IP V-i^ 't^^ ~ i.r TR*, ■■ :f%'^^^ B,W. Roblnscn Some Elements of Foroefulness in the ComparlBons of Jesus %\ .83.R6 ■| H ^ ,^1 BS242 .83.RG Eijr anibrrsitu of (fHitcago Founded by John D. Rockefeller SOME ELEMENTS OF FORCEFULNESS IN THE COMPARISONS OF JESUS WITH COMPARATIVE TABLES OF METAPHORS FROM THE DEUTERO-ISAIAH AND PAUL BY BENJAMIN WILLARD ROBINSON A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Department of Biblirnl^i/id Patristic Greek) 1904 ®:|)C (^Intbrrsilu of Cliicago Founded by John D. Rockefeller SOME ELEMENTS OF FORCEFULNESS IN THE COMPARISONS OF JESUS WITH COMPARATIVE TABLES OF METAPHORS FROM THE DEUTERO-ISAIAH AND PAUL • BY BENJAMIN WILLARD ROBINSON A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACUITY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Department of Biblical and Patristic Greek) 1904 Some Elements of Forcefulness in Jesus' Comparisons. BENJAMIN W. ROBINSON, PH.D. CHICAGO, ILL. CONTENTS. Introduction. I. Certain Seeming Metaphors which are not really Such. II. Certain Real Metaphors which do not seem to be Such. III. Certain Maxim-principles which are practically Metaphors. IV. Two Tables Comparing the Deutero-Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul. V. Two Preliminary Remarks. VI. First Element in the Power of Jesus' Comparisons : The Radi- calness of their Physical Bases. VII. Second Element of Power: Exclusion of Non-contributing Details. VIII. Third Element of Power: Deferred Applications. IX. Fourth Element of Power : Effective Reversal of Previous Figu- rative Usage. X. Fifth Element of Power : Antitheses. XI. Sixth Element of Power: Changing a Negative to a Positive. XII. Seventh Element of Power: Combination. XIII. Eighth Element of Power : Naturalness. XIV. Ninth Element of Power: Inwardness. XV. Possible Value of the Present Study. JESUS talked to the men of his generation with such power that they expressly described him as speaking with authority. His vernacular was Aramaic, and he reduced nothing to writing. But despite the loss of power through reporting, translating, and trans- mitting, the vital force of his sayings is still strongly evident to any reader. The subjective source of this power lay in his consciousness that he was the unique Son of God, that he realized in himself the true messianic ideal, and that he therefore had the right to give absolute emphasis to his religious statements and to his ethical demands. This feeling is evidenced by his changing the prophetic third person to the first, and by his unhesitating revision of the sacred scriptures of his nation. ROBINSON : FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. I07 If we turn to his life and words themselves, we find elements of power in the spotless consistency of his life with his teaching, in his closeness to nature and to human nature, in his comprehensiveness, and in his profound centralization of all religious truth in the soul.' His miracles, moreover, emphasized his claims. It is not, however, from the view point of Jesus' consciousness, or from that of a philosophical analysis of his teaching, that this paper studies the force of his sayings. Its investigation is rhetorical rather. Its inquiry nearly amounts to asking : What elements of power would be discoverable in these sayings if they were now brought to light for the first time as an anonymous Palestinian product of the third decade of the first century ? In other words : Given the mental quality, the mental resources, and the mental attitude of Jesus' hearers, and given also his own total historic equipment, what ele- ments of special power of expression can we discover in liis words? I omit the gospel of John from the material for study. For the present paper is specially concerned with form and expression, while the fourth gospel betrays so many signs of editorial finish and horai- letical purpose in its reworking of the utterances of Jesus that, for the special object of this paper, it removes us too far from his original and native forms of speech. There is a further limitation in the field of the present investigation. Within the Synoptics themselves we study not all the sayings of Jesus, but only his comparisons. This limitation is made partly because the comparisons alone require a much greater amount of study than this paper can give, and partly because they seem to the writer to be one of the most trustworthy portions of the synoptic record. Run- ning narrative easily suffers interpolations. Connected, unfigurative teaching may be reduced or amplified to a considerable degree without detection ; so may fanciful compound metaphors and long and loosely articulated allegories. But the brief, sharp strokes of Jesus' comparisons are for the most part so clean cut and so powerful that alterations would seldom be made. Those actually made are, for the most part, rather easy to detect, especially in view of our ability to compare each Synoptic with the others. This textual claim is here made without proof simply to explain the field of the present study. Inductive evidence will, it is hoped, accumulate as we pro- ceed and make increasingly evident the vivid and forceful quality which only a mind of similar power could alter in any radical way. ^ Cf. G. D. Boardman, Sermons on the Mountain Instruction, pp. 21-28. I08 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. It would appear easy at first sight to enumerate Jesus' comparisons as given in the Synoptics. Metaphors, similes, and allegories or parables would seem to include them all. But we have no sooner made such a list than we are compelled to subject it to extensive revision. The history of language shows that the basis of almost any expression in any tongue is a figure or image. Yet most images have been so long employed to stand for certain ideas or conceptions that they have ceased to be recognized as images and have become verbal symbols without much, if any, pictorial quality. The minds of different readers, moreover, have a differing sense of perception for the pictorial in words. Students of words and etymology are often unable to read a simple sentence without seeing an image in every word. Others see only those images which are sharply out- lined and to which attention is definitely called. Probably no two persons would make the same list of metaphors from any extended section of scripture. I. Certain Seeming Metaphors which are not really Such. I have aimed to make the list of Jesus' metaphors in the Synoptics fairly exhaustive, but only in the general sense of including every- thing in which there seems to be in the mind of Jesus a conscious mental image or comparison. I have not included words in which etymological study reveals vivid pictures provided it has seemed clear that the outlines of the image had lost their sharpness for Jesus, so that the expression had become a mere intellectual token of exchange like the coin which we pass for so much money without thinking of the image or superscription it bears. I. To this class belongs yfvcrwvrai Qxva.rov (Lk. 9-' ; cf. Mt. 16"^ Mk. 9^ I Pet. 2^ Heb. 2" 6''-^).- Here to taste seems to mean to experience, rather than to test the quality of a thing as in our English conception. yi.v(Ta.\xevo". Paul's fervid style sometimes mixed metaphors, but he would hardly speak of a stone as a trap-stick. 4. TO. Trp6/3aTa ra oLTroXwXora (Mt. 15-"*; cf. lo"). However picto- rial in religious art, this frequent O. T. expression had lost or almost lost metaphorical force in Jesus' day, at least in cases where there are no details given. 5. d^tcTai vfxlv 6 otKos vfji!liv{Lk. 13"^; cf. Mt. 23'^). Here ' house ' may be so familiar a designation of the people of God as to call up no image of an edifice in Jesus' mind, the whole idea being simply, 'Israel is abandoned.' This conclusion is favored by the omission in the best text of epr]iJ.o<; qualifying oIkos. 6. i(liLixw6r] (Mt. 22'-). 'To be muzzled' is to the English mind a strong figure for speechlessness. But the word is so often used in the N. T. without any detailed pictorial item that it probably had for Jesus no figurative force (cf. Mt. 22''^ Mk. 4^^ i-^ Lk. 4'^'). Con- ceptions of the waves as wild beasts muzzled at Jesus' word, however graphic, were foreign to his mind (Mk. 4'''). 7. TO. oi/o/xara v/j-mv ivyeypawTai iv rots oupavots (Lk. lo'^). Striking as this figure is, the absence of graphic details in the various N. T. passages seems to indicate that it meant for Jesus hardly more than being saved in the messianic kingdom. For the general prevalence of tlie expression from the earliest times onward see Ex. 32''-'^' Ps. 69-* Isa. 4'^ Dan. 12^ Phil. 4' Heb. 12-'^ Rev. f if 2oi-'^ There is indeed a sense in which, in view of the current Judaistic idea of books in heaven, Jesus might have used the figure almost literally. 8. StKutowrcs iavTov<; (Lk. 16'"'). Here again the use of the bare word without pictorial details seems to argue the absence of any no JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. conscious comparison to judicial formulae. The same is true of the other instances of the word in the Synoptics (Mt. ii^''' 12^'' Lk. 7-'' 10=^ 18"). 9. fxrj fxtrecjpL^tade (Lk. 12'-^). This word was no doubt often used as a metaphor from a ship tossed up and down on the waves. Professor Henry Van Dyke of Princeton seems to think of the meta- phor as specifically chosen by Jesus and translates his meaning freely, " Neither be ye as a ship that is tossed on the waves of a tempestuous sea." ^ It may be added that James, usually thought to be the Lord's brother, enlarges upon the tossing sea as an image of a doubting mind (Jas. i*'). 10. y£F£u . . . fxoLxaXi^t (Mk. 8"^). Li Jesus' use of this figure there is no mention of any detail of marriage or espousal or putting away. We have only the bare word. And, strong as the figure is, its abounding frequency in the O. T. makes it probable that in Jesus' day and for him it meant but little more than fickle or unfaithful. All these specific expressions which we have dwelt upon in detail seem on the whole to have carried for Jesus no conscious mental comparison. In deference to writers who have seemed to feel that they were clear cases of mental comparison, I include them in the tabular lists shown on subsequent pages, but none of them will be used as evidence for the positive conclusions of this paper. II. Certain Real Metaphors which do not seem to be Such. On the other hand, Jesus has a large number of expressions whose outward fortn gives no hint of a?iy inward comparison, while upon closer scrutiny they seem to be clearly intended as similitudes . It is a question of interpretation, and hinges upon their being literally or figuratively taken. We begin with an instance from outward nature and go on to others taken from bodily life, parts of the body, bodily actions, and social relations. I. KaAa/xov vTio flvZ/xou o-uAcTo/xevoi' (Lk. 7"^ Mt. ii'). Godet and Alford think there is in reality no metaphor here. The waving reed merely signifies the Jordan scenery of the Baptist's mission. But harmony with the succeeding description of John's character as being the opposite of a richly clad courtier seems to require us to see in this image the antithesis of an unwavering and unvacillating character. ^ The Gospel for an Age of Doubt, p. 250 f. ROBINSON : FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS COMPARISONS. 1 1 I 2. 6~KrfTr]v i/'i'X^v avTOV craiTttt a.TTo\i(TU avrrjv (Lk. 9-*; cf. Mt. lO'^* 16^ Mk. S'^). Tliese words cannot be taken literally any more than the bearing of one's cross mentioned immediately before. Their basis is that bodily life which consists in the exercise of the physical functions destroyed or dissolved by death. In the transferred mean- ing ' life ' is the selfishly chosen way of conducting all functions whether of body or mind. To purposely lose one's life in this sense is to let go, give up, or abandon that self-seeking mode of life, in order to conduct one's total existence along the lines of the righteousness of Christ's kingdom. The essence of the self-seeking life is pursuit of one's own happiness or satisfaction of one's desires. But in the life devoted to the kingdom and its righteousness this very satisfaction or happiness is found. That is to say, throwing away a satisfied life for a lofty purpose brings a satisfied life, while seeking self-satisfaction leaves us dissatisfied. 3. ov<; k.t.X. (Lk. l8"" Mt. 19" 112 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL I.J rER.\TURE. Mk. lo-"'*'). Ill the new Christian society a man might find hun- dreds of spiritual friends who would be to him as mother and brethren and children. In his hour of need their possessions might be at his disposal. But this literal or nearly literal interpretation of the passage puts a great strain upon it as given by Matthew and Luke, while Mark's " fx.tra. Siojy/AuJv " seems positively to require a spiritual meaning. The " eav fxr]," too, seems to say that unless a man has so forsaken his relatives and his goods as to feel that he receives an hundredfold, he has not really forsaken them ; that is to say, the return is inner and spiritual. 7. Koi ov fxiaei: tov Tvarepa k.t.X. (Lk. 14-^). To take this literally would impute to Jesus an unethical and immoral thought. But if we may analyze again where Jesus does not, want of natural affection, or rather hatred of the objects of natural affection, is a kind of figure of spiritual hatred of objects or persons whom we naturally love. The physical basis of the metaphor is in some such passage as Deut. 13^ or 21'^-^ There stands the idolatrous or unfilial son, with his parents taking the initiative in spiritual hate by throwing the first stone even though it agonized their hearts to do so. In like manner, whenever any relative, however dear, comes before us in imagination or even hterally as hindering from consecration to Jesus and the interests of the kingdom, we are to have a spiritual hatred of him, of which, want of natural affection is a symbol or figure. An example in Jesus' own life is his intense hatred of Peter from the spiritual view-point of consecration to his cross while at the same time he intensely loved him as a disciple. "Get thee behind me, Satan" (Mt. i6---''). 8. KaOoTt Koi avTo<; vio? 'AjSpadfJ. iariv (Lk. 19"). The fact that Zacchaeus was a Jew by birth does not prevent this phrase from being a metaphor, as at first sight might seem, for he had been ex- communicated, and his conduct together with Jesus' love enrolled him in the " Israel of God" (Gal. 6^"). III. Certain Maxim-principles which are practically Metaphors. We come now to passages of a peculiar sort. They are principles in the form of maxims. The maxim, however, is always concrete, and, as it were, a figure, trope, or image of the principle. The maxim is stated so strongly that the literal interpretation is really absurd, ROBINSON : FORCEFULN£SS IX JESUS COMPARISONS. 1 1 3 although it has sometimes been insisted on in some of the passages to be mentioned. 1. oo-ri5 ae pun-t'^et cis rr/v Se^iav aiayovj., k.t.A. (Mt. g-^'-'-^i Lk. 6'"""* ^). Missionaries have in certain cases tried to apply these directions Hterally to their own conduct among the heathen. So, too, have certain sects who practise non-resistance. Their devotion has often had very happy resuks, and it is difficult to refute their interpre- tation of any single passage by itself. But when we take the present one in connection with the immediately succeeding principle of love to one's enemies, it would appear that these maxims are intended as images of aggressive love which is not content merely to suffer in patience the exactions of evil, but proceeds to do active and voluntary good in the most intense manner to the evil doer. 2. eav (TKavSaXiayj ere 7} x^''p o-ov, k.t.X. (Mk. 9*'"*' Mt. 5-" l8*'^). The very force and intensity of this triple refrain show it to be meant as a principle in the form of a maxim ; for with Jesus the real cause of sin is never in anything external but always in the heart, and so true is it that he would never counsel any injury to the human body that we find not one of all his miracles employed for that purpose. Jesus knew, moreover, that no physical remedy could keep the heart from sin. Such a hyperbole as this was intended, in the actual teaching of Jesus, as a strong and sudden stimulus to thought. 3. Usually the fact of metaphorical intent is evident in the case of maxim principles. But it is hardly so in the two cases just men- tioned and in at least one other, orav ttoij^s dpta-Tov ■>} SeL-rrvov, k.t.X. (Lk. 14'-). This can hardly be a maxim of elevated selfishness. Jesus' mention of the man's being recompensed in the resurrection of the just seems to give it a somewhat parabolic cast, as if he were saying, Do not live in a bargaining spirit of give-and-get, but live for the next world. 4. Passing from the maxim-principle metaphors we mention a case of merely doubtful metaphorical character. ttAt/v to. ivovra Sore iXerjiMoai'vrjv (Lk. ii^^). Godet, Stier, and Others take this as literally referring to the contents of the cups and plates : Give, in love, of your substance. Be unselfish. That is the true cleanness. Have that, and all things are clean for you. But Jesus' antithesis of out- ward and inward illustrated in the whole connection points rather to a metaphor : the true material for alms-giving is within. Give of your heart's love and sympathy, not for the sake of show and ostentation. 114 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. 5. 8vo avi^rjo-av th to lepbv, k.t.X. (Lk. 18'"). The story of the Pharisee and Publican seems rather an instance than a metaphor. But vs." (" Every one that exalteth himself," etc.) justifies vs.^ in calling it a "parable." The parabolic action stands as a figure for God's approval of all true humility and penitence and his disapproval of all spiritual pride. IV. Two Tables comparing the Deutero- Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul. Making a list of metaphors, with deductions and additions along the lines indicated, we find the largest number in Luke, who seems to have about 128. Mark has less than half as many, that is, about 51, of which 8 do not occur in Luke, Matthew, however, has about 116, 28 of which are not found in either Mark or Luke. The total number of separate comparisons, then, given in all three Synop- tics as uttered by Jesus appears to be about 128 + 8 -f 28, or 164 in all. So large a number of comparisons would seem to do away at once with the suspicion that their power is owing to narrowness of range. Yet the possibility remains that there may have been counted as separate comparisons a large number of variations of the same imagery. I have therefore made a table in parallel columns showing the tropes or comparisons in the twenty-seven chapters of the DeuteroTsaiah ; those of Jesus from the Synoptists; and those of Paul in the four epistles, Romans, i and 2 Corinthians, and Gala- tians. The aim in doing this has been to secure a somewhat similar bulk of matter from the noblest rhetorical portion of the Old Testa- ment prophets and from the writings of the great apostle, and to compare a list of metaphors exhaustively made from each of the two with the list from the Synoptics. It is no doubt true that the three sections represent wide differences in mental processes, in truths to be conveyed, in personal character, and in epoch and environment ; but as all metaphorical language has a physical basis, we may for our present purpose neglect all these differences, and arrange the images in a purely physical or natural order. The one I have adopted classifies them under the following heads: (i) Inanimate nature, (2) animals, (3) the human body, (4) family relations, (5) social customs, etc., (6) building, (7) agriculture, (8) business or occu- pation, (9) political, governmental, and judicial, (10) military, (11) references to existing scripture. It ought to be added that in estimating bulk I have used an Oxford minion octavo English Bible ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS, 145 in the Revised Version. Of the sayings of Jesus in Luke there are about 1732 lines, or about i2y^g'\j double-column pages. The addi- tional matter from Mark and Matthew increases the amount to about 17I- or 18 pages. The Deutero-Isaiah contains about i6.V pages of the same size and type. The four epistles of Paul contain a much larger quantity, about 30 pages. The number of metaphors in the Deutero-Isaiah is about 300, or nearly twice the number Jesus has in the Synoptics. The number of metaphors of Paul in the four epistles is about 245, or just about one and one-half times those of Jesus in the Synoptics. I have not felt justified in taking a much less bulk of the Deutero-Isaiah than of Jesus on the one hand, and on the other hand I have feared to do injustice to Paul by omitting the matter in any one of his four great epistles. The discrepancy in the number of metaphors taken, however, should be borne in mind in drawing conclusions from the tables. There is also a limiting consideration in Jesus' evident repression of all fanciful or purely imaginative elaborations. The primary object of these tables is to ascertain the comparative range of the physical bases for ethical and religious comparison as they existed in the minds of the several speakers or writers. Hence a second table is added, which simply puts the physical objects in parallel columns and in the same order, and, so far as they corre- spond, upon the same horizontal line, thus affording a bird's-eye view of the image world of all three seen side by side. TABLE I. ISAIAH. I. Metaphors of Inanimate Nature. " All flesh is grass . . . flower of the field . . . withereth . . . fadeth " 40^ " lie bloweth upon them and they wither " 402*. "giveth them as the dust to his sword " 41-. " as the driven stubble to his bow " 41^. " I will open rivers upon the bare heights and fountains in the midst of the val- leys : I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, "the acacia tree, and the myrtle and the oil tree : I will set in the desert the fir tree, the pine, and the box tree together." 