The Teaching by Parables.
We have, on our way to this point, while tracing the course of Christ's Schooling of the Apostles every now and then caught sight of the working of the principle, “to whomsoever hath, shall be given.”
This apopthegm is recorded to have been three times spoken; first, as has been just mentioned, when our Lord gave to His disciples His reasons for teaching in parables, and again as the moral at the end of the parables of the talents and of the pounds. We draw from it that our Lord was about to exercise selection and deal with different hearers in different ways. Up to this time He had put His lessons into terse sayings, like pearls strung on a string; a hearer could easily carry a single one away, he had only to listen and learn. For a multitude who came and went like the [pg 312] shifting atoms of a cloud, this was the most that could be done. But among those who now listened to the parables at Capernaum were apostles, disciples, and listeners variously disposed, and they received a lesson from which different hearers drew profit in very different degrees.
The time now began to draw in sight when the most momentous duties that ever fell to men, would be laid on the Twelve, and to them our Lord now turned with an interest which daily grew more intent. The Apostles were not mere recipients as the crowd had been. They were not mere passive hearers receiving and storing wise sayings. What they heard was meant to set their minds at work, and the good they got from it depended on themselves.
In the crowd on the Lake shore which stood listening to our Lord as He spoke from the boat, there were characters of all sorts disposed towards Jesus in every variety of way. There were many followers and some foes, while perhaps nearly half were neither the one nor the other, but merely the loiterers who throng every eastern town: these would go where others went, glad of anything which broke the sameness of the day. They had come to listen—after their way of listening, taking no heed how they heard—many a time before, and no good had come of it, though the teaching was so plain that he who ran might read; with all their opportunities they had got nothing, and so [pg 313] from them was taken “what they seemed to have,” that is to say, these very opportunities themselves. They now heard only what appeared to be the story of an every-day event, and they wondered what good it could do to them. Thus, this mode of teaching sorted out its auditory by a self-acting mechanism. It threw off the light, while it attracted earnest and enquiring minds who, never doubting of a deep meaning in all our Lord said, asked themselves and one another what this meaning could be.
The aphorism “that to him who had, more was given” was, as applied to material wealth, in some form or other probably familiar to the shrewd men of the time, just as the saying, that “nothing succeeds like success” is among ourselves now. But what was startling was, that this principle should be adopted by Christ and laid down as one of those upon which God's government is carried on. For this inequality in human conditions, and the tendency to rise faster the higher one gets and to sink faster the lower one falls, was a thing that was commonly regarded as a defect in the world's arrangement, due to some inherent perversity in matter or in man.
People's minds, in those days, were possessed by the notion that God must have intended to make things fair and equal for all, but that inequality had slipt into the world in the making, when God's eye was off it for a moment: soon, [pg 314] however, the Messiah would come and set this right among other things. Hence it startled our Lord's hearers to find this defect, as they deemed it, in the order of the world brought forward by Him, and not only not explained away as they would have expected, but set forth as among the Laws according to which the Spiritual Order of the world was carried on. From the prominence given to this statement in the narrative of the three earlier gospels we see what a deep impression it made.
Our Lord applies this aphorism, solely, to the advantages and opportunities which men should have for learning the ways of God. But the analogy between this principle and some observed principles of economic and organic science is very striking and interesting, to say no more; while in education the working of this rule is abundantly obvious in every school. That the world is ordered on a basis not of equality but of inequality, is a patent fact; and lately it has been shewn that it is of inequality that all progress comes. One little superiority, due to what seems an accidental variation, gives an advantage for gaining a greater superiority and so on. Uniformity, indeed, implies stagnation. If all men had just the same powers and minds and characters, would not such a world stagnate from its insupportable dulness and the want of stimulus for the faculties of men? If, at every step, it grew harder to get farther on, then [pg 315] no one could go very far. A bullet fired into a tree, which hardens from the bark to the core, is brought to a standstill very soon. Such a state of things would preclude exalted eminence; mediocrity would reign supreme and the onward march of mankind would be checked.
