The other miracle, also recorded by St. Mark (9ii-89)_ jg upon o„g -whose dumbness was linked with demoniacal possession. An examination of the passage shows how the case had baffled Christ's disciples. The father of the possessed felt that he had in the Great Teacher his final resort. Our Lord's question elicited the reply that the malady, ag<;ravated by demoniacal suu gestion, was congenital. The man's dumbn.-- was of the acutest form. The narrative of tin-
. iv. [1890] to the mar
miracle is not out of line with the experience of the medical faculty. It is not only that deafness and dumbness are allied, but the patient at his worst and unhappiest suffers some form of de- mentia or idioc3'. With the former instance, which lacked the distressing epileptic symptoms, our Lord dealt directly. In the latter He faces an evil, hostile power, ' Thou speechless * and dumb spirit, come out of him, and enter no more into him.' The former cure was calmly, quietly brought about. This was accompanied by awful convulsions. But the issue in both was the same, neither physical defects nor demoniacal agency resisted the word of pity and of power.
It is to be observed that none of our Lord's miracles excited such interest or won such ad- miration as those wrought upon the deaf and dumb. This would answer to common experience. The restoration of .<iigbt to the blind, for it is none otherlliaii (his^liirh ^|l^l■ial treatment in Germany seems now ,iihl :iu:iiii to liave brought about, and of whirli .,iii. iiiai wlli)\is instance is known to the present '.vi idr, wuuld not cause such astonishment as the recovery of a deaf or dumb friend. Blind- ness does not interrupt personal relationship as deafness and dumbness do, and, the moment hear- ing and speech are recovered, the results and consequences are communicable to others. It is no wonder, therefore, that the astonishment of the multitude passed into praise. Its verdict was, ' He hath done all things well ' (Mk 7^').
3. Spiritual applications of deafness and dumb- ness.— The senses of which these human bodies of ours stand possessed are so wondrous in their character and operations, that one would expect to find in Holy Scripture lessons drawn from them of great spiritual import. And so it is. The open eye, clear, candid, trustful, is a figure of faith throughout both Testaments (Ps llQ's 121i, Pr 20>=, Mk 81", Jn 12^», Ro IP). With equal force the open ear is significant of obedience. Students of the Psalter and of the Prophets will bear in mind the denunciations poured, both for spiritual deafness and dumbness, upon a people which re- fused to listen to the voice of Jehovah, and which was silent when the Divine Name and His praise were concerned (Ps 81" etc.. Is 6'"). On the other hand, again, through both Testaments, from Samuel to St John the Divine, a commendation and blessing has ever attended the ear willing to receive, the lips open to prayer and to praise. It is in and through the combination of these that the message of the Gospel can be disseminated (Ko 10^°- '"). And so of all the spiritual gifts, most dear to Apostolic men was Trapp-qirla (Ei)h 6™), born of the courage of conviction, and marking a min<l and temper capable of standing at the last before the Son of Man. B. Whitefooed.
DEATH. — It belong.s to the profoundly spiritual character of our Lord's thinking that He says com- paratively little on the subject of physical death. His attitude towards it is indicated in the words, 'She is not dead but sleepeth' (Mt 9^6 =Mk S^, Lk 8*-). He recognized that man's true being was something apart from the mere bndily existence, and death thus rcsdlvr.l il .If inl.. a natural inci- dent, analogous to slri'|i, whirh luoke the con- tinuity of life only in ^reinin-. The idea is pifscnticl more definitely in the charge to the .li-ip|..-. Fear not them that kill the body, and :iii''i ill :ii have no more that they can do,' etc. (I.k l_" Mt 10=*), where it is expressly declared that life resides in the soul, over which God alone has power. The accident of death, of the separa- tion of the soul from its material body, can make little difference to the essential man.
' The rarer word iA«Ao» is used in vv.l"-=5.
428
DEATH
DEATH
The three recorded miracles of raising from tlie dead are, in the last resort, concrete illustrations of this side of our Lord's teaching. The Johannine account of the raising of Lazanrs is indeed bound up with a more complex theological doctrine ; but the Synoptic miracles, in so far as they are more than works of compassion or exhibitions of Divine
Sower, are indicative of the transient nature of eath. Jesus awakens the daughter of Jairus and the youth of Nain as if from ordinary sleep. Tlie life which to outward appearance liad ceased, had only been withdrawn from the body, and could be reunited with it at the Di\ine word.
Attempts have been made to connect these miracles and tlie whole conception of death as .sleep, with the contemporary Jewish belief that for three days the soul still lingered in the neigh- bourhood of the dead body. The earliest stage of death might therefore be regarded as a condition of trance or slumber from which the spirit could yet be recalled. It is in view, probably, of this belief that St. John emphasizes the 'four days' that had elapsed since the death of Lazarus, whose soul must thus have finally departed from his body when Jesus revived him. But we have no indica- tion that our Lord Himself took any account of the popular superstition, much less that He was influenced by it. His conception of death as a passing sleep was derived solely from His certainty that man, being a child of God, was destined to an immortal life. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob cannot be permanently dead, for God is not the God of the dead but of the living (Mt 22" = Mk 12=«). In virtue of their relation to God they must have passed into a more perfect life through apjiarent death.