“And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.”
Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed — the cure is instant and complete: the leprosy left him (disease departed) and he was cleansed (ritual status restored). Both dimensions — physical and ritual — are addressed in the single healing. The immediacy (euthys) is characteristic: Mark's Jesus does not have a healing process or a gradual recovery period. The word cleansed (ekatharisthē) echoes the leper's own petition — he asked for cleansing, and cleansing is precisely what he received. The outcome demonstrates that Jesus' willingness matches his power: the one who can also will, without restriction or limit based on the condition of the one asking.
Church Fathers on Mark 1:42
After that the serpent-tongue of the devils was shut up, and the woman, who was first seduced, cured of a fever, in the third place, the man, who listened to the evil counsels of the woman, is cleansed from his leprosy, that the order of restoration in the Lord might be the same as was the order of the fall in our first parents.
Mark puts together circumstances, from which one may infer that he is the same as that one whom Matthew relates to have been cleansed, when the Lord came down from the mount, after the sermon. [Matt 8:2]
For he said not, If thou wilt, pray unto God, but, 'If Thou wilt,' as thinking Him very God.
Read all 17 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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