Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (795 page)
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§ 101.ANECDOTES HAVING RELATIONS TO THE SEA.
As in general, at least according to the representations of the three first evangelists, the country around the Galilean sea was the chief theatre of the ministry of Jesus; so a considerable number of his miracles have an immediate reference to the sea. One of this class, the miraculous draught of fishes granted to Peter, has already presented itself for our consideration ; besides this, there are the miraculous stillin
while Jesus slept, in the three synoptists; Matthew, Mark, and John; the summary of most of those the walking of Jesus on the sea, likewise during a storm, in incidents which the appendix to the fourth gospel places after the resurrection; and lastly, the anecdote of the coin that was to be angled for by Peter, in Matthew.
The first-named narrative (Matt. viii. 23 ff. parall.) is intended, according to the evangelist’s own words, to represent Jesus to us as him whom the icinds and the ssa obey ol drefiot itai rj Od/Maaav~a,K,ovovoiv. Thus, to follow out the gradation in the miraculous which has been hitherto observed, it is here presupposed, not merely that Jesus could act^on the human mind and living body in a psychological and magnetic manner; or with a revivifying power on the human organism when it was forsaken by vitality; nay, not merely as in the history ot the draught of fishes earlier examined, that he could act immewl>W. are then^lveso ho ,1
“f/ deS’S”ed lml^ticns of those in the Old Testament; ov« death W!ls impart °lot’i, ° Mief °f anticluity. that » victorious power n’°« imm,
-
.v , „he .’’’vountes of the gods, (Hercules, Eseulapius, &c , andTHE LIFE OF JESUS.
“f/ deS’S”ed lml^ticns of those in the Old Testament; ov« death W!ls impart °lot’i, ° Mief °f anticluity. that » victorious power n’°« imm,
-
.v , „he .’’’vountes of the gods, (Hercules, Eseulapius, &c , andTHE LIFE OF JESUS.
diately with determinative power, on irrational yet animated existences, but that he could act thus even on inanimate nature. The possibility of finding a point of union between the alleged supernatural agency of Jesus, and the natural order of phenomena, here absolutely ceases; here, at the latest, there is an end to miracles in the wider and now more favoured sense; and we come to those which must be taken in the narrowest sense, or to the miracle proper.The purely supranaturalistic view is therefore the first to suggest itself. Olshausen has justly felt, that such a power over external nature is not essentially connected with the destination of Jesus for the human race and for the salvation of man; whence he was led to place the natural phenomenon which is here controlled by Jesus in a relation to sin, and therefore to the office of Jesus. Storms, he says, are the spasms and convulsions of nature, and as such the consequences of sin, the fearful effects of which are seen even on the physical side of existence.*
But it is only that limited observation of nature which in noting the particular forgets the general, that can regard -•iorms, tempests, and similar phenomena, (which in connexion with the whole have their necessary place and beneficial influence,) as evils and departure from original law: and a theory of the world in which it is
seriously upheld, that before the fall there were no storms and -tempests, as, on the other hand, no beasts of prey and poisonous plants, partakes-one does not know whether to say, of the fanatical, or of the childish. But to what purpose, if the above explanation will not hold, could Jesus be gifted with such a power over nature ? As a means of awakening faith in him, it was inadequate and superfluous: because Jesus found individual adherents without any demonstration of a power of this kind, and general acceptance even this did not procure him.As little can it be regarded as a type of the original dominion of man over external nature, a dominion which he is destined to re-attain; for the value of this dominion consists precisely in this, that it is a mediate one, achieved by the progressive reflection and the united efforts of ages, not an immediate and magical dominion, which costs no more than a word. Hence in relation to that part of nature of which we are here speaking, the compass and the steam-vessel are an incomparably truer realization of man’s dominion over the ocean, than the allaying of the waves by a mere word. But the subject has another aspect, since the dominion of man over nature is not merely external and practical, but also immanent or theoretical; that is, man even when externally he is subjected to the might of the elements, yet is not internally conquered by them ; but, in the conviction that the powers of physical nature can only destroy in him that which belongs to his physical existence, is elevated in the self-certainty of the spirit above the possible destruction of the body. This spiritual power, it is said, was exhibited by Jesus, for he slept tranquilly in the • >• .1..
i
,.m„„,} ,,ri,OT, nw;1ijP(i bv his trembling disciples, MIEACLES-ANECDOTES RELATING TO THE SEA.inspired them with courage by his words. But for courage to be shown, real danger must be apprehended: now for Jesus, supposing him to be conscious of an immediate power over nature, danger could in no degree exist: therefore he could not here give any proof of this theoretical power.
