Luke 4:31-44

2. Residence at Capernaum: Luke 4:31-44. Five sections: 1 st. A general survey (Luke 4:31-32); 2 d. The healing of a demoniac (Luke 4:33-37); 3 d. That of Peter's mother-in-law (Luke 4:38-39); 4 th. Various cures (Luke 4:40-42); 5 th. Transition to the evangelization of Galilee generally.

The Miracles of Jesus.

We shall here add a few thoughts on the miracles of Jesus in general. Four methods are used to get rid of the miraculous element in the Gospel history: 1 st. The explanation called natural, which upholds the credibility of the narrative, but explains the text in such a way that its contents offer nothing extraordinary. This attempt has failed; it is an expedient repudiated at the present day, rationalistic criticism only having recourse to it in cases where other methods are manifestly ineffectual. 2 d. The mythical explanation, according to which the accounts of the miracles would be owing to reminiscences of the miraculous stories of the O. T., the Messiah could not do less than the prophets, or would be either the product of spontaneous creations of the Christian consciousness, or the accidental result of certain words or parables of Jesus that were misunderstood (the resurrection of Lazarus, e.g.,, the result of the passage Luke 16:31; the cursing of the barren fig-tree, a translation into fact of the parable, Luke 13:6-9). But the simple, plain, historical character of our Gospel narratives, so free from all poetical adornment and bombast, defends them against this suspicion. Besides, several accounts of miracles are accompanied by words of Jesus, which in such a case would lose their meaning, but which are nevertheless beyond doubt authentic. For example, the discourse, Matthew 12:26 et seq., where Jesus refutes the charge, laid against Him by His adversaries, of casting out devils by the prince of the devils, would have no sense but on the supposition, fully conceded by these adversaries, of the reality of His cures of the possessed. His address to the cities of Galilee, Luke 10:12-15, implies the notorious and undisputed reality of numerous miraculous facts in His ministry; for we know of no exegesis which consents to give the term δυνάμεις in this passage the purely moral meaning which M. Colani proposes. 3 d. The relative hypothesis, according to which these facts must be ascribed to natural laws as yet unknown. This was the explanation of Schleiermacher; in part also it was the explanation of M. Renan: “The miraculous is only the unexplained.” It is in conflict with two insurmountable difficulties: 1. If certain cures may be explained after a fashion, we may be perfectly sure that no one will ever discover a natural law capable of producing a multiplication of loaves and of cooked fish, a resurrection of the dead, and above all, such an event as the resurrection of Jesus Himself. 2. We must, according to this explanation, attribute to Jesus miracles of scientific knowledge quite as inexplicable as the miracles of power which are now in question. 4 th. The psychological explanation. After having got rid of the miracles wrought on external nature (the multiplication of the loaves and the stilling of the storm) by one of the three methods indicated, Keim admits a residuum of extraordinary and indisputable facts in the life of Jesus. These are the cures wrought upon the sick and the possessed. Before him, M. Renan had spoken of the influence exerted on suffering and nervous people by the contact of a person of finely organized nature (une personne exquise). Keim merely, in fact, amplifies this expression. The only real miracles in the history of Jesus the cures are to be ascribed, according to him, to moral influence (ethico-psychological, t. ii. p. 162).

We reply 1. That the miracles wrought on nature, which are set aside as mythical, are attested in exactly the same manner as the cures which are admitted. 2. That Jesus wrought these cures with an absolute certainty of success (“Now, in order that ye may know, I say unto thee...” “I will; be thou clean.” “Be it unto thee as thou wilt”), and that the effect produced was immediate. These two features are incompatible with the psychological explanation. 3. That if Jesus had known that these cures did not proceed from an order of things above nature, it is inconceivable that He would have offered them as God's testimony in His favour, and as signs of His Messianic dignity. Charlatanism, however slight, is incompatible with the moral character of Jesus. On the possessed, see pp. 243-5.

Jewish legends themselves bear witness to the reality of Jesus' miracles. “The Son of Stada (a nickname applied to Jesus in the Talmud) brought charms from Egypt in an incision which he had made in his flesh.” This is the accusation of the Talmud against Him. Surely, if the Jews had been able to deny His miracles, it would have been a simpler thing to do than to explain them in this way. Lastly, when we compare the miracles of the Gospels with those attributed to Him in the apocryphal writings, we feel what a wide difference there is between tradition and legend.