paid to all his movements, that, as the same testimony acknowledges, he could not be hid. The final end of this concealment itself was, in my judgment, to escape the observation of his pertinacious enemies, the Scribes and Pharisees; and I consider such a visit, to such a quarter, an argument that he must have left Capernaum soon after the last transaction, the effect of which, as St. Matthew informed use, was not to diminish, but to widen, the breach between them, and to aggravate their ill-will towards himself. He might choose the parts of Tyre and Sidon, not merely on account of their remoteness from Judæa, though that was some days' journey in extent, but because it was a Gentile country, into which they would scruple to follow him; or at least because of their proximity to the dominions of Philip, the only one among the sons of Herod who seems to have been a good and just princes; and more likely to afford shelter and protection, within his government, to an innocent party, persecuted by the most powerful and unprincipled of the Jewish sects, than the Tetrarch of Galilee. I should not consider it improbable that, like Elijah in the days of Ahab, our Lord might bend his steps, on this occasion, in the direction of Zarephath, or Sarepta; for that was midway between Tyre and Sidon1, and, according to Jerome, situated on the high road. One thing is clear; viz. that the miracle, performed on the daughter of the SyroPhoenician woman, must have been performed almost as soon as he arrived, and directly after he had entered some house; which circumstance enables us to harmonize the two accounts of it accordingly. The comparison of the Evangelists renders it self-evident that St. Matthew, from verse 22. to 24. inclusive, begins with relating what took place in public; and from verse 25. to the end, proceeds to what took place in private; whereas St. Mark, from first to last, confines himself to the latter only. The woman first made her application to our Lord • XV. 12. f Jos. Cont. Apion. ii. 9. Ant. Jud. xviii. iv. 6. h Ant. Jud. viii. xiii. 2. Hieron. Oper. ii. De Situ et Nominibus. i Matt. XV. 22-28. Mark vii. 25-30. in public, and before he had entered into any house; for this is what is meant by her crying unto him, in verse 22. and her crying after them, in verse 23. For, even subsequent to this, she is said, at verse 25. to have come and worshipped him; which denotes that she fell down at his feet. This part of the transaction begins to be intimated by St. Mark, at verse 25. when Jesus was already in private; and, consequently, it is from this point of time that the two narratives coincide, and go along together. The harmony, which may thence be established, will be exhibited in its proper place hereafter. The notoriety of this miracle, which had been conceded solely to the importunity of maternal tenderness, and to the more than usual display of the constancy and strength of faith, could not but interfere with our Lord's desire of privacy, and seems, in fact, to have been the motive which determined him to leave the same parts again, before he had yet made any stay in them. When he did this, both St. Matthew and St. Mark attest that he came to the sea of Galilee in generalk, and the latter, that he came thither through the coasts of Decapolis in particular. It is evident, therefore, that he must have travelled first from the confines of Tyre and Sidon eastward, aloof from Galilee as before, until he crossed the Jordan in some part of its course between its springs and the northern extremity of the lake of Tiberias; and afterwards southward, through the dominions of Philip all the time, in which Decapolis also would be included. And this, likewise, was a part which, though he might frequently have approached before, he had never yet visited, or resided in, personally. Nor does it appear that he was visiting it even now for the purpose of preaching in it, but for the sake of retirement. All this time he was confining himself to a distant quarter, where he would either be personally unknown, or at least very imperfectly known, except by fame; and intentionally keeping away from the regions which had been hitherto the scene of his ministry. And though, wherever he went, he might naturally be fol Matt. xv. 29. Mark vii. 31. lowed about by the people of the country in general, yet it would not be by those of that country, in particular, before whom, and among whom, the two last years of that ministry had been almost exclusively transacted. The part of Decapolis, to which he came, being some part which bordered on the lake, we may conclude from Matt. xv. 29. (as alluding to some well-known mountain, such only as could be properly designated by the use of the article) as well as from the course of subsequent events, that he came to the same desert of Bethsaida, and to the same individual mountain within that desert, where he had, not long before, fed the five thousand. How long after that miracle he would thus revisit its vicinity, it may not be possible to say; except that, if the account of his motions hitherto has been continuous, we may reasonably conjecture it was at no great distance of time. Upon this mountain, and in this region, did Jesus remain, attended by the multitudes which had