NOTES.

483

NOTES TO CHAPTER 27.

1. Rich Men and Their Stewards.-"A certain rich man had a steward.' We learn here, incidentally, how evenly balanced are the various conditions of life in a community, and how little of substantial advantage wealth can confer on its possessor. As your property increases, your personal control over it diminishes; the more you possess the more you must entrust to others. Those who do their own work are not troubled with disobedient servants; those who look after their own affairs, are not troubled with unfaithful overseers."-Arnot's Parables of our Lord, p. 454.

2. The Mammon of Unrighteousness. The revised version of Luke 16:9, reads: “And I say unto you, Make to yourself friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, that, when it shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles." The Lord's counsel to the disciples was to so use worldly wealth as to accomplish good thereby, that when "it", i. e. all earthly possessions, fail, they would have friends to welcome them into "the eternal tabernacles" or heavenly mansions. In studying a parable based on contrasts, such as this one is, care must be exercized not to carry too far any one point of analogy. Thus, we cannot reasonably gather that Jesus intended even to intimate that the prerogative of receiving any soul into the "eternal tabernacles" or excluding therefrom, rests with those who on earth had been benefited or injured through that person's acts, except so far as their witness to his deeds may be taken into account in the final judgment. The whole parable is full of wisdom for him who is in search of such; to the hypercritical mind it may appear inconsistent, as so it did appear to the Pharisees who derided Jesus for the story He had told; Luke 16:14 is rendered in the revised version, “And the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things; and they scoffed at him."

3. Lazarus and Dives.-Of all our Lord's recorded parables this is the only one in which a personal name is applied to any of the characters. The name "Lazarus" used in the parable was also the true name of a man whom Jesus loved, and who, subsequent to the delivery of this parable, was restored to life after he had lain for days in the tomb. The name, a Greek variant of Eleazar, signifies "God is my help." In many theological writings, the rich man of this parable is called Dives, but the name is not of scriptural usage. "Dives" is a Latin adjective meaning "rich". Lazarus the brother of Martha and Mary (John 11:1, 2,5) is one of three men mentioned by name as subjects of our Lord's beneficent miracles; the other two are Bartimeus (Mark 10:46) and Malchus (John 18:10). Commenting on the fact that our Lord gave a name to the beggar but left the rich man nameless in the parable, Augustine (in Sermon xli) suggestively asks: "Seems He not to you to have been reading from that book where he found the name of the poor man written, but found not the name of the rich; for that book is the Book of Life?"

4. Divergent Views Concerning Divorce. In relation to the different opinions upon this subject among Jewish authorities in the time of Christ, Geikie (vol. ii, p. 347-8) says: "Among the questions of the day fiercely debated between the great rival schools of Hillel and Schammai, no one was more so than that of divorce. The school of Hillel contended that a man had a right to divorce his wife for any cause he might assign, if it were no more than his having ceased to love her, or his having seen one he liked better, or her having cooked a dinner badly. The school of Schammai, on the contrary, held that divorce could be issued only for the crime of adultery, and offences against chastity. If it were possible to get Jesus to pronounce in favor of either school, the hostility of the other would be roused, and, hence, it seemed a favorable chance for compromising Him." The following from Dummelow's Commentary, dealing with Matt. 5:32, is further illustrative: "Rabbi Akiba (Hillelite) said, 'If a man sees a woman handsomer than his own wife he may put her [his wife] away, because it is said, If she find not favor in his eyes.' The school of Hillel said 'If the wife cook her husband's food ill, by over-salting or over-roasting it, she is to be put away.' On the other hand Rabbi Jochanan (a Shammaite) said "The putting away of a wife is odious'. Both schools agreed that a divorced wife could not be taken back". "Rabbi

Chananiah said 'God has not subscribed His name to divorces, except among Israelites, as if He had said: I have conceded to the Israelites the right of dismissing their wives; but to the Gentiles I have not conceded it.' Jesus retorts that it is not the privilege but the infamy and reproach of Israel, that Moses found it necessary to tolerate divorce."

5. Jesus the Enobler of Woman.-Geikie thus paraphrases part of Christ's reply to the Pharisee's question concerning divorce, and comments thereon. "I say, therefore, that whoever puts away his wife, except for fornication, which destroys the very essence of marriage by dissolving the oneness it had formed, and shall marry another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is put away for any other cause commits adultery, because the woman is still, in God's sight, wife of him who had divorced her.' This statement was of far deeper moment than the mere silencing of malignant spies. It was designed to set forth for all ages the law of His New Kingdom in the supreme matter of family life. It swept away for ever from His Society the conception of woman as a mere toy or slave of man, and based true relations of the sexes on the eternal foundation of truth, right, honor, and love. To ennoble the House and the Family by raising woman to her true position was essential to the future stability of His Kingdom, as one of purity and spiritual worth. By making marriage indissoluble He proclaimed the equal rights of woman and man within the limits of the family, and, in this, gave their charter of nobility to the mothers of the world. For her nobler position in the Christian era, compared with that granted her in antiquity, woman is indebted to Jesus Christ."-Life and Words of Christ, vol. ii, p. 349.

