05 - Chapter 05

CHAPTER V PARABLE INTERPRETATION

IF we reject the theory of the parable as allegory, it does not follow that we must go to the other extreme, as Julicher does at least when he is treating the general theory of the parable, and insist that in each parable there is only one lesson.

We may grant that in each parable there is only one central message, and we have seen that all the parable interpretations given in the Gospels (except the three that are allegorized) take the form of a single message expressed briefly and pithily. Yet just as in a picture the details are significant, so it is with the picture stories of Jesus. A distinction has been drawn between the exegetical and the homiletic significance of the details; but if these details have a message for us, it is gratuitous to suppose that Jesus did not see, or did not intend, that significance. Is it not just one of the marks of great literature or great art that, the more we study it, the more does it become for us lit up with meaning; and that as the significance of the work unfolds itself to us, we feel sure that we are entering more fully into the mind of the author or the artist? Thus, in the Prodigal Son we refuse to look for any spiritual counterpart of the swine or the fatted calf; we insist on seeing the significance of every word, every act, every experience of the father, the younger son, the elder son. If the Good Samaritan is an allegory, the robbers may represent the theological concept of sin; if it is a parable, they represent the robber spirit or greed. As allegory the two pence may be two sacraments; as parable, they mean that the Samaritan was willing to give his money as well as his time and his skill. It cannot be too often repeated that a parable has a meaning in itself and the lesson is drawn from the story; an allegory is a series of symbols, of no significance in themselves except as giving the clue to the interpretation, which is the real story. No interpretation of the parables can be satisfactory which does not recognize that their message was in the first place to the people to whom they were addressed. The Church has constantly forgotten the teaching of Tertullian that the interpretation of the parables must have reference to their matter, to the conformity of things, and to the instruction of the disciples.

If these principles rule out allegorical interpretations, they equally rule out, for the most part, prophetic intepretations. Tertullian saw, as very many of his successors have not seen, that no interpretation of the Good Samaritan could be accepted which involved a knowledge of the Christian Church, which was not then in existence. The same principle rules out the exegesis which finds in the Darnel, at least as the primary reference, heresies which did not arise in the Church till long after the time of Christ. The parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard cannot, in the first place at least, have been intended to answer questions about the reward of Christian workers in the far-off ages.

Yet in the exercise of this principle it is necessary to exercise common-sense. It is often said, for example, that any reference by Jesus to the persecution of his followers (as in Mark 4:17) cannot be authentic, since he could not have foreseen such persecution; that such references must therefore be later additions, due to the experience of the early Church. But unfortunately no supernatural knowledge was needed for the anticipation of hostility to the followers of Jesus. Jesus knew life, and he knew the history of his own people. He was well aware that any earnest man who tries to fulfil the will of God will run counterto men’s greed and ambition and love of money, and to that conservatism which leads even good men to think that they are doing God service when they are destroying God’s servants. In his own experience he had the bitter opposition, not only of the priests and religious leaders of Jerusalem, but of the pious folk of Nazareth, Capernaum and Bethsaida. The prophecy of persecution on account of the Word would have been a safe and simple forecast of the future, based on a knowledge of the past. The parables then, speaking generally are not allegories, not ’ mystery ’ utterances, and not prophecies; and while they may sometimes yield, and be intended to yield, simple morals for the guidance of practical life, that never exhausts their meaning. Speaking generally, a parable is a story, complete and significant in itself, from which may be learnt as an inference some deep spiritual truth, which in every case is related to Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God. There is, however, no point in defining the term ’ parable ’ too closely, for Jesus did not, in fact, adhere rigorously to any one conception of the parable; and this fact, far from being a stumbling-block in the way of the general reader, is usually not even noticed. The Rich Fool, for example, is a discussion of the relation between a man and his possessions, a discussion made practical by being conducted with reference to a particular case. The Pharisee and the Taxcollector is an analysis of Religion conceived as Law, the analysis, again, referring to a particular exponent of such religion. The Good Samaritan is a story of a kindly neighbour. In none of these cases is there any inference from one sphere to another. The Mustard Seed and the Leaven can hardly be called stories at all; they are little more than metaphors.

Even when there is an inference, in some cases it is not the likeness but the unlikeness between the illustration and the truth to be illustrated that Jesus wishes to make clear. Conduct that seems eminently reasonable in the sphere of spiritual things would be recognized by all as the height of absurdity in the ordinary affairs of life. Attention has often been called to the so-called improbabilities in the parables. Thus Buzy 1 refers to the criticism of Loisy (following Julicher) of the Darnel among the Wheat. The inference which M. Loisy draws from these incongruities is that the parable is not authentic. The farmer is obviously a wealthy man, with a retinue of servants; yet he sows his field with his own hands (but surely this is not necessarily the meaning of Mat 13:24): this is true of Jesus in the spiritual sphere, but of no earthly farmer. The devil may sow weeds among good seed; but no one does this on an earthly farm. In the parable the darnel is invisible till the grain is fully formed: in a community, heresies do not appear till the community has a certain maturity of development, but in a field grain and darnel would grow together. The farmer’s men do not know how to deal with the disaster that has befallen the field: there was a time when heresy in the Church was a new problem, the method of dealing with which called for deep and earnest consideration; but surely the Palestinian farmers of Jesus’ time had enough experience of weeds to know what to do with them.

All this may be very clever, if not always convincing; but it is beside the point. Many of the parables begin with the implied formula, “ It is as if.” The sequel to this “ It is as if ’

1 Introduction aux Paraboles vangeliques, p. 205. may be something which men do every day, or it may be something which, in the ordinary affairs of life, men would never dream of doing. If we wish to understand the parables, we must carefully distinguish between these two cases. The question whether a farmer and his men ever did have such an experience and deal with it in this way, does not arise. In either case the story is perfectly intelligible and the lesson is clear. “ It is as if, after a farmer had sown wheat in his field, someone else were to sow darnel in it; and after the presence of the noxious growth were discovered, the men were to consult the farmer about the best way of dealing with the weeds.” The Wicked Vinedressers contains a double set of improbabilities. No human landlord would treat such impossible tenants with the patience and forbearance of the owner in the parable. This improbability is inherent in the parable method; for there is no human analogy to the patience and forbearance of God in his dealings with his wayward children. But the other difficulty is greater, and seems, on a superficial view, a real weakness in the story. We cannot imagine tenants anywhere treating their landlord with the hopeless folly of the vinedressers of the parable. But the incredibility of the supposition is the whole point of the story. In the oriental way, Jesus tells the story as if the thing had actually happened. We must read it with the introduction ’It is as if.” Your response to the care God has taken of you and the good gifts he has showered on you is as if cultivators were to hire a vineyard, and, when the time came for paying the rent, were to maltreat, insult or slay the landlord’s messengers, finally putting his son to death,” a ludicrous absurdity in the economic world, a tragic reality in the spiritual world.

We need the same reminder in the Great Supper. Again there is the implied introductory formula: ’ It is as if.” To allow such trivial things as we do allow to stand between us and participation in the great feast of God is as if the friends of a nobleman, invited to a feast on some joyous occasion, were not only to scorn the invitation, but were to send excuses insulting in their flippancy. In other words, sometimes the story is told for the wisdom it displays, sometimes for its unutterable folly. Some parables illustrate a religious truth; others a religious untruth.