He said to them, ‘An enemy, a man, did this.’ They said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go out and collect them?’

Matt. 13:27-30.

These “slaves” asked if they should immediately weed out the bearded darnel, symbolizing the “sons of the wicked one.” (Matt. 13:38) They feared that these counterfeit Christians, or “weeds,” maliciously sown by the “enemy,” the Devil, might choke the true “wheat,” the authentic “sons of the kingdom.”