J. Duncan M. DERRETI, D.D.
THE ASCETIC DISCOURSE An Explanation of the Sennon on the Mount
KO'AMAR
EILSBRUNN
KO'AMAR -
RUNDBRIEF OKTOBER 1986
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Erschienen bei KO' AMAR: Victor T urgman, De 1'Autorite de Moise, Ex 15,22-27, 72 Seiten, 23 x 15, Pb., Klebebindung, 1987, ISBN 3-927136-00-X Maria Ruhland, Die Markuspassion aus der Sicht der Verleugnung, 70 Seiten, 23x 15, Pb., Klebebindung, 1987, ISBN 3-927136-01-8 Douglas A. Templeton, Re-exploring Paul's Imagination, A Cynical Laywoman's Guide to Paul of Tarsus, xiv + 130 Seiten, 23 x 15, Pb., Klebebindung, 1988, ISBN 3-927136-02-6
J. Duncan M. Derrett, The Ascetic Discourse, An Explanation of the Sermon on the Mount, 112 Seiten, 23 x 15, Pb., Klebebindung, 1989, ISBN 3-927136-03-4
J. Duncan M. DERREIT, D. D.
THE ASCETIC DISCOURSE An Explanation of the Sermon on the Mount
KO'AMAR
EILSBRUNN
BY THE SAME AUTHOR Law in the New Testament (London, Darton, Longman & Todd, 1970) Jesus' Audience (London, Darton, Longman & Todd, 1973) Studies in the New Testament (five volumes) (Leiden, Brill, 1977-89) The Anastasis (Shipston-on-Stour, Warvickshire, P.l. Drinkwater, 1982) Toe Making of Mark (Shipston-on-Stour, P.I. Drinkwater, 1985) New Resolutions of Old Conundrums (Shipston-on-Stour, P.I.Drinkwater, 1986)
J. Duncan M. Derrett, The Ascetic Discourse ISBN 3-927136-03-4
Copyright 1989 KO'AMAR Verlag fUr Bibel und Religion, Maria Tanghe Regensburger Str. lla, D-8411 Eilsbrunn
Druck: bauerdruck, Regensburg
PREFACE
The theory regarding the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:3-7:27) expounded here would have been trite in the Syrian churches and in the Orthodox church of the seventeenth century and earlier. It is that the Sermon reflects an ascetical-mystical association within judaeo-Christianity evidencing the continuous impulse of the Holy Spirit, an emanation from Yahweh, a gift to Israel. Psychic activity in fact emanates only from within us, but 'impulses from the unseen' are a handy idea. So prompted, the programme was realistic, not idealistic, still less Utopian. It was to be a spiritual gymnasium of the human soul (Siotos, 62). That Christ himself was the ultimate author of this programme I see no reason to doubt, though this is no more than a consistent impression. Protestantism mistrusts mysticism - due to its abuse by the unscrupulous - and in climes where 'purification' by observances is suspect asceticism is disliked. The traditional knowledge that Christ and the Twelve were ascetics and mystics has lapsed, though Niebuhr amongst others gave the New Testament evidence its full value. If Christ 'ate and drank' (Mt 11:19, an ironical passage
), and if Peter had been married (Mt 8:14; 1 Cor 9:5), they, like other ascetics, might entertain secular society (Ex 24:10-11; cf. Jn 2:10). Here we shall explore what kind of ascetic fits Christ's model, restore the balance, denying the popular theory of Spinoza (Tract. theol.-pol. 5.7,13) that no one could have preached subtle or arcane doctrines, and account for the hostility the movement encountered. I shall spend no time on current pictures of Jesus ('the well-meaning rabbi') promulgated by my Jewish contempora.ries. If I am right they have missed the mark completely. And readers must beware of a common error. I am not wrong simply because what I explain is unattractive. Our true interests lie with .the truth. Jewish prophets cried out Yahweh's resentment at his people's disregard of him. Nations subsidize gods, their worship, and their 'prophets', when they suit them. Neptune annoys Augustus: Augustus excludes his image from a procession. Xerxes both thrashed and threatened the Hellespont. A preacher of peace between nations would get short shrift in certain Middle Eastern territories.
- 4If prophets and priests sing an insipid tune, scepticism invites conversion to another religion. Examples come to mind. Meanwhile an unnuanced and uncompromising version of a faith has its attractions, and its compensations. Did Jesus ever expect more than 25% of any population to persist in his programme? Cynics, educators of Greeks, had broken the ground around him already. Bu~-25% (Mt 13:8, cf. Sanyutta-nikaya IV,313) is not negligible, and husbandry can improve on it (Mt 9:37-38, 13:30). Prospectors study soil, and its limitations. The gospels show Jesus studying them.
Scribes and Pharisees, who neither entered the Kingdom as Christ understood it, nor allowed others to enter (Mt 23:13), challenged his call. It claimed an authority above the Hebrew scriptures (the TNK, here 'Tanakh'), and so tried to outflank scribes and their functions. Now those who have purveyed an unsatisfactory, or potentially unsuccessful religion, ought not to urge their want of success as a ground for repudiating something with higher potential. In sports no one urges the desirability of abolishing 'records 1• Yet whether the Sermon on the Mount (SM), granted its brilli~nce, deserves more success than the scribal religion is still an open question. The ascetical and mystical aspects of Judaism, which intrigued a Sandmel or a Werblowsky, may or may not have claimed the attention of gentiles in Jesus' day, or later. The success of Cynics shows that the Greeks were not interested only in ritual and mythology, and gentiles still are not. A brilliant leadership strikes sparks from every iron. Who can say where they will take fire? Failure amongst Jews might not be the end of the project. A global treatment of asceticism and mysticism is overdue. A.Guillaumont showed how desirable it would be. Much verbiage, unintentional humour, and pathos could be concentrated into an illuminating analysis. One attempt 1 revealed (a) the variety of ascetical/mystical experiences and (b) the unity of apparent purpose behind the phenomena. At times society needs its ascetic-mystics. It encourages them in spite of their abnormality. Leo Tolstoy, whose interpretation of the SM is important, was psychically unbalanced. A failed ascetic and mystic, his genius was never tied to reality. We try to insulate ourselves from the insane, yet the hyper-active and the schizoid play massive roles in intellectual, artistic, and even public life. Genius is not one of the maladies which the ancient healer was expected to cure. And in the Third World abnormal syndromes are often functional; similarly pre-
- 5 modern societies did not at once dismiss the irrational, if their 'fruit', their services, gratified them. This is not to contend that the SM is intelligible to, or directed at, mentally or psychically abnormal people in particular. But Matthew's overall interest in an undescribed, and unexpected, Kingdom of heaven on the one hand, and the sure punishments in hell on the other, deriving, no doubt,· from a purely Jewish tradition unaffected by Greek or Indian fashions and fantasies, corresponds to exaggerated expectations and abnormal diagnoses of reality. It is not merely a question of a defective appreciation of cause and effect - that goes without saying. There is also an overoptimistic assessment of ordinary' people's ability to overcome t'l1eir handicaps and frustrations - one can, by effort, become an active member/ citizen of the Kingdom. And there is an over-pessimistic assessment of one's liability to punishment - one may not be able to beg-off, let alone buy-off, the inexorable Judge, and all the ills one has wished on one's 'enemies' may /will fall upon one's own head ineluctably. Normal people do not rate their chances of being rewarded/honoured/pampered higher than other people's, and they suspect that, if indeed punishment after death does exist (cf. Lk 16:27), it can hardly be as bad as all that, as a just Judge would recognise each and every one of their excuse.s; and if sickness and misfortune in this life reflect present or past sins, there must be many a magic performance which will set matters straight. The SM, on the contrary, offers no such optimisms, and opines that nothing but wholehearted submission to God's will, attending, as it were, his Durbar constantly, will achieve any result which is worth while, all earthly comfGrts being byproducts of this discipline. Such an outlook fits the professional trainer, and what we have here is a transfer to the moral field of a state of mind normally shared by trainers and trainees in a primarily physical operation. It is hardly surprising that successive centuries have believed (foolishly) that the SM, and Christ's teaching as a whole, concentrated on the physical aspects of life, its outward manifestations. A careful study of the SM shows this is quite untrue: the trainee is to be a hero in the moral arena, and where this means thoughts and words as well as deeds it proves a tremendously optimistic neglect of the propensities of the different temperaments. The SM intrigues largely because an eccentric way of life, as Matthew describes it, sounds authentic, not inimical even to man's secular welfare, attractive even for those who do not personally
- 6 partake of the exercises. One easily believes in Non-violence, imagining oneself a potential victim. One believes in Keeping Fit, though one does not do regular physical jerks. If we suspect asceticism and doubt mysticism, the SM still holds our attention. It retains its stature, despite its many unsupported assertions. The reason could be biological. My reader can think of opposite propositions (e.g. pederasty) which we at once reject with a vehemence as great as our want of reflection: that rejection is biological in origin, written into our genes. Everywhere praised, the SM is nowhere the rule. The Mennonites are of interest as staunch believers, as are the Old Order Amish. The world around them generally abhors their peculiarities. And there are defections. Who can perform the SM? Did Jesus himself, or Paul, observe it? It is unfashionable to doubt this, but it has been doubted. Ascetics will perform it, and to the degree that they succeed they are ascetics. Their supporters, like the fans of football heroes (1 Cor 9:25; 2 Tim 2:5), give the ascetics a role, and themselves an identity. Ascetics give much, receive little. The 'club' subscribes to the purposes of the heroes, invests in them financially and emotionally, and survives their disasters. The 'heroes' need their shouts: supporters stand on the same ladder of perfection as themselves, savouring their virtue and sometimes emulating it. Opponents of the SM deserve sympathy. Responsible heads of families, and fathers of their countries, they speak a language (Verantwortungsethik) we can already hear in St Augustine. Perhaps he was not the first to melt the SM into a tepid fluid (eh. 12). The Western church turned it into a set of platitudes. Those who took it literally were treated as 'heretics'. If ascetics admonish rulers, as Stephen did, rulers are bound to react unfavourably to a rival source of power. They begin to keep tame 'prophets' of their own, who can proclaim 'peace' where there is no peace (Jer6:14). When a genuine prophet appears, like Michaiah, his fate is predictable (1 Kgs 22:24). 'So ist das Christentum,' says Franz Alt, 'in den Industriestaaten · zu einer saft- und kraftlosen Mittelstandideologie verkom men.' The SM is elliptical, apparently incomplete. Ideas succeed each other inconsequentially. It must be construed as a whole, like a testament. Connections between the sections were demonstrated by preachers. Luke's Sermon on the Plain shares many of Mat-
- 7thew's sources, but does not aim at the same effect. Its 'market' was more Western. Luke was interested in the practicalities of churches' undertakings. But no distortion of either Sermon is so serious as the selective enthusiasms of some Christians today (as Gnilka recognises). The sarcasms of the emperor Julian (c. Gal. 319£-3208, 335C-D, 339E-340A, 3518) read as if they were penned yesterday. Tolstoy aimed to eliminate force. Pacifism catches the imagination. But the teachings about self-serving, adultery, oaths, and Providence, not to speak of the Golden Rule, are ignored; Earnest folk judge others; are self-righteous; and lecture their: neighbours. This book contains no lectures, though written by a. professor. Jesus' teaching is lauded as a rock (Mt 7:24). One wonders at Matthew's ambiguities and lacunae. Preachers must always have been allowed latitude. Topical and imaginative illustrations of the SM are traditional. Ingenuity has not been wasted; but this book's length was predetermined. Notes have been kept short. My bibliography gives some room to conventional and unconventional 'writers, especially those who have magnificent bibliographies of their own. But my treatment is original. Not that glimmerings of the· truth have not been seen before. K. Beyschlag (1977) grasped the role of mystic and ascetic. H.D. Betz, reprinted in 1985, offers seminal ideas. The SM was identified. It was about training and practice. Betz did not ask for what! The classical world knew that for any success askesis was essential (Dio Chrys. 8; Diog. L. 50.6, 71). But for what are we to train? Stojan Dimitroff (1938) attacked the recent works of Windisch, Kittel, and Klausner. He correctly estimated the SM, in particular its emphasis on performance. His effort weighs more than many a treatise. Most writers concentrate on literary history, and on ways in which the SM, lauded as true, may be evaded in daily practice. Gerald Heard (1941 I 1944), a lonely voice, had the merit of perceiving that the SM was a code of training. J.R.W. Stott finds the SM promulgating a 'counter-culture'. Luise Schottroff and Wolfgang Stegemann react well to the SM, except for their belief that the destitute were the true addressees. M.A. Siotos's treatise ·(1986) charts· the deterioration in scholarly exegesis of the Sermon. One assents to his suggestion that what was once a wholly credible prescription has become a mere talisman. Dr Franz Alt says much the same. He, a self.:.confessed enthusiast
- 8for the SM (he calls himself a 'convert'), finds it valid and immediate, as a whole, for all (even non-Christians) everywhere. Betz compared the SM with the Kyriakai Doxai of Epicurus, and the Encheiridion of Epictetus. Neither resembles it closely. The Pirqe Avot (in the Mishnah) would claim that honour, but it neither expounds the Tanakh nor calls to asceticism (but see Il s). The Dhammapada (Dharmapada) is a Buddhist counterpart, containing, however, fewer precepts amongst the maxims. The Patimokkha (Pratimok~a), of at least equal age, lists ascetics' lapses; directed to monks, it nonetheless interests us. The SM could be compared with the vast Laws of Manu, revered, but not operated, by millions (as explained by Robert Lingat). The SM itself insinuates that scripture is subject, not to jurists, but to the Spirit. The old is ever revitalised by the new: a typical position for an ascetic-mystic to take, who transmutes, while he respects, existing scripture. Manu sum.marises, and projects, past learning - a task perpetual m Asia (note the phases of Islamic modernism). Charismatics have a great internal certainty. They accompany Christ (Mt 10:25,36; Jn 15:13-15) and with him build, ignoring rival builders. But their messages are to be tested not by their subjective activity but by their results. For who is to be believed on his/her mere assertion, or on the basis of an unusual biography? 2 I have printed the SM below in an English dress. Let my reader peruse it and then imagine him/herself a companion of the Herodians, Scribes, and Pharisees, who had their doubts about the doctrine represented by the SM. Let him /her follow the king's men, shutting the cathedral at Canterbury after the death of Archbishop Thomas Becket, and putting the first pilgrims in the stocks. Let him /her sit with the Inspector of Police who barred the grotto at Lourdes with a palissade. Sage precautions! But the future was not with the king's men, nor with the police. Nor was it with King Henry VIII, who scattered St Thomas' bones. The genuine ascetic-mystic is less often emulated than mocked (Pss 69:11-12, 19,21; Jer 20:7; Lam 3,14; Wisd 5:3; Lk 16:14, 23:35), but he laughs loudest who laughs last (Ps 2,1-4).
