Homily by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan Bk. 4 on Luke iv: Sabbato Quattuor Temporum Pentecostes

Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Luke
4:38

At that time Jesus arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever. And so on.

Homily by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan
Bk. 4 on Luke iv

Behold here how long-suffering is the Lord our Redeemer! Neither moved to anger against them, nor sickened at their guilt, nor outraged by their attacks, did He leave the Jews' country. Nay, forgetting their iniquity, and mindful only of His mercy, He strove to soften their hard and unbelieving hearts, sometimes by His teaching, and sometimes by freeing some of them, and sometimes by healing them. St. Luke does well to tell us first of the man who was delivered from an unclean spirit, and then of the healing of a woman. The Lord indeed came to heal both sexes, but that must be healed first which was created first, and then must not she be passed by whose first sin arose rather from fickleness of heart than from depraved will.

That the Lord began to heal on the Sabbath-day showed in a figure how that the new creation began where the old creation ended. It showed moreover, that the Son of God, Who came not to destroy the law but to fulfill the law, Matth. v. 17, is not under the law, but above the law. Neither was it by the law, but by the Word, that the world was created, as it is written "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made." Ps. xxxii. 6. The law, then, is not destroyed, but fulfilled, in the Redemption of fallen man. Whence also the Apostle said: "Put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Eph. iv. 22.

It was well that He began to heal on the Sabbath, that He might show Himself to be the Creator, weaving in one with another of His works, and continuing that which He had already begun, even as a workman, beings to repair a house, begins not to take down that which is old from the foundations, but from the roof. Thus, does the Lord begin to lay to His hand again, in that place whence last He had lifted it then He began with things lesser, that He may go on to things greater. Even men are able to deliver other men from evil spirits, albeit with the word of God to command the dead to rise again is for God's power alone. Perchance, also, this woman, the mother-in-law of Simon and Andrew, was a type of our nature, stricken down with the great fever of sin, and burning with unlawful lusts after diverse objects. Nor would I say that the passion which rages in the mind is a lesser fire than that fever which burns the body. Covetousness, and lust, and uncleanness, and vain desires, and strivings, and anger; these be our fevers.