Full download ebook at ebookmass.

com

International Economics 18th Edition Thomas

Pugel

https://ebookmass.com/product/international-
economics-18th-edition-thomas-pugel/

Download more ebook from https://ebookmass.com

More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

International Economics 18th 18th Edition Robert Carbaugh

https://ebookmass.com/product/international-economics-18th-18th-
edition-robert-carbaugh/

ebookmass.com

Economics Today: The Macro View 18th Edition Roger Leroy

Miller

https://ebookmass.com/product/economics-today-the-macro-view-18th-
edition-roger-leroy-miller/

ebookmass.com

Managerial Economics 12th Edition Christopher Thomas

https://ebookmass.com/product/managerial-economics-12th-edition-
christopher-thomas/

ebookmass.com

Handbook of International Economics: International Trade,

Vol. 5 Gita Gopinath

https://ebookmass.com/product/handbook-of-international-economics-
international-trade-vol-5-gita-gopinath/

ebookmass.com
International Economics (Pearson Series in Economics) 7th
Edition – Ebook PDF Version

https://ebookmass.com/product/international-economics-pearson-series-
in-economics-7th-edition-ebook-pdf-version/

ebookmass.com

eTextbook 978-1429278423 International Economics 3rd

Edition

https://ebookmass.com/product/etextbook-978-1429278423-international-
economics-3rd-edition/

ebookmass.com

International Economics, 8th Edition, Global Edition James

Gerber

https://ebookmass.com/product/international-economics-8th-edition-
global-edition-james-gerber/

ebookmass.com

eTextbook 978-0078021770 International Economics (Mcgraw-

Hill Series in Economics) 16th Edition

https://ebookmass.com/product/etextbook-978-0078021770-international-
economics-mcgraw-hill-series-in-economics-16th-edition/

ebookmass.com

Handbook of International Economics: International

Macroeconomics, Vol. 6 Gita Gopinath

https://ebookmass.com/product/handbook-of-international-economics-
international-macroeconomics-vol-6-gita-gopinath/

ebookmass.com
 Page i

International Economics

Eighteenth Edition

Thomas A. Pugel
New York University
 Page ii

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS

Published by McGraw Hill LLC, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019.
Copyright ©2024 by McGraw Hill LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of
America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any
means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of
McGraw Hill LLC, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage
or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.

Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to
customers outside the United States.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 LWI 28 27 26 25 24 23

ISBN 978-1-266-13175-2
MHID 1-266-13175-2
Cover Image: Shutterstock Images, LLC.

All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of
the copyright page.

The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The
inclusion of a website does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw Hill
LLC, and McGraw Hill LLC does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented
at these sites.
mheducation.com/highered
 Page iii

To my wonderful family, my dear wife Bonnie and our next generation, Gabe, Maggie,
James, and Krista. I am so grateful for the love we share.
 Page iv

The McGraw Hill Series Economics

ESSENTIALS OF ECONOMICS
Brue, McConnell, and Flynn
Essentials of Economics
Fifth Edition

Mandel
Economics: The Basics
Fourth Edition

Schiller
Essentials of Economics
Twelfth Edition

PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS
Asarta and Butters
Principles of Economics

Colander
Economics, Microeconomics, and Macroeconomics
Twelfth Edition

Frank, Bernanke, Antonovics, and Heffetz

Principles of Economics,
Principles of Microeconomics,
Principles of Macroeconomics
Eighth Edition

Frank, Bernanke, Antonovics, and Heffetz

Streamlined Editions: Principles of Economics,
Principles of Microeconomics,
Principles of Macroeconomics
Fourth Edition
 Visit https://ebookmass.com
now to explore a rich
collection of eBooks and enjoy
exciting offers!
Karlan and Morduch
Economics, Microeconomics, and
Macroeconomics
Third Edition

McConnell, Brue, and Flynn

Economics, Microeconomics,
Macroeconomics
Twenty-Third Edition

McConnell, Brue, and Flynn

Brief Editions: Microeconomics and
Macroeconomics
Third Edition

Samuelson and Nordhaus

Economics, Microeconomics, and
Macroeconomics
Nineteenth Edition

Schiller
The Economy Today, The Micro Economy
Today, and The Macro Economy Today
Sixteenth Edition

Slavin
Economics, Microeconomics, and
Macroeconomics
Twelfth Edition

ECONOMICS OF SOCIAL ISSUES

Guell
Issues in Economics Today
Tenth Edition

Register and Grimes

Economics of Social Issues
Twenty-First Edition
DATA ANALYTICS FOR ECONOMICS
Prince
Predictive Analytics for Business Strategy
First Edition

BUSINESS ANALYTICS
Jaggia, Kelly, Lertwachara, and Chen
Business Analytics: Communicating with Numbers
Second Edition

Richardson, Weidenmier-Watson
Introduction to Business Analytics

Taddy, Hendrix, Harding

Modern Business Analytics

MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS
Baye and Prince
Managerial Economics and
Business Strategy
Tenth Edition

Brickley, Smith, and Zimmerman

Managerial Economics and
Organizational Architecture
Seventh Edition

Thomas and Maurice

Managerial Economics
Thirteenth Edition

INTERMEDIATE ECONOMICS
Bernheim and Whinston
Microeconomics
Second Edition

Dornbusch, Fischer, and Startz

Macroeconomics
Thirteenth Edition

Frank
Microeconomics and Behavior
Tenth Edition

ADVANCED ECONOMICS
Romer
Advanced Macroeconomics
Fifth Edition

MONEY AND BANKING

Cecchetti and Schoenholtz
Money, Banking, and Financial Markets
Sixth Edition

URBAN ECONOMICS
O’Sullivan
Urban Economics
Ninth Edition

LABOR ECONOMICS
Borjas
Labor Economics
Ninth Edition

McConnell, Brue, and Macpherson

Contemporary Labor Economics
Twelfth Edition

PUBLIC FINANCE
Rosen and Gayer
Public Finance
Tenth Edition
ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS
Field and Field
Environmental Economics: An Introduction
Eighth Edition

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
Appleyard and Field
International Economics
Ninth Edition

Pugel
International Economics
Eighteenth Edition
 Page v

About The Author

Thomas Pugel

Thomas A. Pugel

Thomas A. Pugel is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Global Business at the Stern
School of Business, New York University. His research and publications focus on
international industrial competition and government policies toward international trade and
industry. Professor Pugel has been Visiting Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan
and a member of the U.S. faculty at the National Center for Industrial Science and
Technology Management Development in China. He received the university-wide
Distinguished Teaching Award at New York University in 1992, twice he was voted
Professor of the Year by the graduate students at the Stern School of Business, and three
times Stern’s Executive MBA students chose him to receive their Great Professor Award. He
studied economics as an undergraduate at Michigan State University and earned a PhD in
economics from Harvard University.
 Page vi

Brief Contents
1 International Economics Is Different 1
2 The Basic Theory Using Demand and Supply 16
3 Why Everybody Trades: Comparative Advantage 34
4 Trade: Factor Availability and Factor Proportions Are Key 50
5 Who Gains and Who Loses from Trade? 68
6 Scale Economies, Imperfect Competition, and Trade 88
7 Growth and Trade 117
8 Analysis of a Tariff 137
9 Nontariff Barriers to Imports 161
10 Arguments for and against Protection 193
11 Pushing Exports 225
12 Trade Blocs and Trade Blocks 254
13 Trade and the Environment 279
14 Trade Policies for Developing Countries 312
15 Multinationals and Migration: International Factor Movements 335
16 Payments among Nations 371
17 The Foreign Exchange Market 390
18 Forward Exchange and International Financial Investment 405
19 What Determines Exchange Rates? 432
20 Government Policies toward the Foreign Exchange Market 463
21 International Lending and Financial Crises 501
22 How Does the Open Macroeconomy Work? 538
23 Internal and External Balance with Fixed Exchange Rates 565
24 Floating Exchange Rates and Internal Balance 602
25 National and Global Choices: Floating Rates and the Alternatives 627

