Early Exegesis of the Parables

M. F. Wiles

doi:10.1017/S0036930600007900

Early Exegesis of the Parables

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009

M. F. Wiles

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The last fifty years have seen revolutionary progress in the work of the interpretation of the parables of Jesus. This progress has been made possible primarily by the final discarding of the allegorical method and the repudiation of ‘the centuries of distortion and ill-usage that the parables have suffered through allegorical interpretation’.1 Exegesis of the parables in centuries before the present might seem therefore to be of purely antiquarian interest. Nevertheless it seems worth while attempting to discover whether there may not be some light to be gained from the way in which the parables were understood by those who stood nearest to them in point of history. This study is therefore devoted to the interpretation of parables in the ante-Nicene fathers.

The way in which anybody interprets the parables will largely be controlled by the answer which he gives to two prior questions—namely: What constitutes a parable? and Why did Jesus use the parabolic method? There is not much direct discussion of these issues. Origen defines a parable as ‘an account of an event which did not literally take place, but which, could have done so. It is a figurative representation of certain things by virtue of their correspondence to the things spoken of in the parable.’ He distinguishes it from a fable (αἴνιγμα) where the event spoken of is something which could not conceivably have happened in real life.2

Type: Research Article
Information: Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , September 1958 , pp. 287 - 301

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930600007900 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1958

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^{page 287 note 1} Jeremias, J., The Parables of Jesus (Eng. trans. 1954), p. 16.Google Scholar

^{page 287 note 2} Origen, in Prov. 1.1, 2 (P.G. XIII 20c).

^{page 288 note 1} Origen, Matt. Tom., 10.4.

^{page 288 note 2} Tertullian, De Res. Carn., 33.

^{page 288 note 3} Origen, De Princ., 3.1.16 (cf. also Clement, Strom., 6.15).

^{page 288 note 4} Origen, Matt. Tom., 10.11; Tertullian, De Pud., 9. It is interesting to note that this fundamental principle is frequently reiterated by later patristic writers, e.g. Rufinus, Comm. in Symb. Ap., 7; Chrysostom, Matt. Hom., 64 (P.G. LVIII 613); Cyril Alex., Comm. in Luc., 16.1–9 (P.G. LXXII 809 CD).

^{page 289 note 1} Origen, Matt. Tom., 10.12.

^{page 289 note 2} Tertullian, De Pud., 8, 9.

^{page 289 note 3} Cf. especially Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., 4.36 and 40; Tertullian, Adv. Marc., 4.30–36.

^{page 290 note 1} Irenaeus, Ado. Haer., 2.10.1.

^{page 290 note 2} Origen, Matt. Comm. Ser., 61.

^{page 290 note 3} Tertullian, De Pud., 8, 9. Yet in his pre-Montanist days he had himself used them for this very purpose (De Poenitentia, 8). Cf. also Cyprian, Ep., 55.2; ps. Cyprian, Ad. Novatianum, 15; Dionysius Alex., Frag. (ed. Feltoe, 1904), p. 63.

^{page 291 note 1} Tertullian, Adv. Marc., 4.34.

^{page 291 note 2} Tertullian, De Fuga, 13.

^{page 291 note 3} Origen, Matt. Comm. Ser., 70.

^{page 291 note 4} Origen, Matt. Tom., 14.6.

^{page 291 note 5} Clement, Quis Dives, 26, 27.

^{page 291 note 6} C. H. Dodd, Parables of the Kingdom (1935), P. 25.

^{page 291 note 7} Origen, Matt. Tom., 14.6.

^{page 291 note 8} Origen, Matt. Tom., 14.11.

^{page 292 note 1} Origen, Matt. Tom., 14.6.

^{page 292 note 2} Origen, Matt. Tom., 15.30.

^{page 292 note 3} Origen, Matt. Tom., 14.12.

^{page 293 note 1} I Clement 24. This, it is true, can hardly be spoken of as exegesis of the parable. There are traces, particularly at this earliest stage, of the parables exerting a more indirect influence as a vivid part of the creative imagery of Christian thought and writing. Thus Hermas does not expound any of the Gospel parables directly, but draws on a number of them for the imagery of his own (cf. Sim. 5.2, 5.5, 9.20). Clement of Alexandria's use of the parable of the Ten Virgins in Strom., 5.3 may perhaps be classed under this heading, although it is tending towards more conscious allegorical interpretation. ‘So it is with the lamps of the wise virgins, lighted at night in the great darkness of ignorance which the Scriptures signify by night. Wise souls, pure as virgins, understanding themselves to be situated in the midst of the ignorance of the world, kindle the light, and rouse the mind, and illumine the darkness, and dispel ignorance, and seek truth, and await the appearance of the Teacher.’

