Notes on the parables of Our Lord

Front matter

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Contents

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

CHAP.

PAGE

Chapter I. On The Definition Of The Pakable

Those who have had occasion to define a parable, do not appear to have found it an easy task. Kather than attempt to add another definition to those already given, I will seek to note briefly what seems to me to distinguish it from the fable, the allegory, and snch other forms of composition as most closely border on it.

1. Some have confounded the parable with the iEsopic fable, or drawn between them only a slight and hardly perceptible line of distinction. But the parable is constructed to set forth a spiritual truth ; while the fable is essentially of the earth, and never lifts itself above the earth. The fable just reaches

8 ISTTRODIJCTORY REMARKS.

that pitch of morality which the world will understand and approve. But it has no place in Scripture, for the purpose of Scripture — namely, the awakening of man to a consciousness of a Pivine original, and the education of the spiritual in him — excludes it. The two fables in the Old Testament (Judges ix. 8-15, and 2 Kings xiv. 9) do not impeach the universality of this rule, for in neither case is it God that is speaking. For the purposes of the fable, which are the recommendation and enforcement of the prudential virtues, examples taken from the world beneath us are admirably suited. The greatest of all fables, Reynard the Fox, affords ample illustration of this.

It belongs to the loftier standing point of the parable that it should be deeply earnest. Severe and indignant it may be, but it never jests with the calamities of men, however well deserved, and its indignation is that of holy love. In this raillery, the fabulist frequently indulges. There is still another point of difference between the parable and the fable. Although it cannot be said that the fabulist intends to deceive, when he attributes reason and language to beasts and trees, yet the severer reverence for truth, belonging to the higher moral teacher, will not allow even of this sporting with the truth. The great Teacher in His parables allowed Himself in nothing marvellous or anomalous ; He presents to us no speaking trees, or reasoning beasts.

2. The parable is also different from the mythus.

The mythic narrative presents itself not merely as the

vehicle of the truth, but as being itself the truth ;

while in the parable we see the perfect distinctness

between form and essence, shell and kernel. There is

indeed a resemblance, when upon some old legend or

myth there is thrust some spiritual significance,

which is clearly an after-thought. For instance,

Narcissus was to the later Platonists the symbol of

man, casting himself forth into the world, expecting

to find the good answering to his nature, but finding

death instead. It was their aim hereby to put a

moral life into mythology, so that it might maintain

its ground against the new life of Christianity.

3. The parable is also clearly distinguishable from the proverb, though it is true that the words are sometimes used interchangeably in the New Testament. (Thus, Matt. xv. 14, 15.) This interchange has come to pass, partly because there is but one word in the Hebrew to signify both parable and proverb; and also, because the proverb, like the parable, very commonly rests upon some comparison, expressed or implied (2 Peter ii. 22). Or again, the proverb is

often a concentrated parable; as for instance, "If the 1*

10 IKTKODUCTOKY REMARKS.

blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch," might easily be extended into a parable.

4. The parable differs from the allegory, but it i{3 more in form than in essence. In the allegory, there is a blending, an interpenetration of the thing signifying and the thing signified. It needs not, as the parable, an interpretation from without, for it contains its interpretation within itself, and as it proceeds, that also proceeds, or at least is never far behind it. (The " Pilgrim's Progress " amply illustrates this.) Thus Isaiah y. 1-6, is a parable, the explanation being in ver. 7 ; while Psalm lxxx. 8-16, resting on the same image, is an allegory. And as we have seen that many proverbs are concise parables, in like manner also, many are brief allegories. The eastern proverb, " The world is a carcass, and they who gather round it are dogs," interprets itself as it goes along ; while the proverb spoken by our Lord, " Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together," gives no interpretation of itself.

To sum up all, the parable differs from the fable, by moving in a spiritual world, and never transgressing the actual order of natural things, — from the mythus, because in that there is an unconscious blending of the deeper meaning with the outward symbol, the two remaining separate in the parable, — from the proverb, inasmuch as it is longer carried out, and not merely accidentally but necessarily figurative, — from the allegory, by comparing one thing with another, and not transferring, as the allegory, the properties of one to the other.

