========================================================================
  NOTES ON THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD
  by Richard Trench
========================================================================

Richard Trench's classic study of Christ's parables, exploring their
interpretation and spiritual treasures through careful exegesis and devotional
insight.

  Chapters: 23

------------------------------------------------------------------------
  TABLE OF CONTENTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    1. 00.3-PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
    2. 01-ON THE INTERPRETATION OF PARABLES.
    3. 02-PARABLE 1. THE SOWER.
    4. 03-PARABLE 2. THE TARES.
    5. 04-PARABLE 3. THE MUSTARD-SEED.
    6. 05-PARABLE 4. THE LEAVEN.
    7. 06-PARABLE 5. THE HID TREASURE.
    8. 07-PARABLE 6. THE DRAW-NET.
    9. 08-PARABLE 7. THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.
   10. 09-PARABLE 8. THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD.
   11. 10-PARABLE 9. THE TWO SONS.
   12. 11-PARABLE 10. THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN.
   13. 12-PARABLE 11. THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING�S SON.
   14. 13-PARABLE 12. THE TEN VIRGINS.
   15. 14-PARABLE 13. THE TALENTS.
   16. 15-PARABLE 14. THE TWO DEBTORS.
   17. 16-PARABLE 15. THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
   18. 17-PARABLE 16. THE FRIEND AT MIDNIGHT.
   19. 18-PARABLE 17. THE RICH FOOL.
   20. 19-PARABLE 18. THE BARREN FIG-TREE.
   21. 20-PARABLE 19. THE GREAT SUPPER.
   22. 21-PARABLE 20. THE LOST SHEEP.
   23. 22-PARABLE 21. THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 1: 00.3-PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
========================================================================

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE. THE present popular edition of the PARABLES, with a
translation of the notes, carries out an intention which had long been in the
Author’s mind, but which want of leisure - and, when leisure at last was
granted, failing health - prevented him from accomplishing. The text has
received the Author’s latest emendations, as made by him in his own copy during
the last years of his life.The notes are translated so as to bring them within
the reach of general readers. In the few cases in which there existed any
recognized versions of the original works quoted, these have been followed, so
far as was compatible with correctness; but more often, no such version
existing, a new translation has been made. The whole of the work, which has been
valued by the Church and by scholars for nearly fifty years, is now brought in
its entirety within the reach of all, and takes for the first time its final
form. The Author never allowed his books to be stereotyped, in order that he
might constantly improve them, and permanence has only become possible when his
diligent hand can touch the work no more.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 2: 01-ON THE INTERPRETATION OF PARABLES.
========================================================================

ON THE INTERPRETATION OF PARABLES. THE parables, fair in their outward form, are
yet fairer within, “apples of gold in network of silver;” each one of them like
a casket, itself of exquisite workmanship, but in which jewels yet richer than
itself are laid up; or as fruit, which, however lovely to look upon, is yet in
its inner sweetness more delectable still.[1] To find, then, the golden key for
this casket, at whose touch it shall reveal its treasures; so to open this
fruit, that nothing of its hidden kernel shall be missed or lost, has naturally
been regarded ever as a matter of high concern.[2] In this, the interpretation
of the parable, a subject to which we have now arrived, there is one question of
more importance than any other - one so constantly presenting itself anew, that
it will naturally claim to be the first and most fully considered. It is this,
How much of them is to be taken as significant? and to this question answers the
most different have been returned. There are those who lay themselves out for
the tracing a general correspondence between the sign and the thing signified,
and this having done refuse to advance any further; while others aim at running
out the interpretation into the minutest details; with those who occupy every
intermediate stage between these extremes. Some have gone far in saying, This is
merely drapery and ornament, and not the vehicle of essential truth; this was
introduced either to give liveliness and a general air of verisimilitude to the
narrative, or as actually necessary to make the story, the vehicle of the truth,
a consistent whole, without which consistency the hearer would have been
perplexed or offended; or else to hold together and connect the different parts,
- just as in the most splendid house there must be passages, not for their own
sake, but to lead from one room to another.[3] They have used often the
illustration of the knife, which is not all edge; of the harp, which is not all
strings; urging that much in the knife, which does not cut, the handle for
example, is yet of prime necessity, - much, in the musical instrument, which is
never intended to give sound, must yet not be wanting: or, to use another
comparison, that many circumstances “in Christ’s parables are like the feathers
which wing our arrows, which, though they pierce not like the head, but seem
slight things and of a different matter from the rest, are yet requisite to make
the shaft to pierce, and do both convey it to and penetrate the mark.” [4] To
this school Chrysostom belongs. He continually warns against pressing too
anxiously all the circumstances of a parable, and often cuts his own
interpretation somewhat short in language like this, “Be not over-busy about the
rest.” It is the same with the interpreters who habitually follow him,
Theophylact [5] and others, though not always faithful to their own principles.
So also with Origen, who illustrates his meaning by a comparison of much beauty:
“For as the likenesses which are given in pictures and statues are not perfect
resemblances of those things for whose sake they are made - but for instance the
image which is painted in wax on a plain surface of wood, contains a resemblance
of the superficies and colours, but does not also preserve the depressions and
prominences, but only a representation of them - while a statue, again, seeks to
preserve the likeness which consists in prominences and depressions, but not as
well that which is in colours - but should the statue be of wax, it seeks to
retain both, I mean the colours, and also the depressions and prominences, but
is not an image of those things which are within - in the same manner, of the
parables which are contained in the Gospels so account, that the kingdom of
heaven, when it is likened to anything, is not likened to it according to all
the things which are contained in that with which the comparison is instituted,
but according to certain qualities which the matter in hand requires.” [6]
Exactly thus Tillotson has said that the parable and its interpretation are not
to be contemplated as two planes, touching one another at every point, but
oftentimes rather as a plane and a globe, which, though brought into contact,
yet touch each other only at one. On the other hand, Augustine, though himself
sometimes laying down the same canon, frequently extends the interpretation
through all the branches and minutest fibres of the narrative; [7] and Origen no
less, despite the passage which I have just quoted. And in modern times, the
followers of Cocceius have been particularly earnest in affirming all parts of a
parable to be significant.[8] There is a noble passage in the writings of Edward
Irving, in which he describes the long and laborious care which he took to
master the literal meaning of every word in the parables, being confident of the
riches of inward truth which every one of those words contained; he goes on to
say: “Of all which my feeling and progress in studying the parables of our Lord,
I have found no similitude worthy to convey the impression, save that of sailing
through between the Pillars of Hercules into the Mediterranean Sea, where you
have to pass between armed rocks, in a strait, and under a current - all
requiring careful and skillful seamanship - but, being passed, opening into such
a large, expansive, and serene ocean of truth, so engirdled round with rich and
fertile lands, so inlaid with beautiful and verdant islands, and full of rich
colonies and populous cities, that unspeakable is the delight and the reward it
yieldeth to the voyager.” [9] He and others have protested against that shallow
spirit which is ever ready to empty Scripture of its deeper significance, to
exclaim, “This means nothing; this circumstance is not to be pressed;” which,
satisfying itself with sayings like these, fails to draw out from the word of
God all the rich treasures contained in it for us, or to recognize the manifold
wisdom with which its type is often constructed to correspond with the antitype.
They bid us to observe that of those who start with the principle of setting
aside so much as non-essential, scarcely any two, when it comes to the
application of their principle, are agreed concerning what actually is to be set
aside; what one rejects, another regains, and the contrary: and further, that
the more this scheme is carried out, the more the peculiar beauty of the parable
disappears, and the interest of it is lost. For example, when Calvin will not
allow the oil in the vessels of the wise Virgins (Matthew 25:4) to mean
anything, nor the vessels themselves, nor the lamps; [10] or when Storr, [11]
who, perhaps more than any other, would leave the parables bare trunks, stripped
of all their foliage and branches, of everything that made for beauty and
ornament, denies that the Prodigal leaving his father’s house has any direct
reference to man’s departure from the presence of his heavenly Father, it is at
once evident of how much not merely of pleasure, but of instruction, they would
deprive us. It is urged, too, in opposition to this interpretation of the
parables merely in the gross, that when our Lord Himself interpreted the two
first which He delivered, namely, that of the Sower and of the Tares, He most
probably intended to furnish us with a rule for the interpretation of all. These
explanations, therefore, are most important, not merely for their own sakes, but
as supplying principles and canons of interpretation to be applied throughout.
Now, in these the moral application descends to some of the minutest details:
thus, the birds which snatch away the seed sown, are explained as Satan who
takes the good word out of the heart (Matthew 13:19), the thorns which choke the
good seed correspond to the cares and pleasures of life (Matthew 13:22), with
much more of the same kind. On a review of the whole controversy it may safely
be said, that there have been exaggerations upon both sides. The advocates of
interpretation in the gross and not in detail have been too easily satisfied
with their favourite maxim, “Every comparison must halt somewhere;” [12] since
one may fairly demand, “Where is the necessity?” There is no force in the
rejoinder, that unless it did so, it would not be an illustration of the thing,
but the thing itself. Such is not the fact. Two lines do not cease to be two,
nor become one and the same, because they run parallel through their whole
course.[13] Doubtless in the opposite extreme of interpretation there lies the
danger of an ingenious trifling with the word of God; a danger, too, lest the
interpreter’s delight in the exercise of this ingenuity, with the admiration of
it on the part of others, may not put somewhat out of sight that the
sanctification of the heart through the truth is the main purpose of all
Scripture: even as we shall presently note the manner in which heretics, through
this pressing of all parts of a parable to the uttermost, have been able to
extort from it almost any meaning that they pleased.

After all has been urged on the one side and on the other, it must be confessed
that no absolute rule can be laid down beforehand to guide the expositor how far
he shall proceed. Much must be left to good sense, to spiritual tact, to that
reverence for the word of God, which will show itself sometimes in refusing
curiosities of interpretation, no less than at other times in demanding a
distinct spiritual meaning for the words which are before it. The nearest
approach, perhaps, to a canon of interpretation on the matter is that which
Tholuck lays down: - “It must be allowed,” he says, “that a similitude is
perfect in proportion as it is on all sides rich in applications; [14] and
hence, in treating the parables of Christ, the expositor must proceed on the
presumption that there is import in every single point and only desist from
seeking it when either it does not result without forcing, or when we can
clearly show that this or that circumstance was merely added for the sake of
giving intuitiveness to the narrative. We should not assume anything to be
non-essential, except when by holding it fast as essential, the unity of the
whole is marred and troubled.” [15] For, to follow up these words of his, - in
the same manner as a statue is the more perfect in the measure that the life,
the idea that was in the sculptor’s mind, breathes out of and looks through
every feature and limb, so much the greater being the triumph of spirit,
penetrating through and glorifying the matter which it has assumed; so the more
translucent a parable is in all parts with the divine truth which it embodies,
the more the garment with which that is arrayed, is a garment of light, pierced
through, as was once the raiment of Christ, with the brightness within -
illuminating it in all its recesses and corners, and leaving no dark place in it
- by so much the more beautiful and perfect it must be esteemed.

It will much help us in this determining of what is essential and what not, if,
before we attempt to explain the particular parts, we obtain a firm grasp of the
central truth which the ramble would set forth, and distinguish it in the mind
as sharply and accurately as we can from all cognate truths which border upon
it; for only seen from that middle point will the different parts appear in
their true light. “One may compare,” says a late writer on the parables, [16]
“the entire parable with a circle, of which the middle point is the spiritual
truth or doctrine, and of which the radii are the several circumstances of the
narration; so long as one has not placed oneself in the centre, neither the
circle itself appears in its perfect shape, nor will the beautiful unity with
which the radii converge to a single point be perceived, but this is all
observed as soon as the eye looks forth from the centre. Even so in the Parable;
if we have recognized its middle point, its main doctrine, in full light, then
will the proportion and right signification of all particular circumstances be
clear unto us, and we shall lay stress upon them only so far as the main truth
is thereby more vividly set forth.”

There is another rule which it is important to observe, one so simple and
obvious, that were it not continually neglected, one would be content to leave
it to the common sense of every interpreter. It is this, that as, in the
explanation of the fable, the introduction (promuthion) and application
(epimuthion) claim to be most carefully attended to, ’so here what some have
entitled the pro-parabola and epi-parabola, though the other terms would have
done sufficiently well; which are invariably the finger-posts pointing to the
direction in which we are to look for the meaning - the key to the whole matter.
The neglect of these often involves in the most untenable explanations; for
instance, how many interpretations which have been elaborately worked out of the
Labourers in the Vineyard, could never have been so much as once proposed, if
heed had been paid to the context, or the necessity been acknowledged of
bringing the interpretation into harmony with the saying which introduces and
winds up the parable. These helps to interpretation, though rarely or never
lacking, [17] are yet given in no Lord or formal manner; sometimes they are
supplied by the Lord Himself (Matthew 22:14; Matthew 25:18); sometimes by the
inspired narrators of his words (Luke 15:1-2; Luke 18:1); sometimes, as the
prologue, they precede the parable (Luke 18:9; Luke 19:11); sometimes, as the
epilogue, they follow (Matthew 25:18; Luke 16:9). Occasionally a parable is
furnished with these helps to a fight understanding both at the opening and the
close; as is that of the Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18 : fid), which is
suggested by the question which Peter asks (ver. 21), and wound up by the
application which the Lord Himself makes (ver. 35). So again the parable at
Matthew 20:1-15 begins and finishes with the same saying, and Luke 12:16-20 is
supplied with the same amount of help for its right understanding. [18]

Again, we may observe that a correct interpretation, besides being thus in
accordance with its context, must be so without any very violent means being
necessary to bring it into such agreement; even as, generally, the
interpretation must be easy - if not always easy to discover, yet, being
discovered, easy. For it is here as with the laws of nature; the proleptic mind
of genius may be needful to discover the law, but, once discovered, it throws
back light on itself, and commends itself unto all. And there is this other
point of similarity also; it is a proof that we have found the law, when it
explains alt the phenomena, and not merely some; if, sooner or later, they all
marshal themselves in order under it; so it is good evidence that we have
discovered the right interpretation of a parable, if it leave none of the main
circumstances unexplained. A false interpretation will inevitably betray itself,
since it will “invariably paralyse and render nugatory some important member of
an entire account.” If we have the right key in our hand, not merely some of the
wards, but all, will have their parts corresponding; the key too will turn
without grating or overmuch forcing; and if we have the right interpretation, it
will scarcely need to be defended and made plausible with great appliance of
learning, to be propped up by remote allusions to Rabbinical or profane
literature, by illustrations drawn from the recesses of antiquity. [19]

Once more: the parables may not be made primary sources of doctrine, and seats
of this. Doctrines otherwise and already established may be illustrated, or
indeed further confirmed by them; but it is not allowable to constitute doctrine
first by their aid. [20] They may be the outer ornamental fringe, but not the
main texture, of the proof. For from the literal to the figurative, from the
clearer to the more obscure, has been ever recognized as the order of Scripture
interpretation. This rule, however, has been often forgotten, and
controversialists, looking round for arguments with which to sustain some weak
position, for which they can find no other support in Scripture, often invent
for themselves supports in these. Thus Bellarmine presses the parable of the
Good Samaritan, and the circumstance that in that the thieves are said first to
have stripped the traveller, and afterwards to have inflicted wounds on him
(Luke 10:30), as proving certain views upon which the Roman Church sets a high
value, on the order of man’s fall, the succession and sequence in which, first
losing heavenly gifts, the robe of a divine righteousness, he afterwards, and as
a consequence, endured actual hurts in his soul. [21] And in the same way
Faustus Socinus argues from the parable of the Unmerciful Servant, that as the
king pardoned his servant merely on his petition (Matthew 18:32), and not on tho
score of any satisfaction made, or any mediator intervening, we may from this
conclude, that in the same way, and without requiring sacrifice or intercessor,
God will pardon sinners simply on the ground of their prayers. [22] But by much
the worst offenders against this rule were the Gnostics and Manichæans in old
time, and especially the former. Their whole scheme was one, which however it
may have been a result of the Gospel, inasmuch as that set the religious
speculation of the world vigorously at work, was yet of independent growth; and
they only came to the Scripture to find a varnish, an outer Christian colouring,
for a system essentially antichristian; - they came, not to learn its language,
but to see if they could not compel it to speak theirs; [23] with no desire to
draw out of Scripture its meaning, but only to thrust into Scripture their own.
[24] When they fell thus to picking and choosing what in it they might best turn
to their ends, the parables naturally invited them almost more than any other
portions of Scripture. In the literal portions of Scripture they could find no
colour for their scheme; their only refuge therefore was in the figurative, in
those which might receive more interpretations than one; such, perhaps, they
might bend or compel to their purposes. Accordingly, we find them claiming
continually the parables for their own; with no joy, indeed, in their
simplicity, or practical depth, or ethical beauty; for they seem to have had no
sense or feeling of these; but delighted to super induce upon them their own
capricious and extravagant fancies. Irenæus is continually compelled to rescue
the parables from the extreme abuse to which these submitted them; for, indeed,
they not merely warped and drew them a little aside, but made them tell wholly a
different tale from that which they were intended to tell. [25] Against these
Gnostics he lays down that canon, namely, that the parables cannot be in any
case the primary, much less the exclusive, foundations of any doctrine, but must
be themselves interpreted according to the analogy of faith; since, if every
subtle solution of one of these might raise itself at once to the dignity and
authority of a Christian doctrine, the rule of faith would be nowhere. So to
build, as he shows, were to build not on the rock, but on the sand. [26]

Tertullian has the same conflict to maintain. The whole scheme of the Gnostics,
as he observes, was a great floating cloud-palace, the figment of their own
brain, with no counterpart in the world of spiritual realities. They could
therefore mould it as they would; and thus they found no difficulty in forcing
the parables to seem to be upon their side, shaping, as they had no scruple in
doing, their doctrine according to the leadings and suggestions of these, till
they brought the two into apparent agreement with one another. There was nothing
to hinder them here; their creed was not a fixed body of divine truth, which
they could neither add to nor diminish; which was given them from above, and in
which they could only acquiesce; but an invention of their own, which they coma
therefore fashion, modify, and alter as best suited the purpose they had in
hand. We, as Tertullian often urges, are kept within limits in the exposition of
the parables, accepting, as we do, the other Scriptures as the rule of truth, as
the rule, therefore, of their interpretation. It is otherwise with these
heretics; their doctrine is their own; they can first dexterously adapt it to
the parables, anti then bring forward the conformity between the two as a
testimony of its truth. [27] As it was with the Gnostics of the early Church,
exactly so was it with the sects which, in a later day, were their spiritual
successors, the Cathari and Bogomili. They, too, found in the parables no
teaching about sin and grace and redemption, no truths of the kingdom, but
fitted to the parables the speculations about the creation, the origin of evil,
the fall of angels, which were uppermost in their own minds; which they had not
drawn from Scripture; but which having themselves framed, they afterwards turned
to Scripture, endeavouring to find there that which they could compel to fall
into their scheme. Thus, the apostasy of Satan and his drawing after him a part
of the host of heaven they found set forth by the parable of the Unjust Steward.
Satan was the chief steward over God’s house, who being deposed from his place
of highest trust, drew after him the other angels, with the suggestion of
lighter tasks and relief from the burden of their imposed duties. [28] But to
come to more modern times. Though not testifying to evils at all so grave in the
devisers of the scheme, nor leading altogether out of the region of Christian
truth, yet sufficiently injurious to the sober interpretation of the parables is
such a theory concerning them as that entertained, and in actual exposition
carried out, by Cocceius and his followers of what we may call the
historico-prophetical school. By the parables, they say, and so far they have
right, are declared the mysteries of the kingdom of God. But then, ascribing to
those words, “kingdom of God,” a far too narrow sense, they are resolved to find
in every one of the parables a part of the history of that kingdom’s progressive
development in the world to the latest time. They will not allow any to be
merely ethical, but affirm all to be historico-prophetical. Thus, to let one of
them speak for himself, in the remarkable words of Krummacher: [29] “The
parables of Jesus have not primarily a moral, but a politico religious, or
theocratic purpose. To use a comparison, we may consider the kingdom of God
carried forward under his guidance, as the action, gradually unfolding itself,
of an Eros, of which the first germ lay prepared long beforehand in the Jewish
economy of the Old Testament, but which through Him began to unfold itself, and
will continue to do so to the end of time. The name and superscription of the
Epos is, THE KINGDOM OF GOD. The parables belong essentially to the Gospel of
the kingdom, not merely as containing its doctrine, but its progressive
development.

They connect themselves with certain fixed periods of that development, and, as
soon as these periods are completed, lose themselves in the very completion;
that is, considered as independent portions of the Epos, remaining for us only
in the image and external letter.” He must mean, of course, in the same manner
and degree as all other fulfilled prophecy; in the light of such accomplished
prophecy, he would say, they must henceforth be regarded. Boyle gives some,
though a very moderate, countenance to the same opinion: ’some, if not most, do,
like those oysters that, besides the meat they afford us, contain pearls, not
only include excellent moralities, but comprise important prophecies; “and,
having adduced the Mustard-seed and the Wicked Husbandmen as plainly containing
such prophecies, he goes on, “I despair not to see unheeded prophecies dis-dosed
in others of them.” [30] Vitringa’s Elucidation of the Parables [31] is a
practical application of this scheme of interpretation, and one which will
scarcely win many supporters for it. Thus, the servant owing the ten thousand
talents (Matthew 18:9; Matthew 18:8), is the Pope or line of Popes, placed in
highest trust in the Church, but who, misusing the powers committed to them,
were warned by the invasion of Goths, Lombards, and other barbarians, of
judgment at the door, and indeed seemed given into their hands for doom; but
being mercifully delivered from this fear of imminent destruction by the
Frankish kings, so far from repenting and amending, on the contrary now more
than ever oppressed and maltreated the true servants of God, and who therefore
should be delivered over to an irreversible doom. He gives a yet more marvellous
explanation of the Merchant seeking goodly pearls, this pearl of price being the
Church of Geneva and the doctrine of Calvin, opposed to M1 the abortive pearls,
that is, to all the other Reformed Churches. Other examples may be found in
Cocceius - an interpretation, for instance, of the Ten Virgins, after this same
fashion. [32] Deyling has an interesting essay on this school of interpreters,
and passes a severe, though not undeserved, condemnation on them. [33]
Prophetical, no doubt, many of the parables are; for they declare how the new
element of life, which the Lord was bringing into the world, would work - the
future influences and results of his doctrine - that the little mustard-seed
would grow to a great tree - that the leaven would continue working till it had
leavened the whole lump. But they declare not so much the facts as the laws of
the kingdom. Historico-prophetical are only a few; as that of the Wicked
Husbandmen, which Boyle adduced, in which there is a clear prophecy of the death
of Christ; as that of the Marriage of the King’s Son, in which there is an
equally clear announcement of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the transfer of
the kingdom of God from the Jews to the Gentiles. But this subject will again
present itself, when we consider, in their relation to one another, the seven
parables in the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Bernard: “The very surface, if considered only from without, is beautiful
indeed; and whoso cracks the nut will find in it a kernel still pleasanter and
far more delightful.”

[2] Jerome (In Eccles.): “The marrow of a parable is different from the promise
of its surface, and like as gold is sought for in the earth, the kernel in a
nut, and the hidden fruit in the prickly covering of chestnuts, so in parables
we must search more deeply after the divine meaning.

[3] Tertullian (De Pudicitiâ, 9): “Wherefore an hundred sheep? and why precisely
ten pieces of silver? and what is thc meaning of the broom? It was necessary, I
answer, for the purpose of showing that the salvation of one sinner is most
pleasing to God, to name some number out of which to describe one as lost: so,
too, it was necessary to furnish the picture of the woman searching her house
for the piece of silver, with the accessories of broom and candle. Anxious
pryings of this sort not only engender mistrust, but by the subtlety of their
forced explanations generally divert men from the truth. There are details also
which are simply inserted to build up, set forth and weave the parable, that men
may be led to the point at which the illustration is aimed.” Brower (De Par. J.
C. p. 175): ’such details could not be omitted, inasmuch, as only by their help
could the matter be led easily to an issue, for without them there would be a
break or gap in thc narrative which would altogether injure the parallel; or,
because the neglect of such points would perhaps invite the listeners to idle
questionings and doubts.”

[4] Boyle, Style of the Holy Scriptures: Fifth Objection. Augustine (De Civ.
Dei, 16: 2) carries out this view still further: “Assuredly not everything which
forms part of the story must be considered also to have a significance; rather
for the sake of the parts which have a significance those also which have no
significance are inwoven with them. For the earth is broken up only by the
ploughshare, but for this to be possible the other parts also of the plough are
necessary. In harps and similar musical instruments only the strings are adapted
for song, but that these may be so adapted there are present in the structure of
the instruments all the other parts, which are not struck bythe singer, but to
which the parts which resound at his touch are united. So also in prophetic
narrations, details are told us which have no significance, but to which the
points which have significance adhere and are in a manner attached.” Cf. Con.
Faust. 22: 94. A Roman Catholic expositor, Salmeron, has a comparison something
similar: “Certain it is that a sword does not cleave with all its parts, but
only with one: for it does not cut with the hilt, or with the fiat, or with the
point, but it cuts only with the edge. And yet no one in his senses would say
that either hilt, fiat or point were unnecessary to the cleaving: for although
they do not cleave in themselves, yet they help the part which is sharp and
naturally fitted for cutting, so that it is able to cleave the more strongly and
conveniently.” So also in parables many details are introduced, which, although
they do not in themselves work any spiritual meaning, are yet helpful in
enabling the parable to cleave and cut by means of that part which was appointed
by the author for showing the desired lesson.”

[5] Theophylact (In Luke 16): “Every parable obliquely, and as in a figure,
makes clear the nature of certain matters, without in every point corresponding
to the matters for which it was taken. Therefore it does not behove us to be
over-busy with minute consideration of all the parts of parables, but, making
use of them as much as is suitable to the point before us, to let the rest go,
as co-existing with the parable, but con. tributing nothing to the point.”

[6] Comm. in Matthew 13:47.

[7] His exposition of the Prodigal Son (Quæst. Evang. 2: qu. 33) is a marvellous
example of this.

[8] Teelman (Comm. in Luc. 16: 34-52) defends this principle at length and with
much ability.

[9] Sermons, Lectures, and Occasional Discourses, 1828, vol. 2: p. 340.

[10 ] ’Some torment themselves greatly in the matter of the lamps, the vessels
and thc oil; but the main lesson is simple and natural, namely that eager zeal
for a little time is not enough unless untiring perseverance is added to it.”

[11] De Parabolis Christi, in his Opusc. Acad. vol. 1: p. 89.

[12] Omne simile claudicat.

[13] Theophylact (in Suicer, Thes. s. 5: parabole): “A parable, if it be
maintained in all its points, is no longer a parable, but the very thing which
occasions it.”

[14] Vitringa: “I am best pleased with those interpreters who extract from the
parables of the Lord Christ some fuller truth than a mere general moral precept,
illustrated and more strongly fixed in the minds of his hearers by means of a
parable. Not that I would have the hardihood to maintain that such a kind of
teaching or persuasion, if it had pleased our Lord to employ it, would have been
inconsistent with his high wisdom; but yet I contend that from wisdom at its
highest, as was that of the Son of God, we may rightly expect something more.
If, therefore, the parables of the Lord Christ can be so explained that their
several parts may conveniently, and without violent contortions, be transferred
to the economy of the Church, I hold that this kind of explanation should be
embraced as the best, and be preferred to all others. For, if nothing stands in
the way, the more solid truth we extract from the word of God, the more we shall
commend the Divine wisdom.”

[15] Out of this feeling the Jewish doctors distinguished lower forms of
revelation from higher, dreams from prophetic communications thus, that in the
higher all was essential, while the dream ordinarily contained something that
was superfluous; and they framed this axiom,-”As there is no corn without straw,
so neither is there any mere dream without something that is argon, void of
reality and insignificant.” Thus in Joseph’s dream (Genesis 37:9), the moon
could not have been well left out, when all the heavenly host did obeisance to
him: yet this circumstance was thus argon, for his mother,who thereby was
signified ,was even then dead, and so incapable of rendering the homage to him
which the others at last did (see John Smith, Discourses, p. 178).

[16] Lisco, Die Parabeln Jesu, p. 22; a sound and useful work, though content to
remain too much on the surface of its subject.

[17] Tertullian (De Res. Carn. 33): “You will find no parable which is not
either interpreted by Christ Himself, as that of the Bower, which finds its
meaning in the ministry of the word; or explained beforehand by the author of
the Gospel, as the parable of the Proud Judge and the Urgent Widow, in its
reference to perseverance in prayer; or may be freely conjectured, as the
parable of the Fig-tree, whose spreading branches aroused expectation, with its
likeness to the unfruitfulness of the Jews.”

[18] Salmeron (Serm. in Evang. Par. p. 19) recognizes in the parable a radix, a
cortex, a medulla; first, the radix or root out of which it grows, which may
also be regarded as the final cause or scope with which it is spoken, which is
to be looked for in the promuthion; next, the cortex or outward sensuous array
in which it clothes itself; and lastly, the medulla or inward core, the
spiritual truth which it enfolds.

[19] Teelman (Comm. in Luke 16:23): “Let there be no gaps in the explanation,
let it be neither harsh, nor difficult to the hearing or judgment, nor yet
ridiculous; let it be easy and reverent, like a gently flowing river let it
stream with amenity upon the hearing and the judgment of its hearers; let it be
appropriate, close, and removed from all trace of the far-fetched.”

[20] This rule finds its expression in the recognized axiom: “In theology
parables do not count as arguments; “and again: “Only from the literal meaning
can arguments of weight be sought” (see Gerhard, Loc. Theoll. 2: 13, 202). There
is a beautiful passage in Anselm, Cur Dens Homo, 1: 4, on the futility of using
as primary arguments, and against gainsayers, what can only serve as the
graceful confirmation of truths already on other grounds received and believed.
An objector is made to reply to one who presses him with the wonderful
correspondences of Scripture. “All these things should be received as beautiful
and as a kind of picture; but if there be not some solid ground on which they
may rest, they do not seem to the faithless to be satisfactory; for he who
wishes to make a picture, chooses something solid on which to paint, that what
he is painting may abide: and so no one paints on water or on air, because there
no traces of a picture abide. When, therefore, we display to the faithless these
harmonies of which you speak, as a kind of picture of thc actual fact, inasmuch
as they hold that what we believe is not an actual fact but a figment, they deem
us as men painting on a cloud. First we must show the reasonable ground of our
truth. Then, that this body of truth, as we may call it, may shine the clearer,
these harmonies may be set forth as pictures of the body.”

[21] De Grat. Prim. Hom.: “It was not without a reason that the Lord in that
parable said that the man was first stripped and afterwards wounded, whereas in
real robberies the reverse is usual: plainly He wished to indicate that in this
spiritual robbery the wounds of our nature arise from the loss of original
righteousness” (see Gerhard, Loc. Theoll. 9: 2, 86). His fact is inaccurate, for
Eastern robbers are careful to strip, if possible, before they slay; that so the
wounds and blood may not injure the garments, often the most precious portion of
the spoil.

[22] Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. 4: p. 649. 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, and that nothing is
proved by the absence of a doctrine from one passage which is clearly stated in
others. Thus Jerome (Adv. Jovin. 2): “For all things are not taught in every
place; but each similitude is referred to that of which it is a similitude.”

[23] Jerome: “To twist to their own will a contrary Scripture.”

[24] Irenæus(Con. Hoer. 1: 8): “That their fabrication might seem to be not
without a witness.” All this repeats itself in Swedenborg, who has many
resemblances to the Gnostics, especially the distinctiveone of a division of the
Church into spiritual and carnal members. One has well said: “His spiritual
sense of Scripture is one altogether disconnected from the literal sense, is
rather a sense before the sense; not a sense to which one mounts up from the
steps of that which is below, but in which one must, as by a miracle, be
planted, for it is altogether independent of, and disconnected from, the
accidental externum super. additum of the literal sense.”

[25] In a striking passage (Con. Hoer. 1: 8) he likens their dealing with
Scripture, their violent transpositions of it till it became altogether a
different thing in their hands, to the fraud of those who should break up some
work of exquisite mosaic, wrought by a skilful artificer to present the effigy
of a king, and should then recompose the pieces upon some wholly different plan,
and make them to express some vile image of a fox or dog, hoping that, since
they could point to the stones as being the same, they should be able to
persuade the simple that this was the king’s image still In the same manner
there is a vile poem by one of the later Latin poets in which he puts together
lines and half lines and bits of lines from Virgil, so contriving to weave out
of the pure a com. position of shameful impurity.

[26] Thus Con. Hoer. 2: 27: “Parables must not be applied to matters of
uncertainty; for, if this rule be observed, their interpreters interpret without
dangers, and the parables will receive at all hands an interpretation on similar
lines, and so collectively hold their ground unassailed by truth, and with their
parts applied on a common system and without collision. But to link to matters
which are not openly asserted, nor put plainly before us, interpretations of
parables which anyone invents at his pleasure, is mere folly. For thus the rule
of truth will be regarded by none, but as many as are fide interpreters of
parables, so many truths will there seem to be contending against each other.”
So too 3: “But, forasmuch as parables may receive many interpretations, who that
loves the truth will not confess that to leave what is certain and indubitable
and true and assert from these aught concerning our enquiry into God’s nature,
is to act like men who hurl themselves into peril and are devoid of reason? Is
not this indeed to build one’s house, not on the firm and strong rock, in an
open position, but on the unstable waste of sand? Whence also to overthrow
buildings of this sort is an easy task.” Cf. 2: 10; and 1: 16, for monstrous and
fantastic interpretations, after this fashion, of Luke 15:4-6; Luke 15:8-9. The
miracles were made by them to yield similar results (see 1: 7; 2: 24).

[27] De Pudicitiâ, 8, 9. Among much else which is interesting, he says:
“Heretics draw the parables whither they will, not whither they ought, and are
the aptest workers in them. Why so apt? Because from the very beginning they
have fashioned the matter of their teaching according to the hints of parables.
Unrestricted by the rule of truth, they were free to seek out and put together
the doctrines of which the parables seem suggestive.” Thus, too, De Præsc.
Hoeret. 8: “Valentinus did not devise Scriptures to suit the matter of his
teaching, but devised the matter of his teaching to suit the Scriptures.”
Compare De Animâ, 18.

[28] Neander, Kirch. Gesch. vol 5: p. 1082. They dealt more perversely still
with the parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Ibid. vol. 5: p. 1122): This
servant, too, with whom the king reckons, is Satan or the Demiurgus; his wife
and children, whom the king orders to be sold, the first is Sophia or
intelligence, the second the angels subject to him. God pitied him, and did not
take from him his higher intelligence, his sub-jeers, or his goods; he
promising, if God would have patience with him, to create so great a number of
men as should supply the place of the fallen angels. Therefore God gave him
permission that for six days, the six thousand years of the present world, he
should bring to pass what the could with the world which he had created - but
this will suffice.

[29] Not the Krummacher lately so popular in England, but his father, himself
the author of a volume of very graceful original parables.

[30] On the Style of the Holy Scriptures; Fifth Objection. There is nothing new
in this scheme; Origen held it long ago; see, for example, on the Labourers in
the Vineyard (Comm. in Matthew 20 :), how he toils under the sense of some great
undisclosed mystery concerning the future destinies of the kingdom lying hidden
there. St. Ambrose (Apolog. Proph. David. 57) gives a strange
historico-propheticalinterpretation of Nathan’s parable of the Ewe Lamb (2
Samuel 12:1-4); and Hippolytus (De Anti. christo, 57) of the Unjust Judge.

[31] Being published, not like most of his other works in Latin, but in Dutch,
it is far less known, as indeed it deserves to be, than his other oftentimes
very valuable works. I have used a German translation, Frankfort, 1717. The
volume consists of more than a thousand closely-printed pages, with a few grains
of wheat to be winnowed out from a most unreasonable quantity of chaff.

[32] Schol. in Matthew 25 : More may be found in Gurgler, Syst. Theol. Proph.;
as at pp. 542, 676. Deusingius, Teelman, D’Outrein, Solomon Van Till, are among
the chief writers of this school.

[33] 0bss. Sac. vol. 5: p. 831, seq. Tho same scheme of interpretation has been
applied by the same school of interpreters to the miracles; as by Lampe in his
Commentary on St. John, - see, for instance, on the feeding of the five thousand
(John 6 :) They form the weakest side of a book, most worthy, in many respects,
of all honour,Notes on the Parables by Archbishop R. C. Trench D.D.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 3: 02-PARABLE 1. THE SOWER.
========================================================================

PARABLE 1. THE SOWER.

Matthew 13:3-8; Matthew 13:18-23; Mark 4:3-8, and Mark 4:14-20; Luke 8:5-8 and
Luke 8:11-15. ON the relation in which the seven parables recorded in the
thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew stand to one another, of which this of the
Sower is the first, there will be a need to say something. But this will best
follow after they have all received their separate treatment; and till then,
therefore, I shall defer it.

It is the evident intention of the Evangelist to present these parables as the
first which the Lord spoke, this of the Sower introducing a manner of teaching
which He had not hitherto employed. As much is indicated in the question of the
disciples, “Why speakest thou unto them in parables?” (ver. 10), and in our
Lord’s answer (ver. 11-17), in which He justifies his use of this method of
teaching, and declares his purpose in adopting it.

It is involved no less in His treatment of this parable as the fundamental one,
on the right understanding of which will depend their comprehension of all which
are to follow: “Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all
parables?” (Mark 4:13). And as this was the first occasion on which He brought
forth these new things out of His treasure (see ver. 22), so was it the occasion
on which He brought them forth with the largest hand. We have nowhere else in
the Gospels so rich a group of parables assembled together, so many and so
costly pearls strung upon a single thread.It will not be lost labour to set
before ourselves at the outset as vividly as we can, what the aspects of that
outward nature were, with which our Lord and the multitudes were surrounded, as
He uttered, and they listened to, these divine words. “Jesus went out of the
house,” probably at Capernaum, the city where He commonly dwelt after his open
ministry began (Matthew 4:18), “his own city” (Matthew 9:1), “which is upon the
sea-coast [1] and, going out, He “sat by the sea side,” that is, by the lake of
Gennesaret, the scene of so many incidents in his ministry. This lake, called in
the Old Testament “the sea of Chinnereth” (Numbers 34:11; Joshua 12:3; Joshua
13:27), from a town so named which stood near its shore (Joshua 19:35), “the
water of Gennesar” (1Ma 11:67), now Bahr Tabaria, goes by many names in the
Gospels. It is simply “the sea” (Matthew 4:15; Mark 4:1), or “the sea of
Galilee” (Matthew 15:29; John 6:1); or, as invariably in St. Luke, either “the
lake” (Luke 8:22), or “the lake of Gennesaret” (v. 1); sometimes, but this only
in St. John, “the sea of Tiberias,” from the great heathen city of Tiberias on
its shores (John 6:1; John 21:1); being indeed no more than an inland sheet of
water, of moderate extent, some sixteen of our miles in length, and not more
than six in breadth. But it might well claim regard for its beauty, if not for
its extent. The Jewish writers would have it that it was beloved of God above
all the waters of Canaan; and indeed, almost all ancient authors who have
mentioned it speak in glowing terms of the beauty and rich fertility of its
banks. Hence, as some say, its name of Gennesaret, or “the garden of riches,”
[2] but the derivation is insecure. And even now, when the land is crushed under
the rod of Turkish misrule, many traces of its former beauty remain, many
evidences of the fertility which its shores will again assume in the day, which
assuredly cannot be very far off, when that rod shall oppress no more. It is
true that the olive-gardens and vineyards, which once crowned the high and
romantic hills bounding it on the east and the west, have disappeared; but the
citron, the orange, and the date-tree are still found there in rich abundance;
and in the higher regions the products of a more temperate zone meet together
with these; while, lower down, its banks are still covered with aromatic shrubs,
and its waters, as of old, are still sweet and wholesome to drink, and always
cool, clear, and transparent to the very bottom, and as gently breaking on the
fine white sand with which its shores are strewn as they did when the feet of
the Son of God trod those sands, or walked upon those waters. [3] On the edge of
this beautiful lake the multitude were assembled; the place was convenient; for,
“whilst the lake is almost completely surrounded by mountains, those mountains
never come down into the water; but always leave a beach of greater or lesser
extent along the water’s edge.” Their numbers were such, that probably, as on
another day (Luke 5:1), they pressed upon the Lord, so that He found it
convenient to enter into a ship; and putting off a little from the shore, He
taught them from it, speaking “many things unto them in parables.”

First in order is the parable of the Sower; common to the three synoptic
Gospels; being with those of the Wicked Husbandmen and the Mustard Seed the only
ones contained in all three. It rests, as so many others, on one of the common
familiar doings of daily life. Christ, lifting up his eyes, may have seen at no
great distance a husbandman scattering his seed in the furrows, may have taken
in, indeed, the whole scenery of the parable. [4] As it belongs to the
essentially popular nature of the Gospels, that parables should be found in them
rather than in the Epistles, where indeed they never appear, so it belongs to
the popular character of the parable, that it should thus rest upon the familiar
doings of common life, the matters which occupy,” the talk Man holds with
week-day man in the hourly walk of the world’s business;” while the Lord, using
these to set forth eternal and spiritual truths, does at the same time ennoble
them, showing them continually to reveal and set forth the deepest mysteries of
his kingdom. “Behold, a sower went forth to sow” - what a dignity and
significance have these few words, used as the Lord uses them here, given in all
aftertimes to the toils of the husbandman in the furrow. The comparison of the
relations between the teacher and the taught to those between the sower and the
soil, the truth communicated being the seed sown, rests on analogies between the
worlds of nature and of spirit so true and so profound, that we must not wonder
to find it of frequent recurrence; and this, not merely in Scripture (1 Peter
1:23; 1 John 3:9), but in the writings of all wiser heathens [5] who have
realized at all what teaching means, and what manner of influence the spirit of
one man may exercise on the spirits of his fellows. While all words, even of
men, which are better than mere breath, are as seeds, able to take root in their
minds and hearts who hear them, have germs in them which only unfold by degrees;
[6] how eminently must this be true of the words of God, and of these uttered by
Him who was Himself the seminal Word which He communicated. [7] Best right of
all to the title of seed has that word, which exercising no partial operation on
their hearts who receive it, wholly transforms and renews them - that word of
living and expanding truth by which men are born anew into the kingdom of God,
and which in its effects “endureth forever” (1 Peter 1:23; 1 Peter 1:25). I
cannot doubt that the Lord intended to set Himself forth as the chief sower of
the seed (not, of course, to the exclusion of the Apostles [8] and their
successors), that here, as in the next parable, “he that soweth the good seed”
is the Son of man; and this, even though He nowhere, in as many words, announces
Himself as such. [9] His entrance into the world was a going forth to sow; [10]
the word of the kingdom, which word He first proclaimed, was his seed; [11] the
hearts of men his soil; while others were only able to sow, because He had sown
first; they did but carry on the work which He had inaugurated.

“And when he sowed, some seeds felt by the way side, and it was trodden down
(Luke 8:5), and the fowls came and devoured them up.”

Some, that is, fell on the hard footpath or road, where the ground was not
broken, and so could not sink down in the earth, but lay exposed on the surface
to the feet of passers-by, till at length it fell an easy prey to the birds,
such as in the East are described as following in large flocks the husbandman,
to gather up, if they can, the seed-corn which he has scattered. We may indeed
see the same nearer home. This parable is one of the very few, whereof we
possess an authentic interpretation from the Lord’s own lips; and these words He
thus explains: “When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth
it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his
heart.” In St. Luke, Satan appears yet more distinctly as the adversary and
hinderer of the kingdom of God (of whom there will be fitter opportunity of
speaking in the following parable), the reason why he snatches the word away
being added - “lest they should believe and be saved.” How natural it would have
been to interpret”the fowls” impersonally, as signifying, in a general way,
worldly influences hostile to the truth. How almost inevitably, if left to
ourselves, we should have done so. Not so, however, the Lord. He beholds the
kingdom of evil as it counterworks the kingdom of God gathered up in a personal
head, “the wicked one.” [12] The words which St. Matthew alone records, “and
understandeth it not,” do much for helping us to comprehend what this first
condition of mind and heart is, in which the word of God fails to produce even a
passing effect. The man “understandeth it not;” he does not recognize himself as
standing in any relation to the word which he hears, or to the kingdom of grace
which that word proclaims. All that speaks of man’s connection with a higher
invisible world, all that speaks of sin, of redemption, of holiness, is
unintelligible to him, and without significance. But how has he arrived at this
state? He has brought himself to it; he has exposed his heart as a common road
to every evil influence of the world, till it has become hard as a pavement,
[13] till he has laid waste the very soil in which the word of God should have
taken root: he has not submitted it to the ploughshare of the law, which would
have broken it up; which, if he had suffered it to do its appointed work, would
have gone before, preparing that soil to receive the seed of the Gospel. But
what renders his case the more hopeless, and takes away even a possibility of
the word germinating there, is, that besides the evil condition of the soil,
fliers is also one watching to take advantage of that evil condition, to use
every weapon that man puts into his hands, against man’s salvation; and he, lest
by possibility such a hearer “should believe and be saved,” sends his ministers
in the shape of evil thoughts, worldly desires, carnal lusts; and so, as St.
Mark records it, “cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in
their hearts.” “This is he which received seed by the way side.”

There was other seed, which promised at the first to have better success, but in
the end had not truly any. “some fell upon stony places, where they had not much
earth; and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth; And
when the sun was up, [14] they were scorched; and because they had no root, they
withered away.” The “stony places “here are to be explained by the “rock” of St.
Luke, and it is important that the words in St. Matthew, or rather in our
Version (for “rocky places,” - as, indeed, the Rhemish Version has it, - would
have made all clear), do not lead us astray. A soil mingled with stones is not
meant; these, however numerous or large, would not certainly hinder the roots
from striking deeply downward; for those roots, with an instinct of their own,
would feel and find their way, penetrating between the crevices of the stones,
till they reached the moisture below. But what is meant is ground such as to a
great extent is that of Palestine, where a thin superficial coating of mould
covers the surface of a rock; this stretching below it, would present a barrier
beyond which it would be wholly impossible that the roots could penetrate, to
draw up supplies of nourishment from beneath. [15] While the seed had fallen on
shallow earth, therefore the plant the sooner appeared above the surface; and
while the rock below hindered it from striking deeply downward, it put forth its
energies the more luxuriantly in the stalk. It sprang up without delay, but
rooted in no deep soil; and because therefore “it lacked moisture,” [16] it was
unable to resist the scorching heat of the sun, and being smitten by that,
withered and died. [17]

We recur again to the Lord’s interpretation of his own words: “But he that
received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and
anon with joy receiveth it.” Though the issue proves the same in this case as in
the last, the promise is very different. So far from the heart of this class of
hearers appearing not receptive of the truth, the good news of the kingdom is
received at once, and with gladness. [18] The joy itself is most appropriate.
How should not he be glad, whom the glad tidings have reached (Acts 8:8; Acts
16:34; Galatians 5:22; 1 Peter 1:6)? But alas! in this case the joy thus
suddenly conceived is not, as the sequel too surely proves, a joy springing up
from the contemplation of the greatness of the benefit, even after all the
counterbalancing costs, and hazards, and sacrifices, have been taken into
account, but a joy which springs from an overlooking and leaving out of
calculation those costs and hazards. It is this which fatally differentiates the
joy of this class of hearers from that of the finder of the treasure (Matthew
13:44), who “for joy thereof” went and sold all that he had, that he might
purchase the field which contained the treasure - that is, was willing to deny
himself all things, and to suffer all things, that he might win Christ. We have
rather here a state of mind not stubbornly repelling the truth, but woefully
lacking in all deeper earnestness; such as that of the multitudes which went
with Jesus, unconscious what his discipleship involved, - to whom He turned and
told, in plainest and most startling words, what the conditions of that
discipleship were (Luke 14:25-33; Joshua 24:19). This is exactly what the hearer
now described has not done; whatever was fair and beautiful in Christianity as
it first presents itself, had attracted him - its sweet and comfortable
promises, [19] the moral loveliness of its doctrines; but not its answer to the
deepest needs of the human heart; as neither, when he received the word with
gladness, had he contemplated the having to endure hardness in his warfare with
sin and Satan and the world; and this will explain all which follows: “Yet hath
he not root in himself, but dureth for a while; for when tribulation or
persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.” [20] It is
not here as in the last case, that Satan comes and takes the word out of the
heart without further trouble. That word has found some place there, and it
needs that he bring some hostile influences to bear against it. What he brings
in the present case are outward or inward trials, these being compared to the
burning heat of the sun. [21] It is true that the light and warmth of the sun
are more often used to set forth the genial and comfortable workings of God’s
grace (Malachi 4:2; Matthew 5:45; Isaiah 60:19-20); but not always, for see
Psalms 121:6; Isaiah 49:10; Revelation 7:16. As that heat, had the plant been
rooted deeply enough, would have furthered its growth, and hastened its
ripening, fitting it for the sickle and the barn - so these tribulations would
have furthered the growth in grace of the true Christian, and ripened him for
heaven. But as the heat scorches the blade which has no deepness of earth, and
has sprung up on a shallow ground, so the troubles and afflictions which would
have strengthened a true faith, cause a faith which was merely temporary to
fail. [22] When these afflictions for the truth’s sake arrive, “he is offended,”
as though some strange thing had happened to him: for then are the times of
sifting [23] and of winnowing; and then, too, every one that has no root, or as
St. Matthew describes it, “no root in himself,” no inward root, [24] falls away.
The having of such an inward root here would answer to having a foundation on
the rock, to having oil in the vessels, elsewhere (Matthew 7:25; Matthew 25:4).
It is noinfrequent image in Scripture (Ephesians 3:17; Colossians 2:7; Jeremiah
17:8; Hosea 9:16; Job 19:28); and has a peculiar fitness and beauty, for as the
roots of a tree are out of sight, while yet from them it derives its firmness
and stability, so upon the hidden life of the Christian, that life which is out
of sight of other men, his firmness and stability depend; and as it is through
the hidden roots that the nourishment is drawn up to the stem and branches, and
the leaf continues green, and the tree does not cease from bearing fruit, even
so in that life which “is hid with Christ in God” lie the sources of the
Christian’s strength and of his spiritual prosperity. Such a “root in himself”
had Peter, who, when many were offended and drew back, exclaimed, “To whom shall
we go? thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). So, again, when the
Hebrew Christians took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing in
themselves that they “had in heaven a better and an enduring substance” (Hebrews
10:34), this knowledge, this faith concerning their unseen inheritance, was the
root which enabled them joyfully to take that loss, and not to draw back unto
perdition, as so many had done. Compare 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, where faith in
the unseen eternal things is the root, which, as St. Paul declares, enables him
to count the present affliction light, and to endure to the end (cf. Hebrews
11:26). Demas, on the other hand, lacked that root. It might at first sight seem
as if he would be more correctly ranged under the third class of hearers; since
he forsook Paul, “having loved this present world” (2 Timothy 4:10). But when we
examine more closely Paul’s condition at Rome at the moment when Demas forsook
him, we find it one of extreme outward trial and danger. It would seem then more
probable that the immediate cause of his going back, was the tribulation which
came for the word’s sake. [25] But there is other seed, of which the fortunes
are still to be told. “And some fell among thorns; “as fields were often divided
by hedges of thorn (Exodus 22:6; Micah 7:4), this might easily come to pass
(Jeremiah 4:8; Job 5:5); “and the thorns sprung up, and choked them,” or as
Wiclif has, strangled it,” [26] so that, as St. Mark adds, “it yielded no
fruit.” This seed fell not so much among thorns that were full grown, as in
ground where the roots of these had not been diligently extirpated, in ground
which had not been thoroughly purged and cleansed; otherwise it could not be
said that “the thorns sprang up with it” (Luke 8:7). They grew together; only
the thorns overtopped the good seed, shut them out from the air and light, drew
away from their roots the moisture and richness of earth by which they should
have been nourished. No wonder that they pined and dwindled in the shade, grew
dwarfed and stunted, for the best of the soil did not feed them - forming,
indeed, a blade, but unable to form a full corn in the ear, or to bring any
fruit to perfection. It is not here, as in the first case, that there was no
soil, or none deserving the name; nor yet, as in the second case, that there was
a poor or shallow soil. Here there was no lack of soil - it might be good soil;
but what it lacked was a careful husbandry, a diligent eradication of the
mischievous growths, which, unless rooted up, would oppress and strangle
whatever sprang up in their midst. This section of the parable the Lord thus
explains: “He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the
word; and the care [27] of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches [and the
lusts of other things entering in (Mark 4:19)] choke the word, and he becometh
unfruitful,” or, as St. Luke gives it, “they bring no fruit to perfection.” [28]
It is not here, as in the first case, that the word of God is
totallyineffectual; nor yet, as in the second case, that after a temporary
obedience to the truth, there is an evident falling away from it, such as the
withering of the stalk indicates: the profession of a spiritual life is
retained, the “name to live” still remains; but the power of godliness is by
degrees eaten out and has departed. And to what disastrous influences are these
mournful effects attributed? To two things, the care of this world and its
pleasures; these are the thorns and briers that strangle the life of the soul.
[29] It may sound strange at first hearing that two causes apparently so diverse
should yet be linked together, and have the same hurtful operation ascribed to
them. But the Lord, in fact, here presents to us this earthly life on its two
sides, under its two aspects. There is, first, its oppressive crushing side, the
poor man’s toil how to live at all, to keep the wolf from the door, the struggle
for a daily subsistence, “the care [30] of this life,” which, if not met in
faith, hinders the thriving of the spiritual word in the heart. But life has a
flattering as well as a threatening side, its pleasures no less than its pains;
and as those who have heard and received with gladness the word of the kingdom
are still in danger of being crushed by the cares of life, so, no less, of being
deceived by its flatteries and its allurements. The old man is not dead in them;
it may seem dead for a while, so long as the first joy on account of the
treasure found endures; but, unless mortified in earnest, will presently revive
in all its strength anew. Unless the soil of the heart be diligently watched,
the thorns and briers, of which it seemed a thorough clearance had been made,
will again grow up apace, and choke the good seed. [31] While that which God
promises is felt to be good, but also what the world promises is felt to be good
also, and a good of the same kind, instead of a good merely and altogether
subordinate to the other, an attempt will be made to combine the service of the
two, to serve God and mammon. But the attempt will be in vain: they who make it
will bring no fruit to perfection, will fail to bring forth those perfect fruits
of the Spirit which it was the purpose of the word of God to produce in them.
[32] But it is not all the seed which thus sooner or later perishes. The
spiritual husbandman is to sow in hope, knowing that with the blessing of the
Lord he will not always sow in vain, that a part will prosper. [33] “But other
fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some
sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.” St. Luke says simply, “and bare fruit an
hundredfold,” leaving out the two lesser proportions of return; which St. Mark
gives, but reverses the order of the three, beginning from the lowest return,
and ascending to the highest. The return of a hundred for one is not unheard of
in the East, though always mentioned as something extraordinary; thus it is said
of Isaac, that he sowed, “and received in the same year an hundredfold, and the
Lord blessed him” (Genesis 26:12); and other examples of the same kind are not
wanting, [34]

We learn that “he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the
word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some
an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty,” or, with the important variation of
St. Luke, “That on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart,
having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.” -
important, because in these words comes distinctly forward a difficulty, which
equally existed in every record of the parable, but might in the others have
been overlooked and evaded; while yet on its right solution a successful
interpretation must altogether depend. What is this”honest and good heart”? How
can any heart be called “good” before the Word and the Spirit have made it so? -
and yet here the seed finds a good soil, does not make it. The same question
elsewhere recurs, as when Christ declares, “He that is of God heareth God’s
words” (John 8:47); and again, “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice”
(John 18:37). For who in this sinful world can be called “of the truth”? Is it
not the universal doctrine of Scripture that men become “of the truth” through
hearing Christ’s words, not that they hear his words because they are “of the
truth; “that the heart is good, through receiving the word; not that it receives
the word, because it is good?” This is certainly the scriptural doctrine, and he
teaches preposterously, to use the word in its most proper sense, who teaches
otherwise. At the same time those passages in St. John, and the words before us,
with much else in Scripture, bear witness to the fact that there are conditions
of heart which yield readier entrance to the truth than others; - ”being of the
truth,” - ”being of God,” - “doing the truth,” - ”having the soil of an honest
and good heart,” - all pointing in this direction. Inasmuch as these all express
a condition anterior to hearing God’s word - to coming to the light - to
bringing forth fruit - they cannot indicate a state of mind and heart in which
the truth, in the highest sense of that word, is positive and realized, but only
one in which there is a preparedness to receive and to retain it. There is none
good but One (Matthew 19:17); and yet the Scripture speaks often of good men:
even so no heart is absolutely a good soil; yet relatively it may be affirmed of
some, that their hearts are a soil fitter for receiving the seed of everlasting
life than those of others. Thus the son of peace” will alone receive the message
of peace (Luke 10:6; Matthew 10:18; cf. Acts 13:48), while yet only the
reception of that message will make him truly and in the highest sense a “son of
peace.” He was before, indeed, a latent son of peace, but it is the Gospel which
first makes actual that which hitherto was only potential. And thus the
preaching of the word may be likened to the scattering of sparks, which, where
they find tinder, fasten there, and kindle into a flame; where they do not find
it, expire; or that word of the truth may be regarded as a loadstone thrust in
among the world’s rubbish, attracting to itself all particles of true metal,
which but for it would never, as they could never, have extricated themselves
from the surrounding mass, however they testify their affinity to the loadstone,
now that it is brought in contact with them.

Exactly thus among those to whom the word of the Gospel came, there were two
divisions of men, and the same will always subsist in the world. There were,
first, the false-hearted, who called evil good and good evil, who loved their
darkness, and hated the light that would make that darkness manifest (John 3:20;
Ephesians 5:18), who, when that light of the Lord shone round about them, only
drew further back into their own darkness; self-excusers and self-justifiers;
such as were for the most part the Scribes and the Pharisees with whom He came
in contact. But there were also others, sinners as well, often, as regards
actual transgression of positive law, much greater sinners than those first, but
who yet acknowledged their evil - had no wish to alter the everlasting relations
between right and wrong - who, when the light appeared, did not refuse to be
drawn to it, even though they knew that it would condemn their darkness, that it
would require an entire renewing of their hearts and remodelling of their lives:
such were the Matthews and the Zacchæuses, and sinful women not a few, with all
who confessed their deeds, justifying not themselves butGod. Not that I would
prefer to instance these as examples of the “good and honest heart,” except in
so far as it is needful to guard against a Pelagian abuse of the phrase, and to
show how the Lord’s language here does not condemn even great and grievous
sinners to an incapacity for receiving the word of life. Nathanael would be a
yet more perfect specimen of the class referred to - the “Israelite indeed, in
whom is no guile.” [35] (John 1:47), in other words, the man with the soil of
“an honest and good heart,” fitted for receiving and nourishing the word of
everlasting life, and for bringing forth fruit with patience; one of a simple,
truthful, earnest nature; who had been faithful to the light which he had,
diligent in the performance of the duties which he knew, who had not been
resisting God’s preparation in him for imparting to him at the last his best
gift, even the knowledge of his Son; who with all this, knowing himself a
sinner, did not affirm that he was righteous. For we must keep ever in mind that
the good soft as much comes from God as the seed which is to find there its
home. The law and the preaching of repentance, God’s secret and preventing
grace, run before the preaching of the word of the kingdom; and thus when that
word comes, it finds men with a less or a greater readiness to receive it for
what indeed it is, a word of eternal life. [36] When the different measures of
prosperity are given, the seed bringing forth ’some an hundredfold, some
sixtyfold, some thirtyfold,” it seems difficult to determine whether these
indicate different degrees of fidelity in those that receive the truth,
according to which they bring forth fruit unto God more or less abundantly; or
rather different spheres of action, more or less wide, which they are appointed
to occupy; - as in another parable to one servant were given five talents, to
another two; in which instance the diligence and fidelity appear to have been
equal, and the need of praise the same, since each gained in proportion to the
talents committed to him, though these talents were many more in one case than
in the other (Luke 19:16-19): probably the former is meant. [37] The words which
St. Luke records (ver. 18),

“Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and
whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have”
(cf. Mark 4:33), are very important for the averting of a misunderstanding,
which else might easily have arisen here. The disciples might have been in
danger of supposing that these four conditions of heart, in which the word found
its hearers, were permanent, immutable, fixed forevermore; and therefore that in
one heart the word must flourish, in another that it could never germinate at
all, in others that it could only prosper for a little while. There is no such
immoral fatalism in Scripture. It left to the Gnostics to distribute men into
two classes, one capable of a higher life, and the other incapable. It declares
all to be capable; even as it summons all to be partakers of the same; and the
warning, “Take heed how ye hear,” testifies as much, for it tells us that in
each case, according as the word is heard and received, will its success be -
that a man’s whole anterior life will greatly influence the manner of his
reception of that word, seeing that all which he has gone through will have
wrought either to the improving or the deteriorating of the soil of his heart,
and will thus render more probable or less probable that the seeds of God’s word
will prosper there, and bring forth in him that hears fruit that shall remain
(James 1:21). For while it is true, and the thought is a very awful one, that
there is such a thing as laying waste the very soil in which the seed of eternal
life should have taken root - that every act of sin, of unfaithfulness to the
light within us, is, as it were, a treading of the ground into more hardness, so
that the seed shall not sink in it, - or a wasting of the soil, so that the seed
shall find no nutriment there, - or a fitting of it to kindlier nourishing of
thorns and briers than of good seed; - yet on the other hand, even for those who
have brought themselves into these evil conditions, a recovery is still, through
the grace of God, possible: the hard soil may again become soft, - the shallow
soil may become rich and deep, - and the soil beset with thorns open and clear.
[38] For the heavenly seed in this differs from the earthly, that the latter, as
it finds, so it must use its soil, for it cannot alter its nature. But the
heavenly seed, if acted upon by the soil where it is cast, also reacts more
mightily upon it, softening it where it was hard (Jeremiah 23:29), deepening it
where it was shallow, cutting up and extirpating the roots of evil where it was
encumbered with these; and, wherever it is allowed free course, transforming and
ennobling each of these inferior soils, till it has become that which man’s
heart was at the beginning and before the Fall; good ground, fit to afford
nourishment to that divine word, the seed of everlasting life [39] (1 Peter
1:23-25).

FOOTNOTES

[1] “which is upon the sea coast” (Matthew 4:13), probably so called to
distinguish it from another Capernaum on the brook Kishon.

[2] Jerome (De Nomin. Heb.) makes Gennesar = hortus principum.

[3] Josephus (Bell. Jud. 3: 10. 7) rises into high poetical animation in
describing its attractions; and in Rohr’s Palestina (termed by Goethe “a
glorious book “), p. 67, there is a very spirited description of this lake and
the neighbouring country; see also Lightfoot, Chorograph. Cent. 70: 79; and
Meuschen, Nov. Test. ex Talm. illust, p. 151. Robinson (Bibl. Researches, vol.
3: p. 253) is less enthusiastic in his praise. He speaks, indeed, of the lake as
a “beautiful sheet of limpid water in a deeply depressed basin;” but the form of
the hills, “regular and almost unbroken heights” (p. 312), was to his eye
“rounded and tame,” and, as it was the middle summer when his visit was made,
the verdure of the spring had already disappeared, and he complains of a
nakedness in the general aspect of the scenery. But the account which transcends
all others in the picturesque accuracy of its details, which leaves nothing to
be desired by the reader, except that he might himself behold this, “the most
sacred sheet of water which this earth contains.” is to be found in Stanley,
Sinai and Palestine, pp. 361-378. Compare also Keim, Jesu von Nazara. vol. 1: p.
598 sqq., who on all the mere externals of the Gospel history is admirable.

[4] Dean Stanley, describing the shores of the lake, shows us how easily this
may have been: “A slight recess in the hillside, close upon the plain, disclosed
at once, in detail, and with a conjunction which I remember nowhere else in
Palestine, every feature of the great parable. There was the undulating
corn-field descending to the water’s edge. There was the trodden pathway running
through the midst of it, with no fence or hedge to prevent the seed from falling
here and there on either side of it, or upon it, - itself hard with the constant
tramp of horse and mule and human feet. There was the “good” rich soil, which
distinguishes the whole of that plain and its neighbourhood from the bare hills
elsewhere, descending into the lake, and which, where there is no interruption,
produces one vast mass of corn. There was the rocky ground of the hillside
protruding here and there through the corn-fields, as elsewhere through the
grassy slopes. There were the large bushes of thorn - the nabk, that kind
ofwhich tradition says that thc crown of thorns was woven - springing up, like
the fruit-trees of the more inland parts, in the very midst of the waving
wheat.” Compare Thomson, The Land and the Book, vol. 1: p. 115.

[5] Grotius is rich in illustrative passages from Greek and Latin writers; he or
others have adduced such from Aristotle, Cicero (Tusc. 2: 5), Plutarch,
Quintilian, Philo, and many more; but it would not be worth while merely to
repeat their quotations. I do not observe this one from Seneca (Ep. 73): God
comes unto men, or rather, more closely still, comes into them. Seeds are
scattered in men’s bodies which, if received by a good husbandman, shoot up in
likeness to their stock and resemble in their growth the things from which they
sprang; but if the husbandman is bad, he is as deadly to them as a barren and
marshy soil, and fosters refuse instead of fruits.

[6] Thus Shakespeare, of a man of thoughtful wisdom:”his plausive words He
scattered not in ears, but grafted them To grow there and to bear.”

[7] Salmeron (Serm. in Par. Evans. p. 30): “As Christ is the Physician and the
physic, the Priest and the victim, the Redeemer and the redemption, the Lawgiver
and the law, the Porter and the gate, so is he the Sower and the seed. For
neither is the Gospel itself anything other than Christ incarnate, born,
preaching, dying, rising, sending the Holy Ghost, gathering, sanctifying and
ruling the Church.”

[8] Isidore of Pelusium {Ep. 176, p. 326) has a subIime comparison, in which he
likens St. Paul to Triptolemus, the winged scatterer of seed through the earth.

[9] See, however, Greswell’s arguments to the contrary (Exp. of the Par. vol. 5:
part 2, p. 238).

[10] Salmeron (Serm. in Parab, p. 29): “He is said to go forth through the act
of Incarnation, invested with which He went forth even as a husbandman who dons
a garment suitable for rain, heat and cold, and yet He was a King.”

[11] “the wicked one” in St. Matthew; “Satan” in St. Mark; “the Devil” in St.
Luke.[12] H. de Sto. Victore (Annott. in Matt.): “The wayside is the heart which
is trodden down and dried by the constant passage of evil thoughts.” Corn. a
Lapide: “The wayside is the hardened custom of a worldly and too wanton life.”

[13] “anatello” once occurs transitively in the N. T., Matthew 5:45; so Genesis
3:18, Isaiah 45:8 (LXX). It is especially used, as here, of the rising of the
sun or stars (Numbers 24:17; Isaiah 60:1; Malachi 4:2); but also of the
springing up of plants from the earth (Genesis 19:25; Isaiah 44:4; Ezekiel 17:6;
Psalms 91:7); and so “exanatello” in this present parable. In either sense the
title “Anotole” belongs to Christ, and has been applied to Him in both; as He is
The Branch (“Anatole,” Zechariah 6:12, LXX), and as He is The Day-spring (Luke
1:78; cf. Revelation 2:28; Revelation 22:16). “kaumatizo” (Matthew 13:6; cf.
Mark 4:6) has been variously rendered; by the Vulgate “æstuaverunt”; by Tyndale
and Cranmer “caught heat “; by Geneva “were parched “; by A.V. “were scorched;”
which is retained in the Revised.

[14] Bengel: “The reference is not to stones lying scattered about a field, but
to an unbroken rock or stone under a thin coating of earth.”

[15] “ikmas” only here in the N. T; twice in the Septuagint, Jeremiah 17:8,
(“For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her
roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh “), and Job 26:14.

[16] How exactly this is taken from the life, a brief quotation from Pliny (H.
N. 17: 3) will show: “In Syria men use a light ploughshare and shallow furrows,
for underneath is a stone which withers the seeds with its heat. The same soil
is by Theophrastus described as “hupopetros” (somewhat rocky). At Matthew
7:24-25 (cf. Luke 6:48), it is implied that one who digs deep enough will
everywhere come to rock.

[17] Cocceius: “Immediately to rejoice is a bad sign, for it is impossible that
the word of God, if it be rightly received, should not work in a man
dissatisfaction with himself, inward struggle, perplexity, a contrite heart, a
broken spirit, hunger and thirst, and, in a word, distress, even as the Saviour
taught, Matthew 5:4.” [18] Bede: “These are the hearts which are delighted for a
season with the mere sweetness of the word they hear, and with the heavenly
promises.” [19] Quintilian (Inst. 1: 3. 3-5) supplies a good parallel; he, it is
true, is speaking of the rapid progress and rapid decay in the region of the
intellectual, our Lord in that of the moral, life: “Minds of this kind ripen too
early, and with difficulty ever arrive at bearing .... They yield quickly, but
not much. No true strength underlies them, nor is there any support from
deepsunken roots. The seeds scattered on the surface of the soil burst out too
quickly, and the blades, which mimic ears, yellow before harvest-time with empty
husks.” Philo (De Vit. Cont. § 7) supplies another instructive parallel. He,
too, demands for any seed which shall indeed live the “field with a heavy soil”
and not the “stony and trodden places.” [20] It was with the rising of the sun
that the kauson, the hot; desert wind, “anemos o kauson,” as often in the
Septuagint (Jeremiah 18:17; Ezekiel 17:10; Ezekiel 19:12; Hosea 13:15; Jonah
4:8), commonly began to blow, the deadly effects of which on all vegetation are
often referred to (Jon. 9: 8; James 1:11); in which last place it should not be
rendered, “with a burning heat,” but “with the burning wind. “Plants thus
smitten with the heat are called torrefacta, helioumena.[21] Augustine is rich
in striking sayings on the different effects which tribulations will have on
those that are rooted and grounded in the faith, and those that are otherwise.
Thus (Enarr. in Psalms 21), speaking of the furnace of affliction: “There is
gold, there is chaff, there the fire works in a narrow space. That fire is not
different in itself, but it has different actions; it turns the chaff to ashes,
and frees the gold from dirt.” See for the same image Chrysostom, Ad Pop.
Antioch. Hom. 4: I[22] The very word “tribulation,” with which we have rendered
“thlipsis,” rests on this image - from tribulum, the threshing roller, and
signifying those afflictive processes by which in the moral discipline of men
God separates their good from their evil, their wheat from their chaff. There
are some good lines by George Wither expounding this, quoted in my Study of
Words, 17th edit. p. 49.[23] With allusion to this passage, men of faith are
called in the Greek Fathers bathurrizoi, ,polurrizoi. Compare with this division
of the parable the Shepherd of Hermas, 3: sim. 9. 21.[24] See Bernard (De Offic.
Epise. 4: 14, 15) for an interesting discussion, whether the faith of those
comprehended under this second head was, as long as it lasted, real or not, - in
fact, on the question whether it be possible to fall from grace given.[25]
Columella: “the choking grass.” [26] Catullus: Spinosas Erycina serens in
pectore curas.” (Erycina sowing in the breast thorny cares).[27] ou
telesphorousi The word occurs only here in the N. T. It is especially used of a
woman bringing a child to the birth, or a tree its fruit to maturity (Josephus,
Antt. 1: 6. 3; cf.).[28] See the Shepherd of Hermas, 3: sim. 9. 20. In the great
symbolic language of the outward world, these have a peculiar fitness for the
expression of influences hostile to the truth; they are themselves the
consequences and evidences of sin, of a curse which has passed on from man to
the earth which he inhabits (Genesis 3:17), till that earth had nothing but a
thorn-crown to yield to its Lord. It is a sign of the deep fitness of this image
that others have been led to select it for the setting forth of the same truth.
Thus the Pythagorean Lysis (Baur, Apollonius, p. 192): “Close and thick bushes
grow around the mind and heart of those who are not purely initiated into the
sciences, overshadowing all the mild, gentle and reasoning element of the soul,
and hindering the intellectual from open increase and progress.” [29] Merimna,
by some derived from meris (curae animum divorse trahunt, Terence), that which
draws the heart different ways (see Hosea 10:2 : “Their heart is divided,” i.e.,
between God and the world; such a heart constitutes the “double-minded man”,
James 1:8); but this etymology is brought into serious question now.[30] Thus
with a deep heart-knowledge Thauler (Dom. 22: post Trin. Serm. 2): “Ye know
yourselves that, when a field or garden is being cleaned from weeds and tares,
generally some roots of the tares abide in the depths of the earth, but so as
scarcely to be detected. Meanwhile the soil is diligently planted and weeded;
but, when the good seeds should spring up, immediately the tares from their
deepseated roots grow with them, and will hurt and destroy the corn and other
plants and the good seeds. So, therefore, in the present place also, I mean by
these roots all the evil failings and vices hidden away beneath the surface and
not yet mortified, which by confession and penitence are indeed, if I may use
the term, weeded, and by good exercises ploughed up; but yet the evil bent or
tendencies of their vicious roots, such as of pride or luxury, anger or envy,
hatred and the like, have been left hidden beneath the surface, and these
subsequently spring up, and when the season comes for the divine, the happy, the
virtuous and laudable life to bud forth from a man and grow and spring forth,
then these most evil offshoots from the hurtful roots also come forth, and
scatter, crush and overwhelm the man’s fruits and his religious and faithful
life.” [31] Ovid’s enumeration (Met. 5: 483-486) o£ all which may disappoint and
defeat the sower’s toil exactly corresponds with that of our parable; though
with some additions, and in an order a little different:Et modo sol nimius,
nimius modo corripit imber; Sideraque ventique nocent; avidæque volucres Semina
jacta legunt; lolium tribulique fatigant Triticeas messes, et inexpugnabile
gramen.”Now is there too much sun, now too much rain, Now wind and weather harm,
and birds again Eat greedily your seeds, while tares o’erspread Your wheaten
crops, and the still-conquering weed.” [32] Thus the author of a sermon in the
Appendix to Augustine (Opp. vol. 6: p. 597, Bened. ed.): “Beloved, let not
either the fear of thorns, or the stony rocks, or the hardness of the road,
terrify us, so long as in our sowing of the word of God we may arrive at last at
the good land. Let the word of God be received by every field, by every man,
whether barren or fertile. I must sow, look thou how thou receivest; I must
bestow, look thou what fruit thou renderest.” [33] According to Herodotus
two-hundredfold was a common return in the plain of Babylon, and sometimes
three; and Niebuhr (Beschreib. 5: Arab. p. 153) mentions a species of maize that
returns four.hundredfold. Wetstein (in loc.) has collected examples from
antiquity of returns far greater than that of the text. See, too, V. Raumer,
Palastina, p. 92.[34] Augustine (In Ev. Joh. Tract. 2) puts the difficulty, and
solves it thus: “What is this? For of whom were there good works? Didst Thou not
come to justify the wicked?” He replies: “The beginning of good works is the
confession of evil ones. Thou workest truth, and comest to the light. In what
does this working truth consist? Thou dost not caress, nor soothe nor flatter
thyself; thou dost not say, I am just, when thou art unjust; this is to begin to
work truth.” [35] Augustine: “If guile was not in him, the Physician pronounced
that he was healable, not that he was whole. In what way was guile not in him?
If he is a sinner, he confesses himself to be one. For if he is a sinner, and
says that he is just, there is guile in his mouth. Therefore in Nathanael He
praised the confession of sin, He did not pronounce him not to be a sinner.”
[36] On this subject of the “honest and good heart” there is an admirable
discussion by Jackson, the Arminian divine of the 17th century, The Eternal
Truth of Scripture, 4: 8.[37] So Irænaeus (Con. Hoer. 5: 39, 2) must have
understood it, and Cyprian (Ep. 69): “The spiritual grace which in baptism is
received by the faithful equally, in our subsequent behaviour and actions is
either diminished or increased, as in the Gospel the seed of the Lord is sown
equally, but, according to the different nature of the soil, in some cases it is
wasted, in others it is augmented by the luxuriant crop to the varying abundance
of thirty, sixty, or an hundred fold.” So too Theodoret (in Song of Solomon
6:8), who finds here, as ho does at John 14:2, an evidence of the “many
different degrees of the pious,” [38] So Augustine (Serm. 73: 3): “Change ye
when ye are able: turn the hard ground with the plough, cast forth the stones
from the field, and uproot from it the thorns. Refuse to have a hard heart,
whence the word of God quickly perishes. Refuse to have a thin soil, where the
root of love takes no firm hold. Refuse to choke with worldly cares and desires
the good seed which is sown in you by our labours. For it is the Lord who sows:
we are his workmen. But be ye the good soil.” Cf. Sera. 101: 3; and the author
of a sermon, Augustine, Opp. vol. 6: p. 597, Bened. ed.: “If thou feelest that
thou art a barren, a thorny, or a parched soil, betake thee to thy Creator. For
what is now to be done is that thou be renewed, that thou be fructified and
watered by Him who turneth the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground
into water-springs (Psalms 107:35-37).” [39] As our Saviour here, so the Jewish
doctors divide the hearers of the words of wisdom into four classes. The best
they liken to a sponge which, drinking in all that it receives, again expresses
it for others; the worst to a strainer which, letting all the good wine pass
through, retains only the worthless dregs; or to a sieve that, passing the fine
flour, keeps back only the bran. - Prudentius (Con. Symm. 2: 5: 1022) has put
this parable well into verse. Here are a few lines in an English dress:Christ
gave these precepts to direct our toil: When seeds ye cast in furrows shun the
soil Made hard by wasting stones; there let nought fall, For there the tender
seedling first of all In hasty bounteousness itself arrays, Then fails of sap,
and summer’s burning days Wither and waste away its thirsting life. Nor let your
seed fall where sharp briers are rife, For there, soon as your crop springs from
the ground, Harsh bonds entangle it, and all around With pointed thorns hem in
each tender stalk. Nor arrow your grain on roads where men most walk, There
birds make it their prey, and eat their fill, And carrion crows work on it their
foul will. Such care as this upon our fields outlaid With fruit an hundredfold
will be repaid.Nor would I willingly leave unquoted here some admirable words of
Godet in his Commentary on St. Luke, vol. 1: p. 465: “Jesus discerned in the
crowd four kinds of faces; some which were dull and inattentive, some
enthusiastic and full of rapture, some with a serious but preoccupied
expression, and lastly countenances serenely joyful which proclaimed a complete
surrender to the truth He was teaching .... The first class includes those who
are thoroughly insensible to religion: they have no spiritual needs, no terror
of judgment, no desire of salvation, and consequently no leaning towards the
gospel of Christ .... The second are weak-hearted but easily influenced, and
their imagination and sensibility make up for a time for the absence of moral
sense. The novelty of the Gospel and the opposition it offers to received ideas
charm them. In almost every revival such men form a considerable portion of the
new converts. The third class consists of those who are earnest but undecided;
they seek salvation and recognize the value of the Gospel; but they wish also
for worldly success and have not resolved to renounce all for truth .... The
spiritual needs of the fourth class govern their lives. Moral sense is not
dormant in them as in those of the first class; it is this consciousness, and
not imagination and feeling, which guides their will; it dominates the earthly
preoccupations which prevail with those of the third class.”


