Note 327 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

Peculiar difficulty is occasioned by the relation in which this narrative places Jesus to his mother, and his mother to him. According to the express statement of the Evangelist, the turning of water into wine was the beginning of the miracles of Jesus, ἀρχὴ τῶν σημείων; and yet his mother reckons so confidently on his performing a miracle here, that she believes it only necessary to point out to him the deficiency of wine, in order to induce him to afford supernatural aid; and even when she receives a discouraging answer, she is so far from losing hope, that she enjoins the servants to be obedient to the directions of her son (v. 3, 5). How is this expectation of a miracle on the part of the mother of Jesus to be explained? Are we to refer the declaration of John, that the metamorphosis of the water was the first miracle of Jesus, merely to the period of his public life, and to presuppose as real events, for his previous years, the apocryphal miracles of the Gospels of the Infancy? Or, believing that Chrysostom was right in regarding this as too uncritical,327 are we rather to conjecture that Mary, in consequence of her conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, a conviction wrought in her by the signs that attended his birth, expected miracles from him, and as perhaps on some earlier occasions, so now on this, when the perplexity was great, desired from him a proof of his power?328 Were only that early conviction of the relatives of Jesus that he was the Messiah somewhat more probable, and especially the extraordinary events of the childhood, by which it is supposed to have been produced, better accredited! Moreover, even presupposing the belief of Mary in the miraculous power of her son, it is still not at all clear how, notwithstanding his discouraging answer, she could yet confidently expect that he would just on this occasion perform his first miracle, and feel assured that she positively knew that he would act precisely so as to require the assistance of the servants.329 This decided knowledge on the part of Mary, even respecting the manner of the miracle about to be wrought, appears to indicate an antecedent disclosure of Jesus to her, and hence Olshausen supposes that Jesus had given his mother an intimation concerning the miracle on which he had resolved. But when could this disclosure have been made? Already as they were going to the feast? Then Jesus must have foreseen that there would be a want of wine, in which case Mary could not have apprised him of it as of an unexpected embarrassment. Or did Jesus make the disclosure after her appeal, and consequently in connexion with the words: What have I to do with thee, woman, etc.? But with this answer, it is impossible to conceive so opposite a declaration to have been united; it would therefore be necessary, on Olshausen’s view, to imagine that Jesus uttered the negative words aloud, the affirmative in an undertone, merely for Mary: a supposition which would give the scene the appearance of a comedy. Thus it is on no supposition to be understood how Mary could expect a miracle at all, still less precisely such an one. The first difficulty might indeed be plausibly evaded, by maintaining that Mary did not here apply to Jesus in expectation of a miracle, but simply that she might obtain her son’s advice in the case, as she was wont to do in all difficult circumstances:330 his reply however shows that he regarded the words of his mother as a summons to perform a miracle, and moreover the direction which Mary gave to the servants remains on this supposition totally unexplained.