![]() ![]() Wisdom for the practice of life has among all nations taken a figurative shape, passing from myth or fable into the contracted sayings we term proverbs, and arriving in the Greek schools of philosophy at ethical systems. Likeness and abstraction enter into the idea of language, but may be contrasted as body and spirit, standing as they do in a relation at once of help and opposition. John’s Gospel, nor paroimia (proverb) in the Synoptics. Observe that parabole does not occur in St. In classic Latin, the Greek word is translated collatio (Cicero, “De invent.”, i-xxx), imago (Seneca, “Ep. But it will be a likeness which contains a judgment, and so includes the “maxim”, or general proposition bearing on conduct (Greek “gnomic wisdom”), of which the Book of Proverbs (Meshalim) is the chief inspired example. matala, etc., the root meaning is “likeness”. If connected with Assyrian mashalu, Arab. What the Hebrew MSHL is derived from we do not know. As taking simple or common objects to cast light on ethics and religion, it has been well said of the parable that “truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors.” It abounds in lively speaking figures, and stands midway between the literalism of mere prose and the abstractions of philosophy. Its Greek designation (from paraballein, to throw beside or against) indicates a deliberate “making up” of a story in which some lesson is at once given and concealed. ainigma or problema) and has therefore a light and a dark side,-”dark sayings”, Wis., viii, 8 Ecclus., xxxix, 3 it is intended to stir curiosity and calls for intelligence in the listener, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” Matt., xiii, 9. As uttering one thing and signifying something else, it is in the nature of a riddle (Heb. It is a likeness taken from the sphere of real, or sensible, or earthly incidents, in order to convey an ideal, or spiritual, or heavenly meaning. parabole) signifies in general a comparison, or a parallel, by which one thing is used to illustrate another. ![]()
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