01.21. Chapter 1. The Children in the Market-place

Chapter 1.
The Children in the Market-place Or, the Judgment of Jesus on Jewish Contemporaries. The little similitude of the Children in the Market-place does not usually find a place in treatises on the parables. Nevertheless it seems to us fit and worthy to stand at the head of the division on which we now enter as an introduction to the study of those parables in which Christ appears as a Prophet, speaking words of warning and of doom to His contemporaries in Israel. For it sets forth the judgment of Jesus on that generation, the opinion which He entertained of their character; an opinion from which it is easy to see that they were in a bad way: blind, wanting spiritual insight,—incapable of appreciating goodness when it showed itself among them, not knowing the time of their merciful visitation; a generation saying now, "Not this Man, but the Rabbis," and likely to say ere long, to their own hurt, "Not this Man, but Barabbas." The whole section of the gospel history in which this parable occurs may be described as a chapter of moral criticism. Its contents are given in greatest fulness in the eleventh chapter of Matthew, wherein we find Jesus expressing His opinion, first of John the Baptist, then of the Jewish people of that time, and finally of Himself. Of John He says that he is a great prophet of moral law, yet less than the least in the kingdom of God; the reason of the latter part of the judgment being that the Baptist did not understand or appreciate the kingdom of heaven as a kingdom of grace. To him it was a kingdom of law, demanding of men righteousness, not a kingdom of mercy, offering itself to men’s acceptance as the summum bonum. Therefore Jesus Himself was a stumbling-block to him, for he expected Messiah to come with axe and fan, to judge, hew down, and sift; and lo, He had come in the spirit of love, patience, and pity. So he stood aloof from the new movement inaugurated by Jesus, wondering what it all might mean; a true man of God, yet outside the kingdom as a new historical phenomenon. Of Himself Jesus said, "I am despised and rejected by the wise and understanding ones, and received only by babes. Nevertheless those who despise Me cannot do without Me. I am the way to the knowledge of the Father. Nor does their contempt harm Me; for though men know Me not nor value Me, the Divine Father knoweth Me, and I know Him, and He loveth Me, and hath committed all things—the sovereignty of the future—into My hands. I can do without them, though they cannot do without Me." Of the Jewish people—that is, of those then living in Judaea who were under the influence of the spirit of the time, forming the great bulk of the nation—Jesus pronounced the opinion which is contained in our parable, which, as it stands in St Matthew’s Gospel, is as follows:

Whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the market-place who, calling unto their fellows,[1] say: We piped unto you, and ye danced not; we wailed, and ye mourned not. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say: He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say: Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners; and wisdom is justified[2] by her children?.[3]

[1] ἑταίροις, the reading in T. R. retained in R. V. ℵ. B., &c., have ἑτέροις, which is adopted by Tischendorf, and Westcott and Hort. Alford thinks ἑτέροις came into texts through mistake of the ear—a case of itacism, the words being pronounced the same way. But of course this cuts both ways. Lange adopts ἑτέροις, and assigns to it a moral significance = a different set not in the mood to play, representing Jesus and John, who were too earnest to trifle.

[2] ἐδικαιώθη, the aorist whose distinctive force is to be retained wherever possible. But we may regard the present as a case of the use of the gnomic aorist, indicating a law of the moral order analogous to the same use of the aorist to denote facts belonging to the physical order, as in Jas 1:11.

