* tit^paivK^Btt,! in Lk. is specially used of convivial mirth (see
1219 1523).
t See James Sully, Essay on Laughter.
X See art. ' Our Lord's Use of Common Proverbs,' Expositor, Dec. 1902.
from my Father ; for which of these works do ye stone me ? ' the touch of irony is unmistakable (Jn 10^-),* as it is also in the expression 'ever- lasting tents' (Lk 16"). When He says to His disciples, 'Sleep on now' (Mk 14-'i), it is in a tone of gentle raillery ; f and His conversation with the Syrophoenician woman is in the same tone (T-^"^*)- His answer to the lawyer, ' This do and thou shalt live,' seems to be most naturally inter- preted as ironical (Lk 10"*). The reply to His critics, ' I came not to call the righteous, but sinners' (Mk 2'"), is in the same vein, as is the passage, ' Full well (/caXcDs) do ye reject the com- mandment of God ' (7^). In Mt 6-, literalists have sought in vain to jirove that it was a practice among Pharisaic almsgivers to ' sound a trumpet ' ; obviously the passage is satirical. The element of satire runs through the scathing denunciations of the Pharisees and scribes (23, etc.). But the crucial instance is the parable of the Unjust Steward (Lk 16^'-'). Commentators have exliausted their ingenuity in devising all possible and im- possible explanations of Christ's commendation of the steward, through failing to see that the Avhole passage is sarcastic, pouring laughter upon the futile trust that men put in the power of mammon ; v." in particular is ' a sudden turn of the sublimest and most crushing irony.' J
But if it was in keeping with the mission of Jesus that He should use irony, still more natural was it that humour (wh. see) should enter into His speech. Humour is in its nature both human and humane. The greatest humorists have been the best lovers of men and the most endowed with sympathy (c,^. 'gentle' Shakspeare and Charles Lamb). The foremost religious teachers have almost invariably been i)ossessed of humour, and have proved the truth of Milton's dictum (Preface to Animadversions upon the Remonstrayit) that ' the vein of laughing hath ofttimes a strong and sinewy force in teaching and confuting.' It is probable that the reluctance, which has existed from early times, to admit any tone of raillery or playfulness in Clirist's te.aching, has been respons- ible for the loss of the original force of some of His sayings. Jesus has sufi'ered from His reporters. Yet enough passages remain to show that this element was often present. The pictures of a man endeavouring to serve two masters at once (Mt 6-^), of another avIio feeds swine with pearls (7"), of a camel trying to get through a needle's eye (11)-"'), of a light being put under a bushel (5'°), of him who sees a splinter in his brother's eye, but fails to notice the beam in his own (7^), of Beelzebub at variance with Beelzebub (12--"^-)) of nien who liave eyes but do not see (Mk 8^^), of one blind man guiding another (Mt 15'^), of a father who should give his son a stone instead of a loaf (7^) — these are all instances of that per- ception of the incongruous Avhich is the soul of humour. § We know that Jesus sometimes used M ords with a play upon their meaning (Lk 5^^ INIt 4", Lk 9^°). The ready way in which He answers a question by propounding another which at first seems irrelevant (Alt 20'-^- 21"*), His unexpected manner of turning the tables upon a critic (Lk ■jMff.)^ His use of illustrations which Avould cause, by their homely aptness, an involuntary smile (Mk 2-1, Lk 11"),' His epigrammatic way of putting a truth so as to give a sudden satisfaction (INIk '¥■'>), and His use of daring hyperbole (Lk 19-'°),||
* Westcott, in loc.
t Cf. F. W. Robertson, Serm. (2nd ser.) xx. 'The Irreparable Past '
X See Expositor, Dec. 1805 ; Good Words, Oct. 1867.
§ Cf. the Lnr/ion of Grenfell and Hunt : ' Thou hearest with one ear (but tlie other thou hast closed).'
II Cf. the obscure saying-, reported by Papias and quoted by Irenseus (adv. Hcer. v. 33. 3), of the vine with ten thousand
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are indications that Jesus thought it not beneath Him to laugh with those that laugh.
On this whole subject nothing can be more just than the words of A. B. Biuce {Parabolic Teaching of Christ, p. 149) :
• With pathos often goes humour, and so it is in the parables. . . . The spirit of Jesus was too earnest to indulge in idle mirth ; but just because He was so earnest and so sjTiipathelic, He expressed Himself at times in a manner which provokes a smile ; laughter and tears, as it were, mingling in His eyes as He spake. It were a faise propriety which took for granted that an expositor was ne'^essarily off the track, because in his interpretation of these parables an element of holy plas'fulness appears blended with the deep seriousness which per\ades them throughout."
Literature. — Martensen, Chr. Ethics, i. lS6ff. ; D. Smith in Exp. Times, xii. [1901] 546 ; Expositor, ii. viii. [1SS4] 92 ff. ; Well- don, Fire Upon tlie Altar, 105 ; G. H. Morrison, Sun-rise, p. 43.