'CROSSING TO THE OTHER SIDE'

The motif of crossing to the other side - ei)v to\ pe/ran - is found in all four gospels. It is central to the very subject of two of the messianic miracles: The Stilling Of The Storm and The Walking On The Water. But it occurs in other uses than this. Effectively, since those two miracles, alike in this as in other respects, are complemented by the two miracles of loaves, the formula is vital to the meaning of the messianic series as a whole. The first episode in that series is The Transformation of Water Into Wine. It has no previous event, is listed in the gospel of John (2.11) as 'the first of his signs', and so acts as the reference of any opposite, that is, to any 'other' event of the same genre, but nevertheless of an alternative kind. And the final messianic miracle, The Transfiguration has no succeeding miracle, therefore obviating further use of the formula after this narrative. Such use would be superfluous to need also. So the confinement of the motif ensures its value to the series. The second event of the series, The Stilling Of The Storm, in itself, provides ample contrast to the first, since the event in itself marks transposition, a transference in nature from its precedent. The same is true of the central paired events, in which the second, The Walking On The Water, sustains a marked contrast to the first, The Feeding Of The Five Thousand. The contrast in this case is even more evident, since these episodes are contiguous.

Of course The Institution Of The Lord's Supper belongs as the seventh and final episode to the same 'messianic' series, and indeed it conforms to the subdivision of the same into events of either class: identity or feeding. The Eucharist functions as the conclusion of not only the three feeding miracles, events of 'actual immanence', but to the messianic series in its entirety, due to the arrangement of all six events into three complementary pairs. The three Eucharistic miracles are juxtaposed with their complementary three events of virtual transcendence. As just noted, this is most clearly marked in the two central episodes, The Feeding Of The Five Thousand and The Walking On The Water. But it applies equally and by extension, to the paired second and second last episodes, The Stilling Of The Storm and The Feeding Of The Four Thousand.  Thus the two outlying events, The Transformation Of Water Into Wine and Transfiguration, as we see from multiple factors, are just as much party to this logic: the chiasmos. Thus it is not the actual motif itself as encapsulated in the phrase ei)v to\ pe/ran, but rather that which it signals, which is readily intelligible in the two messianic miracles of virtual transcendence involving the actual process: the resolute distinction of polarity. This polarity provides for analogy, and since it obtains in both narrative cycles, Genesis 1.1-2.4a and the messianic series, it determines both their inner and extensive logic. It links the propositions within each series, formulating three binaries, and furthermore links the two series themselves analogically.

Even though we may count the Eucharist as of a piece with the three feeding miracles, both that it remains unpaired, and that it is non-miraculous, serve to set it apart, so obviating any further use of the motif after the last messianic miracle, The Transfiguration. Thus we may say that The Transfiguration, a miracle of ('virtual') transcendence, even though it contrasts in kind with The Eucharist as an actually immanent event, need not further employ the motif. The immediate purpose of ei)v to\ pe/ran is obviously one of contrast, and this last miracle is therefore juxtaposed to its complement, the first of the signs. To which end Mark's introduction uses the temporal phrase 'After six days ...' (Mark 9.2, emphasis added), ensuring the same reckoning, and moreover adverting to the congruence of the hexameron and Sabbath as one whole, with the messianic miracles and Eucharist as consisting likewise, that is, as nevertheless one sevenfold whole.

The deployment of this formula for the purposes of elucidating the structural significance of the messianic series does not bar its literal and geographical meaning and use. Indeed we find pe/ran as many as twenty-three times in the gospels; u(pera/nw ('above', 'over'), three times; and a)pe/rantov ('endless'), once. Liddell, Scott & Jones render the adverb as 'on the other side, across ... esp. of water.' This reinforces the relation of alterity sustained by the two members of all three pairs of complementary miracles further to the same which occurs between the three paired members of the hexameron. The second creation rubric, that of Day 2, consists of diametrically opposed 'waters above' and waters below', just as the Day 3 rubric contrasts the sea with the dry land. These two creation rubrics are analogous to the narratives of two miracles at sea: Day 2 to The Walking On The Water, and Day 3 to The Stilling Of The Storm.