- 9 REFERENCES - My reader should Ignore references between brackets at his/her first reading. Later, the biblical, apocryphal, and pseudepigraphal references will prove invaluable. If I had written them out in full the argument would have been obscured, and the length doubled. For apocryphal and pseudepigraphal works the reader may use Charles (1913/ 1968), Charlesworth (1983-5), al'ld/or Sparks (1984). The Testaments of the XII Patriarchs figure there. For the Apostolic Fathers I have used Kirsopp Lake in the Loeb series; for the Qumran scrolls Lohse (1964) and Vermes (2 1975). For rabbinical sources (b = Babylonian Talmud, j = Jerusalem Talmud, m = Mishnah, t = Tosefta) one should consult E.P.Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977), 557-561 (the whole bibliography is of great value). For the Pali Canon the translations of the Pali Text Society are to be used, with certain exceptions: the Vinaya-pitaka, ed. Hermann Oldenberg (London 1884-) is translated partly by I.B.Horner (The Book of the Discipline, 3 vols., 1949-57) in the Sacred Books of the Buddhists Series, and partly in the Sacred Books of the East Series by T.W.Rhys Davids and H. Ol~en berg (Oxford 1881-5). The Suttanipata is available in translations by Chalmers (1932) and K.R. Norman (1984). The Dhammapada may be consulted in Radhakrishnan (1950/r974), while specialists may use Brough's Gandhari Dharmapada (1962) and Franz Bernhard's Udanavarga (1965). The Patimokkha I Pratimok~a should be consulted in Charles S. Prebish, Buddhist Monastic Discipline (1975) and Wang Pachow, Comparative Study (1955). What specialists will do no one can really predict. My numerous classical references will not embarrass the scholar: the non-scholar must use his library resources. 1. incline to the view of many who have quailed before the task of making a list of abbreviations: for the scholar these are superfluous, for the non-scholar more or less useless. Where I refer to my own previous attempts I indirectly point the way to many primary and secondary sources, not all of which are pooh-poohed by the learned.
CONTENTS
Preface References Contents I
The Tone of the Sermon
p. 3
9 11 13
2 Definitions and Presuppositions
r8
2 Preparation for the Sermon
25
4 The Beatitudes
28
5 Sources of Norms
33
6 The Antitheses
36
7 Observances
45
8 True and· False Treasure
52
9
Reciprocity
IO Warnings
s6 61
The Audience
66
12 St. Augustine
72
13
So
I I
Practicability
Appendix: The Sermon on the Mount
91
Notes
96
Bibliography
103
Index of Biblical Sources
109
Chapter One THE TONE OF THE SERMON
Pagans thought certainty in religion neither attainable nor desirable. 1 But the SM, unlike any other lecture, dispenses with humour and, whilst urging caution, voices a dogmatism congenial to contemporary Jews. Jesus knows no doubts, pulls no punches. Matthew has added a varnish of sanctimony. The colour is sombre. Nothing is actually said about the End, but the 'fall' of the 'house' is alarming. The rest of Matthew is preoccupied with Judgment and hell, on which the SM is explicit. Joy derives only (5:1;?) from being persecuted. One earns thereby the mystic promises. No room is left for resentment. The disciple, searching for merit, must pay substantially for it. Cheaper avenues are not suggested until later. The Beatitudes (so called after the refrain, 'Blessed', here 'Happy') seem ironical. In a parody of the Tanakh, where 'Happy is the man ... ' commends positive qualities, freedom from sin (Pss 1:1, 32:3, 41:1, 65:4, 106:3, etc.), being forgiven (Pss 32:1, 94:12), or trusting in the Lord (Pss 2:12, 34:8, 40:4, 84:5, 12; Is 30:18 etc.), what are commended here are poverty (a cause of crime), mourning (a form of disablement), and meekness (evasion of confrontation). Hunger, 'mercy' (renouncing retaliation), purity (restricting enjoyment), peace-making (compromise), and being persecuted are exhibited as matters for congratulation. No normal desire, a happy home, a good business, successful projects, 'sons and grandsons 1, is alluded to. That kings and presidents would wish their subjects to opt for meekness, mercy, peacemaking, being persecuted, and hunger, goes without saying. The Beatitudes are a passport for Christian missionaries into pagan territory until, that is, like the Shogunate of Japan, its rulers come to the small print. Those so quaintly congratulated are to be 'salt' and 'light', as if unique; not for their own benefit - it is for God's. Every jot of the Torah (a scripture written by God knows who) must be fulfilled, while Jesus' pupils, exempt from Scribes' and Pharisees' assistance, must measure themselves against such paragons of religiosity, many enjoying an instant of recall of scripture. Cynics were reproached, because a tanner, throwing on old rags, could become an instant philosopher. 2 But Cynic gyrovagues were not qizzed out of scripture. The Sermon seems to tell us (in effect) we can be no
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athletes unless we win an Olympic decathlon, a keep-fit course broadcast to a population 75% of which is chronically unfit. Physical fitness is not a fad, or a hobby, but a way of life. The simile of athletics is the right one: 1 Cor 9:24-27; Phil3:14, 2 Tim 4:7, Heb 12:1; Epict.,
diss. I/.17.29,
III.15.10-11; Dio
Chrys. 9.11-13.
Matthew says no one is 'worthy' of Christ (8:37-38, 22:8) unless he carries a cross -the ultimate symbol of anxiety. Whether the emphasis is on the cross or on the carrying, the effect is the same. Other people (5:22, 26, 29-30, 7:19) face hell, or being 'trodden under foot' (5:13). Forgiveness does not figure until 6:12, where we encounter onerous conditions (the 'small print'). In dealings with one's 'adversary' (how does he arise?) one must pay the 'last cent' unless one placates him, whatever his terms. Fear of committing adultery demands that one abstains even from divorced w.omen, including those without fault. If the eye or hand induce one to sin one does not re-train them, one cuts them out. A one-eyed and/or one-handed man (unless 'hand' means 'genitals') is hardly an appetising bridegroom. Meanwhile oaths (which alarm the superstitious) are no sooner prohibited than we learn that even the most virtuous cannot avoid grey hairs. Relations are dominated by disputes (5:23, 32), insults (39), lawsuits (mostly false) (40), oppression (41), beggars and credit-free borrowers (42) : a climax of misery. It would be hard not to be able to lend even an implement. Will soldiers and others commandeering one's resources and services, and mendicants like leeches, leave something which an unfortunate, but not unobservant, borrower could relish? Love appears only with its opposite, hatred (5:43). One must love one's persecutors, a masochistic syndrome. Love of our lovers is discounted. Perfection is to be attempted on such lines, on the model of God's patience with the wicked. Receipt of benefits remains passive (God looks after the worthless), but one must do acts of charity without expectation of recognition (cf. fvlt 20:15) or hope of reciprocation (6:1-4). Personal prayer is to be no comforting ritual. In principle it should be a communal (6:9) address to the Father, who, if he is the Provider, is also the wielder of the Rod. His will is sovereign though it leads to martyrdom (26:39). One asks not for enjoyment or reassurance but to be able to forgive one's existing ill-wishers, and to be protected from further provocation. The schoolboy is to pray, not that he should score in the next match, but that he should not be bullied; and the recruit not that he should be promoted but that he should not be inde-
-
I
5-
cently assaulted. Such is the Lord's Prayer (below, p.49). One wonders how this tone came to be adopted? I neglect tyrants and swindlers, whose interests it serves. Ordinary people are still touched by it, and not only Russians and women, experts in suffering. A mystery is to be cleared up, and it deepens. When one fasts (it is assumed one will) one must not be cornmended by approvers of_ piety. One must disguise any 'affliction'. Property (to buy the cosmetics) is hinted at: but we hear of thieves, and lest one trusts locks and banks, one is reminded of moths (before repellents) and 'rot'. Property is simply a rival of God for one's attention; not a means to valuable options, but a hazard (6:24). The author does not suggest that one earn in order to forward God's will. As if this were not enough, one's criteria are impugned. One may not question another's vision without being accused of a squint. The topical subject of anxiety occupies not less than fifteen verses (6:25-34, 7:7-11). Anxiety may be deplored, but on no happy ground. The. theme 'God knows best' (6:8, 32) quietens it, but since God may will our death, and perhaps an unquiet one, we remain sceptical. Prayer is encouraged, in expectation of a positive outcome. But to what are God's gifts, nominally 'goods', compared? To stones and serpents! What advance on that is in store for us is left to the imagination. When we qualify for entry to the Kingdom we (compared with sheep) are so slimmed down that a narrow wicket (7:14) will accommodate us. God has us at his. mercy, while we must show compassion to others irrespective of. their deserts. No self-righteousness is permitted, though we are at the wrong end of that Rod (cf. Mt 20: 12-14). If we try to share what we have, we must watch out: dogs and pigs are ready to repudiate our bounty and to 'rend' us into the bargain. Meanwhile our attempt at 'righteousness', unobserved by· the public, is threatened by the pseudo-prophet, whose energy, optimism, and ingenuity equal his/her opportunities. Camouflaged as a member of the church, he/she ultimately tenders 'rotten fruit'. We detect it too late to avoid loss. A hopeful aspect is the reflection that we must still have had something out of which we could be cozened. Even those successfully exploiting Christ's name will be excluded from the messianic banquet (and why not from the church meanwhile?): the word is apochoreite, 'Depart!' It is not enough to
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do wonders on Christ's behalf, one must have credentials from him, or more to the point, from his known representatives. Jesus commented on a free-lance do-gooder who made unauthorized use of his name. The source (Mk 9:39), which recognises this stranger as collaborator, and rebukes disciples alarmed at the infringement of their monopoly, finds no echo in Matthew, the institution-man. Those not put off by this negative material are flattered with the unexpected title 'prudent' (7:24); but the SM ends (untypically for Jewish sermons) with a threat. The 'fool' who does not build to Jesus' specifications will find the 'house' in which he shelters collapsing about him - 'and the fall thereof was (i.e. shall be) great'. And then the imaginary audience of all this were shocked, says Matthew, as well they might be. The prophets of the Tanakh promised so many good things to those that 'feared Yahweh' (e.g. Pss 23, 63:5; Is 58:10-11; Jer 31:12), gratifying to any semitic gathering. Yet Matthew tempers his audience's shock with admiration - he expects to be taken seriously. He does not apologize for Jesus; and Jesus is not apologetic. Where have we heard this tone before? In the changing-room before the m the match? A Roman eve-of-battle speech? 3 Winston Churchill said in 1940, 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat'. Often repeated, this phrase loses nothing by repetition. An unwarlike nation found fortitude, and heroism. Mediocre people can show, in emergencies, unsuspected funds of valour and self-sacrifice. Such a juncture makes sense of the SM. The hearer stands at the End Time. Satan marshalls his forces for the last conflict, the last (at any rate) for the hearer. Nor are those hues depressing for an ascetic or a mystic, who, whatever he may have inherited from earlier generations, has learned something beyond experience. Such optimism is not of this world. Occasions for asceticism are varied: a desire for purification; disgust with competitive aspirations; scepticism of fragile affections; disappointment with sexuality; a mental and/or physical disaffection with life; an uncertain health; or medical disorders which the old world accepted tolerantly. Such are the ultimate sources of asceticism and mysticism, often compounded. Unless, that is to say, they amount to a conscious deception, a lying spirit (1 Kgs 22:21-23), a pseudo-ascetic pose. One can pretend to be a martyr by wearing chains. True ascetics do not find, in the SM's counsels and warmngs,
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anything discouraging. For them religion is a survival-course. The champion athlete sacrifices the joys of life for his art, undefeated by toil, heat, curbs on the appetites, including sexual desire (consider the figures of our athletes). The old world accepted the parallel: Epict., diss. Il/.15.3; Dio Chrys. 28.10,12 (cf. 29.9, 31.21). The society which admires the athlete's discipline weaves, as it were, 'all the excellences of a free polity' in with the garland for which he completes (Lucian, Anach. 15). Moral life is an athlete's struggle; only when it is over does man receive his deserts (Plut., fvlor. 561A, 1105C). The ethic of over-achievement subserves society's purposes, and the metaphor is valid in the field of morality (1 Tim 4:7-10). Trainees for survival include beginners, a few of whom will join the august ranks. The trainers are the ascetics, the 'power-house', the elite. The perfect do not cease to train. Society esteems them if they train it. They are useless if they do not.
