Читать книгу The Story of Jesus - Roy A. Harrisville - Страница 18

Of all the healing miracles recorded in the four Gospels, the first three in tandem record seven.27 Mark and Matthew together record two healing miracles28; Matthew and Luke together record two29, Mark alone records one30, Matthew alone records three31, and Luke alone records five.32 The Gospel of John records only one miracle in tandem with the first three Gospels,33 one in tandem with Matthew and Luke,34and two healing miracles independently of them.35

Each of the seven healing miracles recorded by the first three evangelists contains the same number of “constants” as the exorcism narratives. The scene set for the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law is Jesus’ departure from the synagogue and entry into the house of Simon and Andrew (Mark 1:21); for the healing of the leper the man’s begging and kneeling before Jesus (Mark 1:40); for the healing of the paralytic the report that Jesus is at home in Capernaum (2:1); for the healing of the man with the withered hand that Jesus has re-entered the Capernaum synagogue (Mark 3:1). The scene set for the healing of the woman with hemorrhages and the raising of the synagogue leader’s daughter is Jesus’ encounter with the leader after leaving the country of the Gerasenes (5:21); the scene for the feeding of the 5,000 is Jesus’ and the disciples’ departure to a deserted place (Mark 6:30–31), and for the healing of the deaf man Jesus’ return from the region of Tyre (Mark 7:31). The second constant, indicating the problem or dilemma, involves the fever of Simon’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:30); the leprosy of the man who begs and kneels before Jesus (Mark 1:40); the paralysis of the man lowered through the roof (2:33–34); the withered hand of the man met in the synagogue (3:1b); the death of the synagogue leader’s daughter, the hemorrhages of the woman who touches Jesus’ cloak (Mark 5:21–43); the hunger of the 5,000 (Mark 6:33–37), and the deafness and speech impediment of the man brought to Jesus (Mark 7: 32). As for the third constant, Jesus may utter a word, or may touch the afflicted person. He takes Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand (Mark 1:31); he touches the leper and says “be healed” (Mark 1:41); to the paralytic he says “my son, your sins are forgiven,” then ”stand up, take your mat and go to your home” (2:5, 11). To the man with the withered hand he says, “come here,” then, “stretch out your hand” (Mark 3:3, 5b); to the woman suffering from hemorrhages he says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well,” and to the synagogue leader’s daughter he says, “little girl, get up!” Before the 5,000 he takes the five loaves and two fish, looks up to heaven, blesses and breaks the loaves, and gives them to the disciples to set before the crowd (6:41), and he puts his fingers into the deaf man’s ears, spits and touches his tongue, and says “Be opened” (7:34). The fourth ingredient denoting the result of Jesus’ action is, in the majority of instances, sudden, dramatic, marked either by the temporal adverb “immediately” or by a description making clear the instant cure or solution. Simon’s mother-in-law rises to serve her guests (Mark 1:13); “immediately” the leper is cleansed (Mark 1:42); the paralytic stands up, and “immediately” takes his mat and leaves; the hand of the man with the withered hand is restored (Mark 3:5); the woman’s hemorrhages “immediately” stop, and “immediately” the synagogue leader’s daughter gets up and begins to walk about; the 5,00 all eat, with twelve baskets of broken pieces and fish taken up (Mark 6:42–43), and the deaf man’s ears are “immediately” opened, his tongue is released, and he speaks plainly (Mark 7:35). A chorus as the fifth ingredient puts the period to four of the seven healings in the first three Gospels. In Mark 1:27 and parallels, the crowd in the synagogue asks, “what is this? A new teaching! With authority he commands even the unclean spirits.” In Mark 1:45, the man healed of dropsy spreads the news so that Jesus cannot openly enter a town. In Mark 2:6–7 and parallels, when hearing Jesus’ word to the paralytic, the scribes exclaim, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Following the healing of the man with the withered hand, the Pharisees hold counsel, how to destroy Jesus. In Mark 5:42 and parallels, following Jesus’ raising the synagogue leader’s daughter, the onlookers are “overcome with amazement.” In Mark 7:37 and parallels, witnesses to the healing of the deaf mute are “astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Of the pair shared by Matthew and Luke, Matthew contains four and Luke five ingredients. The one independent narrative of Mark contains four ingredients. Of Matthew’s independent narratives the first contains five, the second four, and the third four. Of Luke’s independent narratives the first contains five, the second five, the third four, the fourth five, and the sixth five ingredients. The first “constant” or ingredient might well be Mark’s own editorial additions or “seams,” simply repeated in the parallel narratives of Matthew and Luke. Next, in a goodly number of instances, the word uttered by Jesus or joined to an action is exorcistic in nature. In 1:41 Jesus commands the leper,“be made clean!” In 1:43 he is angered at the leper and sends him away at once. In 5:13 the same verb is used for the herd’s entering the swine as for the exorcism in 1:25. Use of the Aramaic (“Talitha cum”) in 5:41, “Ephphatha” in 7:34 are suggestive of a secret formula or incantation, and in 9:26 the same verb appears as is used in 1:25 and 5:13.