4i^*'"-. "their molten images are wind and confusion" 41-^. " a bruised reed will he not break " 42^. " for a light of the gentiles " 42^. " make darkness light " 42'^. " and crooked places straight " 42^^ (governmental). Il6 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. " there is no rock " 44**. " as a thick cloud, thy transgressions " 44''^'-. " sing, O ye heavens " 44 --^ " shout, ye lower parts of the earth " 44'^*. " break forth into singing, ye mountains " 44-^. " O forest and every tree " 44-^. "make the rugged places plain" 45-; see 42I'' and 40*. " treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places " 45^. " drop down, ye heavens ... let the skies pour down ... let the earth open " 45^. " peace as a river " 48^^. " righteousness as the waves of the sea " 48'^. " seed as the sand . . . grains thereof" 48^^. " them that are in darkness " 49^. " heat nor sun " 49I''. " Sing, O heavens, be joyous, O earth . . . O mountains " 491^. " the waves thereof roar " (animal) 51^^. " sing together, ye waste places " 52". " the mountains shall depart " 54^'' " as the heavens are higher than the earth " 55^ " rain come down . . . the snow " 55^' "maketh the earth bring forth and hud " 55^''. "the mountains and the hills . . . singing " 55'-. " trees shall clap their hands " 55'-. " thorn ... fir tree . . . brier . . . myrtle tree " 55I'. " wind shall take them " 57". " wicked, like the troubled sea " 57-". " thy light break forth as the morning . . . spring forth " 58^. " light shall rise in darkness " 58'°. " a watered garden ... a spring of water " 58'!. "look for light . . . darkness" 59^. "a rushing stream" 59^^. "rising of the sun " 59^''. " shine, for thy light is come " 60^. " darkness shall cover the earth . . . shall arise upon thee " 60-. "fly as a cloud " 60^. " earth bringeth forth her bud " 6i'i. " an everlasting light " Go^^ " mountains flow down " 641- 3. " fire causeth the waters to boil " 64^. "create new heavens and a new earth " 65''^ (scripture ref.). " peace like a river " 66'-. " an overflowing stream" 66^2, " your bones shall flourish like the tender grass " 66'*. "his chariots shall be like the whirlwind" 66^^. " the new heavens and the new earth " 66''^''^. JESUS. I. Metaphors of Inanimate Nature. " salt of the earth " Mt. 5'^. "clothe grass of the field" Mt. 6^' Lk. 122'-**. "the rock, the rain, the floods, the wind" Mt. 7^5. " darkness and light " Mt. lo^^. "a reed shaken . . . wind" Mt. 11'' Lk. 7"*. "tree good, fruit good " Mt. 12°^. "a sign from heaven . . . heaven is red and lowering" Mt. 16'. " say to this mountain " Mt. 17'^^ ROBINSON : FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS COMPARISONS. I I 7 "say to this mountain " j\It. 21-^ Mk. ii-\ "lightnin-,'" Mt. 24-' Lk. 17-*. "tig-tree" Mt. 24^'^ Mk. 1328 l^ 2\'^. "salted . . . have salt in yourselves" Mk. 9''''. " earthquake, famine " Mk. 13*. "good tree . . . corrupt fruit " Lk. 6"**. "Satan fallen as lightning" Lk. lo^^. "to cast fire (firebrand) upon the earth" Lk. 12*^. "cloud, shower . . . south wiml, heat" Lk. 12^* (political sky). "salt . . . savour" Lk. 14^' "The stones will cry out" Lk. ig^^. " stone . . . shall scatter him as dust " Lk. 20^", see O. T. " this is your hour and the power of darkness " Lk. 22^^. " green tree . . . dry " Lk. 23-'^ PAUL. I . Metaphors of Inanimate Nature. "senseless heart was darkened " Rom. 1-'. " the night is far spent, the day is at hand" Rom. 13'^. "celestial bodies . . . bodies terrestrial, sun, moon, stars, star" i Cor. 15*''. " light shine out of darkness . . . light " 2 Cor. 4^. ISAIAH. 2. Animals. "he shall feed his flock like a shepherd, lambs, those that give suck" 40^^. " inhabitants ... as grasshoppers " 40--. " snared in holes " 42'^. " mount up as eagles " 40-^'. " a ravenous bird from the east " 46^^ "thou worm, Jacob" 41^*. " they shall feed . . . pasture " 49^. " moth shall eat them up like a garment " 51^. " the worm siiall eat them like wool " 51^. " as an antelope in a net" 5i-'\ "like sheep have gone astray" 53". " lamb led to the slaughter " 53". "sheep before her shearers is dumb " 53'. •• gathereth the outcasts " 56*'. " all ye beasts of the field, devour ... his watchmen are blind " 56'- '*'. " they are all dumb dogs . . . bark . . . slumber . . . are greedy " 56i*^". " I will feed thee " 58^*. " roar like bears " 59'^. " hatch adder's eggs" 59^. " mourn like doves " 59^^. "weave the spider's web" 59^. " flocks be gathered " 60''. " as doves to their windows " 60^. "suck the milk of the nations . . . breast of kings" 6oi^. " as a horse " 63^^. "as the cattle that go down into the valley" 63'*. "wolf and lamb . . . lion . . . o.\ " 65 ''. "their worm shall not die" 662*. Il8 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. JESUS. 2. Anlmals. " holy unto the dogs " Mt. 7®. " pearls before the swine " Mt. "f. "sheep's clothing . . . ravening wolves" Mt. 7^^ "sheep in midst of wolves " Mt. id^^; Lk. lo'^ "lambs." "sheep into a pit . . . man" Mt. 12". "vipers" Mt. 12^*. "lost sheep of house of Israel " Mt. 15-^. "children's bread and cast it to the dogs'' Ml. 15=6 Mk. 72". "an hundred sheep " Mt. 18^2 Lk. 15*. "camel . . . needle's eye" Mt. 19^^ Mk. lo-^ Lk. i8-^ " strain out the gnat and swallow camel " Mt. 23^*. "serpents . . . vipers" Mt. 23^^; "serpents and scorpions" Lk. lo^^. "hen . . . chickens" Mt. 232" Lk. 13''*. "carcase . . . eagles" Ml. 24^8. "sheep . . . goats" Mt. 2532. "sheep of flock scattered" Mt. 26^'^ Mk. 14^^. " fear not, little flock " Lk. 1232. « an ass or an ox into a well " Lk. 14^ " say to that fox " Lk. 13^2^ " day come as a snare " Lk. 21^*. (fish Mt. 7W.) PAUL. 2. Animals. " who feedeth a flock and eateth not of the milk of the flock " i Cor. g'. " ox " I Cor. 9^. " be not unequally yoked with unbelievers " 2 Cor. 6^* (cf. Gal. 5^). ISAI.'VH. 3. Metaphors of the Body. " hollow of his hand " /^d^-. " they shall walk and not faint " 40^^. " they shall run and not be weary " 40^1. " keep silence before me, O islands " 41^ "with the right hand of my righteousness" 4ii'\ " T will hold thy right hand " 411^. " like a travailing woman " 42I*. " to open the bhnd eyes" 42^. " I will bring the blind " 42I6. "look, ye blind. . . . Who is blind?" 42'*- 1^. " Hear, ye deaf . . ." 42'*- ■''. " Who is blind? . . . blind " 42^*- '^ (his ears are open, but he heareth not). " I will bring thy seed from the east " 43^. " bring forth the blind people that have eyes " 43^. " and the deaf that have ears" 43*. " he feedeth on ashes " 442*^. "he hath shut their eyes" 44^^. "I will loose the loins of kings" 45^. " a lie in my right hand " 4420. " I will gird thee " 45^ " even to hoar hairs will I carry you " 46^. ROP.INSON : FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. II9 which have been borne by me from the belly . . . womb " 46' (family) ; cf. 45^'\ thy neck is an iron sinew and thy brow brass " 48'*. from of old thine ear was not opened " 48^. cut thee not off " 48^. "shadow of his hand " 49^. womb . . . bowels of my mother " 49^. " from the womb " 49^. hunger nor thirst " 49'". clothe thee ... an ornament . . . like a bride" 49'^ (social custom). clothes the heavens with blackness . . . sackcloth" 50'^ tongue " 50*. " ear to hear " 50*. my cheeks (to them that plucked off the hair) " 50®. shame and spitting " 50'"'. mine arms shall judge the peoples" 51^. awake" 51^ 51I" 52'. "words in thy mouth" 51!^. shadow of mine hands " 5 1 '^. put on thy strength . . . beautiful garments, dust, sit thee down " 52^, hath made bare his holy arm" 52^'^. "sing, O barren" 54^. visage was so marred " 52'*. " every tongue " 54I'. arm of the Lord " 53^. " eat that which is good . . . fatness " 55^. shall run unto thee " 55''. let the eunuch say . . . sons and daughters " 56'^- '\ fruit of the lips" 57-^. "Lord's hand is not shortened" 59^. satisfy thy soul in dry places " 58^^ " his ear, heavy " 59^. conceive mischief, bring forth iniquity" 59*. their feet run to evil " 59'. grope, like blind, no eyes, stumble . . . dead men " 59'". righteousness standeth afar off, truth is fallen in the street " 59^*. uprightness cannot enter " 59'*. " his own arm " 59'^. (garments of) vengeance for clothing" 59'^. a garland for ashes" 61*. "the garment of praise " 61^. he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation " 61I'. a robe of righteousness " 61^". " a polluted garment " 64^. hath sworn by his right hand . . . arm of his strength " 62*. my servants shall eat ... ye be hungry . . . drink ... be thirsty " 65^^. an infant of days, an old man " 652". before she travaileth she brought forth . . . pain " 66'^. Zion travaileth . . . brought forth her children" 66^. breasts of her consolation " 66^^ JESUS. 3. Meiaphors of the Body. " hunger and thirst " Mt. 5^. ( " right cheek . . . other also " Mt. 5^^ " right eye . . . stumble " Mt. 5^^. [ " coat, cloke, mile " ; Lk. 6'^^ " goods." " right hand . . . stumble " Mt. f^ Mk. 9*8. " left hand know . . . right " Mt. 6^. "mote . . . beam in thine eye" Mt. 7^ Lk. 6''i. " dead bury dead " Mt. S^'^ Lk. 96^ " sleepeth " Mt. 9-' Mk. 589 Lk. 952. "dust of your feet" Mt. lo'^. "stumbling" Mt. 116 Lk. f-'^ 17' Mt. i8«' 24!'! Mk. 9^ "stumbling-block" Mt. id^^. " fall on this stone " ISIt. 21**. I20 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. "ears to hear" Mt. K^^ Mk. 4-' Lk. S^ "into the mouth," digestion Mt. i5'i; Mk. 713(10), omits "mouth." " blind guide the blind " Mt. 15I*. " blind guides " Mt. 2^^^'- 2^ Lk. 639. "flesh and blood hath not revealed it" Mt. 16I". "taste of death" Mt. 16-8 Mk. 9I Lk. 9-'. "lose life for my sake" Mt. i6-5 Mk. S^^ Lk. 9-*. " if thy hand or thy foot . . . stumble " Mt. iS^ Mk. 9''. "and if thine eye" Mt. iS^ Mk. 9^'. "eunuchs" Mt. 19I2. " live by bread " Lk. 4^. "clothed in soft raiment " Mt. 11^ Lk. y^^. "sink into your ears" Lk. 9*1. " Blessed are the eyes which see the things " Lk. 10-*. " arrayed . . . clothed " Mt. 6^'' Lk. 12-*. " not a hair of your head " Lk. 21'*. " be clothed with power from on high " Lk. 24^^^ PAUL. 3. Metaphors of the BoDY. " who hold (down) the truth in " Rom. li*^. "a guide of the Ijlind " Rom. 21^. "throat an open sepulchre" Rom. 3". " walk in the steps of that faith " Rom. 4I'-. " we who died to sin " Rom. ifl. " were buried with him . . ." etc. Rom. i>^^-. "as alive from the dead" Rom. 61^. " having died to that w^herein " Rom. 7^. " I was alive apart ... I died " Rom. 7^. " good become death unto me " Rom. 7!**. " Christ in you . . . body is dead " Rom. S^''. " Walk not after the flesh " Rom. 8*. " If ye mortify the deeds of your body " Rom. S^^. "groan within ourselves" Rom. S-''; cf. "creation groaneth," and 8-", " groan- ings." "I am persuaded that neither life nor death" Rom. 8^^. "stumbled at stone of stumbling" Rom. 9^-. " stumble that they might fall? " Rom. 1 1^. "many members in one body" Rom. 12*. "coals of fire upon his head" Rom. 12^^ " high time to awake out of sleep " Rom. 13!^. " put a stumbling-block in his brother's way " Rom. 141^. " do anything whereby thy brother stumbleth " Rom. 1421. " occasions of stumbling" Rom. 16I". " unto Jews a stumbling-block " i Cor. i^s. " who among men knowelh the things of a man, save the spirit of the man " I Cor. 2II. "your bodies are members of Christ " i Cor. 61^ "so let him walk " i Cor. 7I". " become a stumbling-block to the weak " i Cor. 8^. " meat make my brother to stumble " i Cor. 8^^. ROBINSON : FORCEFULNESS IN JESUs' COMPARISONS. I 2 1 " run in a race, prize, games, crown, light, beat the air, buffet " i Cor. C)-^-''. " baptized in the cloud and in the sea " i Cor. lo'-. "tliinketh he standeth " i Cor. lo^'-. "give no occasion of stumbling " i Cor. lo'-. "body, feet, ear, eye, hearing, smelling, eye, hand, head, feet, uncomely parts" I Cor. i2i-'«'. " baptized, bond or free, drink " i Cur. \2^'^. "they which are fallen asleep in Christ " I Cor. 15^*. "fought with beasts" i Cor, 15"'^. "awake (out of drunkenness) righteously" i Cor. 15^*. "put on incorruption " i Cor. 15^"^. "death is swallowed up in victory" (niilitary?) i Cor. 15^*. "sting of death is sin" i Cor. ly''^. "swallowed up with his overmuch sorrow" 2 Cor. 2'. " hath blinded the mintis of the unbelieving " 2 Cor. 4*. " earthly house of our tabernacle ... a building from God . . . longing to be clothed upon with our habitation . . . naked, mortal, swallowed up " 2 Cor. 5I"*. " giving no occasion of stumbling " 2 Cor. 6*. " as dying and behold we live " 2 Cor. 6^. "though we walk in the flesh" (war) 2 Cor. 10^. " who is made to stumble ? " 2 Cor. 1 1-^. " be running or had run in vain " Gal. 2-0 "a thorn in the flesh" 2 Cor. 12". "walked not uprightly" Gal. 2^*. "died unto the law" Gal. 2^^. " (crucified with Christ and) it is no longer I that live" Gal. 2p-'^. "(my little children) of whom I am again in travail" Gal. 4^^; cf. Rom. 8^^. " ye were running well " Gal. 5". "stumbling-block of the cross" Gal. 5^'. "cut themselves off " (or mutilate) Gal. 51'^, "walk" Gal. 5I6 5^5 616. " bear ye one another's burdens " Gal. 6-. " bear his own burden " Gal. (y\ " God is not mocked " Gal. 6'^. ISAL4H. 4. Family Relations. "woe unto him that saith to a father 'what begettest thou?'" 45^". " or to a woman ' with what Iravailest thou? ' " 45^*^; body, cf. Gal. 4^^. " I shall not sit as a widow . . . loss of children " 47**. " her sucking child " 49^^. "taketh her by the hand of all the sons" 51'^. " thy widowhood " 54*. " is thine husband, . . . redeemer ... as a wife " 54^. " sons of the sorceress . . . adulterer . . . whore " 57^. " children of transgression, a seed of falsehood" 57^. "no more be termed F'orsaken . . . Desolate" 62''''. 122 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. "thou shalt be called Ilephzibah . . . Beulah " 62<- •''. " for as a young man marrieth a virgin, as ihe bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride" 62^-"\ " thou art our father " 63I''. " ye shall suck (thereof) " 66>-. " thou art our father " 64^ " ye shall be borne upon the side " 6612. " dandled upon the knees " 66^2. "as one whom his mother comforteth" 66^^. JESUS. 4. Family Relations. " his son shall ask a loaf . . . stone " Mt. 7^- '". " his son shall ask a fish . . . serpent " Mt. y^- 'o. " children, how much more . . . father which is in heaven?" Mt. 7". " didst reveal them unto babes" Mt. II'-^. "behold, mother and brethren" Mt. 12^^ Mk. 3^*; Lk. 8-I, "these which hear." "a little child" Mt. iS^. "suffer the little children; for of such " Mt. ig''* Mk. lo^*. " first . . . shall be servant " Mt. ao^s Mk. lo**- *''. "out of the mouth of babes and sucklings" Mt. 21^*^. " man had two sons . . . vineyard " Mt. 21-^. " evil servant " Mt. 24-''. " house, brethren, sisters, mother, father, children, land, hundred fold " Mk. lO^^; cf. Mt. I9'9 Lk. i8'^^ "wife." "man sojourning . . . commanded porter" Mk. 13^*. "babes" Lk. lo'-i. "two sons . . . 'give me' " Lk. 15II. " neighbor unto him that fell " Lk. lo^^. " receive ... as a little child " Lk. iS^'. PAUL. 4. Family Relations. "a teacher of babes" Rom. 2-\ " a woman that hath a husband " Rom. 7'-^. " children of God " Rom. 8^''. " heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ " Rom. 8^''. " first-born among many brethren " Rom. 8-^. " children of the flesh ... of God ... of the promise " Rom. 9^. " as unto babes in Christ " i Cor. 3^. " as my beloved children " I Cor. 4^*. " ten thousand tutors . . . not many fathers (begat) " i Cor. 4}^. " come unto you with a rod ? " i Cor. 4^1. "when I was a child I spake as a child" i Cor. 13^'. "be not children in mind" I Cor. 14'^''; cf. Gal. 4^. "corruption inherit incorruption " i Cor. 15^*^. " I speak as unto my children " 2 Cor. G^'^ " children ought not to lay up for the parents " 2 Cor. 12'*, "hath been our tutor" Gal. 3-^-25 (cf. i Cor. 4!^^ Rom. 2-"). " no longer under a tutor " Gal. ^-*- -\ ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 23 'heirs according to promise" Gal. 3-'' (cf. I Cor. 15^'^ {supra) and Rom. 4^^). • receive the adoption of sons " Gal. 4^^. " my little children " Gal. 41'-'. ' the household of faith " Gal. 6^''. ISAIAH. 5. Metaphors of Social Customs. " Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts for a burnt offering " 40^''. " the heavens as a curtain ... as a tent " ^O^'^, " a dimly burning wick will he not quench " 42''. " stretched forth (the heavens) " 42^. " quenched as a wick " 43^^. " lift up (their voice) " 42^1. " who hath fashioned a god " 44^''. " stretched forth the heavens alone " 44'^^. *' I have called thee by thy name, I have surnamed thee " 45'*. "stretched forth the heavens" 45^'. " Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth " 46I. "such as lavish gold out of the bag, silver, balance, goldsmith, god" 46®. " my salvation shall not tarry " 46^3. "sit in the dust, O virgin daughter, millstones, meal, veil, train," etc. ^"J^^: "they shall be as stubble; the fire burn them" 47^^. "power of the flame . . . not to warm at, nor to sit before" 47^*. " a light to the gentiles "' 49*^. " set my face like a flint " 50''. "wax old as a garment . . . the moth " 50''. " (rock whence ye were hewn), pit whence ye were digged" 51I. " for a light " 51*. " like smoke " 51^. " wait for me . . . mine arm " 51^. " wax old like a garment " 51^. " drunk the cup of his fury . . . bowl of the cup of staggering " 51!^. " drunken, but not with wine " 51'^^. " cup of staggering, cup of my fury " 51^^. "bow down" 51-''. " rest in their beds " 57^. "hast enlarged thy bed" 57®. " that inhabiteth eternity . . . dwell in " 57^^. " take away the yoke " 58^. " the putting forth of the finger " 58^. " as a bridegroom decketh ... as a bride " 61^'^ " neither shall their fire be quenched " 66^*. JESUS. 5. Metaphors of Social Customs. " light of the world " Mt. 5I*. " lamp of the body ... eye " Mt. 622 Lk. i r^*. " seek . . . find " Mt. f- » Lk. 1 1^. " knock . . . opened " Mt. f- ^ Lk. 1 1- " come from east, and west, and recline " Mt. 8^^ "outer darkness, weeping, and gnashing" Mt. 8^2 22^3, 124 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. " sons of hridechambei- mourn . . . fast " Ml. g^^ Mk. 2!^ Lk. 58*. "undressed cloth on old garment" Mt. c/^'-^~ Mk. 2-i--'2; "cut new garments'- Lk. 5»«. " new wine into old skins " Mt. 9I' Lk. 5^^ Mk. 222. "children in market-place" Mt. Ii^'' Lk. f^'^. "yoke and burden" Mt. ii^s Lk. 11^6. "leaven which a woman took and hid" Mt. I3*'5 Lk. 1321. "leaven of Pharisees" Mt, 168 Mk. 8^^ Lk. 12'. "bind on earth " Mt. i6i9 18I8. " drink the cup" Mt. 2o22 Mk. lO^s. "a king ... marriage feast " Mt. 22'; "wedding-garment" 22^1. " bind heavy burdens " Mt. 23''. "outside of cup and platter" Mt. 23-5 Lk. ii^". "whited sepulchres" Mt. 23-''. "tombs which appear not" Lk. n^*, "ten virgins . . . lamps" Mt. 25^. " took bread, body " Mt. 262« Mk. 14^2 Lk. 22I9. " will not eat it until " Lk. 22i'\ "took a cup, my blood" Mt. 262" Mk. 142^-25, " drink it new " Mt. 262!*. "let this cup pass" Mt. 263^ Mk. 14^^'; "remove" Lk, 22*2. " except I drink it " Mt. 26*2. " lamp . . . under bushel, bed, ... not on stand " Mk. 421 Lk. S^^; Lk, 11^3, " cellar." " adulterous " Mk. S^s. "baptism that I am baptized with" Mk. lo^s i25\ "for alms the things within" Lk. il*i. " loins girded about and lamps burning" Lk. 123^. "men looking for their lord . . . marriage feast" Lk. 12^^. "in what hour the thief was coming" Lk. 12^^ Mt. 24*3. "den of robbers" Mt. 2ii3. " servant . . . lord . . . shall be beaten " Lk. 1 2*''. " Satan hath bound " Lk. 13I6. " Marriage feast . , . chief seat " Lk. 14^ "when thou makest a dinner or a supper . . . poor " Lk. 14^2, "a certain man made a great supper " Lk. 14^6. "lose piece of silver . . . candle . . . sweep" Lk. 15^*. "rich man and Lazarus" Lk. l6i^. " servant ploughing or keeping sheep ... sit down " Lk, 1 7''. "two men, temple, to pray, Pharisee and publican" Lk, 17^". " purse, wallet " Lk. 223'', PAUL. 5. Metaphors of SOCIAL CUSTOMS. "written in their hearts" Rom. 2^'^. " a Hght of them that are in darkness " Rom, 2^^. "the uncircumcision which is by nature judge thee?" Rom. 22". "a Jew . . . inwardlv; and circumcision ... of the heart " Rom, 22^. "hope putteth not to shame" Rom. 5^. " in me . . . dwelleth no good thing " Rom. 7^*. " rich unto all that call upon him " Rom. 9^2, '• if their fall is the riches of the world . . . riches" Rom. 11^2. ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 25 "O the depth of the riches" Rom. ii*^ "filth . . . offscouring" i Cor. 4^'^. "a little leaven, purge a new lump, keep the feast, unleavened bread of sincerity and truth " i Cor. 5* Gal. 5^. "no company with fornicators" I Cor. 5'. " ye were washed " I Cor. 6'i. " cannot drink of the cup of the lord, and the cup of devils, table " i Cor. 10-'. "pipe, harp, trumpet" i Cor. 14'. "so many kinds of voices in the world " I Cor. 14'^'^. " weighed down exceedingly " 2 Cor. i^. " and anointed us, is God " 2 Cor. i--. " ye are our epistles . . . ink . . . tables that are hearts " 2 Cor. 3-. "who put a veil upon his face" 2 Cor. 3!-^; "veil unlifted, taken away" 15^^ " if our gospel is veiled . . . veiled " 2 Cor. 4^. "this treasure, earthen vessels" 2 Cor. 4'. " bearing about " 2 Cor. 41°. " I overflow with joy" 2 Cor. 7*. " a godly jealousy : for I espoused you to one husband . . . virgin " 2 Cor. II^. " strength of Christ may rest upon me " (Gr. spread tabernacle over me) 2 Cor. 12*. " I was not a burden to you" 2 Cor. 12^'^-^*. " openly set forth crucified " GaL 3I. ISAIAH. 6, Buildings. " to open the doors before him . . . gates " 45I. " doors of brass . . . bars of iron " 45'^. "hath laid the foundation of the earth" 48'^. " stretched forth the heavens " 51^*. " laid the foundation of the earth " 51I''. "lay the foundation of the earth" 51^®. " the place of thy tent . . . curtains . . . cords . . . stakes " 54'-. r " set thy stones in fair colors and lay thy foundations with sapphires "... 1^ " thy pinnac;les of rubies, thy gates of carbuncles " 54^^- ^-. " thy gates shall be open " 60II. "thy walls Salvation and thy gates Praise" 60^*. " build the old wastes . . . raise up , . . repair " 61*. JESUS. 6. Buildings, "by the narrow gate'' Mt. 7'^. " upon this rock will I build" Mt. 16'*. " inner chamber, housetop " Mt. lo^''. " gates of Hades " Mt. i6i^. "keys of the kingdom of heaven " Mt. 16'"; "bind on earth." "pit, tower" Mk. 12I. " house, digged deep, foundation, rock, flood, stream " Mt. 7-* Lk. 6*®. "key of knowledge: ye entered not" Lk. ii''^. "strive to enter in by narrow door" Lk. I3"'^*. " house desolate " Lk. 13='^ Mt. 23"*. "build a tower . . . count cost" Lk. 14®. (" unclean spirit gone out" Mt. 12*^). 126 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. PAUL. 6. Buildings, "whereby we may edify one another" Rom. 14I', also 15^. "not build upon another man's foundation" Rom. i^'^^. " I laid a foundation . . . buildeth . . . revealed in fire " I Cor. 2^^' ^» " ye are a temple of God . . . dwelleth " i Cor, 3^^. "your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit " i Cor. 6^^. "but love edifieth" i Cor. 8^. " if he is weak, be emboldened " (Gr. be builded up) i Cor. 8^". "ediheth himself. . . edifieth the church," "edifying" i Cor. 14^*. " a great door, and effectual is opened " i Cor. 16^. " a door was opened unto me " 2 Cor. 2^^. " what agreement hath a temple of God " 2 Cor. 6^^ " for building you up " 2 Cor. lo^. " for your edifying " 2 Cor. 12^^ " for building up and not for casting down " 2 Cor. 13^^. " are reputed to be pillars " Gal. 2^. " if I build up again " Gal. 2^^ ISAIAH. 7. Metaphors of AGRICULTURE. " have not been planted . . . been sown, taken root, wither as stubble " ip"^^. " a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth, beat them small, fan, scatter " 4 1 15. 16. " pour water on him that is thirsty " 44^. " spring up among the grass " 44*. " as a root out of a dry ground " 53^. "as willows by the water courses" 44*. "as a leaf" 64^. " plant the heavens " 51^^, " wine in the cluster " 65^ " as a tender plant " 53-. " as the days of a tree " 6522, JESUS. 7. Metaphors of AGRICULTURE. " grapes of thorns or figs of thistles " Mt. 7^^. " harvest . . . labourers few " Mt. 9^" Lk. lo^^. "galhereth not . . . scattereth " Mt. \z^'^. "sower to sow" Mt. \f Mk. i^«- Lk. S^. "kingdom of heaven . . , man that sowed good seed" Mt. 132*, "grain of mustard seed" Mt. i-f^ Mk. 4^1 Lk. 1319. "every plant . . . planted not" Mt. ii;i^. " faith as a grain of mustard-seed " Mt. ly^o Lk. 178. "bringing forth fruit" Mt. 2\^^, " east seed upon the earth, . . . sleep and rise " Mk. 4*9, " thorns . . . figs, bramble bush . . , grapes " Lk. 6**. " his hand to the plough, and looking back " Lk. 9^2, " had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard " Lk. 13^ ROBINSON : FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. I 2 7 PAUL. 7. Metaphors of AGRICULTURE. "have some fruit in you " Rom. i^'*. " what fruit then had you? " Rom. 6-^- —. " bring forth fruit unto God" Rom. y''- ^. " if root is holy so are branches " Rom. 1 1'^, *' that I might be grafted in " Rom. 1 1^^; cf. -'. " I planted, Apullos watered " I Cor. 3^; " husbandry (tilled land) " 3^. " who planteth a vineyard and eateth not " i Cor. 9". " If we sowed unto you . . . reap" I Cor. 9^'. " sowest . . . bare grain . . . wheat" i Cor. 15^'. " He that sowtth sparingly shall reap " 2 Cor. (f. " He that supplitth seed to the sower and bread for food " 2 Cor. g^''. "The fruit of the Spirit" Gal. 5-2. " whatsoever a man soweth . . . reap " Gal. 6'; " in due season . . . faint not." ISAIAH. 8. Metaphors of Business or Occupation. measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, measure, weighed in scales, bal- ance " 40I-. as a drop of a bucket ... as the small dust of the balance " 40^^. a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth " 45^. ' shall the clay say to him that fashioned it " 45^. I have refined thee . . . silver " 48^''. " in the furnace of affliction " 48^". which of my creditors " 50^ 'sold for nought, redeemed without money " 52^. the smith that bloweth the fire . . . bringeth forth a weapon " 54^®. come, buy . . . spend money" 55^-. "thou, our potter" 64^. JESUS. 8. Metaphors of Business or Occupation. "fishers" Mt. a^ Mk. i^^ "poor in spirit" Mt. 5^ " catch men " Lk. 51". " received their reward " Mt. 6^^. " treasures upon the earth " Mt. G-^. " whole, physician, sick " Mt. 9I2 Lk. 581 Mk. 2". " Physician, heal thyself" Lk. 4"-^. " out of his good treasure " Mt. 12^^ " whosoever hath, to him shall be given " Mt. 13^-. "a treasure hidden in the field" Mt. 13**. "a merchant seeking pearls" Mt. 13*^. "a net cast into the sea" Mt. 13''^. "a householder which bringeth forth . . . new and old" Mt. 13^2, "reckoning . . . 10,000 talents" Mt. iS-^. "and thou shalt have treasure in heaven" Mt. 1921 Mk. lo^i. 128 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. "a householder which went out ... to hire labourers" Mt. 20^. "householder which planted a vineyard" (hire) Mt. 21^^ Lk. 20^ Mk. 12^ (agri- culture). "man going into far country . . . talents" Mt. 2^^*. "shepherd" Mt. 25-^-; cf. sheep. " treasure of his heart " Lk. 6''5, " shepherd " Mt. 26'^i. " a lender . . . debtors " Lk. 7*1. "good measure" Lk. 63^; cf. Mt. 7^. "rich toward God" Lk. 12-I. "purses which wax not old, treasure in the heavens" Lk. 12''-^. "rich man . . . steward " Lk. 16'. " (into a far country to receive a kingdom) gained by trading " Lk. ig^^ (pounds). PAUL. 8. Metaphors ^/Business or Occupation. "I am a debtor both" Rom. i^*. " treasurest up for thyself wrath " Rom. 2*. "wages of sin is death" Rom. 6--^. " we are debtors" Rom. 8^2. r " shall the thing formed say . . . potter " Rom. 920- 21. [ "vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction" Rom. g^-. " owe no man anything save to love " Rom. 13^. "we were enriched in him" I Cor. i^. " stewards of the mysteries of God " i Cor. 4^. " already are ye filled . . . are become rich " i Cor. 4^. " ye were bought with a price " i Cor. b-^ 7-3. " defraud not one the other " i Cor. 7^. " abide in that calling wherein he was called " i Cor. 720. " I have a stewardship " i Cor. 9^^. " the earnest of the spirit " 2 Cor. i^'"' 5^ " corrupting (making merchandise of) the word of God " only 2 Cor. iP . " as poor yet making many rich " 2 Cor. 6^'. " though rich . . . became poor . . . might become rich " 2 Cor. 8^. " (Titus) my partner and fellow-worker " 2 Cor. 8-^. "ye being enriched in everything" 2 Cor. g^^. "spend and be spent" 2 Cor. 121^. ISAIAH. 9. Political or Governmental (and Legal.) " Prepare the way . . . make level a highway " 40'. "The isles saw and feared . . . trembled . . . drew near" 41^; cf. "keep silence" 4ii. " Israel, my servant " 41*. "my servant" 41^. "to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon" 42". " and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house " 42''. " my servant (whom I have chosen) " 4,i^\ ROBINSON: FORCKFUI.NESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 29 "hast made me to serve " 43'-''. "Jacob, my servant " 44-. " them that are bound " 49^. " bill of your mother's divorcement " 50I. "my servant" 521^. "prepare the way, take up the stumbling-block " 57^*. " loose the bonds of wickedness " 58**. " ride upon the high places " 58'*. " saviour and redeemer, Mighty One of Jacob " 60^''. " crown of beauty ... a royal diadem " 62^. " go through the gates, prepare the way, gather out the stones, ensign " 62^". " Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool " 66^. JESUS. 9. Political or Governmental {and Legal). " disciple, master, servant, lord " Mt. 10-*. "take his cross" Mt. lo^s i6-'* Mk. 83-1 Lk. 928. "every kingdom . . . divided, . . . every city, house" Mt. 12^5 Lk. il^'^ Mk. 3-^--'. " exercise authority . . . become great " Mt. 20-*- -^ Mk. lo'*' 43 Lk. 22^5. "names written in heaven" Lk. 10-''. "going with thine adversary before magistrate" Lk. 12^^. " Galilaeans whose blood Pilate ... in like manner" Lk. 13^-3. " unrighteous judge . . . widow" Lk. 18-". " into a far country to receive a kingdom " Lk. 19I2. PAUL. 9. Political or Governmental {and Legal). " Paul, a servant " Rom. i^ " thoughts . . . accusing or else excusing " Rom. iS^. "no flesh be justified in his sight " Rom. 32'. " death reigned through the one " Rom. zp. "they that receive . . . reign in life through the one" Rom. 5". " no longer be in bondage to sin " Rom. 6^. " death no more hath dominion " Rom. 6''. "let not sin reign " Rom. 61'. " sin shall not have dominion " Rom. 6'*. " His servants ye are " Rom. 6^'^^-\ "servants . . . servants . • . made free." "servants to uncleanness . . . servants" Rom. 6'^- --. " the law hath dominion over a man " Rom. 7^. "' sold under sin " Rom. 7I*. " Jesus made me free from " Rom. 8'. " received not the spirit of bondage . . . adoption " Rom. 8^^. " delivered from the bondage of corruption " Rom. 82^. "ye have reigned without us . . . reign " I Cor. 4*. "judging them that are without" i Cor. 5'^. "am I not free"? I Cor. 9^. " brought myself under bondage to all " i Cor. 9^^. " there is liberty " 2 Cor. 3^''. " might bring us into bondage " Gal. 2*. 130 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. " not justified by works , , . justified by faith " Gal. 2^^. " no man is justified by the law " Gal. 3^^. "were held in bondage" Gal. 4^. "yoke of bondage " Gal. 5^. "ye were in bondage " Gal. 4^. " against such there is no law" Gal. 5^ " the world hath been crucified unto me " Gal. 6^*. ISAIAH. 10. Military. " her warfare is accomplished " 40-. " go forth as a mighty man " 42^'. " stir up jealousy like a man of war " 42^^. "like a sharp sword" 49'-^. "in his quiver" 49^. " a polished shaft " 49^. " go before you , . . your rearward " 5212. " divide him a portion . . . the spoil " 53'2. " no weapon shall prosper " 54^'. " go before thee . . . thy rearward " 58®. " lift up thy voice Hke a trumpet " 58^. " repairer of the breach " 58^2^ " desolation and destruction are in their paths " 59^. "way of peace they know not " 59*; " crooked paths." " breastplate . . , helmet " 59" " fought against them " 63^'*. " sword . . • bow down to the slaughter " 65I2. JESUS. 10. Military. " not to send peace, but a sword " Mt. 10**. "men of violence take it by force" Mt. ii^'^. "nation against nation" Mk. 138. "strong man fully armed guardeth " Lk. ii^i Mt. 12'^^. "encounter another king in war . . . 10,000" Lk. 14^1. " buy a sword " Lk. 22^^. PAUL. 10. Military. " warring against . . . and bringing me into captivity " Rom. y^^. "what soldier ever serveth at his own charges?" i Cor. g''. " leadeth us in triumph" 2 Cor. 2^*. " savour . . . savour, from death unto death " 2 Cor. 2^^. " we are ambassadors " 2 Cor. 5-". " by the armour of righteousness " 2 Cor. 6''. j " we do not war according to the flesh . . . weapons . . . warfare "... [ "strongholds . . . every high thing, captivity, obedience, envy" 2 Cor. 10^^. "bringeth you into bondage" 2 Cor. Il^o. " devoureth you " 2 Cor. 1 1^°. "taketh you captive" 2 Cor. Il^o. " exalteth himself" 2 Cor. ii^''. "smiteth you on the face " 2 Cor. il®'. ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. I3I ISAIAH. II. O. T. References. "when thou passest through the waters" 42^; cf. 431^. "saith to the deep, Be dry" 44^". " clave rock . . . waters gushed out " 48-'. "dry up the sea" 50^. "like Eden" 51'. "that cut Rahab in pieces, that pierced the dragon" 51^, " dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep " $1^'^. " waters of Noah " 54^ JESUS. 1 1 . O. T. References. "jot or tittle " Mt. 5I8. « Elijah is come " Mk. 9IS; of. Mt. 17I2. "sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" Mt. S^^ Lk. 1329. "wisdom is justified by her works" Mt. ii^^. " of all her children " Lk. 78^. "stone which builders rejected, that stone" Mt. 21*2 Mk. lai" Lk. 20". "Jonah . . . Ninevites, Son of Man, this generation " Lk. II^". "Queen of South, judgment, Solomon" Lk. il^^. "Men of Nineveh shall stand up" Lk. ii^^^ "They killed them (prophets) and ye build" Lk. ii*^. " Solomon in all his glory " Mt. 62^ Lk. 12^^^. "as it was in the days of Noah . . . flood" Lk. ly^s Mt. 24". " as it was in the days of Lot . . . Lot's wife " Lk. 17^8 32^ " He also is a son of Abraham" Lk. 19®. " Satan . . . sift as wheat " Lk. 22''. PAUL. II. O. T. References. " not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression " Rom. 5^*. " they are not all Israel, which are of Israel " Rom. 9*. " I have left for myself 7000 men who," etc., Rom. 11*. "shall bruise Satan" Rom. 16^''. " as the serpent beguiled Eve" 2 Cor. II'. " messenger of Satan " 2 Cor. 12^. " Abraham had two sons " Gal. 4^. TABLE II. I. Inanimate Nature. DEUTERO-ISA'AH. JE9U3. PAUt I darkness I darkness I darkness 2 light 2 light 2 light 3 sun 3 sun JOURNAL OF lUBLICAL LITERATURE. DEUTERO-ISAIAH. 3 heavens, earth 4 heat 5 wind 6 cloud 7 rain 8 grass 9 (overflowing stream) 10 rock 1 1 mountain 12 dust 13 fire 14 reed 15 tree 16 (waste places, wilder- ness, spring) 17 morning (sun) 18 sea 19 sand 20 valley 21 river 22 snow 4 heavens 5 heat 6 wind 7 cloud 8 shower 9 grass 10 floods 11 rock 12 mountain 13 dust 14 fire 15 reed 16 tree 17 waterless places 18 morning 19 (sea) 4 moon 5 stars 20 salt 21 earthquake 22 evening 23 lightning II. Animals. DEUTERO-ISAIAH. JESUS. PAUU I sheep I sheep I sheep 2 ox 2 ox 2 ox 3 clog 3 dog 4 adder 4 serpents (vipers) 5 eagle 5 eagle (vulture) 6 snare 6 snare 7 worm 7 worm 8 moth 8 moth 9 lamb 9 lamb ' 10 bear II dove 10 dove 12 lion 13 horse 14 antelope 15 grasshopper 16 spider II swine ROKINSON : FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS COMPARISONS. DEUTERO-ISAIAH JESUS. 12 wolves 13 goat 14 fox 15 fish 16 ass 17 camel 18 scorpion 19 gnat 20 hen 21 chicken III. Parts (^and Activities^ of the Body. DEUTERO-ISAIAH. 1 blind (eye) 2 dead 3 awake 4 foot 5 deaf 6 hand (right) 7 clothe (robe) 8 walk 9 run 10 travail (womb) 11 hunger; 12 thirst 13 mouth (lips, tongue, spitting) 14 cheek 15 eunuch 16 hair 17 gird (loins) iS neck; 19 brow 20 breasts; 21 arm , JESUS. 1 blind (eye, right eye) 2 dead (tlesli and blood) 3 sleep (awake) 4 foot 5 ear (hear) 6 hand (right and left) 7 clothing 8 stumble 9 (goeth to battle) 10 head 1 1 burial 12 hunger; 1 3 thirst 14 mouth 15 cheek 16 eunuch 17 hair 18 loins girded 19 neck 20 (taste) 21 digestion 22 finger 23 coat 1 blind (eye) 2 dead (life and death) 3 sleep (awake) 4 foot 5 ear 6 hand 7 clothing (naked) 8 stumble 9 fight 10 head 1 1 burial 12 walk 13 run 14 travail 15 smelling DEUTERO-ISAIAH. 1 sucking child 2 children IV. Family Relations. JESUS. PAUL. 1 babes (and sucklings) i babes 2 children 2 children 134 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. DEUTERO-ISAIAH. JESUS. PAUL. 3 father 3 father 3 father 4 son 4 son 4 son 5 brethren 5 brethren 5 husband 6 husband 7 tutor 8 heir 6 mother 7 widow 6 mother 7 sister 8 neighbor 9 porter lo servant (household servant) V. Metaphors from SOCIAL CUSTOMS. DEUTERO-ISAIAH. JESUS. PAUL. 1 wick 2 drink (cup) (drunken) 3 bridegroom 4 yoke 5 dwell (tarry) 6 veil 7 bed 8 digging out of a pit 9 waiting 10 millstones 11 bow down, burnt offer- ing 12 fire (stubble, flint) 13 sit before a fire (smoke) 14 to name (a child) 15 sit in dust 1 a light (lamp) 2 drink (cup) 3 bridegroom (virgins) 4 burden (yoke) 5 "ch 6 leaven 7 wash 8 treasure 9 dwell 10 piped 1 a light (darkness) 2 drink (cup) 3 espouse 4 burden 5 rich (riches) 6 leaven (feast) 7 wash 8 treasure 9 dwell ID veil 11 anointing 12 music (pipe, harp, trumpet) 13 writing 14 circumcision (uncir- cumcision 11 bed 12 digging (an animal) out of a pit 13 waiting (for their lord) 14 millstone 15 going up to temple to pray 16 fire (burn tares) 17 seek (find) 18 knock (open) 19 sons of bridechamber ROBINSON : FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. ^35 DEUTERO-ISAIAH. JESUS. 20 marriage feast 21 dinner, supper 22 chief seat 23 cup and platter 24 servant and lord 25 take bread (eat) 26 bushel 27 lamp-stand 28 heating 29 recline (at table) 30 binding 31 weeping and gnashing 32 patching 33 sweeping 34 putting wine into skins 35 children playing 36 whiting sepulchres 37 giving alms VI. Metapho7-s from BUILDING. DEUTERO-ISAIAH. 1 build (and repair) 2 foundation (stones) 3 door (bars) 4 gate 5 stretch a tent 6 pinnacles 7 walls JESUS. 1 build 2 foundation (dig deep) 3 door 4 house 5 gate 6 tents 7 pinnacle (of the temple) 8 pit (in a vineyard) 9 tower 10 building upon rock 11 building upon Jrtwd^ 12 key 13 inner chamber 14 housetop VII. Agriculture. 1 edify 2 foundation 3 door 4 temple 5 pillars DEUTERO-ISAIAH. 1 root 2 (leaf) 3 planting JESUS. 1 root 2 branches 3 sow (sower, seed) 4 fruit 5 harvest (laborers) PAUU 1 root 2 branches 3 sow (plant, seed) 4 fruit 5 reap 1^6 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. DEUTERO-ISAIAH. 4 pour water on 5 wither 6 tree, willow 7 dry ground 8 wine in the cluster 9 thresh (beat, fan) JESUS. 6 planting 7 wither 8 fig-tree (figs) 9 good and bad soil 10 vineyard 1 1 grapes 12 blade, ear, corn 13 ploughing 14 thorns 15 tares 16 thistle (bramble) 17 mustard seed 18 digging and dunging 19 gather into barns 6 watering (and planting) 7 grafting VIII. Business or Occupation. DEUTERO-ISAIAH. 1 creditors 2 measure (buy) 3 potter (potsherd) 4 spend 5 weigh 6 sell 7 smith (fire, weapon) 8 refining (furnace) JESUS. 1 debtors 2 good measure 3 treasure (rich) 4 hire (reward) 5 spend (all), purse 6 steward 7 lender 8 talents, pounds 9 shepherd 10 fisher (net) 11 physician 12 pearl merchant 13 householder 14 go to a far country 15 gain by trading 1 debtor (owe) 2 buy (price) 3 treasure up 4 wages 5 potter (vessels) 6 spend (be spent) 7 steward (stewardship) 8 defraud 9 partner 10 corrupt (/ca7n7\ei)w) 11 earnest (of the spirit) ROBINSON : KORCEFULNICSS IN JESU.s' COMPARISONS. 137 IX. POLITICAI. OR GoVIiUNMKNTAl, (AND LeGAL). DEITERO-ISAIAH. 1 throne (fuotstoul) 2 bound 3 servant 4 prison-house 5 tremble 6 prepare the way 7 bill of ilivorct-ment 8 ride upon high places 9 redeemer 10 crown DEUTERO-ISAIAH. 1 warfare 2 breastplate, helmet 3 weapon, sword 4 mighty man 5 spoil 6 peace 7 quiver, polished shaft 8 rearward 9 trumpet JESUS. 1 king lom 2 bound 3 servant 4 go before magistrate 5 justify 6 judge 7 cross 8 prison 9 exercise authority 10 lord 11 names written 12 "to far country to re- ceive a kingdom " 13 Pilate (Galilaeans) 14 city X. Military. JESUS. 1 war (warfare) 2 armour, fully armed 3 sword 4 10,000 (soldiers) 5 ambassage 6 take by force 7 (conditions of peace) 8 guardeth his palace 9 spoil 10 peace 1 reign (dominion) 2 bondage (liberty) 3 servant 4 nccusiiig (excusing) 5 justify 6 judge 7 crucify 1 war 2 armour 3 weapon 4 soldier 5 ambassadors 6 captivity 7 triumph 8 stronghold 9 savour of life (of death) XI. References to Existing Scripture. PEUTERO-ISAIAH, JESUS. PAUL. 1 Abraham, Isaac, and i Abraham, two sons Jacob 2 son of Abraham JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. DELTERO-ISAIAH. 1 Eden JESrS. 