APPENDIXES
A Locating International Numbers and Other Information 655
B Deriving Production-Possibility Curves 659
C Offer Curves 664
D The Nationally Optimal Tariff 667
E Accounting for International Payments 673
F Many Parities at Once 677
G Aggregate Demand and Aggregate Supply in the Open Economy 680
H Devaluation and the Current Account Balance 690
SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO ODD-NUMBERED QUESTIONS AND
PROBLEMS 694
REFERENCES 731
INDEX 743
 Visit https://ebookmass.com
now to explore a rich
collection of eBooks and enjoy
exciting offers!
 Page vii

Contents

Chapter 1
International Economics Is Different 1
Four Controversies 1
The Global COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis 1
Immigration 6
Brexit 8
Switzerland’s Exchange Rate 10
Economics and the Nation-State 14
Factor Mobility 14
Different Fiscal Policies 15
Different Moneys 15

Chapter 2
The Basic Theory Using Demand and Supply 16
Four Questions about Trade 17
Demand and Supply 17
Demand 17
Consumer Surplus 19
Case Study Trade Is Important 20
Supply 21
Global Crisis The Trade Mini-Collapses of 2009 and 2020 22
Producer Surplus 24
A National Market with No Trade 25
Two National Markets and the Opening of Trade 25
Free-Trade Equilibrium 27
Effects in the Importing Country 28
Effects in the Exporting Country 30
Which Country Gains More? 30
Summary: Early Answers to the Four Trade Questions 31
Key Terms 31
Suggested Reading 31
Questions and Problems 32

Chapter 3
Why Everybody Trades: Comparative Advantage 34
Adam Smith’s Theory of Absolute Advantage 35
Case Study Mercantilism: Older Than Smith—and Alive Today 36
Ricardo’s Theory of Comparative Advantage 38
Ricardo’s Constant Costs and the Production-Possibility Curve 41
Focus on Labor Absolute Advantage Does Matter 42
Extension What If Trade Doesn’t Balance? 45
Summary 46
Key Terms 47
Suggested Reading 47
Questions and Problems 47

Chapter 4
Trade: Factor Availability and Factor Proportions Are Key 50
Production with Increasing Marginal Costs 51
What’s behind the Bowed-Out Production-Possibility Curve? 51
What Production Combination Is Actually Chosen? 53
Community Indifference Curves 54
Production and Consumption Together 56
Without Trade 56
With Trade 57
Demand and Supply Curves Again 60
The Gains from Trade 60
Trade Affects Production and Consumption 61
What Determines the Trade Pattern? 62
The Heckscher–Ohlin (H–O) Theory 63
Summary 64
Key Terms 65
Suggested Reading 65
Questions and Problems 65
 Page viii

Chapter 5
Who Gains and Who Loses from Trade? 68
Who Gains and Who Loses within a Country 68
Short-Run Effects of Opening Trade 69
The Long-Run Factor-Price Response 69
Three Implications of the H–O Theory 71
The Stolper–Samuelson Theorem 71
Extension A Factor-Ratio Paradox 72
Focus on Labor U.S. Jobs and Foreign Trade 74
The Specialized-Factor Pattern 75
The Factor-Price Equalization Theorem 75
Does Heckscher–Ohlin Explain Actual Trade Patterns? 76
Case Study The Leontief Paradox 77
Factor Endowments 77
International Trade 79
Focus on China China’s Exports and Imports 81
Do Factor Prices Equalize Internationally? 83
Summary: Fuller Answers to the Four Trade Questions 83
Key Terms 85
Suggested Reading 85
Questions and Problems 85

Chapter 6
Scale Economies, Imperfect Competition, and Trade 88
Scale Economies 89
Internal Scale Economies 90
External Scale Economies 91
Intra-Industry Trade 92
How Important Is Intra-Industry Trade? 93
What Explains Intra-Industry Trade? 94
Monopolistic Competition and Trade 95
The Market with No Trade 97
Opening to Free Trade 98
Basis for Trade 99
 Gains from Trade 101
Extension The Individual Firm in Monopolistic Competition 102
Oligopoly and Trade 104
Substantial Scale Economies 105
Oligopoly Pricing 105
Extension The Gravity Model of Trade 106
External Scale Economies and Trade 109
Summary: How Does Trade Really Work? 111
Key Terms 113
Suggested Reading 114
Questions and Problems 114

Chapter 7
Growth and Trade 117
Balanced versus Biased Growth 118
Growth in Only One Factor 120
Changes in the Country’s Willingness to Trade 121
Case Study The Dutch Disease and Deindustrialization 123
Effects on the Country’s Terms of Trade 124
Small Country 124
Large Country 124
Immiserizing Growth 126
Technology and Trade 128
Individual Products and the Product Cycle 129
Openness to Trade Affects Growth 130
Focus on Labor Trade, Technology, and U.S. Wages 131
Summary 132
Key Terms 133
Suggested Reading 134
Questions and Problems 134

Chapter 8
Analysis of a Tariff 137
A Preview of Conclusions 138
The Effect of a Tariff on Domestic Producers 138
Case Study The Tariff-Driven Trade War of 2018–2019 139
 Extension The Effective Rate of Protection 144
The Effect of a Tariff on Domestic Consumers 146
The Tariff as Government Revenue 147
The Net National Loss from a Tariff 148
The Terms-of-Trade Effect and a Nationally Optimal Tariff 151
Case Study They Tax Exports, Too 154

Page ix
Summary 157
Key Terms 158
Suggested Reading 158
Questions and Problems 158

Chapter 9
Nontariff Barriers to Imports 161
Types of Nontariff Barriers to Imports 161
The Import Quota 163
Quota versus Tariff for a Small Country 163
Ways to Allocate Import Licenses 165
Global Governance The World Trade Organization 166
Quota versus Tariff for a Large Country 171
Extension A Domestic Monopoly Prefers a Quota 172
Voluntary Export Restraints 175
Case Study VERs: Two Examples 176
Other Nontariff Barriers 178
Product Standards 178
Domestic Content Requirements 179
Case Study Carrots Are Fruit, Snails Are Fish, and X-Men Are Not Humans 180
Government Procurement 181
How Big Are the Costs of Protection? 182
As a Percentage of GDP 182
As the Extra Cost of Helping Domestic Producers 184
International Trade Disputes 184
America’s “Section 301”: Unilateral Pressure 185
Dispute Settlement in the WTO 185
Focus on China China in the WTO 186
Summary 189
Key Terms 190
Suggested Reading 190
Questions and Problems 191

