Extract of Sir Isaac Newton’s writings on Christ’s use of Parables

From Newton's book on the "Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse', published posthumously in 1733.

In Sir Isaac Newton's book on the Prophecies of Daniel occurs the following passage on the parabolic language of Christ. Speaking of this passage, or part of it, in his book, Luke the Physician, published in 1908, Sire William Ramsay says he has never seen the book from which the extract is made; and adds: "If there is much in it like this paragraph it must be better worth reading than some modern commentators, for this is original and true."

I observe that Christ and his forerunner, John, in their parabolic discourses were wont to allude to things present. The old prophets, when they would describe things emphatically, did not only draw parables from things which offered themselves, as from the rent of a garment (I Samuel 15), from the sabbatical year (Isaiah 37), from the vessels of a potter (Jeremiah 18, etc.), but also when such fit objects were wanting, they supplied them by their own actions, as by rending a garment (I Kings 11), by shooting (II Kings 13), by making bare their body (Isaiah 20), by imposing significant names on their sons (Isaiah 8; Hosea 1), by hiding a girdle in the bank of Euphrates (Jeremiah 13), by breaking a potter’s vessel (Jeremiah 19), by putting on fetters and yokes (Jeremiah 27), by binding a book to a stone, and casting them both into Euphrates (Jeremiah 51), by besieging a painted city (Ezekiel 4), by dividing hair into three parts (Ezekiel 5), by making a chain (Ezekiel 7), by carrying out household stuff like a captive and trembling (Ezekiel 12), etc. By such kind of types the prophets loved to speak.

“And Christ, being endued with a nobler prophetic spirit than the rest, excelled also in this kind of speaking, yet so as not to speak by his own actions, that was less grave and decent, but to turn into parables such things as offered themselves. On occasion of the harvests approaching, he admonishes his disciples once and again of the spiritual harvest (John 4:35; Matthew 9:37). Seeing the lilies of the field, he admonishes his disciples about gay clothing (Matthew 6:28).

In allusion to the present season of fruits, he admonishes his disciples about knowing men by their fruits (Matthew 7:16). In the time of the Passover, when trees put forth leaves, he bids his disciples ‘learn a parable from the fig-tree: when its branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves , ye know that summer is night,’ etc. (Matthew 24:32; Luke 21:29). The same day, alluding both to the season of the year and to his passion, which was to be two days after, he formed a parable of the time of fruits approaching and the murdering of the heir (Matthew 21:33).

Alluding at the same time, both to the money changers whom he had newly driven out of the temple, and to his passion at hand, he made a parable of a nobleman going into a far country to receive a kingdom and return, and delivering his goods to his servants, and at his return condemning the slothful servant because he put not his money to the exchanges (Matthew 25:14; Luke 19:12).

“Being near the temple where sheep were kept in folds to be sold for the sacrifices, he spake many things parabolically of sheep, of the shepherd, and of the door of the sheepfold; and discovers that he alluded to the sheepfolds which were to be hired in the market place, by speaking of such folds as a thief could not enter by the door, nor the shepherd himself open, but a porter opened to the shepherd (John 10:1,3). Being in the Mount of Olives (Matthew 36:30; John 14:31), a place so fertile that it could not want vines, he spake many things mystically of the husbandman, and of the vine and its branches (John 15). Meeting a blind man, he admonished of spiritual blindness (John 9:39). At the sight of little children, he described once and again the innocence of the elect (Matthews; 19:13).

“Knowing that Lazarus was dead and should be raised again, he discoursed of the resurrection and life eternal (John 11:25,26).

“Hearing of the slaughter of some whom Pilate had slain, he admonished of eternal death” (Luke 13:1).

“To his fisherman he spake of fishers of men (Matthew 9:10), and composed another parable about fishes (Matthew 13:47). Being by the temple, he spake of the temple of his body (John 2:19). At supper he spake a parable about the mystical supper to come in the kingdom of heaven (Luke 14). On occasion of temporal food, he admonished his disciples of spiritual food, and of eating his flesh and drinking his blood mystically (John 6:27,53). When his disciples wanted bread, he bade them beware of the leaven of the Pharisees (Matthew 16:6). Being desired to eat, he answered that he had other meat (John 4:31).

“In the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles, when the Jews, as their custom was, brought a great quantity of waters from the river Shiloh into the temple, Christ stood and cried, saying, ‘If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water’ (John 7:37). The next day, in allusion to the servants who by reason of the sabbatical year were newly set free, he said, ‘If ye continue in my word, the truth shall make you free.’

Which the Jews understanding literally with respect to the present manumission of servants, answered, ‘We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, ye shall be made free?’ (John 8). They assert their freedom by a double argument: first, because they were the seed of Abraham, and therefore newly made free, had they been ever in bondage; and then, because they never were in bondage. In the last Passover, when Herod led his army through Judea against Aretas, King of Arabia, because Aretas was aggressor and the stronger in military forces, as appeared by the event; Christ alluded to that state of things, composed the parable of a weaker king leading his army against a stronger who made war upon him (Luke 14:31). And I doubt not but divers other parables were formed upon other occasions, the history of which we have not.”