of Jairus to life was shown by the circumstance that she at once took food.

The motive of Jesus must be sought for elsewhere. We are content with the supposition, that the Lord in this work simply wished to give a token of the kingdom of heaven which was at hand. According to the report of Luke, He was accompanied by several disciples, who had come directly from the synagogue at Capernaum. There He had taught, and (as at Nazareth) had announced the acceptable year of the Lord,' and had preached the gospel to the poor. Now, to Him whose mouth had just poured forth such a testimony, the view of the sick woman (Matthew says: 'He saw her laid, and sick of a fever') must itself have served as an impulse to make it shine forth as a sign that 'this day is the scripture of the promise fulfilled in the ears of Israel.' Is not also the feverP (Deut. xxviii. 22)--marked as a a curse of the broken law on the head of Israel? This case of sickness did not come under our Lord's sight1 on the road, but in the house which He entered, the house where He was lodging; further, in the house of one of His disciples, who had been called to announce with Him the time of salvation, without annulling, by the institution of this call, the household tie (1 Cor. ix. 5). All these are circumstances which must have strengthened that general impulse, and raised it to a constraining motive (conveyed also in the words, 'He rebuked the fever').

The impression of obscurity is produced at first sight by another narrative of the healing of a sick woman, which we place beside it, to be considered on

1 Calvin says: 'Videntur evangelista miraculum hoc peculiariter narrasse, non quod per se aliis esset nobilius, vel memoratu magis dignum; sed quia in eo Christus domesticum et interius gratiæ suæ specimen exhibuit discipulis.'

the same grounds. The event took place 'as He was on the way,' as our Lord was about to proceed to a great proof of His almighty power. On the other hand, the receiver of the benefit carefully avoided looking up, while she sought to obtain help from Jesus, not by entreaties, but by taking it unobserved.

THE HEALING OF THE WOMAN WITH THE ISSUE OF BLOOD. -MATT. IX. 20; MARK V. 25; LUKE VIII. 43.

The accounts of this event by the three evangelists are not in complete harmony with one another. Matthew relates it very shortly and summarily, while Mark and Luke have endeavoured to give it with remarkable explicitness and copiousness. Strauss, in observing this, has thought it right to give the following judgment (Leben Jesu, p. 456; Eng. transl. ii. p. 194) There is nothing here' (in Matthew's account) 'which might not have occurred as is stated. A sick woman may have touched Jesus in a spirit of faith, may have traced an amendment in herself in consequence of this touch, and may have been dismissed by Jesus with a comforting word. What the evangelist says, and represents Jesus as saying, is something which even we think reconcilable.' Soon he goes on to say this simple narrative ceased to satisfy the belief in miracles; and the event is so amplified and embellished by Mark and Luke, that Jesus appears in the light of one in whom all the fulness of the divine powers of healing dwelt bodily. What we answer to this is, that the account of Matthew, which is certainly not very explicit, is completed by those of the two other evangelists, and that by them this miracle of Jesus is rendered conceivable.1 Jesus was on His road to the

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1 If we here speak of an inexactitude in Matthew's account as compared with that of Mark and Luke, and later repeat this judgment in the narra

house of Jairus. He was accompanied not only by His disciples, but by a great multitude of people, whose pressure on Him is indispensably presumed, in order to understand even the text of Matthew (that is, the 'came behind Him' of ver. 20). On His way He was detained (in a similar manner, as in chap. xix. 16, xix. 16, 'one came') by an incident. A woman (a fabulous tradition relating to her is very explicitly and particularly told by Eusebius, vii. 18) had 'heard about Jesus,' that is, she had heard that

