CHAPTER III: THE MINISTRY IN GALILEE
1. JESUS DEPARTS FROM JUDAEA AND PREACHES IN GALILEE
HOME | Contents | Chapter III: PART I: 35.John is thrown in prison. Jesus begins His ministry | 36.The woman of Samaria | 37.The royal official's son healed | 38.Christ's public ministry begins | 39.Preaching at Nazareth | 40-41.Jesus at Capharnaum | 42.A possessed man cured | 43.Peter's wife's mother and other sick healed | 45.The preaching spreads | 46.The call of Simon, Andrew, James and John | 47.A leper healed | PART II >.
John is thrown into prison; Jesus begins His ministry (35).
Luke iv.14-15; Mark i.14: Matthew iv.12-17; John iv.1-3.
WE do not know whether, even after these words of John, his disciples were
able to understand what was in their master's mind.
If some of them did understand,
then they showed it by following Jesus, at least after John's death;
but we cannot help admiring those of his disciples who remained faithful to
him while he was in prison.
Some of them seem not to have been affected by
the preaching of the gospel-perhaps they had already quitted Palestine -
and
it was only later at Ephesus that they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
[Acts xix.1-7.]
John had very soon been cast into prison by Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of
Galilee, and it was from his prison cell that he sent forth that cry of great
tenderness with which he set the seal upon his mission.
But we shall return
to this later when we come to speak of his martyrdom.
The Pharisees, who as
a body felt little sympathy with John's preaching, were relieved to think that
his troublesome outbursts of fervour were finished with;
but they very soon
found out that now Jesus was becoming the centre of increasing excitement.
Hence from their point of view things were no better:
indeed, judging by the
scene which had recently taken place in the Temple, things seemed to be worse.
Jesus now returned to Galilee along with a few disciples who had come with
Him on pilgrimage to Jerusalem;
He had no desire to throw Himself in the way
of the Pharisees and their plots. Moreover, now that John was removed, the
time had come for Him to begin preaching the kingdom of God on His own account
in the land of Galilee.
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The woman of Samaria (36).
If He was to avoid irritating the Pharisees, Jesus could not return home by
way of Jerusalem.
He might have followed the same route as once before and
reached the shores of the lake of Galilee by going back along the Jordan.
However,
some reason unknown to us led Him to join the road from Jerusalem to Nazareth
at a place not far from the present town of Nablus.
[Almost
completely destroyed by the earthquake of July 11, 1927.
For an account of this city see Revue Biblique, 1923, pp. 120 ff., and
P. Jaussen's Naplouse.]
The Paschal feast was
now over, hence the Samaritans were no longer on the look-out for Jewish pilgrims
whom they were in the habit of molesting;
moreover, Jesus and His companions
would come up from the Jordan either by way ofAqrabeh or else along the Wady
Farah, and so reach the hostile city from the east.
No one expected Jews to
come from that direction.
In order to see the meaning of certain incidents
that took place during this stay of Jesus among the Samaritans it is necessary
for us to call to mind the history of their quarrel with the Jews of Jerusalem.
The kingdom of Israel, which became the enemy of the kingdom of Juda after
the schism of the tribes, chose Samaria for its capital.
King Omri showed great
genius in choosing for the site of this city an isolated hill, never built
on before, which provided a very strong position. [The recent
excavations have verified this.]
The city was rebuilt by
Herod after the Roman style and renamed Sebaste (in Latin Augusta) in honour
of Augustus, and it goes by the name of Sebastiyeh to this day.
But although
the name of the city was changed, the country still went by the name of the
Land of the Samaritans.
The nationalist and orthodox Jews of Jerusalem manifested
a profound contempt for these Samaritans whom they did not consider as true
Israelites;
and, indeed, they were descended for the most part from non-Israelite
colonists settled there by the Assyrian conquerors of the country, chiefly
by Esarhaddon.
These colonists had brought their own gods with them.
Still
they had been influenced in some degree by the
Israelite element that had remained in the country.
First of all, it was a
universal law in the ancient world that a man had to pay homage to the god
of the land in which he dwelt, and further, as is often the case, the new-comers
had begun to take pride in a strong attachment to their new home and to the
customs of the country.
[For an account of the Samaritans during the Persian period
see the Assouan papyri, edited by Sachau.]
Hence after the return of the Jews from captivity
in Babylon the Samaritans had expressed a desire to contribute towards the
rebuilding of the Temple;
the returned exiles had refused their offer.
But
as they worshipped the same God as the Jews, even though they showed themselves
hostile to the religious authorities at Jerusalem, these Samaritans could
not be regarded merely as Gentiles;
they were considered as schismatics.
An example of the lengths to which such religious hatred as this can go is
shown to us in the case of those orthodox Greeks who, before the fall of
Constantinople, chose Mohammedanism rather than submit to the Papacy.
The enmity between the Samaritans and Jerusalem came to a head when the priest
Manasses, whom the hierarchy at Jerusalem had expelled from the Temple, took
refuge in Samaria and set up there a rival altar.
[Cf. Josephus, Antiquities,
XI, viii, 2.]
In opposition to Mount Sion
he established the sanctuary on Mount Garizim.
This hill, rising alongside
Mount Ebal, looks towards the south over a narrow, well-watered and very fertile
valley, through which runs the direct road between Galilee and Judasa.
In this
valley, which was protected on the east by the ancient city of Sichem, the
Samaritan sect had established its centre, especially as Samaria had been destroyed
by the Jewish prince Hyrcanus in 128 BC.
It was later rebuilt by Herod as
a pagan city.
In that locality religion could be linked up with the very ancient
stories of the time of the Judges, when Abimelech, king of Sichem, was the
chief prince of Israel: with the stories of the patriarchs, too, for Jacob
had given his son Joseph a piece of land near Sichem. [Genesis
xxxiii.19 and xlviii.22.]
From the top of Mount
Garizim can be seen a wide view:
the modern town of Nablus,
the site of the
altar on Mount Ebal where Josue promulgated the Law [Cf. Revue
Biblique, 1926, pp. 98 ff.],
the ruins of Sichem
down in the plain,
the village of Askar,
the tomb of Joseph and Jacob's well,
the plain of Mahneh,
and the mountains that shut off Jerusalem to the south.
[Renan, Vie de Jésus, Appendix, p. 493: 'The topography
of vv. 3-6 is very satisfactory.
Only a Jew of Palestine who had often entered the vale of Sichem that way could
have written it.']
In choosing this route, therefore, for His journey to Nazareth from that part
of the Jordan valley which lay within the bounds of Judaea, Jesus had to pass
through Samaria.
