Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (780 page)
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MIRACLES OF JESUS-DEMONIACS.scribed discipline, gradually recovered. But we need only observe the same form of expression where it elsewhere occurs as the final sentence in narratives of cures, to be convinced of the impossibility of such an interpretation.When, for example, the story of the woman who had an issue of blood closes with the remark (Matt. ix. 22.) aal sawdrj f/ yvvfj dnb rfc upat; KKBIVT/^ this will hardly be translated, et exinde mulier paidatim servabatur : it can only mean : scrvata est (et servatam se prcefaiif) ab illo temporis momenta, Another point to which Paulus appeals as a proof that Jesus here commenced a cure which was to be consummated by degrees, is the expression of Luke, direduKev airbv -<3 -rrarpl avrov, he delivered him again to his father, which, he argues, would have been rather superfluous, if it were not intended to imply a recommendation to special care. But the more immediate signification of dnodidupt, is not to deliver or give up, but to give back; and therefore in the above expression the only sense is:
puerum, quern sanandum accepcrat, sanatum reddidit, that is, the boy who had fallen into the hands of a strange power-of the demon-was restored to the parents as their own. Lastly, how arbitrary is it in Paulus to take the expression eimopeiieTai, ffoeth out, (Matt. v. 21) in the closer signification of a total departure, and to distinguish this from the preliminary departure which followed on the bare word of Jesus (v. 18)!
Thus in this case, as in every other, the gospels present to us, not a cure which was protracted through days and weeks, but a cure which was instantaneously completed by one miracle:hence the fasting and prayer cannot be regarded as a prescription for the patient.
puerum, quern sanandum accepcrat, sanatum reddidit, that is, the boy who had fallen into the hands of a strange power-of the demon-was restored to the parents as their own. Lastly, how arbitrary is it in Paulus to take the expression eimopeiieTai, ffoeth out, (Matt. v. 21) in the closer signification of a total departure, and to distinguish this from the preliminary departure which followed on the bare word of Jesus (v. 18)!
Thus in this case, as in every other, the gospels present to us, not a cure which was protracted through days and weeks, but a cure which was instantaneously completed by one miracle:hence the fasting and prayer cannot be regarded as a prescription for the patient.
With this whole history must be compared an analogous narrative in 2 Kings iv. 29 ff. Here the prophet Elisha attempts to bring a dead child to life, by sending his staff by the hands of his servant Gehazi, who is to lay it on the face of the child; but this measure does not succeed, and Elisha is obliged in his own person to come and call the boy to life. The same relation that exists in this Old Testament story between the prophet and his servant, is seen in the New Testament narrative between the Messiah and his disciples: the latter can do nothing without their master, but what was too difficult for them, he effects with certainty. Now this feature is a clue to the tendency of both narratives, namely, to exalt their master by exhibiting the distance between him and his most intimate disciples; or, if we compare the evangelical narrative before us with that of the demoniacs of Gadara, we may say: the latter case was made to appear one of extreme cllfiiculty in itself; the former, by the relation in which the power of Jesus, which is adequate to the occasion, is placed to the power of the disciples, which, however great in other instances, was here insufficient.
Of the other more briefly narrated expulsions of demons, the cure of a dumb demoniac and of one who was blind also, has been already sufficiently examined in connexion with the accusation of a league with Beelzelmh- »* »i<
+1,,THE LIFE OF JESUS.
down, ill our general considerations on the demoniacs. The cure of the possessed daughter of the Canaanitisli woman (Matt. xv. 22 ff.; Mark vii. 25 ft’.) has no further peculiarity than that it was wrouo’ht by the word of Jesus at a distance: a point of which we shall speak later.
According to the evangelical narratives, the attempt of Jesus to expel the demon succeeded in every one of these cases. Paulus remarks that cures of this kind, although they contributed more than any thing else to impress the multitude with veneration for Jesus, were yet the easiest in themselves, and even I)e AVette sanctions a psychological explanation of the cures of demoniacs, though of no others.*
With these opinions we cannot but agree ; for if we regard the real character of the demoniacal state as a species of madness accompanied by a convulsive tendency of the nervous system, we know that psychical and nervous disorders are most easily wrought upon by psychical influence;-an influence to which the surpassing dignity of Jesus as a prophet, and eventually even as the Messiah himself, presented all the requisite conditions. There is, however, a marked gradation among these states, according as the psychical derangement has more or less fixed itself corporeally, and the disturbance of the nervous system has become more or less habitual, and shared by the rest of the organization. AVe may therefore lay down the following rule: the more strictly the malady was confined to mental derangement, on which the word of Jesus might have an immediate moral influence, or in a comparatively slight disturbance of the nervous system, on which he would be able to act powerfully through the medium of the mind, the more possible was it for Jesus by his word Aoyw (Matt. via. 16.), and instantly irapaxp^a (Luke xiii. 13.), to put an end to such states: on the other hand, the more the malady had already confirmed itself, as a bodily disease, the. more difficult is it to believe that Jesus was able to relieve it in a purely psychological manner and at the first moment. From this rule results a second: namely, that to any extensive psychological influence on the part of Jesus the full recognition of his dignity as a prophet was requisite; whence it follows that at times and in. districts where he had long had that reputation, he could effect more in this way than where Tic had it not.
