would scarcely have found his way into the house of the Pharisee, rests
upon an ignorance of the almost public life of the East, and a forgetting
how easily in a moment of high excitement, such as this must have
been, the feeble barriers which the conventional rules of society would
oppose might be broken through. (Luke vii. 36, 37.) At any rate, if
there was such a plot, the man himself was no party to it; for the Lord
" took him, and healed him, and let him go.'^
Yet, ere he did this, he justified the work which he would accom-
plish, as more than once he had justified other similar works of grace
and love wrought upon the Sabbatli, saying to these interpreters of the
Law, " Is it lawful to heal upon the Sabbath V Here, as in so many
matters of debate, it only needs for the question to be truly put, to be
once rightly stated, and the answer at once is given ; all is so clear, that
the possibility of its remaining a question any longer has for ever van-
ished.* As was the case before, he obtains no answer from them, — for
they will not approve, and they cannot gainsay. " As on other occa-
sions, (Matt. xii. 11 ; Luke xiii. 15,) the Lord brings back those pre-
sent to their own experience, and lets them feel the keen contradiction
in which their blame of Christ's free work of love sets them with them-
selves, in that, where their worldly interests were at hazard, they did
that very thing whereof they made now an occasion against him.""j" We
may observe, that as in that other case where the woman was bound, he
adduces the example of unbinding a beast, (Luke xiii. 15,) — so in this,
where the man was dropsical, suffering, that is, from water, the exam-
ple he adduces has its equal fitness.:}: "You grudge that I should deli-
ver this man upon this day from the water that is choking him, yet if
the same danger from water threatened one of your beasts, an ass or an
ox,^ you would make no scruple of extricating it on the Sabbath from
* Tertullian {Adv. 3Iarc., 1. 4, c. 12) : Adimplevit enim et hie legem, dum con-
ditionem interpretatur ejus, dum operum differentiam illuminat, dum facit quae Lex de
Sabbati feriis excipit, dum ipsum Sabbati diem benedictione Patris a primordio sanc-
tum, benefactione sua etiicit sanctiorem, in quo scilicet divina prajsidia ministrabat.
+ Olshausen.
t So Augustine (Qucest. Evang., 1. 2, c. 29) : Congruenter hydropicum animali
quod cecidit in puteum, comparavit : humore enim laborabat ; sicut et illam mulierem
quam decem et octo annis alligatam dixerat . . . comparavit jumento quod solvitur ut
ad aquam ducatur. Grotius : Hydropicum submergendce pecudi, ut rrju cvyicvKTovaai'
pecudi vinctse, comparavit.
§ There are very considerable authorities for, instead of oVoj, reading vlds, which
MAN WITH A DROPSY. 2G5
the danfi^ers which threatened it ; how much then is a man better than
a beast ?" '-And they could not. answer him again to these things;"
they were silenced, that is, but not convinced. The truth, which did
not win them, did that which alone else it could do, exasperated them
the more : and they replied nothing, biding their time. (See Matt,
xii. 14.)
Mill and Wetstein favor, and which Chrysostom (see Cramer's Catena, m loc.) appears
to have read in his copy ; yet the internal connection seems decisive in favor of the
other reading. Christ is arguing from the less to the greater: " You will save a com-
paratively worthless beast, do you murmur when I save a man ?" We have the ox
and the ass set together as liable to this accident of falling into a pit, Exod. xxi. 33.
XXII.
THE CLEANSING OF THE TEN LEPERS.
Luke xvii. 11 — 19.
The Jews that dwelt in Galilee very commonly in their necessary jour-
neys to the feasts at Jerusalem took the longer route, which led them
across the Jordan, and through the region of Perasa, the Gilead of the
Old Testament, that so they might avoid the vexations and annoyances
and even worse outrages which they sometimes met in passing through
the unfriendly land of the Samaritans.* For these, always unfriendly,
would naturally be most unfriendly of all to those that were travelling
up to the great feasts of the holy city, and were thus giving witness in
act against the will-worship of Mount Gerizim, and the temple of Sa-
maria in which no presence of God dwelt. It is generally understood
that now, despite these vexations and the discomforts of that inhospitable
route, (see Luke ix. 51 — ^^56 ; John iv. 9,) our Lord, with the band of
his disciples, on this his last journey to the holy city, took the directer
and shorter way which led him straight from Galilee through the midst
of Samaria to Jerusalem. It is certain that the words of the original
may bear this meaning, yet not the less I should understand the Evan-
gelist to say that the Lord passed between these two regions, having,
that is, one on his right hand, the other on his left, and skirting
them both. This explains the mention of Samaria first, which in the
ordinary explanation of the words is almost inexplicable. The Lord
travelled due eastward towards Jordan, having Galilee on his left hand,
and Samaria, which is therefore first named, on his right : and on reach-
ing the river, he either passed over it at Scythopolis, where we know
there was a bridge, recrossing the river near Jericho,f or kept on the
* Josephus (Antt., 1. 20, c. 6, § 1) gives an account of the massacre by the Sama-
ritans of a great number of Galilajan pilgrims, which happened a little later than this,
t So Wetstein : Non via recta et brevissima a septentrione versus meridiem per
THE CLEANSING OF THE TEN LEPERS. 267
western bank till he reached that city, where presently we find him.