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 4: 03-PARABLE 2. THE TARES.
========================================================================

PARABLE 2. THE TARES.

Matthew 13:24-30, and Matthew 13:35-43.

"Another parable put he forth unto them,” - or better, “set he before them” [1]
- “saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in
his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed [2] tares [3] among the
wheat, and went his way.” Our Lord did not imagine here a form of malice without
example, but adduced one which may have been familiar enough to his hearers, one
so easy of execution, involving so little risk, and yet effecting so great and
lasting mischief, that it is not strange, if where cowardice and malice met,
they should have often displayed themselves in this shape. We meet traces of it
in various quarters. In Roman law the possibility of this form of injury is
contemplated; and a modern writer, illustrating Scripture from the manners and
habits of the East, with which he had become familiar through a lengthened
sojourn there, affirms the same to be now practised in India. “See,” he says,
“that lurking villain watching for the time when his neighbour shall plough his
field: he carefully marks the period when the work has been finished, and goes
in the night following, and casts in what the natives call pandinella, i.e.,
pig-paddy; this being of rapid growth, springs up before the good seed, and.
scatters itself before the other can be reaped, so that the poor owner of the
field will be for yearsbefore he can get rid of the troublesome weed. But there
is another noisome plant which these wretches cast into the ground of those they
hate, called perum-pirandi, which is more destructive to vegetation than any
other plant. Has a man purchased a field out of the hands of another, the
offended person says, “I will plant the perum-pirandi in his grounds.” [4] Of
this parable also we have an authentic interpretation from the lips which
uttered it. And this is well: for on its interpretation much has turned before
now. References or allusions to it occur at every turn of the controversy which
the Church maintained with the Donatists; and its whole exposition will need. to
be carried out with an eye to questions which may seem out of date, but which,
in one shape or another, continually reappear, and demand to receive their
solution. There can be no question who is the Sower of the good seed here. “He
that sowed the good seed is the Son of man.” This title, by which our Lord most
often designates Himself, is only in a single instance given to Him by another
(Acts 7:56), and then can hardly indicate more than that the glorified Saviour
appeared, wearing still a human shape, to the eyes of Stephen. To the Jews this
name, though drawn from the Old Testament, from the great apocalyptic vision of
Daniel (Daniel 7:18), was so strange, that when they heard it, they asked, “Who
is this Son of man?” (John 12:34); not “Son of man,” but “Son of David,” being
the popular name for the expected Messiah (Matthew 9:27; Matthew 12:23; Matthew
15:22; Matthew 20:31, &c.) He claimed by this title a true participation in our
human nature; this, and much more than this. He was “Son of man,” as alone
realizing all which in the idea of man was contained, - as the second Adam, the
head and representative of the race, - the one true and perfect flower which had
ever unfolded itself out of the root and stalk of humanity. Claiming this title
for his own, He witnessed against opposite poles of error concerning his person
- the Ebionite, to which the exclusive use of the title “Son of David” might
have led, and the Gnostic, which denied the reality of the human nature that He
bore. But if Christ is the Sower in this, exactly in the same sense as in the
preceding, parable, the seed here receives an interpretation different from that
which it there obtained. There “the seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11), or
“the word of the kingdom;” here “the good seed are the children of the kingdom.”
And yet there is no real disagreement; only a progress from that parable to
this. In that, the word of God is the instrument by which men are born anew and
become children of the kingdom (James 1:18;1 Peter 1:23); in this that word has
done its work; has been received into hearts; is incorporated with living men;
is so vitally united with them who through it have been made children of the
kingdom, that the two cannot any more be contemplated asunder (cf. Jeremiah
31:27; Hosea 2:23; Zechariah 10:9). The next words, “The field is the world,” at
once bring us into the heart of that controversy referred to already. Over these
few words, simple as they may seem, there has perhaps been more contention than
over any single phrase in the Scripture, if we except the consecrating words at
the Holy Eucharist. Apart from mere personal questions affecting the regularity
of certain ordinations, the grounds on which the Donatists of Africa justified
their separation from the Church Catholic were these: The idea of the Church,
they said, is that of a perfectly holy body; holiness is not merely one of its
essential predicates, but the essential, its exclusive note. They did not deny
that hypocrites might possibly lie concealed in its bosom; but where the
evidently ungodly are suffered to remain in communion with it, not separated off
by the exercise of godly discipline, there it forfeits the character of the true
Church, and the faithful must come out from it, if they would not, by contact
with these unholy, themselves be defiled. Such was their position, in support of
which they urged Isaiah 52:1, and all such Scriptures as spoke of the Church’s
future freedom from ail evil. These were meant, they said, to apply to it in its
present condition; and consequently, where they failed to apply, there could not
be the Church. On this, as on so many other points, the Church owes to
Augustine, not the forming of her doctrine, for that she can owe to no man, but
the bringing out into her own clear consciousness that which hitherto she had
implicitly possessed, yet had not wrought out into a perfect clearness oven for
herself. He replied, not gainsaying the truth which the Donatists proclaimed,
namely, that holiness is an essential note of the Church; but only refusing to
accept their definition of that holiness, and showing that in the Church which
they had forsaken this note was to be found, and combined with other as
essential ones - catholicity, for instance, to which they could make no claim.
The Church Catholic, he replied, despite all appearances to the contrary, is a
holy body, for they only are its members who are in true and living fellowship
with Christ, and therefore partakers of his sanctifying Spirit. All others,
however they may have the outward marks of belonging to it, are in it, but not
of it: they press upon Christ, as the thronging multitude: they do not touch
Him, as did that believing woman, on whom alone his virtue went forth (Luke
8:45). There are certain outward conditions without which one cannot belong to
his Church, but with which one does not of necessity do so. And they who are
thus in it, but not of it, whether hypocrites lying hid, or open offenders who
from their numbers may not without worse inconveniences ensuing be expelled, [5]
do not defile the true members, so long as these neither share in their spirit,
nor communicate with their evil deeds. They are like the unclean animals in the
same ark as the dean (Genesis 7:2), goats in the same pastures with the sheep
(Matthew 25:32), bad fish in the same net with the good (Matthew 13:47), chaff
on the same barn-floor as the grain (Matthew 3:12), vessels to dishonour in the
same great house with the vessels to honour (2 Timothy 2:20), or, as here, tares
growing in the same field with the wheat, endured for a while, but in the end to
be separated from it, and forever. The Donatists would have fain made the
Church, in its visible form and historic manifestation, identical and
coextensive with the true Church which the Lord knoweth and not man. Augustine
also affirmed the identity of the Church now existing with the final and
glorious Church; but denied that the two were coextensive. For now the Church is
clogged with certain accretions, which shall hereafter be shown not to belong,
and never to have belonged, to it. He did not affirm, as his opponents charged
him, two Churches, but two conditions of one Church; the present, in which evil
is endured in it; the future, in which it shall be free from all evil; - not two
bodies of Christ; but one body, wherein now are wicked men, but only as evil
humours in the natural body, which in the day of perfect health will be expelled
and rejected altogether, as never having more than accidentally belonged to it;
and he laid especial stress upon this fact, that the Lord Himself had not
contemplated his Church, in its present state, as perfectly free from evil [6]
At this point of the controversy the present parable and that of the Draw-net
came in. From these he concluded that, astares are mingled with wheat, and bad
fish with good, so the wicked shall be with the righteous, and shall remain so
mingled to the end of the present age; [7] and this not merely as an historic
fact; but that all attempts to have it otherwise are, in this parable at least,
expressly forbidden (ver. 29). The Donatists were acting as the servants would
have done, if, in face of the householder’s distinct prohibition, they had gone
and sought to root out with violence the tares.The Donatists were put to hard
shifts to escape these conclusions. They did, however, make answer thus: “By
Christ’s own showing, “the field” is not the Church, but “the world” (ver. 38);
the parable, therefore, does not bear on the dispute betwixt us and you; for
that is not whether ungodly men should be endured in the world (which we all
allow), but whether they should be suffered in the Church.” [8] It must,
however, be evident to everyone not warped by a previous dogmatic interest, [9]
that the parable is, as the Lord announces, concerning “the kingdom of heaven,”
or the Church. It required no special teaching to acquaint the disciples that in
the world there would ever be a mixture of good and bad; while they could have
so little anticipated the same in the Church, that it behoved to warn them
beforehand, both that they might not be offended, counting the promises of God
to have failed, and also that they might know how to behave themselves, when
that mystery of iniquity, now foretold, should begin manifestly to work. Nor
need the term “world” here used perplex us in the least. No narrower term would
have sufficed for Him, in whose prophetic eye the word of the Gospel was
contemplated as going forth into all lands, as seed scattered in every quarter
of the great outfield of the nations.

It was “while men slept” that the enemy sowed his tares among the wheat. Many
have found this statement significant, have understood it to suggest negligence
and lack of watchfulness on the part of the rulers in the Church, whereby
ungodly men creep into it unawares, introducing errors in doctrine and in
practice [10] (Acts 20:29-30; Jude 1:4; 2 Peter 2:1-2; 2 Peter 2:19); even as
the sleeping of the wise virgins no less than the foolish has been sometimes
urged in the same sense (Matthew 25:5). There is, alas! always more or less of
this negligence; yet I cannot think that it was meant to be noted here; and as
little there. If any should have watched, it is “the servants;”but they first
appear in a later period in the story; nor is any want of due vigilance laid to
their charge. The men therefore who slept are not, as I take it, those who
should or could have done otherwise, but the phrase is equivalent to “at night,”
and must not be further urged (Job 33:15; Mark 4:27). This enemy seized his
opportunity, when all eyes were closed in sleep, and wrought the secret mischief
upon which he was intent, and having wrought it undetected, withdrew.” The enemy
that sowed them is the devil.” [11] We behold Satan here, not as he works beyond
the limits of the Church, deceiving the world, but in his far deeper malignity,
as he at once mimics and counterworks the work of Christ: in the words of
Chrysostom, “after the prophets, the false prophets; after the Apostles, the
false apostles; after Christ, Antichrist.” [12] Most worthy of notice is the
plainness with which the doctrine concerning Satan and his agency, his active
hostility to the blessedness of man, of which there is so little in the Old
Testament, comes out in the New; as in the parable of the Sower, and again in
this. As the lights become brighter, the shadows become deeper. Not till the
mightier power of good had been revealed, were men suffered to know how mighty
was the power of evil; and even now it isonly to the ironer-most circle of
disciples that the explanation concerning Satan is given. [13] Nor is it less
observable that Satan is spoken of as his enemy, the enemy of the Son of man;
for here, as so often, the general conflict is set forth as rather between Satan
and the Son of man, than between Satan and God. It was essential to the scheme
of redemption, that the victory over evil should be a moral triumph, not one
obtained by a mere putting forth of superior strength, [14] For this end it was
most important flint man, who lost the battle, should also win it (1 Corinthians
15:21); and therefore as by and through man the kingdom of darkness was to be
overthrown, so the enmity of the Serpent was specially directed against the seed
of the woman, the Son of man. In the title “the wicked one,” which he bears, the
article is emphatic, and points him out as the absolutely evil, the very ground
of whose being is evil. For as God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all (1
John 1:5; James 1:17), so Satan is darkness, and in him is no light at all;
“there is no truth in him” (John 8:44). Man is in a middle position; he detains
the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18); light and darkness in him are
struggling; but, whichever may predominate, the other is there, kept down
indeed, but still with the possibility of manifesting itself. And thus a
redemption is possible for man, for his will is only perverted; but Satan’s is
inverted. He has said what no man could ever fully say, or, at least, act on to
the full: “Evil, be thou my good;” and therefore, so far as we can see, a
redemption and restoration are impossible for him. The mischief done, the enemy
“went his way; “and thus the work did not evidently and at once appear to be
his. How often, in the Church, the beginnings of evil have been scarcely
discernible; and that which bore the worst fruit in the end, will have shown at
first like a higher form of good. St. Paul, indeed, could detect a mystery of
iniquity as yet in its obscure beginnings, could detect the punctum saliens out
of which it would infield itself; but to many, evil would not appear as evil
till it had grown to more ungodliness. “But when the blade was sprung up, and
brought forth, fruit, then appeared the tares also;” appeared, that is, for what
they were, showed themselves in their true nature. Many have noted the
remarkable similarity which exists between the wheat and this lolium or tare, as
long as they are yet in the blade. [15] Being only distinguishable when the ear
is formed, they fulfil literally the Lord’s words, “by their fruits ye shall
know them.” Augustine, upon this that only when the blade began to ripen and
bring forth fruit, the tares showed themselves as such indeed, most truly
remarks, that it is the opposition of good which first makes evil to appear;
“None appear evil in the Church, except to him who is good;” and again, “When
any shall have begun to be a spiritual man, judging all things, then errors
begin to appear to him;” [16] and elsewhere, drawing from the depths of his
Christian experience: “It is a great labour of the good, to bear the contrary
manners of the wicked; by which he who is not offended has profited little: for
the righteous, in proportion as he recedes from his own wickedness, is grieved
at that of others.” [17] As there must be light with which to contrast the
darkness, height wherewith to measure depth, so there must be holiness to be
grieved at unholiness; only the new man in us is grieved at the old either in
themselves or in others.”So the servants of the householder came and said unto
him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it
tares?” These servants are not, as Theophylact suggests, the angels (they are
“the reapers;”ver. 30, 41); but rathermen, zealous for the Lord’s honour, but
not knowing what spirit they are of, any more than James and John, who Would
fain have called fire from heaven on the inhospitable Samaritan village (Luke
9:54). The question which they ask, “Didst not thou sow good seed in thy field?”
expresses well the perplexity, the surprise, the inward questionings which must
often be foR, which in the first ages, before long custom had too much
reconciled to the mournful fact, must have been felt very strongly by all who
were zealous for God, at the woeful and unlooked-for spectacle which the visible
Church presented. Where was the “glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or
any such thing?” Well, indeed, might the faithful have questioned their own
spirits, have poured out their hearts in prayer, of which the burden should have
been exactly this, “Didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then
hath it tares? - didst not Thou constitute thy Church to be a pure and holy
communion? - is not the doctrine such as should only produce fruits of
righteousness? - whence then is it that even within the holy precincts
themselves there should be so many who themselves openly sin and cause others to
sin?” [18] In the householder’s reply, “An enemy hath done this,” the mischief
is traced up to its source; and that not the imperfection, ignorance, weakness,
which cling to everything human, and which would prevent even a Divine idea from
being more than very imperfectly realized by men; but the distinct
counterworking of the great spiritual enemy; “the tares are the children of the
wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil.” In the question which
follows, “Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?” the temptation to use
violent means for the suppression of error, a temptation which the Church itself
has sometimes failed to resist, finds its voice and utterance. [19] But they who
thus speak are unfit to be trusted in this matter. They have often no better
than a Jehu’s “zeal for the Lord” (2 Kings 10:16); it is but an Elias-zeal at
the best (Luke 9:54). And therefore “he said, Nay.” By this prohibition are
forbidden all such measures for the excision of heretics, as shall leave them no
room for after repentance or amendment; indeed the prohibition is so clear, so
express, that whenever we meet in Church history with aught which looks like a
carrying out of this proposal, we may be tolerably sure that it is not wheat
making war on tares, but tares seeking to root out wheat. The reason of the
prohibition is given: “Lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root also the wheat
with them.” This might be, either by rooting up what were now tares, but
hereafter should become wheat - ”children of the wicked one,” who, by faith and
repentance, should become “children of the kingdom;” [20] or through the
servants’ error, who, with the best intentions, should fail to distinguish
between these and those, and involve good and bad in a common doom; or who
perhaps, leaving tares, might pluck up wheat. It is only the Lord Himself, the
Searcher of hearts, who with absolute certainty “knoweth them that are his.” The
later Roman Catholic expositors, and as many as in the middle ages wrote in the
interests of Rome, in these words, “lest ye root up also the wheat with them,”
find a loophole whereby they may escape the prohibition itself. Thus Aquinas
will have it to be only then binding, when this danger exists of plucking up the
wheat together with the tares. [21] To which Maldonatus adds, that in each
particular case the householder is to judge whether there be such danger or not;
and the Pope being now the representative of the householder, to him the
question should be put, “Wilt thou that we go and gather up the tares?” and he
concludes his exposition with an exhortation to all Catholic princes, that they
imitate the zeal of these servants, and rather, like them, need to have their
eagerness restrained, than require, as did so many, to be stimulated to the task
of rooting out heresies and heretics. At the same time this “Nay” does not imply
that the tares shall never be plucked up, hut only that this is not the time,
and they not the doers; [22] for the householder adds, “Let both grow together
until the harvest.” Pregnant words, which tell us that evil is not, as so many
dream, gradually to wane and disappear before good, the world to fred itself in
the Church, but each to unfold itself more fully, out of its own root, after its
own kind: till at last they stand Isle to face, each in its highest
manifestation, in the persons of Christ and of Antichrist; on the one hand, an
incarnate God, on the other the man in whom the fulness of all Satanic power
will dwell bodily. Both must grow “until the harvest,” frill they are ripe, one
for destruction, and the other for full salvation. And they are to grow
“together;” the visible Church is to have its intermixture of good and bad until
the end of time; and, by consequence, the fact of bad being found mingled with
good will in nowise justify a separation from it, or an attempt to set up a
little Church of our own. [23] Where men will attempt this, besides the guilt of
transgressing a plain command, it is not difficult to see what darkness it must
bring upon them, into what a snare of pride it must cast them. For while, even
in the best of men, there is the same intermixture of good and evil as in the
visible Church, such a course will inevitably lead a man to a wilful shutting of
his eyes alike to the evil in himself, and in that little schismatical body
which he will then call the Church, since only so the attempt will even seem to
be attended with success. Thus Augustine often appeals to the fact that the
Donatists had not succeeded - they would not themselves dare to assert that they
had succeeded - in forming what should even externally appear a pure communion:
and since by their own acknowledgment there might be, and probably were,
hypocrites and undetected ungodly livers among them, this of itself rendered all
such passages as Isaiah 52:1, as inapplicable to them as to the Catholic Church
in its present condition: while yet, on the strength of this freedom from evil
gratuitously assumed by them, they displayed a spirit of intolerable pride and
pre. sumptuous uncharitableness towards the Church from which they had
separated. And the same sins cleave more or less to all schismatical bodies,
which, under plea of a purer communion, have divided from the Church Catholic:
[24] the smallest of these, from its very smallness persuading itself that it is
the most select and purest, being generally the guiltiest here. None will deny
that the temptation to this lies very close to us all. Every young Christian, in
the time of his first zeal, is tempted to be somewhat of a Donatist in spirit.
It would argue little love or holy earnestness in him, if he had not this
longing to see the Church of his Saviour a glorious Church without spot or
wrinkle. But he must learn that the desire, righteous and holy as in itself it
is, yet is not to find its fulfilment in this present evil time; that, on the
contrary, the suffering from false brethren is one of the pressures upon him,
which shall wring out from him a more earnest prayer that the Kingdom of God may
appear. [25] He must learn that all self-willed and impatient attempts, such as
hare been repeated again and again, to anticipate that perfect communion of
saints, are works of the flesh; that, however fairly they may promise, no
blessing will rest upon them, nor will they for long even appear to be crowned
with success. [26]

Some in modern times, fearing lest arguments should be drawn from this parable
to the prejudice of attempts to revive stricter discipline in the Church, have
sought to escape the dangers which they feared, [27] by urging that in our
Lord’s explanation no notice is taken of the proposal made by the servants (ver.
28), nor yet of the householder’s reply to that proposal (ver. 29). They
conclude from this that the parable is not to teach us what the conduct of the
servants of a heavenly Lord ought to be, but merely prophetic of what generally
it will be, - that this proposal of the servants is merely brought in to afford
an opportunity for the master’s reply, and that of this reply the latter is the
only significant portion. But, assuredly, when Christ asserts that it is his
watchfulness and patience of his servants; fifthly, because thereby He will
bestow many favours on the wicked, to clear his justice and render them the more
inexcusable; lastly, because the mixture of the wicked grieving the godly will
make them the more heartily pray for the day of judgment.”purpose to make a
complete and solemn separation at the end, He implicitly forbids, - not the
exercise in the meantime of a godly discipline, not, where that has become
necessary, absolute exclusion from Church fellowship - but any attempts to
anticipate the final irrevocable separation, of which He has reserved the
execution to himself. [28] “In the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,
Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but
gather the wheat into my barn.” Not now, but “in the time of harvest,” [29]
shall this separation find place; and even then, not they, but the reapers shall
carry it through, [30] This “time of harvest,” as the Lord presently explains,
is “the end of the world,” [31] and “the reapers are the angels;” who are here,
as everywhere else, set forth as accompanying their Lord and ours at his coming
again to judgment (Matthew 16:27; Matthew 24:31; Matthew 2 These. 1: 7;
Revelation 19:14), and fulfilling his will both in respect of those who have
served (Matthew 24:31) and those who have served Him not (Matthew 13:49; Matthew
22:18)”As therefore the tares are gathered [32] and burned in the fire; so shall
it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and
they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, [33] and them which
do iniquity;” in the words of Zephaniah, the stumbling-blocks with the wicked”
(i. 3). The setting forth of the terrible doom of ungodly men under the image of
the burning with fire of thorns, briers, weeds, offal, chaff, barren branches,
dead trees, is frequent in Scripture; thus see 2 Samuel 23:6-7; Matthew 3:10;
Matthew 3:12; Matthew 7:19; John 15:6; Hebrews 6:8; Hebrews 10:26-27; Isaiah
5:24; Isaiah 9:18-19; Isaiah 10:16-17; Isaiah 33:11-12; Isaiah 66:24; 2Es
16:77-78. But dare we speak of it as an image merely? the fire reappears in the
interpretation of the parable; the angels “shall cast them,” those, namely,
“which do iniquity,” “into a furnace of fire.”Fearful words indeed! and the
image, if it be an image, at all events borrowed from the most dreadful and
painful form of death in use among men. Something we read of in Scripture. Judah
would have fain made his daughter-in-law (Genesis 38:24), and David, alas! did
make the children of Ammon (2 Samuel 12:31), taste the dreadfulness of it. [34]
It was in use among the Chaldeans (Jeremiah 29:22; Daniel 3:6); and in the
Jewish tradition, which is probably of great antiquity, Nimrod cast Abraham into
a furnace of fire for refusing to worship his false gods. [35] It was one of the
forms of cruel death with which Antiochus Epiphanes sought to overcome the
heroic constancy of the Jewish confessors in the time of the Maccabees (2
Maccabees 7); Daniel 11:38; 1 Corinthians 13:8); while the “tunica molests” with
which Nero clothed the early Christian martyrs, when he desired to turn from
himself upon them the odium of the burning of Rome, is well known. [36] In
modern times, Chardin makes mention of penal furnaces in Persia; [37] while the
fires of the Inquisition cast their baleful light over whole centuries of the
Church’s history. Whatever the “furnace of fire” may mean here, or “the lake of
fire” (Revelation 19:20; Revelation 21:10), “the fire that is not quenched”
(Mark 9:44), the “everlasting fire” (Matthew 25:41; cf. Luke 16:24; Malachi
4:1), elsewhere, this at all events is certain; that they point to some doom so
intolerable that the Son of God came down from heaven and tasted all the
bitterness of death, that He might deliver us from ever knowing the secrets of
anguish, which, unless God be mocking men with empty threats, are shut up in
these terrible words: “There shall be wailing (cf. Jdt 16:17) and gnashing of
teeth” (cf. Matthew 22:13; Luke 13:28). All which has just gone before makes
very unlikely their explanation of the “gnashing of teeth,” who take it as a
chattering from excessive cold; [38] who, in fact, imagine here a kind of
Dantean Hell, with alternations of heat and cold, alike unendurable. We take
these rather as the utterances generally of rage and impatience (Acts 7:54; Job
16:9; Lamentations 2:16; Psalms 35:16; Psalms 37:12), under the sense of
intolerable pain and unutterable loss. [39] ”Then,” after it has been thus done
with the wicked, “shall the righteous shine forth [40] as the sun in the kingdom
of their Father.” As fire was the element of the dark and cruel kingdom of hell,
so is light of the pure heavenly kingdom. [41] “Then when the dark hindering
element has been removed, shall this element of light, which was before
struggling with and obstructed by it, come forth in its full brightness (see
Colossians 3:4; Romans 8:18; Proverbs 4:18; Proverbs 25:4-5). A glory shall be
revealed in the saints; not merely brought to them, and added from without; but
rather a glory which they before had, but which did not before evidently appear,
shah burst forth and show itself openly, as once in the days of his flesh, at
the moment of his Transfiguration, did the hidden glory of their Lord (Matthew
17:2). That shall be the day of “the manifestation of the sons of God;” they
“shall shine forth as the sun” when the clouds are rolled away (Daniel 12:8);
they shall evidently appear, and be acknowledged by all, as “the children of
light,” of that God who is “the Father of Lights” [42] (James 1:17); who is
Light, and in whom is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). And then, but not till
then, shall be accomplished those glorious prophecies so often repeated in the
Old Testament; “Henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised
and the unclean” (Isaiah 52:1); “In that day there shall be no more the
Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 14:21); “Thy people also
shall be all righteous” (Isaiah 60:21; cf. Isaiah 35:8; Joel 3:17; Ezekiel
37:21-27; Zephaniah 3:13)

FOOTNOTES

[1] “put he forth unto them”. Some expositors have found more in these words
than the Evangelist probably intended; thus Jerome, who explains them thus:
“Like a rich master of a household refreshing his guests with different kinds of
food.” But see Exodus 19:7 (LXX).

[2] In the “Vulgate superseminavit as in the Rhemish “over sowed,” according to
the reading, epispeiren, which Lachmann retains; but which has hardly sufficient
authority to warrant a finding of room for it in the text.

[3] “tares” nowhere occurs but here, and in the Greek and Latin fathers who have
drawn it from hence. The Greek derivation, - ”that which grows side by side with
the wheat,” - is absurd; the word is no doubt oriental, Persian (see Pott, Etym.
Forschungen, vol. 2: pt. 1, p. 810) or Arabic. The plant itself is identical, as
there can be little doubt, with our own bearded darnel, the aira or lolium
temulentura (in German tollkorn, in French ivroie), so named to distinguish it
from the lolium proper, and to indicate the vertigo which it causes, when
mingled with and eaten in bread; as in the East will sometimes happen. See the
Dictionary of the Bible, s. 5: Tares, and Tristram, Natural History of the
Bible, p. 486.

[4] Roberts, Oriental Illustrations, p. 541. A friend, who has occupied a
judicial station in India, confirms this account. Neither are we without this
form of malice nearer home. Thus in Ireland I have known an outgoing tenant, in
spite, at his eviction, to sow wild oats in the fields which he was leaving.
These, like the tares of the parable, ripening and seeding before the crops in
which they were mingled, it became next to impossible to extirpate them
(inexpugnabile gramen, Ovid).

[5] On the extent to which discipline should be enforced, and the questions of
prudence which should determine its enforcing, Augustine has the following
remarks. Having referred to these parables, and to the separation of the sheep
and goats (Matthew 25:31-46), he proceeds (Ad Don. Post Coll. 5): “By which
parables and figures the Church is fore-announced as destined, even unto the end
of the world, to contain both good and. bad, but in such a manner that the bad
cannot injure the good, since they are either unknown, or, for the sake of the
peace and the tranquillity of the Church, are tolerated, it it be inexpedient
for them lo be publicly accused, or if they cannot be pointed out to the good
among whom they live. Yet, for all this, the zeal for amendment is not to sleep,
but must use reproof, degradation, excommunication, and all other lawful and
allowed means of coercion, which are daily practised without disturbance to the
peace of unity in the Church, and with undiminished love, . . . lest haply
tolerance without discipline shall foster iniquity, or discipline without
tolerance dissolve unity.” On all this matter see the admirable discussion by
Field, Of the Church, 1: 7-18.

[6] Augustine (Sera. cccli 4): “Many, like Peter, are corrected; many, like
Judas, are tolerated; many are unknown until the Lord shall come to light up the
secrets of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of hearts.” Again: “I am a
man and live among men, nor do I dare to claim for myself a better
dwelling-place than was the ark of Noah.” He often rebukes the Donatists for
their low Pharisaical views concerning what the separation from sinners meant.
Thus (Serm. 88: 20): “If it displeased thee that a man sinned, thou didst not
touch the unclean. If thou didst confute, reprove and admonish him, and, if need
was, didst administer to him such fitting discipline as does not violate unity,
thou didst, indeed, come out from him.” Elsewhere ho asks, Did the prophet of
old, who said, “Go ye out of the midst of her” (Isaiah 52:11) himself separate
from the Jewish church? - ” By withholding from consent he touched not the
unclean: by his reproofs he went forth free in the sight of God: nor unto him
does God impute these sins, neither as his own, for he did. not de them, neither
as of others, for he did not approve them, nor yet as negligence, for he kept
not silence, nor yet as pride, for he abode in unity.” See also Ad .Don. post
Coll. 20. Once more: “An angel fell; did he pollute heaven? Adam fell; did he
pollute Paradise? One of the sons of Noah fell; did he pollute the house of the
just? Judas fell; did he pollute the choirs of the Apostles?”

[7] Augustine: “The condition of a field is one thing, the quiet of a barn
another.”

[8] See how Augustine answers this argument, Ad Don. post Coll. 8. As the
Donatists professed to make much of Cyprian’s authority,Augustine quotes often
from him (as Con. Gaudent. 2: 4), words which show that he understood the
parable as one relating to the Church: “For although there seem to be tares in
the Church, yet this must not so hamper either our faith or our love as to make
our perception that there are tares in the Church a reason for falling away from
the Church. It is our part only tolabour that we may be corn, so that when the
corn shall begin to be garnered in the barns of the Lord, we may receive fruit
for our work and for our labour.”

[9] Commentators who have interpreted the parable, irrespectively of that
controversy one way or the other, acknowledge this. Thus Calvin: “Although
Christ afterwards adds that the field is the world, it yet cannot be doubted
that He intended a special reference to the Church, the original subject of His
discourse. Inasmuch, however, as He was about to guide his plough in all
directions through all quarters of the world, so that He might till fields for
himself in all the world, and scatter the seed of life, by a synecdoche He
transferred to the world that which accorded better with only a part.”

[10] So Augustine (Quæst. ex Matt. qu. 9): “When the overseers of the Church
were somewhat negligent; “and Chrysostom. H. de Sto. Victore (Annott. in Matt.):
“He points to the death of the Apostles, or the sloth of prelates.” But Grotius
more rightly: “The word men is here used indefinitely, not of a class: as were
you to say, in the time of sleep: and thus we have nothing more than a
description of the occasion; “and Cajetan’s remark has value: “When men slept:
He does not say when the watchers slept. If He had said watchers, we should
understand that the carelessness of the watchers was to blame. But He says men,
that we may understand blameless persons, taking their natural rest.” Jerome’s
“while the master of the house slept” (Adv. Lucif.) can only be explained on
this view.[11] Zizaniator, as there he has been called; see Du Cange, s. 5:
zizanium: and by Tertullian (De Anima, 16), “He that cometh after and soweth
weeds, the midnight spoiler of the corn.” When Ignatius exhorts the Ephesians
(c. 10) that no one be found among them, “the devil’s fodder,” there is probably
an allusion to this parable.[12] Cf. Tertullian, De Praeser. Haert. 31. [13]
Bengel (on Ephesians 6:12) has observed this: “The more openly a book of
Scripture deals with the economy and glory of Christ, the more openly it treats
of the opposite kingdom of darkness.” [14] In Augustine’s memorable words: “The
devil was to be conquered not by the power of God, but by justice.” [15] The
testimony of Jerome, himself resident in Palestine, may here be adduced:
“Between wheat and the weeds which we call tares, so long as they are green, and
the blade has not yet come to an ear, the resemblance is great, and the
difference to the eye either nothing at all or very difficult to make out.” See
also Thomson (The Land and the Book, p. 420): “The grain is just in the proper
stage to illustrate the parable. In those parts where the grain has headed out,
the tares have done the same, and then a child cannot mistake them for wheat or
barley; but where both are less developed, the closest scrutiny will often fail
to detect them. Even the farmers, who in this country generally weed their
fields, do not attempt to separate the one from the other.[16] Quaest. ex Matt.
qu. 13: an admirable exposition of the whole parable.[17] The just man is
tormented by the wickedness of another in proportion as he departs from his
own.” Cf. Enarr. in Psalms 119:4, and in Psalms 140 :: “I am not yet wholly
restored to the image of my Maker; I have begun to be shaped anew, and on that
side on which I am reformed, am grieved by that which is unlovely.” [18] Menken:
“This question,” Whence then hath it tares?” is the result of our first study of
Church history, and remains afterwards the motto of Church history, and the
riddle which should be solved by help of a faithful history; instead of which,
many so-called Church historians, ignorant of the purpose and of the hidden
glory of the Church, have their pleasure in the tares, and imagine themselves
wonderfully wise and useful, when out of Church history, which ought to be the
history of the Light and the Truth, they have made a shameful history of error
and wickedness. They have no desire toedify, to further holiness or the
knowledge of the truth; but at the expense of the Church would gratify a proud
and ignorant world.” [19] Augustine (Quaest. ex Matt. qu. 12): “She may feel the
wish arise to remove such men from human dealings, if occasion will allow; but,
as to whether she ought to do this, she consults the justice of God, to know if
He gives her this commandment or permission, and whether He wishes this to be
the work of men.” [20] Jerome: “We are warned not hastily to cut off our brother
from us, since it may be that he who is today corrupted by hurtful doctrine,
tomorrow may return to wisdom and begin to defend the truth.” [21] Summa Theol.
2a 2x, qu. 10: “Where there is no such danger ... let not the severity of
discipline slumber”.” [22] Bengel: “The zeal which the righteous have against
the tares is not blamed, but only reduced to rule.” [23] Calvin’s words are
excellent: “There is this dangerous temptation, that we should think that there
is no Church wherever perfect purity is not apparent. When a man is a prey to
this temptation, it must needs come to this: that either he will secede from
every one else, and think himself the only holy person in the world, or he will
join with a few hypocrites in setting up a peculiar Church. What reason, then,
had Paul for acknowledging a Church of God at Corinth? Plainly because he
recognized among them Gospel teaching, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, and these
are the signs by which a Church ought to be recognised.” [24] See Augustine
(Coll. Carth. 3: 9) for an extraordinary instance of this pride on the part of
the Donatist adversaries of the Church.[25] Fuller (Holy State, 5: 2) enumerates
six reasons why in the kingdom of grace wicked men should be inseparably mingled
with godly: “First, because hypocrites can never be severed but by Him that can
search the heart; secondly, because if men should make the separation, weak
Christians would be counted no Christians, and those who have a grain of grace
under a load of imperfections would be counted reprobates; thirdly, because
God’s vessels of honour for all eternity, not as yet appearing, but wallowing in
sin, would be made castaways; fourthly, because God by the mixture of the wicked
with the godly will try the watchfulness and patience of his servants; fifthly,
because thereby He will bestow many favours on the wicked, to clear His justice
and render them the more inexcusable; lastly, because the mixture of the wicked
grieving the godly will make them the more heartily pray for the day of
judgment.” [26] Augustine (Enarr. in Psalms 99:1): “Whither is the Christian to
separate himself that he may not groan amid false brothers? Should ho seek the
wilderness, scandals follow him. Is he who has made good progress to separate
himself, so that he may have no man to tolerate? But what if, before he make
progress, he himself find tolerance from none? If, therefore, because he
progresses he is willing to tolerate no man, by this very intolerance he is
convicted of not having progressed. Because thou seemest to thyself to have had
swift feet for the passage, art thou therefore to cut off the bridge? “ - The
whole passage excellently sets forth the vanity of the attempt to found a Church
on a subjective instead of an objective basis, on the personal holiness of the
members, instead of recognizing one there to be founded for us, where the pure
Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments administered, by those duly
commissioned thereto. How admirable are his words elsewhere (Con. Cresc. 3: 35):
“I shun the chaff, lest I become chaff; I shun not the threshing-floor, lest I
become nothing”: cf. Serm. clxiv. 7, 8.[27] Steiger, in the Evang. Kirch. Zeit.
1833, and an able writer in the British Critic, No. 52: p. 385.[28] Tertullian
(Apol. 41): “He who has once appointed an eternal judgment after the end of the
world, does not hasten that separation which is the condition of judgment,
before the end of the world.” [29] Bishop Horseley (Bible Crit. vol. 3: p. 344)
distinguishes between the vintage and the harvest, the two images under which
the consummation of the present age is commonly represented. “The vintage is
always an image of the season of judgment, but the harvest of the ingathering of
the objects of God’s final mercy. I am not aware that a single unexceptionable
instance is to be found, in which the harvest is a type of judgment. In
Revelation 14:15-16, the sickle is thrust into the ripe harvest, and the earth
is reaped, i.e., the elect are gathered from the four winds of heaven. The wheat
of God is gathered into his barn (Matthew 13:30). After this reaping of the
earth the sickle is applied to the clusters of the vine, and they are cast into
the great winepress of the wrath of God (Revelation 14:18-20). This is judgment.
In Joel 3:13 the ripe harvest is the harvest of the vine, i.e., the grapes fit
for gathering, as appears by the context. In Jer. 11:33 the act of threshing the
corn upon the floor, not the harvest, is the image of judgment. It is true the
burning of the tares in our Saviour’s parable (Matthew 13 :) is a work of
judgment, and of the time of harvest, previous to the binding of the sheaves;
but it is an accidental adjunct of the business, not the harvest itself.” [30]
Augustine: “Dost thou dare to usurp the office of another which even in the
harvest shall not be thine? “And Cyprian (see 2 Timothy 2:20-21): ’ Let us take
pains and, as far as we may, let us labour that we may be the vessel of gold and
silver. But to break the vessels of clay is permitted to the Lord alone, to whom
also the rod of iron has been given.” Jerome (Adv. Lucif.): “No one can take to
himself the ensign of Christ, or can judge of men before the day of judgment. If
the Church has been already purified, what do we reserve for the Lord.” [31] The
juncture of the two eras (Hebrews 9:26), see Job (Job 24:20,) the present called
“age”(Galatians 1:4), “this world” (Luke 20:34), or “the present age” (Titus
2:12), see also (Mark 10:30), (Ephesians 2:7), (Hebrews 6:5), (Hebrews 2:5). The
phrase is equivalent to “the ends of the ages” (1 Corinthians 10:11), the
extremities of the two eras, the end of the one and the beginning of the
other.[32] Augustine: “That is to say, the rapacious with the rapacious,
adulterers with adulterers, homicides with homicides, thieves with thieves,
scoffers with scoffers, like with like.”It is exactly so in the inferno of
Dante.[33] “that offend” is that part of a trap or snare on which the bait is
placed, and which, being touched, gives way, and causes the noose to draw
suddenly tight; then generally a snare. In the New Testament it is transferred
to spiritual things, and includes whatever, entangling as it were men’s feet,
might cause them to fall, it is therefore = proskomma, and allied closely in
meaning to pagis and thera, with which we find it joined, Romans 11:9. [34] For
the use of this punishment by Herod the Great, see Josephus, B. J. 1: 33. 4.
[35] Eisenmenger, Entdeckt. Judenth. vol. 2: p. 378. [36] Juvenal, 8: 235; cf.
1: 155; Tacitus, Annal. 15: 44.; Seneca, Ep,xiv. 4; Josephus, B. J. 1: 33. 4.
[37] Voy. en Perse, ed. Langlès, vol. 6: p. 118.[38] See Suicer, brugmos, which
some make trismos odonton, it is simpler to say with Bernard: “Weeping from
grief, gnashing of teeth from rage;” for in Cyprian’s words (Ad. Demet.): “The
grief of repentance shall then be without fruit, au empty wailing over
punishment, and a vain cry for relief” See Ambrose, Exp. in Luc. 7: 205, 206;
and Gerhard, Loc. Theoll. 31: 6, 46.[39] The Revised Version, which renders
these words “There shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth,” that by
comparison with which all other shall be slightly accounted of, has not missed
the force of the article, which the Authorized has done.[40] Eklampsousin, not
as in the Vulgate, fulgebunt. Schleusner indeed: “It differs little from the
simple lampo,” - but Passow: “To shine forth, to be manifested suddenly in
perfect glory: “there is used the same word to express the same thing, Daniel
12:3, LXX; cf. Wisd. of Solomon, 3: 7, analampsousin. Two beautiful similitudes
in the Shepherd of Hermas (iii. sim. 3 and 4) set forth the same truth under a
different image. The Seer is shown in the first a number of trees in the
winter-time; all leafless alike; all seeming alike dead; and he is told that as
the dry and the green trees are not distinguishable in the winter, all being
bare alike, so neither in the present age are the just from sinners. In the
second, he is again shown the trees, but now some are putting forth leaves,
while others still remain bare. Thus shall it be in the future age, which for
the just shall be a summer, their life, which was hidden for a while,
manifesting itself openly, but for sinners it shall still be winter, and they,
remaining without leaf or fruit, shall as dry wood be cut down for burning. In
some beautiful passages of Augustine (Enarr. in Psalms 36:2; in Psalms 148:13)
the same image occurs. Of the Christian as he is now, he says (In 1 Ep.. Joh.
Tract. 5): “His glory is hidden; when the Lord cometh, then shall his glory
appear. For it thrives, but as yet as in winter; the root thrives, but the
branches are as if withered. Within is the sap which thrives, within are the
leaves of trees, within is the fruit: but they await the summer.” Cf. Minucius
Felix (p. 329, ed. Ouzel.): “The body is in the world like trees which in time
of winter hide their verdure with a cloak of aridity. Why art thou in haste
that, while winter is yet raw, it should blossom forth and revive 7 Of the body
also we must await the spring.” [41] It is exactly thus that in the Mohammedan
theology the good angels are compact of light, and the evil ones of fire.[42]
Calvin: “It is a notable consolation that the sons of God who now either lie
covered with squalor, or are unnoticed and in small esteem, or even are
overwhelmed with insults, shall then, as if in a clear sky from which all clouds
have been chased away, once for all shine forth in true and conspicuous
splendour. The Son of God shall raise his own aloft, and shall wipe from them
every defilement by which now their brightness is concealed.” - It is the saying
of a Jewish expositor of Psalms 72 :: “As the sun and moon are the lights of
this world, even so shall it come to pass that the just shall be the lights of
the world to come.”


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 5: 04-PARABLE 3. THE MUSTARD-SEED.
========================================================================

PARABLE 3. THE MUSTARD-SEED.

Matthew 13:31-32; Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:8; Luke 13:19. THE four parables which
follow group themselves into two pairs. Those of the Mustard-seed and the Leaven
constitute the first pair, and might seem, at first sight, merely repetitions of
the same truth; but in this, as in every other case, upon nearer inspection
essential differences reveal themselves. They have indeed this much in common,
that they both describe the small and slight beginnings, the gradual progress,
and the final marvellous increase of the Church - or how, to use another image,
the stone cut out without hands should become a great mountain, and fill the
whole earth (Daniel 2:34-35; cf. Ezekiel 47:1-5). But each also has much which
is its own. That other has to do with the kingdom of God which ’cometh not with
observation;’ this with that same kingdom as it displays itself openly, and
cannot be hid. That declares the intensive, this the extensive, development of
the Gospel. That sets forth the power and action of the truth on the world
brought in contact with it; this the power of the truth to develop itself from
within; as the tree which, shut up within the seed, will unfold itself according
to the law of its own being.

Chrysostom[1] traces finely the connexion between this parable and those which
have just gone before. From that of the Sower the disciples may have gathered
that of the seed which they should sow three parts would perish, and only a
fourth part prosper; while that of the Tares had opened to them the prospect of
further hindrances which would beset even that portion which had taken root
downward, and sprung upward; now then, lest they should be tempted quite to lose
heart and to despair, these two parables are spoken for their encouragement. ’My
kingdom,’ the Lord would say, ’shall survive these losses, and surmount these
hindrances, until, small as its first beginnings may appear, it shall, like a
mighty tree, fill the earth with its branches, - like potent leaven, diffuse its
influence through all the world.’ The growth of a mighty kingdom is not here for
the first time likened to that of a tree. Many of our Lord’s hearers must have
been familiar with such a comparison from the Scriptures of the Old Testament.
The upcoming of a worldly kingdom had been set forth under this image (Daniel
4:10; Daniel 4:12; Ezekiel 31:8-9 [2] ), that also of the kingdom of God
(Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalms 80:8 [3] But why, it may be asked, among all trees is
a mustard-tree [4] chosen here? Many nobler plants, as the vine, or taller
trees, as the cedar (1 Kings 4:33; Ezekiel 17:3), might have been named.
Doubtless this is chosen, not with reference to greatness which it obtains in
the end, for in this many surpass it, but to the proportion between the
smallness of the seed and the greatness of the tree which unfolds itself there
from. For this is the point to which the Lord calls especial attention, - not
the greatness of the mustard-tree in itself, but its greatness as compared with
the seed from whence it springs; for what He would fain teach his disciples was
not that his kingdom should be glorious, but that it should be glorious despite
its weak and slight and despised beginnings. And the comparison had in other
ways its fitness too. The mustard-seed, minute and trivial as it might seem, was
not without its significance and acknowledged worth in antiquity. It ranked
among the nobler Pythagorean symbols; was esteemed to possess medicinal virtues
against the bites of venomous creatures and against poisons, and used as a
remedy in many diseases.[5] Nor can I, with a modern interpreter, account very
ridiculous the suggestion that the Saviour chose this seed on account of further
qualities possessed by it, which gave it a peculiar aptness to illustrate the
truth which He had in hand. Its heat, its fiery vigour, the fact that only
through being bruised it gives out its best virtues, and all this under so
insignificant an appearance and in so small a com pass, may well have moved Him
to select this seed by which to set forth the destinies of that word of the
kingdom, that doctrine of a crucified Redeemer, which, to the Greeks foolish
ness, and to the Jews a stumbling-block, should prove to them that believed ’the
power of God unto salvation.’ [6] But not Christ’s doctrine merely, nor yet even
the Church which He planted upon earth, is this grain of mustard-seed in its
central meaning. He is Himself at once the mustard-seed [7] and the Man that
sowed it. He is the mustard-seed, for the Church was originally enclosed in Him,
and unfolded itself from Him, having as much oneness of life with Him as the
tree with the seed in which its rudiments were all enclosed, and out of which it
grew; and the Sower, in that by a free act of his own, He gave Himself to that
death whereby He became the Author of life unto many; [8] as Himself has said,
’Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if
it die, it bringeth forth much fruit’ (John 12:24). And the field in which He
sowed this seed was the world; - ’ his field,’ or as St. Luke expresses it
(xiii. 19), ’his garden;’ for the world was made by Him, and coming to it, ’He
came unto his own.’ This seed, when cast into the ground, is ’the least of all
seeds,’ - words which have often perplexed interpreters, many seeds, as of poppy
or rue, being smaller. Yet difficulties of this kind are not worth making; it is
sufficient to know that ’small as a grain of mustard-seed ’was a proverbial
expression among the Jews [9] for something exceedingly minute (see Luke 17:6).
The Lord, in his popular teaching, adhered to the popular language. And as the
mustard-seed, so has been his kingdom. What, to the eye of flesh, could be less
magnificent, what could have less of promise, than the commencements of that
kingdom in his own person? Growing up in a distant and despised province, till
his thirtieth year He did not emerge from the bosom of his family; then taught
for two or three years in the neighbouring towns and villages, and occasionally
at Jerusalem; made a few converts, chiefly among the poor and unlearned; and at
length, falling into the hands of his enemies, with no attempt at resistance on
his own part or that of his followers, died a malefactor’s death upon the cross.
Such, and so slight, was the commencement of the universal kingdom of God; for
herein that kingdom differs from the great schemes of this world; these last
have a proud beginning, a shameful and miserable end - towers as of Babel, which
at first threaten to be as high as heaven, but end a deserted misshapen heap of
slime and bricks; while the works of God, and most of all his chief work, his
Church, have a slight and unobserved beginning, with gradual increase, and a
glorious consummation. So is it with his kingdom in the world, a kingdom which
came not with observation; so is it with his kingdom in any single heart: there
too the word of Christ falls like a slight mustard-seed, seeming to promise
little, but effecting, if allowed to grow, mighty and marvellous results.[10]
For that seed which was the smallest of all seeds, ’when it is grown, it is the
greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and
lodge in the branches thereof’ (Isaiah 18:6). There is no exaggeration here. In
hot countries, as in Judæa, the mustard-tree attains a size of which we do not
so much as dream in our colder latitudes, sometimes such as will allow a man to
climb up into its branches (this, however, was counted worth recording)[11] or
to ride on horseback under them, as a traveller in Chili mentions that he has
done. Maldonatus assures us, that in Spain he has seen large ovens heated with
its branches; often, too, he has noted when the seed was ripening, immense
flocks of birds congregating upon the boughs, which yet were strong enough to
sustain the weight without being broken. All this was probably familiar to our
Lord’s hearers as well, and presented a lively image to their minds. They, too,
had beheld the birds of the air coming and lodging in the branches of the
mustard-tree, and finding at once their food and their shelter there.There is
prophecy too in these words. As in that grand announcement of the kingdom of God
(Ezekiel 17:22-24) which has so many points of contact and resemblance with this
parable,[12] it is said of the tender twig which the Lord shall plant, ’it shall
bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar: and under it shall
dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they
dwell;’ and as these last words announce there the refuge and defence which men
shall find in the Church of God (cf. Ezekiel 31:6; Ezekiel 31:12), so must they
have the same meaning here. Christ’s kingdom shall attract multitudes by the
shelter and protection which it offers; shelter, as it has often proved, from
worldly oppression, shelter from the great power of the devil. Itself a tree of
life whose leaves are for medicine andwhose fruit for food (Ezekiel 47:12;
Revelation 22:2), all who need the healing of their soul’s hurts, all who need
the satisfying of their soul’s hunger,[13] shall betake themselves to it; and
all who do so shall be enabled to set their seal to the words of the Son of
Sirach (xiv. 20, 26, 27), ’Blessed is the man that doth meditate good things in
Wisdom. . . He shall set his children under her shelter, and shall lodge under
her branches; by her he shall be covered from heat, and in her glory shall he
dwell.’ [14]

FOOTNOTES

[1] So also Lyser, with more immediate reference to the question with which the
parable is introduced in St. Mark (iv. 30): ’ Since the condition of the gospel
is such that so many things hinder its fruit, and it is exposed to such manifold
assaults of Satan that hardly may any fruit be looked for, what shall we say of
it? Will it be possible to find aught in nature which may excuse its weakness,
and vindicate it from con tempt?’

[2] See Hävernick, Comm. iib. Daniel, p. 139.

[3] In a striking poem, found in the Appendix to Fell’s Cyprian, and quoted in
my Sacred Latin Poetry, p. 200, 3rd edit., the growth of the kingdom of God,
under the figure of the growth of a tree, is beautifully set forth.

[4] Some modern inquirers recognize in the mustard-tree of this parable not that
which goes by this name in Western Europe, but the Salvadora Persica, commonly
called in Syria now khardal. So Dr. Lindley, in his Flora Indica; and see in the
Athenæum of March 23, 1844. an interesting paper by Dr. Royle, read before the
Royal Asiatic Society. Captains Irby and Mangles, describing this khardal, say:
’It has a pleasant, though a strong aromatic taste, exactly resembling mustard,
and if taken in any quantity, produces a similar irritability of the nose and
eyes.’ There is, on the other hand, a learned discussion in the Gentleman’s
Magazine, June, 1844, calling in question Dr. Boyle’s conclusion; from which
also the author of a careful article in the Dict. of the Bible dissents; see
also Tristram, Natural History of the Bible. p. 472.

[5] Pliny, H. N. 20: 87. Sinapis scelerata Plautus calls it, for its pungent
qualities; and Columella, Seque laeessenti fietum factura sinapis, ’Mustard that
to its challenger brings tears.’ This, too, may make part of its fitness here:
for as little is the Gospel ali sweets, being compared by Clement of Alexandria
to the mustard-seed, ’that biteth the soul for its profit.’ And in the Homily of
an uncertain author: ’Like as when we take a grain of mustard, our face is
pained, our brow contracts, we are moved to tears, and receive even that which
brings health to our body not without weeping for its harshness . . . so also,
when we accept the commands of the Christian faith, our mind is pained, our body
is distressed, we are moved to tears, and attain to our very salvation not with
out lamentation and grief.’ This its active energy makes it as apt an emblem of
the good as the ill: and thus when Darius, according to Eastern tradition, sent
Alexander the Great a barrel of sesame, to acquaint him with the multitude of
his soldiers, Alexander sent a bag of mustard-seed in return, to indicate the
active, fiery, biting courage of his (D’Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. s. 5:
Escander).

[6] Thus the author of a sermon on the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, ascribed to
Augustine (Serm. 87, Appendix), and to Ambrose: ’Like as a grain of mustard at
first sight seems but a little thing, both common and despised, giving no
savour, shedding no odour, indicating no sweetness; but, as soon as it is
bruised, straightway it sheds its odour, manifests its sharpness,exhales a
condiment of fiery savour, and is inflamed with such burning heat that it seems
a marvel how so much fire was shut up in such trifling grains: . . . so also at
first sight the Christian faith seems but a little thing, both common and
insignificant, not showing its power, exhibiting no pride, affording no grace.’
Ambrose has much instructive, with something merely fanciful, on this parable
(Exp. in Luc. 7: 176 186).

[7] See a fragment of Irenæus (p. 347, Bened. ed.), who also notes how the
mustard-seed was selected for its fiery and austere qualities (to purdakes kai
austeron). So Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 4: 30.

[8] Early Christian art had a true insight into this. Didron (Iconographie
Chrétienne, p. 208) describes this as a frequent symbol: ’ ’Christ in the tomb;
from his mouth proceeds a tree on the branches whereof are the apostles.’

[9] So also in the Coran (Sur. 31): ’Oh my son, verily every matter, whether
good or bad, though it be of the weight of a grain of mustard. seed, and be
hidden in a rock, or in the heavens, or in the earth, God will bring the same to
light.’

[10] Jerome (Comm. in Matt. in loc.) brings out this difference well. ’The
preaching of the Gospel is the least among all systems of teaching. For at the
firet doctrine it produces no confidence in its truth, preaching the Godhead of
a man, the death of God and the offence of the cross. Compare a doctrine of this
kind with the dogmas of the philosophers, with their books, their splendid
eloquence, and the style of their dis courses, and you will see by how much the
seed of the Gospel is less than all other seeds. But when these are grown they
prove nothing that is penetrating, nothing vigorous, nothing vital, but all is
flaccid’ and rotten, and the effeminate growth produces only poor garden stuff
and herbs which quickly wither and waste. This preaching, on the other hand,
which at the outset seemed so small, when it has been sown either in the mind of
a believer or in the world at large, springs up into no poor garden stuff, but
grows into a tree.’

[11] Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. in loc.

[12] See Hengstenberg, Christologie, vol. 2: p. 556, 2nd edit.

[13] By ’the fowls of the air’ [tou ouranou] Gregory of Nyssa (Hexaëm. Proëm.)
finely understands ’the souls that soar aloft and wander on high.’

[14] Augustine (Serm. 44: 2): ’The Church has grown, the nations have believed,
the princes of the earth have been conquered in the name of Christ, to become
conquerors in all the world. Once men took vengeance on Christians before idols,
now they take vengeance on idols for the sake of Christ. All seek the help of
the Church, in every affliction, in all their trials. That grain of mustard-seed
has grown, and there come to it the birds of the air, the proud men of the
world, and rest beneath its branches.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 6: 05-PARABLE 4. THE LEAVEN.
========================================================================

PARABLE 4. THE LEAVEN.

Matthew 13:33; Luke 13:20-21.

‘ANOTHER parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven,
which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was
leavened.’ This parable relates also to the marvellous increase of the kingdom
of God; but, while the last set forth its outward visible manifestation, this
declares its hidden working, its mysterious influence on that world which on all
sides it touches. The mustard seed does not for some while attract observation;
nor, until it has grown to some height, do the birds of the air light upon its
branches; but the leaven has been actively working from the first moment that it
was hidden in the lump. Here, indeed, we are met at the outset by Gurtler, [1]
Teelman, [2] and some little bands of modern separatists,3 who altogether deny
that the parable has any-thing to do with the glorious developments of the
kingdom of God. They take it rather as a prophecy of the heresies and
corruptions which should mingle with and adulterate the pure doctrine of the
Gospel, - of the workings, in fact, of the future mystery of iniquity. The woman
that hides the leaven in the meal is for them the apostate Church; which, with
its ministers, they observe, is often represented under this image (Proverbs
9:13; Revelation 17:1; Zechariah 5:7-11). The argument on which they mainly rely
in support of this interpretation is, of course, the fact that leaven [3] is
oftenest employed in the Scripture as the symbol of something corrupt and
corrupting (1 Corinthians 5:7; Luke 12:1; Galatians 5:9). This is undoubtedly
true. As such it was forbidden in the offerings under the Law (Exodus 13:3;
Leviticus 2:11; Amos 4:5), though not without an exception (Leviticus 23:17).
The strict command to the children of Israel, that they should carefully put
away every particle of leaven out of their houses during the Passover week,
rests on this view of it as evil; they were thus reminded that if they would
rightly keep the feast, they must seek to cleanse their hearts from all workings
of malice and wickedness. [4] But conceding all upon which they rest their
argument, it would still be impossible to accept their interpretation as the
true. The parable, as the Lord declares, is concerning ‘the kingdom of heaven;’
it would in that case be a parable concerning another kingdom altogether.
Announcing that there was one who should leaven through and through with a
leaven of falsehood and corruption the entire kingdom of heaven, He would have
announced that the gates of hell should prevail against it; He would have
written failure upon his whole future work; there would, in that case, have
remained no re-active energy, by which it could have ever been unleavened again.
But the admitted fact that leaven is, in Scripture, most commonly the type of
what is false and corrupting, need not drive us to any interpretation encumbered
with embarrassments like these. It was not, therefore, the less free to use it
in a good sense. In those other passages, the puffing up, disturbing, souring
properties of leaven constituted the prominent points of comparison; in the
present, its warmth, [5] its penetrative energy, the way in which a little of it
lends a savour and virtue to much wherewith it is brought in contact. The
figurative language of Scripture is not so stereotyped, that one figure must
always stand for one and the same thing. The devil is ‘a roaring lion, seeking
whom he may devour’ (1 Peter 5:8); yet this does not hinder the same title from
being applied to Christ, ‘the Lion of the tribe of Juda’ (Revelation 5:5); only
there the subtlety and fierceness of the animal formed the point of comparison,
here the nobility and kingliness and conquering strength.[6] The silliness of
the dove is in one place the point of comparison (Hosea 7:11), its simplicity at
another (Matthew 10:16). St. Cyril [7] then could scarcely have had this parable
in his mind, when he said: ‘Leaven, in the inspired writings, is always taken as
the type of naughtiness and sin.’ Ignatius shows rather by his own application
of the image, how it may be freely used, now in a good, now in a bad sense; for,
warning against judaizing practices, he writes: ‘Lay aside the evil leaven which
has grown old and maketh sour, and be transmuted into the new leaven, which is
Christ Jesus.’ [8] Nor is it to be forgotten that if, on one side, the operation
of leaven upon meal presents an analogy to something evil in the spiritual
world, it does also on the other to something good; its effects on bread being
to render it more tasteful, more nourishing, lighter, and generally more
wholesome.

We need not then hesitate to take the parable in its obvious sense, - that it
prophesies the diffusion, and not the corruptions, of the Gospel. By the leaven
we are to understand the word of the kingdom, which Word, in its highest sense,
Christ Himself was. As the mustard-seed, out of which a mighty tree should
unfold itself, was ‘the least of all seeds,’ so too the leaven is something
apparently of slight account, but at the same time mighty in operation; in this
fitly setting forth Him, of whom it was said, ‘He hath no form nor comeliness;
and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him;’ but
then presently again, ‘By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong’ (Isaiah 53:2; Isaiah 53:11-12);
and who, when He had communicated of his life and spirit to His Apostles,
enabled them too, in their turn, poor and mean and unlearned as they were, to
become ‘the salt of the earth,’ the leaven of the world. For, in Chrysostom’s
words, ‘that which is once leavened becomes leaven to the rest; since as the
spark when it takes hold of wood, makes that which is already kindled to
transmit the flame, and so seizes still upon more, thus it is also with the
preaching of the word.’ [9] Is it part of the natural machinery of the parable,
the act of kneading being proper to women (Genesis 18:6; 1 Samuel 28:24), that
it should be ‘a woman’ who hides the leaven in the three measures of meal? or
shall we look for something more in it than this? A comparison with Luke 15:8
(the woman who loses, and then seeks and finds, her piece of money) may suggest
that the divine Wisdom (Proverbs 9:1-3), the Holy Spirit, which is the
sanctifying power in humanity (and it is of that sanctifying that the word is
here), may be intended. But if it be asked, Why represented as a woman? To this
it may be replied, that the organ of the Spirit’s working is the Church, which
evidently would be most fitly represented under this image. In and through the
Church the Spirit’s work proceeds: only as the Spirit dwells in the Church
(Revelation 22:17), is that able to mingle a nobler element in the mass of
humanity, to leaven the world. So again, why should ‘three’ measures of meal be
mentioned? It might be enough to answer, because it was just so much as would be
often kneaded at one time (Genesis 18:6; Judges 6:19; 1 Samuel 1:24 [10]). Yet
the ‘three’ may intend something more, may prophesy of the spread of the Gospel
through the three parts then known of the world; or, as Augustine will have it,
of the ultimate leavening of the whole human race, derived from the three sons
of Noah; which amounts to much the same thing. And those who, like Jerome and
Ambrose, find in it a pledge of the sanctification of spirit, soul, and body (1
Thessalonians 5:23) are not upon a different track, if, as has not been ill
suggested, Shem, Japheth, and Ham, do indeed answer to these three elements,
spirit, soul, and body, which together make up the man - the one or other
element having, as is plainly the case, predominance in the descendants
severally of the three. But the leaven which is thus mingled with the lump,
which acts on and coalesces with it, is at the same time different from it; for
the woman took it from elsewhere to mingle it therein: and even such is the
Gospel, a kingdom not of this world (John 18:36), not the unfolding of any
powers which already existed therein, a kingdom not rising, as the secular
kingdoms, ‘out of the earth’ (Daniel 7:17), but a new power brought into the
world from above; not a philosophy which men have imagined, but a Revelation
which God has revealed. The Gospel of Christ was a new and quickening power cast
into the midst of an old and dying world, a centre of life round which all the
moral energies which still survived, and all which itself should awaken, might
form and gather; - by the help of which the world might constitute itself anew.
[11] This leaven is not merely mingled with, but hidden in the mass which it
renewed. For the true renovation, that which God effects, is ever thus from the
inward to the outward; it begins in the inner spiritual world, though it does
not end there: for it fails not to bring about, in good time, a mighty change
also in the outward and visible world. This was wonderfully exemplified in the
early history of Christianity. The leaven was effectually hidden. How striking
is the entire ignorance which heathen writers betray of all that was going
forward a little below the surface of society, - the manner in which they
overlooked the mighty change which was preparing; and this, not merely at the
first, when the mustard-tree might well escape notice, but, with slight
exceptions, even up to the very moment when the open triumph of Christianity was
at hand. Working from the centre to the circumference, by degrees it made itself
felt, till at length the whole Græco-Roman world was, more or less, leavened by
it. Nor must we forget that the mere external conversion of that whole world
gives us a very inadequate measure of the work which needed to be done: besides
this, there was the eradication of the innumerable heathen practices and customs
and feelings which had enwoven and entwined their fibres round the very heart of
society; a work which lagged very far behind the other, and which, in fact, was
never thoroughly accomplished till the whole structure of that society had gone
to pieces, and the new Teutonic framework had been erected in its room. [12] But
while much has this been effected, while the leavening of the mass has never
ceased to go forward, yet the promise of the parable has hitherto been realized
only in a very imperfect measure; nor can we consider these words, ‘till the
whole was leavened,’ as less than a prophecy of a final complete triumph of the
Gospel - that it will diffuse itself through all nations, and purify and ennoble
all life. We may also fairly see in these words a pledge and assurance that the
word of life, received into any single heart, shall not there cease its
effectual working, till it has brought the whole man into obedience to it,
sanctifying him wholly, so that he shall be altogether a new creation in Christ
Jesus. [13] It shall claim every region of man’s being as its own, and make its
presence felt through all. In fact the parable does nothing less than set forth
to us the mystery of regeneration, both in its first act, which can be but once,
as the leaven is but once hidden: and also in the consequent renewal by the Holy
Spirit, which, as the further working of the leaven, is continual and
progressive. This side of the truth is that exclusively brought out by Hammond,
who thus paraphrases our Lord’s words: ‘The Gospel hath such a secret invisible
influence on the hearts of men, to change them and affect them, and all the
actions that flow from them, that it is fitly resembled to leaven, so mixed
thoroughly with the whole, that although it appeareth not in any part of it
visibly, yet every part hath a tincture from it.’ We may fitly conclude, in the
words of St. Ambrose: ‘May the Holy Church, which is figured under the type of
this woman in the Gospel, whose meal are we, hide the Lord Jesus in the
innermost places of our hearts, till the warmth, the Divine wisdom penetrate
into the most secret recesses of our souls.’[14]

FOOTNOTES.

[1] Syst. Theol. Prophet. p. 590.

[2] Comm. in Luke 16 : p. 59, seq. - Vitringa gives, with great impartiality,
two alternative expositions of the parable, taking first the leaven in a good,
then in an evil sense, but decides absolutely for neither.

[3] Brief Exposition of Matthew 13 :, by J. N. Darby, 1845, p. 40. He makes, in
the same way, the parable of the mustard-seed to be a prophecy of the upgrowth
of a proud world-hierarchy.

[4] See our Collect for the First Sunday after Easter. - The Jews termed the
Figmentum malum, that in man ‘which lusteth against the spirit,’ and hinders him
from doing the things that he would, ‘the leaven in the lump;’ and the reason is
given in the book Sohar: ‘Evil concupiscence is called leaven because a little
of it permeates the heart and swells to such a size as to split the breast’(see
Schoettgen, Hor. Heb. vol. 1: p.597). The Romans had the same dislike to the use
of leaven in sacred things; ‘It is not lawful for a priest of Jove to touch meal
tainted with leaven’ (Gell. 10: 15, 19); Plutarch (Quæst. Rom. 109) giving no
doubt the true explanation: ‘The leaven itself is born from corruption, and
corrupts the mass with which it is mingled.’ Thus it comes to pass that is used
as azumoi artoi katharioa So Jerome (Ep. 31) gives the reason why honey was
forbidden in the Levitical offerings (Leviticus 2:11): ‘For with God nothing
voluptuous, nothing that is merely sweet is approved, but only that which has in
it something of pungent truth.’ It was the feeling of the unsuitableness of
leaven in things sacred which, in part, caused the Latin Church to contend so
earnestly against the use of fermented bread in the Eucharist, calling those who
used it fermentarii, though an historical interest also mingled in the question
(see Augusti, Handb. d. Christl. Archäol. vol. 2: p. 662) [5] Zame from zeo, as
fermentum (=fervimentum) from ferveo: leaven (in French, levain) from levare, to
lift up.

[6] See Augustine (Serm. 73: 2): ‘How vast is the difference betwixt Christ and
the devil! Yet Christ is called a lion, so also is the devil. The one a lion on
account of his bravery, the other a lion on account of his ferocity. The one a
lion for that He conquers, the other a lion for that he injures.’ Cf. Serm. 32:
6.

[7] Hom. Paschal. 19.

[8] Ad Magnes. 10. Cf. Gregory Nazianzene (Orat. 36: 90), who says that Christ
by his Incarna-tion sanctified men, ‘like leaven working throughout the dough,
and uniting it to itself.’

[9] In Matt. Hom. 46; see also Con. Ignaviam, Hom. 3: 2. So Cajetan: ‘The
disciples of Christ, the first members of the kingdom of heaven, penetrated with
their spirit the hearts of men, and nurtured their crudity and acerbity to the
ripeness and savour of the heavenly life.’

[10] In the two last places the Septuagint has tria metra. For the Gnostic
perversion of this parable, these ‘three measures’ being severally men choikoi
(1 Corinthians 15:47), psuchikoi (1 Corinthians 2:14), and pneumatikoi
(Galatians 6:1), see Irenæus, Con. Her. 1: 8. 3. It furnishes a notable
illustration of what has been said already (see p. 43) on the manner in which
the Gnostics dealt with the parables.

[11] Augustine, in whose time the fading away of all the glory of the ancient
world was daily becoming more apparent (‘The world is so wasted with all this
destruction that it has lost even the appearance of seductiveness’), delighted
to contemplate and to present the coming of Christ under this aspect. Thus Serm.
81:: ‘Was it a small thing that God did for thee, whereas in the old age of the
world He sent unto thee Christ to refresh thee at the time when all things are
failing?...Christ came when all things were growing old, and made thee new. That
which was made, that which was established, that which was doomed to perish, was
already on the brink of destruction. Need was that it should abound in labours;
but He came, and brought thee consolation amid labours, and the promise of
eternal rest. Be it far from thee then to wish to cleave to the outworn world,
and to be unwilling to be restored to youth in Christ, Who says to thee: The
world perishes, the world grows old, the world is failing, it labours with the
difficult breathing of old age. Let fear be far from thee, thy youth shall be
renewed as the youth of an eagle.’

[12] On this subject there is much which is admirable in Tzschirner’s Fall des
Heidenthums, 1829.

[13] Corn. a Lapide quotes from an earlier commentator: ‘He says, Until the
whole was leavened, because the charity hidden in our mind must continue to grow
to the end that it may change the whole mind unto its own perfection, for here
indeed a beginning is made, but perfection is reached in the future.’

[14] Exp. in Luc. 7: 187. - Clement of Alexandria (p. 694, Potter’s ed.) gives
an admirable exposition of the parable, and in very few words. The kingdom of
heaven, he says, is likened to leaven, ‘because the strength of the word by
virtue of its directness and power, in the case of every one who receives and
possesses it within himself, secretly and invisibly draws him to itself and
brings his whole nature into unity.’ On this parable and that preceding Godet
writes: ‘These two parables form the most complete contrast to the picture
created by the Jewish imagination of the establishment of the Messiah’s reign.
All was to be effected instantaneously by the stroke of a magic wand. Jesus
opposes to this superficial notion the idea of a moral development, which,
working by spiritual means and recognizing the existence of liberty, is
consequently slow and progressive. How is it possible to admit in the face of
such words that He believed in the imminence of his return?’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 7: 06-PARABLE 5. THE HID TREASURE.
========================================================================

PARABLE 5. THE HID TREASURE.

Matthew 13:44. THE kingdom of God is not merely a general, it is also an
individual and personal, thing. It is not merely a tree overshadowing the earth,
or leaven leavening the world, but each man must have it for himself, and make
it his own by a distinct act of his own will. He cannot be a Christian without
knowing it. He may indeed come under the shadow of this great tree, and partake
of many blessings of its shelter; he may dwell in a Christendom which has been
leavened with the leaven of the truth, and so in a degree himself share in the
universal leavening. But more than this is needed, and more than this forevery
elect soul will find place. There will be a personal appropriation of the
benefit; and we have the history of this in these two parables [1] which follow.
They were spoken, not to the multitude, not to those ‘without,’ but in the house
(ver. 36), and to the inner circle of disciples; who are addressed as having
lighted on the hid treasure, having found the pearl of price; and are now warned
of the surpassing worth of these, and that, for their sakes, all which would
hinder from making them securely their own, must be joyfully renounced. [2] The
second parable repeats what the first has said, but repeats it with a
differ1ence; they are each the complement of the other: so that under one or
other, as finders either of the pearl or of the hid treasure, may be ranged all
who become partakers of the blessings of the Gospel of Christ. Of these there
are some who feel that there must be an absolute good for man, in the possessing
of which he shall be blessed and find the satisfaction of all his longings; who
are therefore seeking everywhere and inquiring for this good. Such are likened
to the merchant that has distinctly set before himself the purpose of seeking
goodly pearls, and making these his own. Such are the fewer in number, but are
likely to prove the noblest servants of the truth. There are others, who do not
discover that there is an aim and a purpose for man’s life, or a truth for him
at all, until the truth as it is in Jesus is revealed to them. Such are compared
to the finder of the hid treasure, who stumbled upon it unawares, neither
expecting nor looking for it. While the others felt that there was a good, and
were looking for it, the discovery of the good itself for the first time reveals
to these that there is such at all; whose joy, therefore, as greater, - being
the joy at the discovery of an unlooked-for treasure, - is expressed; that of
the others, not. Thus Hammond, bringing out this distinction, paraphrases the
two parables thus: ‘The Gospel being by some not looked after, is yet sometimes
met with by them, and becomes matter of infinite joy and desire to them: and so
is likened fitly to a treasure, which a man finding casually in a field, hid
again, or concealed it, and then, designing to get into his possession, accounts
no price he can pay too dear for it. Others there are which have followed the
study of wisdom, and thirsted after some instruction: and then the Gospel of
Christ comes as a rich prize doth to a merchant, who is in pursuit of rich
merchandize, and meeting with a jewel for his turn, lays out all his estate upon
it.’ The cases of Jew and Gentile will respectively exemplify the contrast
between the Pearl and the Hid Treasure; though in the case of the Jews, or the
larger number of them, the illustration cannot be carried through, as they,
though seeking pearls, having a zeal for righteousness, yet, when the pearl of
great price was offered to them, were not willing to ‘sell all,’ to renounce
their peculiar privileges, their self-righteousness, and all else which they
held dear, that they might buy their pearl. The Gentiles, on the contrary, came
upon the treasure unawares. Christ was found of them that sought Him not, and
the blessings of his truth revealed to them who before had not divined that
there were such blessings for man (Romans 9:30). [3] Or, again, we might
instance Nathaniel as an example of the more receptive nature, of one who has
the truth found for him; or a still more striking example, - the Samaritan woman
(John 4 :), who, when she came on that memorable day to draw water from the
well, anticipated anything rather than lighting on the hid treasure. Yet in this
character there cannot be a total absence of a seeking for the truth ; only it
is a desire that has hitherto slumbered in the soul, and displays itself rather
as a love of the truth when revealed, and at once a joyful and submissive
acquiescence to it, than in any active previous quest. In both, there must be
the same willingness to embrace it when known, and to hold it fast, at whatever
costs and hazards. On the other hand, we have, perhaps, no such record of a
noble nature, seeking for the pearl of price, and not resting till he had found
it, as that which Augustine gives of himself in his Confessions; though others
are not wanting, such as Justin Martyr’s account of his own conversion, given in
his first dialogue with Trypho, in which he tells how he had travelled through
the whole circle of Greek philosophy, seeking everywhere for that which would
satisfy the deepest needs of his soul, and ever seeking in vain, till he found
it at length in the Gospel of Christ. We derive a further confirmation of this
view of the parables, and that it is not a mere fancy, from the forms which they
severally assume. In this the treasure is the prominent circumstance; ‘The
kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure.’ Now if the other had been cast in
exactly the same mould, it would have been said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a pearl; ‘the words, however, run not so; but rather,’ The kingdom of
heaven is like unto a merchant man; so that the person seeking is in that
parable at the centre of the spiritual picture, the thing found, in this. The
difference is scarcely accidental. The circumstance which supplies the
groundwork of this first parable, namely, the finding of a concealed treasure,
[4] is of much more frequent occurrence in an insecure state of society, such as
in almost all ages has prevailed in the East, than happily it can be with us. A
writer on Oriental literature and customs mentions that in the East, on account
of the frequent changes of dynasties, and the revolutions which accompany them,
many rich men divide their goods into three parts: one they employ in commerce,
or for their necessary support; one they turn into jewels, which, should it
prove needful to fly, could be easily carried with them; a third part they
bury.’ But as they trust no one with the place where the treasure is buried, so
is the same, should they not return to the spot before their death, as good as
lost to the living [5] (Jeremiah 41:8), until, by chance, a lucky peasant
digging in his field, lights upon it. [6] And thus, when we read in Eastern
tales, how a man has found a buried treasure, and, in a moment, risen from
poverty to great riches, this is, in fact, no strange or rare occurrence, but a
natural consequence of the customs of these people. [7] Modern books of travels
bear witness to the almost universal belief in the existence of such hid
treasures ; so that the traveller often finds much difficulty in obtaining
information about antiquities, is sometimes seriously inconvenienced, or even
endangered, in his researches among ancient ruins, by the jealousy of the
neighbouring inhabitants, who are persuaded that he is coming to carry away
concealed hoards of wealth from among them, of which, by some means or other, he
has got notice. And so also the skill of an Eastern magician in great part
consists in being able to detect the places where these secreted treasures will
successfully be looked for. [8] Often, too, a man abandoning the regular
pursuits of industry will devote himself to treasure-seeking, in the hope of
growing, through some happy chance, rich of a sudden (Job 3:21 ; Proverbs 2:4).
The contrast, however, between this parable and the following, noticed already,
will not allow us to assume the finder here to have been in search of the
treasure; he rather stumbles upon it, strikes it with plough or spade, unawares,
and thinking of no such thing: [9] probably while engaged as a hireling in
cultivating the field of another.

