03 - Chapter 03
CHAPTER III THE PARABLE AS SECRET TEACHING
IT is in the study of the parables that we reach the heart of the subject of the teaching methods of Jesus. There are various reasons why the parables must always occupy a large place in any study of the mind of Jesus. For one thing, they are perhaps the longest connected utterances of Jesus that we possess.
If other sections of the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels reproduce continuous discourses or parts of discourses, at least we can feel no certainty of the fact. The more we study the formal instruction of Jesus, the more doubtful we become whether we can ever, in any considerable number of cases, know the historical context.
Again, in the parables we find embodied an essential part of our Lord’s teaching. Our conception of his message would have been greatly impoverished if we had been deprived of the parables. Moreover, while the parable was no new thing among Jewish teachers, Jesus made it peculiarly his own. The early Church seems to have felt instinctively that the parable was a method of teaching sacred to Jesus, a province on which no other was to intrude.
Further, in the parables, we have the advantage, not only of the direct teaching of Jesus, but also of the indirect insight into his mind that we get by noting the themes he chose to illustrate, the spheres of life from which he drew his illustrations, the language he uses and the way in which he tells the story. As for the influence of the parables it is not too much to say that some of them are better known, and are inspiring more men and women to noble endeavour, than almost any other sayings of Jesus. The lasting and universal appeal made by the parables as a body of teaching is the best witness to the wisdom of our Lord in adopting this method of teaching, and the strongest claim on our continual study of them. In our study of the parables our generation has some advantages over our predecessors. In the last half century much work has been done on the Jewish use of the parable and on the history of the interpretation of the parables.
It is, however, from the department of New Testament criticism that our chief gain has been obtained. When there are two, or, as in some cases, three versions of the same parable, we know that that sometimes means, and sometimes does not mean, that the Gospel writers had two or more independent accounts of it. When there are divergencies between the accounts, we can sometimes explain how these arose. In our interpretation of a parable, we no longer feel bound by the literary context in which we find it, nor altogether by the explanation of it given by the Gospel writer. If there are expressions in a parable that seem repugnant to the life and the general teaching of Jesus, we consider the possibility that these may have come, not from Jesus but from the Church. In particular we feel ourselves at liberty to use our own judgment about the object of the use of the parable method which Mark ascribes to Jesus. The question why Jesus employed the parabolic method might seem hardly worth raising were it not for the curious passage, Mark 4:10-12 (and the parallels, Mat 13:10-15 and Luk 8:9-10), in which it seems to be suggested that Jesus spoke in parables that he might conceal from the crowd the truths of the Kingdom that were revealed to the disciple circle. 1
Apparently this section of Mark early became a puzzle to the Church. Mark himself a few verses later gives the same explanation of the parable method as we should now give, namely that Jesus was adapting his teaching methods to the capacity, spiritual and intellectual, of his hearers (Mark 4:33). Matthew gives a turn to the words which makes them mean that Jesus uses figurative language because the multitude is unable to understand spiritual truth conveyed in plain prose (Mat 13:13); while he alone of the three evangelists makes it clear that the saying is taken from Isaiah.
Yet the fact that the Gospel writers represent 1 This question is discussed in the author’s Jesus and Life, pp. 62 ff. the disciples as being puzzled and surprised when Jesus began to speak in parables, as inquiring why he adopted this method of teaching, suggests that when the Gospels were written there was much discussion about the meaning of at least some of the parables, and possibly that there was unwillingness in some quarters to accept the official interpretation. We note also that in the fourth Gospel, which is believed to be the latest of the four, the persistent misunderstanding of the figurative language of Jesus is one of the leading motives of the book.
’ Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up “ (John 2:19); ’ You must be born from above” (John 3:7);; The living bread which has come down from heaven “ (John 6:51); Abraham’s exultation at seeing the day of Jesus (John 8:56); “ Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep “ (John 11:11); these are only a few examples out of many.