(xviii. 35.)
"And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men, that
were lepers J^ Their common misery had drawn them together j (2
Kin. vii. 3 •) nay, had even caused them to forget the fierce national an-
tipathy which reigned between Jew and Samaritan. In this border
land too it was more natural than elsewhere that they should find them-
selves in one company, and thus a Samaritan had found admission into
this forlorn assembly. There has been already occasion to speak of the
nature and meaning of leprosy in the Law of Moses ; that it was the
outward symbol of sin in its deepest malignity, — of sin therefore as in-
volving entire separation from God ; not of spiritual sickness only, but
spiritual death, since absolute separation from the one fountain of life
must needs be no less. These lepers, in obedience to the command-
ment, "stood afar off ;^' and out of a deep sense of their misery, yet not
without hope that a Healer was at hand, " lifted up their voices and said,
Jesus, Master,* have mercy on us .'" They were now in earnest to re-
ceive the mercy, however at a later period they were slack in giving
thanks for it.
Wonderful is it and most instructive to observe the differences in
our Lord's dealing with the different sufferers and mourners that are
brought in contact with him ; how the Physician, who is all wisdom
and all tenderness, varies his treatment for the varying needs of his pa-
tients ; how he seems to resist a strong faith, that he may make it
stronger yet ; how he meets a weak faith, lest it should prove altogether
too weak in the trial ; how one he forgives first, and heals after ; and
another, whose heart could only be softened by first receiving an earthly
benefit, he first heals and then pardons. There is here, too, no doubt a
reason why these ten are dismissed as yet uncleansed, and bidden to go
show themselves to the priests ; while that other, whose healing was
before recorded, is first cleansed, and not till afterwards bidden to pre-
sent himself in the temple. Doubtless there was here a keener trial of
their faith. While as yet there were no signs of restoration upon them,
they were bidden to do that, which implied they were perfectly cleansed,
to take a journey, which would have been ridiculous, a labor in vain,
unless Christ's words and promise proved true. In their prompt going
Samariticam regionem iter fecit, sed cum confinia Samariae et Galilaeae venisset, ab
itinere deflexft versus orientem, ita ut Samariam ad dextram, Galilaeam ad sinistrain
haberet ; et Jordanem Scythopoli, ubi pons erat, videtur transiisse, et jiixta ripam
Jordanis in Peraea descendisse, donee e regione Jerichuntis iterum trajiceret.
* 'EKtoTdra. Tlie word is peculiar to St. Luke (v. 5 ; viii. 24, 45 ; ix. 33, 49.)
It is instead of the kvou of St. Matthew.
268 THE CLEANSING OF THE TEN LEPERS.
was an evident proof that there were in them weak beginnings of faith,
though these, in tiie greater number, came to notliing, and brought no
fruit to perfection.* For they could not have thought that they were
sent to tiie priests as though these should heal them, since they must
have well known that it was no part of the priests' functions to cure,
but only to declare cured ; tliat these cleansed, not in the sense of rid-
ding men of their disease ; but, when their sickness had disappeared,
restoring them with ceremonial washings and otlerings to the fellowship
of the congregation. There was also here a greater temptation to ingra-
titude. When they first felt and found their benefit, their benefactor was
not immediately before them, so that it should be an easy thing, a cost-
less effort, to return thanks to him : but they were, probably, already out
of his sight, and some little way upon their journey :f we know not how
far, for we are only told, that "as they toentj^ they were cleansed."