[3] τέκνων, as in T. R. The R. V., Westcott and Hort, and Tischendorf adopt the reading ἔργων, found in ℵ. B. Alford suggests that this reading may have been substituted for τἑχνων, which might easily have arisen from τέκνων, by the change of κ into χ. Readings found in ℵ. B. together are, on the grounds so ably stated by Westcott and Hort in the valuable introduction to their edition of the Greek Testament, always entitled to serious consideration; but we do not feel called upon in every case, and as a matter of course, to introduce such into our text.—Mat 11:16-19. The parable proper occupies only a single sentence, the remainder of the passage quoted giving its application, whence we learn that the opinion expressed by Jesus in the parable concerning His contemporaries had reference to the reception they had accorded to Himself and to John. But though very short, it is very significant. It hints that the contemporaries of Jesus and John, in judging these messengers of God, judged themselves; had shown themselves to be children. "To what shall I liken this generation?" asked the Divine Critic of His age, and His reply to His own question was: "They are like unto children." In one respect it was a mild judgment, but it was also very ominous. For it is a serious thing when men are like children, not in the good sense, but in the bad—not children, but childish. A generation like children in this evil sense is a generation in its spiritual dotage, or second childhood, in a state like that of the Hebrew Christians of after days so pathetically and graphically described by the writer of the Epistle addressed to them, as, "become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat."[1] When this state of senility is reached death is not far off. This condition of spiritual dotage had been reached by the generation to which our parable refers. Their senses were blinded by age so that they were unable to discern between good and evil. They were blind to true wisdom and goodness, and could not recognise these when they presented themselves to view under various forms, as in Jesus and John. They were blind to their own true interest, and could not discern the signs of the time, the weather signs portentous of the coming storm. They were on the wrong tracks, and had not the sense to allow themselves to be put right. There was no salvation for them in any of the guidances in which they put their trust—in Rabbinism, in Phariseeism, or in patriotism; yet they would follow these blind guides, and turned a deaf ear to the still voice of wisdom behind them, saying, "This is the way, walk ye in it." That such was the spiritual state of Israel Jesus was fully aware when He likened His generation to children. We could imagine Him using the comparison for the express purpose of pointing out such a condition; it would have been natural to have employed it in this sense when speaking with reference to the unappreciative attitude of contemporaries towards either Himself or John separately. But on the present occasion He thought of Himself and John together, and of the marked difference in their whole manner of life between the two messengers of God to that time, and of the impartiality with which their fellow-countrymen had dealt out to both an equal measure of disesteem, and other points of resemblance to children suggested themselves, for which He found a fit emblem in the scene from the market-place of children playing at marriages and funerals. The figures convey the idea that the men of that time—the generation of men under the influence of the characteristic Zeitgeist, and specially the more religious folk—the Pharisees—were merely playing at religion. While He and John were both consumed with earnest zeal about the things of the kingdom, each striving after his own mode to promote its interests, they were only amusing themselves with pious works. Then, further, the similitude suggests that the parties depicted were like children in the fickleness of their temper. They were changeable in their humour; fastidious, difficult to please, much given to peevish complaining and faultfinding, after the manner of self-willed children. As one might see children in the market-place playing at their games and quarrelling with each other, never all in the same humour at the same moment, one set wishing to play at marriages when another wanted to play at funerals; so could one with spiritual vision see that childish generation behaving itself with reference to Jesus and John. The two men were very diverse in their spirit and mode of life and method of working; and it might have been expected that if either was disliked the other would be a favourite. But no; they were both alike unpopular. When people saw John’s austere garb and heard him preach repentance, they were in the mood to wish for something less severe. When they observed the genial way of Jesus, how He ate and drank and dressed as other men, and heard the gentle, pitiful words He addressed to the sinful, they turned away unsympathising, deeming that a sterner mood was called for. Both the great ones, full of love and originality, sinned against the law of the mean expressed in such proverbs as ne quid nimis, μηδὲν ἄγαν, and so incurred the penalty of being blamed by those, at all times the majority, to whom whatever was not characterised by tameness, half-and-halfness, and mediocrity was an offence.

[1] Heb 5:12.

