55.

"And when He was entered into a ship, His disciples followed Him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea." And so the story goes on, until we come to the words, "And He came into His own city." ¹ Those two narratives which are told by Matthew in continuous succession,--namely, that regarding the calm upon the sea after Jesus was roused from His sleep and had commanded the winds, and that concerning the persons who were possessed with the fierce devil, and who brake their bands and were driven into the wilderness,--are given also in like manner by Mark and Luke. ² Some parts of these stories are expressed, indeed, in different terms by the different writers, but the sense remains the same. This is the case, for example, when Matthew represents the Lord to have said, "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?" ³ while Mark's version is, "Why are ye fearful? Is it that ye have no faith?" ⁴ For Mark's word refers to that perfect faith which is like a grain of mustard seed; and so he, too, speaks in effect of the "little faith." Luke, again, puts it thus: "Where is your faith?" ⁵ Accordingly, the whole utterance may perhaps have gone thus: "Why are ye fearful? Where is your faith, O ye of little faith?" And so one of them records one part, and another another part, of the entire saying. The same may be the case with the words spoken by the disciples when they awoke Him. Matthew gives us: "Lord, save us: we perish." ⁶ Mark has: "Master, carest Thou not that we perish?" ⁷ And Luke says simply, "Master, we perish." ⁸ These different expressions, however, convey one and the same meaning on the part of those who were awaking the Lord, and who were wishful to secure their safety. Neither need we inquire which of these several forms is to be preferred as the one actually addressed to Christ. For whether they really used the one or the other of these three phraseologies, or expressed themselves in different words, which are unrecorded by any one of the evangelists, but which were equally well adapted to give the like representation of what was meant, what difference does it make in the fact itself? At the same time, it may also possibly have been the case that, when several parties in concert were trying to awake Him, all these various modes of expression had been used, one by one person, and another by another. In the same way, too, we may deal with the exclamation on the stilling of the tempest, which, according to Matthew, was, "What manner of man is this, that the winds and the sea obey Him?" ⁹ according to Mark, "What man, thinkest thou, is this, ¹⁰ that both the wind and the sea obey Him?" ¹¹ and according to Luke, "What man, thinkest thou, is this? ¹² for He commandeth both the winds and the sea, ¹³ and they obey Him." Who can fail to see that the sense in all these forms is quite identical? For the expression, "What man, thinkest thou, is this?" has precisely the same import with the other, "What manner of man is this?" ¹⁴ And where the words "He commandeth" are omitted, it can at least be understood as a matter of course that the obedience is rendered to the person commanding.