Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (786 page)
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Authors: George Eliot
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have hitherto always seen, with a precise aim towards any particular sufferer, but on entire masses, without taking special notice of each individual; his power of healing appears not here, as elsewhere, to reside in his will, but in his body and its coverings : he does not by his own voluntary act dispense its virtues, but is subject to have them drawn from him without his consent.
Of this species of cure again a detailed example is preserved to us, in the history of the woman who had an issue of blood, which all the synoptical writers give, and interweave in a peculiar manner with the history of the resuscitation of the daughter of Jairus, making Jesus cure the woman on his way to the ruler’s house (Matt. ix. 20 ff.; Mark v. 25 ff.; Luke viii. 43 ff.).
On comparing the account of the incident in the several evangelists, we might in this instance be tempted to regard that of Luke as the original, because it seems to offer an explanation of the uniform connexion of the two histories. As, namely, the duration of the woman’s sufferings is fixed by all the narrators at twelve years, so Luke, whom Mark follows, gives twelve years also as the age of the daughter of Jairus; a numerical similarity which might be a sufficient inducement to associate the two histories in the evangelical tradition.
But this reason is far too isolated by itself to warrant a decision, which can only proceed from thorough comparison of the three narratives in their various details.Matthew describes the woman simply as yvvi) aluoppoovaa SudeKa STTJ, which signifies that she had for twelve years been subject to an important loss of blood, probably in the form of excessive menstruation. Luke, the reputed physician, shows himself here in no degree favourable to his professional brethren, for he adds that the woman had spent all her living on physicians without obtaining any help from them. Mark, yet more unfavourable, says that she had suffered many things of many physicians, and icas nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. Those who surround Jesus when the woman approaches him are, according to Matthew, his disciples, according to Mark and Luke, a thronging multitude. After all the narrators have described how the woman, as timid as she was believing, came behind Jesus and touched the hem of his garment, Mark and Luke state that she was immediately healed, but that Jesus, being conscious of the egress of curative power, asked who touched me ?The disciples, astonished, ask in return, how he can distinguish a single touch amidst so general a thronging and pressure of the crowd. According to Luke, he persits in his assertion; according to Mark, he looks inquiringly around him in order to discover the party who had touched him : then, according to both these evangelists, the woman approaches trembling, falls at his feet and confesses all, whereupon. J esus gives her the tranquillizing assurance that her faith has made her whole. Matthew has not this complex train of circumstances; he merely states that after the touch Jesus 1 1J:~~-,«-«j +i,0 woTnn.n. and announced to her that m MIKACLES OF JESUS-INVOLUNTARY CUBES.This difference is an important one, and we need not greatly wonder that it induced Storr to suppose two separate cures of women afflicted iu the same manner.* To this expedient he was yet more decidedly determined by the still wider divergencies in the narrative of the resuscitation of the daughter of Jairus, a narrative which is interlaced with the one before us; it is, however, this very interlacement which renders it totally impossible to imagine that Jesus, twice, on both occasions when he was on his way to restore to life the daughter of a Jewish ruler (apxwv)i cured a woman who had an issue of blood twelve years. While, on this consideration, criticism has long ago decided for the singleness of the fact on which the narratives are founded, it has at the same time given the preference to those of Mark and Luke, as the most vivid and circumstantial.f But, in the first, place, if it be admitted that Mark’s addition dAAa juaAAov e7? rb %elpov e/Movaa, but rather grew worse, is merely a finishing touch from his own imagination to the expression owe laxpaev i-rr’ ovfievbg Ocpa-evOr/vai neither could be healed of any, which he found in Luke; there seems to be the same reason for regarding tliis particular of Luke’s as an inference of his own by which he has amplified the simple statement alfioppoovaa duSsKa l~n, which Matthew aives without anv addition. If the woman had been ill O
On comparing the account of the incident in the several evangelists, we might in this instance be tempted to regard that of Luke as the original, because it seems to offer an explanation of the uniform connexion of the two histories. As, namely, the duration of the woman’s sufferings is fixed by all the narrators at twelve years, so Luke, whom Mark follows, gives twelve years also as the age of the daughter of Jairus; a numerical similarity which might be a sufficient inducement to associate the two histories in the evangelical tradition.