Chapter II. On Teaching By Paeables

No one can deny, without doing great violence to our Lord's words as recorded in Matt. xiii. 10-15 ; Mark iv. 11, 12 ; Luke viii. 9, 10, that it was sometimes his purpose in teaching by parables, to withdraw from certain of his hearers the knowledge of truths which they were unworthy or unfit to receive. If not, where would be the fulfilment of the prophecy in Isaiah vi. 10 ? It is not that by the command, " Make the heart of this people fat," we need understand that any peculiar hardening passed upon them, but that the Lord having constituted as the righteous law of his moral government, that sin should produce moral insensibility, declared that he would allow the law in their case to take its course. The fearful curse of sin is, that it has ever the tendency to reproduce itself, that he who sows in sin reaps in spiritual darkness, which delivers him over again to worse sin.

But, notwithstanding this, we may assume as certain, that the general aim of our Lord in teaching by parables, was either to illustrate pr to prove, and thus to make clearer, the truths which he had in hand. Or to prove, I say ; the parable, or other analogy to spiritual truth appropriated from the world of nature or man, is not merely illustration, but, in some sort, proof. For the power of such analogies lies in the harmony unconsciously felt by all, and by deeper minds plainly perceived, between the natural and spiritual worlds ; the world of nature being throughout a witness for the world of spirit. To lovers of truth the things on earth are copies of the things in heaven. Rather, instead of being happily, but arbitrarily, chosen illustrations, do they belong to one another, the type and the thing typified, by an inward necessity. It is not a happy accident that the analogy of husband and wife sets forth the mystery of Christ's relation to His elect Church ; but rather, the earthly relation is only a lower form of the heavenly, on which it rests, and of which it is the utterance. The Lord is king, not borrowing this title from the kings of the earth, but having lent His own title to them ; and the " kingdom of God " is, in fact, a most literal expression ; it is rather the earthly kingdoms that are figures and shadows of the true. The untended soil yielding thorns and briers, is ever a type of man's heart, which, if neglected, will bring forth its thorns and its briers ; and the weeds that will mingle during the time of growth with the corn, and yet are separated from it at last, tell always the same tale of the present mingling and future sundering of the righteous and the wicked. And so, also, in the decaying of the seed, and from that the rising of the fruitful ear, we see evermore the prophecy of the final resurrection, — it is the same power putting itself forth upon meaner things. And thus, besides his written revelation, God has an elder, and one without which we cannot conceive how that other could be made, for from this it appropriates all its signs of communication. The entire moral and visible world, with its kings and its subjects, its sun and its moon, its sleeping and its waking, and all its variety of operations, is one mighty parable.

It is true that men are ever in danger of losing " the key of knowledge " which opens the portals of this palace ; and indeed in all, save in the one Man, there is more or less of the dulled ear, and the filmed eye. There is none to whom nature tells all that she has to tell. Now, the whole of Scripture, with its constant use of figurative language, is a re-awakening of man to the mystery of nature, and giving back to him the key of knowledge ; and this comes out in its highest form, but by no means exclusively, in the parables. These were a calling of attention to the spiritual facts which underlie all processes of nature, all human institutions. Christ moved in the midst of what seemed to the eye of sense an old and wornout world, and it became new at his touch ; for it told to man the inmost secrets of his being, and he found that of these two worlds, without him, and within, each threw a light and glory on the other.

For the possibility of a real teaching by parables, rests on this — that this is God's world, the same God who is leading us into spiritual truth, and that being God's, it is a sharer in his great redemption. We must not forget, indeed, that nature in its present state contains but a prophecy of its coming glory ; it " groaneth and travaileth ;" it is suffering under our curse. Yet suffering thus, it has more fitting symbols to declare to us our disease and misery, and the processes of their healing. It has its storms, and wildernesses, its lions and adders, by these interpreting to us death and all that leads to death, no less than by its more beneficent workings life and all that tends to the restoring and maintaining of life.

Still, not the less does it come short of its full purpose and meaning. It does not always speak out, in distinct accents, of God's truth and love. One day it will be translucent with the divine idea which it embodies, and which even now shines through it so wondrously. For no doubt the end will be, not the abolition of this nature, but the glorifying of it, ■ — that which is now nature (natura), always, as the word expresses it, struggling to the birth, will then be born ; and the new creation will be as the glorious child born out of the world-long throes of the old* But at present, the natural world, through its share in man's fall, has lost in some measure its fitness for the expressing of his higher condition. Obnoxious to change, tainted with decay, all earthly things are weak and temporary, when they undertake to set forth things strong and eternal. They break down under the weight that is laid upon them. The father, unlike that heavenly Father, chastens after his own pleasure. The word of God, which liveth and abideth forever, is set forth by the seed which itself perishes at last. There is something exactly analogous to all this, in the personages mentioned in Scripture, as typical of the Divine Man. Through their sins and imperfections they all break down, sooner or later. For instance, few would deny the typical character of Solomon. Yet all that gorgeous forecasting of the coming glory is vouchsafed to us only for an instant. Even before his reign is done, we lose the brightness of the coloring, the distinctness of the outline.

