Chapter Ten
Objection based on the saying about the sick needing a physician, and not the righteous (Matt. ix. 12; Luke v. 31).
It is right to examine another matter of a much more reasonable kind (I say this by way of contrast), "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Christ unravels these things to the multitude about His own coming to earth. If then it was on account of those who are weak, as He Himself says, that He faced sins, were not our forefathers weak, and were not Our ancestors diseased with sin? And if indeed those who are whole need not a physician, and He came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, so that Paul speaks thus: "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief" (1 Tim. i. 15); if then this is so, and he that has gone astray is called, and he that is diseased is healed, and the unrighteous is called, but the righteous is not, it follows that he who was neither called nor in need of the healing of the Christians would be a righteous man who had not gone astray. For he who has no need of healing is the man who turns away from the word which is among the faithful, and the more he turns away from it, the more righteous and whole he is, and the less he goes astray.
Chapter Eighteen
Answer to the objection based on the saying about the sick needing a physician, and not the righteous (Matt. ix. 12; Luke v. 31).
[It is quite plain that in dividing sick and whole, righteous and sinners, Christ is referring to the two kinds of reasonable beings. The "whole"and the "righteous" are the angels, whose pure and uncorruptible nature requires no call to repentance. The "sick" and the "sinners" are the race of, men, whose glory was at first equal to the angels, but they fell into the sickness of sin.1The Word in pity came down to call and heal them, as we see in His words: "Behold, thou art made whole, sin no more" (John v. 14). He actually mingled Himself with them and with their life, in order to draw 'hem upward, so that He might rejoice over those on earth as well as those in heaven.
His call began directly man had fallen, with the cry, "Adam, where art thou?" It was extended to Cain, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses and the prophets. The angels were already close to Him, so there was no need to call them, but He called men, whb were fallen far away. Had men obeyed God's first commands, the Creator would not have become a physician and come down to call them back from disobedience. As it was, He had to cry to one: "What hast thou done?" (Gen. iii. 9); to another, "Come out from thy land" (Gen. xii. 1), etc., calling them to be as Himself.
It is a mistake to suppose that He only called men during His earthly life. Had it been so, He would have said: "I am not here now to call the righteous," etc. But the aorist tense "I came" leaves His coming quite undefined, so that it extends from Adam and the Patriarchs onwards.
And if some have refused the call, the fault is in their own choice. The heavenly sun is like the earthly, whose brightness is for all, and yet some who are drunken remain in the darkness.
Let us now be at peace, unless you have some other cause of perplexity to bring forward.]
Footnotes:
1Thus does Macarius run away from the point, and content himself with an allegorical interpretation.