Chapter 10
Arguments for and against Protection 193
The Ideal World of First Best 194
The Realistic World of Second Best 196
Government Policies toward Externalities 197
The Specificity Rule 197
Promoting Domestic Production or Employment 198
Focus on Labor How Much Does It Cost to Protect a Job? 202
The Infant Industry Argument 202
How It Is Supposed to Work 204
How Valid Is It? 205
The Dying Industry Argument and Adjustment Assistance 207
Should the Government Intervene? 207
Trade Adjustment Assistance 209
The Developing Government (Public Revenue) Argument 210
Other Arguments for Protection: Noneconomic Objectives 210
National Pride 211
National Defense 211
Income Redistribution 212
The Politics of Protection 212
The Basic Elements of the Political–Economic Analysis 212
When Are Tariffs Unlikely? 213
When Are Tariffs Likely? 214
Case Study How Sweet It Is (or Isn’t) 216
Applications to Other Trade-Policy Patterns 217
Global Crisis Dodging Protectionism 218
Summary 220
Key Terms 221
Suggested Reading 222
Questions and Problems 222
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
to the orthodox view, are only derived from the spiritual nature of
the men in question, and are to be regarded as acts of their will in
virtue of its union with the divine, are reduced to physical effects
and effluxes. The subject thus descends from the religious and
theological sphere to the natural and physical, because a man with a
power of healing resident in his body, and floating as an atmosphere
around him, would belong to the objects of natural science, and not
of religion. But natural science is not able to accredit such a healing
power by sure analogies or clear definitions; hence these cures,
being driven from the objective to the subjective region, must
receive their explanation from psychology. Now psychology, taking
into account the power of imagination and of faith, will certainly
allow the possibility that without a real curative power in the reputed
miracle-worker, solely by the strong confidence of the diseased
person that he possesses this power, bodily maladies which have a
close connexion with the nervous system may be cured: but when
we seek for historical vouchers for this possibility, criticism, which
must here be called to aid, will soon show that a far greater number
of such cures has been invented by the faith of others, than has
been performed by the parties alleged to be concerned. Thus it is in
itself by no means impossible, that through strong faith in the
healing power residing even in the clothes and handkerchiefs of
Jesus and the apostles, many sick persons on touching these articles
were conscious of real benefit; but it is at least equally probable,
that only after the death of these men, when their fame in the
church was ever on the increase, anecdotes of this kind were
believingly narrated, and it depends on the nature of the accounts,
for which of the two alternatives we are to decide. In the general
statement in the Gospels and the Acts, which speak of whole masses
having been cured in the above way, this accumulation at any rate is
traditional. As to the detailed history which we have been examining,
in its representation that the woman had suffered twelve years from
a very obstinate disease, and one the least susceptible of merely
psychical influence, and that the cure was performed by power
consciously emitted from Jesus, instead of by the imagination of the
patient: so large a portion betrays itself to be mythical that we can
no longer discern any historical elements, and must regard the
whole as legendary. [462]

It is not difficult to see what might give rise to this branch of the
evangelical miraculous legend, in distinction from others. The faith of
the popular mind, dependent on the senses, and incapable of
apprehending the divine through the medium of thought alone,
strives perpetually to draw it down into material existence. Hence,
according to a later opinion, the saint must continue to work
miracles when his bones are distributed as relics, and the body of
Christ must be present in the transubstantiated host; hence also,
according to an idea developed much earlier, the curative power of
the men celebrated in the New Testament must be attached to their
body and its coverings. The less the church retained of the words of
Jesus, the more tenaciously she clung to the efficacy of his mantle,
and the further she was removed from the free spiritual energy of
the apostle Paul, the more consolatory was the idea of carrying
home his curative energy in a pocket-handkerchief.
[Contents]

§ 98.

CURES AT A DISTANCE.

The cures performed at a distance are, properly speaking, the

opposite of these involuntary cures. The latter are effected by mere
corporeal contact without a special act of the will; the former solely
by the act of the will without corporeal contact, or even local
proximity. But there immediately arises this objection: if the curative
power of Jesus was so material that it dispensed itself involuntarily
at a mere touch, it cannot have been so spiritual that the simple will
could convey it over considerable distances; or conversely, if it was
so spiritual as to act apart from bodily presence, it cannot have been
so material as to dispense itself independently of the will. Since we
have pronounced the purely physical mode of influence in Jesus to
be improbable, free space is left to us for the purely spiritual, and
our decision on the latter will therefore depend entirely on the
examination of the narratives and the facts themselves.

As proofs that the curative power of Jesus acted thus at a distance,

Matthew and Luke narrate to us the cure of the sick servant of a
centurion at Capernaum, John that of the son of a nobleman
βασιλικὸς, at the same place (Matt. viii. 5 ff. ; Luke vii. 1 ff. ; John
iv. 46 ff. ); and again Matthew (xv. 22 ff. ), and Mark (vii. 25 ff. ),
that of the daughter of the Canaanitish woman. Of these examples,
as in the summary narration of the last there is nothing peculiar, we
have here to consider the two first only. The common opinion is, that
Matthew and Luke do indeed narrate the same fact, but John one
distinct from this, since his narrative differs from that of the two
others in the following particulars: firstly, the place from which Jesus
cures, is in the synoptical gospels the place where the sick man
resides, Capernaum,—in John a different one, namely, Cana;
secondly, the time at which the synoptists lay the incident, namely,
when Jesus is in the act of returning home after his Sermon on the
Mount, is different from that assigned to it in the fourth gospel,
which is immediately after the return of Jesus from the first passover
and his ministry in Samaria; thirdly, the sick person is according to
the former the slave, according to the latter the son of the suppliant;
but the most important divergencies are those which relate, fourthly,
to the suppliant himself, for in the first and third gospels he is a
military person (an ἑκατόνταρχος), in the fourth a person in office at
court (βασιλικὸς), according to the former (Matt. v. 10 ff. ), a
Gentile, according to the latter without doubt a Jew; above all, the
synoptists make Jesus eulogize him as a pattern [463]of the most
fervent, humble faith, because, in the conviction that Jesus could
cure at a distance, he prevented him from going to his house;
whereas in John, on the contrary, he is blamed for his weak faith
which required signs and wonders, because he thought the presence
of Jesus in his house necessary for the purpose of the cure. 156

These divergencies are certainly important enough to be a reason,

with those who regard them from a certain point of view, for
maintaining the distinction of the fact lying at the foundation of the
synoptical narratives from that reported by John: only this accuracy
of discrimination must be carried throughout, and the diversities
between the two synoptical narratives themselves must not be
overlooked. First, even in the designation of the person of the
patient they are not perfectly in unison; Luke calls him δοῦλος
ἔντιμος, a servant who was dear to the centurion; in Matthew, the
latter calls him ὁ παῖς μοῦ, which may equally mean either a son or a
servant, and as the centurion when speaking (v. 9 ) of his servant,
uses the word δοῦλος, while the cured individual is again (v. 13 )
spoken of as ὁ παῖς αὐτοῦ, it seems most probable that the former
sense was intended. With respect to his disease, the man is
described by Matthew as παραλυτικὸς δεινῶς βασανιζόμενος a
paralytic grievously tormented; Luke is not only silent as to this
species of disease, but he is thought by many to presuppose a
different one, since after the indefinite expression κακῶς ἔχων, being
ill, he adds, ἤμελλε τελευτᾶν, was ready to die, and paralysis is not
generally a rapidly fatal malady. 157 But the most important difference
is one which runs through the entire narrative, namely, that all which
according to Matthew the centurion does in his own person, is in
Luke done by messengers, for here in the first instance he makes
the entreaty, not personally, as in Matthew, but through the medium
of the Jewish elders, and when he afterwards wishes to prevent
Jesus from entering his house, he does not come forward himself,
but commissions some friends to act in his stead. To reconcile this
difference, it is usual to refer to the rule: quod quis per alium facit,
etc. 158 If then it be said, and indeed no other conception of the
matter is possible to expositors who make such an appeal,—Matthew
well knew that between the centurion and Jesus everything was
transacted by means of deputies, but for the sake of brevity, he
employed the figure of speech above alluded to, and represented
him as himself accosting Jesus: Storr is perfectly right in his
opposing remark, that scarcely any historian would so perseveringly
carry that metonymy through an entire narrative, especially in a case
where, on the one hand, the figure of speech is by no means so
obvious as when, for example, that is ascribed to a general which is
done by his soldiers; and where, on the other hand, precisely this
point, whether the person acted for himself or through others, is of
some consequence to a full estimate of his character. 159 With
laudable consistency, therefore, Storr, as he believed it necessary to
refer the narrative of the fourth gospel to a separate fact from that
of the first and third, on account of the important differences; so, on
account of the divergencies which he found between the two last,
pronounces these also to be narratives of two separate events. If
any one wonder that at three different times so entirely similar a
cure should have happened at the same place (for according to John
also, the patient lay and was cured at Capernaum), Storr on his side
wonders how it can be regarded as in the least improbable that in
Capernaum at two different [464]periods two centurions should have
had each a sick servant, and that again at another time a nobleman
should have had a sick son at the same place; that the second
centurion (Luke) should have heard the history of the first, have
applied in a similar manner to Jesus, and sought to surpass his
example of humility, as the first centurion (Matthew), to whom the
earlier history of the nobleman (John) was known, wished to surpass
the weak faith of the latter; and lastly, that Jesus cured all the three
patients in the same manner at a distance. But the incident of a
distinguished official person applying to Jesus to cure a dependent
or relative, and of Jesus at a distance operating on the latter in such
a manner, that about the time in which Jesus pronounced the
curative word, the patient at home recovered, is so singular in its
kind that a threefold repetition of it may be regarded as impossible,
and even the supposition that it occurred twice only, has difficulties;
hence it is our task to ascertain whether the three narratives may
not be traced to a single root.

