Note 154 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

A step further was necessary to the rationalistic interpretation, which not only with modern supranaturalism regards as incredible the unconscious efflux of curative power from Jesus, but also denies in general any efflux of such power, and yet wishes to preserve unattainted the historical veracity of the Evangelists. According to this system, Jesus was led to ask who touched him, solely because he felt himself held back in his progress; the assertion that consciousness of a departure of power, δύναμις ἐξελθοῦσα, was the cause of his question, is a mere inference of the two narrators, of whom the one, Mark, actually gives it as his own observation; and it is only Luke who incorporates it with the question of Jesus. The cure of the woman was effected by means of her exalted confidence, in consequence of which when she touched the hem of Jesus she was seized with a violent shuddering in her whole nervous system, which probably caused a sudden contraction of the relaxed vessels; at the first moment she could only believe, not certainly know that she was cured, and only by degrees, probably after the use of means recommended to her by Jesus, did the malady entirely cease.154 But who can represent to himself the timid touch of a sick woman whose design was to remain concealed, and whose faith rendered her certain of obtaining a cure by the slightest touch, as a grasp which arrested the progress of Jesus, pressed upon as he was, according to Mark and Luke, by the crowd? Further, what a vast conception of the power of confidence is demanded by the opinion, that it healed a disease of twelve years’ duration without the concurrence of any real force on the part of Jesus! Lastly, if the Evangelists are supposed to have put into the mouth of Jesus an inference of their own (that healing efficacy had gone out of him)—if they are supposed to have described a gradual cure as an instantaneous one; then, with the renunciation of these particulars all warrant for the historical reality of the entire narrative falls to the ground, and at the same time all necessity for troubling ourselves with the natural interpretation.