And since all three miracles of 'virtual' transcendence answer clearly to the three first Days, days of 'beginning' signalling pure transcendence, we should accept the symbolic role of water in these miracle narratives as a reinstatement of disjunctive relationality. The Days of the creation series, are not organized according to the chiasmos. They occur in parallel: 1-4, 2-5 and 3-6, as is well known. However, the last event in both series, creation and messianic, is the unique episode, now Sabbath, now Eucharist. Apart from that, we can see that the two Christological rubrics of the creation series, begin their respective two halves of the narrative, just as the first of the messianic events is Christological. Because however, its corresponding analogue in the P narrative is actually Day 4, the Transfiguration is formally analogous to the Day 1 rubric, whose content it echoes also.


The sequence of the messianic miracles is in every case the same, even in the gospel of Luke, which lacks not just the first episode, but a further two. Moreover, the two events at the epicentre of the messianic series are contiguous in all three of the four gospels which record them; remarkably so, and determinatively of a pattern. This seems to be a clear structural element which we cannot afford to ignore. All three synoptists as well as John highlight these two central events in terms of a given disparity, which will be deployed further still, in the organization of the messianic series. It will account for its chiastic structure which configures a one-to-one correspondence between the first and last; second and second last; and third and third last members. In a text comparable to the Markan pericope which precedes the recapitulation of the numerical details of the two Eucharistic miracles common to Mark and Matthew, The Demand For A Sign, (Mark 8.11-13; Matthew 16.1-4; Luke 11.29-32), John has:

When they found him on the other side of the sea (pe/ran th~v qala/sshv), they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you , you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man, will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal." (John 6.25-27, emphasis added).

This establishes a striking contrast between the two Transcendental messianic miracles. The text is not permitted to interrupt the strict contiguity of these two Transcendental messianic miracles, the third and third last events of the completed series, and so it is placed after the second of these, The Walking On The Water. John develops the first expression of transcendence given in the epithet 'eternal' (ai)w/nion, v 27, then vv 40, 47), by repeated incidences of the phrase 'from heaven' (tou~ ou)ranou~, vv 31, 32, 33, 38, 41, 42, 45, 46), as well as repeated usages of 'God' (vv 27, 28, 33, 45), and 'Father' (vv 27, 32, 37, 45, 46). Thus it is certain enough that he seeks to distinguish the second of the two events in terms of its  'virtually' transcendent status.

Even though both are Transcendental in that both, identify Transcendence ('God the Father'), John establishes a taxonomical distinction between them relatively to the logical subdivision explicit in the P creation narrative. This is equally important for John as for the synoptists, which do the same. His gospel includes just three of the messianic miracles, the other four events are healing events. And so his arrangement of these seven episodes is not one of chiastic oscillation from one kind of occasion to that of 'the other side' so to speak. He employs this marker of polarity only once, then in the context of the two Transcendental events at the centre of his series. His series is thus organized according to a single subdivision as is the P narrative, since the last three miracle stories as a whole, are of the same kind as that initiated by The Walking On The Water. That is, the remaining two events The Man Born Blind (John 9.1-41), and The Raising Of Lazarus (11.1-44) are transcendent in kind. They share themes which resonate with the creation narrative, chiefly the motif of light, recursively to the beginning of the fourth gospel.

The status of these three last miracle events in John's gospel as that of (albeit 'virtual') transcendence is advocated by the prominence of the concept of identity. Thus in the first, which differs little from its synoptic recensions, we find:

... but he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." (e)gw/ ei)mi mh\ fobei~sqe, John 6.20).

Of course, a secondary criterion, that of fear, is inextricably part of this same complex, serving to distinguish feeding and identity episodes as immanent and transcendent respectively, just as this criterion operates in the synoptic versions. A propos of the unequal division of the Johannine signs, mirroring the numerical differential of the same complex, 3 : 4, we should note the probability that The Healing At The Pool (John 5.1-18) has been interpolated just where it is now placed. This narrative bears comparison with at least two of the miracle stories of the synoptic tradition: The Paralytic (Mark 2.1-12), and The Haemorrhagic Woman ( Mark 5.24b-34). The dominical saying of the synoptic account intriguingly and self-consciously appears to nod to the tradition itself:

"Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise, take up your pallet and walk.'?" (e0/geire kai\ a]ron to\n kra/batto/n sou kai\ peripa/tei; Mark 2.9).

Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your pallet and walk." (e0/geire a]ron to\n kra/batto/n sou kai\ peripa/tei, John 5.8). 