But this reason is far too isolated by itself to warrant a decision, which can only proceed from thorough comparison of the three narratives in their various details.Matthew describes the woman simply as yvvi) aluoppoovaa SudeKa STTJ, which signifies that she had for twelve years been subject to an important loss of blood, probably in the form of excessive menstruation. Luke, the reputed physician, shows himself here in no degree favourable to his professional brethren, for he adds that the woman had spent all her living on physicians without obtaining any help from them. Mark, yet more unfavourable, says that she had suffered many things of many physicians, and icas nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. Those who surround Jesus when the woman approaches him are, according to Matthew, his disciples, according to Mark and Luke, a thronging multitude. After all the narrators have described how the woman, as timid as she was believing, came behind Jesus and touched the hem of his garment, Mark and Luke state that she was immediately healed, but that Jesus, being conscious of the egress of curative power, asked who touched me ?The disciples, astonished, ask in return, how he can distinguish a single touch amidst so general a thronging and pressure of the crowd. According to Luke, he persits in his assertion; according to Mark, he looks inquiringly around him in order to discover the party who had touched him : then, according to both these evangelists, the woman approaches trembling, falls at his feet and confesses all, whereupon. J esus gives her the tranquillizing assurance that her faith has made her whole. Matthew has not this complex train of circumstances; he merely states that after the touch Jesus 1 1J:~~-,«-«j +i,0 woTnn.n. and announced to her that m MIKACLES OF JESUS-INVOLUNTARY CUBES.This difference is an important one, and we need not greatly wonder that it induced Storr to suppose two separate cures of women afflicted iu the same manner.* To this expedient he was yet more decidedly determined by the still wider divergencies in the narrative of the resuscitation of the daughter of Jairus, a narrative which is interlaced with the one before us; it is, however, this very interlacement which renders it totally impossible to imagine that Jesus, twice, on both occasions when he was on his way to restore to life the daughter of a Jewish ruler (apxwv)i cured a woman who had an issue of blood twelve years. While, on this consideration, criticism has long ago decided for the singleness of the fact on which the narratives are founded, it has at the same time given the preference to those of Mark and Luke, as the most vivid and circumstantial.f But, in the first, place, if it be admitted that Mark’s addition dAAa juaAAov e7? rb %elpov e/Movaa, but rather grew worse, is merely a finishing touch from his own imagination to the expression owe laxpaev i-rr’ ovfievbg Ocpa-evOr/vai neither could be healed of any, which he found in Luke; there seems to be the same reason for regarding tliis particular of Luke’s as an inference of his own by which he has amplified the simple statement alfioppoovaa duSsKa l~n, which Matthew aives without anv addition. If the woman had been ill O
twelve years, she must, it was thought, during that period have frequently had recourse to physicians; and as, when contrasted with the inefficiency of the physicians, the miraculous power of Jesus, which instantaneously wrought a cure, appeared in all the more brilliant a light; so in the legend, or in the imagination of the narrators, there grew up these additions. What if the same observation applied to the other differences ? That the woman according to Matthew also, only touched Jesus from behind, implied the effort and the hope to remain concealed; that Jesus immediately looked round after her, implied that he was conscious of her touch. This hope on the part of the woman became the more accountable, and this consciousness on the part of Jesus the more marvellous, the greater the Crowd that surrounded Jesus and pressed upon him; hence the companionship of the disciples in Matthew is by the other two evangelists changed into a thronging of the multitude (/3Ae7r«f ~bv O%AOV ovvO/djlovrd ere). Again, Matthew mentions that Jesus looked round after the woman touched him ; on this circumstance the supposition might be founded that he had perceived her touch in a peculiar manner ; hence the scene was further worked up, and we are shown how Jesus, though pressed on all sides, had yet a special consciousness^ of that particular touch by the healing power which it had drawn from him ; while the simple feature eTTiarpatftslg KM Iduv avrrjv he turned him about, and when he saw her, in Matthew, is transformed into an inquiry and a searching glance around upon the crowd to discover the woman, who then is represented as coming Ueber den Zwecfc der evanir. frssch. uml
o o-i f in «.~iTHE LIFE OF JESUS.
o o-i f in «.~iTHE LIFE OF JESUS.
forward, trembling, to make her confession. Lastly, on a comparison of Matt. xiv. 36, the point of this narrative, even as given in the iirst gospel, appears to lie in the fact that simply to touch the clothes of Jesus had in itself a healing efficacy. Accordingly, in the propagation of this history, there was a continual effort to make the result follow immediately on the touch, and to represent Jesus as remaining, even after the cure, for some time uncertain with respect to the individual who had touched him, a circumstance which is in contradiction with that superior knowledge elsewhere attributed to Jesus. Thus, under every aspect, the narrative in the first gospel presents itself as the earlier and more simple, that of the second and third as a later and more embellished formation of the legend.
As regards the common substance of the narratives, it has in recent times been a difficulty to all theologians, whether orthodox or rationalistic, that the curative power of Jesus should have been exhibited apart from his volition. Paulus and Olshausen agree in the opinion,* that the agency of Jesus is thus reduced too completely into the domain of physical nature ; that Jesus would then be like a magnetiscr who in operating on a nervous patient is conscious of a diminution of strength, or like a charged electrical battery, which a mere touch will discharge.
