14 b. In regard to ver. 17, R. Eliezer inferred from Exod. xv. 2 that servantmaids saw at the Red Sea what neither Ezekiel nor the prophets had seen, which he corroborates from Ezek. i. 1 and Hos. xii. 10 (Mechilta, ed. Weiss p. 44 a). Another and much more beautiful parallelism has been given before. On ver. 19 it ought to be remarked that the Wicked One was not so much represented by the Rabbis as the Enemy of the Kingdom of God, but as that of individuals, indeed, was often described as identical with the evil impulse (Yetser haRa, comp. Chag. 16 a; B. Bathr. 16 a; Succ.
52 a). On ver. 22 we remark, that not riches, but poverty, was regarded by the Rabbis as that which choked the good seed. On ver. 39, we may remark a somewhat similar expression in B. Mez. 83 b: 'Let the Lord of the Vineyard come and remove the thorns.' On ver. 42, the expression 'oven of fire,' for Gehenna, is the popular Jewish one ( ). Similarly, the expression, 'gnashing of teeth,' chiefly characteristic of the anger and jealousy of those in Gehinnom, occurs in the Midrash on Eccl. i. 15. On ver. 44 we refer to the remarks and note on that Parable (p. 595). In connection with ver. 46, we remember that, in Shabb. 119 a, a story is told concerning a pearl for which a man had given his whole fortune, hoping thereby to prevent the latter being alienated from him (comp. Ber. R. 11). Lastly, in connection with ver. 47 we notice, that the comparison of men with fishes is a common Jewish one (Abod. Zar. 3 b; 4 a).] 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?
THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION CHRIST STILLS THE STORM ON THE LAKE OF GALILEE. CHAPTER XXIV.
(St. Matt. viii. 18, 23-27; St. Mark iv. 35-41; St. Luke viii. 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, eargerly, 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' [1 The definite article (St. Mark iv. 36)
marks it as 'the' ship, a well-known boat which always bore Him.], 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 [a Phil. ii. 6.] 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.' [b St. Mark iv. 37.] 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 already, 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, [c is. vi. 9, 10.] the miracle on its proclamations of the special Divine Manifestations in the sea; [d Ps. cvi. 9; cvii. 25; Is. li. 10; Nah. i. 4-7; Hab. iii. 8.] 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, [a St. Matt, and St. Luke.] or with those of impatience, perhaps uttered by Peter himself? [b St. Mark.] 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, [c St. Matt.] orthe converse? [d St. Mark and St. Luke.] But, may it not be that each recorded that first which had most impressed itself
on his mind?, St. Matthew, who had been in the ship that night, the needful rebuke to the disciples; St. Mark and St. Luke, who had heard it from others, [e St. Mark probably from St. Peter.] 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 [1 From the size of these boats it seems unlikely, that any but His closest followers would have found room in the ship. Besides, the language of those who called for help and the answer of Christ imply the same thing.] 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