Chapter Two DEFINITIONS AND PRESUPPOSITIONS
DEFINITIONS - The SM is about perseverance in spite of discouragement (5:11, 20, 7:8, 14, 24). The Greek askesis meant 'practice', practising what one had learnt, including virtue and vice.I Aristotle divided education three ways: nature, instruction, and practice. The metaphor, that one 'practises', trains oneself, for anything arduous, depended from the similarity between athleticism and perfectionism (Xen., mem. 1.2,19). One required training for either (Test. Job 4:9, 27:3-5). 'The untrained has neither discrimination nor endurance': Musonius (Hense, 1905, 23). Jacob had a vision of Yahweh because of his wrestling rather with evil than with him (a midrash on Gen 32:24-32 used by Philo). Epictetus (diss. Ill . .12,10) and Luke (Acts 24:16) know that one practises (cf. ep. Arist. 168) those virtues that challenge consistency, developing a conditioned reflex. Over-achievement is an askesis. The word suggested no degree of endurance, or level of achievement (Philo, somn. 1.150-2). But all askesis derived from an ostensible purpose, and only when that goal was reached was one teleios, 'perfect' (Philo, leg. alleg. Ill. 144, 196). Sometimes the Greek asketes could mean 'expert' (Dressier, 73). The achievement did not end the discipline - on the contrary it proved its efficacy. The quality of Christians' askesis was tested under Roman persecution, when ultimate endurance won prestige. Later, by way of a voluntary martyrdom, men and women undertook such an askesis as could test their constancy through optional austerities. Hence the modern sense of the word 'ascetic'. But the character of asceticism (Epict., diss. III.12, 7; ench. 47) existed long before persecution. By trials one proved one's superiority to appetites (Philo, quis rer. 38; v. fvlos. 1.29), the pugilist to win crowns, the Cynic to display a contempt for profit and loss, the primitive Christian to embark on a programme of moral perfectionism. That programme, as Matthew saw it, is delineated in the SM. Historical ascetics have used it, notoriously, as their text-book (cf. Test. Job 4:10). A pathological abhorrence of sex, or of food, or an eagerness for punishment, is no asceticism. We shall ignore such frauds upon their subject and his/her society. However, one who systematically tamed his impulses would be an 'ascetic' whether or not he fasted dramatically, crippled himself with devices, or abstained from sex.
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This will apply as much to the pugilist as to the primitive Christian. A rigorist who, by definition, distrusts his own power of restraint, will not even touch a woman (1 Sa m 21:5-6 developed at 1 Cor 7:1, cf. 1 Thes 4:3-4; Yalqut Simroni li §130; Vinaya-Pitaka lii 119 ). Freedom of speech (fvlk 8:32; Acts 2:29; 4:13) marked the ascetic (notably the Cynic), rare as it was in the
ancient world with its strict sense of hierarchy. It advertised inaccessibility to threats and promises. Withdrawal (Gk anachoresis) from civilization, to commune with nature or the unseen, was praised by philosophers (Cornutus, epid. 14). One retired i~to oneself (fvl. Aurel. 4.3). Jesus, like the Baptist, and some Essenes, practised it (fvlt 14:23; fvlk 1:35, etc.). Those who trod his 'way' left a world too well equipped with traps. Such asceticism not merely tames the anchorite, but censures, through him, his society. Ascetics withdraw so as to evade the world's ignorance and folly (Lucian, Tim. 27). One travels light, renouncing ordinary commerce (Jo. Dam. 21.184, 36.326, 37.338). Life is betrayed by its surface (Jn 9:39). The 'wise' miss much (fvlt 11:15-27). Untamed emotions expose weakness. Access to the source of all power invigorates the seeker. Sin, a residue of fear, lies in the unconscious, demanding to be nullified, lest the organism be unfit. Woes suffered at others' hands, or inexplicably, mimic the 'vengeance' of fate. But sins can be atoned for by austerities -one's own, or another's - and access to Power is both facilitated and justified thereby. Contemplatives, uniting with Power, ignoring the transient, appr~hend truth behind reason. These are mystics. Irrational attachments, discoveries, analyses characterise them. One who subdues appetites, controlling pleasure and pain, eschewing indirect motives, or selfishness, may be a mystic; for asceticism and mysticism are kindred. Philo's picture of the asketikos logos is mystical (quod deus 120). He who practised piety was even fit for a priesthood (sobr. 40), and God rejoiced in him (spec. leg. 1. 271). Mysticism is a natural potentiality, not yet scientifically traced to its roots. A marginal abnormality, it is functional. One cannot become a mystic by practising austerities (whereby visions may be had), or even by wanting to be one. But society, sensing one's potential, may encourage it. Clairvoyants, e.g., are entrusted with spiritual healing. However, mystics do not shine in argument. They
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seldom explain themselves (cf. Jdg 14:6, 9, 16; Lk 2:49-50). They pontificate, rather, and rhapsodise. It is their loyalty that attracts most attention: Lk 2:37. In semitic terminology, a 'son of God' will transact his Father's commandments, identifying himself with the deity. Like pagan prophets he serves as an oracle - part of a system, and a standard, though Jewish obedience demands greater self-discipline than did pagan prophecy. Such an ascetic need not defer to others, and prefers not to be deferred to (/VIt 19:17). True, ascetic-mystic behaviour can scarcely be predicted, common as it was; but some likelihoods (to put it no higher) can be propounded. Information about asceticism from societies beyond Israel and from before and after the first century can be relevant on the principle twice followed by Professor Klaus Berger, viz. that gospel stories illustrate more widely popular themes than is usually realised and several of them can best be documented outside the New Testament. Now no one is an ascetic, or a mystic, in blank: each has his/ her social role, or the display would be void. The worshipper of God exclusively is treated, says Philo (quod omnis 43) as virtually divine, and not without reason. The ascetic-mystic is not elected; he/she claims an unverifiable authority. Yet asceticism-mysticism is fundamentally imitative. A display can be copied from life, or from books. 2 If it claims to be educational it favours a chain of teachers and taught. Sometimes the vocation is finally found after tribulations. Ascetics, shunning the world, are neither silent, nor remote. If they dwell on pillars or beyond deserts their vocation to influence others draws admirers to them. They offer the disinterested leadership required by a vacuum in, or vacuity of, secular leadership. Selfless commitment to their fellow beings proves their fitness as referees, and for kings to enter their caves is neither absurd (cf. 1 Qf\1 XII. 7) nor rare. The literary genre, question-andanswer,3 traceable right back to Alexander the Great and the naked Brahmins of India, implies that ascetics were the best oracles. They communicate by action, healing, advising, prophesying, denouncing, and by clairvoyance (/VIt 9:24, 10:26, etc., Jn 1:47, 2:2425, etc.). Their communion (not necessarily ecstatic) with the unseen (Jn 11:42) dramatises their allegiance.4 Supernatural visions gave primitive Buddhism no inconsiderable attraction. Ascetics stand in the doorway of reality, illuminating nature's prison; the non-ascetic thus obtains, vicariously, a glimpse of the eternal,
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where failure does not exist - while here attention is focussed on status, and on personal power. Biological forces encourage corn petition, and violent rivalry, uneasily balanced by partnership, cooperation, and mutual encouragement. Prophets recall nature's dupes to reality, perplexing them while consoling them. They offer a different wisdom from that of an astute parent. Ascetic-mystics, with no visible power-base, unhampered by resources, can inspire reform, or resist innovations. He/she has a 'hot line' to God, and can neither be menaced nor bought (Ps 119:161-2, 165), appearing to lead rather than (as is usually the case) mediate solutions.
PRESUPPOSITIONS - We have discussed ascetics and mystics. There remain other presuppositions unexplained by Matthew, embarrassing to the fresh student of the SM. 1. A Hebrew- and Yahweh-centred conception of universal history is valid. The Kingdom, God's rule on earth, is intelligible and desirable. The Temple cult is related to this. Foreign civilisations are contemptible, whatever their standing elsewhere. They do not share in the cult plus myth. Part of the latter was Yahweh's resolve to provide 'justice-righteousness' (Gen 18:19; 1 Kgs 10:9, etc.), the favouring (in spite of Ex 23:3) of the have-nots without (one hopes) hurting their pride (cf. fvlt 20:7, 8).
Jesus had truth beyond contradiction. Jews already knew Yahweh as autocratic, didactic, pragmatic. He could seldom be bargained with (Gen 18:23-32; Jon 4:11). There was little exchange of ideas (cf. Mt 22:34, 36). Elijah's complaint (1 Kgs 19:9-18) illustrates discourse with Yahweh. The people were his sheep (Nu m 2 7:17; Pss 79:13, 100:3; fvlt 9:36). Jesus belongs to this tradition. Mk 7:29 suggests a non-Jew once persuaded him of something: this implication is weakened by Matthew at 15:28, restoring Jesus' autonomy. The blacks and whites of the SM encourage an archaic singleminded and simple-hearted impatience with reflection. 2.
3· Jesus' message was mystical (fvlt 10:39, 16:17,25,28) and ascetical (fvlt 8:20; 10:37-38; fvlk 2:23-28; Lk 14:26; 2Cor 8:9; Jo.Dam. 15). It ignored social, economic, or political questions in favour of human nature, the common soil of all problems. 4· Syria (Mt 4:24), which included Palestine, was a proper scene for an ascetical discourse. Gadara alone had long since provided the 'Greeks' with one prophet and more than one Stoic and Cynic. The whole region had aptitudes for asceticism as a religious de-
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vice (cf. Acts 15:23-24). Later Syria found a home for advanced varieties of Christianity. Damascus had already offered the same to mystical sects. 5· There was no objection to arranging, in a patchwork, traditional pieces of Jesus' teaching which once had more pungent meanings. To demand to hear the original meanings in each case w-ould shatter the illusion. Students of Matthew must beware of ruining the SM thereby, natural as the temptation is. 6. Jesus on the mount, like Moses (Ex 20:18-29), directed teaching to committed disciples, enticing those who were ready, and warning those who were not. Since the means whereby ascetics and mystics receive attention are open to impostors (Vinaya-pltaka Ill. 170-1) a warning against bogus prophets was reasonable.S 7· Scripture was the reference point to which all Jewish controversialists must look. The ascetic, authoritative on scripture (Ex 19:10-15), could, through the Spirit (Neh 9:20, etc.), amend, add to, and substitute (Mt 15:11, 20) items of scripture (refurbish it), and so prolong its usefulness.6 The Spirit spoke to Moses no more finally than he speaks to any genuine prophet. Moses was a great ascetic (Philo, v. Mos. II.68-69; Tg Pal. Num 12:2; midrasfl.lm on Ex 3:5; Midr. R. Ex XL V/.3),7 but the door of prophecy was not closed by him (Dt 18:15; Jn 1:21, 6:14; Acts 3:22). Angelic amplifications were not excluded (Hermas, mand. 4.4). A prophet might create a new priesthood (Test. Levi 8:15). 8. Jesus' hearers within the 25% (above p. 4) form concentric circles of moral achievement: (a) the first class, the 'little ones', honorary children (Mt 18: 3, 5, 19:14; cf. Gal4:19), whose spiritual awareness is precarious (Ignatius, Trall. 5:1). but who are nevertheless worthy to serve (Mt 10:42 , 18:6, 10, 16);
(b) the middle class, who, enlarging on Jewish piety, follow the precepts in the spirit and the letter: these are the 'righteous' (Mt 10:41, 13:17, 23:29,35, 25:46); and lastly (c) the top grade, who have been 'little ones' and 'righteous', have observed the SM, and achieved the conditioned disposition which it outlines. These are the perfect (Mt 5:48, 19:21), no longer 'aspirants' (Epict., ench. 48). Amongst them will be found 'prophets' (Mt 5:12, 10:41, 11:9, 13:17,57, cf. 23:29, 23:34). The distinction between 'prophet' and 'righteous', familiar to Matthew, is as old as Test. Dan. 2:3, but no recent prophet could be called to mind
- 23 (cf. 1 Mace 4:46, 9:27, 14:41) prior to the Baptist. We can distinguish between 'activists' and 'fanatics'; but the distinction is no more scientific than between Matthew's 'righteous' and 'perfect'. Matthew attempted to show that the Old Israel had both 'righteous' and 'prophets' who contributed their share of martyrs and confessors (Mt 10:19-20, 23:31-32). If prophets are ventriloquists for God (Num 22:18, 38) they often, like Elijah, collide with kings. The highest rank of Christian confronts senior worldlings, who must either patronise or silence it (cf. Philo, somn. II.133).
