themselves little better than the unthinking multitude.' By the other they seemed to forget what He had already done on two several occasions, which He recalls to their minds; catechizing them, as it were, and making them answer for themselves; leaving them to draw the inference that it would be equally easy for Him to supply their present wants. Then at last it seems to have dawned upon them what His meaning was. The leaven He meant had nothing to do with bread. It referred to the false doctrine which like leaven might spread through and corrupt a whole community. 2 CCLXXXIV. THE BLIND MAN OF BETHSAIDA. St. Mark viii. 22–26. And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him. he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town. Of the many miracles the Lord wrought, St. Mark seems to have been directed to single out one and another which had some feature specially noteworthy. As he has told us already of the deaf mute, so here he records the case, somewhat similar in its circumstances, of the blind man at Bethsaida. He too is brought by others who could not come of himself. Our faculties are given us not for selfish purposes, but for the sake of others who want them. Those who are blessed with eye-sight are bound to relieve those from whom this blessing has been withheld. The seeing must be eyes, as it were, to the blind. This blind man's friends besought the Lord to touch him. They had heard, it might be, of the effects which followed such treatment in the case of the man who was deaf and dumb. Now the Lord fulfils what He had promised by the mouth of His Prophet long before, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight" What a picture we have here! The Lord of all leading a blind man by the hand! He lead him out of a town unworthy to see any more of His mighty works done within its walls; as the man was afterwards forbidden to return to such a town. Here the Lord, as in that other miracle, "links on His power to forms already in use among men; working through these forms something higher than they could have produced." So in the Sacraments which He hath ordained in His Church, virtue proceeds "not from the visible sign, but from the invisible power." " Thus the Lord extends to this sufferer, type of our darkened humanity, the virtue of His Incarnation. This, unlike most of His miracles, was comparatively a gradual work. The partially restored sufferer sees at first indistinctly and confusedly. "Trees he should have accounted them from their height, but men from their motion."3 So, for our instruction, he answers when the Lord questions him. By a second imposition of the same hand the work is perfected. He who conveys a blessing by the hand of His Minister at the font in Holy Baptism, is ready in Confirmation to give more grace, if there be on our part no bar to the blessing. Let us bear, as the Lord did, with those whose spiritual 1 Abp. Trench, who adds, "Thus did He when He bade His Disciples to anoint the sick with oil, one of the most esteemed helps for healing in the East. Not the oil, but His word, was to heal So the figs laid on Hezekiah's boil were indeed the very remedy which a physician with only natural appliances at command would have used; yet now hiding itself behind this nature, clothing itself in the forms of this nature, an effectual work of preternatural healing went forward." With the Ancients saliva was sometimes accounted medicinal. Pliny (Nat. Hist. XXVIII. iv.) has an account of the virtues attributed to fasting saliva. See also Persius ii. 31-33. 2 Hooker. vision is yet imperfect. "The light of truth does not often enter all at once into the soul." 1 CCLXXXV. THE CONFESSION OF ST. PETER. St. Matthew xvi. 13-17. When Jesus came into the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 3 Cæsarea Philippi, so called to distinguish it from the Cæsarea we read of in the Acts of the Apostles, was a town in the far north of the Holy Land. Into the neighbourhood of this the Lord now came, approaching probably no nearer than to its outlying hamlets." Here He seems to have been in retreat with His disciples. He seems to have sought this retirement for special prayer. Afterwards while walking together," He asked them, not for His own information, but to draw from them a good confession, whom He, who was in appearance like any other man, was generally supposed to be. Whereupon they mention the various opinions prevalent among the people concerning Him. Some, echoing the idea which Herod had thrown out, imagined Him to be John the Baptist risen from the dead. Others took Him to be Quesnel, who adds, "The cure of our blindness is only begun here on earth for our understanding has some degree of darkness which will not be dispersed until we come to 3 St. Luke ix. 18. 13 the Elijah promised in the Prophet. Others Jeremiah, "accounted by the Jews the first in the prophetic canon," 2 returned to life. Others supposed Him to be some other of the old Prophets in like manner risen again. On His asking them their own opinion, Simon Peter, "the mouth-piece of the Apostles, ever ardent, the Coryphæus of the Apostolic band, when all are asked, he answers; answers for all; making that memorable confession of Him as none other than the Messiah, the anointed of God. He who called Himself the Son of man, who had indeed taken upon Him man's nature, they believed to be the Son of the living God. This solemn title the Jews were in the habit of giving to Him who was not as the gods of the nations round about. Whereupon the Lord bestows on him that famous benediction. addresses him first by his former name. He recalls the name of his father. He testifies that this is a knowledge not received from any human source. It was not derived by tradition from his father. It had not been revealed to Simon by Jonas on earth, but by God from heaven. He CCLXXXVI. THE SAME SUBJECT-continued. St. Matthew xvi. 18-20. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. Again the Lord gives His faithful Apostle that new name 1 Mal. iv. 5. 2 Alford. 3 Chry. in S. Matt. Hom, liv. St. Luke ix. 20. 5 St. John i. 13; Gal. i. 16. 1 4 2 of strength, confirming him as it were in his Christian name, the name by which he should henceforward be known in the Church and kingdom of Christ. He had promised before, at the first, that he should be so called; which promise He now fulfils. The name Peter signifies a stone. The Church is "built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets."3 St. Peter was selected to be first of these; first in order of seniority, not of office; first among those otherwise equal." Having, as in His own parable, built His house upon a Rock, the Master-builder proclaims that the gates of the grave shall not prevail against it. Unlike all other societies, it shall never be subject to dissolution. It is immortal, exempt from death, endued with the power of an endless life. It was at the gates of a city that councils of war were held. From the city-gate armies were wont to issue against an enemy. Whatever hosts of death might thence be dispatched against Christ's Church should be discomfited. And still speaking to St. Peter as the representative of the rest, He promises him, what afterwards he committed to them all, the keys of the kingdom; authority to admit the penitent to the privileges of His Church, and to exclude from them the impenitent; power of absolution and of excommunication. What Christ's lawful Ministers then do, according to His will, on earth, He will ratify in Heaven. The act of the ambassador, if approved, is the act of the Sovereign that sends him. Keys are badges of authority, and they are com 1 St. John i. 42. 2 The Aramaic Cephas and the Greek Peter have much the same meaning. The paronomasia or play upon the words in the original, cannot be preserved in translation. Eph. ii. 20; Rev. xxi. 14. Coll. for St. Simon and St. Jude's Day. Acts xv. 7. The objection sometimes made to the obvious interpretation of the text, that in the original there are two words, will not have much weight when we consider that the word rendered Rock is feminine, and so could not be made the name of a man. Peter and Rock are evi |