After pruning away these offshoots of the miraculous which are peculiar

to the respective narratives, the main stem is still left, namely, the

miracle of Jesus walking on the sea for a considerable distance, with

all its attendant improbabilities as above exposed. But the solution of

these accessory particulars, as it led us to discover the causes of

their unhistorical origin, has facilitated the discovery of such causes

for the main narrative, and has thereby rendered possible the solution

of this also. We have seen, by an example already adduced, that it was

usual with the Hebrews and early Christians, to represent the power of

God over nature, a power which the human spirit when united to him was

supposed to share, under the image of supremacy over the raging waves

of the sea. In the narrative of the Exodus this supremacy is manifested

by the sea being driven out of its place at a sign, so that a dry path

is opened to the people of God in its bed; in the New Testament

narrative previously considered, the sea is not removed out of its

place, but only so far laid to rest that Jesus and his disciples can

cross it in safety in their ship: in the anecdote before us, the sea

still remains in its place as in the second, but there is this point of

similarity to the first, that the passage is made on foot, not by ship,

yet as a necessary consequence of the other particular, on the surface

of the sea, not in its bed. Still more immediate inducements to develop

in such a manner the conception of the power of the miracle-worker over

the waves, may be found both in the Old Testament, and in the opinions

prevalent in the time of Jesus. Among the miracles of Elisha, it is not

only told that he divided the Jordan by a stroke of his mantle, so that

he could go through it dry shod (2 Kings ii. 14), but also that he

caused a piece of iron which had fallen into the water to swim (2 Kings

vi. 6); an ascendancy over the law of gravitation which it would be

imagined the miracle-worker might be able to evince in relation to his

own body also, and thus to exhibit himself, as it is said of Jehovah,

Job ix. 8, LXX., περιπατῶν ὡς ἐπ’ ἐδάφους ἐπὶ θαλάσσης, walking upon

the sea as upon a pavement. In the time of Jesus much was told of

miracle-workers who could walk on the water. Apart from conceptions

exclusively Grecian, [1444] the Greco-oriental legend feigned that the

hyperborean Abaris possessed an arrow, by means of which he could bear

himself up in the air, and thus traverse rivers, seas, and abysses,

[1445] and popular superstition attributed to many wonder-workers the

power of walking on water. [1446] Hence the possibility that with all

these elements and inducements existing, a similar legend should be

formed concerning Jesus, appears incomparably stronger, than that a

real event of this kind should have occurred:—and with this conclusion

we may dismiss the subject.

The manifestation φανέρωσις of Jesus at the sea of Tiberias ἐπὶ τῆς

θαλάσσης τῆς Τιβεριάδος narrated John xxi. has so striking a

resemblance to the sea anecdotes hitherto considered, that although the

fourth gospel places it in the period after the resurrection, we are

induced, as in an earlier instance we brought part of it under notice

in connexion with the narrative of Peter’s draught of fishes, so here

to institute a comparison between its other features, and the narrative

of Jesus walking on the sea. In both cases, Jesus is perceived by the

disciples in the twilight of early morning; only in the latter instance

he does not, as in the former, walk on the sea, but stands on the

shore, and the disciples are in consternation, not because of a storm,

but because of the fruitlessness of their fishing. In both instances

they are afraid of him; in the one, they take him for a spectre, in the

other, not one of them ventures to ask him who he is, knowing that it

is the Lord. But especially the scene with Peter, peculiar to the first

gospel, has its corresponding one in the present passage. As, there,

when Jesus walking on the sea makes himself known to his disciples,

Peter entreats permission to go to him on the water: so here, as soon

as Jesus is recognized standing on the shore, Peter throws himself into

the water that he may reach him the shortest way by swimming. Thus,

that which in the earlier narrative was the miraculous act of walking

on the sea, becomes in the one before us, in relation to Jesus, the

simple act of standing on the shore, in relation to Peter, the natural

act of swimming; so that the latter history sounds almost like a

rationalistic paraphrase of the former: and there have not been wanting

those who have maintained that at least the anecdote about Peter in the

first gospel, is a traditional transformation of the incident in John

xxi. 7 into a miracle. [1447] Modern criticism is restrained from

extending this conjecture to the anecdote of Jesus walking on the sea,

by the fact that the supposed apostolic fourth gospel itself has this

feature in the earlier narrative (vi. 16 ff.). But from our point of

view it appears quite possible, that the history in question either

came to the author of this gospel in the one form, and to the author of

the appendix in the other; or that it came to the one author of both in

a double form, and was inserted by him in separate parts of his

narrative. Meanwhile, if the two histories are to be compared, we ought

not at once to assume that the one, John xxi., is the original, the

other, Matt. xiv. parall., the secondary; we must first ask which of

the two bears intrinsic marks of one or the other character. Now

certainly if we adhere to the rule that the more miraculous narrative

is the later, that in John xxi. appears, in relation to the manner in

which Jesus approaches the disciples, and in which Peter reaches Jesus,

to be the original. But this rule is connected in the closest manner

with another; namely, that the more simple narrative is the earlier,

the more complex one the later, as the conglomerate is a later

formation than the homogeneous stone; and according to this rule, the

conclusion is reversed, and the narrative in John xxi. is the more

traditional, for in it the particulars mentioned above are interwoven

with the miraculous draught of fishes, while in the earlier narrative

they form in themselves an independent whole. It is indeed true, that a

greater whole may be broken up into smaller parts; but such fragments

have not at all the appearance of the separate narratives of the

draught of fishes and the walking on the sea, since these, on the

contrary, leave the impression of being each a finished whole. From

this interweaving with the miracle of the draught of fishes,—to which

we must add the circumstance that the entire circle of events turns

upon the risen Jesus, who is already in himself a miracle,—it is

apparent how, contrary to the general rule, the oft-named particulars

could lose their miraculous character, since by their combination with

other miracles they were reduced to mere accessories, to a sort of

natural scaffolding. If then the narrative in John xxi. is entirely

secondary, its historical value has already been estimated with that of

the narratives which furnished its materials.

If, before we proceed further, we take a retrospect of the series of

sea-anecdotes hitherto examined, we find, it is true, that the two

extreme anecdotes are altogether dissimilar, the one relating mainly to

fishing, the other to a storm; nevertheless, on a proper arrangement,

each of them appears to be connected with the preceding by a common

feature. The narrative of the call of the fishers of men (Matt. iv. 18

ff. par.) opens the series; that of Peter’s draught of fishes (Luke v.

1 ff.) has in common with this the saying about the fishers of men, but

the fact of the draught of fishes is peculiar to it; this fact

reappears in John xxi., where the circumstances of Jesus standing on

the shore in the morning twilight, and the swimming of Peter towards

him, are added; these two circumstances are in Matt. xiv. 22 ff.

parall. metamorphosed into the act of walking on the sea on the part of

Jesus and of Peter, and at the same time a storm, and its cessation on

the entrance of Jesus into the ship, are introduced; lastly, in Matt.

viii. 23 ff. parall., we have an anecdote single in its kind, namely,

that of the stilling of the storm by Jesus.

We come to a history for which a place is less readily found in the

foregoing series, in Matt. xvii. 24 ff. It is true that here again

there is a direction of Jesus to Peter to go and fish, to which,

although it is not expressly stated, we must suppose that the issue

corresponded: but first, it is only one fish which is to be caught, and

with an angle; and secondly, the main point is, that in its mouth is to

be found a piece of gold to serve for the payment of the temple tribute

for Jesus and Peter, from the latter of whom this tax had been

demanded. This narrative as it is here presented has peculiar

difficulties, which Paulus well exhibits, and which Olshausen does not

deny. Fritzsche justly remarks, that there are two miraculous

particulars presupposed: first, that the fish had a coin in its mouth;

secondly, that Jesus had a foreknowledge of this. On the one hand, we

must regard the former of these particulars as extravagant, and

consequently the latter also; and on the other, the whole miracle

appears to have been unnecessary. Certainly, that metals and other

valuables have been found in the bodies of fish is elsewhere narrated,

[1448] and is not incredible; but that a fish should have a piece of

money in its mouth, and keep it there while it snapped at the bait—this

even Dr. Schnappinger [1449] found inconceivable. Moreover, the motive

of Jesus for performing such a miracle could not be want of money, for

even if at that time there was no store in the common fund, still Jesus

was in Capernaum, where he had many friends, and where consequently he

could have obtained the needful money in a natural way. To exclude this

possibility, we must with Olshausen confound borrowing with begging,

and regard it as inconsistent with the decorum divinum which must have

been observed by Jesus. Nor after so many proofs of his miraculous

power, could Jesus think this additional miracle necessary to

strengthen Peter’s belief in his messiahship.

Hence we need not wonder that rationalistic commentators have attempted

to free themselves at any cost from a miracle which even Olshausen

pronounces to be the most difficult in the evangelical history, and we

have only to see how they proceed in this undertaking. The pith of the

natural explanation of the fact lies in the interpretation of the word

εὑρήσεις, thou shalt find, in the command of Jesus, not of an immediate

discovery of a stater in the fish, but of a mediate acquisition of this

sum by selling what was caught. [1450] It must be admitted that the

above word may bear this signification also; but if we are to give it

this sense instead of the usual one, we must in the particular instance

have a clear intimation to this effect in the context. Thus, if it were

said in the present passage: Take the first fine fish, carry it to the

market, κἀκεῖ εὑρήσεις στατῆρα, and there thou shall find a stater,

this explanation would be in place; as however instead of this, the

word εὑρήσεις is preceded by ἀνοίξας τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ, when thou hast

opened his mouth,—as, therefore, no place of sale, but a place inside

the fish, is mentioned, as that on the opening of which the coin is to

be obtained,—we can only understand an immediate discovery of the piece

of money in this part of the fish. [1451] Besides, to what purpose

would the opening of the fish’s mouth be mentioned, unless the

desideratum were to be found there? Paulus sees in this only the

injunction to release the fish from the hook without delay, in order to

keep it alive, and thus to render it more saleable. The order to open

the mouth of the fish might indeed, if it stood alone, be supposed to

have the extraction of the hook as its object and consequence; but as

it is followed by εὑρήσεις στατῆρα, thou shalt find a stater, it is

plain that this is the immediate end of opening the mouth. The

perception that, so long as the opening of the fish’s mouth is spoken

of in this passage, it will be inferred that the coin was to be found

there, has induced the rationalistic commentators to try whether they

could not refer the word στόμα, mouth, to another subject than the

fish, and no other remained than the fisher, Peter. But as στόμα

appeared to be connected with the fish by the word αὐτοῦ, which

immediately followed it, Dr. Paulus, moderating or exaggerating the

suggestion of a friend, who proposed to read ἀνθευρήσεις instead

of—αὐτοῦ, εὑρήσεις—allowed αὐτοῦ to remain, but took it adverbially,

and translated the passage thus: thou hast then only to open thy mouth

to offer the fish for sale, and thou wilt on the spot (αὐτοῦ) receive a

stater as its price. But, it would still be asked, how could a single

fish fetch so high a price in Capernaum, where fish were so abundant?

Hence Paulus understands the words, τὸν ἀναβάντα πρῶτον ἰχθὺν ἆρον,

take up the fish that first cometh up, collectively thus: continue time

after time to take the fish that first comes to thee, until thou hast

caught as many as will be worth a stater.

