to the guests present-except in the minds of them who would mai, if by any means they could, the image of a perfect Holiness, which offends and rebukes them. Of a piece with this is their miserable objection, who find the miracle incredible, since, if the Lord did not actually minister to an excess already commenced, yet, by the creation of "so large and perilous a quantity of wine," (for the quantity was enormous,*) he would have put temptation in men's way ;-as though the secret of temperance lay in the scanty supply, and not in the strong self-restraint! In like manner, every gift of God, every large abundance of the vineyard, might be said with equal truth to be a temptation, and so in some sort it is, (compare Luke xii. 16,) a proving of men's temperance and moderation in the midst of abundance. But man is to be perfected, not by being kept out of temptation, but rather by being victorious in temptation. And for this large giving, it was only that which we should look for. He, a King, gave as a king. No niggard giver in the ordinary bounties of his kingdom of nature, neither was he a niggard giver now, when he brought those his common gifts into the kingdom of his grace, and made them directly to serve him there. (Cf. Luke v. 6, 7.) But these words, "Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now," setting forth, as in the letter they do, only a trivial practice of a poor worldly economy, have oftentimes had a higher meaning found for them. It has been excellently noticed how these very words may be used for the setting forth the difference between the manner and order of the world's giving and of Christ's giving. The man, not knowing what he did, gave utterance to a far larger and deeper thought than he meant. The world does indeed give its best and its fairest at the beginning, its "good wine" first, but has only baser substitutes at the last. "When men have well drunk," when their spiritual * The Attic μετρητής (= βάδος =72 §éorai = 72 sextarii) = 8 gallons 7.365 pints, imperial measure; so that each of these six vessels, containing two or three μεтρητаí apiece, did in round numbers hold about twenty gallons or more. + Calvin answers the objection excellently well: Nostro vitio fit, si ejus benignitas irritamentum est luxuriæ; quin potius hæc temperantiæ nostræ vera est probatio, si in mediâ affluentiâ parci tamen et moderati sumus. Cf. SUICER'S Thess., s. v. olvos. It is instructive to notice the ascetic tone which Strauss takes, (Leben Jesu, v. 2, p. 229,) when speaking of this Luxuswundur, as he terms it, contrasted with that which he assumes when he desires to depreciate the character of John the Baptist; but truly he is of that generation that call Jesus a winebibber, and say that John has a devil; with whom that which is godlike can in no form find favor. Some of Woolston's vilest ribaldry (Fourth Discourse on the Miracles of our Saviour, p. 23, seq.) is spent upon this theme. palate is blunted, when they have lost the discernment between moral good and evil, then it puts upon them what it would not have dared to offer at the first-coarser pleasures, viler enjoyments, the swine's husks. The world is for them that worship it, even as that great image which the Babylonian king beheld; (Dan. ii. 31;) its head, indeed, may show as fine gold, but its material grows ever baser, till it finishes in the iron and clay at the last. And so it comes to pass that "To be a prodigal's favorite, then, worse lot! this is the portion of them that have entered on the service of sin and of *Thus H, de Sto Victore (De Are. Morali, 1. 1, c. 1). Omnis namque homo, id est, carnalis primùm vinum bonum ponit, quia in suâ delectatione falsam quandam dulcedinem sentit; sed postquam furor mali desiderii mentem inebriaverit, tunc quod deterius est propinat, quia spina conscientiæ superveniens mentem, quam prius falsò delectabat, graviter cruciat. Sed Sponsus noster postremò vinum bonum porrigit, dum mentem, quam sui dulcedine amoris replere disponit, quâdam prius tribulationum compunctione amaricari sinit, ut post gustum amaritudinis avidiùs bibatur suavissimum poculum caritatis. Corn. à Lapide: Hic est typus fallacia mundi, qui initio res speciosas oculis objicit, deinde sub iis deteriores et viles inducit, itaque sui amatores decipit et illudit. An unknown author (BERNARDI Opp., v. 2, p. 513): In futurâ enim vitâ aqua omnis laboris et actionis terrena in vinum divinæ contemplationis commutabitur, implebunturque omnis hydriæ usque ad summum. Omnes enim implebuntur in bonis domûs Domini, cum illæ desiderabiles nuptiæ Sponsi et sponsæ celebrabuntur; bibeturque in summâ lætitiâ omnium clamantium Domino et dicentium; Tu bonum vinum servâsti usque adhuc. I know not from whence this line comes, Ille merum tarde, dat tamen ille merum ; but it evidently belongs to this miracle. for Jesus keeps the of sorrow and then the wine of the chalice; best wine to the last, not only because of the direct reservation of the highest joys till the nearer approaches of glory, but also because our relishes are higher after a long fruition than at the first essays, such being the nature of grace, that it increases in relish as it does in fruition, every part of grace being new duty and new reward.”