Since the first alternative, namely, '"(My son), your sins are forgiven."' (2.5b) is the centre of the controversy, and also because it indexes this event in the Markan corpus as Christological, not Transcendental in the sense of theologically concerning "The Father", we should probably opt for it. This later is precisely the case for the Johannine narrative, as the subsequent pericope demonstrates by means of repeated references to "The Father", (John 5.16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24). This means that the real comparison we are to draw from John's account of The Healing At The Pool and any of Mark's healing miracle stories, must be that of The Haemorrhagic Woman. Even though on the surface the two texts may seem quite disparate, they share various other and significant leitmotifs, prominent among which are the themes of hierarchy and time. The woman is clearly presented as a pariah, an untouchable, who dares to touch only the hem of the garment of Jesus, rather than his body, and the man at the pool is prevented by others from accessing the steps - another clear marker of hierarchy - making him too a persona non grata. A major part of the theme of hierarchy shared by the narratives, depends on the presence of crowds in both situations. Hierarchy depends on the existence of the many, and these two stories both present the same. This is part of the rationale for the placement of the miracle narrative in John, more or less immediately prior to The Feeding Of The Five Thousand.

The other and the most important, theologically and metaphysically pre-eminent motif common to the two narratives is that of time:

And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, (Mark 5.25);

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. (John 5.5).

This inevitably sorts with Transcendence ("The Father"). The Markan pericope then is that particular member of his twelvefold series of healing events which reiterates the same categoreal entity.

I am detailing these features of the narratives in order to justify my claim that the first four miracle stories in the gospel of John are consistent as concerning either actual immanence - in the case of the first Eucharistic miracle story, and the fourth member of the Johannine sequence, The Feeding Of The Five Thousand - or virtual immanence. To the latter, The Healing At The Pool and The Healing Of The Official's Son (John 4.43-54) both belong. The latter also shares a dominical saying with a Markan pericope, the story of Simon Peter's Mother-In-Law (Mark 1.31, 32):

So he asked them the hour when he began to mend, and they said to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him." (a)fh~ken au)to\n o) preto/v. John 4.52);

And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up, and the fever left her (kai\ a0fh~ken au)th\n o( pureto/v); and she served them. (Mark 1.31).

This time however, the central theological and metapsychological purposes of the narratives are one and the same: it is the symbolic feminine, a category of virtual immanence. This shows just how adaptive the evangelists were in utilising the oral tradition of such sayings. It also manifests a sensibility to gender which is other than what we might have expected of literature from the period. Not only does Mark envisage a woman as the chief character in an epiphany of The Transcendent, that is, "The Father", but John deploys a male, the official as head of the household, in his presentation of the symbolic feminine.

John's first four miracle stories mark a clearly conceptualised trajectory. In fact, so clear is it, that we might just as well say his first three such narratives, since The Healing At The Pool occurs adjacently to The Feeding Of The Five Thousand, and these two narratives present analogous categories: respectively those of the conceptual form of unity space : time and its perceptual analogue, acoustic memory. This leaves for consideration the last three miracle stories in John.

I am arguing that they form a threefold response to the former four narratives, conformably to the pattern transcendence : immanence. The case for The Walking On The Water is settled beyond dispute. A plethora and variety of features, with which I have already dealt in great detail, justify its characterization as a miracle of virtual transcendence, whose central theological subject is acoustic imagination. Which if any aspects of the two remaining episodes exhibit evidence for this claim?

I have already cited the self-identification of Jesus in The Walking On The Water, in conformity with the motif of identity as the paramount marker of transcendence, beginning with the first half of the theology of creation. And so we find in the last two miracle stories:

"As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." (o)/tan e)n tw~? ko/smw? w], fw~v ei)mi tou~ ko/smou, John 9.5).

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life (e0gw/ ei)mi h( a)nasta/siv kai\ h( zwh/); he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,"  (John 11.25).

There are in all seven "I am ..." sayings in this gospel. Beginning with "I am the bread of life." (John 6.35, 41, 48, 51) they are all placed after the inception of the second half of the gospel signalled by The Walking On The Water, even this, the first, which we might have expected to have been incorporated in the prior Eucharistic miracle story. Similarly the first Eucharistic miracle would have been an appropriate context for "I am the true vine." But it occurs in the farewell discourses (John 15.1, 5), that is, after the pivotal messianic event, The Walking On The Water. This may be accidental, nonetheless it supports the attestation of the concept of identity as a marker of transcendence, in league with its function in the completed messianic series.

