(Luk_7:36-50)

The precise date and place of the next recorded event in this Galilean journey of the Christ are left undetermined. It can scarcely have occurred in the quiet little town of Nain, indeed, is scarcely congruous with the scene which had been there enacted. And yet it must have followed almost immediately upon it. We infer this, not only from the silence of Matthew, which in this instance might have been due, not to the temporary detention of that Evangelist in Capernaum, while the others had followed Christ to Nain, but to what may be called the sparingness of detail in the Gospel-narratives, each Evangelist relating mostly only one in a group of kindred events. But other indications determine our inference. The embassy of the Baptist’s disciples (which will be described in another connection) undoubtedly followed on the raising of the young man of Nain. This embassy would scarcely have come to Jesus in Nain. It probably reached Him on His farther Missionary journey, to which there seems some reference in the passage in the First Gospel which succeeds the account of that embassy. The actual words there recorded can, indeed, scarcely have been spoken at that time. They belong to a later period on that Mission-journey, and mark more fully developed opposition and rejection of the Christ than in those early days. Chronologically, they are in their proper place in Luke’s Gospel, where they follow in connection with that Mission of the Seventy, which, in part at least, was prompted by the growing enmity to the Person of Jesus. On the other hand, this Mission of the Seventy, is, not recorded by Matthew. Accordingly, he inserts those prophetic denunciations which, according to the plan of his Gospel, could not have been emitted, at the beginning of this Missionary journey, because it marks the beginning of that systematic opposition, the full development of which, as already stated, prompted the Mission of the Seventy.

Yet, even so, the impression left upon us by Mat_11:20-30 (which follows on the account of the Baptist’s embassy) is, that Jesus was on a journey, and it may well be that those precious words of encouragement and invitation, spoken to the burdened and wearily labouring, formed part, perhaps the substance, of His preaching on that journey. Truly these were ‘good tidings,’ and not only to those borne down by weight of conscious sinfulness or deep sorrow, who wearily toiled towards the light of far-off peace, or those dreamt-of heights where some comprehensive view might be gained of life with its labours and pangs. ‘Good news,’ also, to them who would fain have ‘learned’ according to their capacity, but whose teachers had weighted ‘the yoke of the Kingdom’ to a heavy burden, and made the Will of God to them labour, weary and unaccomplishable. But, whether or not spoken at that special time, we cannot fail to recognise their special suitableness to the ‘forgiven sinner’ in the Pharisee’s house, and their inward, even if not outward, connection with her history.

Another point requires notice. It is how, in the unfolding of His Mission to Man, the Christ progressively placed Himself in antagonism to the Jewish religious thought of His time, from out of which He had historically sprung. In this part of His earthly course the antagonism appeared, indeed, so to speak, in a positive rather than negative form, that is, rather in what He affirmed than in what He combated, because the opposition to Him was not yet fully developed; whereas in the second part of His course it was, for a similar reason, rather negative than positive. From the first this antagonism was there in what He taught and did; and it appeared with increasing distinctness in proportion as He taught. We find it in the whole spirit and bearing of what he did and said – in the house at Capernaum, in the Synagogues, with the Gentile Centurion, at the gate of Nain, and especially here, in the history of the much forgiven woman who had much sinned. A Jewish Rabbi could not have so acted and spoken; he would not even have understood Jesus; nay, a Rabbi, however gentle and pitiful, would in word and deed have taken precisely the opposite direction from that of the Christ.

As Gregory expresses it, this is perhaps a history more fit to be wept over than commented upon. For comments seem so often to interpose between the simple force of a narrative and our hearts, and few events in the Gospel-history have been so blunted and turned aside as this history, through verbal controversies and dogmatic wrangling.

The first impression on our minds is, that the history itself is but a fragment. We must try to learn from its structure, where and how it was broken off. We understand the infinite delicacy that left her unnamed, the record of whose ‘much forgiveness’ and great love had to be joined to that of her much sin. And we mark, in contrast, the coarse clumsiness which, without any reason for the assertion, to meet the cravings of morbid curiosity, or for saint-worship, has associated her history with the name of Mary Magdalene. Another, and perhaps even more painful, mistake is the attempt of certain critics to identify this history with the much later anointing of Christ at Bethany, and to determine which of the two is the simpler, and which the more ornate – which the truer of the accounts, and whence, or why, each of the Evangelists has framed his distinctive narrative. Yet the two narratives have really nothing in common, save that in each case there was a ‘Simon’ – perhaps the commonest of Jewish names; a woman who anointed – and that Christ, and those who were present, spoke and acted in accordance with other passages in the Gospel-history: that is, true to their respective histories. But, such twofold anointing – the first, at the beginning of His works of mercy, of the Feet by a forgiven, loving sinner on whom the Sun had just risen; the second, of His Head, by a loving disciple, when the full-orbed Sun was setting in blood, at the close of His Ministry – is, as in the twofold purgation of the Temple at the beginning and close of His Work, only like the completing of the circle of His Life.

The invitation of Simon the Pharisee to his table does not necessarily indicate, that he had been impressed by the teaching of Jesus, any more than the supposed application to his case of what is called the ‘parable’ of the much and the little forgiven debtor implies, that he had received from the Saviour spiritual benefit, great or small. If Jesus had taught in the ‘city,’ and, as always, irresistibly drawn to Him the multitude, it would be only in accordance with the manners of the time if the leading Pharisee invited the distinguished ‘Teacher’ to his table. As such he undoubtedly treated Him. The question in Simon’s mind was, whether He was more than ‘Teacher’ – even ‘Prophet;’ and that such question rose within him indicates, not only that Christ openly claimed a position different from that of Rabbi, and that His followers regarded Him at least as a prophet, but also, within the breast of Simon, a struggle in which strong Jewish prejudice was bearing down the mighty impression of Christ’s Presence.

They were all sitting, or rather ‘lying’ – the Mishnah sometimes also calls it ‘sitting down and leaning’ – around the table, the body resting on the coach, the feet turned away from the table in the direction of the wall, while the left elbow rested on the table. And now, from the open courtyard, up the verandah-step, perhaps through, an antechamber, and by the open door, passed the figure of a woman into the festive reception-room and dining-hall – the teraqlin (triclinium) of the Rabbis. How did she obtain access? Had she mingled with the servants, or was access free to all – or had she, perhaps, known the house and its owner?’ It little matters – as little as whether she ‘had been,’ or ‘was’ up to that day, ‘a sinner,’ in the terrible acceptation of the term. But we must bear in mind the greatness of Jewish prejudice against any conversation with woman, however lofty her character, fully to realise the absolute incongruity on the part of such a woman in seeking access to the Rabbi, Whom so many regarded as the God-sent Prophet.

But this, also, is evidential, that here we are far beyond the Jewish standpoint. To this woman it was not incongruous, because to her Jesus had, indeed, been the Prophet sent from God. We have said before that this story is a fragment; and here, also, as in the invitation of Simon to Jesus, we have evidence of it. She had, no doubt, heard His words that day. What He had said would be, in substance, if not in words: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest…. Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart…. Ye shall find rest unto your souls….’ This was to her the Prophet sent from God with the good news that opened even to her the Kingdom of Heaven, and laid its yoke upon her, not bearing her down to very hell, but easy of wear and light of burden. She knew that it was all as He said, in regard to the heavy load of her past; and, as she listened to those Words, and looked on that Presence, she learned to believe that it was all as He had promised to the heavy burdened. And she had watched, and followed Him afar off to the Pharisee’s house. Or, perhaps, if it be thought that she had not that day heard for herself, still, the sound of that message must have reached her, and wakened the echoes of her heart. And still it was: Come to Me; learn of Me; I will give rest. What mattered all else to her in the hunger of her soul, which had just tasted of that Heavenly Bread?

The shadow of her form must have fallen on all who sat at meat. But none spake; nor did she heed any but One. Like heaven’s own music, as Angels’ songs that guide the wanderer home, it still sounded in her ears. There are times when we forget all else in one absorbing thought; when men’s opinions – nay, our own feelings of shame – are effaced by that one Presence; when the ‘Come to Me; learn of Me; I will give you rest,’ are the all in all to us. Then it is, that the fountains of the Great Deep within are broken open by the wonder-working rod, with which God’s Messenger to us – the better Moses – has struck our hearts. She had come that day to ‘learn’ and to ‘find rest.’ What mattered it to her who was there, or what they thought? There was only One Whose Presence she dared not encounter – not from fear of Him, but from knowledge of herself. It was He to Whom she had come. And so she ‘stood behind at His Feet.’ She had brought with her an alabastron (phial, or flask, commonly of alabaster) of perfume. It is a coarse suggestion, that this had originally been bought for a far different purpose. We know that perfumes were much sought after, and very largely in use. Some, such as true balsam, were worth double their weight in silver; others, like the spikenard (whether as juice or unguent, along with other ingredients), though not equally costly, were also ‘precious.’ We have evidence that perfumed oils – notably oil of roses, and of the iris plant, but chiefly the mixture known in antiquity as foliatum, were largely manufactured and used in Palestine. A flask with this perfume was worn by women round the neck, and hung down below the breast (the ṣeloḥiṯ shel palyeton). So common was its use as to be allowed even on the Sabbath. This ‘flask’ (possibly the ḥumarta de p̱ilon of Gitt. 69b) – not always of glass, but of silver or gold, probably often also of alabaster – containing ‘palyeton’ (evidently, the foliatum of Pliny) was used both to sweeten the breath and perfume the person. Hence it seems at least not unlikely, that the alabastron which she brought, who loved so much, was none other than the ‘flask of foliatum,’ so common among Jewish woman.

As she stood behind Him at His Feet, reverently bending, a shower of tears, like sudden, quick summer-rain, that refreshes air and earth, ‘bedewed’ His Feet. As if surprised, or else afraid to awaken His attention, or defile Him by her tears, she quickly wiped them away with the long tresses of her hair that had fallen down and touched Him, as she bent over His Feet. Nay, not to wash them in such impure waters had she come, but to show such loving gratefulness and reverence as in her poverty she could, and in her humility she might offer. And, now that her faith had grown bold in His Presence, she is continuing to kiss those Feet which had brought to her the ‘good tidings of peace,’ and to anoint them out of the alabastron round her neck. And still she spake not, nor yet He. For, as on her part silence seemed most fitting utterance, so on His, that He suffered it in silence was best and most fitting answer to her.

Another there was whose thoughts, far other than hers or the Christ’s, were also unuttered. A more painful contrast than that of ‘the Pharisee’ in this scene, can scarcely be imagined. We do not insist that the designation ‘this Man,’ given to Christ in his unspoken thoughts, or the manner in which afterwards he replied to the Saviour’s question by a supercilious ‘I suppose,’ or ‘presume,’ necessarily imply contempt. But they certainly indicate the mood of his spirit. One thing, at least, seems now clear to this Pharisee: If ‘this Man,’ this strange, wandering, popular idol, with His strange, novel ways and words, Whom in politeness he must call ‘Teacher,’ Rabbi, were, a Prophet, He would have known who the woman was, and, it He had known who she was, then would He never have allowed such approach. So do we, also, often argue as to what He would do, if He knew. But He does know; and it is just because He knoweth that He doeth what, from our lower standpoint, we cannot understand. Had He been a Rabbi, He would certainly, and had he been merely a Prophet, He would probably, have repelled such approach. The former, if not from self-righteousness, yet from ignorance of sin and forgiveness; the latter, because such homage was more than man’s due. But, He was more than a prophet – the Saviour of sinners; and so she might quietly weep over His Feet, and then quickly wipe away the ‘dew’ of the ‘better morning,’ and then continue to kiss His Feet and to anoint them.

And yet Prophet He also was, and in far fuller sense than Simon could have imagined. For, He had read Simon’s unspoken thoughts. Presently He would show it to him; yet not, as we might, by open reproof, that would have put him to shame before his guests, but with infinite delicacy towards His host, and still in manner that he could not mistake. What follows is not, as generally supposed, a parable but an illustration. Accordingly, it must in no way be pressed. With this explanation vanish all the supposed difficulties about the Pharisees being ‘little forgiven,’ and hence ‘loving little.’ To convince Simon of the error of his conclusion, that, if the life of that woman had been known, the prophet must have forbidden her touch of love, Jesus entered into the Pharisee’s own modes of reasoning. Of two debtors, one of whom owed ten times as much as the other, who would best love the creditor who had freely forgiven them? Though to both the debt might have been equally impossible of discharge, and both might love equally, yet a Rabbi would, according to his Jewish notions, say, that he would love most to whom most had been forgiven. If this was the undoubted outcome of Jewish theology – the so much for so much – let it be applied to the present case. If there were much benefit, there would be much love; if little benefit, little love. And conversely: in such case much love would argue much benefit; little love, small benefit. Let him then apply the reasoning by marking this woman, and contrasting her conduct with his own. To wash the feet of a guest, to give him the kiss of welcome, and especially to anoint him, were not, indeed, necessary attentions at a feast. All the more did they indicate special care, affection, and respect. None of these tokens of deep regard had marked the merely polite reception of Him by the Pharisee. But, in a twofold climax of which the intensity can only be indicated, the Saviour now proceeds to show, how different it had been with her, to whom, for the first time, He now turned! On Simon’s own reasoning, then, he must have received but little, she much benefit. Or, to apply the former illustration, and now to reality: ‘Forgiven have been her sins, the many’ – not in ignorance, but with knowledge of their being ‘many.’ This, by Simon’s former admission, would explain and account for her much love, as the effect of much forgiveness. On the other hand – though in delicacy the Lord does not actually express it – this other inference would also hold true, that Simon’s little love showed that ‘little is being forgiven.’

What has been explained will dispose of another controversy which, with little judgment and less taste, has been connected with this marvellous history. It must not be made a question as between Romanist and Protestant, nor as between rival dogmatists, whether love had any meritorious part in her forgiveness, or whether, as afterwards stated, her ‘faith’ had ‘saved’ her. Undoubtedly, her faith had saved her. What she had heard from His lips, what she knew of Him, she had believed. She had believed in ‘the good tidings of peace’ which He had brought, in the love of God, and His Fatherhood of pity to the most sunken and needy; in Christ, as the Messenger of Reconciliation and Peace with God; in the Kingdom of Heaven which He had so suddenly and unexpectedly opened to her, from out of whose unfolded golden gates Heaven’s light had fallen upon her, Heaven’s voices had come to her. She had believed it all: the Father, the Son – Revealer, the Holy Ghost – Revealing. And it had saved her. When she came to that feast, and stood behind with humbled, loving gratefulness and reverence of heart-service, she was already saved. She needed not to be forgiven: she had been forgiven. And it was because she was forgiven that she bedewed His Feet with the summer-shower of her heart, and, quickly wiping away the flood with her tresses, continued kissing and anointing them. All this was the impulse of her heart, who, having come in heart, still came to Him, and learned of Him, and found rest to her soul. In that early springtide of her new-born life, it seemed that, as on Aaron’s rod, leaf, bud, and flower were all together in tangled confusion of rich forthbursting. She had not yet reached order and clearness; perhaps, in the fulness of her feelings, knew not how great were her blessings, and felt not yet that conscious rest which grows out of faith in the forgiveness which it obtains.

And this was now the final gift of Jesus to her. As formerly for the first time He had turned, so now for the first time He spoke to her – and once more with tenderest delicacy. ‘Thy sins have been forgiven’ – not, are forgiven, and not now – ‘the many.’ Nor does He now heed the murmuring thoughts of those around, who cannot understand Who this is that forgiveth sins also. But to her, and truly, though not literally, to them also, and to us, He said in explanation and application of it all: ‘Thy faith has saved thee: go into peace.’ Our logical dogmatics would have had it: ‘go in peace;’ more truly He, ‘into peace.’ And so she, the first who had come to Him for spiritual healing, the first of an unnumbered host, went out into the better light, into peace of heart, peace of faith, peace of rest, and into the eternal peace of the Kingdom of Heaven, and of the Heaven of the kingdom hereafter and for ever.

(Luk_8:1-3; Mat_9:32-35; Mar_3:22, etc.; Mat_12:46-50 and parallels.)

However interesting and important to follow the steps of our Lord on His journey through Galilee, and to group in their order the notices of it in the Gospels, the task seems almost hopeless. In truth, since none of the Evangelists attempted – should we not say, ventured – to write a ‘Life’ of the Christ, any strictly historical arrangement lay outside their purpose. Their point of view was that of the internal, rather than the external development of this history. And so events, kindred in purpose, discourses bearing on the same subject, or parables pointing to the same stretch of truth, were grouped together; or, as in the present instance, the unfolding teaching of Christ and the growing opposition of His enemies exhibited by joining together notices which, perhaps, belong to different periods. And the lesson to us is, that, just as the Old Testament gives neither the national history of Israel, nor the biography of its heroes, but a history of the Kingdom of God in its progressive development, so the Gospels present not a ‘Life of Christ,’ but the history of the Kingdom of God in its progressive manifestation.

Yet, although there are difficulties connected with details, we can trace in outline the general succession of events. We conclude, that Christ was now returning to Capernaum from that Missionary journey of which Nain had been the southernmost point. On this journey He was attended, not only by the Twelve, but by loving, grateful women, who ministered to Him of their substance. Among them three are specially named. ‘Mary, called Magdalene,’ had received from Him special benefit of healing to body and soul. Her designation as Magdalene was probably derived from her native city, Magdala, just as several Rabbis are spoken of in the Talmud as ‘Magdalene’ (magdelaah, or magdelaya ). Magdala, which was a Sabbath-day’s journey from Tiberias, was celebrated for its dye works, and its manufactories of fine woolen textures, of which eighty are mentioned. Indeed, all that district seems to have been engaged in this industry. It was also reputed for its traffic in turtle-doves and pigeons for purifications – tradition, with its usual exaggeration of numbers, mentioning three hundred such shops. Accordingly, its wealth was very great, and it is named among the three cities whose contributions were so large as to be sent in a wagon to Jerusalem. But its moral corruption was also great, and to this the Rabbis attributed its final destruction. Magdala had a Synagogue.  Its name was probably derived from a strong tower which defended its approaches, or served for outlook. This suggestion is supported by the circumstance, that what seems to have formed part, or a suburb of Magdala, bore the names of ‘Fish-tower’ and ‘Tower of the Dyers.’ One at least, if not both these towers, would be near the landing-place, by the Lake of Galilee, and overlook its waters. The necessity for such places of outlook and defence, making the town a Magdala, would be increased by the proximity of the magnificent plain of Gennesaret, of which Josephus speaks in such rapturous terms. Moreover, only twenty minutes to the north of Magdala descended the so-called ‘Valley of Doves’ (the Wady Hamâm), through which passed the ancient caravan-road that led over Nazareth to Damascus. The name ‘valley of doves’ illustrates the substantial accuracy of the Rabbinic descriptions of ancient Magdala. Modern travelers (such as Dean Stanley, Professor Robinson, Farrar, and others) have noticed the strange designation ‘Valley of Doves’ without being able to suggest the explanation of it, which the knowledge of its traffic in doves for purposes of purification at once supplies. Of the many towns and villages that dotted the shores of the Lake of Galilee, all have passed away except Magdala, which is still represented by the collection of mud hovels that bears the name of Mejdel. The ancient watch-tower which gave the place its name is still there, probably standing on the same site as that which looked down on Jesus and the Magdalene. To this day Magdala is celebrated for its springs and rivulets, which render it specially suitable for dyeworks; while the shell-fish with which these waters and the Lake are said to abound, might supply most of the dye.

Such details may help us more clearly to realise the home, and with it, perhaps, also the upbringing and circumstances of her who not only ministered to Jesus in His Life, but, with eager avarice of love, watched ‘afar off’ His dying moments, and then sat over against the new tomb of Joseph in which His Body was laid. And the terrible time which followed she spent with her like-minded friends, who in Galilee had ministered to Christ, in preparing those ‘spices and ointments,’ which the Risen Saviour would never require. For, on that Easter-morning the empty tomb of Jesus was only guarded by Angel-messengers, who announced to the Magdalene and Joanna, as well as the other women, the gladsome tidings that His foretold Resurrection had become a reality. But however difficult the circumstances may have been, in which the Magdalene came to profess her faith in Jesus, those of Joanna (the Hebrew yoḥani ) must have been even more trying. She was the wife of Chuza, Herod’s Steward – possibly, though not likely, the Court-official whose son Jesus had healed by the word spoken in Cana. The absence of any reference to the event seems rather opposed to this supposition. Indeed, it seems doubtful, whether Chuza was a Jewish name. In Jewish writings the designation (כוִזָא) seems rather used as a by-name (‘little pitcher’) for a small, insignificant person, than as a proper name. Only one other of those who ministered to Jesus is mentioned by Name. It is Susanna, the ‘lily.’ The names of the other loving women are not written on the page of earth’s history, but only on that of the ‘Lamb’s Book of Life.’ And they ‘ministered to Him of their substance.’ So early did eternal riches appear in the garb of poverty; so soon did love to Christ find its treasure in consecrating it to His Ministry. And ever since has this been the law of His Kingdom, to our great humiliation and yet greater exaltation in fellowship with Him.

It was on this return-journey to Capernaum, probably not far from the latter place, that the two blind men had their sight restored. It was then, also, that the healing of the demonised dumb took place, which is recorded in Mat_9:32-35, and alluded to in Mar_3:22-30. This narrative must, of course, not be confounded with the somewhat similar event told in Mat_12:22-32, and in Luk_11:14-26. The latter occurred at a much later period in our Lord’s life, when, as the whole context shows, the opposition of the Pharisaic party had assumed much larger proportions, and the language of Jesus was more fully denunciatory of the character and guilt of His enemies. That charge of the Pharisees, therefore, that Jesus cast out the demons through the Prince of the demons, as well as His reply to it, will best be considered when it shall appear in its fullest development. This all the more, that we believe at least the greater part of our Lord’s answer to their blasphemous accusation, as given in Mark’s Gospel, to have been spoken at that later period.

It was on this return-journey to Capernaum from the uttermost borders of Galilee, when for the first time He was not only followed by His twelve Apostles, but attended by the loving service of those who owed their all to His Ministry, that the demonized dumb was restored by the casting out of the demon. Even these circumstances show that a new stage in the Messianic course had begun. It is characterised by fuller unfolding of Christ’s teaching and working, and, pari passu, by more fully developed opposition of the Pharisaic party. For the two went together, nor can they be distinguished as cause or effect. That new stage, as repeatedly noted, had opened on His return from the ‘Unknown Feast’ in Jerusalem, whence He seems to have been followed by the Pharisaic party. We have marked it so early as the call of the four disciples by the Lake of Galilee. But it first actively appeared at the healing of the paralytic in Capernaum, when, for the first time, we noticed the presence and murmuring of the Scribes, and, for the first time also, the distinct declaration about the forgiveness of sins on the part of Jesus. The same twofold element appeared in the call of the publican Matthew, and the cavil of the Pharisees at Christ’s subsequent eating and drinking with ‘sinners.’ It was in further development of this separation from the old and now hostile element, that the twelve Apostles were next appointed, and that distinctive teaching of Jesus addressed to the people in the ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ which was alike a vindication and an appeal. On the journey through Galilee, which now followed, the hostile party does not seem to have actually attended Jesus; but their growing, and now outspoken opposition is heard in the discourse of Christ about John the Baptist after the dismissal of his disciples, while its influence appears in the unspoken thoughts of Simon the Pharisee.

But even before these two events, that had happened which would induce the Pharisaic party to increased measures against Jesus. It has already been suggested, that the party, as such, did not attend Jesus on His Galilean journey. But we are emphatically told, that tidings of the raising of the dead at Nain had gone forth into Judaea. No doubt they reached the leaders at Jerusalem. There seems just sufficient time between this and the healing of the demonised dumb on the return-journey to Capernaum, to account for the presence there of those Pharisees, who are expressly described by Mark as ‘the Scribes which came down from Jerusalem.’

Other circumstances, also, are thus explained. Whatever view the leaders at Jerusalem may have taken of the raising at Nain, it could no longer be denied that miracles were wrought by Jesus. At least, what to us seem miracles, yet not to them, since, as we have seen, ‘miraculous’ cures and the expelling of demons lay within the sphere of their ‘extraordinary ordinary’ – were not miracles in our sense, since they were, or professed to be, done by their ‘own children.’ The mere fact, therefore, of such cures, would present no difficulty to them. To us a single well-ascertained miracle would form irrefragable evidence of the claims of Christ; to them it would not. They could believe in the ‘miracles,’ and yet not in the Christ. To them the question would not be, as to us, whether they were miracles – but, By what power, or in what Name, He did these deeds? From our standpoint, their opposition to the Christ would – in view of His Miracles – seem not only wicked, but rationally inexplicable. But ours was not their point of view. And here, again, we perceive that it was enmity to the Person and Teaching of Jesus which led to the denial of His claims. The inquiry: By what Power Jesus did these works? they met by the assertion, that it was through that of Satan, or the Chief of the Demons. They regarded Jesus, as not only temporarily, but permanently, possessed by a demon, that is, as the constant vehicle of Satanic influence. And this demon was, according to them, none other than Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. Thus, in their view, it was really Satan who acted in and through Him; and Jesus, instead of being recognised as the Son of God, was regarded as an incarnation of Satan; instead of being owned as the Messiah, was denounced and treated as the representative of the Kingdom of Darkness. All this, because the Kingdom which He came to open, and which He preached, was precisely the opposite of what they regarded as the Kingdom of God. Thus it was the essential contrariety of Rabbinism to the Gospel of the Christ that lay at the foundation of their conduct towards the Person of Christ. We venture to assert, that this accounts for the whole after-history up to the Cross.

Thus viewed, the history of Pharisaic opposition appears not only consistent, but is, so to speak, morally accounted for. Their guilt lay in treating that as Satanic agency which was of the Holy Ghost; and this, because they were of their father the Devil, and knew not, nor understood, nor yet loved the Light, their deeds being evil. They were not children of the light, but of that darkness which comprehended Him not Who was the Light. And now we can also understand the growth of active opposition to Christ. Once arrived at the conclusion, that the miracles which Christ did were due to the power of Satan, and that He was the representative of the Evil One, their course was rationally and morally chosen. To regard every fresh manifestation of Christ’s Power as only a fuller development of the power of Satan, and to oppose it with increasing determination and hostility, even to the Cross: such was henceforth the natural progress of this history. On the other hand, such a course once fully settled upon, there would, and could, be no further reasoning with, or against it on the part of Jesus. Henceforth His Discourses and attitude to such Judaism must be chiefly denunciatory, while still seeking – as, from the inward necessity of His Nature and the outward necessity of His Mission, He must – to save the elect remnant from this ‘untoward generation,’ and to lay broad and wide the foundations of the future Church. But the old hostile Judaism must henceforth be left to the judgment of condemnation, except in those tears of Divine pity which the Jew-King and Jewish Messiah wept over the Jerusalem that knew not the day of its visitation.

But all this, when the now beginning movement shall have reached its full proportions. For the present, we mark only its first appearance. The charge of Satanic agency was, indeed, not quite new. It had been suggested, that John the Baptist had been under demoniacal influence, and this cunning pretext for resistance to his message had been eminently successful with the people. The same charge, only in much fuller form, was now raised against Jesus. As ‘the multitude marvelled, saying, it was never so seen in Israel,’ the Pharisees, without denying the facts, had this explanation of them, to be presently developed to all its terrible consequences: that, both as regarded the casting out of the demon from the dumb man and all similar works, Jesus wrought it ‘through the Ruler of the Demons.’ 

And so the edge of this manifestation of the Christ was blunted and broken. But their besetment of the Christ did not cease. It is to this that we attribute the visit of ‘the mother and brethren’ of Jesus, which is recorded in the three Synoptic Gospels. Even this circumstance shows its decisive importance. It forms a parallel to the former attempts of the Pharisees to influence the disciples of Jesus, and then to stir up the hostility of the disciples of John, both of which are recorded by the three Evangelists. It also brought to light another distinctive characteristic of the Mission of Jesus. We place this visit of the ‘mother and brethren’ of Jesus immediately after His return to Capernaum, and we attribute it to Pharisaic opposition, which either filled those relatives of Jesus with fear for His safety, or made them sincerely concerned about His proceedings. Only if it meant some kind of interference with His Mission, whether prompted by fear or affection, would Jesus have so disowned their relationship.

But it meant more than this. As always, the positive went side by side with the negative. Without going so far, as with some of the Fathers, to see pride or ostentation in this, that the Virgin-Mother summoned Jesus to her outside the house, since the opposite might as well have been her motive, we cannot but regard the words of Christ as the sternest prophetic rebuke of all Mariolatry, prayer for the Virgin’s intercession, and, still more, of the strange doctrines about her freedom from actual and original sin, up to their prurient sequence in the dogma of the ‘Immaculate Conception.’

On the other hand, we also remember the deep reverence among the Jews for parents, which found even exaggerated expression in the Talmud.  And we feel that, of all in Israel, He, Who was their King, could not have spoken nor done what might even seem disrespectful to a mother. There must have been higher meaning in His words. That meaning would be better understood after His Resurrection. But even before that it was needful, in presence of interference or hindrance by earthly relationships, even the nearest and tenderest, and perhaps all the more in their case, to point to the higher and stronger spiritual relationship. And beyond this, to still higher truth. For, had He not entered into earthly kinship solely for the sake of the higher spiritual relationship which He was about to found; and was it not, then, in the most literal sense, that not those in nearest earthly relationship, but they who sat ‘about Him, nay, whoever shall do the will of God,’ were really in closest kinship with Him? Thus, it was not that Christ set lightly by His Mother, but that He confounded not the means with the end, nor yet surrendered the spirit for the letter of the Law of Love, when, refusing to be arrested or turned aside from His Mission, even for a moment, He elected to do the Will of His Father rather than neglect it by attending to the wishes of the Virgin-Mother. As Bengel aptly puts it: He contemns not the Mother, but He places the Father first. And this is ever the right relationship in the Kingdom of Heaven!