Some draw a distinction between ‘the field’ and ‘the treasure.’ The first is the
Holy Scriptures; the second, the hidden mystery of the knowledge of Christ
contained in them, [10] which when a man has partly perceived, - discovered,
that is, and got a glimpse of the treasure, - he is willing to renounce all
meaner aims and objects; that, having leisure to search more and more into those
Scriptures, to make them his own, he may enrich himself forever with the
knowledge of Christ3which therein is contained. [11] Yet to me ‘the field’
rather represents the outer visible Church, as contradistinguished from the
inward spiritual, with which ‘the treasure’ will then agree. As the man who
before looked on the field with careless eyes, prized it but as another field,
now sees in it a new worth, resolves that nothing shall separate him from it, so
he who recognizes the Church, not as a human institute, but a divine, as a
dispenser, not of earthly gifts, but of heavenly, - who has learned that God is
in the midst of it, - sees now that it is something different from, and
something more than, all earthly societies, with which hitherto he has
confounded it: and henceforth it is precious in his sight, even to its outermost
skirts, for the sake of that inward glory which is revealed to his eyes. And lie
sees, too, that blessedness Is unalterably linked to communion with it. As the
man cannot have the treasure and leave the field, but both or neither must be
his, so he cannot have Christ except in his Church and in the ordinances of his
Church; none but the golden pipes of the sanctuary are used for the conveyance
of the golden oil (Zechariah 4:12); he cannot have Christ in his heart, and, at
the same time, separate his fortunes from those of Christ’s struggling,
suffering, warring Church. The treasure and the field go together; both, or
neither, must be his. This treasure ‘when a man hath found, he hideth; ‘having
laid it open in discovering, he covers it up again, while he goes and effects
the purchase of the field. This cannot mean that he who has discovered the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ Jesus, will desire to keep
his knowledge to himself; since rather he will feel himself, as he never did
before, a debtor to all men, to make all partakers of the benefit, he will go to
his brother man, like Andrew to Peter, and saying to him, ‘We have found the
Messias’ (John 1:41), will seek to bring him to Jesus. If he hide the treasure,
this hiding will be, not lest another should find, but lest he himself should
lose it. [12] In the first moments that the truth is revealed to a soul, there
may well be a tremulous fear lest the blessing found should, by some means or
other, escape again. The anxiety that it may not do so, the jealous precautions
for this end taken, would seem to be the truth signified by this re-concealment
of the found treasure. But having thus secured it for the moment, the finder,
‘and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that lie hath, and buyeth that
field.’ The joy is expressly mentioned here, being that in he strength whereof
the finder of the spiritual treasure is enabled to part with everything besides.
[13] No compulsion, no command is necessary; ‘for joy thereof’ or ‘in his joy,’
both being possible renderings, he cannot do otherwise; all other things have
now no glory, ‘by reason of the glory which excelleth.’ Augustine excellently
illustrates from his own experience this part of the parable. Describing the
crisis of his own conversion, and how easy he found it, through this joy, to
give up all which he had long dreaded to be obliged to renounce, which had so
long held him fast bound in the chains of evil custom; and which if he
renounced, it had seemed to him as though life itself would not be worth living,
he exclaims: ‘How sweet did it at once become to me, to want the sweetnesses of
those toys! and what I feared to be parted from was now a joy to part with. For
Thou didst cast them forth from me, Thou true and highest sweetness. Thou
castedst them forth, and in their stead enteredst in Thyself, sweeter than all
pleasure.’ [14] The parting with those sinful delights which had hitherto held
him bound, was, in Augustine’s case, the selling of all that he had, that he
might4buy the field. Compare Php 3:4-11, where St. Paul declares how he too sold
all that he had, renounced his trust in his own righteousness, in his spiritual
and fleshly privileges, that he might ‘win Christ, and be found in Him.’ In each
of these illustrious instances, the man parted with the dearest thing that he
possessed, so to make the treasure his own: though, in each case, the thing
parted with how different! So, too, whenever any man renounces what is closest
to him, rather than that that should hinder his embracing and making his own all
the blessings of Christ, - when the lover of money renounces his covetousness, -
and the indolent man, his ease, and the lover of pleasure, his pleasure, - and
the wise man, his confidence in the wisdom of this world, then each is selling
what he has, that he may buy the field which contains the treasure. Yet this
selling of all is no arbitrary condition, imposed from without, but rather a
delightful constraint, acknowledged within: even as a man would willingly fling
down pebbles and mosses with which he had been filling his hands, if pearls and
precious stones were offered him in their stead [15] or as the dead leaves of
themselves fall off from the tree, when propelled by the new buds and blossoms
which are forcing their way from behind. A difficulty has been sometimes found
in the circumstance of the finder of the treasure purchasing the field, at the
same the withholding, as plainly he does, from the owner, the knowledge of a
fact which enhanced its value so much; and which had the other known, either he
would not have parted with it at all, or only at a much higher price. They argue
that it is against the decorum of the divine teaching and of the Divine Teacher,
that an action, morally questionable at least, if not absolutely unrighteous,
should be used even for the outward setting forth of a spiritual action which is
commended as worthy of imitation; that there is a certain approbation of the
action conveyed even in the use of it for such ends; in fact, they find the same
difficulty here as in the parables of the Unjust Steward and the Unjust Judge.
Olshausen, so far from evading the difficulty, or seeking to rescue the present
parable from lying under the same difficulty as undoubtedly cleaves to one of
those, himself urges the likeness which exists between the two, and affirms
that, in both, prudence (klugheit) in respect of divine things is commended; so
that they are parables of the same class, and in this aspect, at least,
containing the same moral. But to the objection urged above it seems enough to
reply, that not every part of his conduct who found the treasure is proposed for
imitation, [16] but only his earnestness in securing the treasure found, his
fixed purpose to make it at all costs and all hazards his own, and (which, I
suppose, is Olshausen’s meaning) his prudence, without any affirmation that the
actual manner wherein that prudence showed itself was praiseworthy or not. [17]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Origen (Comm. in Matt.) observes that these would more fitly be called
similitudes (demoioseis) than parables, which name, he says, is not given to
them in the Scripture: yet see ver. 53. - For a series of these briefer parables
as in use among the Jews, see Schoettgen, Hor. Heb. vol. 1: pp. 83 - 85.

[2] Jackson (Eternal Truth of Scriptures, 4: 8. 5): ‘After we come once to view
the seam or vein wherein this hidden treasure lies, if we be merchantly-minded,
and not of peddling dispositions, we account all we possess besides as dross, or
(as the Apostle speaks) dung, in respect of our proffered title to it; for whose
further assurance we alienate all our interest in the world, the flesh, with all
their appurtenances, with as great willingness as good husbands do base
tenements or hard rented leases, to compass some goodly royalty offered them
more than half for nothing.’

[3] Grotius: ‘The teaching of the Gospel shone upon some who were taking no
thought either of God, or of amendment of life, or of the hope of another life,
such as were many in the nations of the Gentiles, to whom Paul applies the
prophecy: I am found of those that do not seek me. There were also among the
Jews and elsewhere those who sought after wisdom, who were moved with a desire
for learning the truth, or who were eagerly awaiting some Prophet or even the
Messiah Himself. The comparison of the treasure refers to the former class, that
of the pearl of great price to the latter.’ Bengel recognizes the same
distinction: ‘The discovery of the treasure does not presuppose an act of search
in the same way as does that of the pearls which are discovered by diligent
inquiry.’ Alex. Knox (Remains, vol. 1. p. 416, seq.) has very excellent remarks
to the same effect.

[4] thesauros, i.e., sunagoge chrematon kekrummene, ‘a hidden store of goods,’
as an old Lexicon explains it. On the derivation of the word, and its possible
relation to auron = aurum, see Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. 2: pt. 4: p. 334. - The
Jurisconsult Paulus gives its legal definition: ‘A treasure is a hoard of money
buried so long ago that no memory of it survives, and it has now no owner.’

[5] Compare Virgil, Georg. 2: 507; Æn. 6: 610.

[6] Gregory of Nyssa (Orat. con. Usurar. vol. 2: p. 233, Paris, 1638) has a
curious story of an avari-cious and wealthy usurer of his day, all whose
property was thus lost to his family.7 The Aulularia of Plautus, Prolog. 6 - 12,
turns on such an incident. Richardson (Dissert. on the Languages, &c., of
Eastern Nations, p. 180). Compare the strange story told by Tacitus, Annal. 16:
1-3.8 See Burder, Oriental Literature, vol. 1: p. 275; and for evidence of the
same in old time, Becker, Charicles, vol. 1: p. 224.

[9] Horace (Sat. 1. 1. 42): O si urnam argenti fors qua mihi monstret! ‘Oh! if
some chance will show me an urn full of silver.’ Persius: O si sub rastro crepet
argenti mihi serial! Oh ! if a pot of silver will chink beneath my plough.’

[10] So Jerome (Comm. in Matt. in loc.): ‘That treasure.....is the holy
Scriptures in which is stored up the knowledge of the Saviour;’ and Augustine
(Quaest. Evang. 1: qu. 13): ‘By the treasure hidden away in a field, He meant
the two Testaments of the Law in the Church, which when a man has touched on his
intellectual side he perceives that great things are there hid, and goes and
sells all that he has and buys that field; that is, by contempt of things
temporal he procures for himself leisure, that he may become rich by the
knowledge of God.’

[11] Origen’s view in a striking passage, De Prin. 4: 23, namely, that ‘the
field’ is the letter, and ‘the hid treasure’ the spiritual or allegorical
meaning, underlying this letter, is only a modification of the same.

[12] Maldonatus: ‘Not lest another may find, but lest he himself may lose; ‘
Jerome (Comm. in Matt. in loc.) : ‘Not that he does this out of jealousy, but
that, with the fear of a man who keeps and is unwilling to lose, he hides away
in his heart the treasure which he preferred to all his former riches.’ H. de
Sto. Victore differently (De Area. Mor. 3: 6): ‘That man publishes abroad the
treasures he has found, who bears the gift of wisdom he has received as a matter
of boasting. But he hides away the treasure, who, when he has received the gift
of Wisdom, seeks to make his boast therefrom not publicly in the eyes of men,
but inwardly in the sight of God.’

[13] Bengel; ‘Spiritual joy, which is an incentive to the denial of the world.’
6

[14] Confess. 9: 1:’ How delightful did it suddenly become to me to lack all
frivolous delights, and these which I had feared to lose it was now a joy to
forego. For Thou didst cast them from me, Who art the true and highest delight,
Thou didst cast them from me and didst enter in their place, Who art sweeter
than every pleasure.’

[15] Augustine: ‘Behold thou askest of the Lord, and sayest, Lord, give unto me.
What shall He give unto thee, Who seeth thy hands filled with other matters?
Behold the Lord would give to thee of his own, and seeth not where He may put
it?’ And again (in 1 Ep. Joh. Tract. 4): ‘Thou must be filled with good, pour
away therefore the bad. Bethink thee that God would fill thee with honey. If
thou art filled with vinegar, where wilt thou find place for the honey? The
vessel which contained the vinegar must be emptied. It must be cleansed, though
it be with toil and rubbing, that so it may be made fit for use.’

[16] Augustine (Enarr. in Psalms 57:6): ‘A similitude is not drawn by the
Scriptures at all points; the thing itself is praised, but only in those points
whence the similitude is drawn.’ In books of casuistry, where they treat of the
question, how far and where a finder has a right to appropriate things found,
this parable is frequently adduced, as by Aquinas (Summ. Theol. 2: qu. 69, art.
5):’ Concerning things found we must draw a distinction. For there are some
things which were never among any man’s possessions, such as the stones and gems
which are found on the seashore. Things like these are granted to the holder,
and the same is the case with treasures hidden from ancient times beneath the
earth, of which there is no possessor surviving: except indeed that according to
the civil laws the finder is bound to give a moiety to the lord of the field, if
he find it in the field of another. Wherefore in the parable (Matthew 13 :) it
is said of the finder of the treasure that he buys the field, with the intent to
secure the right of possessing the whole of the treasure.’

[17] Calderon has founded several of his Autos on parables of our Lord; thus El
Tesoro Escondido (Autos, Madrid, 1759, vol. 3: p. 372), as its name sufficiently
indicates, on this; La Vina del Señor (vol. 3: p. 162) on that of the Wicked
Husbandmen; La Semilla y la Zizaña (vol. 5: p. 316) on those of the Sower and
the Tares combined; A tu proximo como a ti (vol. 4: p. 324) on the Good
Samaritan. Any one of these, were there room for it, would be well worthy of
analysis, both for its own sake, and as showing the capabilities of highest
poetical treatment which, in a great poet’s hands, the parables possess; the
latent and as yet unfolded germs of beauty and grandeur which they contain.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 8: 07-PARABLE 6. THE DRAW-NET.
========================================================================

PARABLE 6. THE DRAW-NET.

(contains some Greek words) Matthew 13:47-50. THIS parable might at first sight
seem merely to say over again what the Tares had said already. Maldonatus,
ascribing absolute identity of purpose to the two, conceives the parables of
this chapter not to be set down in the order wherein the Lord spoke them, but
this to have immediately followed upon that. Here, however, he is clearly
mistaken; there is this fundamental difference between them, that the central
truth of that is the present intermixture, of this, the future separation, of
the good and the bad; of that, that men are not to effect the separation; of
this, that the separation will one day, by God, be effected. The order in which
we have the parables is that in which they were spoken; that other relating to
the progressive development, this to the final consummation, of the Church.
Olshausen draws a further distinction between the two; in that, the kingdom of
God is represented rather in its idea, coextensive, as it shall ultimately be,
with the whole world; in this, in its present imperfect form, as a less
contained in a greater, though tending to spread over and embrace that greater;
the Church gathering in its members from the world, as the net its fish from the
sea. With all this, the parables resemble one another so nearly, that much which
has been already said, in considering the other, will apply to this. The same
use has been made of both; there is the same continual appeal to both in the
Donatist controversy; both convey the same lesson, namely that He who founded a
Church upon earth did not contemplate that Church as a communion free from all
intermixture of evil; but that as there was a Ham in the ark, and a Judas among
the twelve, so there should be a Babylon even within the bosom of the spiritual
Israel; Esau should contend with Jacob even in the Church’s womb, [1] till, like
another Rebekah, she should often be compelled to exclaim,

‘Why am I thus?’ (Genesis 25:22). They convey, too, the same further lesson,
that all this will in nowise justify self-willed departure from the fellowship
of the Church, an impatient leaping over, or breaking through, the nets, as here
it has often been called. The separation of a more unerring hand than man’s is
patiently to be waited for, which shall not fail to arrive when the mystery of
the present dispensation has been accomplished. [2] This parable, the last in
this grand series, commences thus: ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a
net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind,’ If we ask to what
manner of net the kingdom of heaven is likened here, the heading of the chapter
in our Bibles calls it a ‘draw-net,’ and the word of the original leaves no
doubt upon the subject. The sagene, seine, or sean, [3] for the word has been
naturalized in English, is a net of immense length, suffering nothing to escape
from it. This its all-embracing nature is no accidental or unimportant feature,
but makes the parable prophetic of the wide reach and effectual operation of the
Gospel. The kingdom of heaven should henceforward be a net, not cast into a
single stream as hitherto, but into the broad sea of the whole world, and
gathering ‘of every kind,’ out of every kindred and tongue and people and
nation; or, as some understand it, men good and bad; that as the servants, in
another parable, ‘gathered together all, as many as they found, both bad and
good’ (Matthew 22:10); so here they collect of all kinds within the folds of
their net; men of every diversity of moral character having the Gospel preached
to them, and finding themselves within the confines of the visible Church. [4]
But as all use not aright the advantages which fellowship with Christ in his
Church affords, an ultimate separation is necessary. Our Lord proceeds to
describe it - ‘Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, [5] and sat down,
and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.’ Whether these ‘bad’
[6] are dead putrid fish, such as a net will sometimes include, or fish
worthless and good for nothing, ‘that which was sick and unwholesome at the
season,’ or such as from their kind, their smallness, or some other cause, are
profitable for nothing, and therefore flung carelessly aside to rot upon the
beach, or to become food for the birds of prey (Ezekiel 29:4-5; Ezekiel 32:3-4),
has been often a question; and it is not easy, as it is not very important, to
decide. The interpretation, which is not affected by a determination in one of
these senses or in another, is obvious, ‘So shall it be at the end of the
world,’ When all nations have been gathered into the external fellowship of the
Church, when the religion of Christ has become the religion of the world, then
the severing of the precious from the vile, of the just from the unjust, shall
begin. But who are they that shall effect it? to whom shall this awful task be
confided? Here I must entirely dissent from those, Vitringa, [7] for example,
and Olshausen, who urge that they who first carry out the net, and they who
discriminate between its contents, being, in the parable, the same; therefore,
since the former are evidently the Apostles and their successors, now become,
according to the Lord’s promise, ‘fishers of men’ (Matthew 4:19; Luke 5:10;
Ezekiel 47:10; Jer. xvi. 16); [8] the latter must be in like manner, not the
angelic ministers of God’s judgments, but the same messengers of the Covenant,
and as such, ‘angels’ (ver. 49); to whom, being equipped with divine power, the
task of judging and sundering should be committed. No doubt the Church, in her
progressive development, is always thus judging and separating (1 Corinthians
5:4-5; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; 2 John 1:10; Matthew 18:17; Jude 1:22-23); putting
away one and another from her communion, as they openly declare themselves
unworthy of it. But she does not count that she has thus cleansed herself, or
that a perfect cleansing can be effected by the exercise of any power which now
she possesses. There must be a final judgment and sundering, not any more from
within, but from without and from above; and of this decisive crisis we find
everywhere else in Scripture the angels of heaven distinctly named as the
instruments (Matthew 13:41; Matthew 24:31; Matthew 25:31; Revelation 14:18-19).
It is contrary then to the analogy of faith so to interpret the words before us
as to withdraw this office from them. It is indeed true that in that familiar
occurrence of our workday world which supplies the groundwork of the parable,
the same who carry out the net would also bring it to shore; as they too would
inspect its contents, selecting the good, and casting the worthless away. But it
is a pushing of this, which in fact is the weak side of the comparison, too far,
to require that the same should hold good in the spiritual thing signified. In
the nearly allied parable of the Tares, there was no improbability in supposing
those who watched the growth of the crop to be different from those who should
finally gather it in; and, accordingly, such a difference is marked: those are
the ‘servants,’ these are the ‘reapers;’ just as in every other parable of
judgment there is a marked distinction between the present ministers of the
kingdom, and the future executors of doom; in the Marriage of the King’s Son
between the ‘servants’ and the ‘attendants,’ though our Translation has effaced
it (Matthew 22:3; Matthew 22:13). In the Pounds there is the same distinction
between the ‘servants’ and ‘those that stand by’ (Luke 19:24). That the agents
in the one work and in the other are not the same could not here be so easily
marked; but is slightly, yet sufficiently, indicated in another way. The fishers
are not once mentioned by name. The imperfection of the human illustration to
set forth the divine truth is kept in good part out of sight, by the whole
circumstance being told, as nearly as may be, impersonally. And when the Lord
Himself interprets the parable, He passes over, without a word, the beginning;
thus still further drawing attention away from a feature of it, upon which to
dwell might have needlessly perplexed his hearers; and explains only the latter
part, where the point and stress of it lay. Assuming, then, as we may and must,
the angels of heaven to be here, as everywhere else, the takers and the leavers,
we may recognize an emphasis in the ‘coming forth’ attributed to them. Ever
since the first constitution of the Church they have been hidden, - for ages
withdrawn from men’s sight. But then, at that grand epoch, the winding up of the
present age, the commencement of another, they shall again ‘come forth’ from
before the throne and presence of God, and walk up and down among men, the
visible ministers of his judgments. The deliberate character of that
judgment-act which they shall accomplish, the fact that it shall be no hasty
operation confusedly huddled over, is intimated in the sitting down of the
fishers for the sorting and separating of the good from the bad, [9] From some
image like that which our parable supplies, the ‘taking’ and ‘leaving’ of
Matthew 24:41-42, must be derived. There too the taking is probably for
blessedness, the selecting of the precious; the leaving for destruction, the
rejecting of the vile. Some reverse the meaning, yet hardly with justice; for
what is the ‘left’ but the refused, and the refused but the refuse? We dare not
lay any stress upon the order here, that the good are first ‘gathered into
vessels,’ even though it is also the order of Matthew 25:34; Matthew 25:41,
seeing that it is exactly reversed in the cognate parable of the Tares, where
with a certain emphasis it is said, ‘Gather ye together first the tares’ (ver.
30). Of these ‘vessels,’ Christ gives no interpretation; nor indeed is any
needed. They are the ‘barn’ of ver. 30; the ‘many mansions’ of John 14:2; the
‘everlasting habitations ‘of Luke 16:9; the ‘city which hath foundations’ for
which Abraham looked, of Hebrews 11:10; Hebrews 11:12; Hebrews 11:22; [10] the
‘New Jerusalem which cometh down out of heaven’ of Revelation 3:12. This task
accomplished, those who drew the net to shore ‘cast the bad away.’ [11] These
words hardly prepare us for the fearful meaning which in the interpretation they
receive - ‘and shall cast them,’ that is, the wicked, ‘into the furnace of fire:
there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.’ No wonder that Chrysostom should
characterize this as ‘a terrible parable; [12] that Gregory the Great should
style it one ‘rather to be trembled at than expounded.’ [13] But on this
‘furnace of fire’ something has been said already (p. 104). Thus, and thus only,
God Himself taking in hand to cleanse his Church, shall that entire freedom from
all evil which belongs to the idea of the Church be at length brought about
(Revelation 22:15).

Comparing once more this parable with that of the Tares, we find that,
notwithstanding seeming resemblances, the lessons which they teach are very
different. The lesson of that it is needless to repeat; but of this it clearly
is, that we be not content with conclusion within the Gospel-net, since ‘they
are not all Israel who are of Israel; ‘that in the ‘great house’ of the Church
‘there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth;
and some to honour, and some to dishonour; ‘that each of us should therefore
seek to be ‘a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use’ (2
Timothy 2:20-21); since despite of all the confusions of the visible Church,
‘the Lord knoweth them that are his,’ and will one day bring these confusions to
an end, separating the precious from the vile, the gold from the dross, the true
kernel of humanity from the husk in which for a while it was enveloped.

I conclude with a few remarks on the relation of these parables to one another.
The mystical number seven has tempted not a few interpreters to seek some hidden
mystery here; and when the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, and the names
of the seven first deacons (Acts 6:5), have been turned into prophecy of seven
successive conditions of the Church, not to speak of the seven Apocalyptic
Epistles (Revelation 2:3 :), [14] it was unlikely that this heptad of parables
should escape being made prophetic of the same. They have, in fact, so often
been dealt with as prophecy, that a late ingenious writer [15] needed not to
apologize for an attempt in this kind, as though he were suggesting something
altogether novel and unheard of before, ‘It is,’ he says, ‘my persuasion that
the parables in this chapter should not be considered disjointedly, but taken
together as a connected series, indicating, progressively, the several stages of
advancement through which the mystical kingdom of Christ, upon earth, was to
proceed, from its commencement to its consummation.. . . It will be understood,
then, that each parable has a period peculiarly its own, in which the state of
things, so signified, predominates; but when another state of things commences,
the former does not cease. It only becomes less prominent; operative as really
as ever, but in a way subsidiary to that which now takes the lead. It will
follow that each succeeding stage implies a virtual combination of all that has
gone before, and of course the grand concluding scene will contain the
sublimated spirit and extracted essence of the whole.’ Bengel has anticipated
all this. [16] He refers the first parable to the times of Christ and his
immediate Apostles, when was the original sowing of the word of eternal life.
The second, that of the Tares, belongs to the age immediately following, when
watchfulness against false doctrine began to diminish, and heresies to creep in.
The third, that of the Mustard-seed, to the time of Constantine, when the
Church, instead of even seeming to need support, evidently gave it, and the
great ones of the earth sought its shadow and protection. The fourth, that of
the Leaven, sets forth the diffusion of true religion through the whole world.
The fifth, of the Hid Treasure, refers to the more hidden state of the Church,
signified in the Apocalypse (xii. 6) by the woman flying into the wilderness.
The sixth, that of the Pearl, to the glorious time when the kingdom shall be
dearer than all things else, Satan being bound. The seventh, of the Draw-net,
describes the ultimate confusion, separation, and judgment. In rejecting this
notion of an historico-prophetical character, as belonging to these parables,
for which certainly there is no warrant whatever, we must not at the same time
refuse to acknowledge that the mystical number seven has here, as almost
everywhere else in Scripture, its purpose and meaning, that the parables possess
a most significant unity of their own, being knit to one another by very real
bonds, succeeding one another in a logical order, and together constituting a
complete and harmonious whole. But it is the ideas and laws, not the actual
facts, of the Church’s history which they declare. Thus in the Sower are set
forth the causes of the failures and success which the word of the Gospel meets,
when it is preached in the world. In the Tares, the obstacles to the internal
development of Christ’s kingdom, even after a Church has been hedged in and
fenced round from the world, are traced up to their true author, with a warning
against methods in which men might be tempted to remove those obstacles. The
Mustard-seed and the Leaven announce, the first, the outward, and the second,
the inward, might of that kingdom; and therefore implicitly prophesy of its
development in spite of all these obstacles, and its triumph over them. As these
two are objective and general, so the two which follow, the Hid Treasure and the
Pearl, are subjective and individual; declaring the relation of the kingdom to
every man, its supreme worth, and how those who have discovered that worth will
be willing to renounce all things to make this their own. They have besides
mutual relations already touched on; and in the same way as the Mustard-seed and
the Leaven complete one another. Finally this of the Draw-net declares how that
entire separation from evil, which it is right to long for, but wrong by
self-willed efforts prematurely to anticipate, shall in God’s own time come to
pass; looking forward to which, each should give diligence so to use the
privileges and means of grace which the communion of the Church affords him,
that he may be among the ‘taken’ and not the ‘left,’ when the great ‘Fisher of
men’ shall separate forever between the precious and the vile. [17]

FOOTNOTES [1] See Augustine, Enarr, in Psalms 126:3.

[2] The following extracts will show the uses to which the parable was turned.
Augustine (Enarr. in Psalms 64:6): ‘And as we are now prisoners in the sea in
the nets of faith, let us rejoice that we swim there still within the nets,
because still this sea rages with storms, but the nets which have captured us
shall be brought to shore. Meanwhile, my brethren, let us lead good lives within
the nets, and not break the nets and seek our way out. For many have broken the
nets and have made schisms, and have sought their way out. And whereas they said
that they could not endure the wickedness of the fish captured within the nets,
it was they themselves who were wicked, rather than those whom they declared
they could not endure.’ - The curious ballad verses, in a sort of Saturnian
metre, and written, as Augustine tells us, to bring the subject within the
comprehension of the most unlearned, begin with a reference to this
parable:Abundantia peccatorum solet fratres conturbare; Propter hoc Dominus
noster voluit nos praemonere, Comparans regnum caelorum reticulo misso in mare,
Congreganti multos pisces, omne genus hinc et inde, Quos cum traxissent ad
litus, tune coeperunt separare, Bonos in vasa miserunt, reliquos males in mare.
Quisquis recolit Evangelium, recognoscat cum timore; Videt reticulum Ecclesiam,
videt hoc seoulum mare, Genus autem mixtum piscis Justus est cum peccatore:
Seculi finis est litus, tune est tempus separare: Quando retia ruperunt, multum
dilexerunt mare. Vasa sunt sedes sanctorum, quo non possunt pervenire.‘The
multitude of sinners oft the brethren doth dismay, Therefore to pre-admonish us,
Our Master took this way: Likening the heavenly kingdom to a net cast in the
deep, Which in its folds full many a fish of every kind doth sweep. And these
men straight begin to sort, when they are dragged to shore; The good they put in
vessels, the bad cast back once more.Who calls to mind this Gospel, full of
terrors let him be, Seeing the net stands for the Church, and for the world the
sea. Mixed is the shoal of fishes, just and unjust side by side, The shore’s the
end of the world, and the time comes to divide. But they who break the nets, of
the sea are they full fain: ‘Tis the vessels are the seats of saints, which
these shall ne’er attain.’One or two quotations from the minutes of the
Conference at Carthage will show how the Donatists sought to evade the force of
the arguments drawn from this parable. They did not deny that, since bad and
good were in this net, it must follow that sinners are mixed with righteous in
the Church upon earth; and that Christ contemplated such a mixture: only they
affirmed (Coll. Carth. d. 3), ‘this was spoken of hidden offenders, since the
contents of a net sunk in the sea is unknown to the fishers, that is, to the
priests, until it be drawn forth to the shore to be cleared, and the fish are
revealed as good or bad. So also the hidden sinners, who have a place in the
Church and are unknown to the priests, when they are revealed in the divine
judgment are separated, like the bad fish, from the fellowship of the saints.’
They take refuge here in an accidental feature of the parable; and Augustine
well rejoins, with allusion to Matthew 3:12 (Ad Don, post Coll. 10): ‘Is it also
under water or under ground that the threshingfloor is threshed, or are we at
least to say that the separation is made in the night-time and not in the light
of day, or that the husbandman is blindfold at his work?’

[3] Σαγήνη (not from εσω άγειν, but from σάττω, σέσαγα, οnerο), = a hauling net; in Latin, tragum, tragula, verriculum; vasta sagena, as Manilius calls it; the German Schleppnetze. On the coast of Cornwall, where the ‘sean’ is well known, it is sometimes half a mile long. Leaded below, that it may sweep the bottom of the sea, and supported with corks above, it is carried out so as to enclose a large space of sea; the ends are then brought together, and it, with all it contains, is drawn up upon the shore; thus Ovid, ducebarn ducentia retia pisces.Cicero calls Verres, with a play upon his name, everriculum in provincia, in that he swept all before him; and in the Greek Fathers we have θανάτου σαγήνη, κατακλυσμου σαγήνη (Suicer, Thes. s. 5:): see Habakkuk 1:15-17, LXX, where the mighty reach of the Chaldean conquests is set forth under this image, and by this word. In this view of it, as an ----------------, how grand is Homer’s comparison (Od. 22: 384) of the slaughtered suitors; whom Ulysses saw,ώσ τ ιχθύας, ουσ θ αλιηες κώλον αίγιαλm ν πολιης εκτοσθε Θαλάσσης δικτύφ εξέρυσαν πολυωπφ. οί δά τε πάντης, κυμαθ αλος ποθέοντες, επι ψαμά θοισι κεχυνται.‘Like fishes that the fishermen have drawn forth in the meshes of the net into a hollow of the beach from out the grey sea, and all the fish, sore longing for the salt sea waves, are heaped upon the sand.’ - Butcher and Lang. Herodotus (iii. 149; 6: 31) tells us how the Persians swept away the population from some of the Greek islands; a chain of men, holding hand in hand, and stretching across the entire island, advanced over its whole length, taking the entire population as in a draw-net; and to this process the technical word σαγηεύειν was applied. In Bonwick’s Last of the Tasmanians is a full account of a very singular attempt, about the year 1830, to compel, by a rough process of the same kind, the whole surviving black population of Van Diemen’s Land into one corner of the island, and to bring them so within the power of the Government. It issued, as might have been expected in an attempt over so vast an extent of territory, in total failure, in the capture of a single black. Gf. Plato, Menexenus, 240, b, o; Legg. 3: 698; Plutarch, De Sol. Anim. 26’ and generally on the σαγήνη the Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antt. s. 5: Rete’ p. 823; and on the difference between it and the άμφίβληστρον or circular casting-net (Matthew 4:18) my Synonyms of the N. T. § 64.

[4] Beza, indeed, translates , έκ παντός γενους, ex omni rerum genere, as mud,
shells, sea-weed, and whatever else of worthless would be swept into a net;
these being the σαπρά, which in the next verse are ‘cast away;’ and so in the
Geneva Version, ‘of all kinds of things.’ But the whole drift of the parable
makes it certain that the net is here regarded as a πάναγρον, and that fish of
all kinds (as the Vulgate, ex omni genere piscium), and not things of all kinds,
are intended. H. de Sto. Victore (Annott. in Matt): ‘He makes assembly from all
those who are divided from God by sins, whether smaller or greater, and are
scattered by the multitude of their iniquities.’

[5] Claudian:Attonitos ad litora pisces Æquoreus populator agit, rarosque
plagarum Contrahit anfractus, et hiantes colligit oras.‘The waster of the waters
drags to shore The astonished fishes, and his net’s loose folds Tightens, and
draws its gaping edges close.’

[6] Σαπρά, scil. ιχθύδια. Grotius: ‘These are the trash and refuse of the
fish, a kind which, as not worth keeping, we see thrown away by fishers’
(‘uneatable and worthless,’ Lucian; ‘worthless fishes,’ Apuleius); and this
despite of Vitringa’s note (Erklarung d. Parab. p. 344) I must think the right
interpretation. Dead fish in a net can only rarely occur; while of the fish
which, for instance, Ovid enumerates in his fragment of the Halieuticon, how
many, though perfectly fresh, would be flung aside as not edible, as worthless
or noxious, the immunda chromis, merito vilissima salpa, Et nigrum niveo portans
in corpore virus Loligo, durique sues; or again, - Et capitis duro nociturus
scorpius ictu, - all which might well have been gathered in this σαγήνη.·
Moreover, with Jewish fishermen, this rejection of part of the contents would of
necessity find place, not because some were dead, but because they were unclean;
‘all that have not fins and scales shall be an abomination unto you’ (Leviticus
11:9-12). These probably were the σαπρά. Fritzsche combines both meanings, for
he explains it, ‘useless and putrid.’ Our Translation has not determined
absolutely for one sense or the other (see Suicer, Thes. s. 5:). But some words
of Tristram (Natural History of the Bible, p. 290) seem decisive on the matter:
‘As illustrating this expression, we may observe that the greater num-ber of the
species taken on the lake are rejected by the fishermen, and I have sat with
them on the gunwale while they went through their net, and threw out into the
sea those that were too small for the market, or were considered unclean.’

[7] Erklar. d. Parab. p. 351, seq.

[8] In that grand Orphic hymn attributed to Clement of Alexandria (p. 312,
Potter’s ed.), Christ Himself is addressed as the chief Fisher; and, as here,
the world is the great sea of wickedness, out of which the saved, the holy fish,
are drawn:‘Αλιευ μερόπων των σωζομένων, πελάγους κακίας ιχθυς αγνους
κύματος εχθρου γλυκερη ζωη δελεάζων.‘Fisher of mortal men, Those that the
savéd are, Ever the holy fish From the wild oceanOf the world’s sea of sin By
thy sweet life Thou enticest away.

[9] Thus Bengel, who to this καθίσαντες appends, Studiose; cf. Luke 14: 28, 811
16: 6. At the same time it completes the natural picture:in illo Cespite
consedi, dum lina madentia sicco, Utque recenserem captivos ordine pisces.Ovid,
Metam. 9: 30 .‘There on the turf I took my seat, while I dry my dripping nets,
and that I might duly tell over the captured fish.’

[10] Augustine (Serm. ccclxviii. 3): ‘The vessels are the seats of the saints
and the great places of retreat of the happy life.’

[11] Note the frequency of the term εκβάλλειν εζω, resting on the image of the
Church as a holy enclosure, with its line of separation from the unholy κοσμος(
= οι εξω␣ Mark 4 : II; Colossians 4:5) distinctly drawn; thus John 6:37; John
12:31; John 15:9.

[12] φοβερα παραβή.

[13] Horn. 11 in Evang.: Timendum est potius quam exponendum.

[14] See my Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia, 4th edit
p. 59.

[15] Alex. Knox, Remains vol. 1: p. 408.

[16] ‘Besides illustrating the normal and constant relations of the kingdom of
heaven or the Church, these seven parables agree in having a farther and most
recondite import, which refers to the different periods and ages of the Church,
so that one of them takes its beginning after another as a complement to it, and
no one of them leaves off before the banning of the next in order.’ An essay by
Beuss: Meletema de Sensu Septem Parab, Matth. 12: Prophetico, Jenae, 1734, is in
the same line of interpretation. See too the Collected Writings of the late
Thomas Carlyle (Advocate), 1878, pp. 361-402.

[17] Marchius, who (Syll. Diss. Exerc. 4) sets himself against the caprice of
the historicoprophetic exposition, recognizes them as in this sense prophetic:
‘The Church was destined to be planted by means of the preaching of the Gospel,
a preaching which, nevertheless, among many was to prove useless. By the cunning
malice of Satan many were to be associated with the Church who did not really
belong to it, and hence must one day be separated from it. From small beginnings
the Church was to rise to the highest greatness; from this it was to advance to
embrace all the elect; enclosed in its bosom it was to hold the true and highest
good, for the sake of which it was rightly to be sought before all else. And
this highest good, as it outshone all other excellent things, so also was to be
sought by the elect with the loss of all besides. Furthermore, this good was not
by any means to be shared by all who might have been drawn into external
communion with the Church, but yet were destined to be cast from it into
perdition. In this manner these parables are easily linked together in respect
to their principal aim.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 9: 08-PARABLE 7. THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.
========================================================================

PARABLE 7. THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.

Matthew 18:21-35. A QUESTION of Peter’s gives occasion to this parable, that
question growing out of some words of Christ, in which He had declared to the
members of his future kingdom how they should bear themselves towards an
offending brother. Peter would willingly know more on this matter, and brings to
the Lord his question: ‘Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I
forgive him? till seven times?’ Chrysostom observes that Peter, thus instancing
seven as the number of times of forgiveness, accounted probably that his charity
was taking a large stretch, these seven being four times oftener than the Jewish
masters enjoined; grounding as they did the duty of forgiving three times and
not more, upon Amos 1:3; Amos 2:6; and on Job 33:29-30; [1] He extended their
three to seven, no doubt, out of a just sense that the spirit of the new law of
love which Christ has brought into the world, - a law larger, freer, more
long-suffering than the old, - demanded this. [2] There was then in Peter’s mind
a consciousness of this new law of love; an obscure one, it is true; else he
would not have deemed it possible that love could ever be overcome by hate, good
by evil. But there was, at the same time, a fundamental error in the question
itself; for in proposing a limit beyond which forgiveness should not extend, it
was evidently assumed, that a man in forgiving, gave up a right which he might,
under certain circumstances, exercise. In this parable the Lord will make clear
that when God calls on a member of his kingdom to forgive, lie does not call on
him to renounce a right, but that he has now no right to exercise in the matter;
for having himself sought and accepted forgiveness, he has implicitly pledged
himself to show it; and it is difficult to imagine how any amount of didactic
instruction could have brought home this truth with at all the force and
conviction of the parable which follows.

‘Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until
seventy times seven. [3] Therefore,’ - to the end that Peter may understand the
larger demands made on him by the new law of love - ‘is the kingdom of heaven
likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.’ This is
the first of the parables in which God appears as King. We are the servants with
whom He takes account. This account, as is plain, is not the final reckoning,
not therefore identical with the reckoning of Matthew 25:19; 2 Corinthians 5:10;
Revelation 20:11-12; but rather such as that of Luke 16:2. To this He brings us
by the preaching of the Law, - by the setting of our sins before our face, - by
awakening and alarming our conscience that was asleep before, - by bringing us
into adversities (2 Chronicles 33:11-13), - by casting us into sore sicknesses
[4] (Job 33:19-33), into perils of death; so that there is not a step between us
and it (2 Kings 20:4); He takes account with us, when He makes us feel that we
could not answer Him one thing in a thou sand, that our trespasses are more than
the hairs of our heads; when by one means or another He brings our careless
carnal security to an end (Ps. 1: 21; Acts 16:30). Thus David was summoned
before God by the word of Nathan the prophet (2 Samuel 12 :); thus the Ninevites
by the preaching of Jonah (Jonah 3:4); thus the Jews by John the Baptist (Luke
3:3-14).

‘And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten
thousand talents.’ The sum is great, whatever talents we assume; if Hebrew
talents, it will be enormous indeed; [5] yet thus only the fitter to express the
immensity of every man’s transgression in thought, word, and deed, against God.
Over against the Ten Commandments which he should have kept, are the ten
thousand talents, - for the number is not accidental, - setting forth the debts
(see Matthew 6:12) which he has incurred. So far as the letter of the parable
reaches, we may account for the vastness of the debt by supposing the defaulter
to have been one of the chief officers of the king, a farmer or administrator of
the royal revenues. [6] Or, seeing that in the despotisms of the East, where a
nobility does not exist, and all, from the highest to the lowest, stand in an
absolutely servile relation to the monarch, this name of ‘servant’ [7] need not
hinder us from regarding him as one, to whom some chief post of trust and honour
in the kingdom had been committed, - a satrap who should have remitted the
revenues of his province to the royal treasury.[8] The king had not far to go,
he had only ‘begun to reckon,’ when he lighted on this defaulter; perhaps the
first whose accounts were examined; there may have been others with yet larger
debts behind. This one ‘was brought unto him,’ for he never would have come of
himself; more probably would have made that ‘ten thousand’ into twenty; for the
secure sinner goes on, heaping up wrath against the day of wrath, writing
himself an ever deeper debtor in the books of God.

‘But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his
wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.’ The sale of
the debtor’s wife and children rested upon the assumption that they were a part
of his property. Such was the theory and practice of the Roman law. That it was
allowed under the Mosaic law to sell an insolvent debtor, is implicitly stated,
Leviticus 25:39; and from ver. 41 we infer that his family came into bondage
with him; no less is implied at Exodus 22:3; 2 Kings 4:1; Nehemiah 5:5; Isaiah
1:1; Isaiah 58:6; Jeremiah 34:8-11; Amos 2:6; Amos 8:6. The later Jewish doctors
disallowed this severity, except where a thief should be sold to make good the
wrong which he had done; and in our Lord’s time a custom so harsh had probably
quite disappeared from among the Jews. [9] Certainly the imprisonment of a
debtor, twice occurring in this parable (ver. 30, 34), formed no part of the
Jewish law; and, where the creditor possessed the power of selling him into
bondage, was wholly superfluous. ‘The tormentors’ also (ver. 34) have a foreign
appearance, and dispose us to look for the scene of the parable among the
Oriental monarchies, and not in the Jewish commonwealth, where a more merciful
legislation tempered the rights of the rich and the strong. For the spiritual
significance, this of having nothing to pay expresses the utter bankruptcy of
every child of Adam as he stands in the presence of a holy God, and is tried by
the strictness of his holy law (Romans 3:28; Job 42:5-6). The dreadful command
that he shall be sold and all that he has (of. Psalms 44:12), is the expression
of God’s right and power altogether to alienate from Himself, reject, and
deliver over into bondage, all those who have thus come short of his glory
(Psalms 44:12); that by a terrible but righteous sentences these, unless this
sentence be reversed, shall be punished by everlasting destruction from the
presence of the Lord and the glory of his power.

‘The servant therefore,’ hearing the dreadful doom pronounced against him,
betakes himself to supplication, the only resource that is left him; he ‘fell
down, and worshipped him.’ The formal act of worship, or adoration, consisted in
prostration on the ground, with the embracing and kissing of the feet and knees.
Origen bids us here to note a nice observance of proprieties in the slighter
details of the parable. This servant ‘worshipped’ the king, for that honour was
paid to royal personages; but we shall not find that the other servant
‘worshipped’ - which, as between equals, would have been out of place, - he only
‘ besought,’ him. His ‘Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all,’ is
characteristic of the anguish of the moment, out of which he is ready to promise
impossible things, even mountains of gold, if only he may be delivered from his
present fear. When words corresponding to these find utterance from a sinner’s
lips in the first conviction of his sin, they testify that he has not yet
attained to a full insight into his relations with God; but has still much to
learn; and this chiefly, that no future obedience can make up for past
disobedience; since that future obedience God claims for his own, and as nothing
more than his due. It could not, therefore, even were there no fault or flaw in
it, and there will be many, make compensation for the defects of the past; and
in this ‘I will pay thee all,’ we must detect the voice of self-righteousness,
imagining that, if only time were allowed, it could make all past shortcomings
good. This goes far to explain the later conduct of the suppliant here. It is
clear that he whom this servant represents, had never come to a true recognition
of the vastness of his debt. Little, in the subjective measure of his own
estimate, has been forgiven him, and therefore he loves little, or not at all
(Luke 7:47). It is true that by his demeanour and his cry he did recognize his
indebtedness, else would there have been no setting of him free; and he might
have gone on, and, had he only been true to his own mercies, he would have gone
on, to an ever fuller recognition of the grace shown him: but as it was, in a
little while he lost sight of it altogether, and showed too plainly that he had
‘forgotten that he was purged from his old sins’ (2 Peter 1:9).

However, at the earnestness of his present prayer, ‘the lord of that servant was
moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.’ [10] The
severity of God only endures till the sinner is brought to acknowledge his
guilt; like Joseph’s harshness with his brethren, it is love in disguise; and
having done its work, having brought him to own that he is verily guilty, it
reappears as grace again; that very reckoning, which at first threatened him
with irremediable ruin, being, if he will use it aright, the largest mercy of
all; bringing indeed his debt to a head, but only bringing it to this head, that
it may be forever abolished (Psalms 103:12; Jer. 1. 20; Micah 7:19). That,
however, must be first done. There can be no forgiving in the dark. God will
forgive; but He will have the sinner to know what and how much he is forgiven;
there must be first a ‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ before the scarlet
can be made white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). The sinner must know his sins for what
they are, a mountain of transgression, before ever they can be cast into the
deep sea of God’s mercy. He must first have the sentence of death in himself,
ere the words of life will have any abiding worth for him.

Such abiding worth they have not for the servant who, crying for mercy, has
himself obtained it (Wisd. 12: 18, 19).‘The same servant went out,’ that is,
from his master’s presence, ‘and found,’ on the instant, as it would seem, and
while the memory of his lord’s goodness should have been fresh upon him, ‘one of
his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence.’ May we press this ‘went
out,’ and say that we go out from the presence of our God, when we fail to keep
an ever-lively sense of the greatness of our sin, and the greatness of his
forgiveness? So more than one interpreter; [11] yet I cannot see more in this
than what the outward conditions of the parable require. He is said to go out,
because in the actual presence of his lord he could not have ventured on the
outrage which follows. The term ‘fellowservant’ here does not imply equality of
rank between these two, or that they filled similar offices; [12] but only that
they stood both in the relation of servants to a common lord. And this sum is so
small, ‘an hundred pence,’ as the other had been so large, ‘ten thousand
talents,’ to signify how little any man can offend against his brother, compared
with that which every man has offended against God; [13] so that, in
Chrysostom’s words, these offences to those are as a drop of water to the
boundless ocean. [14] The whole demeanour of this unrelenting creditor toward
his debtor is graphically described: ‘He laid hands on him, and took him by the
throat, saying, [15] Pay me that thou owest.’ Some press the word in the
original, and find therein an aggravation of this servant’s cruelty, as though
he was not even sure whether the debt were owing or not. [16] There is no
warrant for this. That the debt was owing is plain; he found, we are told, ‘one
of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence.’ Any different
assumption would mar the proprieties of the story, would turn the edge of the
parable, and we should have here a vulgar extortioner and wrong-doer. But such a
one the law would have sufficiently condemned; there would have been no need to
speak for this a parable of the kingdom of heaven. The lessons which it teaches
are different; lessons which they need to learn who are not under the law, but
under grace; and this chiefly - that it is not always right, but often the most
opposite to right, to press our rights, that in the kingdom of grace the summum
jus may be the summa injuria. This man would fain have been measured to by God
in one measure, while he measured to his fellows in another. He would fain be
forgiven, while yet he did not forgive. But this may not be. A man must make his
choice. It is free to him to dwell in the kingdom of grace: but then, receiving
grace, he must show grace; finding love, he must exercise love. If, on the
contrary, he pushes his rights as far as they will go, if the law of severest
justice is the law of his dealings with his fellow-men, he must look for the
same as the law of God’s dealings with him, and in the measure wherein he has
meted, that it shall be measured to him again.

It was in vain that ‘his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him,
saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all;’ unconsciously using
exactly the same words of entreaty which he, in the agony of his distress, had
used, and, using, had found mercy. ‘He would not; but went and cast him into
prison, till he should pay the debt; dragging, as we may suppose, his debtor
with him till he could consign him to the safe custody of the jailer; refusing,
in Chrysostom’s words, ‘to recognize the port in which he had himself so lately
escaped shipwreck; ‘and all unconscious that he was condemning himself, and
revoking his own mercy. But such is man, so harsh and hard, when he walks
otherwise than in a constant sense of forgiveness received from God. Ignorance
or forgetfulness of his own guilt makes him harsh, unforgiving, and cruel to
others; or at best, he is only hindered from being so by those weak defences of
natural character which may at any moment break down. He who knows not his own
guilt, is ever ready to exclaim, as David in the time of his worst sin, ‘The man
that hath done this thing shall surely die’ (2 Samuel 12:5); to be as extreme in
judging others, as he is remiss and indulgent in judging himself; while, on the
other hand, it is to them ‘who are spiritual’ that St. Paul commits the
restoring of a brother ‘overtaken in a fault’ (Galatians 6:1); and when he urges
on Titus the duty of showing meekness unto all men, he finds the motive here -
‘for we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving
divers lusts and pleasures’ (Titus 3:3). It is just in man to be merciful
(Matthew 1:19), to be humane is human. None but the altogether Righteous may
press his utmost rights; whether He will do so or not is determined by
altogether different considerations, but He has not that to hold his hand, which
every man has, even the sense of his own proper guilt (John 8:7-9).

‘So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came
and told unto their lord all that was done.’ It is not in heaven only that
indignation is felt when men thus measure to others in so different a measure
from that which has been measured to them. There are on earth also those who
have learned what is the meaning of the mercy which the sinner finds, and what
the obligations which it imposes on him; and who mourn in their prayer when this
is greatly forgotten by others round them. The servants were ‘sorry;’ their
lord, as we read presently, was ‘wroth’ (ver. 34); to them grief, to him anger,
is ascribed. The distinction is not accidental, nor without its grounds. In man,
the sense of his own guilt, the deep consciousness that whatever sin he sees
come to ripeness in another, exists in its germ and seed in his own heart, with
the knowledge that all flesh is one, and that the sin of one calls for
humiliation from all, will rightly make sorrow the predominant feeling in his
heart, when the spectacle of moral evil is brought before his eyes (Psalms
119:136; Psalms 119:158; Romans 9:2; 2 Peter 1:7); but in God the pure hatred of
sin, [17] which is, indeed, his love of holiness at its opposite pole, finds
place. At the same time the sorrow which is here ascribed to the servants is
not, as Bengel has well observed, [18] without its own admixture of indignation.
As the servants of the king here, so the servants of a heavenly King complain to
Him, mourn over all the oppressions that are wrought in their sight: the things
which they cannot set right themselves, the wrongs which they are weak to
redress, they can at least bring to Him; and they do not bring them in vain.
‘Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked
servant’ [19] - this, which he had not called him on account of his debt, he now
calls him on account of his ingratitude and cruelty - ‘I forgave thee all that
debt, because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have had compassion on
thy fellowservant even as I had pity on thee?’ [20] The guilt which he is
charged with is, not that, needing mercy, he refused to show it, but that,
having received mercy, he remains unmerciful still (cf. 1 John 4:11). A most
important difference! They, therefore, who like him are hard hearted and cruel,
do not thereby bear witness that they have received no mercy: on the contrary,
the stress of their offence is, that having received an infinite mercy, they
remain unmerciful yet. The objective fact, that Christ has put away the sin of
the world, and that we have been baptized into the remission of sins, stands
firm, whether we allow it to exercise a purifying, sanctifying, humanizing
influence on our hearts or not. Our faith apprehends, indeed, the benefit, but
has not created it, any more than our opening of our eyes upon the sun has first
set the sun in the heavens.

‘And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay
all that was due unto him’ - according to that word, ‘He shall have judgment
without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy’ (James 2:18). The king had dealt with
him before as a creditor with a debtor, but now as a judge with a criminal. ‘The
tormentors’ are those who, as the word implies, shall make the life of a
prisoner bitter to him; wring out from him the confession of any concealed
hoards which he may still possess; even as there are ‘tormentors’ in that world
of woe, whereof this prison is a figure - fellow-sinners and evil angels -
instruments of the just yet terrible judgments of God.21 But here it is strange
that the king delivers the offender to prison and to punishment not for the evil
which he had just wrought, but for that old debt which had seemed
unconditionally remitted to him. When Hammond says, that the king ‘revoked his
designed mercy,’ and would transfer this view of the transaction to the relation
between God and sinners, this is one of those evasions of a difficulty by help
of an ambiguous expression, or a word ingeniously thrust in, which are too
frequent even in good interpreters of Scripture. It was not merely a designed
mercy; the king had not merely purposed to forgive him, but, as is distinctly
declared, ‘forgave him the debt.’ It has been ingeniously suggested that the
debt for which he is now cast into prison, is the debt of mercy and love, which,
according to that pregnant word of St. Paul’s, ‘Owe no man anything, but to love
one another,’ he owed, but had so signally failed to pay. Few, however, would be
satisfied with this. As little are the cases of Adonijah and Shimei (1 Kings 2)
altogether in point. They, no doubt, on occasion of their later offences, were
punished far more severely than they would have been, but for their former
faults; yet for all this it is not the former offences which are revived that
they may be punished, but the later offence which calls down its own punishment;
not to say that parallels drawn from questionable acts of imperfect men, go but
a little way in establishing the righteousness of God. The question which seems
involved in all this, Do sins, once forgiven, return on the sinner through his
after offences? is one frequently and fully discussed by the Schoolmen;22 and of
course this parable occupies a prominent place in such discussions. But it may
be worth considering, whether difficulties upon this point do not arise mainly
from too dead and formal a way of contemplating the forgiveness of sins; from
our suffering the earthly circumstances of the remission of a debt to embarrass
the heavenly truth, instead of regarding them as helps, but weak and often
failing ones, for the setting forth of that truth. One cannot conceive of
remission of sins apart from living communion with Christ; being baptized into
Him, we are baptized into the forgiveness of sins; and the abiding in Christ and
the forgiveness of sins go ever henceforward hand in hand, are inseparable one
from the other. But if we cease to abide in Him, we then fall back into that
state which is of itself a state of condemnation and death, and one on which the
wrath of God is resting. If then, setting aside the contemplation of a man’s
sins as a formal debt, which must either be forgiven to him or not forgiven, we
contemplate the life out of Christ as a state or condition of wrath, and the
life in Christ as one of grace, the one a walking in darkness, and the other a
walking in the light, we can better understand how a man’s sins should return
upon him; that is, he sinning anew falls back into the darkness out of which he
had been delivered, and, no doubt, all that he has done of evil in former times
adds to the thickness of that darkness, causes the wrath of God to abide more
terribly on that state in which he now is, and therefore upon him (John 5:14).
Nor may we leave out of sight that all forgiveness, short of that crowning and
last act, which will find place on the day of judgment, and will be followed by
a blessed impossibility of sinning any more, is conditional, in the very nature
of things so conditional, that the condition must in every case be assumed,
whether distinctly stated or not; that condition being that the forgiven man
continue in faith and obedience, in that state of grace into which he has been
brought; which he who by this unmerciful servant is figured to us here, had
evidently failed to do. He that will partake of the final salvation must abide
in Christ, else who will be ‘cast forth as a branch and withered’ (John 15:6).
This is the condition, not arbitrarily imposed from without, but belonging to
the very essence of the salvation itself; just as if one were drawn from the
raging sea, and set upon the safe shore, the condition of his continued safety
would be that he remained there, and did not again cast himself into the raging
waters. In this point of view 1 John 1:7 will supply an interesting parallel:
‘If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with
another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.’ He
whom this servant represents does not abide in the light of love, but falls back
into the old darkness; he has, therefore, no fellowship with his brother, and
the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ ceases from him.

It is familiar to many that the theologians of Rome have drawn an argument for
purgatory from the words, ‘till he should pay all that was due,’ and no less
from the parallel expression, Matthew 5:26; as though they marked a limit of
time beyond which the punishment should not extend. But the phrase is
proverbial, and all which it signifies is, that the offender shall now taste of
the extreme rigour of the law; shall have justice without mercy; and always
paying, shall yet never have paid off, his debt. [22] For since the sinner could
never acquit the slightest portion of the debt in which he is indebted to God,
the putting that as a condition of his liberation, which it is impossible could
ever be fulfilled, may be the strongest possible way of expressing the
everlasting duration of his punishment. When the Phoceans, abandoning their
city, swore that they would not return till the mass of iron which they plunged
into the sea rose once more to the surface, this was the most emphatic form they
could devise of declaring that they would never return; such an emphatic
declaration is the present. The Lord concludes with a word of earnest warning:
‘So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts
[23] forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.’ ‘So’ - with the same
rigour; such treasures of wrath, as well as such treasures of grace, are with
Him: He who could so greatly forgive, can also so greatly punish. ‘My heavenly
Father’ - not thereby implying that in such case He would not be theirs, since
they, thus acting, would have denied the relationship; for our Lord says often,
‘My Father’ (as ver. 19), when no such reason can be assigned. On the
declaration itself we may observe that the Christian stands in a middle point,
between a mercy received and a mercy which he yet needs to receive. Sometimes
the first is urged upon him as an argument for showing mercy - ‘forgiving one
another, as Christ forgave you’ (Colossians 3:13; Ephesians 4:32); sometimes the
last, ‘Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy’ (Matthew 5:7);
‘With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful’ (Psalms 18:25); ‘Forgive,
and ye shall be forgiven’ (Luke 6:37); while sometimes the other and more
menacing side of the same truth is urged, as in this present parable, and in
words recorded by St. Mark, ‘But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father
which is in heaven forgive your trespasses’ (xi. 26; cf. James 2:13); and in the
same way by the Son of Sirach (xxviii. 8, 4), ‘One man beareth hatred against
another, and doth he seek pardon from the Lord? he showeth no mercy to a man who
is like himself, and doth he ask forgiveness of his own sins?’ And thus, while
he must ever look back on a mercy received as the source and motive of the mercy
which he shows, he looks forward as well to the mercy which he yet needs, and
which he is assured that the merciful, according to what Bengel beautifully
calls the benigna talio of the kingdom of God, shall obtain, as a new
provocation to its abundant exercise. Tholuck has some good remarks upon this
point:

‘From the circumstance that mercy is here [Matthew 5:7] promised as the
recompense of anterior mercy on our part, it might indeed be inferred that under
“merciful” we are to imagine such as have not yet in any degree partaken of
mercy; but this conclusion would only be just on the assumption that the divine
compassion consisted in an isolated act, of which man could be the object only
once for all in his life. Seeing, however, that it is an act which extends over
the whole life of the individual, and reaches its culminating point in eternity,
it behoves us to consider the compassion of God for man, and man for his
brethren, as reciprocally calling forth and affording a basis for one another.’
[24] And a difficulty which Origen suggests, finds its explanation here. [25] He
asks, where in time are we to place the transactions shadowed forth in this
parable? There are reasons on the one hand why they should be placed at the end
of this present dispensation; since at what other time does God take account
with his servants for condemnation or acquittal? while yet, if placed there,
what further opportunity would the forgiven servant have for displaying the
harshness and cruelty which he actually does display towards his fellow-servant?
The difficulty disappears, when we no longer contemplate forgiveness as an
isolated act, which must take place at some definite moment, and then is past
and irrevocable; but regard it rather as ever going forward, as running parallel
with and extending over the entire life of the redeemed, which, as it is a life
of continual sin and shortcoming, so has need to be a life of continual
forgiveness. [26]

FOOTNOTES [1] Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. in loc.

[2] While this is true, there were yet deeper motives for his naming seven
times. It is the number in the divine law with which the idea of remission is
ever linked. The seven times seventh year was the year of jubilee, Leviticus
25:28; cf. Leviticus 4:6; cf. Leviticus 4:17; Leviticus 16:14-15. It is true
that it is the number of punishment, or retribution for evil, also (Genesis
4:15; Leviticus 26:18; Leviticus 26:21; Leviticus 26:24; Leviticus 26:28;
Deuteronomy 28:25; Psalms 79:12; Proverbs 6:31; Daniel 4:10; Revelation 15:1);
yet this only confirms what has been said; since there lies ever in punishment
the idea of restoration of disturbed relations, and so of forgiveness (Ezekiel
16:42); punishment being as the storm which violently restores the disturbed
equilibrium of the moral atmosphere. Gregory of Nyssa well (Opp. vol. 1: p.
159): ‘Peter observed, for it is an ancient rule of tradition, that the number
seven is significant of a remission of sins, a perfect rest, whereof the
Sabbath, the seventh day from the beginning, is the symbol.’

[3] Our Lord’s ‘seventy times seven’ of forgiveness makes a wonderful contrast,
which has not escaped the notice of St. Jerome (vol. 2: p. 565, edit. Bened.),
to Lamech, the antediluvian Antichrist’s, seventy and seven-fold of revenge
(Genesis 4:24). - ’Εβδομηκοντάκίs έπτά is not, as Origen and some others
understand it, 70 + 7 = 77; for that would be rather έβδμήκοντα κιs έπτά,
but 70 x 7 = 490. In the famous letter of Innocent III. to the Patriarch of
Constantinople, setting forth the paramount claims of the Roman See, the
argument to be derived from this parable, and especially from these words, is
not omitted: ‘Thus the number seven multiplied with itself in this place,
signifies the sum total of sins of the sum total of sinners, for only Peter can
loose not merely all offences, but the offences of all.’

[4] Anselm (Hom. 5): ‘God begins to reckon when by the troubles of infirmity He
brings men to their bed and to death.’

[5] How vast a sum it was, we can most vividly realize to ourselves by comparing
it with other sums mentioned in Scripture. In the construction of the tabernacle
twenty-nine talents of gold were used (Exodus 38:24); David prepared for the
temple three thousand talents of gold, and the princes five thousand (1
Chronicles 29:4-7); the queen of Sheba presented to Solomon one hundred and
twenty talents (1 King 10:10); the king of Assyria laid upon Hezekiah thirty
talents of gold (2 Kings 18:14); and in the extreme impoverishment to which the
land was brought at the last, one talent of gold was laid upon it, after the
death of Josiah, by the king of Egypt (2 Chronicles 36:3).

[6] In the Jewish parable (Schoettgen, Hor. Heb. vol. 1: p. 155), bearing some
resemblance to this, the sins of men being there represented as an enormous
debt, which it is impossible to pay, - it is the tribute due from an entire city
which is owing, and which, at the prayer of the inhabitants, the king remits.

[7] Euripides (Hel. 276): Tά βαρβάρων γάρ δοϋλα πάντα πλήν έυόs. ‘Among
barbarians all are slaves save one.’

[8] Harpalus, satrap of Babylonia and Syria, besides the enormous sums which he
had squandered, carried off with him five thousand talents when he fled to
Athens from the wrath of Alexander (Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. 8: p. 496). It
was with exactly ten thousand talents that Darius sought to buy off Alexander,
that he should not prosecute his conquests in Asia (Plutarch, Reg. et Imp.
Apoph.); being the same sum with which Haman would have purchased of the Persian
king per mission to destroy all the Jews in the kingdom (Esther 3:9). The same
was the fine imposed by the Romans on Antiochus the Great, after his defeat by
them. When Alexander, at Susa, paid the debts of the whole Macedonian army,
those were not brought up to more than twice this figure, though every motive
was at work to enhance the amount (Droysen, Gesch. Alexanders, p. 500). Von
Bohlen (Das Alt. Ind. vol. 2: p. 119) gives almost incredible notices of the
quantities of gold in the ancient East. - The immensity of the sum may in part
have moved Origen to his strange supposition, that it can only be the man of sin
(2 Thessalonians 2 :) that is here indicated, or stranger still, the Devil!
Compare Thilo, Cod. Apocryphus, vol. 1: p. 887, and Neander, Kirch. Gesch. vol.
5: p. 1122.

[9] Michaëlis, Mos. Recht, vol. 3: pp. 58-6O.

[10] Compare Chardin (Voy. en Perse, vol. 5:p. 285): ‘Disgrace in Persia is
infallibly accompanied by the confiscation of property, and this loss is a great
and terrible misfortune, for a man is stripped of all he possesses at a moment’s
notice and has nothing to call his own. His property, his slaves, and sometimes
even his wife and children, are taken from him. Eventually his prospects
brighten. The king makes known his pleasure concerning him. His family, some of
his slaves and his furniture, are nearly always restored to him, and after a
time he is often received back into favour at court, and once more takes office’

[11] Thus Theophylact: ‘For no man that abideth in God is without compassion.’

[12] Such would have been όμοδομλοs, this is σύνδομλοs.

[13] The Hebrew talent = 300 shekels (Exodus 38:25-26). Assuming this, the
proportion of the two debts to one another would be as follows:10, 000 talents :
100 pence::1, 250, 000 : 1.

[14] Melanchthon: ‘For this reason is the sum set down as so great, namely, that
we may know that in the sight of God we have truly many and great sins. If thou
wilt look into thy life thou wilt easily find many; for great is the
carelessness of the flesh, great our negligence in prayer, great our distrust,
and many our doubts of God. So also diverse lusts roam within us without limit.’

[15] Erasmus: Έπνιγεν, he dragged him violently by the throat, is the phrase
for one who forcibly drags another to prison or before a judge.’ Άγκείν is the
more classical word.

[16] The εί τι όείλειs, which reading, as the more difficult, is to be
preferred to ό τι όείλειs, and which is retained by Lachmann, does not imply
any doubt as to whether the debt were really due or no: but the conditional form
was originally, though of course not here, a courteous form of making a demand.

[17] On the language of Scripture, attributing anger, repentance, jealousy to
God, Augustine has good remarks (Con. Adv. Leg. et Proof. 1: 20; and Ad Simplic.
2: qu. 2).

[18] ‘Often the word sorrow denotes indignation as well.’

[19] Bengel: ‘He had not been called so on account of his debt,’ - a remark
which Origen and Chrysostom had already made.

[20] See Chrysostom, De Simmult. Hom. 20: 6, an admirable discourse.

[21] Grottius makes the tormentors merely jailers, and so Kuinoel, who observes
that debtors are given to safe keeping, but not to tortures. This is not
accurate. Thus in early times there were certain legal tortures, a chain
weighing fifteen pounds, a pittance of food barely sufficient to sustain life
(see Arnold, Hist. of Rome, vol. 1: p. 136; Livy, 2: 23), which the Roman
creditor might apply to the debtor for the bringing him to terms. In the East,
too, where no depth of apparent poverty excludes the suspicion that there may be
somewhere a hidden store, where too it is almost a point of honour not to pay
but on hardest compulsion, the torture would be often used to wring something
from the sufferings of the debtor himself, or from the compassion of his
friends. In all these cases the jailer would be naturally the ‘tormentor’ as
well (see 1 Kings 22:27); so that ‘tormentors ‘ may well stand in its proper
sense. Cf. 4Ma 6:11. Had this wicked servant merely been given into ward now,
his punishment would have been lighter than it should have been, when his
offence was not near so enormous as now it had become; for then he was to have
been sold into slavery. 22 By Pet. Lombard (Sent. 4: dist. 22); Aquinas (Sum.
Theol. pars 3: qu. 88); and H. de Sto. Victore (De Sacram. 2: pars, 14, 9: Utrum
peccata semel dimissa redeant). Cf. Augustine, De Bapt. Con. Don. 1. 12.
Cajetan, quoting Romans 11:29, ‘the gifts of God are without repentance’
(άμεταμέλητα), explains thus the recalling of the pardon which had once been
granted: ‘Debts once forgiven are again claimed, but not as formerly, as debts,
but as the subject-matter of ingratitude which they have now become,’ - which is
exactly the decision of Aquinas.

[22] See Gerhard, Loci Theoll. loc. 27: 8. Chrysostom: ‘That is to say
perpetually, for he will never pay it off’: and Augustine (De Serm. Dom. in Mon.
1: 11): ‘Until thou payest. . . . I must believe that He is alluding to the
punishment which is called eternal.’ So Remigius: ‘He shall ever be paying, but
never pay in full.’

[23] ‘Από των καρδίων=έκ φυχήs, Ephesians 6:6; 1Ma 8:27; to the exclusion,
not merely of acts of hostility, but also of all μνησικακία or remembrance of
wrongs. H. de Sto. Victore: ‘That he may neither wreak vengeance in act, nor
keep back malice in his heart;’ and Jerome: ‘The Lord added, from your hearts,
that He might dispel all pretence a feigned peace.’

[24] Auslegung der Bergpredigt, p. 93.

[25] Comm. In Matthew 18

[26] Fleury has a fine story, illustrative of this parable (Hist. Eccles. vol.
2: p. 334). Between two Christians at Antioch enmity had sprung up. After a
while one of them desired to be reconciled, but the other, who was a priest,
refused. While it thus fared with them, the persecution of Valerian began; and
Sparicius, the priest, having boldly confessed himself a Christian, was on the
way to death. Nicephorus met him, and again sued for peace, which was again
refused. While he was seeking that peace which the other withheld, they arrived
at the place of execution. He that should have been the martyr was here
terrified, offered to sacrifice to the gods, and, despite the entreaties of the
other, did so, making shipwreck of his faith and of his soul; while Nicephorus,
boldly confessing, stepped in his place, and received the crown which Sapricius
lost. This story runs finely parallel with our parable. Before Sapricius could
have had grace to confess Christ, he must have had his own ten thousand talents
forgiven; but refusing to forgive a far lesser wrong, to put away the
displeasure he had conceived on some infinitely lighter grounds against his
brother, he forfeited all, his Lord was angry, withdrew from him his grace, and
suffered him again to be entangled in that kingdom of darkness from which he had
once been delivered. We are further reminded well that the unforgiving temper,
apart from all outward wrong, itself constitutes the sin of the unmerciful
servant. So Augustine (Quoest. Evang. 1: qu. 25) ‘He would not forgive; by this
we must understand that he held such feeling towards him as to desire his
punishment.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 10: 09-PARABLE 8. THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD.
========================================================================

PARABLE 8. THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD.

Matthew 20:1-16. THIS parable stands in closest connexion with the words which
went immediately before - that is, with the four concluding verses of the
chapter preceding, and can only be rightly understood by their help; which being
so, the actual division of chapters is here peculiarly unfortunate; often
causing, as it does, the parable to be explained with no reference to the
context, and with no attempt to trace the circumstances out of which it grew.
And yet on a right tracing of this connexion, and the showing how it sprang out
of, and was in fact an answer to, Peter’s question, ‘What shall we have?’ the
success of the exposition will mainly depend. It is a parable which stands only
second to that of the Unjust Steward in the number and wide divergence from one
another of the explanations that have been proposed for it; and only second to
that, if indeed second, in the difficulties which it presents.[1] These
Chrysostom states clearly and strongly; though few will be wholly satisfied with
his solution of them. There is, first, the difficulty of bringing it into
harmony with the saying by which it is introduced and concluded, and which it is
plainly intended to illustrate; and secondly, there is the moral difficulty, the
same which the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son presents,
namely, how can one who is himself a member of the kingdom of God - ‘be held,’
as Chrysostom terms it, ‘by that lowest of all passions, envy, and an evil eye,’
grudging in his heart the favours shown to other members of that kingdom? or, if
it be denied that the murmurers of this parable are members of that kingdom, how
this denial is reconcilable with their having laboured all day long in the
vineyard, and ultimately carrying away their own reward? And lastly, it is not
easy, but most hard, to determine what is the drift and scope of the parable,
its leading intention and purpose. Of its many interpreters there are, first,
those who see in the equal penny to all, the key to the whole matter, and for
whom its lesson is this, - the equality of rewards in the kingdom of God. [2]
This was Luther’s explanation in his earlier works, though he afterwards saw
reason to withdraw it. But however this may appear to agree with the parable,
[3] it evidently agrees not at all with the saying which sums it up, and
contains its moral: ‘Many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be
first;’ [4] for such an equality would be no reversing of the order of the first
and last, but a setting of all upon a level.

Others affirm that the parable is meant to set forth this truth, - that God does
not regard the length of time during which men are occupied in his work, but the
fidelity and strenuous exertion with which they accomplish that work. [5] Of
this explanation there will presently be occasion to speak more at large; it
will be enough now to observe that if everything had turned on the fact that the
last-hired labourers had worked more strenuously than the first, it is
impossible that all mention of this circumstance should have been omitted. The
same is Calvin’s explanation; a little modified, it is true; but without
substantial alterations. There is a warning here that we be not over-confident,
because we may have begun well; [6] lest (though this is not his illustration),
like the hare in the fable, waxing careless and remiss, we let others pass us
by; and so, from the first, fall into the hindmost rank: that no one begin to
boast, or consider the battle won, till he put off his armour (1 Kings 20:11).
But to him also it may be replied that the parable affords no warrant for the
assumption that the labourers first engaged had slackened their exertions during
the latter part of the day.

There are others who find in the successive hours at which the different bands
of labourers were hired, the leading feature of the parable. And these
interpreters may be again subdivided, according as they regard these hours as
successive ages in the world’s history, or successive periods in the lives of
individual men. There are, first, those who, as Irenaeus,[7] Origen, and Hilary,
see here a history of the different summonses to a work of righteousness which
God has made to men from the beginning of the world, - to Adam, - to Noah, to
Abraham, to Moses, - and lastly to the Apostles, bidding them, each in his time
and order, to go work in his vineyard. Of these labourers, all the earlier lived
during weaker and more imperfect dispensations, and underwent, therefore, a
harder toil, as having less abundant gifts of the Spirit, less clear knowledge
of the grace of God in Christ, to sustain them, than the later called, the
members of the Christian Church. Their heavier toil, therefore, might aptly be
set forth by a longer period of work, and that at the more oppressive time of
the day (cf. Acts 15:10); while the Apostles, and the other faithful called into
God’s vineyard at the eleventh hour (‘the last time,’ or, ‘the last hour,’ as
St. John [1 John 2:18] terms it), and partakers of the larger freer grace now
given in Christ, had by comparison a lighter burden to endure. But of these
interpreters, it may be fairly asked, When could that murmuring have taken
place, even supposing God’s servants of one age could thus grudge because of the
larger, grace bestowed upon others? This could not have been in their lifetime;
for before the things were even revealed which God had prepared for his people
that came after, they were in their graves. It is still less conceivable as
finding place in the day of judgment, or in the kingdom of love made perfect.
Unless, then, we quite explain away the murmuring, accepting Chrysostom’s
ingenious solution of it, that it is only brought in to enhance the greatness of
the things freely given in the last days, things so glorious, that those earlier
and more scantily endowed might be tempted to murmur, comparing themselves with
their more richly furnished successors, - this explanation seems untenable; as,
were it worth while, much more might be urged against it. The other subdivision
of this group of interpreters see in the different hours at which the labourers
are hired, different periods in men’s lives, at which they enter on the Lord’s
work; affirming that its purpose is to encourage those who have entered late on
his service, now to labour heartily, not allowing the consciousness of past
negligences to make slack their hands; since they too, if only they will labour
with their might for the time, long or short, which remains, shall receive with
the others a full reward. This is, in the main, Chrysostom’s view:[8] but with a
free admission that, under certain limitations, such encouragement may be drawn
from the parable, it is another thing to say that this is the admonishment which
it is especially meant to convey. In what living connexion would the parable
then stand with what went before, with Peter’s question, or with the temper out
of which that question grew, and which this teaching of the Lord was intended to
meet and to correct? But nearer to the truth than all these explanations is that
which finds here a warning and a prophecy of the causes which would lead to the
rejection of the Jews, the first called into the vineyard of the Lord; these
causes being mainly their proud appreciation of themselves and of their own
work; their displeasure at seeing the Gentiles, aliens so long, put on the same
footing, admitted to equal privileges, with themselves in the kingdom of God:
[9] and an agreement or covenant being made with the first hired, and none with
those subsequently engaged, has been urged as confirming this view. No
interpretation of the parable can be true which excludes this application of it.
It was notably fulfilled in the Jews; while yet this fulfilment of it was only
one fulfilment out of many; for our Lord’s words are so rich in meaning, so
touch the central heart of things, that they are continually finding their
fulfilment. Had this, however, been his primary meaning, we should expect to
hear of but two bands of labourers, the first hired and the last: all who come
between would only serve to confuse and perplex. The solution sometimes given of
this objection, that the successive hirings represent successive summonses to
the Jews; first, under Moses and Aaron; secondly, under David and the kings;
thirdly, under the Maccabbean chiefs and priests; and lastly, in the time of
Christ and his Apostles; or that these are severally Jews, Samaritans, and
proselytes of greater and less strictness, seems devised merely to escape from
an embarrassment, and only witnesses for its existence without removing it.

Better then to say that the parable is directed against a wrong temper and
spirit of mind, which, indeed, was notably manifested in the Jews, but one
against which all men in possession of spiritual privileges, have need to be,
and herein are, warned: this warning being primarily addressed not to them, but
to the Apostles, as the foremost workers in the Christian Church, the earliest
called to labour in the Lord’s vineyard ‘the first,’ both in time, and in toil
and pains. They had seen the rich young man (xix. 22) go sorrowful away, unable
to abide the proof by which the Lord had mercifully revealed to him how strong
the bands by which the world was holding him still. They (for Peter here, as so
often, is spokesman for all) would fain know what their reward should be, who
had done this very thing from which he had shrunk, and forsaken all for the
Gospel’s sake (ver. 27). The Lord answers them first and fully, that they and as
many as should do the same for his sake, should reap an abundant reward (ver.
28, 29). But for all this the question itself, ‘What shall we have?’ was not a
right one; it put their relation to their Lord on a wrong footing; there was a
tendency in it to bring their obedience to a calculation of so much work, so
much reward. There lurked too a certain self-complacency in it. That spirit of
self-exalting comparison of ourselves with others, which is so likely to be
stirring, when we behold any signal failure on their part, was obscurely at work
in them; so obscurely that they may have been hardly conscious of it themselves;
but He who knew what was in man, saw with a glance into the depths of Peter’s
heart, and having replied to the direct question, ‘What shall we have?’ went on
to crush the evil in the bud, and before it should unfold itself further. ‘Not
of works, lest any man should boast;’ this was the truth which they were in
danger of missing, and which He would now by the parable enforce; and if nothing
of works, but all of grace for all, then no glorifying of one over another, no
grudging of one against another, no claim as of right upon the part of any.[10]
In that question of theirs there spake out something of the spirit of the
hireling, and it is against this spirit that the parable is directed, which
might justly be entitled, On the nature of rewards in the kingdom of God, - the
whole finding a most instructive commentary in Romans 4:1-4, which supplies not
a verbal, but more deeply interesting, a real parallel to the parable before us.
So far as it is addressed to Peter, and in him to all true believers, it is
rather a warning against what might be, if they were not careful to watch
against it, than a prophecy of what would be.[11] For we cannot conceive of him
who dwells in love as allowing himself in envious and grudging thoughts against
any of his brethren, because, though they have entered later on the service of
God, or been engaged in a lighter labour, they will yet be sharers with him of
the same heavenly reward; or refusing to welcome them gladly to all the
blessings and privileges of the communion of Christ. Least of all can we imagine
him so to forget that he also is saved by grace, as to allow such hateful
feelings to come to a head, taking form and shape, which they do in the parable;
or as justifying these to himself and to God, like the spokesman among the
murmurers here. We cannot conceive this even here in our present imperfect
state, much less in the perfected kingdom hereafter; for love ‘rejoiceth in the
truth,’[12] and the very fact of one so grudging against another would prove
that he himself did not dwell in love, and therefore was under sentence of
exclusion from that kingdom.[13] It is then a warning to the Apostles, and
through them to all believers, of what might be, not a prophecy of what shall be
for any who share in the final reward. They are taught that, however long
continued their work, abundant their labours, yet without this charity to their
brethren, this humility before God, they are nothing; that pride and a
self-complacent estimate of their work, like the fly in the precious ointment,
would spoil the work, however great it might be, since that work stands only in
humility; and from first they would fall to last. There is then this difference
between the parabolic framework, and the truth of which it is the exponent, that
while the householder could not with equity altogether deprive the first
labourers of their hire, notwithstanding their pride and discontent, they
therefore receiving their wages, and only punished by a severe rebuke, yet the
lesson taught to Peter, and through him to us all, is, that the first may be
altogether last; that those who stand forward as chief in labour, yet, if they
forget withal that the reward is of grace and not of works, and begin to boast
and exalt themselves above their fellow labourers, may altogether lose the
things which they have wrought;[14] while those who seem last, may yet, by
keeping their humility, be acknowledged first and foremost in the day of God.
With these preliminary remarks, which the difficulties of the parable have made
it necessary to draw out at some length, we may now proceed to consider its
details.

‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out
early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard:’ in other words, The
manner of God’s dealings with those whom He calls to the privilege of working in
his Church is like to that of a householder, who should go out early in the
morning to hire labourers.[15] Here as ever in the kingdom of heaven it is God
who seeks his labourers, and not they who seek Him: ‘You have not chosen me, but
I have chosen you’ (John 15:16; Mark 3:13; Luke 5:10; John 1:43; 1 Timothy
1:12). Every summons to a work in the heavenly vineyard is from the Lord. The
original impulse is always his: all which is man’s in the matter is, that he do
not resist the summons, which it is his melancholy prerogative that he is able
to do. It is ‘a call,’ according to the instructive Scriptural expression: but
as in the natural world a call does not imply the exercise of force, may be
obeyed or may be disregarded, so also is it in the spiritual.

