himself to that death, whereby he became the author of life unto many;* as he himself had said, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." (John xii. 24.) And the field in which he sowed this seed was the word-"his field," or, as St. Luke expresses it (xiii. 19), "his garden;" for the world was made by him, and when he came unto it, "he came unto his own."

This seed when cast into the ground is "the least of all seeds,”— words which have often perplexed interpreters, as there are many seeds, as of poppy or rue, that are smaller; yet difficulties of this kind are not worth making-it is sufficient to know that-Small as a grain of mustard-seed, was a proverbial expression among the Jewst for something exceedingly minute. (See Luke xvii. 6.) The Lord, in his popular teaching, adhered to the popular language.-To pass on then to the thing signified What, to the eye of flesh, could be less magnificent, what could have less of promise than the commencements of the kingdom of God in the person of the Son of man? He grew up in a distant and despised province; till his thirtieth year, did not emerge from the bosom of his family, then taught for two or three years in the neighboring towns and villages, and occasionally at Jerusalem; made a few converts, chiefly among the poor and unlearned; and then falling into the hands of his enemies, without an attempt on his own part or his followers to release him, died the shameful death of the cross: such, and so slight, was the commencement of the universal kingdom of God. For in this the kingdom of God differs from the great schemes of this world;—these fast have a proud beginning, a shameful and a miserable end-towers of Babel, which at first threaten to be as high as heaven, but end in being a deserted and formless heap of slime and bricks; but the works of God, and most of all his great work, his Church, have a slight and unobserved beginning, with gradual increase and a glorious consummation. So is it with his kingdom in the world; so is it with his kingdom in every single heart. The word of Christ falls there too, like a slight mustard seed, promising little, but issuing, if allowed to grow, in great and marvelloust

* Early Christian art had a true insight into this. DIDRON (Iconographie Chrêtienne, p. 208), describes this as a frequent symbol: Le Christ dans un tombeau : de sa bouche sort un arbre, sur les branches duquel sont les apôtres.

So also in the Koran (Sur. 31): Oh my son, verily every matter, whether good or bad, 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.

Jerome (Comm. in Matth. in loc.) has a striking passage noting the difference in this respect, between the Gospel and every system of human philosophy: the last promising much and performing little, the other promising little and performing much Prædicatio Evangelii minima est omnibus disciplinis. Ad primam

results. That which was the smallest of all seeds,* "when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." It is well known that in hot countries, as in Judæa, the mustard-tree attains a size which it is never known to reach in our colder latitudes, sometimes so great as to allow a man to climb up into its branches, though this, indeed, is mentioned as a remarkable thing;t or to ride on horseback under them, as a traveller in Chili mentions that he has done. And, on this passage, Maldonatus relates, that even in Spain he has himself seen great ovens heated with its branches; he mentions as well that birds are exceedingly partial to the seed, so that when it is advancing to ripeness, he has often seen them lighting in very great numbers on its boughs, which, however, were strong enough to sustain the weight without being broken. This fact of the fondness of birds for the seeds, and the manner in which, therefore, they congregated in the branches, was probably familiar to our Lord's hearers also. They, too, had beheld them lodging in the branches of the tree, whose seed thus served them for meat, so that there must have been a singular liveliness in the image which the parable presented to their minds.

Neither need we suppose this last circumstance introduced merely for the purpose of completing the picture, and presenting it in a more lively manner to the eye; but rather in the birds flocking to the boughs of the mustard-tree when it had grown great, and there finding shelter and food (Ezek. xvii. 23, “under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing"), we are to recognize a prophecy of the refuge and defence that should be for all men in the Church: how that multitudes should thither make

quippe doctrinam, fidem non habet veritatis, hominem Deum, Deum mortuum, et scandalum crucis prædicans. Confer hujuscemodi doctrinam dogmatibus Philosophorum, et libris eorum, splendori eloquentiæ, et compositioni sermonum, et videbis quantò minor sit cæteris seminibus sementis Evangelii. Sed illa cùm creverit, nihil mordax, nihil vividum, nihil vitale demonstrat, sed totum flaccidum, marcidumque, et mollitum ebullit in olera et in herbas quæ citò arescunt et corruunt. Hæc autem prædicatio quæ parva videbatur in principio, cùm vel in anima credentis, vel in toto mundo sata, fuerit, non exsurgit in olera, sed crescit in arborem.

* Kuinoel's is an inaccurate remark, that here μкpóтepov is a comparative for a superlative, since it is the following Távτwv which justifies and explains its use (see Mark iv. 32; John x. 29; Ephes. iii. 8); if I say that a man is better than all men, I say, indeed, that he is the best; but I do not use a comparative for a superlative. So neither Virgil: Scelere ante alios immanior omnes; nor the author of the old Latin epitaph, in which these words occur: Omnium feminarum sanctiori. This would not be worth observing, save as an example of the loose attribution to the New Testament, of ungrammatical forms, which is a most serious hindrance to all accurate interpretation. See WINER'S Grammatik, p. 221.)

LIGHTFOOT, Hor. Heb., in loc.

their resort, finding their protection from worldly oppression, as well as the satisfaction for all the needs and wants of their souls; and proving true the words of the son of Sirach (xiv. 20, 26, 27), “Blessed is the man that doth meditate good things in Wisdom. . . . He shall set his children under her shelter, and shall lodge under her branches; by her he shall be covered from heat, and in her glory shall he dwell." Theophylact concludes his exposition of the parable with this practical application: "And be thou also such a grain of mustard,-small, indeed, in appearance, for it becomes thee not to make a spectacle of thy virtue, but fervent, and zealous, and energic, and armed to reprove."