The road that comes up by Aqrabeh emerges from the hills
at the south of a rich plain covered by fields of waving corn in the spring-time,
and crosses it diagonally as far as Jacob's well.
From there the travellers
could see the ruins of Sichem a short distance to the north.
The ancient
city had for a long time been in a state of ruin, and about the time of the
Seleucids its site had been moved to the valley that lies between Ebal
and Garizim.
During the reign of Vespasian it had taken the new name of Flavia
Neapolis in honour of the emperor, and thus has become the modern Nablus.
But recent excavations have shown that the old site of Sichem was still occupied
during the period of the Roman domination of Palestine, though the ancient
city at that time went by the name of Sichora, for it can be taken as certain
that the Sychar of the gospel is the more recent Aramaic form of the ancient
name of Sichem.
[I have expressed the contrary opinion in my Commentary
on the Gospel of St. John, but the excavations of Sellin and Welter at Sichem
in 1927 have proved that I was wrong, and have solved all the difficulties
that I raised in the commentary.
As the Samaritan woman lived quite near to the well she would come there for
water.
The name Sychar, later changed to Askar, was transferred to a hamlet about half
a mile east of the ruins of Sichem after that site had been completely abandoned.
There is a well at Askar near which people built their houses.]
As the travellers approached the little town of Sychar they came across a
well at the roadside.
Jesus was tired and sat down on the edge of the well
to rest His weary limbs after the climb from the valley, while His disciples
went to the town to find food.
This detail is preserved for us by the writer
who speaks of Jesus as the Word, the Son of the Father, who is God like His
Father;
but the same writer knows that Jesus has taken upon Himself all that
capacity for suffering which is the common lot of humanity. He is tired out
and thirsty.
About midday a woman comes to draw water.
There is nothing strange in that
if she dwelt at Sychar, the ancient
Sichem, which was about two hundred yards away and had no water of its own.
As this Samaritan woman lowers her pitcher into the well Jesus begs her to
give Him a drink.
No one would refuse such a small service as that, and the
woman does not think of saying no.
But she wants to show that she recognizes
the speaker as a Jew and that she is going to do Him a favour.
How comes
it that He, a Jew, is so different from His proud and contemptuous countrymen
that He deigns to ask for water from a Samaritan woman?
Jesus is not pleased at the somewhat jesting, yet aggressive, tone in which
the woman speaks.
She thinks Him but a narrow-minded Jew;
yet there was He,
able in His greatness and generosity to bestow on her living water.
Did she
but realize who it was with whom she had to do she would be the one to beg.
The woman is provoked to reply.
Where was He to get living (i.e. running)
water,
seeing that He had not even a vessel with which to draw water from this
deep well?
Was He able to make water spring up from the ground and thus show
Himself to be mightier than Jacob, 'our father Jacob' as she says with emphasis,
who had to dig this well in order to provide his children and flocks with water?
But what would be the use of a miracle like that, and what purpose would be
served by such ordinary living (i.e. running) water ? Jesus is speaking of
a different sort of water and of a far more amazing miracle, though it is a
miracle that lies hidden in men's souls. He who drinks of His water shall thirst
no more, for he will have the spring within himself, a spring that begins to
flow during this life and goes on flowing still in that eternal life to which
the power of this water shall lead him.
The woman then replies:
'Lord, give me this water,
that I may thirst no more,
nor come hither to draw.'
She seems docile in her acquiescence;
but
she is far from being artless, and, moreover, she has not understood the lesson.
We catch a smile, almost a sneer, on her lips.
Come, then, she seems to say:
let us see this great prodigy!
But here Jesus
strikes the decisive blow:
'Go, call thy husband, and come hither.'
Still critical, the Samaritan woman pretends that she finds a flaw in that penetrating power by which Jesus appears to claim knowledge of the secrets of eternal life.
'I have no husband,'
she says.
'That is true,'
replies this mysterious personage,
'for thou hast had five husbands,
and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.'
Here we must interrupt this terse conversation.
There are some listeners
who have drawn very near to Jacob's well -
we mean the modern critics.
They too
claim the right to tell this Samaritan woman the truth about herself.
They
strip her of her human character as a woman, vivid as that character is, and
turn her into a mental fiction, a mere symbol other country which had formerly
worshipped five different deities, brought thither from Mesopotamia along with
the colonists whom the king of Assyria had transported into Samaria.
As a matter
of fact the Bible does speak [4 Kings (2 Kgs) xvii.30 ff.] of
five nations, but it mentions seven gods.
But precise details are nothing to the allegorists.
As early as the thirteenth
century a commentator had drawn a comparison between five false gods and the
five husbands of the Samaritan woman:
at that period it was the fashion to
draw allegorical meanings from the words of Scripture.
Nevertheless, the above-mentioned
commentator did not call into question the woman's reality;
instead of taking
her for an inconstant wife of doubtful morals he only brought against her the
very unlikely accusation of practising the idolatry of her ancestors.
The modern
critics have still less respect than this ancient commentator for the literal
sense of Scripture, but they are no happier in their interpretation.
They would
have us believe that the Samaritan woman here stands for the Samaritan nation
which Jesus addresses as follows:
'You Samaritans were formerly idolaters
and now you are schismatics.'
However, they turn her into a woman again so
that she may go and speak to her compatriots, who, as John shows us, were of
better dispositions than the Jews and more docile towards Jesus.
No, the writer
certainly intends to depict a woman of flesh and blood, cunning and shrewd
of mind, but at the same time full of sensibility and honesty once her heart
has been convinced;
and her conviction does not proceed from arguments drawn
from ancient history but from the fact that the secrets of her life have been
laid bare.
It is not ancient history but her own history that touches her heart.
So she had really had five husbands, which, to say the
least, was not very creditable.
One or other of the five may have died it is
true.
But five!
She must then have been divorced several times.
And for
what reasons?
It is hardly likely that the fault was on the side of all
the discontented husbands.
At any rate that was not the verdict of public
opinion;
so eventually, unable to find another match, she had consented
to take a partner without the security of marriage.
Every Jew who had been to school would know by heart the story of the ancient
idolatry of the Samaritans, but how was it possible for a mere stranger to
be aware of this woman's disreputable history?
The woman therefore gives in
:
'Lord, I see that Thou art a prophet.'
But she soon leaves such dangerous
ground;
she feels safer on the religious topic.
And, it may be, now that she
is convinced of this prophet's supernatural insight she wishes sincerely to
ask His opinion on the religious question, a thing less irksome to her than
the private admonition she fears He may give her.
