DOCUMENT M§15

He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; and the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy that sowed them is the devil: and the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are angels. As therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire; so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

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DOCUMENT M §18

So shall it be in the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the righteous, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Are these expositions from Jesus, or are they the expression of the legitimate endeavor by the early community to interpret the parables to which they are now attached, that is, are they explications wrought out by the earliest users of the parables, which in process of transmission, before taking documentary form, came to be considered as from Jesus? Regarded in the light of the history of the tradition of Jesus' words, so far as we know it, the latter supposition is not excluded by any inherent improbableness. Extended interpretation would become attached more easily to the parables than to any other form of the teaching of Jesus. But that it did become so attached may not be affirmed except on the basis of something more substantial than reasonable conjecture.

To surmise that certain expositions may not be from Jesus is not to assume that none of those credited to him are from him; neither is it equivalent to advancing the hypothesis that Jesus spoke parables without any subsequent explication. The problem of the parabolic method of Jesus is not involved in either the scope or the necessities of the present study. Our inquiry is whether certain expositions of two parables are sustained by external and internal considerations. as originating with Jesus. Obviously the initial investigation must take account of them as they lay in the document used by the evangelist Matthew.

The procedure of Matthew in the construction from his documents of that discourse in parables recorded in his thirteenth chapter has been traced already in sufficient detail. For convenience of reference, the documentary elements of the discourses may be repeated here: "Document MK §§ 20-24 is supplemented by parables drawn from documents P and M, the order being apparently as follows: MK §20A+MK 821C+MK $20B+O.T. quotation (Principle 8)

+P 89+MK §20E+M §15A+MK §23=P §37A+P §37B+MK $24A+O.T. quotation (Principle 8)+MK §24B adapted so as to prepare for M §15B+M §§16–19. The omission of the parable in MK §22 may have been due, as was suggested in the case of the Lukan omission, to its similarity to that of the Sower, supplemented in Matthew's case by the likeness of the parable taken from M §15."

Apparently, in the document M as it came to the hands of Matthew, exposition followed immediately upon parable in the case of the Wheat and Tares even as it does in gospel MT in that of the Drag-net. The separation of parable from exposition in that of the Wheat and Tares, as at present in gospel MT, is probably due to the exigencies of documentary combination, the decisive factor being the apparent identification by Matthew of the parable in document MK §22 with that in document M §15A. That there are good reasons for this identification will be felt by one who will observe both the similarity of the beginning of the parables and the lack of obvious point in that of MK §22 after it diverges from M §15A-obvious, that is, to one with the Matthaean outlook. Having inserted what he regarded as the document M equivalent to document MK §22, the evangelist employed the remainder of the document MK report of the discourse, conflating in the parable of the Mustard Seed with document P §37A, and continuing with the parable in P §37B. For purposes of junction with further contributions from document M, the closing assertion of document MK, which was in general terms, "but privately to his own disciples he expounded all things," has been adapted in Matt. 13:36 so as to form a natural transition to the exposition of one particular parable, namely, that exposition which in the document M stood in direct contact with the parable itself. The Matthaean adaptation has a documentary justification in document MK 4:10. But for the discourse as a whole it has created an impossible order, for Matthew's thirteenth chapter represents Jesus as speaking one parable in public and expounding it to disciples in private; then as uttering three parables to the multitudes and retiring to expound one to his followers; then as speaking three, presumably in public, and expounding one, presumably in private. Evidently, therefore, in document M, parable and exposition stood together in both the Wheat and Tares and the

1 From p. 19.

Drag-net. And while such a conjunction in the original document may be taken to imply that exposition as well as parable is from Jesus, there is no explicit documentary statement to that effect. In fact, these two parables from document M are members of a large group in that document, M §§15-25, and the expositions attached to them may be historically assignable to the circle by which document M was framed and transmitted. So far, therefore, as the initial surmise that these expositions are from disciples may be tested by the external documentary evidence, there is nothing against it and, in view of the observed eschatological tendency of document M, very much in its favor.

It is legitimate and ought to be fruitful in results to put forward the question whether the modern historical interpreter of Jesus' parables would expound these two parables after this manner if they stood in the records without any reputed explication by Jesus. By the modern interpreter is not meant one who approaches the teaching of Jesus with modern preconceptions, but one who has acquired the religious and philosophic view-point of the land and age of Jesus. It is a legitimate question because, as a matter of fact, with these two exceptions and one other the understanding of the whole body of Jesus' parables is dependent upon the results of the study of such an interpreter. Evidently, for the most part, Jesus trusted his parabolic teaching to the penetration and capacity of his disciples of the present and future. Those so trusted are hardly excluded from the independent endeavor to explicate a certain few parables which carry with them expositions that are reputed to come from Jesus, but may be from his earlier followers.