If the series of strained interpretations which are necessary to a

natural explanation of this narrative throw us back on that which

allows it to contain a miracle; and if this miracle appear to us,

according to our former decision, both extravagant and useless, nothing

remains but to presume that here also there is a legendary element.

This view has been combined with the admission, that a real but natural

fact was probably at the foundation of the legend: namely, that Jesus

once ordered Peter to fish until he had caught enough to procure the

amount of the temple tribute; whence the legend arose that the fish had

the tribute money in its mouth. [1452] But, in our opinion, a more

likely source of this anecdote is to be found in the much-used theme of

a catching of fish by Peter, on the one side, and on the other, the

well-known stories of precious things having been found in the bodies

of fish. Peter, as we learn from Matt. iv., Luke v., John xxi., was the

fisher in the evangelical legend ta whom Jesus in various forms, first

symbolically, and then literally, granted the rich draught of fishes.

The value of the capture appears here in the shape of a piece of money,

which, as similar things are elsewhere said to have been found in the

belly of fishes, is by an exaggeration of the marvel said to be found

in the mouth of the fish. That it is the stater, required for the

temple tribute, might be occasioned by a real declaration of Jesus

concerning his relation to that tax; or conversely, the stater which

was accidentally named in the legend of the fish angled for by Peter,

might bring to recollection the temple tribute, which amounted to that

sum for two persons, and the declaration of Jesus relative to this

subject.

With this tale conclude the sea anecdotes.

§ 102.

THE MIRACULOUS MULTIPLICATION OF THE LOAVES AND FISHES.

As, in the histories last considered, Jesus determined and mitigated

the motions of irrational and even of inanimate existences; so, in the

narratives which we are about to examine, he exhibits the power of

multiplying not only natural objects, but also productions of nature

which had been wrought upon by art.

That Jesus miraculously multiplied prepared articles of food, feeding a

great multitude of men with a few loaves and fishes, is narrated to us

with singular unanimity by all the Evangelists (Matt. xiv. 13 ff.; Mark

vi. 30 ff.; Luke ix. 10 ff.; John vi. 1 ff.). And if we believe the two

first, Jesus did not do this merely once; for in Matt. xv. 32 ff.; Mark

viii. 1 ff. we read of a second multiplication of loaves and fishes,

the circumstances of which are substantially the same as those of the

former. It happens somewhat later; the place is rather differently

described, and the length of time during which the multitude stayed

with Jesus is differently stated; moreover, and this is a point of

greater importance, the proportion between the stock of food and the

number of men is different, for, on the first occasion, five thousand

men are satisfied with five loaves and two fishes, and, on the second,

four thousand with seven loaves and a few fishes; on the first twelve

baskets are filled with the fragments, on the second only seven.

Notwithstanding this, not only is the substance of the two histories

exactly the same—the satisfying of a multitude of people with

disproportionately small means of nourishment; but also the description

of the scene in the one, entirely corresponds in its principal features

to that in the other. In both instances, the locality is a solitary

region in the vicinity of the Galilean sea; Jesus is led to perform the

miracle because the people have lingered too long with him; he

manifests a wish to feed the people from his own stores, which the

disciples regard as impossible; the stock of food at his disposal

consists of loaves and fishes; Jesus makes the people sit down, and,

after giving thanks, distributes the provisions to them through the

medium of the disciples; they are completely satisfied, and yet a

disproportionately great quantity of fragments is afterwards collected

in baskets; lastly, in the one case as in the other, Jesus after thus

feeding the multitude, crosses the sea.

This repetition of the same event creates many difficulties. The chief

of these is suggested by the question: Is it conceivable that the

disciples, after they had themselves witnessed how Jesus was able to

feed a great multitude with a small quantity of provision, should

nevertheless on a second occasion of the same kind, have totally

forgotten the first, and have asked, Whence should we have so much

bread in the wilderness as to feed so great a multitude? To render such

an obliviousness on the part of the disciples probable, we are reminded

that they had, in just as incomprehensible a manner, forgotten the

declarations of Jesus concerning his approaching sufferings and death,

when these events occurred; [1453] but it is equally a pending

question, whether after such plain predictions from Jesus, his death

could in fact have been so unexpected to the disciples. It has been

supposed that a longer interval had elapsed between the two miracles,

and that during this there had occurred a number of similar cases, in

which Jesus did not think fit to afford miraculous assistance: [1454]

but, on the one hand, these are pure fictions; on the other, it would

remain just as inconceivable as ever, that the striking similarity of

the circumstances preceding the second feeding of the multitude to

those preceding the first, should not have reminded even one of the

disciples of that former event Paulus therefore is right in

maintaining, that had Jesus once already fed the multitude by a

miracle, the disciples, on the second occasion, when he expressed his

determination not to send the people away fasting, would confidently

have called upon him for a repetition of the former miracle.

In any case then, if Jesus on two separate occasions fed a multitude

with disproportionately small provision, we must suppose, as some

critics have done, that many features in the narrative of the one

incident were transferred to the other, and thus the two, originally

unlike, became in the course of oral tradition more and more similar;

the incredulous question of the disciples especially having been

uttered only on the first occasion, and not on the second. [1455] It

may seem to speak in favour of such an assimilation, that the fourth

Evangelist, though in his numerical statement he is in accordance with

the first narrative of Matthew and Mark, yet has, in common with the

second, the circumstances that the scene opens with an address of Jesus

and not of the disciples, and that the people come to Jesus on a

mountain. But if the fundamental features be allowed to remain,—the

wilderness, the feeding of the people, the collection of the

fragments,—it is still, even without that question of the disciples,

sufficiently improbable that the scene should have been repeated in so

entirely similar a manner. If, on the contrary, these general features

be renounced in relation to one of the histories, it is no longer

apparent, how the veracity of the evangelical narratives as to the

manner in which the second multiplication of loaves and fishes took

place can be questioned on all points, and yet their statement as to

the fact of its occurrence be maintained as trustworthy, especially as

this statement is confined to Matthew and his imitator Mark.

Hence later critics have, with more [1456] or less [1457] decision,

expressed the opinion, that here one and the same fact has been

doubled, through a mistake of the first Evangelist, who was followed by

the second. They suppose that several narratives of the miraculous

feeding of the multitude were current which presented divergencies from

each other, especially in relation to numbers, and that the author of

the first gospel, to whom every additional history of a miracle was a

welcome prize, and who was therefore little qualified for the critical

reduction of two different narratives of this kind into one, introduced

both into his collection. This fully explains how on the second

occasion the disciples could again express themselves so incredulously:

namely, because in the tradition whence the author of the first gospel

obtained the second history of a miraculous multiplication of loaves

and fishes, it was the first and only one, and the Evangelist did not

obliterate this feature because, apparently, he incorporated the two

narratives into his writing just as he read or heard them. Among other

proofs that this was the case, may be mentioned the constancy with

which he and Mark, who copied him, not only in the account of the

events, but also in the subsequent allusion to them (Matt. xvi. 9 f.;

Mark viii. 19 f.), call the baskets in the first feeding, κόφινοι, in

the second σπυρίδες. [1458] It is indeed correctly maintained, that the

Apostle Matthew could not possibly take one event for two, and relate a

new history which never happened: [1459] but this proposition does not

involve the reality of the second miraculous feeding of the multitude,

unless the apostolic origin of the first gospel be at once presupposed,

whereas this yet remains to be proved. Paulus further objects, that the

duplication of the history in question could be of no advantage

whatever to the design of the Evangelist; and Olshausen, developing

this idea more fully, observes that the legend would not have left the

second narrative as simple and bare as the first. But this argument,

that a narrative cannot be fictitious, because if it were so it would

have been more elaborately adorned, may very properly be at once

dismissed, since its limits being altogether undefined, it might be

repeated under all circumstances, and in the end would prove fable

itself not sufficiently fabulous. But, in this case particularly, it is

totally baseless, because it presupposes the narrative of the first

feeding of the multitude to be historically accurate; now, if we have

already in this a legendary production, the other edition of it,

namely, the second history of a miraculous feeding, needs not to be

distinguished by special traditionary features. But not only is the

second narrative not embellished as regards the miraculous, when

compared with the first; it even diminishes the miracle, for, while

increasing the quantity of provision, it reduces the number of those

whom it satisfied: and this retrogression in the marvellous is thought

the surest proof that the second feeding of the multitude really

occurred; for, it is said, he who chose to invent an additional miracle

of this kind, would have made it surpass the first, and instead of five

thousand men would have given, not four, but ten thousand. [1460] This

argument, also, rests on the unfounded assumption that the first

narrative is of course the historical one; though Olshausen himself has

the idea that the second might with probability be regarded as the

historical basis, and the first as the legendary copy, and then the

fictitious would have the required relation to the true—that of

exaggeration. But when in opposition to this, he observes, how

improbable it is that an unscrupulous narrator would place the

authentic fact, being the less imposing, last, and eclipse it

beforehand by the false one,—that such a writer would rather seek to

outdo the truth, and therefore place his fiction last, as the more

brilliant,—he again shows that he does not comprehend the mythical view

of the biblical narratives, in the degree necessary for forming a

judgment on the subject. For there is no question here of an

unscrupulous narrator, who would designedly surpass the true history of

the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes, and least of

all is Matthew pronounced to be such a narrator: on the contrary, it is

held that with perfect honesty, one account gave five thousand, another

four, and that, with equal honesty, the first Evangelist copied from

both; and for the very reason that he went to work innocently and

undesignedly, it was of no importance to him which of the two histories

stood first and which last, the more important or the less striking

one; but he allowed himself to be determined on this point by

accidental circumstances, such as that he found the one connected with

incidents which appeared to him the earlier, the other with such as he

supposed to be the later. A similar instance of duplication occurs in

the Pentateuch in relation to the histories of the feeding of the

Israelites with quails, and of the production of water out of the rock,

the former of which is narrated both in Exod. xvi. and Num. xi., the

latter in Exod. xvii. and again in Num. xx., in each instance with an

alteration in time, place, and other circumstances. [1461] Meanwhile,

all this yields us only the negative result that the double narratives

of the first gospels cannot have been founded on two separate events.

To determine which of the two is historical, or whether either of them

deserves that epithet, must be the object of a special inquiry.

To evade the pre-eminently magical appearance which this miracle

presents, Olshausen gives it a relation to the moral state of the

participants, and supposes that the miraculous feeding of the multitude

was effected through the intermediation of their spiritual hunger. But

this is ambiguous language, which, on the first attempt to determine

its meaning, vanishes into nothing. For in cures, for example, the

intermediation here appealed to consists in the opening of the

patient’s mind to the influence of Jesus by faith, so that when faith

is wanting, the requisite fulcrum for the miraculous power of Jesus is

also wanting: here therefore the intermediation is real. Now if the

same kind of intermediation took place in the case before us, so that

on those among the multitude who were unbelieving the satisfying power

of Jesus had no influence, then must the satisfaction of hunger here

(as, in the above cases, the cure) be regarded as something effected by

Jesus directly in the body of the hungry persons, without any

antecedent augmentation of the external means of nourishment. But such

a conception of the matter, as Paul us justly remarks, and as even

Olshausen intimates, is precluded by the statement of the Evangelists,

that real food was distributed among the multitude; that each enjoyed

as much as he wanted; and that at the end the residue was greater than

the original store. It is thus plainly implied that there was an

external and objective increase of the provisions, as a preliminary to

the feeding of the multitude. Now, this cannot be conceived as effected

by means of the faith of the people in a real manner, in the sense that

that faith co-operated in producing the multiplication of the loaves.