(Mat 13:1-52; Mar 4:1-34; Luk_8:4-18)

We are once more with Jesus and His disciples by the Lake of Galilee. We love to think that it was in the early morning, when the light laid its golden shadows on the still waters, and the fresh air, untainted by man, was fragrant of earth’s morning sacrifice, when no voice of human discord marred the restfulness of holy silence, nor broke the Ps of Nature’s praise. It was a spring morning too, and of such spring-time as only the East, and chiefly the Galilean Lake, knows – not of mingled sunshine and showers, of warmth and storm, clouds and brightness, when life seems to return slowly and feebly to the palsied limbs of our northern climes, but when at the warm touch it bounds and throbs with the vigour of youth. The imagery of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ indicates that winter’s rain and storms were just past. Under that sky Nature seems to meet the coming of spring by arraying herself in a garb more glorious than Solomon’s royal pomp. Almost suddenly the blood-red anemones, the gay tulips, the spotless narcissus, and the golden ranunculus deck with wondrous richness the grass of the fields – alas! so soon to wither – while all trees put forth their fragrant promise of fruit. As the imagery employed in the Sermon on the Mount confirmed the inference, otherwise derived, that it was spoken during the brief period after the winter rains, when the ‘lilies’ decked the fresh grass, so the scene depicted in the Parables spoken by the Lake of Galilee indicates a more advanced season, when the fields gave first promise of a harvest to be gathered in due time. And as we know that the barley-harvest commenced with the Passover, we cannot be mistaken in supposing that the scene is laid a few weeks before that Feast.

Other evidence of this is not wanting. From the opening verses we infer, that Jesus had gone forth from ‘the house’ with His disciples only, and that, as He sat by the seaside, the gathering multitude had obliged Him to enter a ship, whence He spake unto them many things in Parables. That this parabolic teaching did not follow, far less, was caused by, the fully developed enmity of the Pharisees,  will appear more clearly in the sequel. Meantime it should be noticed, that the first series of Parables (those spoken by the Lake of Galilee) bear no distinct reference to it. In this respect we mark an ascending scale in the three series of Parables, spoken respectively at three different periods in the History of Christ, and with reference to three different stages of Pharisaic opposition and popular feeling. The first series is that, when Pharisaic opposition had just devised the explanation that His works were of demoniac agency, and when misled affection would have converted the ties of earthly relationship into bonds to hold the Christ. To this there was only one reply, when the Christ stretched out His Hand over those who had learned, by following Him, to do the Will of His Heavenly Father, and so become His nearest of kin. This was the real answer to the attempt of His mother and brethren; that to the Pharisaic charge of Satanic agency. And it was in this connection that, first to the multitude, then to His disciples, the first series of Parables was spoken, which exhibits the elementary truths concerning the planting of the Kingdom of God, its development, reality, value, and final vindication.

In the second series of Parables we mark a different stage. The fifteen Parables of which it consists were spoken after the Transfiguration, on the descent into the Valley of Humiliation. They also concern the Kingdom of God, but, although the prevailing characteristic is still parenetic, or, rather, Evangelic, they have a controversial aspect also, as against some vital, active opposition to the Kingdom, chiefly on the part of the Pharisees. Accordingly, they appear among ‘the Discourses’ of Christ, and are connected with the climax of Pharisaic opposition as presented in the charge, in its most fully developed form, that Jesus was, so to speak, the Incarnation of Satan, the constant medium and vehicle of his activity. This was the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. All the Parables spoken at that period bear more or less direct reference to it, though, as already stated, as yet in positive rather than negative form, the Evangelic element in them being primary, and the judicial only secondary.

This order is reversed in the third series, consisting of eight Parables. Here the controversial has not only the ascendancy over the Evangelic element, but the tone has become judicial, and the Evangelic element appears chiefly in the form of certain predictions connected with the coming end. The Kingdom of God is presented in its final stage of ingathering, separation, reward and loss, as, indeed, we might expect in the teaching of the Lord immediately before His final rejection by Israel and betrayal into the hands of the Gentiles. This internal connection between the Parables and the History of Christ best explains their meaning. Their artificial grouping (as by mostly all modern critics) is too ingenious to be true. One thing, however, is common to all the Parables, and forms a point of connection between them. They are all occasioned by some unreceptiveness on the part of the hearers, and that, even when the hearers are professing disciples. This seems indicated in the reason assigned by Christ to the disciples for His use of parabolic teaching: that unto them it was ‘given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.’ And this may lead up to such general remarks on the Parables as are necessary for their understanding. Little information is to be gained from discussing the etymology of the word Parable. The verb from which it is derived means to project; and the term itself, the placing of one thing by the side of another. Perhaps no other mode of teaching was so common among the Jews as that by Parables. Only in their case, they were almost entirely illustrations of what had been said or taught; while, in the case of Christ, they served as the foundation for His teaching. In the one case, the light of earth was cast heavenwards, in the other, that of heaven earthwards; in the one case, it was intended to make spiritual teaching appear Jewish and national, in the other to convey spiritual teaching in a form adapted to the standpoint of the hearers. This distinction will be found to hold true, even in instances where there seems the closest parallelism between a Rabbinic and an Evangelic Parable. On further examination, the difference between them will appear not merely one of degree, but of kind, or rather of standpoint. This may be illustrated by the Parable of the woman who made anxious search for her lost coin, to which there is an almost literal Jewish parallel. But, whereas in the Jewish Parable the moral is, that a man ought to take much greater pains in the study of the Torah than in the search for coin, since the former procures an eternal reward, while the coin would, if found, at most only procure temporary enjoyment, the Parable of Christ is intended to set forth, not the merit of study or of works, but the compassion of the Saviour in seeking the lost, and the joy of Heaven in his recovery. It need scarcely be said, that comparison between such Parables, as regards their spirit, is scarcely possible, except by way of contrast.

But, to return. In Jewish writings a Parable (mimshal mashal maṯla) is introduced by some such formula as this: ‘I will tell thee a parable’ (אמשוּל לך משל). ‘To what is the thing like? To one,’ etc. Often it begins more briefly, thus: ‘A Parable. To what is the thing like?’ or else, simply: ‘To what is the thing like?’ Sometimes even this is emitted, and the Parable is indicated by the preposition ‘to’ at the beginning of the illustrative story. Jewish writers extol Parables, as placing the meaning of the Law within range of the comprehension of all men. The ‘wise King’ had introduced this method, the usefulness of which is illustrated by the Parable of a great palace which had many doors, so that people lost their way in it, till one came who fastened a ball of thread at the chief entrance, when all could readily find their way in and out. Even this will illustrate what has been said of the difference between Rabbinic Parables and those employed by our Lord.

The general distinction between a Parable and a Proverb, Fable and Allegory, cannot here be discussed at length. It will sufficiently appear from the character and the characteristics of the Parables of our Lord. That designation is, indeed, sometimes applied to what are not Parables, in the strictest sense; while it is wanting where we might have expected it. Thus, in the Synoptic Gospels illustrations, and even proverbial sayings, such as ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ or that about the blind leading the blind, are designated Parables. Again, the term ‘Parable,’ although used in our Authorised Version, does not occur in the original of John’s Gospel; and this, although not a few illustrations used in that Gospel on superficial examination, appear to be Parables. The term must, therefore, be here restricted to special conditions. The first of these is, that all Parables bear reference to well-known scenes, such is those of daily life; or to events, either real, or such as every one would expect in given circumstances, or as would be in accordance with prevailing notions.

Such pictures, familiar to the popular mind, are in the Parable connected with corresponding spiritual realities. Yet, here also, there is that which distinguishes the Parable from the mere illustration. The latter conveys no more than – perhaps not so much as – that which was to be illustrated while the Parable conveys this and a great deal beyond it to those, who can follow up its shadows to the light by which they have been cast. In truth, Parables are the outlined shadows – large, perhaps, and dim – as the light of heavenly things falls on well-known scenes, which correspond to, and have their higher counterpart in spiritual realities. For, earth and heaven are twin-parts of His works. And, as the same law, so the same order, prevails in them; and they form a grand unity in their relation to the Living God Who reigneth. And, just as there is ultimately but one Law, one Force, one Life, which, variously working, effects and affects all the Phenomenal in the material universe, however diverse it may seem, so is there but one Law and Life as regards the intellectual, moral – nay, and the spiritual. One Law, Force, and Life, binding the earthly and the heavenly into a Grand Unity – the outcome of the Divine Unity, of which it is the manifestation. Thus things in earth and heaven are kindred, and the one may become to us Parables of the other. And so, if the place of our resting be Bethel, they become Jacob’s ladder, by which those from heaven come down to earth, and those from earth ascend to heaven.

Another characteristic of the Parables, in the stricter sense, is that in them the whole picture or narrative is used in illustration of some heavenly teaching, and not merely one feature or phase of it, as in some of the parabolic illustrations and proverbs of the Synoptists, or the parabolic narratives of the Fourth Gospel. Thus, in the parabolic illustrations about the new piece of cloth on the old garment, about the blind leading the blind, about the forth-putting of leaves on the fig-tree; or in the parabolic proverb, ‘Physician, heal thyself;’ or in such parabolic narratives of John, as about the Good Shepherd, or the Vine – in each case, only one part is selected as parabolic. On the other hand, even in the shortest Parables, such as those of the seed growing secretly, the leaven in the meal, and the pearl of great price, the picture is complete, and has not only in one feature, but in its whole bearing, a counterpart in spiritual realities. But, as shown in the Parable of the seed growing secretly, it is not necessary that the Parable should always contain some narrative, provided that not only one feature, but the whole thing related, have its spiritual application.

In view of what has been explained, the arrangement of the Parables into symbolical and typical can only apply to their form, not their substance. In the first of these classes a scene from nature or from life serves as basis for exhibiting the corresponding spiritual reality. In the latter, what is related serves as type (τύπος), not in the ordinary sense of that term, but in that not unfrequent in Scripture: as example – whether for imitation, or in warning. In the typical Parables the illustration lies, so to speak, on the outside; in the symbolical, within the narrative or scene. The former are to be applied; the latter must be explained.

It is here that the characteristic difference between the various classes of hearers lay. All the Parables, indeed, implied some background of opposition, or else of unreceptiveness. In the record of this first series of them, the fact that Jesus spake to the people in Parables, and only in Parables, is strongly marked. It appears, therefore, to have been the first time that this mode of popular teaching was adopted by him. Accordingly, the disciples not only expressed their astonishment, but inquired the reason of this novel method. The answer of the Lord makes a distinction between those to whom it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom, and those to whom all things were done in Parables. But, evidently, this method of teaching could not have been adopted for the people, in contradistinction to the disciples, and as a judicial measure, since even in the first series of Parables three were addressed to the disciples, after the people had been dismissed. On the other hand, in answer to the disciples, the Lord specially marks this as the difference between the teaching vouchsafed to them and the Parables spoken to the people, that the designed effect of the latter was judicial: to complete that hardening which, in its commencement, had been caused by their voluntary rejection of what they had heard. But, as not only the people, but the disciples also, were taught by Parables, the hardening effect must not be ascribed to the parabolic mode of teaching, now for the first time adopted by Christ. Nor is it a sufficient answer to the question, by what this darkening effect, and hence hardening influence, of the Parable on the people was caused, that the first series, addressed to the multitude, consisted of a cumulation of Parables, without any hint as to their meaning or interpretation. For, irrespective of other considerations, these Parables were at least as easily understood as those spoken immediately afterwards to the disciples, on which, similarly, no comment was given by Jesus. On the other hand, to us at least, it seems clear, that the ground of the different effect of the Parables on the unbelieving multitude and on the believing disciples was not objective, or caused by the substance or form of these Parables, but subjective, being caused by the different standpoint of the two classes of hearers toward the Kingdom of God.

This explanation removes what otherwise would be a serious difficulty. For, it seems impossible to believe, that Jesus had adopted a special mode of teaching for the purpose of concealing the truth, which might have saved those who heard Him. His words, indeed, indicate that such was the effect of the Parables. But they also indicate, with at least equal clearness, that the cause of this hardening lay, not in the parabolic method of teaching, but in the state of spiritual insensibility at which, by their own guilt, they had previously arrived. Through this, what might, and, in other circumstances, would, have conveyed spiritual instruction, necessarily became that which still further and fatally darkened and dulled their minds and hearts. Thus, their own hardening merged into the judgment of hardening.

We are now in some measure able to understand, why Christ now for the first time adopted parabolic teaching. Its reason lay in the altered circumstances of the case. All his former teaching had been plain, although initial. In it He had set forth by Word, and exhibited by fact (in miracles), that Kingdom of God which He had come to open to all believers. The hearers had now ranged themselves into two parties. Those who, whether temporarily or permanently (as the result would show), had admitted these premises, so far as they understood them, were His professing disciples. On the other hand, the Pharisaic party had now devised a consistent theory, according to which the acts, and hence also the teaching, of Jesus, were of Satanic origin. Christ must still preach the Kingdom; for that purpose had he come into the world. Only, the presentation of that Kingdom must now be for decision. It must separate the two classes, leading the one to clearer understanding of the mysteries of the Kingdom – of what not only seems, but to our limited thinking really is, mysterious; while the other class of hearers would now regard these mysteries as wholly unintelligible, incredible, and to be rejected. And the ground of this lay in the respective positions of these two classes towards the Kingdom. ‘Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.’ And the mysterious manner in which they were presented in Parables was alike suited to, and corresponded with, the character of these ‘mysteries of the Kingdom,’ now set forth, not for initial instruction, but for final decision. As the light from heaven falls on earthly objects, the shadows are cast. But our perception of them, and its mode, depend on the position which we occupy relatively to that Light.

And so it was not only best, but most merciful, that these mysteries of substance should now, also, be presented as mysteries of form in Parables. Here each would see according to his standpoint towards the Kingdom. And this was in turn determined by previous acceptance or rejection of that truth, which had formerly been set forth in a plain form in the teaching and acting of the Christ. Thus, while to the opened eyes and hearing ears of the one class would be disclosed that, which prophets and righteous men of old had desired but not attained, to them who had voluntarily cast aside what they had, would only come, in their seeing and hearing, the final judgment of hardening. So would it be to each according to his standpoint. To the one would come the grace of final revelation, to the other the final judgment which, in the first place, had been of their own choice, in but which, as they voluntarily occupied their position relatively to Christ, had grown into the fulfilment of the terrible prediction of Esaias concerning the final hardening of Israel.

Thus much in general explanation. The record of the first series of Parables contains three separate accounts: that of the Parables spoken to the people; that of the reason for the use of parabolic teaching, and the explanation of the first Parables (both addressed to the disciples); and, finally, another series of Parables spoken to the disciples. To each of these we must briefly address ourselves.

On that bright spring morning, when Jesus spoke from ‘the ship’ to the multitude that crowded the shore, He addressed to them these four Parables: concerning Him Who sowed, concerning the Wheat and the Tares, concerning the Mustard-Seed, and concerning the Leaven. The first, or perhaps the two first of these, must be supplemented by what may be designated as a fifth Parable, that of the Seed growing unobservedly. This is the only Parable of which Mark alone has preserved the record. All these Parables refer, as is expressly stated, to the Kingdom of God; that is, not to any special phase or characteristic of it, but to the Kingdom itself, or, in other words, to its history. They are all such as befit an open-air address at that season of the year, in that locality, and to those hearers. And yet there is such gradation and development in them as might well point upwards and onwards.

The first Parable is that of Him Who sowed. We can almost picture to ourselves the Saviour seated in the prow of the boat, as He points His hearers to the rich plain over against Him, where the young corn, still in the first green of its growing, is giving promise of harvest. Like this is the Kingdom of Heaven which He has come to proclaim. Like what? Not yet like that harvest, which is still in the future, but like that field over there. The Sower has gone forth to sow the Good Seed. If we bear in mind a mode of sowing peculiar (if we are not mistaken) to those times, the Parable gains in vividness. According to Jewish authorities there was twofold sowing, as the seed was either cast by the hand (מפולת יד) or by means of cattle (מפולת שוורים). In the latter case, a sack with holes was filled with corn and laid on the back of the animal, so that, as it moved onwards, the seed was thickly scattered. Thus it might well be, that it would fall indiscriminately on beaten roadway, on stony places but thinly covered with soil, or where the thorns had not been cleared away, or undergrowth from the thorn-hedge crept into the field, as well as on good ground. The result in each case need not here be repeated. But what meaning would all this convey to the Jewish hearers of Jesus? How could this sowing and growing be like the Kingdom of God? Certainly not in the sense in which they expected it. To them it was only a rich harvest, when all Israel would bear plenteous fruit. Again, what was the Seed, and who the Sower? or what could be meant by the various kinds of soil and their unproductiveness?

To us, as explained by the Lord, all this seems plain. But to them there could be no possibility of understanding, but much occasion for misunderstanding it, unless, indeed, they stood in right relationship to the ‘Kingdom of God.’ The initial condition requisite was to believe that Jesus was the Divine Sower, and His Word the Seed of the Kingdom: no other Sower than He, no other Seed of the Kingdom than His Word. If this were admitted, they had at least the right premises for understanding ‘this mystery of the Kingdom.’ According to Jewish view the Messiah was to appear in outward pomp, and by display of power to establish the Kingdom. But this was the very idea of the Kingdom, with which Satan had tempted Jesus at the outset of His Ministry. In opposition to it was this ‘mystery of the Kingdom,’ according to which it consisted in reception of the Seed of the Word. That reception would depend on the nature of the soil, that is, on the mind and heart of the hearers. The Kingdom of God was within: it came neither by a display of power, nor even by this, that Israel, or else the Gospel-hearers, were the field on which the Seed of the Kingdom was sown. He had brought the Kingdom: the Sower had gone forth to sow. This was of free grace – the Gospel. But the seed might fall on the roadside, and so perish without even springing up. Or it might fall on rocky soil, and so spring up rapidly, but wither before it showed promise of fruit. Or it might fall where thorns grew along with, and more rapidly than, it. And so it would, indeed, show promise of fruit; the corn might appear in the ear; but that fruit would not come to ripeness (‘bring no fruit to perfection), because the thorns growing more rapidly would choke the corn. Lastly, to this threefold faultiness of soil, through which the seed did not spring up at all, or merely sprung up, or just reached the promise, but not the perfection of fruit, corresponded a threefold degree of fruit-bearing in the soil, according to which it brought forth thirtyfold, sixtyfold, or an hundredfold, in the varying measure of its capacity.

 If even the disciples failed to comprehend the whole bearing of this ‘Mystery of the Kingdom,’ we can believe how utterly strange and un-Jewish such a Parable of the Messianic Kingdom must have sounded to them, who had been influenced by the Pharisaic representations of the Person and Teaching of Christ. And yet the while these very hearers were, unconsciously to themselves, fulfilling what Jesus was speaking to them in the Parable!

Whether or not the Parable recorded by Mark alone, concerning the Seed growing unobservedly, was spoken afterwards in private to the disciples, or, as seems more likely, at the first, and to the people by the sea-shore, this appears the fittest place for inserting it. If the first Parable, concerning the Sower and the Field of Sowing, would prove to all who were outside the pale of discipleship a ‘mystery,’ while to those within it would unfold knowledge of the very mysteries of the Kingdom, this would even more fully be the case in regard to this second or supplementary Parable. In it we are only viewing that portion of the field, which the former Parable had described as good soil. ‘So is the Kingdom of God, as if a man had cast the seed on the earth, and slept and rose, night and day, and the seed sprang up and grew: how, he knows not himself. Automatous [self-acting] the earth beareth fruit: first blade, then ear, then full wheat in the ear! But when the fruit presents itself, immediately he sendeth forth the sickle, because the harvest is come.’ The meaning of all this seems plain. As the Sower, after the seed has been cast into the ground, can do no more; he goes to sleep at night, and rises by day, the seed the meanwhile growing, the Sower knows not how, and as his activity ceases till the time that the fruit is ripe, when immediately he thrusts in the sickle – so is the Kingdom of God. The seed is sown; but its growth goes on, dependent on the law inherent in seed and soil, dependent also on Heaven’s blessing of sunshine and showers, till the moment of ripeness, when the harvest-time is come. We can only go about our daily work, or lie down to rest, as day and night alternate; we see, but know not the how of the growth of the seed. Yet, assuredly it will ripen, and when that moment has arrived, immediately the sickle is thrust in, for the harvest is come. And so also with the Sower. His outward activity on earth was in the sowing, and it will be in the harvesting. What lies between them is of that other Dispensation of the Spirit, till He again send forth His reapers into His field. But all this must have been to those ‘without’ a great mystery, in no wise compatible with Jewish notions; while to them ‘within’ it proved a yet greater, and very needful unfolding of the mysteries of the Kingdom, with very wide application of them.

The ‘mystery’ is made still further, mysterious, or else it is still further unfolded in the next Parable concerning the Tares sown among the Wheat. According to the common view, these Tares represent what is botanically known as the ‘bearded Darnel’ (Lolium temulentum), a poisonous rye-grass, very common in the East, ‘entirely like wheat until the ear appears,’ or else (according to some), the ‘creeping wheat’ or ‘couch-grass’ (Triticum repens), of which the roots creep underground and become intertwined with those of the wheat. But the Parable gains in meaning if we bear in mind that, according to ancient Jewish (and, indeed, modern Eastern) ideas, the Tares were not of different seed, but only a degenerate kind of wheat. Whether in legend or symbol, Rabbinism has it that even the ground had been guilty of fornication before the judgment of the Flood, so that when wheat was sown tares sprang up. The Jewish hearers of Jesus would, therefore, think of these tares as degenerate kind of wheat, originally sprung at the time of the Flood, through the corruptness of the earth, but now, alas! so common in their fields; wholly undistinguishable from the wheat, till the fruit appeared: noxious, poisonous, and requiring to be separated from the wheat, if the latter was not to become useless.

With these thoughts in mind, let us now try to realise the scene pictured. Once more we see the field on which the corn is growing – we know not how. The sowing time is past. ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is become like to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But in the time that men sleep came his enemy and over-sowed tares in (upon) the midst of the wheat, and went away.’ Thus far the picture is true to nature, since such deeds of enmity were, and still are, common in the East. And so matters would go on unobserved, since, whatever kind of ‘tares’ may be meant, it would, from their likeness, be for some time impossible to distinguish them from the wheat. ‘But when the herbage grew and made fruit, then appeared (became manifest) also the tares.’ What follows is equally true to fact, since, according to the testimony of travellers, most strenuous efforts are always made in the East to weed out the tares. Similarly, in the parable, the servants of the householder are introduced as inquiring whence these tares had come; and on the reply: ‘A hostile person has done this,’ they further ask: ‘Wilt thou then that we go (straightway) and gather them together?’ The absence of any reference to the rooting up or burning the tares, is intended to indicate, that the only object which the servants had in view was to keep the wheat pure and unmixed for the harvest. But this their final object would have been frustrated by the procedure, which their inconsiderate zeal suggested. It would, indeed, have been quite possible to distinguish the tares from the wheat – and the Parable proceeds on this very assumption – for, by their fruit they would be known. But in the present instance separation would have been impossible, without, at the same time, uprooting some of the wheat. For, the tares had been sown right into the midst, and not merely by the side, of the wheat; and their roots and blades must have become intertwined. And so they must grow together to the harvest. Then such danger would no longer exist, for the period of growing was past, and the wheat had to be gathered into the barn. Then would be the right time to bid the reapers first gather the tares into bundles for burning, that afterwards the wheat, pure and unmixed, might be stored in the garner.

True to life as the picture is, yet the Parable was, of all others, perhaps the most un-Jewish, and therefore mysterious and unintelligible. Hence the disciples specially asked explanation of this only, which from its main subject they rightly designated as the Parable ‘of the Tares.’ Yet this was also perhaps the most important for them to understand. For already ‘the Kingdom of Heaven is become like’ this, although the appearance of fruit has not yet made it manifest, that tares have been sown right into the midst of the wheat. But they would soon have to learn it in bitter experience and as a grievous temptation, and not only as regarded the impressionable, fickle multitude, nor even the narrower circle of professing followers of Jesus, but that, alas! in their very midst there was a traitor. And they would have to learn it more and more in the time to come, as we have to learn it to all ages, till the ‘Age-’ or ‘Aeon-completion.’ Most needful, yet most mysterious also, is this other lesson, as the experience of the Church has shown, since almost every period of her history has witnessed, not only the recurrence of the proposal to make the wheat unmixed, while growing, by gathering out the tares, but actual attempts towards it. All such have proved failures, because the field is the wide ‘world,’ not a narrow sect; because the tares have been sown into the midst of the wheat, and by the enemy; and because, if such gathering were to take place, the roots and blades of tares and wheat would be found so intertwined, that harm would come to the wheat. But why try to gather the tares together, unless from undiscerning zeal? Or what have we, who are only the owner’s servants, to do with it, since we are not bidden of Him? The ‘Aeon-completion’ will witness the harvest, when the separation of tares and wheat may not only be accomplished with safety, but shall become necessary. For the wheat must be garnered in the heavenly storehouse, and the tares bound in bundles to be burned. Then the harvesters shall be the Angels of Christ, the gathered tares ‘all the stumbling-blocks and those who do the lawlessness,’ and their burning the casting of them ‘into the oven of the fire.’

More mysterious still, and, if possible, even more needful, was the instruction that the Enemy who sowed the tares was the Devil. To the Jews, nay, to us all, it may seem a mystery, that in ‘the Messianic Kingdom of Heaven’ there should be a mixture of tares with the wheat, the more mysterious, that the Baptist had predicted that the coming Messiah would thoroughly purge His floor. But to those who were capable of receiving it, it would be explained by the fact that the Devil was ‘the Enemy’ of Christ, and of His Kingdom, and that he had sowed those tares. This would, at the same time, be the most effective answer to the Pharisaic charge, that Jesus was the Incarnation of Satan, and the vehicle of his influence. And once instructed in this, they would have further to learn the lessons of faith and patience, connected with the fact that the good seed of the Kingdom grew in the field of the world, and hence that, by the very conditions of its existence, separation by the hand of man was impossible so long as the wheat was still growing. Yet that separation would surely be made in the great harvest, to certain, terrible loss of the children of the wicked one, and to the ‘sun-like forthshining’ in glory of the righteous in the Kingdom prepared by their Father.

The first Parables were intended to present the mysteries of the Kingdom as illustrated by the sowing, growing, and intermixture of the Seed. The concluding two Parables set forth another equally mysterious characteristic of the Kingdom: that of its development and power, as contrasted with its small and weak beginnings. In the Parable of the Mustard-seed this is shown as regards the relation of the Kingdom to the outer world; in that of the Leaven, in reference to the world within us. The one exhibits the extensiveness, the other the intensiveness, of its power; in both cases at first hidden, almost imperceptible, and seemingly wholly inadequate to the final result. Once more we say it, that such Parables must have been utterly unintelligible to all who did not see in the humble, despised, Nazarene, and in His teaching, the Kingdom. But to those whose eyes, ears and hearts had been opened, they would carry most needed instruction and most precious comfort and assurance. Accordingly, we do not find that the disciples either asked or received an interpretation of these Parables.

A few remarks will set the special meaning of these Parables more clearly before us. Here also the illustrations used may have been at hand. Close by the fields, covered with the fresh green or growing corn, to which Jesus had pointed, may have been the garden with its growing herbs, bushes and plants, and the home of the householder, whose wife may at that moment have been in sight, busy preparing the weekly provision of bread. At any rate, it is necessary to keep in mind the homeliness of these illustrations. The very idea of Parables implies, not strict scientific accuracy, but popular pictorialness. It is characteristic of them to present vivid sketches that appeal to the popular mind, and exhibit such analogies of higher truths as can be readily perceived by all. Those addressed were not to weigh every detail, either logically or scientifically, but at once to recognise the aptness of the illustration as presented to the popular mind. Thus, as regards the first of these two Parables, the seed of the mustard-plant passed in popular parlance as the smallest of seeds. In fact, the expression, ‘small as a mustard-seed,’ had become proverbial, and was used, not only by our Lord, but frequently by the Rabbis, to indicate the smallest amount, such as the least drop of blood, the least defilement, or the smallest remnant of sun-glow in the sky. ‘But when it is grown, it is greater than the garden-herbs.’ Indeed, it looks no longer like a large garden-herb or shrub, but ‘becomes,’ or rather, appears like, ‘a tree’ – as Luke puts it, ‘a great tree,’ of course, not in comparison with other trees, but with garden-shrubs. Such growth of the mustard seed was also a fact well known at the time, and, indeed, still observed in the East.

