The case is siniOar with that in the paragraph Mt 18'"". It is important that the relation of this paragraph to the preceding one (18''^), and the nature of the transition made at v.^ be correctly apprehended. The Apostles had been disputing about their relative claims to greatness in the Kingdom of heaven ; and the Lord teaches them a much needed lesson in humility by the example of a little child. Setting a little child in their midst. He exhorts them to see in it a type of the
LITTLE OXES
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children of the Kmgdoni, and to seek to become like it if they ■would be greatest in that Kingdom (cf. art. Children, vol. i. p. 304). With v.-*, how- ever, this incident closes, and the lesson from it is concluded. The discussion that follows in the succeeding verses is no longer an inculcation of humilitj-. It is an exhilarating pledge of the whole Divine power to tlie sustaining, protection, and glorification of Christ's disciples. The con- nexion between the two i)aragraphs seems to turn on the idea that, though men enter the Kingdom like helpless infants, tliey are not therefore abandoned to the adverse forces of the world : the power of God is outstretched for their salvation. ' Such little children ' (v.^) God takes under His own pro- tection, rewarding those who do them benefits, and visiting with tlie severest punishment those who evdl-entreat them ; their angels ever behold the Father's face in hea\'en ; if they go astray every- thing is left that they may be recovered ; the Father's will is pledged that no one of them shall perish. The force of these gi-eat assurances is in- definitely enhanced by the individual note that is thrown into them. Throughout, the stress is laid upon the individual, as distinguished from the class, as the object of the Divine love (vv.'- ^- '°- i-- ^■•) : not a single one of them shall be without the Father's care, no single one of them shall perish. The passage is in efiect just the Sj-nojitic parallel of the seventeenth chapter of John, or the Evangelic parallel of the eightli chapter of Romans. Christ's ' little ones ' in it are, in short, just ' those that believe on him,' of whom ' it is not the will of the Father that one should perish,' whose 'angels in heaven do always behold the face of the Father which is in heaven.'
The declaration of ]Mk 9^- is parallel with that of Mt IS'', and is immediately preceded by a verse the thought of which is parallel with that of Mt lO'*-. This passage gives us thus afresh in a single context the two primary statements we have met with in Matthew. The variations of the phrase- ologj' in v.^i from what we have seen in ^It 10^ supplj' commentaries on the meaning of the phrases in the latter. ' Little ones ' in the one becomes ' J'ou,' that is, Christ's disciples, in the other : 'in the name of a disciple' in the one, 'in the name that ye are Christ's' in the other. Thus the in- terpretation suggested of the passage in Matthew is confirmed by the very language of the passage in Mark. But this langaiage in y.*^ settles the mean- ing also of the phrases in the succeeding verse. The 'you,' i.e. the disciples, of v.^i is replaced in v.*2 by ' these little ones that believe,' which must, therefore, mean the same tiling. This indeed would be independently true, since these 'little ones' are specifically defined here not as 'little ones' simply, but as those 'little ones' 'that liave faith.' Ills quite clear, therefore, that ' these little ones ' in this pa.ssage means not children, but believers.
The only other passage in which the phrase occurs, Lk 17-, is parallel in its assertion with Mt island Mk 9^'-, and repeats in effect tlieir language. There is no allusion to children in the entire con- text, in which our Lord simply warns His ' dis- ciples' against sins against tlieir brethren. In this and the parallel passage in Mk., in other words, we have merely renewed manifestations of the Saviour's concern" for those He calls 'these little ones.' He pronounces the sin of causing tliose for whom His love was thus pledged to stumble, almost too great to be expressed in words.
On evei-j- occasion of its occurrence, therefore, the phrase 'these little ones' evinces itself independ- ently a designation, not of children, but of the disciples of Christ. In these circumstances, we cannot permit doubt to be thrown on its mean-
ing in the palmarj- passage, Mt IS^'-, by the cir- cumstance that certain jiassages in ^lark (9^"^) and Luke (9*-^) which are parallel to Mt IS^-^ might easily be so read as to make literal children the subject of their declarations (Mk 9-'", Lk 9*) parallel to Mt 18'. The account in Matthew is the fuller, and permits the connexion of the clauses to be more exactly estimated. It seems as if it were merely the compression of ^Mark's and Luke's reports which tempts to the identification of the ' little child ' of the earlier verses with the ' one of such little children' (Mk.), or 'this little child' (Lk. ) of the closing verse : and the pressing of this language literally is not fi-ee from difficulties of its own. In any event, we cannot permit any difficulties that we may feel in explaining Mk 9^, Lk 9'** to afi'ect the determination of the meaning of a phrase which does not occur in them, when Ave meet it in other passages where its sense seems clearly indicated.