his fellowservants which owed him an hundred pence; and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.

29 And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Haveh patience with me, and I will pay thee all.

30 And he would not; but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.

31 So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done.

32 Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:

33 Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?

34 And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.

35 So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.

sequently enforces its payment (verse 34), has occasioned the commentators some perplexity. But this accords with Oriental despotism, which would recognize in such a remission nothing that could not be revoked at will; and it accords with the divine pardon, which is offered to all the world, but is effectual only to such as accept it. And he who refuses to bestow grace refuses by that act to enter the kingdom of grace. The very object of this parable is to show that every man must choose between mercy and justice.

28. Went out. "He is said to go out, because in the actual presence of his lord he could scarcely have ventured on the outrage which follows."-(Trench.) Arnot gives the spiritual interpretation well. "The moment of close dealing between God and the soul has passed. The man goes out from that solemn and searching communion. He has not been converted; he has only been frightened."-A hundred pence, i. e. denarii, a small silver coin equal to about 18 cents. The debt, therefore, was equal to $18. The contrast intended between our sins against God and our neighbors' sins against us is clear. “Though thou continually pardon thy neighbor absolutely, for all his sins, as a drop of water to an endless sea, so much, or rather much more, doth thy love to man come short in comparison with the boundless goodness of God, of which thou standest in need."-(Chrysostom.)-Laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me if thou owest anything. This (at z not o Ti) is the proper reading. It does not intimate a doubt whether anything be due, but is the strong expression of one who exacts to the utmost every debt. The picture is realized daily in the hardness of professing Christians to the unfortunate as well as the guilty. Those who get most mercy give the least; and cruelty is hatched under the wings of tenderness."-(Dräseke.)

29, 30. "The one besought for 10,000 talents, the other for 100 pence; the one his fellow-servant, the other his lord; the one received entire forgiveness, the other asked for delay, and not so much as this did he give him.”—(Chrysostom.) This creditor's sin we repeat when we hold resentment against an

offender until he makes atonement and reparation. What is this but demanding that he pay the debt?

31. Were very sorry. But the lord was wroth (verse 34). In us sin should awaken, predominantly, sorrow, which in God awakens indignation. And came and told their lord all. The first resort of the Christian against oppression is prayer (Exod. 3: 7; James 5 : 4).

32, 33. The lord now calls him "wicked servant," and is "wroth" with him; but not before. Observe the ground on which Christ bases our duty of forgiveness: I forgave thee all that debt. "The sin with which he (the servant) is charged is, not that needing mercy he refused to show it, but that having received mercy he remains unmerciful still."—(Trench.)

34. The picture is interpreted by the usages of the East, where torture is used, even at the present day, to compel debtors to confess to acquisitions which they are suspected of hiding. In both Greece and Rome torture was used as a punishment and as a means of compelling confession, but apparently not in prosecutions for debt.-Till he should pay all. This certainly does not imply, it rather negatives, the idea of a future restoration. "When the Phocæans, abandoning their city, swore that they would not return till the mass of iron which they plunged into the sea, returned once more upon the surface, this was the most emphatic form they could devise of declaring that they would never return; such an emphatic declaration is the present."-(Trench.) Similarly Alford: "The condition would amount, in the case of the sum in the parable, to perpetual imprisonment;" and Chrysostom : "That is forever; for he will never repay.'

35. Their trespasses, is omitted from the best manuscripts. On the verse, see note on Matt. 6: 12.

THOUGHTS ON THE PARABLE. I. The parallel. The Eternal King constantly calls us to account (Luke 16:2), in providences and heart-searchings, which compel us to confess our inability to meet his just demands (Job 25: 4; Psalm 130:3; 143: 2; Rom. 3:23). On our cry for forbearance he proclaims the Gospel of full and free forgiveness (Rom. 7: 24,

6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What" therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

7 They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?

8 He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

10 His disciples say unto him, If the case of a man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.a

II But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.

12 For there are some eunuchs, which were so born

by these means she will be at liberty to marry another husband."-(Ant. IV: 8, § 23.)

