The Kernel and the Husk: Letters on Spiritual Christianity

by Edwin Abbott Abbott

Mark xi. 21-23.

And Peter, calling to remembrance, saith unto him, “Rabbi, behold the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.” And Jesus answering saith unto them, “Have faith in God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it.”

Matthew xxi. 20-21.

And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, “How did the fig tree immediately wither away?” And Jesus said unto them, “Verify I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall [not only do what is done to the fig tree, but even if ye shall] say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be done.”

Luke xvii. 5-6.

And the apostles said unto the Lord “Increase our faith.” And the Lord said, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye would say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou planted in the sea; and it would have obeyed you.”

You see then that the more authoritative (because earlier) of our two witnesses omits those very words on which you lay so much stress, the “express reference to something done, and done miraculously.” And ought not this fact to make you pause and ask yourself “Am I really to suppose that the Lord Jesus encouraged His disciples to command material mountains to be cast into the sea, and material trees to be destroyed? Did He Himself so habitually act thus that He could naturally urge His disciples to do the like? Does it not seem, literally taken, advice contrary not only to common sense but also to a reverent appreciation of the law and order of nature?” I would suggest to you that you might weigh the inherent improbability of the words in St. Matthew (literally taken), as well as the external probability—which I will now endeavour to shew—that the whole passage was metaphorical.

We know from St. Paul’s works, as well as from Rabbinical literature, that “to move mountains” was a common metaphor to express intellectual or spiritual ability. St. Paul speaks of faith that would “move mountains;” and you will find in Lightfoot’s Horae Hebraicae (ii. p. 285), “There was not such another rooter up of mountains as Ben Azzai.” Now we know from St. Luke’s Gospel (xvii. 6), that Jesus used a similar metaphor of trees, as well as of mountains, to exemplify the power of faith; and this without any reference to “something done and done miraculously:” “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye would say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou rooted up and planted in the sea; and it would have obeyed.” Planted in the sea! Can you dream that so preposterous a portent could have been prayed for by any sane and sober follower of Christ in compliance with his Master’s suggestion? Bear in mind that these words in St. Luke’s Gospel were uttered a long time before the blasting of the fig tree is supposed to have happened, and at a different place. Does not then a comparison of this passage with the other two make it probable that Jesus was in the habit of encouraging His disciples to be “pluckers up of mountains” and “rooters up of trees,” not literally but metaphorically, meaning thereby that they were to attempt and accomplish the greatest feats of faith?

You will, perhaps, be surprised when you find what it was that Jesus regarded as the greatest feat of faith in the passage of St. Luke just mentioned. It was a feat of which we are accustomed to think rather lightly; partly, perhaps, because we are often contented with the appearance of it without the reality: it was simply forgiveness. He had told the disciples they must forgive “till seventy times seven:” The Apostles, in despair, replied “Increase our faith:” and then Jesus tells them that if they had but a germ of living trust, they could become “uprooters of sycamine trees,” in other words they could perform forgiveness, the greatest feat of faith. But perhaps you will say, “At all events in St. Mark, the earliest authority for the miracle of the blasting of the fig-tree, there is no mention of forgiveness, and nothing that would indicate that his version of the words of Jesus referred to what you call ‘the greatest feat of faith,’ i.e. forgiveness.” On the contrary, you will find that St. Mark, with some apparent confusion of different thoughts, retains the trace of the original spiritual signification of the words (Mark xi. 22-25): “Have faith in God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass, he shall have it. Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them; And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one; that your Father which is in heaven may forgive your trespasses.”

I contend that, upon the whole, an impartial critic must come to the conclusion that neither the miracle, nor the reference to the miracle, is historical; and that, in all probability, both the miracle and the reference to it arose from a misunderstanding, without any intention to deceive. We must remember that the “short sayings” of the Lord Jesus—as they are called by some early writer, Justin, I think—must have caused considerable difficulty to the compilers of the earliest Gospels in the attempt to arrange them in order. Pointed, pithy, and brief, pregnant with meaning, sometimes obscured by metaphor, many of these sayings, if taken out of their context, were very liable to be misunderstood. Some compilers might think it best, as the author of St. Matthew’s Gospel has done in the Sermon on the Mount, to group a number of these sayings together without connection; others, as the author of St. Luke’s Gospel, might object to this arrangement, and might make it a main object to set forth these sayings “in order,” attaching to each its appropriate and explanatory context. Now to apply this to the particular case of the legend of the fig-tree. It seems probable that the compilers had before them two traditions, one, a parable about a barren fig-tree destroyed by the Lord of the vine-yard because it bore no fruit; another, a precept about the power of faith in uprooting a mountain or a tree, i.e. in achieving the greatest of spiritual tasks, the task of forgiving. St. Luke interpreted both the parable and the precept spiritually, and kept the two distinct. St. Mark interpreted the parable literally and adopted the tradition which made it refer to an actual destruction of a tree; he also appended to it the saying on the power of faithful prayer to work any wonders soever, as being an appropriate comment on so startling a miracle; but he did not think fit to adapt the saying to the miracle by any insertion of the word “tree” (“Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up” &c.); and he retained the old connection of the saying with forgiveness. St. Matthew—of course, when I say St. Matthew, I mean the unknown authors or compilers of the Gospel called by his name—is more consistent. He, like St. Mark interprets the parable literally, and he appends to it the saying on the power of faithful prayer; but he inserts in the latter an express reference to the miracle which, according to his hypothesis, had recently been worked before the eyes of the Disciples and could hardly therefore fail to be mentioned: “If ye have faith and doubt not, ye shall [not only do what is done to the fig-tree, but even if ye shall] say unto this mountain,” &c. In order to complete the adaptation, he also omits the words that connect the saying with forgiveness, and relegates them to the Sermon on the Mount (vi. 14, 15) which he makes the receptacle for all those sayings of Jesus for which he can find no special time and place.