Such is the general drift of the parable, and in a broad sketch of the Parabolic Teaching of Christ it might not be necessary to add anything more by way of interpretation. But in a systematic exposition such as we have on hand there are some particular points adverted to by the commentators of which some notice must be taken. The questions have been discussed: Who are the complainants and who the complained of? Who say "We piped, we wailed"? and who are they who danced not and mourned not? The settlement of these questions depends on another: Does Jesus, with wondrous condescension, as Bengel thinks, include Himself and John among the children?[1] If so, then they may be regarded either as the complainers or the complained of, the former alternative being that in favour with the older interpreters. According to this view those who call to their companions are Jesus and John, and their complaint, a just one, against their countrymen is that they had not responded to their call, and danced when they had piped, or wept when the Baptist mourned. It is in favour of this view that it assigns to Jesus and John the initiative, and puts their generation in the position simply of not sympathising with their work, in accordance with the historical state of the case. But against it is the consideration that it ascribes to the two prophets a rôle which was not characteristic of them, but which was eminently characteristic of the Pharisaic religionists of the time—that of complaining—and so mars the literary felicity of the parable. The prophets had a good right to complain; but it was not their way to complain. We therefore concur in the opinion held by many modern commentators, viz. that the children who were so unfortunate as never to be able to get other children to play with them were not the two great ones of the time, but their small-souled critics.

[1] "Jesus non solum Judæos, sed etiam se et Joannem diversis modis comparat cum puerulis, mirabili, quod ad Jesus attinet, facilitate." Gnomon.

If then Jesus and John be among the children, they must represent the parties who would not dance and weep. But these, though all complained of, are not all complained of for the same reason. There are those whose fault is that they will not dance; and there are others whose fault is that they will not weep. Which of these two classes is represented by Jesus, and which by John? Diverse views have been expressed on these points. Some, e. g. Alford, think that the former class is represented by Jesus and the latter by John. On this view the cause of complaint is not that Christ and His followers were not of glad humour, and that John and his disciples were not of sad humour, but that the gladness of the one and the sadness of the other were not of the kind their contemporaries liked. This view appears so artificial that it is hardly worth while arguing against it; but it may be pointed out that the stress laid on the kind of joy or sorrow is not in keeping with the variation in the Evangelic reports of our Lord’s words.[1] It can hardly be doubted that John represents the group who will not dance, and Jesus the group who will not mourn. The negatives have the force of emphatic positives. Ye danced not, means not, ye danced otherwise than we wished, but ye did the opposite of dancing—went to culpable excess in sadness. Ye mourned not, means not, ye gave no place to the element of sadness, but, on the contrary, indulged in a measure of mirthfulness and joy with which we could not possibly sympathise. The situation implied in the parable is thus that Jesus and John went to extremes in opposite directions, and so offended the taste of those who loved moderation in all things, and who deemed that the just, wise way of life in which gladness and sadness are duly blended. When men of this temper heard the Baptist preach with awful earnestness the necessity of repentance, they felt that he offended against the law of the mean by taking too gloomy a view of human conduct, and practising too rigid a way of life; and they said, He hath a devil; he is a monomaniac with a fixed idea in his brain—"Repent, repent, repent." When the same sort of man came into contact with the society of Jesus on any peculiarly significant, characteristic occasion, as at Matthew’s farewell feast, they were shocked by the exuberant joy, and said, Surely these revellers forget the sadness that is in human existence. Such was the actual state of the case as we know from the gospel records, and it is to this state that Jesus alludes in the parable of the children in the market-place, when He makes one set of children, representing the bulk of Jewish religious society, complain of another set, representing Himself and John and his disciples, that they would not dance or mourn; if, that is to say, we are to assume that Jesus and John are among the children.

