rate be justified. There is now a captivity which is blessed, blessed because it is deliverance from a freedom which is full of woe,-a "being made free from sin and becoming servants to God," that so we may have our "fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." (Rom. vi. 20.) But the present passage might be brought with a more unquestionable propriety in relation with Ezek. xlvii. 9, 10, and the prophecy there of the fishers that should stand on Engedi, and the great multitude of fish that should be in the healed waters. And as the ministers of Christ are fishers, so the faithful are aptly likened to fish. The comparison, which was so great a favorite in the early Church, probably did not derive its first impulse from these words. of our Lord; but rather from the fact that it was the waters of baptism through which men were brought into life,* and that only by abiding in that element into which they were introduced they continued to draw a true life: so that the two images cannot stand at the same time, excluding as they mutually do one another; for in one the blessedness is to remain in the waters, as in the vivifying element, in the other to be drawn forth from them into the purer and clearer air. In one Christ is the Fish, in the other the chief Fisherman,-addressed therefore in that grand Orphic hymn attributed to the Alexandrian Clement, in words which may thus be translated, Fisher of mortal men, From the fierce oceán Of the world's sea of sin By thy sweet life those enticest away. And bringing their ships to shore, "they forsook all, and followed him." But what was that "all" which "they forsook" ask some, * Tertullian, (De Bapt., c. 1): Sed nos pisciculi secundùm ¿x@vv nostrum Jesum Christum in aquâ nascimur; nec aliter quàm in aquâ permanendo salvi sumus. And Chrysostom on these words, "I will make you fishers of men," exclaims, “Truly, a new method of fishing! for the fishers draw out the fishes from the waters, and kill those that they have taken. But we fling into the waters, and those that are taken are made alive." Augustine (De Civ. Dei, l. 18, c. 23,) giving the well-known Greek anagram of 'IXerx, adds: In quo nomine mysticè intelligitur Christus, eò quod in hujus mortalitatis abysso, velut in aquarum profunditate vivus, hoc est, sine peccato esse potuerit. In the chasing away of the evil spirit by the fish's gall, (Tob. viii. 2, 3,) a type was often found in the early Church, of the manner in which, when Christ is near, the works of the Devil are destroyed. Thus Prosper of Aquitaine: Christus....piscis in suâ passione decoctus, cujus ex interioribus remediis quotidie illuminamur et pascimur. that they should afterwards seem to make so much of it, saying, "Behold we have forsaken all, and followed thee: what shall we have therefore?" (Matt. xix. 27.) It was their all, and therefore, though it might have been but a few poor boats and nets, it was much. And the forsaking consists not in the more or less that is forsaken, but in the spirit in which it is left. A man may be holden by love to a miserable hovel with as fast bands as to a sumptuous palace; for it is the worldly affection which holds him, and not the world: just as we gather from the warnings scattered through the ascetic books of the middle ages how they who had renounced, it may be, great possessions in the world, would now, if they did not earnestly watch against it, come to cling to their hood, their breviary, the scanty furniture of their bare cell, with the same feelings of property as they once exercised in ampler matters, so witnessing that they had no more succeeded in curing themselves of worldly affections, than a man would succeed in curing himself of covetousness by putting out the eye which in times past had been often the inlet of desire. These apostles might have left little, when they left their possessions, but they left much, when they left their desires.* A word or two here in conclusion may find place generally upon the symbolic acts of our Lord, whereof, according to his own distinct assurance, we here have one. The desire of the human mind to set forth the truth which it deeply feels in acts rather than by words, or it may be by blended act and word, has a very deep root in our nature, which always strives after the concrete; and it manifests itself not merely in the institution of fixed symbolic acts, as the anointing of kings, or the casting earth into a grave; but more strikingly yet, in acts that are the free and momentary products of some creative mind, which has more to utter than it can find words to be the bearers of, or would utter it in a more expressive manner than these permit. This manner of teaching, however frequent in Scripture, (1 Kin. ii. 30, 31; xxii. 11; Acts xiii. 51,) yet belongs not to Scripture only, nor is it even peculiar to the East, although there it is most frequent, and most entirely at home; but every * Augustine (Enarr. 