xv. 2, so as to imply that they had listened to the intermediate matter

as one continuous discourse; and even if that were the case, it would only show the view of the writer with respect to the connectedness of the parables; a view which, in the face of the foregoing investigation, cannot possibly be binding on us. [970]

We have already discussed the passage from v. 15 to 18; it consists of disconnected sayings, and to the last, on adultery, is annexed the parable of the rich man, in a manner which, as we have already noticed, it is attempted in vain to show as a real connexion. It must, however, be conceded to Schleiermacher, that if we separate them, the alternative, namely, the common application of the parable to the penal justice of God, is attended with great difficulties. [971] For there is no indication throughout the parable, of any actions on the part of the rich man and Lazarus, that could, according to our notions, justify the exaltation of the one to a place in Abraham’s bosom, and the condemnation of the other to torment; the guilt of the one appears to lie in his wealth, the merit of the other in his poverty. It is indeed generally supposed of the rich man, that he was immoderate in his indulgence, and that he had treated Lazarus unkindly. [972] But the latter is nowhere intimated; for the picture of the beggar lying at the door of the rich man, is not intended in the light of a reproach to the latter, because he might easily have tendered his aid, and yet neglected to do so; it is designed to exhibit the contrast, not only between the earthly condition of the two parties, but between their proximity in this life, and their wide separation in another. So the other particular, that the beggar was eager for the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table, does not imply that the rich man denied him this pittance, or that he ought to have given him more than the mere crumbs; it denotes the deep degradation of the earthly lot of Lazarus compared with that of the rich man, in opposition to their reversed position after death, when the rich man is fain to entreat for a drop of water from the hand of Lazarus. On the supposition that the rich man had been wanting in compassion towards Lazarus, the Abraham of the parable could only reply in the following manner: “Thou hadst once easy access to Lazarus, and yet thou didst not relieve him; how then canst thou expect him to traverse a long distance to give thee alleviation?” The sumptuous life of the rich man, likewise, is only depicted as a contrast to the misery of the beggar; for if he had been supposed guilty of excess, Abraham must have reminded him that he had taken too much of the good things of this life, not merely that he had received his share of them. Equally groundless is it, on the other hand, to suppose high moral excellencies in Lazarus, since there is no intimation of such in the description of him, which merely regards his outward condition,—neither are such ascribed to him by Abraham; his sole merit is, the having received evil in this life. Thus, in this parable the measure of future recompense is not the amount of good done, or wickedness perpetrated, but of evil endured, and fortune enjoyed, [973] and the aptest motto for this discourse is to be found in the Sermon on the Mount, according to Luke’s edition: Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God! Woe to you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation; a passage concerning which we have already remarked, that it accords fully with the Ebionite view of the world. A similar estimation of external poverty is ascribed to Jesus by the other synoptists, in the narrative of the rich young man, and in the aphorisms on the camel and the needle’s eye (Matt. xix. 16 ff.; Mark x. 17 ff.; comp. Luke xviii. 18 ff.). Whether this estimation belong to Jesus himself, or only to the synoptical tradition concerning him, it was probably generated by the notions of the Essenes. [974] We have hitherto considered the contents of the parable down to v. 27: from whence to the conclusion the subject is, the writings of the Old Testament as the adequate and only means of grace.

