“And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”
If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand — the principle is restated at the domestic level: not a kingdom but a house (oikos), the family unit. The repetition from kingdom to house moves from the largest social structure to the smallest, communicating that the principle is universal. A household in which members work against each other collapses. The implicit question is: do the exorcisms look like a house collapsing, like a power destroying itself? Or do they look like a stronger power systematically dismantling a coherent structure? The evidence — consistent, comprehensive defeat of the demonic realm — points to the latter.
Church Fathers on Mark 3:25
The meaning of the example is this: The devil is the strong man; his goods are the men into whom he is received; unless therefore a man first conquers the devil, how can he deprive him of his goods, that is, of the men whom he has possessed?
The Lord has also bound the strong man, that is, the devil: which means, He has restrained him from seducing the elect, and entering into his house, the world; He has spoiled his house, and his goods, that is men, because He has snatched them from the snares of the devil, and has united them to His Church.
Or this is meant; that he will not deserve to work out repentance, so as to be accepted, who, understanding who Christ was, declared that He was the prince of the devils.
Read all 6 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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