The intermediation which Olshausen here supposes, can therefore have

been only a teleological one, that is, we are to understand by it, that

Jesus undertook to multiply the loaves and fishes for the sake of

producing a certain moral condition in the multitude. But an

intermediation of this kind affords me not the slightest help in

forming a conception of the event; for the question is not why, but how

it happened. Thus all which Olshausen believes himself to have done

towards rendering this miracle more intelligible, rests on the

ambiguity of the expression, intermediation; and the inconceivableness

of an immediate influence of the will of Jesus on irrational nature,

remains chargeable upon this history as upon those last examined.

But there is another difficulty which is peculiar to the narrative

before us. We have here not merely, as hitherto, a modification or a

direction of natural objects, but a multiplication of them, and that to

an enormous extent. Nothing, it is true, is more familiar to our

observation than the growth and multiplication of natural objects, as

presented to us in the parable of the sower, and the grain of mustard

seed, for example. But, first, these phenomena do not take place

without the co-operation of other natural agents, as earth, water, air,

so that here, also, according to the well-known principle of physics,

there is not properly speaking an augmentation of the substance, but

only a change in the accidents; secondly, these processes of growth and

multiplication are carried forward so as to pass through their various

stages in corresponding intervals of time. Here, on the contrary, in

the multiplication of the loaves and fishes by Jesus, neither the one

rule nor the other is observed: the bread in the hand of Jesus is no

longer, like the stalk on which the corn grew, in communication with

the maternal earth, nor is the multiplication gradual, but sudden.

But herein, it is said, consists the miracle, which in relation to the

last point especially, may be called the acceleration of a natural

process. That which comes to pass in the space of three quarters of a

year, from seed-time to harvest, was here effected in the minutes which

were required for the distribution of the food; for natural

developments are capable of acceleration, and to how great an extent we

cannot determine. [1462] It would, indeed, have been an acceleration of

a natural process, if in the hand of Jesus a grain of corn had borne

fruit a hundred-fold, and brought it to maturity, and if he had shaken

the multiplied grain out of his hands as they were filled again and

again, that the people might grind, knead, and bake it, or eat it raw

from the husk in the wilderness where they were;—or if he had taken a

living fish, suddenly called forth the eggs from its body, and

converted them into full-grown fish, which then the disciples or the

people might have boiled or roasted, this, we should say, would have

been an acceleration of a natural process. But it is not corn that he

takes into his hand, but bread; and the fish also, as they are

distributed in pieces, must have been prepared in some way, perhaps, as

in Luke xxiv. 42, comp. John xxi. 9, broiled or salted. Here then, on

both sides, the production of nature is no longer simple and living,

but dead and modified by art: so that to introduce a natural process of

the above kind, Jesus must, in the first place, by his miraculous power

have metamorphosed the bread into corn again, the roasted fish into raw

and living ones; then instantaneously have effected the described

multiplication; and lastly, have restored the whole from the natural to

the artificial state. Thus the miracle would be composed, 1st, of a

revivification, which would exceed in miraculousness all other

instances in the gospels; secondly, of an extremely accelerated natural

process; and thirdly, of an artificial process, effected invisibly, and

likewise extremely accelerated, since all the tedious proceedings of

the miller and baker on the one hand, and of the cook on the other,

must have been accomplished in a moment by the word of Jesus. How then

can Olshausen deceive himself and the believing reader, by the

agreeably sounding expression, accelerated natural process, when this

nevertheless can designate only a third part of the fact of which we

are speaking? [1463]

But how are we to represent such a miracle to ourselves, and in what

stage of the event must it be placed? In relation to the latter point,

three opinions are possible, corresponding to the number of the groups

that act in our narrative; for the multiplication may have taken place

either in the hands of Jesus, or in those of the disciples who

dispensed the food, or in those of the people who received it. The last

idea appears, on the one hand, puerile even to extravagance, if we are

to imagine Jesus and the apostles distributing, with great carefulness,

that there might be enough for all, little crumbs which in the hands of

the recipients swelled into considerable pieces: on the other hand, it

would have been scarcely a possible task, to get a particle, however

small, for every individual in a multitude of five thousand men, out of

five loaves, which, according to Hebrew custom, and particularly as

they were carried by a boy, cannot have been very large; and still less

out of two fishes. Of the two other opinions I think, with Olshausen,

the one most suitable is that which supposes that the food was

augmented under the creative hands of Jesus, and that he time after

time dispensed new quantities to the disciples. We may then endeavour

to represent the matter to ourselves in two ways: first we may suppose

that as fast as one loaf or fish was gone, a new one came out of the

hands of Jesus, or secondly, that the single loaves and fishes grew, so

that as one piece was broken off, its loss was repaired, until on a

calculation the turn came for the next loaf or fish. The first

conception appears to be opposed to the text, which as it speaks of

fragments ἐκ τῶν πέντε ἄρτων, of the five loaves (John vi. 13), can

hardly be held to presuppose an increase of this number; thus there

remains only the second, by the poetical description of which Lavater

has done but a poor service to the orthodox view. [1464] For this

miracle belongs to the class which can only appear in any degree

credible so long as they can be retained in the obscurity of an

indefinite conception: [1465] no sooner does the light shine on them,

so that they can be examined in all their parts, than they dissolve

like the unsubstantial creations of the mist. Loaves, which in the

hands of the distributors expand like wetted sponges,—broiled fish, in

which the severed parts are replaced instantaneously, as in the living

crab gradually,—plainly belong to quite another domain than that of

reality.

What gratitude then do we not owe to the rationalistic interpretation,

if it be true that it can free us, in the easiest manner, from the

burden of so unheard-of a miracle? If we are to believe Dr. Paulus,

[1466] the Evangelists had no idea that they were narrating anything

miraculous, and the miracle was first conveyed into their accounts by

expositors. What they narrate is, according to him, only thus much:

that Jesus caused his small store of provisions to be distributed, and

that in consequence of this the entire multitude obtained enough to

eat. Here, in any case, we want a middle term, which would distinctly

inform us, how it was possible that, although Jesus had so little food

to offer, the whole multitude obtained enough to eat. A very natural

middle term however is to be gathered, according to Paulus, out of the

historical combination of the circumstances. As, on a comparison with

John vi. 4, the multitude appear to have consisted for the greater part

of a caravan on its way to the feast, they cannot have been quite

destitute of provisions, and probably a few indigent persons only had

exhausted their stores. In order then to induce the better provided to

share their food with those who were in want, Jesus arranged that they

should have a meal, and himself set the example of imparting what he

and his disciples could spare from their own little store; this example

was imitated, and thus the distribution of bread by Jesus having led to

a general distribution, the whole multitude were satisfied. It is true

that this natural middle term must be first mentally interpolated into

the text; as, however, the supernatural middle term which is generally

received is just as little stated expressly, and both alike depend upon

inference, the reader can hardly do otherwise than decide for the

natural one. Such is the reasoning of Dr. Paulus: but the alleged

identity in the relation of the two middle terms to the text does not

in fact exist. For while the natural explanation requires us to suppose

a new distributing subject (the better provided among the multitude),

and a new distributed object (their provisions), together with the act

of distributing these provisions: the supranatural explanation contents

itself with the subject actually present in the text (Jesus and his

disciples), with the single object there given (their little store),

and the described distribution of this; and only requires us to supply

from our imagination the means by which this store could be made

sufficient to satisfy the hunger of the multitude, namely its

miraculous augmentation under the hands of Jesus (or of his disciples).

How can it be yet maintained that neither of the two middle terms is

any more suggested by the text than the other? That the miraculous

multiplication of the loaves and fishes is not expressly mentioned, is

explained by the consideration that the event itself is one of which no

clear conception can be formed, and therefore it is best conveyed by

the result alone. But how will the natural theologian account for

nothing being said of the distribution, called forth by the example of

Jesus, on the part of those among the multitude who had provisions? It

is altogether arbitrary to insert that distribution between the

sentences, He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples to the

multitude (Matt. xiv. 19), and, they did all eat and were filled (v.

20); while the words, καὶ τοὺς δύο ἰχθύας ἐμέρισε πᾶσι, and the two

fishes divided he among them all (Mark vi. 41), plainly indicate that

only the two fishes—and consequently only the five loaves—were the

object of distribution for all. [1467] But the natural explanation

falls into especial embarrassment when it comes to the baskets which,

after all were satisfied, Jesus caused to be filled with the fragments

that remained. The fourth Evangelist says: συνήγαγον οὖν, καὶ ἐγέμισαν

δώδεκα κοφίνους κλασμάτων ἐκ τῶν πέντε ἄρτων τῶν κριθίνων, ἃ

ἐπερίσσευσε τοῖς βεβρωκόσιν, therefore they gathered them together, and

filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves,

which remained over and above unto them that had eaten (vi. 13). This

seems clearly enough to imply that out of those identical five loaves,

after five thousand men had been satisfied by them, there still

remained fragments enough to fill twelve baskets,—more, that is, than

the amount of the original store. Here, therefore, the natural

expositor is put to the most extravagant contrivances in order to evade

the miracle. It is true, when the synoptists simply say that the

remnants of the meal were collected, and twelve baskets filled with

them, it might be thought from the point of view of the natural

explanation, that Jesus, out of regard to the gift of God, caused the

fragments which the crowd had left from their own provisions to be

collected by his disciples. But as, on the one hand, the fact that the

people allowed the remains of the repast to lie, and did not

appropriate them, seems to indicate that they treated the nourishment

presented to them as the property of another; so, on the other hand,

Jesus, when, without any preliminary, he directs his disciples to

gather them up, appears to regard them as his own property. Hence

Paulus understands the words ἦραν κ.τ.λ., of the synoptists, not of a

collection first made after the meal, of that which remained when the

people had been satisfied, but of the overplus of the little store

belonging to Jesus and the disciples, which the latter, after reserving

what was necessary for Jesus and themselves, carried round as an

introduction and inducement to the general repast. But how, when the

words ἔφαγον καὶ ἐχορτάσθησαν πάντες, they did all eat and were filled,

are immediately followed by καὶ ἦραν, and they took up, can the latter

member of the verse refer to the time prior to the meal? Must it not

then have necessarily been said at least ἦραν γὰρ, for they took up?

Further, how, after it had just been said that the people did eat and

were filled, can τὸ περισσεῦσαν, that which remained, especially

succeeded as it is in Luke by αὐτοῖς, to them, mean anything else than

what the people had left? Lastly, how is it possible that out of five

loaves and two fishes, after Jesus and his disciples had reserved

enough for themselves, or even without this, there could in a natural

manner be twelve baskets filled for distribution among the people? But

still more strangely does the natural explanation deal with the

narrative of John. Jesus here adds, as a reason for gathering up the

fragments, ἵνα μή τι ἀπόληται, that nothing be lost; hence it appears

impossible to divest the succeeding statement that they filled twelve

baskets with the remains of the five loaves, of its relation to the

time after the meal; and in this case, it would be impossible to get

clear of a miraculous multiplication of the loaves. Paulus therefore,

although the words συνήγαγον οὖν καὶ ἐγεμισαν δώδεκα κοφίνους κ.τ.λ.,

therefore they gathered them together and filled twelve baskets, etc.,

form a strictly coherent whole, chooses rather to detach συνήγαγον οὖν,

and, by a still more forced construction than that which he employed

with the synoptical text, makes the narrative pass all at once, without

the slightest notice, into the pluperfect, and thus leap back to the

time before the meal.

