صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

b

me and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. 10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. b Luke xiii. 20. 11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.

ch. xxi. 43.

14 And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw d 1 Cor. fx. 5. his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever. 15 And he touched her hand, and the fever left her and she arose, and ministered unto y them.

:

16 When the even was come, they brought unto him

I render, sons.

myself under authority: and in turn know how others obey, having soldiers under me' inferring, if then I, in my subordinate station of command, am obeyed, how much more Thou, who art over all, and whom diseases serve as their Master!' That this is the right interpretation, is shewn by our Lord's special commendation of his faith, ver. 10.

10. marvelled]

outer

to be accepted simply as a fact, as when
Jesus rejoiced, wept, was sorrowful; not,
as some have foolishly done, to be ra-
tionalized away into a mere lesson to teach
us what to admire. The mysteries of our
Lord's humanity are too precious thus to
be sacrificed to the timidity of theologians.
12. the sons] the natural heirs,
but disinherited by rebellion.
darkness] the darkness outside, i. e. out-
side the lighted chamber of the feast, see
ch. xxii. 13, and Eph. v. 7, 8. These verses
are wanting in St. Luke, and occur when
our Lord repeated them on a wholly dif-
ferent occasion, ch. xiii. 28, 29. Compare
a remarkable contrast in the Rabbinical
books illustrating Jewish pride: "God said
to the Israelites, In the world to come
I will spread for you a vast table, which
the Gentiles shall see and be confounded."

[blocks in formation]

y read, him.

character of palsy among us, we read of a similar case in 1 Macc. ix. 55, 56: "At that time was Alcimus plagued, and his enterprises hindered: for his mouth was stopped, and he was taken with a palsy, so that he could no more speak any thing, nor order any thing concerning his house. So Alcimus died at that time with great torment." The disease in the text may have been an attack of tetanus, which the ancient physicians included under paralysis, and which is more common in hot countries than with us. It could hardly have been apoplexy, which usually bereaves of sensation.

14-17.] HEALING OF PETER'S WIFE'S MOTHER, AND MANY OTHERS. Mark i. 29-34. Luke iv. 38-41. From the other Evangelists it appears, that our Lord had just healed a dæmoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum: for they both state, when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew,' &c. Both Mark and Luke are fuller in their accounts than the text. The expression (of the fever) it left her, is common to the three, as is also the circumstance of her ministering immediately after shewing that the fever left her, not, as it would have done if natural means had been used, weak and exhausted, but completely restored. 16.] at sunset,

Mark ver. 32: Luke ver. 40. From St.
Mark we learn that the whole city was

many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: 17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and 1Pet. ii. 24. bare our sicknesses. 18 Now when Jesus saw great multi

tudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. 19 And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. 20 And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man

[ocr errors]

z render, a: see Luke vii. 7.

collected at the door; from St. Luke, that the dæmons cried out and said, Thou art Christ the Son of God.' And from both, that our Lord permitted them not to speak, for they knew Him. They brought the sick in the evening, either because it was cool,-or because the day's work was over, and men could be found to carry them, or perhaps because it was the sabbath (see Mark i. 21, 29, 32), which ended at sunset. 17.] The exact sense in which these words are quoted is matter of difficulty. Some understand took and bare as merely took away,' and 'healed.' But besides this being a very harsh interpretation of both words, it entirely destroys the force of Himself, and makes it expletive. Others suppose it to refer to the personal fatigue, (or even the spiritual exhaustion, [Olshausen,] which perhaps is hardly consistent with sound doctrine,) which our Lord felt by these cures being long protracted into the evening. But I believe the true relevancy of the prophecy is to be sought by regarding the miracles generally to have been, as we know so many of them were, lesser and typical outshewings of the great work of bearing the sin of the world, which He came to accomplish; just as diseases themselves, on which those miracles operated, are all so many testimonies to the existence, and types of the effect, of sin. Moreover in these His deeds of mercy, He was 'touched with the feeling of our infirmities:' witness His tears at the grave of Lazarus, and His sighing over the deaf and dumb man, Mark vii. 34. The very act of compassion is (as the name imports) a suffering with its object; and if this be true between man and man, how much more strictly so in His case who had taken upon Him the whole burden of the sin of the world, with all its sad train of sorrow and suffering.

