Parable of the tares of the wheat
The parable of the tares under the wheat is a parable of Jesus , which belongs to the special property of Matthew .
text
“And Jesus told them another parable: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seeds in his field. Now while the people were sleeping, his enemy came, sowed weeds under the wheat, and went away again. As the seeds sprouted and the ears formed, the weeds also came out. Then the servants went to the landlord and said, Lord, did you not sow good seeds in your field? Then where did the weeds come from? He replied: An enemy of mine did that. Then the servants said to him, Shall we go and tear it up? He replied: No, otherwise you will uproot the wheat together with the weeds. Let both grow until the harvest. Then, when the time of harvest comes, I will tell the workers: First gather the weeds and tie them in bundles to burn; but bring the wheat into my barn. "
Interpretation of the Gospel
“And his disciples came to him [Jesus] and said, Tell us the parable of the tares in the field. He replied, The man who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world; the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; the tares are the sons of evil; the enemy who sown it is the devil ; the harvest is the end of the world; the workers in this harvest are the angels . Just as the weeds are picked up and burned in the fire, so it will also be at the end of the world: The Son of Man will send out his angels and they will gather from his kingdom all who have deceived others and have broken God's law, and they will be in the Throw stove in which the fire is burning. There they will howl and grind their teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father's kingdom. If you have ears, listen! "
Remarks
The parable is also contained in the non-canonical ( apocryphal ) Gospel of Thomas (57).
For weed is in Greek ζιζάνια ( zizania the plural of ζιζάνιον () zizanion ). This is a sweet grass , namely the tumbled lolch ( Lolium temulentum ). This initially looks like wheat, but it is poisonous.
The Vulgate contains zizania as a loan word . From there, La zizanie became the word for “discord”, “quarrel and strife” in French , as well as in the other Romance languages.
interpretation
The kingdom of God parable (" The kingdom of heaven is like ... ") describes the growth of the kingdom of God as so powerful that external influences cannot negatively influence it. Not even pests or weeds could stop its development. "Preventive" control would be premature and actually superfluous, if only for the sake of the growing "good" seeds that could be unintentionally damaged. The final formula “ then he will howl and chatter his teeth ” marks a typical court parable that aims at a situation in which the early Christian community had to deal with crises and hostility. Ultimately, however, a decision belongs to the sower, the Lord: “ Do not judge before the time; wait for the Lord to come, who will bring to light what is hidden in the dark and reveal the intentions of hearts. Then everyone will receive their praise from God. “( 1 Cor 4,5 EU ). Good and bad are as tangled as the roots of weeds and wheat. In the end there is the harvest of the wheat and the burning of the weeds.
effect
Just like the parable of the vine (cf. John 15.6 EU ), the parable of the weeds under the wheat was used in church history on the one hand for the theological justification of the Inquisition . On the other hand, the same parable served other theologians such as Sebastian Castellio as a justification for tolerance towards alleged heretics .
Web links
- Video on the parable of the weeds under the wheat in Youtube (cath.)
- Evangelical sermon from predierter.de
- Sermon from luther-in-jueterbog.de (PDF file; 122 kB)
- Sermon of the Confessing Evangelical Reformed Congregation in Giessen
- From the weeds under the wheat from the monthly of the Association of Apostolic Congregations ("THE HEROLD")
- SWR2 Word of the Day (November 28, 2006, Catholic)
- Meinolf Schumacher: Weeds Among the Wheat: The Impurity of the Church Between Tolerance, Solace, and Guilt Denial
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfgang Behringer : From the weeds under the wheat. The position of the churches on the witch problem . In: Richard van Dülmen (Ed.): Hexenwelten. Magic and Imagination from the 16th to the 20th Century , Frankfurt 1987, pp. 15–47.