Again, we see some men, in whom there is but a -ingle point in their history which brings them into typical relation to Christ ; such was Jonah, the type of the Resurrection : or persons whose lives at one moment and another seem to stand out as symbolic ; Samson will suggest himself as one of these. It is scarcely possible to believe that Judges xiv. 14 and xvi. 30 mean nothing more than is contained in the letter. And so it is in every case, for somewhere or other every man is a liar ; he is false, that is, to the Divine idea, which he was meant to embody. So that of the truths of God in the language of men, which language, of course, includes man's acts as well as his words, it may truly be said, " we have this treasure in earthen vessels." No doubt it was this consciousness of the drawbacks that attend all our means of communication, that caused the mystics to press the idea that we should seek to abstract ourselves from all images of things, and that to raise ourselves to the contemplation of pure and naked truth is the height of spiritual attainment. It has been said that as the kernel of the seed while in the earth disengages itself from the outer coating, and alone fructifies while the husk perishes, so in the seed of God's word, deposited in man's heart, the sensible form must fall off, that the inner germ may germinate. But, we must observe, the outer covering is not to fall off and perish, but to become glorified. Man is body and soul, and the truth has, for him, need of a body and soul likewise ; it is well that he should be able to distinguish between the two, but not that he should seek to kill the body, that he may get at the soul.

The teacher, who would find his way to the hearts and understandings of his hearers, will never keep down the parabolical element of his teaching, but will make as frequent use of it as he can. To do this effectually, will need a fresh effort of his own ; for while all language is more or less figurative, yet long use has worn out the freshness of the stamp, so that, to create a powerful impression, language must be cast into novel forms, as was done by our Saviour. He gave no doctrine in an abstract form, no skeleton of truth, but clothed them all, as it were, with flesh and blood. He acted Himself as He declared to His apostles they must act (Matt. xiii. 52); He brought forth out of His treasure things new and old ; by the help of the old, making intelligible the new. And thus in His own example He has given us the secret of all effectual teaching.

* Had our Lord spoken naked spiritual truth, how many of His words would have entirely passed away from the hearts and memories of His hearers, But being imparted to them in this form, under some lively image, or in some brief but interesting narrative, they awakened attention, and excited inquiry ;

or even if, at the time, the truth did not find an entrance into the mind, His words laid up in the memory, were, to many that heard Him, like the money of another country, of which they knew not the value, but which yet was ready for use when they reached that land. When the Spirit brought all things to their remembrance, He quickened the forms of truth, which they already possessed, with the power and spirit of life. Gradually, the meanings of what they had heard, unfolded themselves. And thus must it ever be with all true knowledge, which is not the communication of information, but the planting seeds of truth, which shall take root in the new soil, and striking their roots downward, and sending their branches upward, shall grow into goodly trees.

"We may also notice, that besides the spoken, there is much of acted, parable in Scripture. Every type is a real parable. | The whole Levitical constitution, with its outer court, its holiest of all, its sacrifices, and all its ordinances, is declared to be such in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ix. 9). The wanderings of the children of Israel have ever been regarded as a parable of the spiritual life. We have, also, parabolic persons, who represented One higher and greater than themselves ; men, who by their actions and sufferings were unconsciously drawing lines which another should hereafter fill up, as Abraham casting out

Hagar (Gal. iv. 30), Jonah in the whale's belly, David in his hour of agony (Ps. 22). And, in a narrower circle, how often has God chosen that His servants should teach by an acted parable in order to make a more lasting impression. This will be seen in the conduct of Jeremiah ; he breaks a potter's vessel (xix. 1-11) ; he wears a yoke (xxvii. 2, xxviii. 10) ; he redeems a field in pledge (xxxii. 6-15). All these acts were symbolical. And as God chooses that His servants shall teach by these means, so does He teach them by the same. Not by His word alone, does He teach His prophets, but the great truths of His kingdom pass before their eyes incorporated in symbols. They are indeed, and eminently, seers. This was perhaps more true of Ezekiel and Zechariah than of any others. "We have an example of the same teaching in St. Peter's vision (Acts x. 9-16), and throughout all the visions of the Apocalypse. Nay, we might venture to affirm that so it was with the greatest truth, that which includes all others, — the manifestation of God in the flesh. This, inasmuch as it was a making visible the invisible, a teaching not by doctrine, but by the embodied doctrine of a divine life, was the most glorious of all parables.

