Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (759 page)

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Authors: George Eliot

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* Thus Kuinol, Comm. in I,uc. p. G3.”>. •;• Uelier den Lukas, 239 f. Seamier agrees •n-ith Mill, L.J. Chr. p. 188.t ‘rn13 ls a ‘^P^Y t0 Seander’s objection, p. 191 note.
{i How Paulus, exes’, llandb. 3, a, p. 76, can pronounce the more complex form of thn narable in Luke as not only the most fully developed but the best wound up, I am at a
DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE THEEE FIEST GOSPELS.381
 
parable of the rebellious citizens, and we then recognise the similarity of its tendency with that of the rebellions husbandmen in the
vineyard.*
 
A similar relation subsists between the form in which the parable of the marriage feast is given by Luke (xiv. 16 ft.), and that in which it is given by Matthew (xxii. 2 ff”.); only tliat in tins case Luke, as in tlie other, Matthew, lias tlie merit of having preserved tlie simple original version. On both sides, tlie particulars of the feast, the invitation, its rejection and the consequent bidding of other guests, testify tlie identity of the two parables; but, on tlie other hand, tlie host who in Luke is merely a certain man, avOpuTTO(; -tc, is in Matthew a Jcinq, ftaoiXsv(;, whose feast is occasioned by tlie marriage of Ills son ; tlie invited guests, wlio in Luke excuse themselves on various picas to tlie messenger only once sent out to them, in Mattliew refuse to come on the first invitation, and on the second more urgent one, some go to tlicir occupations, wliile others maltreat and kill the servants of tlie king, wlio immediately sends forth Ills armies to destroy tliose murderers, and burn up their city.
Nothing of tills is to be found in Luke ; according to him, tlie liost merely causes the poor and afflicted to be assembled in place of tlie guests first invited, a particular wliicli Mattliew also appends to his fore-mentioned incidents. Luke closes the parable with the declaration of the host, tliat none of the first bidden guests shall partake of liis supper; but Mattliew proceeds to narrate how, when tlie house was full, and the king had assembled liis guests, one was discovered to be witliout a wedding garment, and was forthwith carried away into outer darkness.
 
Tlie maltreatment and murder of tlio king’s messengers are features in tlie narrative of Matthew wliicli at once strike us as inconsistent-as a departure from the original design. Disregard.
of an invitation is sufficiently demonstrated by tlie rejection of it on empty pretexts sucli as Luke mentions; the maltreatment and even tlie murder of tlioso wlio deliver the invitation, is an exaggeration wliicli it is less easy to attribute to Jesus tlian to the Evangelist. Tlie latter liad immediately before communicated the parable of tlie rebellious husbandmen; hence there hovered in his recollection tlie manner in which they were said to have used the messengers of tlicir lord, beating one, killing and stoning others, (/la/3wTEC rovf Sov’/.ovc; av~ov bv p,ev USeipav, bv 6e oTre/CTWav, bv de KXi,6op6XT]
and he was tlius led to incorporate similar particulars into the present parable (icpa~f’]aav-E(; -ovc {iov^ovq avrov v^pwav Hal d-rc/CTwav,) overlooking tlie circumstance tliat what might have been perpetrated with sufficient motive against servants wlio appeared witli demands
* V. 12. ‘Av-Spumi; nc riyei-’w impcvi)^ H’f %upav fiaispiiv, iaReiv eavm fiaaiAeiav, Kai VROarpe-^iu.
 
14. oi df •KoUTai O.VTOV fftiaovv avrov, Ka’i uTrearei’^av wpsapeiav OTrtffo avTm, V yov-i ff or St\oficv TOVTOV paai/.cvaal n»‘ i/fiuc,
 
15. Kai b/evero cv TO mavtWdv avTdv ^aljovra T»/V iSaiAriav, Kai sl-ire iliwrf-Qf/vat ainu rove Sov^ovc-(nal el-rsv av’o’if)
 
THE LIFE OF JESUS.
 
and authority to enforce them, had. in the latter case no motive whatever. That hereupon, the king, not satisfied with excluding them from this feast, sends out his armies to destroy them and burn up their city, necessarily follows from the preceding incidents, liut.
appears, like them, to be the echo of a parable which presented the relation between the master and the dependents, not in tlie milder form of a rejected invitation, but in the more severe one of an insurrection ; as in the parable of the husbandmen in the. vineyard, and tliat of the rebellious citizens, wliich we have above separated from the parable of tlie minai. Yet more decidedly does the drift of the last particular in Matthew’s parable, that of the wedding garment, betray that it was not originally associated with tlie rest.
For if the king had commanded that all, both bad and good, who were to be found in the highways, should be bidden to the feast, he could not wonder tliat they had not all wedding attire. To assume tliat those thus suddenly summoned went home to wash, and adjust their dress, is an arbitrary emendation of tlie text.* Little preferable is the supposition that, according to oriental manners, tlie king liad ordered a caftan to be presented to each guest, and might therefore justly reproach the meanest for not availing himself of the gift;t for it is not to be proved that such a custom existed at. tlie period,:}:
 
and it is not admissible to presuppose it merely because the anger of tlie king appears otherwise unfounded. But tlie addition in question is not only out of harmony with the imagery, but with the tendency of this parable. For while hitherto its aim had been to exhibit the national contrast between the perversity of the Jews, and tlie willingness of tlie gentiles: it all at once passes to the moral one, to distinguish between tlie worthy and tlie unworthy.
Tliat after tlie Jews liad contemned tlie invitation to partake of the kingdom of God, tlie heathens would be called into it, is one complete idea, witli wliicli Luke very properly concludes his parable;
 
tliat he who does not prove himself worthy of the vocation by a corresponding disposition, will be again cast out of tlie kingdom, is anotlicr idea, which appears to demand a separate parable for its exhibition. Here again it may be conjectured tliat tlie conclusion of Matthew’s parable is the fragment of another, which, from its also referring to a feast, might in tradition, or in tlie memory of an individual, be easily mingled with the former, preserved in its purity by Luke.§ This other parable must have simply set forth, that a king liad invited various guests to a wedding feast, with tlie tacit condition that they should provide themselves witli a suitable dress, and that lie delivered an individual who liad neglected this observance to his merited punishment.
 
