S. Peter’s Wife’s Mother

S. Mark i. 29–35

Very little has been preserved to us touching the home-life of the Apostles. A tradition in the Armenian Church speaks of all being married except S. Thomas and the two sons of Zebedee; but whether true or not, it is unsupported by any general evidence.

In this uncertainty, such a passage as that before us at once excites our interest. At all events, the chief of the Twelve was a married man. The name of his wife has come down to us as Concordia and Perpetua; and a very touching incident in connection with her martyrdom has been narrated by two early writers of considerable importance. It is said that the Apostle, on seeing her led out to execution, rejoiced in the mighty privilege of which she was deemed worthy, and cheered her by words of endearment and consolation to meet her death with unfaltering courage.

It was the mother of this holy woman who had fallen sick of a fever, which S. Luke, with his accurate knowledge of disease, characterised as of no ordinary type of severity. Her friends and relations waylaid our Lord as He was leaving the synagogue service on the Sabbath morning, and summoned Him to her bedside.

His very first act marked the tenderness of His nature. We know well what courage it seems to give us in our weakness to feel the touch of a strong hand; it was doubtless for this purpose that He did not speak merely, but Himself lifted her up in the bed — “and immediately the fever left her.” But though this may have been His first object, it could hardly have been the only one. He Who has taught us by deeds as well as words — from Whose mode 2 of working miracles we can learn almost as much as from what fell from His lips — He touched her, as He touched the leper and the daughter of Jairus, and a host of others who came to Him, in anticipation of the sacramental ordinances He had always in view. It was a way of showing the life-giving virtue which comes from contact with the Body of the Incarnate God, an anticipation of His promise, “Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life.”

“The fever left her, and she ministered unto them.” It marks the completeness of the cure; there was none of that weakness which is usually so trying when the fever subsides; there was no period of convalescence for the gradual recovery of strength, but she felt herself at once in perfect health.

Now it was quite natural that the fame of two such miracles as this and the cure of the demoniac should spread rapidly. The congregation when they broke up would carry far and wide the news of what they had seen in the synagogue; and now the friends, whose anxiety for the fever-stricken patient had been so great, could ill conceal the joyful intelligence of the second restoration.

But it was the Sabbath-day, and by the interpretation of the Law which the Scribes had taught, it was forbidden to attend to any but acute diseases; chronic cases could wait; and so we read that it was not till sunset, when, according to Jewish reckoning, the day ended, that the people generally availed themselves of His power to heal. “At even, when the sun did set, they brought unto Him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils.”

It is far more likely that this, and not any desire to avoid the heat of the day, was the cause of the delay. Had they really believed what they had heard, they would never have stayed from fear of temporary inconvenience or a possible aggravation of disease. They would have felt that it was far better to insure the recovery, though it might be preceded by a brief increase of pain, than to risk His departure. But the fear of breaking the Sabbath had a very strong hold upon them, and so they let the weary hours pass before they turned into the streets and made their way to the house where He was staying. We can hardly imagine the crowd: “all the city was gathered together at the door.” The whole suffering population, halt, lame, and blind, the sick and sore with every kind of infirmity, the bereft of reason and the possessed of demons, all were there, and for all there was the same gracious and ready help: “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” Here, as in the synagogue, the evil spirits were foremost to recognise Him, but He rebuked their utterance and suffered them not to speak. It was not by the witness of enemies, not by the confession of those who cried out in fear and anger, that He was “the Holy One of God,” that He would win His way in the world, but by the willing testimony of men who were convinced by what they saw, and cried out of the depths of their conviction, “Truly this was the Son of God. It was thus that His kingdom should be established in the hearts of men.

Now it had been foretold ages and ages before, that the Messiah should bear our griefs and carry our sorrows, that He should be sent “to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” And this day they must have felt that this scripture was fulfilled in their ears. If their thoughts went to Nazareth and the carpenter’s shop, and the doubts and misgivings which so often rose up for men’s bewilderment had had any place in the minds of those who saw what was done in Capernaum, they must have completely vanished, and this question must have put every other aside, “When Christ cometh, can He do greater miracles than this Man doeth?”

There are many passages in our Lord’s life which we should wish to paint if we could give anything like an adequate representation of the scene; but perhaps there is none which would be more likely to win acceptance, or which would give a truer idea of His real character than this.

In the streets of Capernaum and before Simon’s door there is gathered all the sorrow, the suffering, the misery of the world; and in the midst of it moves One in form like themselves — “the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” — and yet as He passes by “virtue goes out of Him and heals them all.” Never was He more truly “the Christ” than He must have seemed then. But the work of healing was over, and the night closed in. The day had been one that must have tried our Lord’s human strength to its furthest limits; but we are amazed to read that the hours of well-earned sleep were curtailed, and that He rose “a great while before day,” and went into a solitary place to pray. Temptations awaited Him on the morrow: there would be crosses and disappointments, failures and provocations, and they must be prepared for. Perhaps in nothing have we more need to follow His example than in this.

What a rebuke it is to the worldly maxim, “A busy life is hardly compatible with a life of devotion “! We cannot tell what may befall us any single day we live; but all experience teaches that a life alike of business and enjoyment must bring entanglements and dangers: in the one of overreaching our neighbours, in the other of forgetting God. No man can presume to say that he can meet them in confidence and safety whose spirit is not fortified by prayer and communion with God.

“Of mine own self I can do nothing, but I can do all things through Christ Which strengtheneth me.”

Note: S. Luke calls it a “great” fever. This is supposed, from the use of the term in contemporary writers, to indicate a recognised type of fever, such as scarlet or typhus with us. We learn from travellers that a very malignant form of the disease is still prevalent in the marshy plains near Capernaum. Cf. Tristram, Land of Israel, 448; Thomson, The Land and the Book, 356.

Note: S. Augustine has expressed this very beautifully in Tract xxiv. on S. John: “Interrogemus ipsa miracula, quid nobis loquantur de Christo; habent enim, si intelligantur, linguam suam. Nam quia ipse Christus Verbum est, etiam factum Verbi verbum nobis est.”