^{page 293 note 2} Justin, Dialogue 125: Clementine Recognitions, 3.14.

^{page 293 note 3} Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., 5.36.2. There was also an early allegorical interpretation of the three yields in terms of three aeons current in Gnostic teaching (Hippolytus, Ref., 8.2).

^{page 294 note 1} Origen, Hom. Luc., 34.

^{page 294 note 2} Clement, Strom., 6.14.

^{page 294 note 3} Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., 3.17.3. (Cf. also Clement, Quis Dives, 28, 29, who gives both a straightforward interpretation of the parable and one applying it to Christ.)

^{page 294 note 4} Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., 3.11.8: Tertullian, De Pud., 9: Origen, Hom. Gen., 4.2, 17.3, Hom. Lev., 1.2.

^{page 294 note 5} Tertullian, Adv. Marc., 4.30.

^{page 294 note 6} Hippolytus, Ref., 5.3.

^{page 294 note 7} Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., 1.8.3.

^{page 294 note 8} Origen, Frag. (in Possinus' Catena on Matt. 13.33).

^{page 294 note 9} Origen, Schol. in Luc., 13.21 (P.G. XVII 357 CD).

^{page 295 note 1} Tertullian, De Anima, 18.

^{page 295 note 2} Origen, Matt. Comm. Ser., 63.

^{page 295 note 3} Origen, Matt. Tom., 17.6: ⋯λoσχερεστ⋯ρα της κα⋯ oὐ κατ⋯ λ⋯ξιν. (Cf. ibid., 14.6.)

^{page 295 note 4} Origen, Hom. Luc., 35.

^{page 295 note 5} Irenaeus, Frag., 31 (P.G. VII 1245A): Clement Alex., Frag., 7 (P.G. IX 743A).

^{page 295 note 6} Origen, Hom. Ex., 1.1.

^{page 295 note 7} Methodius, De Lepra, 2.3 (Berlin Corpus edn., N. Bonwetsch, 1917, p. 452).

^{page 295 note 8} Origen, Matt. Tom., 17.4, 5.

^{page 296 note 1} Origen, Matt. Comm. Ser., 53.

^{page 296 note 2} Origen, Matt. Tom., 15.30.

^{page 296 note 3} Origen, Matt. Tom., 14.6–13.

^{page 296 note 4} Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., 4.26.1.

^{page 296 note 5} Origen, Matt. Tom., 17.7.

^{page 296 note 6} Origen, Luc. Frag. (P.G. XIII 1905A).

^{page 297 note 1} Origen, Matt. Comm. Ser., 66.

^{page 297 note 2} Jeremias, op. cit., pp. 77–80.

^{page 297 note 3} Origen, Matt. Tom., 10.6.

^{page 297 note 4} Origen, in Can. Can., 3 (P.G. XIII 173A–174C).

^{page 298 note 1} Origen, Matt. Tom., 14.7.

^{page 298 note 2} Origen, Matt. Tom., 17.18.

^{page 298 note 3} Harnack, , Die Kirchengeschichtliche Ertrag der Exegetischen Arbeit des Origenes (1919), p. 21.Google Scholar

^{page 298 note 4} Tertullian, Adv. Marc., 4.30.

^{page 298 note 5} Adamantii Dialogus, De Recta in Deum Fide, 2.20 (Berlin Corpus edn. W. van de Sande Bakhuyzen, 1901, p. 110).Google Scholar

^{page 298 note 6} Clement, Paid. 1.11.

^{page 298 note 7} Origen, Matt. Comm. Ser., 59. It is probable that this difficulty was felt in New Testament times. For although 1 Thess. 5.2 does speak of the Lord coming like a thief in the night, His coming is only like a thief to those who are in darkness, not to the sons of light.

^{page 298 note 8} Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., 5.25.4: Hippolytus, Antichrist, 57.

^{page 299 note 1} Epiphanius, Haer., 67.2. This kind of argument might seem to be so clearly false as to be unthinkable on the part of any serious scholar today. Yet in L. H. Marshall's The Challenge of New Testament Ethics (1946), p. 117, the existence of the parable about a king deciding whether to go to war is apparently used as an argument against pacifism.

^{page 299 note 2} Cyprian, Epp., 54.3, 55.24.

^{page 299 note 3} Tertullian, De Pud., 22.

^{page 300 note 1} op. cit., p. 87.

^{page 300 note 2} ibid., pp. 72–74.

^{page 300 note 3} ibid., p. 51.

^{page 300 note 4} ibid., p. 53.

^{page 300 note 5} ibid., pp. 31,32.

^{page 300 note 6} ibid., pp. 34, 70.

^{page 300 note 7} ibid., pp. 36–52.

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