Now the narrative of the fourth Evangelist which is most generally

held to be distinct, has not only an affinity with the synoptical
narratives in the outline already given; but in many remarkable
details either one or the other of the synoptists agrees more closely
with John than with his fellow synoptist. Thus, while in designating
the patient as παῖς, Matthew may be held to accord with the υἱὸς of
John, at least as probably as with the δοῦλος of Luke; Matthew and
John decidedly agree in this, that according to both the functionary
at Capernaum applies in his own person to Jesus, and not as in Luke
by deputies. On the other hand, the account of John agrees with
that of Luke in its description of the state of the patient; in neither is
there any mention of the paralysis of which Matthew speaks, but the
patient is described as near death, in Luke by the words ἤμελλε
τελευτᾷν, in John by ἤμελλεν ἀποθνήσκειν, in addition to which it is
incidentally implied in the latter, v. 52 , that the disease was
accompanied by a fever, πυρετὸς. In the account of the manner in
which Jesus effected the cure of the patient, and in which his cure
was made known, John stands again on the side of Matthew in
opposition to Luke. While namely, the latter has not an express
assurance on the part of Jesus that the servant was healed, the two
former make him say to the officer, in very similar terms, the one,
ὕπαγε, καὶ ὡς ἐπίστευσας γενηθήτω σοι, Go thy way, and as thou
hast believed so shall it be done unto thee, the other, πορεύου, ὁ
υἱὸς σου ζῇ, Go thy way, thy son liveth; and the conclusion of
Matthew also, καὶ ἰάθη ὁ παῖς αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ ὥρᾳ ἐκείνῃ, has at least in
its form more resemblance to the statement of John, that by
subsequent inquiry the father ascertained it to be ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ὥρᾳ,
at the same hour in which Jesus had spoken the word that his son
had begun to amend, than to the statement of Luke, that the
messengers when they returned found the sick man restored to
health. In another point of this conclusion, however, the agreement
with John is transferred from Matthew again to Luke. In both Luke
and John, namely, a kind of embassy is spoken of, which towards
the close of the narrative comes out of the house of the officer; in
the former it consists of the centurion’s friends, whose errand it is to
dissuade Jesus from giving himself unnecessary trouble; in the latter,
of servants who rejoicingly meet their master and bring him the
news of his son’s recovery. Unquestionably where three narratives
are so thoroughly entwined with each other as these, we ought not
merely to pronounce two of them identical and allow one to stand
for a distinct fact, but must rather either distinguish all, or blend all
into one. The latter course was adopted by Semler, after older
examples, 160 [465]and Tholuck has at least declared it possible. But
with such expositors the next object is so to explain the divergencies
of the three narratives, that no one of the Evangelists may seem to
have said anything false. With respect to the rank of the applicant,
they make the βασιλικὸς in John a military officer, for whom the
ἑκατόνταρχος of the two others would only be a more specific
designation; as regards the main point, however, namely, the
conduct of the applicant, it is thought that the different narrators
may have represented the event in different periods of its progress;
that is, John may have given the earlier circumstance, that Jesus
complained of the originally weak faith of the suppliant, the
synoptists only the later, that he praised its rapid growth. We have
already shown how it has been supposed possible, in a yet easier
manner, to adjust the chief difference between the two synoptical
accounts relative to the mediate or immediate entreaty. But this
effort to explain the contradictions between the three narratives in a
favourable manner is altogether vain. There still subsist these
difficulties: the synoptists thought of the applicant as a centurion,
the fourth Evangelist as a courtier; the former as strong, the latter
as weak in faith; John and Matthew imagined that he applied in his
own person to Jesus; Luke, that out of modesty he sent deputies. 161