Here, then, the natural explanation once more fails to fulfil its task:

the text retains its miracle, and if we have reason to think this

incredible, we must inquire whether the narrative of the text deserves

credence. The agreement of all the four Evangelists is generally

adduced in proof of its distinguished credibility: but this agreement

is by no means so perfect. There are minor differences, first between

Matthew and Luke; then between these two and Mark, who in this instance

again embellishes; and lastly, between the synoptists collectively and

John, in the following points: according to the synoptists, the scene

of the event is a desert place, according to John, a mountain;

according to the former, the scene opens with an address from the

disciples, according to John, with a question from Jesus (two

particulars in which, as we have already remarked, the narrative of

John approaches that of the second feeding in Matthew and Mark);

lastly, the words which the three first Evangelists put into the mouth

of the disciples indefinitely, the fourth in his individualizing manner

ascribes to Philip and Andrew, and the same Evangelist also designates

the bearer of the loaves and fishes as a boy (παιδάριον). These

divergencies however may be passed over as less essential, that we may

give our attention only to one, which has a deeper hold. While, namely,

according to the synoptical accounts, Jesus had been long teaching the

people and healing their sick, and was only led to feed them by the

approach of evening, and the remark of the disciples that the people

needed refreshment: in John, the first thought of Jesus, when he lifts

up his eyes and sees the people gathering round him, is that which he

expresses in his question to Philip: Whence shall we buy bread that

these may eat? or rather, as he asked this merely to prove Philip, well

knowing himself what he would do, he at once forms the resolution of

feeding the multitude in a miraculous manner. But how could the design

of feeding the people arise in Jesus immediately on their approach?

They did not come to him for this, but for the sake of his teaching and

his curative power. He must therefore have conceived this design

entirely of his own accord, with a view to establish his miraculous

power by so signal a demonstration. But did he ever thus work a miracle

without any necessity, and even without any inducement,—quite

arbitrarily, and merely for the sake of working a miracle? I am unable

to describe strongly enough how impossible it is that eating should

here have been the first thought of Jesus, how impossible that he could

thus obtrude his miraculous repast on the people. Thus in relation to

this point, the synoptical narrative, in which there is a reason for

the miracle, must have the preference to that of John, who, hastening

towards the miracle, overlooks the requisite motive for it, and makes

Jesus create instead of awaiting the occasion for its performance. An

eye-witness could not narrate thus; [1468] and if, therefore, the

account of that gospel to which the greatest authority is now awarded,

must be rejected as unhistorical; so, with respect to the other

narratives, the difficulties of the fact itself are sufficient to cast

a doubt on their historical credibility, especially if in addition to

these negative grounds we can discover positive reasons which render it

probable that our narrative had an unhistorical origin.

Such reasons are actually found both within the evangelical history

itself, and beyond it in the Old Testament history, and the Jewish

popular belief. In relation to the former source, it is worthy of

remark, that in the synoptical gospels as well as in John, there are

more or less immediately appended to the feeding of the multitude by

Jesus with literal bread, figurative discourses of Jesus on bread and

leaven: namely, in the latter, the declarations concerning the bread of

heaven, and the bread of life which Jesus gives (John vi. 27 ff.); in

the former, those concerning the false leaven of the Pharisees and

Sadducees, that is, their false doctrine and hypocrisy. [1469] (Matt.

xvi. 5 ff.; Mark viii. 14 ff.; comp. Luke xii. 1); and on both sides,

the figurative discourse of Jesus is erroneously understood of literal

bread. It would not then be a very strained conjecture, that as in the

passages quoted we find the disciples and the people generally,

understanding literally what Jesus meant figuratively; so the same

mistake was made in the earliest Christian tradition. If, in figurative

discourses, Jesus had sometimes represented himself as him who was able

to give the true bread of life to the wandering and hungering people,

perhaps also placing in opposition to this, the leaven of the

Pharisees: the legend, agreeably to its realistic tendency, may have

converted this into the fact of a miraculous feeding of the hungry

multitude in the wilderness by Jesus. The fourth Evangelist makes the

discourse on the bread of heaven arise out of the miracle of the

loaves: but the relation might very well have been the reverse, and the

history owe its origin to the discourse, especially as the question

which introduces John’s narrative, Whence shall we buy bread that these

may eat? may be more easily conceived as being uttered by Jesus on the

first sight of the people, if he alluded to feeding them with the word

of God (comp. John iv. 32 ff.), to appeasing their spiritual hunger

(Matt. v. 6), in order to exercise (πειράζων) the higher understanding

of his disciples, than if he really thought of the satisfaction of

their bodily hunger, and only wished to try whether his disciples would

in this case confide in his miraculous power. The synoptical narrative

is less suggestive of such a view; for the figurative discourse on the

leaven could not by itself originate the history of the miracle. Thus

the gospel of John stands alone with reference to the above mode of

derivation, and it is more agreeable to the character of this gospel to

conjecture that it has applied the narrative of a miracle presented by

tradition to the production of figurative discourses in the Alexandrian

taste, than to suppose that it has preserved to us the original

discourses out of which the legend spun that miraculous narrative.

If then we can discover, beyond the limits of the New Testament, very

powerful causes for the origination of our narrative, we must renounce

the attempt to construct it out of materials presented by the gospels

themselves. And here the fourth Evangelist, by putting into the mouth

of the people a reference to the manna, that bread of heaven which

Moses gave to the fathers in the wilderness (v. 31), reminds us of one

of the most celebrated passages in the early history of the Israelites

(Exod. xvi.), which was perfectly adapted to engender the expectation

that its antitype would occur in the Messianic times; and we in fact

learn from rabbinical writings, that among those functions of the first

Goël which were to be revived in the second, a chief place was given to

the impartation of bread from heaven. [1470] If the Mosaic manna

presents itself as that which was most likely to be held a type of the

bread miraculously augmented by Jesus; the fish which Jesus also

multiplied miraculously, may remind us that Moses gave the people, not

only a substitute for bread in the manna, but also animal food in the

quails (Exod. xvi. 8, xii. 13; Num. xi. 4 ff.). On comparing these

Mosaic narratives with our evangelical ones, there appears a striking

resemblance even in details. The locality in both cases is the

wilderness; the inducement to the miracle here as there, is fear lest

the people should suffer from want in the wilderness, or perish from

hunger; in the Old Testament history, this fear is expressed by the

people in loud murmurs, in that of the New Testament, it results from

the shortsightedness of the disciples, and the benevolence of Jesus.

The direction of the latter to his disciples that they should give the

people food, a direction which implies that he had already formed the

design of feeding them miraculously, may be paralleled with the command

which Jehovah gave to Moses to feed the people with manna (Exod. xvi.

4), and with quails (Exod. xvi. 12; Num. xi. 18–20). But there is

another point of similarity which speaks yet more directly to our

present purpose. As, in the evangelical narrative, the disciples think

it an impossibility that provision for so great a mass of people should

be procured in the wilderness, so, in the Old Testament history, Moses

replies doubtingly to the promise of Jehovah to satisfy the people with

flesh (Num. xi. 21 f.). To Moses, as to the disciples, the multitude

appears too great for the possibility of providing sufficient food for

them; as the latter ask, whence they should have so much bread in the

wilderness, so Moses asks ironically whether they should slay the

flocks and the herds (which they had not). And as the disciples object,

that not even the most impoverishing expenditure on their part would

thoroughly meet the demand, so Moses, clothing the idea in another

form, had declared, that to satisfy the people as Jehovah promised, an

impossibility must happen (the fish of the sea be gathered together for

them); objections which Jehovah there, as here Jesus, does not regard,

but issues the command that the people should prepare for the reception

of the miraculous food.

But though these two cases of a miraculous supply of nourishment are

thus analogous, there is this essential distinction, that in the Old

Testament, in relation both to the manna and the quails, it is a

miraculous procuring of food not previously existing which is spoken

of, while in the New Testament it is a miraculous augmentation of

provision already present, but inadequate; so that the chasm between

the Mosaic narrative and the evangelical one is too great for the

latter to have been derived immediately from the former. If we search

for an intermediate step, a very natural one between Moses and the

Messiah is afforded by the prophets. We read of Elijah, that through

him and for his sake, the little store of meal and oil which he found

in the possession of the widow of Zarephath was miraculously

replenished, or rather was made to suffice throughout the duration of

the famine (1 Kings xvii. 8–16). This species of miracle is developed

still further, and with a greater resemblance to the evangelical

narrative, in the history of Elisha (2 Kings iv. 42 ff.). As Jesus fed

five thousand men in the wilderness with five loaves and two fishes, so

this prophet, during a famine, fed a hundred men with twenty loaves,

(which like those distributed by Jesus in John, are called barley

loaves,) together with some ground corn (‏כַּרְמֶל‎, LXX. παλάθας); a

disproportion between the quantity of provisions and the number of men,

which his servant, like the disciples in the other instance, indicates

in the question: What! should I set this before a hundred men? Elisha,

like Jesus, is not diverted from his purpose, but commands the servant

to give what he has to the people; and as in the New Testament

narrative great stress is laid on the collection of the remaining

fragments, so in the Old Testament it is specially noticed at the close

of this story, that notwithstanding so many had eaten of the store,

there was still an overplus. [1471] The only important difference here

is, that on the side of the evangelical narrative, the number of the

loaves is smaller, and that of the people greater; but who does not

know that in general the legend does not easily imitate, without at the

same time surpassing, and who does not see that in this particular

instance it was entirely suited to the position of the Messiah, that

his miraculous power, compared with that of Elisha, should be placed,

as it regards the need of natural means, in the relation of five to

twenty, but as it regards the supernatural performance, in that of five

thousand to one hundred? Paulus indeed, in order to preclude the

inference, that as the two narratives in the Old Testament are to be

understood mythically, so also is the strikingly similar evangelical

narrative, extends to the former the attempt at a natural explanation

which he has pursued with the latter, making the widow’s cruse of oil

to be replenished by the aid of the scholars of the prophets, and the

twenty loaves suffice for one hundred men by means of a praiseworthy

moderation; [1472] a mode of explanation which is more practicable here

than with the New Testament narrative, in proportion as, by reason of

the greater remoteness of these anecdotes, they present fewer critical

(and, by reason of their merely mediate relation to Christianity, fewer

dogmatical) motives for maintaining their historical veracity.

Nothing more is wanting to complete the mythical derivation of this

history of the miraculous feeding of the multitude, except the proof,

that the later Jews also believed of particularly holy men, that by

their means a small amount of provision was made sufficient, and of

this proof the disinterested industry of Dr. Paulus as a collector, has

put us in possession. He adduces a rabbinical statement that in the

time of a specially holy man, the small quantity of shew-bread more

than sufficed for the supply of the priests. [1473] To be consequent,

this commentator should try to explain this story also naturally,—by

the moderation of the priests, for instance: but it is not in the

canon, hence he can unhesitatingly regard it as a fable, and he only so

far admits its striking similarity to the evangelical narrative as to

observe, that in consequence of the Jewish belief in such augmentations

of food, attested by that rabbinical statement, the New Testament

narrative may in early times have been understood by judaizing

Christians in the same (miraculous) sense. But our examination has

shown that the evangelical narrative was designedly composed so as to

convey this sense, and if this sense was an element of the popular

Jewish legend, then is the evangelical narrative without doubt a

product of that legend. [1474]

§ 103.

