The Parable of the Sower

S. Mark iv. 1–12

There are two circumstances which lend a peculiar interest to this parable. It was the first spoken by our Lord, and the scene may be identified almost beyond a question.

There is always some special charm and attraction in the earliest productions of great and distinguished people. The first sermon of a preacher like S. Chrysostom, or the first drawing of an artist like Raphael, would be eagerly examined, if they could anywhere be found. They would exhibit, no doubt, some sign and earnest of coming greatness; but in power and skill they would fall immeasurably below the standard of excellence reached in later years. How different in this respect is the first parable of Him “Who spake as never man spake “! It bears no trace of inferiority, but comes forth perfect as the latest that fell from His lips.

Again, it affords us no little pleasure to be able to determine the exact locality where it was delivered. He was teaching on the shores of the lake, not far from Capernaum, and the crowd gathered so thickly about Him that, in order to obtain a position of advantage for preaching, He entered a boat, rowed out a few strokes from the land, and then turned round to address them. Now, travellers in Palestine have often found the imagery of the Parables repeated in what they have themselves seen passing before their eyes. The vineyard with its fence and wine-press and tower — the shepherd with the sheep following, not going before — the man who fell among thieves, — all are illustrated almost to the letter in the present day.

But when the parable of the Sower was spoken, our Lord was by the sea-side, and there we should have expected that His similes would have been drawn from storms and ships and nets, hardly from fields and agriculture. We know what life and freshness He was wont to impart to His teaching by basing it upon the sights and objects immediately present. It is exemplified here, where it was least expected, in a very striking manner. A well-known Eastern traveller has described his feelings on visiting the neighbourhood. As he was wondering what there could possibly be to suggest such imagery, his attention was arrested by a slight recess in the hillside, which disclosed at once “every feature of the great parable. There was the undulating corn-field descending to the water’s edge. There was the trodden pathway running through the midst of it, with no fence or hedge to prevent the seed from falling here and there on either side of it or upon it: itself hard with the constant tramp of horse and mule and human feet. There was the ‘good’ rich soil, which distinguishes the whole of that neighbourhood from the bare hills elsewhere, descending towards the lake, and which, where there is no interruption, produces one vast mass of corn. There was the rocky ground of the hillside protruding here and there through the corn-fields, as elsewhere through the grassy slopes. There were the large bushes of thorn — the 1 Nebk,’ that kind of which tradition says the Crown of Thorns x was woven, — springing up in the very midst of the waving wheat.” It is indeed a strange coincidence that in a land where such vast changes have taken place during eighteen centuries — more perhaps than in any other country in the world — the scene of our Lord’s first parable, from the reproduction of the exact features, should be capable of almost certain identification.

Two expressions arrest our notice at once, as they were manifestly designed to arrest that of the assembled multitude: “Hearken; Behold!” The parable begins with “Hearken;” it closes with “Take heed what ye hear.” He was about to adopt a mode of teaching unfamiliar to their ears: it needed an undivided attention. “Behold!” Did He actually point to a husbandman, as he came forth at the moment from his homestead on the hillside and began to sow? If we could be sure that the sequence of events has brought us to the autumnal seed-time, we could hardly doubt it, but the chronological order here is most difficult to determine.

And then as they listened with a newly-awakened interest, He clothed the sad experience of the farmer in a parabolic form, and told them how much of the seed that was sown brought no return — three parts lost, one only saved. We can scarcely conceive how its moral could have escaped even the meanest understanding; but the disciples were astonished that He should speak to the crowds in any but the transparent language to which they were used. They were not even sure that they rightly understood Him themselves. “Why speakest Thou unto them in parables?” they asked. The method of teaching was common among the Jews. Parables abound in the Talmud. Hillel and Shammai and Rabbi Meir have left many examples; but as the Rabbis held the poor and ignorant in contempt, and cared only to find the rich and intelligent x classes sitting at their feet, it is probable that the surprise of the disciples was occasioned by His adopting, with the multitude at large, a style hitherto appropriated to narrower circles. There is an illustration of this distinction in one of the Apocryphal Books, where, in contrasting the learned with artisans and labourers, the writer says of the latter, “they shall not be found where parables are spoken.”

Our Lord gave a reason to His disciples when they were alone. Because their minds were receptive of truth, and, as compared with that of the general public, capable of appreciating the deep mysteries of the Gospel, He sets them aside. But He had now been teaching for a considerable time, and with such plainness of speech that there was no excuse if men in general could not understand the nature of His message. It was, so to speak, a crisis in their lives; He had reached a point where He must test results. He could not always go on casting pearls before swine, so henceforward a new line must be adopted. It was of the nature of a parable both to conceal and to unveil. To men whose minds were enlightened it was a revelation of spiritual truths, but hearts that were waxed gross, and ears dull of hearing, it only hardened into greater insensibility. Thinking only of the latter, He takes up the language of Isaiah, who had been sent to the Jews with a penal message from the Almighty, when the decree had gone forth that their sin must work out its punishment, because the day of grace was past. But that He adopted the interpretation of the Septuagint version in pre-

‘Cf. p. 56. ference to the harsher form assumed in the Hebrew — “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed,” — is the most convincing proof that He did not intend, what the words taken by themselves would appear to convey, and that His purpose was only penal and retributive.

He had learned by experience the hopelessness of His task, and foreseeing the failure of this fresh attempt, “half in sadness, half in irony” perhaps, He spoke as though He aimed at producing the expected result. It was too true that those who saw His miracles without perceiving their symbolism, and heard His words only to miss their spiritual import, were by those very sights and sounds left in a worse condition than before; but the fact that His whole mission was a prolonged appeal to men to receive His words that they might have life, is the clearest evidence that He could never at any time have designed that His preaching should aggravate their impenitence and hardness of heart.

Note: In all probability the name of “Spina Christi” was given to this from the idea that, having very sharp points, it was most likely to have been chosen for the crown. The object, however, of crowning Him appears to have been mockery rather than cruelty, so that they would choose one with leaves more nearly resembling those of the imperial wreaths, and a stem more pliable than that of the Nebk.

Note: Hillel and Shammai were the chief teachers before our Lord, R. Meir immediately after. It was said of the last that a third of his teaching was by parables.

Note: I am indebted for this reference to a note in Professor Plumptre’s Commentary on S. Matthew.

Note: Only by comparison. They had much to learn as yet; and the gradual and patient guidance of them into the truths of revelation is a subject well worthy of notice.

Note: In the Hebrew it is in the imperative mood — a command to the prophet, “Make the heart of this people fat,’”’ etc. In the LXX. the people are supposed to do it themselves. Sadler in his notes on the passage in S. Matthew has shown how a full consideration of the passage in Isaiah mitigates the apparent harshness of God’s command. The whole note is worthy of consideration. The LXX. has lost the significance of a common and very forcible Hebrew idiom in the rendering, “that seeing they may see and not perceive.” It is rather, “that they may fully see,” see without anything to hide, but not perceive what it meant — that the sense of sight may be quickened but the understanding made dull.

Note: The ‘iva of S. Mark should be read in connection with the 6Vi of S. Matthew, and in the light of our Lord’s acceptance of the more merciful rendering of the LXX.