Which then represents the fact in the right way, which in the wrong?
If we take first the two synoptists by themselves, expositors with
one voice declare that Luke gives the more correct account. First of
all, it is thought improbable that the patient should have been, as
Matthew says, a paralytic, since in the case of a disease so seldom
fatal the modest centurion would scarcely have met Jesus to implore
his aid immediately on his entrance into the city: 162 as if a very
painful disease such as is described by Matthew did not render
desirable the quickest help, and as if there were any want of
modesty in asking Jesus before he reached home to utter a healing
word. Rather, the contrary relation between Matthew and Luke
seems probable from the observation, that the miracle, and
consequently also the disease of the person cured miraculously, is
never diminished in tradition but always exaggerated; hence the
tormented paralytic would more probably be heightened into one
ready to die, μέλλων τελευτᾲν, than the latter reduced to a mere
sufferer. But especially the double message in Luke is, according to
Schleiermacher, a feature very unlikely to have been invented. How
if, on the contrary, it very plainly manifested itself to be an
invention? While in Matthew the centurion, on the offer of Jesus to
accompany him, seeks to prevent him by the objection: Lord, I am
not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, in Luke he adds
by the mouth of his messenger, wherefore neither thought I myself
worthy to come unto thee, by which we plainly discover the
conclusion on which the second embassy was founded. If the man
declared himself unworthy that Jesus should come to him, he
cannot, it was thought, have held himself worthy to come to Jesus;
an exaggeration of his humility by which the narrative of Luke again
betrays its secondary character. The first embassy seems to have
originated in the desire to introduce a previous recommendation of
the centurion as a motive for the promptitude with which Jesus
offered to enter the house of a Gentile. The Jewish elders, after
having informed Jesus of the case of disease, add that he was
worthy for whom he should do this, for he loveth our nation and has
built us a synagogue: a recommendation the tenor of which is not
unlike what Luke (Acts x. 22 ) makes the [466]messengers of
Cornelius say to Peter to induce him to return with them, namely,
that the centurion was a just man, and one that feareth God, and in
good report among all the nation of the Jews. That the double
embassy cannot have been original, appears the most clearly from
the fact, that by it the narrative of Luke loses all coherence. In
Matthew all hangs well together: the centurion first describes to
Jesus the state of the sufferer, and either leaves it to Jesus to decide
what he shall next do, or before he prefers his request Jesus
anticipates him by the offer to go to his house, which the centurion
declines in the manner stated. Compare with this his strange
conduct in Luke: he first sends to Jesus by the Jewish elders the
request that he will come and heal his servant, but when Jesus is
actually coming, repents that he has occasioned him to do so, and
asks only for a miraculous word from Jesus. The supposition that the
first request proceeded solely from the elders and not from the
centurion 163 runs counter to the express words of the Evangelist,
who by the expressions: ἀπέστειλε—πρεσβυτέρους—ἐρωτῶν αὐτὸν,
he sent—the elders—beseeching him, represents the prayer as
coming from the centurion himself; and that the latter by the word
ἐλθὼν meant only that Jesus should come into the neighbourhood of
his house, but when he saw that Jesus intended actually to enter his
house, declined this as too great a favour,—is too absurd a
demeanour to attribute to a man who otherwise appears sensible,
and of whom for this reason so capricious a change of mind as is
implied in the text of Luke, was still less to be expected. The whole
difficulty would have been avoided, if Luke had put into the mouth of
the first messengers, as Matthew in that of the centurion, only the
entreaty, direct or indirect, for a cure in general; and then after
Jesus had offered to go to the house where the patient lay, had
attributed to the same messengers the modest rejection of this offer.
But on the one hand, he thought it requisite to furnish a motive for
the resolution of Jesus to go into the Gentile’s house; and on the
other, tradition presented him with a deprecation of this personal
trouble on the part of Jesus: he was unable to attribute the prayer
and the deprecation to the same persons, and he was therefore
obliged to contrive a second embassy. Hereby, however, the
contradiction was only apparently avoided, since both embassies are
sent by the centurion. Perhaps also the centurion who was unwilling
that Jesus should take the trouble to enter his house, reminded Luke
of the messenger who warned Jairus not to trouble the master to
enter his house, likewise after an entreaty that he would come into
the house; and as the messenger says to Jairus, according to him
and Mark, μὴ σκύλλε τὸν διδάσκαλον, trouble not the master (Luke
viii. 49 ), so here he puts into the mouth of the second envoys, the
words, κύριε μὴ σκύλλον, Lord, trouble not thyself, although such an
order has a reason only in the case of Jairus, in whose house the
state of things had been changed since the first summons by the
death of his daughter, and none at all in that of the centurion whose
servant still remained in the same state.
Modern expositors are deterred from the identification of all the
three narratives, by the fear that it may present John in the light of
a narrator who has not apprehended the scene with sufficient
accuracy, and has even mistaken its main drift. 164 Were they
nevertheless to venture on a union, they would as far as possible
vindicate to the fourth gospel the most original account of the facts;
a position of which we shall forthwith test the security, by an
examination of the intrinsic character of the narratives. That the
suppliant is according to the fourth Evangelist a βασιλικὸς, while
according to the two others he is an ἑκατόνταρχος, is an indifferent
particular from which [467]we can draw no conclusion on either side;
and it may appear to be the same with the divergency as to the
relation of the diseased person to the one who entreats his cure. If,
however, it be asked with reference to the last point, from which of
the three designations the other two could most easily have arisen?
it can scarcely be supposed that the υἱὸς of John became in a
descending line, first the doubtful term παῖς, and then δοῦλος; and
even the reverse ascending order is here less probable than the
intermediate alternative, that out of the ambiguous παῖς (= ‫‏ַכַער‬‎)
there branched off in one direction the sense of servant, as in Luke;
in the other, of son, as in John. We have already remarked, that the
description of the patient’s state in John, as well as in Luke, is an
enhancement on that in Matthew, and consequently of later origin.
As regards the difference in the locality, from the point of view now
generally taken in the comparative criticism of the gospels, the
decision would doubtless be, that in the tradition from which the
synoptical writers drew, the place from which Jesus performed the
miracles was confounded with that in which the sick person lay, the
less noted Cana being absorbed in the celebrated Capernaum;
whereas John, being an eye-witness, retained the more correct
details. But the relation between the Evangelists appears to stand
thus only when John is assumed to have been an eye-witness; if the
critic seeks, as he is bound to do, to base his decision solely on the
intrinsic character of the narratives, he will arrive at a totally
different result. Here is a narrative of a cure performed at a
distance, in which the miracle appears the greater, the wider the
distance between the curer and the cured. Would oral tradition, in
propagating this narrative, have the tendency to diminish that
distance, and consequently the miracle, so that in the account of
John, who makes Jesus perform the cure at a place from which the
nobleman does not reach his son until the following day, we should
have the original narrative, in that of the synoptists on the contrary,
who represent Jesus as being in the same town with the sick
servant, the one modified by tradition? Only the converse of this
supposition can be held accordant with the nature of the legend, and
here again the narrative of John manifests itself to be a traditional
one. Again, the preciseness with which the hour of the patient’s
recovery is ascertained in the fourth gospel has a highly fictitious
appearance. The simple expression of Matthew, usually found at the
conclusion of histories of cures: he was healed in the self-same
hour, is dilated into an inquiry on the part of the father as to the
hour in which the son began to amend, an answer from the servants
that yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him, and lastly the
result, that in the very hour in which Jesus had said, Thy son liveth,
the recovery took place. This is a solicitous accuracy, a tediousness
of calculation, that seems to bespeak the anxiety of the narrator to
establish the miracle, rather than to show the real course of the
event. In representing the βασιλικὸς as conversing personally with
Jesus, the fourth gospel has preserved the original simplicity of the
narrative better than the third; though as has been remarked, the
servants who come to meet their master in the former seem to be
representatives of Luke’s second embassy. But in the main point of
difference, relative to the character of the applicant, it might be
thought that, even according to our own standard, the preference
must be given to John before the two other narrators. For if that
narrative is the more legendary, which exhibits an effort at
aggrandizement or embellishment, it might be said that the applicant
whose faith is in John rather weak, is in Luke embellished into a
model of faith. It is not, however, on embellishment in general that
legend or the inventive narrator is bent, but on embellishment in
subservience to their grand object, which in the gospels is the
glorification of Jesus; and viewed in this light, the embellishment will
in [468]two respects be found on the side of John. First, as this
Evangelist continually aims to exhibit the pre-eminence of Jesus, by
presenting a contrast to it in the weakness of all who are brought
into communication with him, so here this purpose might be served
by representing the suppliant as weak rather than strong in faith.
The reply, however, which he puts into the mouth of Jesus, Unless
ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe, has proved too severe,
for which reason it reduces most of our commentators to perplexity.
Secondly, it might seem unsuitable that Jesus should allow himself to
be diverted from his original intention of entering the house in which
the patient was, and thus appear to be guided by external
circumstances; it might be regarded as more consistent with his
character that he should originally resolve to effect the cure at a
distance instead of being persuaded to this by another. If then, as
tradition said, the suppliant did nevertheless make a kind of
remonstrance, this must have had an opposite drift to the one in the
synoptical gospels, namely, to induce Jesus to a journey to the
house where the patient lay.
In relation to the next question, the possibility and the actual course
of the incident before us, the natural interpretation seems to find the
most pliant material in the narrative of John. Here, it is remarked,
Jesus nowhere says that he will effect the patient’s cure, he merely
assures the father that his son is out of danger (ὁ υἱός σου ζῇ), and
the father, when he finds that the favourable turn of his son’s malady
coincides with the time at which he was conversing with Jesus, in no
way draws the inference that Jesus had wrought the cure at a
distance. Hence, this history is only a proof that Jesus by means of
his profound acquaintance with semeiology, was able, on receiving a
description of the patient’s state, correctly to predict the course of
his disease; that such a description is not here given is no proof that
Jesus had not obtained it; while further this proof of knowledge is
called a σημεῖον (v. 54 ) because it was a sign of a kind of skill in
Jesus which John had not before intimated, namely, the ability to
predict the cure of one dangerously ill. 165 But, apart from the
misinterpretation of the word σημεῖον, and the interpolation of a
conversation not intimated in the text; this view of the matter would
place the character and even the understanding of Jesus in the most
equivocal light. For if we should pronounce a physician imprudent,
who in the case of a patient believed to be dying of fever, should
even from his own observation of the symptoms, guarantee a cure,
and thus risk his reputation: how much more rashly would Jesus
have acted, had he, on the mere description of a man who was not
a physician, given assurance that a disease was attended with no
danger? We cannot ascribe such conduct to him, because it would
be in direct contradiction with his general conduct, and the
impression which he left on his cotemporaries. If then Jesus merely
predicted the cure without effecting it, he must have been assured
of it in a more certain manner than by natural reasoning,—he must
have known it in a supernatural manner. This is the turn given to the
narrative by one of the most recent commentators on the gospel of
John. He puts the question, whether we have here a miracle of
knowledge or of power; and as there is no mention of an immediate
effect from the words of Jesus, while elsewhere in the fourth gospel
the superior knowledge of Jesus is especially held up to our view, he
is of opinion that Jesus, by means of his higher nature, merely knew
that at that moment the dangerous crisis of the disease was past. 166
But if our gospel frequently exhibits the superior knowledge of
Jesus, this proves nothing to the purpose, for it just as frequently
directs our attention to his [469]superior power. Further, where the
supernatural knowledge of Jesus is concerned, this is plainly stated
(as i. 49 , ii. 25 , vi. 64 ), and hence if a supernatural cognizance
of the already effected cure of the boy had been intended, John
would have made Jesus speak on this occasion as he did before to
Nathanael, and tell the father that he already saw his son on his bed
in an ameliorated state. On the contrary, not only is there no
intimation of the exercise of superior knowledge, but we are plainly
enough given to understand that there was an exercise of
miraculous power. When the sudden cure of one at the point of
death is spoken of, the immediate question is, What brought about
this unexpected change? and when a narrative which elsewhere
makes miracles follow on the word of its hero, puts into his mouth
an assurance that the patient lives, it is only the mistaken effort to
diminish the marvellous, which can prevent the admission, that in
this assurance the author means to give the cause of the cure.

