“Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:”
Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter — the blasphemy saying begins with the positive pole: the scope of God's forgiveness is comprehensive. All sins, every slander — the forgiveness available through the Son of Man and the kingdom is unlimited in scope. The truly I tell you (amēn legō hymin) is Jesus' distinctive formula for solemn pronouncement — not citing authority but speaking with it. The positive declaration of comprehensive forgiveness sets up the negative exception that follows as genuinely exceptional: if everything can be forgiven, the one thing that cannot be is a genuine anomaly requiring a specific definition.
Church Fathers on Mark 3:28
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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