II. THE MIRACLES AND NATTER III. THE AUTHORITY OF MIRE IV. THE EVANGELICAL, COMP MIRACLES V. THE ASSAULTS ON THE Mu VI. THE APOLOGETIC WORTH P IL. 1. THE WATER TURJE → 2. THE HEALING 3. THE FIRST Y 4. THE STIL F: 5. THE DE 6. THE PART 7. THE F. 8. THE eed from . it bears: w this, we must ›r names which it ŵ we are entering, to consider; for it . that where we have ays is significant, the ny, since no one will of these will embody will present it upon some a If these together, will any contemplation exclusively ich we desire to understand commonly call miracles, are ermed sometimes wonders,' es powers,' sometimes simply 6 les which they bear, of ange themselves under rarer one 1 of which it will be well to or say PRELIMINARY ESSAY. CHAPTER I. ON THE NAMES OF THE MIRACLES. VERY discussion about a thing will best proceed from EVERY an investigation of the name or names which it bears; for the name seizes and presents the most distinctive features, the innermost nature of the thing, embodying this for us in a word. In the name we have a witness to that which the universal sense of men, finding its utterance in language, has ever felt thus to lie at the heart of the thing; and if we would learn to know this, we must start with an investigation of the name or names which it bears. In the discussion upon which now we are entering, there is not one name only, but many, to consider; for it results from what just has been said, that where we have to do with aught which in many ways is significant, the names also will inevitably be many, since no one will exhaust all its meaning. Each of these will embody a portion of its essential qualities, will present it upon some single side; and not from the contemplation exclusively of any one, but only of all of these together, will any adequate conception of that which we desire to understand be obtained. Thus what we commonly call miracles, are in the sacred Scriptures termed sometimes 'wonders,' sometimes signs,' sometimes 'powers,' sometimes simply 'works.' Some other titles which they bear, of rarer occurrence, will easily range themselves under one or other of these ;-on each of which it will be well to say something, before making any further advance in the subject. 1. In the name 'wonder," the astonishment, which the work produces upon the beholders, an astonishment often graphically portrayed by the Evangelists when relating our Lord's miracles (Mark ii. 12; iv. 41; vi. 51; vii. 37; cf. Acts iii. 10, 11), is transferred to the work itself. This word, as will at once be felt, does but touch the outside of the matter. The ethical meaning of the miracle would be wholly lost, were blank astonishment or mere amazement all which it aroused; since the same effect might be produced by a thousand meaner causes. Indeed it is not a little remarkable, rather is it profoundly characteristic of the miracles of the New Testament, as Origen noted long ago, that this name wonders' is never applied to them but in connexion with some other name. They are continually 'signs and wonders' (Acts xiv. 3; Rom. xv. 19; Matt. xxiv. 24; Heb. ii. 4); or 'signs' alone (John ii. 11; Acts viii. 6; Rev. xiii. 13); or 'powers' alone (Mark vi. 14; Acts xix. Ir); but never wonders' alone. Not that the miracle, considered simply as a wonder, as an astonishing event which the beholders can reduce to no law with which they are acquainted, is even as such without its meaning and its purpose; that purpose being forcibly to startle men from the dull dream of a sense-bound existence, 1 2 3 Τέρας. The term θαῦμα, near akin to τέρας, and frequent in the Greek Fathers, never occurs in Scripture; Cavμáoov only once (Matt. xxi. 15); but the avμázev is often brought out as a consequence (Matt. viii. 27; ix. 8, 33; XV. 31, &c.). Hapȧdožov, which expresses the unexpected character of the wonder, its contradiction to previous expectation, and so the astonishment which it causes,—a word frequent in ecclesiastical Greek,-is found only at Luke v. 26; cf. Num. xvi. 30. 2 In Joh. tom. xiii. § 6. 3 We must regret that words, only subordinate in the Greek, should be chief with us,-'wonder' I mean, and 'miracle,'-to designate these divine facts, bringing out, as they do, only the accidental accompaniment, the astonishment which the work creates, and so little entering into the deeper meaning of the work itself. The Latin miraculum (not properly a substantive, but the neuter of miraculus) and the German Wunder lie under exactly the same defect. and, however it may not be itself an appeal to the spiritual in man, yet to act as a summons to him that he now open his eyes to the spiritual appeal which is about to be addrest to him (Acts xiv. 8-18). 2. But the miracle is not a 'wonder' only; it is also a ‘sign,'1 a token and indication of the near presence and working of God. In this word the ethical purpose of the miracle comes out the most prominently, as in 'wonder' the least. They are signs and pledges of something more than and beyond themselves (Isai. vii. 11; xxxviii. 7); 2 valuable, not so much for what they are, as for what they 1 Equεiov. We notice here that defect, too common in our English Version, that it does not seek, so far as possible, to render one word of the original always by one and the same word in English, but varies its renderings with no necessity compelling. Enutiov might very well have Σημεῖον been rendered 'sign' throughout; but in the Gospel of St. John, where it is of continual recurrence, far oftener than not, 'sign' gives place to the vaguer 'miracle,' and this sometimes with manifest injury to the sense; thus see iii. 2; vii. 31; x. 41; and especially vi. 26. Our Version makes Christ say to the multitude, who, after He had once fed them, gathered round Him again, 'Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles,' &c. It should have been, Ye seek Me, not because ye saw signs' (onueĩa without the article), 'not because ye recognized in those works of mine tokens and intimations of a higher presence, such as led you to conceive great thoughts of Me: no such glimpses of my higher nature bring you here; but you come that you may again be filled.' The coming merely because they had seen miracles, works that had made them marvel, and hoped to see such again, would as little have satisfied the Lord as a coming only for the supply of their lowest earthly wants (Matt. xii. 39; xvi. 1--4). 6 * Basil (in loc.): Εστι σημεῖον πρᾶγμα φανερὸν, κεκρυμμένου τινὸς καὶ ἀφανοῦςἐν ἑαυτῷ τὴν δήλωσιν ἔχον: and presently after, ἡ μέντοι Γραφὴ τὰ παράδοξα, καὶ παραστατικά τινος μυστικοῦ λόγου σημεῖα καλεῖ. And Lampe well (Comm. in Joh. vol. i. p. 513): Designat sane oŋutiov naturâ suâ rem non tantum extraordinariam, sensusque percellentem, sed etiam talem, quæ in rei alterius, absentis licet et futuræ, significationem atque adumbrationem adhibetur, unde et prognostica (Matt. xvi. 3) et typi (Matt. xii. 39; Luc. xi. 29), nec non sacramenta, quale est illud circumcisionis (Rom. iv. 11), eodem nomine in Novo Testamento exprimi solent. Aptissime ergo hæc vox de miraculis usurpatur, ut indicet, quod non tantum admirabili modo fuerint perpetrata, sed etiam sapientissimo consilio Dei ita directa atque ordinata, ut fuerint simul characteres Messiæ, ex quibus cognoscendus erat, sigilla doctrinæ quam proferebat, et beneficiorum gratiæ per Messiam jam præstandæ, nec non typi viarum Dei, earumque circumstantiarum per quas talia beneficia erant applicanda. |