Jesus’ Parables — An analysis of Receptivity (by Andrei Plesu) — English Translation
The following is a translation of a video conference recording with Andrei Plesu, a contemporary Romanian philosopher.
It talks about the nature of Jesus’ parables in the Bible, and their meaning related to Christianity, the church and ideology.
Original Video Clip in Romanian
Title
Conference — “Jesus’ Parables — An analisis of receptivity” with Andrei Plesu
Location
Cluj, Romania
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
27 October 2010
Romanian Translation by somewheredeep.wordpress.com
I like Andrei Plesu, he is a contemporary Romanian essayist and philosopher, and wish more people outside of Romania knew of his work, but there are very few English translations of his works. Enjoy.
Synopsis from the Book on which this video is based
http://librarie.carturesti.ro/parabolele-lui-iisus-adevarul-ca-poveste-285174
And when He was alone, they that were about Him with the twelve asked of Him the parable. And He said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables. (Marc 4:10)
Are there questions for which prompt and pertinent answers can be given? What about our current experience? What is the law of gravity? There are questions, such as those of our early childhood, which seem simple, or surrealistic, but the answers of which solicit metaphysical talent or fantasy: Why does our hand have 5 fingers? Who invented sleep? Are there “big” questions, ultimate questions, which I like to call “Russian Questions” since they make up many a Dostoyevskyian insomnias: What is happiness? Why does evil exist? What is the purpose of life?
For these questions you can’t propose a geometrical answer, rather an analogy, a metaphor, a transformative bypass. It is the most adequate solution. The only one. Instead of saying, savantly: “This is how it is”, you say “let me tell you a story”.
The current book, presents the stories told by Jesus, in His effort to familiarize those around him with the metabolism of His kingdom. The task he undertakes is impossible, and as such is a task for His divinity: he must talk about things that are not evident, he must offer help, without falling into a recipe or the abuse of doctrine, and he must give not just thoughts to reflect upon, but motivation for life, existential support”
Conference Translation
Dear rectors, teachers, distinguished colleagues … [intro] …
I will try to be short, as I know sometimes ideas don’t stand in the face of abundant physical exercise (referring to those standing up), although it’s not easy as I chose a complicated subject. A subject with which I’m placed rather poorly.
I want to talk about Jesus’ parables. It’s a subject that, if you tackle it, some representatives of the church [Romanian Orthodox Church] will consider that I’m putting my nose where it does not belong, and in general, it’s preferable that I remain in my unholy domain because theology is someone else’s profession.
On the other hand, some young intellectuals consider that I’m talking about an outdated theme, which has no relevance to current times any more. I’m much more intimidated by this point of view, because at the current moment, current events are boiling, the parliament is voting on a law (or not voting on it), and I asked myself how many will choose to stay in front of the TV to see the result, and how many will come here so we can discuss about parables.
I’m flattered that you chose this option. I assure you are not missing anything [on TV].
Everyone knows that Jesus often talks in parables, in ‘pilde’, as we often say in our church language. In other words in little stories. This is very special way to refer to truth, which is often encountered in the Orient [Eastern part of the world]. In Europe, when you ask a question, usually the answer is a logical construction. Somebody who is savvy
shows up and says “This is how things are” and then a demonstration follows.
When you ask someone from the Far East, usually they will say “You know what, let me tell you a story”. And a story follows that is sometimes more clarifying than any argument. But this is a different subject, the difference between narration and argumentation. We won’t deal with that today.
But to speak in parables, in stories, was a very common practice during Jesus’ time. First of all in the Judaic environment in which he belonged -there are parables in the old testament, there are rabbinical parables from before and after Jesus- but parables were used in Greek literature, in Latin literature, and you can read the theory of parables in Aristotle. It was in other words a convenient didactical, rhetorical tool.
It is curious, that despite of it being a convenient rhetorical tool, Jesus’ disciples, in all the gospels ask him: “So why are you talking to us in parables”? As if it was something uncommon. It’s a curious question, and various critics were quickly found to say that this question is so curious that it was probably added on later. I will come back to this. Sometimes philologists, who I admire a lot, when they find a text that’s hard to place, they prefer to have doubts about the text rather than their own hermeneutical ability, and it is the case with this. They immediately say “this has to be an interpolation”, either the religious people added it themselves to give Jesus the chance to explain himself, or the church of the first centuries added it so they can explain what is a parable, and so on.
