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SERMON 51 On a Deaf and Dumb Spirit1 ecause our area had been subjected to an unusually severe heat wave, I have been silent for a long time, lest the crowded conditions here, arising out of the desire to hear, might themselves generate even more dogday heat.2 But now since the mild weather of autumn has cleared the air, at the Lord’s bidding we are called back to the word of the Lord. When a certain man brought his son, who had been possessed by a virulent spirit that was deaf and dumb, to be cured by the Lord, the evangelist related that the Lord had been so disturbed that, contrary to his customary patience, he himself seemed to wound the father before being moved to cure the son. In response, the evangelist says, a member of the crowd said: “Teacher, I have brought you my son who has a mute spirit that, whenever it seizes him, throws him down; and I told your disciples to cast it out, and they could not.” And the Lord replied: “What an unbelieving generation!” (Mk 9.17–19) 2. In response, a member of the crowd said. Why is it that although only one asks the question, many are dealt a blow? Why is it that while only one has a complaint, all are accused of unbelief ? Why is it that at the voice of just one the whole generation is called insolent in its lack of faith? Why is it? It is because he had come not to God, but to a teacher, demanding a cure not from power, but from skill; attributing the delay of the cure not to the real reason but to the one doing the curing; ascrib198 1. Mk 9.14–24. As the first two sentences of this sermon indicate, this was preached in early autumn. F. Sottocornola, L’anno liturgico, 289, suggests that it was during the second half of September. 2. For other instances when Chrysologus refrained from preaching, see V. Zangara, “I silenzi nella predicazione di Pietro Crisologo,” Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 32 (1996): 225–68. ing what was impossible for the disciples to the lack of skill of their teacher, and with Jewish jealousy3 he was reinforcing the envy of the scribes by complaining as follows: And I told your disciples to cast it out, and they could not. That is to say, that there is a devil that would not yield to Christ; that there is a demon that is able to have little respect for the power of Christ’s name. It was not by their own name but by Christ’s that the disciples were casting demons out of the bodies of those possessed:4 therefore, that a demon did not yield to the command of the disciples, this man was imputing to the weakness of the name of Christ, and not to the fault of the disciples. And so, as the Lord saw that the crowds of Jews present understood it in this way, he thus branded upon the children the faithlessness of their fathers, in their ancestors he knocked down the venomous offspring5 as follows: What an unbelieving generation! 3. When the Lord came to his disciples, it says, he saw around them a large crowd and scribes disputing with them, and as soon as they all saw him, they were amazed and awestruck (vv.14–15), fearing certainly that they would lose at the Teacher’s arrival the claims they had made against his disciples; and that as soon as so great a demon was expelled what had been an occasion of shame for the disciples would become a cause for glory. This is why the Lord responded to all while only one raised the query: What an unbelieving generation! How long shall I be among you? (v.19) Because of their lack of faith not even one demon was expelled from the body of the person taken captive. How long shall I be among you, “and not undertake a mission to the gentiles, where at the voice of just one of my disciples temples fall, graven images flee, altars are consumed by fire, idols retreat, groves are chopped down, every demonic power groans, trembles, and wails as it is being driven out of its ancient and obsolete abodes; shrines are changed into churches, pagan altars are turned into Christian altars, victims consisting SERMON 51 199 3. See, e.g., Sermon 48.1...

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