VIII. THE OPENING THE EYES OF TWO BLIND IN THE rus. HOUSE. MATT. ix. 27-31. We have here the first of those healings of the blind whereof so many are recorded (Matt. xii. 22; xx. 30; xxi. 14; John ix.) or alluded to in the Gospel narrative.* Nor is this little history without one or two features distinguishing it from others of a like kind. These two blind men appear to have followed Jesus in the way; it may have been, and Jerome supposes it was, as he was returning from the house of JaiYet one would not lay too much stress on the connection in which St. Matthew sets the miracle, or necessarily conclude that he intended to place it in such immediate relation of time and place with the raising of the ruler's daughter. There was the same trial of the faith of these blind men, although in a more mitigated form, as found place in the case of the Syrophenician woman. Not all at once did they receive the boon which they sought; but the Lord seemed at first rather to withdraw himself from them, suffering them to cry after him, and for a while pay *Their frequent recurrence need not surprise us; for blindness throughout all the East is a far commoner calamity than with us. For this there are many causes. The dust and flying sand, pulverized and reduced to minutest particles, enters the eyes, causing inflammations, which being neglected, end frequently in total loss of sight. The sleeping in the open air, on the roofs of the houses, and the consequent exposure of the eyes to the noxious nightly dews, is another source of this malady. A modern traveller calculates that there are four thousand blind in Cairo alone, and another that you may reckon twenty such in every hundred persons. It is true that in Syria the proportion of those afflicted with blindness is not at all so great, yet there also the calamity is of far more frequent occurrence than in western lands, so that we find humane regulations concerning the blind as concerning a class in the old Law. (Lev. xix. 14; Deut. xxvii. 18.) ing no regard to their cries. It was only after they followed him into the house, and had thus shown that they were in earnest in seeking and expecting a boon from him, that he yielded to them the blessing which they sought.* But ere he does this, as he has tried them in deed by the delay of the blessing, he proves them also in word. He will have the confession of their faith from their own lips: "Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord." And then, when he found that they had this necessary condition for the receiving any one of his blessings, when he perceived that they had faith to be healed, "he touched their eyes." And this time it is by that simple touch that he opens those closed eyes; (Matt. xx. 34;) at other times he uses as the conductors of his power, and as helps to the faith of those who should be healed, some further instruments,-the clay mingled with spittle (John ix. 6, 7,) or the moisture of his mouth alone. We do not, I think, anywhere read of his opening the blind eyes simply by his word, although of course that would have been equally easy to him. The words which accompany the act of healing are remarkable-" According to your faith be it unto you," remarkable for the insight which they give us into the relation of man's faith and God's gift. The faith, which in itself is nothing, is yet the organ of receiving every thing. It places the man in relation with the divine blessing; of no esteem in itself, but only in its relation to its object. It is the bucket let down into the fountain of God's grace, without which the man could not draw up out of that fountain; the purse, which though itself of the coarsest material, does yet enrich its owner by that which it contains.† It is very characteristic, and rests on very deep differences, that of the Romish interpreters almost all, indeed I know not an exception, should excuse, or rather applaud, these men for not adhering strictly to Christ's command, his earnest, almost threatening, injunction to them, that they should let none know what he had done,-that the expositors of that Church of will-worship should see in their disobedience the over *Calvin: Re igitur et verbis examinare voluit eorum fidem: suspensos enim tenens, imo præteriens quasi non exaudiat, patientiæ ipsorum experimentum capit, et qualem in ipsorum animis radicem egerit fides. Faith, the opyуavov Annтikóv, nothing in itself, yet every thing, because it places us in living connection with him in whom every good gift is stored. Thus on this passage Chemnitz (Harm. Evang., c. 68): Fides est instar haustri gratiæ cœlestis et salutis nostræ, quo ex inscrutabili et inexhausto divinæ misericordiæ et bonitatis fonte, ad quem aliter penetrare non possumus, haurimus et ad nos attrahimus quod nobis salutare est. Calvin (Inst., iii. 11, 7): Fides etiamsi nullius per se dignitatis sit, vel pretii, nos justificat, Christum afferendo, sicut olla pecuniis referta hominem locupletat. † Ενεβριμήσατο αὐτοῖς. Suidas explains έμβριμᾶσθαι αὐστηρότητος ἐπιτιμαν. = μετὰ ἀπειλῆς ἐντέλλεσθαι μετ ̓ flowings which could not be restrained of grateful hearts, and not therefore a fault but a merit. Some indeed of the ancients, as Theophylact, go so far as to suppose that the men did not disobey at all in proclaiming the miracle, that Christ never intended them to preserve his precept about silence; but gave it out of humility, being best pleased when it was not observed.* But the Reformed, whose first principle it is to take God's Word as absolute rule and law, and to worship God not with selfdevised services, but after the pattern that he has given them, stand fast to this, that obedience is better than sacrifice, even though that sacrifice may appear in honor of God himself; and see in this publishing of the miracle, after the prohibition given, a blemish in the perfectness of their faith who did it, a fault, though a fault into which they only, who were full of gratitude and thankfulness, could have fallen. * Thus Aquinas (Summ. Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 104, art. 4): Dominus cæcis dixit ut miraculum occultarent, non quasi intendens eos per virtutem divini præcepti obligare; sed sicut Gregorius dicit 19 Moral., servis suis se sequentibus exemplum dedit, ut ipsi quidem virtutes suas occultare desiderent, et tamen, ut alii eorum exemplo proficiant, prodantur inviti. Cf. MALDONATUS in loc. IX. THE HEALING OF THE PARALYTIC MATT. ix. 1-9; MARK ii. 1-12; LUKE v. 17—26.* Ir was at Capernaum, while the Lord was teaching there, and on an occasion when there were present Pharisees and doctors of the law from many quarters, some of whom had come even as far as from Jerusalem, (Luke v. 17,) that this healing of the paralytic took place. It might have been a kind of conference, more or less friendly upon the part of these, which had brought together as listeners and spectators the great multitude of whom we read, a multitude so great that the avenues of approach to the house were blocked up; "there was no room to receive them, no not so much as about the door," and thus no opportunity, by any ordinary way, of access to the Lord. (Matt. xii. 46, 47.) And now some who arrived late with their sick, who brought with them a poor paralytic, "could not come nigh unto him for the press." Only the two later Evangelists record for us the extraordinary method to which the Chrysostom mentions, in a sermon upon this miracle, (v. 3, p. 37, 38, Bened. edit.) that many in his day confounded this history with that of the impotent man at Bethesda,―a supposition so wholly groundless as hardly to be worth the complete refutation which he gives it, showing that on no one point do the histories agree. In the apocryphal Evangelium Nicodemi, (see THILO's Cod. Apocryph., v. 1, p. 556,) there is a confusion of the two miracles. + The words of St. Luke, "The power of the Lord was present to heal them," are difficult, avroùs having no antecedent to which it refers; for clearly it cannot refer to the Pharisees and doctors just before named. There was nothing in them which made them receptive either of a bodily or a spiritual healing. Most likely it is proleptic; the Evangelist, in writing thus, has already in his mind him, though yet unnamed, on whom that power was put forth. We must take as pregnant, supplying ¿pyajoμívn, or some such word. † Τὰ πρὸς τὴν θύραν, scil. μέρη = πρόθυρον, vestibulum, atrium. bearers of the suffering man (St. Mark tells us they were four,) were compelled to have recourse, for bringing him before the notice of the great healer of bodies and of souls. They first ascended to the roof: this was not so difficult, because commonly there was a flight of steps on the outside of the house, reaching to the roof, as well as, or sometimes instead of, an internal communication of the same kind. Such are to be seen (I have myself seen them,) in those parts of the south of Spain which bear a permanent impress of Eastern habits. Our Lord assumes the existence of such, when he says, "Let him that is on the house-top not come down to take any thing out of his house," (Matt. xxiv. 17;) he is to take the nearest and shortest way of escaping into the country: but he could only avoid the necessity of descending through the house by the existence of such steps as these.* Some will have it, that, on the present occasion, the bearers having thus reached the roof, did no more than let down their sick through the grating or trap-door, which already existed therein, (cf. 2 Kin. i. 2;) or, at most, that they might have widened such an aperture, already existing, to enable them to let down. the sick man's bed. Others,† that Jesus was sitting in the open court, round which the houses in the East are commonly built, and that to this they got access by the roof, and breaking through the breast work or battlement (Deut. xxii. 8,) made of tiles, which guarded the roof, and removing the linen awning which was stretched over the court, let him down in the midst before the Lord. But there seems no sufficient reason for departing from the obvious meaning of the words. In St. Mark, at least, they are so plain and clear, that we can suppose nothing else than that a part of the actual covering of the roof was removed, that so the bed on which the palsied man lay might be let down before the Lord. The whole circumstance will be much more easily conceived, and present fewer difficulties, when we keep in mind that it was probably the upper chamber, (vπeрwov,) where were assembled those that were * The same must have existed in a Roman house, from a notice we have in Livy, 1. 39, c. 14. A witness, whom it is most important to preserve from being tampered with, is shut up in the chamber adjoining the roof, (coenaculum super ædes,)-and, to make all sure, scalis ferentibus in publicum obseratis, aditu in ædes verso. (See BECKER'S Gallus, v. 1, p. 94.) 5, p. + Shaw, for instance, quoted in Rosenmuller (Alte und Neue Morgenland, v. 129.) He makes rò pérov to signify the central court, impluvium, cava ædium. But against this use of cis à pérov, or rather for the common one, see Luke iv. 35; Mark iii. 3; xiv. 60. And so, too, Titus Bostrensis (in CRAMER'S Catena): Eino d' ay ris ὕπαιθρον εἶναι τόπον, εἰς δν διὰ τῶν κεράμων κατεβίβασαν τὴν κλίνην τοῦ παραλύτου, μηδὲν παντ τελῶς τῆς στέγης ἀνατρέψαντες. Winer, (Real Wörterbuch, s. v. Dach,) who weighs the other explanations, has come to exactly the same conclusion. Cf. DE WETTE'S Archæologie, p. 118, seq. |