With these opinions we cannot but agree ; for if we regard the real character of the demoniacal state as a species of madness accompanied by a convulsive tendency of the nervous system, we know that psychical and nervous disorders are most easily wrought upon by psychical influence;-an influence to which the surpassing dignity of Jesus as a prophet, and eventually even as the Messiah himself, presented all the requisite conditions. There is, however, a marked gradation among these states, according as the psychical derangement has more or less fixed itself corporeally, and the disturbance of the nervous system has become more or less habitual, and shared by the rest of the organization. AVe may therefore lay down the following rule: the more strictly the malady was confined to mental derangement, on which the word of Jesus might have an immediate moral influence, or in a comparatively slight disturbance of the nervous system, on which he would be able to act powerfully through the medium of the mind, the more possible was it for Jesus by his word Aoyw (Matt. via. 16.), and instantly irapaxp^a (Luke xiii. 13.), to put an end to such states: on the other hand, the more the malady had already confirmed itself, as a bodily disease, the. more difficult is it to believe that Jesus was able to relieve it in a purely psychological manner and at the first moment. From this rule results a second: namely, that to any extensive psychological influence on the part of Jesus the full recognition of his dignity as a prophet was requisite; whence it follows that at times and in. districts where he had long had that reputation, he could effect more in this way than where Tic had it not.
If we apply these two measures to the cures in the gospels, we shall find that the first, viz. that of the demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum, is not, so soon as we cease to consider the evangelist’s
narrative of it
circumstantially correct, altogether destitute of probability. It is true that the words attributed to the demon seem to imply an intuitive knowledge of
Jesus; but this may be probably accounted for by the supposition that the widely-spread fame of Jesus in that country, and his powerful discourse in the synagogue, had impressed the demoniac with the belief, if not that J esus .....”
“«,a . T.. .T. 1. R. 9. 223;
De Wiitte, bibl. Dogm. J
narrative of it
circumstantially correct, altogether destitute of probability. It is true that the words attributed to the demon seem to imply an intuitive knowledge of
Jesus; but this may be probably accounted for by the supposition that the widely-spread fame of Jesus in that country, and his powerful discourse in the synagogue, had impressed the demoniac with the belief, if not that J esus .....”
“«,a . T.. .T. 1. R. 9. 223;
De Wiitte, bibl. Dogm. J
MIKACLES OF JESUS-DEMONIACS.was the Messiah, as the evangelists say, at least that he must be a prophet: a belief that would give effect to his words. As regards the state of this demoniac we are only told of his fixed idea, (that he was possessed,) and of his attacks of convulsions ; his malady may therefore have been of the. less rooted kind, and accessible to psychological influence. The cure of the Gadarcnes is attended with more difficulty in both points of view. Firstly, Jesus was comparatively little known on the eastern shore; and secondly, the state of these demoniacs is described as so violent and dcepseated a mania, that a word from Jesus could hardly suffice to put an end to it. Here therefore the natural explanation of Paulus will not suffice, and if we are to regard the narrative as having any foundation in fact, •we must suppose that the description of the demoniac’s state, as well as other particulars, has been exaggerated by the legend. The same judgment must be passed in relation to the cure of the boy who was lunatic, since an epilepsy which had existed from infancy (Mark v. 21) and the attacks of which were so violent and regular, must be too deeply rooted in the system for the possibility of so rapid and purely psychological a cure to be credible.That even dumbness and a contraction of many years’ duration, which we cannot with Paulus explain as a mere insane imagination that speech or an erect carriage was not permitted,*-that these afflictions should disappear at a word, no one who is not committed to dogmatical opinions can persuade himself! Lastly, least of all is it to be conceived, that even without the imposing influence of his presence, the miracle-worker could effect a cure at a distance, as Jesus is said to have done on the daughter of the Canaanitish woman.