In John moreover, the broader contexts of these sayings sustain the theme of identity. "I am the bread of life/which came down from heaven" extends from 6.35 to 6.59, amplifying the theme of Jesus' identity as 'the living bread' contrastively to the previous Eucharistic miracle, and his relation to "The Father" contrastively to the fathers of those who question him: '"[Your] fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died"' (v 49). "I am the light of the world" occurs first as a preface to the miracle narrative (John 8.12) and another such, "... before Abraham was, I am" (8.58) is included immediately before The Man Born Blind. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life;" (John 14.6), like the other such sayings, encapsulates the extended pericope in which it is situated, Jesus The Way To The Father, (John 14.1-14). The metaphorical construct of "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser equally elaborates the theme of identity, ending with the imagery of bearing fruit which should abide (John 15.1-16). If the gospel of John then demonstrates something of a genuine concern with the nature of Jesus' identity, this sits perfectly with its general outlook, as was first announced in the incipient theology of the logos; and that outlook is decidedly in virtue of transcendence rather than immanence, and fully realized in the second half of the gospel, culminating in the resurrection itself.

This makes all the more cogent the radical shift from the first to the second half of the gospel, marked by the two central messianic events: The Feeding Of The Five Thousand  and The Walking On The Water. It renders John's arrangement of the seven semeia much more immediately intelligible as the template of a developmental  metapsychology. If the messianic series in its completed form begins with Christ-Eros of The Transformation Of Water Into Wine, and ends with Christ-Thanatos of The Transfiguration, then so too does the series in John. For The Death Of Lazarus functions theologically and in metapsychological terms, identically to the last of the messianic miracles.

But whereas they oscillate from one polarity to the next, requiring the extensive use of the motif ei)v to/ pe/ran, the pattern of miracle events in John is that of one simple division into two halves. These two quite different formulations of seven miraculous events, of which two are messianic, and identical in John and Mark, and of which at least three of their miracles of healing bear comparable features, should also be read against the paradigmatic division of the P creation narrative. The simpler modelling in the fourth gospel readily lends itself as the basis of a developmental psychology with the events placed at its centre designating the radical pivot occurring at the middle point of one's life. I do not mean to allude here to Jungian metapsychological theory, nor Heidegger's notion of being-towards-death. Nor shall I further consider this possibility, because it entails as noted, the consideration of the narrative modelling of both the messianic series and the creation narrative. Except that is, to say that it is obvious to common sense that at a given point in one's life as its end approaches one's psychological constitution undergoes radical transformation relatively to the first stages, and this fact underpins so reading the semeia of both John and the synoptics as a legitimate hermeneutical possibility. The first three-four events plot a transit from erotic love, The Transformation Of Water Into Wine, to parenting and family existence, The Healing Of The Official's Son, to the broader dimensions of social being mapped in both The Healing At The Pool and The Feeding Of The Five Thousand together.

If it were possible to analyze the remaining three episodes as inversely complementary to this paradigm, that is, according to the chiasmos which determines the completed messianic series, then the organization of the signs in John is fully comparable to the latter. There is some evidence that this too is a legitimate possibility, as I shall contend directly below. Certainly the pattern subtended by the last three semeia in the gospel of John, given the motif of identity as the primary, systematic and criteriological signifier of transcendence in both the P narrative and the messianic series, is a fully accomplished theology of transcendence.

The following instances of the pe/ran motif, apart from John 6.17, are listed in the interests of comprehensiveness. They do not mitigate its abstract, theological function at the centre of the semeia since the very activity of two of the miracles of virtual transcendence in itself, establishes the construct of polarity and analogy. Even so, we should not fail to miss the genuine overtones in these other incidences which allude to death, and explicitly refer to baptism:

This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan (pe/ran tou~ I)orda/nou), where John was baptizing (John 1.18).

And they came to John, and said to him, "Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, (pe/ran tou~ I)orda/nou) to whom you bore witness, here he is, baptizing, and all are going to him." (John 1.26).

After this Jesus went to the other side of the sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. (Meta\ tau~ta a)ph~lqen o( I)hsou~v pe/ran th~v qa/lasshv th~v Galilai/av th~v Tiberia/dov, John 6.1);

Since this introduces The Walking On The Water, it counts as part of the one occasion when this evangelist uses the formula in keeping with its occurrence in the synoptic gospels where it confirms the chiastic structure of the messianic series; and likewise, the two following citations:

On the next day the people who had remained on the other side of the sea (pe/ran th~v qala/sshv) saw that there had been one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat ... (John6.22);

When they found him on the other side of the sea, (pe/ran th~v qala/sshv) they said to him, "Rabbi when did you come here?" (John 6.28).

