Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 10:1 - 10:1

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 10:1 - 10:1


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

1–18. “The form of the discourse in the first half of chap. 10 is remarkable. It resembles the Synoptic parables, but not exactly. The parable is a short narrative, which is kept wholly separate from the ideal facts which it signifies. But this discourse is not a narrative; and the figure and its application run side by side, and are interwoven with one another all through. It is an extended metaphor rather than a parable. If we are to give it an accurate name we should be obliged to fall back upon the wider term ‘allegory.’

This, and the parallel passage in chap. 15, are the only instances of allegory in the Gospels. They take in the Fourth Gospel the place which parables hold with the Synoptists. The Synoptists have no allegories distinct from parables. The fourth Evangelist has no parables as a special form of allegory. What are we to infer from this? The parables certainly are original and genuine. Does it follow that the allegories are not?

(1) We notice, first, that along with the change of form there is a certain change of subject. The parables generally turn round the ground conception of the kingdom of heaven. They … do not enlarge on the relation which its King bears to the separate members.… Though the royal dignity of the Son is incidentally put forward, there is nothing which expresses so closely and directly the personal relation of the Messiah to the community of believers, collectively and individually, as these two ‘allegories’ from S. John. Their form seems in an especial manner suited to their subject-matter, which is a fixed, permanent and simple relation, not a history of successive states. The form of the allegories is at least appropriate.

(2) We notice next that even with the Synoptists the use of the parable is not rigid. All do not conform precisely to the same type. There are some, like the Pharisee and Publican, the Good Samaritan, &c., which give direct patterns for action, and are not therefore parables in the same sense in which the Barren Fig-tree, the Prodigal Son, &c. are parables.… If, then, the parable admits so much deviation on the one side, may it not also on the other?

(3) Lastly, we have to notice the parallels to this particular figure of the Good Shepherd that are found in the Synoptists. These are indeed abundant. The parable of the Lost Sheep (Luk 15:4-7; Mat 18:12-13).… ‘I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Mat 15:24).… ‘But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd’ (Mat 9:36), which when taken with Mat 11:28-29 (‘Come unto Me all ye that labour,’ &c.), gives almost an exact parallel to the Johannean allegory.” Sanday.