Catholic Commentary
The Public Teaching on True Defilement
14He called all the multitude to himself and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand.15There is nothing from outside of the man that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man.16If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Mark 7:14–16 presents Jesus teaching that spiritual defilement comes from internal moral corruption, not external sources like food or ritual impurity. By declaring that only inward sin corrupts a person, Jesus reinterprets the Levitical purity laws to emphasize interior obedience and moral formation over external observance.
Defilement comes not from what enters you, but from what your heart produces—and that truth explodes the entire logic of external purity.
Mark 7:14 — "He called all the multitude to himself" Mark's staging is deliberate and theologically charged. Having engaged the Pharisees and scribes in a restricted controversy (vv. 1–13), Jesus now widens the circle dramatically. The Greek verb proskalesamenos (having summoned) signals authoritative initiative — Jesus does not wait to be questioned; he calls the crowd to himself. The double imperative "Hear me, all of you, and understand" (akousatē mou pantes kai sunete) echoes the prophetic summons of Isaiah (1:2; 28:23) and the Shema itself (Deuteronomy 6:4 — "Hear, O Israel"). Mark rarely gives Jesus such a formal, public address. The solemnity marks what follows as a teaching of supreme importance, not a passing remark. Jesus is acting as a new Moses, delivering a new interpretation of the Law from his own authority — not citing tradition ("it is written") but speaking as the Law's living fulfillment.
Mark 7:15 — "There is nothing from outside of the man that going into him can defile him" This is one of the most structurally radical sentences in the Synoptic Gospels. The Greek construction (ouden estin exōthen) is absolute and categorical. Jesus does not merely rank interior sin above ritual impurity — he redraws the entire boundary of what defilement means. The Levitical food laws (Leviticus 11) and purity codes assumed that holiness was in part a matter of separation from physical contaminants. Jesus does not directly attack Leviticus; he penetrates beneath its purpose. The telos of those laws was always moral formation and covenant identity — the external code served an interior end. Now Jesus reveals that the defilement those laws symbolized was always interior in essence. Mark adds the editorial note in v. 19 ("thus he declared all foods clean"), which is the Evangelist's post-resurrection reflection on the full import of Jesus' words — their implications would only be understood after Pentecost (cf. Acts 10:15).
The second half — "the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man" — shifts from negation to positive assertion. The verb ekporeuomena (things proceeding out) anticipates the catalogue in vv. 21–23: evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. These are not accidental slips but the fruit of a corrupted inner source — what earlier tradition calls the yetzer hara (evil inclination) and what Christian theology names concupiscence and sin.
Mark 7:16 — "If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!" This logion appears at key moments in the Synoptics and Revelation (cf. Matthew 11:15; 13:9; Revelation 2–3) and functions as a wisdom formula demanding active, interior reception. The conditional "if anyone has ears" implies that physical hearing is insufficient — understanding requires a will oriented toward truth. Origen notes that this is a call not merely to intellectual comprehension but to spiritual obedience: the ear must be opened by grace. For Mark, this verse also functions as a hinge: the public crowd is addressed, but true understanding of the saying will only dawn on the disciples in private explanation (vv. 17–23). The outer proclamation and the inner illumination mirror the very dynamic Jesus is describing — external reception is not enough; there must be interior penetration.
Typological sense: The passage enacts what it describes. Jesus speaks to the crowd (exterior), but only those who open their hearts (interior) will grasp the teaching. This foreshadows baptismal catechesis: the word is preached to all, but the "ears to hear" are sacramentally opened — as in the Ephphatha rite of baptism (Mark 7:34), where Jesus physically opens the deaf man's ears as a sign of this very grace.
Catholic theology receives this passage not as an antinomian rejection of external religion but as the revelation of the hierarchy of goods within the moral life. The Catechism teaches that sin "is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience" and that it originates in the human heart (CCC 1849–1850), directly echoing Jesus' teaching here. The locus of moral evil is the will, not matter.
The Church Fathers were unanimous on this point. Origen (Commentary on Matthew) insists that physical substances are morally neutral and that defilement belongs exclusively to the rational soul's free choices. John Chrysostom (Homilies on Matthew) stresses that Jesus is not abolishing Mosaic observance but disclosing its interior purpose: the dietary laws trained Israel in self-discipline and obedience, but they were always pointing toward the purity of heart that Christ now demands directly. Augustine develops the theme theologically in De Doctrina Christiana: things (res) are not evil in themselves; evil resides in the disordered will's relation to them.
The Council of Trent, in its Decree on Original Sin, affirms that concupiscence — the disordered inclinations that remain after baptism — is the root of the moral defilements Jesus catalogues (Session V). This teaching directly engages what Jesus calls the interior source of sin.
Pope Benedict XVI, in Jesus of Nazareth (Part I), reflects on this passage as evidence of Jesus' unique prophetic authority: he does not interpret the Torah through a school tradition but speaks from within the Torah's living source. Benedict notes that Jesus is not legislating but revealing — uncovering what the heart of the covenant always demanded: purity of heart, which the Beatitudes will name as the condition for seeing God (Matthew 5:8).
Contemporary Catholics face a subtle but real temptation to reverse Jesus' logic — to focus on external religious observance (attending Mass, fasting on Fridays, reciting prayers) while neglecting the interior conversion those practices are meant to serve. This passage does not diminish those practices; it locates their purpose. Fasting is not meritorious because food is impure, but because it disciplines the will — the very faculty from which defilement actually comes.
Practically, a Catholic reader might examine what "proceeds out" of them daily: speech patterns (slander, uncharitable commentary on social media), habitual interior attitudes (envy of colleagues, contempt for political opponents), or the slow accumulation of "small" deceits in professional life. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is precisely calibrated to this teaching — it addresses not ritual impurity but moral evil arising from the heart. Regular, honest examination of conscience, especially using the list Jesus provides in vv. 21–23, is the concrete discipline this passage demands. The Ephphatha prayed over children at baptism should be prayed personally: "Lord, open my ears — not just to hear your word externally, but to let it penetrate and transform the source within."
Commentary