In conclusion, we turn to a group of parables, among which some, as relating to the death and return of Christ, ought, according to our plan, to be excepted from the present review; but so far as they are connected with the rest, it is necessary to include them. They are the three parables of the rebellious husbandmen in the vineyard (Matt. xxi. 33 ff. parall.), of the talents or minæ (Matt. xxv. 14 ff.; Luke xix. 12 ff.), and the marriage feast (Matt. xxii. 2ff.; Luke xiv. 16 ff.). Of these the parable of the husbandmen in all the accounts, that of the talents in Matthew, and that of the marriage feast in Luke, are simple parables, unattended with difficulty. Not so the parable of the minæ in Luke, and of the marriage feast in Matthew. That the former is fundamentally the same with that of the talents in Matthew, is undeniable, notwithstanding the many divergencies. In both are found the journey of a master; the assembling of the servants to entrust them with a capital, to be put into circulation; after the return of the master, a reckoning in which three servants are signalized, two of them as active, the third as inactive, whence the latter is punished, and the former rewarded; and in the annunciation of this issue the words of the master are nearly identical in the two statements. The principal divergency is, that besides the relation between the master who journeys into a far country and his servants, in Luke there is a second relation between the former and certain rebellious citizens; and accordingly, while in Matthew the master is simply designated ἄνθρωπος, a man, in Luke he is styled ἅνθρωπος εὐγενὴς, a nobleman, and a kingdom is assigned to him, the object of his journey being to receive for himself a kingdom: an object of which there is no mention in Matthew. The subjects of this personage, it is further said, hated him, and after his departure renounced their allegiance. Hence at the return of the lord, the rebellious citizens, as well as the slothful servant, are punished; but in their case the retribution is that of death: the faithful servants, on the other hand, are not only rewarded generally by an entrance into the joy of their Lord, but royally, by the gift of a number of cities. There are other divergencies of less moment between Luke and Matthew; such as, that the number of servants is undetermined by the one, and limited to ten by the other; that in Matthew they receive talents, in Luke minæ; in the one unequal sums, in the other equal; in the one, they obtain unequal profits from unequal sums by an equal expenditure of effort, and are therefore equally rewarded; in the other, they obtain unequal profits from equal sums by an unequal expenditure of effort, and are therefore unequally rewarded.

Supposing this parable to have proceeded from the lips of Jesus on two separate occasions, and that Matthew and Luke are right in their respective arrangements, he must have delivered it first in the more complex form given by Luke, and then in the simple one given by Matthew; [975] since the former places it before, the latter after the entrance into Jerusalem. But this would be contrary to all analogy. The first presentation of an idea is, according to the laws of thought, the most simple; with the second new relations may be perceived, the subject may be viewed under various aspects, and brought into manifold combinations. There is, therefore, a foundation for Schleiermacher’s opinion, that contrary to the arrangement in the Gospels, Jesus first delivered the parable in the more simple form, and amplified it on a subsequent occasion. [976] But for our particular case this order is not less inconceivable than the other. The author of a composition such as a parable, especially when it exists only in his mind and on his lips, and is not yet fixed in writing, remains the perfect master of his materials even on their second and more elaborate presentation; the form which he had previously given to them is not rigid and inflexible, but pliant, so that he can adapt the original thoughts and images to the additional ones, and thus give unity to his production. Hence, had he who gave the above parable the form which it has in Luke, been its real author, he would, after having transformed the master into a king, and inserted the particulars respecting the rebellious citizens, have intrusted arms to the servants instead of money (comp. Luke xxii. 36), [977] and would have made them show their fidelity rather by conflict with the rebels, than by increasing their capital; or in general would have introduced some relation between the two classes of persons in the parable, the servants and the citizens; instead of which, they are totally unconnected throughout, and form two ill-cemented divisions. [978] This shows very decisively that the parable was not enriched with these additional particulars by the imagination of its author, but that it was thus amplified by another in the process of transmission. This cannot have been effected in a legendary manner, by the gradual filling up of the original sketch, or the development of the primitive germ; for the idea of rebellious citizens could never be evolved from that of servants and talents, but must have been added from without, and therefore have previously existed as part of an independent whole. This amounts to the position that we have here an example of two originally distinct parables, the one treating of servants and talents, the other of rebellious citizens, flowing together in consequence of their mutually possessing the images of a ruler’s departure and return. [979] The proof of our proposition must depend on our being able easily to disentangle the two parables; and this we can effect in the most satisfactory manner, for by extracting v. 12, 14, 15, and 27, and slightly modifying them, we get in a rather curtailed but consistent form, the parable of the rebellious citizens, and we then recognise the similarity of its tendency with that of the rebellious husbandmen in the vineyard. [980]