tive of the daughter of Jairus, we do so while decidedly acknowledging the authenticity of the first Gospel, of which we are no less certain than we are of that of the fourth. Whoever has followed with attention and participated in the critical researches of the last few years, will have received the impression that the general opinion of the majority inclines in its favour, notwithstanding the judgments here and there expressed, 'that there can no more be a question of an apostolic authorship of the first Gospel.' One is not only tired of the constant reiteration of old and the starting of new hypotheses, but it is also to be remembered that nothing really well founded has been advanced against the authenticity of Matthew. What has hindered its acknowledgment so long, is partly the entirely unjustifiable signification which has been attributed to the testimony of Papias, and partly the synoptical manner of treatment which is adopted in the first Gospel. However, as soon as it is considered carefully by itself, there appears an order, a connection, a systematic plan, which is seen elsewhere in St. John's alone. Whoever keeps closely in view the introduction to the first period of the activity of Jesus in Galilee (from the imprisonment of the Baptist to his death, chap. iv. 12-25), cannot deny the fact that the evangelist has proceeded exactly in accordance with the plan here sketched out. Our present interest, however, demands simply the acknowledgment that Matthew was obliged to portray the Galilean miracle-working of Jesus (chap. viii. and ix.) as he has done, if he wished to solve the problem which he had made for himself (chap. iv. 23): 'Jesus went about all Galilee, healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.' His intention was not to relate in strictly chronological order, nor particularly to give a complete picture of each individual case; but his expressly declared object (a very valuable one) was to trace out the most varied features of a comprehensive representation of the miracle-working of our Lord. The objection often made, that the indefinite formula with which the single narratives of miracles are arranged together excludes the possibility of the author being an eye-witness, hereby completely vanishes. We can thus acknowledge the greater completeness of Mark and Luke in single narratives, without calling in question the higher dignity of the first Gospel.

Jesus, as a man working miracles, had been asked to help and save a dying child, and thereupon resolves to take advantage of His presence for the healing of a peculiar suffering of her own that had lasted many years. On account of its nature, she was ashamed to come forward with a public request. But she hoped with confidence that, by merely touching His garment, she would attain her end. And the result appears to have justified this expectation.

A twofold supposition, which we express with marked emphasis at the threshold of our consideration, appears still more to heighten the difficulty which the event itself offers to the understanding; but by it the question is again clearly formulated, in the answering of which stands the solution of our problem. So much as this is evident, and there can be no question on the point that there is not the least dissembling on the part of the Lord. He has never sanctioned an appearance which would have hidden the whole truth; He has never represented Himself, never explained Himself, as if He were something which He was not. The opposite opinion cannot be maintained even in the history of the Canaanitish woman. Thus, when Jesus (Mark v. 30) asks, 'Who touched my clothes?' when He looked round about to see her that had done this thing (the feminine onoaσav is naturally used by this evangelist in narrating the event, while Luke, citing the words of Jesus, writes Tís ó áfáμevós pov in the masculine), He wishes to discover something which was unknown to Him. The ‘turned Him about' proves that He did know the side from which the touch came, but that the person touching Him still remained concealed. It is therefore not to be denied that the woman, unnoticed by Jesus, pressed near to Him, and that, unrecognised by Him, she had experienced His healing power. the other hand, we still firmly hold to the conclusion

On

we arrived at on a previous occasion, that the miracles of Jesus are to be considered, not as the result of an immediate natural power proceeding from His person, but as works for the performance of which, acting in the strictest sense of the word, He worked with a decided aim. Consequently we must not allow Schleiermacher's view (partly held also by Rothe), that in the case before us the result which took place rested on its purely physical connection (Leben Jesu, p. 214). Thus the question to be answered is, How can the circumstance that our Lord recognised the person of the woman only after the completion of the cure (not intended by Him), be reconciled with the proposition that every miracle must have been the fruit of His conscious, deliberate, intentional act?. We shall arrive at the right conclusion if we sufficiently consider the very words of Christ. In the first place we take His explanation (Mark v. 34): 'Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole.' The words refer to the 28th verse, where the sick woman said within herself (Matt. év éavтy; compare Luke vii. 39, eiπev év Eavτ), or to herself, 'If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole.' A complete harmony exists between what she says in the sense of hope, and what Christ says in the tone of assurance. Faith has brought to her the way of cure. It is not difficult to comprehend the full value contained in this 'faith.' According to some authors, it was wanting in an important point. The text, however, gives us no right to charge the woman with the fancy that the healing powers of Jesus resided in the hem of His garment; for if she strove to touch the very hem, she only did so because it was the easiest for her to reach. There is certainly something superstitious in representing the garment as able to effect a miraculous work. Strauss has one-sidedly brought forward this meaning; he finds it, accordingly,