“And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.”
After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable — the movement from public teaching to private explanation is the same pattern as chapter 4: the public crowd receives the general principle; the disciples ask for elaboration. They identify the teaching as a parable — it was not a story narrative but a principle-statement that requires interpretive unpacking. The house is the recurring locus of private instruction throughout Mark.
Church Fathers on Mark 7:17
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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