Thus in the nature of things there is nothing to prevent the admission, that Jesus cured many persons who suffered from supposed demoniacal insanity or nervous disorder, in a psychical manner, by the ascendency of his manner and words (if indeed Venturini f and Kaiser £ are not right in their conjecture, that patients of this class often believed themselves to be cured, when in fact the crisis only by their disorder had been broken by the influence of Jesus; and that the evangelists state them to have been cured because they learned nothing further of them, and thus know nothing of their probable relapse). But while granting the possibility of many cures, it is evident that in this field the legend has not been idle, but has confounded the easier cases, which alone could be cured psychologically with the most difficult and complicated, to which sn”h a treatment was totally inapplicable. § Is the refusal of a sign on the part of Jesus rcconcilcable with such a manifestation of power as we have above defined,-or must even such cures as can be explained psychologically, but which in his age must have seemed miracles, be ^ * Excg. Ilandb. in loc, f Xaturliche Goschichte, 2, S. 429. J Bill. Thcol. 1, oi 190, Q Among the transient disorders on which Jesus may have acted psychologically, we may perhaps mimbi’r thp fWoi-Af i>..to-’-.”“*’.....••- ‘.......•-’ ‘ ‘‘ ‘‘ ‘THE LIFE OF JESUS.
denied in order to make that refusal comprehensible ? We will not here put this alternative otherwise than as a question.
If in conclusion we cast a glance on the gospel of John, we find that is does not even mention demoniacs and their cure by Jesus. This omission lias not seldom been turned to the advantage of the apostle John, the alleged author, as indicating a superior degree of enlightenment.*
If however this apostle did not believe in the reality of possession by devils, he must have had, as the author of the fourth gospel, according to the ordinary view of his relation to the synoptical writers, the strongest motives for rectifying their statements, and preventing the dissemination of what he held to be a false opinion, by setting the cures in question in a true light. But how could the apostle John arrive at the rejection of the opinion that the above diseases had their foundation in demoniacal possession ? According to Josephus it was at that period a popular Jewish opinion, from which a Jew of Palestine who, like John, did not visit a foreign land until late in life, would hardly be in a condition to liberate himself; it was, according to the nature of things and the synoptical accounts, the opinion of Jesus himself, John’s adored master, irom whom the favourite disciple certainly would not be inclined to swerve even a hair’s breadth. But if John shared with his cotemporarics and with Jesus himself the notion of real demoniacal possession, and if the cure of demoniacs formed the principal part, nay, perhaps the true foundation of the alleged miraculous powers of Jesus: how comes it that the apostle nevertheless makes no mention of them in his gospel?That he passed over them because the other evangelists had collected enough of such histories, is a supposition that ought by this time to be relinquished, since he repeats more than one history of a miracle which they had already given; and if it be said that he repeated these because they needed correction,-we have seen, in our examination of the cures of demoniacs, that in many, a reduction of them to their simple historical elements would be very much in place.There yet remains the supposition that, the histories of demoniacs being incredible or offensive to the cultivated Greeks of Asia Minor, among whom John is said to have written, he left them out of his gospel for the sake of accommodating himself to their ideas.But we must ask, covdd or should an apostle, out of mere accommodation to the refined ears of his auditors, withhold so essential a feature of the agency of Jesus?Certainly this silence, supposing the authenticity of the three first gospels, rather indicates an author who had not been an eye-witness of the ministry of Jesus; or, according to our view, at least one who had not at his command the original tradition of Palestine, but only a tradition modified by Hellenistic influence, in which the expulsions of demons, being less accordant with the higher culture of the Greeks, * It is so more or less by Eichhorn, in the allg. Biuliothek, 4, S. 435 ; Herder, von “.....-
* ‘°
•”«•’•>“ WoftB. hiliL
If however this apostle did not believe in the reality of possession by devils, he must have had, as the author of the fourth gospel, according to the ordinary view of his relation to the synoptical writers, the strongest motives for rectifying their statements, and preventing the dissemination of what he held to be a false opinion, by setting the cures in question in a true light. But how could the apostle John arrive at the rejection of the opinion that the above diseases had their foundation in demoniacal possession ? According to Josephus it was at that period a popular Jewish opinion, from which a Jew of Palestine who, like John, did not visit a foreign land until late in life, would hardly be in a condition to liberate himself; it was, according to the nature of things and the synoptical accounts, the opinion of Jesus himself, John’s adored master, irom whom the favourite disciple certainly would not be inclined to swerve even a hair’s breadth. But if John shared with his cotemporarics and with Jesus himself the notion of real demoniacal possession, and if the cure of demoniacs formed the principal part, nay, perhaps the true foundation of the alleged miraculous powers of Jesus: how comes it that the apostle nevertheless makes no mention of them in his gospel?That he passed over them because the other evangelists had collected enough of such histories, is a supposition that ought by this time to be relinquished, since he repeats more than one history of a miracle which they had already given; and if it be said that he repeated these because they needed correction,-we have seen, in our examination of the cures of demoniacs, that in many, a reduction of them to their simple historical elements would be very much in place.There yet remains the supposition that, the histories of demoniacs being incredible or offensive to the cultivated Greeks of Asia Minor, among whom John is said to have written, he left them out of his gospel for the sake of accommodating himself to their ideas.But we must ask, covdd or should an apostle, out of mere accommodation to the refined ears of his auditors, withhold so essential a feature of the agency of Jesus?Certainly this silence, supposing the authenticity of the three first gospels, rather indicates an author who had not been an eye-witness of the ministry of Jesus; or, according to our view, at least one who had not at his command the original tradition of Palestine, but only a tradition modified by Hellenistic influence, in which the expulsions of demons, being less accordant with the higher culture of the Greeks, * It is so more or less by Eichhorn, in the allg. Biuliothek, 4, S. 435 ; Herder, von “.....-
* ‘°
•”«•’•>“ WoftB. hiliL
MIRACLES OP JESUS-CUKES OF LEPERS.•were either totally suppressed or kept so far in the background that they might have escaped the notice of the author of the gospel.
