' " What is the way that leads to the true Instruction ? " said I. "You see above," said he, "yonder place where no one dwells, but it seems to he desert?" "I do." "And a little door, and a way before the door, which is not much thronged, but very few go there ; so impassable does the way seem, so rougli and rocky?" "Yes, indeed," said I. " And there seems to be a lofty mound and a very steep ascent with deep precipices on this side and on that?" "I see it." "This, then, is the way," said he, " that leads to the true Instruction " ' {Tab. § 15).
15. ' A grain of mustard-sced' {Mt H^", Lk 11^)— a proverbial instance of extreme littleness (cf. Mt 133i-3:i = Mk 43i-32:^Lk 131"). Uprooting trees (cf. Mt 2pi = Mk 11-^) or mo^iii tains, — an expression used of wonderful feats (cf. 1 Co 13^). Some of the greater Rabbis were called ' uprooters of mountains ' (see Lightfoot and Wetstein).
16. ' Easier for a camel to pass through the needle's eye' (Mt 192^ = Mk 10-5 = Lk IS^'j-a proverb de- noting an impossibility. The Talmud has ' an elephant passing through the needle's eye ' (see Lightfoot). The absurd exaggeration is character- istically Oriental, and should not be toned down either by substituting /cd/itXos, 'cable,' for Ka/xTjXos, 'camel,' or by supposing 'needle's eye' to mean postern-gate ; cf. Shak. K. Rich. II. V. v. :
' It is as hard to come as for a camel To thread the postern of a needle's eye.'
The proverb is found in Koran, ch. vii. : ' Verily they who shall charge our signs with falsehood and shall proudly reject them, the gates of Heaven shall not be opened unto them, neither shall they enter into Paradise, until a camel pass through the eye of a needle.' Did Mohammed quote from the Gospels, or was the proverb current throughout the East in his day ?
17. ' Straining out the gnat and gulping down the camel' (Mt 232'^). Cf. Jerus. Shclbb. 107. 3: 'One who kills a flea on the Sabbath is as guilty as one who should kill a camel on the Sabbath.' Erasmus (Adag. under 'Absurda') quotes a Latin adage: ' Transmisso camelo, culex in cribro deprehensus hsesit,' and refers to the bantering remark of Anacharsis the Scythian when he found Solon busy drawing up his laws. ' They are exactly like spiders' webs : they will hold back the weak and insignificant and be broken through by the power- ful and rich' (Plut. Sol. 5. 2). The proverb .satirizes those who atone for laxity in important matters by scrupulosity in matters of no moment.
18. ' To every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly; and from him that hath not, even what he hath shall be taken away from him' (Mt 2b^% Cf. R. Hillel : 'He who increases not, decreases,' which means that one who does not improve his knowledge, loses it (Taylor, Sayings of the Fathers, i. 14). Jesus employs the saying in this sense in Mt 13'2, Mk 425 = Lk S'^.
It raises an interesting question that several of these proverbs not only have heathen parallels but are heathen proverbs. How comes it that Greek and Latin sayings were current among the Jews ? The Jewish attitude toward pagan culture was (■■^2 of bitter hostility. It is true that the liberal school of R. Hillel had a more tolerant spirit. Its most distinguished adherent was R. (iainaliel, who advocated the st\idy of the hoklimath Jaranith. The lU'evailing sentiment, however, was that of the school of Shammai, Aviiich jironounced a common malediction on one who reared swine anil one who taught his son Greek (Otho, Hist. Doct. Mishn. pp. 68-70).
The general sentiment is well illustrated by Origen's sneer at Celsus' imagitiary .Jew who (juotcd Euripides, ttiat .lews were not wont to be so well versed in Greek literature (c. Cels. ii. 34). A .lew with Greek quotations at his finger ends was an absurd fiction. And it is certain that .Jesus had no acquaintance with Greek literature. Celsus charged Him with borrowing from Plato His saying about the ditliculty of a rich man entering into the kingdom of heaven, and spoiling it in the process (lit. vi. K). The Platonic passage is Legg. v. 743 : ayxSiv hi ivra. hixfipoyTii; xa.i T/MCioy i'ikhi iicvfipoyTiu; ihiytcTov) ; and Origen'S
448
PKOVIDENCE
PiiOVIDENCE
reply is most just : ' Who that is even moderately able to handle the subject would not laugh at Celsus, whether a believer in Jesus or one of the rest of mankind, hearing that Jesus, who had been born and bred among Jews, and was supposed to be the son of Joseph the carpenter, and had studied no literature, neither Greek nor even Hebrew, according to the testimony of the veracious scriptures that tell his story, read Plato? '
Nevertheless, despite their excliisiveness, it was impossible for tlie Jews to escape the leaven of external influences. (1) They carried on a very considerable commerce. They had several indus- tries of world-wide fame. The Lake of Galilee abounded in fish, which were pickled and exported far and wide. Galilee was celebrated for its linen manufacture, and the flocks which pastured on the wilderness of Judaea furnished material for a thriv- ing trade in woollen goods. Jerusalem had a sheep- market and a wool-market. There was also an extensive import traffic. Trade involves an inter- change of ideas. The merchants imported words as well as wares, and one meets many an alien vocable, iincouthly transliterated, on the pages of the Talmud. What wonder if the Jews caught up also some of the foreign merchantmen's pro- verbs ?