Our Lord's parables are found only in the three first Gospels ; that of St. John containing allegories (x. 1 ; xv. 1). The gospel of St. Matthew was written originally for Jewish readers, and mainly for those of . Palestine ; and its leading purpose was to show that Jesus was the promised Messiah — the expected king of the Jews — the son of David ; the parables recorded by him are concerning the kingdom, in harmony with the theocratic spirit of his Gospel. The main purpose of Luke was to show, not that Jesus was the king of the Jews, but the Saviour of the world ; and therefore he traces our Lord's descent not merely from David, but from Adam. He, the chosen companion of the Apostle of the Gentiles, wrote his Gospel originally for Gentile readers ; and, therefore, has been most careful to record the Lord's declarations concerning God's free mercy — that there is no departure from God so wide as to preclude a return. In this view, the three parables in chap. xv. are especially characteristic. St. Mark has but one parable peculiar to himself, namely, that of the seed growing by itself (iv. 26), and there is nothing in his record, I believe, to demand special notice.

Chapter III. On The Inteepeetation Of Paeables

Each one of the parables is like a casket, itself of exquisite workmanship, but in which jewels richer than itself are laid up ; or like fruit, which, however lovely to look upon, is yet more delectable in its inner sweetness. To find, then, the golden key at the touch of which the casket shall reveal its treasures, to open this fruit so that nothing of its hidden kernel shall be lost, has ever been regarded as a matter of high concern. In the interpretation of the parable, the question, how much is significant ? is one which has given rise to the most opposite theories. Some have gone a great way in saying, This is merely drapery, and not the vehicle of essential truth. Chrysostom continually warns against pressing too anxiously all the circumstances of a parable, and so also is it with Theophylact and Origen. It has been said that the parable and its interpretation are as a plane and a globe, which, though brought into contact, yet touch each other but in one point. On the other hand, Angustine, though sometimes laying down the same principle, frequently extends the interpretation through all the minutest fibres of the narrative. And in modern times, the followers of Cocceius have been particularly earnest in affirming all parts of a parable to be significant. It may well b*e considered whether those interpreters who claim that much of a parable is simply ornament, have not run into an extreme. It is quite true, as they say, that a knife is not all edge, nor a harp all strings. It is true, also, that in the other scheme of interpretation, there is danger lest a love for the exercise of ingenuity on the part of the interpreter, and admiration of the ingenuity so exercised on the part of the readers and hearers, may cause it to be forgotten that sanctification of the heart through the truth is the main purpose of all Scripture.

Yet, on the other hand, there is a shallow spirit ever ready to empty Scripture of the depth of its meaning, to exclaim, " This means nothing, this circumstance is not to be pressed ;" and thus saying, we may fail to draw out from the "Word of God all the riches therein contained ; we may fail to admire the wisdom with which the type was constructed to correspond with its antitype. And still further, of those who start with the principle that much is to be set aside as nonessential, scarcely any two are agreed as to what act-

24 INTRODUCTORY KEMAEKS.

ually is to be set aside 'j what one rejects, another retains, and the contrary. Besides, it is always observable that the more this system is carried out, the more the peculiar beauty of the parable disappears. When Storr, for instance, denies that the Prodigal leaving his father's house has any direct reference to man's departure from his heavenly Father, it is at once evident how much, both of pleasure and of instruction, is taken from us. It may also be remarked, in opposition to the interpretation of the parables in the gross, that when our Lord himself interpreted the two first which he delivered, those of the Sower and of the Tares, it is more than probable that he intended to furnish us with a key to the interpretation of them all. Now, in these, the moral application descends to some of the minutest details of the narrative.

