spirit of the New Covenant to fulfil a threatening of the Old, yet so to transform in the fulfilling, that it wears a wholly different character from that which it wore when first uttered. 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. 22). But the promise here might be brought with more unquestionable propriety into relation with Ezek. xlvii. 9, 10, and the prophecy there of the fishers that should stand on Engedi, and of the great multitude of fish with which the healed waters should abound.1 But if Christ's Evangelists are fishers, those whom they draw to Him are as fish. This image, so great a favourite in the early Church, probably did not find its first motive in this saying of our Lord; but rather in the fact that through the waters of baptism men are first quickened, and only live as they abide in that quickening element into which they were then brought. The two images indeed cannot stand together, mutually excluding as they 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,3 in 1 Theodoret gives rightly the meaning of the passage: Aéyu ix0vwv πλῆρες τοῦτο γενήσεσθαι τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ ἀλιέας ἕξειν πολλούς· πολλοὶ γὰρ οἱ διὰ τῶν ὑδάτων τούτων εἰς σωτηρίαν θηρώμενοι, πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ οἱ τὴν ἄγραν ταύτην θηρεύειν πεπιστευμένοι, salvi sumus. 2 Tertullian (De Bapt. i.): Sed nos pisciculi secundum iy0ur nostrum Jesum Christum in aquâ nascimur; nec aliter quam in aquâ permanendo 6 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.' 3 Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xviii. 23), giving the well-known Greek anagram of IXOYE, adds: In quo nomine mystice intelligitur Christus, eo 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. the other the chief Fisherman. As Himself this great Fisher of men He is addressed in that grand Orphic hymn attributed to the Alexandrian Clement, in words which may thus be translated: 'Fisher of mortal men, Them that the saved are, From the wild ocean Of the world's sea of sin By thy sweet life Thou enticest away.' ' And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed Him,' or, as St. Mark has it, left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and followed Him.' Here let us quote Crashaw's epigram: 'Thou hast the art on't, Peter, and canst tell To cast thy nets on all occasions well. When Christ calls, and thy nets would have thee stay, But what was that 'all' which they forsook,' some might ask, that they should afterwards make so much of it, saying, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed Thee: what shall we have therefore' (Matt. xix. 27)? Whatever it was, it was their all, and therefore, though it may have been but a few poor boats and nets, it was much; for love to a miserable hovel may hold one with bands as strong and hard to be broken as bind another to a sumptuous palace; seeing it is the worldly affection which holds, and not the world; and the essence of forsaking lies not in the more or less which is renounced, but in the spirit in which the renunciation is carried out. These Apostles might have left little, when they left their possessions; but they left much, and had a right to feel that they had left much, when they left their desires.2 piscis in suâ passione decoctus, cujus ex interioribus remediis quotidie illuminamur et pascimur. 2 1 Steps to the Temple. Augustine (Enarr. iii. in Ps. ciii. 17): Multum dimisit, fratres mei, multum dimisit, qui non solum dimisit quidquid habebat, sed etiam quid A word or two may fitly find place here 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 embody the truth which it strongly feels and greatly yearns to communicate to others, 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, the breaking of a cake at the old Roman marriages, the giving and receiving of a ring at our own (cf. Ruth iv. 7, 8); but more strikingly yet, in acts that are the free products at the moment 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 and emphatic manner than these permit. This manner of teaching, however frequent in Scripture (1 Kin. ii. 30, 31; xxii. 11;1 Isai. xx. 3, 4; Jer. li. 63, 64; John xxi. 19-22; Acts xiii. 51), pertains not to it alone, nor is it even peculiar to the East, although there most entirely at home; but everywhere, as men have felt strongly and deeply, and would fain make others share in their feeling, they have had recourse to such a language as this, which so powerfully brings home its lesson through the eyes to the mind. The noonday lantern of Diogenes expressed his contempt for humanity far more effectually than all his scornful words ever would have done it. As the Cynic philosopher, so too the Hebrew prophets, though in quite another temper, would oftentimes weave their own persons into such parabolic acts, would use them quid habere cupiebat. Quis enim pauper non turgescit in spem seculi 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. v. in Evang.): Multum ergo Petrus et Andreas dimisit, quando uterque etiam desideria habendi dereliquit. Multum dimisit, qui cum re possessâ etiam concupiscentiis renuntiavit. A sequentibus ergo tanta dimissa sunt quanta a non sequentibus concupisci potuerunt. Cf. Clemens of Alexandria, Quis Dives Salvus? 20, vol. ii. p. 946, Potter's ed. Intended no doubt as an incorporation in act of Deut. xxxiii. 17. selves, as a part of their own symbol; and this, 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. II). And thus not this present only, but many other of our Lord's works were such an embodied teaching,' the incorporation of a doctrine in an act; meaning much more than met the natural eye, and only entirely intelligible when this significance has been recognized in them (Matt. xxi. 18, 19; John xxi. 19). The deeds of Him, who is the Word, are themselves also, and are intended to be, words for us.2 1 Lampe: In umbrâ præmonstrabatur quam læto successu in omni labore, quem in nomine Dei suscepturi essent, piscaturam præcipue mysticam inter gentes instituentes, gavisuri sint. Grotius, who has often traits of delicate and subtle exposition, finds real prophecy in many of the subordinate details here: Libenter igitur hic veteres sequor, qui præcedentis historiæ hoc putant esse то anуopovμevor, Apostolos non suâpte industriâ sed Christi imperio ac virtute expansis Evangelii retibus tantam facturos capturam, ut opus habituri sint subsidiariâ multorum εvayy‹λɩøtмv 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, Catena, in loc.) had anticipated this; Augustine (Serm. cxxxvii. 2); and Theophylact (in loc.); this last tracing in their night of fruitless toil the time of the law, during which there was no kingdom of God with all men pressing into it. 2 Augustine (In Ev. Joh. tract. xxiv.): Nam quia ipse Christus Verbum est, etiam factum Verbi verbum nobis est. Ep. cii. qu. 6: Nam sicut humana consuetudo verbis, ita divina potentia etiam factis loquitur. 4. 1HE STILLING OF THE TEMPEST. MATT. viii. 23–27; MARK iv. 35-41; LUKE viii. 22-25. HE three Evangelists, who relate this history, consent in THE placing it immediately before the healing of the possessed in the country of the Gadarenes. But in respect of the events which it followed, all the best harmonists are agreed that we must desert the order and succession of these as given by the first, in favour of that offered by the other two; as it does not seem that by any skill they can be perfectly reconciled. 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, seeing great multitudes about Him still, He gave commandment to depart unto the other side of the lake, to the more retired region of Peræa. And when they had sent away the multitude,' which, however, was not effected without three memorable sayings to three who formed part of it (Matt. viii. 19–22 ; cf. Luke ix. 57-62), they took Him even as He was in the ship.' But before the voyage was accomplished, behold there arose a great tempest in the sea.' A sudden and violent squall, such as 6 1 Q = sine ullo ad iter apparatu. 2 6 Zopóg, which St. Matthew here employs, is used very rarely indeed for a storm at sea; neither the lexicons nor commentaries give a single other example. It is the technical word, with or without yns, for an earthquake, being often so employed in the New Testament (Matt. xxiv. 7; xxviii. 2; Rev. xvi. 18; cf. Amos i. 1); and is used of any other great shaking, literal or figurative. Aaiday, which the other two Evangelists employ (Mark iv. 37; Luke viii. 23; cf. 2 Pet. ii. 17), belongs properly to the As of poetry, but, like other words of the same character, found its way |