This then is my first proposition, that Christ was sure to be misunderstood by those around Him, owing to His manner of using the language of metaphor. You must know very well that this conjecture is confirmed by fact. Sometimes the Synoptists note the fact, as when He spoke of “leaven” and the Twelve misunderstood Him literally; and several other instances are on record. But it is of course possible that on many other occasions the misunderstanding may have existed, but may not have been noted by the Evangelists. Take one instance. In the discourse of Jesus to the Seventy Disciples (Luke x. 19) Jesus makes the following statement: “I have given you authority to tread upon _serpents and scorpions_ and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall in any wise hurt (ἀδικήσει) you.” How are we to understand this “treading upon _serpents and scorpions_”? Literally or metaphorically? Surely the text itself makes it evident that Jesus used the words metaphorically to refer to “the power of the Enemy,” _i.e._ “the Serpent,” or Satan, probably with a special reference to the casting out of devils. Moreover the passage is introduced by a statement that “the Seventy returned _with joy_, saying, Lord, _even the devils are subject unto us in thy name_. And he said, I beheld _Satan_ fall as lightning from Heaven. Behold I have given you authority to tread _upon serpents_.... _Howbeit_ in this _rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you_; but rejoice that your names are written in Heaven.” As for the other part of the promise, “nothing shall hurt you,” it surely does not seem to you that these words must imply literal “hurt”? If it does, let me direct your attention to a much more striking instance of Christ’s extraordinary use of metaphor in a passage where the Disciples are told, almost in a breath, that _not a hair of their heads shall perish_ and yet that some of them shall be “_put to death_” (Luke xxi. 16-18). I think then that you will agree with me that the “authority to tread upon _serpents_” mentioned in St. Luke contained not a literal, but a spiritual promise, to tread upon the power of “the Serpent.” Nevertheless, that this promise about “serpents” was very early misinterpreted literally can be shewn, not indeed from a genuine passage of the Gospels, but from a very early interpolation in St. Mark’s Gospel, xvi. 17, 18: “These signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they _shall take up serpents_, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.”