Luke 8:1–15

Verse 2. Mention is made in the gospels, of a woman who was a sinner, (Luke 7) of Mary of Bethania, the sister of Lazarus, (John 11 and 12 Mark 14 Matthew 26) and of Mary Magdalene, who followed Jesus from Galilee, and ministered to him. Many think all this to belong to one and the same person: others think these were three distinct persons. See the arguments on both sides in Alban Butler’s Lives of Saints, July 22d; and also more at large in the dissertations upon the three Marys, at the conclusion of the harmony in the Bible de Vence.

Verse 3. The wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward. Lit. his procurator, as in the Rheims translation. The Greek signifies one that provides for another, or manages his concerns. The same word is used, Matthew 20:8 and Galatians 4:2. Witham.—The Greek word is επιτροπου. It was the custom of the Jews, says S. Jerom, that pious women should minister of their substance, meat, drink, and clothing, to their teachers going about with them. But as this might have given cause of scandal among the Gentiles, Saint Paul mentions that he allowed it not. 1 Corinthians 9:5. 12. They thus ministered to our Lord and his apostles of their worldly substance, from whom they received spiritual riches.

TR reads “him” instead of “them”

Verse 8. Ears to hear, let him hear, and so forth that is he that is willing to hear the word of God, and diligently comply with what is therein commanded, let him be attentive to the words of Christ. For the sight, hearing, and other senses, were not given to man to be used only as beasts use them, but likewise that they might profit his soul to eternal life. Tirinus.

Verse 9. After the multitude had left our divine Saviour, his disciples wishing thoroughly to understand the meaning of his instructions, came to him, and desired he would give them an explanation of the parable. Tirinus.

Verse 14. The sense of the Greek text is: they produce no fruit that arrives at maturity. V.