Note 30 — Chapter VII · DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

The tenth chapter commences with the well-known discourse on the Good Shepherd; a discourse which has been incorrectly called a parable.30 Even the briefest among the other parables of Jesus, such as that of the leaven and of the mustard-seed, contain the outline of a history that develops itself, having a commencement, progress, and conclusion. Here, on the contrary, there is no historical development; even the particulars that have an historical character are stated generally, as things that are wont to happen, not as things that once happened, and they are left without further limitation; moreover, the door usurps the place of the Shepherd, which is at first the principal image; so that we have here, not a parable, but an allegory. Therefore this passage at least—(and we shall find no other, for the similitude of the vine, ch. xv., comes, as Lücke confesses, under the same category as the one in question)—furnishes no argument against the allegation by which recent critics have justified their suspicions as to the authenticity of the fourth gospel; namely, that its author seems ignorant of the parabolic mode of teaching which, according to the other Evangelists, was habitual with Jesus. It does not however appear totally unknown to the fourth Evangelist that Jesus was fond of teaching by parables, for he attempts to give examples of this method, both in ch. x. and xv., the first of which he expressly styles a parable, παροιμία. But it is obvious that the parabolic form was not accordant with his taste, and that he was too deficient in the faculty of depicting external things, to abstain from the intermixture of reflections, whence the parable in his hand became an allegory.