The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

134 THE HEALING OF
are justified in regarding the two miracles as complementary
rather than identical. " In the one, weak
faith is disciplined and confirmed ; in the other, strong
faith is rewarded and glorified." (Westcott.)
2. But even when this is admitted, it is further said
that the two accounts of the second miracle in the first
and third Gospels respectively are inconsistent with
each other.
St Matthew represents the Centurion as coming
himself to the Lord with his request. St Luke
represents him as making it
through the elders of the
Jews. And similarly, while in St Matthew the
Centurion puts forward
his own plea of unworthiness
to receive Christ into his house, in St Luke he is again
found employing the mediation of friends. But such
apparent discrepancies, even if not wholly reconcilable
by the old
law-maxim, that what one does by means
of another, he does himself,* simply show that the
first Evangelist had not received such a full and complete
account of the occurrence as the
in his more abbr^
third, and that
iated narrative he naturally passed
over all mention ot the interposing messengers, and
represented everything as taking place directly
between Jesus and the Centurion.
And though these
and similar variations in the evangelic records make it
impossible to ascribe to their writers supernatural
and infallible accuracy in every particular, there is
certainly nothing here to militate against their general
credibility. On the contrary, such independence in
insignificant details is better proof of the historicity
of the story than exact verbal
have been.
* Qui facif />er alium, facit per se.
correspondence would