No individual parable in the group of this discourse ought to be interpreted without the clear recognition of the purpose held by Jesus and expressed by him as that which determined the method and content of his message on this significant occasion. For purpose, method, and content are apparently peculiar to this discourse by the If the evidence has been correctly interpreted,1 Jesus spoke parables in definition of the kingdom of God on one occasion only, all other parables in our gospels introduced by the formula of that occasion having taken it by virtue of their contiguity in document M I See pp. 200-202.

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with those of that discourse. That fact alone imposes upon the interpreter of the teaching of Jesus an especially close scrutiny of this group of parables. Very evidently, here is a single theme, and one of the first rank in importance. The theme of these parables has been defined by Jesus himself as "the mystery of the kingdom of God," document MK §20A. That phrase suggests that he is here setting forth thoughts about the nature of the kingdom of God which are not the common property of his hearers. He gives as his reason for clothing these thoughts in parabolic form the intention that the content of his definition of the kingdom of God should be apparent to those only who have already learned something of his general mode of view and are sympathetic with it. For all others, it is his purpose and expectation that by the parabolic method at this point his real meaning with its implications should fail to be disclosed, document MK $20B. Evidently Jesus would have no reason for this reserve if his parabolic truth about the kingdom of God were none other than current opinion on that subject cast into the parabolic form. That it is beyond doubt that Jesus purposed to convey personally framed and fresh truth about the kingdom by these parables seems clear not only from these considerations but also from every other portion of the framework within which these parables stand in the documents. It is apparently from the consciousness of the original nature of his present message on this theme that there spring the statements and exhortations of document MK §21A, C. Similarly, the question and comment of Jesus in document M §19 are intelligible only as it is understood that Jesus was conscious of having dealt in these parables with "things new" about the kingdom of God. It is to this sense of the revelatory yet hidden nature of his message on this occasion that one may trace the refrain of the discourse, "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear," a parenetic form substantially peculiar to this discourse.

The choice by Jesus of the parabolic method to convey "the mystery of the kingdom of God" he explains to his disciples as based in his desire to conceal from some while revealing to others, document MK §20A, B. Why he wished to conceal his "things new" about the

'As to the true historical setting for the interruptive saying in document MK §21B, see the considerations advanced on pp. 22, 23.

kingdom, Jesus does not state. But one who has observed the notable and consistent method of Jesus with reference to the revelation of his consciousness of vocation will understand that there is need of skill and reserve equally great in the unfolding of his conception of the kingdom of God—unless, indeed, Jesus has no other conception than that of his contemporaries, in which case teaching about the nature of the kingdom is wholly gratuitous. Only on the assumption that Jesus intended to define the kingdom in the terms of his times can it be held that he could wisely speak of the nature of the kingdom without precisely that attitude and those safeguards which the documents represent him as employing in this discourse. Evidently it is especially to the content of this discourse that Jesus refers when, in his final discourse on the future, he outlines the policy of his disciples in their mission. If Jesus had other ideas of the nature of the kingdom of God than those of his contemporaries, to state these conceptions in plain terms would have resulted in the rejection of his message as swiftly and surely as the explicit claim to the messianic dignity would have hastened his end. It seems to have been his purpose, on both issues, not only to avoid a precipitate outcome but also surely though slowly to establish in other minds the convictions held by himself.

2

That the portion MK §20C is an addition to the more original document MK seems clearly evidenced by a comparison of both gospel LK and gospel MT with the present document MK. The evangelist Matthew used document MK to the close of Matt. 13:13, inserting of MK §21 only the portion C (as Matt. 13:12), having already used the equivalents of portions A, B from other documents as Matt. 5:15; 10:26; 7:2. The portion MK §20B (=Matt. 13:13) recalls for him the prophecy of Isaiah, and in accordance with his Principle 8 he inserts it with his formula introduction. The portion MK §20C seems to have been added to document MK later, either under the influence of the Matthaean quotation or unconsciously as the continuation of the Old Testament passage from which Jesus had drawn as much as suited his purpose. If despite these considerations the conviction be held that the original document MK contained the portion MK §20C, it ought to be recalled that much testimony has been gathered in previous studies to the effect that Luke used a more original document MK than did Matthew, and from his copy this portion seems to have been absent. To these external considerations there is to be added the very real interpretative difficulties raised by the portion MK §20C as a part of this discourse. Only if "the mystery of the kingdom" is so clear and so attractive as immediately and strongly to attach the superficial and undesirable to the following of Jesus could the portion MK §20C be given a turn of thought suitable to the occasion. That the "things new" of this discourse had these qualities will hardly be affirmed.

2 See the opening instructions of the third paragraph in §11 of the reconstruction of the discourse as exhibited on p. 208.