Note 58 — Chapter VI · THE DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE THREE FIRST GOSPELS.1

Among the parables which are peculiar to Luke, that of the two debtors (vii. 41 ff.); that of the good Samaritan (x. 30 ff.); that of the man whose accumulation of earthly treasure is interrupted by death (xii. 16 ff. comp. Wis. xi. 17 ff.); and also the two which figure the efficacy of importunate prayer (xi. 5 ff., xviii. 2 ff.); have a definite, clear signification, and with the exception of the last, which is introduced abruptly, a tolerably consistent connexion. We may learn from the two last parables, that it is often necessary entirely to abstract particular features from the parables of Jesus, seeing that in one of them God is represented by a lukewarm friend, in the other by an unjust judge. To the latter is annexed the parable of the Pharisee and Publican (9–14), of which only Schleiermacher, on the strength of a connexion, fabricated by himself between it and the foregoing, can deny the antipharisaic tendency.58 The parables of the lost sheep, the piece of silver, and the prodigal son (Luke xv. 3–32), have the same direction. Matthew also has the first of these (xviii. 12 ff.), but in a different connexion, which determines its import somewhat differently, and without doubt, as will presently be shown, less correctly. It is easy to imagine that these three parables were spoken in immediate succession, because the second is merely a variation of the first, and the third is an amplification and elucidation of them both. Whether, according to the opinion of modern criticism, the two succeeding parables also belong with the above to one continuous discourse,59 must be determined by a closer examination of their contents, which are in themselves noteworthy.