Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (796 page)
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Authors: George Eliot
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W\j the Church condemned as irreligious, and which we must reject as extravagant. Olshausen indeed says, that in a superior corporeality, impregnated with the powers of a higher world, such an appearance need not create surprise :* but these are words to which we can attach no definite idea. If the spiritual activity of Jesus which refined and perfected his corporeal nature, instead of being conceived as that which more and more completely emancipated his body from the psychical laws of passion and sensuality, is understood as if by its means the body was exempted from the physical law of gravity:- this is a materialism of which, as in a former case, it is difficult to decide whether it be more fantastical or childish. If Jesus did not sink in the water, he must have been a spectre, and the disciples in our narrative would not have been wrong in taking him for one. We must also recollect that on his baptism in the river Jordan, Jesus did not exhibit this property, but was submerged like an ordinary man.Now had he at that time also the power of sustaining himself on the surface of the water, and only refrained from using it ? and did he thus increase or reduce his specific gravity by an act of his will ? or arc we to suppose, as Olshausen would perhaps say, that at the time of his baptism he had not attained so far in the process of subtilizing his body, as to be freely borne up by the water, and that he only reached this point at a later period ?These are questions which Olshausen justly calls absurd:nevertheless they serve to open a glimpse into the abyss of absurdities in which \ve are involved by the supranaturalistic interpretation, and particularly by that which this theologian gives of the narrative before us. To avoid these, the natural explanation has tried many expedients. The boldest is that, of Paulus, who maintains that the text does not state that Jesus walked on the water; and that the miracle in this passage is nothing but a philological mistake, since -xepinaTelv t~l rrft QaAaaaric is analogous to the expression a-pa-orredevEiv iril T?;? (;aA«crCT7)c, Exod. xiv. 2, and signifies to walk, as the other to encamp, over the sea, that is, on the elevated sea-shore.t According to the meaning of the words taken separately, this explanation is possible : its real applicability in this particular instance, however, must be determined by the context. Now this represents the disciples as having rowed twenty-five or thirty furlongs (John), or as being in the midst of the sea (Matthew and Mark), and then it is said that Jesus came towards the ship, and so near that he could speak to them, •nepi^aruv erri rrjf OaMautjc. How could he do this if he remained on the shore ?To obviate this objection, Paulus conjectures that the disciples in that stormy night probably only skirted the shore; but the words ev fitaw TTJC Oalaa
MIRACLES-AKECDOTES KELATING TO THE SEA.further consideration. But this mode of interpretation encounters a fatal blow in the passage where Matthew says of Peter, that having come down out of the ship he walked on the wafer, Karaftaq dnb rov nkoiov -rrepieTTdrrjaEv im TO, vdara (v. 29) ; for as it is said shortly after that Peter began to sink (Ka-anovTi&adai), walking merely on the shore cannot have been intended here; and if not here, neither can it have been intended in the former instance relating to Jesus, the expressions being substantially the same.*
But if Peter, in his attempt to walk upon the waters, irepiTTareiv enl ra vdara, began to sink, may we not still suppose that both he and Jesus merely swam in the sea, or waded through its shallows ? Both these suppositions have actually been advanced.! But the act of wading must have been expressed by irepnraTelv dia rrjg 0aAa<7
The reasoning on which the natural mode of interpretation rests here as elsewhere, has been enunciated by Paulus in connexion with this passage in a form which reveals its fundamental error in a particularly happy manner. The question, he says, in such cases is always this: which is more probable, that the evangelical writer should use an expression not perfectly exact, or that there should be a departure from the course of nature ? It is evident that the dilemma is falsely stated, and should rather be put thus: Is it more probable that the author should express himself inaccurately, (rather, in direct contradiction to the supposed sense,) or that he should mean to narrate a departure from the course of nature ? For only what he means to narrate is the immediate point of inquiry; what really happened is, even according to the distinction of the judgment of a writer from the fact that he states, on which Paulus everlastingly insists, an altogether different question. Because according to our views a departure from the course of nature cannot have taken place, it ^ by no means follows, that a writer belonging to the primitive age of Christianity could not have credited and narrated such a case ;§ and therefore to abolish the miraculous, we must not explain it away from the narrative, but rather inquire whether the narrative itself, cither m whole or in part, must not be excluded from the domain of history. In relation to this inquiry, first of all, each of our three Against the extremely arbitrary expedient which Paulus has here adopted, see own-, Op,,sc, aead. 3, p, L’88. f The former by Bolten, Bericht des Miitthaus, in loc.; }”*’utter in Henke’s neuem Mnmi7in I’. <> s v>f »• + r’----- “---’......’ “ ‘•THE LIFE OP JESUSaccounts lias pcculiai features which in an historical light are suspicious.