Our Lord, as a fact, asserts not only that inequalities widen, but also that they are purposely so widened. As the explorer advances, he is brought into more open ground and is better recompensed for his toil. Spiritual progress was to be brought about after the plan upon which all other human progress proceeds. It was to originate in individuals, who should push forward, seize upon posts in the foreground and hold them till the rest came up: it is not the way of Humanity to advance in line along the whole front. All progress comes of individual excellence and the world is so ordered as to favour the growth of one beginning to out-top the rest. It is an aid in this direction, that in education advance becomes commonly easier, and always more pleasurable as we proceed. Education moreover sorts out men. A hundred boys, near of an age, thrown together in a school seem at first nearly on a par; but an aristocracy develops itself wonderfully soon, both in the school and out of doors, and every half year the distinctions between boy and boy grow wider and become more strongly marked. However conscientiously [pg 316] the teachers may distribute their pains, the abler boy gets more attention, because he asks more intelligent questions and, seeing his interest in his work, the teacher's thoughts in spare moments revert to him. The same holds of spiritual life, for when a man attains a sense of communion with God he becomes conscious of an inward joy, which illuminates his life, and this helps him on. Nothing is more striking in the Acts than the “exceeding great joy” which with the Apostles was the habitual state.
A very material point as to the bearing of this principle is brought out in the two parables in which it occurs. What is spoken of as that which a man hath, is not what has been given him or what he has inherited, but only what he has acquired for himself. It is not so much the possession of the pounds or the talents which is the ground of reward, as the assiduity, energy and intelligence, by which they have been earned.
I will consider the pair of parables[228] just mentioned, before the discourse in which the saying first occurs, although they stand later in the history, because they shew most clearly what Christ's meaning was. In both parables we remark the following points.
(1) The rewards are proportioned, not to the amount of the original arbitrary gifts, which, I suppose, stand for natural advantages, but to [pg 317] what has been obtained by turning these gifts to account.
(2) What the servants are recompensed for is administrative efficiency. This shews that our Lord had in view some active service in God's cause and not internal self-improvement alone.
(3) The rewards are not such that the servants can use them for their own gratification, they are not given money for their own use, but they are promoted to wider governments. He who has made five talents is given the rule of a larger province. And the servants are not so promoted merely for their own sake, the general welfare of the ruler's domain is the paramount object, and in order to promote this those who have proved themselves the ablest are given the amplest charge.
In the parable of the talents, the “man going into a far country” entrusts to his servants sums varying in amount, “to each according to his several abilities.” With these they are to carry on business on his behalf during his absence. One of them, he who was of the lowest capacity, received only one talent—with him I am not now concerned; but the rest double the capital which had been put into their hands and all of these, those who have made two talents as well as those who have made five receive the same reward. To each is said “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee [pg 318] over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Here the rewards are not in proportion to the original gifts, which were as five and two, but are in proportion to the rate of profit, which was in both cases the same. All have shewn the same diligence and all are recompensed alike.
The same principle appears in the parable of the pounds. The like sum, one pound, is entrusted to each servant; and the difference in the returns, one making ten pounds and the other five, is wholly due to the difference of judgment or diligence in using the money. The reward is exactly proportional to the amount which each servant has earned.
The greater charge is given to him who had made ten pounds—not purely as a reward, but because he has shewn himself twice as well adapted to govern the ten cities as the servant who had only made five pounds.
A few words in the parable of the pounds shew how well our Lord knew what the prevalent notion about equality was. The notion I mean that God must have intended men to share all advantages alike. When the pound is taken from him who has left it unused and given to him who has turned his own pound into ten, the bystanders in the parable, who, we may suppose, represent common current opinion, are surprised, not at the pound being taken away, but at its being so bestowed as to augment the inequality. They would [pg 319] have looked to see it go to him who had made five pounds, so as to bring the conditions of the two servants more nearly to a par. They say, “Lord, he hath ten pounds,” implying “Why give more to him who has so much already?” Men are jealous of God's prodigality in reward, although such reward may not diminish what they obtain themselves. The master in this parable makes no reply to the bystanders, and our Lord concludes the parable with the moral,
“I say unto you, that unto every one that hath shall be given; but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him.”[229]
The pounds in this parable, be it observed, are not bestowed on the servants as absolute gifts, they represent money held on trust, and this is the case not only with the original pound, but with the profit as well. The Lord (St Luke xix. 23) evidently regards all the produce as his own. The ten pounds have never been given over to the servant who gained them, so as to be absolutely his. Neither is the forfeited pound bestowed on him as a free gift, it is only an addition to the ten pounds of profit, which formed a fresh amount of capital in the hands of the most diligent of the servants to be used in his new employ. All this agrees with the view which I have [pg 320] taken, that the question in the parable is not one merely of reward and amercement but of putting the greatest opportunities into the best hands. In like manner our Lord looks to a practical end and adopts practical means. The paramount object that He has in view is the effective carrying forward of God's work; and those who shall prove most efficient are to receive as their reward,—not anything they can sit down to and enjoy,—but a wider sphere of activity, an extended range of opportunities, and of duties answering thereunto.