Such an idea of Christ, thinks Olshausen, is repugnant to the Christian consciousness, which determines the fullness of power resident in Jesus to have been entirely under the governance of his will; and this will to have been guided by a knowledge of the moral condition of the persons to be healed. It is therefore supposed that Jesus fully recognized the woman even without seeing her, and considering that she might be spiritually won over to him by this bodily succour, he consciously communicated to her an influx of his curative power; but in order to put an end to her false shame and constrain her to a confession, he behaved as if he knew not who had touched him. But the Christian consciousness, in cases of this kind, means nothing else than the advanced religious culture of our age, which cannot appropriate the antiquated ideas of the Bible.
Now this consciousness must be neutral where we are concerned, riot with the dogmatical appropriation, but purely with the exegctical discovery of the biblical ideas. The interference of this alleged Christian consciousness is the secret of the majority of exegetical errors, and in the present instance it has led the above named commentators astray from the evident sense of the text. Eor the question of Jesus in both the more detailed narratives Tt? 6 di/w^vo? \MV ; ivho touched me? repeated as it is in Luke,
and strengthened as it is in
Mark by a searching
glance around, has the appearance of being meant thoroughly in earnest; and indeed it is the object of these two evangelists to place the miraculous nature of the curative power of Jesus in a particularly clear light by showing that the mere touching of his clothes accompanied ~~-~-- Tr.-t^t,,,.Tmmnnuol.
Such an idea of Christ, thinks Olshausen, is repugnant to the Christian consciousness, which determines the fullness of power resident in Jesus to have been entirely under the governance of his will; and this will to have been guided by a knowledge of the moral condition of the persons to be healed. It is therefore supposed that Jesus fully recognized the woman even without seeing her, and considering that she might be spiritually won over to him by this bodily succour, he consciously communicated to her an influx of his curative power; but in order to put an end to her false shame and constrain her to a confession, he behaved as if he knew not who had touched him. But the Christian consciousness, in cases of this kind, means nothing else than the advanced religious culture of our age, which cannot appropriate the antiquated ideas of the Bible.
Now this consciousness must be neutral where we are concerned, riot with the dogmatical appropriation, but purely with the exegctical discovery of the biblical ideas. The interference of this alleged Christian consciousness is the secret of the majority of exegetical errors, and in the present instance it has led the above named commentators astray from the evident sense of the text. Eor the question of Jesus in both the more detailed narratives Tt? 6 di/w^vo? \MV ; ivho touched me? repeated as it is in Luke,
and strengthened as it is in
Mark by a searching
glance around, has the appearance of being meant thoroughly in earnest; and indeed it is the object of these two evangelists to place the miraculous nature of the curative power of Jesus in a particularly clear light by showing that the mere touching of his clothes accompanied ~~-~-- Tr.-t^t,,,.Tmmnnuol.
m MIRACLES OF JESUS-INVOLUNTARY CURES.by faith, no previous knowledge on his part of the person who touched, nor so much as a word from him, being requisite, was sufficient to obtain a cure. Nay, even originally, in the more concise account of Matthew, the expressions -poaeWovaa o-iaOev f^aro having come behind him, the touched, and fmarpafalg «o? Idwv avrtjv he turned him about, and when he saw her, clearly imply that Jesus knew the woman only after she had touched him. If then, it is not to be proved that Jesus had a knowledge of the woman previous to her cure and a special will to heal her; nothing remains for those who will not admit an involuntary exhibition of curative power in Jesus, but to suppose in him a constant general will to cure, with which it was only necessary that faith on the part of the diseased person should concur, in order to produce an actual cure. But that, notwithstanding the absence of a special direction of the will to the cure of this woman on the part of Jesus, she was restored to health, simply by her faith, without even touching his clothes, is assuredly not the idea of the evangelists. On the contrary, it is their intention to substitute for an individual act of the will on the part of Jesus, the touch on the part of the sick person ; this it is which, instead of the former, brings into action the latent power of Jesus : So that the materialistic character of the representation is not in this way to be avoided.
A step farther was necessary to the rationalistic interpretation, which not only with modern supranaturalism regards as incredible the unconscious efflux of curative power from Jesus, but also denies in general any efflux of such power, and yet wishes to preserve un-attainted the historical veracity of the evangelists. According to this system, Jesus was led to ask who touched him, solely because he felt himself held back in his progress; the assertion that consciousness of a departure of power dvvajug efrXOovaa, was the cause ol his question, is a mere inference of the two narrators, of whom the one, Mark, actually gives it as his own observation, and it is only Luke who incorporates it with the question of Jesus. The cure of the woman was effected by means of her exalted confidence, in consequence of which when she touched the hem of Jesus she was seized with a violent shuddering in her whole nervous system, which probably caused a sudden contraction of the relaxed vessels ; at the first moment she could only believe, not certainly know that she was cured, and only by degrees, probably after the use of means recommended to her by Jesus, did the malady entirely cease.* But who can represent to himself the timid touch of a si-1’“ .voman whose design was to remain concealed, and whose faith rendered her certain ot obtainiv.™......- i. ,1 T .
