LiTERATURK. — This has been j-iartiaUy indicated in the course of this article. The article on ' Messiah ' in Hastings' DB and in EBi and PRE'^ should be consulted. A selection only of the most imjx)rtant works need be given here : Drunuuond, The Jewish Messiah ; Edersheim, Lite nn</ Times of Jesus thf Messiah'^, I 160-179, ii. 434 ff., 710-741 ; Stanton. Thf Jewish anti the Christian Megsiuh, lSs6 ; Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, i. pp. GOSi, 176-lSl, ii. pp. 123-339 ; Holtzmann, ST Theol. i. pp. 81-85, 234-304 ; Baldensperger. Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu ; Wellhausen, IJG'^ (\S9o). pp. 198-204 ; Charles, Boot of Enoch (see esp. Introduction). Tlie last named wTiter"3 editions of the Apocali/pi'e of Baruch and his artt. in Hastings' DB and the EBi will also be found useful. Speciallx important is the section (§ 29) entitled ' Die Messianische Hoffnung ' in Schiirer's GJ\"i ii. 4it7-556 ; cf. also Bousset, Religion des Judentums till nerttest. Zeit/ilter'i, pp. 24.>-308 ; and P*aul Volz, Jfid, Escha- tol/Hjic von Daniel his Akiba, pp. 213-237, also pp. 55-68; Dalinan, Der leidende und sterbende ilessias ; Castelli, II Messia secondo (ili Ebrei ; Xeubauer and Driver, The Jewish Inter- preters of laaifih liii. For a more complete list the reader is referred to Schiirer, op. cit. p. 496 ff.
OWEX C. WniTEHOrSE.
METAPHORS.— A metaphor is a blossom of one tree on the branch of another ; it is a figure of speech by which a word or phrase is lifted to a i meaning to which it is not literally entitled. A ! simple trope is a metaphor condensed. Similes ; are metaphors explained. Parables and allefjorie.s are similes or metaphors elaborately extended, and do not come into the scope of this discussion (see Par.\ble). In this article we shall not attempt to ! catalogue or cla.<sify the metaphors used in the Gospels, or to distinguish in any technical way between the metaphors and other closely-related i figures of speech, but shall use the word in its broadest sense.
Macbeth (Jfi^At a/i/i Mirth of Literature) restricts the term ' metaphor ' unduly (cf. Gardiner, Kittredge and .\rnold. Mother Tongue, 1902). Wendt (Lehre Jesu), notwithstanding the classic character of his general treatment of the figurative language of the NT, does not give specific attention to the metaphors in the speech of Jesus and their relation to the more ; extended symbolic and parabolic teaching of the Gosj>els. Votaw, in his valuable art. ' Sermon on the Mount' in Hast- ings' DB, Ext. Vol., classities XT figures of speech as metaphori- j cal, symbolical, hi.'perbolic, and figurative. But evidently the i last term includes all the classes previously mentioned, while many of the h\-|-)erbolic expressions, even in the instances cited by Votaw, contain veiled metaphors. Ever>- one who listened to Jesus mentally supplied the resemblance between the ' gnat ' and the ritual peccadilloes which these men, so scrupulous of ! their meat and drink, 'strained out,' and between the 'camel' and the gross sins against the moral law which they swallowed so complacently. So the ' eye' which was to be plucked out (Mt 529) and the ' beam ' which "was not plucked out (73) evidently were the man's pet sins.
by applying to one a term which can literally designate only the other, as • Tliis is my body ' (Mt 26*). An abbreWated or veiled metaphor is one in which the assertion of resemblance is not expres.*ed but implied. Sometimes a veiled meta- phor sparkles m a phrase, as : ' water of life,' 'sons of thunder' ; or even in a single word used in a non-literal, ideal, or peculiar sense, to be determined by the context or by cunent usage, as : 'cross,' 'j"oke." 'grace," 'Hesh,' 'the Day," 'the Wrath,' 'darkne.ss," 'to wash,' 'to sleep' (cf. use in Synoptt., John, and Paul, of ironqpiov), ' to drink," 'to walk" (wepia-aTeoj), and score-* of other words constantly u.<ed in the NT with an ethical meaning, the force of which is giasped only after the mind has made the connexion Iwtween their literal and non-literal meanings. All the Gospels refer to 'death" as a 'sleep.' Tliis was not uncommon among the Jews of that era. But Johns Gosjjel uses a difl'erent and more tender word (t:oifj.do,uai), and adds to the usual metaphorical conception the idea of sleep being an invigorator which brings health to the sick and makes the tued man ready for the work of a new day (Jn 11'- ^^). Other ex- pressions, such as ' Get thee behind me. Satan ' (Mt 16^), 'De-<ti-oy this temple, and in three days I will raise it ui)" (Jn 2'*), may be taken at random as examples of veiled metaphors, the connexion between the literal and spiritual meanings being mentally supplieil. Many of the deepest teachings of the NT are emlxxlietl in words or plirases which cannot be fully imderstood until their metaphorical meaning is graspetl.
All Oriental language is pictorial. This is es- pecially true of the words of Jesus, not only as re- ported in the XT, but in other siiyings reported by the early Fathers and in the recently-discovered Logia. To insist ujxjn taking the Sermon on the Mount ' just as it reads," would often mean to insist upon taking it as no one listening to Jesus would have understood it. This metaphorical methotl of speech was habitual with Jesus (Mt 13**, Mk 4", where TrapaSoXri does not mean ' parable ' in the mtHleni sense, but metaphorical comparison), and was used, so His disciples thought, to hide the meaning of His words from all except the inner circle of believers. It certainly, however, as AVendt has suggested, quickened the attention of His hearers, and enabletl His teaching to be canieti more easily in the memory.