JESUS TURNS WATER INTO WINE.

Next to the history of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, may

be ranged the narrative in the fourth gospel (ii. 1 ff.), of Jesus at a

wedding in Cana of Galilee turning water into wine. According to

Olshausen, both miracles fall under the same category, since in both a

substratum is present, the substance of which is modified. [1475] But

he overlooks the logical distinction, that in the miracle of the loaves

and fishes, the modification is one of quantity merely, an augmentation

of what was already existing, without any change of its quality (bread

becomes more bread, but remains bread); whereas at the wedding in Cana

the substratum is modified in quality—out of a certain substance there

is made not merely more of the same kind, but something else (out of

water, wine); in other words, a real transubstantiation takes place. It

is true there are changes in quality which are natural results, and the

instantaneous effectuation of which by Jesus would be even more easy to

conceive, than an equally rapid augmentation of quantity; for example,

if he had suddenly changed must into wine, or wine into vinegar, this

would only have been to conduct in an accelerated manner the same

vegetable substratum, the vinous juice, through various conditions

natural to it. The miracle would be already heightened if Jesus had

imparted to the juice of another fruit, the apple for instance, the

quality of that of the grape, although even in this his agency would

have been within the limits of the same kingdom of nature. But here,

where water is turned into wine, there is a transition from one kingdom

of nature to another, from the elementary to the vegetable; a miracle

which as far exceeds that of the multiplication of the loaves, as if

Jesus had hearkened to the counsel of the tempter, and turned stones

into bread. [1476]

To this miracle, as to the former, Olshausen, after Augustine, [1477]

applies his definition of an accelerated natural process, by which we

are to understand that we have here simply the occurrence, in an

accelerated manner, of that which is presented yearly in the vine in a

slow process of development. This mode of viewing the matter would have

some foundation, if the substratum on which Jesus operated had been the

same out of which wine is wont to be naturally produced; if he had

taken a vine in his hand, and suddenly caused it to bloom, and to bear

ripe grapes, this might have been called an accelerated natural

process. Even then indeed we should still have no wine, and if Jesus

were to produce this also from the vine which he took into his hand, he

must add an operation which would be an invisible substitute for the

winepress, that is, an accelerated artificial process; so that on this

supposition the category of the accelerated natural process would

already be insufficient. In fact, however, we have no vine as a

substratum for this production of wine, but water, and in this case we

could only speak with propriety of an accelerated natural process, if

by any means, however gradual, wine were ever produced out of water.

Here it is urged, that certainly out of water, out of the moisture

produced in the earth by rain and the like, the vine draws its sap,

which in due order it applies to the production of the grape, and of

the wine therein contained; so that thus yearly, by means of a natural

process, wine does actually come out of water. [1478] But apart from

the fact that water is only one of the elementary materials which are

required for the fructification of the vine, and that to this end,

soil, air, and light, must concur; it could not be said either of one,

or of all these elementary materials together, that they produce the

grape or the wine, nor, consequently, that Jesus, when he produced wine

out of water, did the same thing, only more quickly, which is repeated

every year as a gradual process: on the contrary, here again there is a

confusion of essentially distinct logical categories. For we may place

the relation of the product to the producing agent, which is here

treated of, under the category of power and manifestation, or of cause

and effect: never can it be said that water is the power or the cause,

which produces grapes and wine, for the power which gives existence to

them is strictly the vegetable individuality of the vine-plant, to

which water, with the rest of the elementary agencies, is related only

as the solicitation to the power, as the stimulus to the cause. That

is, without the co-operation of water, air, etc, grapes certainly

cannot be produced, any more than without the vine plant; but the

distinction is, that in the vine the grape, in itself or in its germ,

is already present, and water, air, etc., only assist in its

development; whereas in these elementary substances, the grape is

present neither actu nor potentiâ; they can in no way produce the fruit

out of themselves, but only out of something else—the vine. To turn

water into wine is not then to make a cause act more rapidly than it

would act in a natural way, but it is to make the effect appear without

a cause, out of a mere accessory circumstance; or, to refer more

particularly to organic nature, it is to call forth the organic product

without the producing organism, out of the simple inorganic materials,

or rather out of one of these materials only. This is about the same

thing as to make bread out of earth without the intervention of the

corn plant, flesh out of bread without a previous assimilation of it by

an animal body, or in the same immediate manner, blood out of wine. If

the supranaturalist is not here contented with appealing to the

incomprehensibleness of an omnipotent word of Jesus, but also

endeavours, with Olshausen, to bring the process which must have been

contained in the miracle in question nearer to his conception, by

regarding it in the light of a natural process; he must not, in order

to render the matter more probable, suppress a part of the necessary

stages in that process, but exhibit them all. They would then present

the following series: 1st, to the water, as one only of the elementary

agents, Jesus must have added the power of the other elements above

named; 2ndly (and this is the chief point), he must have procured, in

an equally invisible manner, the organic individuality of the vine;

3rdly, he must have accelerated, to the degree of instantaneousness,

the natural process resulting from the reciprocal action of these

objects upon one another, the blooming and fructification of the vine,

together with the ripening of the grape; 4thly, he must have caused the

artificial process of pressing, and so forth, to occur invisibly and

suddenly; and lastly, he must again have accelerated the further

natural process of fermentation, so as to render it momentary. Thus,

here again, the designation of the miracle as an accelerated natural

process, would apply to two stages only out of five, the other three

being such as cannot possibly be brought under this point of view,

though the two first, especially the second, are of greater importance

even than belonged to the stages which were neglected in the

application of this view to the history of the miraculous feeding: so

that the definition of an accelerated natural process is as inadequate

here as there. [1479] As, however, this is the only, or the extreme

category, under which we can bring such operations nearer to our

conception and comprehension; it follows that if this category be shown

to be inapplicable, the event itself is inconceivable.

Not only, however, has the miracle before us been impeached in relation

to possibility, but also in relation to utility and fitness. It has

been urged both in ancient [1480] and modern [1481] times, that it was

unworthy of Jesus that he should not only remain in the society of

drunkards, but even further their intemperance by an exercise of his

miraculous power. But this objection should be discarded as an

exaggeration, since, as expositors justly observe, from the words after

men have well drunk, ὅταν μεθυσθῶσι (v. 10), which the ruler of the

feast ἀρχιτρίκλινος uses with reference to the usual course of things

at such feasts, nothing can with certainty be deduced with respect to

the occasion in question. We must however still regard as valid an

objection, which is not only pointed out by Paulus and the author of

the Probabilia, [1482] but admitted even by Lücke and Olshausen to be

at the first glance a pressing difficulty: namely, that by this miracle

Jesus did not, as was usual with him, relieve any want, any real need,

but only furnished an additional incitement to pleasure; showed himself

not so much helpful as courteous; rather, so to speak, performed a

miracle of luxury, than of true beneficence. If it be here said that it

was a sufficient object for the miracle to confirm the faith of the

disciples, [1483] which according to v. 11 was its actual effect; it

must be remembered that, as a general rule, not only had the miracles

of Jesus, considered with regard to their form, i.e. as extraordinary

results, something desirable as their consequence, for instance, the

faith of the spectators; but also, considered with regard to their

matter, i.e. as consisting of cures, multiplications of loaves, and the

like, were directed to some really beneficent end. In the present

miracle this characteristic is wanting, and hence Paulus is not wrong

when he points out the contradiction which would lie in the conduct of

Jesus, if towards the tempter he rejected every challenge to such

miracles as, without being materially beneficent, or called for by any

pressing necessity, could only formally produce faith and astonishment,

and yet in this instance performed a miracle of that very nature.

[1484]

The supranaturalist was therefore driven to maintain that it was not

faith in general which Jesus here intended to produce, but a conviction

entirely special, and only to be wrought by this particular miracle.

Proceeding on this supposition, nothing was more natural than to be

reminded by the opposition of water and wine on which the miracle

turns, of the opposition between him who baptized with water (Matt.

iii. 11), who at the same time came neither eating nor drinking (Luke

i. 15; Matt. xi. 18), and him who, as he baptized with the Holy Ghost

and with fire, so he did not deny himself the ardent, animating fruit

of the vine, and was hence reproached with being a wine-bibber

οἰνοπότης (Matt. xi. 19); especially as the fourth gospel, in which the

narrative of the wedding at Cana is contained, manifests in a peculiar

degree the tendency to lead over the contemplation from the Baptist to

Jesus. On these grounds Herder, [1485] and after him some others,

[1486] have held the opinion, that Jesus by the above miraculous act

intended to symbolize to his disciples, several of whom had been

disciples of the Baptist, the relation of his spirit and office to

those of John, and by this proof of his superior power, to put an end

to the offence which they might take at his more liberal mode of life.

But here the reflection obtrudes itself, that Jesus does not avail

himself of this symbolical miracle, to enlighten his disciples by

explanatory discourses concerning his relation to the Baptist; an

omission which even the friends of this interpretation pronounce to be

surprising. [1487] How needful such an exposition was, if the miracle

were not to fail of its special object, is evident from the fact, that

the narrator himself, according to v. 11, understood it not at all in

this light, as a symbolization of a particular maxim of Jesus, but

quite generally, as a manifestation φανέρωσις of his glory. [1488] Thus

if that special lesson were the object of Jesus in performing the

miracle before us, then the author of the fourth gospel, that is,

according to the supposition of the above theologians, his most

apprehensive pupil, misunderstood him, and Jesus delayed in an

injudicious manner to prevent this misunderstanding; or if both these

conclusions are rejected, there still subsists the difficulty, that

Jesus, contrary to the prevailing tendency of his conduct, sought to

attain the general object of proving his miraculous power, by an act

for which apparently he might have substituted a more useful one.

Again, the disproportionate quantity of wine with which Jesus supplies

the guests, must excite astonishment. Six vessels, each containing from

two to three μετρητὰς, supposing the Attic μετρητὴς, corresponding to

the Hebrew bath, to be equivalent to 1½ Roman amphoræ, or twenty-one

Wirtemberg measures, [1489] would yield 252–378 measures. [1490] What a

quantity for a company who had already drunk freely! What enormous

vessels! exclaims Dr. Paulus, and leaves no effort untried to reduce

the statement of measures in the text. With a total disregard of the

rules of the language, he gives to the preposition ἀνὰ a collective

meaning, instead of its proper distributive one, so as to make the six

water pots (ὑδρίαι) contain, not each, but altogether, from two to

three μετρητὰς; and even Olshausen consoles himself, after Semler, with

the fact, that it is nowhere remarked that the water in all the vessels

was turned into wine. But these are subterfuges; they to whom the

supply of so extravagant and dangerous a quantity of wine on the part

of Jesus is incredible, must conclude that the narrative is

unhistorical.