* The Evangelist expressly, and, as it would seem, pointedly, excludes from all historic credit the miracles of Christ's infancy, of which so large a crop is to be found in nearly all the apocryphal Gospels. For, of course, he would not say merely that this was the first miracle which Jesus did in Cana, but that this miracle in Cana was the first which he did; it was for him the "beginning of miracles." The statement is not unimportant, nor unconnected with one of the main purposes with which the Gospel of St. John was written, which was to repel and remove all unreal notions concerning the person of his Lord; notions which nothing would have helped more to uphold than those merely phantastic and capricious miracles,-favorites, therefore, with all manner of Docetic heretics,-which are ascribed to his infancy. But in this work of his he "manifested forth his glory," words that could be used of no lesser than the Son; for all others would have manifested forth the glory of another, but he his own. And this, because the word "glory" is to be taken emphatically; it is not merely his excellent greatness, but his divinity: for the glory (dóğa) is a divine attribute; it is comprehended and involved in the idea of the Logos as the absolute Light: as such he rays forth light from himself, and this effluence is "his glory." (John i. 14; Matt. xvi. 27; Mark viii. 38.) This "glory" during the time that the Son of God sojourned upon earth, for the most part was hidden; the covering of the flesh concealed it from * J. TAYLOR, Life of Christ. With this may be fitly joined that exquisite poem, with which every one is familiar, in The Christian Year, that upon the second Sunday after Epiphany, suggested by this miracle, the Gospel of that day, and which is the unfolding of the same thought. Thus Tertullian (De Bapt., c. 9) calls it, prima rudimenta potestatis suæ. And this day has been called Dies natalis virtutum Domini. This statement of St. John has ever been used in the Church as a decisive testimony exclusive of all these; thus by Epiphanius, (Her., 51, § 20,) from whose words it would appear that some Catholics were inclined to admit these miracles of the Infancy, as affording an argument against the Cerinthians, and in proof that it was not at his baptism first that the Christ was united to the man Jesus. And Euthymius (in loc.) finds in St. John's words a distinct purpose on the part of the Evangelist to exclude all wonders that were recorded as going before. St. John, he says, lorópnoev αὐτὸ, χρησιμεῖον εἰς τὸ μὴ πιστεύειν τοῖς λεγομένοις παιδικοῖς θαύμασι τοῦ Χριστοῦ. Οἱ CHRYSOSTOM, Hom. 16; 20; 22 in Joh.; and THILO, Cod. Apocryph., p. lxxxiv. seq. men's eyes: but in this miracle, this work of his power, St. John would say, it broke through this its fleshly covering, and manifested itself to the spiritual eyes of his disciples; they "beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father."* And as a consequence, “his disciples believed on him." The work, besides its more immediate purpose, had a further end and aim, the confirming their faith, who already believing in him, were therefore the more capable of receiving increase of faith, of being lifted from faith to faith, from faith in an earthly teacher to faith in a heavenly Lord.t It was said at the outset, that this first miracle of our Lord's had its inner mystical meaning. The first miracle of Moses was the turning of water into blood, (Exod. vii. 20,) and that had its own fitness, for the law was a ministration of death and working wrath; but the first * The Eastern Church, as is well known, counted the Baptism of Christ, being his recognition before men and by men in his divine character, for the great manifesting of his glory to the world, for his Epiphany, and was wont to celebrate it as such. But the Western, which laid not such stress on the Baptism, saw his Epiphany rather in the adoration of the Magians, the first fruits and representatives of the heathen world. At a later period, indeed, it placed other great moments in his life, moments in which his divine majesty gloriously shone out, in connection with this festival; such, for instance, as the Baptism, as the feeding of the five thousand, and as this present miracle, which last continually affords the theme to the later writers of the Western Church for the homily at Epiphany, as it gives us the Gospel for one of the Epiphany Sundays. But these secondary allusions belong not to the first introduction of the feast, so that the following passage should have prevented the editors of the new volume of St. Augustine's sermons, (Serm. Inediti, Paris, 1842,) from attributing the sermon which contains it (Serm. 38, in Epiph.) to that father: Hodiernam diem Ecclesia per orbem celebrat totum, sive quod stella præ ceteris fulgens divitibus Magis parvum non parvi Regis monstravit hospitium, sive quod hodie Christus primum fecisse dicitur signum, quando aquas repente commutavit in vinum, sive quod à Joanne isto die creditur baptizatus et Patris consonâ voce Dei filius revelatur. The same mark of a later origin is about several other sermons which they have printed as his. In his genuine, he knows only of the adoration of the wise men as the fact which this festival of the Epiphany commemorates. † This is plainly the true explanation, (in the words of Ammonius, πрoσłýкηv ¿déžavtó tiva tñs eiç avтòv ñíoτews,) and not that, which Augustine, (De Cons. Evang., 1. 