I COME now to the second group of miracles, those granted to
the prayers of the sufferers. But before I make any general remarks on
the speciality of these, I must speak of one case which appears to lie
between the preceding group and this. It is that of the woman who came
behind Jesus in the crowd; and involves peculiar difficulties, in connection
with the facts which render its classification uncertain.
At Capernaum, apparently, our Lord was upon his way with Jairus to
visit his daughter, accompanied by a crowd of people who had heard the
request of the ruler of the synagogue. A woman who had been ill for twelve
years, came behind him and touched the hem of his garment. This we may
regard as a prayer in so far as she came to him, saying "within herself,
If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole." But, on the other hand,
it was no true prayer in as far as she expected to be healed without the
knowledge and will of the healer. Although she came to him, she did not
ask him to heal her. She thought with innocent theft to steal from him
a cure.
What follows according to St Matthew's account, occasions me no difficulty.
He does not say that the woman was cured by the touch; he says nothing
of her cure until Jesus had turned and seen her, and spoken the word to
her, whereupon he adds: "And the woman was made whole from that hour."
But St Mark and St Luke represent that the woman was cured upon the touch,
and that the cure was only confirmed afterwards by the words of our Lord.
They likewise represent Jesus as ignorant of what had taken place, except
in so far as he knew that, without his volition, some cure had been wrought
by contact with his person, of which he was aware by the passing from him
of a saving influence. By this, in the heart of a crowd which pressed upon
him so that many must have come into bodily contact with him, he knew that
some one had touched him with special intent. No perplexity arises from
the difference between the accounts, for there is only difference, not
incongruity: the two tell more than the one; it is from the nature of the
added circumstances that it springs, for those circumstances necessarily
involve inquiries of the most difficult nature. Nor can I in the least
pretend to have satisfied myself concerning them. In the first place comes
the mode of the cure, which seems at first sight (dissociated, observe,
from the will of the healer) to partake of the nature of magic-an influence
without a sufficient origin. Not for a moment would I therefore yield to
an inclination to reject the testimony. I have no right to do so, for it
deals with circumstances concerning which my ignorance is all but complete.
I cannot rest, however, without seeking to come into some spiritual relation
with the narrative, that is, to find some credible supposition upon which,
without derogating from the lustre of the object of the whole history,
the thing might take place. The difficulty, I repeat, is, that the woman
could be cured by the garment of Jesus, without (not against) the will
of Jesus. I think that the whole difficulty arises from our ignorance-a
helpless ignorance-of the relations of thought and matter. I use the word
thought rather than spirit, because in reflecting upon spirit (which is
thought), people generally represent to themselves a vague form of matter.
All religion is founded on the belief or instinct-call it what we will-that
matter is the result of mind, spirit, thought. The relation between them
is therefore simply too close, too near for us to understand. Here is what
I am able to suggest concerning the account of the miracle as given by
St Mark and St Luke.
If even in what we call inanimate things there lies a healing power
in various kinds; if, as is not absurd, there may lie in the world absolute
cure existing in analysis, that is parted into a thousand kinds and forms,
who can tell what cure may lie in a perfect body, informed, yea, caused,
by a perfect spirit? If stones and plants can heal by the will of God in
them, might there not dwell in the perfect health of a body, in which dwelt
the Son of God, a necessarily healing power? It may seem that in the fact
of the many crowding about him, concerning whom we have no testimony of
influence received, there lies a refutation of his supposition. But who
can tell what he may have done even for them without their recognizing
it save in conscious well-being? Besides, those who crowded nearest him
would mostly be of the strongest who were least in need of a physician,
and in whose being consequently there lay not that bare open channel hungering
for the precious life-current. And who can tell how the faith of the heart,
calming or arousing the whole nature, may have rendered the very person
of the woman more fit than the persons of others in the crowd to receive
the sacred influence? For although she did not pray, she had the faith
as alive though as small as the mustard seed. Why might not health from
the fountain of health flow then into the empty channel of the woman's
weakness? It may have been so. I shrink from the subject, I confess, because
of the vulgar forms such speculations have assumed in our days, especially
in the hands of those who savour unspeakably more of the charlatan than
the prophet. Still, one must be honest and truthful even in regard to what
he has to distinguish, as he can, into probable and impossible. Fact is
not the sole legitimate object of human inquiry. If it were, farewell to
all that elevates and glorifies human nature-farewell to God, to religion,
to hope! It is that which lies at the root of fact, yea, at the root of
law, after which the human soul hungers and longs.
