The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (4th ed.)

Next to the history of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, may be ranged the narrative in the fourth gospel (ii. 1 ff.), of Jesus at a wedding in Cana of Galilee turning water into wine. According to Olshausen, both miracles fall under the same category, since in both a substratum is present, the substance of which is modified.311 But he overlooks the logical distinction, that in the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the modification is one of quantity merely, an augmentation of what was already existing, without any change of its quality (bread becomes more bread, but remains bread); whereas at the wedding in Cana the substratum is modified in quality—out of a certain substance there is made not merely more of the same kind, but something else (out of water, wine); in other words, a real transubstantiation takes place. It is true there are changes in quality which are natural results, and the instantaneous effectuation of which by Jesus would be even more easy to conceive, than an equally rapid augmentation of quantity; for example, if he had suddenly changed must into wine, or wine into vinegar, this would only have been to conduct in an accelerated manner the same vegetable substratum, the vinous juice, through various conditions natural to it. The miracle would be already heightened if Jesus had imparted to the juice of another fruit, the apple for instance, the quality of that of the grape, although even in this his agency would have been within the limits of the same kingdom of nature.

But here, where water is turned into wine, there is a transition from one kingdom of nature to another, from the elementary to the vegetable; a miracle which as far exceeds that of the multiplication of the loaves, as if Jesus had hearkened to the counsel of the tempter, and turned stones into bread.312

To this miracle, as to the former, Olshausen, after Augustine,313 applies his definition of an accelerated natural process, by which we are to understand that we have here simply the occurrence, in an accelerated manner, of that which is presented yearly in the vine in a slow process of development. This mode of viewing the matter would have some foundation, if the substratum on which Jesus operated had been the same out of which wine is wont to be naturally produced; if he had taken a vine in his hand, and suddenly caused it to bloom, and to bear ripe grapes, this might have been called an accelerated natural process. Even then indeed we should still have no wine, and if Jesus were to produce this also from the vine which he took into his hand, he must add an operation which would be an invisible substitute for the winepress, that is, an accelerated artificial process; so that [520]on this supposition the category of the accelerated natural process would already be insufficient. In fact, however, we have no vine as a substratum for this production of wine, but water, and in this case we could only speak with propriety of an accelerated natural process, if by any means, however gradual, wine were ever produced out of water.

Here it is urged, that certainly out of water, out of the moisture produced in the earth by rain and the like, the vine draws its sap, which in due order it applies to the production of the grape, and of the wine therein contained; so that thus yearly, by means of a natural process, wine does actually come out of water.314 But apart from the fact that water is only one of the elementary materials which are required for the fructification of the vine, and that to this end, soil, air, and light, must concur; it could not be said either of one, or of all these elementary materials together, that they produce the grape or the wine, nor, consequently, that Jesus, when he produced wine out of water, did the same thing, only more quickly, which is repeated every year as a gradual process: on the contrary, here again there is a confusion of essentially distinct logical categories. For we may place the relation of the product to the producing agent, which is here treated of, under the category of power and manifestation, or of cause and effect: never can it be said that water is the power or the cause, which produces grapes and wine, for the power which gives existence to them is strictly the vegetable individuality of the vine-plant, to which water, with the rest of the elementary agencies, is related only as the solicitation to the power, as the stimulus to the cause.

That is, without the co-operation of water, air, etc, grapes certainly cannot be produced, any more than without the vine plant; but the distinction is, that in the vine the grape, in itself or in its germ, is already present, and water, air, etc., only assist in its development; whereas in these elementary substances, the grape is present neither actu nor potentiâ; they can in no way produce the fruit out of themselves, but only out of something else—the vine. To turn water into wine is not then to make a cause act more rapidly than it would act in a natural way, but it is to make the effect appear without a cause, out of a mere accessory circumstance; or, to refer more particularly to organic nature, it is to call forth the organic product without the producing organism, out of the simple inorganic materials, or rather out of one of these materials only. This is about the same thing as to make bread out of earth without the intervention of the corn plant, flesh out of bread without a previous assimilation of it by an animal body, or in the same immediate manner, blood out of wine. If the supranaturalist is not here contented with appealing to the incomprehensibleness of an omnipotent word of Jesus, but also endeavours, with Olshausen, to bring the process which must have been contained in the miracle in question nearer to his conception, by regarding it in the light of a natural process; he must not, in order to render the matter more probable, suppress a part of the necessary stages in that process, but exhibit them all.

