to mark a past omission on their part, it would seem that the men who slept are not such as should have done otherwise, but the phrase is equivalent to "at night," and means nothing further. (Job xxiii. 15.) This enemy seized his opportunity, when all eyes were closed in sleep, and wrought the secret mischief upon which he was intent, and having wrought it undetected, withdrew.

"The enemy that sowed" the tares, we learn, "is the devil," so that we behold Satan here, not as he works beyond the limits of the Church, deceiving the world, but in his far deeper skill and malignity, as he at once mimicks and counterworks the work of Christ: in the words of Chrysostom, "after the prophets, the false prophets; after the apostles, the false apostles; after Christ, Antichrist."

We may further notice with what distinctness the doctrine concerning Satan and his agency, his active hostility to the blessedness of man, of which there is so little in the Old Testament, comes out in our Lord's teaching in the New. As the lights become brighter, the shadows become deeper; but till the mightier power of good was revealed, we were in mercy not suffered to know how mighty was the power of evil: and even here it is in each case only to the innermost circle of the disciples, that the explanation concerning Satan is given. So it was not till the Son of man actually appeared on the stage of the world, that Satan came distinctly forward upon it also; but the instant that Christ opens his ministry for the setting up of the kingdom of God, at the same instant Satan starts forward as the hinderer and adversary of it, the tempter of him who is the head and prince of this kingdom. And instead of hearing less of Satan, as the mystery of the kingdom of God proceeds to unfold itself, in the last book of Scripture, that which details the fortune of the Church till the end of time, we hear more of him, and he is brought in more evidently and openly working than in any other.

It is very observable, too, that Satan is spoken of as his enemy, the enemy of the Son of man; for here, as in so many other places, the great conflict is spoken of as rather between Satan and the Son of man, than between Satan and God. It was part of the great scheme of

* Zizaniator, as therefore he has been called; see Du CANGE, S. v. zizanium; and by Tertullian (De Animâ, c. 16), Avenarum superseminatorem, et frumentariæ segetis nocturnum interpolatorem. When Ignatius exhorts the Ephesians (c. 10) that no one be found among them, Toû diaßóλov Borávn, no doubt there is an allusion to this parable.

+ Cf. TERTULLIAN, De Præscr. Hæret., 3. 31.

Bengel (on Ephes. vi. 12) has observed this: Quò apertius quisque Scripturæ liber de œconomia et gloria Christi agit, eò apertius rursum de regno contrario tenebrarum.

redemption, that the victory over evil should be a moral triumph, not a triumph obtained by a mere putting forth of superior strength. We can see how important for this end it was, that man, who lost the battle, should also win it (1 Cor. xv. 21), and therefore as by and through man the kingdom of darkness was to be overthrown, so the enmity of the Serpent was specially directed against the seed of the woman, the Son of man. The title given him is "The wicked one;" the article is emphatic, and points him out as the absolutely evil, of whom the ground of his being is evil. For as God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1 John i. 5; Jam. i. 17), so Satan is darkness, and in him is no light; there is no truth in him. Man is in a middle position; he detains the truth in unrighteousness; light and darkness in him are struggling; but, whichever may predominate, the other is there, kept down indeed, but still with the possibility of manifesting itself. Herein lies the possibility of a redemption for man, that his will is only perverted; but Satan's will is inverted, for he has said what it is never possible for a man to say, or at least fully to act upon, "Evil, be thou my good;" and therefore, as far as we can see, a redemption and restoration are impossible for him.

It makes much for the beauty of the parable, and is full of instruction, that wheat and tares are not seeds of different kinds, but that the last is a degenerate or bastard wheat; so that, in the very emblems

* In Augustine's memorable words: Diabolus non potentiâ Dei sed justitia superandus erat.

