The Sermon on the Mount' closes with a parabolic illustration, which in similar form occurs in Rabbinic writings. Thus, [2580] the man whose wisdom exceeds his works is compared to a tree whose branches are many, but its roots few, and which is thus easily upturned by the wind; while he whose works exceed his wisdom is likened to a tree, whose branches are few, and its roots many, against which all the winds in the world would strive in vain. A sill more close parallel is that [2581] in which the man who has good works, and learns much in the Law, is likened to one, who in building his house lays stones first, and on them bricks, so that when the flood cometh the house is not destroyed; while he who has not good work, yet busies himself much with the Law, is like one who puts bricks below, and stones above which are swept away by the waters. Or else the former is like one who puts mortar between the bricks, fastening them one to the other; and the other to one who merely puts mortar outside, which the rain dissolves and washes away.
The above comparisons of Rabbinic sayings with those of our Lord lay no claim to completeness. They will, however, suffice to explain and amply to vindicate the account of the impression left on the hearers of Jesus. But what, even more than all else, must have filled them with wonderment and awe was, that He Who so taught also claimed to be the God-appointed final Judge of all, whose fate would be decided not merely by professed discipleship, but by their real relation to Him (St. Matt. vii. 21-23). And so we can understand it, that, alike in regard to what He taught and what He claimed, The people were astonished at His doctrine: for He taught them as One having authority - and not as the Scribes.' [2582] __________________________________________________________________
[2499] As it was impossible to quote separately the different verses in the Sermon on the Mount, the reader is requested to have the Bible before him, so as to compare the verses referred to with their commentation in this chapter.
[2500] St. Luke vi. 13.
[2501] It is so that we group together St. Luke vi. 12, 13, 17-19, compared with St. Mark iii. 13-15 and St. Matthew v. 1, 2.
[2502] According to traditional view this mountain was the so-called Karn Hattin' (Horns of Hattin) on the road from Tiberias to Nazareth, about 1½ hours to the north-west of Tiberias. But the tradition dates only from late Crusading times, and the locality is, for many reasons, unsuitable.
[2503] St. Luke vi.
[2504] The reader will find these parallelisms in Dean Plumptre's Notes on St. Matthew v. 1 (in Bishop Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers, vol. i. of the N.T. p. 20).
[2505] Comp. Euseb. H. Eccl. iii. 39.
[2506] Thus St. Matthew passes over those earlier events in the Gospel-history of which Judæa was the scene, and even over the visits of Jesus to Jerusalem previous to the last Passover, while he devotes not less than fourteen chapters and a half to the half-year's activity in Galilee. If St. John's is the Judæan, St. Matthew's is the Galilean Gospel.
[2507] On this point there seems to me some confusion of language on the part of controversialists. Those who maintain that the Sermon on the Mount contains no doctrinal elements at all must mean systematic teaching - what are commonly called dogmas - since, besides St. Matt. vii. 22, 23, as Professor Wace has so well urged, love to God and to our neighbour mark both the starting-point and the final outcome of all theology.
[2508] To adopt the language of St. Thomas Aquinas - it is neither meritum ex congruo, nor yet is it ex condigno. The Reformers fully showed not only the error of Romanism in this respect, but the untenableness of the theological distinction.