They would then present the following series: 1st, to the water, as one only of the elementary agents, Jesus must have added the power of the other elements above named; 2ndly (and this is the chief point), he must have procured, in an equally invisible manner, the organic individuality of the vine; 3rdly, he must have accelerated, to the degree of instantaneousness, the natural process resulting from the reciprocal action of these objects upon one another, the blooming and fructification of the vine, together with the ripening of the grape; 4thly, he must have caused the artificial process of pressing, [521]and so forth, to occur invisibly and suddenly; and lastly, he must again have accelerated the further natural process of fermentation, so as to render it momentary. Thus, here again, the designation of the miracle as an accelerated natural process, would apply to two stages only out of five, the other three being such as cannot possibly be brought under this point of view, though the two first, especially the second, are of greater importance even than belonged to the stages which were neglected in the application of this view to the history of the miraculous feeding: so that the definition of an accelerated natural process is as inadequate here as there.315 As, however, this is the only, or the extreme category, under which we can bring such operations nearer to our conception and comprehension; it follows that if this category be shown to be inapplicable, the event itself is inconceivable.

Not only, however, has the miracle before us been impeached in relation to possibility, but also in relation to utility and fitness. It has been urged both in ancient316 and modern317 times, that it was unworthy of Jesus that he should not only remain in the society of drunkards, but even further their intemperance by an exercise of his miraculous power. But this objection should be discarded as an exaggeration, since, as expositors justly observe, from the words after men have well drunk, ὅταν μεθυσθῶσι (v. 10), which the ruler of the feast ἀρχιτρίκλινος uses with reference to the usual course of things at such feasts, nothing can with certainty be deduced with respect to the occasion in question. We must however still regard as valid an objection, which is not only pointed out by Paulus and the author of the Probabilia,318 but admitted even by Lücke and Olshausen to be at the first glance a pressing difficulty: namely, that by this miracle Jesus did not, as was usual with him, relieve any want, any real need, but only furnished an additional incitement to pleasure; showed himself not so much helpful as courteous; rather, so to speak, performed a miracle of luxury, than of true beneficence.

If it be here said that it was a sufficient object for the miracle to confirm the faith of the disciples,319 which according to v. 11 was its actual effect; it must be remembered that, as a general rule, not only had the miracles of Jesus, considered with regard to their form, i.e. as extraordinary results, something desirable as their consequence, for instance, the faith of the spectators; but also, considered with regard to their matter, i.e. as consisting of cures, multiplications of loaves, and the like, were directed to some really beneficent end. In the present miracle this characteristic is wanting, and hence Paulus is not wrong when he points out the contradiction which would lie in the conduct of Jesus, if towards the tempter he rejected every challenge to such miracles as, without being materially beneficent, or called for by any pressing necessity, could only formally produce faith and astonishment, and yet in this instance performed a miracle of that very nature.320

The supranaturalist was therefore driven to maintain that it was not faith in general which Jesus here intended to produce, but a conviction entirely special, and only to be wrought by this particular miracle. Proceeding on this supposition, nothing was more natural than to be reminded by the opposition of water and wine on which the miracle turns, of the opposition between him who baptized with water (Matt. iii. 11), who at the same time [522]came neither eating nor drinking (Luke i. 15; Matt. xi. 18), and him who, as he baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, so he did not deny himself the ardent, animating fruit of the vine, and was hence reproached with being a wine-bibber οἰνοπότης (Matt. xi. 19); especially as the fourth gospel, in which the narrative of the wedding at Cana is contained, manifests in a peculiar degree the tendency to lead over the contemplation from the Baptist to Jesus. On these grounds Herder,321 and after him some others,322 have held the opinion, that Jesus by the above miraculous act intended to symbolize to his disciples, several of whom had been disciples of the Baptist, the relation of his spirit and office to those of John, and by this proof of his superior power, to put an end to the offence which they might take at his more liberal mode of life.

But here the reflection obtrudes itself, that Jesus does not avail himself of this symbolical miracle, to enlighten his disciples by explanatory discourses concerning his relation to the Baptist; an omission which even the friends of this interpretation pronounce to be surprising.323 How needful such an exposition was, if the miracle were not to fail of its special object, is evident from the fact, that the narrator himself, according to v. 11, understood it not at all in this light, as a symbolization of a particular maxim of Jesus, but quite generally, as a manifestation φανέρωσις of his glory.324 Thus if that special lesson were the object of Jesus in performing the miracle before us, then the author of the fourth gospel, that is, according to the supposition of the above theologians, his most apprehensive pupil, misunderstood him, and Jesus delayed in an injudicious manner to prevent this misunderstanding; or if both these conclusions are rejected, there still subsists the difficulty, that Jesus, contrary to the prevailing tendency of his conduct, sought to attain the general object of proving his miraculous power, by an act for which apparently he might have substituted a more useful one.

