“For he had healed many; insomuch that they pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had plagues.”
For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him — the many healings that have preceded this summary have created a pushing crowd of the sick, each trying to make physical contact with Jesus. The touching motif will recur throughout Mark: the woman with the bleeding (5:27), the request from Gennesaret (6:56), the deaf man (7:33). Physical contact with Jesus produces healing — not as magic but as the medium through which the kingdom's power is transmitted through faith. The pushing crowd is both the testimony to Jesus' healing ministry and the logistical problem that the boat was meant to solve.
Church Fathers on Mark 3:10
The Pharisees, thinking it a crime that at the word of the Lord the hand which was diseased was restored to a sound state, agreed to make a pretext of the words spoken by our Saviour.
But the soldiers of Herod the king are called Herodians, because a certain new heresy had sprung up, which asserted that Herod was the Christ. For the prophecy of Jacob intimated that when the princes of Judah failed then Christ should come; because therefore in the time of Herod none of the Jewish princes remained, and he, an alien, was the sole ruler, some thought that he was the Christ, and set on foot this heresy. These, therefore, were with the Pharisees trying to kill…
Read all 8 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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