9· Those who manifest the virtue of the SM , and expound it, will be reproved, slandered, persecuted, (Mt 10:22-23, 34-36, 23:34). Deviations from any norm (Dt 30:7) provoke hostility. Those who ignore the assumptions of the world call their contemporaries in question and stimulate disquiet if not unrest. The state tolerates no authority more immediate than its own. At least it must investigate (Mk 3:22, 6:20). IO. Individual seeking of God's will can benefit society (Philo, quod deus 120). Since the latter is collective (Gen 20:7; Ps 78:34; Ez 18:2; Mt 25:40), corporate responsibility (Ex 17:16), vicarious
merit and demerit, are axiomatic. A zealot saves the whole nation (Num 25:4, 11). One prays and confesses the sins of one's people (Dan 9:20). The High Priest atoned for himself and for all. The Western notion that one is responsible only for his/her own weal and woe would be (as it is) anomalous in Syria. Korah (Num 16), and Achan (Josh 7) are paradigms (cf. Hermas, si m. 6.8-20, 7.4, 7). Individuals flouting God's will would threaten a nation; ten 'righteous' could save a city (Gen 18:32). I 1. A nation could be perfect, or less than perfect. God's 'sons' will observe his code of holiness, to be like him mutatis mutandis. Lev I 8-24 is such a code, especially eh. I9; and any alternative would parallel it in content. The SM does. 8
I2. By the End all debts must be paid. Christians believe the End Time began with Jesus' ministry, even if the Baptist in some sense inaugurated it. To usher it in, abundant guidance was requisite. Matthew believed the End was when all misdeeds (12:36) would be punished. Principles, which indicate right and wrong, success and failure, are required (e.g. 'Seek peace and pursue it'), while precepts detail instructions, e.g. 'Go not into the way of the gentiles'. Casuistry would apply only to commandments. 'Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day' would raise the questions what is meant by 'place', 'go', and 'day'. Hebrew used the root
- 24 ~WH (the noun is mi~wa) for all three: principles, precepts and commandments (see Josh 8:27); and the Heb. davar ('word') implied any kind of injunction. All traditionally come within the Gk entolai, translated 'commandments' (fvlt 28:16, 20), whereas we should prefer 'instructions'. An ascetic-mystic may utter all three. His aim is not legal: secular sanctions do not concern him. To apply all three classes to a practical question would concern the 'righteous 1• What if a prophet uttered what the 'righteous' misliked? This contingency is overlooked. Few, if any, mystics have been jurisperiti and remained toward the law.
13. Finally, there will always be supporters of 'prophets', or aspirants who choose (unlike Paul) not to maintain themselves. Elsewhere the gospel agrees with Cynics and with Philo (hypo. 11. 14-17) that one's family distracts one from righteousness (fvlt 19: 29, 1 Cor 7:32-35); but the SM does not commend the abandonment of one's home or business. Pagan prophets, philosophers, and 'benefactors' were indeed exempted (cf. Mt 17:26) from public obligations. But the poll tax, or the Temple tax, would fall upon everyone: and Matthew indicates Jesus and Peter could look to Providence to pay it (17:27), hinting that other people subsidized them. Few prophets can be sure of finding their tetradrachm in a fish. Fishers of fish (who did not bait a hook!) became fishers of men. A recognisable occupation, it was not underrated. Am 7:14 and other passages (e.g. 1 Sam 10:11) suggest that prophecy sometimes came upon people willy nilly; but the career was worth having. The religious poor, God's fools, are, in a sense, far betteroff than the few (fvlt 10:11c) optimists who entertain them (to those who have ultimate freedom daily maintenance is a bagatelle: 1 Cor 3:21-22, 6:12; 2Cor 6:10, 8:9).9
Chapter Three PREPARATION FOR THE SERMON
Matthew prepares us. His gospel virtually starts _with religious sexual continence based on an angelic appearance (1:25). Such was Jesus' home. Then pagan literati paid honour - tribute, worship, prayer (2:11). That magi held discourse with Western philosophers was a cliche, but their interest in this 'kingdom' was novel. Jews, however, ignored Jesus because the Herods were already Messiahs feignants (as previously the Hasmoneans had been),I or they disregarded a quaint midrash on Mic 5:2. The pagans were responding to irrational intimations. Jesus was therefore universal in spite of his being 'sent' to Israel (Mt 2:6, 10:6, 15:24). Persecution and anachoresis (2:12-13) naturally follow upon that homage. Next the prestigious ascetic (3:1, 4, 11:6, 18) John the Baptist, world-renouncer and mystic (3:11:...12; Jn 1:32-34, 36),2 draws crowds (3:4-6), not without event. Pharisees (3:7) received his sarcasms, and avoided his baptism. He speaks of God's wrath,. of the 'works' of repentance, the contrast between good fruit, 'wheat', and the divine rubbish-disposal (3:7-12). Jesus will improve on this image; but we must pause to recover a fo~gotten fact. Judaism has long been taken for a non-ascetic religion. But faithful performance of the Torah implies ascetic devotion.3 Against most of the halakha the 'heathen nations rebel' as unreasonable. A pupil of Aristotle described a Greek-speaking Jew as of 'astonishing endurance and sobriety' (Jos., ap. 1.182). The Jubilee was self-abnegation on some scale; so was the Seventh Year. The Sabbath regulations are not incompatible with enjoyment, but they amount to a rigid discipline. The periodical fasts (even if they imply 'affliction of the soul') are ascetic. So are the normal dietary laws. The law of the priests, their comportment, and matrimonial system, are ascetical. Purity and tithes are exacting disciplines. The Pharisees extended priestly taboos to the observant home to make it ascetical. The daily prayers were a discipline, with or without those phylacteries. Inside orthodox Jewry there were strongly ascetical movements, with extra observances (Mk 2:18; Lk 18:12). Such was the sect of the Qumran Scrolls, the Essenes, and the Therapeutae, with their restricted marriage-andprocreation._ Such was the movement of Bannus, the multiple im-
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merser, who taught the historian, Flavius Josephus; and such was the Baptist. The ascetical vow of the Nazirite, a possible relic of Rechabitism (Jer. 35; see Num 6; Am 2:11; Acts 21:23), and other optional vows and programmes of self-dedication were available (Acts 18:18). Ascetics like Samson did not forswear sexual activity. Fantasies of Jewish gymnosophists interested Jews significantly. 4 Philo refers to Moses' 'naked wisdom' in allusion to them. Self-restraint was a virtue by the first century (Test. Naph. 8:8) and by the Middle Ages self-denial, abstention from permitted enjoyments, was a virtue commended by sages as influential as Bahya ben Joseph ibn Paquda and Moses Maimonides.S Leaving the Baptist, Jesus enters a mystical retreat, a discipline rivalling that of Moses. He fasts forty days and nights, denies the value of bread 'alone', and refuses magic powers and command over angels and kingdoms (4:2-4). The latter suits the fantasies of the successful ascetic, by no means punctured by his eager supporters. Jesus then repeats the Baptist's call for repentance (3:3, 8, 4:17); he goes about preaching, with a circuit not unlike a Cynic philosopher's; and recruits for an invisible Kingdom of heaven. Those who respond would mount a counter-culture, irrespective of secular government. Inviting aspirants to accompany him, he offers them a counter-calling, 'fishers of men'. This amusing appellation fits - they will draw their livelihood from the souls they save from the depths (4:19-22, 14:30).6 His zeal leads him to preach in synagogues (4:23), offering the Kingdom openly. His way of life is therefore not repugnant to conservative Jewry. His want of family is no disqualification. He heals the sick, proving his charisma, much as the Macedonian Alexarchus, friend of the faith-healer Menecrates, ·had been able to found a religious community, the City of the Heavens, on the top of a mountain. The public expected healing (especially control of obstinate diseases) from an ascetic-mystic, as they still do. 7 If any asked him to compose differences, find lost property, etc., we hear nothing about it. This, then; is how Matthew leads into the SM. The remainder of his gospel supports it; but there is no reason to doubt but that he has given us what was necessary to comprehend it. The Tanakh's potential to provide mystical knowledge and to point the way to perfection had been discovered by Jesus and was explored by him and his apter pupils. Whatever his demeanour, his
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scheme owed nothing to Greek, even Cynic, philosophy. A Judaism tempered by the varied insights and intimations of the minor and major prophets could demand widespread attention. Mystic achievement, notably healings, traced back to the Tanakh, must command admiration, none so sincere as jealousy. There was no need for levitation, stigmata, or the like - no walking on the water was required. Moses and Aaron required 'signs from heaven'. Jesus did not need them. No dramatic imitation of Elijah was called for. The idiom of the Hebrew prophets was his by inheritance, and by profession. His sayings and doings reek of the Tanakh. Asceticism is a state of mind, and Syria could accept Jesus as an authentic teacher within Israel. His eventual debacle at Jerusalem would, almost by definition, ·be irrelevant, except in so far as martyrdom is the crown of asceticism.
Chapter Four THE BEATITUDES
The SM is sombre, but the compiler rightly placed the Beatitudes first. Vague and ambivalent, they blend the encouraging with the condescending. No one wants to be shown his folly and wickedness; and to commence a programme of moral training with a set of congratulations is only diplomatic. While these recommend resignation, they suggest one may feel superior to others. An 'escape from ideological hegemony of the 'haves" values adds a particular thrill. Pragmatic pronouncements fit the style of ascetics, unlike the reasoned arguments of Scribes and Pharisees. A highly privileged stratum (not without its psychic, mental, and physical woes) coincided with a huge majority (unprotected by Trade Unions) harbouring a pervasive sense of frustration and betrayal. Argument could not dissolve the disparity. The problem continued,, and ascetics have traditionally mediated solutions by sheer force of demonstration: Gotama the Sakyamuni Buddha, St Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa (Calcutta) come to mind. Partly through this tradition one associates religion with demands for charity. In that area pagan cults were conspicuously wanting (Bar 6:28; Julian, misopog. 363A; ep.22, 429D-430A). Giving to non-givers was not a Greek idea. To divert surpluses to the destitute was an Asian invention. In India surplus production subsidized ascetics including monks (the religious poor); this made some sense, but it differed from the Jewish conception, whereby the poor .had a right to religious concern (Dt 15:4-11). Here Christian ascetics differed from Stoics or Cynics, who superficially resembled them in ideas, or in appearance. The latter urged students of 'philosophy' to become kings in their own kingdoms. Some pagan ascetics went to lengths of world-renunciation (Plut., mor. 499C-D, 332A); and Epicurus wished his students to be like gods amongst men (Diog. L., 10, 135). To mitigate the misery of the poor was no one's object. Arete, pagan 'virtue', did not truly correspond with a Buddhist or a Christian 'merit'. Pagan notables were called 'benefactors' (Lk 22:25), but their public works glorified themselves (Aristid., panath. 398 <318 Dind.>). By distributing corn they intensified the social hierarchy, and confirmed their own ascendency.
