Stripped of any metaphorical overlay, the parable of the Talents (Mt 25:14-28) is about a servant who acts honorably by burying money given in trust, courageously by denouncing an exploitive master, and as a result is consigned to extinction for his audacity.
Most people understand the story as Matthew has (cf. Lk 19:12-24). But his concluding editorial, “To all those who have, more will be given, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away” is at odds with everything else Jesus says on the subject of haves and have-nots (Mk 10:25/Mt 19:24/Lk 18:25; Mt 6:19-21/Lk 12:33-34; Mt 19:30; Mt 20:16; Lk 6:24; Lk 16:19-31); and Jesus was obviously no capitalist. Matthew’s editorial implies that the first two servants are the heroes of the story, which Jewish peasants would have found outrageous.(1)
Richard Rohrbaugh and William Herzog have argued that the third servant is the hero of this parable, because he acted honorably and refused to participate in the rapacious schemes of the master. Contrast with the agenda of the first two servants:
“First things first: the master’s initial investment must be secured, then doubled; after that, the retainers can make their profit. They are always walking a tightrope, keeping the master’s gain high enough to appease his greed and not incur his wrath while keeping their own accumulations of wealth small enough not to arouse suspicion yet lucrative enough to insure their future. The master knows the system too, and as long as the retainers keep watch of his interests and maintain a proper yield, he does not begrudge their gains. In fact, he stands to gain a great deal by encouraging the process. Not only do the retainers do his dirty work, exploiting others for profit, but they siphon off anger that would otherwise be directed at him.” (Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech, p 160)
The first two servants do exactly as expected of them, doubling the master’s money and presumably making some “honest graft” on the side, as all retainers did in agrarian empires. But the third servant acts completely out of character — this alone is the tip-off that he will be the story’s hero — by digging a hole and burying the master’s money to keep it intact, acting in accordance with Jewish law.(2)
When the master (naturally) rewards the two servants, the third servant acts stunningly by blowing the whistle on him (as Herzog puts it), while at the same time giving him back the money he had buried in trust: “Master, I know that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, gathering where you did not scatter.” This retainer says what many peasants have always wanted to say.
An alternate version of this parable was preserved in the Gospel of the Nazorenes (now lost), reported by Eusebius. Here the third servant is accepted with joy, while the other two are condemned. In “A Peasant Reading of the Talents/Pounds”, Rohrbaugh notes the chiastic structure:
The master had three servants:
A one who squandered his master’s substance with harlots and flute girls
B one who multiplied the gain
C and one who hid the talent;
and accordingly,
C’ one was accepted with joy
B’ another merely rebuked
A’ and another cast into prison.
(Eusebius, Theophania; from Hennecke & Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha 1:149)
Though I’m eternally suspicious of arguments based on chiastic structures, this one is powerful. Here we have an ancient author who rejected the Matthean judgment on the third servant, while modern critics insist on vilifying him.
Like many of Jesus’ parables, the Talents ends on dark ambiguity. “The whistle-blower is no fool,” says Herzog. “He realizes that he will pay a price, but he has decided to accept the cost (p 167).” The question is who his friends are after banishment. Will peasants acknowledge and respect his honorable course of action, or would the fact that he was a retainer make such meeting of the minds impossible? Listeners are left pondering the fate of an unlikely hero.
Endnotes
1. The ways in which critics have followed Matthew’s (and Luke’s) demonizing of the third servant are astounding. C.H. Dodd thinks that the third servant’s “overcaution” and “cowardice” led to a breach in trust. T.W. Manson believes that the punishment for the third servant’s “neglected opportunity” was a complete “deprivation of opportunity”. Dan Via says the third servant’s “refusal to take risks” led to repressed guilt and the loss of opportunity for any meaningful existence. John Donahue thinks that out of “fear of failing”, the third servant refused even to try to succeed. The list could go on and on. (See Herzog, p 153.)
2. According to the Mishnah, money could be guarded honorably only by placing it in the earth: M.B. Mes. 3:10; B.B. Mes. 42a.
