thing . . . through us, causing thanksgiving to God.' If our view is correct, we ought then to consider these miracles of Jesus as prophecies of the future dominion of the kingdom of heaven on earth; for there it really did rule, where those who sought it had all the wants that arose in connection with their holy work miraculously supplied.

But we cannot leave these narratives without touching on a circumstance to which our Lord Himself (certainly on a later occasion) has directed the attention of His disciples. When they, in fact, not long after the second feeding, had misunderstood the warning they had received of the leaven of the Pharisees, 'It is because we have no bread,' Jesus held a conversation with them on the unfolding of His power, of which they had been witnesses (see Mark viii. 19): 'When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up?' They answer, 'Twelve.' 'And when the seven among four thousand, how many took ye up?' They answer, 'Seven.' When He afterwards reproaches them, 'How is it that ye do not understand?' He wishes to teach them, that even now, when they (Mark viii. 14) had only one loaf, they should be convinced that it would be quite sufficient for their need. But we must not pass over the relation of the numbers in this conversation. We do not, however, mean the numbers of the baskets (twelve and seven), of which Volkmar on the one hand, and Luthardt on the other, have made an unjustifiable use. In the first case, there were twelve, in the second, seven baskets full, just because there was so much bread over. Enough of that! Another point is strange, that is, the quantity of fragments in the two cases stand in a very remarkable disproportion to each other. In the first feeding, five loaves, five thousand eaters, and twelve baskets full of fragments. On the

other hand, at the second feeding, seven loaves, four thousand eaters, and yet a remnant over of merely seven baskets. That is not in accordance with arithmetic; according to its laws, the second time the remainder should have been much more abundant. But what is to be shown here, what will be learnt here, is this, that the divine rule and blessing are not to be reckoned by any law; that it does not fit into human categories; that the wisdom from above mocks at earthly rules, and has everywhere its own standard.

Analogous to the miraculous feedings is an event which is recorded in the fourth Gospel alone. The impossibility, however, of considering one part of this Gospel apart from the whole, necessitates us to limit our contemplation of the miracle of Jesus at Cana to its principal points.

THE TURNING OF WATER INTO WINE. -JOHN II. 1-11.

The considerations which Strauss has made upon the narrative before us, form the section of his entire work which has the most completely failed; and this result was certainly an infallible one, if he did not wish to be unfaithful to his principles. Here he was certainly not in a position to be able to bring forward an Old Testament type which could have suggested a fabrication to show its fulfilment in the Messiah. He does make a weak attempt to render available for this end the bestowal of water on the people perishing from thirst in the wilderness (Ex. xvii.; Num. xx.); but of water, as is well known, there was no want at Cana. A clever fabricator, as Strauss endeavours to prove the fourth evangelist to be, would have placed Jesus, the supposition of the origin of the myth being granted, not in a house where there was a wedding,

but in a desert where thirsty crowds surrounded Him, in order that He might refresh them from springs miraculously opened, especially as in this Gospel there is such frequent mention of the living water. Hence the critic found himself driven to view the turning of water into wine as merely a completion of the miracle of feeding, i.e. that just as the latter corresponds with the bread in the Lord's Supper, so the former is identified with the second element in the Eucharist. But for this hypothesis, he has in advance forfeited the good sympathy of his readers, in that he has already pointed out, while discussing the subject of the miraculous feeding, the want of drink, from the onesided emphasis placed on the κλάσις τοῦ ἄρτου by the early Church. It has indeed been asserted, that the fourth evangelist has had especial grounds, in regard to the festival of the Lord's Supper, for placing by the bestowal of bread the furnishing of wine, although we do not receive any convincing proof of it. The manner, then, in which Strauss treats of the details of the nar rative, is only so far worthy of him as it gives above measure the unreasonable demands which he believes himself entitled to require of his readers. Only an unusual conviction of the superiority of his own judg ment could make him require any one to agree to his assertion, that the saying of Jesus to Mary is meant to 'outdo the question of Jesus as a child to His parents,' in Luke ii. 49, or that the remark of the master of the feast was intended to explain a passage in one of the synoptic Gospels (Luke v. 39). Lastly, we take objection to the fact, that he has declined to admit (p. 512; Eng. transl. ii. 274) that the evangelist himself has not by any single word referred to such a view of the narrative. In truth, he has not done so; but he has not omitted to do something else; he has most particularly shown his own comprehension of this

act of Jesus Christ: 'This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed on Him' (John ii. 11).

'He manifested forth His glory.' But what is this 'glory' of Jesus into which John looked through the symbol? That it was no other than that of the Onlybegotten of the Father (chap. i. 14) it is hardly necessary for us to say. But by this self-evident answer is not settled the real question, as to how far a beam of glory, shining from the act performed, had enlightened the disciples. That they recognised therein the supernatural power of their Master, expositors have hardly once acknowledged; but so much the more confidently have most exegetists acquiesced in the view advanced by Lampe, that the benignitas, philanthropia, beneficentia of Jesus here first come out in their glorious light. Meyer especially calls attention to the 6th verse, for the purpose of proving that the point of difficulty rests on his philanthropy. In the main, the conjecture of Olshausen, that our Lord by this miracle wished to show His antithetical position to the strict asceticism of the Baptist, is only an attempt to give a surer support and a greater definiteness to the vague view of Lampe. But by the former view, the uncommon stress which the evangelist lays on this event becomes as little evident, as by the latter the conception of the 'glory' comes to us shorn of all its brightness. What appears proper as a practical application cannot be given as a real exposition.

We would much rather decide in favour of Hofmann's view, that our Lord here has given to His own disciples 'an earthly representation beforehand of that heavenly marriage feast, when He will drink the fruit of the vine with them in the kingdom of His Father' (Schriftbeweis, iii. 407), did not the representation of the evangelist point in quite another direction, and one

of

in which we arrive at a more satisfactory view. I refer to the manner in which Jesus procured the wine. He did not increase the little store gradually, as was the oil in the widow's cruse, which was not to be consumed. Still less did He produce the wine required by a mighty word of command. But His action is developed on the principle of a change. It is impossible to mistake that the description is intended to concentrate the attention upon that presumption. The servants received the command to fill the jugs with water (ver. 7); they knew (ver. 9) that they had drawn water. They were to bring (ver. 8) what they had drawn to the master of the feast, and he bears witness (ver. 10) that it is good wine. The entire attention is concentrated on the miraculous change effected by the power Jesus. Let us, in the first place, consider its symbolical meaning. Do we not see the glory of Him who neither destroys nor creates, and who yet makes the old new: 'Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new' (2 Cor. v. 17). It is the 'glory' of the Restorer-the Redeemer. But besides this symbolical, there is also the prophetical meaning. The kingdom of God will succeed in completing the transformation of the old into the new on earth. Behold, I make all things new;' thus says (Rev. xxi. 5) He that sat upon the throne; and the seer writes, 'I saw a new heaven . . . and a new Jerusalem.' The miracle at Cana, in the fourth Gospel, reveals the whole efficacy of Christ on earth. This strong position, taken at its commencement, confirms us at once in the conviction, that it shows both symbolically and prophetically the dominion which the kingdom of God will gain upon the earth in its victorious course. 'This beginning of miracles did Jesus;' but what a contrast between this 'beginning' and the end! There the work of renewing, here that of judgment. And