In the preceding remarks I have anticipated a chapter to follow-a chapter
of speculation, which may God make humble and right. But some remark was
needful here. What must be to some a far greater difficulty has yet to
be considered. It is the representation of the Lord's ignorance of the
cure, save from the reaction upon his own person of the influence which
went out from him to fill that vacuum of suffering which the divine nature
abhors: he did not know that his body was about to radiate health. But
this gives me no concern. Our Lord himself tells us in one case, at least,
that he did not know, that only his Father knew. He could discern a necessary
result in the future, but not the day or the hour thereof. Omniscience
is a consequence, not an essential of the divine nature. God knows because
he creates. The Father knows because he orders. The Son knows because he
obeys. The knowledge of the Father must be perfect; such knowledge the
Son neither needs nor desires. His sole care is to do the will of the Father.
Herein lies his essential divinity. Although he knew that one of his apostles
should betray him, I doubt much whether, when he chose Judas, he knew that
he was that one. We must take his own words as true. Not only does he not
claim perfect knowledge, but he disclaims it. He speaks once, at least,
to his Father with an if it be possible. Those who believe omniscience
essential to divinity, will therefore be driven to say that Christ was
not divine. This will be their punishment for placing knowledge on a level
with love. No one who does so can worship in spirit and in truth, can lift
up his heart in pure adoration. He will suppose he does, but his heaven
will be in the clouds, not in the sky.
But now we come to the holy of holies of the story-the divinest of
its divinity. Jesus could not leave the woman with the half of a gift.
He could not let her away so poor. She had stolen the half: she must fetch
the other half-come and take it from his hand. That is, she must know who
had healed her. Her will and his must come together; and for this her eyes
and his, her voice and his ears, her ears and his voice must meet. It is
the only case recorded in which he says Daughter. It could not have been
because she was younger than himself; there could not have been much difference
between their ages in that direction. Let us see what lies in the word.
With the modesty belonging to her as a woman, intensified by the painful
shrinking which had its origin in the peculiar nature of her suffering,
she dared not present herself to the eyes of the Lord, but thought merely
to gather from under his table a crumb unseen. And I do not believe that
our Lord in calling her had any desire to make her tell her tale of grief,
and, in her eyes, of shame. It would have been enough to him if she had
come and stood before him, and said nothing. Nor had she to appear before
his face with only that poor remnant of strength which had sufficed to
bring her to the hem of his garment behind him; for now she knew in herself
that she was healed of her plague, and the consciousness must have been
strength. Yet she trembled when she came. Filled with awe and gratitude,
she could not stand before him; she fell down at his feet. There, hiding
her face in her hands, I presume, she forgot the surrounding multitude,
and was alone in the chamber of her consciousness with the Son of Man.
Her love, her gratitude, her holy awe unite in an impulse to tell him all.
When the lower approaches the higher in love, even between men, the longing
is to be known; the prayer is "Know me." This was David's prayer to God,
"Search me and know me." There should be no more concealment. Besides,
painful as it was to her to speak, he had a right to know all, and know
it he should. It was her sacrifice offered unto the Lord. She told him
all the truth. To conceal anything from him now would be greater pain than
to tell all, for the thing concealed would be as a barrier between him
and her; she would be simple-onefold; her whole being should lie open before
him. I do not for a moment mean that such thoughts, not to say words, took
shape in her mind; but sometimes we can represent a single consciousness
only by analysing it into twenty thoughts. And he accepted the offering.