It seems a reasonable inference that there was an early Christian tradition that Jesus used figurative language which not only was liable to be misunderstood, but which, in its deeper and more significant application, was intended to be misunderstood by those outside the immediate circle of the disciples; and that, by the time the fourth Gospel came to be written, the idea had crystallized until we see Jesus perpetually puzzling his hearers with phrases of double significance, of which, as a penalty for their spiritual obtuseness, they fail to comprehend the true significance. Light had come into the world, but the darkness that was in them prevented them from opening their eyes to the light.
How did this curious idea arise? It is sometimes said that in the time of Christ the parable, under the influence of the scribes, had become an enigma. Buzy, however, writing in reply to hilicher and Loisy, after a somewhat thorough study of the question, denies this. There was no mystery element in the Old Testament parables; there was no mystery element in the Rabbinic parables of the end of the first Christian century; there is no good reason to suppose that in the interval the parable changed its nature; all through its course, it was a method of teaching, not of mystifying. Yet somehow the idea arose that some at least of the parables of Jesus were meant to conceal from most the truth they revealed to a chosen few.
While the subject is one of which comparatively little is known, it is reasonable to suppose that some of the leading ideas of the ’ Mystery ’ religions had become common property. One of these ideas was that of a circle of initiates to whom alone was revealed the inner meaning of the ceremonies of the cult, while this was concealed from the outsiders. The actual phrase, “ the outsiders,” is used in Mark’s Gospel in the discussion about the object of the parables (John 4:11).
Further, the tradition was that Jesus, not only once, but several times, in connection with the parables used the phrase: ’ He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” This would suggest that the meaning of much that he said did not lie on the surface.
Moreover, in the Synoptic tradition, the parable of the Sower occupies a position of special importance. It is round it that the discussion of the object of the parabolic method centres. But the parable of the Sower was of special interest to teachers and evangelists, since it analyses the conditions of successful propaganda and points to various causes of failure. Nor is this the only parable of which it may be said that it is of far more importance to the leaders of the movement than to the general body of hearers or even to the rank and file of the followers of Jesus. In the case of these parables Jesus would naturally take special care that those who were to be leaders should understand.
Thus the idea might seem to receive authoritative sanction that there was an inner circle of instructed “ initiates,” while the “ outer “ circles saw, and were meant to see, without perceiving; heard, and were meant to hear, without understanding.
Certain facts would help to strengthen the idea that in the teaching of Jesus there was much that was deliberately enigmatic. The tradition was that Jesus had foretold his death and resurrection, and that the disciples had failed to take in the message. Further, we have abundant evidence in the New Testament, not least in Paul’s epistles, that the early Church expected the speedy return of the Master in bodily form. They must have thought they got the idea from Jesus himself, yet their expectations were disappointed. What explanation of these misunderstandings could be more natural and more satisfactory than that the words of Jesus contained a deeper meaning than appeared on the surface? Special importance would then be attached to certain parables (such as the Talents and the Ten Bridesmaids) which spoke of the departure of the central figure and his return after a long delay. These parables would then be interpreted of the Second Coming.
Yet, while the suggestion that Jesus was deliberately trying to obscure his meaning for any section of his hearers is fantastic, this need not blind us to the element of truth in Mark’s theory. We to-day are familiar with the dictum that our Lord’s teaching was sometimes beyond the comprehension of those who reported it for us. It may well be that even in the first two Christian generations, the idea had dawned that there was a deeper significance in some of the sayings of Jesus than was recognized by those who handed down the tradition. In this connection, there is a striking remark by Dr. Baudert in an article on Zinzendorf, ’ Zinzendorf shares with other great men the fate that his ideas, which were far ahead of his age, were understood by few during his lifetime, and were completely neglected for decades after his death. Partly also they were purposely concealed because people were afraid of their boldness and shrank from drawing the logical conclusions arising out of them.” 1 Our Lord must have been well aware that much of his teaching was falling on deaf ears; and it was natural that, before very long, some of his followers with a high conception of his person should believe and teach that his failure to impress, where he did fail, was not only foreseen but intended.
