down from the Johannine sources, of His washing the disciples' feet. Jesus thus sought to picture for them. how they ought to wash one another's feet (xiii. 12-15). Elsewhere, however, in John we certainly miss that mode of specialising and exemplifying so abundantly used by Jesus according to our other sources, whereby He passed quickly from the general rule to its application in concrete particular cases. And this want goes largely to the formation of the peculiar character of John's Gospel in contrast to the Synoptists. One can justly say, however, that the theme of those Johannine discourses, being the Divine and saving value of His work and person, did not afford such occasion for particularising cases as the pre-eminently practical admonitions in the synoptical discourses. But even the repeated exhortations to the right exercise of love, and to fearless trust in God, in the farewell discourse in John, have only a general stamp, without receiving point from examples taken from definite cases and circumstances.

4. Next to examples, the chief means used by Jesus to make Himself popularly intelligible were comparisons. Facts, events, and modes of conduct, specially in reference to certain characteristic features to be singled out, could be strikingly illustrated by setting them in comparison with some other thing wherein the same characteristic features came out with special clearness. The following are illustrative similes of this sort: "Whoso shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter therein" (Mark x. 15); "Behold, I send you as sheep among wolves: be ye wise as serpents,

and harmless as doves" (Matt. x. 16); "I saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven" (Luke x. 18); "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, . . . how often would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings!" (Luke xiii. 34); "As the lightning issuing from the east and shining to the west, so also shall the coming of the Son of man be" (Matt. xxiv. 27); "Take heed to yourselves, lest ... that day come suddenly upon you as a snare (Luke xxi. 34); "Behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat" (Luke xxii. 31); "All nations shall be assembled before the Son of man, and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats; and He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats He will set on His left" (Matt. xxv. 32 £). Also to this class belong the comparisons, of the men of His generation to children sitting in the market-place and calling to their fellows (Matt. xi. 16 f.), of the scribe who has been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven, to a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old (Matt. xiii. 52), and of the Pharisees to whited sepulchres (Matt. xxiii. 27).

A higher rôle, however, than that of comparisons used for simple illustration is played in the teaching of Jesus by those used by Him in establishing the authority of His judgments and precepts. By pointing to the analogy of facts of more or less familiar experience, or to current views and customs, declarations and precepts may be so illustrated as to make them appear no longer strange, but rather credible

and trustworthy, as corresponding with a more general and otherwise valid rule. Religious judgments and precepts, also, which Jesus expresses in conformity with His general view of the kingdom of God, are elucidated and confirmed, by bringing them into comparison with familiar phenomena and effects from the domain of nature and from ordinary human life. Comparisons of this kind, which, from their argumentative purpose, required to be given, not as illustrative additions to particular statements, but as independent themes or narratives, we term parables.1 We can distinguish two classes of these parables. The first class refers to some natural event, or some fact of human intercourse or conduct, not as a separate concrete case, but as giving a rule in frequently recurring cases. In Mark's Gospel we find the following parables of this sort: "The whole have no need of the physician, but the sick" (ii. 17). Can the children of the bride-chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them," etc. (ii. 19). "No man seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment, etc.; and no man putteth new wine into old bottles," etc. (ii. 21 f.). "If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand; and if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (iii. 24 f.). "No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house” (iii. 27). "Is a candle brought to

be

put under the bushel, or under the bed? and not

1 Cf. on the idea and character of the parables of Jesus, Jülicher, die Gleichnissreden Jesu, p. 24 ff.

to be set on the stand?" (iv. 21). "It is not meet to take the children's bread and to cast it to the dogs" (vii. 27). "Salt is good; but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it?" (ix. 50; cf. from the Logia, Luke xiv. 34 f.). "From the fig-tree learn her parable; When her branch is now become tender, and putteth forth its leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh" (xiii. 28). Also those two parables of the seed "which springs up and grows, the man knows not how" (iv. 26-29); and of the mustard-seed which, when it is sown, is smaller than all other seeds, but when it has grown up, is greater than all garden herbs (iv. 31 f.)- belong to this category, since they do not point to a definite occurrence which happens only once, but to a process always recurring afresh in the cases of wheat and mustard seed. From the Logia I adduce the following examples: "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit" (Matt. vii. 16 ff., cf. xii. 33). "What man is there of you, who, if his son ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he shall ask for a fish, shall give him a serpent?" (Matt. vii. 9 f.). "The disciple is not above his master, nor a servant above his lord it is enough for the disciple to be as his master, and the servant as his lord" (Matt. x. 24 f.). "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into a pit" (Matt. xv. 14). "No servant can serve two masters for either he will hate the one, and love

the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other" (Luke xvi. 13). "Where the carcase is, thither will the eagles be gathered together" (Luke xvii. 31).1

Also in the Johannine sources we find numerous parabolic sayings of this kind: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth" (iii. 8). 'Are there not twelve hours in the day? If a man walk in the day he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world; but if he walk in the night he stumbleth, because the light is not in him" (xi. 10). "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit" (xii. 24). "He that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth" (xii. 35). "He that is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit" (xiii. 10). "The servant is not greater than his lord; neither is one that is sent greater than he that sent him (xiii. 16). "The servant knoweth not what his

1 Cf. the following parabolic sayings from the Logia: concerning the city set on an hill which cannot be hid (Matt. v. 14); the unclean spirit, which, after having been expelled, returns with greater power (Matt. xii. 43 ff.); the importance of the condition of the eye for enlightening the whole body (Luke xi. 34 f.); the watching of the householder, who knows the hour in which the thief will come (Luke xii. 39); of the punishment meted out to the servant in accordance with the measure of his knowledge of his master's will (Luke xii. 47 f.); the prognostication of the weather from the clouds and wind (Luke xii. 54 f.); of the desirableness, even at the last moment before the judicial decision, of seeking a friendly settlement with the adversary (Luke xii. 58 f.); of the exchange of places at the marriage-feast (Luke xiv. 7 ff.); of the servant who, for the work due by him, receives no special reward from his master (Luke xvii. 7 ff.); of not desiring new wine, after having drunk mellow old wine (Luke v 39); of the freedom of the king's sons from tax-paying (Matt. xvii. 25 f.).