distance all the good pleasure of thy will. There is then no need that Thou shouldest come to my house; only commission one of these genii of healing, who will execute speedily the errand of grace on which Thou shalt send him.'1

In all this there was so wonderful a union of faith and humility, that it is nothing strange to read that the Lord Himself was filled with admiration: When Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily, I say

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1 Severus (in Cramer, Catena): Εἰ γὰρ ἐγὼ στρατιώτης ὤν, καὶ ὑπὸ ἐξουσίαν βασιλέως τελῶν, τοῖς δορυφόροις ἐντέλλομαι, πῶς οὐ μᾶλλον αὐτὸς ὁ τῶν ἄνω καὶ ἀγγελικῶν δυνάμεων ποιητής, ὃ θέλεις ἐρεῖς καὶ yevnoɛrai; and Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. xlvi. 9, and Serm. lxii. 2): Si ergo ego, inquit, homo sub potestate, jubendi habeo potestatem, quid tu possis, cui omnes serviunt potestates? And Bernard more than once urges this as a singular feature of his humility; thus Ep. cccxcii. : O prudens et vere corde humilis anima! dicturus quod prælatus esset militibus, repressit extollentiam confessione subjectionis: immo præmisit subjectionem, ut pluris sibi esset quod suberat, quam quod præerat; and beautifully, De Off. Episc. 8: Non jactabat potestatem, quam nec solam protulit, nec priorem. Præmissa siquidem est humilitas, ne altitudo præcipitet. Nec enim locum invenit arrogantia, ubi tam clarum humilitatis insigne præcesserat. Such explanation appears preferable to theirs who make ἄνθρωπος ὑπὸ ἐξουσίαν, a man in authority. Rettig (Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 472), reading with Lachmann, ἄνθρ. ὑπὸ ἐξουσ. τασσόμενος (which last word, however, should not have found place in the text), has an ingenious but untenable explanation in this sense. The Auct. Oper. Imperf. interprets rightly äv‡ρwτоç vπò éžovoíav, a man in a subordinate position; but then will not allow, nay rather expressly denies, that this is a comparison by way of contrast, which the centurion is drawing,—that he is magnifying the Lord's highest place by comparing it with his own only subordinate, but that rather he is in all things likening the one to the other: 'As I ar under worldly authorities, and yet have those whom I may send, so Thou, albeit under thine heavenly Father, hast yet a heavenly host at thy bidding.' (Ego sum homo sub potestate alterius, tamen habeo potestatem jubendi eis qui sub me sunt. Nec enim impedior jubere minores, propter quod ipse sum sub majoribus; sed ab illis quidem jubeor, sub quibus sum; illis autem jubeo, qui sub me sunt: sic et tu, quamvis sub potestate Patris sis, secundum quod homo es, habes tamen potestatem jubendi angelis tuis, nec impediris jubere inferioribus, propter quod ipse habes superiorem.) This interpretation, though capable of a fair meaning, probably expresses the Arian tendencies of the author.

am

2 But since all wonder properly so called, arises from the meeting with something unexpected and hitherto unknown, how could the Lord, to whom all things were known, be said to maryel? To this some have

unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." Where faith is, there will be the kingdom of God; so that this saying already contains a warning to his Jewish hearers, of the danger they are in of forfeiting blessings whereof others are showing themselves worthier than they." But the words which follow are far more explicit: For I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven,' shall be partakers of the heavenly festival, which shall be at the inauguration of the kingdom; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; -in other words, the kingdom should be taken from them, ' and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof' (Matt. xxi. 23); because of their unbelief, they, the natural branches of the olive tree, should be broken off, and in their room the wild olive should be graffed in (Rom. xi. 17-24; Acts xiii. 46; xix. 9; xxviii. 28; Matt. iii. 9).

"And Jesus said unto the centurion,' or to him in his messengers, 'Go thy way, and as thou hast believed,3 so be answered that Christ did not so much Himself wonder, as commend to us that which was worthy of our admiration. Thus Augustine (De Gen. Con. Man. i. 8): Quod mirabatur Dominus, nobis mirandum esse significabat; and he asks in another place (Con. Adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 7), how should not He have known before the measure of that faith, which He Himself had created? (An vero alius eam in corde centurionis operabatur, quam ipse qui mirabatur ?) Yet a solution like this brings an unreality into parts of our Lord's conduct, as though He did some things for show and the effect which they would have on others, instead of all his actions being the truthful exponents of his own most inmost being. On the other hand, to say that according to his human nature He might have been ignorant of some things, seems to threaten a Nestorian severance of the Person of Christ. But the whole subject of the communicatio idiomatum, with its precipices on either side, is one of the hardest in the whole domain of theology. See Aquinas, Sum. Theol. 3*, qu. 15, art. 8; and Gerhard, Locc. Theoll. iv. 2, 4.

