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29 Now as soon as they had come out of the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick with a fever, and they told Him about her at once. 31 So He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and immediately the fever left her. And she served them.
Mark 1:29-31
According to tradition, recorded as early as Papias of Hierapolis (60-130 AD), the gospel of Mark is based on the eye witness account of St. Peter — or Simon, to whom Christ gave the name Peter (Mk 3:16). Chrysostom presumes this tradition when observing the intimacy of the event, Peter recalling the healing of one of his own family members.
In the telling, Chrysostom sees in Peter the same faith that appears in the Centurion, who did not believe Christ needed to be pulled away from the crowd in order to heal his servant (Matt 5:8-13 and Lk 7:1-10). In a similar manner, Peter’s mother-in-law was home sick — Chrysostom presuming that Peter was aware of this fact while with Christ amongst the crowd. Yet, the disciple does not pull his master away from the people to address his own need but waits until Christ has finished ministering to them and is in need of food. Only then does Peter bring Christ to his own home that Christ might heal his mother-in-law (Hom. 27, Matt.).
Notice the language that the fever departs or leaves (ἀφῆκεν), from the root verb ἀφίημι — to send away. In other words, the fever is active, leaving Peter’s mother-in-law in response to Christ. Given the prominence of the demonic within the Gospel of Mark, the imagery may well be a subtle diagnosis that the ailment is demonic. I do not mean to suggest that she had a demon, as it were, but the language seems to imply that the illness is substantial, having a demonic root, being a product of demonic energies or operations that Christ dispels.
The likelihood of this reading is reinforced by Luke’s account, where Christ rebuked (ἐπετίμησεν) the fever (Lk 4:39). Luke’s addition leads Cyril of Alexandria to conclude the same, since “it is not reasonable to rebuke a thing without life, and unconscious of the rebuke” (Hom. 12 Lk.).
One might naturally wonder whether a demonic diagnosis constitutes an indictment of Peter’s mother-in-law, as if she sinned, bringing the ailment upon herself. But Cyril rejects the inference, noting how frequently the Devil assails the righteous. One need only think of Job as proof of the fact. The Gospel of Mark is notably disinterested in laying blame for uncleanness or infirmity. Rather, these testify to the demonic dominion in which man was held captive, and Christ’s power to liberate, purify, and heal testifies to his power over these.
Notice two details about the description of Christ’s healing of this woman. First, Christ did not simply heal her but “raised” her (ἤγειρεν). Commenting on the healing of the paralytic, St. Ambrose sees in such language a picture of Christ’s mission more generally, namely, to raise up humanity, liberating us from the bonds of death.
Second, Christ takes her by the hand. While Christ speaks healing to many, we see here the way in which his body serves as a conduit for his divine power. To see the point, a brief aside is in order.
The Eastern Church fathers draw a distinction between God’s essence and his energies. The distinction has a long history, but the summary is this. In the interest of developing a term that describes the perfect activity of God, Aristotle coins the word energeia (ἐνέργεια). The term was picked up by Alexandrian Judaism as a suitable word for divine operations, but figures like Philo of Alexandria draw a further distinction not found in Aristotle, namely, the distinction between God’s essence (οὐσία) and his energies (ἐνέργειαι). Unlike most pagans, Philo — being a good Jew — believed that God operates by free choice. So he draws a distinction between what God is in himself and his free operations in creating and caring for the world. The former is God’s essence, while the latter are his energies, which Philo interprets as the face and back of God: We cannot know his essence (face), but we come to know him by his operative powers that come down to us (his back). One further development in Alexandrian Judaism was the belief that some energies are communicable from one being to another. A favored analogy in later writers is that of fire and metal. Fire expresses its nature by the energies of heating and lighting, and these energies can be communicated to metal, causing it to glow and burn. In the communion, the metal comes to bear in its person, as it were, the energies of fire but it remains metal.
The importance of the point in the present context is twofold. First, this helps illuminate what was said previously about the demonic: We need not say that Peter’s mother-in-law “had a demon” in order to be negatively impacted by the reign of the demonic. Alexandrian Judaism uses the concept of spiritual energies and their communication for more than just God. Men can commune with devils as much as with the divine, and Paul echoes the point, speaking of the Children of Wrath who are energized by the Devil (Eph 2:1-3). Hence, something of the demonic can be at work in a person without that person being a demoniac.
Second, the distinction illuminates the relationship between Christ’s two natures, according to the Eastern Church fathers and the Ecumenical Councils. The Christology here presumed is that Christ bears both a divine nature and a humanity nature, and these two natures are joined in only one person: The Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. While these natures are unconfused in this union — Christ’s divinity and humanity both remaining fully intact — there is still communion between these two natures. For this is the very point of the Incarnation. Man was made to partake of the divine nature, communing with the energies of God. Much like metal enflamed with fire, man is created to be enflamed with God. Yet, the Fall buries the image of God beneath the passions, crippling our ability to partake of the divine nature as we were made to. Christ takes on human nature precisely in order to rebuild this bridge, joining in his person divinity and humanity, restoring this communion.
For this very reason, we see in the person of Christ humanity enflamed with God. We see it most obviously in the Transfiguration and in the Resurrection. But we also see it whenever his flesh (or even his garments that commune with his flesh) serve as conduits for his divine energies. Such is the reason he offers to us his life-giving flesh and blood in the Eucharist. And here, in Peter’s account, we see it as well, Christ’s touch being the basis for the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law.
The image displays what John of Damascus calls the “theandric operations” (θεανδρικαὶ ἐνέργειαι) — that is, those deeds where Christ’s two natures act in perfect harmony due to their union in his one person. John uses the analogy of an enflamed blade, where the operation of a blade is to cut, but when enflamed by fire, it takes on the operative powers of fire. So, when run across a surface, it both cuts and burns. And here, we see the same in Christ: His human nature reaches out and raises up Peter’s mother-in-law, and in this act of raising her up, the energies of his divinity flow through the conduit of his flesh to her, healing and restoring her.