iv. 13).  Many of Jesus’ parables, however, had no such enigmatic character, but were intended simply to help his hearers to understand him.  He made use of this kind of teaching from first to last.  The pictures of the wise and foolish builders with which the sermon on the mount concludes show that it was not the use of illustration which surprised the disciples in the parables associated with the Sower, but his use of such puzzling illustrations.  Some of the parables of Luke’s peculiar section may belong to the Galilean ministry, and even to the earlier stages of it.  These have none of the enigmatic character; the parables of the last days of Jesus’ life also seem to have been simple and clear to his hearers.  The Oriental mind prefers the concrete to the abstract, and its teachers have ever made large use of illustration.  Jesus stands unique, not in that he used parables, but in the simplicity and effective beauty of those which he used.  These illustrations, whether Jesus intended them for the moment to enlighten or to confound, served always to set forth concretely some truth concerning the relation of men to God, or concerning his kingdom and their relation to it.  The form of teaching was welcome to his hearers, and served as one of the attractions to draw men to him.

139.  The first gospel assigns another extended discourse to this Galilean period,—­the Instructions to the Twelve.  The mission of the twelve formed a new departure as Jesus saw the Galilean crisis approaching.  He sought thereby to multiply his own work, and commissioned his disciples to heal and preach as he was doing.  The restriction of their field to Israel (Matt. x. 5, 6) simply applied to them the rule he adopted for himself during the Galilean period (Matt. xv. 24).  Comparison with the accounts in Mark and Luke, as well as the character of the instructions found in Matthew, show that here the first evangelist has followed his habit of gathering together teachings on the same general theme from different periods in Jesus’ life.  Much in the tenth chapter of Matthew indicates clearly that the ministry of Jesus had already passed the period of popularity, and that his disciples could now look for little but scorn and persecution.  This was the situation at the end of Jesus’ public life, and parallel sayings are found in the record of the last week in Jerusalem.

140.  When the teaching of the sermon and the parables is compared with Jesus’ self-assertion in his replies to pharisaic criticism and blasphemy, the difference is striking.  Ordinarily he avoided calling attention to himself, wishing men to form their opinion of him after they had learned to know him as he was.  Yet when one looks beneath the surface of his teaching, the tone of authority which astonished the multitudes is identical with the calm self-confidence which replied to pharisaic censure:  “The Son of Man hath authority on the earth to forgive sins.”