Original Douay–Rheims AnnotationsMatthew 14

Because of Herodias.

It is too ordinary in Princes to put them to death that freely tell them such faults: women, whom they fancy, specially inciting them to such mischief.

Buried it.

An example of duty toward the dead bodies of the faithful. Wherein see the difference of Catholic Christian men and of all infidels, be they Pagans, Apostates, or Heretics. For whereas the Christians had laid the body of this blessed Prophet and Martyr ^[1] in Samaria with the Relics of Elias and Abdias, by virtue whereof wonderful miracles were wrought in that place: in Iulian the Apostate's time, when men might do all mischief freely against Christian religion, ^[2] the Pagans opened the tomb of S. John Baptist, burnt his bones, scattered the ashes about the fields: but certain religious Monks coming thither a pilgrimage at the same time, adventured their life and saved as much of the holy Relics as they could, and brought them to their Abbot Philip, a man of God: who esteeming them too great a treasure for him and his, to keep for their private devotion, sent them to Athanasius the B. of Alexandria, and he with all reverence laid them in such a place (as it were by the Spirit of Prophecy) where afterward by occasion of them was built a goodly chapel. Theod. li. 3. c. 6. Ruff. li. 2. c. 27. 28. Mark here that the Heretics of our time do as those Pagans, to the bodies and Relics of all blessed Saints that they can destroy: and Catholics contrarywise have the religious devotion of those old Christians, as appeareth by the honour done now to his head at Amiens in France.

• 1 Hiero. in Epitaph. Paulæ. c. 6.
• 2 Sacrilege against holy Relics.

Retired.

Christ much esteemed John, and withdrew himself aside, to give example of moderate mourning for the departed, and to shew the horror of that execrable murder, as in the Primitive Church many good men seeing the miserable state of the world in the time of persecution, and the sins that abounded withal: took an occasion to forsake those tumults, and to give themselves to contemplation: and for that purpose retired into the deserts of Ægypt and elsewhere, to do penance for their own sins and the sins of the world. Whereupon partly rose that infinite number of Monks and Eremites ^◦, of whom the Fathers and Ecclesiastical histories make mention. Hiero. to. 2. in vit. Pauli Eremitæ. Sozo. li. 1. c. 12. 13.

• ◦ Eremites.

The Disciples to the multitudes.

A figure of the ministry of the Apostles, who as they here had the distribution and ordering of these miraculous loaves, so had they also to bestow and dispense all the food of our souls in ministering of the word and Sacraments, neither may laymen challenge the same.

Walking.

when not only Christ, but by his power Peter also walketh upon the waters, it is evident that he can dispose of his own body above nature and contrary to the natural conditions thereof, as to go through a door. Io. 20. to be in the compass of a little bread. Epiphan. in Anchorato.

Walked.

^◦ Peter (saith S. Bernard) walking upon the waters, as Christ did, declared himself the only Vicar of Christ, which should be ruler not over one people, but over all. For many waters, are many peoples. Bernard. li. 2. de consid. c. 8. See the place, how he deduceth from Peter the like authority and jurisdiction to his successor the Bishop of Rome.

• ◦ Peter's Primacy.