* Among these we can only allude to the stages in Jesus' teaching of His disciples in the latter part of His ministry, which dates from the decisive confession at Caesarea Philippi.
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TEACHING OF JESUS
TEACHING OF JESUS
possibility for future insight and knowledge. This comes out most clearly in Mark's narrative, which, throughout the chapter on the beginnings of para- bolic teaching, preserves the original historic atmo- sphere to a degree far surpassing what the other Evangelists, owing to their later perspective, par- ticularly as regards the intelligence at that time of Christ's personal disciples (see Mk 4^^, omitted by Mt. and Lk.), have been able to achieve.
Observe the following, compared with the parallel passages in Mt. and Lk. : ' He proceeded to teach them in parables many things, and to say to them in his teaching, Listen (Mk 42) . . . He who has ears to listen, let him listen (v. 9). . . . And he went on to say to them * (that the light of the lamp is meant to be seen, and so), there is nothing hidden except with a view to its being ultimately made manifest. ... If any one hath ears to listen, let him listen (vv.2i-23). And he went on to say to them. See to it what ye hear ( = understand, cf. Lk 818 ' how ye hear '). According to the capacity of the measure ye use, it shall be meted out to you, and with interest {rrpco-TiSy.o-iTxi ijjCit, cf. Mt 1312 2529 j-ai ■ripKra-tuh-^iinTa.i, after the next clause) ; for he who hath {i.e. by receptiveness), there shall be given to him, and he who hath not (by unreceptiveness), even that which he hath (through his ears nierelj', cf. Lk 81** ' what he supposes he hath ') shall be taken from him ' (Mk 42'i-25). Then, after two more parables,t we read : ' And with such parables, and many of them, he used to speak to them the word just as they were able to listen ; but without parable used he not to speak to them, whilst privatel.^' to his own disciples he used to resolve (the meaning of) all things' (v.33f.).
Running throughout the whole account in Mk. is a single coherent conception of the function of parable as a vehicle of religious knowledge, viz. that it is a sort of veil spread over the face of truth, in order that only those who are morally ready to act aright in regard to it shall perceive its Divine lineaments. This implies (a) that it is bad for a man to see the truth in the wrong, i. e. unsympathetic, mood, and (b) that it is the special nature of spiritual or religious knowledge to be morally conditioned in its communication. Accord- ingly it can be received, in the sense alone valued by Jesus, only gradually, by successive acts of use or vital obedience. But the teacher's ulterior object in parable, as in plainer modes of speech (as the context of the simile of casting pearls before swine helps to make clear, Mt V^-), was that as many, not as few, as possible of the average hearers addressed might, hy seeking and its discipline, come to find aright, instead of rest- ing in imaginary possession of a knowledge that was really error. J The treasure of knowledge touching the Kingdom could not be had without real spiritual quest ; it was a ' secret,' to be shared in only by awakened curiosity and desire. What is received too easily is held loosely ; or rather, in the case of spiritual truth, it is not received at all, when taken passively and not by the activity that is also self-committal ; or, again, it is received in so crude a sense — what comes from without being overlaid or distorted by what already exists within — that it had better not be received at all in this fashion. The remedy is that the reception should be gradual, through a process of piecemeal and even painful adjustment of the mind and will of the hearer to the essential form of the truth en- shrined in the message or teaching. Then, what is so won becomes the liasis of fresh discoveries of the same kind. In this beneficent yet deeply serious sense Jesus ' was wont to speak the word ' to men 'jttst as they were able to listen to it.''
Such seems the philosophy of Christ's parabolic teaching, when we regard the trend of this funda- mental section and the general effect of His teach-
* i.e. to the disciples, to whom He is explaining His new method.
t Probably not spoken on the same occasion, but added by the Evangelist (in keeping with catechetical tradition), by aflRnity of theme ; and this addition leads up naturally to the use of 'to them' in v.33 = to the people.
t Cf. A. B. Bruce, The Parabolic Teachinn of Chri.ft, pp. 18- 23, and Latham, Pantor Pnxtnniin, ch. x. ('To those who have, is given '), in support of tliis and much of what follows.
ing in the Gospels. But what are we to make of the motive assigned to it in Mk 4}^ ' That seeing they may see, and not perceive ; and hearing they may hear, and not understand ; lest haply they should turn again and it should be forgiven them ' ? Can we believe that in these words — if read in the sense of a 'judicial blinding' — we have a quotation from Jesus' lips uncoloured by the tradition lying between Him and the Gospel records? Hardly. The saying is an isolated one in the Synoptics. But a like use of the passage in Isaiah (e'-*^-) here drawn upon, occurs in Ac 28^^-2', in an address to leading Koman Jews, and in Jn 12^^- *, which con- tains the reflexions of the Evangelist himself. Here we seem to have the clue to the ' paradox ' as some would call it, ' incompatibility ' as it will seem to others. That is, Jesus' own use of Isaiah's langviage underwent development in the Church's tradition, being first reapplied to specific Jewish unbelief (as in Acts), and then hardened in its spirit * (as in Jn. ). The conclusive thing appears to be this. Not only are the words virtually quoted from Ise"'-, but they are not given uniformly in the other Synoptics. Then it is only in the anti-Judaic reflexions in Jn. that the sense of judicial blindness is given to them at all, by a deliberate change of form, which attri- butes the blinding and dulling of hearing to direct Divine action. It seems natural, then, to assume that Jesus simply made an allusive use of the phraseology of Is 6^ so far as it lent itself to His purpose ; and that in the Church's tradition this reference was taken up, fully applied, and even, as in Jn 12^**, emphasized in an anti-Jewish direction. Here Mk. shows us the first stage in the tradition, at which the regret with which Jesus contemplates the inevitable eli'ect of the law that unreceptive- ness tends to become a fixed habit, is apparent in the quick transition to ' lest haply they should turn back and forgiveness should be theirs' {d<pe6rj avToh, an adaptation of Isaiah's iaaofjLon avrois on Jahweh's behalf). Against this the telle 'with a view to' ('iva) cannot weigh decisively, since its exact degree of purposiveness is not always the same. Here it may well be no more than a recog- nition of the providential nature of the law of moral continuity, as well as of those inevitable effects Avhich Jesus knew to be involved in His deliberate resort to parabolic teaching, t in jjlace of plainer proclamation, touching the Kingdom — its inner and gradual operation, and its fortunes, especially in the near future. Further, the less severe reading seems required by what follows in Mk 4^1-23^ viz. that the object of the light's coming- is to be seen ; and any temporary ' covering ' or ' hiding ' is all meant to be subservient to this. All is simply adjusted to existing ability to hear (Mk 433).