‘And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into
his vineyard.’[16] The different footing upon which the different bands of
labourers went to their work, would scarcely have been so expressly noted, if no
signification were to be found therein. An agreement was made by these first
hired labourers before they entered on their labour, the same which Peter would
have made, ‘What shall we have?’ while those subsequently engaged went in a more
simple spirit, relying on the householder’s assurance that whatever was right,
they should receive. Have we here already a hint of that wrong spirit on the
part of some, which presently comes to a head (ver. 11, 12); on the part of
others, a truer spirit of humble waiting upon the Lord, in full confidence that
He will give far more than his servants can desire or deserve, that He is not
unrighteous to forget any labour of love which is wrought for Him? [17] At the
third, at the sixth, and at the ninth hour, or at nine in the morning, at
midday, and at three in the aftemoon, [18] the householder again went into the
market place,[19] and those whom he found waiting there, sent into his vineyard;
incidents which call for no remark, as first and last are the only ones on whom
the stress of the parable is found ultimately to rest. ‘And about the eleventh
hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand
ye here all the day idle?’ All activity out of Christ, all labour that is not
labour in his Church, is in his sight a standing idle. ‘They say unto him,
Because no man hath hired us.’ There lay a certain amount of implied rebuke in
the question, ‘Why stand ye idle?’ which this answer shall clear away; for it
belongs to the idea of the parable, that their explanation should be regarded as
perfectly satisfactory. It is not then in a Christian land, where men grow up
under sacramental obligations, with the pure word of God sounding in their ears,
that this answer could be given; or at least, only in such woeful instances as
that which, alas! our own land at the present affords, where in the bosom of the
Church multitudes have been allowed to grow up ignorant of the blessings which
her communion affords, and the responsibilities which this lays upon them; and
even in their mouths there would only be a partial truth in this, ‘No man hath
hired us;’ since even they cannot be altogether ignorant of their Christian
vocation. Only when the kingdom of God is first set up in a land, enters as a
new and hitherto unknown power, could any with full truth reply, ‘No man hath
hired us; if we have been living in disobedience to God, it has been because we
were ignorant of Him; if we were serving Satan, it was because we knew no other
master and no better service.’

While then the excuse which these labourers plead, appertains not to them who,
growing up within the Church, have despised to the last, or nearly to the last,
God’s repeated biddings to go work in his vineyard; while the unscriptural
corollary cannot be appended to the parable,[20] that it matters little at what
time of men’s lives they enter heartily upon his service, how long they despise
his vows which have been upon them from the beginning; yet one would not
therefore deny that there is such a thing even in the Christian Church as men
being called, or to speak more correctly, since they were called long before, as
men obeying the call and entering the Lord’s vineyard, at the third, or sixth,
or ninth, or even the eleventh hour. Only their case will be parallel not to
that of any of these labourers in regard of being able to make the same excuse
as they did, but rather to that of the son, who, bidden to go work in his
father’s vineyard, at first refused, but afterwards repented and went (Matthew
21:28); and one of these, instead of clearing himself as respects the past,
which these labourers do, will humble himself most deeply, while he considers
all his neglected opportunities and the long continued despite which he has done
to the Spirit of grace. Yet while thus none can plead, ‘No man hath hired us,’
in a land where the Christian Church has long been established, and the
knowledge of Christ more or less brought within the reach of all, the parable is
not therefore without its application in such; since there also will be many
entering into the Lord’s vineyard at different periods, even to a late one, of
their lives; and who, truly repenting their past unprofitableness, and not
attempting to excuse it, may find their work, be it brief or long, graciously
accepted now, and may share hereafter in the full rewards of the kingdom.[21]
For in truth time belongs not to the kingdom of God. Not ‘How much hast thou
done?’ but ‘What art thou now?’ will be the great question of the last day. Of
course we must never forget that all which men have done will greatly affect
what they are; yet still the parable is a protest against the whole quantitative
appreciation of men’s works, as distinct from the qualitative, against all which
would make the works the end, and man the means, instead of the man the end, and
the works the means - against that scheme which, however unconsciously, lies at
the root of so many of the confusions in our theology at this day.[22] Against
all these the words of the householder, Go ye also into the vineyard; and
whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive,’ are a living protest.

‘So when even was come’ (cf. Psalms 104:23; Judges 19:16), the lord of the
vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire,
beginning from the last unto the first.’ This householder will fulfil strictly
the precept of the law; the hired labourer shall not have his payment deferred
till tomorrow: ‘At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun
go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it’ (Deuteronomy
24:15; cf. Leviticus 19:13; Job 7:2; Malachi 3:5; James 5:4; Tob 4:14). Christ
is the ‘steward,’ or overseer rather, set over all God’s house (Hebrews 3:6;
John 5:27; Matthew 11:27). The whole economy of salvation has been put into his
hands, and as part of this the distribution of rewards (Revelation 2:7;
Revelation 2:10; Revelation 2:17; Revelation 2:28, &c.). The last hired, those
who came in without any agreement made, the labourers of the eleventh hour, are
the first to be paid. ‘They received every man a penny.’ Here is encouragement
not to delay entering on God’s service till late in our lives; foreverywhere in
Scripture there waits a marked blessing on early piety but encouragement for
those who have so done to work for the time which remains heartily and with
their might. Misgivings concerning the acceptance of their work do not make men
work the more strenuously; on the contrary, go far to cut the nerves of all
exertion. There is much here to dispel such misgivings in those who would be
most likely to feel them: let them labour in hope; they too shall be sharers in
a full salvation.

It may be securely inferred that all between the last and the first hired
received the penny as well; though it is the first hired alone who remonstrate,
as those in whose case the injustice, for so it seemed to them, appeared the
most flagrant. To assume, with Chrysostom, Maldonatus, Hammond, Waterland, and
Olshausen, that these first hired had been doing their work negligently by
comparison, while the last hired, such for instance as a Paul, whom Origen,
quoting 1 Corinthians 15:10, suggests, had done it with their might, and had in
fact accomplished as much in their hour as the others in their day, is to assume
that of which there is no slightest trace in the narrative. And more than this,
such an assumption effectually turns the edge of the parable, defeats its whole
purpose and intention; for what does it teach, if it does not teach us this,
namely that men may do and suffer much, infinitely more than others, and yet be
rejected, while those others are received, that first may be last, and last
first? It is nothing strange that a rationalist like Kuinoel should adopt this
explanation; for the whole matter is thus taken out of a higher spiritual world,
and brought down to the commonest region of sense; since if one man accomplishes
as much in a single hour as another in twelve, there is nothing wonderful in his
receiving an equal reward. Every difficulty disappears, except indeed this, how
the Lord should have cared to utter a parable for the justifying of so very
ordinary a transaction; or, doing this, should have omitted that one thing which
constituted the justification. But indeed this interpretation exactly brings us
back to the level, from which to raise us the parable was spoken; we have a
Jewish,[23] instead of an Evangelical, parable; an affirmation that the reward
is not of grace, but of debt, the very error which it was meant to rebuke and to
reprove. When the first hired received the same sum as the others and no more,
‘they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought
but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden
and heat of the day.’[24] These other, they would say, have been labouring not
merely for a far shorter time; but when they entered on their tasks it was
already the cool of the evening, when toil is no longer so oppressive, while we
have borne the scorching heat of the middle noon. But here the perplexing
dilemma meets us, Either these are of the number of God’s faithful people; how
then can they murmur against Him, and grudge against their fellowservants? or
they are not of that number; what then can we understand of their having
laboured the whole day through in his vineyard, and actually carrying away at
last the penny, the reward of eternal life? It is an unnatural way of escaping
the difficulty, to understand ‘Take that which is thine,’ as meaning, ‘Take the
damnation which belongs to thee, the just punishment of thy pride and
discontent;’ or as Basil the Great has it, ‘Take the earthly reward, the
“hundredfold” promised in this present time, but lose the “everlasting life,”
which thou shouldst have had in addition’ (Matthew 19:29).[25] Theophylact and
others seek to mitigate as much as possible the guilt of their murmuring, and
see in it no more than the expression of that surprise and admiration[26] which
will escape from some, at the unexpected position that others, of perhaps small
account here, will occupy in the future kingdom of glory.[27] But the expression
of their discontent is too strong, and the rebuke that it calls out too severe,
to admit of an extenuation such as this. Better to say that no analogy will be
found for this murmuring in the future world of glory; and only where there is a
large admixture of the old corruption, in the present world of grace. There is
here rather a teaching by contraries; as thus, ‘Since you cannot conceive such a
spirit as that here held up before you, and which you feel to be so sinful and
hateful, finding room in the perfected kingdom of God, check betimes its
beginnings; check all inclinations to look grudgingly at your brethren, who,
having lingered and loitered long, have yet found a place beside yourselves in
the kingdom of grace, and are sharers in the same spiritual privileges;[28] or
to look down upon and despise those who occupy a less important field of labour,
who are called in the providence of God to endure and suffer less than
yourselves repress all inclinations to pride yourselves on your own doings, as
though they gave you a claim of right upon God, instead of accepting all of his
undeserved mercy, and confessing that you as well as others must be saved by
grace and by grace alone. On the fact that the murmurers actually receive their
penny, a Roman Catholic expositor ingeniously remarks that the denarius or penny
was of different kinds; there was the double, the treble, the fourfold; that of
brass, of silver, and of gold. The Jew (for he applies the parable to Jew and
Gentile) received what was his, his penny of the meaner metal, his earthly
reward, and with that went his way; but the Gentile the golden penny, the
spiritual reward, grace and glory, admission into the perfected kingdom of God.
Ingenious as this is, no one will accept it as a fair explanation of the
difficulty; and yet it may suggest valuable considerations. The penny is very
different to the different receivers; objectively the same, subjectively it is
very different; it is in fact to every one exactly what he will make it.[29]
What the Lord said to Abraham, He says to each and to all, ‘I am thy exceeding
great reward;’ and He has no other reward to impart to any save only this,
namely Himself. To ‘see Him as He is,’ this is his one reward, the penny which
is common to all. But they whom these murmuring labourers represent had been
labouring for something else besides the knowledge and enjoyment of God, with an
eye to some other reward, to something on account of which they could glory in
themselves, and glory over others. It was not merely to have much which they
desired, but to have more than others; not to grow together with the whole body
of Christ, but to get before and beyond their brethren:[30] and therefore the
penny, because common to all, did not seem enough, while in fact it was to each
what he would make it. For if the vision of God shall constitute the blessedness
of the coming world, then they whose spiritual eye is most enlightened, will
drink in most of his glory; then, since only like can know like, all advances
which are here made in humility, in holiness, in love, are a polishing of the
mirror that it may reflect more distinctly the divine image, a purging of the
eye that it may see more clearly the divine glory, an enlarging of the vessel
that it may receive more amply of the divine fulness; just as, on the other
hand, all pride, all self-righteousness, all sin of every kind, whether it stop
short with impairing, or end by altogether destroying, the capacities for
receiving from God, is in its degree a staining of the mirror, a darkening of
the eye, a narrowing of the vessel.[31] In the present case, where pride and
envy and self-esteem had found place, darkening the eye of the heart, the reward
as a consequence seemed no reward; it did not appear enough; [32] instead of
being exactly what each was willing, or rather had prepared himself, to make it.

‘But he answered one of them,’ the loudest and foremost as we may suppose in the
utterance of his discontent, ‘and said, Friend,[33] I do thee no wrong: didst
not thou agree with me for a penny?’ ‘Friend’ is commonly a word of address, as
it would be among ourselves, from a superior to an inferior, and in Scripture is
a word of an evil omen, seeing that, besides the present passage, it is the
compellation used to the guest who wanted a wedding garment, and to Judas when
he came to betray his Master (Matthew 22:12; Matthew 26:50). ‘I do thee no
wrong;’ he justifies his manner of dealing with them, as well as his sovereign
right in his own things. They had put their claim on the footing of right, and
on that footing they are answered. ‘Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will
give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I
will with mine own?’ (with which compare Romans 9:20-24; Isaiah 29:16; Isaiah
45:9); ‘Is thine eye[34] evil, because I am good? so long as I am just to thee,
may I not be good and liberal to others?’ The solution of the difficulty that
these complainers should get their reward and carry it away with them, has been
already suggested, namely that, according to the human relations to which the
parable must adapt itself, it would not have been consistent with equity to make
them forfeit their own hire, notwithstanding the wrong feeling which they
displayed. Yet we may say their reward vanished in their hands; and the
sentences which follow sufficiently indicate that with God an absolute
forfeiture might follow, nay, must necessarily follow, where this grudging,
unloving, proud spirit has come to its full head; as much is affirmed in the
words which immediately follow, ‘So the last shall be first, and the first
last.’

Many expositors have been sorely troubled how to bring these words into
agreement with the parable; for in it ‘first’ and ‘last’ are all set upon the
same footing: while here it is rather a reversing of places which is asserted:
those who seemed highest, it is declared shall be set the lowest, and the lowest
highest: when too we compare Luke 13:30, where the words recur, there can be no
doubt that a total rejection of the ‘first,’ the unbelieving Jews, accompanied
with the receiving of the ‘last,’ the Gentiles, into covenant, is declared.
Origen, whom Maldonatus follows, finds an explanation in the fact that the
‘last’ hired are the ‘first’ in order of payment; but this is so trivial an
advantage, if one at all, that the explanation must be dismissed. Moreover, the
fact of the last hired being the first paid is evidently introduced for
convenience sake; if the first hired had been first paid, and, as would
naturally follow, had then gone their way, they would not have seen that the
others obtained the same penny as themselves, and so would have had no
temptation to express their discontent. Neander[35] so entirely despairs of
reconciling the parable with the words which introduce and finish it, that he
proposes a desperate remedy, and one under the frequent application of which we
should lose all confidence in the trustworthiness of the Evangelical records. He
thinks the sentences and the parable to have been spoken on different occasions,
and only by accident to have been here brought into connexion; and asserts that
one must wholly pervert this weighty parable, to bring it through forced
artifices into harmony with words which are alien to it. But if what has been
observed above be correct, the saying is not merely in its place here, but is
absolutely necessary to complete the moral, to express that which the parable
did not, and, according to the order of human affairs, could not express,
namely, the entire forfeiture which would follow on the indulgence of such a
temper as that displayed by the murmurers here.

There is more difficulty in the closing words, ‘for many be called, but few
chosen.’ [36] They are not hard in themselves, but hard in the position which
they occupy. The connexion is easy and the application obvious, when they occur
as the moral of the Marriage of the King’s Son (Matthew 22:14); but here they
have much perplexed those who will not admit entire rejection from the heavenly
kingdom of those whom the murmuring labourers represent. Some explain, ‘Many are
called, but few have the peculiar favour shown to them, that, though their
labour is so much less, their reward should be equal;’ thus Olshausen, who makes
the ‘called’ and the ‘chosen’ alike partakers of final salvation, but assumes
that by these terms are signified lower and higher standings of men in the
kingdom of heaven [37] (Cf. Revelation 17:14). These last hired had, in his
view, laboured more abundantly, but this their more abundant labour was to be
referred to a divine election, so that the name ‘chosen’ or elect well becomes
them to whom such especial grace was given. But this assumption of larger labour
upon their part mars and defeats the whole parable, and cannot for a moment be
admitted. Others understand by the ‘called’ some not expressly mentioned, who
had refused altogether to work; in comparison with whom the ‘chosen,’ those who
at any hour had accepted the invitation, were so few, that the Lord could not
bear that any of these should be shut out from his full reward. But the simplest
interpretation seems to be: Many are called to work in God’s vineyard, but few
retain that humility, that entire submission to the righteousness of God, that
utter abnegation of any claim as of right on their own part, which will allow
them in the end to be partakers of his reward. [38]

FOOTNOTES [1] See the Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1847, pp. 396–416.

[2] Augustine (Serm. 343): ‘The penny is life eternal, which is alike for all;’
- but without affirming equality in the kingdom of God; for all the stars, as he
goes on to say, are in the same firmament, yet ‘one star differeth from another
star in glory ‘(splendor dispar, caelum commune). Cf. De Sanct. Virgin. 26; In
Joh. Evang. tract. 67: § 2; Tertullian, De Monog. 10; Bernard, In Ps. Qui
habitat, Serm. 9: 4; Ambrose, Ep. 7: 11; Gregory the Great, Moral. 4: 36.

[3] Yet Spanheim (Dub. Evang. vol. 3: p. 785) is not easily answered, when
against this he says: ‘It is impossible to understand the penny as meaning
eternal life, for it is given also to the murmurers and the envious, it does not
satisfy those who receive it, and it is given to men who are bidden to depart
from the Lord (ver. 14). But life eternal is not the portion of murmurers, nor
of the envious, neither does it draw men away from God, but joins them with him,
nor is it given unto any to whom it does not bring full satiety of joy.’

[4] Fritzsche, indeed, finds no difficulty in giving the sense of the gnome
thus: ‘They who have been the last to join themselves to the Messiah shall be
reckoned with those that were first, and they who followed Him first shall be
reckoned with the last:’ but this is doing evident violence to the words.

[5] So Maldonatus: ‘The end of the parable is that the reward of eternal life
answers, not to the time which a man has laboured, but to his labour and the
work he has done; ‘and Kuinoel the same.

[6] ‘The aim of the Lord was none other than by continual incentives to spur his
followers to progress. For we know that sluggishness is generally born of
excessive confidence.’ If we found, indeed, the gnome by itself, we might then
say that such was his purpose in it: see the admirable use which Chrysostom (In
Matt. Hom. 67, ad finem) makes of it, in this regard.7 Con. Hoer. 4: 36.

[7]. His immediate object is to assert the unity of the Old Dispensation and the
New, that one purpose ran through, and one God ordered, them both; the same who
called patriarchs and prophets in the earlier hours calling Apostles in the
last. He makes many of the parables, and some with better right than this, to
teach this lesson.

[8] And also Jerome’s (Comm. in Matt.): ‘The labourers of the first hour seem to
me to be Samuel and Jeremiah and John the Baptist, who can say with the
Psalmist, Thou art my God even from my mother’s womb. The labourers of the third
hour, those who began to serve God in their youth. Of the sixth hour, those who
have taken on them the yoke of Christ in their maturity. Of the ninth, those who
are verging on old age. Of the eleventh, those who are in the extremity of age.
And yet all alike receive their reward, although their labour is different.’

[9] Cocceius: ‘Here is hinted the future murmuring and indignation of the Jews
against the Gentiles: for the presumption of the Jews is, that in the kingdom of
Christ the Gentiles should be subject to themselves, and ought not to attain
their reward, unless they also have laboured as the Jews laboured for many
centuries.’ See, in favour of this explanation, Greswell, Expos. of the Par.
vol. 4: p. 370, sqq.

[10] Gerhard: ‘Just at the end, because the confidence of Peter and the rest was
not unknown to Christ, and there was reason to fear that on the strength of this
magnificent promise they might exalt themselves above others, He brings this
passage to a close with a weighty sentence, by which He desires to restrain
them, and especially Peter, in sobriety and fear: “Many,” He says, “that are
first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” . . . Refrain therefore from
all high thoughts, refrain from considering arrogantly of yourselves.’ So also
Olshausen, who refers to ver. 20–28 of this chapter (cf. Mark 10:35), as an
evidence how liable the promise (xix. 28) was to be perverted and misunderstood
by the old man not yet wholly mortified in Apostles themselves.

[11] Bengel: ‘with respect to the Apostles, it is not a prediction but a
warning.’

[12] In the beautiful words of Leighton (Praelect. 6): ‘Envy is far from the
heavenly choir, and there reigns there the most perfect charity by which
everyone at the same time as by his own is possessed and made happy by the
felicity of his fellow, rejoicing in that as in his own. Whence there is among
them a certain infinite reflection and multiplication of happiness, like10as
would be the splendour of a hall shining with gold and gems, and a full assembly
of kings and magnates, and whose walls were covered on every side with the most
luminous mirrors.’

[13] Gregory the Great says excellently (Hom. 19 in Evang.) on this murmuring: I
No one who murmurs receives the kingdom of heaven; no one who receives it will
be able to murmur.

[14] Gregory the Great again (Moral. 19: 21): ‘Everything which is done perishes
if it is not anxiously preserved in humility.’

[15] Fleck: ‘The comparison applies not to a single person, but to the whole
action,’ a remark of frequent application.

[16] A denarius, a Roman silver coin, which passed current as equal to the Greek
drachma, though in fact some few grains lighter. It was =8 1⁄2 at the latter end
of the Commonwealth, afterwards something less, of our money. It was not an
uncommon, though a liberal, day’s pay (see Tob 5:14). It was the daily pay of a
Roman legionary (Tacitus, Ann. 3: 17. 26; Pliny, H. N. 33: 3). Morier, in his
Second Journey through Persia, p. 265, mentions having noted in the market place
at Hamadan a custom like that assumed in the parable: ‘Here we observed every
morning before the sun rose, that a numerous band of peasants were collected
with spades in their hands, waiting to be hired for the day to work in the
surrounding fields. This custom struck me as a most happy illustration of our
Saviour’s parable, particularly when passing by the same place late in the day,
we still found others standing idle, and remembered his words, “Why stand ye
here all the day idle?” as most applicable to their situation; for on putting
the very same question to them, they answered us, “Because no man hath hired
us.”’

[17] Thus Bernard, in a passage (In Cant. Serm. 16: 4) containing many
interesting allusions to this parable: ‘The Jew relies on the compact of an
agreement, I on the good pleasure of his will.’

[18] These would not, except just at the equinoxes, be exactly the hours, for
the Jews, as well as the Greeks and Romans, divided the natural day, that
between sunrise and sunset, into twelve equal parts (John 11:9), which parts
must of course have been considerably longer in summer than in winter; for
though the difference between the longest and the shortest day is not so great
in Palestine as with us, yet it is by no means trifling; the longest day is of
14h, 12m duration, the shortest of 9h 48m, with a difference therefore of 4h
24m, so that an hour on the longest day would be exactly 22m longer than an hour
on the shortest. The equinoctial hours did not come into use until the fourth
century (see the Dict. of Gr. and Roman Antt. s. 5: Hera, p. 485). Probably the
day was also divided into the four larger parts here indicated, just as the
Roman night into four watches, and indeed the Jewish no less: the four divisions
of the latter are given in a popular form, Mark 13:35 (see Schoettgen, Hor. Heb.
vol. 1: p. 136).19 Maldonatus: ‘The whole world which is outside the Church.’

[20] The Author of a modern Latin essay, De Serâ Resipiscentiâ, desirous to
rescue the parable from such dangerous abuse, urges that it should have been
otherwise framed, if such were its doctrine: ‘He ought then to have said: The
Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a man who went out early in the morning to hire
labourers for his vineyard. And he found such, and made them very great
promises, but they rejected his offers, and preferred to remain in the market
place in order to play and drink. At the third hour he returned, and made them
the same offers, beseeching them more earnestly, but in vain. The same did he at
the sixth hour, and at the ninth, but his offers and promises were always
fruitless. Nay, the men even received him badly, and rudely told him that they
did not wish to work for him. But not even so was he offended, but returned when
only one hour of the day remained, and offered them the same sum as in the
morning. Then the men, seeing that they could earn so great a sum by the labour
of a moment, at last suffered themselves to be persuaded, looking especially at
this, that the day was nearly spent before they came into the vineyard.’
Augustine (Serm. 87: 6) has the same line of thought: ‘Did the men who were
hired for the vineyard, when the master of the house came out to them, to hire
those whom he found at the third hour . . . did they say: We are not coming
except at the sixth hour? or did those whom he found at the sixth hour say: We
are not coming except at the ninth hour .... As just as much is to be given to
all alike, why are we to have more toil? - What He will give, and what He will
do, it rests with him to determine. Do thou come when thou art called.’ Cf.
Gregory of Nazianzum, Orat. 40: 20, against those who used this parable as an
argument for deferring baptism.11

[21] This view is supported by Leo the Great (De Voc. Omn. Cent. 1: 17):
‘Without doubt the men who were sent into the vineyard at the eleventh hour, and
joined the others who had toiled the whole day, prefigure their lot, whom, to
recommend the excellency of grace, at the close of day and the end of life, the
Divine indulgence rewards, not as paying a price for their labour, but as
outpouring the riches of its goodness upon those of whom it has made election
without works; that they also who have sweated in much labour and yet have
received no more than the last comers, may understand that they have received a
gift of grace. and not a reward for their works.’

[22] This mechanical, as opposed to the dynamic, idea of righteousness, is
carried to the extremest point in the Chinese theology. Thus in that remarkable
Livre des recompenses et des peines, the mechanical, or to speak more truly, the
arithmetical, idea of righteousness comes out with all possible distinctness.
For example, p. 124: ‘To become immortal a man must have amassed three thousand
merits and eight hundred virtuous actions.’ How glorious, on the other hand, are
Thauler’s words upon the way in which men may have restored to them ‘the years
which the canker worm has eaten’? We may here inquire by what means a man can
ever recover lost time, since there is no moment so brief and so fleeting that
we do not owe it to God our Creator in its entirety, and with all our virtue and
ability. But on this side there is a most healthful counsel offered us. Let a
man turn himself with all his powers, lowest and highest alike, from all
consideration of space and time, and let him betake himself to that

Now of eternity, where God in his essence exists in an enduring Now. There
neither is anything past nor future. There the beginning and end of all time are
present. There, that is to say in God, all that was lost is found. And those who
make it their custom to merge themselves yet more often in God, and to dwell in
Him, these become rich even to excess, nay, they find more than they can lose. .
.Lastly, everything that has been neglected, everything that has been lost, in
the most precious treasury of the Passion of the Lord, they can find and
recover.’

[23] Singularly enough, exactly such a one is quoted by Lightfoot and others
from the Talmud. Of a famous Rabbi, who died young, it is asked, ‘To what was R.
Bon Bar Chaija like? To a king who hired many labourers, among whom there was
one hired who performed his task surpassingly well. What did the king? He took
him aside, and walked with him to and fro. When even was come, those labourers
came, that they might receive their hire, and he gave him a complete hire with
the rest. And the labourers murmured, saying, “We have laboured hard all the
day, and this man only two hours, yet he hath received as much wages as we.” The
king saith to them,” He hath laboured more in those two hours than you in the
whole day.” So R. Bon plied the law more in eight and twenty years than another
in a hundred years.’ Cf. the Spicilegium of L. Capellus, p. 28. Von Hammer
(Fundgrubeu d. Orients, vol. 1: p. 157) quotes from the Sunna, or collection of
Mahomet’s traditional sayings, what reads like a distorted image of this
parable. The Jew, the Christian, the Mahommedan are likened to three different
bands of labourers, hired at different hours, at morning, midday, and afternoon.
The latest hired receive in the evening twice as much as the others. It ends
thus: ‘The Jews and Christians will complain and say, “Lord, Thou hast given two
carats to these, and only one to us.” But the Lord will say, “Have I wronged you
in your reward?” They answer, “No.” “Then learn that the other is an overflowing
of my grace.”‘ See the same with immaterial differences in Gerock, Christol. d.
Zoran, p. 141; and Mohler (Verm. Schrift. vol. 1: p. 355) mentions that, when
claiming prophetic intimations of their faith in our Scriptures, the Mahommedans
refer to this parable and its successive bands of labourers.

[24] καύσων, the dry scorching east wind (Isaiah 49:10; Ezekiel 19:12; James
1:11), so fatal to all vegetable life, ‘the wind from the wilderness’ (Hosea
13:15), of which Jerome says (Com. in Os. 3: 11): ‘καύσωνα, i.e., dryness, or
the burning wind which is the bane of flowers, and wastes everything that buds;’
‘the scorching heat,’ as it is rendered in the Revised Version= καûμα της ημερας
(2 Kings 4:5). It has much in common with, though it is not altogether so deadly
as, the desert wind Sam or Samiel, which is often fatal to life; and whose
effects Venema (Comm. in Psalms 91:6) thus describes: ‘Mixed with poisoned
particles the wind penetrates our inmost parts with its poisoned heat, and bears
with it most instant and agonizing destruction. Men’s bodies are of a sudden
attacked with loathsome disease and become putrid: A grand passage in Palgrave’s
Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia describes the terrors of a simoom.

[25] Reg. Brev. Tract. Interr. 255, 259.

[26] Bellarmine: ‘It seems to signify wonder rather than complaint.’12

[27] So Gregory the Great (Hom. 19 in Evang.), though with particular reference
to the saints of the Old Testament: ‘This is as if to have murmured because the
fathers of old before the coming of the Lord were not brought unto the kingdom;
for these lived rightly for the receiving of the kingdom, and yet their
receiving of the kingdom was long delayed.’ Origen in the same spirit quotes
Hebrews 11:39-40.

[28] There are many interesting points of comparison, as Jerome has observed,
between this parable and that of the Prodigal Son; and chiefly between the
murmuring labourers in this, and the elder brother in that. They had borne the
burden and heat of the day - he had served his father these many years; they
grudged to see the labourers of the eleventh hour made equal with themselves he
to see the Prodigal received into the full blessings of his father’s house; the
lord of the vineyard remonstrates with them for their narrow heartedness and in
like manner the father with him.

[29] Thus Aquinas, in answer to the question whether there will be degrees of
glory in the heavenly world, replies that in one sense there will, in another
there will not: ‘It happens that one man has more perfect enjoyment of God than
another because the one is better disposed and regulated for the enjoyment of
him; and again: ‘Virtue will be like a material disposition, proportioned to the
grace and glory to be received.’ There is one vision of God; but there are very
different capacities for enjoying that vision, as is profoundly expressed by the
circles concentric, but ever growing smaller and thus nearer to the centre of
light and life, in the Paradiso of Dante. Augustine (Enarr. in Psalms 72:1)
carries yet further this of the one vision of God for all: he compares it to the
light which gladdens the healthy eye, but torments the diseased (non mutatus,
sed mutatum). It was a favourite notion with the Mystics that God would not put
forth a twofold power to punish and reward, but the same power acting
differently on different natures; as, to use their own illustration, the same
heat hardens the clay and softens the wax. The Zend Avesta supplies a parallel:
All, it is there said, in the world to come will have to pass through the same
stream; but this stream will be as warm milk to the righteous, while to the
wicked it will be as molten brass.

[30] The true feeling is expressed by Augustine: ‘The inheritance in which we
are co-heirs with Christ is not diminished by the multitude of sons, nor does it
become smaller by the number of the sharers in it. But it is as large to many as
to few, as large to each one as to all together;’ and in a sublime passage, De
Lib. Arbit. 2: 14, where of Truth, the heavenly bride, he exclaims: ‘She
receives all her lovers, and they are in nowise jealous of each other; she is
open to all, and is chaste to each;’ and by Gregory, who says: ‘He who desires
to escape the fires of jealousy, let him seek that love, which no number of
sharers in it ever narrows.’ The same is beautifully expressed by Dante, Purgat.
15, beginning,Com’ esser puote che un ben distributo In più posseditor faccia
più ricchi Di sè, the se da pochi è posseduto?‘How can it be that a good
distributed makes the more possessors richer in it, than if it is possessed by
few?’ Butler.

[31] Bellarmine (De AEter. Felic. Sanct. 5:): ‘The penny signifies eternal life;
but just as the same sun is seen more clearly by the eagle than by other birds,
and the same fire warms those close to it better than those who are far off, so
in this same eternal life one will see more clearly and rejoice more joyously
than another.’

[32] As Seneca has well said: ‘He whose eyes are on the goods of another, is ill
content with his own;’ and again; ‘No one can at once grudge and be grateful.’

[33] Εταιρε, in the Vulgate, Amice: but Augustine (Serm. 87: 3), Sodalis, which
is better. Our ‘fellow’ contains too much of contempt in it, though else the
most accurate rendering of all.

[34] Envy is ever spoken of as finding its expression from the eye, Deuteronomy
15:9; 1 Samuel 18:9 (‘Saul eyed David’); Proverbs 23:6; Proverbs 28:22; Tob 4:7;
Eccl. 14: 10; 31: 13; Mark 7:22; indeed the word invidia says as much, being, as
Cicero observes (Tusc. 3: 9 ), a nimis intuendo fortunam alterius. There lies in
the expression the belief, one of the widest spread in the world, of the eye
being able to put forth positive powers of mischief. Thus in Greek the òφθαλμòς
βάσκανος, and βάσκαίνεîν=φθονεîν (see Bishop Lightfoot, Ep. to the Galatians,
p. 127); in Italian, the mal-occhio; in French, the mauvais oeil; in Persius
Urentes oculi. See Becker, Charicles, vol. 2: p. 291. We have on the other hand
the ungrudging eye (Sir 32:10, LXX).13 [35] Leben Jesu, p. 196, note.

[36] It is not often that there is so felicitous an equivalent proverb in
another language as that which the Greek supplies here; and which Clement of
Alexandria has more than once adduced on the score of its aptness as a parallel.
Many wear Bacchus’s badge, but few are his.

[37] Thus wolf also (Curse, in loc.): ‘The ‘called’ and ‘chosen’ here must not
be considered as opposed to each other in kind, but as opposed in degree of
happiness and dignity.’

[38] The term reward, to express the felicity which God will impart to his
people, sometimes offends, seeming to bring back to a legal standing point, and
to imply a claim, as of right, and not merely of grace, upon their part. But
being of a scriptural term (Matthew 5:12; Matthew 6:1; Luke 6:35; 2 John 1:8;
Revelation 22:12), there is no reason why we should shrink, and our Church has
not shrunk, from its use; for we pray ‘that we, plenteously bringing forth the
fruit of good works, may of Thee be plenteously rewarded.’ Only let us
understand what we mean by it. Aquinas says: ‘A man may have some merit in God’s
sight, not, indeed, according to an unconditional relation of justice, but
according to a certain presupposition of a divine ordinance;’ and this is a
satisfactory distinction. The reward has relation to the work, but this, as the
early protesters against the papal doctrines of merits expressed it, according
to a justitia promissionis divine, not a justitia retributionis. There is no
meritum condignum, though Bellarmine sought to extort such from this very
parable (see Gerhard, Loc. Theol. loc. 18: 8, 114). When it is said, ‘God is not
unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love,’ it is only saying, ‘He is
faithful,’ or promise keeping (ουκ αδικος=πιστός: Cf. 1 John 1:9; 1 Corinthians
10:13; 1 Peter 4:19). Augustine (Serm. Exodus 4) ‘Not by owing, but by
promising, did God make Himself a debtor.’ In the reward there is a certain
retrospect to the work done, but no proportion between them, except such as may
have been established by the free appointment of the Giver, and the only claim
is upon his promise. It is, as Fuller says (Holy State, 3: 25), ‘a reward in
respect of his promise; a gift, in respect of thy worthlessness; and yet the
less thou lookest on it, the surer thou shalt find it, if labouring with thyself
to serve God for Himself, in respect of whom even heaven itself is but a
sinister end; ‘for, in the words of St. Bernard: ‘True charity seeks no reward,
though a reward may follow it.’ ‘He is faithful that promised’ this, and nothing
else, must remain always the ground of all expectations; and what these
expectations are to be, and what they are not to be, this parable declares. -
This subject of reward is well discussed in the Supplement to Herzog’s Real
Encyclopaedia, s. 5: Lohn.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 11: 10-PARABLE 9. THE TWO SONS.
========================================================================

PARABLE 9. THE TWO SONS.

Matthew 21:28-32. OUR Lord had put back with another question (ver. 24, 25) the
question (ver. 23) with which his adversaries had hoped either to silence Him,
if He should decline to answer; or to obtain matter of accusation against Him,
if He should give the answer which they expected: and now, becoming Himself the
assailant, He commences that series of parables, in which, as in a glass held up
before them, they might see themselves, the impurity of their hearts, their
neglect of the charge laid upon them, their ingratitude for the privileges
vouchsafed them, the aggravated guilt of that outrage against Himself which they
were already meditating in their hearts. Yet even these, wearing as they do so
severe and threatening an aspect, are not words of defiance, but of earnest
tenderest love, spoken with the intention of turning them, if this were yet
possible, from their purpose, of winning them also for the kingdom of God. The
first parable, that of the Two Sons, goes not so deeply into the heart of the
matter as the two that follow, and is rather retrospective, while those other
are prophetic as well.

‘But what think ye?’ We have the same introduction to a longer discourse, 17: 25
- ‘A certain man had two sons.’ Here, as at Luke 15:11, are described, under the
figure of two sons of one father, two great moral divisions of men, under one or
other of which might be ranged almost all with whom our blessed Lord in his
teaching and preaching came in contact. Of one of these classes the Pharisees
were specimens and representatives, though this class as well as the other will
exist at all times. In this are included all who have sought a righteousness
through the law, and by help of it have been preserved in the main from gross
and open outbreakings of evil. In the second [1] class, of which the publicans
and harlots stand as representatives, are contained all who have thrown off the
yoke, openly and boldly transgressed the laws of God, done evil as ‘with both
hands earnestly.’ Now the condition of those first is of course far preferable;
that righteousness of the law better than this open unrighteousness; provided
always that it be ready to give place to the righteousness of faith, when that
appears; provided that it knows and feels its own incompleteness; which will
ever be the case, where the attempt to keep the law has been truly and honestly
made; the law will then have done its proper work, and have proved ‘a
schoolmaster to Christ.’ But if this righteousness is satisfied with itself, -
and this will be, where evasions have been sought out to escape the strictness
of the requirements of the law; if, cold and loveless and proud, it imagines
that it wants nothing, and so refuses to submit itself to the righteousness of
faith, then far better that the sinner should have had his eyes open to perceive
his misery and guilt, even though this had been by means of manifest and
grievous transgressions, than that he should remain in this ignorance of his
true condition, of all which is lacking to him still; just as it would be better
that disease, if in the frame, should take a definite shape, so that it might be
felt and acknowledged to be disease, and then met and overcome, than that it
should be secretly lurking in, and pervading, the whole system; its very
existence being denied by him the sources of whose life it was sapping. From
this point of view St. Paul speaks, Romans 7:7-9; and this same lesson, that
there is no such fault as counting we have no fault, is taught us throughout all
Scripture. It is taught us in the bearing of the elder son towards his father
and returning brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:28-30); and
again in the demeanour of the Pharisee who had invited Jesus to his house toward
Him and toward the woman ‘which was a sinner’ (Luke 7:36-50); and in that of
another Pharisee, whose very prayers this spirit and temper made to be nothing
worth (Luke 18:10; cf. Luke 18:29-32).

‘And he came to the first and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard.’ This
command, which we may compare with that of Matthew 20:1-7, was the general
summons made both by the natural law in the conscience, and also by the revealed
law which came by Moses, that men should bring forth fruit unto God. This call
the publicans and harlots, and all open sinners, manifestly neglected and
despised. The son first bidden to go to the work ‘answered and said, I will
not.’ 1 The rudeness of the answer, the absence of any attempt to excuse his
disobedience, are both characteristic. The representative of careless, reckless
sinners, he has dismissed even the hypocrisies with which others cloke their
disobedience; cares not to say, like those invited guests, ‘I pray thee have me
excused;’ but flatly refuses to go. ‘But afterward he repented and went.’ There
came over him a better mind, even as we know that such under the preaching of
the Baptist and afterwards of the Lord Himself came over many who before had
stood out against God. And he came to the second, and said likewise; and he
answered and said, I go, sir.’ [2] The Scribes and Pharisees, as professing zeal
for the law, set themselves in the way as though they would fulfil the command.
But they said, and did not (Matthew 23:2); the prophet Isaiah had long since
described them truly (Matthew 15:8; cf. Isaiah 29:18), ‘This people draweth nigh
unto Me with their mouth, and honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is
far from Me.’ So was it here. When the marked time arrived, when the Baptist
came to them ‘in the way of righteousness,’ and summoned to an earnest
repentance on the part of all, when it was needful to take decisively one side
or the other, then when many hitherto openly profane were baptized, confessing
their sins (Matthew 3:5-6), ‘repented, and went:’ the real unrighteousness of
the Pharisees, before concealed under show of zeal for the law, was clearly
displayed: professing willingness to go, they ‘went not.’ To the Lord’s
question, ‘Whether of them twain did the will of his father? ‘his adversaries
cannot plead inability to reply, as they had pleaded to a former question (ver.
27); they have no choice but to answer, though their answer condemns themselves.
‘They say unto Him, The first: ‘not, of course, that he did it absolutely well,
but by comparison with the other. Then follows the application to themselves of
the acknowledgment reluctantly wrung from them: ‘Verily, I say unto you, That
the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you’ (cf. Luke 7:29;
Luke 7:37-50). In these words, ‘go before you,’ or ‘take the lead of you,’ there
is a gracious intimation that for them too the door of hope was open still, that
as yet no irreversible doom excluded them from that kingdom: the others indeed
had preceded them; but they might still follow, if they would. And why are they
thus proving the last to enter into the kingdom, if indeed they shall enter it
at all? ‘For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him
not.’ An emphasis has been sometimes laid on the words, ‘in the way of
righteousness,’ as though they were brought in to aggravate the sin of the
Pharisees, as though the Lord would say, ‘The Baptist came, a pattern of that
very righteousness of the law, in which you profess to exercise yourselves. He
did not come, calling to the new life of the Gospel, of which I am the pattern,
and which you might have misunderstood; he did not come, seeking to put new wine
into the old bottles, but himself fulfilling that very form and pattern of
righteousness which you professed to have set before yourselves; became an
earnest ascetic (Matthew 9:11-14); separating himself from sinners; while yet
you were so little hearty about any form of earnest goodness, that for all this
he obtained no more acceptance with you than I have done. You found fault with
him for the strictness of his life, as you find fault with Me for the
condescension of mine (Matthew 11:16-19). And this unbelief of yours was not
merely for a time; but afterward, when God had set his seal to his mission, when
the publicans and the harlots believed him, even then ye could not be provoked
to jealousy: ‘ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might
believe him.’ In many copies, and some not unimportant ones, it is the son that
is first spoken to, who promises to go, and afterwards disobeys; and the second
who, refusing first, afterwards changes his mind, and enters on the work.
Probably the order was thus reversed by transcribers, who thought that the
application of the parable must be to the successive callings of Jews and
Gentiles, [3] and that therefore the order of their calling should be preserved.
The parable, however, does not in the first instance apply to the Jew and
Gentile, but rather to the two bodies within the bosom of the Jewish Church. It
is not said, ‘the Gentiles,’ but ‘the publicans and the harlots, go into the
kingdom of heaven before you; ‘while yet that former statement, if the parable
had admitted (and if it had admitted, it must have required it), would have been
a far stronger way of provoking them to jealousy (Acts 22:21-22; Romans
10:19-21). The application of the parable to Gentile and Jew need not indeed be
excluded, since the whole Jewish nation stood morally to the Gentile world in
the same relation which the more self-righteous among themselves did to
notorious transgressors. But not till the next parable do Jew and Gentile, in
their relations to one another, and in their several relations to the kingdom of
God, come distinctly and primarily forward.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Gerhard: ‘The life of sinners is nothing but the actualizing of the cry and
profession, “We will not do the will of God.”’

[2] ‘Eγώ κύριε. The readings here are various; υαί κύριε, ύπάγω κύριε and
many more; all, however, easily traced up to transcribers wanting to amend a
phrase which seemed to them incomplete. Πορέύομαι άπέρχομαι or some such
word, must be supplied. See 1 Samuel 3:4; 1 Samuel 3:6; Genesis 22:1.

[3] So Origen, Chrysostom, and Athanasius: Jerome, too, who quotes as a parallel
to ‘I go, sir,’ the words of the children of Israel at the giving of the law,
‘All that the Lord hath said will we do and be obedient’ (Exodus 24:7). The
Auct. Oper. Imperf. is almost the only ancient author who interprets the parable
rightly; noting at length the inconveniences that attend the application of it
to Jew and Gentile. But the ‘as it seems to me,’ with which Origen introduces
his erroneous explanation, marks that there was another interpretation current
in the Church, as is explicitly stated by Jerome: ‘Others do not think that this
is a parable of the Gentiles and Jews, but simply of the sinners and the just.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 12: 11-PARABLE 10. THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN.
========================================================================

PARABLE 10. THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN.

Matthew 21:33-45; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-19. THE Lord’s adversaries had by this
time so manifestly gotten the worse, that, for this day at least, they would
willingly have brought the controversy by them so imprudently provoked (see ver.
23) to a close. But no; He will not let them go: He has begun and will finish;
‘Hear another parable;’ as though He would say, ‘I have still another word for
you of warning and rebuke,’ and to that He now summons them to listen. Uttered
in the presence at once of the Pharisees and of the multitude, to St. Matthew it
seemed rather addressed to the Pharisees, while St. Luke records it as spoken to
the people (xx. 9); but there is no real difference here. The opening words,
‘There was a certain householder; which planted a vineyard,’ and still more
those which immediately follow, suggest, and were intended to suggest, a
reference to Isaiah 5:1-7. He who came not to destroy, but to fulfil, takes up
the prophet’s words, connects his own appearing with all which had gone before
in the history of the nation, presents it as the crown and consummation of all
God’s dealings through a thousand years with his people. Nor is it to that
passage in Isaiah alone that the Lord links on his teaching here. The image of
the kingdom of God as a vine-stock, [3] or as a vineyard, [4] runs through the
whole Old Testament (Deuteronomy 32:32; Psalms 80:8-16; Isaiah 27:1-7; Jeremiah
2:21; Ezekiel 15:1-6; Ezekiel 19:10; Hosea 10:1); and has many fitnesses to
recommend it. The vine, the lowest, is at the same time the noblest of plants.
Our Lord appropriates it, among earthly symbols, to Himself; He is the mystical
Vine (John 15:1); had been in prophecy compared to it long before [5] (Genesis
49:11). It is a tree which spreads and diffuses itself, casts out its tendrils
and branches on every side; [6] so that of that Vine which the Lord brought out
of Egypt the Psalmist could say, I it filled the land’ (lg.. 9). Nor may we,
while drawing out these points of similitude, omit the fact that there was no
property so valuable, nor which yielded returns so large, as a vineyard (Song of
Solomon 8:11-12); yet only yielding these in answer to the most unceasing
diligence and toil. [7] In Isaiah, the vineyard and the Jewish Church are one;
‘The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah
his pleasant plant.’ It is therefore described, not as transferred to others,
but as laid waste (v. 5, 6; Micah 1:6). Here, where the vineyard is not laid
waste, but handed over to more faithful husbandmen, and the judgment lights not
on it, but on those who so guiltily sought to seize it for their own, we must
regard it rather as the kingdom of God in its idea, which idea Jew and Gentile
have been successively placed in the condition to realize; [8] a failure in this
involving for both alike a forfeiture of the tenure. Inasmuch, indeed, as Israel
according to the flesh was the first called to realize the heavenly kingdom, it
may be said that for a time the vineyard was the Jewish Church; but this
arrangement was accidental and temporary, not necessary and permanent, as the
sequel abundantly proved. It was the fatal mistake of the Jews, witnessed
against in vain by the prophets of old (Jeremiah 7:4), by the Baptist (Matthew
3:9), and now and often by the Lord Jesus Himself (Matthew 8:12; Luke 13:29),
that they and the kingdom were so identified, that it could never be separated
from them. The householder is more than possessor of this vineyard he has
himself ‘planted’ it (Exodus 15:17; Psalms 44:2). This planting dates back to
the times of Moses and Joshua, to the founding of a divine polity in the land of
Canaan; and is described, Deuteronomy 32:12-14; cf. Ezekiel 16:9-14; Nehemiah
9:23-25. But this was not all. Having planted, he also ‘hedged it round about,
and digged a wine-press [9] in it, and built a tower.’ This hedge might be
either a stone wall [10] (Proverbs 24:31; Numbers 22:24; Isaiah 5:5; Micah 1:6),
or a fence of thorns or other quickset; this last, if formed, as is common in
the East, of the prickly wild aloe, or of some other briars with which Judea
abounds, would more effectually exclude the enemies of the vineyard, the fox
(Song of Solomon 2:15; Nehemiah 4:3), and the wild boar (Psalms 80:13), than any
wall of stone [11]. The vineyard of Isaiah 5:5 is furnished with both. That it
should possess a ‘wine press’ would be a matter of course. Not less needful
would be the ‘tower;’[12] by which we understand not so much the kiosk, or
ornamental building, serving mainly for delight, as a place of shelter for the
watchmen who should guard the fruits of the vineyard, and a receptacle for the
fruits themselves. The question, which to an interpreter of the parables must so
often recur, presents itself here. Shall we attach any special signification to
these several details? do they thus belong to the very substance of the parable,
or are they drapery only, and, if expressing anything, yet only in a general way
the care of the heavenly householder for his Church, that provision of all
things necessary for life and godliness which He made for his people? Many in
this as in other like cases will allow nothing more than this last. But,
whatever may be said of the wine-press and the tower, [13] it is difficult, with
Ephesians 2:14 before us, where the law is described as ‘the middle wall of
partition’ [14] between the Jew and Gentile, to refuse to the hedging round of
the vineyard a spiritual significance. By their circumscription through the law,
the Jews became a people dwelling alone, and not reckoned among the nations
(Numbers 23:9); that law being at once a hedge of separation and of defence,
[15] ‘a wall of fire’ (Zechariah 2:5; cf. Psalms 125:2; Isaiah 27:3), which,
preserving them distinct from the idolatrous nations round them and from their
abominations, was for them the pledge and assurance of the continued protection
of God. Add to this that not inwardly only, but outwardly as well, Judea,
through its geographical position, was hedged round; by the bounty of nature on
every side circumscribed and defended; being guarded on the east by the river
Jordan and the two lakes, on the south by the desert and mountainous country of
Idumaea, on the west by the sea, and by Anti-Libanus on the north: for so,
observes Vitringa, had God in his counsels determined, who willed that Israel
should dwell alone. It is not so easy to point out distinct spiritual benefits
shadowed forth by the winepress [16] and the tower. [17] Many attempts to
discover such have been made; but they all have something fanciful and arbitrary
about them; and, though often ingenious, yet fail to command an unreserved
assent. The householder, who might now say, ‘What could have been done more to
my vineyard, that I have not done?’ ‘let it out to husbandmen’ (Song of Solomon
8:11); ‘and went into afar country;’ and as St. Luke adds, ‘for a long while.’
What the terms of his agreement with the husbandmen were, we are not expressly
told, but, as the sequel clearly implies, having made a covenant with them to
receive a fixed proportion of the fruits in their season. Since, as is evident,
the ‘husbandmen ‘must be distinguished from the vineyard they were set to
cultivate and keep, we must understand by them the spiritual chiefs of the
nation, to whom God, in the very constitution of the Jewish polity, had given
authority to sit in Moses’ chair, and from it to teach the people (Malachi 2:7;
Ezekiel 34:2; Matthew 23:2; Matthew 23:8). By the vineyard itself will then
naturally be signified the great body of the nation, who, instructed and taught
by these, should have brought forth fruits of righteousness unto God. [18] In
the miracles which went along with the deliverance from Egypt, the giving of the
law from Sinai, and the planting in Canaan, God openly dealt with his people,
made, as we know, an express covenant with them; but this done, withdrew for a
while, not speaking any more to them face to face (Deuteronomy 34:10-12), but
waiting in patience to see what the law would effect, and what manner of works
they, under the teaching of their appointed guides, would bring forth . [19]

‘And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the
husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it,’ his share of the produce,
whatever that might be (Song of Solomon 8:12). There was, of course, no time
when God did not demand obedience, gratitude, love from his people; all times
therefore are in one sense ‘times of the fruit’ (Isaiah 5:7). But the conditions
of the parable demand this language; and moreover, in the history of souls and
of nations, there are seasons which even more than all other are ‘times of
fruit;’ when God requires such with more than usual earnestness, when it will
fare most ill with a soul or nation, if these be not found. But the ‘servants
‘who should receive this fruit, how, it may be asked, should these be
distinguished from the ‘‘husbandman’? Exactly in this, that the ‘servants,’ that
is, the prophets and other more eminent ministers and messengers of God, were
sent; being raised up at critical epochs, each with his own direct mission and
message; the ‘husbandmen,’ on the other hand, are the more permanent
ecclesiastical authorities, whose authority lay in the very constitution of the
theocracy itself. [20] On this receiving of the fruits Olshausen [21] says well,
‘These fruits which are demanded are in nowise to be explained as particular
works, nor yet as a condition of honesty and uprightness, but much rather as the
repentance and the inward longing after true inward righteousness, which the law
was unable to bring about. It is by no means implied that the law had not an
influence in producing uprightness; it cuts off the grosser manifestations of
sin, and reveals its hidden abomination; so that a righteousness according to
the law can even under the law come forth as fruit; while yet, to be sufficing,
this must have a sense of the need of a redemption for its basis (Romans 3:20).
The servants therefore here appear as those who seek for these spiritual needs,
that they may link to them the promises concerning a coming Redeemer: but the
unfaithful husbandmen who had abused their own position, denied and slew these
messengers of grace.’ This time of the fruit’ would not, according to the
Levitical law, have arrived till the fifth year after the planting of the
vineyard. For three years the fruit was to be uncircumcised, and therefore
ungathered; in the fourth, it was ‘holy to praise the Lord withal;’ and only in
the fifth could those who tended the vineyard either themselves enjoy the fruit
or render of the same to others (Leviticus 19:23-25). During this long period
the husbandmen may have managed to forget that they were tenants at all, and not
possessors in fee; and this may help to explain what follows.

‘And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and
stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first, and they did
unto them likewise.’ The two later Evangelists record the wickedness of these
wicked husbandmen more in detail than the first, St. Luke tracing very
distinctly their advance under the sense of impunity from bad to worse. When the
first servant came, they ‘beat him, and sent him away empty.’ The next they
‘entreated shamefully;’ or according to St. Mark, who defines the very nature of
the outrage, ‘at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, [22] and
sent him away shamefully handled.’ [23] One might almost gather from these last
words that in their wanton insolence they devised devices of scorn and wrong,
not expressly named, against this servant; such, perhaps, as Hanun did, when he
‘took David’s servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off
their garments in the middle, and sent them away’ (2 Samuel 10:4). The third
they wounded, and cast out of the vineyard with violence; flung him forth, it
might be, with hardly any life in him. In the two earlier Evangelists the
outrage reaches even to the killing of some of the subordinate messengers; while
in St. Luke this extremity of outrage is reserved for the son. The latter thus
presents the series of crimes on an ever ascending scale; but the former are
truer to historical fact, seeing that not a few of the prophets were not merely
maltreated, but actually put to death. Thus, if we may trust Jewish tradition,
Jeremiah was stoned by the exiles in Egypt, Isaiah sawn asunder by king
Manasseh. For an abundant historical justification of this description, and as
showing that the past ingratitude of the people is not painted here in colours
darker than the facts would warrant, see Jeremiah 20:1-2; Jeremiah 37:15;
Jeremiah 38:6; 1 Kings 18:13; 1 Kings 19:14; 1 Kings 22:24-27; 2 Kings 6:31; 2
Kings 21:16; 2 Chronicles 24:19-22; 2 Chronicles 36:16; 2 Chronicles 36:16 : and
also Acts 7:5; 2 Thessalonians 2:15; the whole passage finding its best
commentary in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews: I And others had trial of
cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment: they
were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; .
. . of whom the world was not worthy’ (xi. 37, 38). The patience of the
householder under these extraordinary provocations is wonderful, sending as he
does messenger after messenger to win back these wicked men to a sense of their
duty, instead of resuming at once possession of his vineyard, and inflicting
summary vengeance upon them. It needs to be thus magnified, seeing that it
represents to us the infinite patience and longsuffering of God: ‘Howbeit I sent
unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying,
Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate’ (Jeremiah 44:4). ‘Nevertheless,
they were disobedient, and rebelled against Thee, and cast thy law behind their
backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to Thee,
and they wrought great provocations’ (Nehemiah 9:26). The whole confession of
the Levites as here recorded is in itself an admirable commentary on this
parable.

‘But last of all he sent unto them his son,’ or in the still more affecting
words of St. Mark,’ Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him
also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son’ (cf. Hebrews 1:1-2).
When the householder expresses his conviction that however those wicked men may
have outraged and defied his inferior messengers, they will reverence his son,
we need not embarrass ourselves, as some have done, with the fact that He whom
the householder represents must have fully known from the beginning what
treatment his Son would meet from those to whom He sent Him. Not that there is
not a difficulty, but it is the same which meets us everywhere, that of the
reconciliation of man’s freedom with God’s foreknowledge.[ 24] That they are
reconcilable we know, and that we cannot reconcile them we know; and this is all
which can be said upon the matter. The description of this the last of the
ambassadors as the son of the householder, as his only one, ‘his well beloved,’
all marks as strongly as possible the difference of rank between Christ and the
prophets, the superior dignity of his person, who only was a Son in the highest
sense of the word [25] (Hebrews 3:5-6); and some, doubtless, of those who heard,
quite understood what He meant, and the honour which He thus claimed as
peculiarly his own, however unable to turn his words against Himself, and to
accuse Him of making Himself, as indeed He did, the Son of God (John 5:18). In
this sending of his own Son by the heavenly Father, is the last and crowning
effort of divine mercy. If it fail, on the one side all the resources even of
heavenly love will have been exhausted; while on the other, those whose sin has
caused it to fail will have filled up the measure of their guilt.

‘But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the
heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.’ Compare John
11:47-53, and the evil counsels of Joseph’s brethren against him: ‘When they saw
him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to
slay him, and they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now,
therefore, and let us slay him, . . . and we shall see what will become of his
dreams’ (Genesis 37:19-20). As they, thinking to disappoint the purpose of God
concerning their younger brother, help to bring it to pass, so the Jewish rulers
were the instruments to fulfil that same purpose concerning Christ, which they
meant forever to defeat [26] (Acts 3:18; Acts 4:27-28). - ‘This is the heir;’
the word is not used here in its laxer sense as a synonym for lord, like heres
for dominus; but more accurately, he for whom the inheritance is meant, who is
not in present possession, but to whom it will in due course rightfully arrive;
not, as in earthly relations, by the death, but by the free appointment of the
actual possessor. Christ is ‘heir of all things’ (Hebrews 1:2), not as He is the
Son of God, for the Church has always detected Arian tendencies lurking in that
interpretation, but as He is the Son of man (Ephesians 1:20-23; Php 2:9-11). So
Theodoret: ‘The Lord Christ is heir of all things, not as God, but as man; for
as God He is maker of all.’

It is the heart which speaks in God’s hearing (Psalms 53:1); the thought of
men’s heart is their true speech, and is therefore here regarded as the
utterance of their lips. We cannot, indeed, imagine the Pharisees, even in their
most secret counsels, ever trusting one another so far, or daring to look their
own wickedness so directly in the face, as to say, in as many words, ‘This is
the Messiah, therefore let us slay Him.’ But they desired that the inheritance
might be theirs. What God had willed should only be transient and temporary,
enduring till the times of reformation, they would fain have seen permanent; and
this, because they had prerogatives and privileges under that imperfect
dispensation, which would cease when that which was perfect had come; or rather
which, not ceasing, would yet be transformed into other and higher privileges,
for which they had no care. The great Master-builder was about to take down the
scaffolding provisionally reared, but which had now served its end; and this his
purpose they, the under-builders, were setting themselves to oppose, [27] and
were determined, at whatever cost, to resist to the uttermost. What God had
founded, they would &in possess without God and against God; and imagined that
they could do so; for indeed all self-righteousness what is it but an attempt to
kill the heir, and to seize on the divine inheritance, a seeking to comprehend
and take down into self that light, which is only light so long as it is
recognized as something above self; whereof man is permitted to be a partaker;
but which he neither himself originated, nor yet can ever possess in fee, or as
his own, or otherwise than as continually receiving from on high; a light too,
which, by the very success of the attempt to take it into his own possession, is
as inevitably lost and extinguished as would be a ray of our natural light if we
succeeded in cutting it off from its luminous source?

‘And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.’ All three
Evangelists describe the son as thus ‘cast out of the vineyard,’ reminding us of
Him who I suffered without the gate’ (Hebrews 13:12-13; John 19:27); cut off in
the intention of those who put Him to death from the people of God, and from all
share in their blessings. Thus when Naboth perished on charges of blasphemy
against God and the king, that is, for theocratic sins, ‘they carried him forth
out of the city, and stoned him with stones that he died [28] (1 Kings 21:13;
of. Acts 7:58; Acts 21:30). In St. Mark the husbandmen slay the son first, and
only afterwards cast out the body (xii. 8; of. Jeremiah 22:19). They deny it the
common rites of sepulture, as Creon to Polynices; fling it forth, as much as to
say, that is their answer to the householder’s demands. The Lord so little
doubts the extremities to which the hatred of his enemies will proceed, that in
the parable He holds up to them the crime which they were meditating in their
hearts, and in a few days should bring to the birth, as one already
accomplished; not indeed thus binding them to this sin, but rather showing to
them as in a mirror the hideousness of it, and, if this were possible,
terrifying them from its actual consummation. [29]

If, however, this might not be, and if, like the husbandmen in the parable, they
were resolved to consummate their crime, what should be their doom? This too
they may see reflected in the mirror which Christ holds up before their eyes.
‘When the Lord, therefore, of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those
husbandmen? ‘It is very instructive to note the way in which successive
generations, which during so many centuries had been filling up the measure of
the iniquity of Israel, are contemplated throughout but as one body of
husbandmen; God’s word being everywhere opposed to that shallow nominalism which
would make ‘nation’ no more than a convenient form of language to express a
certain aggregation of individuals. God will deal with nations as living
organisms, and as having a moral unity of their own, and this continuing
unbroken from age to age. Were it otherwise, all confession of our fathers’ sins
would be a mockery, and such words as our Lord’s at Matthew 23:32-35, without
any meaning at all. Neither is there any injustice in this law of God’s
government, with which He encounters our selfish, self-isolating tendencies; for
while there is thus a life of the whole, there is also a life forevery part; and
thus it is always possible for each individual even of that generation which,
having filled up the last drop of the measure, is being chastised for all its
own and its fathers’ iniquities, by personal faith and repentance to withdraw
himself from the general doom; not indeed always possible for him to escape his
share in the outward calamity (though often there will be a Pella when Jerusalem
is destroyed, an Ark when a world perishes), but always to escape from that
which is the woe of the woe, from the wrath of God, of which the outward
calamity is but the form and expression (Jeremiah 39:11; Ezekiel 11:16). The
necessity of preserving the due probabilities of the narrative makes it
impossible that the son himself should execute the final vengeance on these
wicked husbandmen. He is slain, and cannot, like Him whom he shadows forth, rise
again to exact the penalties of their guilt. This ‘the lord of the vineyard,’
now for the first time so called, must do neither is there anything here
inconsistent with the general teaching of Scripture, for it is the Father,
revealing Himself in the Son, who both gave the law at Sinai, and who also, when
the time of vengeance had arrived, visited and judged the apostate Church of
Israel.

Perhaps the Pharisees, to whom Christ addressed the question, making the same
appeal to them which Isaiah had made to their fathers (v. 8), and extorting
their condemnation from their own lips, [30] had hitherto missed the scope of
the parable, and before they were aware, pronounced sentence against themselves:
‘He will-miserably destroy those wicked men, [31] and will let out his vineyard
to other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons;’ or it
may be that, perceiving well enough, they had yet hitherto pretended not to
perceive his drift, and so drew from Him words more explicit still; such as it
was idle any longer to affect to misunderstand: ‘Therefore say I unto you, The
kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the
fruits thereof.’ For then at length Christ and his adversaries stood face to
face, as did once before a prophet and a wicked king of Israel, when the
prophet, having obtained in his disguise a sentence from the lips of the king
against himself, removed the ashes from his face, and the king I discerned him
that he was of the prophets,’ and understood that he had unconsciously
pronounced his own doom (1 Kings 20:41). [32] - The ‘God forbid,’ which the
people ‘uttered (Luke 20:16), -the Pharisees had too much wariness and
self-command to allow any such exclamation to escape from their lip’s shows
plainly that the aim of the parable had not escaped them, that they saw the
drift of it betimes. The exclamation itself was either an expression of fear,
desiring that such evil might be averted; or else of unbelief, I That shall
never be; we are God’s people, and shall remain such to the end:’ and this more
probably than that, from the spirit and temper of those who utter it (Ezekiel
33:24; Matthew 3:9; Romans 2:17). But this truth, so strange and unwelcome to
his hearers, rests not on his word alone. The same was long ago fore-announced
in those Scriptures to which his adversaries professed to appeal, and from which
they condemned Him ‘Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the
builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner?’ The quotation is
from Psalms 118:22-23, a psalm which the Jews acknowledged as applying to the
King Messiah (Matt. 19: 38), and of which there is a like application at Acts
4:11; 1 Peter 2:7; with an allusion somewhat more remote, at Ephesians 2:20.
[33] The passage quoted forms an exact parallel with this parable ; all which
the Lord threatens here, being implicitly threatened there.’ The builders’ there
correspond to’ the husbandmen’ here; as those were appointed of God to carry up
the spiritual temple, so these to cultivate the spiritual vineyard; the
rejection of the chief corner-stone corresponds to the denying and murdering of
the heir. There is another motive for abandoning the image of the vineyard; I
mean its inadequacy to set forth one important moment of the truth, which yet
must by no means be passed over; namely this, that the malice of men should not
defeat the purpose of God, that the Son should yet be the heir; and that not
merely vengeance should be taken, but that He should take it. Now all this is
distinctly involved in the Lord’s concluding words:’ Whosoever shall fall on
this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him
to powder.’ The rejected stone, having become the head of the corner, is itself
the instrument of their punishment who have set it at nought. [34] They fall on
the stone who are offended at Christ in his low estate (Isaiah 8:14; Isaiah
53:2; Luke 2:34; Luke 4:22-29; John 4:44); of this sin his hearers were already
guilty. There was a worse sin which they were on the point of committing, which
He warns them would be followed by a more tremendous punishment; they on whom
the stone falls are those who set themselves in self-conscious opposition
against the Lord ; who, knowing who He is, do yet to the end oppose themselves
to Him and to his kingdom; [35] and these shall not merely fall and be broken ;
for one might recover himself, though with some present harm, from such a fall
as this; but on them the stone shall fall as from heaven, and shall grind [36]
them to powder,-in the words of Daniel (Daniel 2:35), ‘like the chaff of the
summer threshing-floors,’-crushing and destroying them forever. [37]

All three Evangelists note the exasperation of the Chief Priests and Pharisees,
when they perceived, as all did at last, though some sooner than others, that
the parable was spoken against them (cf. Jeremiah 18:18). They no longer kept
any terms with the Lord, and, only that’ they feared the multitude,’ would have
laid violent hands on Him at once. Yet not even so does He give them up; but
having, in this parable, set forth their relation to God as a relation of ditty,
shown them that a charge was laid upon them, with the guilt they incurred in
neglecting to fulfil it, so in that which follows, He sets forth to them the
same in a yet more inviting light, as a relation of privilege. He presents to
them their work not any more as a burden laid upon them, but as a grace imparted
to them; - which, therefore, they incurred an equal guilt, or indeed a greater,
in counting light of or despising. If this is a more legal, that is a more
evangelical, parable.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The vine-stock often appears on the Maccabean coins as the emblem of
Palestine: sometimes too the bunch of grapes and the vine-leaf. Deyling (Obss.
Sac. vol. 3: p. 236): ‘The grape-bunch also, the vine-leaf and the palm, as is
shown by the mummies, were symbols of Judea.’

[2] St. Bernard compares the Church with a vineyard at some length (In Cant.
Serm. 30): ‘Planted in faith, it sends forth its roots in charity, is dug about
with the hoe of discipline, manured with the tears of penitents, watered with
the words of preachers, and thus truly overflows with a wine in which is
gladness but not luxury, a wine of entire sweetness and of no lust. This wine
does indeed gladden the heart of man, and we may believe that even angels drink
it with gladness: Compare Augustine, Serm. 87:1; and Ambrose, Exp. in Luke 9:29.

[3] Grotius: ‘The vine boasts in the fable (Judges 9:13) that God and men are
cheered by its liquor, which is most truly said of the blood of Christ.’

[4] Pliny, Hist. Nat. 14: 3.

[5] Cato: ‘No possession is more precious, none requires more toil.’ Virgil
presses the same in words well worthy to be kept in mind by all to whom a
spiritual vineyard has been committed (Georg. 2: 397-419)

[6] ‘This further task again to dress the vine Hath needs beyond exhausting; the
whole soil Thrice, four times yearly must be cleft, the sod With hoes reversed
be crushed continually, The whole plantation lightened of its leaves. Round on
the labourer spins the wheel of toil As on its own track rolls the circling
year.’

[8] See Origen, Comm. in Matt. in loc.

[9] torcular; in St. Mark lacus; which last can alone be properly said to have
been dug; being afterwards lined with masonry, as Chardin mentions that he found
them in Persia. Sometimes they were hewn out of the solid rock; Nonnus (Dionys.
12: 330) describes in some spirited lines how Bacchus hollowed out such a
receptable from thence. In the press, the grapes were placed and were there
crushed, commonly by the feet of men (Judges 9:27; Nehemiah 13:15; Isaiah 63:3);
while at the bottom of this press was a closely-grated hole, through which the
juice being expressed, ran into the ύπολήυιου (or προλήυιου Isaiah 5:3, LXX),
the vat prepared beneath for its reception, the lacus vinarius of Columella. See
the Dictionary of the Bible, s. 5: Wine-press; Robinson, Later Biblical
Besearches, p.137; and Tristram, Natural History of the Bible, p. 409. The
ancient winepresses,’ the last observes, ‘are among the most interesting remains
of the Holy Land, perhaps the only relics still existing of the actual handiwork
of Israel, prior to the first Captivity. The hills of southern Judea abound with
them.’

[10] See Greswell, Exposition of the Parables, vol. 5: p. 4.

[11] Homer, 17. 18: 564: so too Virgil (Georg. 2: 371): ‘Hedges also must be
woven;’ Tris-tram, Natural History of the Bible, p. 430.

[12] Πύργος =όπωροФνλάκιου Isaiah 1:8; Isaiah 24:20; ‘the watch-towers; which
the guardians of the crops used to occupy’ (Jerome); ‘a booth that the keeper
maketh’ (Job 27:18, Song of Solomon 1:6). Such temporary towers I have seen
often in Spain, at the season when the ripening grapes might tempt the
passers-by: the more necessary, as the vineyard commonly lies open to the road
without any protection whatever. A scaffolding is raised high with planks and
poles, and with matting above to protect from the sun; and on this, commanding
an extensive view all around, a watcher, with a long gun, is planted. The elder
Niebur (Beschreib. 5: Arab. p. 138) says: ‘In the mountainous district of Yemen
I saw here and there as it were nests in the trees, in which the Arabs perched
themselves to watch their cornfields. In Tehama, where the trees were scarcer,
they built for this purpose a high and light scaffold.’ Ward (View of the
Hindoos, vol. 2: p. 327) observes: ‘The wild hogs and buffaloes [silvestres uri,
Georg. 2: 374] make sad havoc in the fields and orchards of the Hindoos; to keep
them out, men are placed on elevated covered stages in the fields;’ sometimes on
mounds built with sods of earth; and the watchers are frequently armed with
slings, which they use with great dexterity and effect, to drive away invaders
of every description.

[13] Delitzsch, in the parallel passage of Isaiah, does not hesitate to
interpret these: ‘The tower for protection and ornament in the midst of the
vineyard is Jerusalem as the royal city, with Sion as the royal citadel (Micah
4:8): the winepress is the temple, where, according to Psalms 36:8, the heavenly
wine of joy flows in streams, and where, according to Psalms 42 :, all the
thirst of the soul is directed.’

[14] Μεσότοιχον τού Фραγμού there, as Фραγμός here.

[15] Ambrose (Exp. in Luke 9:24) explains it: ‘He walled it about with the
protection of the divine guardianship, lest it should lie too easy a prey to the
attacks of the spiritual wild beasts;’ and HexaYm. 3: 12: ‘He surrounded it as
with a kind of wall of celestial precepts, and with the guardianship of angels.’

[16] Generally the wine-press is taken to signify the prophetic institution.
Thus Irenmus (Con. Haer. 4: 36): ‘In digging a wine-press he prepared a
lodging-place for the spirit of prophecy.’ Hilary: ‘Upon whom [the prophets] an
abundance of the fire of the Holy Spirit was to flow after the manner of new
wine.’ so Ambrose, Exp. in Luke 9:24.

[17] In Isaiah two other principal benefits are recorded,-that the vineyard was
on a fruitful hill (apertos Bacchus amat colles, Virgil), sloping towards the
rays of the sun, and that the stones were gathered out from it (2 Kings 3:19),
the last an allusion to the casting out of the Canaanites, who else might have
proved stumbling-blocks for God’s people (Psalms 125:3). With the whole parable
Ezek. ail. will form an instructive parallel.

[18] Frederick Maurice, looking over these pages before their publication,
appended here this note, which every reader will be glad I have preserved: ‘I do
not absolutely question the truth of this interpretation, but it seems to me
rather an escape from a difficulty which does not exist more in the parable than
in all our customary language about the Church. The Church is both teacher and
taught; but the teachers are not merely the ministers; the whole Church of one
generation teaches the whole Church of another, by its history, acts, words,
mistakes, &c. The Church existing out of time an unchangeable body teaches the
members of the Church existing in every particular time.’

[19] Ambrose (Exp. in Luke 9:23): ‘At many seasons He withdrew from them, lest
his demand should seem over-hasty; for the indulgence of liberality makes
stubbornness all the more inexcusable.’ Theophylact: ‘The sojourning of God afar
oft is his patience.’ Bengel: ‘A season of divine silence is indicated, when men
act as they please.’ see Ezekiel 8:12; Psalms 10:6.

[20] Bengel: ‘The servants are the extraordinary and more eminent ministers; the
husbandmen the ordinary ones.’

[21] Από τού καρπού - according to the well-known moetayer system still
largely practised in parts of France and in Italy: see Fawcett’s Political
.Economy, 4th ed. p. 202. Pliny (Ep 9: 37) writes that the only way in which he
could obtain any returns from some estates of his, hitherto badly managed, was
by letting them on this system: ‘The one means of improvement is for me to let
them, not for a money rent, but for a share in the produce.’ . He was to appoint
some guardians (exactores and custodes), differing only from these servants,
that they were to be constantly on the spot to see that he obtained his just
share of the produce. Chardin (Voy. en Perse, vol. 5: p. $84, Langlbs’ ed.) has
much on the metayer system as he found it in Persia, and illustrates our parable
well, showing what a constant source it proved of violence and fraud: ‘This
agreement, which appears, and which ought to be, an honest bargain, nevertheless
proves an inexhaustible source of fraud, controversy, and violence, in which
justice is hardly ever observed, and, what is very remarkable, it is the lord
who always has the worse, and is the sufferer;’ all which is exactly what here
we find. See Du Cange, s. vv. Medietarius and Medietas.

[22] Εκεθαλαιωαυ (Mark 12:4). Our Translators have here returned to Wiclif’s
rendering; that of the intermediate Protestant Versions, ‘brake his head,’
probably seeming to them too familiar. It is a singular use of a verb, nowhere
else used but as to gather up in one sum, as under one head; of which correcter
use we have a good example in the Epistle of Barnabas, where of the Son of God
it is said that he came in the flesh. Wakefield’s suggestion (Silv. crit. 2: p.
76), that 1KECpaxatwaav here is, brevitervel summatim egerunt, they made short
work of it, or as Lightfoot expresses it, referring to the fact that the servant
came to demand payment,-they squared accounts with him (ironically), is quite
untenable. The accusative αυτόν is decisive against it, as against
Theophylact’s anticipation of this explanation: συνετελεοαν ύβριν

[23] Ντίμησαν

[24] Jerome: ‘This which he says, “They will reverence my son,” is not spoken
out of ignorance; for of what can the householder be ignorant, seeing that in
this place he must be understood to stand for God? But God is always spoken of
as dubitating, in order that the freedom of man’s will may be preserved.’ Cf.
Ambrose, De Fide, 5: 17, 18.

[25] This is often urged by early Church writers, when proving the divinity of
the Son; as by Ambrose (De Fide, 5: 7): ‘Observe that he named the servants
first, the son afterwards; that thou mayst know that food the only-begotten Son,
in respect of the power of his divinity, has neither a name nor any fellowship
in common with the servants: Cf. Irenaeus, Con. Haer. 4: 36, 1.

[26] Augustine: ‘They killed that they might possess; and, because they killed,
they lost.’

[27] Hilary: ‘The design of the husbandmen and this expectation of the
inheritance through the murder of the heir, is the empty hope that by the death
of Christ the glory of the Law could be retained.’ Grotius: ‘By these words it
is shown that the priests and chiefs of the Jewish people acted thus in the
fervour of their desire to compel the Divine Law to serve their own ambition and
profit:’

[28] Naboth dying for his vineyard has been often adduced as a prophetic type of
the death of Christ and the purpose of that death. Thus Ambrose addresses the
vineyard of the Lord, purchased with his own blood (Exp. in Luc. is. 33): ‘Hail,
vineyard, worthy of so great a guardian thou wast consecrated by the blood, not
of a single Naboth, but of countless prophets, and (what is more) by the
precious blood of the Lord. Naboth defended a temporal vineyard, but thou wast
planted for us in perpetuity by the death of many martyrs, and by the cross of
the Apostles rivalling the passion of their Lord wast extended to the limits of
the whole world.’

[29] We have a remarkable example of a like prophesying to men their wickedness,
as a last endeavour to turn them away from that wickedness, in Elisha’s prophecy
to Hazael (2 Kings 8:12-15).

[30] Vitringa: ‘The justice of God is so clear that if, putting aside all
feeling, a man contemplates in another like to himself that which in the
blindness of self-love he does not choose to see in himself, he is compelled by
his conscience to recognise the justice of the divine cause. Nay, God condemns
no man who is not condemned also by his own conscience. God has in every man his
tribunal and his judgment seat, and judges man by means of man.’

[31] Pessimos pessime, a proverbial expression, and, as Grotius observes, taken
from the most classical Greek. This parallel, a parallel in much more than those
two words, may suffice in place of many that might be adduced: Wherefore may he
who rules in yon wide heaven, And the unforgetting fury-spirit, and she,
Justice, who crowns the right, so ruin them With cruelest destruction, even as
they Meant heartlessly to rob him of his tomb.Sophocles, Ajax, 1361-1364. by
Lewis Campbell.Similar idioms are frequent in Greek. Thus λαμπρος λαμπρως
μεγάλοι μεγας καθαρως οεμυος σεμνως (Lobeek, Paralvpomenu, p. b8). The
Authorized Version has not attempted to preserve the paronomasia: which,
however, is not very difficult, and has been reproduced in the Revised Version,
“He will miserably destroy those miserable men.’ The same difficulty, such as it
is, attends the double at 1 Corinthians 3:17, for which the Authorized Version
has equally failed to give an equivalent. How remarkable, as read in the light
of these words, is the conviction expressed by Josephus (B. J. 4: 6, 2), that
one man’s murder was the cause of the destruction of Jerusalem. This was most
true, although Ananus the high-priest was not the man.

