We may presume that all of the Twelve were believing and observant Jews who awaited the salvation of Israel. But in terms of their actual opinions, of their thinking about the way Israel was to be saved, they were an extremely varied group. This helps us to understand how difficult it was to initiate them gradually into Jesus' mysterious new way, of the kinds of tension that had to be overcome. For example, how much purification must the zeal of the Zealots have needed before it could be united with Jesus' "zeal," about which John's Gospel tells us (cf. Jn 2:17)? His zeal reaches its completion on the Cross. Precisely in this wide range of backgrounds, temperaments, and approaches, the Twelve personify the Church of all ages and its difficult task of purifying and unifying these men in the zeal of Jesus Christ.
Only Luke tells us that Jesus formed a second group of disciples, which was composed of seventy (or seventy-two) and was sent out with a mission similar to that of the Twelve (cf. Lk 10:1-12). Like the number twelve, the number seventy (or seventy-two--the manuscripts variously report one or the other) is symbolic. Based on a combination of Deuteronomy 32:8 and Exodus 1:5, seventy was considered to be the number of the nations of the world. According to Exodus 1:5, seventy was the number of people who accompanied Jacob into Egypt; "they were all Jacob's offspring." A recent variant of Deuteronomy 32:8, which has become the generally received version, runs as follows: "When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel"--this is a reference to the seventy members of the house of Jacob at the time of the emigration to Egypt. Alongside the twelve sons, who prefigure Israel, stand the seventy, who represent the whole world and are thus considered also to have some connection with Jacob, with Israel.
This tradition also forms the background of the legend transmitted in the so-called Letter of Aristeas, according to which the Greek translation of the Old Testament made in the third century before Christ was produced by seventy scholars (or seventy-two, with six representing each of the twelve tribes of Israel) under a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The legend is a way of interpreting this translation as the opening of Israel's faith to the nations.
And in fact the Septuagint did play a decisive role in directing many searching souls in late antiquity toward the God of Israel. The earlier myths had lost their credibility; philosophical monotheism was not enough to bring people to a living relationship with God. Many cultured men thus found a new access to God in Israel's monotheism, which was not philosophically conceived, but had been given from above within a history of faith. Many cities saw the formation of a circle of the "God-fearing," of pious "pagans," who neither could nor wanted to become full-fledged Jews, but participated in the synagogue liturgy and thus in Israel's faith. It was in this circle that the earliest Christian missionary preaching found its first foothold and began to spread. Now at last, these men could belong wholly to the God of Israel, because this God--according to Paul's preaching about him--had in Jesus truly become the God of all men. Now at last, by believing in Jesus as the Son of God, they could become full members in the People of God. When Luke speaks of a group of seventy alongside the Twelve, the meaning is clear: They are an intimation of the universal character of the Gospel, which is meant for all the peoples of the earth.
At this point it may be appropriate to mention another item peculiar to Luke. In the opening verses of chapter 8, he recounts to us that Jesus, as he was making his way with the Twelve and preaching, was also accompanied by women. He mentions three names and then adds: "and many others, who provided for them out of their means" (Lk 8:3). The difference between the discipleship of the Twelve and the discipleship of the women is obvious; the tasks assigned to each group are quite different. Yet Luke makes clear--and the other Gospels also show this in all sorts of ways--that "many" women belonged to the more intimate community of believers and that their faith-filled following of Jesus was an essential element of that community, as would be vividly illustrated at the foot of the Cross and at the Resurrection.
Perhaps it is a good idea at this point to draw attention to a few other details specific to the Evangelist Luke. Just as he was especially sensitive to the significance of women, he is also the Evangelist of the poor, and his "preferential option for the poor" is unmistakable.
Again, he shows a particular understanding for the Jews; the passions that were stirred up by the incipient separation between the Synagogue and the nascent Church--which left their traces in both Matthew and John--are nowhere to be found in him. I find particularly significant the way he concludes the story of the new wine and the old or new wineskins. In Mark we find, "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but new wine is for fresh skins" (Mk 2:22). The text reads similarly in Matthew 9:17. Luke transmits to us the same saying, but at the end he adds: "And no one after drinking old wine desires new; for he says, 'The old is good'" (Lk 5:39). There do seem to be good grounds for interpreting this as a word of understanding for those who wished to remain with the "old wine."