[1] Luk 7:32 : ἐθρηνήσαμεν ὑμῖν καὶ οὐκ ἐκλαὐσατε; Mat 11:17 : ἐθρηνίτ σαμεν καὶ οὐκ ἐκόψασθε. But we must now say that we do not believe this assumption to be correct. The supposition is one which is due to a microscopic way of interpreting the parables against which we have steadily protested. The truth in this case, as in so many others, is hit by Olshausen, who finds in both classes of children—the complainants and the complained of—representatives of the fickle generation among whom Jesus and John lived. The drift of the parable is: This generation is like a company of peevish children with whom nothing goes right,—one half wishing this, the other that, so that activity with a fixed aim is impossible among them. Both sets of children are alike unreasonable; they are well-matched playmates, fellows in spirit as well as in years; and they are photographed together, caught in the act of play, to form a picture of the grown-up children of the time, who behaved towards Jesus and John as unreasonably as the children in the market-place behaved towards each other. It is immaterial which of the two readings, ἑταίροις or ἑτέροις, we adopt; for even if with the critics we adopt the latter and emphasise its distinctive meaning so as to make it signify a different set of children, still it will remain true that the two sets were fellows; their differences superficial, their agreement radical. All the sects and societies of that time in Judaea were under the influence of one and the same spirit—the spirit of a decadent age approaching dissolution. The only party in which there was any life or light or hope for the future was the party of Jesus, in which for the present we may include that of John and his disciples; for John was Christ’s forerunner, and when his work had its proper effect it issued in his disciples joining the society of Jesus. Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, were all in servile subjection to the old, the customary, the morally commonplace; and therefore they all instinctively agreed to hate the movement led by Jesus, characterised as it was by originality, poetry, passionate earnestness, and creative energy destined to make many things new. All alike were, under diverse guises, children of the world, and such wisdom as they could boast of was but worldly wisdom, which abhors enthusiasm, is incapable of making allowance for the faults real or seeming that accompany it, and devoid of the power to appreciate great characters; insomuch that it could commit the almost incredibly stupid mistakes of deeming such an one as the Baptist a madman, and such an one as Jesus a profligate, and of finally putting both to death as intolerable nuisances of whom it did well to rid itself.

Though Jesus and John are not included among the children the parable is so constructed as to exhibit them very clearly in their distinctive peculiarities, in the picture of the time This is effected by the simple device of representing the children not merely employed in play and quarrelling over their games, which would have sufficed as a picture of the Jewish people, but as playing at marriages and funerals; the former symbolising the joy of the company of Jesus; the latter the sadness of the Baptist’s circle. And thus it appears that in a single sentence the Divine Artist has given us a photograph of His age, including among the figures of the tableau, though not in the foreground, the two greatest characters of the age—John and Himself. We see in this picture a fickle peevish generation behaving themselves in religion like the children of a village gathered together in the marketplace at the hour of play; not without a certain keen interest in religious and moral movements, taking note of them as they made their appearance, observing their characteristics, going out in crowds to hear and see the preacher of repentance in the wilderness, and watching with curious eye the strange, eccentric, and unconventional behaviour of the Prophet of Nazareth; fascinated yet repelled by both, hoping for a moment to find in them that which might satisfy the obscure uncomprehended cravings of their hearts, only to be immediately disappointed by traits of character and modes of action not to their taste. Behind the motley group in the forefront we perceive the two great ones whose appearance has created the stir and disturbance in the public mind. One is attired in a garment of camel’s hair, gathered up with a leathern girdle, and wears a sad, austere countenance, as of one who feels it to be his vocation to be a standing protest against the iniquities of an evil time. The other wears no external badge of isolation or singularity, and in His face is a strange blending of sadness and gladness. All that His companion knows of the world’s evil is known to Him, and is a constant burden to His spirit, but He knows also of a cure for it, and the predominant expression of His countenance is one of hope and joy and enthusiastic devotion to a Saviour’s calling. These two are the rudiments of a new era. All else in Judaea is of the old era and doomed to perish, too hopelessly degenerate to be capable of salvation, too blind to know the time of its gracious visitation, proved to be incurably bad by its treatment of those who could have led it in the way of peace.