3a in Ps. ciii. 17): Multum dimisit, fratres mei, multum dimisit, qui non solùm dimisit quidquid habebat, sed etiam quidquid habere cupiebat. Quis enim pauper non turgescit in spem sæculi hujus? quis non quotidie cupit augere quod habet? Ista cupiditas præcisa est. Prorsus totum mundum dimisit Petrus, et totum mundum Petrus accipiebat. And Gregory the Great, following in the same line (Hom. 5 in Evang.): Multum ergo Petrus et Andreas dimisit, quando uterque etiam desideria habendi dereliquit. Multum dimisit, qui cum re possessâ etiam concupiscentis renuntiavit. A sequentibus ergo tanta dimissa sunt, quanta à non sequentibus concupisci potuerunt. Cf. Clemer of Alexandria, Quis Dives Salvus? c. 20, v. 2, p. 946, Potter's ed. where, as men have felt strongly and deeply, and desired to make others feel so, they have had recourse to such a language as this, which has many advantages for bringing home its truth. When Hannibal, for instance, as he was advancing into Italy, set some of his captives to fight,* placing before them freedom and presents and rich armor for the victor, and at least escape from present extreme misery for the slain; who does not feel that he realized to his army the blessings which not victory alone, but even the other alternative of death, would give them, in affording release from the intolerable evils of their present state, as words could never have done? or that Diogenes expressed his contempt for humanity by his noonday lantern more effectually than by all his scornful words he could ever have expressed it? As the Cynic, so too the Hebrew prophets, though in quite another temper, would oftentimes weave their own persons into such parabolic acts, would use themselves as part of their own symbol, and that because nothing short of this would satisfy the earnestness with which the truth of God, whereof they desired to make others partakers, possessed their own souls. (Ezek. xii. 1-12; Acts xxi. 11.) And thus, too, not this only, but many actions of our Lord's were such an embodied teaching, the incorporation of an act, having a deeper significance than lay upon the surface, and being only entirely intelligible when we recognize in them a significance such as this. (Matt. xxi. 18, 19; John xxi. 19.) Christ being the Word, his deeds who is the Word, are themselves also words for us. *POLYBIUS, Hist., 1. 2, c. 62, + Lampe: In umbrâ præmonstrabatur quàm læto successu in omni labore, quem in nomine Dei suscepturi essent, piscaturam præcipuè mysticam inter gentes instituentes, gravisuri sint. Grotius, who is much more forward to admit mystical meanings in the Scripture than in general he is given credit for, whether that is for his praise or the contrary, finds real prophecy in many of the subordinate details of this miracle: Libenter igitur hîc veteres sequor, qui præcedentis historiæ hoc putant esse rò ¿λλnyopoúμevov, Apostolos non suapte industriâ sed Christi imperio ac virtute expansis Evangelii retibus tantam facturos capturam, ut opus habituri sint subsidiariâ multorum ebayyɛhɩorŵv operâ; atque ita impletum iri non unam navem, Judæorum scilicet, sed et alteram gentium, sed quarum navium futura sit arcta atque indivulsa societas. Cyril of Alexandria (see CRAMER's Catena, in loe.) had anticipated this; and compare also Theophylact, (in loc.,) who besides the above, finds one more significant circumstance; the night during which they had taken nothing was the time of the law; but there was then no success, nor a kingdom of God with all men pressing into it, till Christ was come, and he had given the word. Augustine (In Ev. Joh., Tract. 