Finally--on the subject of specifically Lukan features--we have already seen several times that this Evangelist devotes special attention to Jesus' prayer as the source of his preaching and action. He shows us that all of Jesus' words and deeds issue from his inner oneness with the Father, from the dialogue between Father and Son. If we have good reason to be convinced that the Holy Scriptures are "inspired," that they matured in a special sense under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, then we also have good reason to be convinced that precisely these specific aspects of the Lukan tradition preserve essential features of the original figure of Jesus for us.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Message of the Parables
THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE PARABLES
There is no doubt that the parables constitute the heart of Jesus' preaching. While civilizations have come and gone, these stories continue to touch us anew with their freshness and their humanity. Joachim Jeremias, who wrote a fundamental book about Jesus' parables, has rightly pointed out that comparison of Jesus' parables with Pauline similitudes or rabbinical parables reveals "a definite personal character, a unique clarity and simplicity, a matchless mastery of construction" (The Parables of Jesus, p. 12). Here we have a very immediate sense--partly because of the originality of the language, in which the Aramaic text shines through--of closeness to Jesus as he lived and taught. At the same time, though, we find ourselves in the same situation as Jesus' contemporaries and even his disciples: We need to ask him again and again what he wants to say to us in each of the parables (cf. Mk 4:10). The struggle to understand the parables correctly is ever present throughout the history of the Church. Even historical-critical exegesis has repeatedly had to correct itself and cannot give us any definitive information.
One of the great masters of critical exegesis, Adolf Julicher, published a two-volume work on Jesus' parables (Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, 1899; 2nd ed. 1910) that inaugurated a new phase in their interpretation, in which it seemed as if the definitive formula had been found for explaining them. Julicher begins by emphasizing the radical difference between allegory and parable: Allegory had evolved in Hellenistic culture as a method for interpreting ancient authoritative religious texts that were no longer acceptable as they stood. Their statements were now explained as figures intended to veil a mysterious content hidden behind the literal meaning. This made it possible to understand the language of the texts as metaphorical discourse; when explained passage by passage and step by step, they were meant to be seen as figurative representations of the philosophical opinion that now emerged as the real content of the text. In Jesus' environment, allegory was the most common way of using textual images; it therefore seemed obvious to interpret the parables as allegories on this pattern. The Gospels themselves repeatedly place allegorical interpretations of parables on Jesus' lips, for example, concerning the parable of th
e sower, whose seed falls by the wayside, on rocky ground, among the thorns, or else on fruitful soil (Mk 4:1-20). Julicher, for his part, sharply distinguished Jesus' parables from allegory; rather than allegory, he said, they are a piece of real life intended to communicate one idea, understood in the broadest possible sense--a single "salient point." The allegorical interpretations placed on Jesus' lips are regarded as later additions that already reflect a degree of misunderstanding.
In itself, Julicher's basic idea of the distinction between parable and allegory is correct, and it was immediately adopted by scholars everywhere. Yet gradually the limitations of his theories began to emerge. Although the contrast between the parables and allegory is legitimate as such, the radical separation of them cannot be justified on either historical or textual grounds. Judaism, too, made use of allegorical discourse, especially in apocalyptic literature; it is perfectly possible for parable and allegory to blend into each other. Jeremias has shown that the Hebrew word mashal (parable, riddle) comprises a wide variety of genres: parable, similitude, allegory, fable, proverb, apocalyptic revelation, riddle, symbol, pseudonym, fictitious person, example (model), theme, argument, apology, refutation, jest (p. 20). Form criticism had already tried to make progress by dividing the parables into categories: "A distinction was drawn between metaphor, simile, parable, similitude, allegory, illustration" (ibid.).
If it was already a mistake to try to pin down the genre of the parable to a single literary type, the method by which Julicher thought to define the "salient point"--supposedly the parable's sole concern--is even more dated. Two examples should suffice. According to Julicher, the parable of the rich fool (Lk 12:16-21) is intended to convey the message that "even the richest of men is at every moment wholly dependent upon the power and mercy of God." The salient point in the parable of the unjust householder (Lk 16:1-8) is said to be this: "wise use of the present as the condition of a happy future." Jeremias rightly comments as follows: "We are told that the parables announce a genuine religious humanity; they are stripped of their eschatological import. Imperceptibly Jesus is transformed into an 'apostle of progress' [Julicher, II 483], a teacher of wisdom who inculcates moral precepts and a simplified theology by means of striking metaphors and stories. But nothing could be less like him" (p. 19). C. W. F. Smith expresses himself even more bluntly: "No one would crucify a teacher who told pleasant stories to enforce prudential morality" (The Jesus of the Parables, p. 17; cited in Jeremias, p. 21).
I recount this in such detail here because it enables us to glimpse the limits of liberal exegesis, which in its day was viewed as the ne plus ultra of scientific rigor and reliable historiography and was regarded even by Catholic exegetes with envy and admiration. We have already seen in connection with the Sermon on the Mount that the type of interpretation that makes Jesus a moralist, a teacher of an enlightened and individualistic morality, for all of its significant historical insights, remains theologically impoverished, and does not even come close to the real figure of Jesus.
While Julicher had in effect conceived the "salient point" in completely humanistic terms in keeping with the spirit of his time, it was later identified with imminent eschatology: The parables all ultimately amounted to a proclamation of the proximity of the inbreaking eschaton--of the "Kingdom of God." But that, too, does violence to the variety of the texts; with many of the parables, an interpretation in terms of imminent eschatology can only be imposed artificially. By contrast, Jeremias has rightly underlined the fact that each parable has its own context and thus its own specific message. With this in mind, he divides the parables into nine thematic groups, while continuing nevertheless to seek a common thread, the heart of Jesus' message. Jeremias acknowledges his debt here to the English exegete C. H. Dodd, while at the same time distancing himself from Dodd on one crucial point.
