4. Inthe wilderness. Not a desert place, but uncultivated plains; pasturage. Note that the sheep are being pastured in the wilderness. A traveller, cited anonymously by Trench, says: “ There are, indeed, some accursed patches, where scores of miles lie before you like a tawny Atlantic, one yellow wave rising before another. But far from infrequently there are regions of wild fertility where the earth shoots forth a jungle of aromatic shrubs ” (“ Parables”).
5. When he hath found it. Matthew, //so be that he find it.
On his shoulders. Lit., his own shoulders. “ He might have employed a servant’s aid, but love and joy make the labor sweet to himself” (Bengel). The “Good Shepherd” is a favorite subject in early Christian art. “ We cannot go through any part of the catacombs, or turn over the pages of any col- lection of ancient Christian monuments, without coming across it again and again. We know from Tertullian that it was often designed upon chalices. We find it ourselves painted in fresco upon the roofs and walls of the sepulchral chambers ; rudely scratched upon gravestones, or more carefully sculptured “on sarcophagi; traced in gold upon glass, moulded on lamps, engraved on rings; and, in a word, represented on every species of “Christian monument that has come down to us.
It was selected because it expressed the whole sum and aL
384 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. XV.
stance of the Christian dispensation. . . . He is sometimes represented alone with his flock; at other times accompanied by his apostles, each attended by one or more sheep. Some- times he stands amidst many sheep; sometimes he caresses one only ; but most commonly—so commonly as almost to form a rule to which other scenes might be considered the exceptions —he bears a lost sheep, or even a goat, upon his shoulders” (Northcote and Brownlow, “ Roma Sotteranea”). A beautiful specimen is found in the mausoleum of Galla Placidia, at Ravenna, erected about 450 a.p. It is a mosaic in green and gold. The figure is a beautiful one, youthful in face and form, as is usual in the early mosaics, and surrounded by his sheep. Facing this appears, over the altar, the form of Christ seated beside a kind of furnace, on the other side of which stands a little open bookcase. He is engaged in casting heretical books into the fire. Are they, indeed, the same—the Shepherd Christ of the Gospels, and the polemic Christ of the ecclesiastics
6. With me. “Not with the sheep. Our life is Azs joy” (Gregory, cited by Trench). :
7. Repenteth. See on Matt. iii. 2.
8-32. Tur Parasies or THE Lost CoIn AND OF THE PRODIGAL Son. Peculiar to Luke.
8. Pieces of silver (Spayuds). Used by Luke only. A coin worth about eighteen cents, commonly with the image of an owl, a tortoise, or a head of Pallas. Asa weight, 65.5 grains. A common weight in dispensing medicines and writing prescrip- tions. Wye. transcribing the Greek word, dragmes. Tynd., grotes.
9. Her friends. Female friends, for the noun is used in the feminine form.
I lost. Through her own carelessness. Of the sheep, Jesus says “was lost.” “A sheep strays of itself, but a piece of
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money could only be lost by a certain negligence on the part of such as should have kept it” (Trench). In the one case, the attention is fastened on the condition of the thing lost; in the other, upon the sorrow of the one who has lost.
12. The portion. According to the Jewish law of inheri- tance, if there were but two sons, the elder would receive two portions, the younger the third of all movable property. Aman might, during his lifetime, dispose of all his property by gift as he chose. If the share of younger children was to be dimin- ished by gift or taken away, the disposition must be made by a person presumably near death. No one in good health could diminish, except by gift, the legal portion of a younger son. The younger son thus was entitled by law to his share, though he had no right to claim it during his father’s lifetime. The request must be regarded as asking a favor (Edersheim).