This remark of the bystanders, so casual in its form and so weighty in its substance, exemplifies our Lord's way of dealing with erroneous ideas. A hint is dropped, attention is called to what many had taken for granted, and there the matter is left. It might be many days before the world would find the seed thus cast upon the waters, but found, some day or other, it would be. When there is question of practical evil our Lord is plain and positive enough. The Pharisees are upbraided sharply, for making the Law of no effect by their traditions, and the Sadducees are told that in denying the resurrection “they do greatly err.” But as regards the enigmas of life He only drops hints, which men may take or not.
I now come to the discourse, which I had put aside for a moment that the parables might be discussed.
As soon as our Lord had ended the parable of the Sower
“The disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?”[230]
Observe the words unto them. It is not about themselves that they ask, but the crowd. They were desirous to see our Lord's influence increase, and were perhaps anxious that new proselytes should swell their number, and so they were puzzled at this new form of teaching, which seemed calculated to repel converts. “In order to win men over,” they would say to themselves, “it would surely be best to speak in the plainest and most direct way.”
The fullest version of the reply is that given by St Mark.
“And he said unto them, Unto you is given the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all things are done in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest haply they should turn again, and it should be forgiven them.”[231]
This is followed by the interpretation of the parable of the Sower. And then comes a discourse explaining for what purposes the teaching by [pg 322] parables was employed, which throws a strong light both on this matter and on education in its highest sense. Here the principle comes to the front, that it is not so much what is done upon the man, or for the man, as what is done by the man himself, that transforms him into a higher creature. “Unto you,” says our Lord, turning to the disciples and the Twelve, “is given the mystery of the kingdom of God.” The mystery was given not to save their thinking but to set them thinking on a right track. What bore on the practical conduct of life had been preached to all, but the glimpse of the underlying spiritual order was vouchsafed to few: all must learn to tell time from a clock, but all need not know how it works. It is not the application of the parable which is here the difficulty—that is told the hearers at once—but it lies in the original differences between men, how far these come of men's own selves, how far of heredity, and how far men are answerable for their own dispositions; here we come on great difficulties which beset all creeds alike. In the parable of the Tares we are confronted with the origin of moral ill; the Apostles are to contemplate these mysteries, and they are given a way of looking at them which will serve for the practical purposes of life, but they are by no means led to believe that they can see to the bottom of them.
The second passage brings out a positive use of parables. They are not primarily meant to hide [pg 323] truth but to show it. The matter is only for a moment put out of sight, in order that men may search after it, prize it when found, and, bringing to it eyes sharpened by keen search, may discern all particulars more truly and well. The sifting of the auditory of which I have spoken above was only a secondary and subordinate use of the parable; its primary one was this; it enshrined an abstract truth in such a portable concrete form that it was made accessible to men; it put it into a shape, familiar to Orientals, a shape to which the Eastern tongue lent itself with ease, and which fitted readily into the minds of men; they could carry the story about with them, and they would in so doing learn its lesson by degrees.
There was also another point; the meaning of these new utterances gave men some pains to find, and when they had found it, they delighted in it as something they had conquered for themselves. Our Lord lets men into this secret of all learning. Did they suffer those words of His which “were Spirit and which were Life” to fecundate their hearts, turning them over in their minds again and again? The words “with what measure ye mete”[232] have no bearing on outward dealings here; what they mean is, “In proportion to the pains and attention which you bestow in searching out all that my words contain, so will the profit be. If you bestow thought freely, and time as well, [pg 324] freely will God requite the same—something will you then have, and more shall be given you.” To him who had been faithful over a few things a wider range of duties, and that alone, would be given as reward.