Dodd made the thematic orientation of the parables toward the Kingdom or dominion of God the core of his exegesis, but he rejected the German exegetes' imminent eschatological approach and linked eschatology with Christology: The Kingdom arrives in the person of Christ. In pointing to the Kingdom, the parables thus point to him as the Kingdom's true form. Jeremias felt that he could not accept this thesis of a "realized eschatology," as Dodd called it, and he spoke instead of an "eschatology that is in process of realization" (p. 230). He thus does end up retaining, though in a somewhat attenuated form, the fundamental idea of German exegesis, namely, that Jesus preached the (temporal) proximity of the coming of God's Kingdom and that he presented it to his hearers in a variety of ways through the parables. The link between Christology and eschatology is thereby further weakened. The question remains as to what the listener two thousand years later is supposed to think of all this. At any rate, he has to regard the horizon of imminent eschatology then current as a mistake, since the Kingdom of God in the sense of a radical transformation of the world by God did not come; nor can he appropriate this idea for today. All of our reflections up to this point have led us to acknowledge that the immediate expectation of the end of the world was an aspect of the early reception of Jesus' message. At the same time, it has become evident that this idea cannot simply be superimposed onto all Jesus' words, and that to treat it as the central theme of Jesus' message would be blowing it out of proportion. In that respect, Dodd was much more on the right track in terms of the real dynamic of the texts.
From our study of the Sermon on the Mount, but also from our interpretation of the Our Father, we have seen that the deepest theme of Jesus' preaching was his own mystery, the mystery of the Son in whom God is among us and keeps his word; he announces the Kingdom of God as coming and as having come in his person. In this sense, we have to grant that Dodd was basically right. Yes, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is "eschatological," if you will, but eschatological in the sense that the Kingdom of God is "realized" in his coming. It is thus perfectly possible to speak of an "eschatology in process of realization": Jesus, as the One who has come, is nonetheless the One who comes throughout the whole of history, and ultimately he speaks to us of this "coming." In this sense, we can thoroughly agree with the final words of Jeremias' book: "God's acceptable year has come. For he has been manifested whose veiled kingliness shines through every word and through every parable: the Savior" (p. 230).
We have, then, good grounds for interpreting all the parables as hidden and multilayered invitations to faith in Jesus as the "Kingdom of God in person." But there is one vexed saying of Jesus concerning the parables that stands in the way. All three Synoptics relate to us that Jesus first responded to the disciples' question about the meaning of the parable of the sower with a general answer about the reason for preaching in parables. At the heart of Jesus' answer is a citation from Isaiah 6:9f., which the Synoptics transmit in different versions. Mark's text reads as follows in Jeremias' painstakingly argued translation: "To you [that is, to the circle of disciples] has God given the secret of the Kingdom of God: but to those who are without, everything is obscure, in order that they (as it is written) may 'see and yet not see, may hear and yet not understand, unless they turn and God will forgive them' (Mk 4:12; Jeremias, p. 17). What does this mean? Is the point of the Lord's parables to make his message inaccessible and to reserve it only for a small circle of elect souls for whom he interprets them himself? Is it that the parables are intended not to open doors, but to lock them? Is God partisan--does he want only an elite few, and not everyone?
If we want to understand the Lord's mysterious words, we must read them in light of Isaiah, whom he cites, and we must read them in light of his own path, the outcome of which he already knows. In saying these words, Jesus places himself in the line of the Prophets--his destiny is a prophet's destiny. Isaiah's words taken overall are much more severe and terrifying than the extract that Jesus cites. In the Book of Isaiah it says: "Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be heal
ed"(Is 6:10). Prophets fail: Their message goes too much against general opinion and the comfortable habits of life. It is only through failure that their word becomes efficacious. This failure of the Prophets is an obscure question mark hanging over the whole history of Israel, and in a certain way it constantly recurs in the history of humanity. Above all, it is also again and again the destiny of Jesus Christ: He ends up on the Cross. But that very Cross is the source of great fruitfulness.
And here, unexpectedly, we see a connection with the parable of the sower, which is the context where the Synoptics report these words of Jesus. It is striking what a significant role the image of the seed plays in the whole of Jesus' message. The time of Jesus, the time of the disciples, is the time of sowing and of the seed. The "Kingdom of God" is present in seed form. Observed from the outside, the seed is something minuscule. It is easy to overlook. The mustard seed--an image of the Kingdom of God--is the smallest of seeds, yet it bears a whole tree within it. The seed is the presence of what is to come in the future. In the seed, that which is to come is already here in a hidden way. It is the presence of a promise. On Palm Sunday, the Lord summarized the manifold seed parables and unveiled their full meaning: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12:24). He himself is the grain of wheat. His "failure" on the Cross is exactly the way leading from the few to the many, to all: "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself" (Jn 12:32).
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