Obviously, not all the stories recorded by Mark and repeated in Matthew and Luke deal with demon possession, but the repetition of the constants adhering to the exorcism narratives and repeated in the healing stories suggests that Mark used the mould of the exorcism for the majority of those healing narratives, with Matthew and Luke following suit where their stories are in parallel. This would square with the observation that Mark records the story of Jesus as a continuation of the struggle between the Spirit and Satan begun at his temptation.

In John’s “Book of the Seven Signs,” the same constants appear. The scene of the first sign (John 2:1–11) is a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother states the problem: the wine has given out. The narrrative is interrupted with Jesus’ retort that it is of no matter to him since his “hour” has not yet come.

Surprisingly, at this his mother summons the servants to do whatever he commands. Jesus makes multiple application to the problem. He instructs the servants to fill the six water jars intended for Jewish rites of purification, then summons them to fill them, next to draw some out, and bring it to the steward, who performs the role of chorus by exclaiming that good wine is always served first, but in this instance has been reserved for last. There is dual choral response with the evangelist’s note that at this first of Jesus’ signs, his disciples believed in him. Cana is also the scene of the second sign (John 4:36b–54). The problem: A royal official arrives to plead with Jesus to come down and heal his son, ill and near death at Capernaum. Again the narrative is interrupted with Jesus’ comment that his audience will not believe unless it sees signs and wonders. Jesus advances to the problem by summoning the official to go, stating that his son lives. The result is announced by the official’s servant who tells him that his child is alive, that he began to recover the moment Jesus said he would live. The chorus consists of the official’s coming to faith together with his entire household. Scene of the third sign is the Pool of Bethesda, at which lies a man with a thirty-eight year illness (John 5:2–47). Again the sequence is interrupted with a dialogue between Jesus and the invalid. Jesus then advances to the problem with the word that the man “stand up, take your mat and walk,” the result of which is that the man is immediately cured. The chorus is a compound: The Jews’ complain that the deed was done on the Sabbath, then ask who was responsible for the cure; the erstwhile invalid admits his ignorance of Jesus’ identity; Jesus encounters the fellow in the temple and enjoins him to sin no more, lest worse befall; the man informs the Jews that it was Jesus who healed him, following which they commence their persecution for his sabbath breaking, and at his word that he and his Father are at work, plan to kill him. The scene for the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:1–15) is variegated. At the Sea of Tiberias a crowd follows Jesus due to his “signs. . .for the sick.” Near to Passover, Jesus goes up the mountain with his disciples, and himself describes the problem. With the crowd coming toward him, he asks Philip where they are to buy bread for the crowd to eat. The sequence is interrupted with the evangelist’s note that Jesus was testing Philip. The problem is accented with Philip’s response that six month’s wages would not buy enough for each to get a little, and with Andrew’s information about a boy with a mere five loaves and two fish. Finally, Jesus advances to the problem with a command that the people sit down. He takes theloaves, gives thanks, and distributes them along with the fish. The result is initially downplayed with the simple statement that “they were satisfied,” then aemphnasized with the gathering of the remnants in twelve baskets, at the sight of which the people chorus with the word that “this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world,” rush to make Jesus king, while he withdraws to the mountain. The same constants or ingredients are present in sign number five, Jesus’ walking on the water, shared with his co-evangelists (John 6:16–21) as noted above. The scene is set near the sea where the disciples board a boat for Capernaum in the dark. The problem involves a rough sea, hard rowing, and terror at the sight of Jesus walking near the boat. Jesus advances to the problem, says: “It is I; do not be afraid.” The result: the boat immediately reaches the shore toward which the disciples were first headed. The chorus follows the people’s search for Jesus after discovering the disciples had taken to the sea without him, and finding him on the other side ask: “Rabbi, when did you come here?” The scene for the sixth sign, the healing of the man blind from birth (John 9:1–41), is set with a mere two words (kai paragon), translated “as he walked along,” presumably in sight of the temple where Jesus had just engaged in dialogue with the Jews over Abraham (John 8:39–59). The problem is that of the man born blind. Jesus’ application to the problem, interrupted by his remonstrating with the disciples respecting the cause of the man’s condition (“Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind to that God’s works might be revealed in him,” 9:3), involves spitting on the ground, making mud with the saliva, spreading it on the man’s eyes and ordering him to wash in the pool of Siloam. The result: The man returns from the pool able to see. The chorus consists of a dialogue between the man and the Pharisees respecting Jesus’ breach of the Sabbath with his healing, their interrogation of his parents who allow he can speak for himself, and after a second dialogue with the Jews, ends with the man’s confession, “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing,” in response to which his interrogators drive him out of the synagogue. The seventh and final sign is that of the raising of Lazarus, like the sixth, consuming the entire chapter (John 11:1–57). The scene is set in Bethany, home of Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus. The sisters inform Jesus of the problem: their brother is ill. Solution to the problem is interrupted by Jesus’ diagnosis (“this illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory,” 11:4b), and by the protracting of his visit to Bethany, following which the narrative is strewn with dialogue, first with Jesus’ conversation with the disciples who warn him against another visit to Judea, next with his announcement of Lazarus’ death and of his plan to return to Bethany, on the way toward which he meets Martha who tells him her brother has died, then with a dialogue with her over the resurrection and her confession of him as Messiah, Son of God, then with Martha’s informing her sister of the “Teacher’s” arrival, and Mary’s reproach (“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” 11:32b), and finally, with the Jews’ query concerning Jesus’ power (“Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” 11:37). At last, Jesus makes advance to the problem, but not before another dialogue with Martha at his order to remove the stone to the tomb. He looks upward, says “Father, I thank you for having heard me,” an aside uttered for the sake of those standing by,36 cries with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And the result: the dead man comes out with bound hands and feet, his face wrapped in a cloth. In what has come to be a typically Johannine device, the chorus is divided between those who believe in Jesus and the chief priests and Pharisees who call a meeting, at which the high priest Caiaphas prophesies Jesus’ death “for the nation,” and the crowd at Jerusalem before Passover in doubt over Jesus’ showing himself in public.