[32] Compare the rules which Cicero (De Invent. 1: 32) gives for this bringing
of an adversary unconsciously to convict himself.

[33] The ‘chief corner stone’ there = ‘the corner stone,’ Job 38:6; Job 1 the
stone became the head of the corner’ here:’ the head stone,’ Zechariah 4:7 (see
1 gin. 5: 17). Christ is this cornerstone, as uniting Jew and Gentile, making
both one; thus Augustine (Serm. 88:11)’ An angle joins together two walls coming
from opposite sides. What is so opposite as the circumcision and the
uncircumcision, which have the one wall on the side of the Jews, the other on
the side of the Gentiles? But by the corner-stone they are joined together.’

[34] Cajetan:’ He adds something more than would have been revealed by the
parable: for the parable brought us as far as the punishment but by this
addition it is further stated that the murder of the son did not deprive the son
of the inheritance: for it is this that is signified by the addition of the
prophecy concerning the Messiah under the metaphor of the stone.’

[35] So Tertullian (Adv. Mart. 3: 7) ; and Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. six. 5):’
Christ the true stone lies in this world as if fastened to the earth, but in the
judgment to be He shall come as from on high, and shall grind the wicked to
powder: of that stone it was said, “Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be
broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder: “to be
broken is different from to be ground to powder: to be broken is the less of the
two.’

[36] Αικμήοει, from λικμός (=πτύον Matthew 3:12), the fan with which the
chaff, which in the act of threshing had been broken into minute fragments, is
scattered and driven away upon the wind (Isaiah 17:13; Isaiah 41:2; Isaiah
41:15-16 ; Psalms 1:4). In the New Testament it occurs only here; in the
parallel passage, Daniel 2:44, λικμήοει πασας τας βασιλεία.

[37] H. de Sto. Victore (Annot. in Luc.):’ According to the moral meaning a
vineyard is let out, when the mystery of baptism is entrusted to the faithful
for them to labour in. Three servants are sent to receive of the fruits, when
the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets respectively exhort to a good life : they
are received with insults or beaten and cast out, when men scorn or blaspheme
the word they hear. The heir, who is sent last of all, is killed by him who
scorns the Son of God, and casts insult upon the Spirit, by whom he was
sanctified. The vineyard is given to another, when the humble is enriched by the
grace which the proud casts from him.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 13: 12-PARABLE 11. THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING�S SON.
========================================================================

PARABLE 11. THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING’S SON.

Matthew 22:1-14. THIS is sometimes called the parable of the Wedding Garment.
The name is a faulty one, being drawn from that which after all is but an
episode in it; and the title given above, the same which it bears in our Bible,
quite as effectually distinguishes it from the Great Supper of St. Luke (Luke
xiv. 16). Such distinction indeed it is needful to maintain, for the two must
not be confounded, [1] as merely different recensions of the same discourse.
Both indeed rest on the image of a festival to which many are bidden, some
refusing the invitation and some accepting; but this is not sufficient to
identify them with one another; and indeed there is much, and in many ways, to
keep them apart. They were spoken on different occasions - that at a meal, this
in the temple. They belong to very different epochs of our Lord’s ministry, that
to a much earlier period than this. When that was spoken the Pharisees had not
openly broken with the Lord; it was indeed in the house of a Pharisee, whither
He had gone to eat bread, that the parable was uttered (Luke 14:1). But when
this was spoken, their enmity had reached the highest pitch; they had formally
resolved by any means to remove him out of the way (John 11:47-53). Then there
was hope that the chiefs of the nation might yet be won over to the obedience of
the truth; now they are fixed in their rejection of the counsel of God, and in
their hatred of his Christ. In agreement with all this, the parable as last
spoken, or as we have it here, is far severer than when first uttered, than St.
Luke has recorded it. In that the guests, while they decline the invitation, are
yet at pains to make civil excuses for so doing; in this they put it from them
with a defiant and absolute No - so hating the message that some among them
maltreat and kill the bearers of it; even as we cannot doubt that, had it
consisted with decorum, and if the parable would have borne it, the king’s son
himself, as the last ambassador of his grace, would have been the victim of
their outrage, as is the householder’s son in the parable that just goes before.
It is there a private man whose bidding is contemptuously set aside, it is here
a king. It is there an ordinary entertainment, here the celebration of the
marriage of his son. In the higher dignity of the person inviting, in the
greater solemnity of the occasion, there are manifest aggravations of the guilt
of the despisers. And as the offence is thus heavier, as those were but
discourteous guests, while these are rebels, so is the doom more dreadful. In
St. Luke’s parable they are merely shut out from the festival; in this, their
city is burned, and they themselves destroyed; the utmost which in fact is
threatened there being that God, turning from one portion of the Jewish people,
- from the priests and the Pharisees, - would offer the privileges which they
despised to another portion of the same nation, the people that knew not the
law, the publicans and harlots, with only slightest intimation (ver. 23) of a
call of the Gentiles; while here the forfeiture of the kingdom by the whole
Jewish people, who with fewest exceptions had shown themselves unworthy of it,
is announced. [2] A late objecter, [3] taking no account of these altered
conditions, which justify and explain the different forms in which the parable
appears, asserts that St. Luke is here the only accurate reporter of Christ’s
words, St. Matthew mixing up with them some foreign elements, reminiscences, for
instance, of the maltreatment and murder of the servants, drawn from the parable
preceding; and also blending into the same whole fragments of another parable,
that, namely, of the Wedding Garment, which, when uttered, was totally distinct.
For the first assertion his only plausible argument is, that while it is quite
intelligible that husbandmen should maltreat servants of their lord, who came
demanding rent from them; it is inconceivable, and therefore could find no place
in a parable, of which perfect verisimilitude is the first condition, that
invited guests, however unwilling to keep their engagement, should abuse and
even kill the servants sent to remind them that the festival, to which they were
already engaged, was actually ready. This, it is true, can with difficulty be
conceived, so long as we suppose no other motive but unwillingness to keep their
engagement at work in them. But may not a deep alienation from their lord, with
a readiness to resist and rebel against him, existing long before, have found
their utterance here? The presence of these his ambassadors, an outrage against
whom would constitute an outrage against himself, may have afforded the desired
opportunity for displaying a hostility which, though latent, had long been
entertained. [4] If there be something monstrous in their conduct, it is only
the fitter to declare the monstrous fact, that men should maltreat, and slay,
the messengers of God’s grace, the ambassadors of Christ, who come to them with
glad tidings of good things, - should be ready at once to rend them, and to
trample their pearls under foot. His other assertion, that the episode of the
wedding garment cannot have originally pertained to the parable, rests partly on
the whole objection, that the guest could not with any justice be punished for
wanting that which, as the course of the story goes, he had no opportunity of
obtaining, on which something will presently be said, and partly upon this, that
an entirely new and alien element is here introduced into the parable; marring
its unity; awkwardly appended to, not intimately cohering with, it. But it is
not so. Most needful was it that a parable, inviting sinners of every degree to
a fellowship in the blessings of the Gospel, should also remind them that, for
the lasting enjoyment of these, they must put off their former conversation;
that if, as regarded the past, they were freely called, still for the present
and time to come they were called unto holiness, - in Theophylact’s words, ‘that
the entrance, indeed, to the marriage feast is without scrutiny, for by grace
alone we are called, as well bad as good; but the life of those that have
entered, hereafter shall not be without scrutiny; that the King will make a very
strict examination of those who, having entered into the faith, shall be found
in filthy garments.’

Thus much on the relation in which this parable stands to the similar one in St.
Luke. When we compare it with that which it immediately follows, we see a marked
advance. The Lord revealing Himself in ever clearer light as the central figure
of the kingdom, gives here a far plainer intimation than there of the dignity of
his person, the nobility of his descent. There He was indeed the son, the only
and beloved one, of the householder; but here his race is royal, and He appears
as Himself at once the King, and the King’s Son (Psalms 72:1). It is thus
declared that the sphere in which this parable moves is that of the kingdom;
which announced and prepared before, was only actually present with the advent
of the King. In that other, a parable of the Old Testament history, the Son
Himself appears rather as the last and greatest in the line of its prophets and
teachers, crowning and completing the old, than as inaugurating the new. In
that, a parable of the law, God appears demanding something from men; in this, a
parable of grace, He appears more as giving something to them. There, He is
displeased that his demands are not complied with; here, that his goodness is
not accepted. There He requires; here He imparts. And thus, as we so often find,
the two mutually complete one another; this taking up the matter where the other
left it.

‘And Jesus answered, and spake unto them again by parables.’ That He spoke is
plain, but that he ‘answered’ seems to require some explanation, seeing that no
question had been addressed to Him. It is sufficient to observe that he
‘answers,’ on whom an occasion, or it may be a necessity, of speaking has been
imposed. [5] So is it here. This new parable is the Lord’s answer to the
endeavour of the Chief Priests and Pharisees to lay hands upon Him. ‘The kingdom
of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage [6] for his son.’
The two favourite images under which the prophets of the Old Covenant set forth
the blessings of the New, and of all near communion with God, that of a festival
(Isaiah 25:6; Isaiah 65:13; Song of Solomon 5:1), and of a marriage (Isaiah
61:10; Isaiah 62:5; Hosea 2:19; Matthew 9:15; John 3:29; Ephesians 5:32; 2
Corinthians 11:9), meet and interpenetrate one another in the marriage festival
[7] here. There results indeed this inconvenience, a consequence of the
inadequacy of things earthly to set forth things heavenly, that the members of
the Church are at once the guests invited to the feast, and, in their collective
capacity, constitute the bride at whose espousals the feast is given. [8] But as
we advance in the parable the circumstances of the marriage altogether fall out
of sight; [9] the bearing of the several invited guests is that to which our
whole attention is directed. This, like the last, has its groundwork and
rudiments in the Old Testament (Exodus 24:11; Zephaniah 1:7-8; Proverbs 9:1-6);
and it entered quite into the circle of Jewish expectations that the setting up
of the kingdom of the Messiah should be ushered in by a glorious festival; our
Lord Himself elsewhere making use of the same image for the setting forth of the
same truths (Luke 22:18; Luke 22:30). The marriage indeed of which He there
speaks, and at Revelation 19:7, will not be celebrated till the end of the
present age, while it is here as already present. We put the two statements in
harmony with one another, when we keep in mind how distinct the espousals and
the actual marriage were held in the East, and regard his first coming as the
time of his espousals, while only at his second He leads home his bride.

‘And sent forth his servants [10] to call them that were bidden to the wedding’
(cf. Proverbs 9:3-5). In the corresponding parable of St. Luke (Luke 14:16-24),
the giver of the feast, a private man, ‘bade many.’ Here we may assume a still
more numerous company, from the higher rank and dignity of the giver of the
feast, and the greater solemnity of the occasion (cf. Esther 1:3-9). This
summoning of those already bidden was, and, as modern travellers attest, is
still, quite in accordance with Eastern customs; the second invitation being
always verbal. Thus Esther invites Haman to a banquet on the morrow (Esther
5:8); and when the time has actually arrived, the chamberlain comes to usher him
to the banquet (vi. 14). There is therefore no slightest reason why we should
make ‘them that were bidden’ to mean them that were now to be bidden; [11] such
an interpretation not merely violating all laws of grammar, but disturbing the
higher purposes with which the parable was spoken; for our Lord, assuming that
the guests had been invited long ago, does thus remind his hearers that what He
brought, if in one sense new, was in another a fulfilment of the old; that He
claimed to be heard not as one suddenly starting up, unconnected with anything
which had gone before, but as Himself ‘the end of the law,’ to which it had been
ever tending, the birth with which the whole Jewish dispensation had been
pregnant, and which alone should give a meaning to it all. In his words, ‘them
that were bidden,’ is involved the fact that there was nothing abrupt in the
coming of his kingdom, that its rudiments had a long while before been laid,
that all to which his adversaries clung as precious in their past history was
prophetic of blessings now actually present to them in Him. [12] The original
invitation, which had now come to maturity, reached back to the foundation of
the Jewish commonwealth, was taken up and repeated by each succeeding prophet,
as he prophesied of the crowning grace that should one day be brought to Israel
(Luke 10:24; 1 Peter 1:12), and summoned the people to hold themselves in a
spiritual readiness to welcome their Lord and their King.

Yet the actual calling pertained not to these, the prophets of the older
dispensation. They spoke of good things, but of good things to come. Not till
the days of John the Baptist was the kingdom indeed present, was there any
manifestation of the King’s Son, any actual summoning of the guests, bidden long
before, to come to the marriage (Luke 3:4-6). By the first band of servants I
should understand John the Baptist (Matthew 3:2), the Twelve in that first
mission which they accomplished during the lifetime of the Lord (Matthew 10 :) -
and the Seventy (Luke 10 :). His own share in summoning the guests, inviting
them, that is, unto Himself (Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:14-15), his ‘Come unto Me,’
naturally in the parable falls out of sight. It would have disturbed its
proprieties had the king’s son been himself a bearer of the invitation. A
condescension so infinite would have seemed unnatural; for it is only the Son of
the heavenly King who has ever stooped so far. He indeed was content, even while
the marriage was made for Himself, to be as one of those sent forth to call the
guests thereunto. It is not implied that on this first occasion the servants had
any positive ill-usage to endure. They found indeed a general indifference to
the message, and alienation from the messengers; but nothing worse. In agreement
with this we have no record of any displays of active enmity against the
apostles or disciples during the lifetime of the Lord, [13] nor at the first
against the Lord Himself. It was simply, ‘they would not come.’

‘Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden,
Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed’a token
this of the immediate nearness of the feast [14] ‘and all things are ready; come
unto the marriage’ (1 Kings 1:9; 1 Kings 1:19). The king graciously assumes that
these guests deferred their coming through some misunderstanding, unaware
perhaps that all the preparations were completed; and instead of threatening and
punishing, only bids the servants whom he now sends to press the message with
greater instancy and distinctness than before. Something of this same gracious
overlooking of the past breathes through the language of St. Peter in all his
discourses after Pentecost, ‘And, now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye
did it’ (Acts 3:17), a willingness to regard the sin which hitherto the people
had committed in the mildest possible light. This second summons I take to
represent the invitation to the Jewish people, as it was renewed to them at the
second epoch of the kingdom, that is, after the Resurrection and Ascension. It
is true that of these events, as of the crucifixion no more, nothing is hinted
in the parable, where indeed they could have found no room. It need not perplex
us that this second company is spoken of as ‘other servants,’ while, in fact,
many of them were the same; for, in the first place, there were many now
associated with these, as Paul, perhaps too as Stephen and Barnabas, who not
till after Pentecost were added to the Church. Those, too, who were the same,
yet went forth as other men, full of the Holy Ghost and with a message still
more gracious than at the first; not preaching any more a kingdom of God at
hand, but one already come - ‘Jesus and the resurrection;’ declaring, which the
servants had not been empowered to do on their first mission, that all things
were now ready, that ‘the fulness of time’ had arrived, and that all obstacles
to an entrance into the kingdom, which the sin of men had reared up, the grace
of God had removed (Acts 2:38-39; Acts 3:19-26; Acts 4:12; Acts 4:17; Acts
4:30); that in that very blood which they had impiously shed, there was
forgiveness of all sins, and free access to God. [15]

If the king’s servants had found dull and deaf ears on their first mission, they
find a more marked averseness from themselves and from their message on the
second. The guests, when they heard the reiterated invitation, ‘made light of
it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise.’ The
question presents itself, Can we trace a distinction between the several guests?
Did the divine utterer of the parable intend a distinction? Perhaps, if we
regard the first as one who went to his estate (and the word of the original
will perfectly bear out this meaning), a distinction will appear. The first is
the landed proprietor, the second the merchant. The first would enjoy what he
already possesses, the second would acquire what as yet is his only in hope and
anticipation. The first represents the rich (1 Timothy 6:17); the second those
that desire to be rich (1 Timothy 6:9). This will agree with Luke 14:18-19;
where the guest who has bought a piece of land, and must needs go and see it,
has already entered into the first condition; the guest who must try his five
yoke of oxen, belongs to the second. The temptations which beset the having and
the getting, though nearly allied, are not always and altogether the same; there
is quite difference enough between them to account for the mention of them both.
One of the guests being urged to come, turned to that which by his own toil, or
the toil of others who went before him, he had already won - another to that
which he was in the process of winning. [16] We have here those who are full,
and those who are striving to be full; and on both the woe pronounced at Luke
6:25 has come. This apparent fulness proves a real emptiness; keeping men away
from Him who would have indeed filled and satisfied their souls. But these are
not the worst. ‘The remnant took his servants and entreated them spitefully, and
slew them.’ The oppositions to the truth are not merely natural, they are also
devilish. Of those who reject the Gospel of the grace of God, there are some who
do not so much actively hate it, as that they love the world better than they
love it. We have just heard of these. But there are others in whom it raises a
fierce opposition, whose pride it wounds, whose self-righteousness it offends;
who, where they dare, will visit on the bringers of the message the hate which
they bear to itself. Three forms of outrage are enumerated here: and how full a
commentary on these prophetic words do the Acts of the Apostles, and much else
in the later Scriptures, supply. Those who should have received with all honours
these ambassadors of the great King ‘took,’ or laid violent hands on, them (Acts
4:3; Acts 5:18; Acts 8:3); they ‘entreated then spitefully’ (Acts 5:40; Acts
14:5; Acts 14:19; Acts 16:23; Acts 17:5; Acts 21:30; Acts 23:2; 1 Thessalonians
2:15); they ‘slew them’ (Acts 7:58; Acts 12:2; cf. Matthew 23:34; John 16:2).
[17]

‘But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth:’ or better, ‘But the king was
wroth;’ what is more being a gloss. The insult was to him, and was intended for
him; as in every case where an ambassador is outraged, it is his master and
sender whom the blow was intended to reach (2 Samuel 10 :). As such it is
punished; for the king ‘sent forth his armies,’ that is, as some say, God sent
forth his avenging angels, the armies in heaven (Revelation 19:14), the legions
at his bidding there (Matthew 26:53; 1 Kings 22:19; 2 Samuel 24:16): [18] or, it
may be, the hosts of Rome [19] (Daniel 9:26), which were equally ‘his armies,’
since even ungodly men are men of God’s hand, by whom He punishes his own people
that have sinned, or executes vengeance on others more wicked than themselves
(thus Isaiah 10:5, ‘O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger;’ cf. Isaiah 13:5; Ezekiel
16:41; Ezekiel 29:18-20; Jeremiah 22:7; Jeremiah 25:9, ‘Nebuchadnezzar, my
servant’). The two explanations do in fact flow into one; for when God’s
judgments are abroad, the earthly and visible ministers of those judgments and
the unseen armies of heaven are evermore leagued together. The natural eye sees
only those, the spiritual eye beholds the other behind them. It is ever at such
moments as it was with Israel of old (1 Chronicles 21:16). The multitude, to
whom the purged spiritual eye was wanting, beheld only the outward calamity, the
wasting pestilence; but ‘David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord
stand between the earth and heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched
out over Jerusalem.’ [20] But to proceed. With those armies thus sent forth he
‘destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city;’ the city, that is, of
those murderers; no longer that of the great King, who will not own it for his
anymore. Compare our Lord’s word a little later: ‘Your house is left unto you
desolate (Matthew 23:38); your house, and not mine; however it may still bear my
name;’ and see Exodus 23:7. This city is of course Jerusalem, the central point
of the Jewish theocracy (Matthew 23:34-35; Luke 13:33-34; Acts 7:39; Acts
12:2-3); burned once already (2 Kings 25:9; Jeremiah 39:8; Jeremiah 52:13) as
was the constant doom of a taken city (Numbers 31:10; Joshua 6:24; Joshua 8:19;
Joshua 11:11; Judges 1:8; Judges 18:27; Judges 20:40; Isaiah 1:7; Jeremiah 2:15;
Jeremiah 21:10; Amos 1:7; 1Ma 1:31; 1Ma 5:28; 1Ma 5:35; 1Ma 5:65; 1Ma 10:84; and
often); and now threatened with a repetition of the same terrible fate.

‘Then21 saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready; wast they which were
bidden were not worthy.’ The Scripture does not refuse to recognize a worthiness
in men (Matthew 10:10-11; Luke 20:35; Luke 21:36; 2 Thessalonians 1:5; 2
Thessalonians 1:11; Revelation 3:4); nor is it any paradox to say that this
worthiness largely consists in a sense of unworthiness; the unworthiness, on the
other hand, of those whom the bidden represent consisting in the absence of any
such divine hunger m their hearts after a righteousness which they had not, as
would have brought them, eager guests, to the marriage supper of the Lamb. ‘Go
ye therefore into the highways, [22] and as many as ye shall find bid to the
marriage.’ [23] Compare Matthew 8:11-12, which contains, so to speak, this
parable in the germ. There, as here, that truth long ago fore-announced by
Psalmist (Psalms 18:43-44) and by prophet (Isaiah 65:1), but not the less
strange and unwelcome to Jewish ears (see Acts 22:21-22), the calling of the
Gentiles, and that by occasion of the disobedience of the Jews, the diminishing
of these which should prove the riches of those (Romans 11), is plainly
declared.

‘So these servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many
as they found, both bad and good.’ In the spirit of this command, ‘Philip went
down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them’ there (Acts 8:5);
Peter baptized Cornelius and his company (x. 48); and Paul proclaimed to the men
of Athens how God now commanded ‘all men everywhere to repent’ (Acts 17:30).
When it is said they gathered in ‘bad’ as well as ‘good,’ - in which statement
there is a passing over from the figure to the reality, since moral qualities
would scarcely be predicated of the guests as such, - this is not to prepare and
account for one presently being found without a wedding garment. ‘Bad’ here is
not equivalent to ‘not having a wedding garment’ there; on the contrary, many
were ‘bad’ when invited (1 Corinthians 6:9-11), who, accepting the invitation,
passed into the number of the ‘good:’ for the beautiful words of Augustine on
Christ’s love to his Church may find here their application, ‘He loved her foul,
that He might make her fair.’ [24] Neither may ‘bad and good,’ least of all the
latter, be pressed too far: for in strictest speech none are ‘good’ till they
have been joined to Him, who only is the Good (Matthew 19:17), and made sharers
in his Spirit. At the same time there are varieties of moral life, even anterior
to obedience to the Gospel call. There are ‘good,’ such as Nathanael, as
Cornelius, as those Gentiles that were a law to themselves (Romans 2:14; cf.
Luke 8:15); and ‘bad,’ in whom the sin common to all has wrought more mightily
than in others (Psalms 58:3-5); the sickness of which the whole body of humanity
is sick, concentrating itself in some of the members more than in others. [25]
The kingdom of heaven is as a draw net, which brings within its ample folds of
the best and of the worst, of those who have been before honestly striving after
a righteousness according to the law (Romans 2:14-15), and of those who have
been utterly ‘dead in trespasses and sins.’ ‘And the wedding was furnished with
guests.’ At this point the other and earlier spoken parable concludes (Luke
14:16); but what constitutes the whole in it is only as the first act in this
present; and another judgment act is still in reserve. The judgment of the
avowed foe has found place; that of the false friend has still to follow.
Hitherto the parable has set forth to us the guilt and punishment of them who
openly reject the Gospel of the grace of God; as the great body of the Jewish
people with their chiefs and rulers were doing. It is now for others, and
contains an earnest warning for as many as have found a place in his kingdom.
Besides the separation between those who come and those who refuse to come, it
shall be also proved who among the actual comers are walking worthy of their
vocation, and who not; and as it is thus or thus, there shall be a second
sifting and separation. But as in the parable of the Tares it was not the office
of the servants to distinguish between the tares and the wheat (Matthew
13:29-30), as little is it their office here to separate decisively between
worthy partakers of the heavenly banquet and unworthy intruders; and, indeed,
how should it be, seeing that the garment which distinguishes those from these
is worn, not on the body, but on the heart? [26] This separating act is for
another, for One to whom all hearts are open and manifest, who only can carry it
through with no liability to error (Hebrews 4:13). It is of Him, ‘whose fan is
in his hand and who will thoroughly purge his floor,’ that we now hear.

‘And when the king came in to see [27] the guests, he saw there a man which had
not on a wedding garment.’ It pertained to the dignity of the king, that he
should not appear till all were assembled, nor, indeed, till all had occupied
their places; for that the guests were arranged, and as we, though with a
certain incorrectness, should say, seated, is implied in the word which
describes them now. [28] At a glance he detected one, a spot in that feast (Jude
1:12), who, apparelled as he was, should not have presumed to take his place at
a royal festival, or enter a royal presence. Him he addresses, as yet with a
gentle compellation, for possibly he can explain away his apparent contempt; and
he shall have the opportunity of doing so, if he can; ‘Friend, how [29] camest
thou in hither, not having [30] a wedding garment?’ But explanation to offer he
had none; ‘he was speechless.’ Why could he not answer that it was unreasonable
to expect of him, brought in of a sudden and without warning from the highways,
to be furnished with such? - that he was too poor to provide, - or that no time
had been allowed him to go home and fetch, - such a garment? Some willing to get
rid of any semblance of harshness in the after conduct of the king, and fearing
lest such might redound on Him whom the king represents, maintain that no such
excuse would have served, or would really have touched the point which the
king’s question raised. They remind us that in the East, when kings or great
personages made an entertainment, they were wont to present costly dresses to
the guests; that such a custom is here tacitly assumed; and therefore that this
guest could only appear at the wedding not having such a garment, because he had
rejected it when offered to him; in the same act pouring contempt on the gift
and on the giver, and declaring plainly that he counted his ordinary work-day
apparel, with any soil and stain which it might have gathered, sufficiently good
in which to appear in the presence of the king.

Many, however, deny that any certain traces of such a custom can anywhere be
found, that what alone resembles such a usage is the modern custom of clothing
with a caftan those admitted into the presence of the Sultan. It must be owned
that Judges 14:13, often adduced in proof, proves nothing; and perhaps no
distinct evidence of any such practice is forthcoming. Still we know enough of
the undoubted customs of the East to make it extremely likely that presents of
dresses were often distributed among the guests at a marriage festival,
especially at one like the present, celebrated with great pomp and magnificence;
and if this were the case, our Lord’s hearers, to whom those customs were
familiar, would naturally have supplied the omission in the parable, and taken
for granted such a gift going before; most of all, when they found one so
severely punished for a want which in any other case he could scarcely have
avoided. We know, in the first place, that it was and is part of the
magnificence of Oriental princes and potentates to have vast stores of costly
dresses laid up, a large portion of their wealth being often invested in these
(Job 27:16; Isaiah 3:6; James 5:2; 2 Kings 10:22). [31] We know, moreover, that
costly dresses were often given as marks of peculiar favour (Genesis 41:42;
Genesis 45:22; Judges 14:19; 1 Samuel 18:4; 2 Kings 5:5; 2 Kings 5:22; 2 Kings
10:22; Daniel 5:7; Esther 6:8; Esther 8:15; 1Ma 10:20; 1Ma 10:62); [32] being
then, as now, the most customary gift; that marriage festivals (Esther 2:18),
and other seasons of festal rejoicing (2 Samuel 6:19), were naturally those at
which gifts were distributed with the largest hand. Gifts of costly raiment it
would certainly be expected should be worn at once; [33] so proclaiming the
magnificence of the giver, and adding to the splendour of the time; - not to say
that a slighting of the gift is in the very nature of things a slighting of the
giver. [34] But this rejection of the gift, if such may be safely assumed,
involved a further affront - namely, the appearing of this guest at a high
festival in unsuitable, probably in mean and sordid, apparel. Even with us there
are occasions when this would be felt as a serious lack of respect; much more in
those Eastern lands where outward symbols possess so much more significance than
with us. [35] It is evident, too, that the more honourable the person, and the
more solemn the occasion, the more flagrant the offence; here the person is a
king, and the occasion the marriage of his son. And thus, however others may
have been forward to say many things in this guest’s behalf, - as that he could
not help appearing as he did, or that his fault, after all, was a trivial one, -
he did not count that he had anything to say for himself; ‘he was speechless,’
or literally, his mouth was stopped, he was gagged, [36] with no plea to allege
for his contemptuous behaviour He stood self-condemned, [37] at once convinced
and convicted, and his judgment did not tarry; but of that presently. When we
seek to give a spiritual signification to this part of the parable, many
questions, and some most important, demand an answer. And first, When does the
great King come in ‘to see’ or to scrutinize, ‘the guests?’ In one sense He is
doing so evermore; as often as by any judgment - act hypocrites are revealed, or
self deceivers laid bare to themselves or to others; [38] - at every time of
trial, which is also in its very nature a time of separation, He does it. But
while this is true, while we must not relegate to a day of final judgment all in
this kind, which, indeed, is continually going forward, it is not the less true
that for that day the complete separation is reserved; and then all that has
been partially fulfilling in one and another will be altogether fulfilled in
all. But the guest himself ‘which had not on a wedding garment’ - does he
represent one or many? Some unwilling to let go the singleness of this guest,
and fain to hold it fast in the interpretation of the parable, have suggested
that Judas Iscariot may be immediately intended. [39] Assuredly a mistake,
except in so far as words having their fitness forevery hypocrite and deceiver
had eminently their fitness for him. Others of the historico-prophetical school,
as Vitringa and Cocceius, see in him the man of Sin, [40] by whom they
understand the Pope. It is little likely, however, that any single person is
intended, but rather that many are included in this one; the ‘few’ presently
said to be ‘chosen,’ as compared with the ‘many called’ suggesting that a great
sifting has found place. Why this ‘many’ cast out should be represented as a
single person has been explained in various ways. Townson instances it as an
example of what he happily calls ‘the lenity of supposition,’ which marks our
Lord’s parables; just as in another one servant only is brought forward as
failing to turn his lord’s money to account (Matthew 25:18; Luke 19:20). Gerhard
ingeniously suggests, that ‘if many had been thrust out from the marriage, the
nuptial festivities might appear to have been disturbed.’ But more valuable is
another suggestion which he offers, namely, that the matter is thus brought home
to the conscience of every man: so diligent and exact will be the future
scrutiny, that not so much as one in all that great multitude of men shall on
the last day escape the piercing eyes of the Judge.’ [41] Nor is there any
difficulty in thus contemplating the whole multitude of evil-doers as a single
person. For as the faithful are one, being gathered under their one head, which
is Christ, so the congregation of the wicked are one, being gathered also under
their one head, which is Satan. The mystical Babylon is one city no less than
the mystical Jerusalem. There is a kingdom of darkness (Matthew 12:25-26), as
well as a kingdom of God. [42]

What the wedding garment itself is, and what he lacked, who had it not, has been
abundantly disputed. Was it faith? or was it charity? or was it both? That it
was something indispensable is self evident, and theologians of the Roman
Church, eager to draw an argument from hence that charity is the one
indispensable grace, have urged that it must have been charity, and not faith,
which this unworthy guest was without; for faith, as they argue, he must have
had, seeing that without that he would not have been present at the feast at
all. But, arguing thus, they take advantage of the double meaning of the word
faith, and play off its use as a bare assent to, or intellectual belief in, the
truth, against St. Paul’s far deeper use; - and this with injustice, since only
in the latter sense would any attribute this guest’s exclusion to his wanting
faith. Were it needful so to limit the meaning of the wedding garment that it
must signify either faith or charity, [43] far better to restrain it to the
former. Such would be the deeper and truer interpretation, since the flower is
wrapped up in the root, but not the root in the flower, and so charity in faith,
but not faith in charity.’ There is, however, no need so to determine for one of
these interpretations, as to exclude the other. The foremost teachers of the
early Church put themselves in no contradiction with one another, when some of
them asserted that what the intruder lacked was charity, and others faith; nor
with themselves, when they gave now the one interpretation, and now the other.
[44] For what this guest wanted was righteousness, both in its root of faith and
its flower of charity. He had not, according to the pregnant image of St. Paul,
here peculiarly appropriate, ‘put on Christ;’ in which putting on of Christ,
both faith and charity are included, faith as the investing power, charity or
holiness as the invested robe. [45] By faith we recognize a righteousness out of
and above us, and which yet is akin to us, and wherewith our spirits can be
clothed; which righteousness is in Christ, who is therefore the Lord our
Righteousness. And this righteousness by the appropriative and assimilative
power of faith we also make our own; we are clothed upon with it, so that it
becomes, in that singularly expressive term, our habit, [46] - the righteousness
imputed has become also a righteousness infused, and is in us charity or
holiness, or more accurately still, constitutes the complex of all Christian
graces as they abide in the man, and show themselves in his life.

Setting aside then all narrower interpretations, not as erroneous, but as
insufficient, we may affirm of the wedding garment that it is righteousness in
its largest sense, the whole adornment of the new and spiritual man; including
the faith without which it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6), and the
holiness without which no man shall see Him (Hebrews 12:14), or shall, like this
guest, only see Him to perish at his presence. It is at once the faith which is
the root of all graces, the mother of all virtues, and likewise those graces and
virtues themselves. Whether we contemplate this guest as a self-righteous
person, trusting in a righteousness of his own, instead of a righteousness of
Christ’s, imputed and imparted, - or see in him a more ordinary sinner, who with
the Christian profession and privileges is yet walking after the flesh and not
after the spirit, - in either case the image holds good; he is rejecting
something, even the true robe of his spirit, bestowed on him when he was made a
member of Christ; [47] and which if he has since let go, he may yet, on the
strength of that gift, freely at any moment reclaim; he is a despiser, counting
himself good enough merely as he is in himself, in the flesh and not in the
spirit (John 3:6), to appear in the presence of God (Proverbs 16:2). But a time
arrives when every man will discover that he needs another covering, another
array for his soul; that this is a garment narrower than he can wrap himself
withal. It is woe to him, if, like the guest of this parable, he only discovers
this, when it is too late to provide himself with such; and then suddenly stands
confessed to himself and to others in all his moral nakedness and shame. As it
was the king’s word which struck the intruder speechless, so will it be the
light of God shining round and shining in upon the sinner, which will one day
reveal to him all the hidden things of his heart, all that evil whereof he has
hitherto wilfully chosen to be ignorant, but now can remain ignorant no longer.
He then, like the unworthy guest, will be ‘speechless.’ However forward he may
have been in other times to justify himself, as there are now a thousand cloaks
for sins (Genesis 3:12-13; James 1:13; 1 Samuel 15:21), in that day his mouth
will be stopped; he will not even pretend to offer any plea why judgment should
not proceed against him at once.

‘Then said the king to the servants,’ - to the ‘ministering attendants’ rather,
for they differ both in name and office from the ‘servants’ that brought in the
guests, [48] being no other than the angels, who ‘shall gather out of the
kingdom all things that offend, and all that do iniquity’ (Matthew 13:41;
Matthew 13:49; Luke 19:24) ‘Bind him hand and foot;’ which work of the heavenly
lictors is by some understood to express that upon the sinner the night is come,
in which no man can work, that for him all opportunities of repentance and
amendment are gone by. I take it rather to express the impotence to which in a
moment every proud fighter against God will be reduced.’ [49] The hands by whose
aid resistance, the feet by whose help escape, might have been meditated, are
alike deprived of all power and motion (Acts 21:11; 2 Samuel 3:34). This agrees
better with that ‘take him away,’ which follows, being the sinner’s exclusion
from the Church now glorious and triumphant in heaven (Matthew 13:48; 2
Thessalonians 1:9). Nor is the penalty merely privative; it is not only this
loss of good, but also the presence of evil. [50] They who carry out the
judgment shall ‘cast him into outer darkness.’ The phrase occurs only in St.
Matthew, but there thrice; Matthew 8:12; Matthew 24:30; and here. The imagery is
suggested by the parable itself. Within the king’s palace is feasting and light
and joy; without is desolation and darkness and cold. Not otherwise does the
‘outer darkness’ lie wholly beyond and eternal to God’s kingdom of light and
joy; [51] for as light is the element of that kingdom, so whatever is outside of
that kingdom is darkness - even that exterior or ‘outer darkness’ into which all
fall back, who, refusing to walk in the light of God’s truth, fail to attain in
the end to the light of everlasting life (cf. Wisd. 17: 21; 18: 1). ‘There shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth;’ something on these words has been said
already; see p. 105. [52] With all this it is interesting to compare Zephaniah
1:7-8 : ‘The Lord hath prepared a sacrifice, He hath bid his guests. And it
shall come to pass in the day of the Lord’s sacrifice, that I will punish the
princes and the king’s children, and all such as are clothed with strange
apparel.’ [53]

Christ moralizes the whole parable, as He had already done that of the Labourers
in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:16), with those solemn words, ‘For many are called,
but few are chosen’ (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:24). To these ‘called’ and not ‘chosen’
belong others beside this unworthy guest; for the words are intended to include
those who did not so much as seem (which he had done) to embrace the invitation,
and who expiated their contumacy in the destruction of themselves and their
city. And how many of the severer dealings of God with those who, within the
Covenant, yet despise the mercies of that Covenant, do these words sum up. They
are evermore finding their fulfilment. They were fulfilled on a scale how large
in the history of that entire generation which went out of Egypt; these were all
‘called’ to a kingdom, yet were not in the end ‘chosen,’ since with most of them
God was not well pleased, and they died in the wilderness (Numbers 14:22-30; 1
Corinthians 10:1-10; Hebrews 3:7-9; Jude 1:5). They were fulfilled on a smaller
scale in those twelve, to whom it was given the first to see the promised land;
two only drew strength and encouragement from that sight, and they only were
‘chosen’ to inherit it (Numbers 14:23-24). They found their fulfilment in the
thirty and two thousand of Gideon’s army; these all were ‘called,’ but only
three hundred were found worthy, and in the end ‘chosen’ to be helpers in and
sharers of his victory, - such a sifting and winnowing had there previously been
(Judges 7 :). They were fulfilled too in a type and figure, when of all the
maidens brought together to the palace of the Persian king, Esther alone was
‘chosen’ by him, and found lasting favour in his sight [54] (Esther 2).

FOOTNOTES

[1] See Augustine, De Cons. Evang. 2: 71; Gregory the Great, Hom. 38 in Evang.
Strangely enough, Theophylact, Calvin, and Maldonatus, maintain their identity;
the last saying, ‘The differences which appear are so slight that they ought not
to withdraw us from this opinion.’

[2] Fleck (De Reg. Div. p. 241) with truth observes: ‘Of the parables put forth
in the latter parts of the book of Matthew the character is such that they
breathe the sacred sadness of the divine spirit and reveal a severe mood. They
come into the period in which the Saviour after full experience of the wiles,
the malignant plots, and the blindness of the Pharisees, priests, and elders of
the people, foresaw that these would be daily more hostile to the divine cause.’
And Unger (De Parab. Jes. Nat. p. 122): ‘Thus Matthew seems to have recorded -
the parable as Jesus himself repeated it on that later and sterner occasion,
with variations and additions, made more severe, and now sorrowfully prophesying
concerning the whole Jewish people.’

[3] Strauss, Leben Jesu, vol. 1: p. 677 seq. So too Keim, Leben Jesu, vol. 3: p.
129.

[4] Oftentimes in the East a feast would have a great political significance -
would, in fact, be a great gathering of the vassals of the king; contemplated on
this side, their refusal to come assumes the aspect of rebellion. Thus some have
supposed the feast recorded in Esther 1 : is identical with the great gathering
which Xerxes (Ahasuerus) made when he was planning his Greek expedition
(συνλογον επικλητον Περσεων των αριστων); though Herodotus (vii. 8) brings out
more its political, the sacred historian its festal, side.

[5] Bengel: ‘The word “answers” may be used not only of him who has been asked a
question, but of him to whom a cause for speaking has been given.’

[6] Ποιειv γαμoν (Genesis 29:22; Tob 8:19; 1Ma 9:37; 1Ma 10:58) is rather, as
often in classical Greek, to celebrate the marriage feast than the marriage
(Matthew 25:10; Esther 2:18); and sometimes the notion of a marriage falls
altogether into the background, and that of a festival alone remains; thus
Esther 9:22; and probably at Luke 14:8. Exactly the reverse has befallen the
German hochzeit, which, signifying at first any high festival, is now restricted
to the festival of a marriage. These marriage festivities lasted commonly seven,
or fourteen, days (Genesis 29:27; Judges 14:12; Tob 8:9); and this not by
accident, but because of the significance of this, the Covenant number.

[7] Vitringa (In Apocal. 19: 7): ‘These nuptials figure the intimate union of
Christ with the Church, which is accompanied by the mutual plighting of faith,
and sealed by a treaty of contract, for the begetting of that spiritual race
which is to cover the world. The marriage feast shadows forth alike the benefits
of grace which by the power of the righteousness of Christ are set forth for
satisfying and making joyful the Church, the participation also of these
benefits, and lastly the joy and festivity which are conjoined with the fruition
of the blessings of grace, and flow forth from it on to the guests of this
banquet.’

[8] Augustine (In Ep. 1 Joh. Tract. 2): ‘Not as in earthly marriages where some
come to the marriage, and another, namely, the bride, is married: in the Church
those who come, if they come in the right spirit, become the bride.’

[9] Augustine and Gregory the Great (Hon. 38 in Evang.) escape this difficulty,
regarding this marriage as one between the divine Word and the human Nature;
not, at the same time, excluding the more obvious meaning suggested by such
passages as Ephesians 5:24-32. Gregory the Great shows how well the two
interpretations can be reconciled, saying: ‘Here the Father made a marriage for
his royal Son, by which through the mystery of the incarnation He joined to him
the holy Church.’

[10] Technically, vocatores, invitatores, κλητoρες, δειπνοκλlητoρες, ελεαtροι.

[11] Thus Storr (Opusc. Acad. vol. 1: p. 120) affirms τους κεκλημενoυς may as
well signify ‘they that were to be bidden’ as ‘they that were bidden’! Did not
this refute itself, Luke 14:16-17 would be decisive in the matter.

[12] Tertullian makes excellent use of this parable, or rather of its parallel
(Luke 14:16), arguing against Marcion (Con. Marc. 4: 31), who would fain have
cut loose the New Testament from the Old; cf Irenaeus, 4: 36.

[13] The death of John the Baptist cannot be urged as invalidating this
assertion; for he by whose command he was murdered was an Edomite, not therefore
one of the invited guests at all; and moreover it was for preaching the Law
(Matthew 14:4), not the Gospel, that he died.

[14] Chardin (Voy. en Perse, vol. 4: p. 48): ‘Mutton and lamb are killed in the
morning to be eaten the same night .... The Persians believe that fresh-killed
meat is the best (cf. Genesis 18:7-8; Genesis 43:16; Proverbs 9:1-5).’

[15] These missions (ver. 3, 4) have been sometimes differently understood. Thus
Origen refers both to the sending of the prophets under the law; Jerome,
confident that the first mission (ver. 3) is to be so understood, is more
doubtful about the second. Gregory the Great (Ham. 38 in Evang.) ascribes the
first to the prophets, and only the second to the Apostles: ‘He therefore twice
sent servants to invite guests, inasmuch as through the prophets He foretold the
incarnation of the Only-Begotten, and after its accomplishment proclaimed it
through the Apostles.’ But Hilary’s is the truer explanation (Comma. in Matt. in
loc.): ‘The servants who were sent to call them which were bidden are the
Apostles: for it fell to them to warn those whom the prophets had bidden. Those
who are sent forth the second time with the position of teachers, are apostolic
men and the successors of the Apostles.’

[16] Bengel, with his rare skill in detecting the finer allusions of Scripture,
exactly so: ‘One was kept back by a false sense of self-sufficiency, another by
the lust for gain.’ Gerhard suggests the same explanation (Harm. Evang. 153):
‘By those who go their ways to their merchandise we should understand such as
are intent upon riches yet to be acquired; by those who go to their farm, such
as take a sinful pleasure in wealth already won and acquired.’

[17] See 2 Chronicles 30:10 for an interesting parallel. When Hezekiah restored
the worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem, he sent messengers throughout all the
tribes, inviting all Israel to take part in the solemn passover which he was
about to keep: ‘so the posts passed from city to city; . . . but they laughed
them to scorn and mocked them;’ yet not all; there were guests who accepted the
invitation; ‘divers humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem.’

[18] Gregory the Great (Hom. 38 in Evang.); ‘For what are those hosts of angels
save the armies of our King.’

[19] So Irenaeus, Con. Haer. 4: 36. 6.

[20] Even the heathen could understand this. When Troy was perishing, the poet
describes the multitude as seeing only their Grecian enemies engaged in the work
of destruction; but to Eneas, when his goddess mother had purged his eyes, there
appeared other foes; to him. Apparent dine facies, inimicaque Trojae Numina
magna Deum. - AEn. 2: 601–623. ‘Dread faces, mighty presences of gods, Are seen,
ranged against Troy.’

[21] Keil: ‘The “then” must not be pressed. The parable is not an historical
enumeration of the several facts according to their chronological order, but an
imaginary narration in which the several stages of the action are bound together
according to their essential connection.

[22] These διεξοδoι (cf. βoλαι, Obadiah 1:14) may be transitus or exitus (Passow
gives both meanings, Durchgang and Ausgang): the thoroughfares (see Psalms 1:3)
or the outlets leading from the city (Grotius: Via; extra urbem ducentes), or
such as led to its places and squares (Kuinoel Compita viarum), or the points
where many roads or streets meet; Chrysostom (Hom 69 in Matth.) more than once
substituting τριόδους (Schleusner: ‘Places where several roads meet’); άρχαί
δύο όδων (Ezek. 31:21); the Revised Version for ‘highways’ has partings of the
highways: All these have their fitness, as places of concourse and resort, where
therefore the servants might hope the soonest to gather a company. We must not
permit our English ‘highways’ to suggest places in the country as distinguished
from the town; the image throughout is of a city, in which the rich and great
and noble, those naturally pointed out as a king’s guests, refuse his banquet,
whereupon the poor of the same city are brought in to share it.

[23] This entertaining of the poor by great men and kings is often referred to
in Jewish writings as not unusual (Schoettgen, Hor. Heb. vol. 1: pp. 174, 289:
cf. Luke 14:13).

[24] Foedam amavit, ut pulchram faceret; a thought which he pursues elsewhere
(In 1 Ep. Joh. Tract. 9): ‘He first loved us who himself is ever beautiful. And
what were those He loved save foul and ill-favoured? His meaning, therefore, was
not to cast us out as foul, but to change us, and make us beautiful instead of
ill-favoured. How shall we become beautiful? By loving him who is ever
beautiful. As love increases in thee, so also beauty increases, for love itself
is the beauty of the soul.’

[25] Jerome: ‘Among the Gentiles also there is infinite diversity, since we know
that some are inclined to vice and rush upon evil, while others, by reason of
the grace of their dispositions, give themselves up to virtue.’ Augustine’s
conflict with the Pelagians would have hindered him from expressing himself
exactly thus, and he will only allow these ‘good’ to be ‘less evil’ than the
others. Yet he too is most earnest against the abuse of these words, which
should argue from them for allowing men to come to baptism without having
faithfully renounced, as far as human eye could see, all their past ungodliness;
for that were to make the servants of the householder themselves the sowers of
the tares (De Fide et Oper. 17). Ambrose (Exp. in Luc. 7: 202): ‘He bids both
good and bad to enter, that He may increase the good and turn the disposition of
the bad to better things; that so that may be fulfilled which was read;’ then
the wolves and the lambs shall feed together.’”

[26] Augustine: ‘For that garment was looked for in the heart, not on the body.’

[27] Or better ‘to behold’ (θεάσασθαί) ‘the guests,’ as in the Revised
Version. The Vulgate, which has ut videret, is not so good as the earlier
Italic, ut inspiceret.

[28] Tουs άνακειμένουs = discumbentes (Vulg.): ‘the men sitting at the meat’
(Wiclif).

[29] Bengel: ‘By what favour of the servants? By what daring of thine own?’

[30] The subjective, and not the objective, particle of negation is here used,
μή and not ού - μή εχωυ έυδνμα γάμου, ‘not having (and knowing that thou
hadst not) a wedding garment.’ - The ένδυμα γάμου is not exactly the ίμάτιου
νυμθικόν of Plutarch (Amator. 10), for that is the garment not of the guests,
but of the bridegroom; nor yet the έσθήδ νυμФικόν of Charito, 1: p. 6, which
is that of the bride (Becker, Charicles, vol. 2: p. 467). Yet may there not lie
under this phrase, which seems to belong rather to the bridegroom than to the
guests, a hint that the true adornment of each of these is identical with his?
from Him they have it; it is like that which He wears Himself: for Christians
are reflexions, copies, most faulty and imperfect it is true, but still copies
of Christ.

[31] The story told by Horace (Ep. 1: 6. 40) of the five thousand mantles which
Lucullus, on examining his wardrobe, found that he possessed, is well known; and
Chardin, whose accuracy all later inquirers into Eastern customs join in
praising, is here to the point (Voy. en Perse, vol. 3: p. 230): ‘One would not
believe the expense to which the King of Persia is put for these presents. The
number of robes which he gives is countless. His wardrobes are always kept full;
and the robes are kept in stores duly sorted.’

[32] Add to these passages Homer, Id. 24: 228, sqq.; Xenophon, Cyrop. 8: 3. 1.

[33] See Plutarch, Pompeius, 36.

[34] We have examples in the modern East (and Eastern manners so little change
that modern examples are nearly as good as ancient) of a vizier losing his life
through this very failing to wear a garment of honour sent to him by the king.
The story is in Chardin. The officer through whose hands the royal robe passed,
out of spite, sent a plain habit in its stead. To have appeared in this would
have implied that the vizier was in disgrace at court; he therefore substituted
another dress, a gift of the late king, and in that made his public entry into
the city. When this was known at court, men declared the vizier a dog, that he
had disdainfully thrown aside the royal apparel, saying, ‘I have no need of Shah
Sefi’s habits;’ and they so incensed the king, that it cost the vizier his life
(Burder, Orient. Liter. vol. 1: p. 94; cf. Herodotus, 9: 111, for the manner in
which the rejecting of a monarch’s gift was resented). - Olearius (Travels, p.
214), with the ambassadors in whose train he went, was invited to the table of
the Persian king. ‘It was told us,’ he goes on to say, ‘by the mehmander, that
we according to their usage must hang the splendid vests that were sent us from
the king over our dresses, and so appear in his presence. The ambassadors at
first refused; but the mehmander urged it so earnestly, alleging, as also did
others, that the omission would greatly displease the king, since all other
envoys observed such a custom, that at last they consented, and hanged, as did
we also, the splendid vests over their shoulders, and so the cavalcade
proceeded.’ We gather from this passage that, strictly speaking, there was no
actual changing of apparel, but the garment of honour was either a vest drawn
over the other garments, or a mantle hung on the shoulders. Schulz describes
that given to him as ‘a long robe with loose sleeves, which hang down (for the
arm is not put into them), the white ground of which is goat’s hair, mixed with
some silver, but the flowers woven in are of goldcoloured silk.’ He too mentions
the necessity of putting it on before appearing in the presence of the Sultan
(Rosenmuller, Alto and Neue Morgenk vol. 5: p. 76; see also Schuyler, Turkistan,
1876, vol. 2: pp. 40, 41).17

[35] Irenaeus, then, puts it well when he says (iv. 36. 6): ‘The man who has not
on a marriage garment, that is a scoffer.’ And what stress Cicero lays (In
Vatin. 12, 13) on the fact that Vatinius once appeared clad in black at a high
festival (supplicatio) - how much of wanton indignity and insult he saw in it
toward the giver of the feast and the other guests.

[36] Έθιμώθη from θιυόs (= έπιστόμιου), a gag. The word is used in its
literal sense, 1 Timothy 5:18. Chrysostom explains it well, ‘he condemned
himself.’

[37] For, in Cicero’s words, ‘Silence is a form of confession.’

[38] Augustine: ‘God enters the judgment seat, who in his longsuffering abides
without;’ and the Auct. Oiler. Imperf.: ‘The king must be held to enter when God
makes trial of men, that it may appear what degree of virtue each man has, and
whether he be worthy of the place which he holds in the Church.’

[39] Thus Pseudo-Athanasius (De Parab. Script.); and in later times Weisse
(Evang. Gesch. vol. 2: p. 114).

[40] So Gurtler (Syst. Theol. Proph. p. 676), who urges in confirmation the
address, etaire (=friend, partner, comrade): ‘Antichrist is in a peculiar sense
etairos since he proclaims himself Christ’s vicar, and places by the side of
Christ’s throne the throne of his own wickedness.The Jews have a curious
tradition about Esau, who is their standing type of Antichrist, that he will be
such a guest thrust out from the kingdom of God. It is found in the Jerusalem
Talmud, and is as follows: ‘Esau the wicked will veil himself with his mantle,
and sit among the righteous in Paradise in the world to come: and the holy
blessed God will draw him and bring him out froth thence. which is the sense of
those words, Obadiah 1:6.’

[41] Cajetan the same: ‘A most exact discernment amid this great multitude is
here described, for God so sees all men that He has an individual care for each
of them, and therefore we have here a single man described as being seen.’

[42] Augustine (Enarr. in Psalms 61:4): ‘Amid that great crowd of guests one man
was taken from the banquet and consigned to punishment. But the Lord, willing to
show that this one man is one body made up of many, when He ordered him to be
cast forth and consigned to the due punishment, immediately added: ‘For many are
called, but few are chosen.’ . . . Who were the chosen, if not those who
remained? Yet only one was cast forth, and many remained. How, if only one out
of many was cast forth, can the elect be few unless in this one many were
contained?’ See also Con. Don. post Coll. 20. We have the exact converse of
this, 1 Corinthians 9:24; where the whole number of the elect are included in
the ‘one’ that receives the prize.

[43] These according to Ignatius (Ad Ephes.14) are ‘the beginning and end of
life; faith the beginning, love the end.’

[44] The Fathers generally contemplate the wedding garment as charity, or
holiness. Thus Irenaeus (iv. 36. 6): ‘Those who were called to the supper of the
Lord, because of their evil conversation did not receive the Holy Spirit;’
Tertullian (De Resur. Carnis, 27): ‘Holiness of the flesh;’ Leo: ‘The garment of
virtues;’ Origen: ‘the robe of virtue;’ Hilary: ‘The marriage garment is the
glory of the Holy Spirit and the whiteness of the celestial robe, which has been
received by the confession of a good interrogation and is kept whole and
undefiled unto the assembly of the Kingdom of Heaven;’ so Gregory the Great,
Rom. 38 in Evang. This is the predominant, though not the exclusive, sense given
to it in our Exhortation to the Holy Communion; with which compare Chrysostom,
Hom. 3, in Ephes., quoted by Bingham (Christ. Antt. 15: 4. 2). Yet Grotius, who
gives for his own explanation, ‘walking worthy of our calling,’ affirms too
much, saying: ‘Thus the ancient commentators on this passage, with great
unanimity:’ for Ambrose (De Fide, 4: 1) speaks of the ‘marriage garment of
faith;’ though elsewhere (De Pwnit. i .6) he says: ° He is rejected who has not
on a marriage garment, the cloak, that is of charity, the robe of grace; ‘and
again, uniting his two former expositions (Exp. in Luc. 7: 204): ‘The marriage
garment, that is, faith and charity:’ with which Augustine (Sean. 90) consents:
‘Have faith with love, this is the marriage garment;’ the duct. Open. Imperf.:
‘The marriage garment is true faith, which is through Jesus Christ and his
righteousness;’ see also Basil the Great (in Zsai. ix) for a like
interpretation. The author of the Second Clementine Epistle, § 6, will have
understood baptism as the wedding garment, if indeed there is reference to this
parable in his words: ήμείδ, έάυ μή τηρήσωμεν τό βάπτισμα άγυόν και
άμίαυτου ποία πεποια πεποιθήσει ειδ τό βασίλειον του εου; To give this
application of the words any probability, we must take βασίλειον here as
palace, and not as βασίλειον: ‘Except we keep our baptism holy and undefiled,
with what confidence shall we enter into the palace of God?’

[45] So Gerhard: ‘The marriage garment is Christ, who in these nuptials is both
the bridegroom and the food. For we put on Christ alike when by faith we lay
hold of his merit, so that our nakedness in the presence of God’s judgment may
be covered with his righteousness, as with a costly garment, and also when by
holy conversation we tread in his footsteps (Romans 13:14), since Christ has not
only been given us as a gift, but also set before us as an example;’ and
Jerome’s words are remarkable; ‘a marriage garment, that is the garment of the
supracelestial man,’ - while the sordid garment is ‘the clothing of the old
man.’ Compare the Shepherd of Hermas (iii. sim. 9,13); he sees in his vision
some virgins, and is told that they represent the chief Christian virtues;
‘These are holy spirits, for a man may by no other means enter the kingdom of
God if these do not clothe him with their garment. Yea, it will profit thee
nothing to receive the name of the son of God, unless also thou shalt receive
from these their garment.’

[46] This image runs through all Scripture, its frequent use attesting its
fitness. Thus we are bidden to put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14), to
put off the old, to put on the new, man (Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4:22), to
put on the several pieces of the armour of God (Ephesians 6:13-16; 1
Thessalonians 5:8); baptism is a putting on of Christ (Galatians 3:27; of.
Romans 13:12; Ezekiel 16:10; Job 29:14; Isaiah 61:10; Sir 6:31; Sir 27:8).
Schoettgen (Hor. Heb. vol. 1: p. 699) shows in some remarkable quotations that
the mystery of putting on a righteousness from above was not wholly hidden from
the Jews. And as grace is put on here, so glory in the kingdom which shall come:
‘He that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment ‘Revelation 3:5;
Revelation 4:4; Revelation 6:11; Revelation 7:9; 2Es 2:39; 2Es 2:45). In the
book of Enoch these garments are ‘garments of life.’ Angels, according to Jewish
tradition, strip off the grave-clothes from every one who enters Paradise, and
clothe him in white and glistering raiment (Eisenmenger, Entd. Judenth. vol. 2:
p. 310).

[47] See one of Schleiermacher’s Taufreden (Predigten, vol. 4: p. 787).

[48] Those were δουλοι (ver. 3, 4), these are διάκονοι (cf.. John 2:5; John
2:9).

[49] See my Synonyms of the N. T. § 9:50 H. de Sto. Victors: ‘With hands and
feet bound, that is, with his power of well doing utterly taken away;’ but
Grotius better: ‘This denotes τό άμαχου και τό αθευκτον, the irresistible and
inevitable character of the punishment divinely appointed;’ cf. Plato, Gorgias,
526 e. Zechariah (v. 8) supplies an instructive parallel. The woman whose name
is Wickedness sitting securely in the ephah, or great measure of God’s
judgments, which she has filled, is forcibly thrust down into it; and its mouth
is then stopped with the huge mass of lead, that she may never raise herself
again. Jerome (in loc.): ‘The angel cast the woman headlong into the midst of
the ephah: . . . and lest haply she should again raise her head, and rejoice in
her wickedness and impiety, he casts upon the mouth of the ephah a talent of
lead after the manner of a very heavy stone, that he may crush and confine
Impiety in the midst of the ephah, lest by some means she may break forth.’ The
women with wings, who bear away the ephah, will further correspond to the
servants here; and the outer darkness here to the land of Shinar there, the
profane land, whither the vessel and its burden are borne. The whole vision too
(v. 5–11) has its similarity to this parable; for that and this speak alike of
the cleansing of the Church by judgment-acts of separation upon the sinners in
it.

[50] Augustine, Serm. 31: 5.

[51] Peter Lombard (iv. dist. 50): ‘The darkness shall be outer darkness,
because then the sinners shall be utterly out of God’s presence . . . . They
shall be utterly removed from the light of God.’

[52] See Meuschen (N. T. ex. Talm. illust. p. 106) and Pfeiffer (Opp. p. 861)
for a Jewish parable bearing some resemblance to the present.

[53] Ένδυμένουs ένδύματα αλλότρια (LXX).

[54] H. de Sto. Victors (De Arrha Animae) makes excellent application of
Esther’s history to the matter in hand: ‘See how many were chosen that one
should be made choice of, even she who to the eyes of the king should seem
fairer and comelier than the rest. The servants of the king choose many for
adornment, the king himself chooses one to be his bride. The first choice is of
many according to the command of the king; the second choice is of one,
according to the will of the king .... The most high King, a King’s son, came
into this world (which He had himself created) to betroth to himself the wife of
his choice, his peculiar wife, a wife worthy of a royal bridal. But because,
when He appeared in the form of humility, Judea thought scorn to receive him,
she was cast aside. The servants also of the King, that is the Apostles, were
sent through all the world to gather souls and to bring them to the city of the
fling, that is, to holy Church. Many therefore were called and enter the Church
through faith, and there receive the sacraments to be, as it were, unguents and
remedies prepared for the restoration and beautifying of their souls. But
because it is said by the mouth of truth, Many are called, but few are chosen,
not all those who are admitted to this adornment are to be chosen for the
kingdom; but those only who so strive to purify and adorn themselves by these
means that, when they shall be brought into the King’s presence, they shall be
found such as He himself will rather choose than reject. Look then how thou art
placed, and thou wilt understand what thou shouldest do. Thy Bridegroom has
placed thee on the couch where the women are adorned, has given thee various
pigments and divers spices, and has commanded thee to be served with royal food
from his own table: whatever can conduce to thy health, to thy refreshment, to
the renewal of thy beauty and the increase of thy comeliness, He has assigned
thee. Beware, therefore, lest thou be found negligent in adorning thyself, lest
in thy last day, when thou shalt be displayed in the sight of this Bridegroom,
thou shalt (O may it not be so) be found unworthy of his espousal. Prepare
thyself as befits the bride of a King, yea the bride of a heavenly King, the
bride of an immortal Bridegroom.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 14: 13-PARABLE 12. THE TEN VIRGINS.
========================================================================

PARABLE 12. THE TEN VIRGINS.

Matthew 25:1-13.

‘THEN’ - in that great day of decision, wherein the Lord shall have shown
Himself ‘a swift witness against the hypocrite and unbeliever’ (Matthew 24:51),
He shall in other ways also bring the faith of his servants to the final test,
and, as they endure or fail under this, shall receive or reject them forever.
‘Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their
lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.’ The circumstances of a marriage
among the Jews, so far as they furnish the groundwork of this parable, are well
known, and have been abundantly illustrated by writers on Jewish antiquities.
Use also may be here made of notices gathered by modern travellers in the East;
the lapse of centuries having changed little or nothing in that stationary
world. That the virgins should be ten in number is not accidental: exactly so
many formed, to Jewish notions, a company (Ruth 4:2); which fewer would have
failed to do.[1] These ‘took their lamps,’ marriages in the East being
celebrated of old, as they are now, invariably at night; hence the constant
mention of lamps and torches as borne by the friends and attendants: cf. 2Es
10:2; and Jeremiah 25:10; Revelation 18:23; in both which passages ‘the light of
a candle,’ and ‘the voice of the bridegroom and the bride,’ are found close to
one another. [2] Thus furnished, they ‘went forth to meet the bridegroom.’ The
order of the bridal procession appears to have been as follows: the bridegroom,
accompanied by his friends, ‘the children of the bride-chamber’ (Matthew 9:15)
‘the friends of the bridegroom’ (John 3:29; see Judges 14:11), went to the house
of the bride, and led her with pomp and gladness (1 Mace. 9: 37-39) [3] to his
own home, or, where that was too narrow to receive the guests, to some larger
apartment provided for the occasion. She was accompanied from her father’s house
by her youthful friends and companions (Psalms 45:15), while other of these, the
‘virgins’ of the parable, joined the procession at some convenient point, and
entered with the rest of the bridal company into the hall of feasting (Song of
Solomon 3:11). [4] Some take rather differently the circumstances which furnish
the machinery of the parable. They suppose these virgins to meet the bridegroom,
not as he returns with, but as he goes to fetch, the bride; accompanying him
first to her home and only then to his own. But such was not the manner either
with the Jews or the Greeks: [5] while the spiritual significance of the parable
is seriously disturbed thereby. The virgins we may confidently affirm, ‘went
forth to meet the bridegroom and the bride,’ - however the last words, found in
some earlier Versions, have no right to a place in the text. But these
‘virgins,’ why are they so called, and whom do they represent? There are two
mistakes to which the pressing too far the title which they bear has given rise.
There is first those who argue, All are virgins; all, therefore, belong at the
inmost centre of their life unto Christ. Some, it is true, are found unready at
the decisive moment, and therefore suffer loss (1 Corinthians 3:13), even a long
deferring of their blessedness. Yet the honourable name bestowed alike upon all
gives assurance that all are saved in the end, none finally shut out from the
kingdom of glory. They who make this milder estimate of the guilt of the foolish
virgins, and of the nature of their doom, usually connect with this the doctrine
of the thousand years reign of Christ upon earth and a first resurrection; from
the blessedness of which these should be shut out for this unreadiness of
theirs, whether at the hour of their death, or of the second coming of their
Lord. Their imperfections, and the much in them remaining unmortified and
unpurified still, will need the long and painful purging of this exclusion, and
of the fearful persecutions to which all thus excluded shall be exposed: while
yet the root of the matter being in them, they do not forfeit everything, nor
finally fall short of the heavenly joy.[6] But the premises from which these
conclusions are drawn appear to me worth nothing. There would be something in
the fact that unwise as well as wise are here by the Lord styled ‘virgins,’ if
others sometimes undertook the office of welcoming the bridegroom, and He,
notwithstanding, had chosen to give the appellation of virgins to these. But
seeing that to such the office in the usual order of things appertained, their
arguments who, like Von Meyer, [7] Olshausen, Stier,[8] press to such
conclusions as I have just stated the title of virgins which the foolish bear,
appear to me to possess no force at all.

Into the second error Chrysostom, with others, has fallen; who, accepting the
title of virgins in the literal, while everything else is taken in a figurative,
sense, limit the application of the parable to those who had made a profession
of outward virginity; [9] instead of seeing that the virginity here is the
profession of a pure faith, the absence of spiritual fornication, of apostasy
from the one God (Revelation 14:4; 2 Corinthians 11:2). This all the virgins
have; and in the number of these must be included all who profess to be waiting
for the Son of God from heaven, to love his appearing; all who with their lips
join the confession, ‘I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, who shall come again
to judge both the quick and the dead,’ and who do not in their lives openly deny
this hope; all are included, who would desire to include themselves in the
number of his believing people. [10] The whole company of the virgins have this
in common, that they confess to the same Lord, and to the same hope in Him, - as
is implied in the fact of all alike taking the lamps, and going forth to meet
the bridegroom. That which constitutes a distinction among them first appears in
the words that follow. When it is added ‘And five of them were wise, and five
were foolish,’ the numbers make nothing to the case; only the division is
essential. They are not divided into good and bad, but, as the hearers elsewhere
(Matthew 7:25-27), into ‘wise’ and ‘foolish;’ for, as a certain degree of
good-will toward the truth is assumed there on the part of the ‘foolish,’ as
evidenced in their willingness to hear, and in the superstructure, however weak,
which they raise, so on the part of these in their going forth even with the
intention of meeting the bridegroom. They are severally described, - the wise, 2
Peter 1:5-8, and the foolish, 2 Peter 1:9. We are next informed wherein
consisted the foolishness of these, and the wisdom of those: ‘They that were
foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them; but the wise took oil in
their vessels with their lamps.’ Here is the turning-point of the parable. On a
right apprehending of what the having, or the not having, a reserved supply of
oil may mean everything must depend. Again we meet with a controversy between
Roman Catholics and the early Reformers, and one differing in little from that
to which ‘the wedding garment’ gave occasion. The Reformers asserted that what
the foolish virgins lacked was the living principle of faith; that what they had
were the outer circumstances of a Christian profession; these were their lamps
shining before men; but they wanted the inner spirit of life, the oil which they
should have had, if their lamps were to be found burning in the day of Christ’s
appearing. [11] The Roman Catholic reversed the whole message; for him what they
had was faith, but faith which, not having works, was ‘dead, being alone’ (James
2:17). They were not careful to maintain good works, to nourish the lamp of
faith, which they carried before men, with deeds of light done for and in the
sight of God. They did not by well-doing stir up the grace of God that was in
them, and so the unused grace was taken from them. Their lamps burned dim, and
at last were wholly extinguished, nor had they wherewith to revive them anew.
[12]

Here again it is only necessary to call attention to the different senses in
which the two contending parties employ the word faith, - the Roman Catholics as
the outward profession of the truth, the Reformers as the root and living
principle of Christian life. [13] Except for these diverse uses of the same
term, the two interpretations would not be opposed to, or exclude one another, -
would indeed admit of a fair reconciliation. [14] For we may equally contemplate
the foolish virgins, unprovided with oil, as those going through a round of
external duties, without life, without love, without any striving after inward
conformity to the law of God, whose religion is all husk and no kernel; or,
again, as those who, confessing Christ with their lips, and holding fast the
form of the truth, are for all this remiss in the work of the Lord, in acts of
charity, of humility, and self-denial; and who therefore, by that law of the
kingdom of heaven which decrees that from him who hath not shall be taken even
that which he hath, gradually lose that grace which they had, and discover that
they have lost it altogether, at the decisive moment when they need to have it
in largest measure. It is clear that whatever is merely outward in the Christian
profession is the lamp; whatever is inward and spiritual is the oil reserved in
the vessels. When we contemplate with St. James (James 2:14-26) the faith as the
body, and the works as witnessing for an informing vivifying soul, then the
faith is the lamp, the works the oil in the vessels; but when, on the other
hand, we contemplate with St. Paul the works as only having a value from the
living principle of faith out of which they spring, then the works are the lamp,
and the faith the oil which must feed it. Yet in either case, before we have
exhausted all the meaning of the oil, we must get beyond both the works and the
faith to something higher than either, the informing Spirit of God which prompts
the works and quickens the faith, of which Spirit oil is ever in Scripture the
standing symbol (Exodus 30:22-33; Zechariah 4:2; Zechariah 4:12; Acts 10:38;
Hebrews 1:9; 1 John 2:20-27). But under whatever aspect we regard the relation
between the oil in the lamps and in the vessels, the purpose of the parable is,
as we cannot doubt (see ver. 13), to impress upon all members of the Church
their need of vigilance. Regarded in the one view, it is a warning that they be
careful to maintain good works, that they be not satisfied, as some, with
saying, ‘Lord, Lord,’ while they do not the things that He says. Regarded under
the other aspect, it is a warning that they be watchful over their inward state,
- over their affections, - over all which, withdrawn from the eyes of man, is
seen only of God; - that they seek to have a constant supply of the Spirit of
Christ Jesus in their innermost hearts, to approve themselves before God, [15]
as well as to show fairly and unblamably before the world. In either case, we
must remember, and it adds much to the solemnity of the lesson, that by the
foolish virgins are meant, - not hypocrites, not self-conscious dissemblers,
much less openly profane and ungodly, - but the negligent in prayer, the
slothful in good works, all whose scheme of a Christian life is laid out rather
to satisfy the eyes of men than to please Him who seeth in secret. Nor is it
that they are wholly without oil; they have some, but not enough; their lamps,
when they first go forth, are burning, otherwise they could not speak of them as
on the point of expiring just as the bridegroom is approaching. In fact, the
having no oil provided in the vessels is exactly parallel to having no deepness
of earth (Matthew 13:5). The seed springs up till the sun scorches it; the lamps
burn on till their oil is exhausted through the length of the bridegroom’s
delay. In each case something more is implied than a mere external profession,
conscious to itself that it is nothing besides; it is not that there was no
faith, but only that fides temporaria which could not endure temptation, nor
survive delay. They, on the other hand, are like the wise virgins, who recognize
the possibility that the Bridegroom may tarry long, that the Church may not very
soon, perhaps not in their days, enter into its glory; who, therefore, foresee
that they may have a long life before them of patience and self-denial, before
they shall come to the kingdom, or the kingdom to them; and who therefore
rightly judge that it is not a few warm excited feelings which will carry them
triumphantly through all this, and enable to endure unto the end; for such are
but as a fire among straw, quickly blazing up, and as quickly extinguished. They
understand that principles as well as feelings must be engaged in the work, that
their first good impulses will carry them but a very little way, unless revived,
strengthened, and purified by a continual supply of the Spirit of God. If the
bridegroom were to come at once, it might be another thing; but their wisdom is
that, since it may very well fare otherwise, they make provision against such a
contingency.

‘While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.’ We may number this
among the many hints that the time of the Lord’s return might possibly be
delayed very far beyond the expectation of his first disciples. It was a hint,
and no more. Had more been granted, had He said plainly that many centuries
should elapse before his return, then the earlier ages of the Church would have
been placed at a manifest disadvantage, being deprived of that powerful motive
to holiness and diligence which each generation finds in the possibility of his
return in their time. It is not that He desires each succeeding generation to
believe that in their day He will certainly return; for He does not desire our
faith and our practice to be founded on a mistake, as then the faith and
practice of all generations save the last would be. But it is a necessary
element of the doctrine concerning the second coming of Christ, that it should
be possible at any time, that none should regard it improbable in theirs. [16]
The love, the earnest longing of those first Christians made them to assume that
coming to be close at hand. In the strength and joy of this faith they lived and
suffered; and when they died, the kingdom was indeed come unto them. [17] As a
further reason why the Church should not have been acquainted from the first
with the precise moment of her Lord’s return, it may be added, that it is in
itself, no doubt, undetermined. Prophecy is no fatalism, [18] and it has been
always open to every age by faith and prayer to hasten that coming, so that St.
Peter can speak of the faithful not merely as looking for, but also as hasting,
the coming of the day of God (2 Peter 3:12); with which we may compare Acts
3:19, ‘Repent ye, . . . that the times of refreshing may come;’ these ‘times of
refreshing’ being identical with ‘the times of restitution of all’ things’ (ver.
21), the glorious setting up of the kingdom; the same truth, that the quicker or
tardier approach of that day is conditional, being elsewhere declared in
clearest terms (2 Peter 3:9). We too have learned to pray that it may please God
‘to accomplish the number of his elect, and to hasten his kingdom.’ But while
the matter was left by the wisdom of God in this uncertainty, it imported much
that after the expectations of the first ages of the Church had failed, those
who examined the Scriptures should see plainly there that no pledge had thus
been broken, that no prophecy had failed, that what had actually come to pass
had been contemplated from the beginning. [19] The steps by which the virgins
fell into deep sleep are marked; first, they nodded the head or slumbered, and
next they slept profoundly. Some have understood by this sleeping of all, a
certain unreadiness that will have overtaken the whole Church, a too great
acquiescence in the present time and in the present things even among the
faithful themselves - though with this difference, that their unreadiness will
be remediable and easily removed; this removal being actually signified by the
trimming and replenishing of their lamps; while that of others will be too
profound to be capable of any such remedy. [20] Augustine [21] proposes this
interpretation, but only to reject it; for he asks, Why were those wise
admitted, unless for the very reason that their love had not grown cold? But
there is, he goes on to say, a sleep common to all, the sleep of death, which is
indicated here. We may fitly prefer this, which is the explanation of nearly all
the ancient interpreters, to that which understands by this sleeping the
negligences and omissions of even the best Christians. Our Lord would scarcely
have given, as it were, this allowance for a certain measure of negligence,
seeing that with all the most earnest provocations to watchfulness, there will
ever be too much of this. Least of all would He so do in a parable, whose very
aim and moral is, that we be always ready, that we be not taken unprepared. And
yet by this slumbering and sleeping more may not after all be meant than that
all, having taken such measures as they counted needful to enable them to meet
the bridegroom as they would wish, securely awaited his approach. [22] For,
indeed, the fitnesses of the parable, which demand to be observed, required such
a circumstance as this. Had the foolish virgins been in a condition to mark the
lapse of time, and the gradual waning of their lamps, they, knowing that they
had not wherewith to replenish them, would naturally have bestirred themselves,
and that in time to procure a new supply. The fact that they fell asleep, and
were only awakened by the cry of the approaching bridal company, gives, - and
nothing else would give, - a natural explanation of their utter and irremediable
destitution of oil at the moment when it most needed that they should have it in
abundance. So, too, if the wise virgins had not slept as well, had they been
represented as watching while the others were sleeping, it would have been a
failure of love upon their parts, not to rouse their companions, and warn them
of the lapse of time and the increasing dimness with which their lamps were
burning, while help was still within reach. [23] So fared it with all, until,
‘at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh: ‘or rather
‘Behold the bridegroom!’ for ‘cometh’ has no right to a place in the text; ‘go
ye out to meet him.’ The cry which at this midnight hour startles the sleepers
is either that of the retinue running before, or of the jubilant multitude, who,
even till that late hour, had waited for the passing of the procession through
the streets, and now welcomed it with these acclamations. Its spiritual
signification has been variously given. Most have understood by it the descent
of the Lord ‘with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God’
(1 Thessalonians 4:16), when He, the heavenly Bridegroom, shall at length draw
nigh, accompanied by the angels, the friends of the bridegroom and leading home
his bride, the triumphant Church, and looking to be met and greeted by the
members of his Church yet militant on earth, themselves a part of that mystical
bride, [24] that so He may bring her to the glorious mansion, the house of
everlasting joy and gladness which He has prepared for her. Some, however,
regard this cry as proceeding from watchers in the Church, such as shall not be
altogether lacking in the last times (Isaiah 62:6); by whom the signs of the
times shall have been observed, and who shall proclaim the near advent of the
Lord. - And this cry is ‘at midnight.’ It was a belief current among the later
Jews, that the Messiah would come suddenly at midnight, as their forefathers had
gone out from Egypt, and obtained their former deliverance, at that very hour
(Exodus 12:29); from which belief Jerome [25] supposes the apostolic tradition
of not dismissing the people on Easter eve till the middle night was past, to
have been derived. But it is idle to suppose that midnight is here named for any
other reason than because it is a time when deep sleep falls upon men, when
therefore such an event as the passage of a bridal company through the streets
would be expected the least; and because thus the unlooked-for character of that
day of the Lord, which ‘cometh as a thief in the night’ (1 Thessalonians 5:2),
would be in the liveliest manner set out. [26] The parable will obtain a wider
application if we keep in memory that, while there is one crowning advent of the
Lord at the last, He comes no less in all the signal crises of his Church, at
each new manifestation of his Spirit; and at each of these, too, there is a
separation among those who are called by his name, into wise and foolish, as
they are spiritually alive or dead. Thus at Pentecost, when by his Spirit He
returned to his Church, He came: the prudent in Israel went in with Him to the
feast, the foolish tarried without. Thus, too, He came at the Reformation: those
that had oil went in; those that had empty lamps, the form of godliness without
the power, tarried without. Each of these was an example and a foretaste of that
which shall be more signally fulfilled at the end.