He went away again across the Jordan (pe/ran tou~ I)orda/nou) to the place where John at first baptized, and there he remained. (John 10.40).

This is prefaced to The Death Of Lazarus, and its resonance with the central use of the formula is immediately recognisable. Similar overtones are present in the final incidence of the phrase, due to the approaching death and resurrection of Jesus himself:

When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples across the Kidron valley (pe/ran tou~ xeima/rrou tou~ Kedrw\n), where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. (John 18.1).

I shall concentrate here on the gospel of Mark, accepting for the moment, as a working hypothesis that Matthew and Luke obtained a copy or copies of his gospel in one form or another. It is necessary to add the rider 'for the moment', since this procedure leaves out of question the relation of the messianic miracle tradition as we have it in John. There are obvious and intriguing suggestions in the epilogue of that gospel, that its author, the author of chapter 21, was aware of the full messianic miracle series. The reference to 'the sons of Zebedee' (John 21.2), disciples not referred to elsewhere in John, but who are well known to the synoptists, as well as the enigmatic persona of 'the disciple whom Jesus loved' (v 20), and the numerical cipher 153 which signifies the entire messianic series, highlighting its three Eucharistic ('feeding') miracles, further invite speculation concerning the author and the relation of this chapter to both the remainder of John and the synoptic gospels.

Apart from this, and apart from the fact that John contains only seven semeia, the exact number of messianic events, including The Eucharist, there are further, very good reasons to investigate comparatively, certain of the relations of the sequences of miracle stories in John and the synoptics. We have seen that the second and second last episodes in the messianic series are Pneumatological. The second of these, The Stilling Of The Storm announces the category optic imagination; the fifth, The Feeding Of The Four Thousand announces the corresponding category optic memory. Both narratives are missing in the gospel of John. But the second miracle story, The Official's Son, seems quite clearly to have been paired with The Man Born Blind.

The recognition of this possibility requires that we suspend reckoning with, if not the judicious placement of, then the actual account itself of The Healing At The Pool. In connection with which, it is worth noting that this miracle story uniquely lacks John's signature epithet 'sign', (shmei~on), although it occurs in the introduction to The Feeding Of The Five Thousand:

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a multitude followed him, because they saw the signs (shmei~a) which he did on those who were diseased. (John 6.1,2.)

Since there is no formal record of the institution of the Eucharist in this gospel, and because the final tally of messianic miracles in six, and the tally of messianic events is seven, we need to make this move. Certainly the fact that the Pneumatology of virtual transcendence, The Man Born Blind is the second last sign in John, and registers optic imagination, as a category of virtual transcendence, given that we have once and for all, crossed from the immanent polarity, 'to the other side', demands careful consideration. The chiastic structure of the messianic series in its completed form finds something of a parallel in John's organization of the seven semeia, notwithstanding that the single crossing motif, and the subsequent ordering of these events, divides them into two clearly defined subseries of immanence-virtual immanence in the first section of the gospel, and transcendence-virtual transcendence in the last. A definite hint at the chiasmos which defines the final form of the messianic series is given twice. Not only are the two central episodes in John the same as those of the latter, but the first and last are likewise. The Death Of Lazarus, the last of the semeia is obviously intended as a response to the 'first of his signs', Transformation Of Water Into Wine. Both are Christologies, and the points in common the story of Lazarus has with The Transfiguration are conspicuous. This leaves the second and second last miracle narratives as more than possibly similarly intended.

I consider that the second of John's seven semeia is a rendition of the symbolic feminine. The construct of the household ((h( oi)ki/a au)tou~ o(/lh) - 'his whole household', John 4.53) is a theological keynote of the event, and coincides with that conceptual category. We have noted already the recurrence of the phrase Mark utilised in his second miracle story, that of Simon Peter's mother-in-law, namely, '... and the fever left her, and she served them.' (Mark 1.31). Only this time, the person to be healed is male, and so John has ' ... the fever left him' (John 1.52c). The woman's service (kai\ dihko/nei au)toi~v, loc.cit.) in the Markan pericope, finds its echo in the Johannine: 'As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was living.' (John 4.51). It is difficult to  further any comparable similarities between the stories, due to the extreme brevity of the Markan account, the main reason for dispensing with it as a formal member of his twelvefold corpus of healings; the symbolic feminine in which, is properly represented by The Syrophoenician Woman's Daughter (Mark 7.24-31).

