r, 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