The most striking of these features is found in Mark v. 48, where lie says of Jesus that he came walking on the sea towards the disciples, and would have passed by them, Km rfteXe napeWelv av-rovc, but that he was constrained by their anxious cries to take notice of them. With justice Fritz ache interprets Mark’s meaning to be, that it was the intention of Jesus, supported by divine power, to walk across the whole sea as on firm land. But with equal justice Pau-1ns asks, Could anything have been more useless and extravagant than to perform go singular a miracle without any eye to witness it? We must not however on this account, with the latter theologian, interpret the words of Mark as implying a natural event, namely, that Jesus, being on the land, was going to pass by the disciples who were sailing in a ship not far from the shore, for the miraculous interpretation of the passage is perfectly accordant with the spirit of our evangelist. Isot contented with the representation of his informant, that Jesus, on this one occasion, adopted this extraordinary mode of progress with special reference to his disciples, he aims by the above, addition to convey the idea of walking on the water being so natural and customary with Jesus, that without any regard to the disciples, whenever a sheet of water lay in his road, he walked across it as unconcernedly, as if it had been dry land. But such a mode of procedure, if habitual with Jesus, would presuppose most decidedly a subtilization of his body such as Olshausen supposes; it would therefore presuppose what is inconceivable. Hence tins particular of Mark’s presents itselt as one of the most striking among those, by winch the second evangelist new and then approaches to tin: exaggerations of the apocryphal gospels.*
In Matthew, the miracle is in a different manner, not so much Heightened as complicated; for there, not only Jesus, but Peter also makes an experiment in walking on the sea, not indeed altogether successful. This trait is rendered suspicious by its intrinsic character, as well as by the silence of the two other narrators. Immediately fin the word of Jesus, and in virtue of the faith which he has in the beginning, Peter actually succeeds in walking on the water for some time, and only when he is assailed.by fear and doubt does lie begin to sink.
What are we to think of this? Admitting that Jesus, by means of his ethcrialized body, could walk on the water, ho\v could he command Peter, who was not gifted with such a body, to do the same ?or if by a mere word he could give the body of Peter a dispensation from the law of gravitation, can he have been a man ?
and if a God, would he thus lightly cause a suspension of natural laws at the caprice of a man ? or lastly, are we to suppose * Mark’s inclination to exaggerate shows itself also in his concluding sentence, v, 51, (comp, vii. 37) : und Ikfy u-n-Q sore amazc.d in th^ntsdi:es Icyoud ineasuru and wond^rc.d ; ,,.i,;,.v, ,,.;n 0,-,irr-plv !« understood to import, as Paulus supposes (2, SiiiGG), a disapproval MIRACLES-ANECDOTES RELATING TO THE SEA. 561
What are we to think of this? Admitting that Jesus, by means of his ethcrialized body, could walk on the water, ho\v could he command Peter, who was not gifted with such a body, to do the same ?or if by a mere word he could give the body of Peter a dispensation from the law of gravitation, can he have been a man ?
