hought of his time. He
made it, therefore, the theme of many of his parables; and although the
disciples did not understand what he meant, the picture remained with
them, and in after years they grew up to his idea.

236. Jesus' use of illustration is one of the most marked features of his
teaching. In one sense this simply proves him to be a genuine Oriental,
for to contemplate and present abstract truths in concrete form is
characteristic of the Semitic mind. In the case of Jesus, however, it
proves more: the variety and homeliness of his illustrations show how
completely conversant he was alike with common life and with spiritual
truth. There is a freedom and ease about his use of figurative language
which suggests, as nothing else could, his own clear certainty concerning
the things of which he spoke. The fact, too, that his mind dealt so
naturally with the highest thoughts has made his illustrations unique for
profound truth and simple beauty. Nearly the whole range of figurative
speech is represented in his recorded words, including forms like irony
and hyperbole, often held to be unnatural to such serious speech as his.

237. Another figure has become almost identified with the name of
Jesus,--such abundant and incomparable use did he make of it. Parable
was, however, no invention of his, for the rabbis of his own and later
times, as well as the sages and prophets who went before them, made use of
it. As distinguished from other forms of illustration, the parable is a
picture true to actual human life, used to enforce a religious truth. The
picture may be drawn in detail, as in the story of the Lost Son (Luke xv.
11-32), or it may be the concisest narration possible, as in the parable
of the Leaven (Matt. xiii. 33); but it always retains its character as a
narrative true to human experience. It is this that gives parable the
peculiar value it has for religious teaching, since it brings unfamiliar
truth close home to every-day life. Like all the illustrations used by
Jesus, the parable was ordinarily chosen as a means of making clear the
spiritual truth which he was presenting. Illustration never finds place as
mere ornament in his addresses. His parables, however, were sometimes used
to baffle the unteachable and critical. Such was the case on the occasion
in Jesus' life when attention is first called in the gospels to this mode
of teaching (Mark iv. 1-34). The parable of the Sower would mean little to
hearers wh