The whole Parable is but the same teaching in a somewhat more veiled form which was again given at a later time, possibly to the same Disciple, when in answer to the request "Shew us the Father," Christ said,

"Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou then shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself, but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works. Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the very works' sake.”

If we bear in mind (1) that the Parable was especially addressed to the Disciples, and (2) the sharp distinction which our Lord so often draws between the natural and the spiritual life, we have at once a key both to the peculiarity of the form in which the Parable is cast, and to a great part of the exact phraseology used. Christ does not say as usual "a certain man" but "which of you". Under the figure of a friend who has been on a journey, He represents that spiritual part of the disciple's being, which had been lying dormant, but was now reasserting itself. A modern teacher designing to convey the same meaning more openly, would have said of the man and the friend who came to him "now the name of the one was Sarx, and the name of the other Pneuma."

The other figures used are all couched in language with the meaning of which our Lord's teaching at other times makes us perfectly familiar.

He is Himself the one Friend to Whom any one of the

Disciples might naturally turn.

"Ye are my friends." "I

have called you friends." He too is "The Door."

The figure of the loaves is one so often used to express spiritual gifts as to make it almost impossible to apply it in any other way, and to interpret it literally would only be to lay ourselves open to the remonstrance, "How is it that ye do not perceive that I spake not to you concerning loaves?" Here the expression 'three loaves' finds its natural explanation in the prayer which has given rise to the parable, the personal petitions of which are threefold, (1) the petition for daily bread, (2) the petition for. forgiveness, and (3) that for special protection from evil. The very words of the first petition would evidently suggest the carrying on of the same figure of speech.

Again the term 'children' exactly expresses the relation in which Christ ever represents Himself as standing to the Disciples, "Ye are my children," as He says on another occasion.

The manner in which at a later period Christ speaks of having "kept" the Disciples could hardly be more forcibly or beautifully expressed than under the figure here used of their being "with Him in the marriage-bed (eis Tηv KOίTηv), and the door being shut."

Following out the ideas thus suggested we should then read the Parable as follows

S. LUKE XI. 5-8.

5

And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend,

and shall go unto him at midnight,

And He said unto them, Which of you shall have such a friend as in very deed I am to you

and in the spiritual darkness as of midnight which envelopes you, shall go to him

and say unto Him, Friend, grant me as a loan three kinds of necessary spiritual food, daily sustenance, forgiveness and divine protection

for my soul, which is dear to me, and which has been as it were upon a journey but has returned and is reasserting itself, craves for that which I have no means of supplying to it.

And He, veiled from your sight in His merely human form, shall answer and say, Make not so unreasonable a request. Know ye not that not one only. but all of you are already children of the bride-chamber, ye have entered in by Me, the Door, and the Door is closed.

Your union with me is perfect, and that union gives you all these things which you ask1.

I cannot anticipate my resurrection and bestow what I have already given

you.

Nevertheless (to explain what I have now done and the directions I am about to give) I say unto you

Though he will not give what you ask by rising and putting off this human form

because of his friendship, (for as his friend he knows this to be unnecessary) yet with a view to the utter dulness of perception which dictates the request, being aroused to take some action in the matter,

he will do more than lend him what he asks, he will give him all that he needs.

1 Or, supposing the rare use of 'into' or 'towards' for 'in' to indicate a double meaning, we may interpret "the marriage bed" as an expansion of a figure common to every age and language, and read

It may of course be urged that the above partakes too much of the character of what in modern times is styled the mystical and allegorical interpretation of parables. In answer I can only ask whether such an objection would not lie against the very models of interpretation which Christ Himself has provided for our guidance and for the purpose of enabling us to understand all parables, and whether the modern method of dealing with the parables does not in fact reduce them to little more than stories with a moral, making them indeed capable of many and very varied applications, but only doing so at the cost of robbing them of the underlying and veiled meaning, which, far more than the surface meaning, gives them their appropriate place in the Gospel narratives.

The interpretation above suggested certainly complies with the obvious requirements of the case.

It does not leave the Parable open to the usual attack of the sceptic or require any apology from the Commentator. It is consistent with all our Lord's teaching on the same subject at other times.

It has an obvious and natural connexion with the circumstances which gave rise to it.

It recognizes the special application to the Disciples implied in the words 'Which of you'.

The figurative language employed is the reproduction of expressions used by our Lord at other times, and is capable of being maintained with a consistency which it is almost impossible to conceive could be the case if a wrong interpretation had been put upon it.

"with me they are moving towards the grave, the 'narrow bed' where the union between the earthly and Heavenly life is ever perfected. From this I cannot anticipate my resurrection."

CHAPTER IX.

THE SETTLEMENT AT BETHLEHEM.

SCEPTICAL writers are in the habit of assuming, that in the early chapters of S. Matthew and S. Luke there are certain contradictions, which nothing but the most inveterate habit of special pleading could possibly induce theologians to attempt either to deny or to explain.

S. Matthew, they say, as clearly recognizes Bethlehem as the home of Joseph and Mary as S. Luke recognizes Nazareth; this recognition not being confined to distinct statements, but being observable in incidental notices running through the whole of both narratives.

Thus S. Matthew, when speaking of the return from Egypt, represents Joseph as taking for granted that he will make his way back to Bethlehem; whereas S. Luke equally takes for granted that it was in the natural order of things that Joseph and Mary returned at the earliest opportunity to Nazareth.

There is an amount of 'bravery' in assumptions of this sort and in the triumphant setting forth of imagined contradictions which is very apt to divert attention from what is at least the ultimate issue in such cases, viz, whether it is more probable that documents so accredited as the Gospels, and writers so nearly contemporary with the events which