A similar relation subsists between the form in which the parable of the marriage feast is given by Luke (xiv. 16 ff.), and that in which it is given by Matthew (xxii. 2 ff.); only that in this case Luke, as in the other, Matthew, has the merit of having preserved the simple original version. On both sides, the particulars of the feast, the invitation, its rejection, and the consequent bidding of other guests, testify the identity of the two parables; but, on the other hand, the host who in Luke is merely a certain man, ἄνθρωπος τις, is in Matthew a king, βασιλεὺς, whose feast is occasioned by the marriage of his son; the invited guests, who in Luke excuse themselves on various pleas to the messenger only once sent out to them, in Matthew refuse to come on the first invitation, and on the second more urgent one some go to their occupations, while others maltreat and kill the servants of the king, who immediately sends forth his armies to destroy those murderers, and burn up their city. Nothing of this is to be found in Luke; according to him, the host merely causes the poor and afflicted to be assembled in place of the guests first invited, a particular which Matthew also appends to his fore-mentioned incidents. Luke closes the parable with the declaration of the host, that none of the first bidden guests shall partake of his supper; but Matthew proceeds to narrate how, when the house was full, and the king had assembled his guests, one was discovered to be without a wedding garment, and was forthwith carried away into outer darkness.

The maltreatment and murder of the king’s messengers are features in the narrative of Matthew which at once strike us as inconsistent—as a departure from the original design. Disregard of an invitation is sufficiently demonstrated by the rejection of it on empty pretexts such as Luke mentions; the maltreatment and even the murder of those who deliver the invitation, is an exaggeration which it is less easy to attribute to Jesus than to the Evangelist. The latter had immediately before communicated the parable of the rebellious husbandmen; hence there hovered in his recollection the manner in which they were said to have used the messengers of their lord, beating one, killing and stoning others (λαβόντες τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ ὃν μὲν ἔδειραν, ὃν δὲ ἀπέκτειναν, ὃν δὲ ἐλιθοβόλησαν), and he was thus led to incorporate similar particulars into the present parable (κρατήσαντες τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ ὕβρισαν καὶ ἀπέκτειναν), overlooking the circumstance that what might have been perpetrated with sufficient motive against servants who appeared with demands and authority to enforce them, had in the latter case no motive whatever. That hereupon, the king, not satisfied with excluding them from the feast, sends out his armies to destroy them and burn up their city, necessarily follows from the preceding incidents, but appears, like them, to be the echo of a parable which presented the relation between the master and the dependents, not in the milder form of a rejected invitation, but in the more severe one of an insurrection; as in the parable of the husbandmen in the vineyard, and that of the rebellious citizens, which we have above separated from the parable of the minæ. Yet more decidedly does the drift of the last particular in Matthew’s parable, that of the wedding garment, betray that it was not originally associated with the rest. For if the king had commanded that all, both bad and good, who were to be found in the highways, should be bidden to the feast, he could not wonder that they had not all wedding attire. To assume that those thus suddenly summoned went home to wash, and adjust their dress, is an arbitrary emendation of the text. [981] Little preferable is the supposition that, according to oriental manners, the king had ordered a caftan to be presented to each guest, and might therefore justly reproach the meanest for not availing himself of the gift; [982] for it is not to be proved that such a custom existed at the period, [983] and it is not admissible to presuppose it merely because the anger of the king appears otherwise unfounded. But the addition in question is not only out of harmony with the imagery, but with the tendency of this parable. For while hitherto its aim had been to exhibit the national contrast between the perversity of the Jews, and the willingness of the Gentiles: it all at once passes to the moral one, to distinguish between the worthy and the unworthy. That after the Jews had contemned the invitation to partake of the kingdom of God, the heathens would be called into it, is one complete idea, with which Luke very properly concludes his parable; that he who does not prove himself worthy of the vocation by a corresponding disposition, will be again cast out of the kingdom, is another idea, which appears to demand a separate parable for its exhibition. Here again it may be conjectured that the conclusion of Matthew’s parable is the fragment of another, which, from its also referring to a feast, might in tradition, or in the memory of an individual, be easily mingled with the former, preserved in its purity by Luke. [984] This other parable must have simply set forth, that a king had invited various guests to a wedding feast, with the tacit condition that they should provide themselves with a suitable dress, and that he delivered an individual who had neglected this observance to his merited punishment. Supposing our conjectures correct, we have here a still more compound parable than in the former case: a parable in which, 1stly, the narrative of the ungrateful invited parties (Luke xiv.) forms the main tissue, but so that, 2ndly, a thread from the parable of the rebellious husbandmen is interwoven; while, 3rdly, a conclusion is stitched on, gathered apparently from an unknown parable on the wedding garment.

