Lucas 4

Basil of Caesarea · Comentário Patrístico (catena)

Lucas 4:1

[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] For not by word provoking the enemy, but by His actions rousing him, He seeks the wilderness. For the devil delights in the wilderness, he is not wont to go into the cities, the harmony of the citizens troubles him. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas

Lucas 4:2

[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] Or, the Lord remained for forty days untempted, for the devil knew that He fasted, yet hungered not, and dared not therefore approach Him. Hence it follows: And he eat nothing in those days. He fasted indeed, to show that He who would gird Himself for struggles against temptation must be temperate and sober. (ex Const. Mon.) But we must not however so use the flesh, that through want of food our strength should waste away, nor that by excess of mortification our understandings wax dull and heavy. Our Lord therefore, once performed this work, but during this whole succeeding time He governed His body with due order, and so in like manner did Moses and Elias. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas

Lucas 4:2-3

[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (ubi sup.) But because not to suffer hunger is above the nature of man, our Lord took upon Himself the feeling of hunger, and submitted Himself as it pleased Him to human nature, both to do and to suffer those things which were His own. Hence it follows: And those days being ended, he was a hungered. Not forced to that necessity which overpowers nature, but as if provoking the devil to the conflict. For the devil, knowing that wherever hunger is there is weakness, sets about to tempt Him, and as the deviser or inventer of temptations, Christ permitting him tries to persuade Him to satisfy His appetite with the stones. As it follows; But the devil said unto him, If thou art the Son of God, command these stones that they be made bread. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas

Lucas 4:3

[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (ubi sup.) He tried to persuade Christ to satisfy His appetite with stones, i. e. to shift his desire from the natural food to that which was beyond nature or unnatural. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas

Lucas 4:4

[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (ubi sup.) But Christ while He vanquishes temptation, banishes not hunger from our nature, as though that were the cause of evils, (which is rather the preservative of life, but confining nature within its proper bounds, shows of what kind its nourishment is, as follows; And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas

Lucas 4:18

[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (non occ.) Or, He came to heal the broken hearted, i. e. to afford a remedy to those that have their heart broken by Satan through sin, because beyond all other things sin lays prostrate the human heart. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas

Lucas 4:25

[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Hom. 2. de jejun. Hom. de fame.) For when he beheld the great disgrace that arose from universal plenty, he brought a famine that the people might fast, by which he checked their sin which was exceeding great. But crows were made the ministers of food to the righteous, which are wont to steal the food of others. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas

Lucas 4:26

[(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274)] (Hom. in div.) Every widowed soul, bereft of virtue and divine knowledge, as soon as she receives the divine word, knowing her own failings, learns to nourish it with the bread of virtue, and to water the teaching of virtue from the fountain of life. — Catena Aurea by Aquinas