Note 275 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

In Matthew, the miracle is in a different manner, not so much heightened as complicated; for there, not only Jesus, but Peter also makes an experiment in walking on the sea, not indeed altogether successful. This trait is rendered suspicious by its intrinsic character, as well as by the silence of the two other narrators. Immediately on the word of Jesus, and in virtue of the faith which he has in the beginning, Peter actually succeeds in walking on the water for some time, and only when he is assailed by fear and doubt does he begin to sink. What are we to think of this? Admitting that Jesus, by means of his etherealized body, could walk on the water, how could he command Peter, who was not gifted with such a body, to do the same? or if by a mere word he could give the body of Peter a dispensation from the law of gravitation, can he have been a man? and if a God, would he thus lightly cause a suspension of natural laws at the caprice of a man? or, lastly, are we to suppose that faith has the power instantaneously to lessen the specific gravity of the body of a believer? Faith is certainly said to have such a power in the figurative discourse of Jesus just referred to, according to which the believer is able to remove mountains and trees into the sea,—and why not also himself to walk on the sea? The moral that as soon as faith falters, power ceases, could not be so aptly presented by either of the two former figures as by the latter, in the following form: as long as a man has faith he is able to walk unharmed on the unstable sea, but no sooner does he give way to doubt than he sinks, unless Christ extend to him a helping hand. The fundamental thought, then, of Matthew’s episodical narrative is, that Peter was too confident in the firmness of his faith, that by its sudden failure he incurred great danger, but was rescued by Jesus; a thought which is actually expressed in Luke xxii. 31 f., where Jesus says to Simon: Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. These words of Jesus have reference to Peter’s coming denial; this was the occasion when his faith, on the strength of which he had just before offered to go with Jesus to prison and to death, would have wavered, had not the Lord by his intercession, procured him new strength. If we add to this the above-mentioned habit of the early Christians to represent the persecuting world under the image of a turbulent sea, we cannot fail, with one of the latest critics, to perceive in the description of Peter courageously volunteering to walk on the sea, soon, however, sinking from faintheartedness, but borne up by Jesus, an allegorical and mythical representation of that trial of faith which this disciple who imagined himself so strong, met so weakly, and which higher assistance alone enabled him to surmount.275