Now the question arises as to whether or not these miracles of healing are to be set down as legendary, at best containing a smidgin of historical fact blown out of all proportion through multiplication. What urges toward this assessment is the fact that stories such as are told of Jesus’ healing abound in pagan literature. First and foremost among the divine men of the period was the first century wandering Pythagorean Apollonius of Tyana (ca. 15—ca. AD 100) a figure much discussed by the fourth century Church fathers. A current introduction to a textbook on the New Testament teases the reader with a description of Appollonius as if it were of Jesus:

. . ..a supernatural being informed his mother the child she was to conceive would not be a mere mortal but would be divine. He was born miraculously. . ..As an adult he left home and went on an itinerant preaching ministry, urging his listeners to live. . .for what is spiritual. He gathered a number of disciples. . .who became convinced that his teachings were divinely inspired. . .in no small part because he himself was divine. He proved it to them by doing many miracles, healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead. But at the end of his life he roused opposition, and his enemies delivered him over to the Roman authorities for judgment. Still, after he left this world, he returned to meet his followers in order to convince them that he was not really dead but lived on in the heavenly realm. Later some of his followers wrote books about him.37

First of all, the historicity of the life and career of the Appollonius depends upon the amount of trust placed in his principal biographer, Philostratus the Elder (ca.170—c.247). According to recent research, the discourses which Philostratus professes to copy from Damis, an acolyte and companion of Appollonius, may or may not be genuine. Second, though the possibility that the Jesus-tradition is dependent on that of Appollonius is out of the question, the reverse is not. In such a society as Rome, which had abandoned its traditional gods for deities of the east, assigning divinity with all its trappings to a celebrated figure from Cappadocia, whether or not in competition with Jesus of Nazareth, would scarcely represent a departure from usual habit. Lastly, to cite G. K. Chesterton, in contrast to the great thinkers of antiquity who had very little to do except to walk and talk,

. . .the life of Jesus went as swift and straight as a thunderbolt. . ..Something had to be done. It emphatically would not have been done, if Jesus had walked about the world forever doing nothing except tell the truth. . .The primary thing that he was going to do was to die. . ..He may be met as if straying in strange places, or stopped on the way for discussion or dispute; but his face is set towards the mountain city.”38