I note a connection between the introduction of the new form of teaching and the course of events. When our Lord began to teach in parables “His departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem”[233] was shaping itself more and more definitely in His mind. Time was getting short, and so He now spake for those only who had ears to hear. The nature of this departure was too shocking to Jewish notions and too inexplicable to be declared in plain terms to the mass. We know that even the Twelve were bewildered with the hints that our Lord drops about the end, and we can easily see how ill-suited such declarations would have been for the people at large.
Again, we can understand that as the end in all its awfulness came more and more distinctly into view, our Lord should confine His teaching very much to those to whom was committed the mystery of the Kingdom of God; and, inasmuch as the Twelve differed in spiritual capacity among themselves and higher duties were to be laid on some than on others, within that body a further selection had to be made. Peter and James and John form an inner circle, they are [pg 325] chosen as witnesses of the things that were not to be proclaimed until the Son of Man should come.[234] It is worth noting that in St John's Gospel we find no trace of the preeminence of these three; this falls in with the hypothesis of the author being the Apostle John, who carefully avoids mention of himself.
This choosing of the Three Apostles who should be preferred before the rest touches my purpose closely in another way; it was no insignificant part of the Schooling of the Twelve. They would learn from it that Christ gave what charge He would to whom He would; that in God's service it is honour enough to be employed at all; and that no man is to be discouraged because he sees allotted to another what appears to be a higher sphere of work than his own. We all know how heavily jealousy among subordinates who administer affairs clogs the wheels of the state, and it was of the highest importance that this vice should be eradicated, with a view to the practical business of the Church.
So the great lesson taught to the Apostles—and in the end it was taught more completely than ever men were taught it before—was self abnegation. They came at last not to think about themselves at all. This unselfishness is never preached to them, because it cannot be [pg 326] taught by preaching. If a man has self-surrender pressed incessantly upon him, this keeps the idea of self ever before his view. Christ does not cry down self, but he puts it out of a man's sight by giving him something better to care for, something which shall take full and rightful possession of his soul. The Apostles, without ever having any consciousness of sacrificing self, were brought into a habit of self sacrifice by merging all thoughts for themselves in devotion to a Master and a cause, and in thinking what they could do to serve it themselves.
Have not most of us known cases of men, seemingly immersed in amusements and frivolities, who would gladly have flung these to the winds, if only we could have found them something which would fill their hearts. If such people are selfish, it is not because they really care very much for themselves; but because self seems a little more real and a little more under their own control than anything else. They have found unreality in many things; perhaps when they have attempted to do good they have been thrown back by ridicule or discouragement, and are thereby brought to feel at a loss for an interest in life; and in this case an evil one, who is always by, has seemed to whisper, “Do good to thyself and the world will speak well of thee.” If now, at the right moment, you could shew these men a real good, they would be glad enough to throw aside the self which they [pg 327] have been only trying to persuade themselves that they cared for, and would seize upon anything which appeared to answer to the secret hope, asleep, but still alive in their hearts.
It is a good test of the nature of the devotion above spoken of to be able to endure the preference of others to ourselves. If the Apostles generally had resented the preeminence of the three, it would have shewn that they had not realised “what spirit they were of.” We see from St Luke xxii. 24 that they had not quite overcome all personal feeling, but we hear at this time no word of murmur, though they ventured pretty freely to murmur when they were displeased: from this I gather that, little by little they were losing personal ambition and merging themselves in their Master's cause. Thus this selection of the Three out of the body carried with it a lesson in the postponement of self.
This reserving of special attention for those only who shewed promise is, as I said just now, connected with the appearance on the horizon of the End at Jerusalem. “Times and seasons” the Father “had put in His own power,” and it may not have been till a year before the Passion that our Lord had known how short a time was left for Him on earth. Before He had preached unto all alike, now, his time and pains were reserved for the hopeful few. Something of this same reservation of teaching for those likely to profit [pg 328] by it, was seen when the Apostles were sent out two and two. They were only to be a few days away, consequently they were to waste no time over cases that were hopeless; when one city would not receive them they were to go to another.