It is the same with the third narrative of the healing of a blind man, which is common to all three evangelists, and which also all refer to one and the same time, immediately before the entrance of Jesus into the capital. Mark calls the name of the blind man Bartimæus, son of Timæus. On the way, in which our Lord walked from Jericho to Jerusalem, he sat and begged. Instead of troubling ourselves about the unimportant discrepancy that Mark and Luke narrate only about this one blind man, while Matthew speaks of two (which is even reconciled by the circumstance that Bartimæus comes out as the one specially known), we would rather observe the difference of the conduct of Jesus in this and in the case just considered. Here our Lord lets the blind man-whose unwearied repeated cry, 'Son of David, have mercy on me,' the bystanders sought in vain to stop-come immediately before Him, and asks him, What wilt thou that I should do to thee? 'Rabboni, that I might receive my sight.' And Jesus said, 'Thy faith hath made thee whole;'

ever, it is brought into a satisfactory light by means of the supposition that our Lord, by His miracle, partly showed allegorically, and partly manifested in reality on these two blind men, His power to open the inner eye. He who immediately spreads abroad the recognition which had just dawned on him, that Jesus is the Christ, receives from this spreading abroad neither a blessing to himself, nor does it spread this blessing on others. As is known, our Lord, after the acknowledgment of Peter, expressly prohibited the disciples from telling any one that He was the Christ (Matt. xvi. 20). We would strive no further with those who think they are able to explain even this commandment (understood solely from the standpoint which we have shown) on the understanding that it was to contradict the fanatical expectations of the Messiah.

1 The explicitness with which the evangelist has designated the blind Bartimæus as the son of Timæus has not prevented Strauss from expressing the wonderful conjecture that the root of the name must be sought for in the Tiμy of the 48th verse. Some expositors have started the question whence Mark knew the name, and on what grounds he specified so designedly the father of the blind man; but in a similar manner they would have to settle why he, Mark, and he alone, shows Simon of Cyrene to be the father of Alexander and Rufus.

and he followed Him. For the third and last time we meet here with this formula; but as we, in the history of the ten lepers, were compelled to an interpretation other than the literal one, so even here. we must do similarly. If we connect closely the question of Jesus, 'What wilt thou that I should do to thee?' with the explanation following, 'Thy faith hath made thee whole,' we should perceive that the thoughts of our Lord were directed to something else than merely bodily help. Even the term σéowкev does σέσωκεν not suit exactly the reattainment of the physical power of sight. We have here neither a freeing from a torturing pain, nor even the taking away of the peril of death; and one could hardly resolve to speak of the owτnpía of a blind man that is healed. Involuntarily one thinks of a different kind of salvation. And to that view we are most decidedly prompted, when we read in ver. 52 that this blind man followed Jesus. We surmise the owτnpía is the following of Him who has said, Whosoever follows me will have the light of life.' The that I might receive my sight,' which follows the question, 'What wilt thou,' is considered by our Lord in a higher sense; and in this He assures him that his faith has obtained for the suppliant a owτηpía which he will find more and more complete in the faithfulness of his following after Him.

With the miracles of Jesus on the blind, there is another work of His hand which stands in the same close connection,-a supposition strengthened by the saying of the prophet: 'Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf be unstopped' (Isa. xxxv. 5); yea, even as is to be presumed from the explanations themselves of our Lord (Matt. xiii. 16): 'Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear;' and Mark viii. 18: 'Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not?' Here also the

subject is the restoration of an organ for the reception of the revealed treasures of the kingdom of heaven.

THE HEALING OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.- -MARK VII. 31–37.