1 Augustine: In olivâ non inveni, quod inveni in oleastro. Ergo oliva superbiens præcidatur; oleaster humilis inseratur. Vide inserentem, vide præcidentem. Cf. In Joh. tract. xvi. ad finem.

2 Augustine: Alienigena carne, domestici corde.

3 Bernard (Serm. iii. De Animá): Oleum misericordiæ in vase fiducia

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it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour; '—not merely was there a remission of the strength of the disease, but it left him altogether (John iv. 52; Matt. viii. 15). There is a certain difficulty in defining the exact character of the complaint from which he was thus graciously delivered. St. Matthew describes it as palsy with which the grievously tormented' which immediately follows, seems not altogether to agree, nor yet the report in St. Luke, that he was ready to die;" since palsy in itself neither brings with it violent paroxysms of pain, nor is it in its nature mortal. But paralysis with contraction of the joints is accompanied with intense suffering, and, when united, as it much oftener is in the hot climates of the East and of Africa than among us, with tetanus, both grievously torments,' and rapidly brings on dissolution.1

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1 At 1 Macc. ix. 55, 56, it is said of Alcimus, who was 'taken with a palsy,' that he died presently' with great torment' (uetà Baσávov μeyáλns =devis Baoavilóμɛvos here; cf. Winer, Realwörterbuch, s. v. Paralytische). In St. Matthew and St. Mark these paralytics are always mapaλvtikoi, in St. Luke's Gospel, as in the Acts, πapaλɛλvμévol.

12. THE DEMONIAC IN THE SYNAGOGUE OF

CAPERNAUM.

MARK i. 23-27; LUKE iv. 33-36.

THE healing of this demoniac, the second miracle of the kind which the Evangelists record at any length, may not offer so much remarkable as some similar works, but not the less has its own special points of interest. What distinguishes it the most, although finding parallels elsewhere (see Mark i. 34; Matt. viii. 29), is the testimony which the evil spirit bears to Christ, and his refusal to accept it. This history thus stands in very instructive relation with another in the Acts (xvi. 16-18). There in like manner, a damsel possessed with a spirit of divination bears witness to Paul and his company, These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation;' and the servant there will, as little as the Master here, endure that hell should bear witness to heaven, the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, and commands with power the evil spirit to come out.

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Our Lord was teaching, as was his wont upon a Sabbath (cf. Luke iv. 16; Acts xiii. 14, 15), in the synagogue of Capernaum; and the people now, as on other occasions (see Matt. vii. 29), were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power.' But He was not mighty in word only, but also in work; and it was ordained by the providence of his Heavenly Father, that the opportunity should here be offered Him for confirming his word with signs following. There was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit;' or, as St. Luke describes it, with the spirit

of an unclean devil;' but not therefore excluded from the public worship of God any more than another in like condition, recorded at Luke xiii. 16; and this spirit felt at once the nearness of One who was stronger than all that kingdom whereunto he belonged; of One whose mission it was to destroy the works of the devil. And with the instinct and consciousness of this danger which so nearly threatened his usurped dominion, he cried out,—not the man himself, but the evil spirit,—ʻsaying, Let us alone:1 what have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? 2 art Thou come to destroy us?' (cf. Matt. viii. 29; 2 Pet. ii. 4; Jude 6). I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God.' Earth has not recognized her king, disguised as He is like one of her own children; but heaven has borne witness to Him (Luke ii. 11; iii. 22; Matt. iii. 17), and now hell must bear its witness too; the devils believe and tremble.' The unholy, which is resolved to be unholy still, understands well that its death knell has sounded, when 'the Holy One of God' (compare Ps. xvi. 10, where this title first appears), has come to make war against it.

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But what, it may be asked, could have been the motive to this testimony, thus borne? It is strange that the evil spirit should, without compulsion, proclaim to the world the presence in the midst of it of the Holy One of God, of Him who should thus bring all the unholy, on which he battened and by which he lived, to an end. Might we not rather expect that he should have denied, or sought to obscure, the glory of his person? It cannot be replied that this was an unwilling confession to the truth, forcibly extorted by Christ's superior power, seeing

1 "Ea, not the imperative from áw, but an interjection of terror, wrung ɔut by the poẞɛpȧà έkdoxỳ кpioεwç (Heb. x. 27),—unless indeed the interjection was originally this imperative. Our own lo (=look) has exactly such a history.

2 Nalapηvós here, and Mark xiv. 67; xvi. 6. The word appears in the New Testament in two other forms, Nalapałos (Matt. ii. 23; xxvi. 71; John xviii. 7), and Naswpatos (Mark x. 47, and often).