Some, indeed, suppose that this returning of the Samaritan to give
thanks, did not take place till after he had accomplished all which was
commanded him ; that he had been at Jerusalem — that he had offered
his gift — that he had been pronounced clean — and, this his first duty
accom()lislicd, that he returned to render due thanks to his benefactor;
and that so the sacred narrative leaps over a large space of time and
many intermediate events for the purpose of connecting together the
beginning and the end of this history. § But certainly the impression
* Calvin: Quainvis enim foetidam adliuc scabiem in came sua conspiciant, siraul
tamen ac jiissi sunt se ostendere sacerdotibus, parere non detrectant Adde quod
nunquam, nisi fidei inipuisu, profecti essent ad sacerdotes: ridiculum enim fuisset ad
testandam suani inunditiem, leprae judicibus se ofTere, nisi pluris illis fuisset Christi
promissio, quiin praesens morbi sui intuitus. Visibilem in carne su& lepram gestant,
unico tamen Christi verbo confisi mundos se profiteri non dubitant : negari igitur non
potest eorum cordibus insitum fuisse aliquod fidei semen . . . Quo magis tiniendum
est, ne et nobis coniingat scintillas fidei in nobis micantes extinguere.
t Calvin gives another reason, besides the trouble, why they did not return: Ut
morbi rnemoriam extinguerent furtim elapsi sunt.
t We learn from Tertullian {Adv. Mmc, 1. 4, c. 35,) that the Gnostic Marcion
saw in this healing of the lepers by the way, this taking, upon Christ's part, of the
work out of the hands of the Levitical priests, a slight cast, and intended to be cast,
by him on the Mosaic institutions : Hie Christum aemulum [Legis] affirmat pra;veni-
entem solennia Legis etiam in curatione decent leprosoium, quos tantummodo ire
jussos ut se ostenderent sacerdotibus, in itinere, purgavit, sine tactu jam et sine verbo,
tacita, potestate, et sola voluntate ; and again. Quasi Legis illusor, ut in itinere curatis
ostenderet nihil esse Legem cum ipsis sacerdotibus. It is needless to observe that there
was no taking of the work out of their hands, since the work of the priests was not
to cleanse, but to pronounce clean.
§ This IS Calvin's view, although he is not strong on it : Mihi tamen mngis pro-
babile est, non nisi audito sacerdotis judicio ad gratias agendas venisse . . . Nisi fort^
THE CLEANSING OF THE TEN LEPERS. 269
which the narrative leaves is different ; — that, having advanced some
very little way on their commanded journey, so little that no time would
have been really lost by the return, perhaps in the very village itself,
they perceived what had taken place in them — that they were healed;
and then this one returned in the fulness of a grateful heart to give glory to
God, and thanks to his great Healer and Saviour; like the Syrian Naa-
man, who when delivered from the same disease, came back with all
his company, beseeching the man of God to take a blessing at his hands ;
(2 Kin. V. 15;) the others meanwhile enduring to carry away the
benefit without one thankful acknowledgment rendered unto him who
was its author and its source, and to whose feet the slightest labor would
have brought them. A sin only too common ! for as Bishop Sanderson
says, with allusion to their former crying : " We open our mouths wide
till he open his hand ; but after, as if the filling of our mouths were the
stopping of our throats, so are we speechless and heartless."*
It gives a special significance to this miracle, and to its place in the
Gospel of St. Luke, the Gospel for the heathen, that this thankful one
should have been no other than a Samaritan, a stranger therefore by
birth to the covenants of promise, while the nine unthankful were of the
seed of Abraham. Thus there spoke out in this circumstance that the
Gentiles, (for this Samaritan was no better,) were not excluded from the
kingdom of God, nay, rather might find a place in it before others who
by nature and birth were children of the kingdom ; that the ingratitude
of these might exclude them, while the faith of those might give to
them an abundant entrance into all its blessings.
Even the Saviour himself, who knew what was in man, who had al-
ready had so many proofs of the ingratitude of men, seems to have mar-
velled here : for he asks, " Were there not ten cleansed ?-\ but where are
the nine ? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save
this stranger." Him he dismisses with a new and a better blessing ;
the first had reached but to the healing of his body, and that he had in
common with the unthankful nine ; but gratitude for a lower mercy ob-
tains for him a higher, a peculiar blessing, which is singularly his,
which reaches not merely to the springs of bodily health, but to the very
fountains of his spiritual being. These also are healed ; that which the
magis placet diversa conjectura, simul ac mundatum se vidit, antequam testimonium
expeteret ci sacerdotibus, ad ipsum auctorem pio at sancto ardore correptum venisse, ut
sacrificium suum k gratiaram actione inciperet.
* Bernard : Importuni ut accipiant, inquieti donee acceperint, ubi acceperint iii-
grati. Calvin: Sic inopia et esuries fideni gignit, quam occidit saturitas.
t Or rather, " Were not the ten (ol Sina) cleansed ?"
