We learn from St Luke[255] that it was not till the next day that our Lord “came down from the hill and much people met him,” so that in the night, and in the long day's walk down to the inhabited country, the Apostles had ample time for quietly thinking over all that had taken place. Our Lord is always careful to leave time for one impression to fix itself, before another takes its place.
Chapter XI. From The Mount To Jerusalem.
The spot at which our Lord had left the disciples when He went up to the Mount of the Transfiguration must have been well peopled and provided with synagogues, for our Lord on His return finds a “great multitude about them and scribes questioning with them.” The people were greatly amazed either at His sudden appearance or at something uplifted in His air. The Scribes were holding an altercation with the disciples, possibly exulting over the failure of these to cure the child, and our Lord, addressing the Scribes who were, it would seem, the assailing party, asks
“What question ye with them? And one of the multitude answered him, Master, I brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; and wheresoever it taketh him, it dasheth him down: and he foameth, and grindeth his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast it out; and they were not able. And he answereth them and saith, O faithless [pg 350] generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I bear with you? bring him unto me. And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him grievously; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. And he asked his father, How long time is it since this hath come unto him? And he said, From a child. And oft-times it hath cast him both into the fire and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us. And Jesus said unto him, If thou canst! All things are possible to him that believeth. Straightway the father of the child cried out, and said, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. And when Jesus saw that a multitude came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And having cried out, and torn him much, he came out: and the child became as one dead; insomuch that the more part said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and raised him up; and he arose. And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, saying, We could not cast it out. And he said unto them, This kind can come out by nothing, save by prayer.”[256]
Our Lord's question to the father is just what a physician would ask, “How long is it since this hath come to him?”[257] It may have been that the longer the standing of the complaint the greater would be the effort required for the cure; for [pg 351] that in working these cures some physical strain on the nervous energy was incurred may be inferred from our Lord's feeling that “virtue was gone out of Him,” when the woman touched the hem of His garment in the press round the house of Jairus.[258]
This force depended on spiritual life, and if this were lowered in the disciples by their Master's absence, or by any little rivalry or thought of personal display in the cure, we can understand that in this difficult case—for our Lord distinctly recognises its exceptional difficulty—they should fail of success. The words “faithless and perverse generation” may apply to all those whom he finds wrangling, more or less the disciples were faithless, and the Scribes perverse. He came from a region of serene peace and heavenly communion, and the contrast of that with what He finds as soon as he comes to the resort of men, draws from Him these stern words. From the disciples' surprise that they could not cast the devil out, it may be inferred that they had succeeded in what they regarded as similar cases before. The narrative proceeds thus
“And they went forth from thence, and passed through Galilee; and he would not that any man should know it.”[259]
Our Lord now lays aside for a time His setting forth of God's Kingdom to the people at large, and [pg 352] devotes Himself entirely to preparing the Apostles for what was to come. He now breaks to all the Twelve the news of what His end on earth would be. He speaks in the plainest terms but they do not understand: their own preconception firmly holds its ground. Some perhaps thought that this death spoken of would be like a temporary trance, from which their Master would rise to a life in the body such as He had led before.