PARABLES
462
PARABLES
"Heretics draw the parables wliither they will, not
whither they ought", and "Valentinus did not make
up Scriptures to suit his teaching, but forced his
teaching on the Scriptures." (See De Pudic, viii,
ix; De I'nescript., viii; and compare St. Anselm, "Cur
Deus homo", I, iv.)
We learn what the parables signify, on this show- ing, from "the school of Christ"; we interpret them on the lines of "apostolic and ecclesiastical tradition" (Tert., "Scorp.", xii; Vine. Lerin., xxvii; Cone. Trid., Sess. IV). The "analogy of faith" determines how far we may go in applying them to life and history. With Salmeron it is allowed to distinguish in them a "root", the occasion and immediate purpose, a "rind", the sensible imagery or incidents, and a "mar- row", the Christian truth, thus conveyed. Another way would be to consider each parable as it relates to Christ himself, to the Church as His spiritual body, to the individual as putting on Christ. These are not different, still less contrary elucidations; they flow out of that great central dogma, "The Word was made flesh". In dealing on such a system with any part of Holy Writ we keep within Catholic bounds; we explain the "Verbum scriptum" by the "Verbum incarnatum". To the same principle we can reduce the "four senses", often reckoned as derivable from the sacred text. These medieval refinements are but an effort to establish on the letter, faithfully under- stood, implications which in all the works of genius, other than scientific, are more or less contained. The governing sense remains, and is always the standard of reference.
There are no parables in St. John's Gospel. In the Synoptics Mark has only one peculiar to himself, the seed growing secretly (iv, 26) ; he has three which are common to Matthew and Luke, the sower, mustard seed, and wicked husbandman. Two more are found in the same Gospels, the leaven and the lost sheep. Of the rest eighteen belong to the third and ten to the first Evangelist. Thus we reckon thirty- three in all; but some have raised the number even to sixty, by including proverbial exTJressions. An exter- nal but instructive division parts them into three groups; those delivered about the Lake of Galilee (Matt., xiii); thoseon the waj'upto Jerusalem (Luke, x-xviii); those uttered during the final stage of Our Lord's life, given in either Gospel; or parables of the kingdom, the Christian's rule; the judgment on Is- rael and mankind. In various ways commentators follow this arrangement, while indicating more elab- orate distinctions. Westcott refers us to parables drawn from the material world, as the sower; from the relations of men to that world, as the fig tree and lost sheep: from the dealings of men with one another, as the prodigal son; and with God, as the hidden treasure. It is clear that we might assign examples from one of these classes to a different head- ing without violence. A further suggestion, not un- real, brings out the Messianic aspect of the parables in St. Matthew, and the more individual or ethical of those in St. Luke. Again the later chapters of St. Matthew and the third (jospel tend to enlarge and give more in detail; perhaps at the beginning of our Lord's ministry these illustrations were briefer than they afterwards became. We can surely not imagine that Christ never repeated or varied His parables, as any human teacher would under various circumstances. The same story may well be recorded in different Bhapes and with a moral adapted to the situation, as, e. g., the talents and the pounds, or the king's eon's marriage and the unworthy wedding guest. Nor ought we to expect in the reporters a stereotyped accuracy, of which the New Testament nowhere shows itself to be solicitious. Though we have re- ceived the parables only in the form of literature, they were in fact spoken, not wTitten — and spoken in Ara- maic, while handed down to us in Hellenistic Greek.
Although, according to most non-Catholic writers,
Sts. Matthew and Luke are founded upon St. Mark,
it is natural to begin our exjiosition of the i)arables
in the first Gospel, which has a group of seven con-
secutively (xiii, 3-57). The sower with its explana-
tion, introduces them; the draw net completes their
teaching; and we cannot refuse to see in the num-
ber seven (cf. St. John's Gospel) an idea of selected
fitness which invites us to search out the principle
involved. Men fav6urable to what is known as an
"historic and prophetic" system of exegesis, have ap-
plied the seven parables to seven ages of the Church.
This conception is not foreign to Scripture, nor un-
familiar in patristic writings, but it can scarcely be
pressed in detail. We are not qualified to say how the
facts of church history correspond, except in their
general features, with anything in these parables;
neither have we the means of guessing at what stage
of the Divine Economy we stand. It may be enough
to remark that the sower denotes the preaching of
the Gospel; the tares or cockle, how it meets with
hindrances; the mustard seed and the leaven, its
noiseless yet victorious growth. From the hidden
treasure and the pearl of price we learn that those
who are called must give up all to possess the king-
dom. Finally, the draw net pictures God's judg-
ment on His Church, and the everlasting separation
of good and bad.
From all this it appears that St. Matthew has brought the parables together for a purpose (cf. Maldonatus, I, 443) and he distinguishes between the "multitude", to whom the first four were chiefly ad- dressed, and the "disciples", who were privileged to know their prophetic significance. They illustrate the Sermon on the Mount, which ends with a twofold comparison, the house on the rock typifying Christ's Church, and the house on the sand opposed to it. Nothing can be clearer, if we believe the Synoptics, than that our Lord so taught as to enlighten the elect and to leave obstinate sinners (above all, the Phari- sees) in their darkness (Matt., xiii, 11-1.5; Mark, iv, 11-12; Luke, viii, 10). Observe the quotation from Isaias (Matt., xiii, 14; Is., vi, 9, according to the Septuagint) intimating a judicial blindness, due to Israel's backslidings and manifest in the pubhc troubles of the nation while the evangelists were writing. Unbelievers or "Modernists", reluctant to perceive in the man Christ Jesus any supernatural powers, look upon such sayings as prophecies after the event. But the parable of the sower contains in itself a warning like that of Isaias, and was certainly spoken by Christ. It opens the series of His Messianic teachings, even as that of the wicked husbantlman concludes them. From first to last the rejection of the Jews, all except a holy "remnant", is contemplated. Moreover, since the Prophets had constantly taken up this attitude, denouncing the corrupt priesthood and disparaging legalism, why should we dream that language of similar import and contents was not heard from the lips of Jesus? And if anywhere, would it not be found in His parabolic delineations of the New Law? There is no solid reason why the double edge of these moralities should be ascribed to a mere "tendency" in the recorders, or to an edifying after- thought of primitive Christians. If the "allegory", i. e., the application to history, be intended by all three evangelists (which we grant), that intention lay at the root of the parable when it was delivered. Christ is "the Sower", and the seed could not escape the divers fortunes which befell it on the soil of Juda- ism. Even from the modernist point of view our Saviour was the last and greatest of the Prophets. How then could He avoid speaking as they did of a catastrophe which was to bring in the reign of Messias? Or how shall we suppose that He stood alone in this respect, isolated from the seers who went before Him and the disciples who came after Him? It is certain