Peculiar difficulty is occasioned by the relation in which this

narrative places Jesus to his mother, and his mother to him. According

to the express statement of the Evangelist, the turning of water into

wine was the beginning of the miracles of Jesus, ἀρχὴ τῶν σημείων; and

yet his mother reckons so confidently on his performing a miracle here,

that she believes it only necessary to point out to him the deficiency

of wine, in order to induce him to afford supernatural aid; and even

when she receives a discouraging answer, she is so far from losing

hope, that she enjoins the servants to be obedient to the directions of

her son (v. 3, 5). How is this expectation of a miracle on the part of

the mother of Jesus to be explained? Are we to refer the declaration of

John, that the metamorphosis of the water was the first miracle of

Jesus, merely to the period of his public life, and to presuppose as

real events, for his previous years, the apocryphal miracles of the

Gospels of the Infancy? Or, believing that Chrysostom was right in

regarding this as too uncritical, [1491] are we rather to conjecture

that Mary, in consequence of her conviction that Jesus was the Messiah,

a conviction wrought in her by the signs that attended his birth,

expected miracles from him, and as perhaps on some earlier occasions,

so now on this, when the perplexity was great, desired from him a proof

of his power? [1492] Were only that early conviction of the relatives

of Jesus that he was the Messiah somewhat more probable, and especially

the extraordinary events of the childhood, by which it is supposed to

have been produced, better accredited! Moreover, even presupposing the

belief of Mary in the miraculous power of her son, it is still not at

all clear how, notwithstanding his discouraging answer, she could yet

confidently expect that he would just on this occasion perform his

first miracle, and feel assured that she positively knew that he would

act precisely so as to require the assistance of the servants. [1493]

This decided knowledge on the part of Mary, even respecting the manner

of the miracle about to be wrought, appears to indicate an antecedent

disclosure of Jesus to her, and hence Olshausen supposes that Jesus had

given his mother an intimation concerning the miracle on which he had

resolved. But when could this disclosure have been made? Already as

they were going to the feast? Then Jesus must have foreseen that there

would be a want of wine, in which case Mary could not have apprised him

of it as of an unexpected embarrassment. Or did Jesus make the

disclosure after her appeal, and consequently in connexion with the

words: What have I to do with thee, woman, etc.? But with this answer,

it is impossible to conceive so opposite a declaration to have been

united; it would therefore be necessary, on Olshausen’s view, to

imagine that Jesus uttered the negative words aloud, the affirmative in

an undertone, merely for Mary: a supposition which would give the scene

the appearance of a comedy. Thus it is on no supposition to be

understood how Mary could expect a miracle at all, still less precisely

such an one. The first difficulty might indeed be plausibly evaded, by

maintaining that Mary did not here apply to Jesus in expectation of a

miracle, but simply that she might obtain her son’s advice in the case,

as she was wont to do in all difficult circumstances: [1494] his reply

however shows that he regarded the words of his mother as a summons to

perform a miracle, and moreover the direction which Mary gave to the

servants remains on this supposition totally unexplained.

The answer of Jesus to the intimation of his mother (v. 4) has been

just as often blamed with exaggeration [1495] as justified on

insufficient grounds. However truly it may be urged that the Hebrew

phrase, ‏מַה־לִּי וָלָךְ‎, to which the Greek τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοὶ corresponds,

appears elsewhere as an expression of gentle blame, e.g. 2 Sam. xvi.

10; [1496] or that with the entrance of Jesus on his special office his

relation to his mother as regarded his actions was dissolved: [1497] it

nevertheless remains undeniable, that it was fitting for Jesus to be

modestly apprised of opportunities for the exercise of his miraculous

power, and if one who pointed out to him a case of disease and added an

entreaty for help, did not deserve reprehension, as little and even

less did Mary, when she brought to his knowledge a want which had

arisen, with a merely implied entreaty for assistance. The case would

have been different had Jesus considered the occasion not adapted, or

even unworthy to have a miracle connected with it; he might then have

repelled with severity the implied summons, as an incitement to a false

use of miraculous power (instanced in the history of the temptation);

as, on the contrary, he immediately after showed by his actions that he

held the occasion worthy of a miracle, it is absolutely

incomprehensible how he could blame his mother for her information,

which perhaps only came to him a few moments too soon. [1498]

Here again it has been attempted to escape from the numerous

difficulties of the supranatural view, by a natural interpretation of

the history. The commentators who advance this explanation set out from

the fact, that it was the custom among the Jews to make presents of oil

or wine at marriage feasts. Now Jesus, it is said, having brought with

him five new disciples as uninvited guests, might foresee a deficiency

of wine, and wished out of pleasantry to present his gift in an

unexpected and mysterious manner. The δόξα (glory) which he manifested

by this proceeding, is said to be merely his humanity, which in the

proper place did not disdain to pass a jest; the πίστις, (faith) which

he thereby excited in his disciples, was a joyful adherence to a man

who exhibited none of the oppressive severity which had been

anticipated in the Messiah. Mary was aware of her son’s project, and

warned him when it appeared to her time to put it in execution; but he

reminded her playfully not to spoil his jest by over-haste. His causing

water to be drawn, seems to have belonged to the playful deception

which he intended; that all at once wine was found in the vessels

instead of water, and that this was regarded as a miraculous

metamorphosis, might easily happen at a late hour of the night, when

there had already been considerable drinking; lastly, that Jesus did

not enlighten the wedding party as to the true state of the case, was

the natural consequence of his wish not himself to dissipate the

delusion which he had playfully caused. [1499] For the rest, how the

plan was effected, by what arrangements on the part of Jesus the wine

was conveyed in the place of the water, this, Paulus thinks, is not now

to be ascertained; it is enough for us to know that all happened

naturally. As however, according to the opinion of this expositor, the

Evangelist was aware, in a general manner, that the whole occurrence

was natural, why has he given us no intimation to that effect? Did he

wish to prepare for the reader the same surprise that Jesus had

prepared for the spectators? still he must afterwards have solved the

enigma, if he did not intend the delusion to be permanent. Above all,

he ought not to have used the misleading expression, that Jesus by this

act manifested forth his glory (τὴν δόξαν αὑτοῦ, v. 11), which, in the

phraseology of this gospel, can only mean his superior dignity; he

ought not to have called the incident a sign (σημεῖον), by which

something supernatural is implied; lastly, he ought not, by the

expression, the water that was made wine (τὸ ὕδωρ οἶνον γεγενημένον, v.

9), and still less by the subsequent designation of Cana as the place

where he made the water wine (ὅπου ἐποίησεν ὕδωρ οἶνον), to have

occasioned the impression, that he approved the miraculous conception

of the event. [1500] The author of the Natural History sought to elude

these difficulties by the admission, that the narrator himself, John,

regarded the event as a miracle, and meant to describe it as such. Not

to mention, however, the unworthy manner in which he explains this

error on the part of the Evangelist, [1501] it is not easy to conceive

of Jesus that he should have kept his disciples in the same delusion as

the rest of the guests, and not have given to them at least an

explanation concerning the real course of the event. It would therefore

be necessary to suppose that the narrator of this event was not one of

the disciples of Jesus: a supposition which goes beyond the sphere of

this system of interpretation. But even admitting that the narrator

himself, whoever he may have been, was included in the same deception

with those who regarded the affair as a miracle, in which case his mode

of representation and the expressions which he uses would be accounted

for; still the procedure of Jesus, and his mode of acting, are all the

more inconceivable, if no real miracle were on foot. Why did he with

refined assiduity arrange the presentation of the wine, so that it

might appear to be a miraculous gift? Why, in particular, did he cause

the vessels in which he intended forthwith to present the wine, to be

filled beforehand with water, the necessary removal of which could only

be a hindrance to the secret execution of his plan? unless indeed it be

supposed, with Woolston, that he merely imparted to the water the taste

of wine, by pouring into it some liquor. Thus there is a double

difficulty; on the one hand, that of imagining how the wine could be

introduced into the vessels already filled with water; on the other,

that of freeing Jesus from the suspicion of having wished to create the

appearance of a miraculous transmutation of the water. It may have been

the perception of these difficulties which induced the author of the

Natural History entirely to sever the connexion between the water which

was poured in, and the wine which subsequently appeared, by the

supposition that Jesus had caused the water to be fetched, because

there was a deficiency of this also, and Jesus wished to recommend the

beneficial practice of washing before and after meals, but that he

afterwards caused the wine to be brought out of an adjoining room where

he had placed it:—a conception of the matter which requires us either

to suppose the intoxication of all the guests, and especially of the

narrator, as so considerable, that they mistook the wine brought out of

the adjoining room, for wine drawn out of the water vessels; or else

that the deceptive arrangements of Jesus were contrived with very great

art, which is inconsistent with the straightforwardness of character

elsewhere ascribed to him.

In this dilemma between the supranatural and the natural

interpretations, of which, in this case again, the one is as

insufficient as the other, we should be reduced, with one of the most

recent commentators on the fourth gospel, to wait “until it pleased

God, by further developments of judicious Christian reflection, to

evolve a solution of the enigma to the general satisfaction;” [1502]

did we not discern an outlet in the fact, that the history in question

is found in John’s gospel alone. Single in its kind as this miracle is,

if it were also the first performed by Jesus, it must, even if all the

twelve were not then with Jesus, have yet been known to them all; and

even if among the rest of the Evangelists there were no apostle, still

it must have passed into the general Christian tradition, and from

thence into the synoptical memoirs: consequently, as John alone has it,

the supposition that it arose in a region of tradition unknown to the

synoptists, seems easier than the alternative, that it so early

disappeared out of that from which they drew; the only question is,

whether we are in a condition to show how such a legend could arise

without historical grounds. Kaiser points for this purpose to the

extravagant spirit of the oriental legend, which has ever been so

fertile in metamorphoses: but this source is so wide and indefinite,

that Kaiser finds it necessary also to suppose a real jest on the part

of Jesus, [1503] and thus remains uneasily suspended between the

mythical and the natural explanations, a position which cannot be

escaped from, until there can be produced points of mythical connexion

and origin more definite and exact. Now in the present case we need

halt neither at the character of eastern legend in general, nor at

metamorphoses in general, since transmutations of this particular

element of water are to be found within the narrower circle of the

ancient Hebrew history. Besides some narratives of Moses procuring for

the Israelites water out of the flinty rock in the wilderness (Exod.

xvii. 1 ff.; Num. xx. 1 ff.)—a bestowal of water which, after being

repeated in a modified manner in the history of Samson (Judges xv. 18

f.), was made a feature in the messianic expectations; [1504]—the first

transmutation of water ascribed to Moses, is the turning of all the

water in Egypt into blood, which is enumerated among the so-called

plagues (Exod. vii. 17 ff.). Together with this mutatio in deterius,

there is in the history of Moses a mutatio in melius, also effected in

water, for he made bitter water sweet, under the direction of Jehovah

(Exod. xiv. 23 ff. [1505]); as at a later era, Elisha also is said to

have made unhealthy water good and innoxious (2 Kings ii. 19 ff.

[1506]). As, according to the rabbinical passage quoted, the bestowal

of water, so also, according to this narrative in John, the

transmutation of water appears to have been transferred from Moses and

the prophets to the Messiah, with such modifications, however, as lay

in the nature of the case. If namely, on the one hand, a change of

water for the worse, like that Mosaic transmutation into blood—if a

miracle of this retributive kind might not seem well suited to the mild

spirit of the Messiah as recognised in Jesus: so on the other hand,

such a change for the better as, like the removal of bitterness or

noxiousness, did not go beyond the species of water, and did not, like

the change into blood, alter the substance of the water itself, might

appear insufficient for the Messiah; if then the two conditions be

united, a change of water for the better, which should at the same time

be a specific alteration of its substance, must almost of necessity be

a change into wine. Now this is narrated by John, in a manner not

indeed in accordance with reality, but which must be held all the more

in accordance with the spirit of his gospel. For the harshness of Jesus

towards his mother is, historically considered, incredible; but it is

entirely in the spirit of the fourth gospel, to place in relief the

exaltation of Jesus as the divine Logos by such demeanour towards

suppliants (as in John iv. 48), and even towards his mother. [1507]

Equally in the spirit of this gospel is it also, to exhibit the firm

faith which Mary maintains notwithstanding the negative answer of

Jesus, by making her give the direction to the servants above

considered, as if she had a preconception even of the manner in which

Jesus would perform his miracle, a preconception which is historically

impossible. [1508]

§ 104.