3 Wisdom, her children (Proverbs) 4 Noah, flood PAUL. 2 Messenger of Satan (Jol>) 3 Adam's transgression 4 Israel 5 7,ooo in Israel 6 bruise Satan 2 Noah, waters 3 Raha') 4 cleave rock (water) 5 \ sea dried up 6 / pass through 5 Queen of South 6 Solum jn 7 killed the prophets 8 jot, tittle 9 Elijah 10 Jonah 11 Men uf Nineveh 12 Lot, Lot's wife Table I. gives the metaphors in the order of chapter and verse, and is intended for use in verifying the items in the Hsts of objects in Table II., as well as to enable the reader to see by means of catch-words the general context of the nmnerous ol)jects itemized in Table II. The latter merely names the objects used as the physical bases of the metaphors, iri order that the extent of the image-world, shown in the three sections of description which are compared, may be estimated without the presence of distracting considerations. It furnishes conclusive evidence of the superior extent and scope of the image-world of Jesus, who has more physical objects and relation- ships in his inind ready for actual use in making comparisons of eth- ical and spiritual truth than either the Deutero-Isaiah or Paul. Our second table enables us to eliminate at a glance the imagery common to all three, or to any two. Following the order of divisions as indi- cated previous to giving the tables, (i) we find Paul exceedingly meagre in images from inauiinate nature. What he does have are exceedingly common : darkness, light, sun, moon, stars. On the other hand, if we compare Jesus with the Deutero-Isaiah, we find that, although we make our deductions from twice as many meta- phors of the latter as of the former, the number of different images is almost exactly the same. It is somewhat singular that the few which are not identical give us in the case of the prophet of the great Asiatic revolution, the peaceful objects, " valley " and " river," as ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 39 peculiar to himself, while the peculiar ones in the quiet life of Je.sus include "earthquake" and "lightning." (2) In the a//ima/ wovUi Paul again appears with almost no mental capital as compared with Jesus. The Deutero-Isaiah has prominent wild animals, — the bear, the lion, the antelope, — which Jesus never mentions : but Jesus' list of the domestic creatures gives him a decidedly wider total range of animal objects than has the prophet. (3) In parts and functions of the body Paul's list, though very much larger than under (i) and (2), lacks the important items of mouth, cheek, eunuch, hair, loins, neck, which Jesus uses. The Deutero-Isaiah, on the other hand, is closely in line with Jesus, and shows about an equal number. (4) Under family relations it is significant to find the tender words "mother" and "sister," which are wanting in Paul's list, present in that of Jesus. The range of the Deutero-Isaiah is slightly narrower under this head also. (5) In the social and home life Jesus finds twice as many objects and activities with which to compare ethical and spiritual truth as are found by Paul or the prophet. A mere glance at the table shows his wealth in image-objects taken from common life. (6) In matters of building and the house, Jesus has the homelike details of " key," " inner chamber," and " housetop " ; and, again, his objects are more numerous. (7) In the agricultural list, Jesus does not use " threshing," but he has a long list, including "grapes," " blade, ear, corn," etc., peculiar to himself. (8) Jesus' business parables, his references to " fishers," " physicians," and to " merchants," again furnish objects in which he goes decidedly beyond the others. (9) In political and governmental matters, the peculiarities are somewhat evenly balanced as between Jesus and the Deutero Isaiah, while Paul seems to have, if anything, the narrowest range even here. (10) In military matters, there is perhaps not much difference; but (11) in reference to existing scripture, Jesus seems to have in mind a decidedly larger number of the great out- standing characters of Hebrew history than has either Paul or the great prophecy. Taking Table II. as a whole, then, it would seem to show that, while the Deutero-Isaiah has a fuller flow of poetical imagery, the number of separate objects which his metaphors and comparisons handle is somewhat less than that of Jesus. On the other hand, it is equally evident that if the intensity and power which sometimes come from narrowness of range is to be attributed to either Jesus or Paul, it must be to Paul ; for in number of objects used for com- parison Jesus is quite evidently far his superior. 140 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. V. Two Preliminary Remarks. Before proceeding to the direct enumeration of the elements of forcefulness in Jesus' comparisons, two preliminary remarks may be in order. The first is that in' analyzing the methods by which Jesus secured his power we do not mean to imply that he delib- erately educated himself or disciplined himself along the lines to be indicated. Much less was he so educated by human teachers. But the most powerful and spontaneous utterances of poets, statesmen, and seers, spoken without consciousness of the elements of their power, may, nevertheless, subsequently be analyzed into those ele- ments. The sudden and unconscious synthesis of a great soul may be capable of a deliberate and extended analysis by another, and, it may be added, a far smaller soul. The value of the analysis for the smaller soul is that it enables it much more fully to comprehend the greatness of the greater one. The other preliminary remark is, that in making comparisons between the sayings of the Old Testament, or those of the Rabbis and the parallel ones of Jesus, it is not intended to assert that in every case the previous saying was the source from which Jesus drew the material for his own. In most cases it was ; but, however that may be, the comparison will serve equally well for estimating the power of Jesus' utterance ; and, in all cases where Jesus and the one with whom he is compared were both drawing upon a common tra- ditional source of popular material, the comparison of the two again serves equally well for estimating their relative strength. VI. First Element in the Power of Jesus' Comparisons : The Radicalness of their Physical Bases. The first positive element in the power of Jesus' comparisons is the extreme or radical nature of the material basis on which they are constructed. To enforce a truth or principle Jesus often com- pares it with some object, action, or relation which is the most radical of its class in quandty, or quality, or intensity of quality. The righteous sliine not as the stars or as tlie brightness of the firmament (Dan. 12^), but as the sun (iKXa/jnl/ova-tv ws 6 ijAio? Mt. 13*^). If it were objected that the Old Testament poet can speak of the light of the sun as sevenfold, as the light of seven days condensed into one (Isa. 30'"), we could at once answer that ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS COMPARISONS. I4I Jesus never oversteps the modesty of nature, and would gain no real power by doing so. But on a subsequent page we shall take up the whole question of Jesus' nearness to nature as a source of metaphorical power. Satan falls from heaven not as the day star (Is. 14''), for Jesus intensifies the slow-falUng luminary into the down-flashing lightning (is daTpaTrr'jv, Lk. lo^*), even as his disciples' success in casting out the demon underlings is intensified into the fall of Satan their head. The same extreme of motional brilliancy is used to figure the coming of the Son of Man {aa-rp-nrrj dcTTpd- TTTovaa, Lk. 17'^; cf. Mt. 24-'^). The exceeding minuteness which is consistent with the great possibilities of growth in incipient f:iith is imaged by the smallest of seeds which grows to be a tree {kokkov atvaTrews, Lk. 17'' Mt. 13'^^). The net which gathers every kind of character out of the world-sea is a drag-net, which moves along the very bottom {o-ayrjvrj, Mt. 13^^. If we pass on from .inanimate to animate nature, the most despised and most loathsome of creatures is used by Jesus to describe his Pharisaic enemies (oe^sts, yewrj/xnTJ. ixi-Sv^v, Mt. 2^'''^^). The radical quality of the comparison is quite clear apart from associations with Genesis 3. Nor could there be any more radical image of Judaism's corruption and dissolution than the carrion-seeking vultures winging their way toward a dead body. Habakkuk (i**) tells of the vulture that hasteth to devour ; Job (39"") says that where the slain are, there is she ; and Ezekiel summons the birds and beasts to drink blood at the slaughter (39^')- But Jesus condenses all this into the one radical picture of the vultures just settling upon a corpse (Lk. 17""). His figure of the camel going through the eye of a needle is so radical that it makes the interpretation of the passage extremely difficult (Lk. 18-'). To the same category of radical quality belong certain images taken from the human body and its death. It would be difficult to think of a more minute preservation of the body than not to have a hair of the head perish (Lk. 21'**). And to make sure that no one of them does perish Jesus has each one numbered (Mt. 10""), wliich is more radical still than not letting them fall to the earth (i Sam. 14^^ 2 Sam. 14" I Kgs. r''^. The thing nearest to the hand that gives is the other hand, and to endow it with capacity to know what its neighbor hand is doing unless that neighbor acts with extreme se- crecy, furnishes us with the most radical image possible for modest giving (Mt. 6''). To cut off a hand or a foot, or to cut out an eye is so radical an act of self- mutilation that its very radicalness has 142 JOURXAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. opened men's eyes to the metaphorical quahty of the passage, al- though the words themselves do not go beyond the literal (Mk. g^''" Mt. 5-'^'- iS**-"). It is remarkable, too, that in order to express abso- lute renunciation of married life Jesus uses as a figure the mutilation which makes marriage physically impossible (Mt. 19^-). All that a man hath will he give in exchange for his life, yet it is by a metaphor of life that Jesus expresses his great axiom of finding the highest good in complete self-abandonment to the kingdom of God (deX^ rqv 4'^'Xh^ avTov crSycrat, (ZTroAeVei uvttJv, Lk. Q""* ; cf. Mt. lo"' 16""' Mk. 8^'). The obverse metaphor of death, the culmination of physical evils, has a similar radical force ("Acjn^ rois veKpov? 6d\f/uL Tous eavTwv yeKpov'i, Lk. 9**). And when the dead body is put underground with darkness and the worm it furnishes the most radical image of hidden corruption (otrrewi/ vcKpCuv kul Trdar];7r6ois (Lk. lo"^ Mt. ii"^), in classical Greek practically signifies 'fool' or 'simpleton'; Jesus does not use the word in quite so bad a sense as that, but it does represent the extreme of the unlearned and inexperienced. The strongest and most tender ties are used to depict his love for his true disciples. They are, each of them, a combination of mother, brother, and sister (Mt. i2^''-'" Mk. 3''*-^* Lk. 8-'). On the other hand so strange and terrible a thing as want of natural and conjugal affection was none too intense a figure for spiritual aversion to even friendly hin- drances to com])lete consecration (fxtcrci t6v Trareja k.t.X., Lk. 14'®). The O. T. basis of the figure gives it a still more radical temper.-' The incidents connected with social customs are often portrayed in the strongest language. Those admitted to the feast of the king- dom sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, while those excluded are gnashing their teeth (Lk. j ^'^^ "^' ■*' "'^ ; cf. Ps. 112"^). The feast to which the grace of the kingdom is compared has abundant room, even after the denizens of the streets and lanes have come in, for those found in the country highways and hedges (Lk. 14-^"-"). On the contrary the parable of the feast that shows the judgment of the kingdom upon those who make light of the invitation whether by staying away or by coming in to it with inso- lent disregard of the etiquette of dress, contains a corresponding set of radical or extreme details. The host is a king ; the guest of ^ See the remarks on this verse on page 112. ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 43 honor, his own son; and the occasion, his marriage (Mt. 22'-). Similar flippancy of conduct toward '• av^/xuTrds rts " (Lk. 14'") would be comparatively excusable. The men who decline the invitation are murderers ((^oreTs, Mt. 22"). He who accepts but appears with- out the garment is not only cast out, but bound hand and foot beforehand. Another radical touch belonging here is the casting of the children's bread to the dogs (Mk. f Mt. 15""), where the contrast between the animal scavengers and the children is extremely sharp. So radical indeed is the utterance as applied to the Syro- Phoenician woman that it keeps the apologists of Jesus' gentleness busy in his defence. We may also mention giving what is holy to dogs and casting pearls before swine. Stronger figures for useless pleading with hostile stupidity are not easy to imagine. In Lk. i2'^*^''^- the image of men waiting for their lord is intensely drawn. The force of the figure lies in its representing the servants as standing through the long night watches with robes gathered up at the girdle and lighted lamp in hand, ready to spring to the door on the instant. This might be the case of men who knew their master would be at the door in a few minutes, but to keep up that alert attitude without relaxation through the second or third watch indicates continuous intensity of faithful expectation in a most vivid picture. The rever- sal of the expected relation of service into that of being served is also a powerful touch (verse "'). Yet again the gluttony, drunkenness, and servant-beating of the unfaithful upper servant and his being cut asunder, in Lk. I2**'''"', constitute a picture of extreme blackness of outline. If that interpretation of Lk. I2''' (cf. Mk. 10''^) which makes it represent Jesus as being immersed in flame and coming forth a living fire-brand is correct, this, too, is a very powerful image. But in Mk. 10"''* it is perhaps more natural to think of the baptismal element as v/ater, than as fire. If we interpret the figure of the unfinished tower in Lk. 14-** to mean that before becoming Jesus' disciple a man must count the cost, as a builder estimates the cost of his building, the comparison has no very extraordinary force. But if we decide upon the interpretation that Christ's follower must be willing to appear as ridiculous as a man appears who goes forward with a building although he knows he cannot complete it then the illustration has unique strength. The very power of the figure as thus taken has perhaps prevented its being thus taken. We may add that the contrasted crash and endurance of the houses built on sand and on rock (Matt. 7^4-20^ makes in itself a most intense portrayal. 144 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. In agricultural matters Mt. 15^' contains a vigorous figure (Trao-a vTeva€v 6 Trarrjp /xov 6 ovpavto? iKpi^M&ijaeTaL). Some- times a single word indicates an intensity in one of Jesus' figures that is lacking to corresponding illustrations elsewhere. In i Kings 19-'^', Elisha left the plough and " ran after " Elijah, but Jesus will not have his man even /oo/c back from the plough of the kingdom to which he has once put his hand (Lk. 9^"). Among business metaphors we may perhaps say that the ratio of a mina to a city is a strong figure for the ratio of service to reward (Lk. 19^'^''). Certainly the ratio of one hundred denarii to ten thousand talents is by the radical quality of the amounts indicated powerfully suggestive of the proportions of the guilt of sin as against a fellow-man to its guilt as against God. It may be noted, too, that it is a king to whom the heavier sum is owed. In Mt. 20-*^ the conduct of the man who pays men a day's wages for working from five till six o'clock is by its very nature strongly suggestive of benevo- lence in the employer. Somewhat radical, too, in its quality is the "forgiveness" accorded to the two debtors in Lk. "j*^-^. Intensely so is the story of the man who sold all he had to buy the field con- taining the hidden treasure (Mt. 13''"') and that of the pearl fancier who bought a single pearl at the same exhaustive price. We note, too, in the latter case that for the ancient oriental the pearl took the place the diamond has for us ; and the story is as it were the story of the Kohinoor. Another business transaction conveys property of absolute value on both sides of the exchange. It trades ///e for the world, an exchange of the absolutely precious for the all-including bulk (Mt. 16-'"' Mk. S"" Lk. 9-^). We shall refer on a later page to the forceful story of the shrewd steward (Lk. 16^). Grouping political, judicial, and governmental comparisons together, we note the figure in Lk. 12^^^, as being carried through to completion in a thorough-going fashion. The culprit is transferred from the judge to the officer, from the officer to the prison, and from the prison he comes not out by any means till the last mite is paid. A sentence may be given, in passing, to the Hebraistic construction, the strong adjective (Svafida-TaKTa) and to the small finger which does not touch the burden, in Lk. 11^". Whether it was a Roman punishment or not to tie a mill-stone about a criminal's neck and throw him into the sea may not be certain, but the intensity amount- ing almost to fierceness is evident in Jesus' /ai^Aos 6vlk6? (Mt. 18® Mk. 9^-) and his KaTairovTiadrj iv tw 7reAay£i t^s OuXdaarj^ (Mt. 18''). From the most disgraceful form of legal execution Jesus takes a ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COiMPARISONS. 1 45 most radical metaphor, that of bearing or rather taking up the cross daily (Lk. 9-'; cf. Mt. io«« 16-^ Mk. S^*^ Lk. 14-'^). The radical quality and intense power of this metaphor are not easily appreciated in our day. Ecclesiastical tradition, aesthetic embellishment, archi- tectural elaboration, and devotional associations combine to be more than a match for historical imagination unless we escape the senti- mental associations of the old words by using others of modern equivalency. We must imagine a plain religious teacher of great personal power but sprung from the laboring classes saying to those about him : " If any one of you wishes to be of my following, he must with his own hands adjust the hangman's noose to his neck and start for the jail-yard gallows, there to put on the black cap and be hanged. And he must do this every day." How great must have been the recoil from such a fearful image. In his few metaphors of conflict and battle Jesus has the forcible image of a strong xiviiW, fully armed, guarding his 07on court (Lk. 1 1-'). The figure is a perfect one of its kind, and is more fully dwelt upon under a subsequent heading.'' The supposition of a king going to war with ten thousand men against an enemy with twenty thousand (Lk. 14'^^) is not in itself of a specially extreme character unless we include the idea of the certainty of defeat. In Mt. 11^- the kingdom of heaven is as a town taken by storm. From the throwing of the torch at the capture of cities Jesus takes a singularly condensed image (Lk. 12^^). His figure leaps over the indirect and secondary process by which the fire will be kindled, and states the result as though it were a primary purpose. As missionaries going to China with the most peaceful messages do, nevertheless, become indirectly but really the cause of Boxer riots and wars, so the gospel indirectly but really will produce a blaze of conflict and contention in the world. Jesus' metaphorical or comparative references to the Old Testa- ment are often made to the most extreme or radical scenes or characters. Nothing less than the all-destroying flood of the days of Noah, or the terrific destruction of Sodom in the days of Lot (Lk. I y-"- 2s- 29 . (^f_ ]y[(._ 24"'"'^''^), will meet his strong conception of the sudden coming of the day of the Son of Man. If the word e^oSov (Lk. 9^^') attributed to Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration can be thought of as taken up from words of Jesus to them, it may mean more than our word ' decease ' or ' departure ' and be a powerfully suggestive comparison to the going forth of Israel from Egypt. Jesus had previously been speaking of his cross, and Moses was the 5 See page 163. 