This is the first and main point in the Parable. The other, concerning the birds which are attracted to its branches and ‘lodge’ literally, ‘make tents’ – there, or else under the shadow of it, is, subsidiary. Pictorial, of course, this trait would be, and we can the more readily understand that birds would be attracted to the branches or the shadow of the mustard-plant, when we know that mustard was in Palestine mixed with, or used as food for pigeons, and presumably would be sought by other birds. And the general meaning would the more easily be apprehended, that a tree, whose wide-spreading branches afforded lodgment to the birds of heaven, was a familiar Old Testament figure for a mighty kingdom that gave shelter to the nations. Indeed, it is specifically used as an illustration of the Messianic Kingdom. Thus the Parable would point to this, so full of mystery to the Jews, so explanatory of the mystery to the disciples: that the Kingdom of Heaven, planted in-the field of the world as the smallest seed, in the most humble and unpromising manner, would grow till it far outstripped all other similar plants, and gave shelter to all nations under heaven.

To this extensive power of the Kingdom corresponded its intensive character, whether in the world at large or in the individual. This formed the subject of the last of the Parables addressed at this time to the people – that of the Leaven. We need not here resort to ingenious methods of explaining ‘the three measures,’ or seahs, of meal in which the leaven was hid. Three seahs were an Ephah, of which the exact capacity differed in various districts. According to the so-called ‘wilderness,’ or original Biblical, measurement, it was supposed to be a space holding 432 eggs, while the Jerusalem ephah was one-fifth, and the Sepphoris (or Galilean) ephah two-fifths, or, according to another authority, one-half larger. To mix ‘three measures’ of meal was common in Biblical, as well as in later times. Nothing further was therefore conveyed than the common process of ordinary, everyday life. And in this, indeed, lies the very point of the Parable, that the Kingdom of God, when received within, would seem like leaven hid, but would gradually pervade, assimilate, and transform the whole of our common life.

With this most un-Jewish, and, to the unbelieving multitude, most mysterious characterisation of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Saviour dismissed the people. Enough had been said to them and for them, if they had but ears to hear. And now He was again alone with the disciples ‘in the house’ at Capernaum, to which they had returned. Many new and deeper thoughts of the Kingdom had come to them. But why had He so spoken to the multitude, in a manner so different, as regarded not only the form, but even the substance of His teaching? And did they quite understand its solemn meaning themselves? More especially, who was the enemy whose activity would threaten the safety of the harvest? Of harvest they had already heard on the way through Samaria. And what were those ‘tares,’ which were to continue in their very midst till the judicial separation of the end? To these questions Jesus now made answer. His statement of the reason for adopting in the present instance the parabolic mode of teaching would, at the same time, give them farther insight into those very mysteries of the Kingdom which it had been the object of these Parables to set forth. His unsolicited explanation of the details of the first Parable would call attention to points that might readily have escaped their notice, but which, for warning and instruction, it most behoved them to keep in view.

The understanding of the first Parable seems to have shown them, how much hidden meaning this teaching conveyed, and to have stimulated their desire for comprehending what the presence and machinations of the hostile Pharisees might, in some measure, lead them to perceive in dim outline. Yet it was not to the Pharisees that the Lord referred. The Enemy was the Devil; the field, the world; the good seed, the children of the Kingdom; the tares, the children of the Wicked One. And most markedly did the Lord, in this instance, not explain the Parable, as the first one, in its details, but only indicate, so to speak, the stepping-stones for its understanding. This, not only to train the disciples, but because – unlike the first Parable – that of the Tares would only in the future and increasingly unfold its meaning.

But even this was not all. The disciples had now knowledge concerning the mysteries of the Kingdom. But that Kingdom was not matter of the understanding only, but of personal apprehension. This implied discovery of its value, personal acquisition of it, and surrender of all to its possession. And this mystery of the Kingdom was next conveyed to the disciples in those Parables specially addressed to, and suited only for, them.

Kindred, or rather closely connected, as are the two Parables of the Treasure hid in the Field and of the Pearl of Great Price – now spoken to the disciples – their differences are sufficiently marked. In the first, one who must probably be regarded as intending to buy a, if not this, field, discovers a treasure hidden there, and in his joy parts with all else to become owner of the field and of the hidden treasure which he had so unexpectedly found. Some difficulty has been expressed in regard to the morality of such a transaction. In reply it may be observed, that it was, at least, in entire accordance with Jewish law.  If a man had found a treasure in loose coins among the corn, it would certainly be his, if he bought the corn. If he had found it on the ground, or in the soil, it would equally certainly belong to him, if he could claim ownership of the soil, and even if the field were not his own, unless others could prove their right to it. The law went so far as to adjudge to the purchaser of fruits anything found among these fruits. This will suffice to vindicate a question of detail, which, in any case, should not be too closely pressed in a parabolic history.

But to resume our analysis. In the second Parable we have a wise merchantman who travels in search of pearls, and when he finds one which in value exceeds all else, he returns and sells all that he has, in order to buy this unique gem. The supreme value of the Kingdom, the consequent desire to appropriate it, and the necessity of parting with all else for this purpose, are the points common to this and the previous Parable. But in the one case, it is marked that this treasure is hid from common view in the field, and the finder makes unexpected discovery of it, which fills him with joy. In the other case, the merchantman is, indeed, in search of pearls, but he has the wisdom to discover the transcendent value of this one gem, and the yet greater wisdom to give up all further search and to acquire it at the surrender of everything else. Thus, two different aspects of the Kingdom, and two different conditions on the part of those who, for its sake, equally part with all, are here set before the disciples.

Nor was the closing Parable of the Draw-net less needful. Assuredly it became, and would more and more become, them to know, that mere discipleship – mere inclusion in the Gospel-net – was not sufficient. That net let down into the sea of this world would include much which, when the net was at last drawn to shore, would prove worthless or even hurtful. To be a disciple, then, was not enough. Even here there would be separation. Not only the tares, which the Enemy had designedly sown into the midst of the wheat, but even much that the Gospel-net, cast into the sea, had inclosed, would, when brought to land, prove fit only to be cast away, into ‘the oven of the fire where there is the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.’

So ended that spring-day of first teaching in Parables, to the people by the Lake, and in the house at Capernaum to the disciples. Dim, shadowy outlines, growing larger and more faint in their tracings to the people; shadowy outlines, growing brighter and clearer to all who were disciples. Most wondrous instruction to all, and in all aspects of it; which even negative critics admit to have really formed part of Christ’s own original teaching. But if this be the case, we have two questions of decisive character to ask. Undoubtedly, these Parables were un-Jewish. This appears, not only from a comparison with the Jewish views of the Kingdom, but from the fact that their meaning was unintelligible to the hearers of Jesus, and from this, that, rich as Jewish teaching is in Parables, none in the least parallel to them can be adduced. Our first question, therefore, is: Whence this un-Jewish and anti-Jewish teaching concerning the Kingdom on the part of Jesus of Nazareth?

Our second question goes still farther. For, if Jesus was not a Prophet – and, if a Prophet, then also the Son of God – yet no more strangely unexpected prophecy, minutely true in all its details, could be conceived, than that concerning His Kingdom which His parabolic description of it conveyed. Has not History, in the strange, unexpected fulfilling of that which no human ingenuity at the time could have forecast, and no pen have described with more minute accuracy of detail, proved Him to be more than a mere man – One sent from God, the Divine King of the Divine Kingdom, in all the vicissitudes which such a Divine Kingdom must experience when set up upon earth?

(Mat_8:18, Mat_8:23-27; Mar_4:35-41; Luk_8:22-25)

It was the evening of that day of new teaching and once more great multitudes were gathering to Him. What more, or, indeed, what else, could He have said to those to whom He had all that morning spoken in Parables, which hearing they had not heard nor understood? It was this, rather than weariness after a long day’s working, which led to the resolve to pass to the other side. To merely physical weariness Jesus never subordinated his work. If, therefore, such had been the motive, the proposal to withdraw for rest would have come from the disciples, while here the Lord Himself gave command to pass to the other side. In truth, after that day’s teaching it was better, alike for these multitudes and for His disciples, that He should withdraw. And so ‘they took Him even as He was’ – that is, probably without refreshment of food, or even preparation of it for the journey. This indicates how readily, nay, eagerly, the disciples obeyed the behest.

Whether in their haste they heeded not the signs of the coming storm; whether they had the secret feeling, that ship and sea which bore such burden were safe from tempest; or, whether it was one of those storms which so often rise suddenly, and sweep with such fury over the Lake of Galilee, must remain undetermined. He was in ‘the ship’ – whether that of the sons of Jonas, or of Zebedee – the well-known boat, which was always ready for His service, whether as pulpit, resting-place, or means of journeying. But the departure had not been so rapid as to pass unobserved; and the ship was attended by other boats, which bore those that would fain follow Him. In the stern of the ship, on the low bench where the steersman sometimes takes rest, was pillowed the Head of Jesus. Weariness, faintness, hunger, exhaustion, asserted their mastery over His true humanity. He, Whom earliest Apostolic testimony, proclaimed to have been in ‘the form of God,’ slept. Even this evidences the truth of the whole narrative. If Apostolic tradition had devised this narrative to exhibit His Divine Power, why represent Him as faint and asleep in the ship; and, if it would portray Him as deeply sleeping for very weariness, how could it ascribe to Him the power of stilling the storm by His rebuke? Each of these by themselves, but not the two in their combination, would be as legends are written. Their coincidence is due to the incidence of truth. Indeed, it is characteristic of the History of the Christ, and all the more evidential that it is so evidently undesigned in the structure of the narrative, that every deepest manifestation of His Humanity is immediately attended by highest display of His Divinity, and each special display of His Divine Power followed by some marks of His true Humanity. Assuredly, no narrative could be more consistent with the fundamental assumption that He is the God-Man.

Thus viewed, the picture is unspeakably sublime. Jesus is asleep, for very weariness and hunger, in the stern of the ship, His head on that low wooden bench, while the heavens darken, the wild wind swoops down those mountain-gorges, howling with hungry rage over the trembling sea; the waves rise and toss, and lash and break over the ship, and beat into it, and the white foam washes at His feet. His Humanity here appears as true as when He lay cradled in the manger; His Divinity, as when the sages from the East laid their offerings at His Feet. But the danger is increasing – ‘so that the ship was now filling.’ They who watched it, might be tempted to regard the peaceful rest of Jesus, not as indicative of Divine Majesty – as it were, sublime consciousness of absolute safety – because they did not fully realize Who He was. In that case it would, therefore, rather mean absolute weakness in not being able, even at such a time, to overcome the demands of our lower nature; real indifference, also, to their fate – not from want of sympathy, but of power. In short, it might lead up to the inference that the Christ was a no-Christ, and the Kingdom of which he had spoken in Parables, not His, in the sense of being identified with His Person.

In all this we perceive readily, in part, the internal connection between the teaching of that day and the miracle of that evening. Both were quite novel: the teaching by Parables, and then the help in a Parable. Both were founded on the Old Testament: the teaching on its predictions, the miracle on its proclamations of the special Divine Manifestations in the sea; and both show that everything depended on the view taken of the Person of the Christ. Further teaching comes to us from the details of the narrative which follows. It has been asked, with which of the words recorded by the Synoptists the disciples had wakened the Lord: with those of entreaty to save them, or with those of impatience, perhaps uttered by Peter himself? But why may not both accounts represent what had passed? Similarly, it has been asked, which came first – the Lord’s rebuke of the disciples, and after it that of the wind and sea, or the converse? But, may it not be that each recorded that first which had most impressed itself on his mind? – Matthew, who had been in the ship that night, the needful rebuke to the disciples; Mark and Luke, who had heard it from others, the help first, and then the rebuke?

Yet it is not easy to understand what the disciples had really expected, when they wakened the Christ with their ‘Lord, save us – we perish!’ Certainly, not that which actually happened, since not only wonder, but fear, came over them as they witnessed it. Probably theirs would be a vague, undefined belief in the unlimited possibility of all in connection with the Christ. A belief this, which seems to us quite natural as we think of the gradually emerging, but still partially cloud-capped height of His Divinity, of which, as yet, only the dim outlines were visible to them. A belief this, which also accounts for the co-existing, not of disbelief, nor even of unbelief, but of inability of apprehension, which, as we have seen, characterised the bearing of the Virgin-Mother. And it equally characterised that of the disciples up to the Resurrection-morning, bringing them to the empty tomb, and filling them with unbelieving wonder that the tomb was empty. Thus, we have come to that stage in the History of the Christ when, in opposition to the now formulated charge of His enemies as to His Person, neither His Teaching nor His Working could be fully understood, except so far as his Personality was understood – that He was of God and Very God. And so we are gradually reaching on towards the expediency and the need of the coming of the Holy Ghost to reveal that mystery of His Person. Similarly, the two great stages in the history of the Church’s learning were: the first – to come to knowledge of what He was, by experience of what He did; the second – to come to experience of what He did and does, by knowledge of what He is. The former, which corresponds, in the Old Testament, to the patriarchal age, is that of the period when Jesus was on earth; the second, which answers to the history of Israel, is that of the period after His Ascension into Heaven and the Descent of the Holy Ghost. When ‘He was awakened’ by the voice of His disciples, ‘He rebuked the wind and the sea,’ as Jehovah had of old – just as He had ‘rebuked’ the fever, and the paroxysm of the demonised. For, all are His creatures, even when lashed to frenzy of the ‘hostile power.’ And the sea He commanded as if it were a sentient being: ‘Be silent! Be silenced!’ And immediately the wind was bound, the panting waves throbbed into stillness, and a great calm of rest fell upon the Lake. For, when Christ sleepeth, there is storm; when He waketh, great peace. But over these men who had erst wakened Him with their cry, now crept wonderment, awe, and fear. No longer, as at His first wonder-working in Capernaum, was it: ‘What is this?’ but ‘Who, then, is this?’ And so the grand question, which the enmity of the Pharisees had raised, and which, in part, had been answered in the Parables of teaching, was still more fully and practically met in what, not only to the disciples, but to all time, was a Parable of help. And Jesus also did wonder, but at that which alone could call forth His wonder – the unreachingness of their faith: where was it? and how was it, they had no faith?

Thus far the history, related, often almost in the same words, by the three Evangelists. On all sides the narrative is admitted to form part of the primitive Evangelic tradition. But if so, then, even on the showing of our opponents, it must have had some foundation in an event surpassing the ordinary facts in the history of Jesus. Accordingly, of all negative critics, at most only two venture to dismiss it as unfounded on fact. But such a bold assumption would rather increase than diminish the difficulty. For, if legend it be, its invention and insertion into the primitive record must have had some historical reason. Such, however, it is absolutely impossible here to trace. The Old Testament contains no analogous history which it might have been wished to imitate; Jewish Messianic expectancy afforded no basis for it; and there is absolutely no Rabbinic parallel which could be placed by its side. Similar objections apply to the suggestion of exaggeration of some real event (Keim). For the essence of the narrative lies in its details, of which the origin and the universal acceptance in the primitive belief of the Church have to be accounted for. Nor is the task of those negative critics more easy, who, admitting the foundation in fact for this narrative, have suggested various theories to account for its miraculous details. Most of these explanations are so unnatural, as only to point the contrast between the ingenuity of the nineteenth century and the simple, vivid language of the original narrative. For it seems equally impossible to regard it as based either on a misunderstanding of the words of Jesus during a storm (Paulus), or on the calm faith of Jesus when even the helmsman despaired of safety (Schenkel), or to represent it as only in some way a symbol of analogous mental phenomena (Ammon, Schleiermacher, Hase, Weiszaecker, and others). The very variety of explanations proposed, of which not one agrees with the others, shows, that none of them has proved satisfactory to any but their own inventors. And of all it may be said, that they have no foundation whatever in the narrative itself. Thus the only alternative left is either wholly to reject, or wholly to accept, the narrative.

If our judgment is to be determined by the ordinary rules of historical criticism, we cannot long be in doubt which of these propositions is true. Here is a narrative, which has the consensus of the three Evangelists; which admittedly formed part of the original Evangelic tradition; for the invention of which no specific motive can possibly be assigned; and which is told with a simplicity of language and a pictorial vividness of detail that carry their own evidence. Other corroborative points, such as the unlikeliness of the invention of such a situation for the Christ, or of such bearing of the disciples, have been previously indicated. Absolute historical demonstration of the event is, of course, in the nature of things impossible. But, besides the congruousness to the Parabolic teaching which had preceded this Parabolic miracle, and the accord of the Saviour’s rebuke with His mode of silencing the hostile elements on other occasions, some further considerations in evidence may be offered to the thoughtful reader.

For, first, in this ‘dominion over the sea,’ we recognise, not only the fullest refutation of the Pharisaic misrepresentation of the Person of Christ, but the realisation in the Ideal Man of the ideal of man as heaven-destined, and the initial fulfilment of the promise which this destination implied. ‘Creation’ has, indeed, been made ‘subject to vanity;’ but this ‘evil,’ which implies not merely decay but rebellion, was directly due to the Fall of man, and will be removed at the final ‘manifestation of the sons of God.’ And here Paul so far stands on the same ground as Jewish theology, which also teaches that ‘although all things were created in their perfectness, yet when the first Adam sinned, they were corrupted.’ Christ’s dominion over the sea was, therefore, only the Second and Unfallen Adam’s real dominion over creation, and the pledge of its restoration, and of our dominion in the future. And this seems also to throw fresh light on Christ’s rebuke, whether of storm, disease, or demoniac possession. Thus there is a grand consistency in this narrative, as regards the Scriptural presentation of the Christ.

Again, the narrative expresses very markedly, that the interposition of Christ, alike in itself, and in the manner of it, was wholly unexpected by, indeed, contrary to the expectation of, the disciples. This also holds true in regard to other of the great manifestations of Christ, up to His Resurrection from the dead. This, of course, proves that the narrative was not founded on existing Jewish ideas. But there is more than this. The gratuitous introduction of traits which, so far from glorifying, would rather detract from a legendary Christ, while at the same time they seriously reflect on the disciples, presumably the inventors of the legend, appears to us wholly inconsistent with the assumption that the narrative is spurious.

Nor ought we to overlook another circumstance. While we regard the narrative as that of an historical occurrence – indeed, because we do so – we cannot fail to perceive its permanent symbolic and typical bearing. It were, indeed, impossible to describe either the history of the Church of Christ, or the experience of individual disciples, more accurately, or with wider and deeper capability of application, than in the Parable of this Miracle. And thus it is morally true to all ages; just because it was historically true at the first. And as we enter on this field of contemplation, many views open to us. The true Humanity of the Saviour, by the side of His Divine Power; the sleeping Jesus and the Almighty Word of rebuke and command to the elements, which lay them down obedient at His feet: this sharp-edged contrast resolved into a higher unity – how true is it to the fundamental thought of the Gospel-History! Then this other contrast of the failure of faith, and then the excitement of the disciples; and of the calm of the sleeping, and then the Majesty of the wakening Christ. And, lastly, yet this third contrast of the helplessness and despondency of the disciples and the Divine certitude of conscious Omnipotence.

We perceive only difficulties and the seemingly impossible, as we compare what may be before us with that which we consciously possess. He also makes this outlook: but only to know and show, that with Him there can be no difficulty, since all is His – and all may be ours, since He has come for our help and is in the ship. One thing only He wonders at – the shortcomings of our faith; and one thing only makes it impossible for Him to help-our unbelief.

(Mat_8:28-34; Mar 5:1-20; Luk_8:26-39)

That day of wonders was not yet ended. Most writers have, indeed, suggested, that the healing of the demonised on the other side took place at early dawn of the day following the storm on the Lake. But the distance is so short that, even making allowance for the delay by the tempest, the passage could scarcely have occupied the whole night. This supposition would be further confirmed, if ‘the evening’ when Jesus embarked was what the Jews were wont to call ‘the first evening,’ that is, the time when the sun was declining in the heaven, but before it had actually set, the latter time being ‘the second evening.’ For, it seems most unlikely that multitudes would have resorted to Jesus at Capernaum after ‘the second evening,’ or that either the disciples or other boats would have put to sea after nightfall. On the other hand, the scene gains in grandeur – has, so to speak, a fitting background – if we suppose the Saviour and His disciples to have landed on the other side late in the evening, when perhaps the silvery moon was shedding her pale light on the weird scene, and laying her halo around the shadows cast upon the sea by the steep cliff down which the herd of swine hurried and fell. This would also give time afterwards for the dispersion, not only into ‘the city,’ but into ‘the country’ of them who had fed the swine. In that case, of course, it would be in the early morning that the Gerasenes afterwards resorted to Jesus and that He again returned to Capernaum. And, lastly, this would allow sufficient time for those miracles which took place on that same day in Capernaum after His return thither. Thus, all the circumstances lead us to regard the healing of the demonised at Gerasa as a night-scene, immediately on Christ’s arrival from Capernaum, and after the calming of the storm at sea.

It gives not only life to the narrative, but greatly illustrates it, that we can with confidence describe the exact place where our Lord and His disciples touched the other shore. The ruins right over against the plain of Gennesaret, which still bear the name of kersa or gersa, must represent the ancient Gerasa. This is the correct reading in Mark’s, and probably in Luke’s, perhaps also in Matthew’s Gospel. The locality entirely meets the requirements of the narrative. About a quarter of an hour to the south of Gersa is a steep bluff, which descends abruptly on a narrow ledge of shore. A terrified herd running down this cliff could not have recovered its foothold, and must inevitably have been hurled into the Lake beneath. Again, the whole country around is burrowed with limestone caverns and rock-chambers for the dead, such as those which were the dwelling of the demonised. Altogether the scene forms a fitting background to the narrative.

From these tombs the demonised, who is specially singled out by Mark and Luke, as well as his less prominent companion, came forth to meet Jesus. Much that is both erroneous and misleading has been written on Jewish Demonology. According to common Jewish superstition, the evil spirits dwelt especially in lonely desolate places, and also among tombs. We must here remember what has previously been explained as to the confusion in the consciousness of the demonised between their own notions and the ideas imposed on them by the demons. It is quite in accordance with the Jewish notions of the demonised, that, according to the more circumstantial account of Luke, he should feel as it were driven into the deserts, and that he was in the tombs, while, according to Mark, he was ‘night and day in the tombs and in the mountains,’ the very order of the words indicating the notion (as in Jewish belief), that it was chiefly at night that evil spirits were wont to haunt burying-places.

In calling attention to this and similar particulars, we repeat, that this must be kept in view as characteristic of the demonised, that they were incapable of separating their own consciousness and ideas from the influence of the demon, their own identity being merged, and to that extent lost, in that of their tormentors. In this respect the demonised state was also kindred to madness. Self-consciousness, or rather what may be termed Individuism, i.e. the consciousness of distinct and independent individuality, and with it the power of self-origination in matters mental and moral (which some might term an aspect of free volition), distinguish the human soul from the mere animal spirit. But in maniacal disease this power is in abeyance, or temporarily lost through physical causes, such as disease of the brain as the medium of communication between the mind and the world of sense; disease of the nervous system, through which ordinarily impressions are conveyed to and from the sensorium; or disease of both brain and nervous system, when previously existing impressions on the brain (in memory, and hence possibly imagination) may be excited without corresponding outward causes. If in such cases the absolute power of self-origination and self-action is lost to the mind, habits of sin and vice (or moral disease) may have an analogous effect as regards moral freedom – the power of moral self-origination and action. In the demonised state the two appear combined, the cause being neither disease nor vice, but the presence of a superior power of evil. This loss of individuism, and the subjection of one’s identity to that of the demon might, while it lasted, be called temporary ‘possession,’ in so far as the mental and moral condition of the person was for the time not one of freedom and origination, but in the control of the possessing demon.

One practical inference may even now be drawn from this somewhat abstruse discussion. The language and conduct of the demonised, whether seemingly his own, or that of the demons who influenced him, must always be regarded as a mixture of the Jewish-human and the demoniacal. The demonised speaks and acts as a Jew under the control of a demon. Thus, if he chooses solitary places by day, and tombs by night, it is not that demons really preferred such habitations, but that the Jews imagined it, and that the demons, acting on the existing consciousness, would lead him, in accordance with his preconceived notions, to select such places. Here also mental disease offers points of analogy. For, the demonised would speak and act in accordance with his previous (Jewish) demonological ideas. He would not become a new man, but be the old man, only under the influence of the demon, just as in mania a person truly and consistently speaks and acts, although under the false impressions which a diseased brain conveys to him. The fact that in the demonised state a man’s identify was not superseded, but controlled, enables us to account for many phenomena without either confounding demonism with mania, or else imputing to our Lord such accommodation to the notions of the times, as is not only untenable in itself, but forbidden even by the language of the present narrative.

The description of the demonised, coming out of the tombs to meet Jesus as He touched the shore at Gerasa, is vivid in the extreme. His violence, the impossibility of control by others, the absence of self-control, his homicidal, and almost suicidal, frenzy, are all depicted. Evidently, it was the object to set forth the extreme degree of the demonised state. Christ, Who had been charged by the Pharisees with being the embodiment and messenger of Satan, is here face to face with the extreme manifestation of demoniac power and influence. It is once more, then, a Miracle in Parable which is about to take place. The question, which had been raised by the enemies, is about to be brought to the issue of a practical demonstration. We do not deny that the contest and the victory, this miracle, nay, the whole series of miracles of which it forms part, are extraordinary, even in the series of Christ’s miracles. Our explanation proceeds on the very ground that such was, and must have been, the case. The teaching by Parables, and the parabolic miracles which follow, form, so to speak, an ascending climax, in contrast to the terrible charge which by-and-by would assume the proportions of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and issue in the betrayal and judicial murder of Jesus. There are critical epochs in the history of the Kingdom of God, when the power of evil, standing out in sharpest contrast, challenges that overwhelming manifestation of the Divine, as such, to bear down and crush that which opposes it. Periods of that kind are characterised by miraculous interposition of power, unique even in Bible-history. Such a period was, under the Old Testament, that of Elijah and Elisha, with its altogether exceptional series of miracles; and, under the New Testament, that after the first formulated charge of the Pharisees against the Christ.

With irresistible power the demonised was drawn to Jesus, as He touched the shore at Gerasa. As always, the first effect of the contact was a fresh paroxysm, but in this peculiar case not physical, but moral. As always also, the demons knew Jesus, and His Presence seemed to constrain their confession of themselves – and therefore of Him. As in nature the introduction of a dominant element sometimes reveals the hidden presence of others, which are either attracted or repelled by it, so the Presence of Christ obliged the manifestation, and, in the case of these evil spirits, the self-confession, of the powers of evil. In some measure it is the same still. The introduction of grace brings to light and experience sin hitherto unknown, and the new life brings consciousness of, and provokes contest with, evil within, of which the very existence had previously been unsuspected. In the present instance the immediate effect was homage, which presently manifested itself in language such as might have been expected.

Here also it must be remembered, that both the act of homage, or ‘worship,’ and the words spoken, were not the outcome either of the demonised only, nor yet of the demons only, but a combination of the two: the control of the demons being absolute over the man such as he was. Their language led to his worship; their feelings and fears appeared in his language. It was the self-confession of the demons, when obliged to come into His Presence and do homage, which made the man fall down and, in the well-known Jewish formula, recorded by the three Evangelists, say: ‘What have I to do with Thee,’ or rather, ‘What between me and Thee’ – what have we in common (mah li valakh)? Similarly, although it was consciousness of subjection and fear in His Presence, on the part of the demons, which underlay the adjuration not to inflict torment on them, yet the language itself, as the text shows, was that of the demonised, and the form in which their fear expressed itself was that of his thinking. The demons, in their hold on their victim, could not but own their inferiority, and apprehend their defeat and subjection, especially on such an occasion; and the Jew, whose consciousness was under their control – not unified, but identified with it – exclaimed: ‘I adjure Thee by God, that Thou torment me not.’

This strange mixture of the demoniac with the human, or rather, this expression of underlying demoniac thought in the forms and modes of thinking of the Jewish victim, explains the expressed fear of present actual torment, or, as Matthew, who, from the briefness of his account, does not seem to have been an eye-witness, expresses it: ‘Thou art come to torment us before the time;’ and possibly also for the ‘adjuration by God.’ For, as immediately on the homage and protestation of the demonised: ‘What between me and Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God?’ Christ had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man, it may have been, that in so doing He had used the Name of the Most High God; or else the ‘adjuration’ itself may have been the form in which the Jewish speaker clothed the consciousness of the demons, with which his own was identified.

It may be conjectured, that it was partly in order to break this identification, or rather to show the demonised that it was not real, and only the consequence of the control which the demons had over him, that the Lord asked his name. To this the man made answer, still in the dual consciousness, ‘My name is Legion: for we are many.’ Such might be the subjective motive for Christ’s question. Its objective reason may have been to show the power of the demoniac possession in the present instance, thus marking it as an altogether extreme case. The remembrance, that the answer is once more in the forms of Jewish thinking, enables us to avoid the strange notion (whether it express the opinion of some, or the difficulties of others), that the word ‘Legion’ conveys the idea of six thousand armed and strong warriors of evil. For, it was a common Jewish idea, that, under certain circumstances, ‘a legion of hurtful spirits’ (of course not in the sense of a Roman legion) ‘were on the watch for men, saying: When shall he fall into the hands of one of these things, and be taken?’

