Page:Barlaam and Josaphat. English lives of Buddha.djvu/63

Rh restricted, since many parables know nothing of heaven or hell. The Parable is often merely an Example of a moral truth which it is intended to convey, but it should more strictly be defined as a Narrative-Metaphor. As with the Metaphor, the Parable often leads to false reasoning when the analogy is pushed too far.

Whatever their origin, use, or effectiveness, there is no doubt of their popularity among all creeds in the Middle Ages. Brahmins, Rabbis, Monks, and Moolahs all enliven their religious discussions with a seasoning of parables. The illicit joys of tale and gossip were used to evade the longueurs of the sermon. In Christendom the fashion chimed in with the vogue for the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, by which its insufficiency was eked out or its inconsistencies overcome. And the fashion spread from the moral sermon to the moral treatise till there was scarcely a mediæval book of devotion which did not relieve its preternatural dulness by some form or other of the parable. Perhaps the most favourite source for these divertissements was the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, which, in a way,