11:25
(Verse 25) At that time, Jesus answered and said: I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Confession, not always repentance, but also signifies thanksgiving, as we often read in the psalms. Let those who calumniate the Savior for calling his Father the Lord of heaven and earth, not as one who is born, but as one who is created, hear. For if he is also a creature, and a creature can call its creator father, it would be foolish not to call both himself and the Lord of heaven and earth, or Father, in the same way.
74 Because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to little ones. He gives thanks and rejoices in the Father, because the sacraments of his coming have been revealed to the apostles, which the scribes and Pharisees, who consider themselves wise, have ignored, and in their own sight, prudent. Wisdom has been justified by her children.
11:26
(Verse 26.) Yes, Father, because it was pleasing to You in this way. Speaking with affection to the Father, that the work begun in the apostles may be completed.
11:27
(Verse 27.) Everything has been handed over to me by my Father. And understand mystically the One who hands over the Father and the One who receives the Son. Otherwise, if we want to feel according to our weakness, when the one receiving starts to have, the one giving will start to not have. However, everything that has been handed over to Him does not mean the heavens and the earth, and the elements, and the rest that He Himself made and created: but those who, through the Son, have access to the Father, and who previously were rebellious, began to feel God afterwards.
And no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal. Let Eunomius be ashamed of claiming to have such knowledge of the Father and the Son as they have of each other. But if he persists in this and consoles himself in his madness because it follows, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal. It is one thing to know by the equality of nature what you know, and another by the dignity of the revealer.
11:28-29
(Verse 28, 29.) Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. The weight of sin is heavy, and the prophet Zacharias testifies, saying, iniquity sits upon a talent of lead (Zacch. 5). And the Psalmist laments: My iniquities have overwhelmed me (Psalm 38:4). Certainly, it invites those who were oppressed under the heavy yoke of the Law to the grace of the Gospel.
11:30
(Verse 30.) For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. How is the Gospel lighter than the Law, when in the Law murder is condemned, but in the Gospel anger is condemned? In what way is the grace of the Gospel easier, when in the Law adultery is punished, but in the Gospel lust is punished? In the Law there are many precepts, which the Apostle teaches cannot be fully fulfilled (Acts 15). In the Law, works are required, and whoever does them shall live. In the Gospel, the will is sought, and even if it does not have the desired effect, it does not lose the reward. The Gospel commands what we are able to do: that we do not desire, namely, this is within our power. When the law does not punish the will, it punishes the effect, so that you do not commit adultery. Imagine a virgin prostitute in persecution. This virgin is accepted according to the Gospel, since she does not sin by her own will, but she is rejected in the Law as if corrupted.
12:1
(Chapter 12, Verse 1) At that time, Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. In another Gospel, we also read that because of their great need, they did not even have a place to eat, and therefore they were hungry like men (Mark 2 and Luke 6). The fact that they rubbed the heads of grain with their hands and found solace in hunger is an indication of a more austere life; they sought simple food, not prepared feasts.
12:2
(V2.) But the Pharisees, seeing this, said to him: Behold, your disciples do what is not lawful for them to do on the Sabbath. Note that the first apostles of the Savior destroy the letter of the Sabbath against the Ebionites, who, while accepting the other apostles, reject Paul as a transgressor of the law.
12:3-4
(Ver. 3, 4.) But he said to them: Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? To refute the slander of the Pharisees, he recalls an old story, when David, fleeing from Saul, came to Nob and was received by the priest Ahimelech. He asked for food, and since he did not have any ordinary bread, Ahimelech gave him the consecrated bread, which only the priests and Levites were allowed to eat. And he merely asked if there were any boys in the world born of women; and when he responded, without hesitation, he did not hesitate to give bread, deeming it better to free people from the danger of hunger, as the prophet says: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice' (Hosea 6:6), rather than to offer sacrifice to God. For a merciful offering is pleasing to God and the salvation of humanity. Therefore, the Lord opposes and says: 'If even David, who is holy, and Ahimelech the high priest, are not condemned by you, but rather both have transgressed the command of the Law with a justifiable excuse, and hunger is the cause, why do you not approve the same hunger in the apostles, which you approve in others?' Although there is a great difference in this. Those people rubbed the ears of grain in their hands on the Sabbath, while others ate the Levitical loaves and came near the feast of the New Moon, on which day he was sought for at the banquet and fled from the royal court. Note that neither David nor his servants took the showbread before they answered that they were clean from women.
12:5
(Verse 5.) Have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath and yet are without guilt? But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:5-8) However, the Laws of God are never contradictory to themselves. And wisely, when his disciples were able to be accused of transgression, David and Achimelech mention examples that they followed: but he attributes the violation of the Sabbath, true and without excuse, to those who had committed slander.
12:6
(Verse 6.) But I tell you that here is a greater temple. Here, is not a pronoun, but an adverb of place; that the place, which holds the Lord of the temple, is greater than the temple.
12:7
(Verse 7.) But if you knew what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. What it means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' we have already explained. But what follows, 'You would not have condemned the guiltless,' refers to the apostles. And the meaning is this: If you approved of Achimelech's mercy, because he refreshed David and his men who were in danger of starvation, why do you condemn my disciples, who have done nothing similar?
12:8