270 THE CLEANSING OF THE TEN LEPERS.
others missed, lo which their bodily healing should have led them up,
he has obtained ; for to him and to him only it is said, " Go thy loay ;
thy faith hath made thee whole."*
It is difficult not to be struck with the aptness of the image which
this history supplies, to set forth the condition of the faitiiful in this
world. They are to take Christ's word that they will be cleansed. In
Baptism is the pledge and promise and the initial act of it all. And
they arc to believe this, while they yet feel in themselves the leprous
taint of sin, — to go forward in faith, being confident that in the use of
his Word, and of his Sacraments, slight as they may seem to meet and
overcome such mighty mischiefs, they will find that health, which ac-
cording to the sure word of promise is already theirs ; and as they go,
believing this word, using these means, they are healed. And for them,
too, a warning is here — that they forget not the purging of their old sins
. — nor what those sins were, how hideous, how loathsome ; in this way
sinning like these nine, who perhaps did not return because they would
fain have obliterated the very memory of the fact that they had ever
been those lepers. There is a warning here for the spiritually cleansed,
that they keep in memory the times of their past anguish of soul, — the
times when every thing seemed defiled to them, and they to every thing ;
when they saw themselves as " unclean, unclean," shut out from all
holy fellowship of God and man, and cried out in their anguish, " Jesus,
Master, have mercy on us," — a warning to them that now they are at
peace, they forget not the time of their trouble, but that the remem-
brance of the absolving cleansing word wliich was spoken to them then,
with each new consciousness of a realized deliverance from the power
of sin, bring them to the Saviour's feet, giving glory to God by him ;
lest failing in this, they be worse than even these unthankful nine. For
they carried away only temporal mercies unacknowledged ; but we
should in that case be seeking to carry away spiritual ; though that
never could truly be, since the spiritual mercy which is not evermore
* Calvin : Servandi verbum quidam interpretes ad carnis munditiem restringunt ;
verilm si ita est, quum vivam in hoc Samaritano fidem commendet Christus, quaeri
potest quomodo servati fuerint alii novem ; nam eadem promiscue omnibus sanitas
obtigit. Sic ergo habendum est Christum hie aliter aestimasse donum Dei quam soleant
profani homines, ncmpe tanquam salutare paterni amoris symbolum vel pignus. Sanati
fuerunt novem leprosi, sed quia Dei gratiam impie obliterant, ipsam sanitatem inficit et
contaminat eorum ingratitudo, ut quam decebat utilitatem ex ett non percipiant. Sola
igitur fides dona Dei nobis sanctificat, ut pura sint, et cum legitimo usa conjuncta in
salutem nobis cedant . . Servatus est sua fide Saraaritanus. Quomodo ? cerlfe non
ideo tantCim, quod k lepra curatus sit (nam hoc et reliqui s commune erat), sed quia in
numerum filiorum Dei acceptus est, ut paterni amoris tesseram ex ejus manu acciperet.
THE CLEANSING OF THE TEN LEPERS. 271
referred to its author, does sooner or later inevitably cease from him
who would seek on any other condition to retain it.*
*. Chemnitz {Harm. Evang., c. 125): Remittit nos Filius Dei ad ministerium
Verbi et Sacramentorum in Ecclesia ; et quemadmodum hi sanati sunt dum iverunt, et
niandato Christi obtemperarunt, ita et nos dum in Ecclesia Verbum Dei audimus, abso-
lutione et Sacramentis utimur, vult nobis Christus peccata remittere, nos sanare, ut in
ccelesti Jerusalem mundi coram Deo compareamus . . . Omnes nati sumus filii ir®, in
baptismo remittitur nobis ille reatus, sed non statim in coelos abripimur : verum dicit
nobis Ite, ostendite vos sacerdotibus. Leve quid ut videtur injungit. Utut autem leve
sit, sequitur tamen enarrabile bonum, quia is qui nobis hoc praacipit, est omnipotens
Deus, qui ex minimis maxima producere potest. Cf. Augustine, Qucsst. Evang., 1. 2,
c. 40.
XXIII.
THE HEALING OF THE DAUGHTER OF THE SYllO-
PHENICIAN WOMAN.
Matt. xv. 21—28 ; Mark vii. 24—30.
