And this 'Prophet' was Israel's long expected Messiah. What this would imply to the poeple, 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 excitment 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, [1 Note here the want of the article: We owe this notice to the Fourth Gospel, and it is in marked inconsistency with the theory of its late Ephesian authority.] 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.' [a St. John vi. 15.] 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,' [b St. Matt, xiv. 23.] 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, [c Ber. 3 b.] In any case it would be what might be termed the morning-watch, [1 Probably from 3 to about 6 A. M.] 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. [2 Even the beautiful allegory into which Keim would resolve it, that the Church in her need knows not, whether her Saviour may not come in the last watch of the night, entirely surrenders the whole narrative. And why should three Evangelists have invented such a story, in order to teach or rather disguise a doctrine, which is otherwise so clearly expressed throughout the whole New Testament, as to form one of its primary principles? Volkmar (Marcus, p. 372) regards this whole history as an allegory of St. Paul's activity among the Gentiles! Strange in that case, that it was omitted in the Gospel by St. Luke. But the whole of that section of Volkmar's book (beginning at p. 327) contains an extra- ordinary congeries, of baseless hypotheses, of which it were difficult to say, whether the language is more painfully irreverent or the outcome more extravagant.] 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 St. 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, [a Ps. viii. 5, 6; comp. Hebr.
ii. 6-9.] Indeed, this 'dominion over the sea' seems to exhibit the Divinely human rather than the humanly Divine aspect of His Person, [1 On the other hand, the miraculous feeding of the multitude seems to exhibit rather 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'etre 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,' [2 Literally, a phantasma. This word is only used in this narrative (St. Matt. xiv. 26 and St. Mark vi. 49.).] (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 had 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 St. Paul himself was not only aware of the general resistance which the announcement of such an event would raise, [a Acts xxvi. 8.] but that he felt to the full the difficulties of what he so firmly