This identification of the demons with the demonised, in consequence of which he thought with their consciousness, and they spoke not only through him but in his forms of thinking, may also account for the last and most difficult part of this narrative. Their main object and wish was not to be banished from the country and people, or, as Luke puts it – again to ‘depart into the abyss.’ Let us now try to realise the scene. On the very narrow strip of shore, between the steep cliff that rises in the background and the Lake, stand Jesus with His disciples and the demonised. The wish of the demons is not to be sent out of the country – not back into the abyss. The one is the cliff overhead, the other the Lake beneath: so, symbolically, and, to the demonised, really. Up on that cliff a great herd of swine is feeding; up that cliff, therefore, is ‘into the swine;’ and this also agrees with Jewish thoughts concerning uncleanness. The rendering of our Authorised Version, that, in reply to the demoniac entreaty, ‘forthwith Jesus gave them leave,’ has led to misunderstanding. The distinction here to be made is, though narrow, yet real and important. The verb, which is the same in all the three Gospels, would be better rendered by ‘suffered’ than by ‘gave them leave.’ With the latter we associate positive permission. None such was either asked or given. The Lord suffered it – that is, He did not actually hinder it. He only said unto them, ‘Go!’

What followed belongs to the phenomena of supersensuous influences upon animals, of which many instances are recorded, but the rationale of which it is impossible to explain. How the unclean spirits could enter into the swine, is a question which cannot be entertained till we shall know more of the animal soul than is at present within our range. This, however, we can understand, that under such circumstances a panic would seize the herd, that it would madly rush down the steep on which it could not arrest itself, and so perish in the sea. And this also we can perceive, how the real object of the demons was thus attained; how they did not leave the country, when Christ was entreated to leave it.

The weird scene over which the moon had shed her ghostlike light, was past. The unearthly utterances of the demonised, the wild panic among the herd on the cliff, the mad rush down the steep, the splashing waters as the helpless animals were precipitated into the Lake – all this makes up a picture, unsurpassed for vivid, terrible realism. And now sudden silence has fallen on them. From above, the keepers of the herd had seen it all – alike what had passed with the demonised, and then the issue in the destruction of the herd. From the first, as they saw the demonised, for fear of whom ‘no man might pass that way,’ running to Jesus, they must have watched with eager interest. In the clear Eastern air not a word that was spoken could have been lost. And now in wild terror they fled, into Gerasa – into the country round about, to tell what had happened.

It is morning and a new morning-sacrifice and morning-Ps are about to be offered. He that had erst been the possession of foul and evil spirits – a very legion of them – and deprived of his human individuality, is now ‘sitting at the feet of Jesus,’ learning of Him, ‘clothed and in his right mind.’ He has been brought to God, restored to self, to reason, and to human society – and all this by Jesus, at Whose Feet he is gratefully, humbly sitting, ‘a disciple.’ Is He not then the Very Son of God? Viewing this miracle, as an historical fact, viewing it as a Parabolic Miracle, viewing it also as symbolic of what has happened in all ages – is He not the Son of the Most High God? And is there not now, on His part, in the morning-light the same calmness and majesty of conscious Almighty Power as on the evening before, when He rebuked the storm and calmed the sea?

One other point as regards the hearing of this demonism deserves special consideration. Contrary to what was commonly the case, when the evil spirits came out of the demonised, there was no paroxysm of physical distress. Was it then so, that the more complete and lasting the demoniac possession, the less of purely physical symptoms attended it?

But now from town and country have they come, who had been startled by the tidings which those who fed the swine had brought. We may contrast the scene with that of the shepherds when on Bethlehem’s plains the great revelation had come to them, and they had seen the Divine Babe laid in the manger, and had worshipped. Far other were the tidings which these herdsmen brought, and their effect. It is not necessary to suppose, that their request that Jesus would depart out of their coasts was prompted only by the loss of the herd of swine. There could be no doubt in their minds, that One possessing supreme and unlimited power was in their midst. Among men superstitious, and unwilling to submit absolutely to the Kingdom which Christ brought, there could only be one effect of what they had heard, and now witnessed in the person of the healed demonised – awe and fear! The ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,’ is the natural expression of a mind conscious of sin when brought into contact with the Divine, Whose supreme and absolute Power is realised as hostile. And this feeling would be greatly increased, in measure as the mind was under the influence of superstitious fears.

In such place and circumstances Jesus could not have continued. And, as He entered the ship, the healed demonised humbly, earnestly entreated, that he might go with his Saviour. It would have seemed to him, as if he could not bear to lose his new found happiness; as if there were calm, safety, and happiness only in His Presence; not far from Him – not among those wild mountains and yet wilder men. Why should he be driven from His fellowship, who had so long been an outcast from that of his fellow-men, and why again left to himself? So, perhaps, should we have reasoned and spoken; so too often do we reason and speak, as regards ourselves or those we love. Not so He Who appoints alike our discipline and our work. To go back, now healed, to his own, and to publish there, in the city – nay, through the whole of the large district of the ten confederate cities, the Decapolis – how great things Jesus had done for him, such was henceforth to be his life-work. In this there would be both safety and happiness.

‘And all men did marvel.’ And presently Jesus Himself came back into that Decapolis, where the healed demonised had prepared the way for Him.

(Mat_9:18-26; Mar 5:21-43; Luk 8:40-56)

There seems remarkable correspondence between the two miracles which Jesus had wrought on leaving Capernaum and those which He did on His return. In one sense they are complementary to each other. The stilling of the storm and the healing of the demonised were manifestations of the absolute power inherent in Christ – the recovery of the woman and the raising of Jairus’ daughter, evidence of the absolute efficacy of faith. The unlikeliness of dominion over the storm, and of command over a legion of demons, answers to that of recovery obtained in such a manner, and of restoration when disease had passed into actual death. Even the circumstances seem to correspond, though at opposite poles; in the one case, the Word spoken to the unconscious element, in the other the touch of the unconscious Christ; in the one case the absolute command of Christ over a world of resisting demons, in the other absolute certainty of faith as against the hostile element, of actual fact. Thus the Divine character of the Saviour appears in the absoluteness of His Omnipotence, and the Divine character of His Mission in the all-powerfulness of faith which it called forth.

On the shore at Capernaum many were gathered on the morning after the storm. It may have been, that the boats which had accompanied His had returned to friendly shelter, ere the storm had risen to full fury, and had brought anxious tidings of the storm out on the Lake. There they were gathered now in the calm morning, friends eagerly looking out for the well-known boat that bore the Master and His disciples. And as it came in sight, making again for Capernaum, the multitude also would gather in waiting for the return of Him, Whose words and deeds were indeed mysteries, but mysteries of the Kingdom. And quickly, as He again stepped on the well-known shore, was He welcomed, surrounded, soon ‘thronged,’ inconveniently pressed upon, by the crowd, eager, curious, expectant. It seemed as if they had been all ‘waiting for Him,’ and He had been away all too long for their impatience. The tidings rapidly spread, and reached two homes where His help was needed – where, indeed, it alone could now be of possible avail. The two most nearly concerned must have gone to seek that help about the same time, and prompted by the same feelings of expectancy. Both Jairus, the Ruler of the Synagogue, and the woman suffering these many years from disease, had faith. But the weakness of the one arose from excess, and threatened to merge into superstition, while the weakness of the other was due to defect, and threatened to end in despair. In both cases faith had to be called out, tried, purified, and so perfected; in both the thing sought for was, humanely speaking, unattainable, and the means employed seemingly powerless; yet, in both, the outward and inward results required were obtained through the power of Christ, and by the peculiar discipline to which, in His all-wise arranging, faith was subjected.

It sounds almost like a confession of absolute defeat, when negative critics (such as Keim) have to ground their mythical explanation of this history on the supposed symbolical meaning of what they designate as the fictitious name of the Ruler of the Synagogue – Jair, ‘he will give light’ – and when they further appeal to the correspondence between the age of the maiden and the years (twelve) during which the woman had suffered from the bloody flux. This coincidence is, indeed, so trivial as not to deserve serious notice; since there can be no conceivable connection between the age of the child and the duration of the woman’s disease, nor, indeed, between the two cases, except in this, that both appealed to Jesus. As regards the name Jairus, the supposed symbolism is inapt; while internal reasons are opposed to the hypothesis of its fictitiousness. For, it seems most unlikely that Mark and Luke would have rendered the discovery of ‘a myth’ easy by needlessly breaking the silence of Matthew, and giving the name of so well-known a person as a Synagogue-ruler of Capernaum. And this the more readily, that the name, though occurring in the Old Testament, and in the ranks of the Nationalist party in the last Jewish War, was apparently not a common one. But these are comparatively small difficulties in the way of the mythical interpretation.

Jairus, one of the Synagogue-rulers of Capernaum, had an only daughter, who at the time of this narrative had just passed childhood, and reached the period when Jewish Law declared a woman of age. Although Matthew, contracting the whole narrative into briefest summary, speaks of her as dead at the time of Jairus’ application to Jesus, the other two Evangelists, giving fuller details, describe her as on the point of death, literally, ‘at the last breath’ (in extremis). Unless her disease had been both sudden an exceedingly rapid, which is barely possible, it is difficult to understand why her father had not on the previous day applied to Jesus, if his faith had been such as is generally supposed. But if, as the whole tenour of the history shows, his faith had been only general and scarcely formed, we can account the more easily for the delay. Only in the hour of supreme need, when his only child lay dying, did he resort to Jesus. There was need to perfect such faith, on the one side into perseverance of assurance, and on the other into energy of trustfulness. The one was accomplished through the delay caused by the application of the woman, the other by the supervention of death during this interval.

There was nothing unnatural or un-Jewish in the application of this Ruler to Jesus. He must have known of the hearing of the son of the Court-official, and of the servant of the Centurion, there or in the immediate neighbourhood – as it was said, by the mere word of Christ. For there had been no imposition of silence in regard to them, even had such been possible. Yet in both cases the recovery might be ascribed by some to coincidence, by others to answer of prayer. And perhaps this may help us to understand one of the reasons for the prohibition of telling what had been done by Jesus, while in other instances silence was not enjoined. Of course, there were occasions – such as the raising of the young man at Nain and of Lazarus – when the miracle was done so publicly, that a command of this kind would have been impossible. But in other cases may this not be the line of demarcation, that silence was not enjoined when a result was achieved which, according to the notions of the time, might have been attributed to other than direct Divine Power, while in the latter cases publicity was (whenever possible) forbidden? And this for the twofold reason, that Christ’s Miracles were intended to aid, not to supersede, faith; to direct to the Person and Teaching of Christ, as that which proved the benefit to be real and Divine; not to excite the carnal Jewish expectancies of the people, but to lead in humble discipleship to the Feet of Jesus. In short, if only those were made known which would not necessarily imply Divine Power (according to Jewish notions), then would not only the distraction and tumult of popular excitement be avoided, but in each case faith in the Person of Christ be still required, ere the miracles were received as evidence of His Divine claims. And this need of faith was the main point.

That, in view of his child’s imminent death, and with the knowledge he had of the ‘mighty deeds’ commonly reported of Jesus, Jairus should have applied to Him, can the less surprise us, when we remember how often Jesus must, with consent and by invitation of this Ruler, have spoken in the Synagogue; and what irresistible impression His words had made. It is not necessary to suppose, that Jairus was among those elders of the Jews who interceded for the Centurion; the form of his present application seems rather opposed to it. But after all, there was nothing in what he said which a Jew in those days might not have spoken to a Rabbi, who was regarded as Jesus must have been by all in Capernaum who believed not the horrible charge, which the Judaean Pharisees had just raised. Though we cannot point to any instance where the laying on of a great Rabbi’s hands was sought for healing, such, combined with prayer, would certainly be in entire accordance with Jewish views at the time. The confidence in the result, expressed by the father in the accounts of Mark and Matthew, is not mentioned by Luke. And perhaps, as being the language of an Eastern, it should not be taken in its strict literality as indicating actual conviction on the part of Jairus, that, the laying on of Christ’s Hands would certainly restore the maiden.

Be this as it may, when Jesus followed the Ruler to his house, the multitude ‘thronging Him’ in eager curiosity, another approached Him from out that crowd, whose inner history was far different from that of Jairus. The disease from which this woman had suffered for twelve years would render her Levitically ‘unclean.’ It must have been not unfrequent in Palestine, and proved as intractable as modern science has found it, to judge by the number and variety of remedies prescribed, and by their character. On one leaf of the Talmud not less than eleven different remedies are proposed, of which at most only six can possibly be regarded as astringents or tonics, while the rest are merely the outcome of superstition, to which resort is had in the absence of knowledge. But what possesses real interest is, that, in all cases where astringents or tonics are prescribed, it is ordered, that, while the woman takes the remedy, she is to be addressed in the words: ‘Arise (qum) from thy flux.’ It is not only that psychical means are apparently to accompany the therapeutical in this disease, but the coincidence in the command, Arise (qum), with the words used by Christ in raising Jairus’ daughter is striking. But here also we mark only contrast to the magical cures of the Rabbis. For Jesus neither used remedies, nor spoke the word qum to her who had come ‘in the press behind’ to touch for her healing ‘the fringe of His outer garment.’

As this is almost the only occasion on which we can obtain a glimpse of Christ’s outward appearance and garb, it may be well to form such accurate conception of it, as is afforded by a knowledge of the dress of the ancient Hebrews. The Rabbis laid it down as a rule, that the learned ought to be most careful in their dress. It was a disgrace if a scholar walked abroad with clouted shoes; to wear dirty clothes deserved death; for ‘the glory of God was man, and the glory of man was his dress.’ This held specially true of the Rabbi, whose appearance might otherwise reflect on the theological profession. It was the general rule to eat and drink below (or else according to) a man’s means, but to dress and lodge above them.  For, in these four things a man’s character might be learned: at his cups, in money matters, when he was angry, and by his ragged dress. Nay, ‘The clothing of the wife of a ḥaḇer (learned associate) is of greater importance than the life of the ignorant (rustic), for the sake of the dignity of the learned.’ Accordingly, the Rabbis were wont to wear such dress by which they might be distinguished. At a later period they seem at their ordination to have been occasionally arrayed in a mantle of gold-stuff. Perhaps a distinctive garment, most likely a head-gear, was worn, even by ‘rulers’ (‘the elder, זקן), at their ordination. The Palestinian nasi, or President of the Sanhedrin, also had a distinctive dress, and the head of the Jewish community in Babylon a distinctive girdle. 

In referring to the dress which may on a Sabbath be saved from a burning house – not, indeed, by carrying it, but by successively putting it on, no fewer than eighteen articles are mentioned. If the meaning of all the terms could be accurately ascertained, we should know precisely what the Jews in the second century, and presumably earlier, wore, from the shoes and stockings on their feet to the gloves on their hands. Unfortunately, many of these designations are in dispute. Nor must it be thought that, because there are eighteen names, the dress of an Israelite consisted of so many separate pieces. Several of them apply to different shapes or kinds of the same under or upper garments, while the list indicates their extreme number and variety rather than the ordinary dress worn. The latter consisted, to judge by the directions given for undressing and dressing in the bathroom, of six, or perhaps more generally, of five articles: the shoes, the head-covering, the or upper cloak, the girdle, the ḥaluq or under-dress, and the Ap̱qarsin or innermost covering. As regarded shoes, a man should sell his very roof-tree for them, although he might have to part with them for food, if he were in a weak condition through blood-letting. But it was not the practice to provide more than one pair of shoes, and to this may have referred the injunction of Christ to the Apostles not to provide shoes for their journey, or else to the well-known distinction between shoes (manalim) and sandals (sandalim). The former, which were sometimes made of very coarse material, covered the whole foot, and were specially intended for winter or rainy weather; while the sandals, which only protected the soles and sides of the feet, were specially for summer use.

In regard to the covering of the head, it was deemed a mark of disrespect to walk abroad, or to pass a person, with bared head. Slaves covered their heads in presence of their masters, and the Targum Onkelos indicates Israel’s freedom by paraphrasing the expression they ‘went out with a high hand’ by ‘with uncovered head.’ The ordinary covering of the head was the so-called sudar (or sudarium), a kerchief twisted into a turban, and which might also be worn round the neck. A kind of hat was also in use, either of light material or of felt (Ap̱ilyon shel rosh, or p̱ilyon). The sudar was twisted by Rabbis in a peculiar manner to distinguish them from others. We read besides of a sort of cap or hood attached to some kinds of outer or of inner garments.

Three, or else four articles commonly constituted the dress of the body. First came the under-garment, commonly the ḥaluq or the kituna (the Biblical keṯoneṯ), from which latter some have derived the word ‘cotton.’ The ḥaluq might be of linen or of wool. The sages wore it down to the feet. It was covered by the upper garment or taliṯ to within about a handbreadth. The ḥaluq lay close to the body, and had no other opening than that round the neck and for the arms. At the bottom it had a kind of hem. To possess only one such ‘coat’ or inner garment was a mark of poverty. Hence, when the Apostles were sent on their temporary mission, they were directed not to take ‘two coats.’ Closely similar to, if not identical with, the ḥaluq, was the ancient garment mentioned in the Old Testament as keṯoneṯ, to which the Greek ‘Chiton’ (χιτών) corresponds. As the garment which our Lord wore,  and those of which He spoke to His Apostles are designated by that name, we conclude that it represents the well-known keṯoneṯ or Rabbinic kituna. This might be of almost any material, even leather, though it was generally of wool or flax. It was sleeved, close-fitting, reached to the ankles, and was fastened round the loins, or just under the breast, by a girdle. One kind of the latter, the pundah or Ap̱undah, was provided with pockets or other receptacles, and hence might not be worn outside by those who went into the Temple, probably to indicate that he who went to worship should not be engaged in, nor bear mark of, any other occupation.

 Of the two other garments mentioned as parts of a man’s toilette, the Ap̱qarsin or Ap̱ikarsus seems to have been an article of luxury rather than of necessity. Its precise purpose is difficult to determine. A comparison of the passages in which the term occurs conveys the impression, that it was a large kerchief used partly as a head-gear, and which hung down and was fastened under the right arm.  Probably it was also used for the upper part of the body. But the circumstance that, unlike the other articles of dress, it need not be rent in mourning, and that, when worn by females, it was regarded as a mark of wealth, shows that it was not a necessary article of dress, and hence that, in all likelihood, it was not worn by Christ. It was otherwise with the upper garment. Various shapes and kinds of such were in use, from the coarser boresin and bardesin – the modern Burnoose – upwards. The gelima was a cloak of which ‘the border,’ or ‘hem,’ is specially mentioned (שיּפּולי גלימא) The gunda was a peculiarly Pharisaic garb. But the upper garment which Jesus wore would be either the so-called golṯa, or, most likely, the taliṯ. Both the Goltha and the taliṯ  were provided, on the four borders, with the so-called ṣiṣiṯ, or ‘fringes.’ These were attached to the four corners of the outer dress, in supposed fulfilment of the command, Num_15:38-41; Deu_22:12. At first, this observance seems to have been comparatively simple. The question as to the number of filaments on these fringes’ was settled in accordance with the teaching of the School of Shammai. Four filaments (not three, as the Hillelites proposed), each of four finger-lengths (these, as later tradition put it, doubled), and attached to the four corners of what must be a strictly square garment – such were the earliest rules on the subject. The Mishnah leaves it still a comparatively open question, whether these filaments were to be blue or white. But the Targum makes a strong point of it as between Moses and Korah, that there was to be a filament of hyacinth colour among four of white. It seems even to imply the peculiar symbolical mode of knotting them at present in use. Further symbolic details were, of course, added in the course of time. As these fringes were attached to the corners of any square garment, the question, whether the upper garment which Jesus wore was the golṯa or the taliṯ, is of secondary importance. But as all that concerns His Sacred Person is of deepest interest, we may be allowed to state our belief in favour of the taliṯ. Both are mentioned as distinctive dresses of teachers, but the golṯa̱ (so far as it differed from the taliṯ) seems the more peculiarly Rabbinic.

We can now form an approximate idea of the outward appearance of Jesus on that spring-morning amidst the throng at Capernaum. He would, we may safely assume, go about in the ordinary, although not in the more ostentatious, dress, worn by the Jewish teachers of Galilee. His head-gear would probably be the sudar (Sudarium) wound into a kind of turban, or perhaps the maap̱oreṯ, which seems to have served as a covering for the head, and to have descended over the back of the neck and shoulders, somewhat like the Indian pugaree. His feet were probably shod with sandals. The ḥaluq, or more probably the kituna, which formed his inner garment, must have been close-fitting, and descended to His feet, since it was not only so worn by teachers, but was regarded as absolutely necessary for any one who would publicly read or ‘Targum’ the Scriptures, or exercise any function in the Synagogue. As we know, it ‘was without seam, woven from the top throughout;’ and this closely accords with the texture of these garments. Round the middle it would be fastened with a girdle. Over this inner, He would most probably wear the square outer garment, or taliṯ, with the customary fringes of four long white threads with one of hyacinth knotted together on each of the four corners. There is reason to believe, that three square garments were made with these ‘fringes,’ although, by way of ostentation, the Pharisees made them particularly wide so as to attract attention, just as they made their phylacteries broad. Although Christ only denounced the latter practice, not the phylacteries themselves, it is impossible to believe that Himself ever wore them, either on the forehead or the arm. There was certainly no warrant for them in Holy Scripture, and only Pharisee externalism could represent their use as fulfilling the import of Exo_13:9, Exo_13:16; Deu_6:8; Deu_11:18. The admission that neither the officiating priests, nor the representatives of the people, wore them in the Temple, seems to imply that this practice was not quite universal. For our part, we refuse to believe that Jesus, like the Pharisees, appeared wearing phylacteries every day and all day long, or at least a great part of the day. For such was the ancient custom, and not merely, as the modern practice, to wear them only at prayer.

One further remark may be allowed before dismissing this subject. Our inquiries enable us in this matter also to confirm the accuracy of the Fourth Gospel. We read that the quaternion of soldiers who crucified Christ made division of the riches of His poverty, taking each one part of His dress, while for the fifth, which, if divided, would have had to be rent in pieces, they cast lots. This incidental remark carries evidence of the Judaean authorship of the Gospel in the accurate knowledge which it displays. The four pieces of dress to be divided would be the head-gear, the more expensive sandals or shoes, the long girdle, and the coarse taliṯ – all about equal in value. And the fifth undivided and, comparatively, most expensive garment ‘without seam, woven from the top throughout,’ probably of wool, as befitted the season of the year, was the kituna, or inner garment. How strange, that, what would have been of such priceless value to Christendom, should have been divided as the poor booty of a rough, unappreciative soldiery! Yet how well for us, since not even the sternest warning could have kept within the bounds of mere reverence the veneration with which we should have viewed and handled that which He wore, Who died for us on the Cross.

Can we, then, wonder that this Jewish woman, ‘having heard the things concerning Jesus,’ with her imperfect knowledge, in the weakness of her strong faith, thought that, if she might but touch His garment, she would be made whole? It is but what we ourselves might think, if He were still walking on earth among men: it is but what, in some form or other, we still feel when in the weakness – the rebound or diastole – of our faith it seems to us, as if the want of this touch in not outwardly-perceived help or Presence left us miserable and sick, while even one real touch, if it were only of His garment, one real act of contact, however mediate, would bring us perfect healing. And in some sense it really is so. For, assuredly, the Lord cannot be touched by disease and misery, without healing coming from Him, for He is the God-Man. And He is also the loving, pitying Saviour. Who disdains not, nor turns from our weakness in the manifestation of our faith, even as He turned not from hers who touched His garment for her healing.

We can picture her to our minds as, mingling with those who thronged and pressed upon the Lord, she put forth her hand and ‘touched the border of His garment,’ most probably the long ṣiṣiṯ of one of the corners of the taliṯ. We can understand how, with a disease which not only rendered her Levitically defiling, but where womanly shamefacedness would make public speech so difficult, she, thinking of Him Whose Word, spoken at a distance, had brought healing, might thus seek to have her heart’s desire. What strong faith to expect help where all human help, so long and earnestly sought, had so signally failed! And what strong faith to expect, that even contact with Him, the bare touch of His garment, would carry such Divine Power as to make her ‘whole.’ Yet in this very strength lay also its weakness. She believed so much in Him, that she felt as if it needed not personal appeal to Him; she felt so deeply the hindrances to her making request of Himself, that, believing so strongly in Him, she deemed it sufficient to touch, not even Himself, but that which in itself had no power nor value, except as it was in contact with His Divine Person. But it is here that her faith was beset by two-fold danger. In its excess it might degenerate into superstition, as trees in their vigour put forth shoots, which, unless they be cut off, will prevent the fruit-bearing, and even exhaust the life of the tree. Not the garments in which He appeared among men, and which touched His Sacred Body, nor even that Body, but Himself brings healing. Again, there was the danger of losing sight of that which, as the moral element, is necessary in faith: personal application to, and personal contact with, Christ.

And so it is to us also. As we realise the Mystery of the Incarnation, His love towards, and His Presence with, His own, and the Divine Power of the Christ, we cannot think too highly of all that is, or brings, in contact with Him. The Church, the Sacraments, the Apostolic Ministry of His Institution-in a word, the grand historic Church, which is alike His Dwelling-place, His Witness, and His Representative on earth, ever since He instituted it, endowed it with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and hallowed it by the fulfilled promise of His Eternal Presence, is to us what the garment He wore was to her who touched Him. We shall think highly of all this in measure as we consciously think highly of Him. His Bride the Church; the Sacraments which are the fellowship of His Body and Blood, of His Crucifixion an Resurrection; the Ministry and Embassy of Him, committed to the Apostles, and ever since continued with such direction and promise, cannot be of secondary importance – must be very real and full of power, since they are so connected, and bring us into such connection with Him: the spirituo-physical points of contact between Him, Who is the God-man, and those who, being men, are also the children of God. Yet in this strength of our faith may also lie its danger if not its weakness. Through excess it may pass into superstition, which is the attachment of power to anything other than the Living God; or else, in the consciousness of our great disease, want of courage might deprive faith of its moral element in personal dealing and personal contact with Christ.

Very significantly to us who, in our foolish judging and merciless condemning of one another, ever reenacted the Parable of the Two Debtors, the Lord did not, as Pseudo-orthodoxy would prescribe it, disappoint her faith for the weakness of its manifestation. To have disappointed her faith, which was born of such high thoughts of Him, would have been to deny Himself – and he cannot deny Himself. But very significantly, also, while He disappointed not her faith, He corrected the error of its direction and manifestation. And to this His subsequent bearing toward her was directed. No sooner had she so touched the border of His garment than ‘she knew in the body that she was healed of the scourge.’ No sooner, also, had she so touched the border of His garment than He knew, ‘perceived in Himself,’ what had taken place: the forthgoing of the Power that is from out of Him.

Taking this narrative in its true literality, there is no reason to overweight and mar it by adding what is not conveyed in the text. There is nothing in the language of Mark (as correctly rendered), nor of Luke, to oblige us to conclude that this forthgoing of Power, which He perceived in Himself, had been through an act, of the full meaning of which Christ was unconscious – in other words, that He was ignorant of the person who, and the reason why, she Had touched Him. In short, ‘the forthgoing of the Power that is out of Him’ was neither unconscious nor unwilled on His part. It was caused by her faith, not by her touch. ‘Thy faith hath made thee whole.’ And the question of Jesus could not have been misleading, when ‘straightway’ He ‘turned Him about in the crowd and said, Who touched My garments?’ That He knew who had done it, and only wished, through self-confession, to bring her to clearness in the exercise of her faith, appears from what is immediately added: ‘And He looked round about,’ not to see who had done it, but ‘to see her that had done this thing.’ And as His look of unspoken appeal was at last fixed on her alone in all that crowd, which, as Peter rightly said, was thronging and pressing Him, ‘the woman saw that she was not hid,’ and came forward to make full confession. Thus, while in His mercy He had borne with her weakness, and in His faithfulness not disappointed her faith, its twofold error was also corrected. She learned that it was not from the garment, but from the Saviour, that the Power proceeded; she learned also, that it was not the touch of it, but the faith in Him, that made whole – and such faith must ever be of personal dealing with Him. And so He spoke to her the Word of twofold help and assurance: ‘Thy faith hath made thee whole – go forth into peace, and be healed of thy scourge.’

Brief as is the record of this occurrence, it must have caused considerable delay in the progress of our Lord to the house of Jairus. For in the interval the maiden, who had been at the last gasp when her father went to entreat the help of Jesus, had not only died, but the house of mourning was already filled with relatives, hired mourners, wailing women, and musicians, in preparation for the funeral. The intentional delay of Jesus when summoned to Lazarus leads us to ask, whether similar purpose may not have influenced His conduct in the present instance. But even were it otherwise, no outcome of God’s Providence is of chance, but each is designed. The circumstances, which in their concurrence make up an event, may all be of natural occurrence, but their conjunction is of Divine ordering and to a higher purpose, and this constitutes Divine Providence. It was in the interval of this delay that the messengers came, who informed Jairus of the actual death of his child. Jesus overheard it, as they whispered to the Ruler not to trouble the Rabbi any further, but He heeded it not, save so far as it affected the father. The emphatic admonition, not to fear, only to believe, gives us an insight into the threatening failure of the Ruler’s faith; perhaps, also, into the motive which prompted the delay of Christ. The utmost need, which would henceforth require the utmost faith on the part of Jairus had now come. But into that, which was to pass within the house, no stranger must intrude. Even of the Apostles only those, who now for the first time became, and henceforth continued, the innermost circle, might witness, without present danger to themselves or others, what was about to take place. How Jesus dismissed the multitude, or else kept them at bay, or where He parted from all his disciples except Peter, James, and John, does not clearly appear, and, indeed, is of no importance. He may have left the nine Apostles with the people, or outside the house, or parted from them in the courtyard of Jairus’ house before he entered the inner apartments.