146 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. great character connected with the exodus, so that the allusion has to many seemed something more than fanciful. Of a radical char- acter also seems to be Jesus' comparison of John to Elijah, who was for the Jews of Jesus' day so prominent a figure in connection with the coming of the kingdom of God (Mk. 9"). Paradise, in the Septuagint (Gen. 2^, etc.), is used for the garden of Eden, and subsequently became in Jewish theology the name for the blessed part of Hades where the souls of the righteous await the resurrection. But Jesus seems simply to refer to the Eden of Genesis, and there could be no richer and simpler figure of bliss taken from the Old Testament (Lk. 23*'). Finally the details of the story of Dives and Lazarus are highly wrought. The sumptuous fare, the outer garment of purple-dyed wool, and the inner one of fine Egyptian linefi con- trast sharply with the extreme suffering of the beggar, unable to walk, covered with ulcers, and feeding on what fell from the rich man's table. Abraham's bosom, the flame, the tip of the finger, and the great gulf fixed complete the intensity. The imagery of the last-mentioned parable so strongly suggests the current Jewish conceptions of Jesus' day as to call for some mention of the radical conceptions which Jesus drew from that source. His use of the figure of Elijah, of the feasting in the king- dom, of the great wedding with its bridegroom, of the pains of Hades, and of the joy of Paradise show with what power and facility he could make simple images full of spiritual and ethical suggestion emerge from the chaotic pictorial mass of Rabbinic fantasies. VII. Second Element of Power : Exclusion of Non-Contributing Details. Systematic study of Jesus' comparisons scon discovers, as our tables show, their very wide range. Detailed study of single pas- sages reveals the further fact of his absolute familiarity with the Old Testament imagery and his absolute command of all its re- sources. But we have now to note in an especial way his entire exclusion of every detail which does not make for his immediate object in using each comparison. He never allows free play to his fancy, much less does he allow the poetry of a thing or its artistic form or its temptations to adornment to run away with him. He is never in a trance, never subject to a " fine frenzy," never " feels the god," or lets his words go careering onward. The spirit of the prophet is always subject to the' prophet. This is a great source of ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISON'S. 147 power for his comparisons. He never winds circuitously in and out amid the thickets of fanciful (.letail. Power is never sinuous. It moves in a straight line and strikes its blow, without flourishes, directly at its object. We are not to think tiiat with all the Ohi Testament literature held in perfect solution in his mind Jesus coukl not have crystallized it into elaborate figures ; and the same natural scenery and surroundings were still there to suggest them. J5ut he never yielded to the temptation to let anything come into his com- parison for its own sake or on its own account ; it came only as an efficient servant to his end. This appears in three ways, in his exclusion of all mention of unnecessary details, in his compelling the hearer to mentally exclude such details even though they had been verbally mentioned, and in his selecting and sometimes inventing those that were effective. I. The vast and amplified imagery of the sun and of light which fills the Psalms and prophets was fully at Jesus' command. So also was its cloud scenery. Put we have seen that he would not elabo- rate it as Isaiah does (30-''). And we may add that he clothes no one with light as with a garment (Ps. 104^). Nor does he ever start the sun, like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, to run a race (Ps. 19^"*'). But the righteous shine forth in their true character at last simply as the sun comes out from behind a cloud (eKXafjul/ovaiv, Mt. 13^'').* ?3ossuet thought the fourteenth of Isaiah the finest chapter for public reading in the Old Testament. Jesus has it all in mind in Lk. 10'''', but he gives the Satanic downfall only a single flash (w? dcrrpaTrryv). He knows the fourth chapter of Daniel, and F.zekiel 17'""^, but he paints no tree reaching to heaven and spreading to the ends of the earth ; he does not feed all flesh from it, but simply calls up the vastness of these imaginative growths by the one suggestive image of the birds which is common to both, while at the same time he does not overstep the modesty of nature (Lk. 13^''). It is to be remembered that in using metaphors the greatest power is gained by suggesting the largest amount of appro- priate detail in the fewest possible words. By selecting the mustard seed for his illustration Jesus secures a symbol of the smallest begin- nings, but by using a phrase common to the two great tree-pictures of ICzekiel and Daniel and abandoning any specific reference to the size of the mustard tree, he gets the advantage of suggesting the heaven-high and world-wide reach of the vision-tree of the prophets, a vision be it remembered thoroughly familiar to his hearers. ^ Bruce on Parables,"^. 63, and foi/tnote (luucaLion from Cahin; see also p. 140 f. 148 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. We have already noted the imagery from vulture life in the Old Testament. Jesus abstains from all these details because they do not make directly for his point (Lk. 17^'). Jesus' "hungering and thirsting after righteousness " (Mt. 5") has a remarkable Septuagint parallel in Ps. 17^' (cf. x^pracrOrjo-ovTaL and x^P^'^'^^W^P-'^'^)- Doubt- less he also had in mind Isaiah 55^-- and the whole range of illus- trations from hunger and thirst, but he simply mentions without adornment the two bodily needs and their satisfaction. There is no exhortation not to spend money for that which is not bread,' or to buy without price. In Lk. 10^'', he gives power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, but again the poetic imagery is not amplified but condensed from its source in Ps. 91^^^. It is perhaps superfluous to mention here his great restraint in dealing with the enticing details of shepherd life (Mt. 10"), as that comparison must be dwelt upon a little later. The beautiful family picture of the prodigal son, because it is com- paratively long, is sometimes thought of as an elaborated story. The real fact is the reverse. All the abundant details of Old Tes- tament imagery which a fanciful imagination would certainly have used are carefully excluded. The story moves straight to its goal without going aside to gather a single flower. Isa. 55- 44" Prov. 29'^ Isa. di'^'Zech. 3''"'^ are some of the passages before the mind of Jesus. But the chapter which by contrast best exhibits Jesus' exclusion of irrelevant material however interesting is the fourteenth of Hosea, which is the Old Testament parable of the prodigal son. Israel has "fallen" in far-off "iniquity," is invited to "return," "to take words," and " say unto " Jehovah. There is mention of him in whom the " fatherless " " find mercy." There is the same free, loving welcome and joyous reviving as in the parable of Jesus. But, again, Jesus moves in a straight line, while Hosea deviates into ex- quisite poetry about dew, odors, lilies, corn, vines, and the Lebanon mountains. The wide sweep of a comprehensive idea never tempts Jesus to a correspondingly wide, sweeping, and extended figure of speech. He n\■^Y have before him the figure of a man who knows the Hebrew Bible from end to end and from height to depth, and, at the same time, has grasped the spirit and meaning of the new order of the Kingdom of Heaven, thus fusing the whole range of revelation into one compacted whole. But he figures it all as a mere householder of practical ability, who brings out old stores in new shapes and with new additions. There is no poetic fringe, but merely ypa^/Aa- ROBINSON : FORCKKULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 49 revi ix'i6r)TCv6u<; . . . o/aoio? . . . oiKoSecnroTri o(tti^ iKJSdWet . . . Kaiva Koi TTuAata, Mt. 13'-. If by this ideal scribe Jesus means liimself, the self-restraint is still more remarkable. Another instance of the exclu- sion of all merely poetic material is found in what Jesus says at the institution of the supper. He likens the bread to his body given for his disciples (Mt. 26-" Mk. 14-- Lk. 22^'''), and he likens the out- poured wine in the cups to his shed blood (Mt. 26'-*' Mk. 14-'^ J.k. 22-'^). If we compare this likeness of death with the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, we feel at once the solemn absence of poetic and sen- timental detail, and the direct force of the naked apros and Trcrr/ptov. In that tragic hour the strong Son of God made no mention of the loosing of the silver cord, or the breaking of the golden bowl, or the breaking of the pitcher at the fountain, or the breaking of the wheel at the cistern (Eccl. 12*^). I'he foam, and the mixture, and the dregs, and the draining of them (Ps. 75*), are absent. It is not a "cup of staggering," or the "bowl of the cup of wrath " (Isa. 51"). It does not make him "reel to and fro and be mad" (Jer. 25^^^'). It is simply a " a//)." But the one word is stronger than the many. Jesus, however, looked upon his life, taken as a whole, as a wedding- festival from beginning to end (Lk. ^^* Mt. 9^^ Mk. 2'^). This seems to be the only activity or social usage to which he compares his career. The simple severity with which he does it is remarkable ; and is the more so when we consider the frequency of the metaphor in the apocalyptic language of his day. The Old Testament scrip- tures, e.g. Isa. 54^'^°, afford abundant material for amplification ; but Jesus uses none of it except the one item necessary to characterize the joyous freedom of his gospel. Jesus' figure of the unfinished tower, as given to us in Lk. 14-'^, keeps out all distracting details to such an extent as probably to make the interpretation of it often go wrong. Yet if he had added the explanation that one must be willing to appear as ridiculous as the builder in question, he would probably have weakened its force. The comparison of the Pharisees to a plant of unheavenly plant- ing, and, therefore, to be rooted up, is all the more forcible because of the absence of all detail (Mt. 15^^). Isaiah 5^"^- contains two extended metaphors : one of a vineyard bringing forth wild grapes instead of grapes, and another of the vineyard laid vraste, and briers and thorns coming up in its place. But Jesus condenses both into one short and forceful figure. " Of a bramble men do not gather grapes'' (Lk. 6*^). The extended story of Elijah's taking Elisha from the plough does not lead Jesus into parallel details (Lk. 9"-). 150 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE, A single, strong sentence completes his reference. " No man putting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God." . Jesus' effective refusal to amplify his comparisons appears with great clearness in the parable of the lost sheep. Ezekiel (34"'"') employs almost the whole range of shepherd life. In this single passage he includes mountains, water-courses, inhabited places, pas- tures, forests, broken-limbed sheep, the fat, the lean, those that butt, and those that foul the water. There is material enough for a long allegory. Yet no one remembers the passage, or holds the moral truths it conveys except to a small extent. The reason the whole Christian world can repeat Jesus' parable is because it moves in a straight line. Out of all the imagery of Ezekiel Jesus selects the rescue of one single sheep. His story goes straight after that sheep, gets it, and brings it right back to the rejoicing fellowship of neigh- bors. It is a case of pure power arising from the exclusion of every uncontributing detail. The parable of the talents (Mt. 25'*''') teaches the lesson that equal faithfulness in the use of unequal opportunities will be equally rewarded, and teaches it with power for this same reason. The story is businesslike. It has no oriental fringes or frills, nothing but the severest simplicity. One sometimes wishes that Jesus had added some detail of imagery or explanation. Knowing that liars cannot trust each other, that thieves steal from each other, that murderers kill members of their own band, — know- ing, in a word, that evil is at war with itself, and does tend to disin- tegration, one wishes that Jesus had said something more than that a house or a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. And yet to have figuratively illustrated evil's divisions against itself would ])rob- ably have lessened the force of the teaching that evil is always one in being against God and goodness (Mt. i2--' Mk. 3-^ Lk. 11''). One reference which Jesus makes to the O. T. is singularly abrupt and unqualified, but, perhaps, all the more forcible : " Elijah has come" (Mk. 9'^ Mt. 11" if-). John did no miracle, while Elijah did many ; his ministry was brief, while Elijah's covered many years ; and John himself said that he was not Elijah. But Jesus said in the most naked fashion that John was Elijah. We feel a desire for amplifications, yet the absence of them was perhaps the most pow- erful way of saying that character and service are the true bases for estimating personal worth ; and that while men were looking for a noisy and sensational forerunner, the true forerunner had come in the person of the faithful and self-eifacing John. ROBINSON: FORCEFUI.NKSS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 151 2. There is another method of exclusion than the method of verbal omission. It is by making comparisons in such form that the hearer is compelled mentally to eliminate every detail except the one which constitutes the tertium comparationis, and indicates the les- son to be taught. The exclusion is none the less real because inward. To speak of the Lord as coming like a thief compels the hearer to withdraw his attention from the idea of a burglar, because the Lord cannot be that ; and this exclusion effectively fastens atten- tion down to the unexpectedness of the coming (Lk. 12'^"). In a similar way the comparison of God to a mean man who is in bed, as are also his children, compels us to eliminate the inappli- cable particulars, and fasten our attention upon the effect of bare importunity (Lk. 11''). The crowning instance of this forced mental elimination is the parable of the shrewd steward. Those who knew Jesus' life, and heard him tell the story of a wasteful agent, who squandered his principal's money and kept two sets of books, could not for a moment think that these details were intended to teach any ethical lesson. They were obliged to eliminate them, and dwell upon the lesson of foresight and of preparation for a change of worlds. Jesus had the powerful aiivantage of telling a story with entire verisimilitude, and at the same time of compelling his hearers by a process of mental exclusion to limit their attention to the single point he sought to teach. Allegorical and dogmatic interpretations of the parable of the unprofitable servant (Lk. 17'"'") may make it teach the doctrine of the uselessness of works, or a denunciation of the legal spirit ; and the school of Baur may make it a late invention of the Pauline " tendency " ; but it is far simpler to say that it is a story representing God as a severe taskmaster, cruel and heartless toward his servants, in order that these very points being eliminated attention may be forced upon that voluntary attitude of consecration which makes men exact from themselves more than could be exacted by any external master. 3. The obverse side of excluding all irrelevant details is the inven- tion and insertion of new ones where existing illustrations do not supply them. This seems to be the case with Lk. 6''*^; but it is only seeming ; for good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, which conveys to the western mind a sense of poetic amplification, is simply a plain and homely though effective illustra- tion taken from the ordinary oriental method of measuring grain. KaBtilu (Mt. g^-* Mk. 5® Lk. 8''-) furnishes a different case. The girl was dead. Jesus said she was not dead. For him she was not 152 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. dead in such a sense that she could not come to life again. That is, she was not dead in that hopeless sense in which his scorners meant the word. For his view of her death, which included her coming to life again, sleep that implies waking was an accurate metaphor. Sleep is a common figure for death everywhere.' But Jesus gives it a new and startling force by changing the tertiinn comparationis irom " long disquiet merged in rest " to awaking. This new detail gave the old metaphor a startling force, which must have been felt when he took the girl by the hand and raised her up. In some of his agricultural metaphors Jesus gains great force by replacing irrelevant details with new ones suited to his purpose. The different kinds of soil are enumerated in the parable of the sower (Lk. 8^^). Such a classification of heart soil was new. So also seems to be the introduction of the darnel or counterfeit wheat, ^t^avia, in the parable of the tares (Mt. 13-^ *'^). To teach the grad- ual growth of the kingdom according to law, and how patiently men must wait for the good harvest which was sure to come, Jesus in the parable of the blade, ear, and full corn, employs effective details, which are substantially new ; they all enforce the idea of the seed growing gradually without man's aid. The seed is cast upon (eVt) the earth. The man sleeps and rises day after day, doing nothing to the seed. He does not even know how the seed grows (avTo/xaTr), Mk. 4-^), his activity being thus excluded for the third time. In Luke 2o'-" (of. Mt. 2i''' Mk. 12^) we have the teUing detail of the sending of the beloved son, by which Jesus brings home the guilt of the keepers of the vineyard of Israel with a forcible stroke. In concluding this point, which deals with the excluding of all irrelevancies, we should perhaps mention the parable of the king's marriage feast for his son, and of the man without a wedding gar- ment, which seems to be two parables, and so to violate the prin- ciple of singleness and unity which we have been claiming for Jesus' comparisons. The exception is only seeming, however, for this par- able has for its centre of gravity making light of God's offer of grace whether by despising or by abusing it ; and this is equally shown, as has been intimated on a previous page, either by not coming to the feast at all or by coming in an insolent spirit. The same principle applies to the parable of the pounds ; and both are, perhaps, to be classed with such binary similitudes as those of the mustard seed and the leaven, the treasure and the pearl, the new wine and the new patch, the unfinished tower and the unequal war. The centre of T See under Kotfidu (not Ka6eii5w) in Liddell and Scott. ROBINSON: FORCEFULNKSS IN JF.SUS' COMPARISONS. 1 53 gravity, about which they revolve, is not really in either star, but in a third point, which controls them both. VIII. Third Element of Power : Deferred Applications. It is a condition of the strongest metaphorical or figurative effect that the physical or material basis shall be so clearly and easily grasped by the hearer that no effort of attention need be used for that purpose. This causes Jesus to exclude all foreign material, as I have just been showing. But he secures the same distinctness by a further method. He puts an actual time-interval between the mate- rial basis and its spirilual application. He starts his train of thought in two sections, allowing the first to be well clear of the station before letting the second move out. At first sight the evangelists seem to teach that the method was purposely used, and was in- tended, to blind and darken the minds of obstinate hearers. Such, indeed, was the inevitable result in the case of such niinds ; and the inevitable is spoken of as the intended. But the historical view sees the case from a different standpoint. Jesus came offering his uni- versal, ethical, and religious kingdom to all, but he was practically obliged to start somewhere. He naturally began in the temple, with the accredited and actual religious leaders of his people. Finding them unreceptive and hostile, he turned to the more northern ele- ment, in Galilee. Getting acceptance with them, he views the whole sequence as the carrying out of a divine plan, whose result is that the gospel not only goes successfully forward, but that the fail- ure of ecclesiastical support shows all the more clearly the intrinsic power of the divine message, which gets along so well without it. Precisely so Jesus speaks parables in the most effective form possible, and then views tlie resultant failure of evil hearers to receive the real meaning as a divine plan and purpose, or, at least, the evangelists who record his sayings so regard it. The lines of the present inves- tigation, however, lead us to regard Jesus' method as powerfully adapted to produce a deep impression. Hence, at this point we mention, in a class by themselves, what we name, for distinctness' sake, instances of the method of ikfo-red application. Jesus said to his disciples (Mt. i6"). Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. When their minds had dwelt long enough on the image of bread, he chidingly tells them of the transferred or spiritual sense, of hypocrisy, in which he gave the warning. In Lk. 2 2'*fi Jesus speaks of the need of swords; and when two have been 154 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. hunted up and brought he laconically says, tvavw eo-rtv. Sometimes, indeed, as here, the metaphorical meaning is not really staled at all. This is also the case in Mk. lO"^ "'', and parallels, where the spiritual meaning of the hundredfold, evidently not appreciated by the dis- ciples at the time, is left to come to them of itself subsequently, and, on that account, all the more powerfully. In the case of Jairus' daughter, the meaning of " sleepeth " was deferred only long enough to make Jesus' raising her from the dead bring it out. Sometimes Jesus interprets his figure so speedily that there is not much chance for misapprehension, as in his metaphor of spiritual digestion (Mt. 15"), which he explains in verses^'**-. At other times he seems never to have started the second section of the comparison, leaving the hearer to go back finally and start it for himself. Instances of this are seen in the maxims of mote and beam (Mt. f' Lk. 6^'), and of the blow on the cheek (Mt. 5'^'-^' Lk. 6-^""). It is even probable that this method of deferred application contributed to Jesus' con- demnation and death, for the accusation against him (Mt. 26''^ 27*- Mk. i5'''j, that he had said he would destroy the temple and build it again in three days, seems to point to some such use of an image with delayed application, as John 2'-'"-^ would indicate, whetlier the incident and application there given by the fourth evangelist be correct or not. IX. Fourth Element of Power : Effective Reversal of Previous Figurative Usage. A mind like that of Jesus, filled with divine power, and, there- fore, acting in the highest human fashion, uses its mental imagery with the greatest freedom. One instance of this is his effective reversal of the general previous use of certain comparisons. His mention of salt is a case, perhaps somewhat doubtful, of tliis kind. On the whole, an agricultural people, hke the Jews, seem to have used the figure of salt in a bad sense. To sow the site of a deserted citv with salt was to condemn it to barrenness (Judges g**^ ; cf Ezek. 47" Ps. I07"''*). We find the same idea in Assyrian inscriptions (Esarhaddon .