The Parable of the Mustard-Seed

S. Mark iv. 30–34

The interpretation of Holy Scripture has often suffered from an undue anxiety to press details, especially in connection with its parabolic teaching. Difficulties of this kind have been created by certain circumstances of the parable before us. The mustard plant, it is urged, does not fully meet the requirements of the language. There are other seeds that are smaller: it does not shoot out large branches, nor become “a great tree:” at best it is little more than a garden shrub.

The difficulties were thought to have been solved when a learned botanist discovered a tree in Palestine which, in everything but name, seemed to fulfil the demands of the parable. Its name is Salvadora Persica; it grows to a considerable height, puts forth leafy branches, and possesses many properties of the mustard plant.

Now, while we hail with satisfaction any scientific discovery for the elucidation of obscure passages of the Bible, care must be taken not to depart from the plain teaching because a novel interpretation pleases the fancy, and to see that in clearing away existing obstacles, new ones are not created.

For instance, the Salvadora has since been found to grow only in southern climes, abounding in Abyssinia, the desert of Sinai, and other hot regions; and it is a great question whether it could have grown in Palestine, anywhere else than on the almost tropical shores of the Dead Sea. Whereas it is obvious that the force of the similitude would have been lost upon our Lord’s hearers, unless He had spoken of something that was familiar to them.

Now, though it may be perfectly true that mustard as a wild plant attains no greater magnitude than a common shrub, yet when sown in “a garden,” and properly cultivated, it becomes considerably larger. One of the old Rabbis narrates how he was wont to climb into a mustard-tree in his field as men climb into a fig-tree; and a trustworthy traveller of this generation testifies that in the rich plain of Akkar he had seen it “as tall as the horse and his rider.” This is sufficient to show that, at all events, the mustard plant develops, till there is the utmost disproportion between the bulk to which it attains and the germ from which it sprung.

No doubt other figures might have been chosen in abundance more suggestive of the great after-development of the kingdom of Christ — such forest-trees, for instance, as the oak of Bashan or cedar of Lebanon, but the acorn and cone were both far less adapted to represent the littleness of its initial state. The mustard was probably the smallest seed from which so large a shrub or tree was known to grow. If, then, such Oriental colouring is allowed for, as is reasonably admitted in other parts of Holy Scripture, no occasion remains for departing from the ordinary interpretation.

Now it is clear that our Lord had no doubt that His comparison would be understood. “As small as a grain of mustard-seed” was a recognised proverb * for “the superlatively little;” and as such it is used by Him on two other occasions for the encouragement of the Apostles. If they had “faith as a grain of mustard-seed” He promised them that they should remove mountains, or bid the sycamore-tree be uprooted and planted in the sea, and they should be instantly obeyed.

It is not without a purpose that the contrast between the first beginning of His kingdom and its expected future should have been put before the Apostles in such a striking form. The parables which had preceded it must have had a most depressing effect upon their minds. They showed that of the seed sown in the hearts of men, three parts would be lost to one saved; and that the field carefully planted with the best of seeds too often mocked all the husbandman’s hopes of a goodly crop by a simultaneous growth of noxious weeds. Well then might the parable of the mustard-seed be spoken to encourage them in their despondency!

Its fulfilment is so patent that it requires but the briefest notice. It may be well, however, to draw an illustration from a single stage in its development. Contrast the condition of the Church on what is called her birthday, with the same after the first three centuries of her existence. Place yourself in imagination in the Upper Chamber at Jerusalem before the Apostles entered upon their labours. There are but eleven — men of the humblest rank of life, with few of the qualifications which the judgment of the world requires for such an enterprise. Then overleap the centuries of chequered history that followed, and take your place in the Council Chamber at Nicaea. It is but a portion of the family by which the whole earth was overspread, but it presents a marvellous contrast to its first gathering. The eleven have grown into upwards of three hundred $ 2 and the miserable handful of followers upon whom the Apostles could count at the first, has increased till the fruit thereof “shakes like Libanus,” and is “green in the city like grass upon the earth.”

It will suffice for the contrast, but it must not be forgotten that although representatives were present from almost every part of the Eastern Empire, there were but few from the Western, owing mainly perhaps to the exigencies of travel. There were Bishops 2 from the great centres of population, as Alexandria, or Carthage, or Jerusalem; Bishops, too, from the remote deserts far up the Nile, as the Coptic hermits; delegates from the Churches of the extreme North and the farthest East, and from the isles of the sea. It fills one with amazement to find every country almost of the East, familiar and unfamiliar, represented in the Assembly. The growth of the Apostolic Church has indeed, despite all the opposition that the world could array against her, fulfilled to the very letter the conditions of the comparison, “The little one has become a thousand,” — the smallest of seeds has developed into a goodly tree.

Now, though it is quite true that the object of the parable was simply to predict the future increase of the Kingdom, other analogies, to be found by further comparison, however foreign to the main purpose, are not to be ignored. There is surely a side-lesson to be learned from the natural properties of the mustard-seed, from its internal heat and pungency, and from “the fact that it must be bruised ere it yield its best virtues.” Its inherent stimulating force finds its parallel in the quickening vitality and vigour that comes from the indwelling of the lifegiving power of the Holy Spirit; and the necessity of crushing it, is no inapt figure of the principle which has been embodied in the familiar proverb, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

Yet once more, if in addition to its strength and its powers of expansion, it was possessed, as is believed, also of medicinal properties, it is impossible to ignore its resemblance to the tree of life in the heavenly city — so true an emblem of the Church, — “which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yields her fruit every month,” and whose “leaves were for the healing of the nations.”

Note: Dr. Royle adopted a suggestion previously made by two travellers, Irby and Mangles (Travels in Egypt, ch. vii. ) It is called in Arabic khardal, which is the common name for mustard. Dr. R. made a mistake in assuming that it grew by the Sea of Galilee. Cf. Bible Educator, i. 119; Smith’s Diet, ii. 446; Tristram, Nat. Hist, of the Bible, 472.

Note: Archbishop Trench quotes a passage from the Qur’an (Sur. 31): — “Oh my son, verily every matter, whether bad or good, though it be of the weight of a grain of mustard-seed, and be hidden in a rock, or in the heavens, or in the earth, God will bring the same to light.”

Note: Perhaps the contrast would have seemed greater if we had selected the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D., the greatest both in numbers and dignity, when 636 Bishops were present instead of 318; but we selected the earlier as the first great historical event of universal interest, marking the first important epoch.

Note: The numbers have been variously stated — by Eusebius as 250, by Athanasius 300, by .Socrates, Sozomen, and others, 318. The last is far most probable, especially owing to the mystical meanings that were attached to it in early times.

Note: The Western Bishops numbered barely ten. Their Sees were, besides those mentioned below, French, Spanish, Sicilian, Calabrian, Milanese, and Pannonian.

Note: The Bishop of Alexandria was then styled “the Pope.” This was Alexander, but his See was better represented by his deacon, Athanasius. From the Coptic Church there were Potammon of Heracleopolis and Paphnutius of the Upper Thebaid. From the North, Theophilus the Goth; from the far East, John the Persian; from the islands, Spiridion of Cyprus. Cf. Stanley’s Eastern Church, Lecture iii.