18-IX. 1.] JESUS CROSSES THE LAKE. INCIDENTS BEFORE

EMBARKING. HE
HEALING OF TWO

STILLS THE STORM.
DÆMONIACS IN THE LAND OF THE GA-
DARENES. Mark iv. 35-v. 20: Luke ix.
57-60; viii. 22-39, on which passages
compare the notes.
18. It is ob-
viously the intention of St. Matthew to
bind on the following incidents to the oc-
currence which he had just related.
19.] Both the following incidents are
placed by St. Luke long after, during our
Lord's last journey to Jerusalem. For it
is quite impossible (with Greswell, Diss.
iii. p. 155 sq.) in any common fairness of
interpretation, to imagine that two such
incidents should have twice happened, and
both times have been related together. It
is one of those cases where the attempts of
the Harmonists do violence to every prin-
ciple of sound historical criticism. Every
such difficulty, instead of being a thing to
be wiped out and buried up at all hazards
(I am sorry to see, e. g., that Dr. Wordsw.
takes no notice, either here or in St.
Luke, of the recurrence of the two nar-
ratives), is a valuable index and guide to
the humble searcher after truth, and is
used by him as such (see Introduction).

It ap

20. the Son of man] "It is thought that this phrase was taken from Daniel vii. 13, to which passage our Saviour seems to allude in ch. xxvi. 64, and probably Stephen in Acts vii. 56. pears from John xii. 34, that the Jews understood it to mean the Messiah: and from Luke xxii. 69, 70, that they considered the Son of Man to mean the same as the Son of God." Dr. Burton. It is the name by which the Lord ordinarily in one pregnant word designates Himself as the Messiah-the Son of God manifested in the flesh of man-the second Adam. And to it belong all those conditions, of humiliation, suffering, and ex

xix.

hath not where to lay his head. 21 And another of his

f see 1 Kings disciples said unto him, 'Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. 22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

g Ps. lxv. 5-7: lxxxix. 9: cvii. 29.

23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. 24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was a covered with the waves; but he was asleep. 25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. 26 And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and a render, being covered.

altation, which it behoved the Son of Man
to go through. 21.] In St. Luke we
find, that our Lord previously commanded
him to follow Him. Clement of Alexandria
reports this as having been said to Philip.
But if so, He had long ago ordered Philip
to follow Him, taking St. Luke's order of
the occurrence. A tradition of this nature
was hardly likely to be wrong; so that
perhaps the words Follow me are to be
taken (as in John xxi. 19, 22) as an admo-
nition occasioned by some slackness or
symptom of decadence on the part of the
Apostle. The attempt to evade the strong
words of our Lord's command by supposing
that to bury my father means, to reside
with my father till his death' (Theophy-
lact), is evidently futile, since "first to go
and bury" is plainly said of an act waiting
to be done; and the reason of our Lord's
rebuke was the peremptory and all-super-
seding nature of the command
me."

46

Follow

22. the dead] First time, as Rev. iii. 1, spiritually,―second, literally dead. The two meanings are similarly used in one saying by our Lord in John xi. 25, 26. See Heb. vi. 1; ix, 14: and the weighty addition in Luke, ver. 62.

23.] This journey across the lake, with its incidents, is placed by St. Mark and St. Luke after the series of parables commencing with that of the sower, and recorded in ch. xiii. By Mark with a precise note of sequence: "the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them," Mark iv. 35.

24. being covered] compare Mark iv. 37: Luke viii. 23. By keeping to the strict imperfect sense, we obviate all necessity for qualifying these words: the ship was becoming covered, &c. All lakes bordered by mountains, and indeed all hilly coasts, are liable to these sudden gusts of wind. 25.] Lord, save us: we perish= Master, carest thou not that we perish,

Mark iv. 38 Master, Master, we perish,
Luke viii. 24. On these and such like
variations, notice the following excellent and
important remarks of Augustine: "The
sense of the disciples waking the Lord and
seeking to be saved, is one and the same:
nor is it worth while to enquire which of
these three was really said to Christ. For
whether they said any one of these three,
or other words which no one of the Evan-
gelists has mentioned, but of similar import
as to the truth of the sense, what matters
it ?"
We may wish that he had always
spoken thus. Much useless labour might
have been spared, and men's minds led to
the diligent enquiry into the real difficulties
of the Gospels, instead of so many spending
time in knitting cobwebs. But Augustine
himself in the very next sentence descends
to the unsatisfactory ground of the Har-
monists, when he adds." Though it may be
also, that when many were calling upon
Him, all these may have been said, one by
one, another by another." His mind how-
ever was not one to rest contented with
such sophisms; and all his deeper and more
earnest sayings are in the truer and freer
spirit of the above extract. The above
remarks are more than ever important, now
that a reaction towards the low literal har-
monistic view has set in, and the inspiration
of the mere letter is set up against those
who seek for life in searching the real
spirit of the Scriptures.

