentiles lived in Galilee among the Jews: Phoenicians, Greeks, Arabs, Egyptians, and others. Thus the preaching of Jesus Christ also influenced the Gentile world there. Through Galilee’s trade connections with world markets, it spread far beyond Galilee.
The Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe in detail the activity of Jesus Christ in Galilee, His teaching, and His miracles. Therefore the Evangelist John only briefly notes the visits of Jesus Christ to Galilee, while dwelling in detail on events that took place in Jerusalem.
Verses 48-53. “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe,” the Savior said to the royal official.
Christ Jesus did not answer in the same way the requests of those who sought help from Him (Mt 19:21; Mt 8:22; Mt 15:26; Mk 10:51). This depended on what kind of petitioners they were.
The Knower of hearts knew them even without their words, while men came to know them by their deeds.
Some asked for miracles only from idle curiosity, like Herod, or even with evil intentions, like the Pharisees. Such received a refusal.
To others, who needed only the strengthening of their faith and strongly desired to be Jesus’ disciples, He quickly gave help.
A third group occupied the middle place between these two classes. They were compelled by afflictions to ask miraculous help from Jesus, and until then had thought little about eternity. They needed instruction.
Once instructed, however, they became sincere venerators of Jesus. The courtier belonged to this class.
He certainly would not have come to Jesus if he had no faith at all. But to his first request Jesus answered with instruction, exposing his insufficient attention to eternal needs.
The courtier, touched by the word of truth, repeats his request for help, but still in a form that is not entirely correct. He still thinks that Jesus will heal his son only if He sees the sick boy.
“Go; your son lives,” Jesus says to him. And it turned out that the one who had been at the point of death became well at the very hour when Jesus said, “Go; your son lives.”
The result that followed was this: the courtier “himself believed,” “and his whole house.”
“Christ, who saw the heart, knew well when He said: unless you see a sign, you will not believe,” says Zigabenus.
Is this story the same as the one related by St. Matthew (Mt 8:5) and Luke (Lk 7:1)? Irenaeus and some others thought that here and there it is the same event.
St. Chrysostom and Euthymius Zigabenus held another opinion. For many reasons we must accept that the evangelists describe two different events.
In St. John the sick person is the petitioner’s son; in Matthew and Luke, he is a servant. Here the petitioner is Herod’s courtier; there, the centurion of Capernaum.
Here the father comes to Jesus and twice asks for help. There the centurion asks first through the elders of the city, then through friends.
Here Jesus comes from Samaria to Cana, where the courtier’s request is fulfilled. There He comes from the mountain to Capernaum, where the centurion’s request is satisfied.
The persons, the courtier and the centurion, are altogether unlike one another in their dispositions of soul.
It seems that the nobleman begged the Lord in Cana at the seventh hour of the day, that is, at one o’clock in the afternoon. Then, after receiving the command to “go,” he went on foot to Capernaum, as people commonly traveled at that time.
With the necessary stops along the way, probably required by his advanced age, the nobleman arrived in Capernaum around dawn. There his servants met him, having come out to meet him with the joyful news that his son was well.
Until then the father had perhaps walked in hope, yet not without doubt and fear. When his fear for his son had passed, his thought at once returned to the Healer. He asked the servants at what hour his son had begun to recover, already knowing and sensing the answer beforehand.
The servants’ answer fully confirmed what his soul had foreknown. He understood that it was the very hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son lives.”
As a consequence of this enlightenment of his mind, and of his calmed soul being raised from earthly things to heavenly ones, faith in the Lord appeared in him. He believed that He truly was the One foretold by Moses and the prophets, the Christ, the Son of God.
“He himself believed, and his whole household,” says the Evangelist. This indicates that the nobleman, with all his household, joined the first flock of Christ.
We know no details about this nobleman, and we have not encountered traditions about his later fate. Yet we do not doubt that he and his household became Christians.
Greek text, 21 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS