104 THE REV. PROFESSOR A. S. GEDEN, M.A., D.D., 



know, nor even these raised to their highest power and freed 

 from all the limitations and defects associated with them in our 

 experience, but something greater, beyond the power of imagina- 

 tion to conceive or of language to utter. With the imagery 

 and conception of " Hfe " (xi. 25 ; xiv. 6 ; cp. 1 John i. 2) it 

 is natural to compare the li\ang water (vBcop ^Mv,iY. 10), and the 

 bread of hfe (o apro? rrj^ fw^}?, vi. 35, 48 ; cp. 6 dpro^ 6 ^mv, ih. 51). 

 The former might be illustrated by the famihar use of the term 

 *' living " of water, to denote fresh or running water as contrasted 

 with stagnant or salt. Perhaps, however, the most highly 

 metaphorical discourse recorded in the Gospel is that on the 

 bread of hfe, coming down from the heaven (vi. 50 f., 58). 

 Even the disciples, accustomed as they were to Oriental veil 

 and imagery, found it a hard sapng (ct/cXt^/oo? o \0709, ver. 60), and 

 many retreated from fellowship and company with Jesus. He 

 tells them plainly that His words are not literal, but of spiritual 

 interpretation, they are spirit and hfe (ver. 63). It is not a question 

 of fleshly eating and drinking, but of the most intimate spiritual 

 communion, which the assimilation within the body of food 

 and drink may illustrate but cannot explain. 



In the tenth chapter we have the well-known and important 

 figure of the good shepherd. Here simile approaches parable ; 

 and it is indeed not easy in all instances to demarcate a clear Hne 

 between them. The harrying of the deserted flock, the fhght of the 

 hireling shepherd at the apparition of the wolf, the recognition 

 by his own sheep of the true shepherd and their contented 

 following at his call — all these details build up a real picture, 

 as vivid and moving as it is true to life. The freedom of 

 metaphorical speech and teaching is illustrated in vv. 7 fE., where 

 the speaker is now the gate through which the flock pass to safety 

 and pasturage, and now the good shepherd who defends them at 

 the cost of his own life. As so often in the reported discourses 

 of this Gospel, metaphor and interpretation are so nearly inter- 

 twined that to separate them in strict logic, as it were, is im- 

 practicable. They meet, for example, in ver. 16 in the thought of 

 the other sheep, who are not of this fold. It is one of the rare 

 instances in which the narrator seems to lift his eyes and thought 

 from the Jews, his fellow-countrymen. They shall become one 

 flock (v.l., ^evrjcrerai, there shall come into being) — not of 

 course one fold — ^under the guardianship of one shepherd. 



In a real sense the metaphor or parable here culminates not 

 in the unity of the flock, but in the self-sacrifice of the shepherd. 



