Note 57 — Chapter VI · THE DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE THREE FIRST GOSPELS.1

We proceed to notice the other evangelical parables,57 and first among them, those which are peculiar to one Evangelist. We come foremost in Matthew to the parable of the servant (xviii. 23 ff.) who, although his lord had forgiven him a debt of ten thousand talents, had no mercy on his fellow-servant who owed him a hundred; tolerably well introduced by an exhortation to placability (v. 15), and the question of Peter, How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Likewise peculiar to Matthew is the parable of the labourers in the vineyard (xx. 1 ff.), which suitably enough forms a counterpoise to the foregoing promise of a rich recompense to the disciples. Of the sentences which Matthew appends to this parable (v. 16), the first, So the last shall be first, and the first last, by which he had also prefaced it (xix. 30), is the only one with which it has any internal connexion; the other, for many are called, but few chosen, rather gives the moral of the parable of the royal feast and the wedding garment, in connexion with which Matthew actually repeats it (xxii. 14). It was well adapted, however, even torn from this connexion, to circulate as an independent apothegm, and as it appeared fitting to the Evangelist to annex one or more short sentences to the end of a parable, he might be induced, by some superficial similarity to the one already given, to place them in companionship. Farther, the parable of the two sons sent into the vineyard, is also peculiar to Matthew (xxi. 28 ff.), and is not ill-placed in connexion with the foregoing questions and retorts between Jesus and the Pharisees; its anti-Pharisaic significance is also well brought out by the sequel (31 f.).