agreed to this proceeding, it was not in the interest of their own position, in order to have it for their own support, or in order to be able to bestow alms. In this point of view, Paul asserts that he has desired neither silver nor gold nor raiment, but that his hands served him for his necessity, and that he had eaten his own bread; and Peter replies to the beseeching beggar, 'Silver and gold have I none.' The interest does not appear to us to be in the forcible words: 'We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word' (Acts vi. 4), for the apostles have always considered Christian taxes as a divine service, as an offering in the interest of the kingdom of heaven.

Let us see what is the state of matters in our narrative? Was the fish to furnish a sum of money for any use that might be chosen? No; but a fixed coin for a definite purpose was demanded, a coin, not with the emperor's image and superscription, but the tax for the service of Jehovah, for the maintenance of the temple. After our Lord had shown to His disciples the temple already in ruins (Mark xiii. 2), they could no more experience any peculiar piety towards this sanctuary even before the extreme catastrophe. Jerusalem itself lay still in their hearts for the sake of the saints there; but they themselves were to build among men a better tabernacle of God. For the purpose of this new habitation, they were shown another material than the gold of Ophir and the cedars of Lebanon; so far and so much, however, they needed for their work money as a means. They should demand it from Christians possessing it, and they would receive it from them in a sufficient measure. This is the authority with which they are clothed by means of the symbolical deed; and this is the promised prophecy of Him who can say, Mine is both the silver and the gold. 'In medio actu

submissionis emicat majestas.' Thus Bengel judged of the narrative we have just considered. In the one now to be brought before us, the majesty of the Lord breaks forth not in a single ray, but in the fulness of its splendour.

THE STILLING OF THE TEMPEST.-MATT. VIII. 23, ETC.; MARK IV. 35, ETC.; LUKE VIII. 22, ETC.

We find ourselves again in the place where the miraculous activity of our Lord was the most manifested. However, the narrative places us not on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, but upon its waves, which here must flow for the glory of the Son of God. It is certainly in a double form that the majesty of their Master shines down on the disciples in the open sea. However, when they see Him walking on the waters as on the dry land, they do not look upon a peculiar miracle, but are only witnesses of an event similar to that when He was manifested to the eyes of the three chosen ones on the mount of transfiguration. Mindful of the task before us, we therefore limit ourselves to the first of the two narratives. We follow Mark's account. The supposition that it is the most complete will be justified of itself. Schleiermacher holds that none of the evangelists have reported the event in strict accordance with truth. Hypotheses are here permissible; what is wanting must be supplemented, and what is founded on fact must be settled by analogy. Let this be the task to be undertaken, though the solution of it cannot be demanded. He himself has not attempted it, and stands perplexed in regard to the narrative. Strauss knows how to answer it. He says Jesus might after a hard working day have departed with the disciples from Capernaum, have gone to sleep in the ship, have on the storm arising been

awakened by the dispirited disciples, and have opposed their faintheartedness; but He could not, as the evangelists have reported, have rebuked the winds and the sea. This, he thinks, is a myth, the origin of which is to be sought for in the 106th and 107th Psalm ('He rebuked the Red Sea, He commanded the stormy wind, which lifted up its waves; they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, He saved them out of their distresses; He maketh the storm a calm, and its waves are still; then are they glad because they are at rest, and He bringeth them to the haven where they would be '),-a myth, the fabrication of which had its cause in the desire of Christianity to possess a guarantee of protection, of which the Church might be assured in all its combats on the side of our Lord. Let us consider whether there is a necessity for this doubtful view, or whether we cannot with confidence assert that the event is an historical fact, that the passage in the Psalms is more than an Old Testament type, and that the early Christian views are more than merely an application that may be admissible.

The evangelist Mark places the beginning of this narrative on the evening of the day on which our Lord has spoken His parable sermon: 'And the same day, when the even was come;' and 'they took Him even as He was in the ship.' These last words refer to the 1st verse of the 4th chapter, where it is said, that on account of the multitude of the people thronging Him, Jesus had entered into a ship, and thence had taught those assembled on the shore. When He had ended, He requested the disciples to go to the other side; and they took Him 'as He was still in the ship,' that is, without His first leaving it; and immediately they commenced the voyage, and they launched forth' (Luke viii. 22). The continuation of the representation of the third evangelist makes it

probable that our Lord, soon after the breaking up of the assembly, was sunk in sleep, while Mark shows Him to us later, when the stormy wind was raging, sleeping in the hinder part of the vessel on a pillow. (The Tроσκеpáλetov, probably a soft cushion inviting to rest, not the wooden back of the púμm itself; at least the Septuagint has in Ezek. xiii. 18 thus translated the ninWoe to you that make cushions for the heads for great and small, in order to catch souls.') The fact that Jesus fell asleep after the trouble of a day of hard work, has neither been found by the evangelists as incompatible with the truth, 'that the Keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps (at least this 'want' in the narrative did not give them cause for the fabrication of a supplementary miraculous history; see Strauss, Leben Jesu, 492); nor can it cause us the least surprise. As long as our Lord walked in the flesh, He was also subject in waking and sleeping to the order of nature. He was worn out by the fatigue of the day, and needed refreshing in sleep. It has certainly been asserted, that while sleeping He merged into His Father, and received in dreams His revelations; thus it was overlooked, that the Scripture mentions prayer alone as the medium of Jesus merging in His Father, and that only subordinate tools have received in dreams the direction of God; see Num. xii. 6. While He Himself enjoyed refreshing rest, His companions were the prey of restlessness and anxiety. A stormy wind had arisen, and the ship was driven and tossed. The mariners were accustomed to the glassy smoothness of the Sea of Galilee being suddenly changed into lofty waves, and they knew how to take the proper precautions. But this time the storm must have taken place with peculiar suddenness, and with unwonted violence, for they had exhausted all their means. The water pressed into

the vessel, and filled it, until there was the extreme danger of sinking. And He was asleep.'

That our Lord remained in undisturbed slumber, though the waves might wet Him and the storm roar round His head, has, indeed, much deeper grounds than merely in the securitas potentiæ. The sleep lasted as long as nature's need demanded. When the organism after the lowering exertion has received back its elasticity by rest, the freshened feeling of life drives away slumber of itself, and man awakes. In the present case, Jesus had rested too short a time for such a spontaneous awakening to have occurred. At any rate, there is certainly a mystical effect, which threatening danger exercises on the sleeper, so that he is awakened suddenly out of the deepest slumber; but sinful man alone, just because he alone knows of such danger, can perceive this effect when close at hand. The child, even, who is still innocent, does not expe rience it; his sleep, therefore, remains undisturbed, because even waking he is free from care, where grown-up persons tremble. And thus force from without could alone break the power of the sleep of Jesus. We see how it is here applied.

In the first place, however, a question of har monizing presents itself to us. For according to Matthew, the disciples break out in the words, 'Lord, save us we perish.' Similarly Luke says, 'Master, Master, we perish.' On the other hand, according to Mark, they said, 'Master, carest thou not that we perish?' Those expositors who judge of the second evangelist, that he is accustomed to colour the reports of the rest, have in this case no easy position; for that would be a very curious embellishment to change the beseeching request into a formula including a reproach. Others have indeed sought to unite both together, so that first the reproach, and afterwards the request,