Within, ‘the tumult’ and weeping, the wail of the mourners, real or hired, and the melancholy sound of the mourning flutes – sad preparation for, and pageantry of, an Eastern funeral – broke with dismal discord on the majestic calm of assured victory over death, with which Jesus had entered the house of mourning. But even so He would tell it them, as so often in like circumstances He tells it to us, that the damsel was not dead, but only sleeping. The Rabbis also frequently have the expression ‘to sleep’ (demakh דמך, or דמוך, when the sleep is overpowering and oppressive), instead of ‘to die.’ It may well have been that Jesus made use of this word of double meaning in some such manner as this:talyeṯa dimkhaṯ, ‘the maiden sleepeth.’ And they understood Him well in their own way, yet understood Him not at all.

As so many of those who now hear this word, they to whom it was then spoken, in their coarse realism, laughed Him to scorn. For did they not verily know that she had actually died, even before the messengers had been dispatched to prevent the needless trouble of His coming? Yet even this their scorn served a higher purpose. For it showed these two things: that to the certain belief of those in the house the maiden was really dead, and that the Gospel-writers regarded the raising of the dead as not only beyond the ordinary range of Messianic activity, but as something miraculous even among the miracles of Christ. And this also is evidential, at least so far as to prove that the writers recorded the event not lightly, but with full knowledge of the demand which it makes on our faith.

The first thing to be done by Christ was to ‘put out’ the mourners, whose proper place this house no longer was, and who by their conduct had proved themselves unfit to be witnesses of Christ’s great manifestation. The impression which the narrative leaves on the mind is, that all this while the father of the maiden was stupefied, passive, rather than active in the matter. The great fear, which had come upon him when the messengers apprised him of his only child’s death, seemed still to numb his faith. He followed Christ without taking any part in what happened; he witnessed the pageantry of the approaching obsequies in his house without interfering; he heard the scorn which Christ’s majestic declaration of the victory over death provoked, without checking it. The fire of his faith was that of ‘dimly burning flax.’ But ‘He will not quench’ it.

He now led the father and the mother into the chamber where the dead maiden lay, followed by the three Apostles, witnesses of His chiefest working and of His utmost earthly glory, but also of His inmost sufferings. Without doubt or hesitation He took her by the hand and spoke only these two words:talyeṯa qum [kum] (טַלְיְתָא קוּם), Maiden, arise! ‘And straightway the damsel arose.’ But the great astonishment which came upon them, as well as the ‘strait charge’ that no man should know it, are further evidence, if such were required, how little their faith had been prepared for that which in its weakness was granted to it. And thus Jesus, as He had formerly corrected in the woman that weakness of faith which came through very excess, so now in the Ruler of the Synagogue the weakness which was by failure. And so ‘He hath done all things well: He maketh even the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.’

How Jesus conveyed Himself away, whether through another entrance into the house, or by ‘the road of the roofs,’ we are not told. But assuredly, He must have avoided the multitude. Presently we find Him far from Capernaum. Probably He had left it immediately on quitting the house of Jairus. But what of that multitude? The tidings must have speedily reached them, that the daughter of the Synagogue-Ruler was not dead. Yet it had been straitly charged that none of them should be informed, how it had come to pass that she lived. They were then with this intended mystery before them. She was not dead: thus much was certain. The Christ had, ere leaving that chamber, given command that meat should be brought her; and, as that direction must have been carried out by one of the attendants, this would become immediately known to all that household. Had she then not really died, but only been sleeping? Did Christ’s words of double meaning refer to literal sleep? Here then was another Parable of twofold different bearing: to them that had hearts to understand, and to them who understood not. In any case, their former scorn had been misplaced; in any case, the Teacher of Nazareth was far other than all the Rabbis. In what Name, and by what Power, did He come and act? Who was He really? Had they but known of the ‘talyeṯa qum,’ and how these two words had burst open the two-leaved doors of death and Hades! Nay, but it would have only ended in utter excitement and complete misunderstanding, to the final impossibility of the carrying out of Christ’s Mission. For, the full as well as the true knowledge, that He was the Son of God, could only come after His contest and suffering. And our faith also in Him is first of the suffering Saviour, and then of the Son of God. Thus was it also from the first. It was through what He did for them that they learned Who He was. Had it been otherwise, the full blaze of the Sun’s glory would have so dazzled them, that they could not have seen the Cross.

Yet to all time has this question engaged the minds of men: Was the maiden really dead, or did she only sleep? With it this other and kindred one is connected: Was the healing of the woman miraculous, or only caused by the influence of mind over body, such as is not unfrequently witnessed, and such as explains modern so-called miraculous cures, where only superstition perceives supernatural agency? But these very words ‘Influence of mind over body,’ with which we are so familiar, are they not, so to speak, symbolic and typical? Do they not point to the possibility, and, beyond it, to the fact of such influence of the God-Man, of the command which he wielded over the body? May not command of soul over body be part of unfallen Man’s original inheritance; all most fully realised in the Perfect Man, the God-Man, to Whom has been given the absolute rule of all things, and Who has it in virtue of His Nature? These are only dim feelings after possible higher truths.

No one who carefully reads this history can doubt, that the Evangelists, at least, viewed this healing as a real miracle, and intended to tell it as such. Even the statement of Christ, that by the forthgoing of Power He knew the moment when the woman touched the hem of His garment, would render impossible the view of certain critics (Keim and others), that the cure was the effect of natural causes: expectation acting through the imagination on the nervous system, and so producing the physical results. But even so, and while these writers reiterate certain old cavils propounded by Strauss, and by him often derived from the ancient armoury of our own Deists (such as Woolston), they admit being so impressed with the ‘simple,’ ‘natural,’ and ‘life-like’ cast of the narrative, that they contend for its historic truth. But the great leader of negativism, Strauss, has shown that any natural explanation of the event is opposed to the whole tenour of the narrative, indeed of the Gospel-history; so that the alternative is its simple acceptance or its rejection. Strauss boldly decides for the latter, but in so doing is met by the obvious objection, that his denial does not rest on any historical foundation. We can understand, how a legend could gather around historical facts and embellish them, but not how a narrative so entirely without precedent in the Old Testament, and so opposed, not only to the common Messianic expectation, but to Jewish thought, could have been invented to glorify a Jewish Messiah.

As regards the restoration to life of Jairus’ daughter, there is a like difference in the negative school (between Keim and Strauss). One party insists that the maiden only seemed, but was not really dead, a view open also to this objection, that it is manifestly impossible by such devices to account for the raising of the young man at Nain, or that of Lazarus. On the other hand, Strauss treats the whole as a myth. It is well, that in this case, he should have condescended to argument in support of his view, appealing to the expectancy created by like miracles of Elijah and Elisha, and to the general belief at that time, that the Messiah would raise the dead. For, the admitted differences between the recorded circumstances of the miracles of Elijah and Elisha and those of Christ are so great, that another negative critic (Keim) finds proof of imitation in their contrasts! But the appeal to Jewish belief at that time tells, if possible, even more strongly against the hypothesis in question (of Keim and Strauss). It is, to say the least, doubtful whether Jewish theology generally ascribed to the Messiah the raising of the dead. There are isolated statements to that effect, but the majority of opinions is, that God would Himself raise the dead. But even those passages in which this is attributed to the Messiah tell against the assertions of Strauss. For, the resurrection to which they refer is that of all the dead (whether at the end of the present age, or of the world), and not of single individuals. To the latter there is not the faintest allusion in Jewish writings, and it may be safely asserted that such a dogma would have been foreign, even incongruous, to Jewish theology.

The unpleasant task of stating and refuting these objections seemed necessary, if only to show that, as of old so now, this history cannot be either explained or accounted for. It must be accepted or rejected, accordingly as we think of Christ. Admittedly, it formed part of the original tradition and belief of the Church. And it is recorded with such details of names, circumstances, time and place, as almost to court inquiry, and to render fraud well-nigh impossible. And it is so recorded by all the three Evangelists, with such variations, or rather, additions, of details as only to confirm the credibility of the narrators, by showing their independence of each other. Lastly, it fits into the whole history of the Christ, and into this special period of it; and it sets before us the Christ and His bearing in a manner, which we instinctively feel to be accordant with what we know and expect. Assuredly, it implies determined rejection of the claims of the Christ, and that on grounds, not of history, but of preconceived opinions hostile to the Gospel, not to see and adore in it the full manifestation of the Divine Saviour of the world, ‘Who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.’ And with this belief our highest thoughts of the potential for humanity, and our dearest hopes for ourselves and those we love, are inseparably connected.

(Mat_13:54-58; Mat_10:1, 5-42; Mat_11:1; Mar_6:1-13; Luk_9:1-6)

It almost seems, as if the departure of Jesus from Capernaum marked a crisis in the history of that town. From henceforth it ceases to be the centre of His activity, and is only occasionally, and in passing, visited. Indeed, the concentration and growing power of Pharisaic opposition, and the proximity of Herod’s residence at Tiberias would have rendered a permanent stay there impossible at this stage in our Lord’s history. Henceforth, His Life is, indeed, not purely missionary, but He has no certain dwelling-place: in the sublime pathos of His own language, ‘He hath not where to lay His Head.’

The notice in Mark’s Gospel, that His disciples followed Him, seems to connect the arrival of Jesus in ‘His own country’ (at Nazareth) with the departure from the house of Jairus, into which He had allowed only three of His Apostles to accompany Him. The circumstances of the present visit, as well as the tone of His countrymen at this time, are entirely different from what is recorded of His former sojourn at Nazareth.  The tenacious narrowness, and the prejudices, so characteristic of such a town, with its cliques and petty family-pride, all the more self-asserting that the gradation would be almost imperceptible to an outsider, are, of course, the same as on the former visit of Jesus. Nazareth would have ceased to be Nazareth, had its people felt or spoken otherwise than nine or ten months before. That His fame had so grown in the interval, would only stimulate the conceit of the village-town to try, as it were, to construct the great Prophet out of its own building materials, with this additional gratification that He was thoroughly their own, and that they possessed even better materials in their Nazareth. All this is so quite according to life, that the substantial repetition of the former scene in the Synagogue, so far from surprising us, seems only natural. What surprises us is, what He marvelled at: the unbelief of Nazareth, which lay at the foundation of its estimate and treatment of Jesus.

Upon their own showing their unbelief was most unwarrantable. If ever men had the means of testing the claims of Jesus, the Nazarenes possessed them. True, they were ignorant of the miraculous event of His Incarnation; and we can now perceive at least one of the reasons for the mystery, which was allowed to enwrap it, as well as the higher purpose in Divine Providence of His being born, not in Nazareth, but in Bethlehem of Judaea, and of the interval of time between that Birth and the return of His parents from Egypt to Nazareth. Apart from prophecy, it was needful for Nazareth that Christ should have been born in Bethlehem, otherwise the ‘mystery of His Incarnation’ must have become known. And yet it could not have been made known, alike for the sake of those most nearly concerned, and for that of those who, at that period of His History, could not have understood it; to whom, indeed, it would have been an absolute hindrance to belief in Him. And He could not have returned to Bethlehem, where He was born, to be brought up there, without calling attention to the miracle of His Birth. If, therefore, for reasons easily comprehended, the mystery of His Incarnation was not to be divulged, it was needful that the Incarnate of Nazareth should be born at Bethlehem, and the Infant of Bethlehem be brought up at Nazareth.

By thus withdrawing Him successively from one and the other place, there was really none on earth who knew of His miraculous Birth, except the Virgin-Mother, Joseph, Elizabeth, and probably Zacharias. The vision and guidance vouchsafed to the shepherds on that December night did not really disclose the mystery of His Incarnation. Remembering their religious notions, it would not leave on them quite the same impression as on us. It might mean much, or it might mean little, in the present: time would tell. In those lands the sand buries quickly and buries deep-preserving, indeed, but also hiding what it covers. And the sands of thirty years had buried the tale which the shepherds had brought; the wise men from the East had returned another way; the excitement which their arrival in Jerusalem and its object had caused, was long forgotten. Messianic expectations and movements were of constant recurrence: the religious atmosphere seemed charged with such elements; and the political changes and events of the day were too engrossing to allow of much attention to an isolated report, which, after all, might, mean little, and which certainly was of the long past. To keep up attention, there must be communication; and that was precisely what was wanting in this instance. The reign of Herod was tarnished by many suspicions and murders such as those of Bethlehem. Then intervened the death of Herod, – while the carrying of Jesus into Egypt and His non-return to Bethlehem formed a complete break in the continuity of His History. Between obscure, Bethlehem in the far south, and obscure Nazareth in the far north, there was no communication such as between towns in our own land, and they who had sought the Child’s life, as well as they who might have worshipped Him, must have been dead. The aged parents of the Baptist cannot have survived the thirty years which lay between the Birth of Christ and the commencement of His Ministry. We have already seen reason for supposing that Joseph had died before. None, therefore, knew all except the Virgin-Mother; and she would bide it the deeper in her heart, the more years passed, and she increasingly felt, as they passed, that, both in His early obscurity and in His later manifestation, she could not penetrate into the real meaning of that mystery, with which she was so closely connected. She could not understand it; how dated she speak of it? She could not understand; nay, we can almost perceive, how she might even misunderstand – not the fact, but the meaning and the purport of what had passed.

But in Nazareth they knew nothing of all this; and of Him only as that Infant Whom His parents, Joseph the carpenter and Mary, had brought with them months after they had first left Nazareth. Jewish law and custom made it possible, that they might have been married long before. And now they only know of this humble family, that they lived in retirement, and that sons and daughters had grown around their humble board. Of Jesus, indeed, they must have heard that He was not like others around – so quite different in all ways, as He grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. Then came that strange tarrying behind on His first visit to Jerusalem, when His parents had to return to seek, and at last found Him in the Temple. This, also, was only strange, though perhaps not strange in a child such as Jesus; and of His own explanation of it, so full of deepest meaning, they might not have heard. If we may draw probable, though not certain, inferences, after that only these three outward circumstances in the history of the family might have been generally noticed: that Jesus followed the occupation of His adoptive father; that Joseph had died; and that the mother and ‘brethren’ of Jesus had left Nazareth, while His ‘sisters’ apparently continued there, being probably married to Nazarenes.

When Jesus had first left Nazareth to seek Baptism at the hands of John, it could scarcely have attracted much attention. Not only did ‘the whole world’ go after the Baptist, but, considering what was known of Jesus, His absence from, not His presence at the banks of Jordan, would have surprised the Nazarenes. Then came vague reports of His early doings, and, what probably His countrymen would much more appreciate, the accounts which the Galileans brought back from the Feast of what Jesus had done at Jerusalem. His fame had preceded Him on that memorable Sabbath, when all Nazareth had thronged the Synagogue, curious to hear what the Child of Nazareth would have to say, and still more eager to see what He could do. Of the charm of His words there could be no question. Both what He said and how He said it, was quite other than what they had ever listened to. The difference was not in degree, but in kind: He spoke to them of the Kingdom; yet not as for Israel’s glory, but for unspeakable comfort in the soul’s deepest need. It was truly wonderful, and that not abstractly, but as on the part of ‘Joseph’s Son.’ That was all they perceived. Of that which they had most come to see there was, and could be, no manifestation, so long as they measured the Prophet by His outward antecedents, forgetful that it was inward kinship of faith, which connected Him that brought the blessing with those who received it.

But this seeming assumption of superiority on the part of Joseph’s Son was quite too much for the better classes of Nazareth. It was intolerable, that He should not only claim equality with an Elijah or an Elisha, but place them, the burghers of Nazareth, as it were, outside the pale of Israel, below a heathen man or woman. And so, if He had not, without the show of it, proved the authority and power He possessed, they would have cast Him headlong over the ledge of the hill of their insulted town. And now He had come back to them, after nine or ten months, in totally different circumstances. No one could any longer question His claims, whether for good or for evil. As on the Sabbath He stood up once more in that Synagogue to teach, they were astonished. The rumour must have spread that, notwithstanding all, His own kin – probably His ‘sisters,’ whom He might have been supposed by many to have come to visit – did not own and honour Him as a Prophet. Or else, had they of His own house purposely spread it, so as not to be involved in His Fate? But the astonishment with which they heard Him on that Sabbath was that of unbelief. The cause was so apparently inadequate to the effect! They knew His supposed parentage and His brothers; His sisters were still with them; and for these many years had they known Him as the carpenter, the son of the carpenter. Whence, then, had ‘this One,’ ‘these things,’ ‘and what the wisdom which’ was ‘given to this One’ – and these mighty works done by His Hands?’ It was, indeed, more than a difficulty – an impossibility – to account for it on their principles. There could be no delusion, no collusion, no deception. In our modern cant-phraseology, theirs might have been designated Agnosticism and philosophic doubt. But philosophic it certainly was not, any more than much that now passes, because it bears that name; at least, if, according to modern negative criticism, the inexplicable is also the unthinkable. Nor was it really doubt or Agnosticism, any more than much that now covers itself with that garb. It was, what Christ designated it – unbelief, since the questions would have been easily answered – indeed, never have arisen – had they believed that He was the Christ. And the same alternative still holds true. If ‘this One’ is what negative criticism declares Him, which is all that it can know of Him by the outside: the Son of Mary, the Carpenter and Son of the carpenter of Nazareth, Whose family occupied the humblest position among Galileans – then whence this wisdom which, say of it what you will, underlies all modern thinking, and these mighty works, which have moulded all modern history? Whence – if He be only what you can see by the outside, and yet His be such wisdom, and such mighty deeds have been wrought by His Hands? Is He only what you say and see, seeing that such results are noways explicable on such principles; or is He not much more than this – even the Christ of God?

‘And He marvelled because of their unbelief.’ In view of their own reasoning it was most unreasonable. And equally unreasonable is modern unbelief. For, the more strongly negative criticism asserts its position as to the Person of Jesus, the more unaccountable are His Teaching and the results of His Work.

In such circumstances as at Nazareth, nothing could be done by a Christ, in contradistinction to a miracle-monger. It would have been impossible to have finally given up His own town of Nazareth without one further appeal and one further opportunity of repentance. As He had begun, so He closed this part of His Galilean Ministry, by preaching in His own Synagogue of Nazareth. Save in the case of a few who were receptive, on whom He laid His Hands for healing, His visit passed away without such ‘mighty works’ as the Nazarenes had heard of. He will not return again to Nazareth. Henceforth He will make commencement of sending forth His disciples, partly to disarm prejudices of a personal character, partly to spread the Gospel-tidings farther and wider than he alone could have carried them. For His Heart compassionated the many who were ignorant and out of the way. And the harvest was near, and the harvesting was great, and it was His Harvest, into which He would send forth labourers.

For, although, in all likelihood, the words, from which quotation has just been made, were spoken at a later time, they are so entirely in the spirit of the present Mission of the Twelve, that they, or words to a similar effect, may also have been uttered on the present occasion. Of such seeming repetitions, when the circumstances were analogous, although sometimes with different application of the same many-sided words, there are not a few instances, of which one will presently come under notice. Truly those to whom the Twelve were sent forth were ‘troubled’ as well as ‘scattered,’ like sheep that have not a Shepherd, and it was to deliver them from the ‘distress’ caused by ‘grievous wolves,’ and to gather into His fold those that had been scattered abroad, that Jesus sent forth the Twelve with the special commission to which attention will now be directed. Viewing it in its fullest form, it is to be noted: – 

First: That this Discourse of Christ consists of five parts: Mat_10:5-15; Mat_10:16-23; Mat_10:24-33; Mat_10:34-39; Mat_10:40 to the end.

Secondly: That many passages in it occur in different connections in the other two Synoptic Gospels, specially in Mark 13 and in Lk 12 and Lk 21. From this it may be inferred, either that Jesus spake the same or similar words on more than one occasion (when the circumstances were analogous), or else that Matthew grouped together into one Discourse, as being internally connected, sayings that may have been spoken on different occasions. Or else – and this seems to us the most likely – both these inferences may in part be correct. For,

Thirdly: It is evident, that the Discourse reported by Matthew goes far beyond that Mission of the Twelve, beyond even that of the Early Church, indeed, sketches the history of the Church’s Mission in a hostile world, up ‘to the end.’ At the same time it is equally evident, that the predictions, warnings, and promises applicable to a later period in the Church’s history, hold equally true in principle in reference to the first Mission of the Twelve; and, conversely, that what specially applied to it, also holds true in principle of the whole subsequent history of the Church in its relation to a hostile world. Thus, what was specially spoken at this time to the Twelve, has ever since, and rightly, been applied to the Church; while that in it which specially refers to the Church of the future, would in principle apply also to the Twelve.

Fourthly: This distinction of primary and secondary application in the different parts of the Discourse, and their union in the general principles underlying them, has to be kept in view, if we are to understand this Discourse of Christ. Hence, also, the present and the future seem in it so often to run into each other. The horizon is gradually enlarging throughout the Discourse, but there is no change in the standpoint originally occupied; and so the present merges into the future, and the future mingles with the present. And this, indeed, is also the characteristic of much of Old Testament prophecy, and which made the prophet ever a preacher of the present, even while he was a foreteller of the future.

Lastly: It is evidential of its authenticity, and deserves special notice, that this Discourse, while so un-Jewish in spirit, is more than any other, even more than that on the Mount, Jewish in its forms of thought and modes of expression.

With the help of these principles, it will be more easy to mark the general outline of this Discourse. Its first part applies entirely to this first Mission of the Twelve, although the closing words point forward to ‘the judgment.’ Accordingly it has its parallels, although in briefer form, in the other two Gospels.

1. The Twelve were to go forth two and two, furnished with authority – or, as Luke more fully expresses it, with ‘power and authority’ – alike over all demons and to heal all manner of diseases. It is of secondary importance, whether this was conveyed to them by word only, or with some sacramental sign, such as breathing on them or the laying on of hands. The special commission, for which they received such power, was to proclaim the near advent of the Kingdom, and, in manifestation as well as in evidence of it, to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. They were to speak good and to do good in the highest sense, and that in a manner which all would feel good: freely, even as they had received it. Again, they were not to make any special provision for their journey, beyond the absolute immediate present. They were but labourers, yet as such they had claim to support. Their Employer would provide, and the field in which they worked might well be expected to supply it. 

In accordance with this, singleness of purpose and an entire self-denial, which should lead them not to make provision ‘for the flesh,’ but as labourers to be content with daily food, were the further injunctions laid on them. Before entering into a city, they were to make inquiry, literally to ‘search out,’ who in it was ‘worthy,’ and of them to ask hospitality; not seeking during their stay a change for the gratification of vanity or for self-indulgence. If the report on which they had made choice of a host proved true, then the ‘Peace with thee!’ with which they had entered their temporary home, would become a reality. Christ would make it such. As He had given them ‘power and authority,’ so He would ‘honour’ the draft on Him, in acknowledgment of hospitable reception, which the Apostles’ ‘Peace with thee!’ implied.

But even if the house should prove unworthy, the Lord would none the less own the words of His messengers and make them real; only, in such case the peace would return to them who had spoken it. Yet another case was possible. The house to which their inquiries had led them, or the city into which they had entered, might refuse to receive them, because they came as Christ’s ambassadors. Greater, indeed, would be their guilt than that of the cities of the plain, since these had not known the character of the heavenly guests to whom they refused reception; and more terrible would be their future punishment. So Christ would vindicate their authority as well as His own, and show the reality of their commission: on the one hand, by making their Word of Peace a reality to those who had proved ‘worthy;’ and, on the other, by punishment if their message was refused. Lastly, in their present Mission they were not to touch either Gentile or Samaritan territory. The direction – so different in spirit from what Jesus Himself had previously said and done, and from their own later commission – was, of course, only ‘for the present necessity.’ For the present they were neither prepared nor fitted to go beyond the circuit indicated. It would have been a fatal anticipation of their inner and outer history to have attempted this, and it would have defeated the object of our Lord of disarming prejudices when making a final appeal to the Jews of Galilee. Even these considerations lead us to expect a strictly Jewish cast in this Discourse to the Disciples. The command to abstain from any religious fellowship with Gentiles and Samaritans was in temporary accommodation to the prejudices of His disciples and of the Jews. And the distinction between ‘the way of the Gentiles’ and ‘any city of the Samaritans’ is the more significant, when we bear in mind that even the dust of a heathen road was regarded as defiling, while the houses, springs, roads, and certain food of the Samaritans were declared clean. At the same time, religiously and as regarded fellowship, the Samaritans were placed on the same footing with Gentiles. Nor would the injunction, to impart their message freely, sound strange in Jewish ears. It was, in fact, what the Rabbis themselves most earnestly enjoined in regard to the teaching of the Law and traditions, however different their practice may have been. Indeed, the very argument, that they were to impart freely, because they had received freely, is employed by the Rabbis, and derived from the language and example of Moses in Deu_4:5.  Again, the directions about not taking staff, shoes, nor money-purse, exactly correspond to the Rabbinic injunction not to enter the Temple-precincts with staff, shoes (mark, not sandals), and a money-girdle.  The symbolic reasons underlying this command would, in both cases, be probably the same: to avoid even the appearance of being engaged on other business, when the whole being should be absorbed in the service of the Lord. At any rate, it would convey to the disciples the idea, that they were to consider themselves as if entering the Temple-precincts, thus carrying out the principle of Christ’s first thought in the Temple: ‘Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?’ Nor could they be in doubt what severity of final punishment a doom heavier than that of Sodom and Gomorrah would imply, since, according to early tradition, their inhabitants were to have no part in the world to come. And most impressive to a Jewish mind would be the symbolic injunction, to shake off the dust of their feet for a testimony against such a house or city. The expression, no doubt, indicated that the ban of the Lord was resting on it, and the symbolic act would, as it were, be the solemn pronouncing that ‘nought of the cursed thing’ clave to them.  In this sense, anything that clave to a person was metaphorically called ‘the dust,’ as for example, ‘the dust of an evil tongue,’ the dust of usury,’ as, on the other hand, to ‘dust to idolatry’ meant to cleave to it. Even the injunction not to change the dwelling, where one had been received, was in accordance with Jewish views, the example of Abraham being quoted, who ‘returned to the place where his tent had been at the beginning. 

These remarks show how closely the Lord followed, in this first part of His charge to the disciples, Jewish forms of thinking and modes of expression. It is not otherwise in the second, although the difference is here very marked. We have no longer merely the original commission, as it is given in almost the same terms by Mark and Luke. But the horizon is now enlarged, and Matthew reports that which the other Evangelists record at a later stage of the Lord’s Ministry. Whether or not when the Lord charged His disciples on their first mission, He was led gradually to enlarge the scope of His teaching so as to adapt it to all times, need not be discussed. For Matthew himself could not have intended to confine the words of Christ to this first journey of the Apostles, since they contain references to division in families, persecutions, and conflict with the civil power, such as belong to a much later period in the history of the Church; and, besides, contain also that prediction which could not have applied to this first Mission of the Apostles, ‘Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come.’

 Without here anticipating the full inquiry into the promise of His immediate Coming, it is important to avoid, even at this stage, any possible misunderstanding on the point. The expectation of the Coming of ‘the Son of Man’ was grounded on a prophecy of Daniel, in which that Advent, or rather manifestation, was associated with judgment. The same is the case in this Charge of our Lord. The disciples in their work are described ‘as sheep in the midst of wolves, a phrase which the Midrash applies to the position of Israel amidst a hostile world, adding: How great is that Shepherd, Who delivers them, and vanquishes the wolves! Similarly, the admonition to ‘be wise as serpents and harmless as doves’ is reproduced in the Midrash, where Israel is described as harmless as the dove towards God, and wise as serpents towards the hostile Gentile nations. Such and even greater would be the enmity which the disciples, as the true Israel, would have to encounter from Israel after the flesh. They would be handed over to the various Sanhedrin, and visited with such punishments as these tribunals had power to inflict. More than this, they would be brought before governors and kings – primarily, the Roman governors and the Herodian princes. And so determined would be this persecution, as to break the ties of the closest kinship, and to bring on them the hatred of all men. The only, but the all-sufficient, support in those terrible circumstances was the assurance of such help from above, that, although unlearned and humble, they need have no care, nor make preparation in their defence, which would be given them from above. And with this they had the promise, that he who endured to the end would be saved, and the prudential direction, so far as possible, to avoid persecution by timely withdrawal, which could be the more readily achieved, since they would not have completed their circuit of the cities of Israel before the ‘Son of Man be come.’

It is of the greatest importance to keep in view that, at whatever period of Christ’s Ministry this prediction and promise were spoken, and whether only once or oftener, they refer exclusively to a Jewish state of things. The persecutions are exclusively Jewish. This appears from Mat_10:18, where the answer of the disciples is promised to be ‘for a testimony against them,’ who had delivered them up, that is, here evidently the Jews, as also against ‘the Gentiles.’ And the Evangelistic circuit of the disciples in their preaching was to be primarily Jewish; and not only so, but in the time when there were still ‘Cities Of Israel,’ that is, previous to the final destruction of the Jewish commonwealth. The reference, then, is to that period of Jewish persecution and of Apostolic preaching in the cities of Israel, which is bounded by the destruction of Jerusalem. Accordingly, the ‘coming of the Son of Man,’ and the ‘end’ here spoken of, must also have the same application. It was, as we have seen, according to Dan_7:13, a coming in judgment. To the Jewish persecuting authorities, who had rejected the Christ, in order, as they imagined, to save their City and Temple from the Romans, and to whom Christ had testified that He would come again, this judgment on their city and state, this destruction of their polity, was ‘the Coming of the Son of Man’ in judgment, and the only coming which the Jews, as a state, could expect, the only one meet for them, even as, to them who look for Him, He will appear a second time, without sin unto salvation.