and if a God, would he thus lightly cause a suspension of natural laws at the caprice of a man ? or lastly, are we to suppose * Mark’s inclination to exaggerate shows itself also in his concluding sentence, v, 51, (comp, vii. 37) : und Ikfy u-n-Q sore amazc.d in th^ntsdi:es Icyoud ineasuru and wond^rc.d ; ,,.i,;,.v, ,,.;n 0,-,irr-plv !« understood to import, as Paulus supposes (2, SiiiGG), a disapproval MIRACLES-ANECDOTES RELATING TO THE SEA. 561
that faith lias the power instantaneously to lessen the specific gravity of the body of a believer ? Faith is certainly said to have such a power in the figurative discourse of Jesus just referred to, according to which,.the believer is able to remove mountains and trees into the sea.-and why not also himself to walk on the sea?The moral that as soon as faith falters, power ceases, could not be so aptly presented by either of the two former figures as by the latter, in the following form:
as long as a man has faith he is able to walk unharmed on the unstable sea, but no sooner does lie give way to doubt than he sinks, unless Christ extend to him a helping hand. The fundamental thought, then, of Matthew’s episodical narrative is, that Peter was too confident in the firmness of his faith, that by its sudden failure he incurred great danger, but was rescued by Jesus; a thought which is actually expressed in Luke xxii. 31 f. where Jesus says to Simon:
Satan hath desired, to have you that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thce that thy faith fail not, These words of Jesus have reference to Peter’s coming denial: this was the occasion when his faith, on the strength of which lie had just before offered to go with Jesus to prison and to death, would have wavered, had not the Lord by his intercession, procured him new strength.- If we add to this the above-mentioned habit of the early Christians to represent the persecuting world under the image of a turbulent, sea, we cannot fail, with one of the latest critics, to perceive in the description of Peter courageously volunteering to walk on the sea. soon, however, sinking from faintheartedness, but borne up by Jesus, an allegorical and mythical representation of that trial of faith which this disciple who imagined himself so strong, met so weakly, and which higher assistance alone enabled him to surmount.*
as long as a man has faith he is able to walk unharmed on the unstable sea, but no sooner does lie give way to doubt than he sinks, unless Christ extend to him a helping hand. The fundamental thought, then, of Matthew’s episodical narrative is, that Peter was too confident in the firmness of his faith, that by its sudden failure he incurred great danger, but was rescued by Jesus; a thought which is actually expressed in Luke xxii. 31 f. where Jesus says to Simon:
Satan hath desired, to have you that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thce that thy faith fail not, These words of Jesus have reference to Peter’s coming denial: this was the occasion when his faith, on the strength of which lie had just before offered to go with Jesus to prison and to death, would have wavered, had not the Lord by his intercession, procured him new strength.- If we add to this the above-mentioned habit of the early Christians to represent the persecuting world under the image of a turbulent, sea, we cannot fail, with one of the latest critics, to perceive in the description of Peter courageously volunteering to walk on the sea. soon, however, sinking from faintheartedness, but borne up by Jesus, an allegorical and mythical representation of that trial of faith which this disciple who imagined himself so strong, met so weakly, and which higher assistance alone enabled him to surmount.*
But the account of the fourth gospel also is not wanting in peculiar features, which betray an unhistorical character. It lias ever been a cross to harmonists, that while according to Matthew and Mark, the ship was only in the middle of the sea when Jesus reached it: according to John, it immediately after arrived at the opposite shore; that while, according to the former, Jesus actually entered into the ship, and the storm thereupon subsided: according to John, on the contrary, the disciples did indeed wish to take him into the ship, but their actually doing so was rendered superfluous by their immediate arrival at the place of disembarkation. It is true that here also abundant methods of reconciliation have been found. First, the word j/fleAov, they wished, added to Aa/Mv, to receive, is said to be a mere redundancy of expression ; then, to signify simply the Joyfulncss of the reception, as if it had been said, it>KAOv-ef eAa/Sov-; then, to describe the first impression which the recognition of Jesus made on the disciples, his reception into the ship, which really followed, not being mentioned.f But the sole reason for such an inter* Schucckenburger, ubcr den Urspr. u, s, f. $• 68 f,: Weisse. die evans. Gcschichte. ‘i Si 521.4 v;.ii ii..i.- --’••••• •THE LIFE
OF JESUS.
OF JESUS.