In the case of the synoptical narratives, the supposition of a mere

prediction will not suffice, since here the father (Matt. v. 8 )
entreats the exercise of healing power, and Jesus (v. 13 ), accedes
to this entreaty. Hence every way would seem to be closed to the
natural interpretation (for the distance of Jesus from the patient
made all physical or psychical influence impossible), if a single
feature in the narrative had not presented unexpected help. This
feature is the comparison which the centurion institutes between
himself and Jesus. As he need only speak a word in order to see this
or that command performed by his soldiers and servants, so, he
concludes, it would cost Jesus no more than a word to restore his
servant to health. Out of this comparison it has been found possible
to extract an intimation that as on the side of the centurion, so on
that of Jesus, human proxies were thought of. According to this, the
centurion intended to represent to Jesus, that he need only speak a
word to one of his disciples, and the latter would go with him and
cure his servant, which is supposed to have forthwith happened. 167
But as this would be the first instance in which Jesus had caused a
cure to be wrought by his disciples, and the only one in which he
commissions them immediately to perform a particular cure, how
could this peculiar circumstance be silently presupposed in the
otherwise detailed narrative of Luke? Why, since this narrator is not
sparing in spinning out the rest of the messenger’s speech, does he
stint the few words which would have explained all—the simple
addition after εἰπὲ λόγῳ, speak the word, of ἑνὶ τῶν μαθητῶν, to
one of thy disciples, or something similar? But, above all, at the
close of the narrative, where the result is told, this mode of
interpretation falls into the greatest perplexity, not merely through
the silence of the narrator, but through his positive statement. Luke,
namely, concludes with the information that when the friends of the
centurion returned into the house, they found the servant already
recovered. Now, if Jesus had caused the cure by sending with the
messengers one or more of his disciples, the patient could only
begin gradually to be better after the disciples had come into the
house with the messengers; he could not have been already well on
their arrival. Paulus indeed supposes that the messengers lingered
for some time listening to the discourse of Jesus, and that thus the
disciples arrived before them; but how the former could so
unnecessarily linger, and how the Evangelist could have been silent
on this point as well as on the commission of the disciples, he omits
to explain. Whether instead of the disciples, we hold that which
corresponds on the side of Jesus to the soldiers of the centurion to
be demons of disease, 168 [470]ministering angels, 169 or merely the
word and the curative power of Jesus; 170 in any case there remains
to us a miracle wrought at a distance.

This kind of agency on the part of Jesus is, according to the

admission even of such commentators as have not generally any
repugnance to the miraculous, attended with special difficulty,
because from the want of the personal presence of Jesus, and its
beneficial influence on the patient, we are deprived of every
possibility of rendering the cure conceivable by means of an analogy
observable in nature. 171 According to Olshausen, indeed, this distant
influence has its analogies; namely, in animal magnetism. 172 I will
not directly contest this, but only point out the limits within which,
so far as my knowledge extends, this phenomenon confines itself in
the domain of animal magnetism. According to our experience
hitherto, the cases in which one person can exert an influence over
another at a distance are only two: first, the magnetizer or an
individual in magnetic relation to him can act thus on the
somnambule, but this distant action must always be preceded by
immediate contact,—a preliminary which is not supposed in the
relation of Jesus to the patient in our narrative; secondly, such an
influence is found to exist in persons who are themselves
somnambules, or otherwise under a disordered state of the nerves:
neither of which descriptions can apply to Jesus. If thus such a cure
of distant persons as is ascribed to Jesus in our narratives, far
outsteps the extreme limits of natural causation, as exhibited in
magnetism and the kindred phenomena; then must Jesus have
been, so far as the above narratives can lay claim to historical credit,
a supernatural being. But before we admit him to have been so
really, it is worth our while as critical inquirers, ta examine whether
the narrative under consideration could not have arisen without any
historical foundation; especially as by the very fact of the various
forms which it has taken in the different gospels it shows itself to
contain legendary ingredients. And here it is evident that the
miraculous cures of Jesus by merely touching the patient, such as
we have examples of in that of the leper, Matt. viii. 3 , and in that of
the blind men, Matt. ix. 29 , might by a natural climax rise, first into
the cure of persons when in his presence, by a mere word, as in the
case of the demoniacs, of the lepers, Luke xvii. 14 , and other
sufferers; and then into the cure even of the absent by a word; of
which there is a strongly marked precedent in the Old Testament. In
2 Kings v. 9 ff. we read that when the Syrian general Naaman came
before the dwelling of the prophet Elisha that he might be cured of
his leprosy, the prophet came not out to meet him, but sent to him
by a servant the direction to wash himself seven times in the river
Jordan. At this the Syrian was so indignant that he was about to
return home without regarding the direction of the prophet. He had
expected, he said, that the prophet would come to him, and calling
on his God, strike his hand over the leprous place; that without any
personal procedure of this kind, the prophet merely directed him to
go to the river Jordan and wash, discouraged and irritated him, since
if water were the thing required, he might have had it better at
home than here in Israel. By this Old Testament history we see what
was ordinarily expected from a prophet, namely, that he should be
able to cure when present by bodily contact; that he could do so
without contact, and at a distance, was not presupposed. Elisha
effected the cure of the leprous general in the latter manner (for the
washing was not the cause of cure here, any more than in John ix.,
but the miraculous power of the prophet, who saw fit to annex its
influence to this external act), and hereby proved himself a highly
distinguished [471]prophet: ought then the Messiah in this particular
to fall short of the prophet? Thus our New Testament narrative is
manifested to be a necessary reflection of that Old Testament story.
As, there, the sick person will not believe in the possibility of his cure
unless the prophet comes out of his house; so here according to one
edition of the story the applicant likewise doubts the possibility of a
cure, unless Jesus will come in to his house; according to the other
editions, he is convinced of the power of Jesus to heal even without
this; and all agree that Jesus, like the prophet, succeeded in the
performance of this especially difficult miracle.
[Contents]

§ 99.