T”
§ 94.CUKES OF LEPERS.
AMONG the sufferers whom Jesus healed, the leprous play a prominent paft, as might have been anticipated from the tendency of the climate of Palestine to produce cutaneous disease. When, accord-. ing to the synoptical writers, Jesus directs the attention of the Baptist’s messengers to the actual proofs which he had given of his Messiahship (Matt. ix. 5), he adduces, among these, the cleansing of lepers ; when, on the first mission of the disciples, he empowers them to perform all kinds of miracles, the cleansing of lepers is numbered among the first (Matt. x. 8.), and two cases of such cures are narrated to us ill detail.
One of these cases is common to all the synoptical writers, but is placed by them in two different connexions: namely, by Matthew, immediately after the delivery of the sermon on the mount (viii. 1 ff.); .by the other evangelists,
at
some
period,
not precisely marked, at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee (Mark i. 40 ff.; Luke v.
12 if.). According to the narratives,
a leper comes towards Jesus, and falling on his knees,
entreats that he may be cleansed; this Jesus effects by a touch, and then directs the leper to present himself to the priest in obedience to the law, that he may be pronounced clean (Lev. xiv. 2 ff.). The state of the man is in Matthew and Mark described simply by the word Aerrpoc, a leper; but in Luke more strongly, by the words, 7rA?;p?/c AtTrpoc, full of leprosy. Paulus, indeed, regards the being thus replete with leprosy as a symptom that the patient was curable (the eruption and peeling of the leprosy on the entire skin being indicative of the healing crisis); and accordingly, that commentator represents the incident to himself in the following manner. The leper applied to Jesus in his character of Messiah for an opinion on his state, and, the result being favourable, for a declaration that he Avas clean (d #£/l«f, dvvaoai pe icaOapiaai), which might either spare him an application to the priest, or at all events give him a consolatory hope in making that application. Jesus expressing himself ready to make the desired examination, (0eAw,) stretched out his hand, in order to feel the patient, without allowing too near an approach while he was possibly still capable of communicating contagion; and after a careful examination, he expressed, as its result, the conviction that
the patient was no longer
in a contagious state (Kaeapia&7)Ti), whereupon quickly and easily (ei>0ea>c) the leprosy actually disappeared.*
at
some
period,
not precisely marked, at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee (Mark i. 40 ff.; Luke v.
12 if.). According to the narratives,
a leper comes towards Jesus, and falling on his knees,
entreats that he may be cleansed; this Jesus effects by a touch, and then directs the leper to present himself to the priest in obedience to the law, that he may be pronounced clean (Lev. xiv. 2 ff.). The state of the man is in Matthew and Mark described simply by the word Aerrpoc, a leper; but in Luke more strongly, by the words, 7rA?;p?/c AtTrpoc, full of leprosy. Paulus, indeed, regards the being thus replete with leprosy as a symptom that the patient was curable (the eruption and peeling of the leprosy on the entire skin being indicative of the healing crisis); and accordingly, that commentator represents the incident to himself in the following manner. The leper applied to Jesus in his character of Messiah for an opinion on his state, and, the result being favourable, for a declaration that he Avas clean (d #£/l«f, dvvaoai pe icaOapiaai), which might either spare him an application to the priest, or at all events give him a consolatory hope in making that application. Jesus expressing himself ready to make the desired examination, (0eAw,) stretched out his hand, in order to feel the patient, without allowing too near an approach while he was possibly still capable of communicating contagion; and after a careful examination, he expressed, as its result, the conviction that
the patient was no longer
in a contagious state (Kaeapia&7)Ti), whereupon quickly and easily (ei>0ea>c) the leprosy actually disappeared.*
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