That this is the only natural meaning attaching to this prediction, especially when compared with the parallel utterances recorded in Mar_13:9-13, appears to us indubitable. It is another question how, or how far, those to whom these words were in the first place addressed would understand their full bearing, at least at that time. Even supposing, that the disciples who first heard did not distinguish between the Coming to Israel in judgment, and that to the world in mingled judgment and mercy, as it was afterwards conveyed to them in the Parable of the Forthshooting of the Fig-tree, yet the early Christians must soon have become aware of it. For, the distinction is sharply marked. As regards its manner, the ‘second’ Coming of Christ may be said to correspond to the state of those to whom He cometh. To the Jews His first Coming was visible, and as claiming to be their King. They had asked for a sign; and no sign was given them at the time. They rejected Him, and placed the Jewish polity and nation in rebellion against ‘the King.’ To the Jews, who so rejected the first visible appearance of Christ as their King, the second appearance would be invisible but real; the sign which they had asked would be given them, but as a sign of judgment, and His Coming would be in judgment. Thus would His authority be vindicated, and He appear, not, indeed, visibly but really, as what He had claimed to be. That this was to be the manner and object of His Coming to Israel, was clearly set forth to the disciples in the Parable of the Unthankful Husbandmen. The coming of the Lord of the vineyard would be the destruction of the wicked husbandman. And to render misunderstanding impossible, the explanation is immediately added, that the Kingdom of God was to be taken from them, and given to those who would bring forth the fruits thereof. Assuredly, this could not, even in the view of the disciples, which may have been formed on the Jewish model, have applied to the Coming of Christ at the end of the present Aeon dispensation.

We bear in mind that this second, outwardly invisible but very real, Coming of the Son of Man to the Jews, as a state, could only be in judgment on their polity, in that ‘Sign’ which was once refused, but which, when it appeared, would only too clearly vindicate His claims and authority. Thus viewed, the passages, in which that second Coming is referred to will yield their natural meaning. Neither the mission of the disciples, nor their journeying through the cities of Israel, was finished, before the Son of Man came. Nay, there were those standing there who would not taste death, till they had seen in the destruction of the city and state the vindication of the Kingship of Jesus, which Israel had disowned. And even in those last Discourses in which the horizon gradually enlarges, and this Coming in judgment to Israel merges in the greater judgment on an unbelieving world, this earlier Coming to the Jewish nation is clearly marked. The three Evangelists equally record it, that ‘this generation’ should not pass away, till all things were fulfilled. To take the lowest view, it is scarcely conceivable that these sayings would have been allowed to stand in all the three Gospels, if the disciples and the early Church had understood the Coming of the Son of Man in any other sense than as to the Jews in the destruction of their polity. And it is most significant, that the final utterances of the Lord as to His Coming were elicited by questions arising from the predicted destruction of the Temple. This the early disciples associated with the final Coming of Christ. To explain more fully the distinction between them would have been impossible, in consistency with the Lord’s general purpose about the doctrine of His Coming. Yet the Parables which in the Gospels (especially in that by Matthew) follow on these predictions, and the teaching about the final Advent of ‘the Son of Man,’ point clearly to a difference and an interval between the one and the other.

The disciples must have the more readily applied this prediction of His Coming to Palestine, since ‘the woes’ connected with it so closely corresponded to those expected by the Jews before the Advent of Messiah. Even the direction to flee from persecution is repeated by the Rabbis in similar circumstances and established by the example of Jacob, of Moses, and of David.

In the next section of this Discourse of our Lord, as reported by Matthew, the horizon is enlarged. The statements are still primarily applicable to the early disciples, and their preaching among the Jews and in Palestine. But their ultimate bearing is already wider, and includes predictions and principles true to all time. In view of the treatment which their Master received, the disciples must expect misrepresentation and evil-speaking. Nor could it seem strange to them, since even the common Rabbinic proverb had it: ‘It is enough for a servant to be as his lord’ (דיו לעבד שיהא  כרבו). As we hear it from the lips of Christ, we remember that this saying afterwards comforted those, who mourned the downfall of wealthy and liberal homes in Israel, by thoughts of the greater calamity which had overthrown Jerusalem and the Temple. And very significant is its application by Christ: ‘If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebul, how much more them of His household.’ This charge, brought of course by the Pharisaic party of Jerusalem, had a double significance. We believe, that the expression ‘Master of the house’ looked back to the claims which Jesus had made on His first purification of the Temple. We almost seem to hear the coarse Rabbinic witticism in its play on the word Beelzebul. For, zeḇul, (זְבוּל) means in Rabbinic language, not any ordinary dwelling, but specifically the Temple,  and beelzebul would be the Master of the Temple.’ On the other hand, zibul (זִבּוּל) means sacrificing to idols; and hence beelzebul would, in that sense, be equivalent to ‘lord’ or ‘chief of idolatrous sacrificing’ – the worst and chiefest of demons, who presided over, and incited to, idolatry. ‘The Lord of the Temple’ (which truly was His Church) was to them ‘the chief of idolatrous worship,’ the Representative of God that of the worst of demons: Beelzebul was Beelzibbul! What then might ‘His Household’ expect at their hands?

But they were not to fear such misrepresentations. In due time the Lord would make manifest both His and their true character.  Nor were they to be deterred from announcing in the clearest and most public manner, in broad daylight, and from the flat roofs of houses, that which had been first told them in the darkness, as Jewish teachers communicated the deepest and highest doctrines in secret to their disciples, or as the preacher would whisper his discourse into the ear of the interpreter. The deepest truths concerning His Person, and the announcement of His Kingdom and Work, were to be fully revealed, and loudly proclaimed. But, from a much higher point of view, how different was the teaching of Christ from that of the Rabbis! The latter laid it down as a principle, which they tried to prove from Scripture, that, in order to save one’s life, it was not only lawful, but even duty – if necessary, to commit any kind of sin, except idolatry, incest, or murder. Nay, even idolatry was allowed, if only it were done in secret, so as not to profane the Name of the Lord – than which death was infinitely preferable. Christ, on the other hand, not only ignored this vicious Jewish distinction of public and private as regarded morality, but bade His followers set aside all regard for personal safety, even in reference to the duty of preaching the Gospel. There was a higher fear than of men: that of God – and it should drive out the fear of those who could only kill the body. Besides, why fear? God’s Providence extended even over the meanest of His creatures. Two sparrows cost only an assarion (איסר), about the third of a penny. Yet even one of them would not perish without the knowledge of God. No illustration was more familiar to the Jewish mind than that of His watchful care even over the sparrows. The beautiful allusion in Amo_3:5 was somewhat realistically carried out in a legend which occurs in more than one Rabbinic passage. We are told that, after that great miracle-worker of Jewish legend, R. Simeon ben Jochai, had been for thirteen years in hiding from his persecutors in a cave, where he was miraculously fed, he observed that, when the bird-catcher laid his snare, the bird escaped, or was caught, according as a voice from heaven proclaimed, ‘Mercy,’ or else, ‘Destruction.’ Arguing, that if even a sparrow could not be caught without heaven’s bidding, how much more safe was the life of, a ‘son of man’(נפש דבר נש), he came forth.

Nor could even the additional promise of Christ: ‘But of you even the hairs of the head are all numbered, surprise His disciples. But it would convey to them the gladsome assurance that, in doing His Work, they were performing the Will of God, and were specially in His keeping. And it would carry home to them – with the comfort of a very different application, while engaged in doing the Work and Will of God – what Rabbinism expressed in a realistic manner by the common sayings, that whither a man was to go, thither his feet would carry him; and, that a man could not injure his finger on earth, unless it had been so decreed of him in heaven. And in later Rabbinic writings we read, in almost the words of Christ: ‘Do I not number all the hairs of every creature?’ And yet an even higher outlook was opened to the disciples. All preaching was confessing, and all confessing a preaching of Christ; and our confession or denial would, almost by a law of nature, meet with similar confession or denial on the part of Christ before His Father in heaven. This, also, was an application of that fundamental principle, that ‘nothing is covered that shall not be revealed, which, indeed, extendeth to the inmost secrets of heart and life.

What follows in our Lord’s Discourse still further widens the horizon. It describes the condition and laws of His Kingdom, until the final revelation of that which is now covered and hidden. So long as His claims were set before a hostile world they could only provoke war. On the other hand, so long as such decision was necessary, in the choice of either those nearest and dearest, of ease, nay, of life itself, or else of Christ, there could be no compromise. Not that, as is sometimes erroneously supposed, a very great degree of love to the dearest on earth amounts to loving them more than Christ. No degree of proper affection can ever make affection wrongful, even as no diminution of it could make wrongful affection right. The love which Christ condemneth differs not in degree, but in kind, from rightful affection. It is one which takes the place of love to Christ – not which is placed by the side of that of Christ. For, rightly viewed, the two occupy different provinces. Wherever and whenever the two affections come into comparison, they also come into collision. And so the questions of not being worthy of Him (and who can be positively worthy?), and of the true finding or losing of our life, have their bearing on our daily life and profession.

But even in this respect the disciples must, to some extent, have been prepared to receive the teaching of Christ. It was generally expected, that a time of great tribulation would precede the Advent of the Messiah. Again, it was a Rabbinic axiom, that the cause of the Teacher, to whom a man owed eternal life, was to be taken in hand before that of his father, to whom he owed only the life of this world.  Even the statement about taking up the cross in following Christ, although prophetic, could not sound quite strange. Crucifixion was, indeed, not a Jewish punishment, but the Jews must have become sadly familiar with it. The Targum speaks of it as one of the four modes of execution which Naomi described to Ruth as those in custom in Palestine, the other three being – stoning, burning, and beheading. Indeed, the expression ‘bearing the cross,’ as indicative of sorrow and suffering, is so common, that we read, Abraham carried the wood for the sacrifice of Isaac, ‘like one who bears his cross on his shoulder.’

Nor could the disciples be in doubt as to the meaning of the last part of Christ’s address. They were old Jewish forms of thought only filled with the new wine of the Gospel. The Rabbis taught, only in extravagant terms, the merit attaching to the reception and entertainment of sages. The very expression ‘in the name of’ a prophet, or a righteous man, is strictly Jewish (לשם), and means for the sake of, or with intention, in regard to. It appears to us, that Christ introduced His own distinctive teaching by the admitted Jewish principle, that hospitable reception for the sake of, or with the intention of doing it to, a prophet or a righteous man, would procure a share in the prophet’s or righteous man’s reward. Thus, tradition had it, that the Obadiah of King Ahab’s court had become the prophet of that name, because he had provided for the hundred prophets. And we are repeatedly assured, that to receive a sage, or even an elder, was like receiving the Shekhinah itself. But the concluding promise of Christ, concerning the reward of even ‘a cup of cold water’ to ‘one of these little ones’ ‘in the name of a disciple,’ goes far beyond the farthest conceptions of His contemporaries. Yet, even so, the expression would, so far as its form is concerned, perhaps bear a fuller meaning to them than to us. These ‘little ones’ (קטנים) were ‘the children,’ who were still learning the elements of knowledge, and who would by-and-by grow into ‘disciples.’ For, as the Midrash has it: ‘Where there are no little ones, there are no disciples; and where no disciples, no sages: where no sages, there no elders; where no elders, there no prophets; and where no prophets, there does God not cause His Shekhinah to rest.

We have been so particular in marking the Jewish parallelisms in this Discourse, first, because it seemed important to show, that the words of the Lord were not beyond the comprehension of the disciples. Starting from forms of thought and expressions with which they were familiar, He carried them far beyond Jewish ideas and hopes. But, secondly, it is just in this similarity of form, which proves that it was of the time and to the time, as well as to us and to all times, that we best see, how far the teaching of Christ transcended all contemporary conception.

But the reality, the genuineness, the depth and fervour of self-surrender, which Christ expects, is met by equal fulness of acknowledgment on His part, alike in heaven and on earth. In fact, there is absolute identification with His ambassadors on the part of Christ. As He is the Ambassador of the Father, so are they His, and as such also the ambassadors of the Father. To receive them was, therefore, not only to receive Christ, but the Father, Who would own the humblest, even the meanest service of love to One of the learners, ‘the little ones.’ All the more painful is the contrast of Jewish pride and self-righteousness, which attributes supreme merit to ministering, not as to God, but as to man; not for God’s sake, but for that of the man; a pride which could give utterance to such a saving, ‘All the prophets have announced salvation only to the like of those who give their daughters in marriage to sages, or cause them to make gain, or give of their goods to them. But what the bliss of the sages themselves is, no mortal eye has seen.’

It was not with such sayings that Christ sent forth His disciples; nor in such spirit, that the world has been subdued to Him. The relinquishing of all that is nearest and dearest, cross-bearing, loss of life itself – such were the terms of His discipleship. Yet acknowledgment there would surely be, first, in the felt and assured sense of His Presence; then, in the reward of a prophet, a righteous man, or, it might be, a disciple. But all was to be in Him, and for Him, even the gift of ‘a cup of cold water’ to ‘a little one.’ Nay, neither the ‘little ones,’ the learners, nor the cup of cold water given them, would be overlooked or forgotten.

But over all did the ‘Meek and Lowly One’ cast the loftiness of His Humility.

(1. Joh_3:25-30. 2. Mat_9:14-17; Mar_2:18-22; Luk_5:33-39. 3. Mat_11:2-14; Lk 7:18-35. 4. Mat_14:1-12; Mar 6:14-29; Luk_9:7-9)

While the Apostles went forth by two and two on their first Mission, Jesus Himself taught and preached in the towns around Capernaum. This period of undisturbed activity seems, however, to have been of brief duration. That it was eminently successful, we infer not only from direct notices, but also from the circumstance that, for the first time, the attention of Herod Antipas was now called to the Person of Jesus. We suppose that, during the nine or ten months of Christ’s Galilean Ministry, the Tetrarch had resided in his Peraean dominions (east of the Jordan), either at Julias or at Machaerus, in which latter fortress the Baptist was beheaded. We infer, that the labours of the Apostles had also extended thus far, since they attracted the notice of Herod. In the popular excitement caused by the execution of the Baptist, the miraculous activity of the messengers of the Christ, Whom John had announced, would naturally attract wider interest, while Antipas would, under the influence of fear and superstition, give greater heed to them. We can scarcely be mistaken in supposing, that this accounts for the abrupt termination of the labours of the Apostles, and their return to Jesus. At any rate, the arrival of the disciples of John, with tidings of their master’s death, and the return of the Apostles, seem to have been contemporaneous. Finally, we conjecture, that it was among the motives which influenced the removal of Christ and His Apostles from Capernaum. Temporarily to withdraw Himself and His disciples from Herod, to give them a season of rest and further preparation after the excitement of the last few weeks, and to avoid being involved in the popular movements consequent on the murder of the Baptist – such we may venture to indicate as among the reasons of the departure of Jesus and His disciples, first into the dominions of the Tetrarch Philip, on the eastern side of the Lake, and after that ‘into the borders of Tyre and Sidon.’ Thus the fate of the Baptist was, as might have been expected, decisive in its influence on the History of the Christ and of His Kingdom. But we have yet to trace the incidents in the life of John, so far as recorded in the Gospels, from the time of His last contact with Jesus to his execution.

1. It was in the late spring, or rather early summer of the year 27 of our era, that John was baptizing in Aenon, near to Salim. In the neighbourhood, Jesus and His disciples were similarly engaged. The Presence and activity of Jesus in Jerusalem at the Passover had determined the Pharisaic party to take active measures against Him and His Forerunner, John. As to the first outcome of this plan we notice the discussions on the question of ‘purification,’ and the attempt to separate between Christ and the Baptist by exciting the jealousy of the latter. But the result was far different. His disciples might have been influenced, but John himself was too true a man, and too deeply convinced of the reality of Christ’s Mission, to yield even for a moment to such temptation. Nothing more noble can be conceived than the self-abnegation of the Baptist in circumstances which would not only have turned aside an impostor or an enthusiast, but must have severely tried the constancy of the truest man. At the end of a most trying career of constant self-denial its scanty fruits seemed, as it were, snatched from Him, and the multitude, which he had hitherto swayed, turned after Another, to Whom himself had first given testimony, but Who ever since had apparently neglected him. And now he had seemingly appropriated the one distinctive badge of his preaching! Not to rebel, nor to murmur, but even to rejoice in this as the right and proper thing, for which he had longed as the end of his own work – this implies a purity, simplicity, and grandeur of purpose, and a strength of conviction unsurpassed among men. The moral height of this testimony of John, and the evidential force of the introduction of this narrative – utterly unaccountable, nay, unintelligible on the hypothesis that it is not true – seem to us among the strongest evidences in favour of the Gospel-history.

It was not the greatness of the Christ, to his own seeming loss, which could cloud the noonday of the Baptist’s convictions. In simple Judaean illustration, he was only ‘the friend of the Bridegroom’ (the ‘shosheḇeyna’), with all that popular association or higher Jewish allegory connected with that relationship. He claimed not the bride. His was another joy – that of hearing the Voice of her rightful Bridegroom, Whose ‘groomsman’ he was. In the sound of that Voice lay the fulfilment of his office. And John, looking back upon the relation between the Baptist and Jesus – on the reception of the testimony of the former and the unique position of ‘the Bridegroom’ – points out the lessons of the answer of the Baptist to his disciples (Joh_3:31-36) as formerly those of the conversation with Nicodemus.

This hour of the seeming abasement of the Baptist was, in truth, that of the highest exaltation, as marking the fulfilment of his office, and, therefore, of his joy. Hours of cloud and darkness were to follow.

2. The scene has changed, and the Baptist has become the prisoner of Herod Antipas. The dominions of the latter embraced, in the north: Galilee, west of the Jordan and of the Lake of Galilee; and in the south: Peraea, east of the Jordan. To realise events we must bear in mind that, crossing the Lake eastwards, we should pass from the possessions of Herod to those of the Tetrarch Philip, or else come upon the territory of the ‘Ten Cities,’ or Decapolis, a kind of confederation of townships, with constitution and liberties, such as those of the Grecian cities. By a narrow strip northwards, Peraea just slipped in between the Decapolis and Samaria. It is impossible with certainty to localise the Aenon, near Salim, where John baptized. Ancient tradition placed the latter a few miles south of Scythopolis or Bethshean, on the borders of Galilee, or rather, the Decapolis, and Samaria. But as the eastern part of Samaria towards the Jordan was very narrow, one may well believe that the place was close to, perhaps actually in, the north-eastern angle of the province of Judaea, where it borders on Samaria. We are now on the western bank of Jordan. The other, or eastern, bank of the river would be that narrow northern strip of Peraea which formed part of the territory of Antipas. Thus a few miles, or the mere crossing of the river, would have brought the Baptist into Peraea. There can be no doubt but that the Baptist must either have crossed into, or else that Aenon, near Salim, was actually within the dominions of Herod. It was on that occasion that Herod seized on his person, and that Jesus, Who was still within Judaean territory, withdrew from the intrigues of the Pharisees and the proximity of Herod, through Samaria, into Galilee.

For, although Galilee belonged to Herod Antipas, it was sufficiently far from the present residence of the Tetrarch in Peraea. Tiberias, his Galilean residence, with its splendid royal palace, had only been built a year or two before; and it is impossible to suppose, that Herod would not have sooner heard of the fame of Jesus, if his court had been in Tiberias, in the immediate neighbourhood of Capernaum. We are, therefore, shut up to the conclusion, that, during the nine or ten months of Christ’s Ministry in Galilee, the Tetrarch resided in Peraea. Here he had two palaces, one at Julias, or Livias, the other at Machaerus. The latter will be immediately described as the place of the Baptist’s imprisonment and martyrdom. The Julias, or Livias, of Peraea must be distinguished from another city of that name (also called Bethsaida) in the North (east of the Jordan), and within the dominions of the Tetrarch Philip. The Julias of Peraea represented the ancient beṯ haram in the tribe of Gad, a name for which Josephus givesbeṯaramp̱ṯa, and the Rabbis beṯ ramṯah.  It still survives in the modern Beit-harân. But of the fortress and palace which Herod had built, and named after the Empress, ‘all that remains’ are ‘a few traces of walls and foundations.’

Supposing Antipas to have been at the Peraean Julias, he would have been in the closest proximity to the scene of the Baptist’s last recorded labours at Aenon. We can now understand, not only how John was imprisoned by Antipas, but also the threefold motives which influenced it. According to Josephus, the Tetrarch was afraid that his absolute influence over the people, who seemed disposed to carry out whatever he advised, might lead to a rebellion. This circumstance is also indicated in the remark of Matthew, that Herod was afraid to put the Baptist to death on account of the people’s opinion of him. On the other hand, the Evangelic statement, that Herod had imprisoned John on account of his declaring his marriage with Herodias unlawful, is in no way inconsistent with the reason assigned by Josephus. Not only might both motives have influenced Herod, but there is an obvious connection between them. For, John’s open declaration of the unlawfulness of Herod’s marriage, as unlike incestuous and adulterous, might, in view of the influence which the Baptist exercised, have easily led to a rebellion. In our view, the sacred text gives indication of yet a third cause which led to John’s imprisonment, and which indeed, may have given final weight to the other two grounds of enmity against him. It has been suggested, that Herod must have been attached to the Sadducees, if to any religious party, because such a man would not have connected himself with the Pharisees. The reasoning is similarly inconclusive. On political grounds, a Herod would scarcely have lent his weight to the Sadducean or aristocratic priest-party in Jerusalem; while, religiously, only too many instances are on record of what the Talmud itself calls ‘painted ones, who are like the Pharisees, and who act like Zimri, but expect the reward of Phinehas.’ Besides, the Pharisees may have used Antipas as their tool, and worked upon his wretched superstition to effect their own purposes. And this is what we suppose to have been the case. The reference to the Pharisaic spying and to their comparisons between the influence of Jesus and John, which led to the withdrawal of Christ into Galilee, seems to imply that the Pharisees had something to do with the imprisonment of John. Their connection with Herod appears even more clearly in the attempt to induce Christ’s departure from Galilee, on pretext of Herod’s machinations. It will be remembered that the Lord unmasked their hypocrisy by bidding them go back to Herod, showing that He fully knew that real danger threatened Him, not from the Tetrarch, but from the leaders of the party in Jerusalem. Our inference therefore is, that Pharisaic intrigue had a very large share in giving effect to Herod’s fear of the Baptist and of his reproofs.

3. We suppose, then, that Herod Antipas was at Julias, in the immediate neighbourhood of Aenon, at the time of John’s imprisonment. But, according to Josephus, whose testimony there is no reason to question, the Baptist was committed to the strong fortress of Machaerus.  If Julias lay where the Wady of the Heshban debouches into the Jordan, east of that river, and a little north of the Dead Sea, Machaerus is straight south of it, about two and a half hours north-west of the ancient kiriaṯaim (the modern Kurêiyât), the site of Chedorlaomer’s victory. Machaerus (the modern M’khaur) marked the extreme point south, as Pella that north, in Peraea. As the boundary fortress in the southeast (towards Arabia), its safety was of the greatest importance, and everything was done to make a place, exceedingly strong by nature, impregnable. It had been built by Alexander Jannaeus, but destroyed by Gabinius in the wars of Pompey. It was not only restored, but greatly enlarged, by Herod the Great, who surrounded it with the best defences known at that time. In fact, Herod the Great built a town along the shoulder of the hill, and surrounded it by walls, fortified by towers. From this town a farther height had to be climbed, on which the castle stood, surrounded by walls, and flanked by towers one hundred and sixty cubits high. Within the enclosure of the castle Herod had built a magnificent palace. A large number of cisterns, storehouses, and arsenals, containing every weapon of attack or defence had been provided to enable the garrison to stand a prolonged siege. Josephus describes even its natural position as unassailable. The highest point of the fort was on the west, where it looked sheer down into a valley. North and south the fort was equally cut off by valleys, which could not be filled up for siege purposes. On the east there was, indeed, a valley one hundred cubits deep, but it terminated in a mountain opposite to Machaerus. This was evidently the weak point of the situation.

A late and very trustworthy traveller has pronounced the description of Josephus as sufficiently accurate, although exaggerated, and as probably not derived from personal observation. He has also furnished such pictorial details, that we can transport ourselves to that rocky keep of the Baptist, perhaps the more vividly that, as we wander over the vast field of stones, upturned foundations, and broken walls around, we seem to view the scene in the lurid sunset of judgment. ‘A rugged line of upturned squared stones’ shows the old Roman paved road to Machaerus. Ruins covering quite a square mile, on a group of undulating hills, mark the site of the ancient town of Machaerus. Although surrounded by a wall and towers, its position is supposed not to have been strategically defensible. Only a mass of ruins here, with traces of a temple to the Syrian Sun-God, broken cisterns, and desolateness all around. Crossing a narrow deep valley, about a mile wide, we climb up to the ancient fortress on a conical hill. Altogether it covered a ridge of more than a mile. The key of the position was a citadel to the extreme east of the fortress. It occupied the summit of the cone, was isolated, and almost impregnable, but very small. We shall return to examine it. Meanwhile, descending a steep slope about 150 yards towards the west, we reach the oblong flat plateau that formed the fortress, containing Herod’s magnificent palace. Here, carefully collected, are piled up the stones of which the citadel was built. These immense heaps look like a terrible monument of judgment.

We pass on among the ruins. No traces of the royal palace are left, save foundations and enormous stones upturned. Quite at the end of this long fortress in the west, and looking southwards, is a square fort. We return, through what we regard as the ruins of the magnificent castle-palace of Herod, to the highest and strongest part of the defences – the eastern keep or the citadel, on the steep slope 150 yards up. The foundations of the walls all around, to the height of a yard or two above the ground, are still standing. As we clamber over them to examine the interior, we notice how small this keep is: exactly 100 yards in diameter. There are scarcely any remains of it left. A well of great depth, and a deep cemented cistern with the vaulting of the roof still complete, and – of most terrible interest to us – two dungeons, one of them deep down, its sides scarcely broken in, ‘with small holes still visible in the masonry where staples of wood and iron had once been fixed’! As we look down into its hot darkness, we shudder in realising that this terrible keep had for nigh ten months been the prison of that son of the free ‘wilderness,’ the bold herald of the coming Kingdom, the humble, earnest, self-denying John the Baptist. Is this the man whose testimony about the Christ may be treated as a falsehood?

We withdraw our gaze from trying to pierce this gloom and to call up in it the figure of the camel-hair-clad and leather-girt preacher, and look over the ruins at the scene around. We are standing on a height not less than 3,800 feet above the Dead Sea. In a straight line it seems not more than four or five miles; and the road down to it leads, as it were, by a series of ledges and steps. We can see the whole extent of this Sea of Judgment, and its western shores from north to south. We can almost imagine the Baptist, as he stands surveying this noble prospect. Far to the south stretches the rugged wilderness of Judaea, bounded by the hills of Hebron. Here nestles Bethlehem, there is Jerusalem. Or, turning another way, and looking into the deep cleft of the Jordan valley: this oasis of beauty is Jericho; beyond it, like a silver thread, Jordan winds through a burnt, desolate-looking country, till it is lost to view in the haze which lies upon the edge of the horizon. As the eye of the Baptist travelled over it, he could follow all the scenes of His life and labours, from the home of his childhood in the hill-country of Judaea, to those many years of solitude and communing with God in the wilderness, and then to the first place of his preaching and Baptism, and onwards to that where he had last spoken of the Christ, just before his own captivity. And now the deep dungeon in the citadel on the one side, and, on the other, down that slope, the luxurious palace of Herod and his adulterous, murderous wife, while the shouts of wild revelry and drunken merriment rise around! Was this the Kingdom he had come to announce as near at hand; for which he had longed, prayed, toiled, suffered, utterly denied himself and all that made life pleasant, and the rosy morning of which he had hailed with hymns of praise? Where was the Christ? Was He the Christ? What was He doing? Was he eating and drinking all this while with publicans and sinners, when he, the Baptist, was suffering for Him? Was He in His Person and Work so quite different from himself? and why was He so? And did the hot haze and mist gather also over this silver thread in the deep cleft of Israel’s barren burnt-up desolateness?

4. In these circumstances we scarcely wonder at the feelings of John’s disciples, as months of this weary captivity passed. Uncertain what to expect, they seem to have oscillated between Machaerus and Capernaum. Any hope in their Master’s vindication and deliverance lay in the possibilities involved in the announcement he had made of Jesus as the Christ. And it was to Him that their Master’s finger had pointed them. Indeed, some of Jesus’ earliest and most intimate disciples had come from their ranks; and, as themselves had remarked, the multitude had turned to Jesus even before the Baptist’s imprisonment. And yet, could He be the Christ? How many things about Him that were strange and seemed inexplicable! In their view, there must have been a terrible contrast between him who lay in the dungeon of Machaerus, and Him Who sat down to eat and drink at a feast of the publicans.

His reception of publicans and sinners they could understand; their own Master had not rejected them. But why eat and drink with them? Why feasting, and this in a time when fasting and prayer would have seemed specially appropriate? And, indeed, was not fasting always appropriate? And yet this new Messiah had not taught his disciples either to fast or what to pray! The Pharisees, in their anxiety to separate between Jesus and His Forerunner, must have told them all this again and again, and pointed to the contrast.

