Note 188 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

Thus we have here, not three different incidents, but only three different frames in which legend has preserved the memorable and thoroughly popular aphorism on the domestic animal, to be rescued or tended on the sabbath. Yet, unless we would deny to Jesus so original and appropriate an argument, there must lie at the foundation a cure of some kind actually performed by him on the sabbath; not, however, a miraculous one. We have seen that Luke unites the saying with the cure of a demoniacal patient: now it might have been uttered by Jesus on the occasion of one of those cures of demoniacs of which, under certain limitations, we have admitted the natural possibility. Or, when Jesus in cases of illness among his followers applied the usual medicaments without regard to the sabbath, he may have found this appeal to the practical sense of men needful for his vindication. Or lastly, if there be some truth in the opinion of rationalistic commentators that Jesus, according to the oriental and more particularly the Essene custom, occupied himself with the cure of the body as well as of the soul, he may, when complying with a summons to the former work on the sabbath, have had occasion for such an apology. But in adopting this last supposition, we must not, with these commentators, seek in the particular supernatural cures which the gospels narrate, the natural reality; on the contrary, we must admit that this is totally lost to us, and that the supernatural has usurped its place.188 Further, it cannot have been cures in general with which that saying of Jesus was connected; but any service performed by him or his disciples which might be regarded as a rescuing or preservation of life, and which was accompanied by external labour, might in his position with respect to the Pharisaic party, furnish an occasion for such a defence.