“But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea: and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judea,”
Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed — the withdrawal from the synagogue after the conspiracy is not retreat but strategic repositioning. The lake (the Sea of Galilee) is the open space where Jesus is not confined by the architectural limitations of the synagogue or the political constraints of the town. The large crowd that follows comes from a remarkable geographic spread: Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, across the Jordan, and around Tyre and Sidon — essentially every region of the ancient land of Israel and beyond. The kingdom's magnetism extends well beyond the boundaries of official religious Israel.
Church Fathers on Mark 3:7
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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