24): Nam quia ipse Christus Verbum est, etiam factum Verbi verbum nobis est. Ep. 102, qu. 6: Nam sicut humana consuetudo verbis, ita divina potentia etiam factis loquitur. IV. THE STILLING OF THE TEMPEST. MATT. viii. 23-27; Mark iv 35-41; LUKE viii. 22—25. THE three Evangelists who relate this history agree in placing it immediately before the healing of the possessed in the country of the Gadarenes. It was evening, the evening probably, of that day on which the Lord had spoken all those parables recorded in Matt. xiii. (cf. Mark iv. 35), when, dismissing the multitude, he would fain pass over to the other side of the lake, and so, for a little while, withdraw from the tumult and the press. With this intention, he was received by the disciples "even as he was in the ship." But before the transit was accomplished, a sudden and violent squall,† such as these small inland seas, surrounded with mountain gorges, are notoriously exposed to, descended on the bosom of the lake and the ship which bore the Saviour of the world appeared to be in imminent peril, as, humanly speaking, no doubt it was; for these men, exercised to the sea many of them from their youth, and familiar with all the changes of that lake, would not have been terrified by the mere shadow of a danger. But though the danger was so real, and was ever growing more urgent, until "the waves beat into the ship, so that now it was full," their Master, weary, it may be, after the toils of the day, continues sleeping still: he was, with details which St. Mark alone has preserved, " in the hinder part of the ship, asleep upon a pillow," and was not roused by all the tumult and confusion incident on such a moment. We behold him here as exactly the reverse of Jonah; the prophet asleep in the midst of a like danger through a.dead conscience, the Saviour out cv, probably, sine ullo ad iter apparatu. Zɛlouds, which is generally an earth-quake; (so Matt. xxiv. 7;) in Mark and Luke, λαίλαψ, which is defined by Hesychius, ἀνέμου συστροφὴ μεθ ̓ ὑετοῦ, a squall of a pure conscience-Jonah by his presence making the danger, Jesus yielding the pledge and the assurance of deliverance from the danger.* But the disciples understood not this. It was long, probably, before they dared to arouse him; yet at length they did so, and then with exclamations of haste and terror; as is evidenced by the double "Master, master," of St. Luke. In St. Mark, they awaken him with words almost of rebuke, as if he were unmindful of their safety, "Master, carest thou not that we perish?" though no doubt they meant in this "we" to include their beloved Lord as well as themselves. Then the Lord arose; from St. Mark it would appear, first blaming their want of faith, and then pacifying the storm; though the other Evangelists make the blame not to have gone before, but to have followed after, the allaying of the winds and waves. Probably it did both: he spoke first to them, quieting with a word the tempest in their bosoms; and then, having allayed the tumult of the outward elements, be again turned to them, and more leisurely blamed them for their lack of faith in him.‡ Yet is it to be observed that he does not, in St. Matthew, call them "without faith," but "of little faith." They were not wholly without faith; for, believing in the midst of their unbelief, they turned to Christ in their need. They had faith, but it was not quick and lively, it was not at hand as it should have been; "Where is your faith?" as in St. Luke he asks; so that it was like a weapon which a soldier has, but yet has mislaid, and cannot lay hold of in the moment of extremest need. The imperfection of their faith consisted not in this, that they appealed * Jerome (Comm. in Matth., in loc.): Hujus signi typum in Jona legimus, quando ceteris periclitantibus ipse securus est et dormit et suscitatur: et imperio ac sacramento Passionis suæ liberat suscitantes. † On the different exclamations of fear which the different Evangelists put into the mouth of the disciples, Augustine says excellently well (De Cons. Evang., 1. 2, c. 24): Una eademque sententia est excitantium Dominum, volentiumque salvari : nec opus est quærere quid horum potiùs Christo dictum sit. Sive enim aliquid horum trium dixerint, sive alia verba quæ nullus Evangelistarum commemoravit, tantumdem tamen valentia ad eandem sententiæ veritatem, quid ad rem interest? And presently after (c. 28): Per hujusmodi Evangelistarum locutiones varias, sed non contrarias, rem planè utilissimam discimus et pernecessariam; nihil in cujusque verbis nos debere inspicere, nisi voluntatem, cui debent verba servire: nec mentiri quemquam, si aliis verbis dixerit quid ille voluerit, cujus verba non dicit; ne miseri aucu pes vocum, apicibus quodammodo literarum putent ligandam esse veritatem, cùm utique non in verbis tantùm, set etiam in cæteris omnibus signis animorum, non sit nisi ipse animus inquirendus. Cf. c. 66, in fine. † Theophylact: Πρῶτον παύσας τὸν χειμῶνα τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτῶν, τότε λύει καὶ τὸν τῆς θαλάσσης. § Not uniσrol, but bλyómiσrol. The "How is it ye have no faith?" of St. Mark, must be overruled and explained by this word, and not vice versa. |