That narrative more or less ends the chain of events starting with the register of the symbolic masculine by The Gerasene Demoniac. The relevance to one another in this matter of The Gerasene Demoniac and The Syrophoenician Woman's Daughter is notable: both are exorcistic in kind (Mark 5.8-13, cf. 7.25); both envisage the persons involved as worshiping Jesus (5.6, cf. 7.25c); both involve negotiation (5.7-13, cf. 7.27-29); both refer to animals feeding (5.11, cf. 7.27, 28) as well as the sea (5.1, 13 cf. 7.31; and both refer to the Decapolis (5.20, cf. 7.31). Her story too has certain resemblances to the second sign in John, as do Matthew's and Luke's versions of The Healing Of The Centurion's Servant (Matthew 8.5-13, cf. Luke 7.1-10), chiefly in terms of importuning Jesus on behalf of a minor. (They share the same with the story of Jairus' Daughter.) Matthew's and Luke's accounts of The Healing Of A Centurion's Servant  are stories in which service and servanthood are conspicuous and  are comparable to the second semeia in John; but neither contains the clause 'the fever left her/him' as does the second episode in Mark; and although Matthew lists this healing as second, Luke does not. I refer to their order because (i) the Johannine pericope notes the event as '... the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to  Galilee.' (John 4.54); (ii) because of the certain rapport it bears with the second of Mark's stories of healing, even though it is remarkably cursory; and (iii) because of the adversion to the order of the three Eucharistic miracles of the messianic series given as the number of fish caught, 153, in the last chapter of the gospel (John 21.11), a chapter which teems with references to eating. This makes the possibility of a connection of some kind between John and Mark regarding the tradition history of the miracle narratives all the more reasonable and worthy of examination.

As to the structural significance of John's editing, it is ambiguous in the extreme. For even if we aver that he means for the seven semeia to be unevenly divided in the ratio of 4 : 3, in keeping with the categoreal paradigm, there remains nevertheless the almost certain intention on his part that we should read not only the first and last miracles relatively to one another analogously to the fourth (third?) and third last, The Feeding Of The Five Thousand and  The Walking On The Water; but also the second and second last, as part of the same structural semantic. Both are identifiable as Pneumatological. Such factors also need to be taken into account in any consideration of the history of the tradition of miracle stories in John and that of the messianic series in Mark.
 

Mark's earliest usage of the crossing formula outside of its coherent operation vis-à-vis the chiastic structure of the messianic miracles, mentions both the sea and the Jordan, but not baptism:

Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed; also from Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan (pe/ran tou~ I)orda/nou) and from about Tyre and Sidon a great multitude, hearing all that he did, came to Him. (Mark 3.8).

The next incidence of the motif is in its function preparatory to the account of The Stilling Of The Storm, (Mark 5.35-41). In Mark there is a prior reference to the sea in the introduction to The Parable Of The Seeds (4.1-9):

Again he began to teach beside the sea. (Kai\ pa/lin h)/rcato dida/skein para\ th\n qa/lassan, 4.1);

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side ..." (die/lqwmen ei)v to\ pe/ran, Mark 4.35).

Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. (e)ke/leusen a)pelqei~n ei)v to\ pe/ran, Matthew 8.18);

One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side of the lake." (die/lqwmen ei)v to\ pe/ran th~v li/mnhv.) So they set out, ... (Luke 8.22).

We should note the two references to time in the introduction: 'On that day, when evening had come, ...' (e)n e)kei/nh? th~? h(me/ra? o)yi/av genome/nhv). References to day(s) occur in the introductions to both Christological messianic miracle stories: 'On the third day ...' (John 2.1); 'And after six days ...' (Mark 9.2). These are not merely fortuitous. There are further references of the same kind in yet more of the events from the messianic series, and another of an associated kind in yet another. The Feeding Of The Four Thousand begins with the phrase 'In those days ...' (E)n e)kei/naiv tai~v h(me/raiv, Mark 8.1), and includes the saying '"I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days (h(me/rai trei~v), and have nothing to eat; ..."' which may count as an allusion to the Pneumatological rubric, Day 3, since the Eucharistic miracle story is the Pneumatological member of the series of actually immanent events. That rubric of course mentions the two kinds of plants, even though it avoids any reference to eating, just which leitmotif of immanence is generally is applicable to the virtually immanent second half of the creation narrative, where it is fulsomely deployed. Furthermore The Walking On The Water refers explicitly to the diurnal/nocturnal interval of the event: 'And about the fourth watch of the night (peri\ teta/rthn th~v nukto\v) he came to them, walking on the sea.' (Mark 6.48b). These references systematically link the creation and messianic series, given that the each of the units of the former are coherently organized according to the sequence of diurnal/nocturnal temporality.