But it is only that limited observation of nature which in noting the particular forgets the general, that can regard -•iorms, tempests, and similar phenomena, (which in connexion with the whole have their necessary place and beneficial influence,) as evils and departure from original law: and a theory of the world in which it is
seriously upheld, that before the fall there were no storms and -tempests, as, on the other hand, no beasts of prey and poisonous plants, partakes-one does not know whether to say, of the fanatical, or of the childish. But to what purpose, if the above explanation will not hold, could Jesus be gifted with such a power over nature ? As a means of awakening faith in him, it was inadequate and superfluous: because Jesus found individual adherents without any demonstration of a power of this kind, and general acceptance even this did not procure him.As little can it be regarded as a type of the original dominion of man over external nature, a dominion which he is destined to re-attain; for the value of this dominion consists precisely in this, that it is a mediate one, achieved by the progressive reflection and the united efforts of ages, not an immediate and magical dominion, which costs no more than a word. Hence in relation to that part of nature of which we are here speaking, the compass and the steam-vessel are an incomparably truer realization of man’s dominion over the ocean, than the allaying of the waves by a mere word. But the subject has another aspect, since the dominion of man over nature is not merely external and practical, but also immanent or theoretical; that is, man even when externally he is subjected to the might of the elements, yet is not internally conquered by them ; but, in the conviction that the powers of physical nature can only destroy in him that which belongs to his physical existence, is elevated in the self-certainty of the spirit above the possible destruction of the body. This spiritual power, it is said, was exhibited by Jesus, for he slept tranquilly in the • >• .1..
i
,.m„„,} ,,ri,OT, nw;1ijP(i bv his trembling disciples, MIEACLES-ANECDOTES RELATING TO THE SEA.inspired them with courage by his words. But for courage to be shown, real danger must be apprehended: now for Jesus, supposing him to be conscious of an immediate power over nature, danger could in no degree exist: therefore he could not here give any proof of this theoretical power.
In both respects the natural explanation would find only the conceivable and the desirable attributed to Jesus in the evangelical narrative ; namely, on the one hand, an intelligent observation of the state of the weather, and on the other, exalted corn-age in the presence of real peril. When we read that Jesus commanded the winch imn/iav rol? di’Kj-iotg, we are to understand simply that he made some remark on the storm, or some exclamations at its violence: and his calming of the sea we are to regard only as a prognostication, founded on the observation of certain signs, that the storm would soon subside. His address to the disciples is said to have proceeded, like the celebrated saying of Cassar, from the confidence that a man who was to leave an impress on the world’s history, could not so lightlv be cut short in his career by an accident. That those who were in the ship regarded the subsidence of the storm as the effect of the words of Jesus, proves nothing, for Jesus nowhere confirms their inference.* But neither does he disapprove it, although he must have observed the impression which, in consequence of that inference, the result had made on the people ;f he must therefore, as Venturini actually supposes, have designedly refrained from shaking their high opinion of his miraculous power, in order to attach them to him the more firmly. But, setting this altogether aside, was it likely that the natural presages of the storm should have been better understood by Jesus, who had never been occupied on the sea, than by Peter, James, and John, who had been at home on it from their youth upwards ? J
It remains then that, taking the incident as it is narrated by the evangelists, we must regard it as a, miracle: but to raise this from an exegetical result to a real fact, is, according to the above remarks, extremely difficult: whence there arises a suspicion against the historical character of the narrative. Viewed more nearly however, and taking Matthew’s account as the basis, there is nothing to object to the narrative until the middle of v. 26. It might really have happened that Jesus in one of his frequent passages across the Galilean sea, was sleeping when a storm arose: that the disciples awaked him with alarm, while he, calm and self-possessed, said to them, Why are ye fecu-fill, O ye of little fait/if What follows-the commanding of the graves, which Mark with his well-known fondness for such authoritative words, reproduces as if he were giving the exact words, oi Jesus in a Greek translation (aiwTra, nefiipuao!)-might have * Thus 1’aulus, exeg. Handb., 1. B. S. 4GS ff.; Venturini, 2, S. 100 ff,; Kaiser, bibl. iiicol. 1, S, 11)7. Hase, also, | 74, thinks this view probable. f Meander, L. ,1, Chr., S, “ ,; wll° for the rest here oilers but a weak dnf™<» arainst tii» iv,f,,,-,,i „*-„!.,„.,.;„-THE LIFE OP JESUS.
been added in the propagation of the anecdote from one to another. There was an inducement to attribute to Jesus suc’h a command over the winds and the sea, not only in the opinion entertained of his person, Lut also in certain features of the Old Testament history. i’~-1 ‘1”-”“-!”+ir,r,o nf +IIP nnssacTR of the Israelites through ^-eripjoK -in epuu^u, ^,™^vl, ^ „„.„ 7
...
