748
TREASURE
TREASURY
have been an appeal to selfish prudence merely, would justify, if it were correct, all that unbe- lievers have said about the selfishness of Chris- tianity. It was not to the man's selfishness that Christ addressed Himself, but to the earnest long- ing after righteousness which He perceived in him. ' What lack I yet ? ' the man had said, even after asserting that he had kept the commandments from his youth up. Christ therefore bade him cast aside the temptation which bound him down, that his aspirations might at last have free play ; that, untrammelled by earthly cares, he might take to himself the treasure of righteousness and truth which he had alwaj's longed to make his own.
That spiritual treasure is regarded by our Lord as a personal thing, not as a mere reward assigned from without, is rendered even more plain by what He says regarding the * treasure of the heart ' (Mt 12^^ II Lk 6*^). This treasure of the heart is mani- festly the accumulated tendencies which Ave call character, the habits which a man makes, the qualities which he acquires, by the repeated choices of his life. He who strives continuously to follow the dictates of righteousness and love, makes for himself a righteous and loving char- acter. His past deeds become a store from which he can continually draw anew. The more good deeds he does the richer grows his heart in good- ness, and the greater will his joy become in doing what is right. His heart will of itself bear fruit of goodness. But the same is true also of the evil man. The second lie is proverbially easier than the first. The more evil he does, the more evil grows his heart, until it is well-nigh impossible for it to produce what is good. His heart be- comes callous and hard, so that he can no longer take delight in goodness. Thus, again, it is true that ' where the treasure is, there will the heart be also.' The heart of the good man brings down heaven to earth, while that of the evil man could find no bliss in heaven itself.
When in Col 2^ St. Paul tells his readers that in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, he is but following out the same figure. iv XpLaT(^ expresses one of the two great principles of the Pauline theology. To win the true treasure a man must be in Christ ; for He is the universal Man, the ideal of manhood, the only perfectly loving and wise and true of all mankind. In Him only was the heavenly treasure revealed in perfect fulness. He who would share it must therefore be in Christ, must be inspired by His spirit.
The true treasure of the human heart is the Kingdom of heaven. To have the Kingdom of God within one, is to be spiritually rich indeed. In setting forth the manner in which the Kingdom is received into different kinds of hearts, our Lord once again uses the figure of treasure, in the par- able of the Treasure hid in a field (Mt IS"*^). Here He refers to an experience not uncommon in the East, where the uncertain tenure of property led men often to hide their wealth, and where the equal uncertainty of life caused it often to remain unclaimed. This and the parable of the Pearl of Great Price (another kind of treasure), which fol- lows it, describe the two ways in which the truth of the gospel is received by men. There is the finder who has never sought at all, and who comes upon his find by accident ; and there is the finder who lias spent his life in seeking. In this, how- ever, they are like, that when the treasure is dis- covered each is willing to part witli all he has for its possession. Indeed, this willingness is the test of tlie true finder ; but it is also the essential mark of the true treasure. It is of siach a nature that it cannot be possessed for less than all that a man is and has. It lays hold upon the true finder's
heart ; for in it he recognizes the satisfaction of all his longings : it is the completion of his being, the source of his life to all eternity.
Literature. — The Comm. on the NT ; standard works on the Parables; Beyschlag's and Weiss' NT TheoL; Flint, Christ's Kingdom upon Earth (1865), 196 ; H. Scott Holland, God's City (1894), 161 ; W. G. Tarrant in Serm. by Unitarian Ministers, i.
(1905), 25. w. J. S. Miller.
TREASURY.— Two words are tr''- ' treasury ' in the Gosjiels. 1. ■ya£o(|>v\dKi.ov (fr. 7dfa, a word of Persian ov\gm. — d7}uavp6s, 'treasure,' and <pv\aKri, ' guard'), ' a place for keeping treasure,' i.e. either a treasure-chest or a treasure-chamber (Mk 12'*i- '^^ ||Lk21i, JnS^O). (1) In the two Synoptic passages it is used, in connexion with the incident of the poor widow who gave her two mites, to denote a treasure-chest, or receptacle into which offerings were cast by worshippers coming into the Temple — a sense in which the word is found also in Josephus (A7if. XIX. vi. 1, where Agrippa hangs his chain of gold virep to yai^o4>v\dKiov). According to the Talmud {Sheqalim, vi. 5), there stood in the court of the women, the most frequented part of the sacred enclosure, 13 brazen chests, into which were dropped the contributions made for the service of the Temple, the support of the poor, and other pious purposes. These chests were of a peculiar shape — bulging out beneath so as to be of consider- able capacity, but tapering upwards to a narrow mouth, into which the offerings were put — and, because of their resemblance to inverted trumpets, Avere known as shophdroth (nnDity, ' trumpets '). It was into one of these shophdroth that the widow Avould cast her all. (2) In the EV rendering of Jn 8^" Jesus is said to have spoken ' in the treasury ' (iv Tip ■ya^otpyXadip), as He taught in the Temple. This rendering Avould imply that the '^a^o<pv\a.KLov in question was not a treasure-chest merely, but a part of the Temple itself in which treasure was kept. Now, we know that there were special treasure-chambers Avithin the inner court, in Avhicl> not only the precious vessels of the sacrificial service and the costly garments of the jiriests, but vast sums of money and various other valuables Avere kept, and that these treasure-chambers, Avhich Avere under the charge of officers knoAvn as ya^o<pv\aK€s, Avere called ya^o4>v\dKia (Neh IC LXX ; Jos. BJ VI. V. 2). That Jesus Avould be found teaching in one of these inner treasure-chambers is, hoAvever, exceedingly improbable. And Avhen Ave put such a supposition aside, tAvo vieAvs may be taken of the meaning oi iv T(^ya^o<pv\aKiii}. {a) We may take ya^o<l>v\dKiov to denote, as in the Synoptics, nothing more than a treasure-chest, and understand iv to be used in the sense of proximity merely (so Meyer ; cf. iv de^iS deov [Ro 8^* and frequently], ' at the right hand of God '), so that the phrase Avould signify ' at or near the treasury.' {h) We may take iv in its strict local sense (so Winer, Gram, of NT Gr. 481), and then understand ya^o(bvKa.Kiov to denote that part of the Women's Court in Avhich the treasure- chests Avere kept. But in either case the general meaning Avill be the same. Jesus Avas not in some closelj' guarded chamber of the inner Temple, but sitting ' near the shophdroth,^ or ' in the colonnade Avhere the shophdroth stood.'