It is well known that the word Cicáviov nowhere occurs except here, and in the Greek and Latin Fathers who have drawn it from this parable. The Etymol. Mag. gives another derivation of the word besides that quoted by Schleusner, and a better, though even that will scarcely command assent: παρὰ τό σίτος καὶ ἱζάνω, that which grows side by side with the wheat. Tertullian always renders it by avena, which is incorrect; neither is Augustine sufficiently exact when he says, Omnis immunditia in segete zizania dicitur; nor again is it, as our translators would seem to have understood it, the vicia, but the alpa, or lolium temulentum (in German, Tollkorn, in French, yvroie), having that addition to distinguish it from the lolium proper, with which it has nothing but the name in common, because of the vertigo which it causes, when mingled with and eaten in bread. This in the East, despite its poisonous qualities, not uncommonly happens-it being so hard to separate it from the wheat. The assertion made above, that it is a degenerate wheat, seems, I think, perfectly made out. Lightfoot quotes these words, distinctly asserting it, from the Talmud. "Wheat and zunin are not seeds of different kinds.' Where the gloss is this, 'zunin is a kind of wheat which is changed in the earth, both as to its form and to its nature.'" And in a passage quoted by Buxtorf (Lex. Talm., p. 680), this is noted as part of the progressive deterioration of nature, which went hand in hand with man's wickedness; "they sowed wheat and the earth brought forth zunin." Michaëlis indeed (Mos. Recht, v. 4, p. 322) says that these Rabbis, who probably never saw a corn-field in their lives, are not to be lis

which the Lord uses, the Manichæan error is guarded against, which, starting from the (falsely assumed) fact, that wheat and tares are different in kind, proceeds to argue. that as tares by no process of culture can become wheat, so neither can the children of the wicked one become children of the kingdom. Satan is no Ahriman who can create children of darkness; he can only spoil children of light. Calvin* himself, whatever may have been the case with some who call themselves by his name, is careful to guard against that conclusion here, which would have been an abuse of parabolical language, a pressing of accidental circumstances too far,† even supposing that the tares and wheat had been altogether different in their kinds. But the fact in natural history, noticed above, besides rescuing this passage from the possibility of being so abused, makes also this image peculiarly instructive and curiously adapted to the setting forth the origin of evil, that it is not a

tened to in the matter: see also Ambrose Hexaem., 1. 3, c. 10. Yet on the other hand Pliny (H. N., l. 18, c. 17), says of the lolium as of some other plants, inter frugum morbos potius quàm inter ipsius terræ pestem numeraverim and an old Scholiast upon the Georgics, on the words, Infelix lolium, writes thus: Triticum et hordeum in lolium mutantur. This quite explains the difficulty of knowing them apart, and the danger, therefore, of plucking up one for the other: since only when the grains begin to form, that of the lolium being dark, sometimes nearly black, the difference clearly reveals itself. The tendency of wheat, badly cultivated, to degenerate is well known, and is noted by Columella (De Re Rust., 1. 2, c. 9): Omne triticum solo uliginoso post tertiam sationem convertitur in siliginem. The same happened with the Grape (see Gesenius on Isai. v. 2): "It brought forth wild grapes" (labruscas). The tendency of the uncared-for tree to fall away from its first perfection, of the neglected seed to worsen, is but another of the infinite and wonderful analogies which the world of nature supplies to the world of man.— By far the fullest and most satisfying account of the (Cávov is given by Schultetus (Crit. Sac. v. 6, p. 2026): I had not seen it when the note above was written, but it arrives altogether at the same conclusions.

* Observing how the Manichæans have abused this passage he proceeds: Atqui scimus, quidquid vitii est tam in diabolo, quàm in hominibus non aliud esse quam integræ naturæ corruptelam ;-and Augustine, on a passage exposed to like abuse (John viii. 44), "Ye are of your father the devil," guards against such, explaining it,-Imitando non nascendo. Compare Irenæus, Con. Hær., 1. 4, c. 41, 2, and Grotius on Matt. vii. 18; and who has not heard in arguments concerning predestination, how goats can never become sheep, nor sheep goats? (Matt. xxv. 32, 33.)

