sequent on the Beelzebub controversy has taken place, in which we saw that Jesus, by the words, " He that is not with me is against me," signified, that personal alliance with Him of those who were of the same spirit was now an imperative necessity. Moreover, further back (x. 17-24), Jesus is represented as exulting over the discovery in the Seventy of their ability to cast out demons; therefore it seems difficult to understand why, if the petitioners in Luke could have said, as in Matthew, "in thy name we have cast out demons," they should have been refused admission; but as Luke carefully excludes such a plea, and uses expressions denoting mere external contiguity and neighbourhood to Jesus-such as eating and drinking in His presence, and having Him teach in their streets -we are led to think of the deep alliance of the whole man which Jesus demands in His followers. Even Judas had eaten and drunk in His presence. casters out of demons they might possibly enter,

As

but

not as workers of iniquity (ẻpyaтai àdiκías). The entire discourse is absent from Mark.

CURE OF THE CANAANITISH WOMAN'S
DAUGHTER.

(MATT. xv. 21-28; MARK vii. 24-30. Not in LUKE.)

Another curious example of Luke's treatment of the subject of demonology is afforded by his omission

of the story of the Cure of the Canaanitish Woman's Daughter. We are indebted to Matthew (xv. 21-28) and Mark (vii. 24-30) for preserving the incident. Matthew says that this woman was a Canaanite from the country of Tyre and Sidon, in whose borders Jesus then was. Mark gives the same locality, and mentions that the woman was a Greek, of Syrophoenician race. The daughter, according to Matthew's account, is grievously vexed with a demon (KаKOS SαιμоvíÇerai), of which she is healed, after the urgent entreaties of the mother and His disciples. According to Mark, the little girl had an unclean spirit (πvεûμа ȧкáðaρтоv), which is also called, three times, "the demon" (Tò Sapóviov). There is no mention, in Mark, of the expostulation of the disciples. It is uncertain in Matthew's account whether the daughter is present with the mother or not, but there is no dubiety in Mark's, for we read (vii. 30), And she went away unto her house, and found the child laid upon the bed, and the demon gone out."

Why does Luke omit this case of exorcism if the subject possesses such an interest for him as we have. supposed? and why should he, of all the Evangelists, whose Gospel delights to record the grace and tenderness of Jesus towards women, and to represent Him as tolerant towards Samaritans and Gentiles, and friendly to the stranger and the outcast, and as the

restorer of a widow's only son, miss this opportunity of adding another such incident to his fair collection?

Various explanations of Luke's silence have been given, but may not the simple solution of the difficulty be found in the fact, that it is a cure by exorcism at a distance? It is the only instance in the Gospel history. There are two cases of the cure of disease at a distance-(1), the healing of the centurion's servant at Capernaum (Matt. viii. 5-13; Luke vii. 1-10; unknown to Mark); and (2), the healing of the nobleman's son at Cana (John iv. 46-54). In all the instances of exorcism recorded by Luke, Jesus is represented as being face to face with the possessed: moreover, it is entirely His own deed, in which faith, either on the part of the possessed, were that possible, or of any relative, would be an incongruous element.1 As Luke knows nothing of this journey of Jesus to "the parts of Tyre and Sidon," or of any "mighty works" done there,2 the conditions of exorcism could not be fulfilled in the case of the Canaanitish woman's daughter, and so the incident is unrecorded by him. To have inserted it would have violated Luke's conception of the nature of the "power" required for the expulsion of demons, in being brought into the actual presence of the possessed. Even when the Evangelist deals with a case of simple healing of disease at a distance, as in recording the cure of the 2 See p. 33, note.

1 See p. 118.

L

centurion's servant at Capernaum, he is particular to note that Jesus was "not far from the house" (vii. 6) when the cure was performed,—a detail unknown to Matthew, which shows that Luke attached importance to the circumstance. Just as Luke, in his graphic picture of the struggle between Jesus and Satan in the Threefold Temptation, conceives of it as a more directly personal conflict, so all through his narratives of exorcism Jesus is brought face to face with the possessed, in immediate relations with the subjects of His conquering power.

Luke has thus consistently exhibited the power of Jesus in conflict and in triumph with the power of the enemy, first with Satan himself, and subsequently in the persons of the possessed. The "kingdom" of Jesus is, therefore, not a thing to be established in the future, but is already inaugurated on earth; and the process and progress of the kingdom originated with the victory gained over Satan in the Threefold Temptation. Men are already, from that moment, being separated into good and bad, and are won over to the side of Jesus, or remain subject to the dominion of the world. The Father hath appointed a kingdom unto Jesus (xxii. 29), and the Eleven are delegated to the same rule. Hence, the Judgment is constantly proceeding; and thus, in Luke, we do not find the same prominence given to parables and discourses regarding a Last Judgment in the future, at the end

of the world, as, for example, in Matthew. The first remarkable omission of this kind in Luke is Matthew's parable of the Tares and the Wheat, with its exposition (xiii. 24-30, 36-43). Here, good and bad grow together till the harvest, which is the end of the world, and the bad cannot be separated from the good now, for fear of destroying the good; but at the end of the world the angel reapers, sent forth by the Son of man, shall gather out of His kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and cast them into the furnace of fire. The parable of the Draw-net is of similar import, and is also absent from Luke's Gospel.1 The same remark applies to the parable of the Ten Virgins, the parable of the Talents, and the account of the Last Judgment, all given by Matthew in chap. xxv. In these the separation is effected at the last as by a catastrophe, and the good are preserved and rewarded, while the wicked are excluded and destroyed. The conception of the kingdom in Luke seems to be different. Satan and the tares are being now extirpated; Jesus (Luke xvii. 21) declares to the Pharisees that the kingdom of God is in the midst of them; and the process of growth, which is equally insisted on by Luke, implies also a process of constant differentiation and separation, as is indicated by the words of Jesus, reported by Luke alone (xi. 23): "He that is not with me is against me; and he that

1 Luke, however, records the Miraculous Draught of Fishes.