JESUS CURSES A BARREN FIG-TREE.

The anecdote of the fig-tree which Jesus caused to wither by his word,

because when he was hungry he found no fruit on it, is peculiar to the

two first gospels (Matt. xxi. 18 ff.; Mark xi. 12 ff.), but is narrated

by them with divergencies which must affect our view of the fact. One

of these divergencies of Mark from Matthew, appears so favourable to

the natural explanation, that, chiefly in consideration of it, a

tendency towards the natural view of the miracles of Jesus has been of

late ascribed to this Evangelist; and for the sake of this one

favourable divergency, he has been defended in relation to the other

rather inconvenient one, which is found in the narrative before us.

If we were restricted to the manner in which the first Evangelist

states the consequence of the curse of Jesus: and immediately the

fig-tree withered away καὶ ἐξηράνθη παραχρῆμα ἡ συκῆ, it would be

difficult here to carry out a natural explanation; for even the forced

interpretation of Paulus, which makes the word παραχρῆμα (immediately)

only exclude further human accession to the fact, and not a longer

space of time, rests only on an unwarranted transference of Mark’s

particulars into the narrative of Matthew. In Mark, Jesus curses the

fig-tree on the morning after His entrance into Jerusalem, and not till

the following morning the disciples remark, in passing, that the tree

is withered. Through this interim, which Mark leaves open between the

declaration of Jesus and the withering of the tree, the natural

explanation of the whole narrative insinuates itself, taking its stand

on the possibility, that in this interval the tree might have withered

from natural causes. Accordingly, Jesus is supposed to have remarked in

the tree, besides the lack of fruit, a condition from which he

prognosticated that it would soon wither away, and to have uttered this

prediction in the words: No one will ever again gather fruit from thee.

The heat of the day having realized the prediction of Jesus with

unexpected rapidity, and the disciples remarking this the next morning,

they then first connected this result with the words of Jesus on the

previous morning, and began to regard them as a curse: an

interpretation which, indeed, Jesus does not confirm, but impresses on

the disciples, that if they have only some self-reliance, they will be

able, not only to predict such physiologically evident results, but

also to know and effect things far more difficult. [1509] But even

admitting Mark’s statement to be the correct one, the natural

explanation still remains impossible. For the words of Jesus in Mark

(v. 14): μηκέτι ἐκ σοῦ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα μηδεὶς καρπὸν φάγοι, No man eat

fruit of thee hereafter for ever, if they had been meant to imply a

mere conjecture as to what would probably happen, must necessarily have

had a potential signification given to them by the addition of ἂν; and

in the expression of Matthew: μηκέτι ἐκ σοῦ καρπὸς γένηται, Let no

fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever, the command is not to be

mistaken, although Paulus would only find in this also the expression

of a possibility. Moreover the circumstance that Jesus addresses the

tree itself, as also the solemn εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, for ever, which he adds,

speaks against the idea of a mere prediction, and in favour of a curse;

Paulus perceives this fully, and hence with unwarrantable violence he

interprets the words λέγει αὐτῇ he saith to it, as if they introduced a

saying merely in reference to the tree, while he depreciates the

expression εἰς τὸν αἰωνα, by the translation: in time to come. But even

if we grant that the Evangelists, owing to their erroneous conception

of the incident, may have somewhat altered the words of Jesus, and that

he in reality only prognosticated the withering of the tree; still,

when the prediction was fulfilled, Jesus did nevertheless ascribe the

result to his own supernatural influence. For in speaking of what he

has done in relation to the fig-tree, he uses the verb ποιεῖν (v. 21

Matt.); which cannot except by a forced interpretation, be referred to

a mere prediction. But more than this, he compares what he has done in

relation to the fig-tree, with the removal of mountains; and hence, as

this, according to every possible interpretation, is an act of

causation, so the other must be regarded as an influence on the tree.

In any case, when Peter spoke of the fig-tree as having been cursed by

Jesus (v. 21 Mark), either the latter must have contradicted the

construction thus put on his words, or his silence must have implied

his acquiescence. If then Jesus in the issue ascribes the withering of

the tree to his influence, he either by his address to it designed to

produce an effect, or he ambitiously misused the accidental result for

the sake of deluding his disciples; a dilemma, in which the words of

Jesus, as they are given by the Evangelists, decidedly direct us to the

former alternative.

Thus we are inexorably thrown back from the naturalistic attempt at an

explanation, to the conception of the supranaturalists, pre-eminently

difficult as this is in the history before us. We pass over what might

be said against the physical possibility of such an influence as is

there presupposed; not, indeed, because, with Hase, we could comprehend

it through the medium of natural magic, [1510] but because another

difficulty beforehand excludes the inquiry, and does not allow us to

come to the consideration of the physical possibility. This decisive

difficulty relates to the moral possibility of such an act on the part

of Jesus. The miracle he here performs is of a punitive character.

Another example of the kind is not found in the canonical accounts of

the life of Jesus; the apocryphal gospels alone, as has been above

remarked, are full of such miracles. In one of the synoptical gospels

there is, on the contrary, a passage often quoted already (Luke ix. 55

f.), in which it is declared, as the profound conviction of Jesus, that

the employment of miraculous power in order to execute punishment or to

take vengeance, is contrary to the spirit of his vocation; and the same

sentiment is attributed to Jesus by the Evangelist, when he applies to

him the words of Isaiah: He shall not break a bruised reed, etc. (Matt.

xii. 20). Agreeably to this principle, and to his prevalent mode of

action, Jesus must rather have given new life to a withered tree, than

have made a green one wither; and in order to comprehend his conduct on

this occasion, we must be able to show reasons which he might possibly

have had, for departing in this instance from the above principle,

which has no mark of unauthenticity. The occasion on which he

enunciated that principle was when, on the refusal of a Samaritan

village to exercise hospitality towards Jesus and his disciples, the

sons of Zebedee asked him whether they should not rain down fire on the

village, after the example of Elijah. Jesus replied by reminding them

of the nature of the spirit to which they belonged, a spirit with which

so destructive an act was incompatible. In our present case Jesus had

not to deal with men who had treated him with injustice, but with a

tree which he happened not to find in the desired state. Now, there is

here no special reason for departing from the above rule; on the

contrary, the chief reason which in the first case might possibly have

moved Jesus to determine on a judicial miracle, is not present in the

second. The moral end of punishment, namely, to bring the punished

person to a conviction and acknowledgment of his error, can have no

existence in relation to a tree; and even punishment in the light of

retribution is out of the question when we are treating of natural

objects destitute of volition. [1511] For one to be irritated against

an inanimate object, which does not happen to be found just in the

desired state, is with reason pronounced to be a proof of an

uncultivated mind; to carry such indignation to the destruction of the

object is regarded as barbarous, and unworthy of a reasonable being;

and hence Woolston is not wrong in maintaining, that in any other

person than Jesus, such an act would be severely blamed. [1512] It is

true that when a natural object is intrinsically and habitually

defective, it may very well happen, that it may be removed out of the

way, in order to put a better in its place; a measure, however, for

which, in every case, only the owner has the adequate motive and

authority (comp. Luke xiii. 7). But that this tree, because just at

that time it presented no fruit, would not have borne any in succeeding

years, was by no means self-evident:—nay, the contrary is implied in

the narrative, since the form in which the curse of Jesus is expressed,

that fruit shall never more grow on the tree, presupposes, that without

this curse the tree might yet have been fruitful.

Thus the evil condition of the tree was not habitual but temporary;

still further, if we follow Mark, it was not even objective, or

existing intrinsically in the tree, but purely subjective, that is, a

result of the accidental relation of the tree to the momentary wish and

want of Jesus. For according to an addition which forms the second

feature peculiar to Mark in this narrative, it was not then the time of

figs (v. 13); it was not therefore a defect, but, on the contrary,

quite in due order, that this tree, as well as others, had no figs on

it, and Jesus (in whom it is already enough to excite surprise that he

expected to find figs on the tree so out of season) might at least have

reflected, when he found none, on the groundlessness of his

expectation, and have forborne so wholly unjust an act as the cursing

of the tree. Even some of the fathers stumbled at this addition of

Mark’s and felt that it rendered the conduct of Jesus enigmatical;

[1513] and to descend to later times, Woolston’s ridicule is not

unfounded, when he says that if a Kentish countryman were to seek for

fruit in his garden in spring, and were to cut down the trees which had

none, he would be a common laughing-stock. Expositors have attempted to

free themselves from the difficulty which this addition introduces, by

a motley series of conjectures and interpretations. On the one hand,

the wish that the perplexing words did not stand in the text, has been

turned into the hypothesis that they may probably be a subsequent

gloss. [1514] On the other hand, as, if an addition of this kind must

stand there, the contrary statement, namely, that it was then the time

of figs, were rather to be desired, in order to render intelligible the

expectation of Jesus, and his displeasure when he found it deceived; it

has been attempted in various ways to remove the negative out of the

proposition. One expedient is altogether violent, οὗ being read instead

of οὐ, a point inserted after ἦν, and a second ἦν supplied after σύκων,

so that the translation runs thus: ubi enim tum versabatur (Jesus),

tempus ficuum erat; [1515] another expedient, the transformation of the

sentence into an interrogatory one, nonne enim, etc., is absurd. [1516]

A third expedient is to understand the words καιρὸς σύκων as implying

the time of the fig-gathering, and thus to take Mark’s addition as a

statement that the figs were not yet gathered, i.e. were still on the

trees, [1517] in support of which interpretation, appeal is made to the

phrase καιρὸς τῶν καρπῶν (Matt. xxi. 34). But this expression strictly

refers only to the antecedent of the harvest, the existence of the

fruits in the fields or on the trees; when it stands in an affirmative

proposition, it can only be understood as referring to the consequent,

namely, the possible gathering of the fruit, in so far as it also

includes the antecedent, the existence of the fruits in the field:

hence ἔστι καιρὸς καρπῶν can only mean thus much: the (ripe) fruits

stand in the fields, and are therefore ready to be gathered. In like

manner, when the above expression stands in a negative proposition, the

antecedent, the existence of the fruits in the field, on the trees,

etc., is primarily denied, that of the consequent only secondarily and

by implication; thus οὐκ ἔστι καιρὸς σύκων, means: the figs are not on

the trees, and therefore not ready to be gathered; by no means the

reverse: they are not yet gathered, and therefore are still on the

trees. But this unexampled figure of speech, by which, while according

to the words the antecedent is denied, according to the sense only the

consequent is denied, and the antecedent affirmed, is not all which the

above explanation entails upon us; it also requires the admission of

another figure which is sometimes called synchisis, sometimes

hyperbaton. For, as a statement that the figs were then still on the

trees, the addition in question does not show the reason why Jesus

found none on that tree, but why he expected the contrary; it ought

therefore, say the advocates of this explanation, to stand, not after

he found nothing but leaves, but after he came, if haply he might find

any thing thereon; a transposition, however, which only proves that

this whole explanation runs counter to the text. Convinced, on the one

hand, that the addition of Mark denies the prevalence of circumstances

favourable to the existence of figs on that tree, but, on the other

hand, still labouring to justify the expectation of Jesus, other

expositors have sought to give to that negation, instead of the general

sense, that it was not the right season of the year for figs, a fact of

which Jesus must unavoidably have been aware, the particular sense,

that special circumstances only not necessarily known to Jesus,

hindered the fruitfulness of the tree. It would have been a hindrance

altogether special, if the soil in which the tree was rooted had been

an unfruitful one; hence, according to some, the words καιρὸς σύκων

actually signify a soil favourable to figs. [1518] Others with more

regard to the verbal meaning of καιρὸς, adhere it is true to the

interpretation of it as favourable time, but instead of understanding

the statement of Mark universally, as referring to a regular, annual

season, in which figs were not to be obtained, they maintain it to mean

that that particular year was from some incidental causes unfavourable

to figs. [1519] But the immediate signification of καιρὸς is the right,

in opposition to the wrong season, not a favourable season as opposed

to an unfavourable one. Now, when any one, even in an unproductive

year, seeks for fruits at the time in which they are wont to be ripe,

it cannot be said that it is the wrong season for fruit; on the

contrary, the idea of a bad year might be at once conveyed by the

statement, that when the time for fruit came, ὅτε ἦλθεν ὁ καιρὸς τῶν

καρπῶν, there was none to be found. In any case, if the whole course of

the year were unfavourable to figs, a fruit so abundant in Palestine,

Jesus must almost as necessarily have known this as that it was the

wrong season; so that the enigma remains, how Jesus could be so

indignant that the tree was in a condition which, owing to

circumstances known to him, was inevitable.