Again, the disproportionate quantity of wine with which Jesus supplies the guests, must excite astonishment. Six vessels, each containing from two to three μετρητὰς, supposing the Attic μετρητὴς, corresponding to the Hebrew bath, to be equivalent to 1½ Roman amphoræ, or twenty-one Wirtemberg measures,325 would yield 252–378 measures.326 What a quantity for a company who had already drunk freely! What enormous vessels! exclaims Dr. Paulus, and leaves no effort untried to reduce the statement of measures in the text. With a total disregard of the rules of the language, he gives to the preposition ἀνὰ a collective meaning, instead of its proper distributive one, so as to make the six water pots (ὑδρίαι) contain, not each, but altogether, from two to three μετρητὰς; and even Olshausen consoles himself, after Semler, with the fact, that it is nowhere remarked that the water in all the vessels was turned into wine. But these are subterfuges; they to whom the supply of so extravagant and dangerous a quantity of wine on the part of Jesus is incredible, must conclude that the narrative is unhistorical.

Peculiar difficulty is occasioned by the relation in which this narrative places Jesus to his mother, and his mother to him. According to the express statement of the Evangelist, the turning of water into wine was the beginning [523]of the miracles of Jesus, ἀρχὴ τῶν σημείων; and yet his mother reckons so confidently on his performing a miracle here, that she believes it only necessary to point out to him the deficiency of wine, in order to induce him to afford supernatural aid; and even when she receives a discouraging answer, she is so far from losing hope, that she enjoins the servants to be obedient to the directions of her son (v. 3, 5). How is this expectation of a miracle on the part of the mother of Jesus to be explained? Are we to refer the declaration of John, that the metamorphosis of the water was the first miracle of Jesus, merely to the period of his public life, and to presuppose as real events, for his previous years, the apocryphal miracles of the Gospels of the Infancy?

Or, believing that Chrysostom was right in regarding this as too uncritical,327 are we rather to conjecture that Mary, in consequence of her conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, a conviction wrought in her by the signs that attended his birth, expected miracles from him, and as perhaps on some earlier occasions, so now on this, when the perplexity was great, desired from him a proof of his power?328 Were only that early conviction of the relatives of Jesus that he was the Messiah somewhat more probable, and especially the extraordinary events of the childhood, by which it is supposed to have been produced, better accredited! Moreover, even presupposing the belief of Mary in the miraculous power of her son, it is still not at all clear how, notwithstanding his discouraging answer, she could yet confidently expect that he would just on this occasion perform his first miracle, and feel assured that she positively knew that he would act precisely so as to require the assistance of the servants.329 This decided knowledge on the part of Mary, even respecting the manner of the miracle about to be wrought, appears to indicate an antecedent disclosure of Jesus to her, and hence Olshausen supposes that Jesus had given his mother an intimation concerning the miracle on which he had resolved. But when could this disclosure have been made? Already as they were going to the feast? Then Jesus must have foreseen that there would be a want of wine, in which case Mary could not have apprised him of it as of an unexpected embarrassment.

Or did Jesus make the disclosure after her appeal, and consequently in connexion with the words: What have I to do with thee, woman, etc.? But with this answer, it is impossible to conceive so opposite a declaration to have been united; it would therefore be necessary, on Olshausen’s view, to imagine that Jesus uttered the negative words aloud, the affirmative in an undertone, merely for Mary: a supposition which would give the scene the appearance of a comedy. Thus it is on no supposition to be understood how Mary could expect a miracle at all, still less precisely such an one. The first difficulty might indeed be plausibly evaded, by maintaining that Mary did not here apply to Jesus in expectation of a miracle, but simply that she might obtain her son’s advice in the case, as she was wont to do in all difficult circumstances:330 his reply however shows that he regarded the words of his mother as a summons to perform a miracle, and moreover the direction which Mary gave to the servants remains on this supposition totally unexplained.