* Augustine (Serm. 44, c. 2): Crevit Ecclesia, crediderunt gentes, victi sunt terræ principes sub nomine Christi, ut essent victores in orbe terrarum. Persequebantur antè Christianos pro idolis, persequuntur idola propter Christum. Omnes confugiunt ad auxilium Ecclesiæ, in omni pressurâ, in omni tribulatione sua. Crevit illud granum sinapis, veniunt volatilia cœli, superbi sæculi, et acquiescunt sub ramis ejus.

IV.

THE LEAVEN.

MATTHEW Xiii. 33; LUKE xiii. 20, 21.

THIS parable relates also to the marvellous increase of the kingdom of God; but while the last set forth its outward visible manifestation, this declares its hidden mysterious working; and not merely its development from within itself, but its influence on the world which it touches upon all sides. The mustard seed does not for some while attract observation, nor, till it has grown to a considerable size, do the birds of the air light upon its branches; but the active working of the leaven has been from the very beginning, from the moment that it was hidden in the lump. It might indeed be said against this or any other scheme which should expound the leaven in a favorable sense, that it is most frequently used in the Scripture as the symbol of something evil. (1 Cor v. 7; Luke xii. 1; Gal. v. 9.) This is undoubtedly true, and being this, it was forbidden, in the offerings under the Law (Exod. xiii. 3; Lev. ii. 11; Amos iv. 5), though not without an exception. (Lev. xxiii. 17.) The strict command to the people, that they should carefully put away every particle of leaven out of their houses, during the Passover week, rests on this view of it as evil they were thus reminded that they needed to put away from their hearts all workings of malice and wickedness, if they would rightly keep the spiritual feast. When leaven is thus used in an evil

* See our Collect for the First Sunday after Easter.-The Jews termed the figmentum malum, that in man which lusteth against the spirit, and hinders him from doing the things that he would, the leaven in the lump, and the reason is given in the book Sohar: Prava concupiscentia vocatur fermentum, quia parum ejus cor pervadit, et in tantum exturgescit, ut findatur pectus. (See Schoettgen's Hor. Heb., v. 1, p. 597.) The Romans had the same dislike to the use of leaven in sacred things: Farinam fermento imbutam attingere flumini Diali fas non est. (Gell. x. 15, 19.) Plutarch (Quæst. Rom. 109), gives no doubt the true explanation: "The leaven itself is born from corruption, and corrupts the mass with which it is mingled.” Thus it comes to pass that ἄρτοι καθαροὶ is used as=άζυμοι.

sense, its tendencies to make sour and to corrupt are those which come most prominently forward. Yet, because such is its most frequent use in Scripture, there needs not, therefore, to interpret the parable, as Gurtler, Teelman,† and also some little bands of modern separatists‡ (whose motive, of course, is obvious) have done, as though it were a prophecy of the heresies and corruptions, which should mingle with and adulterate the pure doctrine of the Gospel,-as though it were, in fact, a prophecy of the workings of the future mystery of iniquity. These expositors make the Woman to be the apostate church, which, with its ministers, they observe is often represented under this image. (Prov. ix. 13; Rev. xvii. 1; Zech. v. 7–11.) The last of these passages Teelman asserts to be an exact parallel to the parable before us. If this interpretation were the true one,-if it could be said that at any time the whole Church was thus penetrated through and through with the leaven of false doctrine, the gates of hell would, indeed, have prevailed against it; and from whence it should ever have become unleavened again, it is difficult to understand.

But the unquestionable fact, that leaven is, in Scripture, most commonly the type of something false and corrupting, need not drive us into any such embarrassment. It was not, therefore, the less free to use it in a good sense. In those other passages, its puffing up, distributing, souring properties, were the prominent points of comparison; in the present, its warmth, its penetrative energy, the power which a little of it has to lend its savor and its virtue to much wherewith it comes in contact. The great features of the figurative language of Scripture remain no doubt fixed and unalterable; but it is not thus stereotyped in its minor details, so that one figure needs always to stand for one and the same

So Jerome (Ep. 31) gives the reason why honey was forbidden in the Levitical offerings (Lev. ii. 11); Apud Deum enim nihil voluptuosum, nihil tantum suave placet; nisi quod in se habet mordacis aliquid veritatis. These omissions had doubtless the same symbolical meaning, as the casting away of the gall among the Romans in the victims offered to the nuptial Juno.-It was the feeling of the unsuitableness of leaven in sacris which, in part, caused the Latin Church to contend so earnestly against the use of fermented bread in the Eucharist, calling those who used it, Fermentarii, though there was an historical interest also mingling in the question. (See AUGUSTI, Handb. d. Christl. Archäol., v. 2, p. 662.)

*Syst. Theol. Prophet., p. 590.

+ Comm. in Luc. 16, p. 59, seq.-Vitringa gives, with great impartiality, two entirely independent expositions of the Parable, taking first the leaven in a good, then in an evil sense, but decides absolutely for neither.

Brief Exposition of Matthew xiii., by J. N. Darby, 1845, p. 40. He makes in the same way the parable of the mustard seed to be a prophecy of the upgrowth of a proud world-hierarchy.

Zúun from Céw, as fermentum (=fervimentum) from fervo: leaven, in French levain, from levare, to lift up.