At any rate, it was at the instigation of the Pharisees, and in company with them, that the disciples of John propounded to Jesus this question about fasting and prayer, immediately after the feast in the house of the converted Levi-Matthew. We must bear in mind that fasting and prayer, or else fasting and alms, or all the three, were always combined. Fasting represented the negative, prayer and alms the positive element, in the forgiveness of sins. Fasting, as self-punishment and mortification, would avert the anger of God and calamities. Most extraordinary instances of the purposes in view in fasting, and of the results obtained are told in Jewish legend, which (as will be remembered) went so far as to relate how a Jewish saint was thereby rendered proof against the fire of Gehenna, of which a realistic demonstration was given when his body was rendered proof against ordinary fire.

Even apart from such extravagances, Rabbinism gave an altogether external aspect to fasting. In this it only developed to its utmost consequences a theology against which the Prophets of old had already protested. Perhaps, however, the Jews are not solitary in their misconception and perversion of fasting. In their view, it was the readiest means of turning aside any threatening calamity, such as drought, pestilence, or national danger. This, ex opere operato: because fasting was self-punishment and mortification, not because a fast meant mourning (for sin, not for its punishment), and hence indicated humiliation, acknowledgment of sin, and repentance. The second and fifth days of the week (Monday and Thursday) were those appointed for public fasts, because Moses was supposed to have gone up the Mount for the second Tables of the Law on a Thursday, and to have returned on a Monday. The self-introspection of Pharisaism led many to fast on these two days all the year round, just as in Temple-times not a few would offer daily trespass-offering for sins of which they were ignorant. Then there were such painful minutiae of externalism, as those which ruled how, on a less strict fast, a person might wash and anoint; while, on the strictest fast, it was prohibited even to salute one another. 

 It may well have been, that it was on one of these weekly fasts that the feast of Levi-Matthew had taken place, and that this explains the expression: ‘And John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting.’  This would give point to their complaint, ‘Thy disciples fast not.’ Looking back upon the standpoint from which they viewed fasting, it is easy to perceive why Jesus could not have sanctioned, not even tolerated, the practice among His disciples, as little as Paul could tolerate among Judaising Christians the, in itself indifferent, practice of circumcision. But it was not so easy to explain this at the time to the disciples of John. For, to understand it, implied already entire transformation from the old to the new spirit. Still more difficult must it have been to do it in such manner, as at the same time to lay down principles that would rule all similar questions to all ages. But our Lord did both, and even thus proved His Divine Mission.

The last recorded testimony of the Baptist had pointed to Christ as the ‘Bridegroom.’ As explained in a previous chapter, John applied this in a manner which appealed to popular custom. As he had pointed out, the Presence of Jesus marked the marriage-week. By universal consent and according to Rabbinic law, this was to be a time of unmixed festivity. Even on the Day of Atonement a bride was allowed to relax one of the ordinances of that strictest fast. During the marriage-week all mourning was to be suspended – even the obligation of the prescribed daily prayers ceased. It was regarded as a religious duty to gladden the bride and bridegroom. Was it not, then, inconsistent on the part of John’s disciples to expect ‘the sons of the bride-chamber’ to fast, so long as the Bridegroom was with them?

This appeal of Christ is still further illustrated by the Talmudic ordinance which absolved ‘the friends of the bridegroom,’ and all the sons of the bride-chamber,’ even from the duty of dwelling in booths (at the Feast of Tabernacles). The expression, ‘sons of the bride-chamber’ (בני חופה), which means all invited guests, has the more significance, when we remember that the Covenant-union between God and Israel was not only compared to a marriage, but the Tabernacle and Temple designated as ‘the bridal chambers.  And, as the institution of ‘friends of the bridegroom’ prevailed in Judaea, but not in Galilee, this marked distinction of the ‘friends of the bridegroom,’ in the month of the Judaean John, and ‘sons of the bride-chamber’ in that of the Galilean Jesus, is itself evidential of historic accuracy, as well as of the Judaean authorship of the Fourth Gospel.

But let it not be thought that it was to be a time of unbroken joy to the disciples of Jesus. Nay, the ideas of the disciples of John concerning the Messianic Kingdom, as one of resistless outward victory and assertion of power, were altogether wrong. The Bridegroom would be violently taken from them, and then would be the time for mourning and fasting. Not that this necessarily implies literal fasting, any more than it excludes it, provided the great principles, more fully indicated immediately afterwards, are kept in view. Painfully minute, Judaistic self-introspection is contrary to the spirit of the joyous liberty of the children of God. It is only a sense of sin, and the felt absence of the Christ, which should lead to mourning and fasting, though not in order thereby to avert either the anger of God or outward calamity. Besides the evidential force of this highly spiritual, and thoroughly un-Jewish view of fasting, we notice some other points in confirmation of this, and of the Gospel-history generally. On the hypothesis of a Jewish invention of the Gospel-history, or of its Jewish embellishment, the introduction of this narrative would be incomprehensible. Again, on the theory of a fundamental difference in the Apostolic teaching, Matthew and Mark representing the original Judaic, Luke the freer Pauline development, the existence of this narrative in the first two Gospels would seem unaccountable. Or, to take another view – on the hypothesis of the much later and non-Judaean (Ephesian) authorship of the Fourth Gospel, the minute archaeological touches, and the general fitting of the words of the Baptist into the present narrative would be inexplicable. Lastly, as against all deniers and detractors of the Divine Mission of Jesus, this early anticipation of His violent removal by death, and of the consequent mourning of the Church, proves that it came not to Him from without, as by the accident of events, but that from the beginning He anticipated the end, and pursued it of set, steadfast purpose.

Yet another point in evidence comes to us from the eternal and un-Jewish principles implied in the two illustrations, of which Christ here made use. In truth, the Lord’s teaching is now carried down to its ultimate principles. The slight variations which here occur in the Gospel of Luke, as, indeed, such exist in so many of the narratives of the same events by different Evangelists, should not be ‘explained away.’ For, the sound critic should never devise an explanation for the sake of a supposed difficulty, but truthfully study the text – as an interpreter, not an apologist. Such variations of detail present no difficulty. As against a merely mechanical, unspiritual accord, they afford evidence of truthful, independent witness, and irrefragable proof that, contrary to modern negative criticism, the three narratives are not merely different recensions of one and the same original document.

In general, the two illustrations employed – that of the piece of undressed cloth (or, according to Luke, a piece torn from a new garment) sewed upon the rent of an old garment, and that of the new wine put into the old wine-skins – must not be too closely pressed in regard to their language. They seem chiefly to imply this: You ask, why do we fast often, but Thy disciples fast not? You are mistaken in supposing that the old garment can be retained, and merely its rents made good by patching it with a piece of new cloth. Not to speak of the incongruity, the effect would only be to make the rent ultimately worse. The old garment will not bear mending with the ‘undressed cloth.’ Christ’s was not merely a reformation: all things must become new. Or, again, take the other view of it – as the old garment cannot be patched from the new, so, on the other hand, can the new wine of the Kingdom not be confined in the old forms. It would burst those wine-skins. The spirit must, indeed, have its corresponding form of expression; but that form must be adapted, and correspond to it. Not the old with a little of the new to hold it together where it is rent; but the new, and that not in the old wineskins, but in a form corresponding to the substance. Such are the two final principles – the one primarily addressed to the Pharisees, the other to the disciples of John, by which the illustrative teaching concerning the marriage-feast, with its bridal garment and wine of banquet, is carried far beyond the original question of the disciples of John, and receives an application to all time.

5. We are in spirit by the mount of God, and about to witness the breaking of a terrible storm. It is one that uproots the great trees and rends the rocks; and we shall watch it solemnly, earnestly, as with bared head – or, like Elijah, with face wrapt in mantle. Weeks had passed, and the disciples of John had come back and showed their Master of all these things. He still lay in the dungeon of Machaerus; his circumstances unchanged – perhaps, more hopeless than before. For, Herod was in that spiritually most desperate state: he had heard the Baptist, and was much perplexed. And still he heard – but only heard – him gladly.  It was a case by no means singular, and of which Felix, often sending for Paul, at whose preaching of righteousness, temperance, and the judgment to come, he had trembled, offers only one of many parallels. That, when hearing him, Herod was ‘much perplexed,’ we can understand, since he ‘feared him, knowing that he was a righteous man and holy,’ and thus fearing ‘heard him.’ But that being ‘much perplexed,’ he still heard him gladly,’ constituted the hopelessness of his case. But was the Baptist right? Did it constitute part of his Divine calling to have not only denounced, but apparently directly confronted Herod on his adulterous marriage? Had he not attempted to lift himself the axe which seemed to have slipt from the grasp of Him, of Whom the Baptist had hoped and said that He would lay it to the root of the tree?

Such thoughts may have been with him, as he passed from his dungeon to the audience of Herod, and from such bootless interviews back to his deep keep. Strange as it may seem, it was, perhaps, better for the Baptist when he was alone. Much as his disciples honoured and loved him, and truly zealous and jealous for him as they were, it was best when they were absent. There are times when affection only pains, by forcing on our notice inability to understand, and adding to our sorrow that of feeling our inmost being a stranger to those nearest, and who love us must. Then, indeed, is a man alone. It was so with the Baptist. The state of mind and experience of his disciples has already appeared, even in the slight notices concerning them. Indeed, had they fully understood him, and not ended where he began – which, truly, is the characteristic of all sects, in their crystallisation, or, rather, ossification of truth – they would not have remained his disciples; and this consciousness must also have brought exquisite pain. Their very affection for him, and their zeal for his credit (as shown in the almost coarse language of their inquiry: ‘John the Baptist hath sent us unto Thee, saying, Art Thou He that cometh, or look we for another?’), as well as their tenacity of unprogressiveness – were all, so to speak, marks of his failure. And, if he had failed with them, had he succeeded in anything?

And yet further and more terrible questions rose in that dark dungeon. Like serpents that crept out of its walls, they would uncoil and raise their heads with horrible hissing. What if, after all, there had been some terrible mistake on his part? At any rate the logic of events was against him. He was now the fast prisoner of that Herod, to whom he had spoken with authority; in the power of that bold adulteress, Herodias. If he were Elijah, the great Tishbite had never been in the hands of Ahab and Jezebel. And the Messiah, Whose Elijah he was, moved not; could not, or would not, move, but feasted with publicans and sinners! Was it all a reality? or – oh, thought too horrible for utterance – could it have been a dream, bright but fleeting, uncaused by any reality, only the reflection of his own imagination? It must have been a terrible hour, and the power of darkness. At the end of one’s life, and that of such self-denial and suffering, and with a conscience so alive to God, which had – when a youth – driven him burning with holy zeal into the wilderness, to have such a question meeting him as: Art Thou He, or do we wait for another? Am I right, or in error and leading others into error? must have been truly awful. Not Paul, when forsaken of all he lay in the dungeon, the aged prisoner of Christ; not Huss, when alone at Constance he encountered the whole Catholic Council and the flames; only He, the God-Man, over Whose soul crept the death – coldness of great agony when, one by one, all light of God and man seemed to fade out, and only that one remained burning – His own faith in the Father, could have experienced bitterness like this. Let no one dare to say that the faith of John failed, at least till the dark waters have rolled up to his own soul. For mostly all and each of us must pass through some like experience; and only our own hearts and God know, how death-bitter are the doubts, whether of head or of heart, when question after question raises, as with devilish hissing its head, and earth and heaven seem alike silent to us.

But here we must for a moment pause to ask ourselves this, which touches the question of all questions: Surely, such a man as this Baptist, so thoroughly disillusioned in that hour, could not have been an impostor, and his testimony to Christ a falsehood? Nor yet could the record, which gives us this insight into the weakness of the strong man and the doubts of the great Testimony-bearer, be a cunningly-invented fable. We cannot imagine the record of such a failure, if the narrative were an invention. And if this record be true, it is not only of present failure, but also of the previous testimony of John. To us, at least, the evidential force of this narrative seems irresistible. The testimony of the Baptist to Jesus offers the same kind of evidence as does that of the human soul to God: in both cases the one points to the other, and cannot be understood without it.

In that terrible conflict John overcame, as we all must overcome. His very despair opened the door of hope. The helpless doubt, which none could solve but One, he brought to Him around Whom it had gathered. Even in this there is evidence for Christ, as the unalterably True One. When John asked the question: Do we wait for another? light was already struggling through darkness. It was incipient victory even in defeat. When he sent his disciples with this question straight to Christ, he had already conquered; for such a question addressed to a possibly false Messiah has no meaning. And so must it ever be with us. Doubt is the offspring of our disease, diseased as is its paternity. And yet it cannot be cast aside. It may be the outcome of the worst, or the problems of the best souls. The twilight may fade into outer night, or it may usher in the day. The answer lies in this: whether doubt will lead us to Christ, or from Christ.

Thus viewed, the question: ‘Art Thou the Coming One, or do we wait for another?’ indicated faith both in the great promise and in Him to Whom it was addressed. The designation ‘The Coming One’ (haba), though a most truthful expression of Jewish expectancy, was not one ordinarily used of the Messiah. But it was invariably used in reference to the Messianic age, as the Aṯid laḇo or coming future (literally, the prepared for to come), and the Olam haba, the coming world or Aeon. But then it implied the setting right of all things by the Messiah, the assumption and vindication of His Power. In the mouth of John it might therefore mean chiefly this: Art Thou He that is to establish the Messianic Kingdom in its outward power, or have we to wait for another? In that case, the manner in which the Lord answered it would be all the more significant. The messengers came just as He was engaged in healing body and soul.  Without interrupting His work, or otherwise noticing their inquiry, He bade them tell John for answer what they had seen and heard, and that ‘the poor are evangelised.’ To this, as the inmost characteristic of the Messianic Kingdom, He only added, not by way of reproof nor even of warning, but as a fresh ‘Beatitude:’ ‘Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be scandalised in Me.’ To faith, but only to faith, this was the most satisfactory and complete answer to John’s inquiry. And such a sight of Christ’s distinctive Work and Word, with believing submission to the humbleness of the Gospel, is the only true answer to our questions, whether of head or heart.

But a harder saying than this did the Lord speak amidst the forthpouring of His testimony to John, when his messengers had left. It pointed the hearers beyond their present horizon. Several facts here stand out prominently. First, He to Whom John had formerly borne testimony, now bore testimony to him; and that, not in the hour when John had testified for Him, but when his testimony had wavered and almost failed. This is the opposite of what one would have expected, if the narrative had been a fiction, while it is exactly what we might expect if the narrative be true. Next, we mark that the testimony of Christ is as from a higher standpoint. And it is a full vindication as well as unstinted praise, spoken, not as in his hearing, but after his messengers – who had met a seemingly cold reception – had left. The people were not coarsely to misunderstand the deep soul-agony, which had issued in John’s inquiry. It was not the outcome of a fickleness which, like the reed shaken by every wind, was moved by popular opinion. Nor was it the result of fear of bodily consequences, such as one that pampered the flesh might entertain. Let them look back to the time when, in thousands, they had gone into the wilderness to hear his preaching. What had attracted them thither? Surely it was, that he was the opposite of one swayed by popular opinion, ‘a reed shaken by the wind.’ And, when they had come to him, what had they witnessed? Surely, his dress and food betokened the opposite of pampering or care of the body, such as they saw in the courtiers of a Herod. But what they did expect, that they really did see: a prophet, and much more than a mere prophet, the very Herald of God and Preparer of Messiah’s Way. And yet – and this truly was a hard saying and utterly un-Judaic – it was neither self-denial nor position, no, not even that of the New Testament Elijah, which constituted real greatness, as Jesus viewed it, just as nearest relationship constituted not true kinship to Him. To those who sought the honour which is not of man’s bestowing, but of God, to be a little one in the Kingdom of God was greater greatness than even the Baptist’s.

But, even so, let there be no mistake. As afterwards Paul argued with the Jews, that their boast in the Law only increased their guilt as breakers of the Law, so here our Lord. The popular concourse to, and esteem of, the Baptist,  did not imply that spiritual reception which was due to his Mission. It only brought out, in more marked contrast, the wide inward difference between the expectancy of the people as a whole, and the spiritual reality presented to them in the Forerunner of the Messiah and in the Messiah Himself. Let them not be deceived by the crowds that had submitted to the Baptism of John. From the time that John began to preach the Kingdom, hindrances of every kind had been raised. To overcome them and enter the Kingdom, it required, as it were, violence like that to enter a city which was surrounded by a hostile army. Even by Jewish admission, the Law ‘and all the prophets prophesied only of the days of Messiah.’ John, then, was the last link; and, if they would but have received it, he would have been to them the Elijah, the Restorer of all things. Selah – ‘he that hath ears, let him hear.’

Nay, but it was not so. The children of that generation expected quite another Elijah and quite another Christ, and disbelieved and complained, because the real Elijah and Christ did not meet their foolish thoughts. They were like children in a market-place, who expected their fellows to adapt themselves to the tunes they played. It was as if they said: We have expected great Messianic glory and national exaltation, and ye have not responded (‘we have piped unto you, and ye have not danced’); we have looked for deliverance from our national sufferings, and they stirred not your sympathies nor brought your help (‘we have mourned to you, and ye have not lamented’). But you thought of the Messianic time as children, and of us, as if we were your fellows, and shared your thoughts and purposes! And so when John came with his stern asceticism, you felt he was not one of you. He was in, one direction outside your boundary-line, and I, as the Friend of sinners, in the other direction. The axe which he wielded you would have laid to the tree of the Gentile world, not to that of Israel and of sin; the welcome and fellowship which I extended, you would have had to ‘the wise’ and ‘the righteous,’ not to sinners. Such was Israel as a whole. And yet there was an election according to grace: the violent, who had to fight their way through all this, and who took the Kingdom by violence – and so Heaven’s Wisdom (in opposition to the children’s folly) is vindicated by all her children. If anything were needed to show the internal harmony between the Synoptists and the Fourth Gospel, it would be this final appeal, which recalls those other words: ‘He came unto His own (things or property), and his own (people, they who were His own) received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power (right, authority) to become children of God, which were born (begotten,) not… of the will of man, but of God.’

6. The scene once more changes, and we are again at Machaerus. Weeks have passed since the return of John’s messengers. We cannot doubt that the sunlight of faith has again fallen into the dark dungeon, nor yet that the peace of restful conviction has filled the martyr of Christ. He must have known that his end was at hand, and been ready to be offered up. Those not unfrequent conversations, in which the weak, superstitious, wicked tyrant was ‘perplexed’ and yet ‘heard him gladly,’ could no longer have inspired even passing hopes of freedom. Nor would he any longer expect from the Messiah assertions of power on his behalf. He now understood that for which He had come;’ he knew the better liberty, triumph, and victory which He brought. And what mattered it? His life-work had been done, and there was nothing further that fell to him or that he could do, and the weary servant of the Lord must have longed for his rest.

It was early spring, shortly before the Passover, the anniversary of the death of Herod the Great and of the accession of (his son) Herod Antipas to the Petrarchy. A fit time this for a Belshazzar-feast, when such an one as Herod would gather to a grand banquet ‘his lords,’ and the military authorities, and the chief men of Galilee. It is evening, and the castle-palace is brilliantly lit up. The noise of music and the shouts of revelry come across the slope into the citadel, and fall into the deep dungeon where waits the prisoner of Christ. And now the merriment in the great banqueting-hall has reached its utmost height. The king has nothing further to offer his satiated guests, no fresh excitement. So let it be the sensuous stimulus of dubious dances, and, to complete it, let the dancer be the fair young daughter of the king’s wife, the very descendant of the Asmonaean priest-princes! To viler depth of coarse familiarity even a Herod could not have descended.

She has come, and she has danced, this princely maiden, out of whom all maidenhood and all princeliness have been brazed by a degenerate mother, wretched offspring of the once noble Maccabees. And she has done her best in that wretched exhibition, and pleased Herod and them that sat at meat with him. And now, amidst the general plaudits, she shall have her reward – and the king swears it to her with loud voice, that all around hear it – even to the half of his kingdom. The maiden steals out of the banquet-hall to ask her mother what it shall be. Can there be doubt or hesitation in the mind of Herodias? If there was one object she had at heart, which these ten months she had in vain sought to attain: it was the death of John the Baptist. She remembered it all only too well – her stormy, reckless past. The daughter of Aristobulus, the ill-fated son of the ill-fated Asmonaean princess Mariamme (I.), she had been married to her half-uncle, Herod Philip, the son of Herod the Great and of Mariamme (II.), the daughter of the High-Priest (Boëthos). At one time it seemed as if Herod Philip would have been sole heir of his father’s dominions. But the old tyrant had changed his testament, and Philip was left with great wealth, but as a private person living in Jerusalem. This little suited the woman’s ambition. It was when his half-brother, Herod Antipas, came on a visit to him at Jerusalem, that an intrigue began between the Tetrarch and his brother’s wife. It was agreed that, after the return of Antipas from his impending journey to Rome, he would repudiate his wife, the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia, and wed Herodias. But Aretas’ daughter heard of the plot, and having obtained her husband’s consent to go to Machaerus, she fled thence to her father. This, of course, led to enmity between Antipas and Aretas. Nevertheless, the adulterous marriage with Herodias followed. In a few sentences the story may be carried to its termination. The woman proved the curse and ruin of Antipas. First came the murder of the Baptist, which sent a thrill of horror through the people, and to which all the later misfortunes of Herod were attributed. Then followed a war with Aretas, in which the Tetrarch was worsted. And, last of all, his wife’s ambition led him to Rome to solicit the title of King, lately given to Agrippa, the brother of Herodias. Antipas not only failed, but was deprived of his dominions, and banished to Lyons in Gaul. The pride of the woman in refusing favours from the Emperor, and her faithfulness to her husband in his fallen fortunes, are the only redeeming points in her history. As for Salome, she was first married to her uncle, Philip the Tetrarch. Legend has it, that her death was retributive, being in consequence of a fall on the ice.

Such was the woman who had these many months sought with the vengefulness and determination of a Jezebel, to rid herself of the hated person, who alone had dared publicly denounce her sin, and whose words held her weak husband in awe. The opportunity had now come for obtaining from the vacillating monarch what her entreaties could never have secured. As the Gospel puts it, ‘instigated’ by her mother, the damsel hesitated not. We can readily fill in the outlined picture of what followed. It only needed the mother’s whispered suggestion, and still flushed from her dance, Salome reentered the banqueting-hall. ‘With haste,’ as if no time were to be lost, she went up to the king: ‘I would that thou forthwith give me on a charger, the head of John the Baptist!’ Silence must have fallen on the assembly. Even into their hearts such a demand from the lips of little more than a child must have struck horror. They all knew John to be a righteous and holy man. Wicked as they were, in their superstition, if not religiousness, few, if any of them, would have willingly lent himself to such work. And they all knew, also, why Salome, or rather Herodias, had made this demand. What would Herod do? ‘The king was exceeding sorry.’ For months he had striven against this. His conscience, fear of the people, inward horror at the deed, all would have kept him from it. But he had sworn to the maiden, who now stood before him, claiming that the pledge be redeemed, and every eye in the assembly was now fixed upon him. Unfaithful to his God, to his conscience, to truth and righteousness; not ashamed of any crime or sin, he would yet be faithful to his half-drunken oath, and appear honorable and true before such companions!

It has been but the contest of a moment. ‘Straightway’ the king gives the order to one of the body-guard. The maiden hath withdrawn to await the result with her mother. The guardsman has left the banqueting-hall. Out into the cold spring night, up that slope, and into the deep dungeon. As its door opens, the noise of the revelry comes with the light of the torch which the man bears. No time for preparation is given, nor needed. A few minutes more, and the gory head of the Baptist is brought to the maiden in a charger, and she gives the ghastly dish to her mother.

It is all over! As the pale morning light streams into the keep, the faithful disciples, who had been told of it, come reverently to bear the headless body to the burying. They go forth for ever from that accursed place, which is so soon to become a mass of shapeless ruins. They go to tell it to Jesus, and henceforth to remain with Him. We can imagine what welcome awaited them. But the people ever afterwards cursed the tyrant, and looked for those judgments of God to follow, which were so soon to descend on him. And he himself was ever afterwards restless, wretched, and full of apprehensions. He could scarcely believe that the Baptist was really dead, and when the fame of Jesus reached him, and those around suggested that this was Elijah, a prophet, or as one of them, Herod’s mind, amidst its strange perplexities, still reverted to the man whom he had murdered. It was a new anxiety, perhaps, even so, a new hope; and as formerly he had often and gladly heard the Baptist, so now he would fain have seen Jesus. He would see Him; but not now. In that dark night of betrayal, he, who at the bidding of the child of an adulteress, had murdered the Forerunner, might, with the approbation of a Pilate, have rescued Him whose faithful witness John had been. But night was to merge into yet darker night. For it was the time and the power of the Evil One. And yet: ‘Jehovah reigneth.’

(Mat_14:13-21; Mar_6:30-44; Luk_9:10-17; Joh_6:1-14)

In the circumstances described in the previous chapter, Jesus resolved at once to leave Capernaum; and this probably alike for the sake of His disciples, who needed rest; for that of the people, who might have attempted a rising after the murder of the Baptist; and temporarily to withdraw Himself and His followers from the power of Herod. For this purpose He chose the place outside the dominions of Antipas, nearest to Capernaum. This was Beth-Saida (‘the house of fishing,’ ‘Fisher-town,’ as we might call it), on the eastern border of Galilee, just within the territory of the Tetrarch Philip. Originally a small village, Philip had converted it into a town, and named it Julias, after Caesar’s daughter. It lay on the eastern bank of Jordan, just before that stream enters the Lake of Galilee. It must, however, not be confounded with the other ‘Fisher-town,’ or Bethsaida, on the western shore of the Lake, which the Fourth Gospel, evidencing by this local knowledge its Judaean, or rather Galilean, authorship, distinguishes from the eastern as ‘Bethsaida of Galilee.’ 

Other minute points of deep interest in the same direction will present themselves in the course of this narrative. Meantime we note, that this is the only history, previous to Christ’s last visit to Jerusalem, which is recorded by all the four Evangelists; the only series of events also in the whole course of that Galilean Ministry, which commenced after His return from the ‘Unknown Feast,’ which is referred to in the Fourth Gospel; and that it contains two distinct notices as to the time, which enable us to fit it exactly into the framework of this history. For, the statement of the Fourth Gospel, that the ‘Passover was nigh,’ is confirmed by the independent notice of Mark, that those whom the Lord miraculously led were ranged ‘on the green grass.’ In that climate there would have been no ‘green grass’ soon after the Passover. We must look upon the coincidence of these two notices as one of the undesigned confirmations of this narrative.

For, miraculous it certainly is, and the attempts rationalistically to explain it, to sublimate it into a parable, to give it the spiritualistic meaning of spiritual feeding, or to account for its mythical origin by the precedent of the descent of the manna, or of the miracle of Elisha, are even more palpable failures than those made to account for the miracle at Cana. The only alternative is to accept or entirely to reject it. In view of the exceptional record of this history in all the four Gospels, no unbiassed historical student would treat it as a simple invention, for which there was no ground in reality. Nor can its origin be accounted for by previous Jewish expectancy, or Old Testament precedent. The only rational mode of explaining it is on the supposition of its truth. This miracle, and what follows, mark the climax in our Lord’s doing, as the healing of the Syro-Phoenician maiden the utmost sweep of His activity, and the Transfiguration the highest point in regard to the miraculous about His Person. The only reason which can be assigned for the miracle of His feeding the five thousand was that of all His working: Man’s need, and, in view of it, the stirring of the Pity and Power that were in Him. But even so, we cannot fail to mark the contrast between King Herod, and the banquet that ended with the murder of the Baptist, and King Jesus, and the banquet that ended with His lonely prayer on the mountain-side, the calming of the storm on the Lake, and the deliverance from death of His disciples.

Only a few hours’ sail from Capernaum, and even a shorter distance by land (round the head of the Lake) lay the district of Bethsaida-Julias. It was natural that Christ, wishing to avoid public attention, should have gone ‘by ship,’ and equally so that the many ‘seeing them departing, and knowing’ – viz., what direction the boat was taking, should have followed on foot, and been joined by others from the neighbouring villages, as those from Capernaum passed through them, perhaps, also, as they recognised on the Lake the now well-known sail, speeding towards the other shore. It is an incidental but interesting confirmation of the narrative, that the same notice about this journey occurs, evidently undesignedly, in Joh_6:22. Yet another we find in the fact, that some of those who ‘ran there on foot’ had reached the place before Jesus and His Apostles. Only some, as we judge. The largest proportion arrived later, and soon swelled to the immense number of ‘about 5,000 men,’ ‘besides women and children.’ The circumstance that the Passover was nigh at hand, so that many must have been starting on their journey to Jerusalem, round the Lake and through Peraea, partly accounts for the concourse of such multitudes. And this, perhaps in conjunction with the effect on the people of John’s murder, may also explain their ready and eager gathering to Christ, thus affording yet another confirmation of the narrative.