The fact is that Jesus is asked this question by his disciples. However, Jesus’ answer is even more curious. And based on his answer I will try to sketch for you a type of analysis of receptivity, and you will shortly see what I mean.
Jesus has a stunning response. I will give you the variant from Marc (it doesn’t really matter, they all say the same thing) which is
… and He said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.”
So that “they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.
From this answer, which appears in Luke and in more details in Mathew (with a difference I will point out), it seems that for Jesus the world was divided in two. Those near to him, his disciples, his followers, his friends and … the rest of the world, which didn’t need to understand, which didn’t need to be saved and for which he speaks ‘encoded’ so they remain ignorant until the end.
You must accept, that for the image we have of Jesus, it is a ‘hard’ answer. There have been those who called it a theological scandal, it’s not like the Jesus persona, it’s not like the gospel.
There are at least 3 arguments why this answer is difficult to accept directly.
- First of all, through this answer, Jesus turns the current use of the parable on its head. The parable, whenever it is used in the old world, in the Judaic, Greek or Latin is meant to simplify, to clarify, to illustrate a difficult text. No? If I have a ‘hard’ text, a rabbi or Socratic master comes and says “Ok, so you can understand I will tell you the following story, and you’ll see things are simpler than you think.” But Jesus, on the other hand, turns things upside down. He says exactly the opposite, he says: “I’m going to tell you a story, and if you think you understood something from it, you wouldn’t have actually understood anything.”
People have talked about the ‘Socratism’ of Jesus, because he seems to be using the parable, not to clarify, not to simplify, but the other way around, to make it harder to penetrate, to stop , to block access, which is incredible. It doesn’t seem like Jesus. - The second argument why his answer is strange is this. In his entire biography as described in the gospels he seems to get along and is understood by the masses, by the many. Everything he does, everything he heals, everything he says is an uninterrupted dialogue with the masses, who in turn are fascinated by his presence. So it’s very hard to imagine a man who carries with him this biography including large masses of people from all the surrounding lands, is coming with such drastic discrimination against them.
In all gospels, it’s written that wherever he would go many people would come, that they would stampede to see him, that some sick person had to be brought to Jesus through the roof because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to get to him because of the crowd. That sometimes he and his disciples didn’t even have time to eat because of how many people were t. It’s obvious that the people, the masses are there.
So if he has the intention to not tell them anything clearly, and to even stop their access to the knowledge of his message, then why is this dialogue so alive?
More so, in the Gospel of Mark, there is the following passage:
“Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.” (Marc 10:10)
So this was his custom, he was teaching them, not ‘un-teaching’ them, not keeping them away.
It’s absurd says a British interpreter, it’s not understood why he’s speaking in parables if he wants to communicate something to them. - There’s another argument. A third for which this answer of Jesus is strange.
Who are those on the outside, those “… that are without”? How can they be identified? When he talks about others, the bible mentions the 12 (disciples) plus ‘a few others that were around’. From that we understand that everyone else, are those on the outside.
But things get a bit complicated because Jesus doesn’t tell some things even to the 12, but only to some of the 12. For example in chapter 13 of the Gospel of Marc we find out that certain things related to the final coming of the Son of God are only told to Peter, Jacob, John and Andrew. Only these 4. They asked him, says the bible, “only them amongst themselves”.
In the ‘transfiguration’ episode, the witnesses that Jesus chooses are only 3, Peter, Jacob and John. What should we understand from this, that the others are ‘those without’? That even within the 12 some are more within, and some are more without?
But even more than that, Jesus’ answer says that “I’m speaking to those on the outside in parables because they don’t understand”. There are many passages in the gospel, in which to Jesus’ desperation, the ones who do not understand are his own disciples. He often tells them “You don’t get it again.” or “If you didn’t get this, how will you understand that”? “Your hearts are like stones”. This is what he tells to those 12, to the ones who are supposed to understand, as opposed to the ‘ones without’, the ones who don’t understand.
Even worse, there are moments in which after a parable, those on the outside, supposedly Jesus’ enemies understand better what he means than the disciples. There is the parable of the Vineyard (Mark 12:1) which he tells to a diverse audience, and the Pharisees and the ones who are against Jesus realize that he’s talking about them in this parable, something his own disciples don’t understand right away.