4-6. Mark says he first asked them, What did Moses command you? they replied by a reference to Deut. 24: 1-4; he then quoted the account of the creation and the contemporaneous institution of marriage. The two versions are not inconsistent. Thus we may suppose that Christ referred them to Moses' law, meaning the original law given in Genesis; they replied by referring to the later statute in Deuteronomy; he then explained his original question, What did Moses command you? by referring them distinctly to Genesis; whereupon, as represented here (verse 7), they asked his explanation of Deut. 24: 1-4. For the interpretation of Christ's argument, see note below. Observe, however, here, how he who came to fulfill the law (Matt. 5: 17), in this case goes back of the permission of the civil law, enacted because of the hardness of the people's hearts, to the original and divine intent of marriage, as interpreted in the very act of creation.

Made them male and female, i. e., in the very act of creation, God embodied the idea of marriage. Observe how the unity of the two is implied in the language of Genesis. "In the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Gen. 1:27). And again, "Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam (Gen. 5 : 2).—And said (Gen. 2: 24). This was said not by Adam, as Alford, but by the inspired historian, and is his divinely inspired conclusion from the whole account of creation.-Shall be one flesh. That is, as Stier, one within the limits of their united life in the flesh, for this world; beyond this limit the marriage is broken by the death of the flesh." The Greek and Roman idea of marriage, was a union of feeling and affection; hence it was dissoluble at the will of the parties, when that union was severed by incompatibility or contention. And this philosophy underlies the modern free divorce idea, miscalled free-love. According to Scripture, however, marriage consists not in the unity of the spirit and soul, but in the fact that the wedded pair become one flesh, i. e. one in their earthly relations and life. Hence marriage ceases at death (Matt. 22:30), though the spiritual union 30), though the spiritual union does not; hence, too, the earthly relation may be formed where there is no union of soul, as with

a harlot (1 Cor. 6 : 16). 16). Hence it is not dissoluble by a mere cessation of mutual sympathy, any more than the blood relations of brother and sister, or father and child, can be so dissolved. The one relation is as permanent as the other, though one is formed voluntarily, the other involuntarily.— What therefore God has joined together let not man put asunder. This is not, as often quoted, equivalent to Those whom, by his blessing on the marriage, God has joined together, but, as the context shows, Since God, in the very act of creation, showed the divine purpose to be the joining in one earthly life of male and female, let not man, by his act, break or loosen the bond.

7-8. See note on verse 3 above. The reference is to Deut. 24: 1-4. For other O. T. laws bearing on this subject see Deut. 22: 21-23; Numb. ch. 5; compare note on Matt. 1: 19. Observe the difference between the Pharisees' language and Christ's. They ask, Why then did Moses command? He replies, Moses suffered. The original Greek verb (ênızgéлw), rendered suffered, is literally "throw upon," i. e. he throws upon you the responsibility of breaking the divine bond, because the hardness of your hearts rendered it impossible to enforce it by civil legislation. This verse is a key to much of the Mosaic legislation, which did not reflect the divine will concerning human character and condition, but only so much of the divine will as could be enforced by civil government. Some commentators regard the phrase, hardness of your hearts, equivalent to harshness in the marriage relations. The more general sense of sinfulness appears preferable. The Greek compound word (ozλngozaqdía) occurs only here and in Mark 10: 5, and 16: 14.

α

9. These words were uttered by Christ to his disciples alone in the house (Mark 10 : 10–12). 10-12). They are so explicit that it appears amazing that any who accept Christ's authority should have attempted to explain them away. Fornication (noorata) is properly not merely adultery, but harlotry. So Milton; and his labored attempt to prove that any ineradicable incompatibility is a just cause of divorce renders his testimony all the more important: "In the Greek and Latin sense, by fornication is meant the common prostitution of the body for sale." The word fornication (Latin fornication) is derived from fornix, a