The poor woman points with
trembling hand to the neighbouring mountain, saying that the patriarchs and
all the fathers of old had worshipped there:
Jacob who had dug this well, Joseph who had received this field as his inheritance,
even Abraham himself, according to the local tradition of the Samaritans which
had been inserted in the Scriptures by an adroit alteration of the text.
[By reading Moreh instead of Moriah for the place of Isaac's
sacrifice (Genesis xxii.2), understanding Moreh of the mountain which overshadowed
Sichem.]
But
the Jews, she says, maintain that Jerusalem is the place where God is to be
worshipped.
A choice had to be made between the two, for a nation can have
only one centre of worship.
But both Samaritans and Jews had the same ancestors,
and they both made the same claim.
Which of them was right?
The question was
one for a prophet.
Jesus does not evade it.
In the past the Jews had right on their side, for
the letter of the Law unquestionably supported their claim;
and they had also
the promises regarding the future.
But now, what mattered one mountain or the
other?
Was the Father to have no worshippers but in one tiny country?
Then
came the words:
'The hour cometh, and now is,
when the true adorers shall
adore the Father in spirit and in truth ';
and that will be neither on this
mountain nor at Jerusalem only, but wherever a faithful heart, recognizing
God as a spirit, adores Him in a spirit of sincere abandonment to the truth
that it recognizes and possesses.
Greece had already seen its national religious
rites attacked by the philosophers;
but the philosophers had not provided
any substitute:
on the contrary, more often than not they themselves had followed
the general fashion and practised the worship of false gods.
Among the Jews
it was the true God who was worshipped;
but as God was the Creator of all
mankind and not merely of the Jews, then He ought to be worshipped by all men
and in all places.
Not that Jesus wishes to put an end to all external worship,
a thing which is so well adapted to the needs of human nature.
But to adore
means to render a worship of homage and praise, and the essential thing is
that such adoration, wheresoever and by whomsoever it is paid, should proceed
from an inward disposition of the soul, so that the adorer may become one with
God who is a spirit.
The hour that was coming was the time when the worship
of God should be such a spiritual worship, and the Christian faithful have
always adored God in that fashion.
Thus, when He announced the coming of that
hour, Jesus, who was more than a prophet, yet uttered a prophecy that has clearly
been fulfilled all over the world.
The Samaritan woman thought she was conceding a great deal when she gave Jesus
the title of prophet.
She is pleased at His reply, though it is still a little
beyond her.
However, she no longer shows any desire to be contentious;
she even volunteers the profession that, like her compatriots, she looks for
the Messiah.
He will explain everything when He comes.
To this Jesus says simply,
but no doubt in a tone that forces conviction on the soul of the listener:
'I am He:
I who speak to thee.'
The woman is startled even to bewilderment;
she puts
down her pitcher and goes off to the town.
The haste with which she goes
is a guarantee other belief;
but a still stronger proof of her faith lies
in her proclaiming what tells so much against all her past life:
'Come and see a man who has told me all the things that I have done.'
And
since she, a weak woman, very weak indeed, does not dare to impose her own
conviction on others, based as it is on such a personal motive, she merely
suggests it by asking the question: 'Would He not be the Christ? '
The Samaritan woman's pleasant chatter is certainly less moving than the silent
tears of the woman who was a sinner
or Mary Magdalen's cry at the empty tomb;
but what animation, what ingenuity,
what art we see in her!
And her heart is true, despite her past disorders
which, no doubt, she had not hesitated to justify in the eyes of others,
even though she could not deceive herself.
When Jesus, at His final reply,
speaks with authority, she lets fall the shield of national pride and disdain
behind which she has sheltered.
Her first act of contrition is to confess
her sin, the second is to act as an apostle to others, and in doing that
she repeats her confession.
Here we have a wonderful and unparalleled demonstration
of the power of Jesus.
She was a woman well accustomed to disputes, but though
one might suggest that she had more than met her match in Jesus, yet we prefer
to leave it unsaid, for the words of Jesus rise far above her horizon.
They
do not speak the same language, for her mental vision is bounded by the things
that have formed the common subject of gossip with her neighbours, while
He lives in contemplation of the merciful plans of God.
From the thought
of drawing water she goes on to the idea of Jacob and his well, then to the
patriarchs and to the mountain whose summit they see before them, passing
capriciously from one subject to another in such sort that her talk leads
nowhere;
while all the time He is gently guiding her thoughts to the desire
of grace, to the life of the soul and adoration of the Father.
There is no
trace in His manner of Socratic irony:
He does not employ that pretence
of ignorance which has for its object to lead one's adversary to show off
his knowledge, and inevitably causes him to reveal how little he really knows.
He makes no claim to knowledge of divine things as He does with the rabbi
Nicodemus;
but it is plain, nevertheless, that He possesses it, and His
kindness of heart leads Him to share it with this sinful woman, for whose
salvation He manifests such great condescension.
How like Him, the Teacher
and Saviour of mankind!
Meanwhile the disciples had returned.
The attitude towards women in the land
of Israel at that time was similar to what it is in Palestine to-day, where
a woman is respected in such a way as to make her almost unapproachable.
A
traveller would not even ask her the way.
Hence in the days of Our Lord it
was not customary for a man to hold a long conversation with a woman whom he
might meet;
the disciples, however, have too much respect for their
Master to show their surprise by questions.
When the woman has gone they urge
Him to eat of the food they have In-ought out of the town;
but He, whose
thirst had provided Him with an occasion of raising the thoughts of the Samaritan
woman to the desire of God's gift, refuses to eat before teaching His disciples.
To do the will of God who had sent Him, that is His true food;
and to
show that this work is at hand He uses the example of the harvest now ripening
all around them, the dazzling brightness of the midday sun making it appear
to their eyes as though it were white.
So long as the corn is not ripe we
can give an excuse for not troubling about it by quoting the proverb:
'Yet four months, and then the harvest cometh.'
[This is Origen's interpretation, though the general interpretation
is that the words refer to what the disciples have said, namely, that it
would be four months yet before the harvest was ripe in the valley of Sichem.
This would mean that the incident occurred about the end of January.
But the phrase 'Do you not say? ' rather indicates that Jesus is using a proverb.
Moreover, He compares the spiritual harvest to an existing reality, for He goes
on to say:
'See, the fields are already turning white.'
Hence it must have been summer.]
We leave it alone, then,
for the earth is doing the work for us and preparing a rich crop.
But we
must know what to do wlien the moment comes.
And sometimes it is not the sower
who reaps;
but what does that matter?
