21—25.
ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ μα
199
24. ΆἌλλην παραβολὴν " παρέθηκεν αὐτοῖς, λέγων, « Ὡμοιώθη ἡ r again ver.
βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἀνθρώπῳ σπείροντι
1 καλὸν σπέρμα ἐν τῷ
ἀγρῷ αὐτοῦ: 25. ἐν δὲ τῷ καθεύδειν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, ἦλθεν αὐτοῦ ὁ ς Mk. vii
ἐχθρὸς καὶ ἔσπειρεΣ ζιζάνια "ἀνὰ µέσον τοῦ σίτου, καὶ ἀπῆλθεν.
4 1 NBMXANE have σπειραντι.
31. Rev. vii. 17.
? BND it. vg. several cursives have the compound επεσπειρεν (Tisch., W.H.).
May the Sower not be an exception? That it is has been ably argued by Feine in $ahrbiicher fir Prot. Theologie, 1888, 4. v. (4) The exclusion of so-called allegorising interpretation may be carried to a pedantic extreme in connection with all the parables, as it is, indeed, in my opinion, especially by Weiss. Thus we are told that in the saying ‘‘ the whole need not a physician,” Jesus did not mean to suggest that He was a physician but only to hint the special claims of a class on His attention. But the question may be asked in every case: What was the genesis of the parable? How did it grow in Christ’s mind? The Sower, e.g-? Was it not built up of likenesses spontaneously suggesting themselves now and then; of Himself to a sower, and of various classes of hearers to different kinds of soil? In that case the “allegorical” interpretation is simply an analysis of the parable into its genetic elements, which, on that view, have more than the merely descriptive value assigned to them by Weiss. (5) As to missing the main lesson amid details: is it not rather given, Eastern fashion, through the details: the preaching of the kingdom not always successful, failure due to the spiritual condition of hearers? That is how we Westerns, in our abstract generalising way, put it. The Orientals conveyed the general through concrete particulars. Jesus did not give an abstract definition of the Fatherhood of God. He defined it by the connections in which He used the title Father. That Jesus talked to His disciples about the various sorts of hearers, their spiritual state, and what they resembled, I think intrinsically likely. It is another ques- tion whether His interpretation has been exactly reproduced by any of the Synoptists.
Vv. 24-30. The Tares. This parable has some elements in common with that in Mk. iv. 26-29, whence the notion of many critics that one of the two has been formed from the other. As to which is the original, opinion is much divided. (Vide Holtz., H.C.) Both, I should say.
The resemblance is superficial, the lesson entirely different—The Sower describes past experiences ; the Tares is prophetic of a future state of things. But may it not be a creation ~f apostolic times put into the mouth of Jesus? No, because (1) it is too original and wise, and (2) there were beginnings of the evil described even in Christ’s lifetime. Think of a Judas among the Twelve, whom Jesus treated on the principle laid down in the parable, letting him remain among the disciples till the last crisis. It may have been his presence among the Twelve that suggested the parable. Ver. 24. Ἀπαρέθηκεν, again in ver. 31, usually of food, here of parable as a mental entertainment; used with refer- ence to Jaws in Ex. xxi. 1, Deut. iv. 44. ---ὼμοιώθη, aorist used proleptically for the future ; cf. 1 Cor. vii. 2δ.--ἀνθρώπῳ, likened to a man, inexactly, for: ‘to the experience of a man who,” etc., natural in a popular style.—o7e(lpayrt, aorist because the seed had been sown when the event of the parable took place. ---καλὸν, good, genuine, without mixture of other seeds.— Ver. 25. ἐν τῷ καθεύδειν = during the night.—a. 6 ἐχθρὸς, his enemy. Weiss (Matt.-Evang., 347) thinks this feature no part of the original parable, but introduced to correspond with the interpretation (ver. 39), no enemy being needed to account for the appearance of the ‘“‘tares,” which might grow then as now from seed lying dormant in the ground. Christ’s parables usually com- ply with the requirements of natural probability, but sometimes they have to depart from them to make the parable answer to the spiritual fact; e¢.g., when all the invited are represented as refusing to come to the feast (Lk. xiv. 16-24). The appearance of the ‘“‘tares” might be made a preternatural phenomenon out of regard to the perfect purity of the seed, and the great abundance of bad men in a holy society. A few scattered stalks might spring up in a natural way, but whence so many ὃ--ἐπέσπειρεν. deliberately sowed over the wheat seed as thickly as if no other seed were there.