As a result, things are very complicated since Jesus turns upside down the term and the common usage of the parable through his answer.
Jesus seems to have a discriminatory spirit that seems un-christian, towards a human quantity with which he has good relations, and more so, those on the inside who are supposed to understand don’t, while those on the outside, ‘those without’ do.
The conclusion of the philologists is that the text is a forgery, it’s not quite right. There is a mistake here, maybe someone added it, maybe someone translated it wrong, and so we get to a very interesting debate which can be summarized quickly, as I don’t want to stop here.
The idea that “I’m speaking to them in parables, so they DON’T understand” is introduced in the Greek language through a conjunction “Hina” which is a conjunction with finality. Something along the lines of “I’m doing X so I won’t do Y”. But this conjunction, this “Hina” poses a problem, why should Jesus have the explicit intention for those people to not understand.
Attempts at a solution for this … scholars researched with competence and diligence, in the Apocalypse, in non-christian authors, in Epictetus, in John the Baptist and found a later usage of this conjunction “Hina” with a causal sense. And then things seem to be resolved since it seems that it should have been translated not as “… so they don’t understand” but rather as ” … because they don’t understand” and as such I’m speaking to them in parables.
This then makes the situation more bearable, and it is a hypothesis supported by the fact that even in Mathew’s version of the answer, this final conjunction doesn’t appear anymore, but is replaced with a causal conjunction “hoti”. Meaning “I speak onto them in parables, BECAUSE they don’t understand”.
More so, there is a word that resolves the outrageous idea of “They shouldn’t understand or they may become saved”. This Greek word may be translated as “unless somehow”, so Jesus’ answer becomes “I speak to them in parables, BECAUSE they don’t understand, UNLESS SOMEHOW they will understand and be saved”, not “… LEST they become saved”.
I mentioned this entire debate to show you what philological, historical problem this answer causes.
Now I have the obligation to give you my own interpretation. And my interpretation is a chapter of analysis of receptivity.
Before starting, I must tell you something. Even if my position can be criticized, I’m inclined to take the holy text, regardless of which one it is, the gospels, Upanishads, etc as ‘stable’. I take the holy text as it is, which means to respect the text’s intention, and it’s status as established through thousands of years of tradition. I won’t rush to say “There’s something wrong here” or “I think something should be different here. I start from the principle that whatever is written there, is what it is.
If you understand what’s there, great, if not, don’t try to remodel this matter so it can mold to your ‘milk teeth’ [baby teeth], to your modern intelligence, with your mental reflexes. You can of course do this, it is the easy way. I prefer to take the text as it is.
Good, now I was saying Jesus seemed to have an unchristian air in this episode. He also has an un-christian air, I will remind you of a passage that you all know, the parable of the Pearls cast upon the Swine from Mathew 7:6. Don’t give something to just anyone. Between the one who gives and the one who receives there should be some understanding, otherwise that which is given is wasted.
I would say, with a maxim, that what Jesus is trying to say is that he’s there for everyone, but not for just anyone. He is virtual for all, but in fact needs someone who listens, a certain reaction, a particular receptivity, and echo, an availability.
Here it’s not about, as it has been said in certain interpretations, about the initiated and the non-initiated, the basis of Christian Esotericism, it’s about those who are available and those who are not.
And I will come here concretely to the problem I would like to develop in the next moments.
Jesus has something to communicate, a message. This communication implies a dialogue. Today we almost have an orphic about dialogue, in which we think everything can be resolved through a debate, a dialogue. No matter the crisis, the problem, it can be solved if we talk, if we communicated through a dialogue. Everything is a dialogue, tolerance, openness, etc
This mythology of dialogue, which certainly holds some truth, shouldn’t be idolized. Dialogue is not possible in just any conditions, and we in Romania of today should know this very well. Dialogue needs a certain type of situation to evolve and to develop coherently.
You can’t have a dialogue with a wall, with something closed, dialogue in fact means availability, openness. Closeness [something closed] is exterior to the idea of dialogue. There are many situations, if we had time to make an analysis of general dialogue, in which dialogue is not possible.
For example dialogue is not possible between two people who have convictions of steel, firm convictions, and are certain that their own convictions are true. Two people who have firm opposite convictions, can’t have a dialogue, an argument, it’s not worth possible.
