Jesus assigned great importance to marriage and family, the sanctity and unity of the home. Although His vocation required His abandonment of home (Jn 2*, Mk 3=*=^- ^), and He required of His disciples also the same renunciation (Lk 14-^), yet He missed the shelter and peace of home (Mt 8^"), and recognized the greatness of the sacrifice in- volved (Mt 19^®). His denunciation of the lax traditions of the elders regarding divorce (Mt 19^'^) and the duty of children to their parents (Mk 7^'^^ was in defence of the home. It is supremely signi- ficant that love, the grace of the home, and not justice, the virtue of the State, is made the first and greatest commandment (Mk 12^^"2i). The child is nearer, means more, to the mother than to the father ; and Jesus understood and cared for children (Mt lli« IS^-^ 19'3-i5). Does not the modesty of the woman appear in His reference to the lustfuJ
WOMANLINESS
WONDERS
837
glance (Mt 5^*^), and His stooping to write upon the ground when the woman taken in her sin stood before Him ( Jn 8®) ? Jesus understood the heart of a woman in penitence (Lk 7^^) and in gratitude ( Jn 12^- ®). His defence of the ottering of love shows not only His active but also His receptive aff"ection- ateness, His yearning for, as well as bestowal of, the generosities of the heart. He was not only in- tensely emotional, but quick in expressing His emo- tions (Jn 1P»- 38, Mk 1^ 812, Jn ips^ Lk 13^* I9«, Mt 23^''). His tenderness, gentleness, patience, and forbearance are more distinctively feminine than masculine graces. In His resignation and obedi- ence to His Father's will (Mt ll-'^- ^^) is there not a womanly rather than a manly submissiveness ? The prominence He gives in the Beatitudes to the passive graces of endurance rather than the active virtues of endeavour (Mt 5*"'") vindicates the distinctive excellence of womanhood. His teach- ing about non-resistance (Mt 5^'*^), so much mis- understood and neglected, can be better appreciated by women than by men, for such patience under wrong has entered into their life more than into that of men. The mind of Jesus was intuitive rather than ratiocinative ; His moral judgment was swift and sure ; His spiritual discernment direct ; and these are characteristic of women rather than of men.
Doubtless it was this ivomanliness in Jesus that attracted and attached so many women to Him during His earthly ministry : and they re- ceived from Him a loving welcome such as they did not find in any other religious teacher of the age. His disciples were astonished that He vra,s speaking to the woman of Samaria (Jn 4^), and doubtless the prejudices of many were ofiended by His action regarding women. His defence of the sinful woman and of Mary has been already noted. ' We have a lovely group of female disciples and friends around the Lord : Mary, the wife of Clopas ; Salome, the mother of James and John ; Mary of Bethany, who sat at Jesus' feet ; her busy and hospitable sister Martha ; Mary of Magdala, whom the Lord healed of a demoniacal jjossession ; the sinner, who washed His feet with her tears of penitence and wiped them with her hair ; and all the noble women who ministered to the Son of Man in His earthly poverty with the gifts of tlieir love (Lk 8^, Mt27**, Mk IS*'), lingered last around His Cross (Jn 19^5), and were first at His open sepulchre on the morning of the resurrection (Mt 28', Jn 20^) ' [Schatt", op. cit. p. 442]). The reverence that the motlier of Jesus has properly inspired has given to womanhood a glory, and to woman a position and influence in the Christian Church, never before and nowhere else recognized. To the instances given above of the relation of Jesus to women we may add His com- passion for the widow of Nain (Lk 7'^), and His commendation of the widow's mites (Mk 12^^- *^). His treatment of a woman on three occasions appears harsh, but a consideration of the circum- stances in each case removes this impression. His rebuke to His mother at Cana (Jn 2*) expresses His dread of any liuman interference with His ful- filment of His Divine vocation (cf. the rebuke of Peter, Mt 16^) ; His repulse of the Syrophoenician mother (Mk 7^) was His own indignant protest against Jewish exclusiveness ; His requirement that the woman healed by touching His garment should confess lier deed was no violence done to her sense of modesty, but was intended to replace the uncertainty of a cure snatched unawares by the assurance of healing willingly bestowed (Mk 5^^). What Christ has been to and done for women tlnoughout tlie history of Christendom, and what women have suttered and accomplished for His Cliurch and Kingdom on earth, aflbrd abundant and conclusive evidence of the womanliness of
Jesus in presenting in His character all womanly grace as well as manly virtue, and offering in His salvation what meets the deepest needs, and fulfils the loftiest hopes of womanhood in all lands and ages. See also Woman.
Alfred E. Gaevie. WONDERS.— The two terms 'signs' and 'won- ders' are frequently joined in the OT, and this usage is carried over into the NT. The word r^/aas, ' wonder,' never occurs in the NT except in connexion with (T7)fj.eXov , ' sign' (wh. see). The Heb. correlatives were ngin and niN. Jesus used the conjoined terms twice in His recorded sayings^once when He fore- told that false prophets would come and ' show great signs and wonders' (Mk 13^^, Mt 24^4), and once when He complained that the people demanded such things of Him before they would have faith in Him — ' Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in no wise believe ' ( Jn 4^*). The word ripas occurs nowhere else in the Gospels. Elsewhere in the NT it is found once in a quotation from Joel to repre- sent the marvels wrought by Jehovah in the heaven (Ac 219), a,nd twelve times in reference to miracles wrought by Moses (7^^), by Jesus (2^^), by the man of sin (2 Th 2^), and by the Apostles and early missionaries (Ac 2*'^ 4^ 5^^ 6» 14« IS'^, Ro 15i9, 2 Co 1212, jjg 2*). From the use of the word made by Jesus we might conclude that He did not esteem signs and wonders very highly, and that He freely granted that they were possible to false prophets as well as to Himself. In Origen (c. Celsum) we find practically the same attitude of thought. Origen is disposed to concede that signs and won- ders are wrought among the heathen.