And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?
Ver. 11. And when the Pharisees saw it] As envy is quick sighted. See Ovid's description of it. Βασκαινειν παρα του φαεσι καινειν. The wicked look around the saints, seeking to pick a hole in their coats; they pore and pry more narrowly than Laban did into Jacob's stuff. "Walk circumspectly,"Ephesians 5:15 .
They said unto his disciples] 1. Not to him; where the hedge is lowest, there the devil leaps over soonest; as he began his temptation with Eve, apart from her husband. Calumniare audacter, aliquid saltem adhaerebit, is a maxim in Machiavel. It is the property of defamations to leave a kind of lower estimation many times where they are not believed. 2. These hypocrites would seem to say this in pure pity to the seduced disciples, whom they saw to do the same with their Master. An ordinary trick among mischief makers. St Austin had these two verses written on his table,
" Quisquis amat dictis absentum rodere famam,
Hanc mensam indictam noverit esse sibi. "
Here is no room for railers.