seamless and woven throughout, — though I doubt not our Lord wore it, and it was the hem of such a garment the woman touched.
(b) Some few commentators think it was the outer garment, a loose mantle or cape, thrown over the shoulders, which many wore above the tunic. Such a garment, having no sleeves, might easily be made in one piece without any seam, and per- haps was only drawn together or clasped about the shoulders. It is fair, nevertheless, to say that the Greek word here ren- dered " coat," ordinarily means the inward garment or tunic. (See Suicer and Parkhurst.) Becker's Charicles, however, on this Greek word, shows some reason for thinking it sometimes means the outward coat.
The reader must judge for himself. The question is one which cannot be settled positively either way, and happily is not of any moment. To my own mind, the objection to the first and common view is very serious indeed, if not insupera- ble ; but it may not appear so to others. The only thing we know for certain is that one portion of our Lord's dress was not rent, but made the subject of casting lots as to who should have it. As to the ancient fable that our Lord's coat was wov- en by his mother Mary when He was a child, grew with His growth, and never waxed old or wore out, it is a foolish apoc- ryphal legend.
Bengel observes that we never read of our Lord " rending " His own garments in desperate sorrow, like Job, Jacob, Joshua, Caleb, Jephthah, Hezekiah, Mordecai, Ezra, Paul, and Barnabas. (See Gen. xxxvii. 9 ; Numb. xiv. 6 ; Judges xi. 35 ; 2 Kings xix. 3 ; Esther iv. 1 ; Ezra ix. 3 ; Job i. 20 ; Acts xiv. 14.)
On the incident recorded in this verse, Luther remarks, ** This distribution of garments served for a sign that every- thing was done with Christ, just as with one who was aban- doned, lost, and to be forgotten forever." Even among our selves, the division, sale, or giving away of a man's clothes, is a plain indication of his being dead, or given up for lost , just as among soldiers and sailors, when dead or missing, the effects are sold or distributed.
Henry thinks that " the soldiers hoped to make something more than ordinary out of our Lord's clothes, having heard of cures wrought by the touch of the hem of His garment, or ex- pecting that His admirers would give any money for them." But this seems unlikely and fanciful.
Our Lord was treated, we should observe, just like all com mon criminals, — stripped naked, and His clothes sold under His eyes, as one dead already and cast off by man.
It is noteworthy that in this, as in many other things, our Lord was, in a striking manner, our substitute. He was strip- ped naked, and reckoned, and dealt with as a guilty sinner, in