others; the moral instructions which he grounds upon them, are most worthy of all men to be received; the use to which that knowledge is turned in his hands, is most becoming the character even of omniscience itself.

The parable of the good Samaritan is one which very many commentators have agreed to consider as the narrative, most probably, of a real transaction yet it is the narrative of what passed in secret, and could be known only to the narrator himself. Nor would it be easy to shew on what peculiar grounds of intrinsic probability, this parable is to be considered real, more certainly than the rest of its proper class. There is another parable, that of the Pharisee and the publican, of which it appears to me, the reality is almost demonstratively certain : and this conclusion about it, if true, would prove our Saviour to have been acquainted not only with the most private actions of men, but with their very thoughts, their prayers and meditations; as indeed, there is abundant evidence to prove that he

was.

It would be a precarious assumption to say, that the use of moral parables, by our Saviour, supposing them to consist of fictitious histories, may perhaps be accounted for by the custom of the times, or the familiarity of a similar practice all over the east. I do not deny either the antiquity, or the

a Familiare est Syris, observes Jerome, et maxime Palæstinis ad omnem sermonem suum parabolas jungere: ut quod per simplex præceptum teneri ab auditoribus non potest, per similitudinem exemplaque teneatur: IV. Pars. i. 85. ad prin. in Matt. xviii.

While we admit the fact of this custom, we may very well

universality, of the use of allegory, metaphors, figures, or parables, among the nations of the east, in general; but I should deny that any such parables as our Saviour's moral histories, any such instances of the application of parable in teaching, as he has, with so much skill and felicity, exemplified in the use of his own, can be produced from the records of the times, or illustrated, much less rivalled, by parallel instances in the hands of rabbis or magi, or any description of moral teachers in the east.

The parables to be met with in the Old Testament are only three in number; two of them purely and simply apologues or fables, as much as any of Æsop's; and the third, the parable of Nathan addressed to David, a possible history, which might have been real, but which the prophet's application of it shews to have been meant for an allegory, that is, a real history disguised under a fictitious. And as to the parables of the Jewish doctors, which Dr. Lightfoot has produced from the Gemara, to illustrate those of our Saviour, they are not worthy to be named or noticed by the side of the parables of the Gospel. They may be the most ancient which Dr. Lightfoot could find; but as the Gemara itself

doubt the truth of Jerome's explanation of it: especially if by parables or comparisons here, he meant figures, metaphors, or allegories; which in most cases, instead of throwing fresh light on what was before dark and mysterious, would tend to make it still darker and more mysterious; and to explain obscurum per obscurius. The truth is, the use of parables is in simple accorddance with the genius of Oriental thought and expression; which every where, and at all times, have been characteristically distinguished by a passionate fondness for hyperbole, metaphor, circumlocution, figure, and allegory.

was not compiled until long after the Christian æra, who shall demonstrate to us that any such rabbinical parables were in existence, before the time of our Saviour? Jejune and meagre as they are, flat and insipid as they must appear to every reader of taste, they have not, for ought we know, the merit of originality itself: they may be only bad imitations of the beautiful, sprightly, and picturesque productions of the Gospel narrative.

But the use of parables, whether by rabbis, or magi, or priests, or philosophers, of antiquity, would prove nothing on the point in dispute, with regard to our Saviour's moral histories. For though the use of fiction, in aid of truth, and in the way of moral instruction, may be innocent and commendable, perhaps even expedient or necessary, in the hands of a merely human instructor, yet in the hands of a divine moralist like our Lord, the use of such means can never be allowed to be necessary, nor therefore to be expedient or appropriate. Can we suppose such a teacher, deliberately to prefer to recommend and enforce truth by fiction, when it was equally possible and easy for him, and was certainly so much the more in unison with his character, if it was not beyond his ability, to recommend and illustrate truth by truth?

Lastly, if the moral parables are really so many matters of fact, then we may perceive a reason why our Lord might employ them primarily and properly for a moral purpose; and with such an application to the profit and edification of his hearers, as those discourses in their own nature were calculated to furnish and secondarily and improperly, even with some regard to the collateral and accidental advan

tages of that mode of teaching in general, as arising whether from its novelty, or its pleasurableness, or its simplicity, or its accordance to the genius and tastes of his audience. These advantages, though natural and probable concomitants of the use of such parables, would not be the effects properly contemplated by them, nor describe the final purpose, the special reasons, which gave occasion to them. But if the parables themselves were really invented, and not derived from matter of fact, these secondary considerations seem to be the only purposes that could have been consulted in their use: the subordinate, collateral effects appear at least to become the principal and primary motives, which must have suggested the adoption of this mode of teaching. In the one case, we might have concluded that our Lord hoped to please, because he was bound to teach; in the other, we must have inferred that he hoped to teach, because he was bound to please. This would be to suppose that our Lord thought it more important to please his hearers than to teach them; that he deemed the pleasurableness of his discourses a greater object of his personal concern than their instructiveness; and considered the form or manner of his doctrines more essential than the matter or substance. The contrary alone can be the truth. Such an instructor as our Lord might have no objection to please, while he was teaching, or as a mere consequence of that; but we cannot suppose that he would purposely seek to please with a view to teach, or attempt the one first, in the hope of effecting the other along with it, or after it.

CHAPTER VII.

On the allusions to the domestic relations of antiquity, which occur in the Parables.

THERE is in almost all the parables, a distinction of agents, or dramatis persona, into principal and subordinate; between whom a proper but variable relation, according to the circumstances of the case, is seen to hold good. The most common relation of all, and one which still holds good even where other relations of private or social life are exemplified in the situation of the same parties, is the relation of master and servant; or that which prevails between the head and the members of one and the same family.

The original term, which expresses this relation in the case of the subordinate or inferior parties, is not adequately rendered by "servant;" being in fact equivalent to "slave." Now between a slave and a servant the difference, according to modern notions, is immense; and much more so, according to the notions of antiquity, in conformity to which every allusion to the habits and usages of private or social life, in the parables, is necessarily to be understood. The Greek or the Latin language has no one term exactly equivalent to our vernacular word of servant; nor has our language a word of equally common use and occurrence, which would precisely express the Greek douλos, or the Latin servus.

So peculiar is the relation of master and slaveso much a relation sui generis—and such are the re