It is not probable that our blessed Lord actually overpassed the limits
of the Jewish land, now or at any other moment of his earthly ministry ;
though when it is sajjd that he " departed into the coasts of Tyre and
Sidon," this may seem at first to favor such a supposition. St. Mark,
however, tells us that he only "â– went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon,"
and the true meaning which even St. Matthew's words will abundantly
bear, is, that he came into the confines of that heathen land.* The
general fitness of things, and more especially his own words on this very
occasion, " I am not sent hut unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel"
would make it extremely unlikely that he had now brought his healing
presence into a heathen land ; and, moreover, when St. Matthew speaks
of the " woman of Canaan " as coming out of that district, " of the same
coasts," he clearly shows that he has no other intention than to describe
the Lord as having drawn close to the skirts of that profane land.
Being there, he " entered into a house, and would have no inan know
it :" but as the ointment bewrayeth itself, so he whose Name is like
ointment poured out, " could not be hid ;" and among those attracted by
its sweetness, was a woman of that country, — "a woman of Canaan,"
as St. Matthew terms her, " a Greek, a Syrophenician" as St. Mark,t
* Kuinoel here : In partes Palaestina2 region! Tyriorutn ct Sidonioram finitimas.
So Exod. xvi. 35, £15 ixtpos tijs ^oinVijj (LXX.) " to the borders of Canaan."
t JlvKO(poii'iKi(x(xa the best manuscripts have ; so Lachmann ; and not Tivpofohiaaa,
which indeed were the more Greek form, yet not therefore here to be preferred, but
rather the contrary. See a learned note in Grotius, on Matt. xv. 22. This woman's
name, according to the Clementine Homilies (1. 2, c. 19), was Justa, where legends of
her later life, and her transition from heathenism to Judaism, are to be found.
DAUGHTER OF THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. 273
meaning by the first term to describe her religion, that it was not Jewish
but heathen ; by the second, the stock of which she came, which was
even that accursed stock which God had once doomed to a total excision,
but of which some branches had been spared by those first generations
of Israel that should have extirpated them root and branch. Every
thing, therefore, was against her ; yet she was not hindered by that
every thing from coming and craving the boon that her soul longed
after. She had heard of the mighty works which the Saviour of Israel
had done : for already his fame had gone through all Syria; so thai
they brought unto him, besides other sick, " those which were possessed
with devils, and those which were lunatic, and he healed them." (Matt.
iv. 24.) And she has a boon to ask for her daughter, or rather indeed
for herself, for so entirely had she made her daughter's misery her own,
that she comes saying, " Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David ;
my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil ;^' as on a later occasion
the father of the lunatic child, " Have compassion on us, and help us."
(Mark ix. 22.)
But very different she finds him from that which report had described
him to her ; for that spoke of him as the merciful Son of man, who
would not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax, who en-
couraged every weary and afflicted soul to come and find rest with him.
He who of himself came to meet the needs of others, withdrew himself
from hers ; " He answered her not a word." In the language of Chry-
sostom, " The Word has no word ; the fountain is sealed ; the physician
withholds his remedies;" until at last the disciples, wearied out with her
long entreaties, and seemingly more merciful than their Lord, them-
selves come to him, making intercession for her that he would grant to
her her petition and send her away. Yet was there in truth the worm
of selfishness at the root of this seemingly greater compassion of theirs,
and it shows itself when they give their reason why he should dismiss
her with the boon she asks: ^' For she crieth after us ;" she is making a
scene ; she is drawing on us unwelcome observation. Theirs is one of
those heartless grantings of a request, whereof we all are conscious ;
when it is granted out of no love to the suppliant, but to leave undisturbed
the peace and selfish ease of him from whom at length it is extorted, —
such as his who said, "Lest by her continual coming she weary me."
Here, as so often, under a seeming severity lurks the real love, while
selfishness hides itself under the mask of bounty. But these interces-
sors meet with no better fortune than the suppliant herself; and Christ
stops their mouth with words unpromising enough for her suit : " I am
not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Cf. Matt. x.
5,6.)
274 THE HEALING OF THE DAUGHTER
But in what sense was this true ? All prophecy which went before
declared that in him, the promised Seed, not one nation only, but all
nations of the earth, should be blest : he himself declared, " Other
sheep I have, which are not of this fold ; them also 1 must bring, and
they shall hear my voice." (John x. 16.) It has happened indeed with
others, as with the founders of false religions, that as success increased,
the circle of their vision has widened ; and they who meant at first but
to give a faith to their nation, have aspired at last to give one to the
world. But here all must have been known : the world-embracing
reach of his faith was contemplated by Christ from the first. In what
sense then, and under what limitations, could it be said with truth that