It will help us much in this matter of determining what is essential and what not, if we first obtain fast hold of the central truth which the parable would set forth, and distinguish it in the mind as accurately as we can from all truths which border upon it ; for only as seen from that middle point will the different parts appear in their true light. There is also this rule, that the introduction and application must be most carefully attended to. These helps to interpretation are rarely or never lacking, though given in no fixed or formal manner ; sometimes they are supplied by oar Lord himself (Matt. xxii. 14 ; xxv. 13) ; sometimes by the inspired narrators of His words (Luke xv. 1, 2 ; xviii. 1) ; sometimes they precede the parable (Luke xviii. 9 ; xix. 11) ; sometimes they follow (Matt. xxv. 13 ; Luke xvi. 9). The parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matt, xviii. 23) is furnished with these helps to its right understanding, both at its opening and at its close. So also are Matt. xx. 1-15, and Luke xii. 16-20.

Again we may observe that an interpretation, besides being thus in accordance with its context, must be so without the use of any very violent means ; even, as generally, the interpretation must be easy — if not always easy to be discovered, yet being discovered, easy. For it is here as with the laws of Nature : genius may be needful to discover the law, but being discovered it throws back light upon itself, and commends itself unto all. Again, as it is the proof of the law that it explains all the phenomena, so it is tolerable evidence that we have found the right interpretation of a parable, if it leave none of the main circumstances unexplained.

Once more — the parables are not to be made first sources of doctrine. Doctrines otherwise grounded may be illustrated, or even further confirmed by them ; but it is not allowable to constitute doctrines first by their aid. For from the literal to the figurative, from the clearer to the more obscure, has ever been recognized as the law of Scripture interpretation. This rule, however, has been often forgotten, and controversialists, looking around for arguments with which to sustain some weak position, often invent for themselves supports in these. Thus Faustus Socinus argues from the parable of the Unmerciful Servant, that as the king pardoned his servant merely on his petition, so in the same way God, without requiring sacrifice or intercessor, pardons His debtors simply on the ground of their prayers. Socinus here sins against another rule of Scripture interpretation, as of common sense, which is, that we are not to expect, in every place, the whole circle of Christian truth to be fully stated, and that no conclusion may be drawn from the absence of a doctrine from one passage which is clearly stated in others.

But the greatest sinners against this rule, namely, that the parables are not to be made first sources of doctrine, were the Gnostics and Manicheans, but especially the former. They only came to the Scripture to find an outer Christian coloring for a system essentially anti-Christian. They came, not to draw out of Scripture its meaning, but to thrust into Scripture their own (all of which very nearly repeats itself in Swedenborg). To sustain their doctrine, they were obliged to abandon the literal portions of Scripture ;

their only refuge was in the figurative, in those which might receive more interpretations than one ; such perhaps they might bend to their purposes. And as it was with the Gnostics, so was it with those sects of a later day, the Cathari and Bogomili. They too found in the parables no teaching of sin and grace, no truths of the kingdom of God, but fitted to them the speculations about the creation, the origin of evil, the fall of angels, which they had themselves framed. Thus, in the parable of the Unjust Steward, they made Satan the chief steward over God's house, deposed from his high position, and drawing after him other angels with the suggestion of lighter tasks, and relief from the burden of their imposed duties.

There is another theory concerning the interpretation of the parables, held by Cocceius and his followers of what we may call the historico-prophetical school. By the parables, they say, and so far they are right, are declared the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Understanding these words — the kingdom of God — in far too exclusive a sense, they find in every one of the parables a part of the history of that kingdom's progressive development in the world, to the remotest times. They will not allow that any are merely for exhortation, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness. In the words of one of their own number : — " The parables connect themselves with certain fixed periods of the progressive development of the Gospel of the kingdom, and as soon as these periods are completed, lose themselves in the very completion," that is, like all other fulfilled prophecy. Prophetical, no doubt, many of the parables are, for they declare how the new element of life, which the Lord was bringing into men's hearts and into the world, would work — the little mustard seed should grow to a great tree. But they do not declare so much the facts as the laws of the kingdom. Only a few are historico-prophetical. In the Wicked Husbandmen, for example, there is a clear prophecy of the death of Christ ; and in the Marriage of the King's Son, there is also a clear announcement of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the transfer of the privileges of the kingdom of God from the Jews to the Gentiles.

Note. — For remarks " on other parables besides those in the Scriptures," see the Appendix.

PAEABLES.