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Again it was the poor confiding vine-dressers and tillers of the Vesuvian soil who suffered in this upheaval, for though the loss of life was very slight indeed, yet numerous houses, fields and vineyards were totally destroyed and many more were injured. Truly it is a maxim well proven by time:—Napoli fa gli peccati, e Torre gli paga.
Not less striking is the expression of a frustrated hope in 'they will reverence My Son. Men can thwart God's purpose. His divine charity 'hopeth all things. The mystery thus sharply put here is but that which is presented everywhere in the co-existence of God's purposes and man's freedom. The other noteworthy point is the corresponding casting of the vine-dressers' thoughts into words.
This personage, on whom certain judicial functions had devolved, took a convenient position in the front of the stage, and soon made a sign for the officials to proceed with their duties. Twelve vine-dressers led by a chief, each having his person more or less ornamented with garlands of vine-leaves, and bearing other emblems of his calling, marched in a body, chanting a song of the fields.
"For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek-teeth of a great lion. "He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree; he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.... "Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen! howl, O ye vine-dressers!...
The rest of the people that were left in the city, and the fugitives that fell away to the King of Babylon, with the remnant of the multitude, did the captain of the guard carry away. But he left the poor of the land to be vine-dressers and husbandmen." The kings who reigned over Judah from the demise of Solomon to the destruction of the first temple are as follows: Years B.C. 1.
If you climb a hillside covered with vines, a light column of smoke shows you that there is a chimney at your feet; for the very rock is inhabited, and families of vine-dressers breathe in its caverns, sheltered at night by the kindly earth which they laboriously cultivate during the day.
Their fervour was cooling, but the prophecy would still be fulfilled. The builders are the same as the vine-dressers; their rejection of the stone is parallel with slaying the Son. But though Jesus foretells His death, He also foretells His triumph after death.
According to Pliny, the inventor of this pleasing style of decoration was a certain Ludius, who flourished in the reign of Augustus, and first persuaded the Romans to embellish their flat wall-surfaces with designs of “villas and halls, artificial gardens, hedges, woods, hills, water basins, tombs, rivers, shores, in as great a variety as could be desired; figures sitting at ease, mariners, and those who, riding upon donkeys or in waggons, look after their farms; fishermen, snarers of birds, hunters and vine-dressers; also swampy passages before beautiful villas, and women borne by men who stagger under their burdens, and other witty things of this nature; finally, views of sea-ports, everything charming and suitable”:—a fairly long and comprehensive list of subjects, truly, from which a patron might pick and choose, or an artist might execute!
For was it not from the sorrows of Dionysos that Tragedy sprang? Was not the light laughter of Comedy, with its careless merriment and quick replies, first heard on the lips of the Sicilian vine-dressers?
The sharp turn from narrative to question, in verse 15, not only is like the sudden thrust of a spear, but marks the transition from the present and immediate future to a more distant day. The slaying of the heir was the last act of the vine-dressers. The owner would act next.
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