Further, one can hardly help noticing how many of the parables may be interpreted as teaching a practical moral lesson, while they are susceptible also of a deeper spiritual interpretation. The Barren Fig Tree has usually been regarded as typifying the spiritually dead Jewish people, or at least their leaders. Yet so recent an interpreter as Mr. J. Cyril Flower gives a more ethical, and less distinctly religious flavour to the parable by taking the tree to represent any institution worth cherishing. ’ What we need in Europe and all the world to-day is not the people who can only hew down corrupt trees.
We want gardeners who know how to cultivate good ones truly and well.” 1 Very many preachers to-day would expound the Talents as inculcating the dedication to God of all one’s endowments, physical, intellectual, social. Indeed it is in this sense that the word ’ ’ talents ’ ’ has passed into the English language. Yet, from the 1 International Review of Missions, July, 1932.
2 The Parables of Jesus Applied to Modern Life, p. 19. position in which Matthew places the parable, it seems clear that he believed it had a reference to the Last Judgment, probable that he interpreted the talents as spiritual gifts. The parable of the Ten Bridesmaids has on the face of it the practical lesson that the best excuse for being late is never quite the same as being in time, that the most specious explanation of a neglected duty is never so satisfactory as the performance of the duty, that the most convincing apology for absence is a poor apology for presence. Are we to say that those are wrong who find in the picture something of more consequence than a rustic wedding, in the midnight cry a more thrilling announcement than the coming of the peasant bridegroom, and in the fate of the five luckless ones something more tragic than exclusion from village festivities? The Prodigal Son would have been a story abundantly worth telling if it had been meant to illustrate nothing more than the quenchless love of a father for a wayward son and his infinite readiness to welcome the first sign of repentance; yet the Church from the beginning has believed that our Lord meant that our thoughts should be carried up to the heavenly Father. On the other hand, in the case of the Good Samaritan, while the theological interpretation long held the field, we now believe that Luke is right in saying that the parable was Jesus’ answer to the question: ’ Who is my neighbour? ’ That need not prevent us realizing that, as an exposition of neighbourly conduct, the story owes all its force to the knowledge that he who told it was the Prince of Good Samaritans. In connection with the whole question of the interpretation of the parables there is a significant section in Luk 14:1-35. In Luk 14:12 ff. Jesus tells one of his hosts, when he gives a dinner or supper, not to invite his friends or brothers or relatives or rich neighbours. The reason is that they may invite him in return, and then the dinner, instead of an exercise in hospitality, will become a business proposition, a mere matter of give and take. The only feast God recognizes as given in his name is one at which the invited guests are “ The poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind; ’ those who, it is quite certain, cannot repay in kind. In Luke’s account Jesus immediately proceeds to tell the parable of the Great Supper to which the host invited his rich friends and neighbours. When they refused to come, he invited “ the poor, the maimed, the blind, the lame; ’ exactly the same phrases, though in a slightly different order.
It is clear, then, that by the time Luke wrote, there were two versions of this saying of Jesus. In one version he gives the advice, meant to be taken quite literally, that there is far more true religion in entertaining outcasts who can never return our hospitality, than in those social junketings in which a man is alternately host and guest. In the other form, which immediately succeeds in Luke’s narrative, the piece of practical advice has become a parable: the host is obviously God, the blind and the lame are invited, not on principle but because the well-to-do guests for whom the feast was intended refused to come. In view of all this, the suggestion is worth considering that, at least in the case of some parables, Jesus intentionally adopted a form of story which was capable of a double line of interpretation; of what, for want of better terms, we may call a lower and a higher interpretation. This view, put forth in the sixteenth century by Salmeron, 1 deserves more attention than it has received, in spite of the ludicrous ways in which Salmeron himself applied it.
1 hilicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, 1:171.