CURES ON THE SABBATH.

Jesus, according to the gospels, gave great scandal to the Jews by

not seldom performing his curative miracles on the sabbath. One
example of this is common to the three synoptical writers, two are
peculiar to Luke, and two to John.

In the narrative common to the three synoptical writers, two cases

of supposed desecration of the sabbath are united; the plucking of
the ears of corn by the disciples (Matt. xii. 1 parall.), and the cure
of the man with the withered hand by Jesus (v. 9 ff. parall.). After
the conversation which was occasioned by the plucking of the corn,
and which took place in the fields, the two first Evangelists continue
as if Jesus went from this scene immediately into the synagogue of
the same place, to which no special designation is given, and there,
on the occasion of the cure of the man with the withered hand,
again held a dispute on the observance of the sabbath. It is evident
that these two histories were originally united only on account of the
similarity in their tendency; hence it is to the credit of Luke, that he
has expressly separated them chronologically by the words ἐν ἑτέρῳ
σαββάτῳ, on another Sabbath. 173 The further inquiry, which
narrative is here the more original? we may dismiss with the
observation, that if the question which Matthew puts into the mouth
of the Pharisees, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? is held up
as a specimen of invented dialogue; 174 we may with equal justice
characterize in the same way the question lent to Jesus by the two
intermediate Evangelists; while their much praised 175 description of
Jesus calling to the man to stand forth in the midst, and then casting
reproving glances around, may be accused of having the air of
dramatic fiction.

The narratives all agree in representing the affliction under which

the patient laboured, as a χεὶρ ξηρὰ, or ἐξηραμμένη. Indefinite as
this expression is, it is treated too freely when it is understood, as by
Paulus, to imply only that the hand was injured by heat, 176 or even
by a sprain, according to Venturini’s supposition. 177 For when, in
order to determine the signification in which this term is used in the
New Testament we refer, as it is proper to do, to the Old Testament,
we find (1 Kings xiii. 4 ) a hand which, on being stretched out,
ἐξηράνθη (‫‏ַוִּת יַבׁש‬‎), described as incapable of being drawn back
again, so that we must understand a lameness and rigidity of the
hand; and on a comparison of Mark ix. 18 , where the expression
ξηραίνεσθαι to be withered or wasted away is applied to an epileptic,
a drying up and shrinking of that [472]member. 178 Now from the
narrative before us a very plausible argument may be drawn in
favour of the supposition, that Jesus employed natural means in the
treatment of this and other diseases. Only such cures, it is said,
were prohibited on the sabbath as were attended with any kind of
labour; thus, if the Pharisees, as it is here said, expected Jesus to
transgress the sabbatical laws by effecting a cure, they must have
known that he was not accustomed to cure by his mere word, but by
medicaments and surgical operations. 179 As, however, a cure merely
by means of a conjuration otherwise lawful, was forbidden on the
sabbath, a fact which Paulus himself elsewhere adduces; 180 as
moreover there was a controversy between the schools of Hillel and
Schammai, whether it were permitted even to administer consolation
to the sick on the sabbath; 181 and as again, according to an
observation of Paulus, the more ancient rabbins were stricter on the
point of sabbatical observance than those whose writings on this
subject have come down to us; 182 so the cures of Jesus, even
supposing that he used no natural means, might by captious
Pharisees be brought under the category of violations of the
sabbath. The principal objection to the rationalistic explanation,
namely, the silence of the Evangelists as to natural means, Paulus
believes to be obviated in the present case by conceiving the scene
thus: at that time, and in the synagogue, there was indeed no
application of such means; Jesus merely caused the hand to be
shown to him, that he might see how far the remedies hitherto
prescribed by him (which remedies however are still a bare
assumption) had been serviceable, and he then found that it was
completely cured; for the expression ἀποκατεστάθη, used by all the
narrators, implies a cure completed previously, not one suddenly
effected in the passing moment. It is true that the context seems to
require this interpretation, since the outstretching of the hand prior
to the cure would appear to be as little possible, as in 1 Kings xiii.
4 , the act of drawing it back: nevertheless the Evangelists give us
only the word of Jesus as the source of the cure; not natural means,
which are the gratuitous addition of expositors. 183

Decisive evidence, alike for the necessity of viewing this as a

miraculous cure, and for the possibility of explaining the origin of the
anecdote, is to be obtained by a closer examination of the Old
Testament narrative already mentioned, 1 Kings xiii. 1 ff. . A
prophet out of Judah threatened Jeroboam, while offering incense
on his idolatrous altar, with the destruction of the altar and the
overthrow of his false worship; the king with outstretched hand
commanded that this prophet of evil should be seized, when
suddenly his hand dried up so that he could not draw it again
towards him, and the altar was rent. On the entreaty of the king,
however, the prophet besought Jehovah for the restoration of the
hand, and its full use was again granted. 184 Paulus also refers to this
narrative in the same connexion, but only for the purpose of
applying to it his natural method of explanation; he observes that
Jeroboam’s anger may have produced a transient convulsive rigidity
of the muscles and so forth, in the hand just stretched out with such
impetuosity. But who does not see that [473]we have here a legend
designed to glorify the monotheistic order of prophets, and to hold
up to infamy the Israelitish idolatry in the person of its founder
Jeroboam? The man of God denounces on the idolatrous altar quick
and miraculous destruction; the idolatrous king impiously stretches
forth his hand against the man of God; the hand is paralyzed, the
idolatrous altar falls asunder into the dust, and only on the
intercession of the prophet is the king restored. Who can argue
about the miraculous and the natural in what is so evidently a
mythus? And who can fail to perceive in our evangelical narrative an
imitation of this Old Testament legend, except that agreeably to the
spirit of Christianity the withering of the hand appears, not as a
retributive miracle, but as a natural disease, and only its cure is
ascribed to Jesus; whence also the outstretching of the hand is not,
as in the case of Jeroboam, the criminal cause of the infliction,
continued as a punishment, and the drawing of it back again a sign
of cure; but, on the contrary, the hand which had previously been
drawn inwards, owing to disease, can after the completion of the
cure be again extended. That, in other instances, about that period,
the power of working cures of this kind was in the East ascribed to
the favourites of the gods, may be seen from a narrative already
adduced, in which, together with the cure of blindness, the
restoration of a diseased hand is attributed to Vespasian. 185