If we are quite prepared to hear this narrative considered as a myth which has arisen out of the word of the prophet, 'that the deaf should hear, and that the tongue of the dumb should be loosed,' it will still surprise us to hear that it is the true sample of an account of a miracle in accordance with the taste of the second evangelist. 'Here,' says Strauss (p. 445, Eng. transl. ii. 178), 'Mark was performing a task in which he took particular pleasure .. the mysterious taking a part . . . the Aramaic word used as a sort of talisman. . . the description full length . lastly, the depicting of the effect.' Enough, he wishes to show that Jesus has herewith done all which was to be expected of the Messiah, according to the passage in the prophet. We gain by this a complete definition for our problem. Before, however, we commence our attempt to solve it, a twofold remark is needed. First, it is certain that we cannot in the very least consider this deed of our Lord as a mere proof of His mercy. This sufferer had no conception of the misery in which he was imprisoned. He did not know his deficiencies, because he had borne them from his youth up, and consequently had not the power of reflection. If, on this very account, he appears so much the more a fit object of pity,—of a pity which led him to the Helper, —it is because the root of his suffering grew principally in the spiritual region; and even the witnesses of the miracle seem to have felt this, when they afterwards acknowledge, 'He hath done all things well.' They see Jesus not only as the helper in earthly need, but as a

Saviour in the most comprehensive sense. Secondly, they are not two self-existing wants, by the side of and independent of each other, which have been united,―on one side deafness, and on the other dumbness, but are in this case especially inseparable. The general connection between both sufferings is indeed shown by the circumstance that woós (dull, from KÓπTW), in classical as well as in biblical Greek, signifies 'dumb' as well as deaf. In the case before us it is called 'deafness' only. But when it is asserted of the deaf man that he was μoyiλános, it is not said that he was also dumb; but the xwpós shows the primitive want, of which the μoyiλános was the natural and necessary consequence. Moyiλáλos does not mean 'stammering' of a heavy tongue, but it signifies (the Septuagint rendering of) the inability to express articulate words, so as to be understood by others; and this was just the result of the deafness.

We must allow that there is sometimes a dumbness, in which the faculty of hearing has been intact. Later we shall meet with a case where the mere being dumb occurs (see Luke xi. 11): And Jesus cast out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake.' But this was only a temporary deprivation of the power of speech, which was effected in this case by Satan, just as the tongue of Zacharias was placed by God beyond the power of use, until the circumcision of the child John. Here, however, we have an absolute binding of it, and its significance is seen from the preceding closing of the ear. In fact, hearing cannot be learnt by man; he is born with this faculty, as with the power of seeing. But he must learn to speak; he can of himself only utter sounds, not speak words. And by what means does he learn the latter? By the hearing alone. Whoever is born deaf cannot learn to

speak; he only possesses the inborn faculty of pronouncing sounds, but as to speaking he remains μογιλάλος.

The method of our Lord's healing takes full account of the origin of the dumbness. First, He lays His finger on the deaf ear, then He spits on the tongue. In the same manner we read of the sufferer: first his ears were opened, and then 'the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain,' that is, he spoke really; he uttered words. No one will object that, according to this view, the opening of the ear had been alone necessary. It was not the intention merely that the sufferer should be placed in a position to learn to speak. No; this learning was to be spared him; he was to be able to speak at once. Consequently, then, the result also appears connected in a double sense exáλe, he spoke, what can be called speaking; and opeôs, quite normally, as if he had always been able to do so. No one, on hearing him, remarked any deficiency; he gave no impression that he was bringing into use with difficulty a power only just received; but his speech was at once plain and articulate,—the ὀρθῶς corresponding with the τηλαυγώς in the case of the blind man that was healed in chap. viii.

There is, however, a still deeper sense hidden behind this double action of our Lord on the tongue as on the ear of the sufferer,-a sense which we discern only by recognising the symbolical side of the miracle. It must be here borne in mind, that the apostles, although for a long time they had heard aright, experienced at the same time a special dedication of their tongues by the fire of the Holy Spirit.

We pass on to the main point, and commence by pointing out what is related of Jesus,-for it stands isolated, and occurs nowhere else in Scripture,' that He, sighing, looked up to heaven,' after touching the