2.04 The Talents the Pounds
IV. THE TALENTS THE POUNDS.
Matthew 25:14 - Matthew 25:30; Luke 19:12 - Luke 19:27. The Moral Law of the New Testament is not something new: it is but the Moral Law of the Old Testament spiritualized andperfected. The Moral Code of the Pentateuch is summed up in the Ten Commandments: the two great commandments which have for object the twofold love of God and of the neighbour may be regarded as an abridgment THE PARABLES OF JESUS 83 of the New Testament Code of Morals. And it is significant that, while the former is mostly negative in form, the latter is purely positive. Of the Ten Commandments only two are formally positive: “ Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy “ and “ Honour thy father and thy mother”; and, indeed, the authentic interpretation or amplification appended to the*/Third Commandment, showing that in the main it must be understood in a negative sense, leaves only the Fourth to be taken as prescribing something formally positive. The lesson which may be drawn from the contrast between the two sets of laws in question is further emphasized in the parable of the Talents. The parable begins with the words, “ For as a man going on a journey,” etc, without any definite statement following as to what the image resembles. The omission can with out difficulty be mentally supplied; and it would seem that the construction is due to the influence of the introductory formula of the preceding parable still felt here: “ Then shall the Kingdom of Heaven be likened “ (to ten virgins). 5 ^ The principal personage in the 84 THE PARABLES OF JESUS parable is leaving home on a journey; but before setting out he calls together his servants. He contemplates a long absence, and, having a large sum of money at his disposal, he is naturally unwilling that it should lie unused during the interval between his departure and return. He therefore distri butes it among them: to one he gives five talents, to another two, to another one. The unequal distribution is not the result of caprice or favouritism: he is guided solely by his knowledge of their varying ability. A talent may be estimated as worth 240 of our money. The sums in question may seem large to be entrusted to servants; but when we remember that these servants were slaves, and so liable to severe punishment for any dereliction of duty, the proceeding need cause us no surprise.
We are not told that their lord gave them any express instructions as to what they should do with the money, but the sequel shows that they were expected to trade with it, and not merely have it in safe-keeping. Two at least of the three understood the mind of their lord. Scarcely had he departed, when the two servants who had received the five and THE PARABLES OF JESUS 85 two talents respectively began to trade with them; and they performed their task with so much enterprise, diligence, and skill, that in course of time each of them had doubled the capital entrusted to him. It was not so with the servant who had received the one talent. Of too timorous a nature to venture it in trade, and not sufficiently alive to his master’s interests to take even the slight trouble of investing it with the bankers, he went off instead and hid it in the earth. After a long absence the master returns and makes a reckoning with his servants. The two who had laboured faithfully approach him with joy and confidence, and present both the capital and the profit accruing from it in each case double the amount originally received. To each of them he addresses words of commendation: “Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things: I will set thee over many things, enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” Then the servant who had received one talent came, and said: “Lord, I knew that thou art a hard man: thou reapest where thou didst not sow, and gatherest where thou didst not 86 THE PARABLES OF JESUS winnow; and so through fear I went and hid thy talent in the earth: behold, thou hast thine own.” These words may be regarded as an admission of guilt. He might perhaps, with some show of probability, have pleaded ignorance of his master’s wish that he should trade with the money: instead, he acknowledges, at least by implication, that he was aware of this, inasmuch as he- confesses his knowledge of his master’s hard and exacting disposition. His lord replied: “Wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I did not winnow.
Thou oughtest therefore to have committed my money to the bankers, and when I came I should have received back mine own with interest.” He then pronounces the punish ment: “ Take ye away, therefore, the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents. For to every one that hath it shall be given, and he shall abound; but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away. And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.” The question presents itself whether this THE PARABLES OF JESUS 87 parable was intended for the Apostles alone or for the followers of Jesus in general. The answer depends on the solution of the further question, whether it is identical with that of the Pounds (Luke 19:12 - Luke 19:27) or not. This problem is a rather difficult one; because, though there are differences between the two parables, they have a strong mutualresemblance. In St. Luke we find precise indications as to what gave occasion for the parable which he narrates, and as to the time and place of its delivery. It follows the episode of the conversion of Zacchseus, and St. Luke introduces it with the statement that Jesus spoke it because He was nigh to Jerusalem, and because His followers thought that the Kingdom of God was about to appear forthwith. The parable in St. Matthew seems to have been addressed to a narrower circle of disciples on the Mount of Olives, and to have been spoken at the same time as the great eschatological discourse (chap, xxiv.) These differences, however, are by no means decisive against the identity of the parables. If the indications as to occasion, time, and place, in St. Matthew, were as precise as those in St.