from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for

the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

13 Then were there brought unto him little children,.

harlot, primarily a cell or vault, such being the customary abodes of the harlots of Rome. That the Greek word (zogvɛią) signifies properly harlotry is equally evident from its derivative (лóvn) | a harlot, and that it is not merely synonymous with adultery (uoizɛía) is clear from its use in conjunction with that word in the N. T. (e. g. Matt. 15: 19; Mark 7: 21). I would not press this difference here except to point out that Christ in giving the law, which is not for the state but for the individual disciple, does not in words even recognize adultery, except in its grossest forms, as a ground adequate for dissolving the marriage tie. Milton refers to the metaphorical use of fornication in the Scripture to designate unfaithfulness toward God (Numbers 15: 39; Psalm 73: 26, 27; Jer. :6-13), as an evidence that wilful disobedience or distrust or "intractable carriage of the wife to the husband" is a Scriptural cause of separation. Rather it stamps on all alienation from God, and joining to idols or the world, God's severest condemnation. But Milton's tracts on this subject are marvels of theological special pleading. I should rather draw from Jer. 3: 14 a lesson of the duty of husband or wife, to endeavor at first to reclaim even an unfaithful spouse, before seeking divorce. To suppose that lustful imaginations, which are defined by Christ in Matt. 5: 28 as adultery in the heart, is included in the fornication here indicated as a ground of divorce, is to take away from this passage all significance. How can we judge of the imaginations of another's heart?

And whoso marrieth the divorced doth commit adultery. There is some doubt whether these words have not been added. Tischendorf omits them; Alford retains them. The same principle is however enunciated in Matt. 5:32 and Luke 16 : 18, where the reading is undoubted. Does this forbid the marriage of the innocent party after separation on account of fornication? The Roman Catholic church forbids such marriage; the Protestant and Greek churches allow it. Christ appears to me to condemn only (1) marriage to any one who has been divorced for any other reason than fornication; or (2) divorced for his or her own infidelity. The principle, and indeed the language, applies equally to either sex.

10. If marriage is truly for better for worse, if from it there is no release, then the disciples think one had better not take the hazard of it. They express in words what some express by their lives.

11. Not all can receive this saying, i. c., your saying, It is not good to marry.-Save to whom it has been given. The tense indicates not a gift to be bestowed, but that has been bestowed; and the reference is not to spiritual grace of self-restraint, to be given to the saint in answer to prayer, but to a native constitutional character belonging to the few, who therefore are not impelled to marriage.

12. The Lord distinguishes three classes who would receive this saying, and would abstain from marriage: (1) those incapacitated from birth for the marriage relation; (2) those incapacitated by subsequent action of men; this incapacity being in the East inflicted, sometimes as a punishment, sometimes on servants, who were in consequence admitted to the harem, from which all other men were excluded; (3) those who, in order to better perform special work in the kingdom of God, voluntarily practise absolute continence. For it is impossible to believe that Christ means that a literal self-mutilation can ever be a religious act; though Origen is said to have so understood the passage, and in his youth to have "committed the unnatural deed which forever disqualified him for marriage." (Schaff in Lange on Matt. 19:12.) The passage certainly does imply that celibacy zaay be in certain exigencies and certain individuals a virtue, practised for good reason for the sake of better serving in the kingdom of God; it as certainly does not imply any general duty of celibacy in any class, or that the celibate's spiritual condition is, by reason of his celibacy, higher than that of others. On the contrary, it implies that marriage is the rule and celibacy is the exception. The priests of the O. T. married; Peter certainly, other of the apostles probably, were married; marriage is employed in both O. T. and N. T. as the type of God's union with his people; and forbidding to marry is declared to be characteristic of the apostacy of later times. The student may consult to advantage the following passages as bearing on this subject: Lev. 21:14; Matt. 8: 14; Acts 21: 8, 9; 1 Cor. 7: 1, 2; 9:5; 1 Tim. 3:2; 4:3; Heb. 13: 4.

OF CHRIST'S LAW OF DIVORCE. In considering the significance of this passage it must be remembered that Christ, neither here nor anywhere else, propounds laws for the state, but, in contrast with the laws of Moses, principles for the individual disciple (see notes on Matt. 5: 17, 37, 42). Only by implication can any rules for incorporation in civil legislation be deduced from this.