26.] The time of this rebuke in the text
precedes, but in Mark and Luke follows,
the stilling of the storm. See the last
note. They were of little faith, in that
they were afraid of perishing while they
had on board the slumbering Saviour:
they were not faithless, for they had re-
course to that Saviour to help them. There-
fore He acknowledges the faith which
they had; answers the prayer of faith, by

the sea; and there was a great calm. 27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?

28 And when he was come to the other side into the country of the b Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, b read, Gadarenes.

working a perfect calm: but rebukes them
for not having the stronger, firmer faith,
to trust Him even when He seemed in-
sensible to their danger. The symbolic

application of this occurrence is too striking
to have escaped general notice. The Saviour
with the company of His disciples in the
ship tossed on the waves, seemed a typical
reproduction of the Ark bearing mankind
on the flood, and a foreshadowing of the
Church tossed by the tempests of this
world, but having Him with her always.
And the personal application is one of
comfort, and strengthening of faith, in
danger and doubt.
27. the men]
The men who were in the ship, besides
our Lord and His disciples.
28.]
Among the difficulties attendant on this
narrative, the situation and name of the
place where the event happened are not
the least. Origen discusses the three, Ge-
rasa, which he found in the text in his
time, but pronounces to be a city of Arabia,
having no sea or lake near it,- Gadara,
which he found in a few MSS., but disap-
proves, as a city of Judæa, not near any lake
or sea with cliffs;-and Gergesa, which he
says is a city on the lake of Tiberias, with
a cliff hanging over the lake, where the
spot of the miracle was shewn. Notwith-
standing this, it appears very doubtful
whether there ever was a town named
Gergesha (or -sa) near the lake. There were
the Gergashites (Joseph. i. 6. 2) in former
days, but their towns had been destroyed
by the Israelites at their first irruption,
and never, that we hear of, afterwards
rebuilt (see Deut. vii. 1: Josh. xxiv. 11).
Gerasa (now Dscherasch) lies much too far
to the East. The town of Gadara, alluded
to in the text, was a strong chief city in
Peræa, opposite Scythopolis and Tiberias to
the East, in the mountain, at whose foot were
the well-known warm baths. It was on
the river Hieromax, and sixty stadia from
Tiberias, a Greek city (see reff. to Jose-
phus and Eusebius in my Gr. Test.). It
was destroyed in the civil wars of the
Jews, and rebuilt by Pompeius, presented
by Augustus to King Herod, and after
his death united to the province of
Syria. It was one of the ten cities of De-

It

capolis. Burckhardt and others believe
that they have found its ruins at Omkeis,
near the ridge of the chain which divides
the valley of Jordan from that of the sea of
Tiberias. The territory of this city might
well extend to the shore of the lake.
may be observed, that there is nothing in
any of the three accounts to imply that
the city was close to the scene of the
miracle, or the scene of the miracle close
to the herd of swine, or the herd of swine,
at the time of their possession, close to the
lake. Indeed the expression “a good way
off from them," ver. 30, implies the con-
trary with regard to the swine. It ap-
pears, from Burckhardt, that there are
many tombs in the neighbourhood of the
ruins of Gadara to this day, hewn in the
rock, and thus capable of affording shelter.
It may be well in fairness to observe, that
Gergesenes can hardly have arisen, as
sometimes represented, entirely from Ori-
gen's conjecture, as it pervades so many
MSS. and ancient (it is true, not the most
ancient) versions. We cannot say that a
part of the territory of Gadara may not
have been known to those who, like Mat-
thew, were locally intimate with the shores
of the lake, by this ancient and generally
disused name. Still however, we are, I
conceive, bound in a matter of this kind to
follow the most ancient extant testimony.
See further on the parallel places in
Mark and Luke.
two possessed

[ocr errors]