The first, Markan, messianic miracle narrative is followed immediately by The Gerasene Demoniac. As a member of the twelvefold healing miracle corpus, this is Mark's account of the symbolic masculine. It is the obvious place for this particular story, since the symbolic masculine stands in relation to optic imagination, the subject of the previous messianic miracle, as the conceptual to the perceptual pole. We find the themes of sea-and-land in the P rubric, Day 3, which is an identifiable Pneumatological index. Thus the references to 'unclean spirit(s)' (a)/nqrwpov e)n pneu/mati a)kaqartw?, to\ pneu~ma to\ a)ka/qarton, ta\ pneu/mata a)ka/qarta,  5.2, 8, 13), are also entirely fitting here. So too, it is not only the sea-land references which ally the previous messianic event and this healing episode, but also the occurrence of the theme of death in both pericopae. The disciples at sea during the storm, are in abject fear of their lives:

But he was in the stern asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, "Teacher,do you not care if we perish?" (ou) me/lei soi o(/ti a)pollu/meqa; Mark 4.38b).

The man 'in the country of the Gerasenes' lives among the tombs (e)k tw~n mnhmei/wn, e)n toi~v mnh/masin, 5.2, 5). This sorts with the prevalence of the theme of death in not just the immediately prior messianic event, but with the same in all three miracles of virtual transcendence.

The use of the formula in the introduction: 'They came to the other side of the sea ... ' (ei)v to\ pe/ran th~v qlala/sshv, 5.1), confirms what we already know, but ensures the type of the healing in closest conjunction with the prior event. That is, if The Stilling Of The Storm denotes optic imagination, a form of virtual transcendence, then the status of the subject of The Gerasene Demoniac, the analogous pure conceptual form, the symbolic masculine, is further secured by the repetition of the formula. The careful positioning of these narratives is the same as the editing of the two miracle stories in John: The Healing At The Pool and The Feeding Of The Five Thousand. These stand in the same relation to one another; the conceptual form space : time is the subject of the former, and the corresponding, analogous perceptual form acoustic memory, the subject of the latter. There is another occasion in Mark where this occurs; this time, between two members of the same corpus, healing miracles. These are, The Cleansing Of A Leper (Mark 1.40-45), and The Healing Of A Paralytic (Mark 2.1-12), which follows immediately. I have discussed these narratives formerly, and I need only repeat here that the first concerns the perceptual radical, haptic imagination, and the second, the pure conceptual form, mind. They are analogous to one another pursuant and according to the shared morphology of the P creation narrative and messianic series, and both are Christological.

The reference in 5.21 refers to both the boat and the sea. It seems fitted to indicate the return from the previous pole. The two subsequent healing miracles are of the same kind, virtual immanence, which is initially clear enough from the fact that they both concern females, and the ensuing messianic miracle is of the related species, actual immanence. Thus Jairus' Daughter and The Haemorrhagic Woman are one textual whole, with more than just their contiguity confirming the status and relatedness of their subjects, soma, that is, mind : body, and space : time respectively. Faith plays a relevant role in both episodes, (Mark 5.34, 36); so too, the crowds (o)/xlov polu\v) are present in both, (5.21b, 24b, 27, 30, 31, 38 (polla/); so does the numerical signifier 'twelve', referent to both the length of the woman's illness, and the age of 'the little girl', (5.25, 42); both figures are referred to as 'daughter', (5.23, 34, 35); and both cures engage haptic sentience, (5.27, 28, 30, 31, 41).