6. The Blessing of Children.-When Christ, a resurrected Being, appeared among the Nephites on the western continent, He took the children, one by one, and blessed them; and the assembled multitude saw the little ones encircled as with fire, while angels ministered unto them. (3 Nephi 17:11-25.) Through modern revelation the Lord has directed that all children born in the Church be brought for blessing to those who are authorized to administer this ordinance of the Holy Priesthood. The commandment is as follows: "Every member of the church of Christ having children, is to bring them unto the elders before the church, who are to lay their hands upon them in the name of Jesus Christ, and bless them in His name." (Doc. and Cov. 20:70.) Accordingly, it is now the custom in the Church to bring the little ones to the Fast-day service in the several wards, at which they are received one by one into the arms of the elders, and blessed, names being given them at the same time. The father of the child, if he be an elder, is expected to participate in the ordinance.

The blessing of children is in no sense analogous to, far less is it a substitution for, the ordinance of baptism, which is to be administered only to those who have come to years of understanding, and who are capable of repentance. As the author has written elsewhere, "Some point to the incident of Christ blessing little children, and rebuking those who would forbid the little ones coming unto Him, (Matt. 19:13; Mark 10:13; Luke 18:15) as an evidence in favor of infant baptism; but, as has been tersely said:-'From the action of Christ's blessing infants, to infer they are to be baptized, proves nothing so much as that there is a want of better argument; for the conclusion would with more probability be derived thus: Christ blessed infants, and so dismissed them, but baptized them not; therefore infants are not to be baptized.'"-The author, Articles of Faith, vi:14. See paragraphs 11-17 in same lecture.

7. The Camel and the Needle's Eye.-In comparing the difficulty of a rich man entering the kingdom with that of a camel passing through the eye of a needle, Jesus used a rhetorical figure, which, strong and prohibitory as it appears in our translation, was of a type familiar to those who heard the remark. There was a "common Jewish proverb, that a man did not even in his dreams see an elephant pass through the eye of a needle" (Edersheim). Some interpreters insist that a rope, not a camel, was mentioned by Jesus, and these base their contention on the fact that the Greek word kamelos (camel) differs in but a single letter from kamilos (rope), and that the alleged error of substituting "camel" for "rope" in the scriptural text is chargeable to the early copyists. Farrar (p. 476) rejects this possible interpretation on the ground that proverbs involving comparisons of a kind with that of a camel passing through the eye of a needle are common in the Talmud.

It has been asserted that the term "needle's eye" was applied to a small door or wicket set in or alongside the great gates in the walls of cities; and the assumption has been raised that Jesus

had such a wicket in mind when He spoke of the seeming impossibility of a camel passing through a needle's eye. It would be possible though very difficult for a camel to squeeze its way through the little gate, and it could in no wise do so except when relieved of its load and stripped of all its harness. If this conception be correct, we may find additional similitude between the fact that the camel must first be unl aded and stripped, however costly its burden or rich its accoutrement, and the necessity of the rich young ruler, and so of any man, divesting himself of the burden and trappings of wealth, if he would enter by the narrow way that leadeth into the kingdom. The Lord's exposition of His saying is all-sufficient for the purposes of the lesson: "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matt. 19:26.)

INTERVIEW IN SOLOMON'S PORCH.

487

CHAPTER 28.

THE LAST WINTER.

AT THE FEAST OF DEDICATION."

Jesus returned to Jerusalem in time to attend the Feast of Dedication during the last winter of His earthly life. This feast, like that of Tabernacles, was one of national rejoicing, and was celebrated annually for a period of eight days beginning on the 25th of Chislev, which corresponds in part to our December. It was not one of the great feasts prescribed by Mosaic statute, but had been established in 164 or 163 B. C. at the time of the rededication of the Temple of Zerubbabel following the rehabilitation of the sacred structure after its profane desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes, the pagan king of Syria. While the festival was in progress, Jesus went to the temple and was seen walking in the part of the enclosure known as Solomon's Porch.d His presence

soon became known to the Jews, who came crowding about Him in unfriendly spirit, ostensibly to ask questions. Their inquiry was: "How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." The mere asking of such a question evidences the deep and disturbing impression which the ministry of Christ had produced among the official classes and the people generally; in their estimation, the works he had wrought appeared as worthy of the Messiah.

The Lord's reply was indirect in form, though in substance and effect incisive and unmistakable. He referred them to His former utterances and to His continued works. "I told you", He said, "and ye believed not: the works that

a John 10:22-39.

b Also rendered Kislev, Chisleu, and Cisleu. See Zech. 7:1.

Josephus, Antiquities, xii, 5:3-5. See Ezra 6:17, 18; also Note 1, end of

chapter.

d Note 2, end of chapter.