Professor Jiilicher, together with other recent writers, accepts the verses in their most obvious meaning, but assigns them to the Evangelists. When Jesus' words were collected after His death, the large proportion of parabolic material attracted attention. An explanation was sought, and it was found in the character of those to whom the par- ables were addressed, and in their attitude toward Jesus. The multitude had not accepted Him as the JMessiah. What had happened must have been in accord with the Divine plan. This plan had been fulfilled through the use of parables. Paul's teaching in Ro 9-11 is here applied by the Evangeli-sts to the history of Jesus. J. Weiss, indeed, holds that Mk. was acquainted with Romans, and followed St. Paul {Die Schriften des JVT, i. p. 101). Whatever may be thought as to the dependence, the likeness of conception is obvious.
This explanation has in its favour a full and frank recognition of the difficulty as well as the avoidance of forced and unnatural interpretation. Many who think that the passage goes back to Jesus admit that the Evangelists in their report have been in some measure influenced by the hos- tility and opposition of unbelieving Israel, so pro- nounced at the time when they wrote. The explanation gains added support from the fact that the existing difficulty is not confined to the words of Jesus, but is occasioned in part by the appended comments of the Evangelists. Still, it cannot yet lay just claim to the validity of a demonstration. That the Evangelists should feel the need of accounting for the large proportion of parabolic material in Jesus' teaching is not obvious. The proportion in Mk., with whom we have pri- marily to do, is not striking. We should need to postulate, what many deny, his acquaintance with the Logia. Again, if the Evangelists evolved this whole conception, it is certainly strange that they should make so little use of it. Writers are not wont thus to forget or neglect their own pet hypotheses, as Mk. apparently did, even in the course of ch. 4. Could he fail to notice, too, how bis theory was contradicted by the readiness with which Jesus' hearers understood the account of the Wicked Husbandmen ? With all their freedom in transmitting Jesus' words, is it prob- able that the wTiters would venture upon an entirely new creation of this kind at so late a date?
There is greater likelihood that we have to do in this passage with a saying of Jesus that, in the course of time, has been modified, or received a false emphasis. At what stage of the development
of the Gospels the change took place we cannot be certain. The lack of responsiveness on the part of His hearers and the growing opposition of which we learn in the Gospels, may have caused Jesus to apply to His ministry the words of the prophet Isaiah (6'->^). The outcome of His mission might appear, on first thought, to be a repetition of this experience ; but a deeper insight revealed as true what the parables of this chapter (Mk 4) teach. The despair of the prophet's words receives its answer. That it was the Evangelists who first brought this OT quotation into such connexion can be doubted, though we can no longer be certain of its exact application, and though the text does not seem here to be in order. If Jesus used the words ironically, they might be cherished by the Christians of the later days of conflict as a state- ment of the Divine purpose. There is, in any case, too much contradictory evidence to admit of our receiving them as the deliberate statement of Jesus' intention.
3. Interpretation. — In what sense is it permis- sible to speak of the interpretation of a parable ? If we mean thereby an allegory, the need of trans- lating its terms into their equivalents is evident. This will be required by the hearer in more or less fulness, according to circumstances. The state- ments of the Synoptists (Mk 4io-i-i- ■'w-'m || ) are then comprehensible so far as they may refer to alle- gories, but can the same be claimed if the remain- ing parabolic material is likewise included ? By some it is said that it can be for the narrative parables, or parables in the restricted meaning of the term. Similitude and Illitstrative Instance are excepted, as necessarily clear from the way in which they are introduced, but narrative parables, being complete and independent accounts, require inter- pretation. The hearer is as little aware of their real significance as was David when listening to Natlian's story of the poor man and his lamb (2 S ]2iff-). This view evidently represents Jesus as wont to relate incidents that had no apparent connexion with what was being said or done, and then to add an application, as the moral is appended to the fable. One, for instance, who heard about the Treasure in the field (Mt 13^*), or the Two Debtors (Lk T"-"-*'), would have no reason to think of the Kingdom of heaven, or the duties of the sons of the Kingdom, until it was demanded by the application. The Gospels are not responsible for this theory, for they do not give the impression that Jesus kept His hearers in suspense. Either an explicit state- ment, as in the first example, or the occasion, as in the second, left commonly no doubt as to the topic under discussion. Furthermore, there seems to be no good reason for making such a distinction between this group of parables and the Similitudes and Illustrative Examples. Two parts are here essential to constitute a parable, the illustration and the truth illustrated. That the illustration ap- pears in a slightly modified form does not involve a change in the parable's essential character. And can we suppose that Jesus ever told the people one story, or a series of stories, and withheld all indi- cation of His purpose ? What could be expected to result therefrom beyond a little entertainment ? And even this would be of short duration, unless the stories were longer than most of our parables. How can we harmonize the fact that the parables, as they now stand, set forth in unparalleled clear- ness and beauty the deepest truths of the gospel, with the assumption that they were used by Jesus as a means of punishing the unrepentant by hiding the truth ?