to shew them that He was not speaking literally, rebukes their dull and literalizing minds as follows:—
Mark viii. 17-21. "Why reason ye because ye have no bread? Do ye not yet perceive?..... When I brake the five loaves among the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces took ye up?" They say unto him, "Twelve." "And when the seven among the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces took ye up?" And they say unto him, "Seven." And he said unto them, "Do ye not yet understand?" |
Matthew xvi. 8-12. "Why reason ye among yourselves because ye have no bread? Do ye not yet perceive neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets took ye up? Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do not perceive that I spake not to you concerning bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. |
Now before I proceed further I must point out to you that these words are not found in St. Luke's Gospel. For my own part I am disposed to believe them to be genuine, though not quite in the exact form in which we now find them. I think St. Luke may have omitted them because he found some difficulty or obscurity in them; or because he did not know of them; or perhaps because he did not know of, or did not accept, the feeding of the Four Thousand, to which they refer. But suppose we are forced to give them up as altogether spurious, that is to say, as not being genuine words of Jesus, though genuine parts of the first and second Gospels; what is the consequence? Simply that we shall be reduced to St. Luke's version of the words, which is as follows (Luke xii. 1): "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy." Can we say that St. Luke has herein omitted words that are essential to the life of Christ, or that we have lost anything of the highest importance, or even that we have lost a very "characteristic saying" of Jesus in omitting the statistical comparison which St. Luke omits? I think not.
But now let us assume that Jesus uttered these words or something like them. I think you would perceive that
