Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/254

 trees walking, whereupon a further application of the hand to his eyes caused him to see clearly (Mk. viii. 22-26). Here the remark presents itself that if anything of the sort ever occurred, the man could not have been born blind, since he would then have been unable to distinguish either men or trees by sight. It must have been a blindness due to accident or disease of the eyes, and might not have been total. But the whole story is probably mythical.

Two more miracles of healing rest on the authority of the third Gospel alone. By one of them ten lepers, who had asked for mercy, were suddenly cleansed after they had gone away. One only of the ten, a Samaritan, turned round to glorify God and to utter his gratitude. Jesus then observes: "'Were not the ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Were there none found that returned to give glory to God, except this stranger?' And he said to him, 'Arise, go; thy faith hath saved thee'" (Lu. xvii. 11-19). Here the intention of exalting the Samaritan above the Jews is very evident.

Another prodigy was worked at the town of Nain, where the only son of a widow was just dead, and his body was being carried out to the burial-place. Jesus touched the bier, and the widow's son rose to life, to the terror of the spectators, who declared that a great prophet had been raised up, and that God had looked upon his people (Lu. vii. 11-17).

Though the miracles of Jesus were principally of a remedial character, there were others which were rather designed to evince his power. Conspicuous among this class is that of feeding a multitude of five thousand people who had followed him into a desert place, and whose hunger he satisfied by the supernatural multiplication of five loaves and two fishes (Mk. vi. 30-45, and viii. 1-9; Mt. xiv. 14-21, and xv. 29-38; Lu. ix. 10-17; Jo. vi. 1-15). Of this wonder a double version, slightly different in details, has been embodied in the first two Gospels. It is plainly the same story coming from different sources. John, whose miracles are seldom identical with those of the synoptics, relates this one nearly in the same way; except that according to him it was a lad and not (as in the other Gospels) the disciples, who had the food on which the marvel was operated. The number of persons is stated in all four Gospels to be five