If it be God's work, then both sower
and reaper will share the same joy.
In the case of the work of which He now
speaks, it is God's servants of old time who had sowed, but it is now time
for the disciples to begin their work.
To the mind of Jesus, they have
already been sent out.
Into what field?
He does not yet say, but later on
He will tell them that their field is the world. [John xvii.18.]
An abundant harvest, however, was already before their eyes, for some of
the Samaritans of Sichem-Sychar who had been won over by the woman's firm belief
hurried towards the well and invited Jesus to stay among them.
He stayed two days, and they received His teaching with such docility that
they were able to say:
'We ourselves have heard Him,
and we know that He is indeed the Saviour of the world.'
The grandeur of this title is astounding, though on their lips it has not
the special character that we now give it.
Unlike the Jews, this hybrid nation
of Samaritans was accustomed to bestow the name of Saviour on any sovereign,
howsoever he ruled, whether well or ill.
With greater reason, then, could
they call the Roman emperor the Saviour
of the world.
But if that was so, could they hope for less from the Messiah
than they hoped for from the emperor?
St. John is not the only one to speak of the good dispositions of the Samaritans.
The first documents of Christian teaching which were chiefly intended for converted
Jews, the gospels, namely, of St. Matthew and St. Mark, say nothing of Christ's
teaching among the Samaritans;
[Out of consideration for
Jewish prejudices Jesus forbade His disciples even to go among the Samaritans
when He first sent them out to preach. (Matt. x.5.)]
but St. Luke, who was writing for Gentiles,
deals much more kindly with this people. [Luke x.33 , xvii.11,
16.]
After the Resurrection these first
seeds sown among them by Jesus were developed by the preaching of the Apostles.
[Acts viii.25.]
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The healing of the royal official's son (37).
When Jesus left the Samaritans and returned to Galilee
He called at Cana as
He had done on the former occasion,
though for what reason we do not know.
Soon after His arrival He was told that an official had come belonging to the
court of Herod Antipas.
The man was therefore a Jew.
From Capharnaum, where
the duties of his post caused him to dwell,
he had climbed the hill which leads
from the lake to the plain of Galilee.
The man was in great trouble of soul
because his son was in danger of death,
and he begged Jesus to go down and
heal him.
His faith was quite sincere but by no means perfect,
for he never
dreamed that the Master could work a miracle from such a distance.
[About
eighteen miles.]
Jesus calls
his attention to this point;
but was that the time for argument, when any
moment might be too late?
The officer therefore replies with agonized impatience:
'Lord, come down before that my son die.'
Jesus answers this cry of affliction by granting the father's prayer more promptly than he could have dared to hope.
'Go thy way.
Thy son liveth.'
The father believed and went his way.
Thus briefly does the evangelist tell the story.
Since the man believed, he could hardly show great haste to verify the miracle;
besides, he would have to allow his animals and followers some rest.
And the
sacred text itself
declares that it was not until the morrow that he met his servants coming to
tell him the good news.
The fever had abated the day before at the seventh
hour, that is at about one o'clock in the afternoon.
It was precisely the
time when Jesus had spoken,
and the man's faith, now more firm than ever,
spreads through all his household.
Thus is it made manifest that the supernatural power of Jesus did not depend
on His touch, or on any treatment, formula of words or exercise of influence
on the sick person's mind or nerves.
It was, then, superior to anything that
misguided men might seek from the practice of magic.
Magic, as everyone knew,
was powerless to heal or to destroy unless the magician had at his disposal
either a hair, or a nail or at the very least a thread from a garment worn
by the person on whom he wished to exercise his magic.
But with Jesus we are
in another sphere altogether;
it is the sphere not of the material but of
the spiritual world.
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The beginning of Christ's public ministry (38).
Luke iv.14-15; Mark i.14-15; Matthew iv.17; John iv.45.
Every movement started among men, whether it be religious or secular, is a
matter of gradual development.
Even very great men need to prepare themselves
for the carrying out of their mission.
In a group, one member will gradually
attain to a position of predominance by giving proofs of his power of leadership.
Now Jesus possessed a divine authority which was subject to no such conditions.
Nevertheless, it was part of His divine plan to observe the ordinary rules
which govern human nature, at least in so far as was necessary for the accomplishment
of the supernatural purpose He had in view.
And the fact that St. John records
(and he is the only one to do so) that there was a period during which Jesus
made what may be called a series of experiments, is a sure proof of his fidelity
to historical facts.
Before delivering His grand attack, Jesus makes, as it
were, a number of minor attacks on the enemy in order to train His men and
give them confidence.
At first He seems to obey the call of the Baptist, but it is only that He
may receive the homage of John;
and this act of homage truly stands for a
ceremony of investiture in which an institution that has become out of date
yields to the new order of things.
Then He appears at Jerusalem acting as an
intrepid avenger of God's rights, while He leaves to His disciples the task
of conferring a rite of baptism which later on Jesus will transform into Christian
baptism.
When passing through Samaria He calls His disciples to action, and
to those Samaritans who manifest good will He grants the first fruits of His
redeeming apostolate.
Finally He returns to His own country.
The voice of the Baptist is now silent;
no more is he heard preaching the kingdom
of God.
It is now time for Jesus to inaugurate that kingdom by proclaiming
that it has begun.
What Jesus does, says St. Luke, He does by the power of
the Spirit;
He teaches in the synagogues and His fame spreads through all
the surrounding country.
The teaching in the synagogues.
Jesus begins to preach the kingdom of God by teaching in the synagogues.
This
fact has been somewhat overshadowed by the pleasing picture we preserve of
Jesus speaking His parables from a boat to the crowd gathered on the shore,
perhaps also by the false idea left in people's minds by Renan's Galileean
idyll.
Yet the four gospels are quite definite and unanimous on the point:
Jesus often spoke in the synagogues.
It is merely another example of the way
in which He followed the accepted customs of His time and of the manner in
which He turned old religious institutions to account while putting a new spirit
into them.
The synagogue, which we think of chiefly as a place of prayer, was in fact
primarily intended as a school for religious teaching.
There could be no question
of performing worship there in the strict sense of the word, since the only
place for that was the Temple at Jerusalem.
In the days before the exile the
children of Israel were only too prone to break that rule, using the nearest
sacred hill to offer sacrifice, and that not always to Israel's God but sometimes
to Baal or Astarte.
After the authority of the Law had been firmly established
owing to the work of Nehemias and Esdras, public worship was no longer celebrated
except in
the Temple.
The three annual pilgrimages to the Temple, however, even on the
supposition that people were able to make them, were not sufficient to satisfy
the ever-growing religious sentiments of the nation.