"All else," we have said, not forgetful that in the worst of times there are always some exceptions to the general corruption. Such there were in Judaea in the time of Christ—contemporaries of the generation animadverted on in the parable, but not belonging to it; children of wisdom, though babes in respect of Rabbinic lore, and of no account with the sages of the age. To these, as to the tribunal of true wisdom, Jesus appealed from the harsh, unsympathetic judgment of the worldly wise. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they said, Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners, and the quiet reply to such savage censure by the object of it was, Wisdom is justified by her children. The way in which the reflection is introduced has all the effect of humour. It is connected with the reference to the slanders of a prejudiced public by καί, ’and,’ conveying the idea that the two things are wont to go together; the censure of the blind and the approbation of the wise: "They say such things of John and Me, and of course we are justified by true wisdom." The censure of folly is the negative test of goodness, the praise of wisdom is the positive; where the one is the other is to be looked for. Thus viewed, the reflection with which the parable concludes is the statement of a moral axiom, and as such is properly rendered, "Wisdom is justified," though the tense is the aorist. Not that it would be difficult to put a good sense on the sentence viewed as a statement of historical fact with reference to Jesus and John. So taken it would suggest this train of thought: John came and was evil entreated; Jesus came and was likewise evil entreated. Both were rejected by their generation, though for superficially opposite reasons; yet in the case of both wisdom was justified of her children. The wisdom of God, the Sender of the two badly-received prophets and the wisdom of the sent were recognised by a small minority in an evil time, by those, viz. who were themselves the children of wisdom. But it is better to take the aorist, ἐδικαιώθη, as the gnomic aorist, expressing, in the form of an historical fact, that which belongs to the usual course of things.

We are shut up to this interpretation of the tense if we adopt the reading ’works’ (τεχνῶν) instead of ’children’ (τέκνων). Then the meaning will be: Men blame, but the result justifies those blamed; the issue will show that both John and I were in our right, both in different ways inspired by wisdom. Historical in form, the statement is in reality a prophecy. So taken, the saying contains an important truth often verified in history, that proscribed causes in the long run arc justified by their effects, and obtain general recognition as having their origin, not in folly, but in wisdom. That Christ should make such an appeal to the future is nowise unlikely, only it may be doubted whether this was all He had in view. It is probable He had the present and even the past in His thoughts when He uttered this pregnant saying, and it is not difficult to give such a wide sense to ’works’ as to cover such a reference, and indeed make the two readings practically coincide. Among the works of wisdom we may reckon the children of wisdom, those who possess spiritual insight into the nature of moral phenomena. These see at the beginning what all see at the end—that movements which give rise to criticism are of God, and by their insight those movements are justified. But if we may reckon among the works of wisdom the few who at an early stage detect the character of spiritual movements, à fortiori we may reckon in the same category the chief agents in those movements whose conduct is the principal subject of criticism. And confining our view to them we may say: "Wisdom is justified by her works,"—meaning, wisdom is justified in all her diverse ways of working; in the two instances in question, in particular.