The answer of Jesus to the intimation of his mother (v. 4) has been just as often blamed with exaggeration331 as justified on insufficient grounds. However [524]truly it may be urged that the Hebrew phrase, מַה־לִּי וָלָךְ, to which the Greek τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοὶ corresponds, appears elsewhere as an expression of gentle blame, e.g. 2 Sam. xvi. 10;332 or that with the entrance of Jesus on his special office his relation to his mother as regarded his actions was dissolved:333 it nevertheless remains undeniable, that it was fitting for Jesus to be modestly apprised of opportunities for the exercise of his miraculous power, and if one who pointed out to him a case of disease and added an entreaty for help, did not deserve reprehension, as little and even less did Mary, when she brought to his knowledge a want which had arisen, with a merely implied entreaty for assistance. The case would have been different had Jesus considered the occasion not adapted, or even unworthy to have a miracle connected with it; he might then have repelled with severity the implied summons, as an incitement to a false use of miraculous power (instanced in the history of the temptation); as, on the contrary, he immediately after showed by his actions that he held the occasion worthy of a miracle, it is absolutely incomprehensible how he could blame his mother for her information, which perhaps only came to him a few moments too soon.334

Here again it has been attempted to escape from the numerous difficulties of the supranatural view, by a natural interpretation of the history. The commentators who advance this explanation set out from the fact, that it was the custom among the Jews to make presents of oil or wine at marriage feasts. Now Jesus, it is said, having brought with him five new disciples as uninvited guests, might foresee a deficiency of wine, and wished out of pleasantry to present his gift in an unexpected and mysterious manner. The δόξα (glory) which he manifested by this proceeding, is said to be merely his humanity, which in the proper place did not disdain to pass a jest; the πίστις, (faith) which he thereby excited in his disciples, was a joyful adherence to a man who exhibited none of the oppressive severity which had been anticipated in the Messiah. Mary was aware of her son’s project, and warned him when it appeared to her time to put it in execution; but he reminded her playfully not to spoil his jest by over-haste.

His causing water to be drawn, seems to have belonged to the playful deception which he intended; that all at once wine was found in the vessels instead of water, and that this was regarded as a miraculous metamorphosis, might easily happen at a late hour of the night, when there had already been considerable drinking; lastly, that Jesus did not enlighten the wedding party as to the true state of the case, was the natural consequence of his wish not himself to dissipate the delusion which he had playfully caused.335 For the rest, how the plan was effected, by what arrangements on the part of Jesus the wine was conveyed in the place of the water, this, Paulus thinks, is not now to be ascertained; it is enough for us to know that all happened naturally. As however, according to the opinion of this expositor, the Evangelist was aware, in a general manner, that the whole occurrence was natural, why has he given us no intimation to that effect? Did he wish to prepare for the reader the same surprise that Jesus had prepared for the spectators? still he must afterwards have solved the enigma, if he did not intend the delusion to be permanent.

Above all, he ought not to have used the misleading expression, that Jesus by this act manifested forth his glory (τὴν δόξαν αὑτοῦ, v. 11), which, in the phraseology of this gospel, can only mean his superior dignity; he ought not to have called the incident a sign (σημεῖον), by which something supernatural is implied; [525]lastly, he ought not, by the expression, the water that was made wine (τὸ ὕδωρ οἶνον γεγενημένον, v. 9), and still less by the subsequent designation of Cana as the place where he made the water wine (ὅπου ἐποίησεν ὕδωρ οἶνον), to have occasioned the impression, that he approved the miraculous conception of the event.336 The author of the Natural History sought to elude these difficulties by the admission, that the narrator himself, John, regarded the event as a miracle, and meant to describe it as such. Not to mention, however, the unworthy manner in which he explains this error on the part of the Evangelist,337 it is not easy to conceive of Jesus that he should have kept his disciples in the same delusion as the rest of the guests, and not have given to them at least an explanation concerning the real course of the event. It would therefore be necessary to suppose that the narrator of this event was not one of the disciples of Jesus: a supposition which goes beyond the sphere of this system of interpretation.

But even admitting that the narrator himself, whoever he may have been, was included in the same deception with those who regarded the affair as a miracle, in which case his mode of representation and the expressions which he uses would be accounted for; still the procedure of Jesus, and his mode of acting, are all the more inconceivable, if no real miracle were on foot. Why did he with refined assiduity arrange the presentation of the wine, so that it might appear to be a miraculous gift? Why, in particular, did he cause the vessels in which he intended forthwith to present the wine, to be filled beforehand with water, the necessary removal of which could only be a hindrance to the secret execution of his plan? unless indeed it be supposed, with Woolston, that he merely imparted to the water the taste of wine, by pouring into it some liquor. Thus there is a double difficulty; on the one hand, that of imagining how the wine could be introduced into the vessels already filled with water; on the other, that of freeing Jesus from the suspicion of having wished to create the appearance of a miraculous transmutation of the water.