Still less did they
satisfy those Jews who had migrated in large numbers to foreign lands.
As
sacrificial worship was forbidden them by the Law, except under the condition
laid down, the consequence was that this Law became the sole bond of union
between one Israelite and another, between the Israelite and his God.
It
became necessary, therefore, to learn it and to teach it, and the rabbis
spent their lives at this task.
But ordinary folk were under the necessity
of earning their daily bread.
Still, the week provided one day of rest, the
Sabbath, a day on which it was the custom to meet together.
It is natural
for us to think at once that the meeting was for the purpose of prayer in
common.
Community prayer was practised in Israel:
there was the liturgical
chant which accompanied the offering of sacrifice.
But was it considered
lawful to separate this chant, which was merely accessory, from the great
act of sacrifice, to sing psalms apart from the worship of the Temple?
Without
doubt it was.
Yet the fact remains that to the mind of the religious leaders
of the nation, now no longer the priests but those who were learned in the
Law, it seemed that the instruction of the people was of more importance
than anything else.
Hence they took advantage of these sabbath meetings at
which the people were gathered in one building in order to comment on the
Law and to exhort them to practise it so as to reform their behaviour in
accordance with the commands of God.
One form of this commentary went by
the name of the Halakah or The Way, and might best be compared to sermons
on the Decalogue.
The books of the prophets were also taken in their turn,
for exhortation should follow teaching;
moreover, the most effective argument
by which Israel might lie persuaded to return to God was the easily verified
fact that punishment was predicted for those who refused.
The whole history
of Israel in the past, with its alternation of apostasy and repentance, provided
an inexhaustible stock of soul-stirring examples.
This kind of teaching was
called the Haggadah or Story and may be compared to sermons on the lives
of the Saints.
The meeting at which this teaching took place was named keneseth in Hebrew,
but those who spoke Greek called it a synagogue (συναγωγή).
[In Egypt called proseuche (προσευχή), as we learn from
documents of the time of Ptolemy III (257-221 BC.).]
Soon
the word came to be used for the place where the meeting was held,
as has also
happened in the case of ἐκκλησία (ecclesia, church),
another Greek
word for meeting or assembly.
It was impossible for an organized body such as that to continue without a
head, hence a ruler or president of the synagogue was appointed, assisted by
a sort of sacristan.
But as there was no religious hierarchy outside Jerusalem
no one had the exclusive right to the office of teaching in the synagogue.
There were doubtless a number of people more capable than others and more readily
listened to;
but the ruler could, as he liked, invite any Israelite to address the synagogue,
though he might be only a passing stranger, provided always that he were of
blameless life and that he were known to be sufficiently versed in the inspired
writings.
The institution was so well adapted to the requirements of the condition in
which the Israelites found themselves that it spread everywhere.
In the time
of Jesus the Jews claimed to regard it as an institution which owed its origin
to Moses.
Ever since the time of Christ it has remained as the bond by which
the Jews all over the world have been kept closely united;
and the reading
of the Law, along with the recital of traditional prayers and sermons on the
Law and Prophets, have succeeded in keeping alive among them that fervent religious
conviction which serves as the foundation of a morality that is both lofty
and steadfast.
And of that morality their strong national sentiment is at once
the source and the result.
Racial feeling draws them together, and that feeling
is strengthened all the more by their common ancestral faith.
That is what
the institution of the synagogue does for Judaism as a whole;
the local synagogue
played a similar part for every little town.
It was the centre of Jewish patriotism
in every place throughout the world where the Jews of the Dispersion were scattered;
much more so was it the centre of patriotism on the sacred soil of the Holy
Land.
We can understand then that when Jesus returned to Galilee with the intention
of preaching the kingdom of God, which was now not merely at hand but actually
inaugurated in His own person, He would naturally desire
to offer His fellow-citizens of Nazareth in their Sabbath meetings at the synagogue
the first-fruits of the word of salvation.
top
|
Preaching at Nazareth (39).
Luke
iv.16-22.
[We follow the order of events as given by St. Luke since
it bears the marks of probability.
But when he makes the rejection of Jesus by the Nazareans follow immediately
on their approval of Him, his order does not seem so probable.
But Mark and Matthew also join together in one account the story of Jesus' success
and rejection at Nazareth, although their iccount comes at a later period of
the gospel story.
In our opinion the two episodes belong to two different times, and Luke himself,
when he refers to the miracles worked at Capharnaum (iv.23), gives reason to
think that the rejection of Jesus must have taken place later.]
Jesus, then, went to the synagogue 'according to His custom,' says St. Luke.
It is beyond doubt that He had always shown Himself assiduous in the performance
of His religious duties, and His piety was known to all.
It was also known
that He could read, for on occasion He would quote the sacred text for the
enlightenment of His relations and acquaintances.
Therefore when He offered
to read in the synagogue no hesitation was shown in handing to Him the sacred
scroll of the Holy Scriptures which then, as to-day, was the chief treasure
of each synagogue.
He received it from the minister of the synagogue and unrolled
it reverently,
stopping as by chance at this passage of the prophet Isaias:
'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because He hath anointed me to announce the good news to the poor;
He hath sent me to proclaim deliverance to captives
and sight to the blind,
to send the oppressed away free,
to proclaim the Lord's year of grace.'
[Isaias Ixi.1 ff.]
[To limit Jesus' preaching merely to one year is as much
as to say that the time of salvation was restricted to one year, though the
common belief was that the period of salvation was to be very long, perhaps
without end.
It is a year, at any rate, that is not yet ended.]
This passage is quoted by St. Luke from the Greek version of the Scriptures.
Jesus must have read it in Hebrew and then translated into the Aramaic dialect
which was used in Galilee.
It was a proclamation of good news:
God was about
to intervene:
a sort of jubilee was about to begin.
Isaias was thinking not so much of the return of the captives from Babylon
as of the happiness promised for messianic days.
He borrows his metaphors
from the sufferings endured by the people during his own time:
poverty,
captivity, blindness, especially moral blindness, oppression by conquerors
or by hard-hearted masters.
Jesus went on to explain how this scripture was
now fulfilled, gently leaving His hearers to conclude that the messenger
who brought them news of this grace was no other than Himself.
He seemed so worthy of such an office that
'all paid homage to Him
and wondered at the words of grace that proceeded from His mouth.'
Even if this fine show of enthusiasm had not been destined very soon to disappear
and to give place to a brutal feeling of enmity, nevertheless Jesus had no
desire that it should be thought He depended on the attachment of His relatives
and fellow-townsmen.