This analysis gives us an insight into the procedure of evangelical tradition with its materials, which must be pregnant with results.

§ 79.

MISCELLANEOUS INSTRUCTIONS AND CONTROVERSIES OF JESUS.

As the discourses in Matthew xv. 1–20 have been already considered, we must pass on to xviii. 1 ff., Mark ix. 33 ff., Luke ix. 46 ff., where various discourses are connected with the exhibition of a little child, occasioned by a contention for pre-eminence among the disciples. The admonition to become as a little child, and to humble one’s self as a little child, in Matthew, forms a perfectly suitable comment on the symbolical reproof (v. 3, 4,); but the connexion between this and the following declaration of Jesus, that whosoever receives one such little child in his name, receives him, is not so obvious. For the child was set up to teach the disciples in what they were to imitate it, not how they were to behave towards it, and how Jesus could all at once lose sight of his original object, it is difficult to conceive. But yet more glaring is the irrelevance of the declaration in Mark and Luke; for they make it follow immediately on the exhibition of the child, so that, according to this, Jesus must, in the very act, have forgotten its object, namely, to present the child to his ambitious disciples as worthy of imitation, not as in want of reception. [985] Jesus was accustomed to say of his disciples, that whosoever received them, received him, and in him, the Father who had sent him (Matt. x. 40 ff.; Luke x. 16; John xiii. 20). Of children he elsewhere says merely, that whosoever does not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child cannot enter therein (Mark x. 15; Luke xviii. 17). This declaration would be perfectly adapted to the occasion in question, and we may almost venture to conjecture that ὃς ἐὰν μὴ δέξηται τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν ὡς παιδίον, was the original passage, and that the actual one is the result of its confusion with Matthew x. 40, ὃς ἐὰν δέξηται παιδίον τοιοῦτον ἓν ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματί μου.

Closely connected by the word ἀποκριθεὶς, answering, with the sentences just considered, Mark (ix. 38 f.) and Luke (ix. 49 f.) introduce the information which John is said to give to Jesus, that the disciples having seen one casting out devils in the name of Jesus, without attaching himself to their society, had forbidden him. Schleiermacher explains the connexion thus: because Jesus had commanded the reception of children in his name, John was led to the confession, that he and his associates had hitherto been so far from regarding the performance of an act in the name of Jesus as the point of chief importance, that they had interdicted the use of his name to one who followed not with them. [986] Allowing this explanation to be correct, we must believe that John, arrested by the phrase, in my name (which yet is not prominent in the declaration of Jesus, and which must have been thrown still further into the background by the sight of the child set up in the midst), drew from it the general inference, that in all actions the essential point is to perform them in the name of Jesus; and with equal rapidity, leaped to the remote reflection, that the conduct of the disciples towards the exorcist was in contradiction with this rule. But all this supposes the facility of combination which belongs to a Schleiermacher, not the dulness which still characterized the disciples. Nevertheless, the above critic has unquestionably opened on the true vein of connexion between the preceding apothegm and this ἀπόκρισις of John; he has only failed to perceive that this connexion is not intrinsic and original, but extrinsic and secondary. It was quite beyond the reach of the disciples to apply the words in my name, by a train of deductions, to an obliquely connected case in their own experience; but, according to our previous observations, nothing could be more consistent with the habit of association that characterizes the writer of the evangelical tradition in the third gospel, whence the second Evangelist seems to have borrowed, than that he should be reminded by the striking phrase, in my name, in the preceding discourse of Jesus, of an anecdote containing the same expression, and should unite the two for the sake of that point of external similarity alone. [987]