Thus understood, the saying is demonstrably true. Wisdom was indeed justified in the diverse modes of life and methods of work characteristic of Jesus and John respectively. John came neither eating nor drinking, and inculcating an ascetic habit; Jesus came both eating and drinking, and initiating His disciples into a life of liberty and joy; and wisdom revealed itself in both—God’s wisdom in sending them such as they were, their wisdom in being what God meant them to be. Both had one end, and were devoted to that end, but their manner of life and action were very diverse; yet both were legitimate and wise, because they were adapted to the gifts, the opportunities, and the tasks of each respectively. Wisdom dictates that means correspond to ends, and that men be like their work, and this law of congruity was complied with in the case of Jesus and John. John standing at the threshold of the new era of grace was yet a man of the old era, and his vocation was that of a Hebrew prophet, viz. to show the people their transgressions. He was indeed the last of the prophets, and the harbinger of the new era, but that function demanded the same type of man. The work of a forerunner of Messiah involved rough tasks, and needed a stern will. He had to prepare the way of the Lord, levelling the hills of pride, rousing dormant consciences, and so preparing men for receiving the Redeemer when He came in the fulness of grace. It became one having such a vocation to live austerely, and by the very exaggerations of his self-denial to be a living protest against all forms of sensualism. His very dress served his vocation, giving emphasis to his ministry of repentance, speaking to the eye of the people, and telling them that this was another Elijah, a representative of moral law isolated from them, raised above them, and from Sinai’s peak thundering down a stern "Thou shalt not" against the vice of the world below. The garment of camel’s hair girt with a leathern girdle was thus a most legitimate piece of ritualism. It is very easy to criticise this man, and point out faults. His austerity is excessive, his aspect is grotesque, his speech uncourtly, his whole way so eccentric, that men, at a loss what to think of him, might very excusably solve the problem by the hypothesis of demoniacal possession. Nevertheless John, wanting these peculiarities—call them faults if you will—would not have done his work so well. They were at least proofs of his utter sincerity; proofs that he was a man possessed, not indeed, as the critics imagined, with an evil spirit, but with the sublime spirit of righteousness; so utterly possessed by the noble passion for right as to disturb the balance and mar the symmetry of his character, and make him appear, to a superficial view, a onesided, extreme, singular, even absurd man, unendurable except to those who sympathised with his work, and understood its requirements. The same law of congruity made it meet that Jesus should be as like other men as possible within the limits of the innocent; for thus only could He get close to them and win His way into their hearts with His gospel of mercy. He did well to come eating and drinking. Not eating and drinking riotously did He come, as He was slanderously reported to have done. His accommodations to existing customs sprang from love, not from laxity, and were the outward symbol of that sympathetic spirit which led Him to call Himself Son of man; and, having this end, they were accommodations in accordance with wisdom. The life of Jesus suited His vocation as one sent to preach a gospel to the poor, the fallen, the miserable; for it helped Him to win the confidence of those whom He sought to benefit. It becomes the Sanctifier to be in all possible respects like those whom he would sanctify; the more points of contact the better. This is the key to many features in Christ’s conduct, and especially to that part of His public conduct which was so much blamed—His intercourse with the tax-gatherers, and the morally suspicious or disreputable class with whom they were associated. In that instance wisdom was justified by Christ’s own lips in those beautiful apologies for loving the sinful which we had occasion to expound in studying the parables of grace. And wisdom was further justified by her works—by the actual results. For Christ’s open, genial bearing did win the confidence of many social outcasts; and the faith thus inspired exercised a redeeming influence upon their spirit, and led them to peace and purity. Wisdom was justified by children of folly transformed into children of wisdom, and as time went on, and the new movement unfolded itself, and its tendencies were revealed by its effects, the vindication grew more and more complete.

If the critics of Jesus had foreseen all that was to come out of His work they might possibly have abstained from faultfinding; for the world respects results, and recognises that which by these has fully vindicated its right to exist. But it is the misfortune of worldly wisdom that it has exclusive regard to results, and at the same time wants the prophetic prescience that can divine what these will be, and so is liable to be misled by present appearances into false and injurious judgments. In both respects it differs from true wisdom, which is not guided in its judgment solely by results seen of foreseen, but looks into the heart of things, and when it can recognise in conduct the expression of sincere conviction, the forth-putting of Divine force, does homage thereto irrespective of consequences. In this spirit the truly wise judge others; in this spirit they act themselves. They show their wisdom not by calculating consequences, but by being faithful in word and deed to the best impulses within them. So they play the hero; while worldly wisdom, in its anxiety to please all, to obviate immediate difficulties, to gain temporary advantages, stifles conviction, chills enthusiasm, and cuts itself off from the possibility of a heroic career permanently influential. But again, true wisdom has clear insight into the ultimate consequences of conduct. It has confidence in the moral order of the world, and knows that the final issues of all right action must be good. Worldly wisdom, in its blindness, can only infer from ascertained effects the quality of the cause. Genuine wisdom, from insight into the quality of the cause, can predict the nature of the effects. The one can only judge of the tree by its fruit; the other can judge of the fruit by the tree. The people of Judæa, unhappily for themselves, did not even possess the former and easier of these faculties of moral judgment. They persisted in entertaining a poor opinion of Jesus and His work even after it had attained to the measure of development manifested in the Apostolic Church. They were still unconvinced of their own sin, and of Christ’s righteousness. And so there remained for them nothing but a fearful prospect of the wrath to the uttermost that came upon them in the first Christian century, from which Jesus and John would gladly have saved them.