If Monica Tatoiu believes that she cured her cancer eating pollen, nobody will convince her that this thing can’t be definitely proven, and the other way around, if a doctor thinks eating pollen is useless, you won’t get him out of this idea. And if you put these two face to face, they will just scream at each other, but never have a dialogue. This is just a convenient example, there are of course much bigger ones.
This is a typical situation in which dialogue is not possible, and it’s a shame to even start it.
Another situation, which I think is the one that Jesus has in his mind, is the situation in which the other one doesn’t feel like even talking to you. You can’t go to someone and shove down his throat a dialogue with you, your message, what you have to say, if he is not interested. You can’t give answers to someone who doesn’t have a question, and especially your questions.
From this point of view, any idea of proselytizing, infinite arguments between believers and atheists, in which believers bring arguments and atheists should give in, are a waste of time. An honest [true] atheist can’t be converted through dialogue, and a tenacious theologian can’t convert anyone, through dialogue. In the best case, he will obtain a polite acceptance, “ok we’ll talk more about it”, or in the worst case the person turns his back on him.
Jesus with his answer, says something very clearly. I do not step over your free will, I do not force my way into a dialogue with those who are ‘outside’ of the question. In general you can’t have contact with a domain for which you don’t have questions. Someone who doesn’t have questions, about the metaphysical, is not interested in any way about a metaphysical discourse, no matter how interesting, vital and articulated it may be.
And this is not about contempt, arrogance or elitism. It’s about adequacy. There must exist in the other, a fissure, something through which the dialogue can enter. And Jesus clearly says, I’m not someone who preaches softly, who embraces the whole humanity and converts everything into his doctrine. I sing my song, and who is inside will perceive it, who is outside will listen, not understand, but I won’t try to break down those walls.
Now, put yourselves in Jesus’ shoes, if it’s not too complicated. He speaks in general to many many people. There are cases where he only talks to his disciples, but there are many cases in which he speaks in front of an enormous public, which contains disciples, stupid people, euphoric people, crazy people … and if you ask me what these people are, I will tell you that I think, they are those who are one the outside, but think they are on the inside. That’s the definition of the euphoric.
He is dealing with an extraordinary human diversity, and so me must produce a discourse, and find a procedure through which can be heard by all, and provoke in each one an adequate reaction. Those who are available to pull them in even more, those who are not available either to provoke and open a taste for the problem in them or to leave them alone, those undecided to try to sway them, those who are stupid to leave them in their stupidity, those euphorical to calm them down, those who don’t care, to avoid them but all of this with one single type of discourse [of message].
And he thus believed that the optimal way to attack this wide diversity with his message, was the parable. Because a parable is a story, which leaves some cold, which enlightens others, it leaves others uncertain and deep in thought, it makes some indifferent, and each one of these reactions are possible inside this parable.
The parable is a paradoxical device, which at the same time says and doesn’t say, provokes and leaves indifferent, masks and uncovers, communicates and doesn’t communicates. It’s an extraordinary invention, and to maneuver such a device, you must have some talents and it’s best if you are the son of god as then it’s assured you do.
In other words, those on the outside are a diffuse category of people. Now it must be said, what St Augustine once said, that the ones one the outside and the ones on the inside are not two categories of people, it’s just a reference to the same person, two phases of the spiritual life. Any kind of spiritual quest, starts of with a status of an outsider, you start to seek, then slowly you move to the inside.
So any seeking is a road which unites the internal with the external.
But to be on the outside, on the exterior, is after all a general human condition. When Jesus says, those on the outside, we can easily imagine he generally means ‘all people’. His disciples are 12, and let’s say there are a handful more around him, but everyone else, us all, we are on the outside.
To come out of the theological perimeter, I will quickly invoke a typical term from Heidegger’s philosophy, which is “Geworfenheit”, or “to be thrown”. Heidegger says that a typical situation of humanity, is that of being thrown into something.
How does our life start? Through an expulsion, we are thrown outside of that which is comfortable, nutritious, protective, of our maternal womb. So the first experience of any human is to be thrown somewhere and wake up on the outside. You didn’t ask for it, says Heidegger, it’s a situation in which ‘you wake up’, you don’t know why, nobody asked you, you don’t know where you need to go, but you are suddenly on the outside. So to be born, means to be on the outside. And to this man on the outside is the message of the parables addressed.
