LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
MIRACLES.
[To Tea EDITOR. OF TICE SPECTATOIL"] Sria,—As your correspondents have failed to apprehend my explanation of the origin of the miraculous story about Mal- ohus's ear, I will try to make it clearer by a few illustrative instances. It is based on the fact that the Gospels show traces of an original tradition variously interpreted or modified.
Thus, the Tradition interpreted by Mark (xvi. 7) and Matthew (xxviii. 7), "He goeth before you into Galilee," appears in Luke (xxiv. 6), "Remember how be spoke unto' you when he was yet in Galilee;" what Mark (xvi. 7) gives as " There shall ye see him, as he told (dares) you," Matthew (will. 7) gives as " There shall ye see him : lo, I have told (Tema) you ;" what in Matthew (xxv. 23) is "I will set thee over many things (err: Tro),As,p)," appeared to Luke (six. 17) to.
mean " over ten cities (owl I voXEuni),"*.and induced the latter• to modify the parable accordingly. Regard for your space allows me to add but one more instance. In Luke (xxiii. 45) the Correct reading is rob Woe boa worm., of which the natural' interpretation is, "the sun being eclipsed." Now, as it was well known that an eclipse could only happen at new moon, and as Passover was at full moon, this would involve a por- tentous miracle. The probability is that Luke, who was by no means afraid of miracles, meant a miracle here. Not con tent with saying (Mark xv. 33, Matthew xxvii. 46, Luke xxiii. 44) " darkness came over all the land," he adds, in order to show that the darkness was miraculous, " the sun being eclipsed."
But is this eclipse " the invention of a conscious or unconscious romancer " ? An examination of the parallel passages in Mark and Matthew will show that it is not. There (Mark xv. 34.6, Matthew xxvii. 46.9) we find that Jesus uttered a cry to Goa as abandoning Him. These words caused difficulty from the first. The words " my God " were rendered by some (e.g., the Gospel of Peter) " my Power " ; by the fourth Gospel the words were omitted ; our oldest manuscripts exhibit many variations, 11)0, 00.11; the very bystanders are said to have interpreted the words as referring to Elias failing to help, The Greek tote (a) = 10. Now, "Elias failing to help" might be, in Greek, sem:, elace7rowro;, or quite as often, iimov siasproprq, " the sun being eclipsed." It seems extremely probable, then, that Luke is not here " inventing" a miracle, but suggesting, or adopting, an edifying and miraculous interpretation of what seemed to him a non-edifying tradition.
Now, the variations above-mentioned arose from divergent interpretations of a Greek text, but others are likely to have arisen earlier when the tradition passed (as it certainly did, pace plausible objections) from Aramaic to Greek ; and my argument assumed, first, the general probability of varying interpretations from the Aramaic ; second, a particular proba- bility that Luke's miracle had sprung from a misinterpretation o f an original tradition based on Jeremiah xxix. (Hebrew xlvii.) 6. This probability had been ascertained by research too technical (as I said) to place before your readers ; but I can give them a reconstruction of the original that may enable them to understand how the divergencies might have arisen. Jeremiah's words contain a rebuke to the sword (" How long wilt thou not be quiet? Put up thyself [into thy sheath] ") where the bracketed words might be easily omitted and taken for granted, as indeed they are elsewhere (compare Ezekiel xxi. 30, Hebrew and LXX.) I conjecture that Jesus, in some e ach words as these, first rebuked the Eleven and Peter (" How long will ye not be quiet P ") and then apostrophised the sword (" Put up thyself "). But the abrupt apostrophe made the words so obscure that Mark omitted them alto- gether; Matthew dropped the first part, and rendered "put up thyself" by oleilaerps,lioe (which is used in the LXX, transi- tively and intransitively, of a sword " returning" or " returned" to its sheath) : this he interpreted transitively, and as addressed to Peter ("Put up thy sword") ; John expressed the same in different words ; Luke adopted the rendering " be thou restored" (oorouvroiernth): interpreted it, in accordance with Synoptic usage, not of " the sword," but of " the ear,"—i.e., "be thou healed " ; and consequently committed himself to, but did not "invent," a miracle, which he proceeded to describe, avoiding the ambiguous word, in language that 'could not be mistaken.
But how were the Evangelists to interpret the obscure " How long will ye not be quiet ?" or (with different punctua- tion) "How long ! Will ye not be quiet P"—i.e., "How long I Be quiet," variously rendered eec Tott elm mom, sal; Ton '.Pere, or ioere P Matthew can make nothing of these words, espe- cially as he regards Jesus as already (xxvi. 50) in the hands eef his captors ; and, if addressed to them, they seemed meaningless. So he omits them. But Luke, who says xxii. 54) that the Jews did not arrest Jesus till afterwards, sees the Eleven interposing between their Master and the enemy, and Jesus bidding them* let him pass to the wounded man to perform a miracle of mercy. To Luke, then, the words seemed a manifest corruption for mg Tome foes,— " Let me step thus far." John tliinks them also corrupt ; but to him they indicate a petition of the Master, not for himself but for his disciples : TO-TOUg dPETE,—" Let these go."
If your correspondents will compare these remarks with their objections, although they may pronounce the former thin, literary, and unsatisfactory, they must perceive that many .of the latter were not to the point. I would also submit that my theory of the origin of okiov exAmrorro; is less improbable than the hypothesis of an eclipse at full-moon, and that the demonstration of a number of confusions and misinterpreta- tions elsewhere increases the probability of confusion and misinterpretation here. Under these circumstances, some such explanation as I have suggested, seems far more probable than that this final miracle (morally, if not physically, re- markable, because it is wrought on an enemy and apparently presupposes no faith in the person healed), should have been omitted by three out of the four Evangelists. It is asked, " Would not the fact of St. Luke being a physician account for his mentioning the miracle ? " But the question rather is, " Would the fact of Matthew, Mark, and John, not being physicians, account for their not mentioning it ?" The argument that "at all events the miracle would be no more than the acceleration of a natural process," I leave to medical -specialists ; but even if the story were accepted by the science that deals with medicine, it would still be rejected (quite * To rade Alford'' explanation (alleged by one of your eorrospencivnts) lifould be env, but not brief. independently of the particular explanation given above) by the science that deals with evidence.—I am, Sir, &c., Wellside, Hampstead, October 16th, EDWIN A. ABBOTT.
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