BOOK V bills bore a larger sum than that actually received; and the interest was added to the capital, so that debt and interest alike grew. In Greece there were regular State banks, while in Rome such provision was only made under exceptional circumstances. Not unfrequently the twofold business of money-changing and banking was combined. Such bankers' undertook to make payments, to collect moneys and accounts, to place out money at interest-in short, all the ordinary business of this kind.' There can be no question. that the Jewish bankers of Palestine and elsewhere were engaged in the same undertakings, while the dispersion of their race over the world would render it more easy to have trusted correspondents in every city. Thus, we find that Herod Agrippa borrowed from the Jewish Alabarch at Alexandria the sum of 20,000 drachms, which was paid him in Italy, the commission and interest on it amounting to no less than 8 per cent. (2,500 drachms).2 We can thus understand the allusion to the bankers,' with whom the wicked and unfaithful servant might have lodged his lord's money, if there had been truth in his excuse. To unmask its hollowness is the chief object of this part of the Parable. Accordingly, it must not be too closely pressed; but it would be in the spirit of the Parable to apply the expression to the indirect employment of money in the service of Christ, as by charitable contributions, &c. But the great lesson intended is, that every good and faithful servant of Christ must, whatever his circumstances, personally and directly use such talent as he may have to make gain for Christ. Tried by this test, how few seem to have understood their relation to Christ, and how cold has the love of the Church grown in the long absence of her Lord! But as regards the 'unprofitable' servant in the Parable, the well-known punishment of him that had come to the Marriage-Feast without the wedding-garment shall await him, while the talent, which he had failed to employ for his master, shall be entrusted to him who had shown himself most capable of working. We need not seek an elaborate interpretation for this. It points to the principle, equally true in every administration of God, that 'unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall be placed in abundance; 3 but as to him that hath not,' also what he hath shall be taken away from him.' Not a cynical rule this, such as the world, in its selfishness or worship of success, caricatures it; nor yet the worship of superior Comp. Marquardt, Handb. d. Röm. 2 Jos. Antiq xviii. 6. 3. • περισσευθήσεται. So the better reading, TOû dè un ἔχοντος. PARABLE OF THE KING AND HIS SERVANTS AND ENEMIES, force; but this, that faithful use for God of every capacity will ever open fresh opportunities, in proportion as the old ones have been used, while spiritual unprofitableness must end in utter loss even of that which, however humble, might have been used, at one time or another, for God and for good. 465 CHAP. VII xix. 11-28 3. To these Parables, that of the King who on His return makes reckoning with His servants and His enemies may be regarded as supplemental. It is recorded only by St. Luke, and placed by him. in somewhat loose connection with the conversion of Zacchæus. The St. Luke most superficial perusal will show such unmistakable similarity with the Parable of 'The Talents,' that their identity will naturally suggest itself to the reader. On the other hand, there are remarkable divergences in detail, some of which seem to imply a different standpoint from which the same truth is viewed. We have also now the additional feature of the message of hatred on the part of the citizens, and their fate in consequence of it. It may have been that Christ spoke the two Parables on the two different occasions mentioned respectively by St. Luke and St. Matthew-the one on the journey to Jerusalem, the other on the Mount of Olives. And yet it seems difficult to believe that He would, within a few days of telling the Parable recorded by St. Luke, have repeated it in almost the same words to the disciples, who must have heard it in Jericho. This objection would not be so serious, if the Parable addressed, in the first instance, to the disciples (that of the Talents) had been afterwards repeated (in the record of St. Luke) in a wider circle, and not, as according to the Synoptists, the opposite. If, however, we are to regard the two Parables of the Talents and of the Pieces of Money as substantially the same, we would be disposed to consider the recension by St. Matthew as the original, being the more homogeneous and compact, while that of St. Luke would seem to combine with this another Parable, that of the rebellious citizens. Perhaps it is safest to assume, that, on His way to Jerusalem, when His adherents (not merely the disciples) would naturally expect that He would inaugurate His Messianic Kingdom, Christ may have spoken the latter Parable, to teach them that the relation in which Jerusalem stood towards Him, and its fate, were quite different from what they imagined, and that His Entrance into the City and the Advent of His Kingdom would be separated by a long distance of time. Hence the prospect before them was that of working, not of reigning; after that would the reckoning come, when the faithful worker would become the trusted ruler. These points were, of course, closely connected with VOL. II. H H BOOK V the lessons of the Parable of the Talents, and, with the view of presenting the subject as a whole, St. Luke may have borrowed details from that Parable, and supplemented its teaching by presenting another aspect of it. It must be admitted, that if St. Luke had really these two Parables in view (that of the King and of the Talents), and wished to combine them into new teaching, he has most admirably welded them together. For, as the Nobleman Who is about to entrust money to His servants, is going abroad to receive a Kingdom, it was possible to represent Him alike in relation to rebellious citizens