\, III, 26). The associations of Sodom and of the saltness of the Dead Sea must also be taken into account. But Jesus, turning to the homely domestic use, says. Ye are the salt of the earth ; that is, Ve are all the salt there is to keep the earth from moral putrefaction. Leaven, also, was generally used, as a figure, in a bad sense, even by Jejus himself, when he applied it to the teach- ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 55 ing of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Mt. i6"). But he does not hes- itate to use its silent spreading, and assimilation to its own quality of the dough in which it is hid, as a likeness to the Kingdom of Heaven itself (^Lk. 13-^ Mt. 13'^). Fishing was also used in a bad sense as applied to the catching of men. Hostile armies are many fishers, who shaU fish the people of Israel out of their land to die (Jer. 16"'). It will be a retribution upon them to be taken away with hooks, antl their residue with fish-hooks (Amos 4-). Habakkuk (i^^) asks why Jehovah lets men be taken with the angle, and caught in the net of the wicked. The pessimistic preacher (Eccl. 9^-) calls men fishes that are taken in an evil net. But Jesus, by a bold stroke, makes the net good, and has it catch men alive (^wypiZv, Lk. 5"^). The figure in classical Greek is generally used in a bad sense : of taking men in war, by Homer, //. 6. 46 ; cf. 10. 378, 11. 131 ; Her. I. 86, etc. ; oiSiv.i l(i)yp€^.v is to give no quarter, Plato, Legg. 868 B ; metaphorically, of ships, as i^diyprjTev (Charito, 7. 6, post-classical). But compare Xenophon, Mem. 2. 6 (cited by Farrar on Lk. 5^"), " Try to be good and catch the good. I will help you, for I know the art of catching men " (Socrates). Perhaps the most interesting, as well as the most effective, instance of Jesus' reversal of the ordi- nary sense of a figure is connected with infants and children, which he uniformly uses in a good sense. The current Jewish leaning is shown in Paul's epistles. To him the child represents not an ideal to be sought, but a low stage of development, out of which one must grow as rapidly as possible. The Jew versed in the law considers the untaught Gentile a babe (Rom. 2-*'). A babe symbolizes the unspiritual Corinthian convert (i Cor. 3^). He has been begotten by his spiritual father, Paul, whom he should therefore imitate, at least in a child's weak way (i Cor. 4'^). The child stands for our present feeble povv^er of knowing. It takes a man to represent " the full-grown energies of heaven" (i Cor. 13"). He would have the Corinthians avoid a childish desire for the showy gift of tongues ; and only in parenthesis does he ask them to be children in malice ; seeming even by that to mean that they should keep their malice as undeveloped as possible (i Cor. 14-"). He feels the parental touch of dearness for his own spiritual children; but, in the same breath, says their true childship is so small that he ought to give birth over again to an infant Christ within them ((ial. 4'"). In striking reversal of all this Jesus is wilHng to call his own disciples "babes" in one of their most favored hours (Lk. 10'' ; cf. Mt. ii-"'). In fact, he ex- plicitly takes the child as something like an ideal symbol of the per- 156 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. feet spirit and temper men should have toward the kingdom of God. We can scarcely imagine Paul curving his arm about a little child ; but Jesus does so (eVay caAicra/Aevos, Mk. lo^''), in order to make the symbolism as emphatic as possible. Paul's view of the child as illus- trative is much like Plato's. There is a child in us to whom death is a sort of hobgoblin i^Phacdo, ad finem). But for Jesus the child's disposition is that to which the adult must bring himself, and the child's attitude that to which the adult must surrender himself in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven at all (Mk. 10^^; cf Mt. 19^* Mt. 18^). In fact, the next verse (Mt. 18^) goes on to assign the highest rank in the kingdom, even after one has entered it, to the man of childlike spirit. If we were right in regarding Deut. 13''' and 21^'^'-^ as furnishing in the picture of parents stoning their children a kind of physical basis for the metaphor of hating one's father and mother in Lk. 14-'^, we may here add that Jesus does not think of parents stoning children, but rather of children stoning parents. He starts in by saying, not If a man hate not his son and daughter, but If he hate not his father and mother, he cannot be my disciple. The force of this reversal lies in the fact that to the mind of the ancients, as Mozley* has shown, children were regarded as the property of their parents, while parents were to be most strictly honored by their children. The fact that the passage in Luke mentions children also as being hated does not seriously affect our position, for they seem to be mentioned as a kind of afterthought for the sake of completeness. In a pecul- iarly effective way, also, Jesus changes the starting-point of the con- ception of the word neighbor, in Lk. lo'''', from its position in the man living near the lawyer, and thus being the lawyer's neighbor, to an ethical position in the lawyer's heart itself, thus making him play the neighbor toward the other man. The point is subde but real, and consists in reversing the direction of the mental arrow which points out the " neighbor." Very vigorous, also, is Jesus' turning upside down of the Pharisees' building of the tombs of the prophets (Lk. 11^'). Their boast was that they brought the prophets out into public honor by the costly tombs ; but Jesus made the building of tlie tombs mean burying the prophets out of sight. There seems to be almost a touch of humor, too, in the way he reverses the common figure of wolves going out to devour lambs into the picture of his disciples as lambs going out among hostile wolves. Finally, the ordi- nary conception that a man will sacrifice all things to save his phys- * Ruling Ideas in Early Ages. ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS COMPARISONS. 157 ical life is reversed into the metaphor of his losing his life in order to gain all that is highest and best. X. Fifth Element of Power : Antitheses. Akin to Jesus' strong hand in using symbols in a sense opposite to their usual significance are his antitheses. In this respect his figurative language simply shares in one of the general characteristics of his sayings as a whole. His figurative antitheses, however, are stronger and more effective than those in other parts of the Bible. T. One group of Jesus' antitheses contrasts the minute with the vast. It is a matter of size. In Mt. 5^^, cf. Lk. 16^', there is an ex- treme case. The sweep of heaven and earth is thought of as it might be by the deulero-Isaiah ; and over against its possible passing away is set the minute yodh and " tittle " of the Hebrew alphabet. The gnat is set opposite the camel (Mt. 23-^), the mote opposite the beam (Lk. 6^^ Mt. 7'). The diminutive group of laborers is seen on the edge of the far-reaching acres covered to the horizon line with a heavy crop of ripe grain (Lk. 10- Mt. (f'). The burdens which the Pharisees load upon men are heavy, but not even one finger do they themselves apply to the load (Lk. ii'"'; cf. Mt. 23^). The disciples are as a little flock of kids (cf i Kings 20-'). But the kingdom in its immensity is their father's gift to them (Lk. 12''-). 2. Another group contrasts the unique and the common. The solitary magnificence of Solomon's courtly array is coarser and poorer than the beauty with which God clothes one of the lilies of the fielil, though there are thousands of them in sight, and the dis- ciples perchance are treading a dozen of them under foot (Lk. 12-'-** Mt. 6-*^). The ox tied to the manger by some nameless peasant is an antithesis of the woman tied by Satan himself into a bent and painful posture. The animal is so common on every farm ; Satan is the sole prince of this world (Lk. 13^*'). 3. Antithetical qualities form a third group. The light within the man must not be darkness (Mt. (r' Lk. ii'"). Men do not gather figs of thorns or grapes from brambles (Lk. 6''^). The single elements of these antitheses — the material for them — is in the Old Tes- tament (Isaiah 5''*). The grapes, and briers, and thorns, are there; but Isaiah's antithesis is between grapes and wild grapes, while Jesus gives the much sharper one between the brambles and the grapes. Anotlier instance is in Lk. 6'*", No good tree brings forth corrupt fruit nor a corrupt tree good fruit. Jer. ii"' speaks of the men of 158 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. Judah as a " green olive tree fair with goodly fruit." In verse *^ his enemies plot to kill him and "destroy the tree with the fruit thereof." Here is the good man in contrast with the bad ; and each is figured as a tree, yet there is no antithetical juxtaposition, or even the con- ception of a corruptly productive tree. But Jesus has the double antithesis first of adjectives and then of clauses. In Mt. 10^^ (cf. Lk. lo'') wolves are set against lambs and doves against serpents. Simi- larly, the ravening wolf has clothing of opposite significance (Mt. 7'''^). Often in the O. T. God's people are called his sheep and their ene- mies ravenous wolves, but Jesus' compact antithesis is not found there. The same antithesis of quality is shown in the maxim of not giving holy things to dogs or pearls to swine (Mt. 7"). Perhaps none of the instances so far cited, strong as they are, equal in mellow strength the invitation which speaks of a " yoke " as " easy '" or a " burden " as " light " (Mt. 1 1*). 4. Jesus' figurative language also uses the antithesis of opposing con- ditions. The " wise and prudent " are set opposite the " babes " ( Lk. 10-^ Mt. II-'). The poverty-stricken are to have the kingdom with its wealth (Mt. 5'^). In the parable of the prodigal son (Lk. 15) are numerous antitheses : the son and the servant, the kid and the fatted calf, perishing with hunger and enough and to spare ; dead and alive. Poignantly sharp, finally, is the contrast between the suffering Laz- arus and the sumptuous life of Dives in this world, and between Abraham's bosom and the tormenting flame in the next world, and the antithesis of the opposing relations between the two men as experienced in this world and in Hades. 5. Opposite ways of acting furnish a fifth group of antitheses. Some children dance and some lament (Lk. 7'-). Putting a lamp under the bed is absurd ; putting it on the lamp-stand is rational (Mt. S''" Mk. 4-^ Lk. 8"^). Cleansing the outside of dishes is a sym- bolic contrast to making the heart clean (Lk. ii'^"). The Pharisees' bragging is a fine foil for the publican's self-accusation (Lk. i8^°). The doctrinal derivatives of Xvrpov, Mk. lo'*''', fall outside the prov- ince of this paper, which is concerned only with the noble antithesis between the figure of a great slaveholder, who lords it over his bondsmen, and the wholesale emancipator, who gives his life as a vast ransom to purchase the liberty of the slaves of doubt, and fear, and sin. The dignity of the Son of Man might claim for him a mul- titude of attendants ; but, on the contrary, he gives his very life to buy the freedom of the vast slave retinue of the Evil One. 6. The last form of antithetical power in Jesus' comparisons is ROBINSON: KORCF.FUI.NKSS IN JF.SUS' COMPARISONS. 1 59 that shown by his contrnsting of Scripture quotations. He is the stone on which men f;iil and are broken ; and, in the same breath, the stone which falls on them and scatters them as dust (Isaiah 8'^ Dan. 2"'^ ■■"'). Mis Father's house was a house of prayer (Isa. 56'^), but the sordid occupants had made it a den of robbers (Jer. 7"). XI. SixiH Elemp:nt of Powfr : Changing a Negative to a Positive. To certain of his comparisons Jesus yives the force which comes from changing a negative to a positive or affirmative. There seems to be some such advance made by him in calling his disciples the salt of the earth (Mt. 5''^ Mk. 9'" Lk. I4'-'). The previous figure for God's one elect people viewed them as sheep in their own special pasture, from which they were not to wander. Jesus' figure represents them as tlie one antiseptic — all the salt there is — to be sprinkled over the whole world, to save it from corruption. It is another form of the same thought which makes Jesus regard his apostles as fishers to catch men rather than as shepherds to keep the animals already in their flock. A clearer instance is found in his figure of the evil eye and of the light that is in a man (Mt. 6-"'^^). Jesus does not contrast the single eye with no eye at all, nor does he make darkness the opposite of light. On the contrary, he views the darkness as a light, and ascribes to it the positive radiating and revealing qualities of light. It is a species of black light, sending out black beams, and disclosing evil objects otherwise unbeheld. In a paragraph which is highly rhetorical, but conceived in the spirit of our passage, James Martineau has developed this figure of Jesus. " How great is that darkness.! Great indeed ! Because it not only hides realities, but produces all kinds of deceptive unrealities ; to the blinding character of all darkness, adding the creative activity of light; suppressing the clear outline and benign face of things, and throwing up instead their twisted and malignant shadows. This is the difference, so awfully indicated by the greatest of seers in the words just cited between the ez'i/ eye and 710 eye at all. The latter only misses what there is : the former surrounds itself by what is not. The one is an innocent privation, that makes no pretence to knowl- edge of the light : the other is a guilty delusion, proud of its powers of vision, and applying its blind organ to every telescope with an air of superior illumination. The one is the eye simply closed in sleep : the other, staring with nightmare and burning with dreams ; whose l6o JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. Strain the gloom of midnight does not relieve, and whose trooping images the dawning light does not disperse. He whose very light has become darkness treats the privative as positive, and the positive as privative ; he sees the single double, and the double single ; with him nothing is infinite, and the infinite is nothing. The great spec- trum of truth is painted backward, and the rainbow of promised good is upside down : and while he cannot espy the angel standing in the sun, he can read the smallest print by the pit-lights of Toi^het, that threaten to blind the spirits and smoke out the stars. To the evil eye the universe is not simply hidden, but reversed."^ A similar positive quality belongs to Jesus' figure of providing purses which wax not old (Lk. 12'^). Jesus has in mind not the simple detachment from earthly possessions of those who possess as though they possessed not (i Cor. y--'-3U)^ i^ijt the heavenly attach- ment of those who use them for another world (Godet). In Matthew 19^- Jesus has been approached by the negative idea of not marrying, and immediately proceeds to use a metaphor based upon a positive action, by which the conjugal capacity is affirmatively devoted to the Kingdom of God. The ransom for many, lately mentioned, is a strongly affirmative figure, carrying the negative conception of not being ministered to, up into the idea of ministering to others. If we rightly understand Jesus' idea of taking up the cross, it furnishes a remarkable instance of turning a negative into a positive figure. It is true that Luke uses ySao-ra^ei (H"')- ^^^ Mt. lo"'^ has Xafi^dvet, and Mt. 16-'' and Mk. 8'^'' both have djoarw. The follower of Jesus is not to bear his cross, he is to take it up. The cross was ordinarily laid upon the condemned ; this seems to be assumed both by archaeological stu- dents and popular writers.^" But Jesus turns the physical basis of his figure into the voluntary and positive act of lifting up the cross. In other words, he turns the negative metaphor, which stands for acceptance of providentially imposed suffering, into the positive figure, which stands for the decisive plunge into whatever suffering is necessary for tlie advancement of tlie kingdom. ^Endeavors after the Christian Life, p. 409. ^^ E.g. Friedlieb, Archaologie der Leidensgeschichte, p. 128. Farrar, Life of Christ, p. 435. ROBINSON: FORCEFUI-NESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. l6l XII. Seventh Element of Power : Combination. I. A further way in which Jesus secures power for his comparisons is by a combination of figurative details. The combination is not a mere aggregation, but, on the contrary, a most remarkable unification, in nearly every instance. Some of them have already been mentioned in speaking of the antitheses, and need only be named at this point. The antithesis in Lk. 6''^ is, as we have seen, a forceful combination of passages from Jeremiah. The unifying rela- tion is the conception of a tree producing the opposite of its natural fruitage. The antithesis of the wolfish prophet with the innocent sheep is a combination which secures unity by the vivid figure of putting the wolf inside the sheep's clothing (Mt. 7^^). The lambs and wolves are combined into one figure in Mt. 10^" by the unifying cv ju,e'cra>. The two connected facts that the Pharisees did not inter- pret the Scriptures rightly and yet claimed the sole right of interpret- ing are set forth in one combined yet single image of a man who locks the door to a temple and stands on the outside with the key in his hand so that the approaching people cannot enter (Lk. 11^-; cf. Mt. 23^^). Another example of skilful unifying and combining is seen in the Pharisee's prayer (Lk. 18^^), where he speaks of "this publican." That little phrase binds the images of the two char- acters together so that they are seen not as two pictures but one. The rabbis seem to have had the image of the mote and the beam ; but with them the antithesis was simply for retaliation: "Take the straw out of your eye," "Take the beam out of yours." ^^ But Jesus combines the two images into one. There the man stands with the beam in his eye straining to see the mote in his brother's eye. After speaking of the children in the market-place of whom the other children complained, Jesus uses his combining power to seize upon the Old Testament figure of Wisdom in Prov. i-", and in chaps. 8 and 9, and to unite himself and John, notwithstanding their anti- thetical modes of life, as children of the same heavenly mother (Lk. •j^). One very beautiful combination of figures is found in Mt. ii'"', where Jesus says his yoke is easy and his burden is light. The yoke is often used in the O.T. to represent taxation, bondage, and sin (i Kings 12'' Jer. 2^ Lam. i"). The figure of a burden for iniquity or trouble is of course frequent (Ps. 38* 55^-). But the yoke and the burden are never bound together into one figure. Isaiah 9^ : "See Lightfo(it, cited by Alforcl on Mt. 78. 1 62 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. "Yoke of burden" merely indicates the yoke as something by which a burden is carrieii. The connection is simply verbal, and the yoke only is affected by the deliverer. But Jesus' picture shows a man with a galling yoke, to which a particularly heavy burden is attached, while he offers an easy-fitting, pleasant yoke ; and, even so, the burden hung from it is light. Another peculiar instance is in Lk. Ti^', where Jesus turns an antithetical separation into a harmonious unity. The Pharisees set the generation that killed the prophets into strong contrast with their own generation, which built tombs in their honor. But Jesus harmonizes the two generations into the picture of one set of men silencing the prophets by killing them, and another which puts them still further out of sight and hearing by covering them with handsome tombs. Killing and burying are two parts of the same act. The king of Syria complained — or, rather, his servant did — that the words he spoke in his bed-chamber were told to the king of Israel by Elisha (2 Kings 6'-). With some such image in mind Jesus represents his private teachings as being publicly repeated. But he combines the private speaking and public hearing into one forcible image of a private whisper, in some shailowy place, vibrating outward into the surrounding and illumined landscape, mak- ing the world into a kind of whispering gallery. "What ye have said in the darkness shall be heard in the light" (Lk. 12'''). 