And as Nazareth, situated far from the great high-roads,
was hardly a suitable place for preaching a doctrine that was intended to penetrate
far and wide, Jesus left the home of His childhood and went to settle at Capharnaum;
though, seeing that He spent all His time wandering about in pursuit of souls
in order that He might lead them back to God, one can hardly speak of His settling
anywhere.
He went down from Nazareth, then, towards the lake of Galilee.
top
Jesus at Capharnaum (40-41).
Luke iv.31-44; Mark i.21-22; Matthew iv.13-16; vii.28 ff.
When we look down at the lake from the surrounding heights and catch sight
of a little basin of blue water set in the midst of a ring of barren hills
with not a white sail on its surface, beholding in its waters the picture of
no pleasant villages but, at times, the reflection of the snows of Hermon which
stands out far to the north, there comes to the mind the image of those lakes
of the high Alps, rarely visited and almost unknown, which God seems to have
placed among the inaccessible and dazzling peaks merely to serve as a mirror
of the sky.
But when We begin to descend towards the lake the basin seems to
grow bigger,
the shores to recede, and we see signs of life:
flocks and herds approach
the water to drink,
clumps of trees mark the site of Capharnaum and Bethsaida,
Tiberias comes into view with its surrounding wall of black stones.
There
is still tin aspect of desolation, but it is a desolation that is bathed
in light, made cheerful by a riot of colour, and transfigured by sacred memories.
In the days of Jesus the precipitous eastern shore was more thickly populated
than it is to-day, and the tiny sea constantly furrowed by boats carrying busy
travellers from one landing-place to another.
The plain of Genesareth, made
fertile by abundant springs and a tropical sun, provided a rich soil for cultivation.
Capharnaum, situated on the high-road from Jerusalem to Damascus and serving
as the frontier post of the Holy Land, was a centre of attraction both for
Jews and foreigners.
Doubtless the shore of the lake was well wooded all round,
though it is very rarely to-day that the traveller finds a tree under which
to shelter from the heat of the sun.
Still, there is always a certain freshness
of air to be found down by the shore,
and there the fisherman coming off his
boat
and the husbandman, leaving his plough
would mingle with the shopkeepers
and people of the town when their own day's work was done,
tasting the enjoyment
of the very pleasure of living during the delightful hours of the evening.
Of a strong and vigorous physique, the dwellers by the lake did not find the
great heat oppressive, tempered as it always is by the breeze that comes down
from the mountains in the northwest.
The Galileeans were unlike the Samaritans,
for they had been won back to their
ancestral faith by the Machabees;
and remained sincere in their attachment
to Judaism,
even though it was a Judaism which lacked those casuistic subtleties
which were the pride of Jerusalem.
Yet the Galilaeans were destined to follow
the example of their brethren of Jerusalem in the days to come, when, after
the lull of Jerusalem, the celebrated rabbinical schools were established at
Tiberias.
In the time of Jesus, however, their faith was of a simple character,
though none the less fervent on that account.
Like their fellow-Jews, they
were looking for the kingdom of God,
and they even found grounds for
hoping that it would commence in their own land.
Had not Isaias so foretold?
'Land of Zabulon, and land of Nephthali on the way of the sea,
Galilee of the Gentiles!'
[In Hebrew, literally, 'the district of the nations ' (gelil ha-goyim);
in other words, peopled with foreigners.
From gelil we get Galilee.]
'The people that sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and on them that sat in the region and shadow of death a light is risen.'
[Isaias ix.1-2 (Heb. viii.23-ix.1), quoted in Matthew iv.15 ff.
This passage of Isaias forms part of the Book of Emmanuel which is specially messianic.]
The Galilaeans were very proud of the light of the Law and were therefore
very restless under the yoke of the Herods, conscious all the time that behind
the Herods were the Romans.
Whenever a leader came forward they were always
ready to strike a blow for freedom.
Only lately they had put their hopes in
such a leader, Judas the Galilaean, but they had been disappointed;
nevertheless,
in the secrecy of their hearts they cherished hopes of a better leader than
he had proved to be.
[Cf. Lagrange, Messianisme chez les Juifs, p. 19.]
As soon as Jesus began to teach in the synagogue at Capharnaum this simple
and straightforward people immediately perceived that He followed a method
to which they were unaccustomed;
in the words of St. Mark [Mark i.22.], they were
astonished that He did not teach like the Scribes:
He taught with authority.
These Scribes
were the teachers of the people, and the very signification of their name,
which means writer or copyist, provides a good indication that all their authority
to teach proceeded from the Law, with which it was taken for granted that they
must be very familiar seeing that they had copied it so often.
A few words
of explanation are here necessary in order to show what is meant by St. Mark's
comment.
The Christian, no less than the Jew, venerates Holy Scripture and regards
it as inspired by God;
nor does he admit that anyone, not even the Sovereign
Pontiff himself, has the right to contradict its teaching.
But for us Scripture
is not everything;
its teaching is completed by Tradition handed down from
the time of the Apostles,
and this Tradition is of equal authority with Scripture.
The rule of faith, however, is not the interpretation of Scripture given by
this or that doctor of the Church:
it is a definite formula which the Church
recognizes as correctly representing the truths or dogmas revealed by God.
This formula contains
truths of faith which we are bound to accept, along with moral truths intended
for the government of our conduct.
But within this sphere of truth, whatever
be its extent, are contained only those unchangeable dogmas which are co-eternal
with God Himself.
There are, however, a multitude of human actions which
are conditioned by the different circumstances of time and place in which
men live, and the laws regulating such actions are therefore subject to change.
Thus the discipline by which the Church rules her members always takes into
account the progressive development of human society and of its manners.
In this sphere the Catholic Church, under the guidance of her chief Pastor,
is endowed with full authority to make such changes as are profitable in
view of man's eternal destiny:
as for the things which concern the temporal good of mankind, they are left
to the civil power to arrange according to the dictates of right reason.
Now in Israel , as is still the case in purely Mohammedan forms of society
[Except in Turkey since the reform established by Mustapha
Kemal.],
everything was arranged according to the religious law,
not even excluding
those things which we are accustomed to regard as outside the sphere of religion.
The religious law of Israel was the Law given to Moses on Sinai:
it was looked
on as an inviolable unity which had never been and must never be altered.
On
this account the Scribes, who were the doctors of the Law, were driven to exercise
tremendous ingenuity in order to draw from the sacred text the conclusions
which, in view of changed circumstances, were suggested, nay demanded, by reason.
By this exercise of mental gymnastics they performed prodigies of clever subtlety
and over-refinement.
