23. THE HEALING OF THE DAUGHTER OF THE

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SYROPHOENICIAN WOMAN.

MATT. XV. 21-28; MARK vii. 24-30.

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departed into the coasts of

E have no reason to think that at any time during his earthly ministry our Lord overpassed the limits of the Holy Land; not even when He Tyre and Sidon.' It was only into the borders of Tyre and Sidon,' as St. Mark expressly tells us (vii. 24), that He went; and even St. Matthew's words need not, and certainly here do not, mean more than that He approached the confines of that heathen land. The general fitness of things, and more than this, his own express words on this very occasion, ‘I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel,' combine to make it most unlikely that He had now brought his healing presence to any other but the people of the Covenant; and, moreover, when St. Matthew speaks of the woman of Canaan' as coming out of that district, or of the same coasts,' he clearly shows that he did not intend to describe the Lord as having more than drawn close to the skirts of that profane land.

Being there, He entered into a house, and would have no man know it:' but, as the ointment bewrayeth itself,' so He, whose 'Name is like ointment poured out,' on the present occasion could not be hid;' and among those

1 Kuinoel here: In partes Palæstinæ regioni Tyriorum et Sidoniorum finitimas. So Exod. xvi. 35: eis μépos tŷs doiviens (LXX), 'to the borders of Canaan.'

attracted by its sweetness was a woman of that country,—' a woman of Canaan,' as St. Matthew terms her, a Greek, a Syrophoenician,' as St. Mark has it,' by the first term indicating her religion, that it was not Jewish, but heathen; by the second, the stock of which she came, being even that accursed race once doomed of God to a total excision, root and branch (Deut. vii. 2), but of which some branches had been spared by those first generations of Israel that should have destroyed all (Judg. ii. 2, 3). Everything, therefore, was against her; yet this everything did not prevent her from drawing nigh, from seeking, and as we shall presently see from obtaining, the boon that her soul longed after. She had heard of the mighty works which the Saviour of Israel had done for already his fame had gone through all Syria; so that they brought unto Him, besides other sick, those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and He healed them' (Matt. iv, 24). And she has a boon to ask for her daughter;-or say rather for herself, so entirely has she made her daughter's misery her own: 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil;' just as on a later occasion the father of the lunatic child exclaims, Have compassion on us, and help us' (Mark ix. 22).

But she finds Him very different from that which report had described Him to her. That had extolled Him as the merciful and gracious, not breaking the bruised reed, nor quenching the smoking flax, inviting every weary and afflicted soul to draw nigh and find rest with Him. He, who of Himself had anticipated the needs of others (John v. 6), withdrew Himself from hers; He answered her not a word.' The Word has

1 Συροφοινίκισσα, Lachmann, Σύρα Φοινίκισσα, Tischendorf; and between these readings the best MSS. are divided. Συροφοίνισσα is very weakly attested: it is indeed the more Greek form, yet not therefore here to be preferred, but rather the contrary. See a learned note by Grotius, on Matt. xv. 22. This woman's name, according to the Clementine Homilies (ii. 19), was Justa, where legends of her later life, and her passage from heathenism to Judaism, are to be found.

no word; the fountain is sealed; the physician withholds his remedies' (Chrysostom); until at last the disciples, wearied out with her persistent entreaties, and to all appearance more merciful than their Lord, themselves came and besought Him, saying, Send her away.' Yet was there in truth a root of selfishness out of which this compassion of theirs grew; for why is He to satisfy her and dismiss her? 'for she crieth after us;' she is making a scene; she is drawing on them unwelcome observation. Theirs is that heartless granting of a request, whereof most of us are conscious; when it is granted out of no love to the suppliant, but to leave undisturbed his selfish ease from whom at length it is extorted,—a granting such as his who gave, but gave saying, lest by her continual coming she weary me' (Luke xviii. 5). Here, as so often, behind a seeming severity lurks the real love, while under the mask of a greater easiness selfishness lies hid.