The world is on the outside, and if you remain on the outside, if your usual way of being remains on the outside something is amiss. Seeking starts with the effort to find an internal reference point, to install yourself in this exterior with an identity, because the world, which is the ‘outside’, has the tendency to reduce you to its own exteriority. This is what Heidegger says. The world anonymizes you, removes your face and makes you melt into it, and so you must do something. Either to find an identity inside this external world, or to re-throw yourself outside of it, in a spiritual way.
The monk for example, or the man of cloth, is someone who declares that the exteriority of the world is exterior to him. And falls into a kind of interiority.
The parable, is one method used by Jesus to throw those on the outside, inside. The parable is a device for throwing inside those who are seeking. The word ‘parable’, from an etymological perspective, is connected to the verb ‘to throw’. “Parabale” means to throw two things next to each other.
From a religious perspective, there are 3 types of sin.
There’s the sin in the form of an action, you kill somebody.
There’s the sin in the form of vice, when you are gluttonous for example.
And there’s the sin in the form of a state. You are just in a bad place. Meaning you are on the outside.
Often you hear it said about someone, that he’s on the outside, don’t worry about him, don’t even try.
To be on the outside, is to not have questions. To not have questions about yourself, about your identity, about your world. You live your life and take it as something that comes over you, which is not connected to you, which just happens to you and by the same means you got into this [world], you also come out of it
What does it mean to be thrown out of heaven?
Man is thrown outside, outside of the original garden, outside of the protection of the father, he’s thrown outside. And the state of the ‘fallen’ man is the state of the man that is permanently on the outside. And he needs to take the opposite road, so he can come back to the inside. If he doesn’t take this road, claim the gospel texts, he is thrown into darkness, that is the most ‘outside’ of everything, the extreme of being thrown out.
Now the interesting thing is, Jesus, of which it is said he is God in the human body, the Son of God, should normally -since this is his destiny- meet all the conditions of the being into which he was incarnated. How does it feel to have a human body, to have physical problems, how does it feel to suffer, to be in pain.
There’s a very cute book written by an English man from Cambridge called ‘The letters of a tiny devil to his superior’, written by CS Lewis, and there the superior devil tells the tiny one:
Listen, do you know what our problem is? The enemy [Jesus], has an advantage over us, he had the incredible idea to become human, and because of this he understands how this being behaves. We don’t know how a human behaves, we didn’t go through this thing
So Jesus must go through this thing too, that means he also would have to go through the experience of ‘exteriority’.
How does God, being in the state of an incarnated god inside a human body come to experience the experience of exteriority? And this thing happens. In Mark, when we are told how Jesus was tested in the wilderness by the demon, the word used to explain to use that he was taken there is the following, “the holly spirit threw him into the wilderness”. So this means Jesus found himself for a while in the condition of being on the outside, he was thrown out, and so he understood how it feels to be thrown on the outside.
There is another time when he lives through the experience of being thrown on the outside, outside of his own nature, and that is when he is afraid of death. When he says, “God why have you forsaken me?” In that moment, he is outside of his own nature, so that he can fully consume the experience of incarnation, of humanity.
Thus, with all these things, the parable is the solution that Jesus finds to obtain a nuanced receptivity. In a sense, it’s a type of apophatic discourse, the apophatic [apoptotic?] discourse is a discourse invented by eastern theology, which also exists in the west, and according to which god, being hard to describe in common words, is better to describe what he is not that what he is. And apophatic theology thus defines god with successive ‘nots’.
In the same way, the parable defines a message, a truth, by saying only half, by not saying everything. It just gives an impulse, a start, a vague orientation which you can perceive or not.
To summarize, the same text, the same parable is for some a point of departure, a stimulant, for others a provocation, for others an impasse, a step back, for others an indication. In other word an ambiguous object, equivocal, in order to address those on the outside without shaking them too hard (if you wake up a sleepwalker you put their life in danger). The parable doesn’t want that. The parable wants to saturate all possible ways of communication, and it could be for the field of communication a good area for research, as to how to obtain a type of rhetoric which can shoot 300 rabbits at the same time, not 2.
The parable must function, as the rain is described in the gospels, it washes over the good and the bad, over everyone without discrimination. Of course the parable, is not, and it’s explicitly said in the gospels, a definite language or expression, it’s just the way Jesus chooses to speak in while he is in the world, in this context, and in this moment.