...
so that it retreated.Now, as the instrument in tliis p;ir’l;;«H of tin; lied Sea was Moses, it was natural to ascribe to his great successor, the Messiah, a similar function ; accordingly we actually find from rabbinical passages, that a drying up of the sea was expected to be wrought by God in the messianic times, doubtless through the agency of the Messiah, as formerly through that of Moses.* That instead of drying up the sea Jesus is said only to produce a Calm, may be explained, on the supposition that the storm and the composure exhibited by Jesus on the occasion were historical, as a consequence of the mythical having combined itself with this historical clement; for, as according to this, Jesus and his disciples were on board a ship, a drying up of the sea would have been out of place. Still it is altogether without any sure precedent, that a mythical addition should be engrafted on the stem of a real incident, so as to leave the latter totally unmodified. And there is one feature, even in the part hitherto assumed to be historical, which, more narrowly examined, might just as probably have been invented by the legend as have really happened. That Jesus, before the storm breaks out, is sleeping, and even when it arises, docs not immediately awake, is not his voluntary deed, but chance ;t it. is this very chance, however, which alone gives the scene its full significance, for Jesus sleeping in the storm is by the contrast which he presents, a not less emblematical image than Ulysses sleeping when, after so many storms, he was about to land on his island home. Now that Jesus really slept at the time that a storm broke out, may indeed have happened by chance in one case out of ten; but in the nine cases also, when this did not happen, and Jesus only showed himself calm and courageous during the storm, I am inclined to think that the legend would so far have understood her interest, that, as she had represented the contrast of the tranquillity of Jesus with the raging of the elements to the intellect, by means of the words of Jesus, so she would depict it for the imagination, by means of the image of Jesus sleeping in the ship (or as Mark has it,J on a pillow in the hinder part of the ship). If then that which may possibly have hap•5- Xeandcr alters the fact, when
he describes Jesus as ••- ‘
•’.......•’•”.•
.nn.l thus mauifestin:’
he describes Jesus as ••- ‘
•’.......•’•”.•
.nn.l thus mauifestin:’
* Vid, pag. CO note *. f Xeandcr alters the fact, vlien no cictcnuci, „„.-..„ .... falling asleep in the midst of the fury of the ytorm ami the wave;*, and thus manifesting •A tranquillity nf soul \\liich no terror of nature.’ could disturb (S, ;!(!^.). Luke says expressly, as iluij sitilfl In-j\ll «*/«/>.• and rf/terc camt d/fu a .s’urw,, ^v,, TTAfwrwv (^t avr&V ueprTn’wGt” itfil Kuriiihi /u/Xa’j1 K. r. ?.., and according to the representation of the other evan-o-MUt* M!SO. the sleeping of Jesus appears to have preceded the breaking out of the storm, - •’•-••1 l’’“>-HI..V would rather not MIRACLES-ANECDOTES RELATING TO THE SEA.pciied in a single case, must certainly have been invented by the le.fentl in nine cases ; the expositor must in reason prepare himself for the undeniable possibility, that we have before us one of the nine cases, instead of that single case.* If then it be granted that nothing further remains as an historical foundation for our narrative, than that Jesus exhorted his disciples to show the firm courage of faith in opposition to the raging waves of the sea, it is certainly possible that he may once have done this in a storm at sea; but just as he said : if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye may say to this mountain, Be thou removed and cast into the sea (Matt. xxi. 21.), or to this tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea (Luke xvii. 6.), and both shall be done (KM vn-fj-KOVOEV av viuv, Luke): so he might, not merely on the sea, but in any situation, make use of the figure, that to him who has faith, winds and waves shall be obedient at a word (on not rolg av^iou; imrdaoet Kal rS> vdari, KOI v-anovovaiv avru, Luke). If we now take into account what even Olshauscn remarks, and Schneckenburger has shown,! that the contest of the kingdom of God with the world was in the early times of Christianity commonly compared to a voyage through a stormy ocean ; we see at once, how easily legend might come to frame such a narrative as the above, on the suggestions afforded by the parallel between the Messiali and Moses, the expressions of Jesus, and the conception of him as the pilot who steers the little vessel of the kingdom of God through the tumultuous waves o~
of the world. Setting this aside, however, and viewing the matter only generally, in relation to the idea of a miracle-worker, we find a similar power over storms and tempests, ascribed, for example, to Pythagoras.J
We have a more complicated anecdote connected with the sea, wanting in Luke, but contained in John vi. 16 if., as well as in Matt. xiv. ‘22 ft’., and Mark vi, 45 ff., where a storm overtakes the disciples when sailing by night, and Jesus appears to their rescue, walking towards them on the sea. Here, again, the storm subsides m a marvellous manner on the entrance of Jesus into the ship; but the peculiar difficulty of the narrative lies in this, that the body of Jesus appears so entirely exempt from a law which governs all other human bodies without exception, namely, the law of gravitation, that he not only docs not sink under the water, but docs not even dip uito it; on the contrary, he walks erect on the waves as on firm land, it we are to represent this to ourselves, we must in some way or other, conceive the body of Jesus as an etherial phantom, according to the opinion of the IJocetaj; a conception which, the Fathers of ; Tin t TJober *nKT,”f S^T” ‘A ™^CV> **UMti°n. Glaubwflrdigkeit, S. 110, li,,,, Lrspi. U, s. i. [,, 08 f,
i Aecordini: to Jamlilirh. vita P,-n,i «.-.Jii.-.-,..,THE LIFE OP JESUS.
i Aecordini: to Jamlilirh. vita P,-n,i «.-.Jii.-.-,..,THE LIFE OP JESUS.
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