These intercessors meet with no better fortune than the suppliant herself; and Christ stops their mouth with words which might appear to set the seal of hopelessness on her suit: I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel' (cf. Matt. x. 5, 6). But in what sense was this true? All prophecy which went before declared that in Him, the promised Seed, not one nation only, but all nations of the earth, should be blest (Rom. xv. 9-12). He Himself declared, 'Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice' (John x. 16). It has happened before now with the founders of false religions that, as success beckoned them on, the circle of their vision has widened; and they who meant at first but to give a faith to their tribe or nation, have aspired at last to give one to the world. But here all must have been always known; the world-embracing reach of his mission, and of the faith which He should found, was contemplated by Christ from the beginning. In what sense then, and under what limitations, could He say with truth I am

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not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel'? Clearly it must be in his own personal ministry.' That ministry, for wise purposes in the counsels of God, should be confined to his own nation; and every departure from this, the prevailing rule of his whole earthly activity, was, and was clearly marked as, an exception. Here and there, indeed, there were preludes of the larger mercy which was in store,2 first drops of that gracious shower which should one day water the whole earth. Before, however, the Gentiles should glorify God for his mercy, He must first be a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers' (Rom. xv. 8, 9). It was only as it were by a rebound from them that the grace was to light upon the heathen world; while yet that issue, which seemed thus accidental, was laid deep in the deepest counsels of God (Acts xiii. 44-49; Rom. xi.). In Christ's reply, as St. Mark gives it, 'Let the children first be filled,' the refusal does not appear so absolute and final, and a glimpse is vouchsafed of the manner in which the blessing might yet pass on to others, when as many of these, 'the children,' as were willing, should have accepted it. But there, too, the present repulse is absolute. The time is not yet; others intermeddle not with the meal, till the children have had enough.

The woman hears the repulse which the disciples who had ventured to plead for her receive; but is not daunted or disheartened thereby. Hitherto she had been crying after the Lord, and at a distance; but now, instead of being put still farther from Him, 'came she and worshipped Him,

1 Augustine (Serm. lxxvii. 2): Hic verborum istorum oritur quæstio : Unde nos ad ovile Christi de gentibus venimus, si non est missus nisi ad oves quæ perierunt domûs Israel? Quid sibi vult hujus secreti tam alta dispensatio, ut cum Dominus sciret quare veniret, utique ut Ecclesiam haberet in omnibus gentibus, non se missum dixerit, nisi ad oves quæ perierunt domûs Israel? Intelligimus ergo præsentiam corporis sui, nativitatem suam, exhibitionem miraculorum, virtutemque resurrectionis in illo populo eum ostendere debuisse. Jerome (Comm. in Matt. in loc.): Perfectam salutem gentium passionis et resurrectionis tempori reservabat. 2 Calvin: Præludia quædam dare voluit communis misericordiæ.

saying, Lord, help me.' On this He breaks the silence which hitherto He has maintained towards her; but it is with an answer more discomfortable than was even the silence itself: 'He answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.' The children' are, of course, the Jews, the children of the kingdom' (cf. Matt. viii. 12). He who spoke so sharply to them, speaks thus honourably of them; nor is there any contradiction in this: for here He is speaking of the position which God has given them in his kingdom; there, of the manner in which they have realized that position. On the other hand, extreme contempt was involved in the title of dog' given to any one, the nobler characteristics of this animal, although by no means unknown to antiquity, being never brought out in Scripture (see Deut. xxiii. 18; Job xxx. 1; 1 Sam. xvii. 43; xxiv. 14; 2 Sam. iii. 8; ix. 8; xvi. 9; 2 Kin. viii. 13; Matt. vii. 6; Phil. iii. 2; Rev. xxii. 15).

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There are very few for whom this would not have been enough; few who, even if they had persevered thus far, would not now at length have turned away in anger or despair. Not so, however, this heathen woman; she, like the centurion, and under circumstances more trying, is mighty in faith; and from the very word which seems to make most against her, draws with the ready wit of faith an argument in

1 Maldonatus: Habent canes panem suum minus delicatum, quam filii; res naturales, Sol, Luna, pluvia, et cetera idem genus canum, id est Gentilium, panis sunt; quæ providentiâ quidem Dei, sed generali minusque accuratâ dispensantur, et omnibus in commune, sicut porcis glandes, projiciuntur: Evangelica gratia, quæ supra naturam est, panis est filiorum non projiciendus temere, sed majore consilio rationeque distribuendus.

2 Many, as Maldonatus, find a further aggravation of the contempt in the Kuvapioic (catellis, Vulg.), not even dogs, but whelps. I should rather say with Olshausen that in the diminutive lies a slight mitigation of the exceeding sharpness of the words. Calvin brings out well the force of the Baxtiv: Projiciendi verbo utitur significando non bene locari, quod Ecclesiæ Dei ablatum profanis hominibus vulgatur. Clarius exprimitur consilium Christi apud Marcum vii. 27, ubi habetur, Sine prius saturari filios. Nam Cananæam admonet præpostere facere, quæ velut in mediâ cœnâ in mensam involat.