XIV. THE DISCIPLES DID NOT FAST

Matth. 27:19.—“Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief … Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.”

Here, therefore, the words of Jesus imply that the disciples did not fast. Yet the observation is made in that incidental manner in which a fact familiar to the mind of the speaker so often comes out. It has not the smallest appearance of being introduced for the purpose of confirming any previous assertion to the same effect. Yet in chapter 9. ver. 14, we had been told that the disciples of John came to Jesus, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?” It may be remarked, too, that the former passage not only implies that the disciples of Jesus did not fast, but that Jesus himself did, and that the latter passage singularly enough implies the very same tiling; for it does not run, why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but Thou and thy disciples fast not? (which would be the strict antithesis) but only, why do thy disciples fast not?