But let us only remember who it is to whom we owe that addition. It is

Mark, who, in his efforts after the explanatory and the picturesque, so

frequently draws on his own imagination; and in doing this, as it has

been long ago perceived, and as we also have had sufficient

opportunities of observing on our way, he does not always go to work in

the most considerate manner. Thus, here, he is arrested by the first

striking particular that presents itself, namely, that the tree was

without fruit, and hastens to furnish the explanation, that it was not

the time for figs, not observing that while he accounts physically for

the barrenness of the tree, he makes the conduct of Jesus morally

inexplicable. Again, the above-mentioned divergency from Matthew in

relation to the time within which the tree withered, far from evincing

more authentic information, [1520] or a tendency to the natural

explanation of the marvellous on the part of Mark, is only another

product of the same dramatising effort as that which gave birth to the

above addition. The idea of a tree suddenly withering at a word, is

difficult for the imagination perfectly to fashion; whereas it cannot

be called a bad dramatic contrivance, to lay the process of withering

behind the scenes, and to make the result be first noticed by the

subsequent passers by. For the rest, in the assertion that it was then

(a few days before Easter) no time for figs, Mark is so far right, as

it regards the conditions of climate in Palestine, that at so early a

time of the year the new figs of the season were not yet ripe, for the

early fig or boccore is not ripe until the middle or towards the end of

June; while the proper fig, the kermus, ripens only in the month of

August. On the other hand, there might about Easter still be met with

here and there, hanging on the tree, the third fruit of the fig-tree,

the late kermus, which had remained from the previous autumn, and

through the winter: [1521] as we read in Josephus that a part of

Palestine (the shores of the Galilean sea), more fruitful, certainly,

than the country around Jerusalem, where the history in question

occurred, produces figs uninterruptedly during ten months of the year,

σῦκον δέκα μησὶν ἀδιαλείπτως χορηγεῖ. [1522]

But even when we have thus set aside this perplexing addition of

Mark’s, that the tree was not really defective, but only appeared so to

Jesus in consequence of an erroneous expectation: there still subsists,

even according to Matthew, the incongruity that Jesus appears to have

destroyed a natural object on account of a deficiency which might

possibly be merely temporary. He cannot have been prompted to this by

economical considerations, since he was not the owner of the tree;

still less can he have been actuated by moral views, in relation to an

inanimate object of nature; hence the expedient has been adopted of

substituting the disciples as the proper object on which Jesus here

intended to act, and of regarding the tree, and what Jesus does to it,

as a mere means to his ultimate design. This is the symbolical

interpretation, by which first the fathers of the church, and of late

the majority of orthodox theologians among the moderns, have thought to

free Jesus from the charge of an unsuitable action. According to them,

anger towards the tree which presented nothing to appease his hunger,

was not the feeling of Jesus, in performing this action; his object not

simply the extermination of the unfruitful plant: on the contrary, he

judiciously availed himself of the occasion of finding a barren tree,

in order to impress a truth on his disciples more vividly and indelibly

than by words. This truth may either be conceived under a special form,

namely, that the Jewish nation which persisted in rendering no pleasing

fruit to God and to the Messiah, would be destroyed; or under the

general form, that every one who was as destitute of good works as this

tree was of fruit, had to look forward to a similar condemnation.

[1523] Other commentators however with reason maintain, that if Jesus

had had such an end in view in the action, he must in some way have

explained himself on the subject; for if an elucidation was necessary

when he delivered a parable, it was the more indispensable when he

performed a symbolical action, in proportion as this, without such an

indication of an object lying beyond itself, was more likely to be

mistaken for an object in itself; [1524] it is true that, here as well

as elsewhere, it might be supposed, that Jesus probably enlarged on

what he had done, for the instruction of his disciples, but that the

narrators, content with the miracle, have omitted the illustrative

discourse. If however Jesus gave an interpretation of his act in the

alleged symbolical sense, the Evangelists have not merely been silent

concerning this discourse, but have inserted a false one in its place;

for they represent Jesus, after his procedure with respect to the tree,

not as being silent, but as giving, in answer to an expression of

astonishment on the part of his disciples, an explanation which is not

the above symbolical one, but a different, nay, an opposite one. For

when Jesus says to them that they need not wonder at the withering of

the fig-tree, since with only a little faith they will be able to

effect yet greater things, he lays the chief stress on his agency in

the matter, not on the condition and the fate of the tree as a symbol:

therefore, if his design turned upon the latter, he would have spoken

to his disciples so as to contravene that design; or rather, if he so

spoke, that cannot have been his design. For the same reason, falls

also Sieffert’s totally unsupported hypothesis, that Jesus, not indeed

after, but before that act, when on the way to the fig-tree, had held a

conversation with his disciples on the actual condition and future lot

of the Jewish nation, and that to this conversation the symbolical

cursing of the tree was a mere key-stone, which explained itself: for

all comprehension of the act in question which that introduction might

have facilitated, must, especially in that age when there was so strong

a bias towards the miraculous, have been again obliterated by the

subsequent declaration of Jesus, which regarded only the miraculous

side of the fact. Hence Ullmann has judged rightly in preferring to the

symbolical interpretation, although he considers it admissible, another

which had previously been advanced: [1525] namely, that Jesus by this

miracle intended to give his followers a new proof of his perfect

power, in order to strengthen their confidence in him under the

approaching perils. Or rather, as a special reference to coming trial

is nowhere exhibited, and as the words of Jesus contain nothing which

he had not already said at an earlier period (Matt. xvii. 20; Luke

xvii. 6), Fritzsche is more correct in expressing the view of the

Evangelists quite generally, thus: Jesus used his displeasure at the

unfruitfulness of the tree, as an occasion for performing a miracle,

the object of which was merely the general one of all his miracles,

namely to attest his Messiahship. [1526] Hence Euthymius speaks

entirely in the spirit of the narrators, as described by Fritzsche,

[1527] when he forbids all investigation into the special end of the

action, and exhorts the reader only to look at it in general as a

miracle. [1528] But it by no means follows from hence that we too

should refrain from all reflection on the subject, and believingly

receive the miracle without further question; on the contrary, we

cannot avoid observing, that the particular miracle which we have now

before us, does not admit of being explained as a real act of Jesus,

either upon the general ground of performing miracles, or from any

peculiar object or motive whatever. Far from this, it is in every

respect opposed both to his theory and his prevailing practice, and on

this account, even apart from the question of its physical possibility,

must be pronounced more decidedly, than any other, to be such a miracle

as Jesus cannot really have performed.

It is incumbent on us, however, to adduce positive proof of the

existence of such causes as, even without historical foundation, might

give rise to a narrative of this kind. Now in our usual source, the Old

Testament, we do, indeed, find many figurative discourses and

narratives about trees, and fig-trees in particular; but none which has

so specific an affinity to our narrative, that we could say the latter

is an imitation of it. But we need not search long in the New

Testament, before we find, first in the mouth of the Baptist (Matt.

iii. 10), then in that of Jesus (vii. 19), the apothegm of the tree,

which, because it bears no good fruit, is cut down and cast into the

fire; and further on (Luke xiii. 6 ff.) this theme is dilated into the

fictitious history of a man who for three years in vain seeks for fruit

on a fig-tree in his vineyard, and on this account determines to cut it

down, but that the gardener intercedes for another year’s respite. It

was already an idea of some fathers of the church, that the cursing of

the fig-tree was only the parable of the barren fig-tree carried out

into action. [1529] It is true that they held this opinion in the sense

of the explanation before cited, namely, that Jesus himself, as he had

previously exhibited the actual condition and the approaching

catastrophe of the Jewish people in a figurative discourse, intended on

the occasion in question to represent them by a symbolical action;

which, as we have seen, is inconceivable. Nevertheless, we cannot help

conjecturing, that we have before us one and the same theme under three

different modifications: first, in the most concentrated form, as an

apothegm; then expanded into a parable; and lastly realized as a

history. But we do not suppose that what Jesus twice described in

words, he at length represented by an action; in our opinion, it was

tradition which converted what it met with as an apothegm and a parable

into a real incident. That in the real history the end of the tree is

somewhat different from that threatened in the apothegm and parable,

namely, withering instead of being cut down, need not amount to a

difficulty. For had the parable once become a real history, with Jesus

for its subject, and consequently its whole didactic and symbolical

significance passed into the external act, then must this, if it were

to have any weight and interest, take the form of a miracle, and the

natural destruction of the tree by means of the axe must be transformed

into an immediate withering on the word of Jesus. It is true that there

seems to be the very same objection to this conception of the narrative

which allows its inmost kernel to be symbolical, as to the one above

considered; namely, that it is contravened by the words of Jesus which

are appended to the narrative. But on our view of the gospel histories

we are warranted to say, that with the transformation of the parable

into a history, its original sense also was lost, and as the miracle

began to be regarded as constituting the pith of the matter, that

discourse on miraculous power and faith, was erroneously annexed to it.

Even the particular circumstance that led to the selection of the

saying about the removal of the mountain for association with the

narrative of the fig-tree, may be shown with probability. The power of

faith, which is here represented by an effectual command to a mountain:

Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, is elsewhere (Luke xvii.

6) symbolized by an equally effectual command to a species of fig-tree

(συκάμινος): Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the

sea. Hence the cursing of the fig-tree, so soon as its withering was

conceived to be an effect of the miraculous power of Jesus, brought to

mind the tree or the mountain which was to be transported by the

miraculous power of faith, and this saying became appended to that

fact. Thus, in this instance, praise is due to the third gospel for

having preserved to us the parable of the barren συκῆ, and the apothegm

of the συκάμινος to be transplanted by faith, distinct and pure, each

in its original form and significance; while the two other synoptists

have transformed the parable into a history, and have misapplied the

apothegm (in a somewhat altered form) to a false explanation of that

pretended history. [1530]