2, c. 17,) for the interests of his harmony, upholds, that they are here called “disciples" by anticipation; because subsequently to the miracle they believed; (non jam discipulos, sed qui futuri erant discipuli intelligere debemus ;) as one might say, The apostle Paul was born at Tarsus. Yet as Moses has here, where he stands in contrast to Christ, a mutatio in deterius, so in another place, where he stands as his type, he has, like him, a mutatio in melius, (Exod. xiv. 25,) changing the bitter waters to sweet; and so not less Elisha (2 Kin. ii. 19-22); however the more excellent transmutation, which should be not merely the rectifying of qualities already existing, but imparting of new qualities, was reserved for miracle of Christ was the turning of water into wine, and this too was a meet inauguration of the rest, for his was a ministration of life; he came, bringing joy and gladness, the giver of the true wine that maketh glad the hearts of men.-There is, too, another prophetic aspect under which this turning of the water into wine has been often contemplated, another, though in truth but a different aspect of the same,-that even so should Christ turn the poorer dispensation, the weak and watery elements of the Jewish religion, (Heb. vii. 18,) into richer and nobler, the gladdening wine of a higher faith. The whole Jewish dispensation in its comparative weakness and poverty was aptly symbolized by the water, and only in type and prophecy could it tell of him of the tribe of Judah, who should come "binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine;" of whom it is said, "he washed his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes" (Gen. xlix. 11; cf. John xv. 1); but now by this work of his he gave token that he had indeed come into the midst of his people, that their joy might be full.* the Son; who was indeed not an ameliorator of the old life of men, but the bringer in of a new life-not a reformer, but a regenerator. * Corn. à Lapide: Christus ergo initio suæ prædicationis mutans aquam in vinum significabat se legem Mosaicam, instar aquæ insipidam et frigidam, conversurum in Evangelium gratiæ, quæ instar vini est, generosa, sapida, ardens, et efficax. And Bernard, in a pre-eminently beautiful sermon upon this miracle, (Bened. Ed., p. 814,) has in fact the same interpretation: Tunc [aqua] mutatur in vinum, cùm timor expellitur à caritate, et implentur omnia fervore spiritûs et jucundâ devotione; cf. De Divers., Serm. 18, c. 2; and Eusebius (Dem. Evang. l. 9, c. 8): Zúμßohov v тò ñaρadošòv μυστικωτέρου κράματος, μεταβληθέντος ἐκ τῆς σωματικωτέρας ἐπὶ τὴν νοερὰν καὶ πνευματικήν εὐφροσύνην τοῦ πιστικοῦ τῆς καινῆς Διαθήκης κράματος. Augustine is in the same line, when he says (In Ev. Joh., Tract. 9): Tollitur velamen, cùm transieris ad Dominum,....et quod aqua erat, vinum tibi fit. Lege libros omnes propheticos, non intellecto Christo, quid tam insipidum et fatuum invenies? Intellige ibi Christum, non solùm sapit quod legis, sed etiam inebriat. He illustrates this from Luke xxiv. 25-27. Gregory the Great (Hom. 6 in Ezek.) gives it another turn: Aquam nobis in vinum vertit, quando ipsa historia per allegoriæ mysterium, in spiritalem nobis intelligentiam commutatur.—Before the rise of the Eutychian heresy had made it clearly unadvisable to use such terms as κρᾶσις, ἀνάκρασις, μίξις, to designate the union of the two natures in Christ, or such phrases as Tertullian's Deo mixtus homo, we sometimes find allusions to what Christ here did, as though it were symbolical of the ennobling of the human nature through its being transfused by the divine in his person. Thus Irenæus (1. 5, c. 1, § 3) complains of the Ebionites, that they cling to the first Adam who was cast out of Paradise, and will know nothing of the second, its restorer: Reprobant itaque hi commixtionem vini cœlestis, et solam aquam secularem volunt esse. So Dörner (Von der Person Christi, p. 57) understands this passage: yet it is possible that here may be allusion rather to their characteristic custom of using water alone, instead of wine mingled with water, in the Holy Communion: the passage will even then show how Irenæus found in the wine and in the water, the apt symbols of the higher and the lower, of the divine and human, |