He called to himself his twelve disciples, and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every sickness.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 1. Before this time the 12 were called disciples, and not apostles. But now he selects these from the disciples, and makes them, as it were, masters and interpreters of the ways of God to man. He sent afterwards 72 other disciples, (Luke 10:1,) but these 12 only to the whole world. A.—His twelve, and so forth Christ chose 12 apostles, that they might correspond to the number of the Jewish patriarchs, by whom they may be said to have been prefigured; and that as the whole Jewish people were descended according to the flesh from the 12 patriarchs, so the whole Christian people might be descended according to the spirit from the 12 apostles. Menochius.—Others say he chose 12, neither more nor less, to correspond with the 12 prophets of the old law, with the 12 fountains in Elim; and the 12 stones selected from the river Jordan, and preserved in the ark of the testament. Others compare the 12 apostles to the 12 months of the year, and the four evangelists to the four seasons: thus Sedulius, l. i. carm.
Quatuor hi proceres una te voce canentes,
Tempora ceu totidem latum sparguntur in orbem.
Sic et apostolici semper duodenus honoris
Fulget apex numero menses imitatus, et horas,
Omnibus ut rebus semper tibi militet annus.