It is no secret that for over a hundred and fifty years the majority of Bible interpreters has denied the genuineness of the healing miracles reported of Jesus, to the point that anyone with an opposite view risks a sacrificium intelligentiae. To great extent what has largely motivated the great chorus of scholars is the contention that the space-time continuum to which we are all subject does not allow for interruption on the part of the transcendent, that if God is at work in creation, it is through the means available in ordinary, everyday life. In the last century, this view was given large space in the interpretation of the so-called mythical world-view of the Bible. That is, the view that the biblical understanding of the universe as comprised of the heavenly, earthly, and nether worlds, with humans subject to sorties from one or the other, had not been “baptized,” but represented a relic of antiquity, not to be jettisoned, as per the nineteenth century liberal understanding, but as “cradle” of the New Testament message to be reinterpreted in terms of human self-understanding. The reinterpretation was ingenious, and the influence of its principal adherents extended throughout Europe and the United States. Now, this so-called “existential” understanding has more or less given way to an earlier wholesale dismissal of the miraculous, “cradle” or no. But however liberal or “existential” the persuasion reveals two flaws. The first is that the miracles of healing and related narratives are treated as isolatable data, strung together at the whim of the evangelists, and whose purpose may or may not be to indicate the principal’s magical and therapeutic powers. If we do not submit to this notion, there must be some factor imposed on the narratives which yields a unity beyond, if not counter to that of historical sequence. Luke, for one, gives the clue. In his account of Jesus’ exorcism of the mute demon, he writes that some said “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons,” to which Jesus replies: “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you (Luke 11:15, 20). It is the kingdom of God brought by Jesus which serves the Gospel writers their organizing principle, their “paradigm” respecting material which without it appears disjointed and unconnected. To this paradigm of the kingdom all the narratives of exorcism and healing are bent and warped. In response to the philosopher David Hume, in the New Testament the miraculous is not made “the foundation of a system of religion.”39 Rather, it is in the service of the kingdom brought by Jesus by which its authors intend to evoke faith in their hearers/readers. Clearly, from the lists above, in themselves those narratives have little unity, but when seen in relation to the kingdom as organizing principle they become an integrated whole. The failure to distinguish the historical data from the proclamation they are meant to serve has led to regarding the miracle narratives as evidence of the Christian community’s attempt to meet the demands of its hearers for material at any cost. Only by its service to the kingdom brought by Jesus does Hume’s dictum regarding the miraculous apply:

the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without them. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: and whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.40

We are used to listing and interpreting events in historical sequence. In fact, we demand it in the name of reason. The Gospel writers themselves give some, albeit modest, attention to historical sequence. Mark, despite gathering his material in “blocks,” for example, clustering his narratives of the exorcisms within the so-called “Galilean” period, and, with only one exception (the healing of blind Bartimaeus, Mark 10:46) listing all his healing narratives ahead of Jesus’ triumphal entry, thus giving Papias of Hierapolis (AD 70–163) occasion to write in his Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord that he did not compose his Gospel “in order” (ouch en taxei) nevertheless strictly adheres to days and hours in his narrative of the passion. But the Gospel writers saw an alternative beyond the linear (or the cyclic) in the paradigmatic. In this purely formal respect they were not unlike their pagan counterparts. What gave to their paradigm its power to embrace what was disparate was the kingdom of God, whose bringer and guarantor they confessed as Messiah and Son of God.

The second flaw in current irritation over the miraculous is that of the rigid conservatism on the part of biblical scholarship which resists the arrival of the new, of change and alteration, in favor of the status quo. Clearly, toward the end of the Old Testament the miraculous retreats in favor of the mighty word, finally in favor of that word at second hand, in Judaism called the Bat Qol, “daughter of the voice.” The words of the later prophets are substituted for the mighty acts of the former prophets, of Moses and Elijah. But with the coming of Jesus a new time phase has begun, a phase in which the redemptive activity of God breaking into human history is made both visible and audible. Mighty acts reappear, harnessed to his proclamation that in him God has drawn near in a way never to be supplanted or surpassed. Conservatism, love for the status quo, resistance to the new, to the affirmation that in Jesus of Nazareth the coming Kingdom of God has broken in, may lurk behind relegating the miracle narratives of the New Testament to the mythical and legendary, allowing a shred for the exorcisms.

The Gospels, to say nothing of the remainder of the New Testament, are strewn with references to the new, to the “new teaching,” the “new covenant,” “new tongues,” the “new commandment,” etc. The evangelists are convinced that the nature of the world would have remained essentially unchanged if Christ had not brought in the kingdom. Through his proclamation the powers formerly holding the world in thrall must give way, and what was once shrouded in obscurity can now be grasped and understood. Let an atheist thinker put period to the argument:

What is peculiarly new in the Christian mythos is this, that there is no imitation of resurrection gods from ancient time, rather that the resurrection and the life, as the totally novum of history, should have emerged just now. Only the dead-living Jesus disclosed to his followers the renewal of the inner man from day to day (2 Cor. 2:16), and sustained the Christians with the words of the new heaven and the new earth (Is. 26). Only the star that never appeared before, and showed the Magi the way to an event that never happened before, shed light on the novum of the apocalypticist regarding the new Jerusalem, and the totally revolutionary word of its capitol city: “Behold, I make all things new (Rev. 22:5). Finally, only through the Bible did such a public and pivotally emerging idea of the Incipit vita nova come into the world. The youthful source of the fable did not spring up since time out of mind in some distant space or remembered age-old legend of Osiris or Attis. Rather, it emerged quite by itself, a novum in time, as if there had been nothing really new before Jesus, only a yearning for it, only signs, only expectation. As a later mystic formulated it: “The unbegotten God becomes in time/ what he never was in all eternity” (Silesius, Cherubinische Wandersmann, TV 1).41