84 LAMBERTON— NARRATIVE OF WALKING ON SEA. [April i8, 



conclusion seems inevitable that the critical event that is at the 

 bottom of the whole narrative, the event which Mark lost and 

 Matthew put in in an unintelligent way, was the confession of the 

 Messiahship of Jesus. Yet were both Matthew and Luke, as well 

 as Mark misled here : for this was the very thing (had Mark only 

 known it) that the disciples " did not understand " ; whereas in 

 Matthew and Luke (though there are great differences) they do 

 seem to have understood it. Matthew's mistake is in putting this 

 confession in the mouths of his disciples; Luke's in antedating the 

 scene at Caesarea Philippi, with suppression, necessitated thereby, 

 of the name of the place. 



The account in John' may help us out here (6:14). After the 

 miracle of the feeding the crowd said : '' this is truly the prophet, 

 he that is to come (Cf. Matthew 11 :3 when this phrase is used of 

 the expected Messiah) into the world." Jesus saw they were for 

 coming and seizing him " to make him king, and so he withdrew 

 into the mountain in solitude." He does not dismiss the crowd, but 

 flees from their premature intent of proclaiming him Messiah in 

 their own sense. Separation even from his disciples for the mo- 

 ment seemed demanded by the critical situation : he had discerned 

 the purpose of the crowd and left before they had time to declare 

 it; at the same time in a plausible way he got his disciples away 

 from the contagion of the crowd, to which they might have suc- 

 cumbed and thus interfered with his wiser and more prudent plans. 

 The disciples embark and start across the lake for Capernaum (not 

 Bethsaida, as Mark has it). After dark there came a high wind 

 and the sea rose. They had made 25 or 30 stadia when they saw 

 Jesus walking eirl t?}? 6a\daar)<^ : as he neared the ship, they got 

 scared ; but he quieted them : they wanted ( rjOekov) to take him aboard 

 and instantly their boat was at the shore they were making for. In 

 Mark (alone) we read Jesus wanted {rjdekev) to pass by them 

 (and did not) ; in John they wanted {rjdekov) to take him into the 

 ship, but we are not told that he got in. This identity of the verb 

 ( TjOeXev-rjOeXov ), though with a different reference, can hardly be 

 accidental. This one word seems to point to identity of original 

 and to the misunderstanding and its cause. Jesus did not enter the 

 ship: therefore he did not walk on the sea: he was walking on the 