So long, however, as their interpretations were adapted
to circumstances people accepted them, closing their eyes to the fact that
they had been extracted from the text by such weak and artificial methods of
exegesis.
It was laid down as a principle that all these commands were issued
under the authority of the Law alone and of Moses its author, to whom God had
revealed it.
But when it became only too obvious that there was lack of agreement
between the letter of the Law and its interpretation the Scribes had recourse
to the explanation that both the one and the other came down from Sinai:
the
letter in an open manner, the interpretation by means of the secret channel
of unbroken tradition
through Josue, the patriarchs, the prophets, the men of the Great Synagogue.
Innovations therefore, when they became prevalent, were credited with no
less authority than that of traditional truths just come to light. [Cf. Messianisme ...,
pp. 137-147.]
Far different was the method of Jesus whose mission it was to reveal the truth
on His own authority, a power not shared by the Church, for she teaches that
revelation finished with the death of the last of the Apostles.
It is her office
to guard the revelation deposited in her care, a treasure created by Jesus
and entrusted to her.
He spoke in God's name, with His own authority:
but
that authority was divine.
Here we place our finger on the underlying cause of the hostility shown to
Jesus by the doctors of the Law.
He did not attack the Law:
nay, He observed
it with great exactitude.
But He preached a doctrine that was purely religious
in character,
raised far above the merely accidental circumstances of political
and social life,
too lofty to be affected by any changes in human knowledge.
The Scribes, on the other hand, had striven to make the whole discipline of
life, even of knowledge, accommodate itself to their legal traditions.
Their
system was the framework of the whole life of the nation.
Such a system would
command respect as long as the Scribes had the upper hand;
but once religion
came to be looked on as the only thing that mattered, people would naturally
think that they had the right to arrange as they pleased that part of their
life which was outside the immediate scope of religion.
It seemed even possible
to the Scribes that the followers of this new religion might be so bold as
to consider the old system completely obsolete and hence reject the authority
of the doctors of the Law;
while the Law itself, once the human legislation contained in it was abandoned,
would be in danger of losing all its ascendancy.
That was as much as to say
that the very existence of the nation would be endangered;
that religious
unity, upon which was founded the political unity of the nation, would disappear
along with the power of the Scribes.
We do not mean to suggest that the good folk of Nazareth were able to foresee
all these consequences:
St. Paul, indeed, was the first to bring them out.
But there must have been some of the rabbis who had forebodings of them.
The feeling caused by Jesus' manner of teaching in the minds
of simple folk was merely one of amazement along with a touch of admiration.
At all events, thought they,
He must be a prophet since He spoke so well
and so persuasively,
not at all after the manner of the Scribes;
moreover,
He spoke with more authority than they.
top
The curing of a possessed man (42).
There were others who were astonished, and disagreeably so:
we mean the evil
spirits whose power was now threatened.
The long struggle which Satan would
have liked to avoid by overthrowing his enemy at one blow, as he had tried
to do in the desert, was now to begin.
In the synagogue at Capharnaum there was a man possessed by an unclean spirit.
It is possible that the demon had not yet made his presence known;
but now,
exasperated by the presence of Jesus, more particularly by His voice, he speaks
up in the name of the whole company of demons:
'Why hast Thou come here?
Thou art come to destroy us!
I know who Thou art, the Holy One of God.'
Jesus
rebuked him and drove him out, the unclean spirit uttering a loud cry as he
went out and causing his victim to writhe convulsively.
If the people have
been astonished by Jesus' teaching they are now stupefied with amazement.
The
miracle, at any rate, proved to them that the authority assumed by Him was
hy no means usurped.
The deliverance of this poor man, then, came opportunely:
it set a divine seal
upon Jesus' teaching and showed immediately that the power He enjoyed was to
be used for the good of mankind.
By this deliverance of one who had been the
victim of diabolical power,
and by the confession of defeat on the part of
the demons,
the kingdom of God was already commencing.
top
The healing of Peter's wife's mother and other sick (43-44).
Luke iv.38-41; Mark i.29-34; iii.11-12; Matthew viii.14-17.
Upon leaving the synagogue Jesus went to the house of Simon and Andrew.
They
were natives of Bethsaida, but
they too had come to live at Capharnaum, doubtless to be nearer Jesus.
James
and John had also come;
they have not yet been mentioned, but John was probably
Andrew's companion down by the Jordan.
These, then, form the group of the
first disciples.
[Such seems to us to be the order of the events.
The final call of the disciples had not yet taken place.]
Peter's wife's mother was ill with fever.
Jesus comes to her, having been begged
to do so by His companions who discreetly let it be seen that they hope He
will condescend to heal her.
He takes her by the hand and raises her from the
bed-probably no more than a few mats spread upon the ground.
The woman is straightway
cured and is well enough to wait at table during the frugal meal that follows.
In that one day at Capharnaum the whole gospel is contained.
People hear of
the healing of Simon's wife's mother following on the casting out of the devil.
At first their enthusiasm is kept within bounds because the Sabbath forbade
all disturbances that might have the appearance of work.
But when sunset brought
the celebration of the sacred rest to an end they immediately brought the sick
and the possessed to Jesus:
all the little city was crowded round the door.
In the midst of the clamour loud above all was heard the voice of the evil
spirits, conscious of a secret power which compelled them to fall down and
cry:
'Thou art the Son of God ! '
Jesus drives them out and puts them to
silence;
He also heals those who are suffering from various diseases.
Thus
His first contact with the people betrays His sympathy;
in His kindness of
heart He has compassion on their ills which He bountifully relieves.
top
The preaching spreads (45).
Luke iv.42-44; Mark i.35-39; Matthew iv.23-25.
At last they return to Simon's house, where Jesus agrees to take His rest.
But as His first desire is to teach His disciples what is the interior principle
from which all apostolic work must proceed, He rises very early in the morning
without disturbing the rest and goes out to a deserted place to pray.
When
Simon discovers this he is uneasy and goes after Him along with the others;
having found Him, he points out that everybody is anxious to see Him.
But
Capharnaum has been favoured enough:
the word must now be carried elsewhere.
Jesus was heard preaching in all the synagogues of Galilee, one after the
other.
[In the text of St. Luke we read Judaea, If the reading
is correct it is doubtless meant in a very wide sense so as to include Galilee.]
The call of Simon along with Andrew, James, and John (46).
Luke v.1-11; Mark i.16-20; Matthew iv.18-22.
Not until now, according to the order of St. Luke's narrative, does Jesus
make known to Simon how fully He intends to associate him, and others also,
with the work of His mission.