Supposing our conjectures correct,
* Fritzsche, p. G5G. Tins remark serves to refute De Wette’s vindication of the above particular in his exeg. Handb. + I’aulus, exeg. Haiidb. 3, a, S. 210 ; Olshausen, bibl. Comm. 1, S. 811.t Vid. Fritzsche, ut sup,if I’rum the appendix to Schnecken
. -,- n..!»-. T ..„„ .!,„> „ .„„;„,„„, ir, the ThonI 1 .itfratlirblatt. 1831. NO. 88, ha8
 
DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE THBEE FIEST GOSPELS.383
 
•we liave here a still more compound parable than in the former case:
 
a parable in which, Istly, the narrative of the ungrateful invited parties (Luke xiv.) forms tlie main tissue, but so tliat, 2ndly, a thread from tlie parable of tlie rebellious husbandmen is interwoven;
 
while, 3rdly, a conclusion is stitclicd on, gathered apparently from an unknown parable on the wedding garment.
 
This analysis gives us an insight into tlie procedure of evangelical tradition with its materials, wliich must be pregnant with results.
 
§ 79. MISCELLANEOUS INSTRUCTIONS AND CONTEOVEESIES
OF JESUS.
 
AS the discourses in Matt. xv. 1-20 have been already considered, we must pass on to xviii. 1 ff., Mark ix. 33 ff., Luke ix.
46 ff., where various discourses are connected with the exhibition of a little child, occasioned by a contention for pre-eminence among the disciples. Tlie admonition to become as a little child, and to humble one’s self as a little child, in Matthew forms a perfectly suitable comment on tlie symbolical reproof (v. 3, 4.); but the connexion between tills and the following declaration of Jesus, tliat whosoever receives one such little cliild in his name, receives him, is not so obvious. For tlie child was set up to teach the disciples in what they were to imitate it, not how they were to behave towards it, and liow Jesus could all at once lose sight of his original object, it is difficult to conceive. But yet more glaring is tlie irrelevance of the declaration in Mark and Luke; for they make it follow immediately on the exhibition of the cliild, so that, according to tills, Jesus must, in the very act, have forgotten its object, namely, to present tlie child to Ids ambitious disciples as worthy of imitation, not as in want of reception.* Jesus was accustomed to say of his disciples, that whosoever received tliem, received him, and in liirn, the Fattier who liad sent him (Matt. x. 40 ff.; Luke x. 16; John xiii. 20). Of children lie elsewhere says merely, tliat whosoever does not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little cliild cannot, enter therein (Mark x. 15. Luke xviii. 17.) This declaration would be perfectly adapted to the occasion in question, and we may almost venture to conjecture that 5? iav f.ifj Sk^-ai, rfjv paai.^.eiav ~wv ovpavuv we; nai.Slov, was tlie original passage, and tliat tlie actual one is the result of its confusion witli Matt. x. 40, 6(: eav SKETCH TraiSiov TOIOVTOV Iv enl rw oro^tm fiov.
 
Closely connected by tlie word d-n-ofcpitec, answering, with tlie sentences just considered, Mark (ix. 38 f.) and Luke (ix. 49 f.) introduce tlie information which John is said to give to Jesus, that
•the disciples having seen one casting out devils in tlie name of Jesus, without attaching himself to their society, liad forbidden liim.
Schleiermacher explains tlie connexion tlius: because Jesus had commanded the reception of children in, his name, John was led to
384 THE LIFE OP JESL’S.
 
tlie confession, that he and Ills associates had hitherto been so far from regarding the performing of an act in the name of Jesus as tlie point of chief importance, tliat they liad interdicted tlie use of his name to one who followed not with them.* Allowing this explanation to be correct, we must believe tliat Jolm, arrested by the phrase, in my name (which yet is not prominent in the declaration of Jesus, and which must have been thrown still farther into tlie background, by the sight of tlie cliild set up in the midst), drew from it tlie general inference, tliat in all actions tlie essential point is to perform them in the name of Jesus; and with equal rapidity, leaped to the remote reflection, tliat tlie conduct of tlie disciples towards tlie exorcist was in contradiction with this rule. But all this supposes the facility of combination which belongs to a Schlcicrmachcr, not tlie dulness wliicli still characterized tlie disciples. Nevertheless, tlie above critic lias unquestionably opened on the true vein of connexion between tlie preceding apotliegm and this d-oicpwif; of John ; lie lias only failed to perceive tliat this connexion is not intrinsic and original, but extrinsic and secondary. It was quite beyond tlie reach of tlie disciples to apply tlie words in my name, by a train of deductions, to an obliquely connected case in their own experience;
 
but, according to our previous observations, nothing could be more consistent witli the habit of association that characterizes the writer of the evangelical tradition in the third Gospel, whence tlie second evangelist seems to have borrowed, than tliat he sliould be reminded by the striking phrase, in my name, in the preceding discourse of Jesus, of an anecdote containing tlie same expression, and should unite the two for tlie sake of that point of external similarity alone.f
To the exhortation to receive such little children, Matthew annexes the warning against offending one of these little ones, onavSa^eiv h’a T&V fUKpuv -ovruv, an epitliet wliicli, in x. 42, is applied to the disciples of Jesus, but in this passage, apparently, to children.:}:
 

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