He tells his disciples that there will be a time when I won’t be speaking in parables anymore, I will talk to you openly, but this time hasn’t arrived, you are still unripe. Humanity is still to unripe for the hard truth that I will tell you, humanity is in the phase of drinking milk, as it’s said in the gospel of Pavel, there’s more to go until you can eat meat. For now the parable is milk, but the time will come when you can have meat. The time will come when you won’t need milk anymore, but meat, and I don’t have time now to develop the image of the child as mentioned in the gospels. The word child is used often in the gospel, and everyone knows that the gospels speaks good things of children. “Let the children come to me”, “what you didn’t tell the wise, tell the children”, “only children will inherit the kingdom of heaven”,etc. I don’t have time to tackle this theme, but you should know there are passages like in Corinthians which says “Brothers, don’t be like children in thoughts.” and in other places Jesus often says that as long as you are a child you are not ready for the spiritual life.
Our translations, our theology, often times has a sentimental tinge, which falsifies the real meaning of things, but this would be a separate theme. Just like the idea of the poor who will inherit the kingdom of god, the infants who are sublime and innocent, more things could be said there.
I’m going to invoke one more episode, which ties things together with a different symbolism, in Exodus 19:12, as you know, Moses is called to the mountain for a discussion head-to-head with the creator. At the end, Moses is told:
And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.
A spiritual seeking is not like tourism, you climb the mountain, you admire the view, take 3 pictures and come back. The mountain has its own mystery, intangibility and selectivity. This is the stage of the parable. It shows the mountain, but stops the rushed direct attack.
In Isaiah 2:2, which is the ending of Jesus’ parable in the contemporary world, it says
Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.
in other words, a time will come when the mountain will be directly accessible. It’s not the time now however, we are in the milk eating stage.
So the parables are addressing a diverse audience, they have the role to uncover and cover at the same time.
I would close with 2 quick observations:
There is something of the nature of the parable, in all of Jesus’ discourses.
I was shocked by one thing, which I will bring to your attention. If you want to re-compose a doctrine by reading the gospels of the bible, as it has been already done, with the christian doctrine. If you are honest and careful you will see that you can’t make up any doctrine. There are parables that say that actions are more important than words, there are parables where contemplation is more important than action, there are parables that say that an action may be more destructive sometimes than non-action (particularly an action resulting from lack of thought — see the parable of the King that goes to war, the parable of the tower). Diligence as we well know in Romania is very dangerous, the diligence from which you immediately run to actions, before calculating or thinking you take action.
So I wanted to give you an example of actions, to make the point that from all gospels you can create a doctrine based on actions, in which is unclear what is best, to do something or not. The result is that sometimes it’s good to take action, other times it’s not. It’s better to take action after careful thought, after you’ve understood your limits, after evaluating your resources, but at the same time thinking too much is also not good.
This is the type of doctrine that the parables contain. Thus I maintain that:
Jesus’ parables are the first successful attempt in the history of European culture to obtain a victory against ideology.
Jesus has no ideology. He is all about a lack of ideology. Church on the other hand is all about ideology. The Church took a great risk to create from this amazing freedom present in the parables’ discourse, an ideology. Because what does it mean to not articulate a particular doctrine to the point of exact details? It means that you allow room for a case by case interpretation and study of reality. To leave room for each reader’s interpretation. To stimulate this freedom. To not set limits from the beginning. There is no text that instigates freedom in such a way as the parables do, and goes against any tendency to create an ideology.
Ideology is a type of bureaucratization of thought. It’s like a short course where you don’t have time for ideas, for details, you just say a few words to the point, “Proletariat from all countries unite”, and you’re done.
I have other examples too.
The last thing I would like to say, is that one of the most expressive metaphors of the parables was mentioned by a German scholar, who remembered that in the middle ages there were some cathedrals in which, in a certain place inside the walls, there was a hidden treasure. Above the place of the treasure was a painting. Those who knew the code, knew that painting signaled that underneath it there was a treasure. Those who didn’t know the code, just saw a painting. Just like any other.
The parable is of this nature. For those who are ready to enter, for those who have the questions, it points beyond itself to a message. For those who don’t, it’s just a painting.
Thank You
End of Translation
Original Article: https://somewheredeep.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/jesus-parables-an-analysis-of-receptivity-by-andrei-plesu-english-translation/