It may have been the perception of these difficulties which induced the author of the Natural History entirely to sever the connexion between the water which was poured in, and the wine which subsequently appeared, by the supposition that Jesus had caused the water to be fetched, because there was a deficiency of this also, and Jesus wished to recommend the beneficial practice of washing before and after meals, but that he afterwards caused the wine to be brought out of an adjoining room where he had placed it:—a conception of the matter which requires us either to suppose the intoxication of all the guests, and especially of the narrator, as so considerable, that they mistook the wine brought out of the adjoining room, for wine drawn out of the water vessels; or else that the deceptive arrangements of Jesus were contrived with very great art, which is inconsistent with the straightforwardness of character elsewhere ascribed to him.

In this dilemma between the supranatural and the natural interpretations, of which, in this case again, the one is as insufficient as the other, we should be reduced, with one of the most recent commentators on the fourth gospel, to wait “until it pleased God, by further developments of judicious Christian reflection, to evolve a solution of the enigma to the general satisfaction;”338 did we not discern an outlet in the fact, that the history in question is found in John’s gospel alone. Single in its kind as this miracle is, if it were also the first performed by Jesus, it must, even if all the twelve were not then with Jesus, have yet been known to them all; and even if among the rest of the [526]Evangelists there were no apostle, still it must have passed into the general Christian tradition, and from thence into the synoptical memoirs: consequently, as John alone has it, the supposition that it arose in a region of tradition unknown to the synoptists, seems easier than the alternative, that it so early disappeared out of that from which they drew; the only question is, whether we are in a condition to show how such a legend could arise without historical grounds.

Kaiser points for this purpose to the extravagant spirit of the oriental legend, which has ever been so fertile in metamorphoses: but this source is so wide and indefinite, that Kaiser finds it necessary also to suppose a real jest on the part of Jesus,339 and thus remains uneasily suspended between the mythical and the natural explanations, a position which cannot be escaped from, until there can be produced points of mythical connexion and origin more definite and exact. Now in the present case we need halt neither at the character of eastern legend in general, nor at metamorphoses in general, since transmutations of this particular element of water are to be found within the narrower circle of the ancient Hebrew history. Besides some narratives of Moses procuring for the Israelites water out of the flinty rock in the wilderness (Exod. xvii. 1 ff.; Num. xx. 1 ff.)—a bestowal of water which, after being repeated in a modified manner in the history of Samson (Judges xv. 18 f.), was made a feature in the messianic expectations;340—the first transmutation of water ascribed to Moses, is the turning of all the water in Egypt into blood, which is enumerated among the so-called plagues (Exod. vii. 17 ff.). Together with this mutatio in deterius, there is in the history of Moses a mutatio in melius, also effected in water, for he made bitter water sweet, under the direction of Jehovah (Exod. xiv. 23 ff.341); as at a later era, Elisha also is said to have made unhealthy water good and innoxious (2 Kings ii. 19 ff.342).

As, according to the rabbinical passage quoted, the bestowal of water, so also, according to this narrative in John, the transmutation of water appears to have been transferred from Moses and the prophets to the Messiah, with such modifications, however, as lay in the nature of the case. If namely, on the one hand, a change of water for the worse, like that Mosaic transmutation into blood—if a miracle of this retributive kind might not seem well suited to the mild spirit of the Messiah as recognised in Jesus: so on the other hand, such a change for the better as, like the removal of bitterness or noxiousness, did not go beyond the species of water, and did not, like the change into blood, alter the substance of the water itself, might appear insufficient for the Messiah; if then the two conditions be united, a change of water for the better, which should at the same time be a specific alteration of its substance, must almost of necessity be a change into wine. Now this is narrated by John, in a manner not indeed in accordance with reality, but which must be held all the more in accordance with the spirit of his gospel.

For the harshness of Jesus towards his mother is, historically considered, incredible; but it is entirely in the spirit of the fourth gospel, to place in relief the exaltation of Jesus as the divine Logos by such demeanour towards suppliants (as in John iv. 48), and even towards his mother.343 Equally in the spirit of this gospel is it also, to exhibit the firm [527]faith which Mary maintains notwithstanding the negative answer of Jesus, by making her give the direction to the servants above considered, as if she had a preconception even of the manner in which Jesus would perform his miracle, a preconception which is historically impossible.344