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Jesus evidently queried all ascendencies save God's. If one drew near to God one was a true prestige-holder. The rich might try to enter the Kingdom, and the materially poor as such had no privileged access to it. As far back as 1875 E. Ache lis suspected that the Beatitudes were directed to missionaries who were also martyrs, an elite (cf. 1 En 5:7). A society headed by ascetics must be an ascetical society, their ascendency must consist with its character, and to delineate that society was an inaugural task. The description is now uttered far from impure habitations, like the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Jesus opens his mouth (cf. Ps 51:15) to utter a composition of his own (but see p.22 above) with a peculiar cadence. 5:3-10 contains its own bracket: the Kingdom belongs to the holders of all the dispositions listed. The principal herald (4:23) had demonstrated its control of the physical world, its resistance to Satan and to disease. All who will share his triumph are 'happy'. The Beatitudes are not derivative. True, Ps 69 influenced them (Matthew uses it also at 10:30, 27:34,48, 26:37-38): it is the psalm of zeal (69:9), and of the ascetic (vv. 8, 11). Jesus omits the plea for revenge against enemies, prominent in many Psalms. It is replaced by another sentiment, itself supported in the Psalms. Jesus' ascetic is therefore original: to describe him is simultaneously to describe Jesus's mystic. The mystic state rewards this kind of asceticism: the ascetic is me'ussar, 'firm', 'strong', 'happy', 'blessed'. He is not rewarded by ousting the Romans through superstitions! The 'poor in spirit' (5:3), whether or not really poor (Ps 86:1-6), rely on God, neglecting other patrons. His promises (see Tg. ps. Jon. Dt 7:7) derive from their being such. The poverty of the righteous (Ps 37:16) is better than wealth immorally applied (Sir 31: 8-11). Several passages develop the theme: Pss 69:29,33, I I 3:7 (cf.9); Is 14:30; Jer 39:10; I Sam 2:8,10. To those who rely on the Spirit (as ascetics do: 1 Sam 10:10; 2Kgs 2:9; Ez 3:12; fvft 4.1; Lk 2:27, 4:14; Acts 8:39), Jesus proclaims citizenship of heaven. These 'poor~" are also like the ~ani of the Tanakh, victims of the wicked; yet ~anawa (humility) can be adopted as a way of life (1 QS 5:3). The psalmist hoped for divine vindication. Jesus offers an openended satisfaction. Ps 1I9:19 says, 11 am a (mere) sojourner in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me'. The ascetic, keeping God's commandments, is already his familiar.
- 30 God shall comfort the mourners, those that mourn, and perhaps fast, for their sins and those of Jerusalem (Ps 137; Is 61:2-3, 66: 10). God's punishment permits the consoling of mourners (Test. Job 27:2, 34:2,5, 35:1), a delicate task (ib. 29:25). Disasters call for ascetics' contrition and atoning self-affliction (t. Sota 15:11). Their worthiness to atone for others is assumed. Mourning stops as God's forgiveness is assured: see Pss 69:3, 10, 20, 86:17, 126:5; Is 57:1 s19, 61:2-3; 2Sam 12:14-24. The meek shall (5:5) 'inherit the earth'. This alludes. to Ps 37: 11, 21, 34 (those the Lord blesses are rich), the implications being changed. The Heb. canawah, cinwetanut (postbiblical) mean both meekness and kindness. The 'earth' (Pss 37:9, 18, 22, 69:35) is really a freedom guaranteed (Is 61:1) by the Creator, whose clients they are. What the meek will never fight for, their meekness ensures. It leads to fear of sin (cf. Zeph 2:3). The meek (canawim) are the non-self-assertive (Pss 25:9, 37:11, 69:32, 76:9, 149:4) like Moses who ignored Miriam's and Aaron's slanders (Tg. ps. Jan. Num 12:3; Sifre Num. §101; cf. fvlt 11:29). Since the episode at the Bush Moses had been celibate. He alone spoke personally with Yahweh. He was meek ((anaw) beyond all the men on the face of the soil (Heb. 'adamah/Gk. ge; Num 12:3; Sir 45:4 Gk/Heb). Why soil? The most meek is best entitled to the earth. Since Adam's fall meekness has been rare; it is the quality of Abel. So far from meekness preparing Christians to become slaves (Julian, c. Gal. 229E-230A), they find all things are theirs (Ram 14:14,20; 1 Cor 3:21-22, 6:12); and like Moses they can stand in the breach alone (Ps 106:23). If Israel had been like Moses, or led by one like him (Dt 18:15, 18, 34:10; Acts 4:22-23; 1 Cor 4:16, 11:1), the Land would already have been theirs. For Moses foreshadowed the Messiah. 1 Meekness has its own redoubtableness, its own greatness (b. Hull. 20b).
What of those that 'hunger and thirst for righteousness 1 (5:6)? Are these not ascetics (Is 55:1; fvlt 14:20)? They eschew even accidental sins, dissatisfied till filled with 'good' (Ps 107:9), seeking the 'righteousness' man can share with God. They cry to God in trouble (Ps 107:4-7) relying only on him (Ps 146:5, 7; see also Pss 37:18-19, 69:3,21, 132:15, 1 Sam 2:5). God shall fill them (Is 44:3, 49:10, 65:13), satisfying those (Dt 32:24) who desire his will (cf. Jn 4:34). The non-ascetic finds other desires enlarged without being assuaged. 'Happy', too, are the compassionate (5:7), a quality of God (Ps
- 31 69:13, 17; Lk 6:36; Tg. ps. Jon., Lev 22:28) or any true king (Ps 72: 11-14). Talio is rooted in Jewish thought, but a crude retaliation
(though better than a vendetta) is ruled out by the SM. God rewards according to merit: God shows compassion to the compassionate (see Ps 37:21,26, 28; Prov 22:9, 28:8b). Moses prayed for mercy for himself and Israel (Ex 32:32, 34:6, 9; Num 12:13, 14: 18-19), often effectually; and one must imitate the divine quality (Ex 22:27; tvlt 18:33). A compassionate person forbears with debtors and lends to unsecured borrowers: Ps 37:21, 26. An ascetic, of course, gains neither wealth nor prestige by insisting on the letter of the law. 'Happy' are the pure in mind (Heb. lev implies 'mind') (5:8), familiar to the psalmist (Pss 24:4, 51:10-13, 69:5-6, 119:2). The pure see God (as did Moses and perhaps others: Num 14:14), since God is purity and like consorts with like (Job 4:17; Heb 1:13). Purified by austerities, an ascetic enters the Presence. Many believed God was invisible (Jn 1:18, 6:46; cf. 1 Tim 6:16) but myth suggested ~therwise in rare cases (Tg. Neof., Lev 9:6; T g. ps. Jon., Num 12:7, 8, Dt 5:31), since the truthful prophet was granted this boon (LXX 3Reg 22:19), the reward of the righteous (Ps11:7 Tg Ar, 17:15).
'Happy', too, is the 'peacemaker' (5:9), a peaceable person who imitates God, the peacemaker (Is 57:19; Jos., ant. 15. 136). Salom means 'peace', 'health', 'well-being'. The Heb. maslim (postbiblical) means 'one who makes friends' or 'one who surrenders' (an easy way to make friends). One avoids confrontation, even with an aggressor. The ascetic forgoes claims, ignores false accusations (tvlaimonides, MT J.ii.5,13), as becomes one who abandons the world (cf. Suttanipata 630). An Israelite ascetic may curse (2 Kgs 2:23-24) but a Christian ascetic ignores insults (Lk 9:55). See Pss 34:14, 86:8, 119:165, 122:6, and especially Ps 120:6-7, which consists clearly with Ps 69:4 (and variant readings). God calls 'peacemakers' his 'sons' (cf. Prov. 16:7), his courtiers like the angels (Gen 4:2; Job 1:6; Ps 29:1, etc.; Lk 20:36). Some want them as arbitrators; others deride them (Wisd 5:5-14). One whom God has called his son is an oracle, though he may not always respond as expected (Lk 12:15). The last two Beatitudes (5:10-12) go together. Verses 11-12 expand on v.IO. Happy are they who are persecuted for (this) righteousness - theirs (too) is the Kingdom of heaven. These 'poor' are persecuted primarily by their families (Fox, 424). Candidates for
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perfection are seldom popular (5:43). Attempts to enforce conformity by threat of exile, or unrestrained slander, prove that ascetics merit reward from God (Is 51:7-8; Acts 5:41). They receive his commendation as did the prophets who, Jewish legend insisted, were persecuted in every generation (fvlt 23:35; Acts 7:52). 2 Ps 69:4, 9, 19, 20,26 tell a familiar tale. The righteous obey God's laws (Ps 119). He is their protector; they are wounded in his service. Ps 69:4-5 is clear (cf. Heb 11:36-37). The powerful banish the nonconformists to the desert (Heb 11:38), their retreat. Suffering is accepted by the ascetic-mystic because it is proof of genuineness: each knows he is chosen (cf. Ram 5:3-5; 2Cor 12:7-10). So the Syriac (not Greek!) Acts of Judas Thomas attributed to the martyr a glorying in asceticism and contempt (trans. Wright, 1871, Il 273). Martyrdom is broad. It includes neglect, abuse, chastisement, taken patiently (b. Gitt. 36b, Sanh. 7a, etc.), undergoing trial by fire (Jdt 8:25-27; Syr. Bar. 48:48-50, 52:5-7; Dio Chrys. 8.16; 1 Cor 13:3; cf. Sad-dharma-pw:'~arTka §22). If one dies one lives to God (4 Mace 16:25); no suffering can separate the mystic from him (Ram 8:35-37). In the Song of the Three Children there appears an ascending hierarchy: (i) the souls of the righteous, (ii) the 'holy and humble of heart', and finally (iii) the martyrs themselves. The martyrs, or confessors, having already the humbler qualifications, take precedence over all created beings and ranks (LXX Dan 3: 86-88). Some Christians in the third and fourth centuries asked to suffer for their faith. Cynics in the West, and Hindus and Buddhists in the East, shared joy at being insulted and misrepresented, slandered.3 But for a different reason. They courted derision, at times by very extraordinary 'training' in absurdity (see Lucian, Peregr. 17), because they could prove to themselves and to others that they were above resentment (Epict., diss. lll12,10), were indifferent to opinion, and had put status-consciousness behind them (non timebis convitiatorem si non amas adulatorem). The reproach of fools was, as William Blake said (1793), a kingly title. But Jews, like Brahmins, regarded praise (including thanks!) as diminishing merit, and ingratitude as an augmentation of a donor's merit (j. Pi?:'a 21a. 31-35, where the poor curse the charity-administrator, to his satisfaction). One may deal with everyone justly, and be cursed by them for one's pains (Jer 15:10-11), but that will turn out, not to one's
own loss, but to theirs.
Chapter Five SOURCES OF NORMS
The ascetic-mystic is not merely self-illuminating. Society, beating a path to the cave, intrudes upon meditation and reticence. But that is what he/she is for. According to s:13-16, candidates for the promises in the second wing of the Beatitudes are (not 'ought to be') necessary to the whole world; and, as leaders after the pattern of Jesus, sent by his Father (Jn 17:18, 20:21), they have a special relation to the Tanakh (5:17-20). This relation occupies several paradoxical verses which have been misunderstood. They do not refer chiefly to the priesthood, as Chrysostom thought (de sacerd. IV.8.23-9.35; VI.4.45-88 ), but to anyone on the Christian ladder of perfection. Contrast Test. Levi 14:3. Provided they remain sincere, those who accept the offers of the Beatitudes, sampling already the world's ridicule (the 'you' of 13 is the 'you' of 11-12), are the 'salt' and 'light' of the world which they will ultimately inherit! Casual hearers must have been intrigued. The parallel with Ex 19:5-6 (a kingdom of priests) will have struck some of them. Without them will the world lack savour, or cannot it be preserved, or is it an unfit offering to God? All the ideas are inherent in 'salt' ,1 that essential element (Sir 39:26-27), trifling in bulk relative to its function. Most probably 'salt' means the brine in which foods are pickled (Cic., de div. 2.57.117; Dio Chrys. 7.44; Bar 6:28 < =Ep. Jerem.>), brine that can lose its strength (cf. b. Bekh. 8b). If their quality is exhausted, they become failed ascetics, fit to be trodden underfoot (cf. 7:6; Ps 110:1). Bogus ascetics and pseudo-mystics are worthless, even as entertainers. True mystics are (cf. Is 60:1-3; Mt 4:15, 23) bound to illuminate the world (Prov4:18). According toPs 37:6 their righteousness 'goes forth as light' (to illuminate the masses: Is 9:2, s8:IO). The ascetics, in the deserts like the Baptist, or in villages like Jesus, form a notional city, the New Jerusalem on its hill (Mic 4:2), foreshadowed by the group now on the mount (cf. Is 2:2). Unlike Alexarchus' Heaven City it did not belong to any location. The conduct of the poor in spirit, meek, and merciful so advertises them that they become teachers, healers, peacemakers, reprovers. These roles do not enlighten society ('or , cjr ) for the ex-
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elusive benefit of the enlightened (Ps 97:11 MT). Withdrawal from the world, purity, poverty, humility paradoxically exist for creation's benefit, to the glory of God (5:13-16). The disciple's activity amounts to 'good works': the functions are meritorious. What happens when an ascetic courts recognition is handled at 6:1-21, 7: 15-20. A sinner's lamp, of course, is quenched (Test. Job 43:5-6). Ascetic-mystics acknowledge previous revelation, selecting and amplifying tradition (Lk 24:27,35, 45; Acts 8:26-40, 15:28). Jesus (Mt 23:10) acknowledged Moses and the Prophets (cf. Rom 1:2, 7:12), Montanus and Priscillian demonstrated the creative power of the Spirit (Tert., de pud. §§ 12, 21), Muhammad acknowledged Jesus, Abu ISa claimed to be the last of the prophets, Baha'-ullah acknowleged Muhammad, Jesus, Moses and the Bab. Books and inspiration are admitted (Mt 22:29): how else could the Spirit validate its current vehicle (Acts 10, 15)? The mystic is bound by no text or interpretation (7:29), but, as with St Teresa of Avila, new revelations conform to established patterns and vocabulary (note Mt 11:2,19, 12:42, 13:54). Asked for the source of inspiration one may be confused (Mt 21:23). If a prophet annuls a commandment he may be hard put to it to explain how (Acts 10:10-16, 11:5-11, 12). Questions may be parried (Test. Job 37:8, 38:4-5). Education and environment will colour both his expression and his behaviour. In Jesus' case the influence of the itinerant Cynic is discernible. Responding, however, to his new 'constituency', the visionary and miracle-worker owes little to Greece, which could well misunderstand him (Acts 10:10-11, 26; 14:11-15). Jesus' relation to the Tanakh was significant semantically, and practically. The Spirit could prove to be antinomian (Mt 7:23; cf. 23:28). Matthew wanted to curb missionary enthusiasm within Jewish expectations. 5:17 begins, 'Think not that I have come ... ' for Jesus, as a prophet (Mt 11:18-19, 17:11, 21:32), anticipates slanders (5:11). The exaggerated tone of 5:18-20 is reasonable. What is to be conserved must also be repaired; and open-ended requirements, such as Lev 19:18 ('Love thy neighbour') ask for development (Mt 19:19b, 21). Jesus used the Tanakh 2 , the die (Mt 11:13) with which all Jewish preaching must be minted. He did not make it redundant (katalyein =He b. B fU; he enhanced its relevance, verified and stabilised it (plerein = Heb. qiyyem, Piel of qum) (Dt 27:36; Rom 13:8-10; Gal5:14), not least by his martyrdom on behalf of his version of it (b. Ber. 63b). His trainees consult the Tanakh, its
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norms and its prophecies (fvlt 23:23), announcing the New Age. The Torah hinted at the law by which all would be judged. The Messiah ushers in a New Creation. All former time-cycles3 climax in him. The Law and the Prophets were neither final nor false (Acts 24:14). The ascetics of the Beatitudes enable the ascetic Moses to achieve his end. A pedantic searching of the scrolls (5:18) would achieve the Messiah's object. If some Jews disbelieved in spirits, the World to Come, or a future messianic Age, the Tanakh (scripture per se) had just failed to inform them. The Kingdom's members do not favour laxity. They rank according to their performance and their teaching of the 'commandments'. Of course they will teach (Ps 2:3). The righteousness of the Christian ascetic will exceed, in detail as in goal, that of responsible Jewish society, which had made its own compromises. Does Matthew intend irrelevant parts of the Torah to be revived and enforced? And what of gaps exposed by interpretation? Greater righteousness is expected of the meek, the pure, the persecuted, the mouthpieces of God. They may denounce his vengeance (Dt 32:35) only against defiant sinners. The system tendered by Yahweh to dispute-settlers through Moses must now give way to the demands of mercy (fvlt 9:13, 12:7 quoting Has 6:6). There is no suggestion that each and every Torah rule applies to the new society like statute. But in the SM the roles of the Law and the Prophets are maintained. They were (a) to educate and (b) to anticipate the ascetic-mystics whose authority resembled their own. And so we pass to the Antitheses, compiled not for scholars. but for saints, to illustrate what the Law and the Prophets, taken together, really implied for those, who having accepted (in its true spirit) the offer propounded at fvlt 19:17,21, were candidates for Life.
Chapter Six THE ANTITHESES
The six Antitheses (5:21-48) are quaint. Are they really antitheses? Recollecting the Tanakh and its pious midrashim, the 'new' norms seem familiar to us, and resemble, in general, Jewish ultrapiety. Job 31:30 illustrates how the SM was anticipated in the book of Job, who was triumphantly vindicated though Satan handled him like a typical 'persecutor'. The antitheses have no reminiscence of Stoic or Cynic ideas, for the self-abnegation recommended is for the glory of God, not a display of freedom from emotion and from the instinctive response (as Clement of Alexandria pretended: strom. 6.9). The pattern starts with a quotation from the Torah, 'It was said', but in the form 'You have heard that ... ', instead of the rabbinical catch-phrase, 'What is written?' (cf. Mt 4:4-10; Mk 9: 12-13, 12:24; Lk 24:32; Jn 5:39, 10:35), in order to recall God's vocabulary, in other words a stream of prophecy is being remembered. This is then balanced by a 'But I say to you'. So Moses has met his equal, and his sequel. Sequel because of vv. 21,33: 'it was said to the ancients'. Jesus' teaching applies to the New Age.I His predecessor's work is now archaic. Adam and Noah were even older; the laws Yahweh gave them are not to be repealed. But all the discipline attributed to Moses hangs from a rusty hook. Pharisees cleanse only the outside of the pot (Mt 23: 25-26). So trainees must excel Moses' pupils, the Scribes and Pharisees! The climax (v.48) says: 'Be you perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect', perfect by his standard, not men's (Wisd 9:6). The Gk teleios (perfect) represents the Heb tamim (Gen 17:1; Sir 31:8 Heb, 44:16 Heb, 17 Gk/Heb; cf. 1 QS 1.13, III.3, etc.), of which the Aramaic equivalent is the interesting selim (postbiblical) (below, p.37). What is implied2 is faultlessness, especially in point of conduct, expressed elsewhere in the Tanakh by Jevav salem ('a perfect heart '). God's standard is known only to the mystic. Though Moses was told to command the Israelites to be 'perfect' before God (Dt 18:13), he communicated what suited the ancients' situation. Philo finds the precepts of Moses, 'the perfect' (leg. all. ii.91, iii.131) sufficient for his trainees (cf. sacrif. 85-6; post. 12; spec. leg. i.345, ii.256; quod det. 86-95; confus. 39; ebr. 111, 124):
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but their 'hardness of heart' (to use the language of Ps 95:8) impeded their vision (Ps 6:10) and cramped his style, as the story of Exodus proves. Reciprocation between Yahweh and man was interrupted (Ps 18:26). For the Torah to convey principles allegorical exegesis was called for, a technique known to the rabbis. Yet allegory does not explain many of Jesus' ideas: he is not merely interpreting texts. He expects to persuade, though life as we know it rejects his precepts. Yet, taking the SM as a whole, we suspect that the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, etc., can, appropriately placed, comply. An ascetic will strive after perfection as recommended. The inducements are (I) that he will be a mystic, and (2) that his merit will abound, for him, and for others. The SM lauds generosity (5:38-42), forbearance (5:44, 46, 6:12, 14-15), and compassion/leniency (7:1-5, 12); and a teaching which encourages these positive aspects of personality tenders unconscious rewards. One who receives generosity is in the inferior position (Aristid., panath. 34, 81); but this would not sway an ascetic-mystic, who receives only from God, and cannot reciprocate in kind (hence his/her prestige). Consistently, the SM tells of God's generosity (6:8, 32, 7:11), forbearance (5:45), and compassion/leniency (7:7-9). I am his 'son' if I show these qualities. God made man in his own image; man is not truly man unless he is perfect. Verse 48 links the SM with the absolute heart of the Pentateuch (Lev 19:2), reading 'perfect' for 'holy'; and sums up the New Dispensation. God provides for man. Compliance with his intention requires distribution of any superfluity irrespective of market forces. If the Beatitudes apply, one is provided for in the short-term and in the long term, irrespectiye of physical survival - a mystical concept. Striving for the long-term one obtains, incidentally, a short term benefit. The Antitheses follow on 5:13-20. The disciples are models and now we learn what exactly they will practice and teach, their version of 'righteousness'. The whole is summed up at 5:43-47: all opponents are to be loved, and benefited to the extent of one's ability. 5:48 which recommends the trainee to be 'perfect' implies also a striving to be sincere (tamfm includes this), and friendly (seJim means also this). Not to quench the opposition of 'enemies' : that might very well happen, but that is not the motive. Ascetics are above personal rivalry; merit is earned by altruism. It is not so
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much that aggression is transferred (Theissen) as that the roots of aggression are, by a thorough-going scepticism, deadened. The absence of a motive for aggression gives a chance to the instincts for charity. God reciprocates holiness and blamelessness in his worshipper: Ps 18:26(25). To begin with killing was not unapt. The most serious crime is compared with divine criminology, further-reaching, and uncompoundable. Unlike relatives of your victim, God cannot be bought off. 5:21-26 means that one should not get angry with, or speak contemptuously to, one's sibling, lest one's standing with God be prejudiced. Anger prevents one's responding to any prophet (Test. Dan. 2:3). Sages confirm that (I) irregular sexual intercourse or (2) anger destroy an ascetic's power (cf. Jon 4:4, 9; b. Pes. 66b, Ned. 22a; Midr. R., Lev. XIII.1).3 One cannot even intend to appear before God at the festivals, nor propitiate him (Sir 35:1-4; cf. Ex 23:15; Dt 16:16) until one has come to an understanding with anyone whom one has wronged. Since people seldom admit to wronging others, the second party's view is to be entertained sympathetically (Prov 25:9). After securing forgiveness (how?) one may proceed with the offering. The meek, merciful, and peacemaking will surely respond to overtures (cf. Gen 33:9-11; 1 Sam 25:23-28; 2 Sam 16:5-8, 13, 19:18-23). This corresponds to the proposition (6:15) that God· will not forgive one who has not already forgiven others. The offerings of the ~nbrotherly are not accepted (Mal 2: 10-14; Philo, v. Mos. 1.107-8). On that basis the terms exacted can hardly be steep. The parable of Reconciliation with the Adversary (cf. Prov 25:8-10) explains that a wrongdoer must give priority to reconciliation, for no amount of 'offerings' can buy God's forgiveness. The wronged party may die before reconciliation; a mere intention to propitiate God does not avail where the complainant has not relented. Such scrupulosity plainly recognises that a mystic's . relationships must be above pettiness; and an ascetic's authenticity is jeopardised by an obligation to any but God. Marriage (5:27-30) is the crucible in which human relations are truly tried. Enkrateia is only one branch of asceticism. Female saintS' husbands have furthered their charities. Ascetics may be married; like the Patriarchs, they have intercourse to procreate issue, obeying Gen 1:22, etc. (b. Sabb. 31a). The point is made at the tractate Derek 'Ere~ Zu!a 59a: marriage exists solely for procreation. Indeed if first-century man eschewed 'unnatural' intercourse and abstained from divorcing a nagging wife, he was an
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ascetic. Divorce may be valid, but if it subserved lust it is, for a trainee, within the fringes of adultery; and re-marriage so facilitated denies the male-female relationship. What adultery is to a non-trainee, such transactions are to a trainee, but the punishment is more severe. The preparation of sin is sinful. Eye and hand are indicated, according to an anthropology which saw them as accomplices. Rather sacrifice both than fall into such traps. This attitude is familiar to male ascetics of any culture particular to avoid sexual enticement, whereby their merit is sacrificed to female triumph (Jo. Dam. 29.267).4 The Buddha laid down that by sexual intercourse one who possessed the training and partook of the way of life of the monks , and had neither abandoned the teaching nor declared his weakness in advance, was simply defeated, ipso facto out of communion (Vinaya-pitaka III.23). The status itself is lost by illicit sexuality: the availability of marriage is therefore significant. To males was, in Jesus' time, consigned responsibility for females' conduct. Where females answer for their own behaviour the principle would apply mutatis mutandis. One gender must not excite the other's concupiscence (5:28 can certainly be read in this way), if ascetic perfection is the goal of both. 5:3 I-32 sharpens this antithesis. Sexuality outside Gen I :22 falls short of the ideal. Moses had amended the customary law, improving a divorcee's chance of remarriage (Dt 24:1). Jesus points out, according to Matthew, that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of her unchastity, is liable for her subsequently being made into an 'adulteress' (note the phrase at Ach. Tat. VI. 9. 7). Her potential is ruined, even by unintentional sin,5 while 'he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery', obviously while the former husband is alive (Rom 7:3). Marital strife and lust will not occur where both are pure, merciful, peacemakers, i.e. genuine trainees. If a wife begs her husband to divorce her in favour of his rival she is no candidate for Christ's congratulations. The case of Herodias is notorious; and the Tanakh had fun with Potiphar's wife. The teaching on oaths (5:33-37) only seems confused. Jews sanctioned oaths, and even depicted Yahweh swearing 'by himself' (Gen 22:16, etc.). Jesus used a euphemism to avoid swearing; Paul swears cheerfully. Pagans hesitated to swear by their gods by name (Julian, or. 7.2360) unless. solemnity was called for (id., misop. 361 C, ep. 1,5). 'Swear not at all 1 is so plain that what follows looks redundant. But when we know the audience we under-
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stand the text. Neh
I
3:25 is utterly abrogated.
Moses 'legislated' (apparently) for Scribes and Pharisees. He propounded duties (a) to swear by Yahweh alone (Dt 6:3); (b) not to take his Name in vain (Ex 20:7), and (c) not to give false evidence (Lev 19:12) or fail to perform an oath (vow) (Ex 20:7; Num 30:2; Dt 23:21). Such propositions imply a choice whether to swear or not. A system which would force one to take an oath (implying that one was a liar) assumes that oaths in support of truth are harmless. But one who agrees to lose a hand rather than to enjoy lust will care nothing for such a system. The phrase, literally 'Yes, yes', and 'No, no' (5:37), shows that the oaths with which Jesus is concerned support . answers to questions, or proposals. 'Yes, yes' can be used as a substitute for an oath, but it does not pledge · God's aid and is unobjectionable, like 'Amen'. 'Whatever exceeds these, proceeds from evil': to swear is to capitulate to temptation. The trainee must rely on his own probity, which is quite different from avoiding oaths out of superstition (Sir 23:9-11). Ascetics and mystics cannot induce belief by swearing by God: (I) As they stand before God, ranking like angels, they know they cannot pledge his vengeance against them (it is a contradiction in terms). The 'ancients' would lie unless they impressed Yahweh's services as witness! The new society dared not to submit God to this indignity; and would be diminished in status if they admitted that they could deceive (Gal1:20). (2) The ascetic-mystic has no interests which can be furthered by swearing! If one adds an oath to a promise one is a pupil of Moses (Jn 9:28), and, in the New Age, a reactionary. One has submitted God to one's schemes, as if adjuring a neighbour (see Lev 5:1, m. Shev. 4; Mt 26:63). That a slave of God should claim to share his master's knowledge (Rom 9:1; 2 Cor 11:31, etc:) might be another matter. Since we may not swear it would be absurd to evade logic by using euphemisms, like a ghula in a Neapolitan fairy-story: so 5:34b-36 are self-explanatory. This is neither casuistry, nor 'legalism' - it avoids both. It may be argued that international treaties and recruitment into the army, etc., would be jeopardised by such a principle, but an ascetic-mystical society would suffer loss rather than resile from an undertaking, and this outdoes all formalities. 5:38-42 rejects retaliation, at which Yahweh was believed (1Sam 25:39; Prov 26:27; Ob 15; Ps. Sol. 17:8) to be an expert (m. Sot. I. 7). 'Eye for an eye' belongs to Jewish law. The injured may sue for
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five kinds of compensation, whereas the principle for a trainee is 'not to resist evil 1• Some ascetics have violently attacked heresy and chicanery: did they not understand that verse? It must be remembered that a non-active response (in effect a non-response) to injuries and insults can leave a residue of resentment that will poison a whole life: but it is otherwise if the self cannot be reached as an injury by the surprises one's contemporaries spring on one. It is one's own privilege to interpret what one's senses tell one! The illustrations provided at vv. 39-42 range widely. A blow must not be returned; a vexatious litigant must be yielded to; anyone who impresses you as a porter for one stage should be helped for a further; beggars should be gratified and applicants for loans accommodated (Sir 4:3-5). The two last suggest the pious Job, who gave even to malicious beggars (Test. Job 7:11, 11:7). But from childhood one learns that if bullies are not beaten they will not cease (cf. Plato, Crit. 49 B-E); and if one is known as a 'soft touch' one will be bled by the unscrupulous. If a pagan even dreamed of beggars he could abandon hope of achievement (Artem., oneir. 3.53). But wait. 5:43-48 follows, which must be consistent. Love of enemies characterises the 'perfect'. Read that back into vv. 38-39 ('do not resist evil' as a sequel to Moses' 'eye for eye'), and the answer is clear. Violence initiated by men is a sin (Gen 6:11); but ever Cynics knew that the blows of Providence must be accepted with resignation (Epict., diss. !.14.16). Though Moses correctly perceived that wrongs must be roughly compensated for, to set straight the injured and deter the negligent, no aggression should be resisted literally. Those who ~elcome persecution will turn (metaphorically) the cheek to fulfil Is so:6. So the Budd .. ist monk does not flinch under blows (Majjhimanikaya !.123-4). One should rebuke, but one must not 'resist' the agent of divine chastisement (Ps. Sol. 10:2),6 or trial (1 QS IX.24). Job voiced his sufferings, but he did not resist them. A mystic knows (Mt 10:28) there is a limit to aggression. If another, lawfully or not, insults or strikes : do not retaliate (b. Sanh. la). He may file a false suit: offer a compromise. He may impose a burden: don't evade it. Beggars and applicants for loans are not to be repulsed: they too are a kind of 'evil', or so the unfortunate Nabal thought (1 Sam 25:10, 38). Raba said, 'He who passes over occasions for retaliation (cf. 6:12> has all his transgressions passed over' (b. Gitt. 68 b), a mystical insight. Who can do this? One who leaves his/her survival to God is with-
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out pride, and without accumulations. 'Beggar' is not ptochos, the destitute, but simply aiton, 'the one who asks'. He/she too has been struck by God (Ham., ad. 6.188-9, 207-8). One can reasonably 'ask' only if one has less than the one approached, who need not make himself a pauper (Hindus, keen on merit, have doubted this), and an ascetic may work hard (many did) to help the helpless. The presupposition is that one must not encourage attacks on the person or property. Yet the ascetic cannot be reached by attacks that occur (Julian, or. 215A). He will yield where righteousness would otherwise be forfeited (cf. vv. 29-30). One's person and property cannot be an excuse for incongruous relationships with aggressors, still less a vendetta involving third parties. The non-trainee, forgetful of Dt 28:12, wonders at the precept to give to 'askers' and to grant loans to unsecured applicants. This is understandable in those who have not grasped the Antitheses as a whole. 5:43-48 deals with love for enemies (cf. Prov 25:21-22), and is Jesus' sequel to Moses' 'Love thy neighbour as thyself'. In the New Creation 'enemies', whether tribes, races, economic, social or religious groups, or personal rivals (see Dhammapada, 197; Mekilta on Exodus 23:4) and especially persecutors, are to be 'identified with' (above, p.41). The 'hating' of enemies (v.43) (as Romans and Greeks did) is one effect of 'loving'. According to Jews (seePs 139: 21-22) if you attach yourself to one group you stand off from (1 QS IX.21-22), look down on, its rivals, as is visible at 6:24: 'love' = attachment, and 'hate' = disregard (cf. Tab 13:12). A pious person might try to 'identify' with the enemy (Ps 7:4), and tried to avoid hating without a cause (Ps 35:19; b. Yam. 9b). So, aggressors, like those listed in the previous section, are to be 'loved', and indeed prayed for (Test. Ben. 5:4-5; 1 Jn 5:16). Such prayers re-draw the collective to include the enemy (Ram 12: 14-21). Those who persecute you are only equivocal 'enemies'. They provide you with merit - you can easily pray for them. Sons of the heavenly Father (cf. v.9), peacemakers, imitate him who causes the sun to shine on the evil as well as the righteous, etc. (M. Aurel. IX.11). All may become righteous, and the merits of the good avail for the wicked. 7 Prophets' prayers benefit their enemies (Gen 20:7; Ex 8: 12-13). Those who aim to be perfect by the divine standard (v.48) will accept this alone as adequate reason. The second reason is that loving those who love oneself creates no merit (cf. M. Aurel. V 6, VII 73). The Christian will do more (pe-
- 43 i.e. more than reciprocity requires, what (in fact) may be unrequited. Novel to Greeks (Plut., Mor. 563 E), this is characteristically Jewish. As the trainee does not return a blow or resist dishonest litigation, so he does not wait for folk to treat him well before he treats them well. He is ready to create debtors, himself as creditor. His own richness with God (Lk 12:21) prevents unconscious resentment. And if beggars and borrowers cannot repay him, God (their ultimate patron: 6:26, 7:9) will. One identifies with those who are evilly disposed because one's sovereign constantly benefits the undeserving, and because if one confines one's benevolence to those with whom one reciprocates one is no trainee, since absolute non-trainees, taxgatherers and pagans, do that. They calculate (Dio Chrys. 7.88-9). risson),
A righteous Jew will expect to go beyond what taxgatherers and heathen will do. By abstaining from rendering evil for evil he already achieves that. Though the idea (of loving enemies, meaning unrepentent enemies) is rare in Judaism (as a proper expansion of Ex 23:4-5), Jews, under provocation through the ages, have understood their enemies much in the sense suggested in the SM. If enmity arises from frustration (as in the difficult case of jealousy) an assailant is a suffering person himself. One must spread one's benevolence over Jews and gentiles, the good and the evil; an ascetic-mystic, purified from pride and greed, will find no difficulty in this. The Antitheses turn out to be only superficially antithetical. If Jesus found law in the Torah he used it as· a springboard to morals (Goppelt). He did not take the Mosaic. law to logical extremes in order, in effect, to ab_rogate it.8 A new righteousness, rather, was to be seen peeping from behind the old. Jesus himself will conform to the requirements, if the gospels are to be credited. Now the subject of merit has been introduced at 5:46-47, and further particulars are next provided in expansion of both vv.42 and 44· How does one show love to one's 'enemy', whether he/she is evil or not? Alms, Prayer, and Fasting are typical demonstrative acts of 'righteousness' (see Tob 12:8; Acts 10:2) which have a bearing on one's neighbours of every category. The altruism to be exemplified below has a paradoxical aspect. By concentrating on one's relation to God, and ignoring the approval of bystanders, one puts oneself in a position to earn merit. Contemporaries of the apostles and evangelists can hardly have fore-
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seen discussions on evolution, nor the effects of evolutionary theory and research on political scientists. Nevertheless it appears to be a fact (p.85-6 below) that there is a scientific vocabulary running parallel to this religious vocabulary. Altruism is much more common amongst conspecifics (e.g. Jews towards Jews), but the possibility of discovery of the profit of reciprocal altruism between non-conspecifics, or, in effect, the redrawing of the perception of conspecific (praying for 'enemies'), can lead to individuals' modifying their behaviour towards others; and a genetic result could witness the race's achievement, enhancing the reproduction of the now enlarged, or re-perceived, set. There would be a genetic value in such advances, diminishing the significance of losses, even non-survival, of altruistic individuals succumbing to 'cheats' (p.88), i.e. those who profit from altruists at no loss to themselves. If scientists have happened on an aspect of truth here, our Antitheses, and the following chapter of the SM, concentrating on God and his care for individuals' merit (Mt 20:1-5), are really talking about the ultimate goal of evolution, and, historically, the utility of preaching that which will increase the survival of the species through options open to individuals.
Chapter Seven OBSERVANCES
Observances enable one to do something. The trainee will do acts of charity, e.g. following a stranger's bier, because he/she can give without receiving. The ascetic is trusted with donations for the community; he distributes alms and can patronise the handicapped and destitute without emphasising their inferiority. Near to God, he/she is often at prayer, and the demeanour is watched. That nearness appears in healing (Mk 6:41, 7:34; cf. Jn 11:41-42), and even in the solving of problems (Jn 12:27-30, 1 '7:1). Without fasting, at fixed times or perpetually, he is not in training. One cannot imagine a fat and jolly mystic. Fasting dissolves lust (Diog. L. 6.86; Julian, or. 6, 198D), and that is a start. 6:1 assumes trainees will give alms, in their own names and others', and do works of loving kindness. Many ascetics did and do labour for themselves and others (cf. Dam. Doe. 14.12-16).1 Jesus does not deny the popular idea that alms redeem sins (Tob 4:8-10, 12:9, 14:10; Sir 3:30, etc.). Some mystics have despised the observances of monks in primitive Buddhism, as conducive neither to their own nor others' salvation. But Jesus, according to Matthew, sanctioned conventional acts provided the intention was unmixed, and rejected would-be trainees who had other things on their minds (p.51 below). Matthew emphasises God's reward is secret. En to krypto I kryphaio appears five times. The Hebrew set er means both 'secret' and 'secret place'. The point is that, whereas God rewards a secret sin openly (2 Sa m 12:12), the positive side of his 'righteousness' (Pss 27:5, 31:31, etc.) is untraceable (Sir 16:17-30). Meanwhile Paul has denied that the 'righteousness' of a Jew can be recognised from outward signs by people, while the spiritual condition is known only to, and approved by, God (Rom 2:28-29).
