Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/513

 PARABLES

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PARABLES

that, for the Evangelists, "He that hath ears to hear let him hear" did not signify merely a "call to atten- tion"; we may compare it to the classic formulae, Eleusinian and other, which it resembles, as carrying with it an intimation of some Divine mystery. The more an esoteric meaning is put upon the Gospels as their original scope, so much the more will it be evi- dent that our Lord Himself made use of it.

Dismissing the minute conjectural criticism which would leave us hardly more than a bare outline to go upon, and not regarding verbal differences, we can treat the parables as coming direct from our Lord. They teach a lesson at once ethical and dogmatic, with implications of prophecy reaching to the consum- mation of all things. Their analogy to the sacraments, of which our Lord's Incarnation is the source and pattern, must never be left out of view. Modern ob- jections proceed from a narrow "enlightened" con- ception as of the "reasonable man", teaching general truths in the abstract, and attaching no importance to the examples by which he enforces them. But the Evangelists, like the Catholic Church, have considered that the Son of God, instructing His disciples for all time, would commit to them heavenly mysteries, "things hidden from the foundation of the world" (Matt., xiii, 35). So perfectly does this correspon- dence with history apply to the tares, the good Samar- itan, the "watching" parables, to Dives and Lazarus (whether a real incident or otherwise), and to the wicked husbandmen, that it cannot be set aside. In consequence, certain critics have denied that Christ spoke some of these "allegories", but the grounds which they allege would entitle them to re- ject the others; that conclusion they dare not face (cf. Loisy, "Ev. synopt.", II, 318).

All orthodox writers take the sower (Matt., xiii, 3-8; Mark, iv, 3-8; Luke, viii, 5-8.) as a model both of narrative and interpretation, warranted by the Divine Master Himself. The general likeness between teach- ing and sowing is found in Seneca, "Ep. Ixxiii"; and Prudentius, the Christian poet, has thrown the parable into verse, "Contra Symmachum", II, 1022. Salmeron comes near the method suggested above by which we get most profit from these symbols, when he declares that Christ is "the Sower and the Seed ". We are immediately reminded of the Greek Fathers who call our Redeemer the seed sown in our hearts, A47os (TTreptiaTiKds, who comes forth from God that He n^av be the principle of righteousness in man (Justin, "Apol.", II, xiii; Athan., "Orat.," ii, 79; Cyril Alex., "In Joan.'", 75; and see Newman, "Tracts", 150- 177). I Pet., i, 1-23, reads like an echo of this para- ble. Note that our Lord does not use personifications, but refers good and evil alike to persons; it is the "wicked one" who plucks away the seed, not a vague impersonal mischief. The rocky bottom, the burning wind and scorching sun, tell us of Palestinian scenery. We find "thorny cares" in Catullus (Ixiv, l.xxii) and in Ovid (Metamorp., XIII, 5, 483). Theologians warn us not to imagine that the "good and perfect heart" of the receiver is by nature such; for that would be the heresy of Pelagius; but we may quote the axiom of the Schools, "To him that doeth what he can God will not deny His grace". St. Cyprian and St. Augus- tine (Ep. Ixix; Serm. l.™ii) point out that free will acceptance is the teaching of the Gospel; and so Irena?us against the Gnostic forerunners of Luther- anism (V, xxxix).

The tares or cockle (Matt., xiii, 24-30 alone). Whatever be meant by fifdwa the word, found only here in the Greek Scripture, is originallj- Semite (.4rab. zuwan). In the Vulgate it is retained and in popular French Wyclif renders it "darnel or cockle", and curiously enough the name of his followers, the Lol- lards, has been derived from a Latin equivalent, ■ "lohum." In the Reims New Testament we have "cockle", for which compare Job, xxxi, 40: "Let

thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley." It is pretty well determined that the plant in question is " lohum temulentum," or bearded darnel; and the mischievous practice of "oversowing" has been detected among Easterns, if not elsewhere. The late weeding of the fields is in "substantial agreement with Oriental custom ", at a time when good and evil plants can be fully distinguished. Christ calls Himself the "Son of Man"; He is the sower, good men are the seed; the field is indifferently the Church or the world, i. e., the visible Kingdom in which all kinds are mingled, to be sorted out in the day of His coming. He explains and fits in detail the lesson to the incidents (Matt., xiii, 36-43), with an adaptation so clear to the primitive age of Christianity that Loisy, Jtilicher, and other modern critics, refuse to consider the parable authentic. They suppose it to be drawn out of some brief comparison in the original lost "source" of Mark. These random gucssings have no scientific value. Historically, the moral which recommends sufferance of disorders among Christians when a greater evil would follow on trj'ing to put them down, has been enforced by the Church authorities against Novatus, and its theory developed in St. Augustine's long disputes with those hard African Puritans, the Donatists. St. Augustine, recognizing in Our Lord's words as in the spiritual life a principle of growth which demands patience, by means of it reconciles the im- perfect militant state of His disciples now with St. Paul's vision of a "glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle" (Eph., v, 27). Such is the large Cath- olic philosophy, illustrated by the Roman Church from early times, despite men like Tertullian; from the medieval condemnation of the Cathari; and from the later resistance to Calvin, who would have brought in a kind of Stoic republic or ' ' Kingdom of the Saints ' ', with its inevitable consequences, hypocrisy and self- righteous Pharisaism. Yet Calvin, who separated from the Catholic communion on this and the like motives, calls it a dangerous temjjtation to suppose that "there is no Church wherever perfect purity is not apparent." (Cf. St. Augustine, "In Psalm. 99"; "Contra Crescon.", Ill, xxxiv; St. Jerome, "Adv. Lucifer"; and TertuU in his orthodox period, "Apol.", xli: "God does not hasten that sifting out, which is a condition of judgment, until the world's end.")

If in the tares we perceive a stage of (jhrist's teaching more advanced than in the sower, we may take the mustard seed as announcing the outward manifest triumph of His Kingdom, while the leaven discloses to us the secret of its inward working (Matt., xiii, 31-2; Mark, iv, 30-32; Luke, xiii, 18-9, for the first; Matt., xiii 33; Luke, xiii, 20-21, for the second). Strange difficulties have been started by Westerns who had never set eyes on the luxuriant growth of the mustard plant in its native home, and who demur to the letter which calls it "the least of all seeds." But in the Koran (Sura xxxi) this proverbial estimate is implied; and it is an elementary rule of sound Scrip- ture criticism not to look for scientific precision in such popular examples, or in discourses which aim at something more important than mere knowledge. The tree, salvadora persica, is said to be rare. Ob- viously, the point of comparison is directed to the humble beginnings and extraordinary development of Christ's Kingdom. Wellhausen believes that for the Evangelists the parable was an allegory typifying the Churcli's rapid growth; Loisy would infer that, if so, it was not delivered by our Lord in its actual form. But here are three distinct yet cognate stories, the mustard seed, the leaven, the seed growing secretly, occurring in the Synoptics, contemplating a lapse of time, and more applicable to after-ages than to the brief period during which Christ was preaching, — shall we say that He uttered none of them? And if we allow these prophetic anticipations at all, does not the traditional view explain them best? (Wellh.,