It is preferable to conjecture that the two halves of the story of Jairus' Daughter have been interpolated after that of The Haemorrhagic Woman. The mention of 'a great crowd' in Mark 5.21b is certainly better fitted to the sense of the latter. The woman remains an unknown, a one among many, whereas the father of the little girl is known by his personal name as well as his role as 'one of the rulers of the synagogue' (5.22). The healing of his daughter is finally effected in the privacy of his home, in the company of the select group of three disciples, and the child's father and mother alone. The 'great crowd' is highly pertinent to the story of the woman, rather than that of the little girl, just as their respective meanings for biblical metapsychology, differ. The woman embodies phylogeny; the little girl, ontogeny. Even if they belong to the same class of categoreal entities, conceptual forms of unity, manifesting virtual immanence, they occupy juxtaposed end of its spectrum, mirroring the same rapport which obtains between The Feeding Of The Five Thousand and TheTransformation Of Water Into Wine, as epiphanies of acoustic memory and haptic respectively, their corresponding forms of actual immanence.

This suggests that the first part of the editing involved only the story of The Haemorrhagic Woman. And since the ensuing messianic miracle story is The Feeding Of The Five Thousand, this would make Mark's editing of the healing miracle story and the following messianic miracle story, entirely comparable to that of John's account of The Healing At The Pool and The Feeding Of The Five Thousand. Their respective subjects and Trinitarian theologies in both cases, are the same; both the category of virtual immanence, space : time, and that of actual immanence, acoustic memory, pertain to The Transcendent.

Is the occurrence of the crossing motif in 5.21a a vestige of the prior messianic narrative in a more original form, or even a residue of the prior healing miracle story? Or yet again, should it be seen as preparatory to the next event, The Feeding Of The Five Thousand? It seems very likely that both healing miracle narratives, The Gerasene Demoniac and The Haemorrhagic Woman have been placed with the same purpose in mind. Thus in the former case, the healing miracle, denoting an event denoting pure transcendence, namely, the symbolic masculine, immediately follows a messianic miracle  denoting an act of virtual transcendence, optic imagination; whereas in the latter, a healing miracle denoting an act of virtual immanence, namely, space : time, precedes a messianic miracle denoting an act of actual immanence, acoustic memory. (As noted, the two former categories are both Pneumatological.) If this is correct, then 5.21a was originally the conclusion of The Stilling of the Storm, in preparation for the ensuing messianic Eucharistic miracle story. Their order is identical in all three synoptic accounts:

And when Jesus had crossed in the boat to the other side (ei)v to\ pe/ran), a great crowd gathered about him;  and he was beside the sea. (Mark 5.21).

This means that the use of the formula in 5.21a was intended to be fully operative in its capacity to distinguish between members of the messianic series, since I am contending that the six messianic miracle narratives most probably consisted as an organized whole in written rather than oral form. The boat is integral to The Walking On The Water, which follows the Eucharistic miracle story immediately. Therefore the written tradition may have originally consisted of 4.35-41, The Stilling Of The Storm, followed by 5.21a, and furthermore 6.34 vv.. Mark 5.21b mentions a great crowd, and this plays a vital part in the story of The Haemorrhagic Woman, and probably only by extension, in that of Jairus' Daughter. But initially at least, the beginning of the Eucharistic miracle story depicts Jesus and his disciples in terms of the privacy motif. This is a secondary attribute of miracles of virtual transcendence, such as is The Stilling Of The Storm. It does not fit with the general tenor of the feeding miracle narratives, whose tenor is generally that of the public and convivial. Therefore Mark 6.30-33 has the appearance of a later, editorial addition:

The apostles returned to Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while." For may were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves. Now many saw them going, and knew them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns, and got there ahead of them. (Mark 6.30-33).

As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. And when it grew late (Kai\ h)/dh w(/rav pollh~v genome/nhv), his disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late (kai\ h)/dh w(/ra pollh/); send them away to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat." (Mark  6.34-36).

(I have highlighted the two remarks as to the time of the episode in keeping with previously having noted the comparable, temporal references in the same narrative cycle.) Hence it does seem likely that 5.21a belonged originally to the conclusion of the first messianic miracle story in Mark, The Stilling Of The Storm. There it would have functioned as the marker of the alternation to an event of the opposite species, The Feeding Of The Five Thousand. Less confusion surrounds the following two instances of the formula because the strict contiguity between these two messianic miracle narratives maintained by all three of their recensions, has proscribed any textual interpolation:

Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side (ei)v to\ pe/ran), to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. (Mark 6.45).

And when evening came (kai\ o)yi/av genome/nhv), the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. (Mark 6.47).

The recurrence of the formula here is just where we may expect it, after the feeding miracle, in its purpose of marking the antithetical relation of the latter of these two miracles to the former, with which it is even so, necessarily paired. That is, the crossing itself and the formula are of a piece, signalling both the alterity and relatedness of these two events.


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