[1702] So in Tanchuma.
[1703] Pesiqta.
[1704] Ps. cxlvi 5; Pesiqta, ed. Buber, p. 62 a.
[1705] Tanchuma, u. s.
[1706] This, as it would seem, needless addition (if the narrative were fictitious) is of the highest evidential value. In an Ephesian Gospel of the end of the second century it would have been well-nigh impossible.
[1707] v. 50 comp. the words to Peter in St. John xiii. 36-38; and to the disciples, St. John xvi. 31, 32.
[1708] v. 51.
[1709] So, at least, most probably. Comp. St. John xxi. 2, and the various commentaries. __________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER IV. THE MARRIAGE FEAST IN CANA OF GALILEE - THE MIRACLE THAT IS A SIGN.'
(St. John ii. 1-12.)
At the close of His Discourse to Nathanael - His first sermon - Jesus had made use of an expression which received its symbolic fulfilment in His first deed. His first testimony about Himself had been to call Himself the Son of Man.' [1710] [1711] We cannot but feel that this bore reference to the confession of Nathanael: Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel.' It is, as if He would have turned the disciples from thoughts of His being the Son of God and King of Israel to the voluntary humiliation of His Humanity, as being the necessary basis of His work, without knowledge of which that of His Divinity would have been a barren, speculative abstraction, and that of His Kingship a Jewish fleshly dream. But it was not only knowledge of His humiliation in His Humanity. For, as in the history of the Christ humiliation and glory are always connected, the one enwrapped in the other as the flower in the bud, so here also His humiliation as the Son of Man is the exaltation of humanity, the realisation of its ideal destiny as created in the likeness of God. It should never be forgotton, that such teaching of His exaltation and Kingship through humiliation and representation of humanity was needful. It was the teaching which was the outcome of the Temptation and of its victory, the very teaching of the whole Evangelic history. Any other real learning of Christ would, as we see it, have been impossible to the disciples - alike mentally, as regards foundation and progression, and spiritually. A Christ: God, King, and not primarily the Son of Man,' would not have been the Christ of Prophecy, nor the Christ of Humanity, nor the Christ of salvation, nor yet the Christ of sympathy, help, and example. A Christ, God and King, Who had suddenly risen like the fierce Eastern sun in midday brightness, would have blinded by his dazzling rays (as it did Saul on the way to Damascus), not risen with kindly light' to chase away darkness and mists, and with genial growing warmth to woo life and beauty into our barren world. And so, as it became Him,' for the carrying out of the work, to make the Captain of Salvation perfect through sufferings,' [1712] so it was needful for them that He should veil, even from their view who followed Him, the glory of His Divinity and the power of His Kingship, till they had learned all that the designation Son of Man' implied, as placed below Son of God' and King of Israel.'
This idea of the Son of Man,' although in its full and prophetic meaning, seems to furnish the explanation of the miracle at the marriage of Cana. We are now entering on the Ministry of The Son of Man,' first and chiefly in its contrast to the preparatory call of the Baptist, with the asceticism symbolic of it. We behold Him now as freely mingling with humanity, sharing its joys and engagements, entering into its family life, sanctioning and hallowing all by His Presents and blessing; then as transforming the water of legal purification' into the wine of the new dispensation, and, more than this, the water of our felt want into the wine of His giving; and, lastly, as having absolute power as the Son of Man,' being also the Son of God' and the King of Israel.' Not that it is intended to convey, that it was the primary purpose of the miracle of Cana to exhibit the contrast between His own Ministry and the asceticism of the Baptist, although greater could scarcely be imagined than between the wilderness and the supply of wine at the marriage-feast. Rather, since this essential difference really existed, it naturally appeared at the very commencement of Christ's Ministry. [1713] And so in regard to the other meaning, also, which this history carries to our minds.