pretation lies in the unauthorized comparison with the synoptical accounts: in the narrative of John, taken separately, there is no ground for it, nay, it is excluded. For the succeeding sentence: ei-Ot’wf TO rcXolov iyivE-o t~l rfjf yijs, etc i]v vTTijyov, immediately t/ie (,
<5« but by K<“, can nevertheless only be taken antithetically, i: sense that the reception of Jesus into the ship, notwithstandin^ readiness of the disciples, did not really take place, because they were already at the shore.In consideration of this difference, Cluy-sostom held that there were two occasions on which Jesus walked on the sea. lie says that on the second occasion, which John narrates, Jesus did not enter into the ship, in order that the miracle anight he greater Iva TO Oavfia jieli^ov ipydaijrai*This view we may transfer to the evangelist, and say:
if Hark has aggrandized the miracle, by implying that Jesus intended to walk past the disciples across the •entire sea;
so John goes yet farther, for he makes him .actually accomplish this design, and without being taken into the ship, arrive at the opposite shore.t Not only, however, does the fourth evangelist seek to aggrandize the miracle before us, but also to establish and authenticate it more securely. According to the synoptists, the sole witnesses were the disciples, who saw Jesus come towards them, walking on the sea: John adds to these few immediate witnesses, a multitude of mediate ones, namely, the people who were assembled when Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes. These, when on the following morning they no longer rind Jesus on the same spot, make the calculation, that Jesus cannot have crossed the sea by ship, for he did not get into the same boat with the disciples, and no other boat was there (v. 22); while, that he did not go by land, is involved in the circumstance that the people when they have forthwith crossed the sea, find him on the opposite shore (v. I’o), Avhithcr he could hardly have arrived by land in the short interval. Thus in the narrative of the fourth gospel, as all natural means of passage are cut off from Jesus, there remains for him only a supernatural one, and this consequence is in fact inferred by the multitude in the astonished question which they put to Jesus, when they find him on the opposite shore: Jtabbi, when earnest ilwu li.it/iei’,’As this chain of evidence for the miraculous passage of Jesus depends on the rapid transportation of the multitude, the evangelist hastens to procure other boats d/1/la TiAoidpia for their service (v. 2£). Now the multitude who take ship (v. 22, 2G if.) are described as the same whom Jesus had miraculously fed, and these amounted (according to v. 10) to about 5000. If only a fifth, nay, a tenth of these passed over, there needed for this, as the author ot MIRACIXS-ASECD01 ES RELATING TO THE SEA.the Probabilia has justly obsen ed, a whole fleet of ships, especially if they were fishing boats; but even if we suppose them vessels of freight, these would not all have been bound for Capernaum, or have changed their destination for the sake of accommodating the crowd. This passage of the multitude, therefore, appears only to have been invented,* on the one hand, to confirm by their evidence the walking of Jesus on the sea ; on the other, as we shall presently see, to gain an opportunity for making Jesus, who according to the tradition had o-one over to the opposite shore immediately after the multiplication of the loaves, speak yet further with the multitude on the subject of this miracle.
if Hark has aggrandized the miracle, by implying that Jesus intended to walk past the disciples across the •entire sea;
so John goes yet farther, for he makes him .actually accomplish this design, and without being taken into the ship, arrive at the opposite shore.t Not only, however, does the fourth evangelist seek to aggrandize the miracle before us, but also to establish and authenticate it more securely. According to the synoptists, the sole witnesses were the disciples, who saw Jesus come towards them, walking on the sea: John adds to these few immediate witnesses, a multitude of mediate ones, namely, the people who were assembled when Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes. These, when on the following morning they no longer rind Jesus on the same spot, make the calculation, that Jesus cannot have crossed the sea by ship, for he did not get into the same boat with the disciples, and no other boat was there (v. 22); while, that he did not go by land, is involved in the circumstance that the people when they have forthwith crossed the sea, find him on the opposite shore (v. I’o), Avhithcr he could hardly have arrived by land in the short interval. Thus in the narrative of the fourth gospel, as all natural means of passage are cut off from Jesus, there remains for him only a supernatural one, and this consequence is in fact inferred by the multitude in the astonished question which they put to Jesus, when they find him on the opposite shore: Jtabbi, when earnest ilwu li.it/iei’,’As this chain of evidence for the miraculous passage of Jesus depends on the rapid transportation of the multitude, the evangelist hastens to procure other boats d/1/la TiAoidpia for their service (v. 2£). Now the multitude who take ship (v. 22, 2G if.) are described as the same whom Jesus had miraculously fed, and these amounted (according to v. 10) to about 5000. If only a fifth, nay, a tenth of these passed over, there needed for this, as the author ot MIRACIXS-ASECD01 ES RELATING TO THE SEA.the Probabilia has justly obsen ed, a whole fleet of ships, especially if they were fishing boats; but even if we suppose them vessels of freight, these would not all have been bound for Capernaum, or have changed their destination for the sake of accommodating the crowd. This passage of the multitude, therefore, appears only to have been invented,* on the one hand, to confirm by their evidence the walking of Jesus on the sea ; on the other, as we shall presently see, to gain an opportunity for making Jesus, who according to the tradition had o-one over to the opposite shore immediately after the multiplication of the loaves, speak yet further with the multitude on the subject of this miracle.
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