But this curative miracle does not appear independently and as an

object by itself: the history of it hinges on the fact that the cure was
wrought on the Sabbath, and the point of the whole lies in the
words by which Jesus vindicates his activity in healing on the
Sabbath against the Pharisees. In Luke and Mark this defence
consists in the question, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days,
or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it? in Matthew, in a part of
this question, together with the aphorism on saving the sheep which
might fall into the pit on the sabbath. Luke, who has not this saying
on the present occasion, places it (varied by the substitution of ὄνος
ἢ βοῦς, an ass or an ox for πρόβατον sheep, and of φρέαρ, well or
pit for βόθυνος, ditch) in connexion with the cure of an ὑδρωπικὸς a
man who had the dropsy (xiv. 5 ); a narrative which has in general
a striking similarity to the one under consideration. Jesus takes food
in the house of one of the chief Pharisees, where, as in the other
instance in the synagogue, he is watched (here, ἦσαν
παρατηρούμενοι, there, παρετήρουν). A dropsical person is present;
as, there, a man with a withered hand. In the synagogue, according
to Matthew, the Pharisees ask Jesus, εἰ ἔξεστι τοῖς σάββασι
θεραπεύειν; Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? According to
Mark and Luke, Jesus asks them whether it be lawful to save life,
etc.: so, here, he asks them, εἰ ἔξεστι τῷ σαββατῷ θεραπερύειν; Is it
lawful to heal on the sabbath? whereupon in both histories the
interrogated parties are silent (in that of the withered hand, Mark: οἱ
δέ ἐσιώπων; in that of the dropsical patient, Luke: οἱ δὲ ἡσύχασαν).
Lastly, in both histories we have the saying about the animal fallen
into a pit, in the one as an epilogue to the cure, in the other (that of
Matthew) as a prologue. A natural explanation, which has not been
left untried even with this cure of the dropsy, 186 seems more than
usually a vain labour, where, as in this case, we have before us no
particular narrative, resting on its own historical basis, but a mere
variation on the theme of the sabbath cures, and the text on the
endangered domestic animal, which might come to one (Matthew) in
connexion with the cure of a withered hand, to another (Luke) with
the cure of a dropsical patient, and to a third in a different
connexion still; for there is yet a third Story of a miraculous cure
with which a similar saying is associated. Luke, [474]namely, narrates
(xiii. 10 ff. ) the cure of a woman bowed down by demoniacal
influence, as having been performed by Jesus on the sabbath; when
to the indignant remonstrance of the ruler of the synagogue, Jesus
replies by asking, whether every one does not loose his ox or ass
from the stall on the sabbath, and lead him away to watering? a
question which is undeniably a variation of the one given above. So
entirely identical does this history appear with the one last named,
that Schleiermacher comes to this conclusion: since in the second
there is no reference to the first, and since consequently the
repetition is not excused by confession, the two passages Luke xiii.
10 , and xiv. 5 , cannot have been written one after the other by
the same author. 187

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.

Of the two cures on the sabbath narrated in the fourth gospel, one
has already been considered with the cures of the blind; the other
(v. 1 ff. ) might have been numbered among the cures of paralytics,
but as the patient is not so designated, it was admissible to reserve
it for our present head. In the porches of the pool of Bethesda in
Jerusalem, Jesus found a man who, as it subsequently appears, had
been lame for thirty-eight years; this sufferer he enables by a word
to stand up and carry home his bed, but, as it was the sabbath, he
thus draws down on himself the hostility of the Jewish hierarchy.
Woolston 189 and many later writers have thought to get clear of this
history in a singular manner, by the supposition that Jesus here did
not cure a real sufferer but merely unmasked a hypocrite. 190 The
sole reason which can with any plausibility be urged in favour of this
notion, is that the cured [475]man points out Jesus to his enemies as
the one who had commanded him to carry his bed on the sabbath
(v. 15 ; comp. 11 ff. ), a circumstance which is only to be explained
on the ground that Jesus had enjoined what was unwelcome. But
that notification to the Pharisees might equally be given, either with
a friendly intention, as in the case of the man born blind (John ix.
11 , 25 ), or at least with the innocent one of devolving the
defence of the alleged violation of the sabbath on a stronger than
himself. 191 The Evangelist at least gives it as his opinion that the
man was really afflicted, and suffered from a wearisome disease,
when he describes him as having had an infirmity thirty-eight years,
τριάκοντα καὶ ὀκτὼ ἔτη ἔχων ἐν τῇ ἀσθενίᾳ (v. 5 ): for the forced
interpretation once put on this passage by Paulus, referring the
thirty-eight years to the man’s age, and not to the duration of his
disease, he has not even himself ventured to reproduce. 192 On this
view of the incident it is also impossible to explain what Jesus says
to the cured man on a subsequent meeting (v. 14 ): Behold thou art
made whole; sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee. Even
Paulus is compelled by these words to admit that the man had a real
infirmity, though only a trifling one:—in other words he is compelled
to admit the inadequacy of the idea on which his explanation of the
incident is based, so that here again we retain a miracle, and that
not of the smallest.

In relation to the historical credibility of the narrative, it may

certainly be held remarkable that so important a sanative institution
as Bethesda is described to be by John, is not mentioned either by
Josephus or the rabbins, especially if the popular belief connected a
miraculous cure with this pool: 193 but this affords nothing decisive. It
is true that in the description of the pool there lies a fabulous
popular notion, which appears also to have been received by the
writer (for even if v. 4 be spurious, something similar is contained
in the words κίνησις τοῦ ὕδατος, v. 3 , and ταραχθῇ, v. 7 ). But this
proves nothing against the truth of the narrative, since even an eye-
witness and a disciple of Jesus may have shared a vulgar error. To
make credible, however, such a fact as that a man who had been
lame eight-and-thirty years, so that he was unable to walk, and
completely bed-ridden, should have been perfectly cured by a word,
the supposition of psychological influence will not suffice, for the
man had no knowledge whatever of Jesus, v. 13 ; nor will any
physical analogy, such as magnetism and the like, serve the
purpose: but if such a result really happened, we must exalt that by
which it happened above all the limits of the human and the natural.
On the other hand, it ought never to have been thought a
difficulty 194 that from among the multitude of the infirm waiting in
the porches of the pool, Jesus selected one only as the object of his
curative power, since the cure of him whose sufferings had been of
the longest duration was not only particularly adapted, but also
sufficient, to glorify the miraculous power of the Messiah.
Nevertheless, it is this very trait which suggests a suspicion that the
narrative has a mythical character. On a great theatre of disease,
crowded with all kinds of sufferers, Jesus, the exalted and
miraculously gifted physician, appears and selects the one who is
afflicted with the most obstinate malady, that by his restoration he
may present the most brilliant proof of his miraculous power. We
have already remarked that the fourth gospel, instead of extending
the curative agency of Jesus over large masses and to a great
variety of diseases, as the synoptical gospels do, concentrates it on a
few cases which proportionately gain in intensity: [476]thus here, in
the narrative of the cure of a man who had been lame thirty-eight
years, it has far surpassed all the synoptical accounts of cures
performed on persons with diseased limbs, among whom the longest
sufferer is described in Luke xiii. 11 , only as a woman who had had
a spirit of infirmity eighteen years. Without doubt the fourth
Evangelist had received some intimation (though, as we have
gathered from other parts of his history, it was far from precise) of
cures of this nature performed by Jesus, especially of that wrought
on the paralytic, Matt. ix. 2 ff. parall., for the address to the
patient, and the result of the cure are in this narrative in John
almost verbally the same as in that case, especially according to
Mark’s account. 195 There is even a vestige in this history of John, of
the circumstance that in the synoptical narrative the cure appears in
the light of a forgiveness of sins: for as Jesus in the latter consoles
the patient, before the cure, with the assurance, thy sins are
forgiven thee, so in the former, he warns him, after the cure, in the
words, sin no more, etc. For the rest, this highly embellished history
of a miraculous cure was represented as happening on the sabbath,
probably because the command to take up the bed which it
contained appeared the most suitable occasion for the reproach of
violating the sabbath.