He let her speak, and tell all.
But it was painful. He understood it well. His heart yearned towards
the woman to shield her from her own innocent shame, to make as it were
a heaven about her whose radiance should render it "by clarity invisible."
Her story appealed to all that was tenderest in humanity; for the secret
which her modesty had hidden, her conscience had spoken aloud. Therefore
the tenderest word that the language could afford must be hers. "Daughter,"
he said. It was the fullest reward, the richest acknowledgment he could
find of the honour in which he held her, his satisfaction with her conduct,
and the perfect love he bore her. The degrading spirit of which I have
spoken, the spirit of the commonplace, which lowers everything to the level
of its own capacity of belief, will say that the word was an eastern mode
in more common use than with us. I say that whatever Jesus did or said,
he did and said like other men-he did and said as no other man did or said.
If he said Daughter, it meant what any man would mean by it; it meant what
no man could mean by it-what no man was good enough, great enough, loving
enough to mean by it. In him the Father spoke to this one the eternal truth
of his relation to all his daughters, to all the women he has made, though
individually it can be heard only by those who lift up the filial eyes,
lay bare the filial heart. He did the works, he spoke the words of him
that sent him. Well might this woman, if she dared not lift the downcast
eye before the men present, yet depart in shameless peace: he who had healed
her had called her Daughter. Everything on earth is paltry before such
a word. It was the deepest gift of the divine nature-the recognition of
the eternal in her by him who had made it. Between the true father and
the true daughter nothing is painful. I think also that very possibly some
compunction arose in her mind, the moment she knew herself healed, at the
mode in which she had gained her cure. Hence when the Lord called her she
may have thought he was offended with her because of it. Possibly her contrition
for the little fault, if fault indeed it was, may have increased the agony
of feeling with which she forced rather than poured out her confession.
But he soothes her with gentle, consoling, restoring words: "Be of good
comfort." He heals the shy suffering spirit, "wherein old dints of deep
wounds did remain." He confirms the cure she feared perhaps might be taken
from her again. "Go in peace, and be whole of thy plague." Nay, more, he
attributes her cure to her own faith. "Thy faith hath made thee whole."
What wealth of tenderness! She must not be left in her ignorance to the
danger of associating power with the mere garment of the divine. She must
be brought face to face with her healer. She must not be left kneeling
on the outer threshold of the temple. She must be taken to the heart of
the Saviour, and so redeemed, then only redeemed utterly. There is no word,
no backward look of reproach upon the thing she had condemned. If it was
evil it was gone from between them for ever. Confessed, it vanished. Her
faith was an ignorant faith, but, however obscured in her consciousness,
it was a true faith. She believed in the man, and our Lord loved the modesty
that kept her from pressing into his presence. It may indeed have been
the very strength of her faith working in her ignorance that caused her
to extend his power even to the skirts of his garments. And there he met
the ignorance, not with rebuke, but with the more grace. If even her ignorance
was so full of faith, of what mighty confidence was she not capable! Even
the skirt of his garment would minister to such a faith. It should be as
she would. Through the garment of his Son, the Father would cure her who
believed enough to put forth her hand and touch it. The kernel-faith was
none the worse that it was closed in the uncomely shell of ignorance and
mistake. The Lord was satisfied with it. When did he ever quench the smoking
flax? See how he praises her. He is never slow to commend. The first quiver
of the upturning eyelid is to him faith. He welcomes the sign, and acknowledges
it; commends the feeblest faith in the ignorant soul, rebukes it as little
only in apostolic souls where it ought to be greater. "Thy faith hath saved
thee." However poor it was, it was enough for that. Between death and the
least movement of life there is a gulf wider than that fixed between the
gates of heaven and the depths of hell. He said "Daughter."