2, Another form of combination of metaphors or comparisons, which Jesus uses with great force, is that of joining two Scripture quotations together. The sordid, ecclesiastical merchants made the house of prayer (Isa. 56") a den of robbers (Jer. 7"). Here it is not simply the antithesis which gives force, but the fact that the antithesis is a combination of two well-known prophetic utterances. Very widely separated in the Old Testament are the image of the stone of stumbling (Isa. S^"*) and the image of the stone which smote the composite image (Dan. 2^'^^), and, we may add, the image of the rejected stone (Ps. 118") ; but Jesus combines the rejection, the stumbling, and the crushing of the three figures into the single image of a great stone standing upon a mountain slope, upon which men fall and are hurt while it is stationary ; but afterward, when it gets loosened and comes crashing down, it scatters as dust whatever sets itself up in its pathway. And here, as always, Jesus does not say too much, but leaves all the great suggestiveness of the stone of stumbling, and the still greater figurative suggestiveness of the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, and of the composite image, which represented great kingdoms, to combine themselves in the ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 63 imagination of his hearers into one tremendous effect. It must be remembered that he spoke to men to whom all this imagery was exceedingly familiar ; and it is difficult to conceive of more compre- hensive and far-reaching claims being made with the use of so small a number of words. Again : we have in Job i*^'" and 2'"^ Satan's desire to test Job granted, and in Amos 9' we have the house of Israel sifted among all the nations like as grain is sifted in a sieve, without the least kernel falling upon the earth. But in Lk. 22^^ Jesus combines the indi- vidualism of the story of Job with the national metaphor of Amos into a single picture of Satanic sifting of one who nevertheless is preserved. 3. In some cases Jesus not only combines existing Scripture fig- ures, but adds some telling detail, which gives a new and powerful definiteness and precision to the whole. The deutero-Isaiah speaks of the watchmen (the supposed leaders) of Israel as bUnd (56'") ; he speaks of Israel his servant as blind (42'^) ; he speaks of leading the blind by a way they know not (42"^). Isa. 6^** speaks of a shut- ting of the eyes of God's people. There are blind people leading and there are blind people led, and both in abundance. But the intense brevity gained by joining the two in an image of the blind leading the blind, and by putting a ditch or pit in front of them, fur- nishes an instance of Jesus' peculiar power of combining old and common Scripture images, and adding, at the same time, a telling figurative detail, which still further enhances the total effect. The story of the unclean spirit expelled and wandering through the desert, and returning with companions (Lk. ii-"*-^; cf. Mt. i2*'-'"), is another instance of the same kind. The imagery is from Isaiah 13-^'' and 34". In the latter passage "night monster" perhaps means a kind of demon. Here we have the details of the desert as the home of wild beasts and demons, and of their making their haunts in the ruined homes of Babylon and Edom. But Jesus deals with a single dwelling, and thus makes his picture compact and pre- cise, while at the same time adding the peculiar feature of making the demon plan and talk intelligently. Yet again, Jesus' figure of the strong man armed, in Lk. 1 1^' (cf. Mt. 12^ Mk. 3-'), gathers its imagery from Isa. 40"^ 49'^' '-'^ 53^-. But the " strong man," the "cap- tives," and the " divided spoil," are combined by Jesus into a living unity, not only by the use of the comparative iaxvporepo';, by which he puts himself into unifying image relation with the strong man, but also by the location of the whole scene in one definite place, the court (at'Ar^) of the strong man. 4. Under this head we mention, finally, two cases of exceptional 164 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. character. The first seems to contradict our statement that Jesus never uses a mere aggregation of images. The rock on which he will build his church, the gates of hades, the keys of the kingdom, and the binding and loosing, do seem to furnish a group of unrelated images without metaphorical unity. In this respect it has no par- allel among the whole list of Jesus' sayings in the Synoptics. We must frankly set it down as entirely different from Jesus' dialect else- where, or else we must say that the conscious figurative structure does not go beyond the building upon the rock ; and that the gates, and the keys, and the binding and loosing, had lost their figurative power in Jesus' day, or, at least, for him, and meant nothing more than the schemes of the underworld, ability to enter and authority to prohibit or permit. But this is a violent supposition. The second instance is exceptional for an opposite reason from the first. The parable of the prodigal son (Lk. 15"*^) gathers imagery from more sources than any other of Jesus' comparisons, and, at the same time, there is none which forms a more compact and living unity. Isa. 55^ mentions spending money for naught ; in 44", and in other places, lie pleads for the return of spiritual wanderers. Prov. 29^ mentions the son that wastes his father's substance with harlots. The fourteenth chapter of Hosea, as we have already noted, tells of being fallen by iniquity and being fatherless, as, also, of tlie " words " of returning penitence. To touch swine was the acme of unclean- ness (Lev. 11^*'). The distress of the spendthrift was proverbial (Prov. 2(f). Famine, too, was a frequent factor in Old Testament distress. Both Isaiah (61'°) and Zechariah (3"'^) speak of clothing men with garments of salvation, and covering them with the robe of righteousness, to signify renewal of position in God's house, as in the case of Joshua the high priest. The giving of the ring, as by Pha- raoh to Joseph (Gen. 41^-) denoted the conferring of dignity and honor. The whole story is composed of images already in common use. But Jesus combines them by twos and threes in subordinate groups, as, for example, by having the famine arise just as the spend- thrift's hour of want has come, and by making these two distresses combine to send him to the swine. Another group of images com- bines the ring, and robe, and feast, into one quick picture of the prodigal's reinstatement. The whole story has no new details. It is but a combination of combinations of Old Testament figures. And yet the living unity which binds all together makes the analysis into a combination of images and details seem absurd, so absolutely one in its simplicity is the whole parable. ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IX JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 65 XIII. EliGHTH Element of Power : Naturalness. We now come to the naturalness of Jesus' metaphors as another source of their forcefuhiess. In making this statement we do not mean to imply that all his metaphors are taken from outward nature, or that they never describe any improbable or unnatural action. We rather mean that in speaking of natural phenomena he does not give distorted or imaginative descriptions of things impos- sible to nature, and then use them as comparisons. On the contrary, he uses nature just as she is. We mean, also, that he uses human functions and activities in his descriptions with verisimilitude. The course of action in the metaphor does not depart from the corre- sponding action of nature or human nature in actual life ; or, if such departure is made, it is purposely and evidently made to indicate a corresponding departure from wisdom or from rectitude. Through- out his comparisons Jesus makes us feel that what he commends is in line with nature and natural probability, and that what he con- demns is analogous to the unnatural and improbable. This gives them a peculiar power for enforcing ethical and spiritual truth. His listeners did not need to use any mental force in struggling to under- stand his illustration, for all men understand the simple, everyday phenomena of nature and human life. They could give their whole attention to the transferred metaphorical or spiritual sense of his utterance. Nature worship, moreover, is the first worship ; and a teaching which appeals to nature and to human nature acquires a certain force from that very fact. I. In this connection we mention first the comparisons Jesus drew from ordinary, external nature. The impression sometimes prevails that nearly all of them come from this source. Our table shows that this is not the f^ict, but that there was a kind of universal- ism in them which went the rounds not only of nature but of the total life of his day. Nevertheless, he did have many metaphors or comparisons from what we call nature. He was brought up in the country, in the midst of agricultural scenes. Wide-reaching pros- pects were to be had from the summits of his native hills ; and, if we may judge from the brief epistle of James (usually considered to be his brother), which, businesslike as it is, contains more metaphors from nature than the entire writings of Paul, a love of nature was characteristic of the family. And all his metaphors from nature are natural. There is a sharp difference here between Jesus and the 1 66 JOURNAL or BIBLICAL LITERATURE. prophets of the Old Testament, as well as between him and Paul. Jesus never says that men sow wheat and reap tares (cf. Jer. 12'^). His tares come iVom tare seed, sown by an enemy (Mt. ^'y'). It would hardly be possible for him to speak of grafting, much less of grafting a wild olive into a cultivated tree (Rom. 11''). When he speaks of the stones crying out it is as of something miraculous and all but impossible (Lk. 19*), and not at all as a kind of natural and gladsome outburst of inanimate things, as when the Deutero-Isaiah speaks of the leaves of the trees clapping their hands, and of the mountains breaking forth into singing (Isa. 55^^. Such poetical amplifications are beautiful, but the beauty is gained at the expense of force. A camel's going through the eye of a needle, whether taken as a mere repetition of an oriental proverb for impossibility or at its face value, is something which does not happen (Lk. 18-'). The rising cloud, the south wind, the reddened sky, were ordinary natural phenomena (Lk. 12^^*' Mt. 16-"). In Lk. 20^^ we have an interesting instance of Jesus' unwillingness to use an unnatural illus- tration in a good sense. He speaks of falling on the stone and being broken, and of the stone falling on a man and scattering him as dust, omitting all the extraordinary aud highly unnatural imagery of Nebuchadnezzar's dream. In a general way, it is perfectly nat- ural for a man to be hurt by falling on a stone, and by having the stone fall upon him, nor does the objection of unnaturalness hold against the figure of the stone pulverizing the man \ for Jesus is fol- lowing Daniel's imagery, and is regarding the man as an image such as Daniel's, so that he becomes like chaff on the summer threshing- floor. It is a metaphor within a metaphor ; and the double image, as Jesus and his hearers would see it, would not be felt as unnatural. We have already contrasted the entire naturalness of Jesus' figure of the righteous shining forth as the sun, and of the lightning flashing across the heaven (Mt. 13*' Lk. 17-^), which have their exact coun- terparts in nature, with the unnaturalness of the multiplied light of the sun and the moon, in Isaiah 30-", which, as a matter of fact, no one has ever seen. Reeds shaken by the wind (Lk. 7-*) were to be seen by the edge of any brook or stream. The tree of Nebuchad- nezzar's vision was as imaginary as the tree Igdrasil in Norse m\'thol- ogy. But the trees in Jesus' comparisons (Lk. 13^'-' 23'^', ct al.) could be seen at any hour of the day, and near at hand. Women did put leaven into meal just as Jesus' parable described, and the leaven did act just as he said. 2. Passing from external nature to human functions and activities. ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 167 we find Jesus observing a similar fidelity to facts in the physical bases of his comparisons. He never conceives of anything as sweet or bitter in one's mouth and the reverse in one's stomach (Ezek. 3'' ; cf. Rev. 10^"), for the stomach has no gustatory nerves. Although he makes a metaphor out of almost every part of the body, including, as a glance at our table shows, the hair, the eyes, the ears, the mouth, the digestive organs, the hand, the foot, the reproducti\e capacity, and even the finger, he nevertheless uses them all with faithfulness to physical fact, as we see by contrasting Ezekiel's figure just mentioned with Jesus' descriptively accurate account of the passage of food through the digestive organs. He figures his dis- ciples as treading upon serpents and scorpions (Lk. 10^^), but never as trampling a lion under foot (Ps. 91^''), because one may strike, or shoot, or rend a lion, but cannot trample on him while alive, and does not think of doing so when dead. The two instances of an unnatural act, swallowing a camel (Mt. 2y^) and having a beam in one's eye (Mt. 7'^ Lk. 6^^), are undoubtedly to be explained as the c^uoting or citing of proverbial expressions, shown by Lightfoot to have been in common use. It scarcely need be mentioned that cer- tain actions apparently unnatural are shown by the study of archae- ology to have been quite customary. An Eastern king or prince would not hesitate, if sufficiently provoked, to bind a man hand and foot and throw him out of the house (Mt. 22^'^). Eastern houses had inner chambers, and proclamations were made from housetops (Lk. 12'). Cups and platters, and other articles, were washed as Jesus describes (Lk. ii'^''; cf. Mk. 7^); as, also, hands and feet. There were plenty of unwhited tombs, whose flat slabs did not show to the casual eye of the pedestrian (Lk. 11'*^). Men did untie oxen on the Sabbath, and lead them to water (Lk. 13'^"'). A shortage of hands at harvest-time was as common as it is in Kansas (Lk. 10'' Mt. 9''''). Enemies did sow tare seed in a man's field (Mt. 13""''), even as sim- ilar maliciousness is practised to-day (Trench on Parables gives examples). Shepherds did separate sheep from goats (Mt. 25'''-). Animals were helped out of pits or holes on the Sabbath (Lk. 14^), The candle and the broom were used to find lost money (Lk. 15*). Secret spots in the field were used as safe-deposits, and a field with such a deposit might be bought if the deposit were known only to the finder (Mt. 13'"). Pearl merchants ])lied their trade (Mt. i3''-'''-^'''). Agents embezzled, and falsified their accounts (Lk. 16'"^). Men of unusual philanthropic spirit did help the wounded even to their own danger (Lk. 10''"). Men did delay cutting down a barren tree, in 1 68 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. hope that more care would make it fruitful by another year (Lk. 13"'^). Doors were shut upon maddened outsiders, who did with oriental demonstrativeness weep and gnash their teeth (Lk. 1 3-^- -•"'■ -^- -"■'). So evidently faithful to the life of his day were the physical bases of Jesus' comparisons that no other portion of Scripture is as trustworthy as they for ascertaining the uses and practices of antiquity. If only they were fuller of detail ! 3. But what of the numerous cases where Jesus' comparisons rep- resent men as doing or achieving unnatural things? They are in part things which he expressly says do not happen, and have been mentioned as in reality proof of his faithfulness to nature ; for faith- fulness is negative as well as positive, and repudiates false attributes as well as insists upon genuine ones. There remain, however, not a few cases in which Jesus does portray men as acting in a highly improbable manner. This is because man's ethical and religious per- version is such that he often acts in a manner which, in analogous physical or social circumstances, would be called unnatural and even irrational. In ethical matters, man's "natural" conduct is often highly unnatural. Hence the need of improbable and '' unnat- ural " acts and relations in the imagery which portrays it. Failure to recognize this principle of Jesus causes interpreters often to miss his main point, while the due recognition of the principle reveals one great source of power in his comparisons, viz. the portrayal of evil conduct as a priori unnatural and unaccountable. It must also be added, for the sake of completeness, that conduct which is unusually or unnaturally good for the average man may not be such for a man of exceptional piety or love. But all these representations of unnat- ural conduct on the part of free agents are totally different from using representations which are contrary to physical fact, or to the regular processes of nature, to symbolize conduct which is morally right and praiseworthy. Figures and comparisons of this latter kind Jesus never has. Passing by the rooting up of the sycamine tree and planting it in the midst of the sea, with the remark that the utterance is meant to represent something beyond nature, and done by divine power in answer to prayer, we come to the employer who paid the same wages for one hour's work as for twelve (Mt. 20''). It is to be noted that while a man would not naturally do this on purely business prin- ciples, he might do it if he were of a philanthropic cast, and seeking to furnish employment to all who were in need of it. It is not nat- ural to take food from the family table and throw it to dogs ; and ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 69 the direct purpose of Jesus in saying so is to illustrate the impropri- ety of his helping the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mk. 7^. It is not natural to put a lighted lamp in the cellar or under a measure (Lk. u33 gi6 ^j^ ^21 ^15-^. jjyj. jj. jg j^Q more unnatural than it is for men who have received the light of great new truth to fail to communi- cate it to others. The blind leading the blind into a ditch is no more unnatural than Pharasaic leaders, with their eyes shut to divine truth, leading those who are blind enough morally to follow them into the ditch of spiritual ruin (Lk. 6'^ Mt. 15"). That a servant owe ten milhon dollars to his master is indeed improbable (Mt. iS^*^^); but so, a priori, is the greatness of the sin of man against God. And if it be objected that the story is too severe to be a nat- ural illustration of so gentle a grace as forgiveness, the reply is that it does not illustrate the forgiving spirit so much as the inflexible necessity of having that spirit. Cutting a piece out of a new gar- ment to patch an old one (Lk. 5^) " seems too absurd for any human being in his senses to think of" But so also is it to think of Jesus' new and indivisible spirit of life as having a patch cut out of it for mending Judaism. It is the very point in the parable of the ten virgins that they acted so foolishly and unnaturally as not to carry oil with them, and to go off and buy it instead of going in just as they were with the other virgins, and welcoming the bridegroom when he came. Such conduct, however, is no more unnatural a priori than that men should insist on forms and ceremonies in religion even at the expense of missing its essence (Mt. 25^*). That men should refuse invitations to a great supper, especially if it were the marriage of the king's son, is an incredible story (Lk. i4^'''*-; cf. Mt. 22-'^^). But it is no more incredible a priori than that the one divine son of God and his Father and the feast of love should be scorned. 