St Jerome’s Homily on Matthew 8:23-27 for the Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

I. Our Lord worked the fifth miracle when He took ship at Capharnaum, and commanded the winds and the sea; the sixth, when, in the country of the Gerasens, He suffered the devils to enter into the swine; the seventh, when, coining into His own city, He cured the man sick of the palsy lying on a bed. The first man sick of the palsy, whom He cured, was the centurion’s servant.

But He was asleep, and His disciples came to Him, and awakened Him, saying: Lord, save us; we perish. A type of this is found in the history of Jonas (Jonah), who was fast asleep when the storm arose, and whom the sailors woke up to help them. He saved the sailors by commanding them to throw him into the sea; this casting of Jonas into the sea being, as we know, a figure of Christ’s Passion.

II. Then, rising up, He commanded the winds and the sea. The words give us to understand that all things, which have been made, recognise their Master; all things, which He rebukes or commands, hear His voice. This is not the error of the heretics, who pretend that everything is alive, but part of the majesty of the Creator, Who makes things to feel Him, which we cannot make to feel us. But the men wondered, saying: What manner of man is this? for the winds and the sea obey Him. It was not His disciples who wondered, but the sailors and others who were in the ship. If, however, anyone be willing to oppose this our interpretation, and to maintain that it was the disciples who wondered, we answer that those who knew not before the power of the Saviour deserve to be stripped of the title of disciples, and to be called simply the men.

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