‘Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps;’ [27] and in this act of
trimming, the foolish discovered to their dismay that theirs was going cut, and
that they had not wherewith to feed the expiring flame. In a higher sense,
everyone at the last prepares to give an account of his works, inquires into the
foundations of his faith, [28] seriously searches whether his life has been one
which will have praise not merely of men, for that he now feels will avail
nothing, but also of God. Many put off this proving of the grounds of their hope
to the last moment, nay, some manage to defer it, with all its miserable
discoveries, beyond the grave, even till the day of judgment;-but further it
cannot be deferred. When the Day of Christ comes, it will be impossible for any
to remain ignorant any longer of their true state, for that day will be a
revelation of the hidden things of men, of things hitherto hidden even from
themselves; a flood of light will then pour into all the darkest corners of all
hearts, and show every man to himself exactly as he is; so that self-deception
will be possible no longer (Proverbs 16:2; Proverbs 21:2; Romans 2:16). The
foolish virgins turn in their extremity of need to their wiser companions,
saying ‘Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out;’ [29] or rather, as it
is more correctly in the margin, ‘are going out.’ Had their lamps already ‘gone
out’ they would have needed not merely to trim and feed them, but must have
further asked permission to kindle them anew, of which we hear nothing. The
request, with the refusal which it meets, - like the discourse between Abraham
and Dives (Luke 16:24-31), - can be only the outer clothing of the truth; but of
truth how momentous! - no other than this, that we shall look in vain from men
for that grace which God only can supply, that we shall be miserably
disappointed, if we think thus to borrow in an easy, lazy way that which must be
bought, - won, that is, by earnest prayer and diligent endeavour. And the answer
of the wise, ‘Not so; [30] lest there be not enough for its and you,’ has its
lesson also. It tells us that every man must live by his own faith. There is
that which one can communicate to another, and make himself the richer; as one
who imparts a light to another has not therefore less light, but walks
henceforth in the light of two torches instead of one: but there is also that
which, being divine, is in its very nature incommunicable from man to man, which
can be obtained only from above, which each must obtain for himself. One can
indeed point out to another where he is to dig for the precious ore, but after
all is said, each one must bring it up for himself, and by labour of his own. In
the reason which the wise virgins give for declining to comply with the others’
request, ‘lest there be not enough for us and you,’ there lies a witness against
works of supererogation, however Roman Catholic expositors may resist the
drawing of any such conclusion from it. ‘The righteous shall scarcely be saved’
(1 Peter 4:18). [31] The wise do not imagine that they have anything over,
which, as not needing for themselves, they may transfer to others: happy if
their own lamps are burning so brightly that they may be themselves allowed to
make part of the bridal company, and to enter with them that enter into the joy
of the festal chamber. [32] To their unhappy companions they give the only
counsel that, under the circumstances, is possible, ‘But go ye rather to them
that sell, and buy for yourselves.’ They bid them turn to the dispensers of
heavenly grace, to those whom God has appointed in the Church as channels of his
gifts; or, as some would explain, to the prophets and Apostles, that they might
learn of them how to revive the work of God in their souls, if yet there should
be time. Some take the words as ironical; [33] but how much more consistent with
their character whom the wise virgins represent, to see in them a counsel of
love, of that love which ‘hopeth all things,’ - an exhortation to their fellows
that they trust not in man, but betake themselves to the source from which
effectual grace can alone be obtained, that they seek even at this latest hour
to revive the work of grace in their hearts.

What the wise had ventured to hope for themselves is granted. While the others
are absent, vainly seeking to repair the negligence of the past, ‘the bridegroom
came; and they that were ready,’ [34] they whose lamps were burning, having been
fed anew from their vessels, ‘went in with him to the marriage: [35] and the
door was shut; ‘shut as much for the security and the joy without interruption
of those within, [36] as for the exclusion of those without (Genesis 7:16;
Revelation 3:12). ‘What door?’ exclaims the author of an ancient homily on this
parable: ‘that which now is open to those coming from the east and from the
west, that they may sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom
of heaven, - that Door which saith, Him that cometh to Me I will in nowise cast
out. Behold how it is now open, which shall then be closed forevermore.
Murderers come, and they are admitted, - publicans and harlots come, and they
are received, - unclean and adulterers and robbers, and whosoever is of this
kind, come, and the open door doth not deny itself to them; for Christ, the
Door, is infinite to pardon, reaching beyond every degree and every amount of
wickedness. But then what saith He? “The door is shut.” No one’s penitence, - no
one’s prayer, - no one’s groaning shall any more be admitted. That door is shut,
which received Aaron after his idolatry, - which admitted David after his
adultery, after his homicide, - which not only did not repel Peter after his
threefold denial, but delivered its keys to be guarded by him’ (Luke 16:26).

‘Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us;’ - not
that we are to suppose that they have now obtained oil; but, having sought it in
vain, they return entreating that the want of it on their part may be
overlooked: as those suing for mercy, when now the time of judgment has arrived
(Proverbs 1:28). [37] In the title ‘Lord,’ by which they address the bridegroom,
they claim to stand in a near and intimate relation to him; as in the ‘Lord,
lord,’ twice repeated, is an evidence - not, as some say, of their vain
confidence - but of the earnestness with which they now seek admission (Genesis
22:11; Exodus 3:4; 1 Samuel 3:10; Matthew 27:46; Luke 8:24; Luke 10:41; Luke
13:25; Luke 13:34; Luke 22:31; Acts 9:4); of the misgiving which already
possesses them, lest the shut door should refuse to open any more. Even so it
proves. [38] All which they hear from within is the sentence of their exclusion:
‘He answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not’ (cf. Matthew
7:23); he does not know them, that is, in that sense in which the Good Shepherd
knows his sheep, and is known of them (John 10:14). Other parallel passages in
which exactly the same emphasis is laid on the word are these: Psalms 37:18;
Psalms 144:3; Nahum 1:7; Amos 3:2; Hosea 13:5; Matthew 25:12; 2 Timothy 2:19.
Such knowledge is of necessity reciprocal, so that Augustine’s remark, seeming a
slight, is indeed a very profound one, that this ‘I know you not,’ is nothing
else than, ‘Ye know not Me.’ [39] The exclusion of the foolish virgins from the
marriage feast, if this interpretation be correct, is not temporary; but, so far
as our horizon reaches, final. Many regard it in a different light, as who would
not gladly do? and the views of some of these have been touched on already; but
to me the sterner and severer interpretation alone approves itself as the true
(Isaiah 65:13). On this exclusion of theirs Bengel observes, that there are four
classes, which among them will include the whole company of the saved and of the
lost. There are those to whom ‘an entrance is ministered abundantly into the
kingdom,’ entering as with all sails set into the haven of their rest; those
secondly, that are just saved, like shipwrecked mariners who hardly reach the
shore. On the other side, there are those who travel plainly on the broad way to
destruction, whose sins go before them to judgment; while lastly, there are such
as, though they might have seemed not ‘far off from the kingdom of God,’ yet
fall short of it after all. Of this last class were these foolish virgins; and
their fate, who were so near a crown and a kingdom, and yet missed them
notwithstanding, he observes with truth, must always appear the most miserable
of all. Lest that may be our lot, the Lord says to us, - for what He said to his
hearers then, He says unto all, to his Church and to every member of it in every
age, - ‘Watch therefore; for ye know neither the day nor the hour;’ [40] and
while we know not, the only sure way to be ready upon that day, is that we be
ready upon every day: unreadiness upon that day being unreadiness forever; and
this doom of the foolish virgins proclaiming that the work, which should have
been the business of a life, cannot be huddled up and accomplished in a moment
(Luke 12:10; Luke 21:34-36; 1 Thessalonians 5:6; 2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 3:3).
A few words on the relation in which this parable stands to that of the Marriage
of the King’s Son, and to explain the fact that in that the unworthy guest
actually obtains admission to the marriage supper (Matthew 22:11), and is only
from thence cast out, while in this the foolish virgins are not so much as
admitted to the feast. It would be easy to say, that this is an accidental
difference growing out of the different structure of the two parables; but by
such answers everything distinctive in the parables may be explained away: and
we treat them with more reverence, when we look for some reason lying more
deeply. May it not be that the marriage festivities there are different from the
present? In Gerhard’s words, ‘Those are celebrated during this present life in
the Church militant, these at the last day in the Church triumphant. To those
even they are admitted who are not adorned with the wedding garment, but to
these only they to whom it is granted that they should be arrayed in the fine
linen which is the righteousness of saints (Revelation 19:8); to those men are
called by the trumpet of the Gospel, to these by the trumpet of the archangel.
To those who enters can again go out from them, or be cast out; who is once
introduced to these, never goes out, nor is cast out from them any more:
wherefore it is said, “The door was shut.”’ [41]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Thus it was ruled, that where ten Jews were living in one place there was a
congregation, and there a synagogue ought to be built. On the completeness of
the number ten, see Vitringa, De Synagoga, p. 232 seq.; and Bahr, Symbolik d,
Mos. Cultus, vol. 1: p. 175.

[2] Among the Greeks and Romans torches were chiefly used: thus Catullus,
Epithal. 98: ‘The torches toss rays of gold;’ and again; ‘Toss the pine torch
with thy hand;’ so Apuleius, 10: ‘Like ladies going forth to a marriage feast
they lighted their path with glittering torches;’ and Euripides speaks of
‘bridal lamps:’ cf. Becker, Charicles, vol. 2: p. 465. Among the Jews, lamps fed
with oil were more common. Such in earlier Greek would have been λυχνος or
ελλυχνιον. It is only at a later day that Aaunois obtained this meaning. At the
same time the mention of the oil does not of itself make it impossible that
these also were torches; for Elphinstone (Mist. of India, vol. 1: p. 333) has
noted, ‘The true Hindu way of lighting up is by torches held by men, who feed
the flame with oil from a sort of bottle’ [the αγγειον of this parable]
‘constructed for the purpose.’

[3] ‘With a great train’ (ver. 37).

[4] See Wolf’s latest Journal, p. 174; and for accounts of earlier travellers,
Harmer, Burder, and Hughes (Travels in Sicily, &c. vol. 2: p. 20): ‘We went to
view the nocturnal procession which always accompanies the bridegroom in
escorting his betrothed spouse from the paternal roof to that of her future
husband. This consisted of nearly one hundred of the first persons in Joannina,
with a great crowd of torch-bearers, and a band of music. After having received
the lady they returned, but were joined by an equal number of ladies, who paid
this compliment to the bride.’ These last correspond to the virgins here, and do
not join the procession till the bridegroom, having received the bride, is
escorting her to her new abode.

[5] See Becker, Charicles, vol. 2: p. 468.

[6] Thus Poiret (Divin. (Econom. 4: 12, 18, vol. 2: p. 276): ‘Those who at the
time of the Advent shall be living indeed in a state of grace, but at the same
time hampered with many imperfections and many sins of negligence, which so far
they have not yet corrected or purged away, these, I say, shall be shut out from
the glorious reign of Christ upon earth during the passing of the thousand years
of this period, and shall see the gate fastened against them. They shall thus be
left in the outer darkness of expiation, and their bliss shall be deferred until
the general resurrection after the accomplishment of the thousand years of the
reign of Christ and the saints. And this is clearly enough taught by the parable
of the foolish virgins. For we see that by reason of their negligence, these
were shut out from the marriage feast, although they were virgins, and had the
lamp of faith, and called upon the Lord. For the door once closed was never
again opened while this time endured; since the shaking which there is to be in
this world before the end cometh of it and of the times, through which also God
will work in this world and in all things which are in it this glorious change
(which shall be as the door and the introduction into his kingdom), is only to
take place once. Yet once, He saith, and I will shake the heaven and the earth;
and all who at that time through the perfection of their purity shall be fitted
to attain to glory, shall receive the impact of this divine shaking and shall be
changed: but after this time until the general resurrection there shall no new
shaking or change come to pass. For then shall arrive the day of the resting of
nature and of all created things which shall have been introduced into it. Hence
the foolish virgins and all who shall have not yet put on the marriage garment
will needs wait for eternity itself. For it seems improbable that these careless
virgins, in whom there was yet so great a disposition towards good, and they
also who at that time were not duly prepared and yet had already made a good
beginning, should be doomed to perish eternally: but it is also improbable,
however zealously, after the door has once been closed, they may betake
themselves to preparation, that Christ will again issue forth from his rest, and
for their sakes will institute a new division and special separation in nature.

[7] Blatter für höhere Wahrheit, vol. 7: p. 247.

[8] Reden Jesu, vol. 2: p. 581.

[9] Augustine (Serm. 93: 2) warns against any such limitation of the parable;
which belongs to all souls, ‘which have the Catholic faith and appear to have
good works in God’s Church;’ and elsewhere, ‘Virginity of heart, untainted
faith.’ Jerome (in loc.): ‘They are called virgins because they make their boast
in the knowledge of the one God, and their mind is unviolated by the tumult of
idolatry.’

[10] Jerome (Adv. Jovin. 2): ‘The ten virgins are examples not of the whole
human race, but of the careful and the indolent, of whom the one are always
looking for the advent of the Lord, the others surrender themselves to sleep and
sloth and take no thought for the judgment to come.’ Tertullian (De Anima, 18)
mentions a strange abuse, which some of the Gnostics made of this parable: The
five foolish virgins are the five senses, foolish inasmuch as they are easily
deceived, and often give fallacious notices; while the five wise are the
reasonable powers, which have the capacity of apprehending ideas,

[11] This is very much Augustine’s interpretation (Ep. 140: 33; Serm. 149: 11):
‘The lamps are good works.... and a conversation which even in the eyes of men
shines forth as worthy of praise; but it makes the greatest difference with what
intention this is practised.... What then is the carrying oil with us save the
having the consciousness of pleasing God by good works instead of taking for the
limit of our joy the praise of men? ‘Cocceius explains the oil in the vessels
thus: ‘The teaching of the Holy Spirit continually feeding our faith so that it
fail not; ‘and Cajetan, a Roman Catholic expositor, consents to this
interpretation; his words are so excellent that I will quote them: ‘They who
work good works differ in this that some have the witness of their goodness only
without in the good works themselves: for within they have no feeling that they
love God with all their heart, that they repent of their sins because these are
displeasing to God, that it is for the sake of God that they love their
neighbour. But others there are who so work good works that their shining deeds
bear witness without of good disposition, and within in the inner consciousness
the Holy Spirit himself witnesses to the spirit of their doers that they are the
sons of God. These feel in all their heart that they love God, that it is for
the sake of God that they repent, for the sake of God that they love their
neighbour and God himself, and, in a word, that God is the principle of their
love, hope, fear, their joy and sorrow, and briefly of their working both within
and without: and this is oil in fitting vessels.’

[12] Thus Jerome (in loc.): ‘Those who have no oil are those who seem to confess
the Lord with a like faith, but neglect the works of virtue. Cf. Origen. in
Matth. Tract. 32.

[13] As Augustine, when he says: ‘The soul of thy soul is faith.’

[14] For instance, who would refuse to accede to the explanation given by
Gerhard? ‘By the lighted lamps we must understand the outward profession of the
lip and the outer appearance of piety: by the oil in the vessels, the inner
righteousness of the heart, true faith, sincere charity, watchfulness, and
prudence, which meet the eyes only of God, not of men.’

[15] See Augustine, Ep. 140: 31; Serm. 93: 8; Gregory the Great, Hom. 12 in
Evang.; and the author of a sermon found among the works of St. Bernard (vol. 2:
p. 722): ‘The oil in the lamp is a good work in its manifestation, but while the
charity of the work is beheld by those around and they wonder and praise, the
heart of the doer is for the most part uplifted and rises elate; he boasts in
himself and not in the Lord, and so the light of his lamp is brought to nought;
it lacks its appropriate food, and, though shining clearly before men, is
darkened before God. Now the prudent virgins, besides the oil which they have in
their lamps, store other oil in vessels: since assuredly holy souls while
awaiting the coming of their bridegroom, and while daily with the utmost
yearning crying unto him, Thy kingdom come, besides these works which shine in
the eyes of their neighbours to the glory of God, and are seen, do yet other
works in secret, where only the Father sees. Thus is the king’s daughter
glorious within when her boast is rather from the oil which gleams in the
vessels of her conscience, than from that which shines outwardly: she esteems
all that is perceived to be lost, and judges nothing to be worthy of reward
which gains the favour of men. She, therefore, who prevails, works hiddenly, she
seeks secrecy, beats heaven with her prayers, and outpours the tears which are
the witness of love; this is the glory of the daughter and friend of the king,
but it is a glory from within and unseen. This oil the foolish virgins lack,
because they only do good works unto the splendour of vain glory and the favour
of men. This oil, in which the prudent place their trust, they store in the
hidden vessels of their consciences.’

[16] Augustine: ‘The last day is hidden, that every day may be regarded;’ and
Tertullian (De Anima, 33); That the assiduity of faith may be tested by the
uncertainty of expectation, ever looking for the day, yet ever in ignorance,
daily fearing what it daily hopes.’

[17] Yet Augustine, claiming a right to dissent from a scheme of prophetic
interpretation current in his day, which made the end of the world to be already
instant, says very beautifully (Ep. excix. 5): ‘He therefore loves the coming of
the Lord not who asserts that it is at hand, or who asserts that it is not at
hand, but rather who, whether it be near or far off, awaits it with sincerity of
faith, constancy of hope, and fervour of love.’

[18] In Augustine’s words, ‘I foretold, I did not fix.’

[19] Augustine (Ep. cxcix. 5): ‘Lest haply when the time at which they had
believed He should come had passed by without their beholding him, they should
think that all the other promises were deceitful, and should despair of the very
reward of their faith.’

[20] So Cocceius: ‘It signifies the carelessness which amid the rest from
persecution came over the Christian Church after the first watch, as it were, of
the night; ‘and Grotius quotes in confirmation James 3:2; Romans 13:2.
Maldonatus gives this explanation in a form popular at the present day: ‘I
interpret the words to sleep as to cease to think of the Lord’s coming.’

[21] Serm. 93: 5; Ep. 140: 32.

[22] Hilary (Comm. in Matthew 27 :) unites this meaning and the pre. ceding:
‘The sleep of thosethat wait is the rest of the faithful, and in the time of
penitence the temporal death of all.’

[23] Storr, De Par. Christi, in his Opusc..cad. vol. 1: p. 133.

[24] Augustine (Quaest. 83: qu. 59): ‘These virgins together form the one who is
called the bride, as though when all Christians run together to the Church they
should be spoken of as sons running to their mother, when she who is called the
mother is formed by the gathering together of these very sons’ (Revelation 19:7;
Revelation 19:9).

[25] Comm. in Matt. in loc.

[26] Augustine (Serm. 93: 6): ‘what does at midnight mean? When He is not looked
for, when He is in no way believed.’ Jerome: ‘For suddenly, as though at the
dead of night and when all are off their guard, the coming of Christ will
resound.’

[27] Ward (View of the Hindoos, vol. 2: p. 29) describes a marriage ceremony in
India of which he was eye-witness: ‘After waiting two or three hours, at length
near midnight it was announced, as in the very words of Scripture, “Behold, the
bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.” All the persons employed now lighted
their lamps, and ran with them in their hands to fill up their stations in the
procession: some of them had lost their lights, and were unprepared; but it was
then too late to seek them; and the cavalcade moved forward.’

[28] Augustine: ‘They prepare to give an account of their works.’ Cocceius:
‘Every man inquired within himself of the firmness of his own faith.’

[29] The hand-lamp naturally was small, and would not contain a supply of oil
for many hours. The trimming itself implied two things, an infusion of fresh
oil, and removal of whatever had gathered round and was clogging the wick. For
the last purpose a little instrument often hung by a slender chain from the lamp
itself-pointed, for the removing of the snuffs (the putres fungi) from the
flame, and with a little hook at the side by which the wick, when need was,
might be drawn further out (‘And with a needle draws the unmoistened flag,’
Virgil, Moretum,11). This instrument is sometimes found still attached to the
bronze lamps discovered in sepulchres. See Becker, Gallus, vol. 2: p. 205, seq.

[30] The answer in the Greek is strongly elliptical, as in a moment of
earnestness and haste. Bengel: ‘An abrupt speech, suiting that moment of hurry.’
On the spirit of the answer of the wise virgins, as regards themselves,
Augustine remarks: ‘It was not spoken from despair, but from a sober and
religious humility; ‘and Chrysostom (De Poenit. Hom. 8): ‘They acted thus, not
from lack of sympathy, but because of the shortness of the time.’

[31] Augustine (Ep. 140: 34): ‘They beg oil from the wise virgins, but find it
not, neither receive it, since these reply that they know not whether they will
find sufficient for themselves even that consciousness by which they look for
mercy from the Judge. For when the Judge is seated on his throne, who will boast
of the purity of his heart, or who will boast that he is clean from sin, unless
compassion shall outstrip judgment?’

[32] Tertullian (De Pudic. 22) makes good use of this answer of the wise
virgins, when opposing the libelli pacis or ‘letters of peace,’ which the
confessors of the African Church in the Decian persecution were wont to give to
the lapsed: ‘Let it suffice a martyr that he has purged his own sins. It is only
the ungrateful or the proud who would scatter to others that which he has dearly
obtained. Who can buy off another’s death by his own save only the Son of God? .
. . Therefore thou who viest with him in remitting offences, if thou thyself
hast in nought offended, then indeed suffer for me. But if thou art a sinner,
how may the oil of thy little lamp suffice both for thee and for me?’ - Gurtler
(Syst. Theol. Proph. p. 711) quotes a strange story from Melchior Adamus,
showing vividly what a witness was once felt to be here against all trusting in
man and in the merits of man rather than in God: ‘There was, A.D. 1322,
exhibited at Eisenach before the Margrave Frederick of Misnia, the mystery
concerning the five wise and as many foolish virgins. The wise were St. Mary,
St. Catharine, St. Barbara, St. Dorothy, and St. Margaret. To these came the
foolish, seeking that they will impart to them of their oil - that is, as the
actor explained it, intercede with God for them that they also may be admitted
to the marriage - that is, to the kingdom of heaven. What happens? the wise
absolutely deny that they can communicate aught. Then a sad spectacle began; the
foolish knocked, they wept, they were instant in prayer; but all profited not a
jot, they were bidden to depart and buy oil. Which when that prince saw and
heard, he is said to have been so amazed, that he fell into a grievous and
dangerous sickness. “What,” he exclaimed, ‘is our Christian faith, if neither
Mary nor any other saint can be persuaded to intercede for us?” From this
sadness an apoplexy had its rise, of which he died the fourth day after, and was
buried at Eisenach.’ Compare Carlyle, Miscellanies, vol. 2: p. 415.Within the
last few years a copy of the famous Mystery to which such fatal effects are
ascribed has been discovered, and has been edited, with introduction, notes, and
a translation in modern German, under the title, Das Grosse Thilringische
Mysterium, Halle, 1855. It is a very grand and solemn composition; and being
evidently a Dominican protest against the extravagances of saint-worship and
reliance upon saint-intercession, as encouraged by the Franciscans, has a
theological no less than a poetical interest. Dr. Neale was preparing a
translation of it, at the time of his lamented death. In Cardinal Petra’s
Hymno-graphie de l’Eglise grecque, Rome, 1867, p. 39, mention is made of a Greek
Drama or Mystery Play, called The Banquet of the Ten Virgins, by St. Methodius;
apparently of very rude construction.

[33] Augustine (Serm. 93: 8): ‘This is the answer not of those who advise but of
those who ridicule;’ and Luther quotes, ‘The righteous shall laugh at the death
of the wicked.’

[34] In the Pirke Avoth there is this comparison: ‘This world is like a
vestibule, the world to come like a festal couch. Prepare thyself in the
vestibule, that thou mayst approach the couch.’

[35] Compare Milton’s grand Sonnet to a Virtuous Young Lady, ‘Thy care is fixed,
and zealously attends To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light, And hope
that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure, Thou, when the Bridegroom with his
feastful friends Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night, Hast gained thy
entrance, Virgin wise and pure.’

[36] For, in Augustine’s beautiful language, the heavenly kingdom is one ‘where
neither does an enemy enter, nor a friend go forth.’

[37] Augustine, Ep. Exodus 35.

[38] In them that solemn line must find itself true Plena luctu caret fructu
sera poenitentia. ‘A tardy repentance is full of sorrow and lacks fruit.’

[39] At Luke 13:25-27 the same image of the excluded vainly seeking an entrance
reappears, though with important modifications. The master has appointed a set
time in the evening by which all his servants shall have returned home. When the
hour arrives, he rises up and bars his doors, and those who arrive later cannot
persuade him again to open them. Other words of our Lord (Luke 12:35-38) offer
many points of resemblance to this parable, though with differences as well.
There, too, the faithful appear not as virgins, but as servants, and wait for
him, not when He shall come to, but when He shall return from, the wedding, from
the heavenly bridal, the union with the Church in heaven. The warning to a
preparedness to meet him clothes itself under images not exactly similar. They
must have their loins girt up (cf. Jeremiah 1:17; 1 Peter 1:13), and their
lights burning - that is, they must be prompt and succinct to wait upon him, and
his house must be bright and beaming with lights; and He must be admitted
without delay. Then that which they have prepared for him shall indeed prove to
have been prepared for themselves; ‘He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit
down to meat, and come forth and serve them.’ What He did once at the paschal
supper (John 13:4) shall be only a prophecy of what He shall repeat in a more
glorious manner at the marriage-supper of the Lamb.

[40] What is more in this verse should have no place in the text, having
probably been transferred from Matthew 24:44.

[41] In the early and Middle Ages this parable was a favourite subject of
Christian Art. We have already seen (p. 264) how mysteries or religious plays
were founded upon it; and see Du Meril, Poesies populaires Latines, p. 138.
Munter (Sinnbilder d. Alt. Christ. vol. 2: p. 91) mentions a picture of the five
wise virgins in the cemetery of the Church of St. Agnes at Rome, of very early
date; and Caumont (Archit. Belig. au Moyen Age, p. 345), on the representations
of the Last Judgment so often found over the great western door of a cathedral:
‘One often finds on the covings of the doors ten statuettes of women, some
holding carefully in both hands a cup-shaped lamp, the others carelessly holding
with one hand only the same lamp reversed. The sculptor has always been careful
to place the wise virgins on the right of Christ, and on the side of the blest;
the foolish virgins on his left, on the side of the reprobate.’ Compare Didron,
Manuel d’Jeonographie Chretienne, p. 217, sqq.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 15: 14-PARABLE 13. THE TALENTS.
========================================================================

PARABLE 13. THE TALENTS.

Matthew 25:14-30.

WHILE the virgins were represented as waiting for their Lord, we have here the
servants working for Him. There the inward spiritual life of the faithful was
described, here their external activity. There, by the fate of the foolish
virgins, we were warned against negligences and decays in the inner life; here,
by the doom of the slothful servant, against indolence in our outward vocation
and work. That parable enforced the need of keeping the heart with all
diligence; this of putting all diligence also into our outward service, if we
would give our account at the last with joy and not with sorrow. Very fitly,
therefore, that precedes, and this follows, since the maintenance of the life of
God in the heart is the sole condition of a profitable outward activity for the
kingdom of God. [1] There is another light in which we may consider severally
the virgins and the servants, and the distinction between them; namely, that
those represent the more contemplative, these the more active labouring members
of the Church. It is true that every member should partake of both, of
contemplation and action; so that even when thus regarded, both parables will
retain their application to all, but at the same time one element of the
Christian life may predominate in one member, the other in another. Each must
endeavour in his own case to adjust these, to give larger development to the one
or to the other, according to the gifts which he finds in himself, and the needs
which he beholds in others around him.

St. Mark has a briefer recension of this parable (Mark 13:34-36), but with
important variations, and reminiscences of the Ten Virgins (‘lest coming
suddenly He find you sleeping,’ ver. 36); and blending into one the two parables
which with a stricter accuracy St. Matthew keeps apart. St. Luke too has
preserved for us a parable, that of the Pounds (Luke 19:12), having many points
of contact with this, yet assuredly not identical with it, as Maldonatus and
others would fain have us to believe. [2] That was spoken when Jesus was now
drawing near to Jerusalem, but had not yet made his triumphal entry, - this,
while He was seated on the Mount of Olives, the third day after his entry into
the city. That was addressed to the multitude as well as to his disciples; this
to the innermost circle of trusted followers who should carry forward the work
which He had commenced on the earth. The scope of that, which is the more
complex parable, is twofold, and may be thus defined. The multitude, and perhaps
many that were following the Lord with true hearts, supposed that He was now
about to take his kingdom and to reign (John 6:15; Acts 1:6). He would make them
to understand that any open assumption of his kingdom was yet far distant; that
He must go away, and only after a long period return; and that not till then
should opposition to his kingdom cease. Meanwhile (and here the two parables run
parallel with one another), those who owned allegiance to Him were not
indolently to wait the time of his return, but earnestly to set forward his
kingdom, each according to the ability given him, confident that He would reward
every man’s work. In St. Luke’s parable this further circumstance appearing,
that He at his return would utterly destroy those who had sent after Him
messages of hate and defiance. The scope of his parable then is twofold. It is
addressed, in part, to that giddy, lightminded multitude, who were now following
Jesus, expecting that He would suffer Himself to be made such a king as they
desired; and who, when He refused the royalty which they would have forced upon
Him, might, perhaps, turn against Him, and join in the cry, ‘Crucify Him.’ These
are warned that they be not offended though the manifestation of the King and
the kingdom should be deferred for long; warned, above all, that they should not
be found in the ranks of his foes, whose dreadful doom might tarry long, but
would arrive at last. To the disciples also that parable conveys a warning,
namely, that the long interval between his going away and his coming again in
glory must be no period of sluggish inactivity, but one for the showing of all
good fidelity to an absent Lord, which fidelity would by Him be abundantly
rewarded, even as sloth and a neglect of his interests would meet also their due
recompense of reward. A modern assailant [3] of the historical accuracy of the
record, which in the four Gospels we have of our Lord’s words and works,
believes that he detects in that parable of St. Luke, just as in St. Matthew’s
record of the Marriage of the King’s Son (Matthew 22:1), a blending together,
through loose and floating oral tradition, of heterogeneous materials; - that in
fact we have there what should have been two parables, but these joined in one;
and this so awkwardly, that the points of juncture are plainly discernible. He
urges that ‘servants’ (ver. 13) and ‘citizens’ (ver. 14) stand in no relation to
one another, that with slightest alterations, verses 12, 14, 15, 27 would form a
complete whole, and might be entitled the parable of the Rebellious Citizens;
the remaining verses constituting the parable of the Pounds, which would then be
free from all admixture of foreign elements. [4] But let it only be kept in
mind, that there were two groups of hearers in different moral conditions and
needing different admonishments to whom the Lord addressed the parable of St.
Luke, and it will at once be perceived how He divided to all, to his own
disciples and to the multitude, according to their several necessities. In St.
Luke the parable is more complex, as having a more complex purpose to fulfil. In
St. Matthew it is simpler; being addressed to the disciples alone; the parts
intended for the multitude would have been superfluous here, and are accordingly
not introduced.

I reserve then the parable of the Pounds to be dealt with by itself and in its
own place; for the present we have to do with this of the Talents alone; though
gladly profiting by those cross lights which this and that mutually throw one
upon the other. ‘The kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far
country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.’ It
will be well to keep in mind here the relation of masters and slaves in
antiquity, and not to confound this with that between masters and servants, as
now existing among us. The master of a household going from home does not leave
with his servants, - it would be foreign to all the relations between them, -
moneys wherewith to trade in his absence; nor, if he did, could he punish them
on his return for neglect of his interests, as the slothful servant is punished
here. But slaves in antiquity were often artisans, as was lately the case with
serfs in Russia and slaves in America; and paying some fixed yearly tax to their
master or money was committed to them wherewith to trade on his account, or with
which to enlarge their business, bringing in to him a share of their profits.
[5] Some such arrangement as this we may here assume. The ‘man travelling into a
far country’ is the Lord Jesus Himself; who, as He had come from the Father, was
about to return to the Father; [6] and who, that his servants might be furnished
in his absence, was about to entrust them, and all their successors whose
representatives they were, with many excellent gifts. The day of Pentecost was
the time when the ‘goods,’ that is, spiritual powers and capacities, were by Him
most manifestly and most largely communicated to his servants, that they might
profit withal (John 16:7-10; Ephesians 4:8-12). Yet not for the first time then.
Much the Lord had imparted during his sojourn with them upon earth (John 15:3),
much before his Ascension (John 20:22); and from that day forth He has been
evermore delivering his goods to each successive generation of his servants (1
Corinthians 12:4-11). This being so, the parable is good for all times and for
all persons. As primarily addressed to the Apostles, the ‘goods’ are those
spiritual gifts which they needed; yet since all are called in their measure to
edify one another, and are entrusted with gifts, more or few, for which they
must render an account, the application of the parable stops not with them, but
is rather of universal application. Nor, because it relates first to spiritual
gifts, has it therefore no relation to other means and opportunities of serving
God, as wealth, reputation, abilities, learning; which, though not in themselves
spiritual, are yet given to men that they may be turned to spiritual ends, - are
capable of being consecrated to his service, for the use or abuse of which the
possessors will have therefore to render an account. Our wide use of the word
talent in English, growing as it does altogether out of this parable, is a
remarkable evidence of the extent to which this conviction has wrought itself
into the thoughts and language of men. [7] But different men receive these gifts
in very different proportions: ‘Unto one he gave five talents, to another two,
and to another one.’ [8] Not that the talents, as Theophylact explains it, were
to each ‘according to the measure of his faith and purity,’ for the faith which
purifies is itself one of the chiefest of these gifts; but he gave ‘to every man
according to his several ability,’ inasmuch as the natural is the ground upon
which the spiritual is superinduced, and grace does not dissolve the groundwork
of the individual character, nor abolish all its peculiarities, nor bring all
that are subject to it to a common standard (see 1 Corinthians 12:4-31;
Ephesians 4:16). The natural gifts are as the vessel, which may be large or may
be small, and which receives according to its capacity (Romans 12:6); [9] but
which in each case is, or may be, filled. We should not therefore think of him
who had received the two talents as incompletely furnished by comparison with
him who had received five, any more than a small circle is imperfect as compared
with a large. Unfitted he might be for so wide a sphere of labour, but
altogether as perfectly equipped for that to which he was destined; for ‘there
are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit:’ and as the body is not all eye,
nor all ear, nor are all in an army captains or commanders, [10] so neither in
the Church are all furnished to be leaders and governors. Yet while we speak of
natural capacity being as the vessel for receiving the wine of the Spirit, we
must not leave out of account that comparative unfaithfulness, stopping very
short of that which would cause the gift to be quite withdrawn, will narrow the
vessel, even as fidelity has the tendency to dilate it. So that one with far
inferior natural gifts will often bring in a more abundant return than another
with superior powers, who yet does bring in something. Certain broad cases are
mentioned in the parable; but they do not exclude other combinations of the
talents committed and the talents gained. There may be cases where he of the
two, or even of the one talent, as that of James Davies, the Welsh schoolmaster,
will have gained five; there will be other where he of the five will have added
to them but two.

Having thus committed the talents to his servants, and divided severally unto
each according to his powers, the lord ‘straightway took his journey.’ In the
things earthly the householder’s distribution of the gifts naturally and of
necessity precedes his departure; in the heavenly it is not altogether so; the
Ascension, or departure, goes before Pentecost, the chief day of the
distribution of gifts; yet the ‘straightway’ still remains in force; the
interval between them was the smallest, one following hard upon the other,
however the order was reversed.

We are next told what the servants did with the talents thus committed to them;
how they spent that time, so full of temptations to sloth and indolence, during
which their lord was away. ‘Then he that had received the five talents went and
traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had
received two, he also gained other two.’ There is this variation between the
present parable and St. Luke’s, that here the faithful servants multiply their
unequal sums in the same proportions; while there they multiply their equal sums
in different proportions; all had alike received a pound, but one gained with
that pound ten pounds and another five (Luke 19:16; Luke 19:18). Two most
important truths are thus brought out, as could scarcely have been done if only
one parable had been spoken; first by St. Matthew this, that according as we
have received will it be required from us and then by St. Luke this other, that
as men differ in fidelity, in zeal, in labour, so will they differ in the amount
of their spiritual gains. - But while two are thus faithful in the things
entrusted to them, it is otherwise with the third: ‘He that had received one
went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.’ How apt an image this,
for the failing to use divinely imparted gifts, since ‘wisdom that is hid, and
treasure that is hoarded up, what profit is in them both? Better is he that
hideth his folly than a man that hideth his wisdom’ [11] (Sir 20:30-31). In St.
Luke he hides his pound in a napkin; ‘but that would have been scarcely possible
with so large a sum as a talent, which is therefore more fitly said to have been
concealed ‘in the earth.’ [12]

‘And after a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with
them’ (compare Matthew 18:23). In this ‘after a long time’ Christ gave another
hint (see ver. 5) that his return might not follow so soon on his departure as
his disciples were disposed to take for granted. When, however, He does come, it
shall be to take account of every man’s work. This reckoning is not identical
with that of the rich man with the unjust steward (Luke 16:2), nor yet of the
king with the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:23-24), for both of those are in
this present life, while this is at the close of all. ‘And so he that had
received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou
deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents
more.’ In the joyful coming forward of the two faithful servants, we have an
example of ‘boldness in the day of judgment.’ They had something to show, as
Paul was confident he should have, when to his beloved Thessalonian converts he
said, ‘What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the
presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?’ (1 Thessalonians 2:19; 2
Corinthians 1:14; Php 4:1). The faithful servant says here, ‘Behold, I have
gained;’ in St. Luke, ‘Thy pound hath gained;’ thus between them they make up
the speech of St. Paul, ‘I - yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.’
And even this, ‘I have gained,’ is introduced by that other word, ‘thou
deliveredst unto me;’ - it is his lord’s money which has so multiplied in his
hands. [13] In this parable, as has been observed, the gain is according to the
talents, five for five, and two for two. Consistently with this, the
commendation of the servants is expressed in exactly the same language, even as
the reward to each is precisely the same. Each hears the same ‘Well done;’ to
each it is said, ‘Enter thou into the joy of thy lord;’ [14] each, that is, is
invited to a fellowship in his lord’s joy. The image on which this language
rests is that of a festival, with which the master celebrates his return, in the
joy of which each of the servants, so soon as he has rendered his account, and
shown that he has been true to his master’s interests in his absence, is bidden
freely to share. Under certain circumstances a master’s invitation of his slave
to sit down with him at table did itself constitute the act of manumission;
henceforth he was free. [15] Perhaps there may be here allusion to something of
the kind - the incorporation in an act of what once He had spoken in words,
‘Henceforth I call you not servants, . . . . but I have called you friends’
(John 15:15; Luke 41: 37; Revelation 3:20). It need hardly be observed that
since all, when they have done all, are to say of themselves ‘We are
unprofitable servants’ (Luke 17:10), in this ‘Well done’ there utters itself the
indulgence, the επιεικεια, of the Gospel, and not the rigour of the Law.

‘Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that
thou art an hard [16] man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where
thou hast not strawed: and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the
earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.’ We can well understand why he should
linger to the last, his heart secretly misgiving him, whatever face he may
attempt to put on the matter. It is true that he had not wasted his master’s
goods like the unjust steward (Luke 16:1), nor spent all his portion in riotous
living like the prodigal (Luke 15:13), nor was he ten thousand talents in debt
like the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:24); and it is an entire mistake to
confound his guilt with theirs, from which it should be kept wholly distinct;
for so the very persons whose consciences the parable was meant to reach escape
its force. When we weave the meshes of the spiritual net so large, all but the
biggest offenders contrive to slip through; and the parable is not for gross
sinners, who by their whole lives evidently deny that they count Christ to be
their Lord and master at all; who squander their talent, or refuse to
acknowledge that they have ever received one. The law and their own hearts tell
them plainly enough of their sin and danger. But the warning here is for those
who hide their talent, who, being equipped of God for a sphere of activity in
his kingdom, do yet choose, in Lord Bacon’s words, ‘a goodness solitary and
particular, rather than generative and seminal.’ Such might only too easily
deceive themselves, the temptations being so many to a shrinking from the pains
involved in a diligent laying out of this talent. There is a show of humility in
the excuses which would palliate this sloth: as for instance, ‘The care of my
own soul is sufficient to occupy me wholly. The responsibilities of any
spiritual work are so awful that I dare not undertake them; while I am employed
about the souls of others, I may perhaps be losing my own.’ How often we read in
the early Church of some who on pleas like these declined charges to which they
were called; and, when they should have been the salt of the earth, thought
rather to keep their own saltness by withdrawing from all those active
ministries in which they might have served their brethren in love. [17]

Very instructive also is the fact that it is the recipient of the one talent who
proves the defaulter here. Nothing in the scheme of the parable hindered the
attribution of this guilt to him of the five talents, or to him of the ten; for
there are only too many of those whom God has gifted the most richly, who
altogether fail to turn to his glory the marvellous powers with which He has
endowed them. Yet no, it is neither of these; but the servant of the one talent;
that so henceforward none may excuse his sloth on a plea like this, ‘So little
is committed to my charge, that it cannot matter how I administer that little.
It is so little that I can do for God, what signifies that little whether it be
done or left undone?’ [18] Christ will teach us here that it is not the more or
the less which has been entrusted, but the fidelity with which this has been
administered, which differences now in character, and will difference at the
last in doom, one servant from another.

What the root was out of which the sin of this servant grew he himself declares:
‘Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man;’ - for this is no excuse framed
for the occasion; but a true expression of the aspect in which this servant did
really contemplate his lord. The churl accounted him churlish, esteemed him such
a one as himself. He did not believe in his lord’s forgiving love, and in his
gracious acceptance of that work, with all its shortcomings, which was done for
him out of a true heart, and with a sincere desire to please him. This was his
wilful and guilty ignorance concerning the true character of the master whom he
was called to serve. But to know the name or, in other words, the true character
of God is to trust in Him; and this knowledge will save from any pusillanimous
or slothful shrinking from work for Him. They, indeed, who undertake this are
only too well aware that they shall commit manifold mistakes in their service,
which they might have avoided, if they had declined that service altogether;
that they will be guilty of many shortcomings, fall into many faults in the
handling of holy things, which they might escape if they held aloof from these
altogether. But shall those competently furnished and evidently called be
therefore justified or excused in so doing? would they not, so acting, come
under the condemnation of this servant? testify that they deemed of God, as he
deemed of his master, that He was a hard Lord, extreme to mark what was amiss, -
making no allowances, never accepting the will for the deed, but ever on the
watch to take advantage of the least failure or mistake on the part of his
servants? But this is not all. Proceeding still upon the plan of turning the
tables on his lord, and anticipating the accusation which shall be made against
himself, by first accusing him in a speech half cowering and half defiant, a
wonderful picture of the sinner’s bearing towards God, he scruples not to
ascribe to him the character of a harsh and unreasonable despot, who requires
the bricks, but refuses the straw (Exodus 5:7), who would reap what others have
sown, and gather with the rake, where others have winnowed with the fan, [19]
thus unrighteously entering on the fruits of other men’s toil. He declares
himself thus as much mistaken in the nature of the work, as in the character of
the master for whom that work should have been done. [20] In the darkness of his
heart he regards the work as something outward, to be done for God, not to be
wrought in Him, or rather, which He would work in and through his servants; as
though God called to a labour, and gave no ability for the labour, imposed a
task, and put no joy nor consolation into the hearts of them that fulfilled it.
No wonder, therefore, that he should go on to say, ‘I was afraid and went and
hid thy talent in the earth;’ [21] justifying the caution and timidity which he
had shown, explaining why he would attempt nothing, and venture upon nothing. He
feared to trade on that talent, lest in the necessary risks of business, seeking
to gain other he might lose that one, and so enrage his master against himself;
even as men might profess to fear to lay themselves out for the winning of other
souls, lest, so doing, they might endanger their own. - ‘Lo, there thou hast
that is thine. [22] As it is not denied that he does give back the talent to his
lord, how, it may be asked, could this be? how, that is, can God’s gifts be
hidden, and yet restored to him entire; since the suffering them to lie idle is
in fact one form of wasting them? In reality, they could not be so restored. It
is only that men imagine they can be thus given back, when they take for granted
that keeping the negative precepts is all that God requires, that this done they
will restore to Him his own. [23] The lord of the parable is at no pains to
dispute or deny the character which this recreant servant has drawn of him, but
answers him on his own grounds, making his own mouth to condemn him (Job 15:6; 2
Samuel 1:16): ‘Thou wicked and slothful servant;’ - ‘wicked,’ in that he
defended himself by calumniating his lord, and ‘slothful,’ as all which he had
left undone declared; - ‘thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather
where I have not strawed: thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the
exchangers’ (or ‘to the bankers,’ as in the Revised Version), ‘and then at my
coming I should have received mine own with usury; [24] or, seeing that ‘usury’
is always regarded now as the taking of an unconscionable price for the loan of
money, ‘with interest’ would be better; and so in the Revised Version we read.
‘Be it so, grant that I am all which thou sayest, severe, exacting, harsh; and
yet thou oughtest to have done me justice still; and this with little or no
peril to thyself thou mightest have done; and obtained for me, if not the larger
gains possible through some bolder course, yet some small and certain returns
for my moneys.’ It is hard to find any distinct spiritual signification for this
putting the money to the exchangers - to affirm with confidence whether it has
such, or is only introduced to add vivacity to the narrative; as the natural
exclamation of an offended master. Olshausen ingeniously explains it: ‘Those
timid natures which are not suited to independent labour in the kingdom of God,
are here counselled at least to attach themselves to other stronger characters,
under whose leading they may lay out their gifts for the service of the Church.’
[25] Perhaps, without pressing the words quite so much in detail, we should not
err in saying that they mean generally, ‘If thou wouldest not do and dare for me
in great ventures of faith, yet at all events in humbler paths, in safer and
less perilous, thou mightest have shown fidelity, and have preserved me from
loss.’ [26] His doom, who had neither on a large scale, nor yet on a small, set
forward his master’s interests, is now pronounced. It has two aspects. It is
first, the forfeiture of the neglected talent; and secondly, the casting of him
who possessed that talent, but would not use it, into ‘the outer darkness.’ And
first, he forfeits what he had, and sees it transferred to another: ‘Take
therefore the talent from him’ [27] - (we have here an important limitation of
Romans 11:29), ‘and give it unto him which hath ten talents.’ This deprivation,
in part the directly penal, is in part the natural consequence of his sloth. For
there is this analogy between things natural and spiritual, that as a limb,
never called into exercise, loses its strength by degrees, its muscles and
sinews disappearing, even so the powers which God gives us, unexercised, fade
and fail from us: ‘From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he
hath.’ And, on the other hand, as the limb is not wasted by strenuous exertion,
but rather nerved and strengthened more, so fares it with the gifts of God; they
are multiplied by being laid out; a truth we recognize in our proverb, ‘Drawn
wells are seldom dry;’ [28] and thus, ‘Unto every one that hath shall be given,
and he shall have abundance.’ Nor is it merely that the one receives more than
before he had, and the other loses what he had. This is not all; but that very
gift which the one forfeits the other obtains; one is enriched with a talent
withdrawn from the other; one takes the crown which another has let go
(Revelation 3:11); even as we see continually one by the ordinance of God
stepping into the place and the opportunities which another has neglected,
despised, or misused, and so has lost (Genesis 25:34; Genesis 27:36; Genesis
49:4; Genesis 49:8; 1 Samuel 16:1; 1 Samuel 16:13; 1 Kings 2:35; Isaiah
22:15-25; Acts 1:25-26; Romans 11:11). Neither let us forget that this taking
away of the unused talent, which will find its consummation at the day of
judgment, is in this present time continually going forward. And herein is
mercy, that this is not done all at once, but little by little; so that, till
all is withdrawn, all may be recovered. At each successive step in the
withdrawal, there is still some warning to hold fast what is left, ‘to
strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die.’ True it is that at
each successive stage of this decline the effort required for this is greater,
the strength for it less. But to complain of this, is to complain that sin is
sin, and brings its penalties with it; and it still remains possible till the
last spark is extinguished, to fan that spark again into a flame: the sense of
increasing darkness and death being that which may arouse to a consciousness of
danger, to the need of an earnest revival of God’s work in the soul. But this
servant never awoke to the sense of his danger till all was irrevocably lost.
And now the sentence of the forfeiture of his unused talent is pronounced; - the
forfeiture itself had in some sort taken place already. Nor is this all. It is
further said to those that stand by (see Luke 19:24), ‘And cast ye the
unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth’ (Matthew 13:42; Matthew 22:13). Olshausen would fain distinguish between
the ‘outer darkness’ of this passage and of Matthew 22:13, and the furnace of
fire’ of Matthew 13:42, that while the latter is the expression of total and
final loss, the former, though punitive, is also remedial. But not to urge other
objections against a scheme which has no Scriptural warrant, namely, that for
those who have been brought within the sphere of the Gospel, the present
dispensation is not decisive, the words which in each case follow, ‘There shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth,’ set the two dooms on the same awful level,
however one may have a more dreadful sound than the other. A comparison of the
causes which led to this servant’s exclusion, and those which led to the
exclusion of the foolish virgins, is full of warning and instruction for all.
Those virgins erred through a vain over-confidence, this servant through an
under-confidence, that was equally vain and sinful. They were overbold, he was
not bold enough. Thus two wrong aspects under which we might be tempted to
regard the service of God, two rocks upon opposite sides on which faith is in
danger of making shipwreck, are laid down for us, as in a chart, that we may
avoid them both. Those virgins counted it too easy a thing to serve the Lord;
this servant counted it too hard. They esteemed it but as the going forth to a
festival which should presently begin; he as a hard, dreary, insupportable work
for a thankless master. In them we behold the perils which beset the sanguine,
in him the melancholic, complexion. They represent a class needing such warnings
as this: ‘Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and
few there be that find it ‘(Matthew 7:14); ‘Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling’ (Php 2:12); ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny
himself’ (Matthew 16:24). He is representative of a class which should need to
be reminded: ‘Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear’ (Romans
8:15); ‘Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned
with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest; . . . but ye are come
unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, . . . and to Jesus the
mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh
better things than that of Abel’ (Hebrews 12:18; Hebrews 12:22; Hebrews 12:24).

FOOTNOTES

[1] Or they may be coordinated with one another. Thus Gerhard (Harm. Evang.
164): ‘The shining lamp is the talent devoted to use; the extinguished lamp is
the talent unemployed and hidden away in the earth.’

[2] Their arguments are well disposed of by Gerhard (Harm. Evang.154, ad init.);
and no less by C. à Lapide, who says of that other, ‘This parable was spoken at
another time, with another aim and after another manner.’

[3] Strauss, Leben Jesu, vol. 1: p. 675.

[4] Unger, on the same ground of the lack of unity in this parable, had
anticipated this objection(De Par. Jes. Nat. p. 130): ‘When therefore I call to
mind the simplicity of the parable as told 9by Matthew, and the simplicity and
unity of all the parables of Christ, Luke seems to me to have here joined on to
this simple parable another, similar indeed, but which was put forth on another
occasion and in another way.’

[5] See Greswell, Exp. of the Parables, vol. 5: part 2: p. 27, seq.; and the
Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antt. s. 5: Servus, pp. 867, 873.

[6] Auct. Oiler. Imperf. Hom. 53: ‘About to go to the Father, He speaks of
himself as going into a far country, because of his love for the saints whom He
was leaving on earth, since really He was rather in a far country when in the
world.’

[7] ‘Not as their own do men possess their goods The gods are owners, we but
hold and guard.’Euripides, Phoenissa, 555.

[8] Cajetan: ‘God orders all things sweetly in the Church. He burdens no man
beyond his strength, and refuses no man a gift fitted to his strength.’ On this
distribution of the possibilities of service, Leo the Great, De Voc. Omit. Goat.
1: 8, has some excellent remarks. Thus, as he reminds us well, ‘it is one thing
to work, another to have the ability to work.’

[9] Jerome: ‘In delivering the Gospel doctrine Christ gave more to one and less
to another, not by way of generosity or economy, but according to the strength
of the receiver; like as also the Apostle says of himself that those who could
not take solid food he fed with milk.’

[10] See Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. §37, where this comparison at some length is
used.

[11] Compare Shakspeare (Measure for Measure, Acts 1 : Sc. 1)‘Heaven doth with
us as we with torches do; Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues Did
not go forth of us, ‘twere all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not
finely touched But to fine issues: nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple
of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory
of a creditor, Both thanks and use.’

[12] Jerome (Ad Damas.) finds a further distinction between hiding in the earth
and in a napkin: ‘This talent must not be laid up in a napkin, that is be
daintily and slothfully treated; nor must it be buried in the earth, that is be
obscured by earthly thoughts.’

[13] Grotius: ‘He modestly attributes the gain to his lord’s money, not to his
own industry.’

[14] Leighton: ‘It is but little we can receive here, some drops of joy that
enter into us; but there we shall enter into joy, as vessels put into a sea of
happiness.’ So Gerhard: ‘For so great shall be that joy that it may not be
contained in man or be comprehended by him, therefore man enters into that
incomprehensible joy, but the joy does not enter into man as if by man
comprehended.’ H. de Sto. Victore (Erud. Theol. 3): ‘Joy is threefold, the joy
of the world, the joy of thyself, the joy of thy Lord. The first springs from
worldly affluence, the second from a good conscience, the third from the
experience of eternity. Therefore thou must not go forth into the joy of the
world, thou must not abide in thine own joy, but thou must enter into the joy of
thy Lord.... To the first joy man went forth when he fell from Paradise; to the
second he begins to attain when through faith reconciled unto God; but at the
third he will only arrive, when by seeing him as He is he shall enjoy him
eternally.’

[15] See the Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antt. s. 5: Manumissio, p. 596. 10

[16] The σκληρος here is stronger than the αυστηρος in the parallel passage of
St. Luke (Luke 19:21); see my Synonyms of the New Testament, §14. All English
Versions have from the beginning rendered this by ‘hard,’ on which it would be
impossible to improve; but abuTgp4s was’ stern’ in Wiclif, ‘strait’ in the early
Reformed Versions, and ‘austere’ first in the Rheims.

[17] Augustine, preaching on the anniversary of his exaltation to the Episcopate
(Serm. cccxxxix. 3), uses this parable, speaking of a temptation which he felt
to withdraw from active labour in the Church, and to cultivate a solitary piety:
‘If I am not trading but am hoarding my money, the Gospel terrifies me. For I
might say: Why should I weary men, saying unto the wicked: Be it far from you to
act wickedly; act in this way, cease to act in that? Why should I be burdensome
to men? I have received how I must live, even as I am commanded, as I am
instructed: let me deliver as I have received; why should I give account for
others? But the Gospel terrifies me. For with respect to that most tranquil
withdrawal from care, no one would convince me: there is nothing better, nothing
sweeter, than, without disturbance from any, to contemplate the Divine treasure:
it is sweet, it is good. To preach, to reprove, to chide, to build up, to be
busied with everyone, is a great burden, a great weight, a great labour. Who
would not shun that labour? But the gospel terrifies us.’ And again (In Ev. Joh.
Tract. 10) ‘If thou hast become cold, languid, looking only to thyself,
sufficing thyself, as it were, and saying in thy heart: Why should I care for
the sins of others? my own soul suffices for me, let me keep this whole unto God
- Does not that servant come to thy mind, who hid his talent and would not trade
with it? For was he accursed because he lost it, and not rather because he kept
it without gain?’ Cf. Enarr. in Psalms 99:2; De Fide et Oper. 17.

[18] Grotius: ‘Christ took as his example of negligence the case of him to whom
least was entrusted, that no one may hope to be excused from every kind of
labour because he has not received any distinguished gifts from God.’

[19] This is the meaning of the ‘strawed’ in our Version, which does not refer
to the orderly strewing of the sower’s seed (in that case the same thing would
be twice said over), but to the scattering of the chaff from the floor (Matthew
3:12), that the wheat purged from this might be gathered into the barn. The
original Greek shows plainly this; it expresses the dispersing, making to fly in
every direction, as a pursuer the routed enemy (Luke 1:51; Acts 5:37); as the
wolf the sheep (Matthew 26:31); as the prodigal his goods (Luke 15:13; Luke
16:1); or as here, the husbandman the chaff. Thus rightly Schott ‘It expresses
the idea of winnowing the corn stored in the threshing floor.’

[20] Aquinas: ‘God requires nothing from man save the good which He himself
planted in us;’ and Augustine putting the same truth in the form of a prayer:
‘Give that which Thou biddest, and bid that which Thou wilt.’

[21] Hilary (Comm. in Matt. in loc.) in the words, ‘I was afraid,’ hears the
voice of those resolved to abide, like the Jew, in the law and in the spirit of
bondage, shrinking from the liberty and activity of Christian service: ‘He says
“I feared thee,” as though it is through reverence and fear of the ancient
precepts that he is abstaining from the use of Gospel freedom.’

[22] Cocceius: ‘The proud boast of the preservation of the talent betokens the
confidence and security of the man who easily satisfies himself.’ See Suicer,
Thes. s. 5: τάλαντον.

[23] There is an instructive Eastern tale, which in its deeper meaning runs
remarkably parallel to this parable. It is as follows ‘There went a man from
home: and to his neighbours twain

He gave, to keep for him, two sacks of golden grain. Deep in his cellar one the
precious charge concealed; And forth the other went and strewed it in his field.
The man returns at last - asks of the first his sack

“Here, take it; ‘tis the same; thou hast it safely back.” Unharmed it shows
without; but when he would explore His sack’s recesses, corn there finds he now
no more

One half of all therein proves rotten and decayed, Upon the other half have worm
and mildew preyed. The putrid heap to him in ire he cloth return Then of the
other asks, “Where is my sack of corn?” Who answered, “Come with me, behold how
it has sped And took, and showed him fields with waving harvests spread. Then
cheerfully the man laughed out and cried, “This oneHad insight, to make up for
the other that had none The letter he observed, but thou the precept’s sense And
thus to thee and me shall profit grow from hence; In harvest thou shalt fill two
sacks of corn for me, The residue of right remains in full for thee.”’

[24] Συτόκω, with its ‘produce.’ So fenus is explained by Varro, from ‘fetus,
produce, and from a kind of breeding of the begetting and in creasing money.’
Plato, with the same image, calls the original sum πατήρ and the interest του
πατρος εκγονοι (Rep. 2: 196). To estimate how great the master’s gains even so
might have been, how largely the original sum might be made ‘to sweat its
miserly eleven per cent.,’ we must keep in mind the high rates of interest paid
in antiquity. See the Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antt. s. 5: Interest of Money, p.
523; and Becker (Charicles, vol. 1: p. 237), who has a graphic account of the
bankers of antiquity.

[25] So Cajetan: ‘He means by this that if the servant did not dare to use the
gift of God in transactions of much risk, he should yet have used it in
transactions in which with a small risk there is yet gain.’ Has the saying so
often quoted in the early Church as our Lord’s, yet nowhere found in the New
Testament, ‘Be ye notable,’ good, or prudent, ‘money-changers,’ its origin here?
Many have thought so; but it is difficult to see why, except for the occurrence
here of the word τραπεζιται. The point of that exhortation is this: Be as
experienced moneychangers, who readily distinguish good coin from bad, receiving
that, but rejecting this. Now there is no comparing of the disciples with
money-changers here, and such an exhortation lies wholly aloof from the scope of
the parable. The precept would be more easily deduced from 1 Thessalonians
5:21-22; even as we find Γίνεσθε δοκιμοι τραπεζιται sometimes called not a
dominical, but an apostolic, saying, or attributed to St. Paul by name, and by
some even inserted before that very passage; so Hänsel (Theol. Stud. and Krit.
1836, p. 179, sqq.), who discusses the subject well. Cf. Cotelerius, Patt.
Apostol. vol. 1: p. 249, and Annott. in Euseb. Oxford, 1842, vol. 1: p.
930.-There being mention of interest here, rpa7rECi’T71s is the fitter word than
κολλυβιστης, which, however, rightly finds place at Matthew 21:12; Mark 11:15.

[26] Godet here observes: ‘The Christian to whom the sweet experience of grace
is lacking must be the most anxious of labourers.’

[27] Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. xxxviiii. 4): ‘What must they expect who have
squandered in luxury, if those who have been slothful in keeping are condemned?
The punishment of the embezzler must be gathered from the punishment of the
sluggard.’

[28] Exactly so Chrysostom (De Christi Prec., Con. Anom. 10): ‘As a fountain
from which water is continually drawn forth is thereby rather purified, and
bubbles up the more, but being staunched fails altogether, so the spiritual gift
and word of doctrine, if it be continually drawn forth, and if he who will has
liberty to share it, rises up the more, but if restrained by envy and a grudging
spirit, diminishes, and at last perishes altogether.’ Augustine too (or
Caesarius, as the Benedictine editors affirm, Augustini Opp. vol. 5: p. 81,
Appendix) admirably discourses on the way in which gifts imparted multiply, and
withholden diminish, - making spiritual application of the story of the widow (2
Kings 4 :), whose two sons Elisha redeemed from bondage, by multi. plying the
oil which she had in her vessel so long as she provided other vessels into which
to pour it; that oil, when there were no more of these, stopping at once: - And
the Scripture saith that the oil stopped after she could not find where to put
it. So, beloved brethren, charity is ever increasing so long as it finds an
object. And therefore we should even of set purpose search for vessels into
which we may pour the oil, since we have proved that, while we pour it into
others, we have the more. Now the vessels of charity are men.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 16: 15-PARABLE 14. THE TWO DEBTORS.
========================================================================

PARABLE 14. THE TWO DEBTORS.

Luke 7:41-43.

IT may be taken as agreed on by all that the two earlier Evangelists and the
last, in their several records of the anointing of Christ by a woman, refer to
one and the same event (Matthew 26:7; Mark 14:3; John 12:3). The question
whether St. Luke refers to the same, and the woman in his Gospel, ‘which was a
sinner,’ be Mary the sister of Lazarus, as then must follow, is more difficult,
and has been variously answered from earliest times in the Church. The main
arguments for the identity not merely of three, but of all four relations are,
first, the name Simon, as that of the giver of the feast on one occasion (Luke
7:40), and most probably so on the other, for he certainly is the master of the
house where it was given (Matthew 26:6); secondly, the unlikelihood that the
Lord should have been twice honoured in so very unusual a manner; and thirdly,
the further unlikelihood that there should have been twice on the part of some
present a misinterpretation of the homage offered, and an offence taken. To all
this it may be fairly replied, that the name Simon was much too common among the
Jews for any stress to be laid upon its recurrence. [1] Then, too, the anointing
of the feet with odours or with ointments, though less usual than the anointing
of the head, yet was not without precedent; [2] the only remarkable coincidence
here being, that Mary the sister of Lazarus, and the woman ‘which was a sinner,’
should have each wiped the feet of the Lord with the hairs of the head (Luke
7:38; John 12:3). If such had been any merely fantastic honour paid to the Lord,
which to offer would scarcely have suggested itself to more persons than one, we
might well wonder to find it on two independent occasions repeated. But regard
it as an expression of homage, such as would naturally rise out of the deepest
and truest feelings of the human heart, and then its repetition is nowise
wonderful. And such it is; in the hair is the glory of the woman (1 Corinthians
11:15), long beautiful tresses having evermore been held as her chiefest
adornment; [3] while if they in the human person are highest in place and in
honour, the feet are lowest in both. What then was this service, but the
incorporation in an outward act, of the inward truth, that the highest and
chiefest of man’s honour and glory and beauty are lower and meaner than the
lowest that pertains to God; that they only find their true place, when doing
service to Him? And what wonder that He, who stirred as none else might ever do,
feelings of intensest love and profoundest reverence in a multitude of hearts,
should twice have been the object of this honour? - an honour, we may observe,
with some differences in the motives which on the one occasion and the other
called it forth. In one case, in that of Mary the sister of Lazarus, the
immediately impelling motive was intense gratitude. She had found the words of
Christ words of eternal life to herself, and He had crowned his gifts by
restoring to her a beloved brother from the grave. The pound of ointment ‘very
costly’ was her thank-offering; and as less of shame was mingled in her
feelings, she anointed both her Lord’s feet and also his head. But what brought
this woman with the alabaster box of ointment to Jesus, was an earnest yearning
after the forgiveness of her sins; and she, in her deep abasement of soul before
Him, presumed not to approach Him nearer than to anoint his feet only, standing
the while behind Him. Kissing them with those lips, with which she had so often
enticed the simple (Proverbs 5:3; Proverbs 7:13), and wiping with the hairs of
her head, which had been so often nets with which she had entangled souls (1
Peter 3:3), she realized, as in an outward act, the bidding of St. Paul, ‘As ye
have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity;
even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness’ (Romans
6:19). And the precious unguent, once poured upon her own person, to enhance the
unholy seduction of her charms (Jdt 10:3), this she now devotes to the service
of her Lord, [4] just as the women of Israel gave the looking-glasses of their
vanity to be made into the laver of brass for the tabernacle (Exodus 38:8). And
to the third argument it may be answered, that though the two incidents have
this in common, that in both the act was misinterpreted and some offended, yet
beyond this there is no similarity. In the one instance, the Pharisee, the giver
of the feast, is offended; in the other, some of the disciples, and mainly
Judas: the Pharisee is offended with the Lord, Judas not so much with Him as
with the woman; the Pharisee, because the Lord’s conduct seems inconsistent with
his reputation for holiness, but Judas from a meaner motive of covetousness. To
all which we may add, that there is nothing to make probable, that Mary of the
happy family circle in Bethany, [5] to whom the Lord bears such honourable
testimony (Luke 10:42), had ever been aforetime one to whom the title of
‘sinner,’ [6] as it is here meant, could belong; and, as one has well urged,
with the risen Lazarus at the table (John 12:2), even this Pharisee would hardly
have jumped so rapidly to his conclusion that his guest was no prophet of God
after all.

These arguments appear so convincing, that one is surprised to discover how much
opinion has fluctuated from the first, on the relation of these histories one to
another, - the Greek fathers generally keeping them apart, while they are
identified by the Latin. This last opinion, however, finally prevailed, and was
almost universal from the time of Gregory the Great, who threw all his weight
into this scale, until the times of the Reformation. Then, when the Scriptures
were again subjected to a more critical examination, the other interpretation
gradually became prevalent anew, and had for some while been recognized almost
without a dissentient voice, till Schleiermacher not very long ago, and more
lately Hengstenberg, have maintained, and both with singular ability, [7] that
the anointing happened but once. [8] But to enter further on this debate would
be alien to the present purpose and the passage containing the parable of the
Two Debtors will be considered without any reference to the histories in the
other Gospels, with which, as I am convinced, it has certain accidental
coincidences, but this is all. Our Lord had been invited by one of the
Pharisees, and this was not the only occasion, for see Luke 11:37, that He would
eat with him; He was as prompt to accept the invitation of a Pharisee as of a
chief publican, for one needed Him as much as did the other; ‘and he went into
the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat.’ That a woman, and one not better
reputed than this woman was, should have pressed into the guest-chamber,
uninvited by the master of the house or by the Lord, and should have there been
permitted to offer to him the homage which she did, may seem strange; - yet does
not require the supposition of something untold to explain it, as that she was
related to Simon (Hengstenberg thinks she was his sister-in-law, Simon being for
him the husband of Martha), or lived in the same house, - suppositions
altogether foreign to the narrative, not to say in contradiction to it. A little
acquaintance with the manners of the East, where meals are so public, where
ranks are not separated by such rigid barriers as with us, will make us
understand how easily all recorded here might have happened; [9] not to say
that, even had there been obstacles insuperable to another, or to herself in
another state of mind, these would easily have been put aside, or broken
through, by an earnestness such as now possessed her; it being the very nature
of such an earnestness to break through and despise these barriers, nor ever to
ask itself whether, in the world’s judgment, it be in season,’ or ‘out of
season.’ [10] In the thoughts which passed through the heart of the Pharisee, -
displeased that the Lord, so far from repelling, graciously accepted the homage
of this suppliant, - the true spirit of a Pharisee betrays itself, [11] unable
to raise himself above a ceremonial defilement, or to understand of holiness as
standing in aught save the purifying of the flesh. [12] In the conclusion to
which he arrives, ‘This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what
manner of woman this is,’ we trace the prevailing belief, that discerning of
spirits was one of the notes of a true prophet, above all of the greatest
prophet of all, the Messiah, - a belief founded on Isaiah 11:3-4 (see 1 Kings
14:6; 2 Kings 1:3; 2 Kings 5:26); nor can it be doubted that such a power of
searching hearts is in the New Testament and with a certain emphasis claimed
continually for the Lord (Matthew 9:12; Matthew 12:24; John 1:47-49; John 2:25;
John 4:29; John 6:61). [13] The Pharisee in fact mentally put the Lord into this
dilemma, - Either He does not know the true character of this woman, in which
case He lacks that discernment of spirits which marks a true prophet; or, if He
knows, and yet endures her touch, and is willing to accept homage at such hands,
He lacks that holiness which is no less the note of a prophet of God; such
therefore in either case He cannot be. As these thoughts passed through his
mind, he may have already repented of the superfluous honour he had shown to
one, whose pretensions to a mission from God he had in this summary way
convinced himself were unfounded. The Lord shows that He is indeed a discerner
of the thoughts of hearts, by reading at once what is passing in his. Laying his
finger without more ado on the tainted spot which was there, He says, ‘Simon, I
have somewhat to say unto thee.’ The other cannot refuse to hear; nor has he so
entirely renounced all faith in the higher character of his guest, but that he
still addresses Him with an appellation of respect ‘Master, say on.’ With this
leave to speak asked and obtained, the parable is uttered: ‘There was a certain
creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other
fifty.’ In the words themselves there is no difficulty, but in their application
one or two will presently claim to be considered. God, it needs not to say, is
the creditor, men the debtors (Matthew 18:24), and sins the debts (Matthew
6:12). The sums named, ‘five hundred pence,’ and ‘fifty,’ vary indeed, but not
at all in the same proportion as those in the parable of the Unmerciful Servant
(Matthew 18:24; Matthew 18:28). There one owes ten thousand talents, and another
a hundred pence, - an enormous difference, even as the difference is enormous
between the sins which a man commits against God, and those which his fellow-man
may commit against him; here the difference is immeasurably less, the sums
varying only in the proportion of ten to one, for no such incalculable diversity
exists between the sins which one man and another commit against God.

‘And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me
therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose
that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly
judged.’ Our difficulties meet us in the transfer of what is here said, from the
natural world to the spiritual. Are we to conclude, as at first might appear,
that there is any advantage in having multiplied transgressions; in owing to God
a large debt rather than a small; that the wider one has wandered from God, the
closer, if brought back at all, he will cleave to Him afterwards? the more sin,
the more love? Would it not then follow, ‘Let us do evil, that good may come,’ -
let us sin much now, that hereafter we may love much, avoiding that
luke-warmness of affections which will be their condition that have sinned but
little? And must we not then conclude, that for a man to have been preserved
from gross offences in the time before he was awakened to a deeper religious
earnestness, - or, better still, to have grown out of his baptismal root, -
this, instead of being a matter of everlasting thanksgiving, would interpose an
effectual barrier to any very near and high communion of love with his Saviour?
And to understand the passage thus, would it not involve a moral contradiction,
- that the more a man has emptied himself of good, - the more he has laid waste
all nobler affections and powers, - the deeper his heart has sunk in selfishness
and sensuality (for sin is all this), the more capable he will be of the highest
and purest love? But the whole matter is clear, if we contemplate the debt, not
as an objective, but a subjective debt, - not as so many outward transgressions
and outbreaks of evil, but as so much conscience of sin; which we know is nowise
in proportion to a man’s actual and positive violations of God’s law. Often they
who have least of what the world can call sin, or rather crime (for the world,
as such, knows nothing of sin), have the strongest sense of the exceeding
sinfulness of sin, are most conscious of it as a root of bitterness within them,
and therefore, as they have most groaned under the evil, are the most thankful
for the gift of a Redeemer. But ‘he to whom little is forgiven’ is not
necessarily one who has sinned little, but one who lacks any strong conviction
of the malignity of sin, and of his own share in the universal disease; who
therefore, while he may have no serious objection to God’s plan of salvation,
nay, a cold respect, as had this Pharisee, for Christ, yet esteems that he could
have done as well, or nearly as well, without Him. He loves little, because he
has little sense of a deliverance wrought for him; because he never knew what it
was to lie under the curse of a broken law, and then by that Saviour to be set
free, and brought into the liberty of the children of God. [14]

Simon himself was an example of one who thus loved little, who having little
sense of sin, but slightly felt his need of a Redeemer, and therefore loved that
Redeemer but little; and he had betrayed this faintness of his love in small yet
significant matters. Counting the invitation itself a sufficient honour done to
his guest, he had withheld from Him courtesies almost universal in the East; had
neither given Him water for the feet (Genesis 18:4; Judges 19:21; 1 Timothy
5:10), nor offered Him the kiss of peace (Genesis 33:4; Exodus 18:7), nor
anointed his head with oil, as was ever the custom at festivals (Psalms 23:5;
Psalms 141:5; Matthew 6:17). But while he had fallen thus short of the customary
courtesies, that woman had far exceeded them. He had not poured water on the
Saviour’s feet; she had washed them, not with water, but with her tears - the
blood of her heart, [15] as Augustine calls them, and then wiped them with the
hairs of her head; he had not given the single kiss of salutation on the cheek,
she had multiplied kisses, and those upon the feet; he had not anointed the head
of Jesus with ordinary oil, but she with precious ointment had anointed even his
feet.

‘Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she
loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.’ An
embarrassment, by all acknowledged, lies on the face of these words: first, how
to bring them into agreement with the parable, for in that the debtor is said to
love much, because forgiven much, and not to be forgiven much, because he loved
much; and again, how to bring them into agreement with the general tenor of
Scripture, which ever teaches that we love God, because He first loved us, -
that faith is the one previous condition of forgiveness, and not love, which is
not a condition at all, but a consequence. Some have felt these difficulties so
strongly, that in their fear lest the Roman Catholics should draw any support
for their fides formata from the passage, which indeed they are willing enough
to do, - they have affirmed that the word designating the cause stands for that
designating the consequence, - that ‘her sins are forgiven, for she loved much,’
means ‘her sins are forgiven, therefore she loved much.’ [16] But, in the first
place, she did not as yet know her sins to be forgiven, - the absolving words
are only spoken in the verse following; - and moreover, this escape from a
doctrinal embarrassment, by violence done to the plain words of the text, will
find no favour with them who believe that in the interpretation of Scripture, as
of any other book, grammar, and the laws of human speech, should first be
respected; that the doctrine can take care of itself, and will never in the end
be found in contradiction with itself. And as regards advantage which Roman
Catholic controversialists would fain draw from the passage, such, whatever the
explanation, there can be none. The parable stands in the heart of the
narrative, an insuperable barrier against such. He who owed the larger debt is
not forgiven it as freely as the other is his smaller debt, because of the
greater love which he before felt towards the creditor; [17] but, on the
contrary, the sense of a larger debt remitted makes him afterwards love him that
remitted it more. Moreover, were it meant that her sins were forgiven, because -
in their sense who would make charity justify, and not faith, [18] - she loved
much, the other clause in the sentence would necessarily be, ‘but he who loveth
little, to the same little is forgiven.’ But the words, ‘for she loved much,’
may best be explained by considering what the strong sorrow for sin, and the
earnest desire after forgiveness, such as this woman displayed, mean, and from
whence they arise. Surely from a deep sense in the sinner’s heart, that by his
sins he has separated himself from that God who is Love, while yet he cannot do
without his love, - from a feeling that the heart must be again permitted to
love Him, again assured of his love towards it, else it will utterly wither and
die. Sin unforgiven is felt to be the great hindrance to this; and the desire
after forgiveness, - if it be not a mere selfish desire after personal safety,
in which case it can be nothing before God, - is the desire for the removal of
this hindrance, that so the heart may be free to love and to know itself beloved
again. This desire then is itself love at its negative pole; not as yet made
positive, for the absolving word of grace can alone make it this. It is the
flower of love desiring to bud and bloom, but not venturing to put forth its
petals in the chilling atmosphere of God’s anger; but which will do this at
once, when to the stern winter of his wrath the genial spring of his love
succeeds. In this sense that woman ‘loved much.’ All that she did attested the
intense yearning of her heart after a reconciliation with a God of love, from
whom she had separated herself by her sins. All her tears and her services
witnessed how much she yearned to be permitted to love Him and to know herself
beloved of Him; and on account of this her love, which, in fact, was faith [19]
(see ver. 50, ‘Thy faith hath saved thee ‘), she obtained forgiveness of her
sins. This acknowledgment that a life apart from God is not life but death, with
the conviction that in God there is fulness of grace and blessing, and that He
is willing to impart of this fulness to all who bring the vessels of empty
hearts to be filled by Him; this, call it faith or initiatory love, is what
alone makes man receptive of any divine gift; and this the Pharisee, in the
self-sufficiency of his legal righteousness, [20] had scarcely at all; he
therefore deriving little or no profit from that nearness to Christ into which
by God’s gracious providence he was brought. But that woman had it in large
measure; she therefore bore away the choicest and best blessing which the Son of
God had to bestow; to her those words of joy were spoken, ‘Thy sins are forgiven
‘(cf. Luke 5:20). Many were offended; ‘they that sat at meat with him began to
say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?’ offended as others
before at a similar bestowal of pardon had been (Matthew 9:2-3; Mark 1 7), yet
not venturing openly to utter their displeasure; He meanwhile, not disconcerted
by these murmurs of theirs, but implicitly reasserting his claim to forgive
sins, followed up one word of grace and power by another, ‘Thy faith hath saved
thee (cf. Mark 10:52; Matthew 9:29); go in peace;’ and thus in her it was
fulfilled, that ‘where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’

FOOTNOTES

[1] Besides these two, as I take them, there are nine Simons mentioned in the
New Testament: Simon Peter (Matt. iv. 18); Simon Zelotes (Luke vi. 15); Simon,
one of the Lord’s brethren (Matt. xiii. 55); Simon of Cyrene (Matt. xxvii. 32);
Simon, father of Judas Iscariot (John vi. 71); Simon Magus (Acts viii. 9);
Simon, Peter’s host at Joppa (Acts ix. 43); Simeon, for it is the same name, who
took the infant Saviour in his arms in the temple (Luke ii. 25); and Simeon
called Niger, a prophet at Antioch (Acts xiii. 1).

[2] Thus Curtius, of the Indian monarchs (viii. 9): ‘The sandals are taken off
and the feet anointed with perfumes;’ and Plutarch mentions, but on a peculiar
occasion, wine and sweetsmelling essences as so used (Becker, Charicles, vol. i.
p. 428). Sandals were taken off before meals, which would leave the service of
the woman easy and natural to be done. Thus Terence Adcurrunt servi, soccos
detrahunt, Inde alii festinare, lectos sternere, Ccenam apparare.(‘The servants
run up and pull off the sandals, then others hasten, spread the couches, and
make ready the supper.’) In ancient bas-reliefs and pictures we constantly see
the guests reclining with their feet bare (see the Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antt.
s.v. Coena, p. 253).

[3] So the Latin poet: Quad primum formae decus est, cecidere capilli. (‘Then
fell the hair, of beauty the chief grace.’) And of nearly similar uses of the
hair in extreme humiliation and deprecation of the divine anger we have abundant
examples in profane history. Thus Livy, iii. 7 ‘On all sides are prostrate
matrons, sweeping the temples with their hair and beseeching the remission of
the wrath of heaven.’ Cf. Polybius, ix. 6, 3.

[4] Gregory the Great (Hom. 33 in Evang.): ‘She considered what she did, and
would not abate aught in what she was doing.’ The whole discourse is full of
beauty.

[5] ‘serene and serious’, as a Greek father entitles her.