and to His own servants, and to connect their reward with His Kingdom.' And so the two Parables are joined by deriving the illustration from political instead of social life. It has been commonly supposed, that the Parable contains an allusion to what had happened after the death of Herod the Great, when his son Archelaus hastened to Rome to obtain confirmation of his father's will, while a Jewish deputation followed to oppose his appointment--an act of rebellion which Archelaus afterwards avenged in the blood of his enemies. The circumstance must have been still fresh in popular remembrance, although more than thirty years had elapsed. But if otherwise, applications to Rome for installation to the government, and popular opposition thereto, were of such frequent occurrence amidst the quarrels and intrigues of the Herodians, that no difficulty could have been felt in understanding the allusions of the Parable. A brief analysis will suffice to point out the special lessons of this Parable. It introduces a certain Nobleman,' Who has claims to the throne, but has not yet received the formal appointment from the suzerain power. As He is going away to receive it, He deals as yet only with His servants. His object, apparently, is to try their aptitude, devotion, and faithfulness; and so He hands-not to each according to his capacity, but to all equally, a sum, not large (such as talents), but small-to each a 'mina,' equal to 100 drachms, or about 31. 5s. of our money. To trade with so small a sum would, of course, be much more difficult, and success would imply greater ability, even as it would, require more constant labour. Here we have some traits in which this differs from the Parable of the Talents. The same small sum is supposed to have been entrusted to all, in order to show which of them was most able and most earnest, and hence who should be called to largest employment, and with it to greatest honour in the Kingdom. While the Nobleman' was at the court of His suzerain, a deputation of His fellow-citizens arrived THE RETURN OF THE KING TO HIS COUNTRY. 467 VII to urge this resolution of theirs: 'We will not that this One reign CHAP. over us.' It was simply an expression of hatred; it stated no reason, and only urged personal opposition, even if such were in the face of the personal wish of the sovereign who appointed him king. In the last scene, the King, now duly appointed, has returned to His country. He first reckons with His servants, when it is found that all but one have been faithful to their trust, though with varying success (the mina of the one having grown into ten; that of another into five, and so on). In strict accordance with that success is now their further appointment to rule-work here corresponding to rule there, which, however, as we know from the Parable of the Talents, is also work for Christ: a rule that is work, and work that is rule. At the same time, the acknowledgment is the same to all the faithful servants. Similarly, the motives, the reasoning, and the fate of the unfaithful servant are the same as in the Parable of the Talents. But as regards His enemies,' that would not have Him reign over them-manifestly, Jerusalem and the people of Israel— who, even after He had gone to receive the Kingdom, continued the personal hostility of their 'We will not that this One shall reign over us'-the ashes of the Temple, the ruins of the City, the blood of the fathers, and the homeless wanderings of their children, with the Caincurse branded on their brow and visible to all men, attest, that the King has many ministers to execute that judgment which obstinat rebellion must surely bring, if His Authority is to be vindicated, and His Rule to secure submission. BOOK V THE FOURTH DAY IN CHAPTER VIII. PASSION WEEK-JESUS IN HIS LAST SABBATIC REST BEFORE HIS AGONY, AND THE SANHEDRISTS IN THEIR UNREST-THE BETRAYAL—JUDAS: HIS CHARACTER, APOSTASY, AND END. (St. Matt. xxvi. 1-5, 14-16; St. Mark xiv. 1, 2, 10, 11; St. Luke xxii. 1-6.) FROM the record of Christ's Sayings and Doings, furnished by St. Matthew, we turn once more to that of public events, as, from one or another aspect, they are related by all the Evangelists. With the Discourses in the Temple the public Teaching of Christ had come to an end; with that spoken on the Mount of Olives, and its application in the Parables of the 'Virgins' and the 'Talents,' the instruction of the disciples had been concluded. What follows in His intercourse with His own is paronetic,' rather than teaching,—exhortation, advice, and consolation: rather, perhaps, all these combined. The three busy days of Passion-Week were past. The day before that on which the Paschal Lamb was to be slain, with all that was to follow, would be one of rest, a Sabbath to His Soul before its Great Agony. He would refresh Himself, gather Himself up for the terrible conflict before Him. And He did so as the Lamb of God-meekly submitting Himself to the Will and Hand of His Father, and so fulfilling all types, from that of Isaac's sacrifice on Mount Moriah to the Paschal Lamb in the Temple; and bringing the reality of all prophecy, from that of the Woman's Seed that would crush the Serpent's head to that of the Kingdom of God in its fulness, when its golden gates would be flung open to all men, and Heaven's own light flow out to them as they sought its way of peace. Only two days more, as the Jews reckoned them 2-that Wednesday and 'I take leave to introduce a term which has become naturalised in German theological literature. There is no other single word which so expresses the ideas. 2 An attempt has been lately made, with great ingenuity, by the Rev. B. S. Clarke of Boxted, to show that only the weekly Sabbath and the Day of Atonement, but not the other festive, nor yet the natural days, began with the evening. The admission in regard to Sabbaths and the Day of Atonement is, in the absence of any qualifying remark in regard to them, a prima facie argument against the theory. But there is more than this. In |