4. It will be observed that we have given but slight attention to the most important of Jesus' comparisons, that of God to a father. In every other instance Jesus seems to condense his mental images out of existing material. In this one, on the contrary, he elaborates. Other images are seldom repeated, if at all, more than once or twice ; this one incessantly. His whole teaching may be grouped about his various uses of the figure of fatherhood. Instances of its use are by no means wanting in the Old Testament, but their representation of God is subordinate. The Old Testament conceives God in the main as a king. Jesus reverses this relation, purposely using the word "father" so as to make it grasp the divine character as a whole, and give not a side view but the inside view of his nature. It is not the lyo JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. province of this paper to discuss all Jesus' uses of this wholly excep- tional comparison. It is, however, within our province to say that the power and persistence with which he uses it furnish the key to the problem of the extent of God's fatherhood. Mt. 23^"'"^^ is some- times called conclusive for the universality of the fatherhood ; but it is a long way from the first verse to the ninth, and the connection is not very close between the "multitudes" and the "Father." Jesus never expressly declares the universality of God's fatherhood ; but, on the other hand, he never expressly restricts its extent to his dis- ciples. We cannot settle the question of extent directly from the consideration of extent. But when we note the repeated intensity and power with which he portrays the fatherhood of God, both in connection with sinners like the prodigal and in connection with his own disciples, we see that it is his one great thought of God, illumi- minating and controlling his view of every man. It is the power of the portrayal of the father's love in the parable of the prodigal son that makes us feel that universality of fatherhood is intended. It is not the mere fact that there is one story attributed to him which rep- resents God as the Father of a spendthrift adventurer. But every- where in the most natural way, and to illustrate every phase of God's character, Jesus uses this same comparison. If he wishes to show the goodness of God in general as a creator, he simply says that as parents give what is needed to the children whom they have brought into the world, so God will act the parent toward his crea- tures, the race of man. On the other hand, if he would show the necessity of men's forgiveness of one another, he tells the story of the punishment of an unforgiving creditor, and then adds, not " So likewise shall God," but "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do if ye forgive not every one his brother his trespasses" (Mt. iS"*^). 5. Socrates brought philosophy down from heaven to earth. Jesus' comparisons do the same for religion. It is a mark of power in both cases. Men write with great beauty and instructiveness, and even with great intellectual power, of things they have never seen or of things distant and remote, but, ethics being a matter of the con- duct of everyday life, an ethical teacher speaks with greatest power when he uses illustrations taken direcdy from everyday hfe, and the everyday life of the people he speaks to at that. It does indeed require a spirit of great purity and power to make common things vehicles of ethics without appearing silly and goodish ; but if the teacher have the powerful grasp that we have already abundantly seen in Jesus, the very fact of his using the commonplace for his ROBIXSON : FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 7 1 comparisons forms a new and distinct element of their power. They come home to men's business and bosoms with a more direct and forceful thrust because of their very homeliness. There is, of course, a question of audience here. A glacier in its course from its origin in rain and snow to its final watery union with the ocean furnishes more and more beautiful points of comparison with the course of a human life than does a river ; but as an illustra- tion of ethical principles, its effective strength would be confined to audiences in the Alps or .Alaska, and gatherings of students of glacial phenomena. To other classes of hearers the amount of attention given to comprehending the physical basis of the ethical teaching would be a large subtraction from the ethical and spiritual effect. Hence, it is no mere accident that Jesus' illustrations are taken from objects immediately and fully present to the eyes or in the minds of his listeners. When he omits to illustrate God's care for the minute by saying that he numbers the stars (Isa. 40'-''), but does not fail to say that his heavenly Father numbers the hairs of men's heads, the illustration he uses is not only more simple, but is more effective than the one he avoids, because it is taken from an object close at hand. We are not to think of Jesus as unable to use the lofty poetry of the prophets for ethical enforcements, because his refer- ences to Isa. 14'- and to the vision in Daniel, not to speak of other passages, prove the contrary. Nor are we to think of him as unable to use unfigurative abstract statements clearly, though this shows a higher degree of ethical power than the poetic degree. But, in the main, he chose the homely illustrations of the ordinary life of his day, because through them he could come home to the men of his day with greatest ethical and spiritual force. It is no doubt true that the western mind of the twentieth century loses something of this power simply because ic is not living the oriental life of the first century ; but Jesus came at a definite time and in a definite locality ; and it is of the then conditions that we are speaking.-'" ^'-' No mere aggregation of citations can convey an idea of the closeness with which Jesus' comparisons adhere to the common life of his day. They can best be grasped by describing a Jewish peasant of his time Hving the connected Hfe of a single day, it being understood that it is merely the weaving together whicii is imagined for the sake of unity of impression, while, on the contrary, every detail of the picture is taken from one of Jesus' comparisons, without, of course, including the ethical element of the comparison, but only the physical. The awkwardness of the compilation, so foreign to the naturalness of Jesus, may be forgiven for the sake of the end it seeks. Putting on his clothing (Mt. 6^^) in the darkness (Lk. 22**^) so quietly that 172 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. XIV. Ninth Element of Power : Inwardness, The last element of forcefulness in Jesus' comparisons which this paper contains is the peculiar imoardness which characterizes cer- tain of them. This may be seen by contrasting them with the corresponding metaphors of Paul. Paul's conception of righteous- ness is objective and theological, while that of Jesus is subjective and ethical. Paul's conception was incidental to the controversial position of his great epistles, while Jesus seems to have kept a posi- tion of calmness, and to have dwelt upon the essence of religion. his left hand knew not ■v\hat his right hand was doing (Mt. 6^), the man ate (Lk. 22IS), and having satisfied his hunger and thirst (Mt. 56), the process of digesting what he had taken into his mouth began (Mt. 1511- 1'--^). Washing his cup an^^) his brother was pouring some new wine into a fresh wine-skin (Lk, 588), having wisely thrown aside the old wine-skin (Lk. ^^'), which his little child (Mt. 18'^) had brought him from the storeroom (Mt, 13^^), His sister, meanwhile, was patch- ing an old gown with a piece of fulled cloth, and mending a rent in her new one with a piece that was unfuUed (Lk, 586), Bidding good-by (Lk. 96') to his brother and sister and mother (Mt. 12^"^), he went out to untie the ox from the manger and lead him to water (Lk. 13'^). But at the well the ox fell in, whence he was with difficulty at last pulled out, two days later, on the Sabbath (Lk. 14°). There were no foxes (Lk. I3-5-) in the neighborhood (Lk. io29), and the hens had gathered their chickens under their wings (Lk, 13^*) in the open yard. Near by a shepherd was separating his sheep from the goats (Mt, 252-). When the man came up to him, the two fell into a discussion of the weathtr probabil- ities, for there was both a south wind blowing which indicated heat and a rising cloud which indicated a shower (Lk, 12^^-^'^). In fact, the morning redness of the sky had proph.-siJd foul weather (Mt. l6--^), quite contrary to the expecta- tions raised by the rosy flush of the evening before. Then they talked of the recent fatal fall of the tower of Siloam, in which eighteen persons had met their death (Lk. 13-'), and of Pilate's mixing the blood of some GaUlaeans he had killed with that of the sacrifices they were offering at the temple (Lk. 13^;. As the man went onward toward the village he crossed a wady, where the bare stones told the eloquent story (Lk. 19*'') of the folly of a man who had built his house on one of its sloping sides without going deep enough to reach the bed rock for his foundation (Mt. 7-''). A cloudburst in the mountains had sent a flood down the wady, and the storm and the stream combined had made the house a complete wreck (Mt. "j-'). In the open field beyond were thousands of wild lilies (Mt. 6-®*'), with here and there a mustard tree, which had grown from its minute seed till it was ten feet or more in height, and the birds had nested in ROBINSON : F0RCEFULNES3 IN JESUS COMPARISONS. I 73 Now religion being essentially a thing of tlie soul, and all its outward phenomena arising from inward states, the teacher who deals mainly with the outward conceptions must fumble more or less, no matter how powerful his natural grasp ; while he who deals with the inward may indeed fumble, but is in a position to grasp with whatever power he has, for his hand is at the one centre of gravity, not dart- ing about after the objects that are flying along in the orbital paths. There are two elements here in the power of the comparisons to which we are referring. One is the essential inwardness of all true religion. The directness and power with which he laid hold of this is felt through all his language. But this element of force must not its branches (Lk. 176 Mt. 13^1). Farther on a farm hand was ploughing (Lk. g62') where the soil was deep enough, while a sower was scattering seed at a dis- tance behind, some of which fell on the trodden path that crossed the field, where the birds were picking it up, some upon deep earth, and some among thorns (Mt. 13"' *^-)- ^^'J'^ did the sower seem to suspect that the next night a neighbor who owed him a grudge would secretly sow tare seed among his wheat (Mt. 13-*). Skirting a fine vineyard in which were numerous fig trees, one of them seemingly in bad condition (Lk. 13^), he came down to the seashore, where reeds were waving in the wiini (Lk. 7-*), and strong men (Lk. ii'^'), who probably never thought of such a thing as having the doctor (Lk. 5^'), were hauling out a net full of live fish (Mk. 5I'). To buy some of the fish he took out his well-worn purse (Lk. \2^^^, but there was not enough in it to give alms to the poorest beggar (Lk. Ii*^), for his wife, having lost one piece out of the ten it was necessary for her to have that day, had, as he now remembered, bor- rowed his last drachma, promising to take a liglit and broom and sweep every dark corner of the house until she found her own (Lk. 15*) and could repay him. The main road ran near the sea, where a blind man, holding another blind man by the hand, was walking along, and both were saved just as they were falling into the roadside ditch (Lk. 6'^'-'*') by the timely interference of the man, who, in his haste to reach them, stepped, to his horror, upon the unpainted slab of a tomb (Lk. 1 1**). A pearl merchant soon passed by, but did not offer to show his pearls, for he had sold them in order to use the money for some purpose he would not disclose (Mt. I3"'^- '*''); although he was quite willing to talk of the invitations to a certain well-known supper (Lk. 14^-), of recent weddings (Lk. 14**), and of one very great supper, to which everybody was being invited (Lk. I4"0- Even such a mosaic pattern as we have just been weaving conveys but a faint idea of the way Jesus had of using the actions and events of which at any one houi he was a part, as something with which to compare tiie principle he was enunciating at that very time. For his table talk was often concerned with feast- ing, his lakeside talk with fishing; and, in a word, he not only made comparisons out of things which were at haml, in the sense of being part of the general every- day life of his people, but in the sense of being pjirt of the very action or scene with which he was at that very moment engaged4 174 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. be confused with a certain inwardness to be noted in the physical basis itself of certain comparisons. This quaHty may be seen in three different stages or forms. 1. It is perfectly possible to figure the things of the soul under the image of a journey, as in Pilgrim's Progress ; or of a siege, as in the Holy War ; or of a garden, as in Tennyson's Geraini and EnidJ^ But a journey, a siege, and a garden, are external. They have no natural inwardness. There is inwardness, however, in the very con- ception of leaven, of soil with seed in it, and of a tenant. Such images as these Jesus uses ; and their physical inwardness is an ele- ment of power in portraying spiritual inwardness. For every meta- phor has a certain quality of its own apart from the matter which it illustrates ; and if both matter and metaphor have the same char- acter, their harmony greatly strengthens the total effect. Hunger and thirst are inward (Mt. 5''). So are leaven (Lk. 13'"'), treasure (drjrravpo^) (Lk. 6*''), digestion (Mk. 7^'), and a tomb (Lk. 1 1"*^), which inevitably suggests the dead bo'ly beneath. 2. In the second place, we have to note that certain physical or natural facts have two parts, an outward and an inward. Of these, Jesus chooses the inward, with an effect found nowhere else in Scripture. Isaiah has his agricultural parable (28-"'-^), covering almost the whole process, from ploughing to threshing. He levels the ground, casts abroad the fitches, scatters the cummin, puts the wheat in rows and the barley in the appointed place, beats out the fitches with a staff and the cummin with a rod ; but every detail belongs to the external side of agriculture. Paul also (i Cor. 3'*"'') speaks of the Corinthians as tilled land (yewpyiov). He has planted and Apollos watered (v.*'). But there is no inwardness in these images ; and the same is true, as our table shows, of all his agricul- tural metaphors. A man reaps what he sows, and reaps sparingly or bountifully. There is much mention of fruit and fruitfulness, as well as of bare grain. But all his imagery, like Isaiah's, stays up in the open air. Jesus goes underground. The parable of the sower is a parable of the differing fate of the seed within the different soils. Even the grain of mustard seed is thought of from the viewpoint of '^ Full selilom does a man repent, or use Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch Of lilood and custom wholly out of him And make all clean and ])lant himself afresh. Edyrn has done it, weeding all liis heart As I will weed this land before I go. ROBINSON: FORCEFULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. 1 75 the secret start it gets when it is sown. In Mark 4-"-" the farmer's activity is carefully excluded. He goes to bed and gets up, and the earth brings forth fruit of herself. If the reader will refer to the account of Paul's use of children as illustrations, as we have given it on a previous page, it will at once appear that Paul views the child externally — as a thing that grows and is trained and reaches ma- turity ; while Jesus, even in his illustration of children in the market- place, has reference to their inward tempers and dispositions, and makes his most critical illustration of the temper and spirit required in those who are to enter the Kingdom out of the little child's trust- ful and obedient inner attitude. He has nothing whatever to say of the child as wrought upon, guided, or educated, but turns nimself entirely to its inner life. Undoubtedly he loved children ; but he has none of the endearing talk of the old prophets, about their being nursed, or being taken by the arms and taught to walk ; and the more we recognize both the Old Testament details and the Pauline details descriptive of child life in its external aspect, the more remarkable seems Jesus' passing them all by and going into the child's interior nature. Characteristic also is the difference between Jesus and Paul in architectural imagery. Paul hurries away from the foundation in order to speak of the superstructure, with elaborate details of " gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble," and of the fire that shall test the superstructure. Jesus, on the other hand, " digs and goes deep " (Lk. 6"**^), laying his foundation on the hidden rock ; and has it tested, not by some incendiary conflagration, but by the infallible elements. The inwardness of the imagery itself of Jesus is again evident, for he might have spoken of character as a structure to be tested by the assaults of its outward enemies. When he does think of a house it is as a tenement, in which a tenant dwells, and whose sweeping, furnishing, and other interior arrangements, are, as it were, his whole concern (Lk. ii-'*'-'"). 3. A third class of images whose characteristic is inwardness may be found in those to which Jesus gives an inward turn. He uses familiar words — brambles and grapes, or figs and thistles ; but he so uses them as to set forth the inner quality of the tree or vine, which makes it produce the corresponding fruit (Lk. 6"*^). He gives the familiar names to the wolf and the sheep, but he puts the wolf inside the sheep's skin, making an image which, in its first portrayal, must have had startling force (Mt. 7''''). There seems also a certain suggestiveness in the treasure hid in the field (Mt. 13'"). I'ut the most interesting instance is the word " neighbor," in the parable of iy6 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE. the good Samaritan (Lk. lo^"). The lawyer asks how much area the word covers ; jesus tells him how deep it is. Answering his question as to the two dimensions of the plane ; Jesus tells him of the height and depth of the solid. The lawyer asked after quantity ; Jesus answered in terms of quality, changing the word from a name for the man we meet to a description of our conduct and spirit toward him. XV. Possible Value of the Present Study. The study we have now made of the forcefulness of Jesus' com- parisons shows that the general impression of power which they have made upon mankind will bear analysis. Jesus came into the world to bring a new force rather than a new creed. This distinguishing characteristic of his work as a whole is a distinguishing characteristic of his comparisons. If this last fact has been made newly clear by our detailed study, I may venture to mention certain directions in which the result may possibly have value : I. In the matter of text criticism. Where we have two or more variations of an utterance of Jesus, the strongest is likely to be nearest his own original saying. Other canons have a limiting effect. But this one should have no small weight. It may even prevail over the balance of mere manuscript evidence in favor of a weaker read- ing. For it is quite certain that Jesus was greater than the evan- gelists, and must often have been over the heads of his reporters. And when a statement attributed to him appears at first sight to be harsh or hyperbolical in its intensity, it is not, therefore, to be regarded as gloss, but rather as likely, for that very reason, to be genuine. ^'' For these reasons, ^wyplv (Lk. 5'") is probably a better reflection of Jesus' thought than dXeets (Mt. 4'*^, a conclusion incidentally favored by the etymology of T^_, which connects it with the fishes and not with the sea (Jer. 6'" gcri ; cf. Amos 4- Habakkuk i"). "Octets yevvr/zAara ex^Si/wj/ (Mt. 23") does not appear in the parallel passage in Luke, perhaps as being too intense for Jesus. Yet Matthew's reading, just because of its intensity, may be right. Luke's omission (16^') of iwra Iv (Mt. 5^*^) is a weakening of Matthew, not Matthew a strengthening of Luke. Similarly, Luke's weakening the cloak maxim, and omitting the going two miles, represents Jesus ^•4 In this paragraph no account is taken of the documentary evidence of the sources used by the Synoptists ; only intrinsic evidence of individual passages is considered. ROHINSON : FORCF.FULNESS IN JESUS' COMPARISONS. I 77 less accurately than Matthew, for the very reason that it is weaker (cf. Lk. 6-'' '^^ and Mt. s**-"). tw Tri/ew/xart (Mt. 5^) is probably an addi- tion to the bare tttwxoI of Lk. 6''". For while the former is more spiritual in sense, the latter has more naked force. On the contrary, the longer reading in Mt. 12* and Mk. 3'''^ is to be preferred to Luke's (8-'), for the addition by Jesus of aBekcf)) gives the expression a greater intensity. In Luke 6*^, the TR, tliough farther from the original text than the Alexandrine reading (8ia to KaX-Tis ot/coSo/xeio-^ai ttUTi/v), is probably nearer to Jesus himself, for it corresponds to the text of Matthew (Tc^e/xeXt'wTo yap eVi tyjv Trirpav), which, because of its vigor, is more in accord with his way of speaking. The utter absurdity of cutting into a new garment is alleged against the read- ing LfxaTLOv Kaivov CT^'W? (Lk. 5"*^. But uttcr absurdity is precisely the point Jesus is making ; and the vigor of the portrayal is an evi- dence in favor of its genuineness. Li the parable of the lost sheep (Mt. iS^-*'^- Lk. iS"*"^), Luke's description is stronger than that of Matthew, who makes the shepherd rejoice alone, without friends or neighbors, and states the application in a negative form : " It is not the will of your Father," etc. From what we have seen of the force- fulness of Jesus' comparisons in general, we argue in favor of the superior fidelity of Luke's picture. KaraTrovrLaOrj iv tw TreAayei TYJ'i OxXda-ar)? (Mt. 1 8^), not only because of its Hebraistic form, but because of its greater intensity, is preferable to the readings in Mark 9''- and Luke 17-, that is, Matthew is probably nearer the original word-picture of Jesus. For the same reason, fxvXo? 6vlk6