It was a well-known spot where Jesus and His Apostles touched the shore. Not many miles south of it was the Gerasa or Gergesa, where the great miracle of healing the demonised had been wrought. Just beyond Gerasa the mountains and hills recede, and the plain along the shore enlarges, till it attains wide proportions on the northern bank of the Lake. The few ruins which mark the site of Bethsaida-Julias – most of the basalt-stones having been removed for building purposes – lie on the edge of a hill, three or four miles north of the Lake. The ford, by which those who came from Capernaum crossed the Jordan, was, no doubt, that still used, about two miles from where the river enters the Lake. About a mile further, on that wide expanse of grass, would be the scene of the great miracle. In short, the locality thoroughly accords with the requirements of the Gospel-narrative. As we picture it to ourselves, our Lord with His disciples, and perhaps followed by those who had outrun the rest, first retired to the top of a height, and there rested in teaching converse with them. Presently, as He saw the great multitudes gathering, He was ‘moved with compassion towards them.’  There could be no question of retirement or rest in view of this. Surely, it was the opportunity which God had given – a call which came to Him from His Father. Every such opportunity was unspeakably precious to Him, Who longed to gather the lost under His wings. It might be, that even now they would learn what belonged to their peace. Oh, that they would learn it! At least, He must work while it was called to-day, ere the night of judgment came; work with that unending patience and intense compassion which made Him weep, when He could no longer work. It was this depth of longing and intenseness of pity which now ended the Saviour’s rest, and brought Him down from the hill to meet the gathering multitude in the ‘desert’ plain beneath.

And what a sight to meet His gaze – these thousands of strong men, besides women and children; and what thoughts of the past, the present, and the future, would be called up by the scene! ‘The Passover was nigh,’ with its remembrances of the Paschal night, the Paschal Lamb, the Paschal Supper, the Paschal deliverance – and most of them were, Passover-pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. These Passover-pilgrims and God’s guests, now streaming out into this desert after Him; with a murdered John just buried, and no earthly teacher, guide, or help left! Truly they were ‘as sheep having no shepherd.’ The very surroundings seemed to give to the thought the vividness of a picture: this wandering, straying multitude, the desert sweep of country, the very want of provisions. A Passover, indeed, but of which He would be the Paschal Lamb, the Bread which He gave, the Supper, and around which He would gather those scattered, shepherdless sheep into one flock of many ‘companies,’ to which His Apostles would bring the bread He had blessed and broken, to their sufficient and more than sufficient nourishment; from which, indeed, they would carry the remnant-baskets full, after the flock had been fed, to the poor in the outlying places of far-off heathendom. And so thoughts of the past, the present, and the future must have mingled – thoughts of the Passover in the past, of the Last, the Holy Supper in the future, and of the deeper inward meaning and bearing of both the one and the other; thoughts also of this flock, and of that other flock which was yet to gather, and of the far-off places, and of the Apostles and their service, and of the provision which they were to carry from His Hands – a provision never exhausted by present need, and which always leaves enough to carry thence and far away.

There is, at least in our view, no doubt that thoughts of the Passover and of the Holy Supper, of their commingling and mystic meaning, were present to the Saviour, and that it is in this light the miraculous feeding of the multitude must be considered, if we are in any measure to understand it. Meantime the Saviour was moving among them – ‘beginning to teach them many things,’ and ‘healing them that had need of healing.’ Yet, as He so moved and thought of it all, from the first, ‘He Himself knew what He was about to do. And now the sun had passed its meridian, and the shadows fell longer on the surging crowd. Full of the thoughts of the great Supper, which was symbolically to link the Passover of the past with that of the future, and its Sacramental continuation to all time, He turned to Philip with this question: ‘Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat?’ It was to ‘try him,’ and show how he would view and meet what, alike spiritually and temporally, has so often been the great problem. Perhaps there was something in Philip which made it specially desirable, that the question should be put to him. At any rate, the answer of Philip showed that there had been a ‘need be’ for it. This – two hundred denarii (between six and seven pounds) worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that ‘every one may take a little,’ is the course realism, not of unbelief, but of an absence of faith which, entirely ignoring any higher possibility, has not even its hope left in a ‘Thou knowest, Lord.’

But there is evidence, also, that the question of Christ worked deeper thinking and higher good. As we understand it, Philip told it to Andrew, and they to the others. While Jesus taught and healed, they must have spoken together of this strange question of the Master. They knew Him sufficiently to judge, that it implied some purpose on His part. Did He intend to provide for all that multitude? They counted them roughly – going along the edge and through the crowd – and reckoned them by thousands, besides women and children. They thought of all the means for feeding such a multitude. How much had they of their own? As we judge by combining the various statements, there was a lad there who carried the scant, humble provisions of the party – perhaps a fisher-lad brought for the purpose from the boat. It would take quite what Philip had reckoned – about two hundred denarii – if the Master meant them to go and buy victuals for all that multitude. Probably the common stock – at any rate as computed by Judas, who carried the bag – did not contain that amount. In any case, the right and the wise thing was to dismiss the multitude, that they might go into the towns and villages and buy for themselves victuals, and find lodgment. For already the bright spring-day was declining, and what was called ‘the first evening’ had set in. For the Jews reckoned two evenings, although it is not easy to determine the exact hour when each began and ended. But, in general, the first evening may be said to have begun when the sun declined, and it was probably reckoned as lasting to about the ninth hour, or three o’clock of the afternoon. Then began the period known as ‘between the evenings,’ which would be longer or shorter according to the season of the year, and which terminated with ‘the second evening’ – the time from when the first star appeared to that when the third star was visible. With the night began the reckoning of the following day.

It was the ‘first evening’ when the disciples, whose anxiety must have been growing with the progress of time, asked the Lord to dismiss the people. But it was as they had thought. He would have them give the people to eat! Were they, then, to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of loaves? No – they were not to buy, but to give of their own store! How many loaves had they! Let them go and see. And when Andrew went to see what store the fisher-lad carried for them, he brought back the tidings, ‘He hath five barley loaves and two small fishes,’ to which he added, half in disbelief, half in faith’s rising expectancy of impossible possibility: ‘But what are they among so many?’ It is to the fourth Evangelist alone that we owe the record of this remark, which we instinctively feel gives to the whole the touch of truth and life. It is to him also that we owe other two minute traits of deepest interest, and of far greater importance than at first, sight appears.

When we read that these five were barley-loaves, we learn that, no doubt from voluntary choice, the fare of the Lord and of His followers was the poorest. Indeed, barley-bread was, almost proverbially, the meanest. Hence, as the Mishnah puts it, while all other meat-offerings were of wheat, that brought by the woman accused of adultery was to be of barley, because (so R. Gamaliel puts it), ‘as her deed is that of animals, so her offering is also of the food of animals.’ The other minute trait in John’s Gospel consists in the use of a peculiar word for ‘fish’ (ὀψάριον), ‘opsarion,’ which properly means what was eaten along with the bread, and specially refers to the small, and generally dried or pickled fish eaten with bread, like our ‘sardines,’ or the ‘caviar’ of Russia, the pickled herrings of Holland and Germany, or a peculiar kind of small dried fish, eaten with the bones, in the North of Scotland. Now just as any one who would name that fish as eaten with bread, would display such minute knowledge of the habits of the North-east of Scotland as only personal residence could give, so in regard to the use of this term, which, be it marked, is peculiar to the Fourth Gospel, Dr. Westcott suggests, that ‘it may have been a familiar Galilean word,’ and his conjecture is correct, for Op̱sonin (אַפְסוֹנִין), derived from the same Greek word (ὄψον), of which that used by John is the diminutive, means a ‘savoury dish,’ while Ap̱yan (אפיאן) or Ap̱iṣ (עפיץ), is the term for a kind of small fish, such as sardines. The importance of tracing accurate local knowledge in the Fourth Gospel warrants our pursuing the subject further. The Talmud declares that of all kinds of meat, fish only becomes more savoury by salting, and names certain kinds, specially designated as ‘small fishes,’ which might be eaten without being cooked. Small fishes were recommended for health; and a kind of pickle or savoury was also made of them. Now the Lake of Galilee was particularly rich in these fishes, and we know that both the salting and pickling of them was a special industry among its fishermen. For this purpose a small kind of them were specially selected, which bear the name teriṯ (טרית). Now the diminutive used by John (ὀψάριον), of which our Authorized Version no doubt gives the meaning fairly by rendering it ‘small fishes,’ refers, no doubt, to those small fishes (probably a kind of sardine) of which millions were caught in the Lake, and which, dried and salted, would form the most common ‘savoury’ with bread for the fisher-population along the shores.

If the Fourth Gospel in the use of this diminutive displays such special Lake-knowledge as evidences its Galilean origin, another touching trait connected with its use may here be mentioned. It has already been said that the term is used only by John, as if to mark the Lake of Galilee origin of the Fourth Gospel. But only once again does the expression occur in the Fourth Gospel. On that morning, when the Risen One manifested Himself by the Lake of Galilee to them who had all the night toiled in vain, He had provided for them miraculously the meal, when on the ‘fire of charcoal’ they saw the well-remembered ‘little fish’ (the opsarion), and, as He bade them bring of the ‘little fish’ (the opsaria) which they had miraculously caught, Peter drew to shore the net full, not of opsaria, but ‘of great fishes’ (ἰχθύων μεγάλων). And yet it was not of those ‘great fishes’ that He gave them, but ‘He took the bread and gave them, and the opsarion likewise.’ Thus, in infinite humility, the meal at which the Risen Saviour sat down with His disciples was still of ‘bread and small fishes’ – even though He gave them the draught of large fishes; and so at that last meal He recalled that first miraculous feeding by the Lake of Galilee. And this also is one of those undesigned, too often unobserved traits in the narrative, which yet carry almost irresistible evidence.

There is one proof at least of the implicit faith or rather trust of the disciples in their Master. They had given Him account of their own scanty provision, and yet, as He bade them make the people sit down to the meal, they hesitated not to obey. We can picture it to ourselves, what is so exquisitely sketched: the expanse of ‘grass,’ ‘green,’ and fresh, ‘much grass;’ then the people in their ‘companies’ of fifties and hundreds, reclining, and looking in their regular divisions, and with their bright many-coloured dresses, like ‘garden-beds’  on the turf. But on One Figure must every eye have been bent. Around Him stood His Apostles. They had laid before Him the scant provision made for their own wants, and which was now to feed this great multitude. As was wont at meals, on the part of the head of the household, Jesus took the bread, ‘blessed’ or, as John puts it, ‘gave thanks,’ and ‘brake’ it. The expression recalls that connected with the Holy Eucharist, and leaves little doubt on the mind that, in the Discourse delivered in the Synagogue of Capernaum, there is also reference to the Lord’s Supper. As of comparatively secondary importance, yet helping us better to realise the scene, we recall the Jewish ordinance, that the Head of the House was only to speak the blessing if he himself shared in the meal, yet if they who sat down to it were not merely guests, but his children, or his household, then might he speak it, even if he himself did not partake of the bread which he had broken.

We can scarcely be mistaken as to the words which Jesus spake when ‘He gave thanks.’ The Jewish Law allows the grace at meat to be said, not only in Hebrew, but in any language, the Jerusalem Talmud aptly remarking, that it was proper a person should understand to Whom he was giving thanks (למי מברך). Similarly, we have very distinct information as regards a case like the present. We gather, that the use of ‘savoury’ with bread was specially common around the Lake of Galilee, and the Mishnah lays down the principle, that if bread and ‘savoury’ were eaten, it would depend which of the two was the main article of diet, to determine whether ‘thanksgiving’ should be said for one or the other. In any case only one benediction was to be used. In this case, of course, it would be spoken over the bread, the ‘savoury’ being merely an addition. There can be little doubt, therefore, that the words which Jesus spake, whether in Aramaean, Greek, or Hebrew, were those so well known: ‘Blessed art Thou, Jehovah our God, King of the world, Who causes to come forth (הַטּוֹצִיא) bread from the earth.’ Assuredly it was this threefold thought: the upward thought (sursum corda), the recognition of the creative act as regards every piece of bread we eat, and the thanksgiving, which was realised anew in all its fulness, when, as He distributed to the disciples, the provision miraculously multiplied in His Hands. And still they bore it from His Hands from company to company, laying before each a store. When they were all filled, He that had provided the meal bade them gather up the fragments before each company. So doing, each of the twelve had his basket filled. Here also we have another life-touch. Those ‘baskets’ (κόφινοι), known in Jewish writings by a similar name (kep̱ip̱ah), made of wicker or willows (כְפִיפָּה מִצְרִית) were in common use, but considered of the poorest kind. There is a sublimeness of contrast that passes description between this feast to the five thousand, besides women and children, and the poor’s provision of barley bread and the two small fishes; and, again, between the quantity left and the coarse wicker baskets in which it was stored. Nor do we forget to draw mentally the parallel between this Messianic feast and that banquet of ‘the latter days’ which Rabbinism pictured so realistically. But as the wondering multitude watched, as the disciples gathered from company to company the fragments into their baskets, the murmur ran through the ranks: ‘This is truly the Prophet, “the Coming One” (haba, הבא) into the world.’ And so the Baptist’s last inquiry, ‘Art Thou the Coming One?’ was fully and publicly answered, and that by the Jews themselves.

(Mat_14:22-36; Mar_6:45-56; Joh_6:15-21)

The last question of the Baptist, spoken in public, had been: ‘Art Thou the Coming One, or look we for another?’ It had, in part, been answered, as the murmur had passed through the ranks: ‘This One is truly the Prophet, the Coming One!’ So, then, they had no longer to wait, nor to look for another! And this ‘Prophet’ was Israel’s long expected Messiah. What this would imply to the people, in the intensity and longing of the great hope which, for centuries, nay, far beyond the time of Ezra, had swayed their hearts, it is impossible fully to conceive. Here, then, was the Great Reality at last before them. He, on Whose teaching they had hung entranced, was ‘the Prophet,’ nay, more, ‘the Coming One:’ He Who was coming all those many centuries, and yet had not come till now. Then, also, was He more than a Prophet – a King: Israel’s King, the King of the world. An irresistible impulse seized the people. They would proclaim Him King, then and there; and as they knew, probably from previous utterances, perhaps when similar movements had to be checked, that He would resist, they would constrain Him to declare Himself, or at least to be proclaimed by them. Can we wonder at this; or that thoughts of a Messianic worldly kingdom should have filled, moved, and influenced to discipleship a Judas; or that, with such a representative of their own thoughts among the disciples, the rising waves of popular excitement should have swollen into the mighty billows?

‘Jesus therefore, perceiving that they were about to come, and to take Him by force, that they might make Him King, withdrew again into the mountain, Himself alone,’ or, as it might be rendered, though not quite in the modern usage of the expression, ‘became an anchorite again… Himself alone.’ This is another of those sublime, contrasts, which render it well-nigh inconceivable to regard this history otherwise than as true and Divine. Yet another is the manner in which He stilled the multitude, and the purpose for which He became the lonely Anchorite on the mountain-top. He withdrew to pray; and He stilled the people, and sent them, no doubt solemnised, to their homes, by telling them that He withdrew to pray. And He did pray till far on, ‘when the (second) evening had come,’ and the first stars shone out in the deep blue sky over the Lake of Galilee, with the far lights twinkling and trembling on the other side. And yet another sublime contrast – as He constrained the disciples to enter the ship, and that ship, which bore those who had been sharers in the miracle, could not make way against storm and waves, and was at last driven out of its course. And yet another contrast – as He walked on the storm-tossed waves and subdued them. And yet another, and another – for is not all this history one sublime contrast to the seen and the thought of by men, but withal most true and Divine in the sublimeness of these contrasts?

For whom and for what He prayed, alone on that mountain, we dare not, even in deepest reverence, inquire. Yet we think, in connection with it, of the Passover, the Manna, the Wilderness, the Lost Sheep, the Holy Supper, the Bread which is His Flesh, and the remnant in the Baskets to be carried to those afar off, and then also of the attempt to make Him a King, in all its spiritual unreality, ending in His View with the betrayal, the denial, and the cry: ‘We have no King but Caesar.’ And as He prayed, the faithful stars in the heavens shone out. But there on the Lake, where the bark which bore His disciples made for the other shore, ‘a great wind’ ‘contrary to them’ was rising. And still He was ‘alone on the land,’ but looking out into the evening after them, as the ship was ‘in the midst of the sea,’ and they toiling and ‘distressed in rowing.’

Thus far, to the utmost verge of their need, but not farther. The Lake is altogether about forty furlongs or stadia (about six miles) wide, and they had as yet reached little more than half the distance (twenty-five or thirty furlongs). Already it was ‘the fourth watch of the night.’ There was some difference of opinion among the Jews, whether the night should be divided into three, or (as among the Romans) into four watches. The latter (which would count the night at twelve instead of nine hours) was adopted by many. In any case it would be what might be termed the morning-watch, when the well-known Form seemed to be passing them, ‘walking upon the sea.’ There can, at least, be no question that such was the impression, not only of one or another, but that all saw Him. Nor yet can there be here question of any natural explanation. Once more the truth of the event must be either absolutely admitted, or absolutely rejected. The difficulties of the latter hypothesis, which truly cuts the knot, would be very formidable. Not only would the origination of this narrative, as given by two of the Synoptists and by John, be utterly unaccountable – neither meeting Jewish expectancy, nor yet supposed Old Testament precedent – but, if legend it be, it seems purposeless and irrational. Moreover, there is this noticeable about it, as about so many of the records of the miraculous in the New Testament, that the writers by no means disguise from themselves or their readers the obvious difficulties involved. In the present instance they tell us, that they regarded His Form moving on the water as ‘a spirit,’ and cried out for fear; and again, that the impression produced by the whole scene, even on them that had witnessed the miracle of the previous evening, was one of overwhelming astonishment. This walking on the water, then, was even to them within the domain of the truly miraculous, and it affected their minds equally, perhaps even more than ours, from the fact that in their view so much, which to us seems miraculous, lay within the sphere of what might be expected in the course of such a history.

On the other hand, this miracle stands not isolated, but forms one of a series of similar manifestations. It is closely connected both with what had passed on the previous evening, and what was to follow; it is told with a minuteness of detail, and with such marked absence of any attempt at gloss, adornment, apology, or self-glorification, as to give the narrative (considered simply as such) the stamp of truth; while, lastly, it contains much that lifts the story from the merely miraculous into the domain of the sublime and deeply spiritual. As regards what may be termed its credibility, this at least may again be stated, that this and similar instances of ‘dominion over the creature,’ are not beyond the range of what God had originally assigned to man, when He made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honour, made him to have dominion over the works of His Hands, and all things were put under his feet. Indeed, this ‘dominion over the sea’ seems to exhibit the Divinely human rather than the humanly Divine aspect of His Person, if such distinction may be lawfully made. Of the physical possibility of such a miracle – not to speak of the contradiction in terms which this implies – no explanation can be attempted, if it were only on the ground that we are utterly ignorant of the conditions under which it took place.

This much, however, deserves special notice, that there is one marked point of difference between the account of this miracle and what will be found a general characteristic in legendary narratives. In the latter, the miraculous, however extraordinary, is the expected; it creates no surprise, and it is never mistaken for something that might have occurred in the ordinary course of events. For, it is characteristic of the mythical that the miraculous is not only introduced in the most realistic manner, but forms the essential element in the conception of things. This is the very raison d’être of the myth or legend, when it attaches itself to the real and historically true. Now the opposite is the case in the present narrative. Had it been mythical or legendary, we should have expected that the disciples would have been described as immediately recognising the Master as He walked on the sea, and worshipping Him. Instead of this, they ‘are troubled’ and ‘afraid.’ ‘They supposed it was an apparition, (this in accordance with popular Jewish notions), and ‘cried out for fear.’ Even afterwards, when they had received Him into the ship, ‘they were sore amazed in themselves,’ and ‘understood not,’ while those in the ship (in contradistinction to the disciples), burst forth into an act of worship. This much then is evident, that the disciples expected not the miraculous; that they were unprepared for it; that they had explained it on what to them seemed natural grounds; and that, even when convinced of its reality, the impression of wonder, which it made, was of the deepest. And this also follows is a corollary, that, when they recorded it, it was not in ignorance that they were writing that which sounded strangest, and which would affect those who should read it with even much greater wonderment – we had almost written, unbelief – than those who themselves had witnessed it.

Nor let it be forgotten, that what has just been remarked about this narrative holds equally true in regard to other miracles recorded in the New Testament. Thus, even so fundamental an article of the faith as the resurrection of Christ is described as having come upon the disciples themselves as a surprise – not only wholly unexpected, but so incredible, that it required repeated and indisputable evidence to command their acknowledgment. And nothing can be more plain, than that Paul himself was not only aware of the general resistance which the announcement of such an event would raise, but that he felt to the full the difficulties of what he so firmly believed, and made the foundation of all his preaching. Indeed, the elaborate exposition of the historical grounds, on which he had arrived at the conviction of reality, affords an insight into the mental difficulties which it must at first have presented to him. And a similar inference may be drawn from the reference of Peter to the difficulties connected with the Biblical predictions about the end of the world. 

It is not necessary to pursue this subject further. Its bearing on the miracle of Christ’s walking on the Sea of Galilee will be sufficiently manifest. Yet other confirmatory evidence may be gathered from a closer study of the details of the narrative. When Jesus ‘constrained the disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before Him unto the other side,’ they must have thought, that His purpose was to join them by land, since there was no other boat there, save that in which they crossed the Lake. And possibly such had been his intention, till He saw their difficulty, if not danger, from the contrary wind. This must have determined Him to come to their help. And so this miracle also was not a mere display of power, but, being caused by their need, had a moral object. And when it is asked, how from the mountain-height by the Lake He could have seen at night where the ship was labouring so far on the Lake, it must surely have been forgotten that the scene is laid quite shortly before the Passover (the 15th of Nisan), when, of course, the moon would shine on an unclouded sky, all the more brightly on a windy spring-night, and light up the waters far across.

We can almost picture to ourselves the weird scene. The Christ is on that hill-top in solitary converse with His Father – praying after that miraculous breaking of bread: fully realising all that it implied to Him of self-surrender, of suffering, and of giving Himself as the Food of the World, and all that it implied to us of blessing and nourishment; praying also – with that scene fresh on His mind, of their seeking to make Him, even by force, their King – that the carnal might become spiritual reality (as in symbol it would be with the Breaking of Bread). Then, as He rises from His knees, knowing that, alas, it could not and would not be so to the many, He looks out over the Lake after that little company, which embodied and represented all there yet was of His Church, all that would really feed on the Bread from Heaven, and own Him their true King. Without presumption, we may venture to say, that there must have been indescribable sorrow and longing in His Heart, as His gaze was bent across the track which the little boat would follow. As we view it, it seems all symbolical: the night, the moonlight, the little boat, the contrary wind, and then also the lonely Saviour after prayer looking across to where the boatmen vainly labour to gain the other shore. As in the clear moonlight just that piece of water stands out, almost like burnished silver, with all else in shadows around, the sail-less mast is now rocking to and fro, without moving forward. They are in difficulty, in danger: and the Saviour cannot pursue His journey on foot by land; He must come to their help, though it be across the water. It is needful, and therefore it shall be upon the water; and so the storm and unsuccessful toil shall not prevent their reaching the shore, but shall also be to them for teaching concerning Him and His great power, and concerning His great deliverance; such teaching as, in another aspect of it, had been given them in symbol in the miraculous supply of food, with all that it implied (and not to them only, but to us also) of precious comfort and assurance, and as will for ever keep the Church from being overwhelmed by fear in the stormy night on the Lake of Galilee, when the labour of our oars cannot make way for us.

And they also who were in the boat must have been agitated by peculiar feelings. Against their will they had been ‘constrained’ by the Lord to embark and quit the scene; just as the multitude, under the influence of the great miracle, were surrounding their Master, with violent insistence to proclaim him the Messianic King of Israel. Not only a Judas Iscariot, but all of them, must have been under the strongest excitement: first of the great miracle, and then of the popular movement. It was the crisis in the history of the Messiah and of His Kingdom. Can we wonder, that, when the Lord in very mercy bade them quit a scene which could only have misled them, they were reluctant, nay, that it almost needed violence on His part? And yet – the more we consider it – was it not most truly needful for them, that they should leave? But, on the other hand, in this respect also, does there seem a ‘need be’ for His walking upon the sea, that they might learn not only His Almighty Power, and (symbolically) that He ruled the rising waves; but that, in their disappointment at His not being a King, they might learn that He was a, King – only in a far higher, truer sense than the excited multitude would have proclaimed Him.

Thus we can imagine the feelings with which they had pushed the boat from the shore, and then eagerly looked back to descry what passed there. But soon the shadows of night were enwrapping all objects at a distance, and only the bright moon overhead shone on the track behind and before. And now the breeze from the other side of the Lake, of which they may have been unaware when they embarked on the eastern shore, had freshened into violent, contrary wind. All energies must have been engaged to keep the boat’s head towards the shore. Even so it seemed as if they could make no progress, when all at once, in the track that lay behind them, a Figure appeared. As it passed onwards over the water, seemingly upborne by the waves as they rose, not disappearing as they fell, but carried on as they rolled, the silvery moon laid upon the trembling waters the shadows of that Form as it moved, long and dark, on their track. John uses an expression, which shows us in the pale light, those in the boat, intently, fixedly, fearfully, gazing at the Apparition as It neared still closer and closer. We must remember their previous excitement, as also the presence, and, no doubt, the superstitious suggestions of the boatman, when we think how they cried out for fear, and deemed It an Apparition. And ‘He would have passed by them,’ as He so often does in our case – bringing them, indeed, deliverance, pointing and smoothing their way, but not giving them His known Presence, if they had not cried out. But their fear, which made them almost hesitate to receive Him into the boat, even though the outcome of error and superstition, brought His ready sympathy and comfort, in language which has so often, and in all ages, converted foolish fears of misapprehension into gladsome, thankful assurance: ‘It is I, be not afraid!’

And they were no longer afraid, though truly His walking upon the waters might seem more awesome than any ‘apparition.’ The storm in their hearts, like that on the Lake, was commanded by His Presence. We must still bear in mind their former excitement, now greatly intensified by what they had just witnessed, in order to understand the request of Peter: ‘Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee on the water.’ They are the words of a man, whom the excitement of the moment has carried beyond all reflection. And yet this combination of doubt (‘if it be Thou’), with presumption (‘bid me come on the water’), is peculiarly characteristic of Peter. He is the Apostle of Hope – and hope is a combination of doubt and presumption, but also their transformation. With reverence be it said, Christ could not have left the request ungranted, even though it was the outcome of yet unreconciled and untransformed doubt and presumption. He would not have done so – or doubt would have remained doubt untransformed; and He could not have done so, without also correcting it, or presumption would have remained presumption untransformed, which is only upward growth, without deeper rooting in inward spiritual experience. And so He bade him come upon the water, to transform his doubt, but left him, unassured from without, to his own feelings as he saw the wind, to transform his presumption; while by stretching out His Hand to save him from sinking, and by the words of correction which He spake, He did actually so point to their transformation in that hope, of which Peter is the special representative, and the preacher in the Church.

And presently, as they two came into the boat, the wind ceased, and immediately the ship was at the land. But ‘they that were in the boat’ – apparently in contradistinction to the disciples, though the latter must have stood around in sympathetic reverence – worshipped Him, saying, Of a truth Thou art the Son of God.’ The first full public confession this of the fact, and made not by the disciples, but by others. With the disciples it would have meant something far deeper. But as from the lips of these men, it seems like the echo of what had passed between them on that memorable passage across the Lake. They also must have mingled in the conversation, as the boat had pushed off from the shore on the previous evening, when they spake of the miracle of the feeding, and then of the popular attempt to proclaim Him Messianic King, of which they knew not yet the final issue, since they had been ‘constrained to get into the boat,’ while the Master remained behind. They would speak of all that He was and had done, and how the very devils had proclaimed Him to be the ‘Son of God,’ on that other shore, close by where the miracle of feeding had taken place. Perhaps, having been somewhat driven out of their course, they may have passed close to the very spot, and, as they pointed to it recalled the incident. And this designation of ‘Son of God,’ with the worship which followed, would come much more readily, because with much more superficial meaning, to the boatmen than to the disciples. But in them, also, the thought was striking deep root; and presently, by the Mount of Transfiguration, would it be spoken in the name of all by Peter, not as demon- nor as man-taught, but as taught of Christ’s Father Who is in Heaven.

Yet another question suggests itself. The events of the night are not recorded by Luke – perhaps because they did not come within his general view-plan of that Life; perhaps from reverence, because neither he, nor his teacher Paul, were within that inner circle, with which the events of that night were connected rather in the way of reproof than otherwise. At any rate, even negative criticism cannot legitimately draw any adverse inference from it, in view of its record not only by two of the Synoptists, but in the Fourth Gospel. Mark also does not mention the incident concerning Peter; and this we can readily understand from his connection with that Apostle. Of the two eye-witnesses, John, and Matthew, the former also is silent on that incident. On any view of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, it could not have been from ignorance, either of its occurrence, or else of its record by Matthew. Was it among those ‘many other things which Jesus did,’ which were not written by him, since their complete chronicle would have rendered a Gospel-sketch impossible? Or did it lie outside that special conception of his Gospel, which, as regards its details, determined the insertion or else the omission of certain incidents? Or was there some reason for this omission connected with the special relation of John to Peter? And, lastly, why was Matthew in this instance more detailed than the others, and alone told it with such circumstantiality? Was it that it had made such deep impression on his own mind; had he somehow any personal connection with it; or did he feel, as if this bidding of Peter to come to Christ out of the ship and on the water had some close inner analogy with his own call to leave the custom-house and follow Christ? Such, and other suggestions which may arise can only be put in the form of questions. Their answer awaits the morning and the other shore.