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Luke, the aspect of the case would be different; but as we need have no difficulty in accepting the view that St. Matthew inserted his parable out of the chronological order, in a context treating of subjects which had more or less affinity with it, the problem still remains an open one for any evidential value which the discrepancies in question possess. Besides, it seems improbable that Jesus would have repeated practically the same parable after so short an interval to disciples who must have been among His hearers on the previous occasion. Nor can we regard the internal differences as of sufficient importance to oblige us to decide against the identity of the parables. Some of them namely, the quality of the principal personage, the object of his journey, the rebellion and its punishment, the nature of the rewards granted to the faithful servants are all details found only in St. Luke, which may be looked upon in the light of additions, and which might well have been omitted, since they seem to have no particular significance for the main lesson of the parable, to which, moreover, some of them are only loosely attached. In St. Luke the THE PARABLES OF JESUS 89 nobleman gives a pound (Greek mna, equal to about 4 sterling) to each of his ten servants, with the commission (wanting in St. Matthew) to trade with it till he came. Of these, two employ the sum committed to them with such success that, at the reckoning, they are able to make respectively a tenfold and a fivefold return. The conduct of a third closely corre sponds with that of the slothful servant in St. Matthew. As for the other seven, no further mention of them is made. To our mind, the differences can be viewed as diver gences inseparable from oral transmission by which means the parable was handed down before it was reduced to writing; and they are not of such a nature as would lead us to conclude that they necessarily outweigh the very striking resemblances between the parables and the identity of the lesson which they both convey. The conclusion at which we have arrived namely, that both parables are identical, and that St. Luke’s statement is decisive for the time and place of its delivery furnishes ground for believing that it was spoken to a wider audience than the little band of the 90 THE PARABLES OF JESUS
Apostles. The talents or pounds, then, are not to be understood exclusively in the restricted sense of the ministerial office committed to the Apostles, together with those gifts and graces which the right fulfilment of the office demanded, though these seem primarily intended; but in the wider sense of all graces given to the individual members of the Church without distinction. Christ, Who distributed His graces to His followers before His ascension into heaven, is typified by the lord who divided his money among his servants before leaving home. His return and the reckoning which he made represent the Second Advent and the ensuing judgment. Mere negative goodness will not insure a favourable sentence: a life of usefulness in the Master’s service, in which His gifts are put to good account, is likewise indispensable. In conclusion we have to offer some observations on the variations in the Lucan version of the parable. The Evangelist seems to have had in mind the journey of Archelaus to Rome, where he received from the Emperor Augustus the dignity of Ethnarch, with a conditional promise of the title of King, in THE PARABLES OF JESUS 91 spite of the embassy sent by the Jews to oppose his appointment as ruler. The nobleman now become king rewards his servants by appointing one over ten cities, another over five. In addition, as in St. Matthew, they are allowed to retain, though there is no express statement to that effect, the capital originally entrusted to them, with the increase resulting from their industrious employment of it. The fate of the disloyal subjects, typifying that of the unbelieving Jews, recalls Matthew 22:7. That St. Luke had the simpler version of St. Mat thew before him appears from his retention of some particulars in it which do not agree with his own version; for instance, though he mentions ten servants, only three present themselves at the reckoning, as in St. Matthew, and we find the king addressing those who stood by: “Take ye away the pound from him, and give it to him that hath ten pounds “(Matt.: “ ten talents “), though in reality the servant in question has already not ten, but eleven pounds i.e, the original pound and the ten pounds profit. St. Luke thus disa grees with himself to agree with St. Matthew.
TAGS: [Parables]