In addition to these passages there are numerous others where little doubt can exist that the Evangelists understood some details alleg-orically, for they suggest, even if they do not give, such an interpretation. By Avay of illustration the refer- ence to the whole and the sick "(Mk 2i') may be cited, so also
PARABLE
PARABLE
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the takinfr a way of the bridesfrooni 220), and the blind who lead the blind (Mt 15H, Lk. 639). Jiilicher maintains that they looked on all parables as allegories. They have given, it is true, few allegorical interpretations, and have not often indi- cated that the}' felt such treatment necessary, but this is only because their practice is not in accord with their theorv. "Whenever they reflect (as they do in Mk 410-12. 33-^ || Mt ]310-lo. ^ff-. Lk S9-10), they think of parables as always veiling a hidden meaning, one hard to be understood and intelligible to the dis- ciples themselves only after interpretation. This conception, as was stated above, is not held to be their own cr^jation, but is thought to be one that came to them from the age of the Jewish-Hellenistic literature. It was the product of scribal activity. Such an explanation is open to serious question. It may be doubted whether existing evidence proves that the notion of mystery belonged so exclusively to this later period. It is true that with the decadence of prophecy men looked for the message of God in what had been said rather than in what was being said, and that the allegorical method of exegesis was assiduously cultivated. It may also be true that the Gospels indicate that, at the time when the Evangelists wrote, the words of Jesus received to some extent like treatment ; but that it went to the length that this theory supposes is not attested. Such a claim could be more reasonably made for the Church Fathers and the interpreters of later generations. From post- Apostolic days even down to the present the prevailing method of exegesis has been allegorical. (On its prevalence in Alex- andrian and Palestinian circles before and after Christ, see Hastings' DB, art. 'Allegory," i. p. 64.) Kepresentatives (e.g. Chrysostom, Cah-in, Maldonatus) of sounder interpretation have not been altogether wanting, but they have been little heeded. There is no parable or detail of a parable that has not received many and conflicting interpretations. The judge of Lk 1^2, for e.xample, according to some stands for God, and according to others for the de\il. Elsewhere results are no less incongruous {e.g. Mt 2428, Lk 1737 ; Mt 24-43f., Lk 1239f. ; Lk 115-8). So great was the contradiction, that in the ITth cent, the thesis was proposed that parables should not be used as a source of doctrine, but only to illustrate and confirm what was other- wise established (' theologia parabolica non est argumentativa,' cf Julicher. op. cit. i. p. •>""'). The form of the disciples' ques- tion (Mk 410t-, cf. 33. M) might at first incUne us to agree that the Church Fathers were but following the Synoptists, were it not that so many parables are recorded without even suggestion that they need interpretation. Jiilicher finds it a priori im- probable that a popular teacher, who expressed himself without any considerable deliberation or preparation, should employ such a highly artificial, rhetorical form as the allegory. This tends to veil rather than to reveal, and belongs to the writer rather than to the speaker. He concedes that Jesus may on occasion have made metaphorical or allegorical application of certain suggestive details of some parable, but finds little or no evidence of His having done so. Everything indicates, rather, that all the passages to which we have alluded derive their allegorical features and interpretations from the writers. Originally, as spoken by Jesus, the Synoptic accounts were parables in the narrower meaning of the terra.
This extreme position of Professor Jiilicher has been opposed by many, and unqualifiedly approved by few. Admitting the proclivity of Jesus' hearers, by reason of their traditions, to give an allegorical interpretation to many details, admitting that this might be increasingly done as men recalled these dis- courses and reflected on their import and sought to apply them to existing conditions, still to deny to Jesus all allegorical application of details and restrict Him to simple eomi)arison, is unwarranted. If alone- with comjiarison (e.ff. Mt 2o3r [Lk 1334] 1016 [Lk 103]. Lk H'lSl He made frequent use of metaphor, as the Gospels indicate i.€.fj. Mk 534 ifl21 [Mt 1921, Lk 1^22] t2« [Lk ■204"]), and if He expanded comparison into parable, is it unwarrantable to assume that occasionally metaphor might be so extended as to become virtually an allegory? As long as such an interpretation of suggestive particulars contributes in a natural way to the enforcement of the main lesson, it cannot be considered irrelevant or artificial. Weinel has pointed out (.Pie BiJdersprache Jesu in ihrer Bedeutung fur die Er- forschung seinen innere^i Lehenis-, 1906) that in its psychological origin the parable is closely akin to the allegory. It springs often from some suggestive analogy of detail which might well be made evident in the progress of the discourse. Such an assumption does not, to be sure, account for all the allegorical features that a sound exegesis will discover in the Gospels, but it enables us to understand how Jesus may, in the case of some ]i.irables, have added an application distinctly allegorical, as, for exani|)le, in the account of the Sower. And if He wished to address to His enemies such thoughts as are contained in the AVicked Husbandmen, could they have been more suitably pre- sented ? The great service of Jiilicher and of B. Weiss before him in etfectually discrediting false methods of interpretation and establishing true, can hardly receive too great recognition. But past extravagances and present danger of their perpetuation do not furnish adequate reason for denying to Jesus the use of allegory, or of parables so developed as to be hardly distinguish- able therefrom. We accordingly admit allegory as a division of our classification.