[6] ‘Which was a sinner’ must then mean ‘which had been a sinner,’ but had long
since repented and chosen the better part; even as the history must be here
altogether out of its place, for the anointing by Mary immediately preceded the
Lord’s death, being for his burial (Matt. xxvi. 12). Many do thus understand the
words to refer to sins long ago committed, and long ago forsaken; as Grotius,
partly moved thereto by the necessities of his Harmony, which admits but one
anointing, and partly, afraid as he was of the Gospel of the grace of God, by
his dread of antinomian tendencies in the other interpretation; this same fear
making another expositor affirm, that her sin was no worse than an over-fondness
for dress. Had the woman, however, long since returned to the paths of holiness,
even the Pharisee himself would hardly have taken so ill the gracious reception
which she found, or spoken of her as being, not as having been, a sinner. We
should rather with Augustine (Serm. 99) consider this as the turning moment of
her life: ‘She came unto the Lord impure to return pure, she came sick to return
healed.’

[7] Hengstenberg has bestowed an immense amount of labour on the endeavour to
prove the identity of Mary the sister of Lazarus, and the woman that was a
sinner; and also the further identity of Mary Magdalene with these two;—or with
this one, as he regards her. To my mind he has failed altogether; but no one
knows all which can be said on that side of the question, who has not read his
treatise, for it is nothing less (Evangelium des Johannes,) vol. ii. pp. 198-
224), on the matter. It is a singular display of rare, but wasted, ingenuity.

[8] For a good sketch of the controversy see Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. iii. p.
291.

[9] I quote the following in confirmation: ‘At dinner at the Consul’s house at
Damietta we were much interested in observing a custom of the country. In the
room where we were received, besides the divan on which we sat, there were seats
all round the walls. Many came in and took their place on those side-seats,
uninvited and yet unchallenged. They spoke to those at table on business or the
news of the day, and our host spoke freely to them. This made us understand the
scene in Simon’s house at Bethany, where Jesus sat at supper, and Mary came in
and anointed his feet with ointment; and also the scene in the Pharisee’s house,
where the woman who was a sinner came in uninvited and yet not forbidden, and
washed his feet with her tears. We afterwards saw this custom at Jerusalem, and
there it was still more fitted to illustrate these incidents. We were sitting
round Mr. Nicolayson’s table, when first one, and then another stranger opened
the door, and came in, taking their seat by the wall. They leant forward and
spoke to those at the table.’ (Narrative of a Mission to the Jews from the
Church of Scotland in 1839.)

[10] Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. cxl. 4): ‘She, the unchaste, who once had been
forward unto fornication, now yet more forward unto health, forced her way into
a strange house; ‘and again (Serm. xcix. 1): ‘Ye see this notorious woman . . .
how she burst in uninvited upon the feast where her physician was sitting, and
with pious shamelessness sought out her cure, bursting in unseasonably for the
feast, but seasonably for her own aiding; ‘and Gregory the Great (Hom.33 in
Evang.) ‘Because she perceived the pollution of her foulness, she hastened to
the fount of compassion to be washed, and was not abashed before the guests; for
because within herself she was sorely abashed before her own self, she thought
it nothing that she should be shamed in public;’ and another (Bernard, Opp. vol.
ii. p. 601): ‘Thanks be to thee, O most blessed of sinful women; thou hast shown
the world a place where sinners may find safety enough, even the feet of Jesus,
which spurn no man, reject no man, repel no man, but welcome all and receive
all. There assuredly the Aethiopian changeth her skin, there the leopard
changeth its spots; there only the Pharisee can help casting aside his pride.’

[11] Augustine: ‘He had holiness in his body, but not in his heart, and because
he had it not in his heart, assuredly that which he had in his body was false.’
Cf. Enarr. in Ps. c. 5; cxxv. 2; and Gregory the Great (Hom. 34 in Evang.):
‘True justice feels compassion, false justice scorn.’—As a specimen of similar
notions of holiness current among the Jews, a commentator on Prov. v. 8 puts
this very question: ‘To what distance should we draw aloof from a prostitute?
Rabbi Chasda answers: To four cubits ‘(Schoettgen, Her. Heb. vol. i. p. 348).
And again, p. 303, various Rabbis are extolled for the precautions which they
took to keep lepers at a distance; for example, by flinging stones at them if
they approached too near.

[12] Bernard, in a beautiful passage (De Dedic. Ecc. Scrim. 4), styles him,
‘That Pharisee who murmured against the physician engaged in his work of
healing, and was angered with the sick woman who was being cured.’

[13] Vitringa (Obss. Sac. vol. i. p. 479) has an interesting and instructive
essay (De Signis a Messid edendis) on the expectations of the Jews concerning
the miracles which the Messiah was to perform, and by which He should legitimate
his pretensions.

[14] Augustine (Serm. xcix. 4) freely acknowledges the stress of this
difficulty: ‘For 1 am told, if he to whom little is forgiven loves little, but
he to whom more is forgiven loves more, and it is better to love more than to
love less, then ought we to sin greatly ... that we may more fully love the
remitter of our heavy debts;’ and again: ‘If I find that he loves more to whom
more sins have been forgiven, then was the greatness of his sin to his
advantage, yea, the greatness of his iniquity was to his advantage, in avoiding
a lukewarm love.’ And he solves it as is done above: ‘O Pharisee, thou lovest
but little because thou deemest that little is forgiven thee; not because but
little is forgiven, but because thou thinkest that which is forgiven thee to be
but little.’ Compare a beautiful sermon by Schleiermacher (Predigten, vol. i. p.
524).

[15] ‘She poured forth tears, the blood of the heart.’

[16] They make ότι = διο, and very idly appeal to John viii. 44; 1 John iii. 44,
in confirmation: see Winer, Gramm. §57, p. 536.

[17] Incredible as it will appear, this is actually the interpretation of
Maldonatus (ad loc.): ‘Which of them will love him most? ‘is only, he affirms, a
popular way of saying, ‘Which of them did love him most?’ which may you conclude
from the effect to have had most affection for him, and therefore to have been
dearest to him, he to whom he remitted a large debt, or he to whom he only
remitted a small?—He claims Euthymius and Augustine as agreeing with him; the
latter certainly without right.

[18] I quote here some remarkable words of Coleridge (Literary Remains, vol. ii.
p. 368), on the attempt thus to substitute charity for faith in the
justification of a sinner. ‘To many, to myself formerly, it has appeared a mere
dispute about words: but it is by no means of so harmless a character; for it
tends to give a false direction to our thoughts, by diverting the conscience
from the ruined and corrupted state in which we are without Christ. Sin is the
disease. What is the remedy?—Charity? —Pshaw i Charity in the large apostolic
sense of the term is the health, the state to be obtained by the use of the
remedy, not the sovereign balm itself,—faith of grace,—faith in the God—manhood,
the cross, the mediation, the perfected righteousness of Jesus, to the utter
rejection and abjuration of all righteousness of our own! Faith alone is the
restorative. The Romish scheme is preposterous;—it puts the rill before the
spring. Faith is the source,—charity, that is, the whole Christian life, is the
stream from it. It is quite childish to talk of faith being imperfect without
charity; as wisely might you say that a fire, however bright and strong, was
imperfect without heat; or that the sun, however cloudless, is imperfect without
beams. The true answer would be: It is not faith,—but utter reprobate
faithlessness.’

[19] Very distinctly Theophylact (in loc.): ‘Because she loved much, another way
of saying, because she showed great faith,’ and presently before he calls all
which she had been doing for her Saviour, ‘signs of faith and love.’ Ser
Gerhard, Loc. Theoll. loc. xvi. 8. 1.

[20] The Bustan of the famous Persian poet Saadi (Tholuck, Bluthen-samml. aus d.
Morgenl. Mystik, p. 251) has a story which sounds like an echo of this
evangelical history. Jesus, while on earth, was once entertained in the cell of
a dervish of eminent reputation for sanctity. In the same city dwelt a youth
sunk in every sin, ‘whose heart was so black that Satan himself shrunk back from
it in horror; ‘he, appearing before the cell of the monk, as smitten by the very
presence of the Divine prophet, began to lament deeply the wickedness of his
life past, and shedding abundant tears, to implore pardon and grace. The monk
indignantly interrupted him, demanding how he dared to appear in his presence
and in that of God’s holy prophet; assured him that for him there was no
forgiveness; and in proof how inexorably he considered his lot was fixed for
hell, exclaimed, ‘My God, grant me but one thing, that I may stand far from this
man on the judgment-day.’ On this Jesus spoke: ‘It shall be even so: the prayer
of both is granted. This sinner has sought mercy and grace, and has not sought
them in vain,—his sins are forgiven, his place shall be in Paradise at the last
day. But this monk has prayed that he may never stand near this sinner,—his
prayer too is granted, hell shall be his place, for there this sinner shall
never come.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 17: 16-PARABLE 15. THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
========================================================================

PARABLE 15. THE GOOD SAMARITAN.

Luke 10:30-37

WE need not ascribe to the lawyer who ‘stood up’ and proposed to our Lord the
question out of which this parable grew, any malicious intention; least of all
that deep malignity which moved some other questioners, who were in fact laying
snares for his life (John 8:6; Matthew 22:16). The question itself, ‘What shall
I do to inherit eternal life?’ was not an ensnaring one: of another who put the
same we are assured that Jesus loved him (Mark 10:21); it was not, like that of
the tribute-money (Matthew 22:17), one which it might be hoped would compromise
the answerer, whatever reply He made. Neither was the spirit which dictated the
question captious or mocking. This much we confidently gather from the
earnestness of the Lord’s reply; who was not wont to answer mere cavillers or
despisers so. It is true that this scribe or lawyer (Matthew 22:35, compared
with Mark 12:28, shows the identity of the two) put his question to Christ,
‘tempting Him.’ But exactly the same is affirmed of another lawyer (Matthew
22:35); who could have tempted with no ill intention, seeing that Christ bears
testimony to him, ‘Thou art not far from the kingdom of God’ (Mark 12:34). For
indeed ‘to tempt’ means properly no more than to make trial of; and whether the
tempting be honourable or the contrary, is determined by the motive out of which
it springs. Thus God ‘tempts’ man, putting him to wholesome proof, revealing to
him secrets of his own heart, to which else even he himself might have remained
a stranger to the end (James 1:12); He ‘tempts’ man, to bring out his good and
to strengthen it (Genesis 22:1; Hebrews 11:17); to show him his evil, that he,
made aware of this, may strive against and overcome it, - to humble him, and to
do him good in his latter end (Deuteronomy 8:3; Deuteronomy 8:16). Only he who
bears the Tempter’s name (Matthew 4:3), a name which he has earned too well
(Genesis 3:1-5), ‘tempts’ with the single purpose of irritating, calling out,
and strengthening man’s evil. [1] If the intention of this lawyer is not that
high and holy one, as little is it this malignant and devilish. Rather we may
suppose that the fame of this young Galilean teacher has reached his ears; and
he will now take his measure; and counts that he cannot do this more effectually
than by proposing to Him the question of questions, ‘What shall I do to inherit
eternal life?’ Our Lord answers question with question: ‘What is written in the
law? how readest thou?’ - as much as to say, ‘What need of inquiring further? Is
not the answer to thy question contained in that very law of which thou
professest thyself a searcher and expounder?’ The lawyer shows himself not
altogether unworthy of the name he bears; for in answer to this appeal he quotes
rightly Deuteronomy 6:5, in connexion with Leviticus 19:18, as containing the
quintessence of the law. That he should thus lay his finger at once on ‘the
great commandment,’ by the Lord Himself accepted as such (Matthew 22:36; Mark
12:30), showed no little spiritual discernment. His words are right words,
however he may be ignorant of their full import, of all which they involve; and
the Lord declares as much: ‘Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt
live.’ Let this which he knows express itself in his life, and all will be well.
His conscience is touched at last; he feels himself put on his defence, and it
is, as the Evangelist declares, out of a desire to clear himself that his next
question proceeds ‘But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who
is my neighbour?’ He may not have been large and free in the exercise of love
towards his fellow-men; but then how few had claims upon him, and how difficult
it was to determine which were these. ‘Who is my neighbour?’ [2] The very
question, like Peter’s ‘How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive
him’ (Matthew 18:21)? was not merely one capable of receiving a wrong answer,
but did itself involve a wrong condition of mind, from whence alone it could
have sprung. He who inquired, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ who wished the entire
extent of his obligation to others to be declared to him beforehand, showed in
this how little he understood of that love, whose essence is that it owns no
limit except its own inability to proceed further, receives a law from itself
alone, being a debt which they who are ever paying, are best contented still to
owe (Romans 13:8).

What he needed who could propose such a question as this, was, that his eye
should be taken off from those, the more or fewer, towards whom, as he
conceived, love should be shown, and turned inward upon him who should show the
love; and this which he needed the Lord in his infinite wisdom and grace
provided for him in the parable which follows. Without further preface He
begins: ‘A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.’ We are not
expressly told that this certain man’ was a Jew; but doubtless we were intended
to regard the traveller between Jerusalem and Jericho as such; though here and
there an expositor denies this, and will see in him a heathen, much to the
weakening of the lesson which the parable is meant to convey. He ‘went’ or ‘was
going down,’ not merely because Jerusalem stood considerably higher than
Jericho, - the latter lying nearly six hundred feet below the level of the
Mediterranean sea, so that the language has its fitness in this respect, - but
because the going to Jerusalem, as to the metropolis, was always regarded as a
going up (Acts 18:22). The distance between the two cities was about a hundred
and fifty stadia, - the road lying through a desolate and rocky region, ‘the
wilderness that goeth up from Jericho ‘(Deuteronomy 34:3; Joshua 16:1). The
plain of Jericho, an oasis in the wilderness, was of rare fertility and beauty,
the Tempe of Judea, well watered, and abounding in palms (‘the city of palm
trees,’ Deuteronomy 34:3; Judges 1:16; 2 Chronicles 28:15), in roses, in balsam,
in honey, and in all the choicest productions of Palestine. [3] The squalid
village of Riha marks now the spot where once this glorious city stood. [4] On
his way he ‘fell among thieves,’ or rather ‘among robbers;’ - but at the time
when the Authorized Translation was made, there was no strongly-marked
distinction between the words; [5] violent and bloody men, who ‘stripped him of
his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.’ The mention
of stripping first and wounding afterwards may seem to reverse the natural order
in the succession of events; but is indeed exactly what would happen. The
murderous banditti will not injure the raiment which shall be a part, probably
an important part, of the spoil by gashes, or stain it with the blood of their
victim. [6] The incident is drawn from life. Josephus more than once mentions
the extent to which Palestine in those later days was infested with banditti;
[7] and from St. Jerome we learn that the road leading from one of these cities
to the other was at one place called the Red or the Bloody Way, [8] from the
blood which had been there shed; that in his own time there was in this
wilderness a fort with a Roman garrison, for the protection of travellers. Nor
has the danger now ceased; Arabs of the wilderness, [9] having their lurking
places in the deep caves of the rocks, now as of old infest the road, making it
unsafe even for the vast host of pilgrims to descend to the Jordan without the
protection of a Turkish guard. [10] As the poor traveller lay bleeding in the
road, ‘by chance there came down a certain priest that way;’ - ‘by coincidence,’
we might say, by that wonderful falling-in of one event with another, which
often seems chance to us, being indeed the mysterious weaving-in, by a higher
hand, of the threads of different men’s lives into one common woof. That hand
brings the negative pole of one man’s need into relation with the positive of
another man’s power to help, one man’s emptiness into relation with another’s
fulness. Many of our summonses to acts of love are of this kind, and they are
those, perhaps, which we are most in danger of missing, through a failing to see
in them this ordering of God. At all events he who ‘came down that way’ missed
his opportunity - a priest, perhaps one of those residing at Jericho, which was
a great station of the priests and other functionaries of the temple, and now on
his way to Jerusalem, there to execute his office ‘in the order of his course’
(Luke 1:8); or who, having accomplished his turn of service, was now journeying
home. But whether thus or not, he was one who had never learnt what that meant,
‘I will have mercy, and not sacrifice;’ who, whatever duties he might have been
careful in fulfilling, had ‘omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment,
mercy, and faith; ‘for ‘when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And
likewise a Levite,’ but with aggravation in his cruelty; for he, ‘when he was at
the place, came and looked on him,’ and having seen the miserable condition of
the wounded man, claiming as it did instant help - for the life that remained
was fast ebbing through his open gashes, he too ‘passed by on the other side.’
Tacitus, while he paints in darkest colours the unsocial character of the Jews,
must yet admit this much to their honour, that, however unfriendly to all
others, they were prompt to show pity among themselves; [11] but even this
redeeming grace is wanting here; they on whose part it is wanting being the
express guardians and interpreters of a law so careful in urging the duties of
humanity, that it twice said, ‘Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ass or his ox
fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them thou shalt surely help him to
lift them up again’ (Deuteronomy 22:4; Exodus 23:5). Here not a brother’s ox or
his ass, but a brother himself, was lying in his blood, and they hid themselves
from him (Isaiah 58:7). No doubt they did, in some way or other, justify their
neglect to their own consciences; made excuses to themselves as that where one
outrage had happened, there was danger of another, that the robbers could not be
far distant, and might return at any moment, - or that the sufferer was beyond
all human help, - or that one found near him might himself be accused as his
murderer. The priest, we may imagine, said he could not tarry; the service of
the temple must not wait, must not be left incomplete during his absence. Why
too should he undertake a perilous office? Was not the Levite close behind, to
whom such ministries of help would more naturally appertain, and by whom his
lack of service, service which the circumstances of the case rendered it
impossible that he should render, would inevitably be supplied? And then the
Levite in his turn may have thought with himself, that there could be no
obligation on him to thrust himself on a danger from which the priest had just
shrunk; duty it could not be, else that other would never have omitted it. Such
action on his part would be a kind of affront to his superior, an implicit
charging of him with inhumanity and hardness of heart. And so, falling back on
these or similar pleas, they left their fellow countryman - to perish.

‘But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was.’ This man was
exposed to exactly the same perils as those who went before him; moreover it was
no fellow countryman who demanded his help; one rather of an alien and hostile
race; but he neither took counsel of selfish fears, nor steeled his heart
against all pity with the thought that the wounded and bleeding man was a Jew,
whom he as a Samaritan was bound to detest; but when he saw him, ‘he had
compassion on him.’ This, as the best thing which he gave or had to give, is
mentioned first; the rest will follow. [12] While the priest and Levite,
boasting themselves the ministers of the God of all pity and compassion,
neglected the commonest duties of humanity, it was left to the excommunicated
Samaritan, whose very name was a bye-word of scorn among the Jews, and
synonymous with heretic (John 8:48), to show what love was; and this toward one
of an alien stock; [13] one of a people who would have no dealings with his
people, who anathematized them; even as, no doubt, all the influences which had
surrounded him from his youth would have led him, as far as he yielded to them,
to repay insult with insult, and hate with hate. For if the Jew called the
Samaritan a Cuthite, - a proselyte of the lions (2 Kings 17:24-25; 2 Kings
17:30), - an idolater worshipping the image of a dove, if he cursed him publicly
in his synagogue, - prayed that he might have no portion in the resurrection of
life, and by refusing under any conditions to admit him as a proselyte, did his
best to secure the fulfilment of this prayer, proclaimed that his testimony was
naught and might not be received, that he who entertained a Samaritan in his
house was laying up judgment for his children, - that to eat a morsel of his
food was as the eating of swine’s flesh, - and would rather suffer any need than
be beholden to him for the smallest office of charity, - if he set it as an
object of desire that he might never so much as see a Cuthite; the Samaritan was
not behindhand in cursing, and as little in active demonstrations of enmity and
ill-will. We have proofs of this in the Gospels (John 4:9; Luke 9:53), and from
other sources more examples of their spite may be gathered. For example, the
Jews of Palestine being in the habit of communicating the exact time of the
Easter moon to those of the Babylonian Captivity, by fires kindled first on the
Mount of Olives, and then taken up from mountain top to mountain top, a line of
fiery telegraphs which reached at length along the mountain ridge of Auranitis
to the banks of the Euphrates, the Samaritans would give the signal on the night
preceding the right one, so to perplex and mislead. [14] And Josephus mentions
that they sometimes proceeded much further than merely to refuse hospitality to
the Jews who were going up to the feasts of Jerusalem; they fell upon and
murdered many of them; [15] and once, most horrible profanation of all (see 2
Kings 23:13-14; Matthew 23:27; Luke 11:44; Numbers 19:16; Ezekiel 39:15), a
Samaritan entering Jerusalem secretly polluted the whole temple by scattering in
it human bones. [16] But the heart of this Samaritan was not hardened; though so
many influences must have been at work to steel it against the distresses of a
Jew; though he must have known that any Jew who was faithful to the precepts of
the Jewish schools would not merely have left, but have made it a point of
conscience to leave, him in his blood, would have counted that he was doing a
righteous act therein. All the details of his tender care toward the poor
stranger, of whom he knew nothing, save that he belonged to a nation the most
bitterly hostile to his own, are given with a touching minuteness. He ‘bound up
his wounds,’ no doubt with strips torn from his own garments, ‘pouring in oil
and wine,’ wine to cleanse them, and oil to assuage their smart and to bring
gently their sides together (Isaiah 1:6), these two being costly and highly
esteemed remedies in all the East. [17] No little time must have been thus
consumed, and this when there was every motive for haste. Having thus ministered
to the wounded man’s most urgent needs, and revived in him the dying spark of
life, he ‘set him on his own beast’ (cf. 2 Chronicles 28:15), himself pacing on
foot; ‘and brought him to an inn,’ [18] we may suppose that at Bachurim. Neither
did he then commit him to the care of strangers, so long as he could himself
tend him; but there, as counting nothing done, while anything remained for him
to do, ‘took care of him,’ tended him as his state required. Nor even so did he
account that he had paid the whole debt of love, but with considerate foresight
provided for the further wants of the sufferer: ‘And on the morrow when he
departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him,
Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, [19] when I come again, I
[20] will repay thee.’ The sum sounds small, though larger than it sounds; but
we may assume that he was journeying on some needful business to Jerusalem, and
that a day or two would bring him back.

Beautiful as is this parable when thus taken simply in the letter, inviting us
to ‘put on bowels of mercies,’ to shrink from no offices of love, even though
they should be painful and perilous; yet how much fairer still, how much more
mightily provoking to love and good works, when, with most of the Fathers, and
with many of the Reformers, we trace in it a deeper meaning still, and see the
work of Christ, of the merciful Son of man Himself, portrayed to us here. None
can refuse to acknowledge the facility with which all the circumstances of the
parable yield themselves to this interpretation. It has been indeed objected,
that it leaves the parable beside the mark, and nothing to the matter
immediately in hand. But this is not so. For what is that matter? To magnify the
law of love, to show who fulfils it, and who not. But if Christ Himself, He who
accounted Himself every man’s brother, fulfilled it the best, showed how we
ought to love and whom; and if his example, or rather faith in his love towards
us, is alone effectual in kindling our love to one another, He might well
propose Himself and his act in succouring the perishing humanity, as the
everlasting pattern of self-forgetting love, and place it in strongest contrast
with the carelessness and selfish neglect of the present leaders of the
theocracy. [21] Such a meaning as this, lurking behind, though one day to pierce
through, the literal, and to add to the parable a yet more endearing charm,
would be of course latent at the first uttering. He to whom it was then spoken,
took all in the obvious meaning; nor is the parable less effectual in commending
man’s love to his fellow, because it further shadows forth the Son of man’s
crowning act of love to the whole race of mankind. [22]

Regarding it in this mystical sense, the traveller will be the personified human
Nature, or Adam as the representative and head of our race. He has forsaken
Jerusalem, the heavenly City, the city of the vision of peace, and is going down
to Jericho, the profane city, the city under a curse (Joshua 6:26; 1 Kings
16:34). But no sooner has he thus left the holy City and the presence of his
God, and turned his desires toward the world, than he falls into the hands of
him who is at once a robber and a murderer (John 8:44), and is by him and his
evil angels stripped of the robe of his original righteousness, grievously
wounded, left covered with almost mortal strokes, every sinful passion and
desire a gash from which the life-blood of his soul is streaming. [23] But for
all this he is not absolutely dead; [24] for as the utmost cares of the
Samaritan would have been spent in vain upon the poor traveller, had the spark
of life been wholly extinct, so a restoration for man would have been
impossible, had there been nothing to restore, no spark of divine life, which by
a heavenly breath might be fanned into flame; no truth in him, which might be
extricated from the unrighteousness in which it was detained. When the angels
fell, by a free self determining act of their own will, with no solicitation
from without, their loss was not in part, but altogether. With man it is
otherwise. He is ‘halfdead;’ he has still a conscience witnessing for God; evil
has not become his good, however weak he may prove to resist it; he has the
sense of some thing lost, and at times a longing for its recovery. His case
would be desperate, were there none to restore him but himself; it is not
desperate in the hands of an almighty and all-merciful Physician.

He, and He only, can restore to man what he has lost, can bind up the bleeding
hurts of his soul, can say to him in his blood, Live (Ezekiel 16:6). The Law
could not do it. ‘If there had been a law given which could have given life,
verily righteousness should have been by the law’ (Galatians 3:21). [25] That
was but like Elisha’s staff, which might be laid on the face of the dead child,
but life did not return to it the more (2 Kings 4:31); Elisha himself must come
ere the child revive. [26] Or as Theophylact here expresses it: ‘The law came
and stood over him where he lay, but then, overcome by the greatness of his
wounds, and unable to heal them, departed.’ Nor could the sacrifices do better;
they could not ‘make the comers thereunto perfect,’ nor ‘take away sins,’ nor
‘purge the conscience.’ Priest and Levite were alike powerless to help: so that,
in the eloquent words of a scholar of St. Bernard’s, [27] ‘Many passed us by,
and there was none to save. That great patriarch Abraham passed us by, for he
justified not others, but was himself justified in the faith of One to come.
Moses passed us by, for he was not the giver of grace, but of the law, and of
that law which leads none to perfection; for righteousness is not by the law.
Aaron passed us by, the priest passed us by, and by those sacrifices which he
continually offered was unable to purge the conscience from dead works to serve
the living God. Patriarch and prophet and priest passed us by, helpless both in
will and deed, for they themselves also lay wounded in that wounded man. Only
that true Samaritan beholding was moved with compassion, as He is all
compassion, and poured oil into the wounds, that is, Himself into the hearts,
purifying all hearts by faith. Therefore the faith of the Church passes by all,
till it attain to Him who alone would not pass it by’ [28](Romans 8:3). Were it
absolutely needful to attach a precise meaning to the ‘oil’ and the ‘wine,’ we
might say with Chrysostom, that the former is the anointing of the Holy Spirit,
the latter the blood of passion. [29] On the binding up of the wounds it may be
observed that the Sacraments have been often called the ligaments for the wounds
of the soul; and the hurts of the spirit are often contemplated as bound up, no
less than those of the body; and God as He who binds them up. [30] The Samaritan
setting the wounded man on his own beast, himself therefore pacing on foot by
his side, [31] reminds us of Him, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes
became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich, - and who came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister. Neither is it far-fetched to regard the ‘inn’
as the figure of the Church, the place of spiritual refection, in which the
healing of souls is ever going forward, - called therefore by some a hospital, -
whither the merciful Son of man brings all whom He has rescued from the hand of
Satan, and where He, the good physician, cares for them until they shall have
been restored to perfect health [32] (Malachi 4:2; Hosea 14:4; Psalms 103:3;
Matthew 13:15; Revelation 22:2; and typically, Numbers 21:9). And if, like the
Samaritan, He cannot tarry, [33] cannot always be in body present with those
whose cure He has begun, if it is expedient that He should go away, yet He makes
for them a provision of grace sufficient to last till the time of his return. It
would be an entering into curious minutia, one tending to bring discredit on
this scheme of interpretation, to affirm decidedly of the ‘two pence,’ that they
mean either the two Sacraments, or the two Testaments, or the Word and the
Sacraments, or unreservedly to accede to any one of the ingenious explanations
which have been offered for them. They do better who content themselves with
saying that these include all gifts and graces, sacraments, powers of healing,
of remission of sins, or other powers which the Lord has left with his Church,
that it may keep house for Him till his return. As the Samaritan ‘took out two
pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him;’ - even
so He said to Peter, and in him to all the Apostles, ‘Feed my sheep,’ ‘Feed my
lambs ‘(John 21:15-17; cf. John 20:22-23). To them, and in them to all their
successors, He has committed a dispensation of the Gospel, that as stewards of
the mysteries of God, they may dispense these for the health of his people. And
as it was promised to the host, ‘Whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come
again, I will repay thee,’ [34] so has the Lord engaged that no labour shall be
in vain in Him, that what is done to the least of his brethren He will count as
done to Himself, that they who ‘feed the flock of God, not for filthy lucre, but
of a ready mind,’ ‘when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a
crown of glory that fadeth not away’ (1 Peter 5:2; 1 Peter 5:4). [35]

Let us reverently admire as it deserves to be admired, the divine wisdom with
which, having brought this parable to an end, Christ reverses the question of
the lawyer, and asks, ‘Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour
unto him that fell among the thieves?’ The lawyer had asked, ‘Who is the
neighbour to whom it is my duty to show love?’ But the Lord, answering question
with question, demands, ‘Who is a neighbour, he who shows love, or he who shows
it not?’ - for it was this which He desired to teach, that love finds its own
measure in itself; like the sun, which does not inquire upon what it shall
shine, or whom it shall warm, but shines and warms by the very law of its own
being, so that nothing is hidden from its light and heat. The lawyer had said,
‘Designate my neighbour to me; tell me what marks a man to be such? Is it one
faith, one blood, the obligation of mutual benefits, or what else, that I may
know to whom I owe this debt?’ The Lord rebukes the question, holding up to him
a man, and this man a despised Samaritan, who so far from seeking limits to his
love, freely and largely exercised it towards one whose only claim upon him
consisted in his needs; who assuredly had none of the marks of a neighbour, in
the lawyer’s sense of the word. The parable is a reply, not to the question, for
to that it is no reply, [36] but to the spirit out of which the question
proceeded. ‘You inquire, Who is my neighbour? Behold a man who asked quite
another question, “To whom can I be a neighbour? “And then be yourself the
judge, whether you or he have most of the mind of God; which is most truly the
doer of his will, the imitator of his perfections.’ To the Lord’s question,
‘Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among
the thieves?’ the lawyer circuitously replies, ‘He that skewed mercy on him;’ -
let us hope from no grudging reluctance to give the honour directly and by name
to a Samaritan; [37] although it certainly has something of this appearance. But
let that have been as it might, ‘Go,’ said the Lord to him, ‘and do thou
likewise’ (Luke 6:36; Colossians 3:12; 1 Peter 3:8). These last words will
hardly allow us to agree with those who in later times have maintained that this
parable and the discourse that led to it are, in fact, a lesson on justification
by faith-that the Lord sent the questioner to the law, to the end that, being by
that convinced of sin and of his own shortcomings, he might discover his need of
a Saviour. The intention seems rather to make the lawyer aware of the mighty
gulf which lay between his knowing and his doing, - how little his actual
exercise of love kept pace with his intellectual acknowledgment of the debt of
love due from him to his fellow-men: on which subject he may very well have had
secret misgivings himself, when he asked, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ It is true,
indeed, that this our sense of how short our practice falls of our knowledge,
must bring us to the conviction that we cannot live by the keeping of the law,
that by the deeds of the law no flesh shall be justified, - so that here also we
shall get at last to faith as that which alone can justify; but this is a
remoter consequence, and not the immediate teaching of the parable.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Πειράζειν=πειραν λαµβάνειν. Augustine defines often the manner in which it
is lawful to affirm that God tempts; thus (Enarr. in Ps. Leviticus 1) Every
temptation is a trial, and the issue of every trial has its fruit. For whereas a
man is generally but little known even to himself, heknows not what he can bear
and what he cannot, and sometimes presumes that he can bear what he cannot and
sometimes despairs of being able to bear what he can. Temptation comes as a kind
of question, and the man is discovered of himself, for to himself he was a
secret, but he was not a secret to his maker.’ Cf. Tertullian, De Orat. 8. On
the difference between πειράζειν and δοκιµάζειν see my Synonyms of the New
Testament, § 74.

[2] It is instructive to see the question of the narrow-hearted lawyer, ‘Who is
my neighbour?’ reappearing in one with whom we might think that he had little in
common. I make this extract from Emerson’s Essays (Ess. 2): ‘Do not tell me, as
a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men into good
situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I
grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to
me, and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all
spiritual affinity I am bought and sold: for them I will go to prison, if need
be; but your miscellaneous popular charities, &c.’

[3] Josephus, B. J. iv. 8. 3. Cotovicus, Itiner., quoted by Winer
(Realwörterbuch, s. v. Jericho):

‘The extensive plain in which it lies is surrounded by mountains in the form of
an amphitheatre, is very pleasant and fertile, and though at present
uncultivated, abounds with flowers and sweet-smelling herbs.’ Compare Strabo,
xvi. 2, ad finem; Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 299; and Keim, Jesu von
Nazara, vol. iii. p. 17.

[4] Ritter, Comparative Geography of Palestine, vol. iii. pp. 18-36, brings
together all of most important which modern travellers have written concerning
Jericho.

[5] See my Synonyms of the New Testament, § 44.

[6] There is a noticeable story in Lamartine’s Travels in the Holy Land of one
who being enticed to a solitary place, and there bidden to strip to the end
that, this done, his life might be taken, turned the tables on his intending
murderer.

[7] Antt. xx. 6. 1; B. J. xi. 12. 5.

[8] Onomast. s. v. Adommim. But it bore this name already in Joshua’s time,
Josh. xv. 7: xviii. 17. There is an impressive description of this dreary route
in Lamartine, Travels in the Holy Land; and in Keim, Jesu von Nazara, vol. iii.
p. 59.

[9] Jerome (In Jerem. iii. 2): ‘The Arabs.... a race much given to robberies,
which to this day infests the borders of Palestine, and besets the path of those
descending from Jerusalem to Jericho.’

[10] Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 416; compare Josephus, B. J. iv. 0.3.

[11] Hist. v. 6: ‘Among themselves their compassion is ever ready.’

[12] Gregory the Great says beautifully on this (Moral. xx. 36): ‘For in
supplying him with things more external, he bestowed something that was outside
himself. But since he granted his neighbour his tears and his compassion, he
gave him also something from within himself.’

[13] Our Lord calls the Samaritan a ‘stranger’ (Luke 17:18), one of a different
stock; αλλοεθει Josephus tells us they were wont to style themselves, when in
the evil times of the Jews they wished to disclaim all relationship, and such he
evidently accounts them (Antt. ix. 14. 3; xi. 8. 6). The notion of the
Samaritans as a mingled people, composed of two elements, one heathen and one
Jewish, has of late found its way not merely into popular but into learned
books; so that they are often spoken of as, in a great measure, the later
representatives of the ten tribes. The mistake is quite recent. In Christian
antiquity they were always regarded as a people of unmingled heathen blood (see
testimonies in Suicer, Thes. s. v. to which may be added Theophylact on Luke
17:15,); so too by the expositors of two hundred years ago. Hammond describes
the Samaritan in our parable as ‘being of an Assyrian extraction;’ and
Maldonatus: Samaritani origine Chaldaei erant; see Relaud, De Samaritanis. For
the opinion of Makrizi, the very accurate and learned Arabian geographer, see S.
de Sacy, Chrest. Arabe, vol. ii. p. 177;and Robinson says (Biblical Researches),
‘The physiognomy of those we saw was not Jewish.’ At 2 Kin. xvii., where the
deportation of Israel is related, there is not a word suggesting that any were
left, or that there afterwards was any blending of the Cuthites and other
Assyrian colonists brought in, with a remnant of the Israelites whom they found
in the land. It is true that when Judah was carried away captive, many of the
poorer sort were allowed to remain (2 Kings 15:12); and Winer (Realwörterbuch,
s. v. Samaritaner) thinks it very unlikely that some out of the ten tribes were
not left behind in like manner. But at 2 Kings 21:13 the Lord threatening Judah
says, ‘I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the
house of Ahab; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, and turneth it
upside down.’ This, only a threat against Judah, in part averted by repentance,
had actually been executed against Samaria (2 Kin. xvii. 6, 23, 24; Jer. vii.
15; Josephus, Antt. ix. 14. 1). With Oriental conquerors it was no uncommon
thing thus thoroughly to clear a conquered territory of all its inhabitants;
σαγηνευεινthe actual process was called (Herodotus, iii. 149; vi. 31). If the
Samaritans had owned any Jewish blood, they would certainly have urged this, as
mightily strengthening their claim to be allowed to take part with the returned
Jewish exiles, in the rebuilding of the temple; but their words practically
exclude this: ‘We seek your God as ye do, and we do sacrifice unto Him since the
days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither’ (Ezra iv. 2). When
our Lord, at the first sending out of his Apostles, said, ‘Into any city of the
Samaritans enter ye not ‘(Matt. x. 5), He was not, as some tell us, yielding to
popular prejudice, but gave the prohibition because, till the Gospel had been
first offered ‘to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,’ Samaritans had no more
claim to it than any other heathen. See a valuable article, ‘Samaria,’ in the
Dictionary of the Bible.

[14] This, according to Makrizi (S. de Sacy, Chrest. Arabe, vol. ii. P. 159),
first put the Jews on calculating for themselves the moment of the new moon. Cf.
Schoettgen, Hor. Heb. vol. i.. p. 344.

[15] Antt. XX. 6. 1.

[16] Antt. xviii. 2. 2; B. J. ii. 12. 3.

[17] Pliny, H. N. xxxi. 47.

[18] Πανδοχειον (cf. υποδοχειον, Strabo), not altogether identical with κάταλυµα
(Luke ii. 7); though both are translated by the same word. This has a host, is
something of an inn in our sense of the word; that more the Eastern
caravanserai, where every one shifts for himself. See the Dict. of the Bible, s.
v. Inn.

[19] The Vulgate renders it quodcunque supererogaveris. The technical
theological term, ‘works of supererogation,’ finds its suggestion here.

[20] Let us not miss the εγω άποδωσω. ‘Trouble not the poor man upon that score;
I will take those charges on myself;’ or it might be, ‘Fear not thou to be a
loser: I will be thy paymaster.’

[21] A medieval expositor of this Gospel says of it excellently well: ‘Herein is
shown that nearness of race or of blood is nothing in comparison to that
nearness which is of love and compassion. And because these abound in Christ
more than in any other, more than any other He is our neighbour and is more to
be loved.’

[22] Compare Tholuck, Die wahre Weihe des Zweiflers, p. 63.

[23] H. de Sto. Victore (Annott. in Luc.): ‘The man here typifies the human
race, which in the persons of our first parents forsook the celestial state, and
by their sin fell into the misery of this world of exile, being by the cozenage
of the old enemy despoiled of the robe of innocence and immortality, and sorely
wounded by the taints of original sin.’ See Ambrose, Exp. in Luc. vii. 73;
Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. cxxv. 6; and the sermon (Hom. 34 in Luc.) which Jerome
has translated out of Origen. For the later Gnostic perversions of the parable
in this direction, see Neander, Kirchengeschichte, vol. v. p. 1121.

[24] H. de Sto. Victore: ‘For although a man may be infected with such great
wickedness that he love nought that is good, he yet cannot be blinded by so
great ignorance as to know nought that is good ... The sword of the enemy has
not wholly destroyed a man, so long as it has not been able altogether to do
away in him the worth of natural good.’ Augustine (Quaest. Evang. ii. 19): ‘On
the side on which he can understand and know God a man is alive, on the side on
which he is wasted and overwhelmed with sins he is dead.’

[25] The selection of Gal. iii. 16-23 for the Epistle on the 13th Sunday after
Trinity, this parable supplying the Gospel, shows the interpretation which the
Church puts upon the parable. The Gospel and Epistle attest the same truth, that
the law cannot quicken; that righteousness is not by it, but by faith in Christ
Jesus.

[26] Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. lxx. 15.

[27] Gillebert. He completed not unworthily the exposition of the Canticles
which St. Bernard had left unfinished at his death.—Compare a noble passage in
Clement of Alexandria (Quis Dives Salv. 29): ‘But who else could it be but the
Saviour himself? Or who rather than He would have had compassion upon us who at
the hands of the powers of darkness have been nigh done to death with the number
of our wounds, with fears, lusts, passions, sorrows, guiles and pleasures? Of
these wounds Jesus is the one healer, utterly excising our passions by the
roots; not like the law applying empty remedies, the fruits of worthless trees,
but laying his axe to the roots of the wickedness. He it is who pours upon our
wounded souls wine which is the blood of the Vine of David, who applies and
lavishes upon us the oil of the spirit of compassion. He it is who shows to us
the bonds of health and salvation as never to be broken, even love, faith and
hope. He it is who appoints angels and principalities and powers to minister to
us for a great reward, since these also shall be freed from the vanity of the
world by means of the revelation of the glory of the sons of God.’

[28] Augustine’s proof that our Lord intended Himself by this Samaritan is
singular (Serm. clxxi. 2): ‘When two terms of reproach were cast at the Lord and
it was said “Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil,” He might have answered
“Neither am I a Samaritan nor have I a devil.” He answers, however, “I have not
a devil.” The term He answers He refuted; the term as to which He was silent He
confirmed.’ Cf. Enarr. in Ps. cxxxvi. 3.

[29] They were sometimes interpreted differently; the oil as the ‘gentle
consolation,’ the wine as the ‘stern rebuke.’ Thus St. Bernard says of the good
pastor: ‘Let him be as the Samaritan, watching and observing when he is to
present the oil of compassion and when the wine of fervour;’ and at more length,
In Cant., Serm. xliv. 3. So too Gregory the Great (Mor. xx. 5):

‘In rulers there should be alike a compassion, righteous in its consolation, and
a discipline pious in its wrath; wherefore also to the wounds of that
half-murdered traveller who was brought by the Samaritan to the inn, both wine
and oil are applied, that the wounds may be stung by the wine and soothed by the
oil: so that everyone who is appointed unto the healing of wounds, in the wine
may apply the sting of severity, and in the oil the soothing influence of
kindness: that by the wine what is putrid may be cleansed, and by the oil what
is to be healed may be soothed.’ Elsewhere he has resolved this whole history
into prayer (Exp. in Ps. li.): ‘O Lord Jesus, moved by compassion mayst Thou
deign to approach me, even me who while going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,
while falling, that is, from the highest to the lowest, from that which gives
life to that which weakens, have come upon the angels of darkness, who have not
only robbed me of the garment of spiritual grace, but also have beaten me and
left me nigh unto death. By giving me confidence for the recovery of my health,
mayst Thou bind up the wounds of my sins, lest despairing of being healed they
rage the worse. Mayst Thou apply to me the oil of remission, and pour on me the
wine of penitence. If Thou wilt but place me on thine own beast, Thou wilt raise
my helplessness from the earth, my poverty from the mire. For it is Thou who
hast borne our sins, Thou who hast paid for us what Thou didst not take. If Thou
wilt lead me to the inn of Thy Church, Thou wilt feed me with the refection of
Thy body and blood. If thou wilt have care for me, neither do I pass over Thy
commandments nor meet the rage of furious beasts. For I need Thy guardianship so
long as I wear this corruptible flesh. Hear me, therefore, O Samaritan, me who
am robbed and wounded, weeping and groaning, calling aloud and crying with
David, Have pity upon me, O God, according to Thy great mercy.’30 Thus Ps.
cxlvii. 3: ‘He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.’
Augustine: ‘The binding up of wounds is the restraining of sins.’

[31] Lyser: ‘By his own discomfort He sought our comfort.’

[32] Augustine brings out another side of the similitude: ‘The inn is the Church
in which travellers returning to the eternal country from their pilgrimage are
refreshed; or it is an inn, because (Origen, Hom. 34 in Luc.) ‘it receives all
who wish to enter.’ [ as the Greek word testifies]

[33] Ambrose (Exp. in Luc. vii. 78): ‘This Samaritan was not free to linger long
on the earth: He had to return thither, whence He had descended.’

[34] Melanchthon: ‘“Whatsoever thou spendest more, I will repay thee,” as much
as to say: Labours, perils, lack of counsel are coming upon thee, in all these I
will be present with thee and will help thee.’

[35] Cyprian’s use of the parable (Ep. 51) forms a sort of connecting link
between these two interpretations, the literal and the allegorical: the wounded
man is a sinning brother, one who has fallen away in time of persecution.
Cyprian, who desired to deal mildly with these lapsed, and to readmit them to
Church communion, exclaims: ‘Behold where a wounded brother is lying, stricken
by his adversary in the battle. On the one side the devil is trying to kill him
whom he has wounded. On the other, Christ is exhorting that he whom He has
redeemed should not wholly perish. To which of the two shall we bring help, on
whose side are we standing? Are we favouring the devil’s efforts to kill, and
like the priest and Levite in the Gospel, passing by our brother as he lies
almost lifeless before us? Or, like priests of God and of Christ, are we
imitating what Christ both taught and did, are we snatching the wounded man from
the jaws of his enemy, that he may be cured and reserved for the judgment of
God?’ Cf. Ambrose, De Paenit. i. 6; and Chrysostom, Adv. Jud., Orat. viii. 3.

[36] Maldonatus is the only commentator I know who has fairly put this
difficulty, which is on the face of the parable. It is one of the many merits of
this most intolerant and abusive Jesuit (Maldonatus maledicentissimus, as he
used to be called), that he never evades a difficulty, but fairly states it,
whether he can resolve it or not.

[37] So Bengel: ‘It is not from any reluctance that the lawyer abstains from
explicitly naming the Samaritan.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 18: 17-PARABLE 16. THE FRIEND AT MIDNIGHT.
========================================================================

PARABLE 16. THE FRIEND AT MIDNIGHT.

Luke 11:5-8. THE connexion between this parable and the words that go before is
easy to be traced. As the Lord ‘was praying in a certain place, when he ceased,
one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught
his disciples.’ In reply to this request of theirs He graciously gives them that
perfect form of words, which, coming immediately from Him, has ever borne his
name. But having done this, He now instructs them further in what spirit, with
what instancy and perseverance, they ought to pray. There is the same argument
as in the parable of the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:2-8), from the less to the
greater, or more accurately, from the worse to the better; - but with this
difference, that here the tardy selfishness of man is set against the prompt
liberality of God, while there it is the unrighteousness of man which is tacitly
contrasted with the righteousness of God. The conclusion is, if churlish man can
be won by mere importunity to give, and unjust man to do right, how much more
certainly shall the bountiful Lord bestow, and the righteous Lord do justice.
[1] Perhaps there is this further distinction, that here it is prayer for the
needs of others, in which we are bidden to be instant; while there it is rather
prayer for the supply of our own. In neither case may we urge the illustration
so far, as to conceive of prayer as an overcoming of God’s reluctance, when it
is, in fact, a laying hold of his highest willingness. [2] For though there is
an aspect under which God may present Himself to us, similar to that of the
Unjust Judge and of the churlish Friend, yet always with this essential
difference,-that his is a seeming unwillingness to grant, theirs is a real.
Under such an aspect of seeming unwillingness to hear did the merciful Son of
man present Himself to the Syro-Phoenician woman (Matthew 15:21). But why? Not
because He was reluctant to give, but because He knew that her faith would carry
her triumphantly over all obstacles in her path; that through such resistance as
He opposed to that faith for a while, it would be called out, strengthened,
purified, as, had this trial been spared, it could never otherwise have been. In
like manner the great Angel of the Covenant contended with Jacob, wrestled with
him all the night; yet allowing Himself at the last to be overcome by him, left
a blessing behind Him; and Jacob henceforth was Israel; being permanently lifted
up through that conflict into a higher condition, as was expressed by that
nobler name which henceforth he bore, ‘for as a Prince hast thou power with God
and with men, and hast prevailed’ (Genesis 32:28). The parable of the Friend at
Midnight rests on a familiar incident of common life; and, spoken as it is to
humble men, the incident on which it rests may easily have come within the range
of their own experience: ‘Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto
him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of
mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?’ These
words have yielded ample scope for allegorical and mystical interpretations, and
some of no little beauty; though we cannot regard them as more than graceful
adaptations for pious uses of the Lord’s words. For example, the guest arriving
at midnight has been explained as the spirit of man, which, weary of its
wanderings in the world, of a sudden desires heavenly sustenance; - begins to
hunger and thirst after righteousness. But the host, or man himself, in so far
as he is ‘sensual, not having the Spirit,’ has nothing to set before this
unlooked-for guest, and in this his spiritual emptiness [3] is here taught to
appeal to God, extorting in earnest prayer from Him that which is bread indeed,
and heavenly food for the soul. [4] Another interesting adaptation in the same
kind we owe to Augustine. He is urging on his hearers the duty of being able to
give a reason for their faith, and one not merely defensive, but such as shall
win and persuade others; and this, since it may easily happen that one from the
heathen world, or a heretic, or even a nominal Catholic, weary of his wanderings
in error, and longing to know something of the Christian faith, though lacking
confidence or opportunity to go to the bishop or catechists, may come to them,
claiming instruction in righteousness at their lips. How greatly it behoved in
such a case that they should have something to set before him; or having
nothing, they are taught in this parable to whom they should seek for the supply
of their own needs and the needs of their friend, - that they go to God,
beseeching Him to teach them, that so they may be competent to teach others. [5]
Vitringa’s explanation [6] is a modification of this. For him the guest is the
heathen world; the host who receives him are the servants and disciples of
Jesus; who in this parable are instructed that they can nourish with bread of
life those coming to them, only as they themselves have obtained the same from
God; which therefore they must solicit with all perseverance and instancy of
supplication. [7] Where such a mystical interpretation has found room, it will
naturally follow that in the ‘three, loaves’ which the suppliant seeks, some
special significance will be looked for. In them various scriptural triads have
been traced; as that the host, craving these, craves the knowledge of the Holy
Trinity, of God in his three persons; [8] or the three choicest gifts and graces
of the Spirit, faith, hope, and charity; [9] with more of the same kind. [10]

‘And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut;’
the house is made up for the night, barred and bolted; ‘and my children’ - or,
as many take it, ‘my servants’ [11] - ‘are with me in bed; I cannot rise and
give thee’ (cf. Song of Solomon 5:3). In the parable allegorically interpreted
these last words find their spiritual equivalent, and are understood to mean,
‘All, who by earlier application have obtained right to be called my children,
have secured their admission into my kingdom, and are now resting with Me there;
it is too late to apply when the time of admission is past.’ [12]

‘I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend,
yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.’
The strength of the word which the Lord uses here has been a little reduced by
our Translators. [13] It is not his ‘importunity’ which so much prevails as his
‘shamelessness; [14] so that we may suppose many askings, each more urgent than
the last; although only that one is recorded which at length extorts the gift.
[15] Yet it is a ‘shamelessness’ mitigated by the fact, that not for himself,
but for another, and that he may not fail in the sacred duties of hospitality,
he thus pertinaciously urges his request; even as the same may be affirmed of
Abraham, who offers us another example of successful ‘importunity,’ rising
almost to shamelessness in asking; he too is pleading not for himself, but for
the city where his kinsman dwelt (Genesis 18:23-33). With no other arms than
those which his ‘importunity’ supplies, the suppliant here triumphs in the end;
he obtains, not merely the ‘three loaves’ which he asked, but ‘as many as he
needeth;’ like that woman already referred to, from whom the Saviour at first
seemed to have shut up all his compassion, but to whom He threw open at the last
the ample treasure-house of his grace, bidding her to help herself. Nor is it
merely that he thus at last gives all which the other desires; but he who
refused at first so much as to send one of his household, himself now rises, and
supplies all the wants of his friend; for so ‘the kingdom of heaven suffereth
violence, and the violent take it by force.’ On the return of prayers not being
always immediate Augustine has many excellent observations, not a few in
connexion with this parable; - as this: ‘When sometimes God gives tardily, He
commends his gifts, He does not deny them;’ - ‘Things long desired are more
sweet when obtained; those quickly given, soon lose their value;’ - and again:
‘God withholds his gifts for a time, that thou mayest learn to desire great
things greatly.’ Faith, patience, humility, are all called into exercise by
these temporary denials. It is then seen who will pray always and not faint; and
who will be daunted by the first ill-success; like the leopard, which, failing
to attain its prey at the first spring, turns sullenly back, and cannot be
induced to repeat the attempt. [16] A few concluding words give the moral of all
which has been spoken: ‘And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you;
seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’ More is here
than merely three repetitions of the same command; since to ‘seek’ is more than
to ‘ask,’ and to ‘knock’ than to ‘seek.’ In this ascending scale of earnestness,
an exhortation is implicitly contained not merely to prayer, but to increasing
urgency in prayer, even till the suppliant carry away the boon which he
requires, and which God is only waiting for the arrival of the proper moment to
bestow. [17]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Augustine (Ep. 130: 8): ‘From this we should understand that if a man who
against his will is awakened from his sleep by a suppliant is compelled to give,
how much more bountifully will He give who knows no sleep, and who wakens us
from our sleep that we may ask.’

[2] This is finely expressed by Dante (Parad. 20), in words which have as much a
theological as a poetical interest:Regnum caelorum violenzia pate Da caldo amore
e da viva speranza, Che vince la divina volontate, Non a guisa the 1’uomo all’
uom sovranza, Ma vince lei, perche vuole esser vinta, E vinta vince con sua
beninanza.(‘Fervent love, And lively hope, with violence assail The kingdom of
the heavens, and overcome The will of the Most High; not in such sort As man
prevails o’er man; but conquers it, Because ‘tis willing to be conquer’d, still,
Though conquer’d, by its mercy, conquering.’ - Cary’.) [3] Augustine: ‘Set in
the midst of tribulation.’

[4] Bede (Hom. in Luke 11 :): ‘The friend who came from a journey is our own
soul, which, as often as it wanders abroad in search of things earthly and
temporal, departs from us. It returns therefore, and longs to be refreshed with
heavenly food, so soon as it has come again to itself and begun to meditate on
things celestial and spiritual. Whence the suppliant beautifully adds, ‘And I
have nothing to set before him,’ for the soul which after the darkness of the
world is panting after God, has no pleasure in thinking of or beholding aught
save him.’ And Bernard (In Rogat. Serm.): ‘By the friend who comes to me I
understand no other than myself, when deserting things transitory I return unto
my heart. The friend comes from a distant country where he was wont to feed
swine and to hunger insatiably for the husks. He comes sore pressed by hunger,
but alas, he chooses a poor host and enters an empty house. What shall I do for
this wretched and pitiable friend? I own he is my friend, but I am a beggar. Why
hast thou come to me, my friend, in such necessity? Hasten, he answers, run,
awaken that great friend of thine than whom none has greater love, and none
greater wealth. Call unto him and say, Friend, lend me three loaves.’ Compare
Augustine (Quaest. Evang. 2: qu. 21); and a discourse which is not Augustine’s,
but has sometimes been attributed to him (Serm. 84, Appendix).

[5] Serm. 105: 2: ‘A friend comes to thee from a journey, that is from the life
of this world, in which all are passing on as aliens, neither does any abide as
a possessor, but to every man there is said: Thou hast been refreshed, pass on,
get thee on thy journey, make room for the incomer. Or perchance there cometh
from an ill journey, that is from an ill life, some wearied friend of thine, who
cannot find the truth by the hearing and receiving of which he may be made
happy, but worn out amid all the desires and the poverty of the world he comes
to thee as to a Christian and says: Give me an account of it, make me a
Christian. And he asks something of which perchance thou in the simplicity of
thy faith wast ignorant, and thou hast no means of refreshing the hungry man,
but when thus reminded findest thyself needy. For thee perchance simple faith
sufficed, for him it does not suffice. Is he to be deserted? Is he to be cast
from thy house? Nay rather betake thee to the Lord himself, to him who is asleep
with his household, beat at his door with thy prayers, and be urgent in asking.’

[6] Erklär. d. Parab. p. 763.4

7 Augustine: ‘Whence I live, thence I speak; whence I am fed, this I minister.’
Cf. a sermon by Guerricus, Bernardi Opp. Ben. ed. Vol. 2: p. 1023.

[8] Augustine: Enarr. in Psalms 102:5; Quest. Evang. 2: 21.

[9] Euthymius: ‘Loaves; the nourishing teaching of souls.’

[10] Godet: ‘The meaning of the image of the three loaves must not be demanded
from the allegory; it must be drawn from the picture as a whole. One of the
loaves is for the stranger, the second for the host, who would naturally share
his meal; the third would form the reserve. The idea of full sufficiency (as
many as he needeth) is the true application to make of this detail.’

[11] Augustine has taken παιδία so (Ep. 130: 8): ‘As he was already asleep with
his servants, a most pressing and importunate petitioner aroused him.’

[12] Augustine: ‘Why dost thou knock so unseasonably who in the due season wast
slothful? Day was, and thou didst not walk in the light; night has come on, and
thou beginnest to knock.’

[13] On some other occasions they have done the same. Σχιζομένους (Mark 1:10)
is more than ‘opened’ (‘cleft’ in the Geneva Version); so too βασανιζομένους
(Mark 6:48) than ‘toiling;’ οικοδεσποτειν (1 Timothy 5:14) than to , guide the
house;’ αποσπασθεντας απ’ αυτων (Acts 21:1) than ‘were gotten from them.’

[14] Αναίδεια - by the Vulgate happily rendered improbitas, expressing, as this
does, an unwearied labour either in good or in bad. The Greeks had a proverb
which one scarcely can help being reminded of here, θεος αναίδεια, ‘Impudence
is a god,’ expressing in quite another spirit, yet with a similar energy, all
which αναίδεια will obtain for a man. The Jews, in like manner, have a proverb,
‘Impudence is an uncrowned king,’ and another, ‘Impudence succeeds even with
God.’ Von Meyer (Blätter für höhere Wahrheit, vol. 5: p. 45) has some
interesting remarks on the αναίδεια of this petitioner, and how it is
reconcilable with the humility which is praised in the publican (Luke 18:13).

[15] Augustine (Enarr. in Psalms 102:5): ‘He extorted from weariness what he
cannot extort by his deserts.’

[16] Stella: ‘There are many who in nature and habit are like the leopard, who
if at the first or second leap he fails to secure his prey, pursues it no
further. Even so are those who, if they be not heard at their first or second
prayer, straightway desist from praying and are branded as impatient.’

[17] Augustine: ‘To this end God desires to be sought even that they who seek
may become able to receive his gifts. - He gives not save to him who asks, lest
He may give to him who cannot receive’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 19: 18-PARABLE 17. THE RICH FOOL.
========================================================================

PARABLE 17. THE RICH FOOL.

Luke 12:16-21. IN the midst of a discourse of Christ’s an interruption occurs.
One among his hearers is so slightly interested in his teaching, but has so much
at heart the redressing of a wrong, which he has, or believes that he has,
sustained in his worldly interests, that, unable to wait for a more convenient
season, he breaks in with that request, at all events untimely, which gave
occasion for this parable - ‘Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the
inheritance with me.’ From this confident appeal, made in the presence of so
many, it is likely that his brother did withhold from him a share of the
patrimony which was justly his. The contrary is often taken for granted - that
he had no right, and knew that he had none, to what he is here claiming, but
hoped to win from the Lord’s insufficient acquaintance with the matter a
decision in his favour. There is much in the parable which found its motive in
this request, to lead us to the opposite conclusion. That contains a warning,
not against unrighteousness, but against ’ covetousness’ (ver. 15); which may
display itself quite as much in the spirit wherewith we hold or reclaim our own,
as in the undue snatching at that of another. It was the extreme inopportuneness
of the time he chose for urging his claim, which showed him one in whom the
worldly prevailed to the danger of making him totally irreceptive of the
spiritual, and drew this warning word from the lips of the Lord. That he should
have desired Christ as an umpire or arbitrator, - for this was all he claimed
(see Acts 7:27; Acts 7:35; Exodus 2:14); and this was all which the Lord,
without publicly recognized authority, could have been, [1] - in itself was
nothing sinful. St. Paul himself recommended the settling of differences among
brethren by means of such an appeal (1 Corinthians 6:1-6); and how serious a
burden this arbitration afterwards became for the bishops of the Church is
sufficiently known. [2] But although no fault could be found with the request
itself, Christ absolutely refused to accede to it; declined here, as ever, to
interfere in affairs of civil life. It was indeed most certain that the truth He
brought, received into the hearts of men, would modify and change the whole
framework of society, that his word and his life were the seed out of which
Christian States, with laws affecting property as everything else, in due time
would unfold themselves; but his work was from the inward to the outward. His
adversaries more than once sought to thrust upon Him the exercise, or to
entangle Him in the assumption, of a criminal jurisdiction, as in the case of
the woman taken in adultery (supposing John 8:3-11 to be authentic); or else in
a jurisdiction civil and political, as in the matter of the Roman tribute
(Matthew 22:17). But on each such occasion He carefully avoided the snare laid
for Him, the rock on which so many religious reformers, as eminently Savonarola,
have made shipwreck; keeping Himself within the limits of that moral and
spiritual world, from which alone an effectual renovation of the outer life of
man could proceed. The language in which He puts back this claimant of his
interference, ‘Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?’ contains an
allusion, which it is impossible to miss, to Exodus 2:14. Almost repeating the
words there spoken, He declares plainly that He will not fall into the error of
Moses, nor thrust Himself into matters which are outside of the present range of
his mission. [3] But though refusing this man what he sought, He gives to him
something much better than he sought, a warning counsel; and not to him only,
but to that whole multitude present:

‘Take heed, and beware of covetousness,’ [4] - or better, ’of all covetousness;’
- ‘for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he
possesseth.’

Fully to understand these words we must understand what ‘a man’s life’ is, which
thus does not stand in the abundance of his earthly goods; of which life
therefore this petitioner would not have had more, if, instead of half, he had
secured the whole of the disputed inheritance. While we have but one word for
‘life,’ the Greek possesses two - one to express the life which we live, another
to express that life by which we live; and it is of this latter which Christ is
speaking here. A man may have his living, his βιος, the sustenance of his lower
life, out of his earthly goods; nay more, they may themselves be called by this
very name (Mark 12:44; Luke 8:43; Luke 15:12; Luke 21:4; 1 John 3:17); but his
life itself, his ςωη, he cannot draw from them. [5] The breath of his nostrils
is of God; not all his worldly possessions, be they ever so large, will retain
his spirit an instant if that breath be withdrawn. And if this be true of life,
merely as the animating principle of man’s earthly existence, how much less can
life, as identical with peace, joy, blessedness here, and with immortality
hereafter, consist in these things which are at once outside of a man and
beneath him.

They may overlay, hinder, strangle this life; they were threatening to do this
in one who evidently cared so much more for a patch of earth than for the
kingdom of heaven; but they cannot produce it. This life is from God, as it is
to God. In this double meaning of ‘life’ lies the key to this passage, all whose
force they fail to educe who accept ‘life’ either exclusively in the lower, or
exclusively in a higher, sense. And this solemn truth, that a man’s life
consists not in his goods; that his lower life may come to an abruptest end, and
that losing hold of this, he may have lost hold of all, this Christ proceeds to
illustrate by the parable which follows. ‘The ground of a certain rich man
brought forth plentifully.’ We have no spoiler here, no extortioner, no remover
of his neighbour’s landmark. His riches are fairly gotten; [6] the earth empties
its abundance into his lap; his wealth has come to him in ways than which none
can be conceived more innocent, namely, through the blessing of God on toils
which He has Himself commanded. But here, as so often, the Giver is forgotten in
the gift, and that which should have brought nearer to Him only separates
further from Him. The wise king had said long before, ’ The prosperity of fools
shall destroy them ’ (Proverbs 1:32): this man sets his seal to this word, his
prosperity ensnaring him in a deeper worldliness, drawing out the selfish
propensities of his heart into stronger action; [7] for indeed out of how
profound a heart-knowledge that warning word of the Psalmist proceeds, ’ If
riches increase, set not thy heart upon them.’ It might beforehand be assumed
that the danger of setting the heart on riches would be the greatest when these
were escaping from our grasp, perishing under our hand. Experience teaches
another lesson, that earthly losses are remedies for covetousness, while
increase in worldly goods rouses and provokes it; serving, not as water to
quench, but as fuel to feed, the fire:’ [8] He that loveth silver shall not be
satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase’ (Ecclesiastes
5:10).

‘And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room
where to bestow my fruits?’ Some find in these words the anxious deliberations
of one brought into sore straits by that very abundance for which others were
envying him; not knowing which way to turn, and as painfully perplexed through
his riches as another through his poverty. [9] Better to say, that the curtain
is here drawn back, and we are admitted into the inner council-chamber of a
worldliness heart, glorying in his abundance, and realizing to the very letter
the making ‘provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.’ To his first
words, ‘I have no room where to bestow my fruits,’ it has been answered well,
‘Thou hast barns, - the bosoms of the needy, - the houses of the widows, - the
mouths of orphans and of infants.’ [10] Had he listened to the admonition of the
Son of Sirach, ‘Shut up alms in thy storehouses’ (xxix. 12), he would not have
found his barns too narrow. To one about to bestow his fruits amiss, and so in
danger of losing them, Augustine addresses this affectionate admonition: ‘God
desires not that thou shouldst lose thy riches, but that thou shouldst change
their place; He has given thee a counsel, which do thou understand. Suppose a
friend should enter thy house, and should find that thou hadst lodged thy fruits
on a damp floor, and he, knowing by chance the tendency of those fruits to
spoil, whereof thou went ignorant, should give thee counsel of this sort,
saying, ’ Brother, thou losest the things which with great labour thou hast
gathered: thou hast placed them in a damp place; in a few days they will
corrupt;” - ”And what, brother, shall I do?” - ”Raise them to a higher room;”
thou wouldest listen to thy brother suggesting that thou shouldst raise thy
fruits from a lower to a higher floor; and thou wilt not listen to Christ
advising that thou raise thy treasure from earth to heaven, where that will not
indeed be restored to thee which thou layest up; for He bids thee lay up earth,
that thou mayest receive heaven, lay up perishable things, that thou mayest
receive eternal.’ [11] This would have been his wisdom, to provide thus for
himself ’ bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens which faileth not’
(ver. 33). But he determines otherwise; he has another scheme altogether: ‘This
will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow
all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, [12] thou hast [13]
much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’
Having now at last a citadel and strong tower to which he may flee and be safe,
he will rest from his labours, and henceforth, to put heathen language into the
mouth of this truly heathen man, not defraud his genius any more. There is again
an irony as melancholy as profound in making him address this speech, not to his
body, but to his soul; - for that soul, though capable of being thus dragged
down to a basest service of the flesh, embodied and imbruted, was also capable
of being quickened by the divine Spirit, of knowing and loving and glorifying
God. [14] And then, though the wise king had said, ‘Boast not thyself of
to-morrow’ (Proverbs 27:1), he boasts himself of ‘many years’ (cf. Sir 5:1);
expects, like Job, to multiply his days as the sand, and to die in his nest (Job
29:18).15 Some words in the Apocrypha (Sir 11:18-19) constitute a remarkable
parallel: ‘There is that waxeth rich by his weariness and pinching, and this is
the portion of his reward: whereas he saith, I have found rest, and now will eat
continually of my goods, and yet he knoweth not what time shall come upon him,
and that he must leave those things to others, and die.’ Such a man is here. We
have heard what he was saying to himself; it is now permitted us to hear what
God at the same instant was saying to him: ‘Thou fool, this night thy soul shall
be required of thee.’ ‘Thou fool,’ [16] - this title is opposed to the opinion
of his own foresight which he entertained, - ‘this night,’ to the ‘many years’
which he promised to himself, - and that ’ soul’ which he purposed to nourish
and make fat, it is declared shall be inexorably’ required’ of him, and
painfully rendered up. [17] But how, it is sometimes asked, did God speak to
him? Was it by a sudden presentiment of approaching death, by some strong alarm
of conscience, by some mortal sickness at this instant falling upon him, or by
what other means? In none of these or like ways, as I understand the words. It
fared not with him as with the Babylonian king, to whom, while the word of pride
was yet in his mouth, there came a voice from heaven, announcing that the
kingdom was departed from him (Daniel 4:31); nor yet as it fared with Herod,
stricken in the hour of his profane apotheosis (Acts 12:23). Not thus, but more
awfully still, while those secure deliberations were going on in his thoughts,
this sentence was being determined in the counsels of God; [18] for so does the
Lord in heaven deride the counsels of sinners, knowing how soon He will bring
them to nothing. Not as yet was there any sign or token importing the nearness
of the divine judgment; but at the very moment when the decree was going forth
that his thread of life should so soon be cut in twain, he was promising himself
the long spaces of an uninterrupted security. [19] Nor is it merely, as our
Translation has it, that his soul ‘shall be required,’ - it ‘is required,’ - of
him; the doom is so fearfully near that the present can alone express its
nearness. In another point our Version may be bettered. Why not render, ‘This
night do they require thy soul of thee ’ (cf. Job 27:20), leaving who ‘they’ are
that shall thus require it in the fearful obscurity of the original? Violent
men, it may be; but more probably the avenging angels are intended, the
ministers of judgment (cf. Job 33:22 : ‘Yea, his soul draweth near unto the
grave, and his life to the destroyers’); so that we have here the reverse of
that ’ carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom,’ of Luke 16:22. The force of
this ‘required’ (cf. Wisd. 15: 8: ‘His life which was lent him shall be
demanded’), is well brought out by Theophylact: ‘For like pitiless exactors of
tribute, terrible angels shall require thy soul from thee unwilling, and through
love of life resisting. For from the righteous his soul is not required, but he
commits it to God and the Father of spirits, pleased and rejoicing, nor finds it
hard to lay it down, for the body lies upon it as a light burden. But the sinner
who has enfleshed his soul, and embodied it, and made it earthy, has prepared to
render its divulsion from the body most hard wherefore it is said to be required
of him, as a disobedient debtor that is delivered to pitiless exactors; [20] cf.
Job 27:8 ‘What is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God
taketh away his soul? ’ God ‘taketh it away;’ for he is not as a ship, which has
long been waiting in harbour, and when the signal is given, lifts joyfully its
anchors, and makes sail for the haven of eternity; but like one by fierce winds
dragged from its moorings, and driven furiously to perish on the rocks. The mere
worldling is violently separated from the world, the only sphere of delight
which he knows, as the fabled mandrake is torn from the earth, shrieking and
with bleeding roots? [21]

‘Then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?’ ’ He heapeth up
riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them ’ (Psalms 39:6). Solomon had noted
long before, among the vanities that cling to wealth, the uncertainty upon whom
at the death of the gatherer it would devolve, as of the uses to which he would
turn it ‘Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun, because I
should leave it unto the man that shall be after me and who knoweth whether he
shall be a wise man or a fool? ’ (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19; Ecclesiastes 2:21;
Ecclesiastes 2:26; cf. Psalms 49:6-20; Jeremiah 17:11; Job 27:16-17).

‘So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.’ Self
and God are here contemplated as the two poles between which the soul is placed,
for one or other of which it must determine, and then constitute that one the
end and object of all its aims and efforts. If for the first, then the man ’
layeth up treasure for himself,’ and what the issue of this is we have seen; the
man and his treasure come to nothing together. He has linked himself to the
perishable in his inmost being, and he must perish with it. The very enriching
of himself outwardly, being made the purpose of his existence, is an
impoverishing of himself inwardly, that is, ‘toward God’ and in those which are
the true riches: for there is a continual draining off to worldly objects, of
those affections which should have found their only satisfying object in God;
where his treasure is, there his heart is also. Now the Scripture ever considers
the heart as that which constitutes a man truly rich or truly poor. He that has
no love to God, no large spiritual affections, no sympathies with his brethren,
is ‘wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked,’ and shall one day
discover that he is so, however now he may be saying, ’ I am rich, and increased
with goods, and have need of nothing’ (Revelation 3:17). He is poor toward God;
he has nothing with God; he has laid up in store no good foundation against the
time to come. On the other hand, he only is truly rich, who is ‘rich toward
God,’ who is rich in God; who has made the eternal and unchangeable the first
object of his desires and his efforts. He in God possesses all things, though in
this world he may have nothing; and for him to die will not be to quit, but to
go to, his riches. [22]

Christ, having thus warned his hearers against covetousness, and knowing how
often it springs from distrust in the fatherly providence of God (Hebrews 13:5),
proceeds to remind them where they may find the best antidote to this and to all
over-anxious thoughts for the future, namely, in the assurance of his tender
watchfulness and care over them (ver. 22-30); the connexion being thus as close
as it is beautiful between this parable and the instructions which immediately
follow. In the mention of the ravens, which are fed, though they neither sow nor
reap, have neither store -house nor barn (ver. 24), there is, perhaps, a
distinct reminiscence of the feeding of Elijah by the same birds, and allusion
to it (1 Kings 17:4; 1 Kings 17:6).

FOOTNOTES

[1] Grotius explains µεριστης: ‘One who is taken as an arbitrator for dividing
an inheritance, apportioning a joint property or settling boundaries.’

[2] Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. cxviii. 115) complains of this distraction from
spiritual objects, and that he was not allowed to say to those who came to him
with cases for arbitration, ’ Who made me a judge or a divider over you?’ And
St. Bernard warns Pope Eugenius of the dangers which from this quarter would
beset him.

[3] See Hammond, Paraphrase (in loc.).

[4] Augustine (Serm. cvii. 3) urges well the force of this ‘all:’ ’Perhaps thou
wouldst call a man avaricious and covetous if he sought that which belonged to
another. But I say that thou must not seek covetously and avariciously even that
which is thine . . . Not only is he avaricious who grasps another’s; but he too
is avaricious who covetously keeps his own.’

[5] See my Synonyms of the New Testament § 27.

[6] Augustine (Serm. clxxviii. 2): ’Not by removing a landmark, not by robbing
the poor, not by defrauding the innocent.’

[7] Ambrose: ’God gives thee abundance that He may either overcome or condemn
thine avarice.’

[8] Plutarch applies to the covetous the line, ‘Thy remedy but worsens thy
disease,’ and so the Latin proverb:

Avarum irritat petunia, non satiat, ‘Money goads the miser, it does not sate
him;’ compare Seneca, Ad Helv. 11; Augustine, Serm. i. 4; and the fine Eastern
tale of Abdallah the camel-driver.

[9] So Augustine: “Man is more perturbed by abundance than by need;’ thus too
Gregory the Great (Moral. xv. 22): ’ O the straits that are begotten of satiety,
Because of the fertility of his fields the soul of the covetous man is
straitened. For by saying “what shall I do?” he plainly shows that, overwhelmed
with passionate desires, he was labouring beneath the load of his affairs;’ and
Grotius quotes in this view: Crescentem sequitur cura pecuniam,’ As money
increases, care follows it.’ But Unger much better: ’The parable describes the
rapturous deliberations of the rich man.’

[10] Ambrose (De Nabuthe, 7); cf. Augustine, Serm. xxxvi. 9 [11] Enarr. in Ps.
xlviii. 9; of. in Ps. xxxviii. 6.

[12] So Theognis: ’ Rejoice with me, dear soul,’—tanquam

Sit proprium quidquam, puncto quod mobilis horae, Nunc prece, nunc pretio, nunc
vi, nunc morte suprema, Permutet dominos, et cedat in altera jura.—Horace, Ep.
ii. 2. 171, ‘As if aught could be ours, and ours alone, Ours whom a turn of
fortune may dethrone, Which force or favour, money, death, may take From us,
another o’er it lord to make.’—Martin.

[14] This is finely brought out by Basil the Great in his noble sermon on this
parable: ’ Alas for thy folly! Hadst thou a swine’s soul how else wouldst thou
congratulate it but thus? So beastlike art thou, so ignorant of the goods of the
soul, feasting it thus with meats of the flesh; and what the privy shall
receive, is it this thou preparest for the soul?’

[15] Tertullian: ‘As his crops prospered he thought of the widening of his
barns, and long days of ease.’

[16] Seneca, in an epistle (the 101st) on the sudden death of a rich
acquaintance: ’How foolish is it to map out one’s life I we are masters not even
of the morrow 1 0 what madness is theirs who enter into hopes for the far future
I I will buy, I will build, I will trust, I will exact, I will take office, and
then I will devote to ease my wearied and ripe old age.’ Compare Horace (Carm.
ii. 18. 17) Tu secanda marmora Locas sub ipsum funus, et sepulcri Immemor struis
domos.

‘Yet you, upon death’s very brink, Of piling marbles only think, That yet are in
the quarries’ womb, And, all unmindful of the tomb, Rear gorgeous mansions
everywhere.’—Martin. So too a Greek epigram reminds us, that with all his
heaping a man is not able ‘to heap up measures of life beyond his due.’

[17] Vitringa (Erklar. der Parab. p. 781) makes ingenious reference here to 1
Sam. xxv. 25, observing that this rich fool is the Nabal of the New Testament: ’
As his name is, so is he: Nabal is his name, and folly is with him.’ Compare
ver. 36-38 there with this ver. 20 of our parable.

[18] God, as Grotius explains it, and I believe rightly, said to him this, ‘not
by way of revelation, but of decree.’

[19] If this be right, Godet is wrong, who writes: ‘The words “God said to him”
express more than a decree: they refer to a warning which the man hears within
him before he dies.’

[20] As the other side of the same truth, the Jewish doctors taught that the
angel Gabriel drew gently out with a kiss the souls of the righteous from their
months: with which we may compare the Christian phrase, to sleep in the kiss of
the Lord,’ in osculo Domini obdormire.

[21] See Lucian’s inimitable sixteenth Dialogue (Cataplus), for a commentary, in
its way, on these words.

[22] Cyprian’s words addressed to the covetous involve the true interpretation
of the passage (De Op. et Eleem.): ‘The darkness of barrenness has beset thy
soul, and as the light of truth departs from it the deep and profound mist of
avarice has blinded thy carnal breast. Of thy money thou art the captive and
slave; thou guardest money, which, however it be guarded, cannot guard thee;
thou increasest an estate which burdens thee the more grievously with its
weight; thou rememberest not what God answered to the rich man who with
insensate exultation boasted of the plenty of his abounding crops. Why dost thou
brood alone over thy wealth? Why dost thou increase the burden of thy estate to
thine own punishment, so that the richer thou art in the world, the poorer thou
art before God? ’ See Suicer, Thes. s. v. πλουτεω.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 20: 19-PARABLE 18. THE BARREN FIG-TREE.
========================================================================

PARABLE 18. THE BARREN FIG-TREE.

