CHAPTER L. MONDAY IN PASSION WEEK-A DAY OF PARABLES. "Apples of gold in PICTURES of silver."-PROV. XXV. 11. RISING from His bivouac in the neighbourhood of Bethany while it was still early, Jesus returned at once to the city and the Temple; and on His way He felt hungry. Monday and Thursday were kept by the scrupulous religionists of the day as voluntary fasts, and to this the Pharisee alludes when he says in the Parable, I fast twice in the week." But this fasting was a mere "work of supererogation," neither commanded nor sanctioned by the Law or the Prophets, and it was alien alike to the habits and precepts of One who came, not by external asceticisms, but with absolute self-surrender, to ennoble by Divine sinlessness the common life of men. It may be that in His compassionate eagerness to teach His people, He had neglected the common wants of life; it may be that there were no means of procuring food in the fields where He had spent the night; it may be again that the hour of prayer and morning sacrifice had not yet come, before which the Jews did not usually take a meal. But, whatever may have been the cause, Jesus hungered, so as to be driven to look for wayside fruit to sustain and refresh Him for the day's work. A THE LEAFY FIG-TREE. 213 few dates or figs, a piece of black bread, a draught of water, are sufficient at any time for an Oriental's simple meal. There are trees in abundance even now throughout this region, but not the numerous palms, and figs, and walnut-trees which made the vicinity of Jerusalem like one umbrageous park, before they were cut down by Titus, in the operations of the siege. Fig-trees especially were planted by the roadside, because the dust was thought to facilitate their growth, and their refreshing fruit was common property. At a distance in front of Him Jesus caught sight of a solitary fig-tree, and although the ordinary season at which figs ripened had not yet arrived, yet, as it was clad with verdure, and as the fruit of a fig sets before the leaves unfold, this tree looked more than usually promising. Its rich large leaves seemed to show that it was fruitful, and their unusually early growth that it was not only fruitful but precociously vigorous. There was every chance, therefore, of finding upon it either the late violet-coloured kermouses, or autumn figs, that often remained hanging on the trees all through the winter, and even until the new spring leaves had come ;3 or the delicious bakkooroth, the first ripe on the fig-tree, of which Orientals are par 1 Plin. Hist. Nat. xv. 21, quoted by Meyer. On the right to pluck fruit, see Deut. xxiii. 24. 2 συκήν μίαν (Matt. xxi. 19), a single fig-tree." Compare, however, μía maidíoên (xxvi. 69). The ei ǎpa tì eúpńoei év avtỷ (Mark xi. 13) implies a shade of surprise at the exceptional forwardness of the tree. 3 3 Plin. H. N. xvi. 27, "Seri fructus per hiemem in arbore manent, et aestate inter novas frondes et folia maturescunt" (comp. Colum. De Arbor, 21). Ebrard says that it is doubtful whether this applied to Palestine (Gosp. Hist., p. 376, E. Tr.); but it certainly did, as is shown by the testimony of travellers and of Jewish writers. The green or unripe fig (, pagh) is only mentioned in Cant. ii. 13. ticularly fond. The difficulty raised about St. Mark's expression, that "the time of figs was not yet," is wholly needless. On the plains of Gennesareth Jesus must have been accustomed-if we may trust Josephus -to see the figs hanging ripe on the trees every month in the year excepting January and February; and there is to this day, in Palestine, a kind of white or early fig which ripens in spring, and much before the ordinary or black fig. On many grounds, therefore, Jesus might well have expected to find a few figs to satisfy the cravings of hunger on this fair-promising leafy tree, although the ordinary fig-season had not yet arrived. But when He came up to it, He was disappointed. The sap was circulating; the leaves made a fair show; but of fruit there was none. Fit emblem of a hypocrite, whose external semblance is a delusion and sham-fit emblem of the nation in whom the ostentatious profession of religion brought forth no "fruit of good living" -the tree was barren. And it was hopelessly barren; for had it been fruitful the previous year, there would still have been some of the kermouses hidden under those broad leaves; and had it been fruitful this year, the bakkooroth would have set into green and delicious fragrance before the leaves appeared; but on this fruitless tree there was neither any promise for the future, nor any gleanings from the past. 1 (Hos. ix. 10; Isa. xxviii. 4; Nah. iii. 12; Jer. xxiv. 2, “Very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe "). 2 There is no need whatever to render this, "it was no favourable weather for figs," "not a good fig-year." 3 B. J. iii. 10, § 8. Dr. Thomson, author of The Land and the Book, tells us that he has eaten these figs as early as April or May. THE FIG-TREE WITHERS. 215 And therefore, since it was but deceptive and useless, a barren cumberer of the ground, He made it the eternal warning against a life of hypocrisy continued until it is too late, and, in the hearing of His disciples, uttered upon it the solemn fiat, "Never fruit grow upon thee more!" Even at the word, such infructuous life as it possessed was arrested, and it began to wither away. The criticisms upon this miracle have been singularly idle and singularly irreverent, because they have been based for the most part on ignorance or on prejudice. By those who reject the divinity of Jesus, it has been called a penal miracle, a miracle of vengeance, a miracle of unworthy anger, a childish exhibition of impatience under disappointment, an uncultured indignation against innocent Nature. No one, I suppose, who believes that the story represents a real and miraculous fact, will daringly arraign the motives of Him who performed it; but many argue that this is an untrue and mistaken story, because it narrates what they regard as an unworthy display of anger at a slight disappointment, and as a miracle of destruction which violated the rights of the supposed owner of the tree, or of the multitude. But, as to the first objection, surely it is amply enough to say that every page of the New Testament shows the impossibility of imagining that the Apostles and Evangelists had so poor and false a conception of Jesus as to believe that He avenged His passing dis-· pleasure on an irresponsible object. Would He who, at the Tempter's bidding, refused to satisfy His wants by turning the stones of the wilderness into bread, be represented as having "flown into a rage"-no other expression is possible-with an unconscious tree? An absurdity so irreverent might have been found in the Apocryphal Gospels; but had the Evangelists been capable of perpetuating it, then, most unquestionably, they could have had neither the capacity nor the desire to paint that Divine and Eternal portrait of the Lord Jesus, which their knowledge of the truth, and the aid of God's Holy Spirit, enabled them to present to the world for ever, as its most priceless possession. And as for the withering of the tree, has the householder of the parable been ever severely censured because he said of his barren fig-tree, “Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground ?" Has St. John the Baptist been ever blamed for violence and destructiveness because he cried, " And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the tree: every tree, therefore, which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire?" Or has the ancient Prophet been charged with misrepresenting the character of God, when he says, "I, the Lord, have dried the green tree,' as well as "made the dry tree to flourish ?" When the hail beats down the tendrils of the vineyard-when the lightning scathes the olive, or "splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak"-do any but the utterly ignorant and brutal begin at once to blaspheme against God? Is it a crime under any circumstances to destroy a useless tree? if not, is it more a crime to do so by miracle? Why, then, is the Saviour of the world-to whom Lebanon would be too little for a burnt-offering-to be blamed by petulant critics because He hastened the withering of one barren tree, and founded, on the destruction of its uselessness, three eternal lessons-a symbol of the destruction of impenitence, a warning of the peril of hypocrisy, an illustration of the power of faith ?2 1 Ezek. xvii. 24. up The many-sided symbolism of the act would have been much more |