But there is nothing surprising in this delay.
He had first to show them in what the work consisted, and on that account He
wished to give them, while they were in His company, an actual example of His
programme of work.
Up to this time it had been the custom of the first disciples to leave their
Master alone to His work, so that now they were engaged in cleaning their nets
while He was preaching at the lake-side.
Their two boats had just returned
from fishing, having brought in nothing but seaweed or the rubbish that floats
on the water.
Jesus interrupts their work and, going on board Simon's boat,
asks him to pull out a little.
Seated thus in the boat it would be easier for
Him to be heard by the crowd, and they would have no occasion to press around
Him.
Afterwards He says to Simon:
'Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught.'
It was not a question of letting down the net at
random, but of lowering a very long triple net slowly into the water as the
boat advanced.
When they had gone far enough the fishermen had to row back
to their starting point, while they splashed the water with the oars so as
to frighten the fish into the meshes of the net.
[ Cf. Biever in Conférences de St. Etienne, 1910-1911,
pp. 305 ff.]
This was what Simon, along
with his brother Andrew as we may suppose, had been doing all night:
but without
result.
It cost him something to begin it all over again,
yet he replied:
'Master ... at Thy word I will let down the nets.'
He does so, and this time
the catch is so big that the nets burst.
James and John who were in the other
boat had not joined
in the fishing;
they were hailed to bring their boat, and both boats came
to land laden with fish.
Peter had already witnessed many miracles, but this
one frightens him.
Doubtless he has already realized that Jesus intends to
take him along with Him,
for now he hesitates, even draws back, pleading
his unworthiness:
'Depart from me,
for I am a sinful man, O Lord.'
The others also trembled with a religious fear.
Jesus says to Simon:
'Fear not !
From henceforth thou shalt catch men.'
The call and the promise are
first addressed to him alone;
but the others were fishermen too, so they
are also called to catch men.
Bringing their boats ashore, they left all
and followed Him.
The modern mind shies at miracles more readily than did men of old:
it finds
them a difficulty.
Yet the modern mind has an additional motive for belief
in the present case;
it has had the advantage of witnessing the fulfilment
of the prophecy spoken by Jesus.
Simon has indeed been a fisher of men,
and
his successors still continue to direct that work by the command of Christ;
they call other men to their help,
but it is they alone who have chief charge
of the whole work of the apostolate,
who determine its boundaries
and choose
apostles for that mission of peace
which frequently gains its victories by
means of the blood of its martyrs,
a mission which must be continued until
the gospel has penetrated to the ends of the earth.
When we read of this miraculous
draught of fishes,
surely no one will expect us to close our ears to that command
of Christ
which has been obeyed during all these centuries:
'Launch out into the deep.
Duc in altum.'
On the contrary,
it is an astounding fact that the
successors of Peter have continued to launch out always further,
and that fact
is more wonderful than the miraculous draught of fishes.
top
The healing of a leper (47).
Luke v.12-16; Mark i.40-45; Matthew viii.1-4.
In a place that the evangelists do not name -
St. Mark says that it was in
a house -
a leper came to Jesus.
Throwing himself at His feet, he besought Him:
'If Thou wilt,
Thou canst heal me.'
Leprosy is still found in Palestine, especially in Jerusalem.
It is always
an object of horror, but the Christian charity of certain devoted women who
look after the lepers is great enough to overcome their loathing for the
disease.
In the time of Jesus, however, the chief preoccupation was to isolate
the leper from the rest of the community.
It is difficult to define precisely
the disease that was then called leprosy:
the term was wide enough in meaning to include several different kinds of skin
disease.
It included in any case tuberculous leprosy which causes swelling
of the joints, and sometimes finger-bones and other parts fall off completely.
This disease, to-day common in Palestine, is not described in the Bible.
There
were leprosies which were thought to be curable:
the priests alone had the
right to pronounce on the cure, for a man was rendered ritually unclean by
the disease, which was regarded as a punishment from God.
But true leprosy
is incurable, and the only hope of being cleansed from it was by looking for
special intervention on the part of God. [4 Kings (2Kgs)
v.7.]
Fear of contagion, repugnance inspired
by the disease, the legal uncleanness which tainted the victim, all these reasons
had given rise to legislation which banished the leper from contact with his
fellow-men.
He was compelled to don a funereal garb by which he might easily
be recognized, and even commanded to denounce himself to the passer-by with
the cry: 'Unclean! Unclean! ' [Leviticus xiii.45.]
We can understand, then, what was the audacity of this leper who entered an
inhabited place, even a house, in order to come near Jesus.
He had broken the
Law.
But he was to be pitied, and moreover his faith was perfect.
The Master's
first feeling is one of compassion.
The leper has appealed to His will:
yes,
He does will it.
A cleansing is asked of Him:
He grants it.
Furthermore, He
adds a gesture which no leper would have dared to look for:
He touches the
unclean man,
and that gesture has become instinctive for heroic souls.
Jesus
has the right to touch the leper, inasmuch as the leprosy vanishes at His touch.
After thus giving way to His kindness of heart,
Jesus comes to the question
of the leper's position before the Law.
With a certain show of severity [For the meaning of ἐμβριμάομαι
see Commentary on St. John, p. 304.],
He
represents to him that he must be gone on the instant for fear of astonishing
and scandalizing those who saw him enter.
He is cured, but his legal position
is not yet secure.
The miracle does
not dispense him from the obligation of having his cure verified by the priests.
From them he must receive a certificate which he can show to everybody as
a sort of testimonial that he has recovered his rights in society.
Besides,
he must oner the sacrifice prescribed by Moses for the case. [Leviticus
xiv.2-32.]
Until all is
in order he must say nothing to anyone, for once re-admitted to the company
of his fellow-men he would no longer take the trouble to fulfil his duty.
That, it seems, is just what happened.
Doubtless it was a bad case of leprosy
which had gone so far that all hope of improvement had been given up.
There
was a great sensation, therefore, when the man published the news of his instantaneous
cure.
In the case of fever the cure is gradual as the fever falls;
recovery
from other diseases depends to some extent on the condition of the patient;
but skin diseases are plainly visible and their obstinacy is well known.
The
miracle, therefore, was plain for everyone to see;
yet Jesus had commanded
secrecy.
He knew, of course, that His miracles did not remain hidden and that
they were exciting the hopes of the populace, but He was determined not to
let loose any disturbance about a Messiah.
He therefore avoided entering the
towns in broad daylight.
But this did not endanger His ministry, for now the
crowd followed Him into the desert.
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