29 And his fellow-servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, 30 saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And

he would not; but went and cast him into prison, till he should 31 pay the debt. So when his fellow-servants saw what was done, they were very sorry; and came and told unto their lord all 32 that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him,

said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that 33 debt, because thou desiredst me; shouldst not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on 34 thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tor35 mentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my Heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.

and took him by the throat]
more exactly and literally, he seized
and choked him.
Pay me
that thou owest] Observe here
the haughty mode of expression
which is so exactly in character
with the reckless and cruel servant.
He does not mention the trifling
sum of one hundred pence, which
would lessen his consequence and
rebuke his pride, but shows his in-
solence while he conceals the small-
ness of his claims, as some do the
poverty of their ideas, by a grand,
imperious, and generalizing form of
speech. If the sum due to him had
been ten thousand talents, he could
not have made a more lofty and
sounding demand.
29. fell
down at his feet, and besought
him] Not as in verse 26, fell
down and worshipped him. The dif-
ferent degrees of homage customary
in the two cases, according to the

dignity of the persons, is nicely
indicated by the language.
32. Othou wicked servant] His
cruelty to his fellow-servant was
more severely regarded than his
wasting his lord's goods.

34. till he should pay all that
was due unto him and as that
can never be done, the condition,
it has been said, amounts to a per-
petual imprisonment, and there-
fore proves the doctrine of eternal
punishment. The Roman Catholics,
on the contrary, and some Prot-
estant writers, e. g. Olshausen, in-
fer from it, that as the word until
implies that a limit is fixed, so
there is such a thing after death
as deliverance, in behalf of some.
It seems to us, however, unreason-
able to deduce any doctrine from
one of the minor adjuncts of a
parable.

CHAPTER XIX.

1-12. THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF DIVORCE.

1, 2. JESUS now left Galilee for the last time. As the Samaritans (Luke ix. 53) refused to receive him, he turned eastward from the direct route to Jerusalem, and crossing the Jordan entered the Peræa, a part of the kingdom of Herod Antipas. Strictly speaking, Judæa did not extend beyond the Jordan. But here, as Mr. Norton remarks, it is "to be understood in its more extended meaning, as equivalent to Palestine. The name Peræa is not used in the New Testament. The expression, Judæa beyond the Jordan is, as Reland remarks, used by Josephus in one instance to denote Peræa." Antiq. XII. 4, 11.

3- 6. The Pharisees come to try and perplex him by their questions, and ask him if it is lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause. This, as De Wette suggests, was a delicate subject to be discussed in the dominions of Herod Antipas. See xiv. There was a division of opinion among the Rabbins as to the construction to be put upon the Mosaic law of divorce in Deut. xxiv. 1. The School of Hillel maintained from it that when anything in his wife displeased a husband, "even if she had only oversalted his soup," it would be a sufficient reason for giving her up. Rabbi Schammai took the expression in a more limited sense, as referring only to what was scandalous and dishonorable. "In the words for every cause," says Olshausen, "there is expressed that exposition of the Mosaic law which agrees with the opinions of Hillel's followers, and the question accordingly is so put as to request his opinion on that view." Jesus, in his reply, pays no regard to these disputes. He goes not only be

hind them, but also behind the law of Moses, to the fundamental reason on which the law of marriage and divorce must rest. But he does this in a way not to offend their Jewish prejudices. From the constitution of the sexes as shown in the act of man's creation, Jesus declares, in words sacred to the Jews (Gen. ii. 24) the priority and sacredness of the marriage relation beyond all others. Not by the law of Moses, but long before that, in the constitution of the sexes, by the very act of creation, God ordained the law which is to be binding in this relation, and, "What God hath thus joined together, let not man put asunder."

7, 8. But if this be so, they ask, "Why did Moses command [permit, Mark x. 4] to give a writing of divorcement, and put her away." In reply to this question, Jesus again lays down one of those fundamental principles which so widely distinguish his views of law from all others. God in his dealings with man, he here intimates, must adapt his specific laws and regulations to the necessities of man's condition. Hence a succession of dispensations, each adapted to the existing state of things, and preparing the way for something better. Hence in many respects, because of the hardness of men's hearts, because they on account of their blunted moral sensibilities are able to bear only so much, God allows and even enjoins at one period of human progress that which is forbidden in a more advanced stage of moral and religious culture. Even Milton, in his Tetrachordon, allows the necessity of this adaptation, though it is opposed to his general course of argument. "For this hardness of heart," he says, "it was that God suffered, not divorce only, but all that which by civilians is termed the secondary law of nature and of nations. He suffered his own people to waste and spoil and slay by war, to lead captives, to be some masters, in his commonwealth; some to be

some servants

undeservedly rich, others to be undeservingly poor.

In the same manner, and for the same cause, he suffered divorce as well as marriage, our imperfect and degenerate condition of necessity requiring this law among the rest, as a remedy against intolerable wrong and servitude above the patience of man to bear." This graded principle of adaptation to man's condition and capabilities in the laws which are designed for his use even by the Divine wisdom, must always be borne in mind by those who would study the laws of Moses in the light of the highest philosophy. Law is always given, as St. Paul says of the Jewish law (Gal. iii. 19), because of transgressions; and not that which is perfect when judged by the rules of absolute rectitude, but that which is the best that men are able to bear at the time, is the law which is dictated by the highest wisdom.

Considering the character of the Jews in the time of Moses, the difficulty with which they were brought to recognize the highest sentiments of religion and morals, and especially the violence of their passions and their tendency continually to lapse into idolatry and a low sensualism, it is easy to see that some regard must have been had to these things in the laws of marriage. In many respects the Jews of that time were but a race of semi-barbarous, half-emancipated slaves. Lightfoot in his commentary on this passage has shown that, had it not been for the permission of divorce and the legal forms by which the rights of the wife were thus guarded, she might have been summarily dismissed, or exposed to the most harsh and cruel treatment, or even to death from the violence of her husband.

8. Jesus here returns again to the fundamental principle which existed before Moses, before Jacob or Abraham, and according to that the law of God was and is, as he has already declared (v. 32), that there shall be no divorce except for the one crime which destroys the sacredness, and is therefore in fact a dissolution, of the marriage re

lation. The remarkable thing here again is the facility with which Jesus, even in discussing rules of legislation. with the most bigoted adherents to the letter of the law, goes behind specific rules, and rests his doctrine on the substantial reality of things. "Christ taught, as the men of his day remarked, on an authority very different from that of the scribes. Not even on his own authority. He did not claim that his words should be recognized because he said them, but because they were true. "If I say the

truth, why do ye not believe me?'" F. W. Robertson.

10-12. The conversation which follows took place (Mark x. 10) in the house, and was addressed particularly to the disciples. "If," say they, "the case of a man is so,” i. e. if the law and his liability under it are such, "it is better for a man not to marry." To this remark of theirs Jesus assents with particular reference, we may suppose, to the hardships and persecutions which his followers must endure in those times. Still, he adds, this rule of celibacy is not one of universal application. None but those to whom the power has been given, 11, are able to bear it; and of those to whom it has been given, some, 12, are by nature free from the passions which make a life of continence without marriage difficult to them, some by hardships and privations are made so, while others from their own high motives and convictions rise above the control of the passions, and cheerfully put aside all thought of these domestic relations for the kingdom of Heaven's sake, i. e. that they may give themselves entirely to the advancement of that kingdom.

CHRIST BLESSING THE CHILDREN.

13-15. The beautiful incident related here and Mark x. 13-16, of Jesus, when he took little children into his arms, and put his hands upon them, and blessed them, shows the relation which he looks on them as sustaining