either accompanied him thither, or resorted to him since his arrival, or both, at least three days1; which he employed in teaching the people, and in performing miracles; a vast number whereof is specified summarily m, but one only (which might have taken place on the first day of the three) in detail; a miracle performed upon a deaf and dumb person", the account of which is due, perhaps, more to the peculiar circumstances of the cure, and to the singular solemnity of our Lord's manner in working it, than to the novelty, or remarkableness, of the miracle itself. On the third day, as it may be clearly collected from the testimony of each Evangelist, and, probably, about the same hour of the day as before, or, at least, at the usual time of some meal in the day, the second instance of miraculous feeding took placeo. It took place, consequently, on the same locality as the former, and at no great distance of time after it; and, in the material fact, it was altogether so Matt. xv. 32. 32. to the end. Mark viii. 2. m Matt. xv. 30. 31. " Mark vii. similar to that, that St. Luke, who had recorded the one, might very well omit the other.* * It is observable that, in the account of this miracle, both the Evangelists agree in calling the baskets, by which the fragments. were measured, oπupídas—and, in the account of the former miracle, they all agreed in calling those, by which the fragments at that time also were measured, Kopivous. We may presume, then, that so regular a distinction between these two things, was not unintended and the same conclusion is implied in the terms of our Lord's joint reference to both the miracles, Matt. xvi. 10. 11. Mark viii. 19. 20. so soon after the second. What, however, was the real difference between these two kinds of baskets, it would be hard to say. That the Jews were accustomed to carry cophini about with them, we may safely collect from Juvenal, : Nunc sacri fontis nemus, et delubra, locantur And again, III. 13. Cum dedit ille locum, cophino fœnoque relicto VI. 541. It may be inferred from both these passages, that the use of the cophinus was chiefly to serve its owner as a couch, and of the hay, which seems to have gone along with it, as bed or bedding. May we infer from this, that both the kópio and σnupides were wanted by those, who attended our Saviour, to provide them with the means of sleeping so long as they remained év épíμg, and in his company. That the σrupis, at least, was large enough to contain a man, may be collected from Acts ix. 25. in the account of St. Paul's escape from Damascus. But why were the people in the former instance all provided with Kóp, and in the second, all provided with owupides? I should conjecture, because in the former instance the miracle was wrought about the feast of the Passover, and in the latter about the feast of Pentecost. Critics, at least, are agreed in deriving the name of the cupis from πupòs triticum; and Hesychius explains it accordingly, tò tãv mupãv äyyos. It is needless to observe, that Pentecost was the season of wheat-harvest, as the Passover was of the barley-harvest and It is manifest that, previously to the miracle, Jesus intended to have dismissed the multitude, and his supplying them with food beforehand was only a benevolent precaution, that so they might be able to travel to their respective homes. Yet its effect, as in the former instance, would doubtless be also to accelerate his own departure, lest, as St. John expressed himself then, they should come, after the experience of two such miracles, (the latter of which could not fail to recall to their minds the former likewise,) and make him by force their king. The mention of the ship?, in which he accordingly embarked, and the consequent fact of his departure by sea, in which both the Evangelists are agreed, though both also suppose that he came to Bethsaida, originally, by land, is critically to be explained by the proximity of Bethsaida to Capernaum, on the one hand, and by the three days' previous stay, on the other. It is nothing incredible that the ship had either been brought to him, or expressly been sent for, from Capernaum, on one of those days. The article prefixed to the mention of it, anλõç—as τὸ πλοῖον—shews that it was some ship which was regularly employed on such occasions—and since the point of time specified Mark iii. 9. (where the circumstance was first expressly alluded to) might be considered to be always attending on his motions in the vicinity of the lake. Nor is it improbable that the ship which is designated in the places annexed, and called indifferently sometimes λolov, sometimes λápiov, in all these instances might be one and the same, and the property of Simon Peter. hence, if there was any difference between the kópias and the σupic as such, or any appropriation of one of them to one season of the year, and of the other to another, the former might be wanted about the Passover, and the latter about Pentecost. Now the miracle in the first instance, it has been shewn elsewhere, took place not long before the Passover; and the miracle, in the second, might have taken place almost as little before the Pen tecost. P Matt. xv. 39. Mark viii. 10. Matt. xv. 39. Mark viii. 10. John xxi. 3. 8. Luke v. 3. Mark iii. 9. iv. 1. |
