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 themselves 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. 11). 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 hîc veteres sequor, qui præcedentis historiæ hoc putant esse тò ảλλŋyopoúμεvov, Apostolos non suâpte industriâ sed Christi imperio ac virtute expansis Evangelii retibus tantam facturos capturam, ut opus habituri sint subsidiariâ multorum εvayyελɩστŵv 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.

THE

THE 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 placing it immediately before the healing of the possessed in the country of the Gadarenes. There is not so perfect a consent in respect of the events which immediately preceded it; and the best harmonists forsake 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 " (that is with no preparation for a voyage) in the ship.'

But before the

voyage was accomplished, behold there arose a great tempest2 in the sea.' A sudden and violent squall, such as

2 topóc, which St. Matthew here employs, must be 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 yñs, 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. Aaiλay, which the other two Evangelists employ (Mark iv. 37; Luke viii. 23; cf. 2 Pet. ii. 17), belongs properly to the Xégig of poetry, but, like other words of the same charac

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 and ghost 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 and worn out with the toils of the day, continued sleeping still: He was, according to 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 in Him here exactly the reverse of Jonah (Jon. i. 5, 6); the fugitive prophet asleep in the midst of a like danger out of a dead conscience, the Saviour out 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 may have been long before they ventured to arouse Him; yet at length the extremity of the peril overcame their hesitation, and they did so, not without exclamations of haste and terror; as is evidenced by the double Master, Master,' of St. Luke. This double compellation, as it scarcely needs to observe, always marks a special earnestness on the part of the speaker; and as God's speakings to man are ever of this character, it will often be found in them (Gen. xxii. 11;

ter, found its way into the prose of the Ro diáλEKTOC. Hesychius defines it ἀνέμου συστροφὴ μεθ ̓ ὑετοῦ: but darkness as well as rain should be included in the definition of it; in Homer it is constantly pɛμvíj, or KEλar. The storm-wind by which Elijah was rapt from earth to heaven is Maîλa¥ πvрóç (2 Kin. ii. 11, LXX).

1 Jerome (in loc.): Hujus signi typum in Jonâ legimus, quando ceteris periclitantibus ipse securus est, et dormit, et suscitatur: et imperio ac sacramento passionis suæ liberat suscitantes.

,

Exod. iii. 4; 1 Sam. iii. 10; Luke x. 41; Acts ix. 4); as in man's also to God (Matt. vii. 22; xxvii. 46). In St. Mark, the disciples rouse their Lord with words almost of rebuke, as if He were unmindful of their safety, 'Master, carest Thou not that we perish?' though in this their 'we including no doubt their beloved Lord as well as themselves.1 And He saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?'-from St. Matthew it would appear, first blaming their want of faith, and then pacifying the storm; though the other Evangelists make the blame not to have preceded, but to have followed, the allaying of the winds and waves. Probably it did both: He spoke first to his disciples, calming with a word the tempest in their bosoms; and then, having allayed the tumult of the outward elements, He again turned to them, and more deliberately rebuked their lack of faith in Him. Still let it be observed that He does not, according to St. Matthew, call them without faith,' but of little faith;' and St. Mark's, How is it ye have no faith?' must be modified and explained by the milder rebuke recorded in the other Evangelists. They were not wholly without faith; for, believing in the midst of their unbelief, they turned to Christ in their fear. They had faith, but it was not quick

6

2

1 On the different exclamations of fear which different Evangelists put into the mouth of the disciples, Augustine says well (De Cons. Evang. ii. 24): Una eademque sententia est excitantium Dominum, volentiumque salvari: nec opus est quærere quid horum potius 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 again (28): Per hujus modi Evangelistarum locutiones varias, sed non contrarias, rem plane 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 aucupes vocum, apicibus quodammodo literarum putent ligandam esse veritatem, cum utique non in verbis tantum, sed etiam in ceteris omnibus signis animorum, non sit nisi ipse animus inquirendus. Cf. 66, in fine.

2 Theophylact: Πρῶτον παύσας τὸν χειμῶνα τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτῶν, τότε λύει καὶ τὸν τῆς θαλάσσης.

and lively; it was not at hand, as the Lord's question, 'Where is your faith?' (Luke viii. 25) sufficiently implies. They had it, as the weapon which a soldier has, but cannot lay hold of at the moment when he needs it the most. Their sin lay not in seeking help of Him; for this indeed became them well; but in the excess of their terror, ' Why are ye so fearful?" in their counting it possible that the ship which bore their Lord could ever perish.

'Then He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.' Cæsar's confidence that the bark which contained him and his fortunes could not sink, forms the earthly counterpart to the heavenly calmness and confidence of the Lord. We must not miss the force of that word 'rebuked,' preserved by all three Evangelists; and as little the direct address to the furious elements, Peace, be still,' ,' which St. Mark only records. To regard this as a mere oratorical personification would be absurd; rather is there here, as Maldonatus truly remarks, a distinct tracing up of all the discords and disharmonies in the outward world to their source in a person, a referring them back to him, as to their ultimate ground; even as this person can be no other than Satan, the author of all disorders alike in the natural and in the spiritual world. The Lord elsewhere rebukes' a fever (Luke iv. 39), where the same remarks will hold good. Nor is this rebuke unheard or unheeded; for‘not willingly' was the creature thus made 'subject to vanity' (Rom. viii. 20). Constituted to be man's handmaid at the first, it is only reluctantly, and submitting to an alien force, that nature rises up against him, and becomes the instrument of his hurt and harm. In the hour of her wildest uproar, she knew the voice of

1 Our dedoí. Calvin: Quâ particulâ notat eos extra modum pavescere ; quemlibet vero timorem non esse fidei contrarium, inde patet, quod si nihil metuimus, obrepit supina carnis securitas.

2

6 Σιώπα, πεφίμωσο. Cf. Ps. cvi.

9:

He rebuked (¿ñετiμnoe, LXX) the

Red Sea also;' although there, as in a poem, the same stress cannot ba laid on the word as here.