Note 147 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

But dangerous and superfluous as such a proceeding would be in reality, it is easy to explain how Mark, wishing further to elaborate the narrative of Luke, might be led to add such a feature. Luke had said that the sick man was let down, so that he descended in the midst before Jesus, ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. How could the people precisely hit upon this place, unless Jesus accidentally stood under the door of the roof, except by breaking open the roof above the spot where they knew him to be (ἀπεστέγασαν τὴν στέγην ὅπου ἦν)?147 This trait Mark the more gladly seized because it was adapted to place in the strongest light the zeal which confidence in Jesus infused into the people, and which was to be daunted by no labour. This last interest seems to be the key also to Luke’s departure from Matthew. In Matthew, who makes the bearers bring the paralytic to Jesus in the ordinary way, doubtless regarding the laborious conveyance of the sick man on his bed as itself a proof of their faith, it is yet less evident wherein Jesus sees their faith. If the original form of the history was that in which it appears in the first gospel, the temptation might easily arise to make the bearers devise a more conspicuous means of evincing their faith, which, since the scene was already described as happening in a great crowd, might appear to be most suitably found in the uncommon way in which they contrived to bring their sick man to Jesus.