“There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.”
Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them — the principle is the most radical single statement in the chapter: defilement is internal, not external. The entire Levitical purity system is built on the premise that external things (foods, bodily discharges, corpse contact, skin conditions) can create ritual impurity. Jesus is not abolishing the Levitical system but locating the moral center of defilement in the heart rather than in the external contact. Mark's parenthetical note in verse 19 (in saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean) applies the principle to the dietary laws.
Church Fathers on Mark 7:15
But the intention of the Lord in saying this was to teach men, that the observing of meats, which the law commands, should not be taken in a carnal sense, and from this He began to unfold to them the intent of the law.
For that man is a faulty hearer who considers what is obscure to be a clear speech, or what is clear to be obscurely spoken.
For some things are joined to others in such a way as both to change and be changed, just as food, losing its former appearance, is both itself turned into our body, and we too are changed, and our strength is refreshed by it.
Read all 10 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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