† Chrysostom rather has right, when (De Pænit., Hom. 8) he compares the Church to a better ark. Into the other ark, as the animals entered so they came out; a hawk entered in, and a hawk came forth, a wolf entered in, and a wolf came forth. But into this a hawk has entered in, and a dove comes out; a wolf has entered in, and a sheep issues forth; a serpent has entered in, and a lamb comes forth.

generation, but a degeneration; that as Augustine often expresses it, it has not an efficient, but only a deficient cause.*

Having sown his tares, the enemy "went his way." The work did not evidently, and at first sight, appear to be his. How often, in the Church, the beginnings of evil have been scarcely discernible,-how often has that which bore the worst fruit in after-times, looked at first like a higher form of good. St. Paul, indeed, could see the mystery of iniquity, which, in the apostolic times, was already working-could detect the punctum saliens out of which it would unfold itself; but to most, evil would not appear as evil till it had grown to more ungodliness: just as the tares did not, to the servants, appear to be such till "the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit." All who have written on the subject have noted the great similarity that, as might be expected, exsits between the wheat and this lolium or tare, while yet in the blade,† so that they are only distinguishable when the ear is formed; thus fulfilling literally the Lord's words, "By their fruits ye shall know them." Augustine, noting how it was only when the blade began to ripen and bring forth fruit, that the tares began also to appear in their true character, most truly remarks, that it is only the opposition of good which makes evil to appear. "None," he says, "appear evil in the Church, except to him who is good;" and again, "When one shall have begun to be a spiritual man, judging all things, then errors begin to appear to him ;" and in another place he makes the following observations, drawn from the depths of his Christian experience: "It is a great labor of the good, to bear the contrary manners of the wicked; by which he who is not offended has profited little, for the righteous, in proportion as he recedes from his own wickedness, is grieved by that of others." As there must be light, with which to contrast the darkness, height wherewith to measure depth, so there must be holiness to be grieved at unholiness and this is true, not only in the collective Church, but in each individual member of it, that as the new man is formed in him, the

*De Civ. Dei. 1. 12, c. 7.

The testimony of Jerome, himself resident in Palestine, may here be adduced: Inter triticum et zizania, quod nos appellamus lolium, quamdiu herba est, et nondum culmus venit ad spicam, grandis similitudo est, et in discernendo aut nulla aut perdifficilis distantia.

Quæst. ex Matt., qu. 12: where is to be found an admirable exposition of the whole parable.

Tantùm enim torquet justum iniquitas aliena, quantùm recedit à sua. Cf. Enarr. in Ps. cxix. 4, and in Ps. cxl.: Nondum sum totus instauratus ad imaginem fabricatoris mei: cœpi resculpi, et ex ea parte qua reformor, disciplicet mihi quod deforme est.

old man will become more and more displeasing,-will come more and more into distinct opposition.

"So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?" Theophylact interprets this of the angels, indignant that there should be heresies, scandals, and offences in the Church; for having explained, "while men slept," of the comparative negligence of the householder's servants, that is, of some Church rulers who ought better to have kept the borders of the Church from the incursions of the enemy, he now finds it inconvenient to understand the same servants as those so much offended by the mischief which had been done. But the angels are so clearly pointed out (ver. 30) as different from the servants, that this must be a mistake, and even granting that the words "while men slept," do indicate, as he supposes, the negligence of some who ought to have watched, still it is easy to say, some slept, and some wished to do away with the consequence of the others' negligence. These servants are not angels, but men, speaking out of the same spirit as animated those disciples, who would fain have commanded fire to come down from heaven on the inhospitable Samaritan village. Those disciples, as the servants here, did well that they had a righteous zeal for their Master's honor; but in each case the zeal needed to be tempered and restrained.

The question which they ask, "Didst not thou sow good seed in thy field?" is not put merely to give opportunity for the householder's reply: but expresses well the perplexity, the surprise, the inward questionings, which must often be felt, which in the first ages, before long custom had too much reconciled to the mournful spectacle, must have been felt very strongly by all who were zealous for God, at the woful and unexpected appearance which the visible Church presented. Where was the "glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing?" Well, indeed, might the faithful have questioned their own spirit, have poured out their hearts in prayer, of which the burden should have been nearly this, "Didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?-didst thou not constitute thy Church to be a pure and holy communion?—is not the doctrine such as should only produce fruits of righteousness? whence then is it that even within the holy precincts themselves, there should be so many who themselves openly sin and cause others to sin ?"*

* Menken: "This question,

Whence then hath it tares?" is the result of our first study of Church history, and remains afterwards the motto of Church history, and the riddle which should be solved by help of a faithful history; instead of which, many so-called Church historians [authors of Ancient Christianity, and the like], ignorant of the purpose and of the hidden glory of the Church, have their