Faber Tanaquil. See Lefebvre Taxneguy.
Faber the Oratoriau. See Fabre.
FabiSnus (pope) is recorded as the 19th bishop
FABLE
443
FABLE
of Rome, from 23G to 250, but there is some dispute both as to his name and as to the time of liis episco- pate. In the Alexandrian Chronicle he is called Fla- vianus. Eusebius gives an account of certain wonders that happened on his election to the bishopric. " The faithful had assembled in a church for the purpose of the election, and several persons of consideration were proposed, without any thought of Fabianus, though he was present. Of a sudden, a white dove descended from above and alighted on his head. Then the faith- ful, recalling to their recollection that the Hoh' Spirit had manifested itself in a like form at the baptism of Jesus Christ, exclaimed that God had exhibited to them his will. Immediately Fabianus was proclaimed pope, and conducted to the episcopal see without oth- er formalit}' than the imposition of hands" {Hist. Ec- cles. vi, 29). From this fable the court of Kome de- rives support for its theory that the H0I3' Ghost al- ways directs in the election of a pope. Cardinal Cusa says that " what happened in the election of Fabianus happens to every pope, though we do not see it with our natural eyes. In vain, electors, are all your in- trigues ; the person on whose head the heavenlj' dove perches will, in spite of them, be chosen" (Z>e Meth. Consistorii, vii, 80). We have had strange illustrations of this in Borgia and others. Fabianus suffered mar- tyrdom in Decius's persecution, A.D. 250. See Ada Sanctorum, Jan. 20 ; Tillemont, Mi-moires, iii, 36-i ; A. Butler, Lives of Saints, Jan. 20; Bower, Ilistoi-i/ of the Popes (London, 1750), i, 47.
Fable {jw'^oc. a mjjtli), a legend or fictitious stor}', applied in the N. T. (1 Tim. i, 4; iv, 7 ; 2 Tim. iv, 4; Titus i, 14 ; 2 Pet. i, 10) to tlie Jewish traditions and speculations which were prevalent in the apostolic daj's, and were afterwards embodied in the Talmudical writings. (See Fleischmann's Comment, in 1 Tim. i, 4.)
1. Taking the words fable and parable, not in their strict etymological meaning, but in that which has been stamped upon them l)y current usage, looking, i. e. at the ^sopic fable as the tjpe of the one, at the parables of the N. T. as the type of the other, we have to ask ((/.) in what relation they stand to each other as instruments of moral teaching.' (i.) what use is made in the Bible of this or of that form ? That the}- have much in common is of course obvious enough. In both we find " statements of facts, which do not even pretend to be historical, used as vehicles for the exhibition of a general trutli" (Neander, Life of Christ, Harper's ed. p. 67). Both differ from the iMythus, in the modern sense of that word, in being tlie result of a deliberate choice of such a mode of teaching, not the spontaneous, unconscious evolution of thought in some symbolic form. They take their place so far as species of the same genus. What ai-e the characteris- tic marks by which one differs from the other, it is perhaps easier to feel than to define. Thus we have (comp. Trench, On Parahles, p. 2) (i.) Lessing's state- ment that the fable takes the form of an actual narra- tive, while the parable assumes only that what is re- lated might have happened; (ii.) Herder's, that the difference lies in the fable's dealing with brute or in- animate nature, in the parable's drawing its mateiials exclusively from human life ; (iii.) Olshausen's (on Matt, xiii, 1), followed by Trench (/. c), that it is to be found in the higher truths of which the parable is the vehicle. Perhaps the most satisfactory summing np of the chief distinctive features of each is to be found in the following extract from Neander {I. c.) : "The parable is distinguished from the fable lyy this, that in the latter, qualities or acts of a higher class of beings maj' be attributed to a lower (e. g. those of men to brutes), while in the former the lower sphere is kept perfectl}' distinct from that which it seems to illustrate. The beings and powers thus introduced always follow the law of their nature, but their acts, according to this law, are used to figure those of a higher race. . , . The mere introduction of brutes as
personal agents in the fable is not sufficient to distin- guish it from the parable which may make use of the same contrivance ; as, for examjilo, Christ employs the sheep in one of his parables. The great distinction here, also, lies in what has already been remarked ; brutes introduced in the parable act according to the law of their nature, and the two spheres of nature and of the kingdom of God are carefully separated from each other. Hence tlie reciprocal relations of brutes to each other are not made use of, as. these could fur- nish no appropriate image of the relation between man and the kingdom of God."
Of the fable as thus distinguished from the parable we have but two examples in the Biljle: (1.) that of the trees choosing their king, addressed by Jotham to the men of Shechem (Judg. ix, 8-15) ; (2.) that of the cedar of Lebanon and the thistle, as the answer of Je- hoash to the challenge of Amaziah (2 Kings xiv, 9). The narrative of Ezek. xvii, 1-10, though, in common with the fable, it brings before us the lower forms of creation as representatives of human characters and destinies, differs from it in the points above noticed, [1.] iu not introducing them as having human attri- butes; [2.] in the higher prophetic character of the truths convej'ed by it. The great eagle, the cedar of Lebanon, the spreading vine, are not grouped together as the agents in a fable, but are simply, like the bear, the leopard, and the lion in the visions of Daniel, sym- bols of the great monarchies of the world.