Power of Ponfi 7” -.’“V -1- iV”lw”‘ wnat a vast conception of the *of confidence is demanded by the opinion, that it healed a = ff .Pvi1U8’ exegl Handb- l- B- S. 524 f. 530.
L. J. 1. a. S. 244- f. -Vo^t,,,.;,,;oaTHE LIFE OF JESUS.
disease of twelve years’ duration without the concurrence of any real force on the part of Jesus’. Lastly, if the evangelists are supposed to have put into the mouth of Jesus an inference of their own (that healing efficacy had gone out of him)-if they are supposed to have described a gradual cure as an instantaneous one; then, with the renunciation of these particulars all warrant for the historical reality of the entire narrative falls to the ground, and at the same time all necessity for troubling ourselves with the natural interpretation.
In fact, if we only examine the narrative before us somewhat more closely, and compare it with kindred anecdotes, we cannot remain in doubt as to its proper character. As here and in some other passages it is narrated of Jesus, that the sick were cured by the bare touch of his clothes:so in the Acts we are told that the handkerchiefs aovSdpia and aprons oifJUKirQia of
Paul cured
all kinds of sick persons to whom they were applied (xix. 11 f.), and that the very shadow of Peter was believed to have the same efficacy (v. 15); while the apocryphal gospels represent a mass of cures to have been wrought by means of the swaddling bands of the infant Jesus, and the water in which he was washed.* In reading these last histories, every one knows that he is in the realm of fiction and legend;
but wherein are the
cures wrought
by the pocket-handkerchiefs of Paul to be distinguished from those wrought by the swaddling bands of Jesus, unless it be that the latter proceeded from a child, the former from a man ?It is certain that if the story relative to Paul were not found in a canonical book, every one would deem it fabulous, and yet the credibility of the narratives should not be concluded from the assumed origin of the book which contains them,
but
on the contrary, cur judgment
of the book must be founded
on the nature
of its particular narratives. But
again, between these cures by the pocket-handkerchiefs and those by the touch of the hem of the garment, there is no essential distinction. In both cases we have the contact of objects which are in a merely external connexion with the worker of the miracle; with the single difference, that this connexion is with regard to the pocket-handkerchiefs an interrupted one, with regard to the clothes a continuous one;in both cases again,
results which,
even according to the orthodox view, are only derived from the spiritual nature of the men in question, and are to be regarded as acts of their will in virtue ot its union with the divine, are reduced to physical effects and effluxes. The subject thus descends from the religious and theological sphere to the natural and physical, because a man with a power ot healing resident in his bodv, and rioatino; as an atmosphere around him, «
‘
O
-*--, •.!••
Paul cured
all kinds of sick persons to whom they were applied (xix. 11 f.), and that the very shadow of Peter was believed to have the same efficacy (v. 15); while the apocryphal gospels represent a mass of cures to have been wrought by means of the swaddling bands of the infant Jesus, and the water in which he was washed.* In reading these last histories, every one knows that he is in the realm of fiction and legend;
but wherein are the
cures wrought
by the pocket-handkerchiefs of Paul to be distinguished from those wrought by the swaddling bands of Jesus, unless it be that the latter proceeded from a child, the former from a man ?It is certain that if the story relative to Paul were not found in a canonical book, every one would deem it fabulous, and yet the credibility of the narratives should not be concluded from the assumed origin of the book which contains them,
but
on the contrary, cur judgment
of the book must be founded
on the nature
of its particular narratives. But
again, between these cures by the pocket-handkerchiefs and those by the touch of the hem of the garment, there is no essential distinction. In both cases we have the contact of objects which are in a merely external connexion with the worker of the miracle; with the single difference, that this connexion is with regard to the pocket-handkerchiefs an interrupted one, with regard to the clothes a continuous one;in both cases again,
results which,
even according to the orthodox view, are only derived from the spiritual nature of the men in question, and are to be regarded as acts of their will in virtue ot its union with the divine, are reduced to physical effects and effluxes. The subject thus descends from the religious and theological sphere to the natural and physical, because a man with a power ot healing resident in his bodv, and rioatino; as an atmosphere around him, «
‘
O
-*--, •.!••
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