وو

with devils] In Mark v. 2, and Luke viii. 27, but one is mentioned. All three Evangelists have some particulars peculiar to themselves; but Mark the most, and the most striking, as having evidently proceeded from an eye-witness. The "we are many" of Mark is worth noticing, in reference to the discrepancy of number in the two accounts, as perhaps connected with the mention of more than one by our Evangelist, who omits the circumstance connected with that speech. exceed

ing fierce] See the terribly graphic account of St. Mark (v. 3-6). The dæmoniac was without clothes, which though related only by St. Luke (viii. 27), yet, with remarkable consistency, appears from St. Mark's narrative, where he is described as

so that no man might pass by that way. 29 And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, [Jesus,] thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time? 30 And there was a good way

off from them an herd of many swine feeding. 31 So the
devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us
to go away into the herd of swine. 32 And he said unto
them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into
comit.

sitting, clothed, and in his right mind, at
Jesus's feet, after his cure.
so that
no man] Peculiar to this Gospel. 29.]
before the time, is peculiar to this Gos-
pel: Son of God, common to all.
30. a good way off] The Vulgate rendering,
"not far off," does not seem accordant with
the other accounts, both of which imply
distance: Mark v. 11: Luke viii. 32. These,
especially the first, would seem to imply that
the swine were on the hills, and the scene
of the miracle at some little distance, on
the plain. 31.] St. Mark and St. Luke
give, as the ground of this request, that
they might not be sent out of the land
into the abyss, i. e. out of their permitted
residence on earth to torment before the
time in the abyss. See note on Luke.

=

I

32.] This remarkable narrative brings before us the whole question of DEMONIACAL POSSESSIONS in the Gospels, which I shall treat here once for all, and refer to this note hereafter. would then remark in general, (I. 1) that the Gospel narratives are distinctly pledged to the historic truth of these occurrences. Either they are true, or the Gospels are false. For they do not stand in the same, or a similar position, with the discrepancies in detail, so frequent between the Evangelists: but they form part of that general groundwork in which all agree. (2) Nor can it be said that they represent the opinion of the time, and use words in accordance with it. This might have been difficult to answer, but that they not only give such expressions as possessed with devils, dæmonized (Mark v. 16: Luke viii. 36), and other like ones, but relate to us words spoken by the Lord Jesus, in which the personality and presence of the dæmons is distinctly implied. See especially Luke xi. 17-26. Now either our Lord spoke these words, or He did not. If He did not, then we must at once set aside the concurrent testimony of the Evangelists to a plain matter of fact; in other words establish a principle which will overthrow equally every fact related in the Gospels. If He did, it is wholly at variance with

[ocr errors]

But

any Christian idea of the perfection of
truthfulness in Him who was Truth itself,
to suppose Him to have used such plain
and solemn words repeatedly, before His
disciples and the Jews, in encouragement
of, and connivance at, a lying supersti-
tion. (3) After these remarks, it will be
unnecessary to refute that view of dæmo-
niacal possession which makes it iden-
tical with mere bodily disease, as it is
included above; but we may observe, that
it is every where in the Gospels distin-
guished from disease, and in such a way
as to shew that, at all events, the two
were not in that day confounded. (See
ch. ix. 32, 33, and compare Mark vii. 32.)
(4) The question then arises, Granted the
plain historical truth of dæmoniacal pos-
session, WHAT WAS IT? This question,
in the suspension, or withdrawal, of the
gift of discerning of spirits' in the mo-
dern Church, is not easy to answer.
we may gather from the Gospel narratives
some important ingredients for our de-
scription. The dæmoniac was one whose
being was strangely interpenetrated (pos-
sessed' is the most exact word that could
be found) by one or more of those fallen
spirits, who are constantly asserted in
Scripture (under the name of dæmons,
evil spirits, unclean spirits, their chief
being the devil or Satan) to be the enemies
and tempters of the souls of men. (See
Acts v. 3: John xiii. 2, and passim.) He
stood in a totally different position from
the abandoned wicked man, who morally is
given over to the devil. This latter would
be a subject for punishment; but the
dæmoniac for deepest compassion. There
appears to have been in him a double will
and double consciousness—sometimes the
cruel spirit thinking and speaking in him,
sometimes his poor crushed self crying out
to the Saviour of men for mercy: a ter-
rible advantage taken, and a personal
realization, by the malignant powers of
evil, of the fierce struggle between sense
and conscience in the man of morally
divided life. Hence it has been not im-

« السابقةمتابعة »