To the exhortation to receive such little children, Matthew annexes the warning against offending one of these little ones, σκανδαλίζειν ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν τούτων, an epithet which, in x. 42, is applied to the disciples of Jesus, but in this passage, apparently, to children. [988] Mark (v. 42) has the same continuation, notwithstanding the interruption above noticed, probably because he forsook Luke (who here breaks off the discourse, and does not introduce the admonition against offences until later, xvii. 1 f., and apart from any occasion that might prompt it), and appealed to Matthew. [989] Then follows in Matthew (v. 8 f.) and Mark (v. 43 f.) a passage which alone ought to open the eyes of commentators to the mode in which the synoptists arrange the sayings of Jesus. To the warning against the offending, σκανδαλίζειν, of the little ones, and the woe pronounced on those by whom offences come, τὸ σκάνδαλον ἔρχεται, they annex the apothegm on the offending, σκανδαλίζειν, of the hand, eye, etc. Jesus could not proceed thus,—for the injunctions: Mislead not the little ones! and, Let not your sensuality mislead you! have nothing in common but the word mislead. It is easy, however, to account for their association by the writer of the first gospel. [990] The word σκανδαλίζειν recalled to his mind all the discourses of Jesus containing a similar expression that had come to his knowledge, and although he had previously presented the admonitions concerning seduction by the members, in a better connexion, as part of the Sermon on the Mount, he could not resist the temptation of reproducing them here, for the sake of this slight verbal affinity with the foregoing text. But at v. 10 he resumes the thread which he had dropped at v. 7, and adds a further discourse on the little ones, μικροὺς. Matthew makes Jesus confirm the value of the little ones by the declaration, that the Son of man was come to seek the lost, and by the parable of the lost sheep (v. 11–14). It is not, however, evident why Jesus should class the μικροὺς with the ἀπολωλὸς (lost); and both the declaration and the parable seem to be better placed by Luke, who introduces the former in the narrative of the calling of Zaccheus (xix. 10), and the latter, in a reply to the objections of the Pharisees against the amity of Jesus with the publicans (xv. 3 ff.). Matthew seems to have placed them here, merely because the discourse on the little ones reminded him of that on the lost—both exemplifying the mildness and humility of Jesus.

Between the moral of the above parable (v. 14) and the following rules for the conduct of Christians under injuries (v. 15 ff.), there is again only a verbal connexion, which may be traced by means of the words, ἀπόληται, should perish, and ἐκέρδησας, thou hast gained; for the proposition: God wills not that one of these little ones should perish, might recall the proposition: We should endeavour to win over our brother, by showing a readiness to forgive. The direction to bring the offender before the church, ἐκκλησία, is generally adduced as a proof that Jesus intended to found a church. But he here speaks of the ἐκκλησία as an institution already existing: hence we must either refer the expression to the Jewish synagogue, an interpretation which is favoured by the analogy of this direction with Jewish precepts; or if, according to the strict meaning of the word and its connexion, ἐκκλησία must be understood as the designation of the Christian community, which did not then exist, it must be admitted that we have here, at least in the form of expression, an anticipation of a subsequent state of things. [991] The writer certainly had in view the new church, eventually to be founded in the name of Jesus, when, in continuation, he represented the latter as imparting to the body of the disciples the authority to bind and to loose, previously given to Peter, and thus to form a messianic religious constitution. The declarations concerning the success of unanimous prayer, and the presence of Jesus among two or three gathered together in his name, accord with this prospective idea. [992]

The next discourse that presents itself (Matt. xix. 3–12, Mark x. 2–12), though belonging, according to the Evangelists, to the last journey of Jesus, is of the same stamp with the disputations which they, for the most part, assign to the last residence of Jesus in Jerusalem. Some Pharisees propose to Jesus the question, at that time much discussed in the Jewish schools, [993] whether it be lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause. To avoid a contradiction between modern practice and the dictum of Jesus, it has been alleged that he here censures the species of divorce which was the only one known at that period, namely, the arbitrary dismissal of a wife; but not the judicial separation resorted to in the present day. [994] But this very argument involves the admission, that Jesus denounced all the forms of divorce known to him; hence the question still remains whether, if he could have had cognizance of the modern procedure in dissolving matrimony, he would have held it right to limit his general censure. Of the succeeding declaration, prompted by a question of the disciples, [995] namely, that celibacy may be practised for the kingdom of heaven’s sake, Jesus himself says, that it cannot be understood by all, but only by those to whom it is given (v. 11). That the doctrine of Jesus may not run counter to modern opinion, it has been eagerly suggested, that his panegyric on celibacy had relation solely to the circumstances of the coming time, or to the nature of the apostolic mission, which would be impeded by family ties. [996] But there is even less intimation of this special bearing in the text, than in the analogous passage 1 Cor. vii. 25 ff., [997] and, adhering to a simple interpretation, it must be granted that we have here one of the instances in which ascetic principles, such as were then prevalent, especially among the Essenes, [998] manifest themselves in the teaching of Jesus, as represented in the synoptical gospels.