Luke 13:6-9. THE eagerness of men to be the first narrators of evil tidings, an
eagerness which must spring from a certain secret pleasure in them, [1] although
one most often unacknowledged even to themselves, may have moved some to hasten
to the Lord with tidings of a new outrage which Pilate had committed. The
bearers of this report understood rightly that He was speaking, in the words
which conclude the last chapter (ver. 58, 59), of the terrible judgments which
men draw down upon their own heads through their sins; but, as is the manner of
most, it was only for others that they found a warning here. Of the outrage
itself, - which, however, agrees well with the quarrel between Herod and Pilate
(Luke 23:12), and may have been either its cause or its consequence, - there is
no notice elsewhere; for we cannot accept the scattering or slaying by Pilate of
some fanatical Samaritan insurgents, recorded by Josephus, [2] and here adduced
by some earlier commentators, as the event referred to. But we know that a
revolt, or at the least a tumult, was always dreaded at the great festivals, and
various precautions taken against it; a very small spark serving to kindle into
a blaze the smouldering elements of Jewish resistance to the hated Roman
dominion, and to provoke measures of severest retaliation on the part of the
Roman authorities. [3] Among the numberless atrocities which ensued, it is
nothing strange that this, which must have been but as a drop of water in a
great ocean, should remain unrecorded. Some outbreak of that troublesome
insurrectionary spirit for which the Galileans were noted, [4] may have been the
motive or excuse for this massacre; which yet cannot have been perpetrated in
Galilee, where, as subjects of Herod (Luke 23:7; Luke 23:22), these men would
not have been exposed to Pilate’s cruelty, but at Jerusalem, which also was the
only place where sacrifices were offered (Leviticus 17:8-9; Deuteronomy
12:26-27; John 4:20). The language in which their slaughter is reported is
significant; they were men ‘whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
sacrifices;’ thus blood was mingled with blood, their own with that of the slain
beasts which they offered; [5] the narrators possibly urging this as evidence of
the peculiar anger of God against those who so perished. If men might be safe
anywhere, or at any time, it would be at the altar of God, and in the act of
offering sacrifices to Him. But here, they would infer (just as Job’s friends
inferred some mighty guilt upon his part from the mighty calamities which
overwhelmed him), there must have been some hidden enormous guilt, which turned
the very sacrifices of these men into sin, - not a propitiation of God, but a
provocation, - so that they themselves became piacular expiations, their blood
mingling with, and itself becoming part of, the sacrifices which they offered.
But whether the tellers intended this or not, the Lord at once rebuked the cruel
judgments which they certainly had formed concerning those that perished:
‘Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because
they suffered such things?’ He does not deny that they were sinners, justly
obnoxious to this or any other severest visitation from God, but only that the
blood-bath in which they perished marked them out as sinners above all their
fellow countrymen; and then He leads his hearers, as was his wont (see Luke
13:23; John 21:22), to take their eyes off from others, and to fix them upon
themselves: ‘I tell you, Nay but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise
perish’ - not those Galileans alone, but all of them as well. This is the
meaning for ourselves of the calamities which befall others; they are loud and
earnest calls to repentance. Instead of exalting ourselves above and against the
sufferers, as though we were more righteous than they, and therefore exempt from
like tribulations, we shall rather acknowledge that whatever befalls another,
might justly have befallen ourselves. When, too, we have learned to recognize in
ourselves the bitter root of sin, we shall be prompt to confess that whatever
deadly fruit it bears in another, it might have borne the same or worse, under
like temptations, in ourselves. But when this is felt, it will be no longer
possible to triumph over the doom of any sinner. The thoughts of one, thus
taught to know himself, will fall back on his own life and on his own heart. He
will see in the chastisement which has overtaken another, the image of that
which might justly have overtaken himself; and a message of warning, if also for
others, yet first for himself. For he will not deny, as neither does Christ here
deny, the intimate connexion between suffering and sin; but it is the sin of the
whole race which is linked with the suffering of the whole race; and not of
necessity the sin of the individual with his particular share and portion in
this the world’s woe. [6] So far from denying this connexion, the more the
Christian conscience is unfolded in him, the more close will this connexion
appear. At every new instance of moral and physical evil which he encounters in
a world that has departed from God, he will anew justify God as the author of
all good, even when He asserts Himself negatively as such, in the misery of man
as he is a sinful creature separated from his God, no less than positively, in
the blessedness of man as he is redeemed and reunited with God. Our blessed
Lord, more fully to illustrate the truth He has in hand, Himself brings forward
another instance of a swift destruction overtaking many persons at once: ‘Or
those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that
they were sinners above all men’ - or literally, debtors above all men’ (Matthew
5:25; Matthew 6:12; Matthew 18:24; Luke 7:41) - ‘that dwelt in Jerusalem?’ As
little in this case were cruel judgments to find place. But while none might
attribute a pre-eminence in guilt to those who were crushed by that falling
tower, yet here also, in sudden and strange catastrophes like this, all were to
recognize a call to repentance; partly as these should remind all of the
uncertainty of life, how soon therefore their own day of grace might end; but
chiefly as awakening in them a sense and consciousness of sin. For all discords
of outward nature, of fire and flood, of earthquake and storm, all fearful
accidents, like that of the falling tower, are parts of that subjection of the
whole creation to vanity, consequent on the sin of man (Romans 8:20-21); all
speak to sinners in the same warning language, ‘Except ye repent, ye shall all
likewise perish.’ The near resemblance between these two calamities just
instanced, and the doom which actually did overtake the rebellious Jews, the
nation which refused to obey this bidding and to repent, can scarcely be
accidental, and demands that we shall give to that ‘likewise’ of the Lord all
its force. It was indeed ‘likewise’ that they perished; for the very same forms
of violent death overtook them. As the tower in Siloam fell and crushed eighteen
of the dwellers in Jerusalem, exactly so multitudes of its inhabitants in that
last siege and assault were crushed beneath the ruins of their temple and city;
numbers also were pierced through by the Roman missiles, - or more miserably
yet, by the swords of their own frantic factions, - in the courts of the temple,
in the very act of preparing their sacrifices, [7] so that literally their
blood, like that of these Galileans, was ‘mingled with their sacrifices,’ one
blood with another.

Those two calamities then are adduced as slight foretastes of the doom reserved
for the whole people of the Jews. If they would lay to heart the warning, and
bring forth fruit meet for repentance, that doom might even now be averted but
if not, then these beginnings of sorrow should usher in at length the crowning
calamity which would make repentance impossible. In the meanwhile, in the fact
that hitherto the strokes descended upon them for warning, and not the stroke
for excision, they should see proof of the long-suffering of God, not willing
that any should perish: and to use Olshausen’s words, - ‘the discourse of Jesus,
severe and full of rebuke, is closed by a parable, in which the merciful Son of
man again brings the side of grace prominently forward. He appears as the
Intercessor for men before the righteousness of the heavenly Father, as He who
obtains for them space for repentance. This idea of the deferring of the
judgment of God, so to leave men opportunity to turn, runs through all
Scripture; before the deluge, a period of a hundred and twenty years was fixed
(Genesis 6:3); Abraham prayed for Sodom (Genesis 18:24); the destruction of
Jerusalem did not follow till forty years after the Ascension of the Lord; and
the coming again of Christ is put off through the patience of God (2 Peter
3:9).’

We have then a parable here concerning the long-suffering and the severity of
God. ‘He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his
vineyard.’ ‘The peculiarity of the image - that of a fig tree in a vineyard, -
however unlike to the European notion of a mass of unbroken vine-clad hills, is
natural in Palestine, where, whether in cornfields or vineyards, fig-trees,
thorn-trees, apple-trees are allowed to grow freely wherever they can get soil
to support them.’ [8] The vineyard here must be the world, and not, as in the
parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, the kingdom of God: in the midst of the world
the Jewish people were set that they should hear much fruit, that they should
bring much glory to God (Deuteronomy 4:6). But the parable, though directly
addressed to them, is also of universal application; for as Israel was the
representative of all and each who in after times should be elected out of the
world to the privileges of a nearer knowledge of God, therefore a warning is
here for the Gentile Church, and for each particular soul. [9] Compare Matthew
3:2; John 15:2.

‘And he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.’ There is a wonderful
fitness in the simple image running through all Scripture, which compares men to
trees, and their work to fruit, [10] - the fruit of a tree, just as the works of
a man, being the organic utterance and outcoming of the inner life, not
something arbitrarily attached or fastened on from without (Psalms 1:3; Jeremiah
17:8; John 15:2; John 15:4-5; Romans 7:4). The three kinds of works whereof
Scripture speaks may all be illustrated from this image: first, good works, [11]
when the tree, having been made good, bears fruit after its own kind; then dead
works, [12] such as have a fair outward appearance, but are not the genuine
outgrowth of the renewed man, - fruit, as it were, fastened on externally, alms
given that they may be gloried in, prayers made that they may be seen; and
lastly, wicked works, [13] when the corrupt tree bears fruit manifestly after
its own kind. Here it is, of course, those good fruits which are looked for but
are not found; both the other kinds of fruit the Jewish fig-tree only too
abundantly bore.

What is here parabolically related was on another occasion typically done in a
kind of sermo realis by the Saviour: when in the last days of his ministry,
‘seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any
thing thereon’ (Mark 11:13). But He then, as the master of the vineyard now,
‘found none.’ Long since the prophets had upbraided their people, that having
been ordained to bring forth much fruit to the glory of God, they had fallen
short of the purpose for which they were set in the world; bringing forth either
bitter fruit or none (Isaiah 5:2; Isaiah 5:7; Jeremiah [15] :; and, if our
Version is to stand, Hosea 10:1); and now the greatest of the prophets
implicitly repeats the charge.

Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, ‘Behold, these three years I come
seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none.’ By these ‘three years’ Augustine
understands the times of the natural law, - of the written law - -and now, at
last, of grace. Theophylact: ‘Christ came thrice, by Moses, by the prophets, and
thirdly in his own person; He comes, when application of the parable is made to
the individual, in childhood, in manhood, in old age.’ Olshausen finds allusion
to the three years of the Lord’s open ministry; but Grotius had already observed
against this, and with reason, that if the ‘three years’ are chronological, the
‘one year more,’ presently granted, must be chronological also; whereas not one,
but forty years of grace were allowed to the Jews, before the Romans came and
took away their name and place. - ‘Cut it down’ (see Isaiah 5:5-6; Matthew 7:19;
Luke 19:41-44); why [also] cumbereth it the ground? [14]” which ‘also,’ helping
to explain the sentence passed upon the tree, the Authorized Translation has
missed; but not so the Revised. Why should the tree remain, when, besides being
itself barren, it ‘also’ injured the soil in which it stood; for that ‘Why
cumbereth it the ground?’ [15] implies something more than that it occupied the
room which might have been filled by another and a fruit-bearing tree. The
barren tree mischiefed the land, ‘troubled’ it, as Bishop Andrewes renders the
word, spreading injurious shade, and drawing off to itself the fatness and
fertility which should have gone to trees rendering a return. It was thus with
the Jewish Church, which not merely did not itself bring forth fruits of
righteousness, but through it the name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles
(Romans 2:24); the Jews hindering in many ways the spread of the knowledge of
God among other nations, through the mischievous influences of their pride and
hypocrisy (Matthew 23:13; Matthew 23:15); what was thus true of a Church being
not less true of each separate sinner; who is not merely himself unprofitable to
God, but by his evil example, by his corrupt maxims, is an obstacle and a
stumbling-block to ethers in the way of godliness. - On that ‘Cut it down’ St.
Basil bids us note the love which breathes even in the threatenings of God.
‘This,’ he says, ‘is peculiar to the clemency of God toward men, that He does
not bring in punishments silently or secretly; but by his threatenings first
proclaims them to be at hand, thus inviting sinners to repentance.’ That proverb
which so finely expresses the noiseless approach of the divine judgments, ‘The
gods have feet of wool’ (Di laneos habent pedes), true for others, is not true
for those who have a listening ear. Before the hewing down begins, the axe is
laid at the root of the tree (Matthew 3:10); laid there that it may be ready at
hand for immediate use; but laid there also, that, if possible, this sign and
prophecy of doom may avert the actual fulfilment of the doom [16] (2 Chronicles
33:10). The vine-dresser, who pleads for the tree, and would fain avert its
doom, ‘Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung
it,’ is the Son Himself, the Intercessor for men (Job 33:23; Zechariah 1:12;
Hebrews 7:25), already in type and figure foreshown to men (Exodus 32:7-11;
Numbers 11:19; 1 Samuel 7:9; Amos 7:2; Daniel 9:16-19); not indeed as though the
Father and the Son had different minds concerning sinners, the counsels of the
Father being wrath, and of the Son mercy; for righteousness and love are not
qualities in Him who is Righteousness and who is Love; they cannot, therefore,
be set one against the other, since they are his essential being. But in our
anxiety to escape this error, we must not fall into the opposite, letting go the
reality of God’s wrath against sin, - the reality of the sacrifice of Christ,
not merely on the side with which it looks towards men, but also on that which
looks towards God; this sacrifice being indeed a propitiation of God, and not
merely an assurance of God’s love towards sinners. How these two truths shall be
reconciled, and those two errors shunned, is shown in those words: ‘The Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world’ (Revelation 13:8); ‘foreordained before
the foundation of the world’ (1 Peter 1:20). The sacrifice, though of necessity
outwardly brought to pass in time, found place in the purpose of Him who
offered, and of Him who accepted it, before all time, or rather, out of time; so
that we can never conceive of man as not contemplated by God in Christ. There
was no change in God’s mind concerning the sinner, [17] because He who beholds
the end from the beginning, had beheld him from the first as reconciled and
reconstituted in his Son (Romans 16:25-26). From this point of view we may
regard the high-priestly intercession of Christ as having been effectual even
before He passed into the heavens, there to appear before God for us; for to
that intercession all the long-suffering of God toward sinners is to be
referred: the praetermission of sins through the forbearance of God (Romans
3:25) under the Old Covenant, to be followed by a remission of them when the
designed sacrifice had been actually accomplished: [18] - ‘the earth and all the
inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it’ (Psalms 75:3).
Some of the Fathers see here an allusion as well to the intercessory work, which
the Church, in its healthy members, is ever carrying forward on behalf of its
sick, or that of the Church for the world. [19] No doubt such intercession has a
real worth before God (Genesis 18:23-33; Genesis 20:7; Exodus 32:11; Job 42:8; 1
Samuel 12:19; 1 Samuel 12:23; 2 Kings 19:4; 2 Kings 19:20; Jeremiah 15:1; 1
Timothy 2:1-4; James 5:14-18; 1 John 5:16); nor need such be absolutely excluded
here; yet, this must first and chiefly be referred to that one Intercessor, on
whose intercession that of all others must ultimately rest. It is plain, too,
that He must be meant, for He only to whom all judgment is committed could have
received the command, ‘Cut it down;’ to men it could in no case have been given
(Matthew 13:29-30). This great Intercessor pleads for men, yet not that they may
always continue unpunished in their sins, but only that their sentence may for a
while be suspended; so to prove whether they will turn and repent; even as the
vinedresser here begs for the barren tree, not that it may be suffered always to
stand (for, on the contrary, he allows its doom, should it abide unfruitful, as
righteous and good), [20] but asking for it one year of grace: ‘If it bear
fruit, well: [21] and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.’ During
this year he ‘will dig about it, and dung it; ‘will hollow out the earth from
around the stem, filling up the space about the roots with manure; [22] as one
may now see done to the orange trees in the south of Italy. By these appliances
is signified that multiplication of the means of grace which is so often granted
to men and nations in the last period of their probation, and just before those
means are withdrawn from them forever. Thus, before the flood, they had Noah, a
‘preacher of righteousness,’ - before the great catastrophes of the Jewish
people some of their most eminent prophets, as Jeremiah before the taking of
Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, - and before its final doom they enjoyed the
ministry of Christ and of his Apostles. This last is intended here; that richer
supply of grace, that freer outpouring of the Spirit, which should follow on the
death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord. So Theophylact: ‘Though they
were not made better by the law and the prophets, nor yielded fruit or
repentance, yet will I water them by my doctrines and passion; it may be they
will then yield fruits of obedience.’ No doubt if the history of men’s separate
lives were written as large as that of nations and Churches, and we could thus
read one as plainly as the other, we should oftener perceive that what is true
of the one is also true of the other: we should mark critical moments in men’s
lives to which all the future is linked, on which altogether it turns, - times
of gracious visitation, which above all it behoved them to know, and not suffer
to escape unimproved. Such a time of visitation to the Jewish people was the
Lord’s and his Apostles’ ministry (Luke 19:42); then was the last digging about
and manuring of the tree which had continued barren so long. But it abode in
barrenness; its day of grace came therefore to an end; and, as here is
threatened, it was inexorably cut down. In the parable, indeed, our Lord does
not positively affirm that the tree will remain unfruitful to the last, but
suggests the other as a possible alternative: ‘If it bear fruit, well;’ for thus
the door of repentance is left open still; the free will of man is recognized
and respected, and none are left to suppose that they are shut up, except by
their own evil will, in unbelief and hardness of heart,23 that any but
themselves can make inevitable their doom,

FOOTNOTES

[1] Two languages at least bear melancholy witness to the existence of such a
feeling, having a word to express this joy at calamities:—the German,
Schadenfreude; and the Greek επιχαιρεκακία.

[2] Antt. xviii. 4. 1.

[3] Antt. xx. 5. 3.

[4] The Galileans Josephus describes as industrious and brave; they were held in
a certain contempt by other Jews, partly as less pure in blood, many heathens
being mingled among them, whence their country is called ‘Galilee of the
Gentiles’ (Matt. iv. 15; see 1 Macc. v. 15,)—and partly as less strictly
orthodox (John vii. 52; see i. 46; Acts ii. 7), and departing in many
observances from the tradition of Jerusalem. They spoke a harsh broad dialect
(Matt. xxvi. 73), characterized by a confusion of gutturals, and not always
intelligible to a native of Jerusalem (Lightfoot, Chorograph. Cent. lxxxvi. 87).
Keim (Jesu von Nazara, vol. i. pp. 307-318) has an exceedingly interesting
chapter on Galilee and the Galileans.

[5] A tumult in the temple itself, pitilessly quelled in blood by Archelaus, son
of Herod the Great, some thirty years before this, is related at length by
Josephus (Antt. xvii. 9. 3).

[6] Strauss (Leben Jesu, vol. ii. pp. 84-90) terms the faith in a connexion
between sin and suffering, a ‘vulgar Hebrew notion,’ from which this passage
might at first seem to clear the Lord, but which Matt. ix. 2, John v. 14 lay
again at his door, or at theirs who profess to report his words. Christ affirms,
and all Scripture affirms, that the sum total of the calamity which oppresses
the human race is the consequence of the sum total of its sin; nor does He deny
the relation in which a man’s actual sins may stand to his sufferings. What He
does deny is, the power of other men to trace the connexion, and thus their
right in any particular case to assert it. And this, instead of being a ‘vulgar
Hebrew notion,’ is a most deeply rooted conviction in the universal human heart,
inextricably entwined in all language-a truth which men may forget or deny in
their prosperity, but which in the hour of calamity they are compelled to
acknowledge, extorting as it does this confession from them: Our sin hath found
us out (Gen. xlii. 21: cf. 1 Kin. xvii. 18; Judg. i. 7). Strange that the
barbarous islanders of Melite should have been in moral intuition so far ahead
of the learned German Professor (Acts xxviii. 4). Hengstenberg (Authentie d.
Pentateuches, vol. ii. p. 577 seq.) has some good observations on the subject.

[7] Josephus, 18. J. v. 1. 3: ‘Many even fell in front of the sacrifices.’ Cf.
ii. 2. 5.

[8] Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 413.

[9] Such application of it Ambrose makes (Exp. in Luc. xiii. 171): ‘That which
was spoken of the Jews should, I think, be taken as a warning by all men, and
especially by us, bidding us not to occupy, while barren of merit, the fertile
soil of the Church: our duty it is, since we are favoured even as pomegranates,
to bring forth inward fruits—the fruits of modesty, the fruits of union, the
fruits of mutual charity and love-seeing that we are all enfolded in the one
bosom of our mother the Church: that neither the wind hurt us, nor the hail beat
upon us, nor the fires of lust inflame us, nor the storm dash us to pieces.’

[10] Bengel (in Matt. vii. 16): ‘The fruit of a man, as that of a tree, is that
in which he abounds, as the result of the nature, good or bad, which permeates
all his inner faculties. A doctrine compiled from various sources and hanging
upon the tongue is not a fruit; but all that which any teacher from his own
heart brings forth and produces, alike in word and deed, as something which
flows from his inmost being, like the milk which a mother supplies from her own
breast, this is indeed a fruit.’ On this same subject Augustine has an admirable
sermon (Serm. lxxii.).

[11] ‘Works of God’ (John vi. 28),’ fair works’ (Tit. ii. 7), ‘good works’ (1
Tim. ii. 10), ‘works of faith’ (1 Thess. i. 3).

[12] ‘Dead works’ (Heb. ix. 14), and sometimes ‘works of the law’ (Gal. ii. 16).

[13] ‘Evil works’ (1 John iii. 12), ‘works of darkness’ (Rom, xiii. 12), ‘works
of the flesh’ (Gal. v. 19).

[14] Ινατί και την καταργει; Ut quid etiam terram occupat? (Vulgate); or better,
Quare insuper terram reddit sterilem? Warum macht er auch noch das Land
unfruchtbar? (De Wette). Gregory the Great (Hom. 31 in Evang.): ‘For after it
has destroyed itself, the question arises why is it also to cumber others?’
Bengel: ‘Not only is it of no use, but also it diverts the moisture which the
vines would otherwise suck up from the earth, it keeps off the sun, and occupies
the ground.’

[15] καταργειν, a favourite word with St. Paul, occurs twenty-six times in his
Epistles; and only here besides in the N. T. It is rendered in the Authorized
Version in fourteen different ways!

‘Cumbereth,’ which the Revised Version has retained, is hardly an adequate
rendering, though this in part from a change in the meaning of that word since
that Version was made: ‘mischiefeth’ I should have preferred. The occupat of the
Vulgate is equally inadequate. Impedit, of the older Latin Version, was better,
for the tree is charged not merely with being negatively, but positively evil;
it marred and mischiefed the ground in which it stood. Gregory the Great:

‘Above ground the tree is unfruitful, and below the surface the soil is made
barren. The shade of the unfruitful tree grows ever thicker, and the sunlight is
never allowed to reach the soil.’ Corn. à Lapide: ‘It renders the soil sluggish
and barren, not only by its shade, but also by its roots, by which it forestalls
and takes from the neighbouring vines the moisture of the soil.’ Even so we have
in Shakespeare ‘The noisome weeds that without profit suck The soil’s fertility
from wholesome flowers.’

[16] Augustine: ‘If he had desired to destroy, he would have held his peace. For
no one who desires to strike says,” Behold.”‘ Chrysostom (De Poenit. Hom. 7):
‘He threatens punishment that we may shun tempting punishment. He frightens
bywords, that he may not have to chastise by deeds.’

[17] Augustine (Serm. ccliv. 2): ‘The compassionate solicits the compassionate.
For He who was willing to show himself compassionate, himself brought forward
one to intercede with himself.’

[18] On the distinction between the vdpeQis (Rom. iii. 25) and the 9(pens
a)taPTirov, see my Synonyms of the New Testament, § 33.

[19] As Augustine (Serm. Exodus 1): ‘The vinedresser who makes intercession is
the type of every saint who, himself within the Church, prays for those who are
outside it.’

[20] Augustine (Serm. Exodus 4): Dilata est securis, noli esse secura, ‘The fall
of the axe is delayed, but be not thou free from anxiety,’ and elsewhere
Distulit securim, non dedit securitatem, ‘He delayed the fall of the axe, He did
not give freedom from anxiety:’ passages in which the play of securis and
securus can hardly be reproduced.

[21] We have the same suspended sense, with e’v, or some word similar
understood, Luke xxii. 42; and Thucydides, iii. 3.

[22] Augustine, Serm. ccliv.; cx. 1: ‘The manure of the husbandman is the sorrow
of sinners.’ Cf. Ambrose, De Poenit. ii. 1.

[23] Rosenmuller (Alte and Neue Morgenland, vol. v. p. 187) quotes from an
Arabian writer this receipt for curing a palm-tree of barrenness ‘Thou must take
a hatchet, and go to the tree with a friend, unto whom thou sayest, I will cut
down this tree, for it is unfruitful. He answers, Do not so, this year it will
certainly bear fruit. But the other says, It must needs be,—it must be hewn
down; and gives the stem of the tree three blows with the back of the hatchet.
His friend restrains him, crying, Nay, do it not, thou wilt certainly have fruit
from it this year, only have patience, and be not overhasty in cutting it down;
if it still refuses to bear fruit, then cut it down. Then will the tree that
year be certainly fruitful and bear abundantly.’ Compare Ruckert, Brahmanische
Erzahlungen; S. de Sacy, Chrest. Arabe, vol. ii. p. 379; the same reappearing in
the collection of tracts De Re Rustica, entitled Geoponica.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 21: 20-PARABLE 19. THE GREAT SUPPER.
========================================================================

PARABLE 19. THE GREAT SUPPER.

Luke 14:15-24.

I SHALL not repeat the arguments which convince me that this parable, and that
recorded at Matthew 22:1-14, spoken as they were upon different occasions, and
with (partially) different aims, should be kept wholly distinct the one from the
other. I shall throughout assume this as not needing proof, or else as
sufficiently proved. The Lord had been invited ‘to eat bread’ - a Hebrew idiom,
to express not merely eating food, but participating in a meal (Genesis 31:54;
Genesis 43:32) - with one of the chief Pharisees (ver. 1). The meal must have
been costly and ceremonious. There probably were present friends and kinsmen and
rich neighbours of his host (ver. 12); between whom were silent struggles for
precedence (ver. 7).[1] Among these guests, hostile, no doubt, in the main to
the young Galilean teacher, whose fame was everywhere spreading, was one who
could not forbear expressing his sympathy with some words which fell from the
Lord’s lips (ver. 15). But there was not the less a certain latent
self-satisfaction in this utterance of his. If one reads that utterance aright,
above all in connexion with the parable which follows, and which we are
expressly told was addressed to him, there were no misgivings on his part as to
his own place among those who should ‘eat bread in the kingdom of God.’ And yet
it was quite possible that when the decisive moment arrived, he might miss the
blessedness, of which he spoke in such edifying language; well contented with
things here, he might refuse to be lifted up into that higher world to which he
was bidden. To him, quite unconscious of any such danger, and in him to us all,
the parable that follows was vouchsafed.

‘A certain man made a great supper, and bade many’ - a supper,’ it has been
often explained, because, as such takes place at evening, so in the evening of
time, in the last hour’ (1 John 2:18; 1 Corinthians 10:11), Christ came and
invited men to the fulness of Gospel blessings. But this is pressing too far a
word of fluctuating use, which, even if it does in later Greek signify
predominantly a supper, was not upon this account selected here, but as
designating the principal meal in the day. Men’s relish for things heavenly is
so slight, their desire so faint’ that God graciously presents these things to
them under such alluring images as this, that so they may be stirred up to a
more earnest longing after them.[2] The ‘many’ whom the maker of the feast first
bade are the Jews; [3] yet not so much the entire nation, as those who might be
presumed the most favourably disposed for the embracing of the truth, the
priests and elders, the Scribes and Pharisees, as distinguished from the
publicans and sinners, and other more despised portions of the nation; whose
turn only arrives when these others have made light of the invitation.

‘And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for
all things are now ready.’ [4] Some will have it that the guests, in needing
thus to be reminded that the feast waited their presence, showed already how
lightly they esteemed the invitation. But this is a mistake, such having been,
as is noted elsewhere, the usual custom; and their contempt of the honour
vouchsafed them, with their breach of promise, - for we must presume that they
had engaged themselves to come, - is first displayed in the excuses which they
make for their absence. Some interpreters, perhaps the larger number, see in the
servant who reminded the guests that the feast was ready, [5] and bade them to
enter into the enjoyment of good things, not now far off but near, the
Evangelists and Apostles; but this interpretation, which I also adopted once,
does not, I must own, now please me so well as the other, which sees in him not
any series or company of the servants of the Heavenly King, but one and one
only; that One being no less than the great Apostle and High Priest of our
profession Himself, who, being in the form of God, yet took upon Him the form of
a servant, and as such, according to the prophecies of Him which went before,
above all in the later Isaiah, accomplished his Father’s will upon earth. In the
parable of the Barren Fig-tree the Son assumes exactly the same subordinate
position and functions (Luke 13:7-8) as would, according to this distribution of
parts, be ascribed to Him here.

‘And they all with one consent [6] began to make excuse.’ [7] Whether there is
any essential difference between the excuse, or ‘offcome,’ as it would be called
in one of our northern dialects, which the first guest urges, and that urged by
the second, whether these represent hindrances different in their nature and
character, by which different men are kept back from Christ, or whether both
would alike teach us the same general lesson, that the love of the world robs
men of all desire and relish for heavenly things, it is not easy to determine. I
prefer to think that a difference is intended. Perhaps the first, who pleaded,
‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it,’ represents
those who are elate of heart through already acquired possessions. He is going
to see his estate, not exactly in the spirit of Ahab when he visited the
vineyard made his own by wrong (1 Kings 21:15-16); for there lies no guilt in
the thing itself which he is doing; and indeed it adds greatly to the solemnity
of the warning here conveyed, that no one of the guests is kept away by an
occupation in itself sinful; while yet all become sinful, because the first
place, instead of a place merely subordinate, is allotted to them. But he is
going to see his possession that he may glory in it, as Nebuchadnezzar gloried
as he walked in his palace and said, ‘Is not this great Babylon, that I have
built . . . . by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?’
(Daniel 4:30). But while he thus represents those whom ‘the lust of the eye and
the pride of life’ detain from Christ; with the second guest it is rather the
care of this life, not the pride of having, but the anxiety of getting, which so
fills his soul that there is no room for higher thoughts or desires. He has made
an important purchase, and cannot put off for a single day the trial of how it
is likely to turn out; [8] ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove
them.’ He, as he insinuates, is at the very point of starting, and begs that he
may not be detained. The number five may not perplex us; Elijah finds Elisha
ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen (1 Kings 19:19). Both of these guests offer
fair words, ‘I pray thee have me excused,’ even while they evade the invitation.
We must in neither case regard the excuse as invented, and resting on no ground
of facts, however the more usual way in the world may be to see first, and to
buy afterwards. So, as is expressly recorded, does the virtuous woman of the
Book of Proverbs: ‘She considereth a field, and buyeth it’ (xxxi. 16). She does
not, as the invited guest of the parable, buy it first, and go to see it
afterwards.

If in these two it is the pride and the business, in the last it is the
pleasure, of the world, which keeps him from Christ. ‘See you not that I have a
feast of my own? why trouble me then with yours? ‘I have married a wife, and
therefore I cannot come.’ [9] According to the Levitical law, this would have
been reason sufficient why he should not go to battle (Deuteronomy 24:5); but it
is none why he should not come to the feast [10] (1 Corinthians 7:29). He,
however, counts it more than sufficient. The other guests, conscious of the
insufficiency of the pleas which they urged, gave at least courteous denials,
would have the servant carry back fair words to the master of the feast; but
this one has a reason perfectly valid why he should not attend, and, except in
so far as his ‘I will not’ clothes itself in the form of ‘I cannot,’ does not
trouble himself to send any apology for his absence. [11] One may trace here the
same ascending scale of contumacy in the bearing of the guests, although not so
strongly marked, as in the other parable (Matthew 22:5-6), where some make light
of the message, others evil entreat and kill the messengers. The first of these
guests would be very glad to come, if only it were possible, if there were not a
constraining necessity which unfortunately keeps him away. It is a needs be, so
at least he describes it, so he would have it represented to the maker of the
feast. The second alleges no such constraining necessity, but is simply going
upon sufficient reason on another errand; yet he too prays to be excused. The
third has engagements of his own, and declares outright, ‘I cannot come.’ It is
beautifully remarked by Bengel that there is another buying of a field (Matthew
13:44), another setting of the hand to the plough (Luke 9:62), the participation
in another wedding (2 Corinthians 11:2), which would not have hindered the
accepting of this invitation, since rather they would one and all have been
identical with it. In what remarkable connexion do their excuses stand to the
declaration of the Saviour which presently follows: ‘If any man come to me, and
hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and
sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple;’ [12] and how apt
a commentary the words of St. Paul supply, ‘This I say, brethren, the time is
short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none;
and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though
they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they
that use this world, as not abusing it’ (1 Corinthians 7:29-31); since it was
not the having, - for they had nothing which it was not lawful for men to have,
- but the unduly loving these things, which proved their hindrance, and
ultimately excluded them from the feast.

‘So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things;’ declared the ill
success which he has met, - reported to him the excuses which all had made; -
even as hitherto in all likelihood not so much as one among the spiritual chiefs
of the Jewish nation had attached himself openly and without reserve to Christ
(John 7:48). ‘Then [13] the master of the house being angry said to his servant,
Go out quickly into the streets and lanes [14] of the city, and bring in hither
the poor, and the maimed, [15] and the halt, and the blind.’ The anger of God,
and we have this anger expressly declared in two other of the parables (Matthew
18:34; Matthew 22:7), is the anger of despised love; yet not for this the less
terrible. This second class of invited must still be sought within the city; we
have not therefore yet arrived at the calling of the Gentiles. There lies a
distinct reminiscence here of the precept given just before to him at whose
table the Lord was sitting; ‘Call thou the poor, the maimed, the lame, the
blind’ (ver. 13). The great Giver of the heavenly feast fulfils his own command.
He bids to his table the spiritually sick, the spiritually needy; while the rich
in their own virtues, in their own merits, at once exclude themselves, and are
excluded by Him (Luke 6:24-25; Revelation 3:17). The people who knew not the
law, the despised and the outcast, these should enter into the kingdom of God,
before the wise, the prudent, before those who said they saw, who thanked God
they were not as other men, who had need of nothing.

‘And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded.’ The suggestion
of some later commentators, as of Meyer, to the effect that the servant, knowing
what his Master’s mind would be, had anticipated this command of his, and had
already brought the gracious message to them to whom he is now bidden to bring
it, that there is, in fact, no interval of time to be supposed here during which
the servant fulfils a new commission which he has received, but only an
announcement of its fulfilment, is ingenious, and certainly is not without its
attractions, but does not compel assent. He proceeds: ‘And yet there is room.’
Hereupon, since grace will as little as nature endure a vacuum, [16] he receives
a new and last commission: ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them
to come in, that my house may be filled.’ If those ‘in the streets and lanes of
the city’ were the more abject among the Jews, the meaner, the more ignorant,
the more deeply sunken in sin; then those without the city, - which ‘city’ we
must take as symbol of the theocracy - in the country round about, wandering in
the highways, and camping as gipsies now-adays, under the hedges, [17] will be
the yet more despised and morally abject Gentiles, the pagans, in all senses of
that word. [18] It will thus appear that the parable, hitherto historic, becomes
prophetic here; for it declares how God had a larger purpose of grace than could
be satisfied by the coming in of a part and remnant of the Jewish people, - that
He had prepared a feast, at which more should sit down than they, - founded a
Church with room in it for Gentile as for Jew, those too being ‘fellow citizens
with the saints, and of the household of God.’ It is not that this is explicitly
declared, for the time was not yet for the unfolding of this mystery; but it is
here wrapt up, and, like so much else in Scriptures biding its time. [19]

‘Compel them to come in,’ has always been a favourite text with the persecutor
and the inquisitor; with all who, doing violence to the rights of conscience,
would fain find in Scripture a warrant or a pretext for this. It must be owned,
too, that others to whom one would very unwillingly apply such names have
appealed to these words as justifying that forcible separation of men from their
errors, that endeavour to save men against their will, from which, where the
power is present, it is often so difficult to abstain. Thus Augustine, writing
to Count Boniface, and urging that a certain constraint on the part of the civil
power might be fitly used for the bringing back of the Donatists to the unity of
the Church, appeals to this parable in proof. [20] And in what he thus urges
Calvin finds nothing amiss, but the contrary rather. [21] And yet it is strange
how there ever could have been drawn from these words arguments for any
compulsion but a moral one. For first, dealing with the parable in the letter,
to suppose any other compulsion save that of strong persuasion is idle; for how
can we imagine this single servant, - he is but one throughout, - driving before
him, from the country into the city, a flock of unwilling guests, and these
gathered from the rude and lawless class unto whom he is now sent? But, indeed,
this ‘Compel them to come in’ is spoken with quite a different intention. The
giver of the feast does not anticipate on their parts any reluctance to accept
his invitation, nor any indifference toward it, which should need to be forcibly
overcome. What rather he expects is that these houseless dwellers in the
highways and by the hedges will hold themselves so unworthy of the invitation as
hardly to be persuaded that it was intended for them; will not be induced
without a certain constraint to enter the rich man’s dwelling, and share in his
magnificent entertainment. And when we pass on to the spiritual thing signified,
since faith cannot be forced, what can this compelling mean, [22] save that
strong, earnest exhortation, which the ambassadors of Christ will address to
their fellows, when themselves deeply convinced of the tremendous issues which
are forevery man linked with the acceptance or rejection of the message which
they bear? They will ‘compel,’ but only as the angels; who, when Lot lingered,
laid hold upon his hand and brought him forth, and set him forcibly beyond the
limits of the doomed city (Genesis 19:16); or the ambassadors of Christ will, in
another way, ‘compel,’ for they will speak as delivering his message who has a
right to be heard by his creatures, who not merely entreats, but commands, all
men everywhere to repent and believe the Gospel. [23] Anselm observes, that God
compels men to come in, when He drives them by strong calamities to seek and
find refuge with Him and in his Church; [24] or, as Luther has it, they are
compelled to come in, when the law is broadly preached, terrifying their
consciences, [25] and driving them to Christ, as their only refuge and hope. The
parable closes with an indignant menace: ‘For I say unto you, That none of those
men [26] which were bidden shall taste of my supper.’ But whose menace is it? Is
it that of the giver of the feast? or is it that of Christ, standing outside of
the parable, and speaking in his own person and name? Either answer has its own
embarrassments. Take these as words of the householder in the parable, and how
account for the plural ‘you,’ addressed to the single servant? - the suggestion
that these words are spoken to the guests that have accepted the invitation, and
that here is the explanation of this ‘you,’ being very unnatural. I take the
words as rather the Lord’s own, and spoken in his own person. For the moment He
throws off, or half throws off, the disguises under which He habitually walks
among the children of men. Turning to his hearers who had been watching for his
harm, He assumes for an instant that central place in the kingdom of God,
bringing home a ‘tua res agitur’ to each and all of them who had been listening
to Him, so perfectly content with themselves. It is He, as here He lets them
know, who receives and excludes. He has a right to speak of the supper as ‘his
supper,’ and He does so speak, passing for one indignant moment from the kingdom
of shadows to that of substances, while He pronounces the doom of his enemies.
Exclusion, total and final, from his supper, to which, when they saw others
entering, the despisers might desire to be admitted, this shall be the penalty
of their contempt. There is such a bitter cry, the repentance as of Esau, when
it is plainly seen that the birthright has been transferred to another; but it
does not bring back the blessing (Hebrews 12:17). That is forfeited forever; and
no after earnestness avails anything to reverse the doom (Proverbs 1:28; Matthew
25:11-12; John 8:21).

Comparing this parable and that of the Marriage of the King’s Son, we may note
with how fine a skill all the minor circumstances are arranged to be in
consistent keeping in each. There the principal person, being a king, has armies
at his command, whole bands of servants to execute his behests. The refusal to
accept his invitation was there, according to Eastern notions of submission,
nothing less than rebellion; and, being accompanied with outrages done to his
servants, called out that terrible retribution. Here, as the offence is in every
way lighter, so also is the penalty; that is, in the outward circumstances which
supply the framework of the parable, being no more than exclusion from a
festival; though indeed not lighter, when taken in its spiritual signification;
for it is nothing less than exclusion from the kingdom of God, everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power.’

FOOTNOTES

[1] This snatching at the first places is adduced by Theophrastus (Char. 21) as
an example ofthe petty ambition. See also Becker, Charicles, vol. 1: p. 427.

[2] A sermon by Gregory the Great (Hom. 36 in Evang.) on this parable begins
beautifully thus: ‘There is commonly this difference between the delicacies of
the body and of the soul, that bodily delicacies, when not being possessed,
cause men greatly to desire them, but when possessed and being eaten straightway
dispose the eater to contemn them. On the other hand spiritual delicacies, when
not possessed, are held in contempt, but when they are possessed are desired,
and the more the hungry man partakes of them the more he hungers for them. In
the delicacies of the body the longing is pleasant, the experience unpleasant:
in those of the soul the longing is naught, but the experience is more
pleasing.’

[3] Καλειν (= vocare) is the technical word for the inviting to a festival
(Matthew 22:3; John 2:2; 1 Corinthians 2:7); that too by which St. Paul
expresses that union of an outward word bidding, and an inward Spirit drawing,
whereby God seeks to bring men into his kingdom; corresponding to the ελκειν of
St. John (John vi. 44; 12: 32). Both express well that the power brought to bear
on man’s will is a moral power, and man a moral being; capable, though called,
of not coming, - of resisting the attraction that would draw him, if he will.
This attraction of bidding, outward by the word, inward by the Spirit, is the
‘holy calling’ (2 Timothy 1:9), ‘calling of God’ (Romans 11:29), ‘heavenly
calling’ (Hebrews 3:1), ‘high calling’ (Php 3:14).

[4] Theophylact has here a remarkable comparison: ‘For as with a festering and
malignant sore which physicians allow to discharge all its foul matter before
applying their salves, so also it was needful that sin should display all its
innate qualities, and that only then should the great physician impose his
remedy.’

[5] Augustine, Apostoli; Gregory the Great, Praedicatorum ordo.

[6Greek word] (Bengel), [Greek word] (Grotius), [Greek word] (Euthymius), [Greek
word] (Valckenaer), [Greek word] (Olshausen), [3 Greek words] , or some other
such word, must be here supplied. The Revised Version retains the ‘consent’ of
the Authorized, but naturally prints it in italics.

[7] Пαραιτήσεως is used for ‘refuse’ and ‘make excuse:’ for the first’ Acts
25:11; for the second at ver. 19, where [Greek phrase] is rather a Latin idiom
(habeas me excusatum) than a Greek.

[8] So Augustine (Serm. 112: 2): ‘In the purchased farm mastership is denoted:
pride therefore is reproved.’ His mystical explanation of the things which kept
away the second guest is less satisfactory, but this is as true as beautiful:
‘The love of earthly things is the clog of the spiritual wings. Behold thou
didst lust and thou art caught. Who will give thee wings, as a dove’s, when wilt
thou fly to where thou mayst truly rest, seeing that here where thou art foully
caught, thou didst perversely desire to rest?’ Cf. Enarr. in Ps. 138: 10.

[9] On the same grounds Croesus would have excused his son from the great
hunting party which had for him so fatal an issue (Herodotus, 1: 36): ‘For he is
newly married and is busied with that.’

[10] Gerhard sums up well the three hindrances in three words, ‘Position,
wealth, pleasure;’ and Hildebert in two monkish verses evidently interprets as I
have done:Villa, boves, uxor, coenam clausere vocatis; Mundus, cura, caro caelum
clausere renatis.(‘A farm, a yoke of oxen, a wife closed the supper to the
bidden guests; The world, the cares of business, the flesh close heaven to men
who have been born again.’)

[11] Bengel: ‘The maker of this excuse, as he seems to have a better seeming and
more honourable reason, so also exceeds the rest in rudeness.’ We may quote here
Seneca’s words (Ep. 19): ‘The cause lies in the unwillingness, the impossibility
is the excuse.’

[12] Of all the excuses made by the invited guests, Bengel well says ‘All these
might have been cured by that holy hatred,’ ver. 26.

[13] Ambrose: ‘After the careless insults of the rich.’

[14] Пλατεια and ρυμαι occur together (Isaiah 15:2, LXX).

[15] Тους αναπηρους. The word, occurring twice in this chapter (ver. 13, 21), is
found nowhere else in the N. T., not once in the Septuagint, and only once (2Ma
8:24) in the Apocrypha. In Plato (Crit. 53 a) the αναπηροι keep company as here
with the χωλοι and the τυφλοι.7 [16] Bengel: ‘Nature and grace alike abhor a
vacuum.’

[17] Bengel: ‘Hedges, which serve beggars for walls.’

[18] Euthymius: ‘The dwellings of the Gentiles, as not fortified by the law and
the special guardianship of God as were those of the Jews, and as trampled upon
by devils.’

[19] Godet has said happily here: ‘As verse 21 is the text of the first part of
the Acts (i.-xii. conversion of the Jews), so are verses 22 and 23 of the second
(xiii.-end, conversion of the Gentiles), and even of the present economy.’

[20] Ep. 185; compare Ep. 50; Serm. 112: 7; De Unit. Eccles. 20; and Bernard, De
Grat. et Lib. Arbit. 11.

[21] ‘Although faith is voluntary yet we see that by such methods the obstinacy
of those who only obey when compelled may usefully be subdued.’

[22] Even Maldonatus explains it thus. Sinners, he says, are to be so entreated,
‘that after a manner they may seem to be compelled;’ and Bengel: ‘This does not
apply to every kind of compulsion. . . . Paul in his fury for Judaism compels in
one fashion, Paul the servant of Jesus Christ in another.’

[23] Euthymius brings out well this thought which lies hid in that ‘Compel’:
‘Because in these cases the gospel must be more curtly, and insistently
proclaimed, as with men mightily possessed by devils and sleeping amid the deep
darkness of deceit.’

[24] So Gregory the Great (Hom. 36): ‘Those therefore who, when broken down by
worldly adversity, return unto the love of God, are compelled to come in.’

[25] So Buonaventura: ‘With the threat, that is, of eternal punishments and a
manifestation of present ones.’

[26] Bengel bids us to note what we might easily miss, namely our Lord’s use of
ανδρων, and not αναθρωπων, here. Though as much is not expressly stated, yet the
whole course of the parable implies that they were the homines ampli, the men of
rank and wealth in the city, to whom the first invitation came; they and they
only being therein charged with the guilt or threatened with the penalties of
refusal. All this is implied in the use of ανδρες here, which would not have
fitted either the second detachment of guests or the third: the refusers are the
‘wise,’ the ‘mighty,’ the ‘noble’ of 1 Corinthians 1:26; to whom the heavenly
calling so often comes in vain. Bengel also well remarks on those men, ‘The
pronoun has a separative force.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 22: 21-PARABLE 20. THE LOST SHEEP.
========================================================================

PARABLE 20. THE LOST SHEEP.

Matthew 18:12-14; Luke 15:3-7 THE words with which the three parables of Luke 15
: are introduced, ‘Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to
hear him,’ must not be here understood as designating some single and definite
moment of time. The Evangelist is describing rather what at this period was the
prevailing feature of Christ’s ministry (cf. Mark 2:15; Luke 7:37), namely that,
as by a secret attraction, it drew the outcasts of the nation to Him and to the
hearing of his word. [1] Of these ‘publicans and sinners,’ the former were men
infamous among their countrymen by their very occupation; [2] the latter, such
as, till awakened by Him to repentance and amendment of life, had been notorious
transgressors of God’s holy law (Luke 7:39). These He did not repel, as one
fearing pollution from their touch; but received them graciously, taught them
freely, and lived in familiar intercourse with them. At this the Scribes and
Pharisees murmured and took offence. [3] They could better understand a John
Baptist, fleeing to the wilderness, separating himself from sinners in the whole
outward manner of his life, as well as inwardly in his spirit. And this outward
separation from sinners, which was the Old Testament form of righteousness, may
have been needful for those who would preserve their purity in those times of
the law, and until He came, who brought powers of good to bear upon the world’s
evil far mightier than ever had been brought before. Hitherto it may have been
their wisdom who knew themselves predisposed to the infection to flee from the
infected; but He was the physician who boldly sought out these, that his health
might overcome their disease, his righteousness their sin. But this seeking out
and not shunning of sinners was just what the Scribes and Pharisees could not
understand. They had neither love to hope the recovery of such, nor medicines to
effect that recovery; nor yet antidotes to preserve themselves, while making the
attempt. An earlier expression of their discontent had called out those
significant words, ‘They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are
sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’ (Luke
5:31-32); and now their later murmurings furnish the motive of the three
parables which follow. In all of these Christ would shame the murmurers, holding
up to them the angels of God, and God Himself, rejoicing at the conversion of a
sinner; and contrasting this liberal joy of heaven with the narrow discontents
and envious murmurings of earth. Heaven and its holy inhabitants welcomed the
penitent; only his fellowsinners kept him proudly aloof, as though there had
been defilement for them in his touch; as though they were wronged, if he were
freely forgiven. But this is not all. Not merely was there joy in heaven over
the penitent sinner, but more joy over one such than over ninety-nine such as
themselves. The good that might be in them Christ does not deny. Many among
them, no doubt, had a zeal for God, were following after righteousness such as
they knew it, a righteousness according to the law. But if now that a higher
righteousness was revealed, - a righteousness by faith, the new life of the
Gospel, - they obstinately refuse to participate in it, then such as would
receive this life from Him, however widely in times past they might have
departed from God, should now be brought infinitely nearer to Him than
themselves; as the one sheep which had wandered was brought home to the house,
while the ninety and nine abode in the wilderness; as for the prodigal a fatted
calf was slain, while the elder brother had never received so much as a kid
(ver. 29). Nay, they are bidden at last to beware lest the spirit which they are
allowing should exclude them altogether from that new kingdom of righteousness,
and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, into which they, no less than the
publicans and sinners, were invited freely to enter. Of the three parables in
this chapter, the two earlier set forth to us mainly the seeking love of God;
while the third describes rather the size and growth, responsive to that love,
of repentance in the heart of man. The same truth is thus presented successively
under different aspects, - God’s seeking love being set forth first, since all
first motions towards good are from Him; yet is it the same truth in all; for it
is the confluence of these two streams, of this drawing and seeking love from
without, and of the faith by this awakened from within, of the objective grace
and the subjective faith, out of which repentance springs. And thus the parables
together constitute a perfect and harmonious whole. The first two speak nothing
of a changed heart and mind toward God; nor, indeed, would the images of a
wandering sheep and a lost piece of money give opportunity for this; the last
speaks only of this change, and nothing of the antecedent working of the spirit
of God in the heart, the goings forth of his power and love, which yet must have
found the wanderer, before he could ever have found himself, or found his God.
These parables are thus a trilogy, which again is divided into two and one; St.
Luke himself distinctly marking the break and the new beginning which at ver. 11
finds place.

There are other inner harmonies and relations between them. Thus there is a
seeming anti-climax in the numbers, - one in a hundred, [4] - one in ten, - one
in two; which is a real climax, as the sense of the value of the lost would
increase with the larger proportion which it bore to the whole. And other human
feelings and interests are involved in the successive narratives, which enhance
in each successive case the anxiety for the recovery of that which is in danger
of perishing. The possessor of a hundred sheep is in some sort a rich man,
therefore not likely to feel the diminution of his flock by one at all so deeply
as the woman who, having but ten small pieces of money, should lose one of
these; while the intensity of her feeling would fall very short of the grief of
a father, who, having but two sons, should behold one out of these two go
astray. Thus we find ourselves moving in ever narrower, and so ever intenser,
circles of hope and fear and love, drawing in each successive parable nearer to
the innermost centre and heart of things. So also in each successive case we may
see shadowed forth on man’s part a deeper guilt, and thus on God’s part a
mightier grace. In the first parable the guilt implied is the smallest. The
sinner is set forth under the image of a silly wandering sheep. It is only one
side of the truth, but yet a most real one, that sin is oftentimes an ignorance;
nay, in a greater or a less degree it is always such (Luke 23:34; Acts 3:17; 1
Timothy 1:13); the sinner knows not what he does, and if in one aspect he
deserves wrath, in another he challenges pity. He is a sheep that has gone
astray, oftentimes ere it knew what it was doing, ere it had so much as learned
that it had a shepherd, or belonged to a fold. But there are others, set forth
under the lost piece of money, who knowing themselves to be God’s, with his
image stamped on their souls, even the image of the Great King, do yet throw
themselves away, renounce their high birth, and wilfully lose themselves in the
world. Their sin is greater; but a sin worse even than theirs is behind, - the
sin of the prodigal. To have tasted something of the love of God, to have known
Him, not as our King who has stamped us with his image, but as our Father, of
whose family we are; and to have despised that love, and forsaken that house -
this is the crowning guilt; and yet the grace of God is sufficient to forgive
even this sin, and to bring back this wanderer to Him. [5] With so much of
introduction, we may proceed to consider these parables one by one; and first
this of the Lost Sheep. ‘What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose
one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after
that which is lost, until he find it?’ It might at first sight appear as though
the shepherd were caring for the one sheep strayed at the expense, or at the
hazard at least, of all the others, leaving as he does them, the ‘ninety and
nine in the wilderness.’ But ‘the wilderness’ here is no sandy or rocky desert,
the haunt of wild beasts or of wandering robber hordes; rather wide extended
grassy plains, steppes or savannahs, called ‘desert’ because without habitations
of men, but exactly the fittest place for the pasture of sheep. [6] Thus we read
in St. John (vi. 10) that ‘there was much grass’ in a place which by St. Matthew
is called ‘desert’ (xiv. 15; cf. Ezekiel 34:25); and we commonly attach to
‘desert’ or ‘wilderness’ in Scripture, images of far more uniform sterility and
desolation than the reality would warrant. Parts, it is true, of the larger
deserts of Palestine or Arabia are as desolate as can be imagined, though as
much from rock as from sandy levels; yet on the whole they offer far more
variety of scenery, much wider extents of fertile or at least grassy land, than
is commonly assumed. [7] We must understand then that the residue of the flock
are left in their ordinary and safe pasturage, while the shepherd goes in search
of the one which has strayed. There is a peculiar fitness in this image as
addressed to the spiritual rulers of the Jewish people. They too were shepherds;
continually charged, rebuked, warned, under this very title (Ezekiel 34 :;
Zechariah 11:16); under-shepherds of Him who sets forth his own watchful
tenderness for his people by the same image (Isaiah 40:11; Jeremiah 31:10;
Ezekiel 34:12; Ezekiel 37:24; Zechariah 13:7; cf. Psalms 23:1; Psalms 80:1); -
yet not only were they no seekers of the lost, [8] no bringers back of the
strayed, no binders-up of the broken, but they murmured against Him, ‘the
Shepherd of Israel,’ the ‘great Shepherd of the sheep,’ because He did in his
own person what they, his deputies, so long had neglected to do, Himself meeting
and making good in his own person all these omissions of theirs. In the order of
things natural, a sheep which could wander away from, could also wander back to,
the fold. But it is not so with a sheep of God’s pasture. Such can lose, but it
can not find itself again. There is in sin a centrifugal tendency, and the
wanderings of this wanderer could be only further and further away. If,
therefore, it shall be found at all, this can only be by its Shepherd’s going to
seek it; else, being once lost, it is lost forever. [9] The Incarnation of the
Son of God was a girding of Himself for such a task as this; his whole life in
the days of his flesh a following of the strayed. And He was not weary with the
greatness of the way; He shrank not when the thorns wounded his flesh and tore
his feet; He followed us into the deep of our misery, came under the uttermost
of our malediction; for He had gone forth to seek his own, ‘till he had found
it.’ And, ‘when he hath found it,’ how tenderly does the shepherd of the parable
handle that sheep which has cost him all this toil; he does not smite, nor even
harshly drive it back to the fold; nay, does not deliver it to an underling to
carry; but ‘layeth it on his [own] shoulders,’ - a delicate touch, which our
Translation has let go, - and bears it home (cf. Deuteronomy 32:10). We
recognize in this an image of the sustaining grace of Christ, which does not
cease, till his rescued are made partakers of final salvation. But when some
make much of the weariness which this load must have caused to the shepherd,
seeing here an allusion to his sufferings, ‘who bare our sins in his own body’
[10] (1 Peter 2:24), upon whom was laid ‘the iniquity of us all,’ this is a
missing of the true significance. That ‘until he find it’ has exhausted the
whole story of the painfulness of his way who came in search of his lost
creature; and this is now the story of his triumphant return [11] to heaven with
the trophy that He had won, the spoil which He, a mightier David, had delivered
from the lion and the bear (1 Samuel 17:34-35). [12] And as the man when he
reaches home ‘calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them,
Rejoice with me; [13] for I have found my sheep which was lost’ - makes them
sharers in his joy, as they had been sharers in his anxiety, even so shall joy
be in heaven when one wanderer is brought back to the heavenly fold; for heaven
and redeemed earth constitute but one kingdom, being bound together by that love
which is ‘the bond of perfectness.’ ‘I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be
in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just
persons, which need no repentance.’ Let us not in this ‘I say unto you,’ miss a
slight yet majestic intimation of the dignity of his person; ‘I who know - I
who, when I tell you of heavenly things, tell you of mine own (John 1:51; John
3:11), announce to you this.’ The joy, we may observe, is still in the future;
‘joy shall be in heaven;’ and this consistently with the tacit assumption of the
Good Shepherd’s part as his own; for not yet had He risen and ascended, leading
‘captivity captive,’ bringing with Him his rescued and redeemed. Were this all,
there would be nothing to perplex; but it is not merely joy over one penitent,
but joy over this one ‘more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need
no repentance,’ that is asserted here. Now we can easily understand how, among
men, there should be more joy for a small part which has been in jeopardy, than
for the continued secure possession of a much larger portion. It is as when the
mother concentrates for the moment all her affection on her sick child, seeming
to a bystander to love none but that only; and actually rejoicing at the
recovery of that one more than at the uninterrupted health of all the others.
Or, to use Augustine’s beautiful words, [14] ‘What then takes place in the soul,
when it is more delighted at finding or recovering the things it loves, than if
it had ever had them? Yea, and other things witness hereunto, and all things are
full of witnesses, crying out, “So it is.” The conquering commander triumpheth;
yet had he not conquered, unless he had fought, and the more peril there was in
the battle, so much the more joy is there in the triumph. The storm tosses the
sailors, threatens shipwreck; all wax pale at approaching death; sky and sea are
calmed, and they are exceeding joyed, as having been exceeding afraid. A friend
is sick, and his pulse threatens danger; all who long for his recovery are sick
in mind with him. He is restored, though as yet he walks not with his former
strength, yet there is such joy as was not when before he walked sound and
strong.’ [15] Yet whence arises the disproportionate joy? Clearly from the
temporary uncertainty which existed about the result. But no such uncertainty
could find place with Him, who knows the end from the beginning; whose joy needs
not to be enhanced by a grief and fear going before. As little with Him need the
earnest love for the periled one, as in the case of the mother and her children,
throw into the background, even for the moment, the love and care for the
others; so that the analogies and illustrations drawn from this world of ours
supply no adequate solution of the difficulty. And further, how can it be
affirmed of any that they ‘need no repentance,’ since ‘all like sheep have gone
astray;’ and all therefore have need to try back their ways? the explanations
commonly given do not quite satisfy. [16] We may indeed get rid both of this
difficulty and the other, by seeing here an example of the Lord’s severe yet
loving irony. These ‘ninety and nine, which need no repentance,’ would then be,
- like those whole who need not, or count that they need not, a physician
(Matthew 9:12), - self-righteous persons; as such displeasing to God; whose
present moral condition as it causes no joy in heaven, it can be nothing strange
that a sinner’s conversion should occasion more gladness there than the
continuance of these in their evil. But the whole structure and course of the
parables refutes this. The ninety and nine sheep have not wandered, the nine
pieces of money have not been lost, the elder brother has not left his father’s
house. These difficulties will only disappear when we regard these ‘righteous’
as such indeed, but their righteousness as merely legal, of the old
dispensation, so that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than they.
The law had partially accomplished its work in them, restraining from grosser
transgressions; and thus they needed not, like the publicans and sinners,
repentance from these; but it had not accomplished all, it had not been ‘a
schoolmaster to Christ,’ bringing them to see their sinfulness, and consequent
need of a Saviour. The publicans and sinners, though by another path, had come
to Him; and He here pronounces that there was more real cause of joy over one of
these, [17] now entering into the inner sanctuary of faith, than over ninety and
nine of those other, who lingered at the legal vestibule, refusing to go further
in. [18]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Grotius: ‘This way of speaking signifies a continued and daily procedure.’
Cf. Luke iv. 31; Mark ii. 18.

[2] Publicans were of two classes. The publicani, so called because they
gathered the publicum, or state revenue, were commonly Roman knights, who farmed
the taxes singly or in companies, and this occupation was very far from being in
disesteem or dishonour. Thus Cicero, Pro Leg. Man 1:7 :

‘The tax-farmers, a most honourable and distinguished class of men;’ cf. Pro
Planc. 9. Besides these were the portitores, or exactores, the τελωαι of the N.
T., and of Josephus (B. J. ii. 14. 4), men of an inferior sort, freedmen,
provincials, and the like, who, stationed at frontiers, at gates of cities, on
rivers, at havens (‘selling the passage of the very air, the land, and the sea:’
Tertullian), did the lower work of the collection. They were everywhere hateful
for their rudeness, their frauds, their vexations and oppressions: we possess
long lists of opprobrious epithets with which among the Greeks they were
assailed. Cicero (In Vatin. 5) tells Vatinius that he must have supposed himself
a publican, ‘Since you most thievishly ransacked every man’s house, the
warehouses and the ships, entangled men engaged in business with the most unjust
decrees, terrified the merchants as they landed, and delayed their embarkation.’
Chrysostom (De Paenit. Hom. ii. 4): ‘The taxgatherer is the personification of
licensed violence, of legal sin, of specious greed: ‘while the modern Greek has
a proverb, ‘When the devil is poor, he becomes a tax-gatherer.’ But there was
that which made keener yet the scorn and more intense the hatred with which the
Jewish publicans were regarded by their own countrymen. They were nothing less
than renegades and traitors, who for filthy lucre’s sake had sided with the
enemy, and now collected for a profane heathen treasury that tribute which was
the abiding token of the subjection of God’s people to a Gentile yoke. This
scorn and hate found utterance in a thousand ways; no alms might be received
from their moneychest; it was not even lawful to change money there; their
testimony was not received in courts of justice; they were as the heathen (to
keep which in mind adds an emphasis to Luke xix. 9), and in some sort worse than
the heathen. See the Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antt. s. v. Publicani, p. 806;
Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. i. p. 206; Herzog, Real-Encyclop. s. vv. Zoll, Zöllner.

[3] Gregory the Great (Hom. 34 in Evang.): ‘Out of the dryness of their hearts
they blamed him, the Fountain of compassion.’

[4] This was a familiar way of numbering and dividing among the Jews, of which
examples are given by Lightfoot here. There is also a striking saying attributed
to Mahomet, in which the same appears: The Lord God has divided mercy and pity
into a hundred parts; of these, He has retained ninety and nine for himself, and
sent one upon earth (Von Hammer, Fundgruben d. Orients, vol. i. p. 308).

[5] Bengel gives it not quite as I have done above: ‘The sheep, the piece of
silver, the lost son; these answer respectively to the stupid sinner, to him who
is plainly ignorant of himself, and to the conscious and voluntary.’

[6] Compare Virgil, Georg. iii. 341

Saepe diem noctemque et totum ex ordine mensem Pascitur, itque pecus longa in
deserta sine ullis Hospitiis: tantum campi facet.

‘Often the grazing lasts day and night throughout an unbroken month, and the
flock journeys into far-reaching deserts, with no fixed resting-place: so great
is the expanse of plain.’

[7] This is the admirable description of a late traveller in the East ‘Stern and
monotonous as may be called the general features of a desert, let not the reader
suppose that it is all barren. There are indeed some accursed patches, where
scores of miles lie before you, like a tawny Atlantic, one yellow wave rising
before another. But far from unfrequently there are regions of wild fertility,
where the earth shoots forth a jungle of aromatic shrubs, and most delicious are
the sensations conveyed to the parched European, as the camel treads down the
underwood with his broad foot, and scatters to the winds the exhalations of a
thousand herbs. There are other districts, where the hard and compact gravel
would do honour to a lady’s shrubbery: in these regions you meet with dwarf
trees, and long ridges of low bare rocks of fantastic configuration, along whose
base you find the yellow partridge and the black-eyed gazelle.’

[8] ‘Neither have ye sought that which was lost’ (Ezek. xxxiv. 4).

[9] Augustine presses this (Enarr. in Ps. lxxvii. 19): ‘The lost sheep returns,
but not in its own strength, but brought back on the shoulders of the shepherd.
It was able to lose itself as it wandered at will, but it could not find itself,
nor would it be found at all were it not sought for by the shepherd’s
compassion. Nor have we a contrary example to this case of the sheep in the son,
who said when he returned unto himself, I will arise and go to my father. For he
also was sought and recovered by a secret call and inspiration, and by none
other than by him by whom all things are quickened: for by whom was he found
save by him who went forth to save and to seek that which was lost?’

[10] Cajetan: ‘The placing the sheep on his shoulders is the redemption of the
human race in his own body, and because He did this willingly, He is therefore
described as rejoicing.’ Melanchthon: ‘Inwoven in the text there is a sweet
signification of the passion of Christ: He places upon his shoulders the sheep
He has found, that is, He transfers to himself the burden of us.’

[11] Gregory the Great (Hom. 34 in Evang.): ‘When the sheep is found he returns
to his home, because our Shepherd when He had recovered man returned to the
heavenly kingdom.’

[12] The lines of Prudentius (Hymn. post Jejun.) have much beauty:

Ille ovem morbo residem gregique Perditam sano, male dissipantem Vellus affixis
vepribus per hirtae Devia silvae Impiger pastor revocat, lupisque Gestat
exclusis, humeros gravatus; Inde purgatam revehens aprico

Reddit ovili, Reddit et pratis viridique campo, Vibrat impexis ubi nulls lappis
Spina, nec germen sudibus perarmat

Carduus horrens Sed frequens palmis nemus, et reflexa Vernat herbarum coma, turn
perennis Gurgitem vivis vitreum fluentis Laurus obumbrat.

‘When faints the lamb with pain out-worn Straying through wild and devious
track, Rending his fleece in every thorn The shepherd brings him back; He bears
him from the wolf afar, On arm unwearied doth uphold; The wounded heals, and
brings with care Back to the sunny fold;

Back to sweet fields and meadows green, Where no dark thorn may point its
spear,Where no tall thistle intervene Its panoply austere;

Back to the palm-grove and the glade, Where the spring flowers are blooming
bright, And where the laurel its green shade Glasses in waves of light.’—Anon.

[13] Gregory the Great (Hom. 34 in Evang.): ‘He saith not, Rejoice with the
sheep that is found, but rejoice with me; because our life is his joy, and when
we are brought back to heaven we complete the solemnity of his joy.’

[14] Confessions, iii. 3.

[15] Thus too St. Bernard (In Cant. Serm. 29): ‘I know not how it is, but I feel
drawn with more tenderness to those who after reproofs and by means of re-proof
have at length recovered from weakness, than to those who have remained strong
from the beginning without any need of such medicine,’—words the more valuable
to illustrate the text, as not spoken with reference to it.

[16] As for instance that by Grotius: ‘Who from the whole character of their
life have no need to quit home;’ and by Calvin: ‘The term penitence is
specifically restricted to the conversion of those who, after a complete
estrangement from God, rise again as if from death to life. For otherwise the
whole of life must be the subject of continual penitential meditation, nor is
any one exempt from this necessity, since each man’s own vices urge him to daily
improvement.’—The suggestion of some that the ninety-nine who need no repentance
signify the whole unfallen creation, the world of angels, is nothing worth.
‘These,’ says Theophylact, not, however, adopting the interpretation, ‘the Good
Shepherd left in the wilderness, that is, in the higher heavenly places, for
heaven is this wilderness, being sequestered from all worldly tumult, and
fulfilled with all tranquillity and peace,’ and came to seek the wandering and
lost human nature.

[17] Here the illustration of Gregory the Great may fitly be applied ‘In a
battle a captain feels more affection for the soldier who turns again from
flight and bravely presses on the enemy, than for him who never showed his back
and never did any brave deed.’ And Anselm (Hom. 12): ‘There are some just
persons who, although they live just lives and keep themselves from things
unlawful, yet never work any great deeds of good. Again, there are others who at
first have lived worldly and criminal lives, but who afterwards return unto
their heart, considering with themselves that they have acted wrongfully; these
pricked with their grief are inflamed with love for God, practise themselves in
great virtues, seek out the posts of peril in the holy contest, and forsake all
the allurements of the world; and because they perceive that they have wandered
away from God, make up for their former losses by ensuing gains.’ Compare Jeremy
Taylor, Life of Christ, part iii. § 16, no. 12.

[18] On no image did the early Church dwell with more fondness than this (see
Tertullian, De Pudic. 7); as witness the many gems, seals, fragments of glass,
and other relics, which have reached us, on which Christ is thus portrayed. It
is frequent also in bas-reliefs on sarcophagi, and paintings in the catacombs.
Sometimes other sheep are at his feet, generally two, looking up with pleasure
at Him and his burden; in his right hand He most often holds the seven-reeded
pipe of Pan, symbol of the attractions of divine love, while with his left He
steadies the burden which He bears. Sometimes He is sitting down, as weary with
the greatness of the way. This representation always occupies the place of
honour, the centre of the vault or tomb (see Münter, Sinnbilder der Alt. Christ.
vol. i. pp. 60-65; Bosio, Rom. Sotterr. pp. 339, 348, 349, 351, 973, 383, 387;
Didron, I??nogr. Chrétienne, p. 346).


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 23: 22-PARABLE 21. THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.
========================================================================

PARABLE 21. THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.

Luke 15:8-10. THE preceding parable has anticipated much that might have been
said upon this; yet it would be against all analogy of other twin parables, to
assume that the two did no more than say the same thing twice over. In the Pearl
and the Hid Treasure, in the Leaven and the Mustard-seed, the second may seem at
first sight only a repetition of the first; while yet on closer inspection
important differences will reveal themselves; and so is it both here and
elsewhere. Thus compare Matthew 9:16-17, and Luke 14:28-32. If the shepherd in
the last parable was Christ, the woman in this may be the Church. [1] Or should
we understand by her that Divine Wisdom , [2] so often magnified in Proverbs as
seeking the salvation of men, and here set forth as a person and not an
attribute (cf. Matthew 11:19), this will be no different view. The two
explanations flow into one, if only we contemplate the Church as the organ by
which the Holy Spirit seeks for the lost; and which, being quickened by the
Divine Spirit, is stirred up to active ministries of love for the seeking of
souls (Revelation 22:17). That the Church should be personified as a woman is
natural; and the thought of the Holy Ghost as a mother has at differenttimes
been near to the minds of men. [3]

‘Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not
light a candle, and sweep [4] the house, and seek diligently till she find it?’
In this piece of money expositors, both ancient and modern, have delighted to
trace a resemblance to the human soul, originally stamped with the image and
superscription of the great King [5] (‘God created man in his own image,’
Genesis 1:27), and still retaining traces of the mint from which it proceeded;
however by sin that image has been nearly effaced, and the superscription become
well-nigh illegible. One clings with pleasure to so instructive a suggestion;
but it must not be forgotten that the Greek drachma, the coin here named, had
not, like the Latin denarius (Matthew 22:20), the emperor’s image and
superscription upon it, but some device, as of an owl, a tortoise, or a head of
Minerva. As the woman seeks anxiously her piece of silver, even so the Lord,
through the ministrations of his Church, gives diligence to recover the lost
sinner, to bring back the money of God to his treasury, from which originally it
issued. [6] The allusion often found in the lighting of the candle to the
mystery of the Incarnation, - the divine glory which the Saviour has within,
shining through the fleshly covering which only in part concealed it, [7] - must
of course give way, if we interpret the parable as is here proposed. Rather it
must be explained by the help of such hints as Matthew 5:14-15; Php 2:15-16;
Ephesians 5:13, supply. The ‘candle’ is the Word of God; which candle the Church
holds forth, as it has and exercises a ministry of this Word. It is by the light
of this candle that sinners are found, that they find themselves, that the
Church finds them. [8] With this to aid her, she ‘sweeps the house;’ which
sweeping is not effected without dust. [9] What an unsettling of the house for a
time! how does the dust which had been suffered to settle down and to accumulate
begin to rise and fly about; how unwelcome all which is going forward to any,
who have no interest in what is doing, whose only interest is that their selfish
ease should not be disturbed. The charge against the Gospel is still the same,
that it turns the world upside down (Acts 17:6). And in a sense so it does; for
only let its message be proclaimed in earnest, and how much of latent aversion
to the truth reveals itself now as open enmity; how much of torpid estrangement
from God is changed into active hostility; what indignation is there against the
troublers of Israel, the witnesses in sackcloth who torment the dwellers upon
earth (Revelation 11:10). She meanwhile who bears the candle of the Lord, amid
all this uproar and outcry is diligently looking for and finding her own again.
In the preceding parable the shepherd sought his strayed sheep in the
wilderness; but in the house this piece of money is lost, and in the house
therefore it is sought and found. [10] This is scarcely accidental. In that
other there was the returning of the Son to the heavenly places, but in this
there is the hint of a visible Church which has been founded upon earth, and to
which sinners are restored. And there are other slighter variations,
intelligible at once when we see there the more personal and immediate ministry
of Christ, and here the secondary ministry of his Church. The shepherd says, ‘I
have found my sheep;’ but the woman, ‘I have found the piece of money;’ not ‘my
piece of money,’ for it is in no sense hers, as the sheep was his. He says,
‘which was lost;’ but she, ‘which I had lost,’ acknowledging a fault of her own
as having contributed to the loss; for a sheep strays of itself, but a piece of
money could only be missing by a certain negli-gence on the part of such as
should have kept it. This woman, if we are right in our interpretation, is the
Church, the bride, that is, of the Good Shepherd. What wonder that in the hour
of her joy she does and speaks, almost as He has done and spoken before? And
first, ‘she calleth her friends and neighbours together;’ - they are female
friends and neighbours, although this nicety in the keeping of the parts (Ruth
4:14; Ruth 4:17) [11] escapes us in English [12] - that these may be sharers in
her joy. Yet this need not prevent us from understanding by them the angels, -
we have the Lord’s warrant for this, - whose place, it will be observed, is not
‘in heaven’ in this parable, as it was in the preceding; for this is the
rejoicing together of the redeemed and elect creation upon earth at the
repentance of a sinner. Among the angels who walk up and down the earth, who are
present in the assemblies of the faithful (1 Corinthians 11:10), joying to
behold their order, but most of all rejoicing when a sinner is converted, there
shall be joy, when the Church of the redeemed, quickened by the Holy Spirit,
summons them to join with it in consenting hymns of thanksgiving to God for the
recovery of a lost soul. For indeed if the ‘sons of God’ shouted for joy and
sang together at the first creation (Job 38:7), by how much better right when ‘a
new creation’ had found place, in the birth of a soul into the light of
everlasting life (Ephesians 3:10; 1 Peter 1:12); for according to that exquisite
word of St. Bernard, the tears of penitents are the wine of angels. [13]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Ambrose: ‘Who are these, the father, the shepherd, and the woman? Is not God
the father, Christ the shepherd, the Church the woman?’

[2] Gregory the Great (Hom. 34 in Evang.); ‘For He himself is God, and He also
is the Wisdom of God:’

[3] See some interesting remarks in Jerome (Comm. in Esai. 40: 3, p. 303),
justifying this language; while at the same time he guards it, saying: ‘In
divinity there is no sex.’ Christ claims too for himself the mother’s heart in
his affecting words, Luke 13:34.

[4] An erroneous reading, evertit, foreverrit, had possession of the Vulgate
during the Middle Ages. Thus Gregory the Great (Hom. 34 in Evang.): ‘The house
is turned upside down when the human conscience is troubled by the thought of
its guilt.’ Thauler: God searches for man, and turns his house upside down, even
as we are wont in seeking for anything to turn everything over and move it from
its place, until we happen to find that which we seek.’ Wiclif: ‘Turneth up so
down the house: There is an allusion to this erroneous reading in Jeremy
Taylor’s great Sermon to the University of Dublin: ‘We talk much of reformation,
and (blessed be God) once we have felt the good of it; but of late we have
smarted under the name and pretension. The woman that had lost her groat evertit
domum, not evertit, she swept the house, she did not turn the house out of
doors. That was but an ill reformation that untiled the roof, and broke the
walls, and was digging down the foundation.’

[5] Thus Augustine (Enarr. in Psalms 138 :): ‘The Wisdom of God had lost a piece
of silver. What was the piece of silver? It was a coin upon which was the image
of our Emperor.’ Compare Ignatius (Ad. Magn. 5): ‘There are two coinages, the
one of God, the other of the world, and each of them has impressed upon it its
proper stamp, the faithless the stamp of this world, the faithful and loving the
stamp of God the Father through Jesus Christ.’

[6] H. de Sto. Victore: ‘The piece of silver is found when the likeness of his
creator is renewed in a man;’ and Bernard (De Grat. et Lib. Arb. 10): ‘To this
day the image would have lain foul and disfigured had not that evangelical woman
lighted her candle, that is, had not Wisdom appeared in the flesh, had she not
swept the house, the house that is of vice, and sought the piece which she had
lost, even her own image, which, robbed of its native splendour, and besmirched
beneath its coat of sin, was lying hid as in the dust; had she not wiped it when
found, and taking it from the region of unlikeness, restored it to its pristine
appearance, and made it like in the glory of the saints, nay had she not
rendered it conformable in all respects to herself, in plain fulfilment of that
Scripture: For we know that when He shall appear we shall be like unto him; for
we shall see him as He is.’

[7] Cajetan: ‘The candle which she lights is the mystery of the Incarnation, the
Word in the flesh, even, as light in a pitcher.’

[8] Tertullian (De Pudic. 7): ‘The piece of silver is found by the light of a
candle, as if by the word of God.’

[9] ‘It is not brought about without dust,’ as Bengel well remarks.

[10] The stopped wells of Genesis 21:18 are for Origen the springs of eternal
life, which the Philistines, that is Satan and sin, had choked, but which our
Isaac, the Son of gladness, opened anew for us. Such choked wells, he observes,
are within every one of us (cf. John 4:14), and he bids us note that in this
parable the lost money was not found without the house, but within: for at the
bottom of every man’s soul there is this image of God, mislaid indeed and
overlaid with a thousand other images, covered with dust and defilement, but
which still may be found, and, in hishands from whom it came, may recover its
first brightness, and distinct outline (In Gen. Hom. 13): ‘The woman who had
lost the piece of silver did not find it out of doors, but in her house, after
that she had lit a candle, and purified the house from the filth and immunities,
which longcontinued idleness and sluggardy had accumulated; and there she found
the silver. So also then if thou lightest a candle, if thou bringest to thyself
the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and in his light wilt see the light, thou
too shalt find the piece of silver within thee. For when at the beginning God
was making man, He made him after his own image and likeness: and this image he
placed not outside of but within him. But this could not be seen in thee so long
as thy house was dirty, filled with impurities and rubbish. The fountain of
knowledge was placed within thee, but it could not flow, because the Philistines
had choked it with earth, and had made in thee an image of the earthly. Then
thou didst carry within thee the image of the earthly, but now that thou hast
heard these things and by the Word of God art purged from all that earthly
weight and oppression, see that thou make the image of the heavenly that is in
thee to shine forth in splendour.’

[11] With the same nice observance of proprieties, Wisdom, a female
personification, sends forth not her servants, but her maidens (Proverbs 9:3).

[12] Wiclif has, but he does not here use, the words ‘friendess’ (Proverbs 7:4);
and ‘neighbouress’ (Exodus 3:22).

[13] The tears of penitents make angels’ wine;’ and Prudentius:Amissa drachma
regio Et gemma, deterso luto, Recondita est aerario, Nitore vincit sidera.‘The
coin, once lost, henceforth shall lie Stored in the royal treasury; The jewel,
from its stains washed clean, Shines with a more than heavenly sheen.’


========================================================================
Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/trench-richard-notes-on-the-parables-of-our-lord/
========================================================================