Bibliography
Eusebius: Theophania (from Hennecke & Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, Westminster, 1963.)
Herzog, William: Parables as Subversive Speech, Westminster John Knox, 1994.
Malina, Bruce & Rohrbaugh, Richard: Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition, Augsburg Fortress, 2003.
Rohrbaugh, Richard: “A Peasant Reading of the Talents/Pounds: A Text of Terror”, BTB 23:32-39, 1993.
The complete series
The Prodigal Son
The Unmerciful Servant
The Mustard Seed
The Talents
The Dishonest Steward
The Busybody 
Thanks for yet another nice post. I must admit to being quite persuaded by your reading here. The Tannaitic quote is the clincher–it seems to great a parallel to be coincidence.
The text of Eusebius’ Theophania seems ambiguous but IMHO the interpretation of Matthew made by Eusebius on the basis of the Hebrew Gospel, (ie that Matthew 25:26-29 applies to the servant who hid the talent and verse 30 to the servant who squandered the money), makes it likely that in the Hebrew Gospel the servant who hid the talent was rebuked but not further punished, while the one who made a profit was approved by his master.
FWIW the reference to burial of money in the ground appears to be found only in the Gemara to the Mishnah pasage not in the Mishnah itself.
This is what Eusebius says: “I wonder whether in Matthew the threat which is uttered after the word against the man who did nothing may not refer to him, but by epanalepsis to the first who had feasted and drunk with the drunken.”
It’s true that Eusebius distinguishes between the rebuke of Mt 25:26-29 and the threat of Mt 25:30, the latter of which he clearly thinks should apply to the first servant (who squandered the money on harlots and flutes). But it’s not clear that he thinks the former should apply to the third servant (who hid the talent), even if in Matthew it did apply to him. His chiastic structure indicates otherwise. I should note that I’m not claiming the Nazorene version is necessarily an earlier version than Matthew’s, only that Eusebius’ chiastic structure and commentary indicate that some people thought the third servant was the hero of the story.
I'm awfully late to the party, but I just to comment on what I think is tragic misrepresentation of the message of this parable, which seems both intrinsically and contextually consistent: bear fruit.
Tim is on the right track here.
The allegorical meaning here is very similar to that of the parable of the sower. In that parable those with little spiritual ability are variously depicted as “by the wayside,” “stony ground,” or “among thorns.” Even those depicted as “good soil” have varying amounts in their harvest representing the fact that we have varying amounts of spiritual ability. That varying amounts of spiritual ability exist is without question. If you believe that today’s religions are still spiritual organizations then look and see that there are layperson’s, pastors, priests, bishops, cardinals, popes, saints and the like. Clearly there are differences in spiritual ability.
If you don’t want to look to religions that sometimes seem very flawed for evidence, then turn to scripture. There are these two parables, of course, “the talents” and “the sower.” And sayings like these:
“He that has ears to ear…”
Not everyone is able to receive this saying.
Few there be that find it.
Paul saying, “not everyone is able to remain as I do.”
All those sayings and more indicate that we do not have equal amounts of spiritual ability. Back to the parable of the talents. Notice that the servant with the one talent digs in the earth. That seems to me to be a clear indication that he ignores the little bit of spiritual ability that he does have and turns instead to the earth, the material world.
The master in this parable is spiritual reality, it is just the way things are. If you think you have been given such a small amount of spiritual insight that it is not worth working with, then you are going to lose even that small amount.
Al a. Gary
Of course, I realize that this is a very cold track, but I accidentally stumbled into it while browsing around, looking for other sources that could help me in deciding which of the two “starting situations” of the parable is the original one: Luke’s (everybody begins with the same capital, some earn more, some earn less, and the reward is proportionate to the amount of the gain) or Matthew’s (everybody begins with a different capital and the reward is the same for those who earned – proportionately – the same amount). Out of metaphor, it is easily seen that this means a lot of difference in the conditions of human beings in front of God.
I was totally unaware about the querelle on the third servant, since in this part of the parable Luke’s and Matthew’s versions seemed to fit so well, almost ad litteram. I am very grateful for this “new” (for me, at least) data, which led me in a quest through Hennecke & Schneemelcher’s New Testament Apocrypha, Klostermann’s Apocrypha Vol. II, and ultimately Mai’s Scriptorum veterorum etc. Vol. IX. Thus I made the acquaintance of Nicetas of Heraclea’s Catena in Lucam, and ultimately of the Vat.gr. 1611. Extremely interesting.
I thought it would be appropriate to thank you all with something more useful than a simple “thanks, folks”, so I am adding a few observations originally put together while analyzing another famous parable present both in Matthew (22, 1-14) and Luke (14, 16-24) and an apocryphal gospel (Thomas 64), viz. the banquet. Maybe this will not be quite useless for the cause of our “unlikely hero”, too. So here it goes.
There is a simple “proto-rhetorical” structure widely employed by story-tellers of the whole world, that has been probably invented over and over again through the ages. One could call it “the triple tale” or “triplication”. When an action, feat, occurrence must be particularly stressed, it is preceded in the unfolding of tale by two similar episodes, ending in failure: which leads to a state of expectation in the listeners, culminating in the climax of the third, and successful, episode. Note that just one failure, followed by success, does create an interesting opposition, and is used now and then (particularly on moral issues), but fails to create pathos. On the other hand, three or more failures lead to boredom, indifference, and when the success finally arrives it looks totally predictable (“telegraphed”, one could say). Three looks like being the perfect number in this, too.
One may find this kind of “underscoring by triplication” from Native Americans’ myths to Japanese fables, from the Arabian Nights to European folklore: it is common in fairy-tales (the older brother tries and fails, the middle brother tries and fails, the younger brother tries and succeeds), even “literary” ones (the first step-sister tries the slipper and fails, the second ditto, Cinderella tries… and it fits!).
Of course one may find it also in the Bible: the flights of Noah’s dove, Tamar’s love stories and so on. Even Jesus, being a consummate story-teller, employs this device in some of his parables. Just remember the priest and the levite who see the wounded man and pass on, while the Samaritan… Also the banquet parable (at least in Matthew) is a good example. In the parable of the cruel wine-growers, the third event (the murdering of the son) could hardly be considered a success, unless one remembers that this would refer to the death of Christ, and therefore the greater possible success (the ”glorification” as John would put it) of God’s project.
In this light, the (canonical) talents/minas parable is a hapax: I was not able to find anywhere (either in holy texts, folklore, or legends) a pattern “success-success-failure” instead of the common “failure-failure-success”. This could mean little, of course. But if we refer to the non-canonical version, could we recognize again the common pattern? This would mean that “also the result of the second servant is a failure”, though apparently he is successful. Which could lead one to wonder “who” is represented by the character of the dishonest, despotic master (even a cruel and vengeful king, in Luke’s version): possibly God? Or is it just the opposite, the talent-giving master is Mamonah, “the riches”, “the world”, and employing his gifts to obtain further worldly gains is a failure just like squandering them “with prostitutes and flute-players”? And the real success is… a hole in the ground? All right, so I am “leaning out of the balcony” a little too much… But I broke a lance in favour of our “unlikely hero”!
The Clementine Homilies, the Apostolical Constitutions, the Teaching of Addai, Victor of Capua, Origen, and other patristic quotations identify the money as scripture, both genuine and spurious, given out as a test.
The first slave recognized pure gold and preserved it. The second one doubled fool’s gold, and the third wasted gold on harlots who adulterated it (a reference to Rome’s anti-Torah doctrines, Trinitarianism, supersessionism, and anti-Semitism based on altered MSS, cf. Rev 17.1–5).
Rewriting a parable that dealt with forgery was clearly of the essence.
Imagine if the third servant interpreted, “money could be guarded honorably only by placing it in the earth,” figuratively. Rather than digging a hole and placing his physical talents in the ground, he bought grain/olive trees, etc. and placed them in the earth. This could have protected his and his master’s community with a stable food supply and earned his master income. All earned with no usury nor slave labor.