The controversial discourses which Matthew, almost throughout in agreement with the other synoptists, places after the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem (xxi. 23–27; xxii. 15–46), [999] are certainly pre-eminently genuine fragments, having precisely the spirit and tone of the rabbinical dialectics in the time of Jesus. The third and fifth among them are particularly worthy of note, because they exhibit Jesus as an interpreter of Scripture. With respect to the former, wherein Jesus endeavours to convince the Sadducees that there will be a resurrection of the dead, from the Mosaic designation of God as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, maintaining that he is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. xxii. 31–33 parall.): Paulus admits that Jesus here argues subtilly, while he contends that the conclusion is really involved in the premises. But in the expression ‏אֱלהֵי־אַבְרָהָם‎ the God of Abraham, etc., which had become a mere formula, nothing more is implied than that Jehovah, as he had been the protecting Deity of these men, would for ever continue such to their posterity. An individual relation subsisting between Jehovah and the patriarchs after their death, is nowhere else alluded to in the Old Testament, and could only be discovered in the above form by rabbinical interpreters, at a time when it was thought desirable, at any cost, to show that the idea of immortality, which had become prevalent, was contained in the law; where, however, it is not to be met with by unprejudiced eyes. We find the relation of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, adduced as a guarantee of immortality elsewhere in rabbinical argumentations, all of which could hardly have been modelled on this one of Jesus. [1000] If we look into the most recent commentaries, we nowhere find a candid confession as to the real character of the argumentation in question. Olshausen has wonders to tell of the deep truth contained in it, and thinks that he can deduce from it, in the shortest way, the authenticity and divinity of the Pentateuch. Paulus sees the validity of the proof between the lines of the text; Fritzsche is silent. Wherefore these evasions? Why is the praise of having seen clearly, and spoken openly, in this matter, abandoned to the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist? [1001] What spectres and double-sighted beings, must Moses and Jesus have been, if they mixed with their cotemporaries without any real participation in their opinions and weaknesses, their joys and griefs: if, mentally dwelling apart from their age and nation, they conformed to these relations only externally and by accommodation, while, internally and according to their nature, they stood among the foremost ranks of the enlightened in modern times! Far more noble were these men, nay, they would then only engage our sympathy and reverence, if, in a genuinely human manner, struggling with the limitations and prejudices of their age, they succumbed to them in a hundred secondary matters, and only attained perfect freedom in relation to the one point by which each was destined to contribute to the advancement of mankind.

A controversial question concerning the Messiah is proposed (v. 41–46) to the Pharisees by Jesus, namely, How can the same personage be at once the Lord and the son of David? Paulus maintains that this is a model of interpretation in conformity with the text; [1002] an assertion which is no good augury that his own possesses that qualification. According to him, Jesus, in asking how David could call the Messiah, Lord, when in the general opinion he was his son, intended to apprise the Pharisees, that in this Psalm it is not David who is speaking of the Messiah, but another poet who is speaking of David as his lord, so that to suppose this warlike psalm a messianic one, is a mistake. Why, asks Paulus, should not Jesus have found out this interpretation, since it is the true one? But this is the grand error of his entire scheme of interpretation—to suppose that what is truth in itself, or more correctly, for us, must, even to the minutest details, have been truth for Jesus and the apostles. The majority of ancient Jewish interpreters apply this psalm to the Messiah; [1003] the apostles use it as a prophecy concerning Christ (Acts ii. 34 f.; 1 Cor.