The surprising principle at 6:1 is that if alms are given in order that people will notice (Mt 23:5), merit is not earned, one gair:ts no credit in the heavenly bank. This seems irrational since one does benefit the receiver and notice by spectators is incidental (M. Aurel. IV 20). But we know that, worshipping God, we must couple no 'idol' with him (Dt 4:24, 5:7, 6:13, 15; Mt 4:10). Whatever intention we add is vitiated by 'idolatry'. We must love God with all our attention and all our energy (Dt 6:5).2 So one loves one's 'enemies'
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not because they will become friends, but to improve one's standing before God (cf. Jn 5:44, 12:43). God failed to provide for the sick, insane, etc. (Ps 34:15), so he will note the effort of any donor, and credit him/her with merit. He/she then has a good conscience. The Creator's plans are furthered, so far as they could be estimated. Where there is doubt (e.g. redemption of slaves, succouring of prisoners) the unfortunate have the benefit of it. Such an attitude is meritorious. But the SM contends that if any part of one's motive in giving alms, etc., is to attract attention, the whole is self-serving and merit-free. Inconspicuous good-doing is, after all, possible, for rabbis believed that one who gave in secret was greater than Moses (b. Baba batra 9b; Prov 21:14). The Buddha went further: desire (by a monk) for esteem was a 'wrong-doing' (Vinaya-pitaka Ill 101); to procure attention was a blemish (Dighanikaya Ill 43); while Epictetus told his 'trainees' not to train so that outsiders could admire it (ench. 46-7). Neither had occasion to deny the value of asceticism per se; and it is obvious that ascetics who encourage a 'following', and become supporters' pets, give asceticism a bad name. Jesus (6:2-4) illustrates: Do not blow the trumpet before making a gift (or have your name carved on the institution you have built ?). 'Hypocrites' (the great proclaiming their own goodness: Prov 20:6) used to do this to be honoured. The recent suggestion that they used trumpet-like boxes is otiose since, even throwing (Mk 12:41-52) coins in is relatively inconspicuous, and what the verse requires is an example of maximum publicity.3 'They have their reward.' The merit accruing will be paid in their lifetimes (they will have no capital hereafter). Disciples of Moses knew that there were good deeds, interest on which was paid now, while the capital enured for the hereafter (b. Sabb. 127 a)! Jesus' teaching differed. Since part of the 'hypocrites'' intention was to gain social status, no religious surplus could be expected. The left hand, the ignoble, should not know what the right, the noble hand, was doing, so that the deed should remain a secret: the hat should not know what the head was planning. The idea of one side of the body interfering with what the other could do was known to Judaism. If a priest's left hand was 'unclean' it would not prevent his eating his teruma (tithe) (one ate with the right hand), but he could not ate qOdaSim, holy things. God sees in secret (Prov 15:3, cf. Pss 139:15, 94:7) and will reward the benevolent undetectably (probably in the unconscious).
- 47 An esteemed practice was prayer (6:5-14). No one could approach God's Presence without being 'pure', and in a clean place. Sinners were shy of the Presence (Lk 5:8, 18:13). But to Jesus' disciples God is to be Father (cf. Is 63:16; /'v1al2:10; Sir 23:4). One need not be 'pure' (Job 4:17), provided one was not complacent (Lk 18:11-12). 'Hypocrites' (cf. Prov 30:12) prayed in synagogues and at corners of the squares (as if they were Wisdom itself: Prov 1: 20-21) 'so as to be observed by people', advertising their piety. 'They have their reward. 1 True, one was supposed to recite the Sema) wherever one was. A workman should not waste his employer's time over it. This is not what is meant. People were paid to pray on others' behalf, or to make up a quorum; so they must pray publicly. Alms were also given to beggars to pray for their benefactors. And there was something even less edifying. Unremunerated services were often required. Those that undertook them claimed their expenses. Might they not cheat the beneficiaries? Trusteeships were inevitable, and there might be competition for them. Praying in public suggested that one would be unlikely to cheat (f'v1k 12:40; Lk 20:47).4 Alluding to biblical precedents (2Kgs 4:33; Is 26:20; Dan 6:10) Jesus recommends private prayer. God will respond in unseen ways. 6:7-8 are no less surprising, and no less ignored. A prohibition: ' ... vain repetitions, as the heathen; for they think that by using many words they will be accepted'. Jesus is referring to supplications. Non-Jews, and conjurers, babbled, uttering repetitive formulae in their approach to the deity, or in contemplation. Jesus rules that out. 'Lord, do you not hear?' and the like (cf. Hor., od. I.2,26) do not befit God's sons. 'Your Father knows your necessities before you ask him 1• Isaiah had already explained this (65:24) about the New Jerusalem. And Yahweh would have supplied David with anything (2 Sa m 12:8). Daniel had experienced this (9:20-21). God is not to be besieged with supplication (6:8 b, 32 b). But one wants to be active; resignation palls. Jesus recommends emphasising one's faith, not one's helplessness. Matthew's Lord's Prayer was not definitive or Luke would not have offered another version. But its singularity proves it is genuine in substance. One remarks it is a congregational, not individual prayer. 1. One approaches in faith (Num 20:13) the heavenly Father (cf. Is 63:16) distinguishing him with the honorific, 'revered be thy Name! 1 (cf. Is 8:13; Ez 20:41, 36:23). He is distinguished from all
human providers. One's expectations reflect this. Neither praise, nor its component, thanks, figures. 2. There is no supplication. But seeing that the Kingdom has not yet arrived, 'let it come'. God must appear as ruler and his will be perfectly performed (cf. Ps 135:6). The petitioner, imperfect, wishes to become perfect, a sibling of Christ (Mt 12:50), a doer of good deeds, heard in prayer (Is 58:9-11).
3· The strange adjective epiousios figures. Only such bread (i.e. food) is asked for as relates to the day (cf. Ps. Sol. 5:16-17). Note: not 'euporia (amplitude) of bread'. Matthew used an unverifiable word; ' ... our epiousios bread'. Perhaps it was invented as the opposite of periousios 'superfluous' (Heb. meyuttar)? What is intended would be food for the day on the day (Prov 30:8), that which is appropriate. No more and no better (Test. /ss. 4:2-3) than is necessary. Jacob, in his covenant with Yahweh (Gen 28:20-22), stipulated for his maintainance plus a tithe. And in the Wilderness the Israelites were given manna at the rate of a day's supply for a day (except on Fridays, when a double portion was given to provide for the Sabbath, Ex 16:4). The prayer renounces the possibility of hoarding (cf. Ps 144:13). There is a submission to God's will, declining accumulations which give ascendency over non-savers. An ascetic cannot ask for more (Plut., mor. 499 C; ps. Luc., Cyn. 2). 'If you wish me to live all these twenty-four hours, provide me the means' (cf. Julian, or.6. 1958, 1990). The petitioner offers no suggestion abou.t the manner of the provision. 4· A difficult petition follows. Literally, 'Release to us our debts, as we too have released (the like) to our debtors'. 'Debt', as Luke shows in. his version, implies 'sins'. Not an entirely happy idea: one may charitably release debts (Test. Job 11:10-11) to one whose dishonesty one would punish severely. 'Release' means 'forgive' (Tg. Neof., Num 14:19-20). One may pray for forgiveness of one's sins against God. Sin may be intentional or unintentional (Pss 14:3, 53:3). Jesus teaches that, unless the petitioner has already forgiven those who have wronged him, he may not ask for forgiveness from God. He does not require the offender to confess and repent (cf. Test. Gad 6:3)! If God is king, one may more easily expect forgiveness if one has swallowed the misbehaviour of his other subjects. One cannot counterclaim against fellow-servants, whose misdeeds are, as far as oneself is concerned, inadequate services of God. If they have harmed you in pursuit of God's pro-
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gramme of punishment, you cannot complain (Mt 18:22)! Either way they must be forgiven. An ascetic-mystic will not wish to make indirect claims against God, nor will he usurp God's privilege of forgiving sins. A vehicle of the Holy Spirit might pronounce God's forgiveness; and some, as with numerous indiscreet martyrs, might even be believed (to the prejudice of good order in the church). But if an ascetic is harmless, he is (so far as he may be) all-forgiving. Furthermore those who ask for forgiveness on the basis of their forgiving others will appreciate mutual confession and absolution, which is in fact the glory of the primitive Buddhist monastic discipline (the Patimokkha ceremony). 5· 1Abandon us not to trial (cf. Mt 13:19), but preserve us from evil.' 'Evil' is punishment (see p. 41), rather an aspect of being human (Gen 8:21) than any personal devil (cf. Mt 13:38). If God fails to protect us, he has not yet forgiven us. This communal prayer deals with the present and the future, as the prayer for forgiveness deals with the past. A synagogue was supposed to pray for something (Artem., oneir. Ill. 53); but here there is no prayer for loved ones, the sick, the state, the heathen, sinners, wrongdoers (5:44). The trainee addresses his mind to his own needs and deficiencies (chreia: 8) -that done he and his fellows can turn to their duties to others. It does not do to be too subtle. In our relations with others many curiosities arise for which the Lord's Prayer offers only distant guidelines. Defiant sinners are treated in Judaism with rejection. One must rebuke the offender until it becomes dangerous to upbraid him. The Lord's Prayer leaves it open whether one is to forgive those who refuse to be forgiven, claiming, as so many deviants have done, that they are the ones to forgive. At least the Prayer teaches that if one is preoccupied with what one has suffered, one's intentness on God's forgiveness is impaired, ana on this Matthew insists (14-15). That one could pray for others to be forgiven (as at Job 42:8-g), irrespective of their views, seems to have been envisaged, for 5:44 would be in keeping. 6:16-18 is the last illustration of 6:1. We should read 6:2-4, 5-6, and 16-18 continuously, putting vv.7-15 by as an insertion. Circumstances alter cases. Observances (cf. 5:16) can be taken up by
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hypocrites (cf. Joel 2:12-13) to deceive people (e.g. 2 Sa m 14:2). And there are those which, like Constantine the Great's 'services' to the church, are pursued with mixed motives. Cases where one would be ridiculed as a hypocrite can be neglected for the moment (Ps 69:10-12). This is no reflexion on 'good works' (5:16), such as charismatic healing, redounding solely to the glory of God (9:8; Acts 4:21, and consistently). At a time when the statues of the pagan gods did miracles of healing, the disciples cannot avoid publicly satisfying the faith of the public. Fasting for oneself, for one's enemies (Ps 35:13; Did. 1:3), and fasting with others ·in the sect (Mt 9:14; Lk 18:12), or all Israel (Maimonides, MT Ill, IX), were well known. Zech 7-8 explains the benefit from keeping fasts in the right spirit. Whether one fasted could be visible (LXX Ps 34:14), and enhanced by any device, as during mourning in 'sackcloth and ashes'. The same principle applies. If the motives are mixed, all the merit will accrue in this life by way of public approval. For merit hereafter the actual fasting must be disguised, to avoid the possibility of public satisfaction. True fasting is, after all, a moral discipline (Is 58:5-6). Ascetics have been known to flaunt their skeleton-like condition. But a Stoic (Seneca, ep. mor. 5) once advised the would-be 'philosopher' to avoid visible asceticism, to be simple in thought and deed, and to cherish sociability. Zech 8:19-23 even suggests that fasting is consistent with joy. Fasting is a notorious way of putting· pressure on people: joy is not its obvious object. The idea that by means of fasts one may put pressure on God (as if he would be sad to see one wretched) is primitive (Jon 3:5; Mt 11:31). He does not require exhibitions. Jesus recommended that one should, while fasting, wash (cf. whether or not with soap, and use oil (which costs money: Qoh 9:8), to disguise the practice. This fast was obviously not so severe as to cause emaciation. His formula was to apply to all fasts, and it rules out exhibitionist fasting (and presumably casting dust on the head and other absurd customs of his day). Self-abnegation in favour of others who can use what is saved (cf. Mt 23:23d), the avoidance of self-indulgence: this, even if the Jewish dietary laws are neglected, is the asceticism which interests him, and it is consistent with mysticism (Dan 10:2-5). Fasting increases concentration, and, like chastity, can have results: provided that it does not subserve the self-esteem of the overachiever- otherwise one gets simply what one pays for. Ruth 3:3; 2 Sa m 12:20),
- 51 Whence came so paradoxical an idea? Jesus fasted voluntarily in his training period, and he must often have fasted involuntarily. We can safely assume his trainees would fast for God's sake. Is it not hard that one must fast and look cheerful about it? But tradition said the ascetic-mystic fasted without any detriment to his image. After Moses fasted at Mt Sinai, he descended none the worse, and with a bright face (Ex 34:28-30; Philo, v. M os. II. 70). Joseph claimed (Test. Jos. 3.4) to have fasted for seven years and looked as if he had been well fed ('those that fast for God's sake are given a healthy look'). The Children of blessed memory fasted in a Jewish way, eating vegetables to avoid the pagans' kitchen. Experts feared for the results, as the book of Daniel explains. But when the Children were inspected they were better looking and more alert than their contemporaries: they were not 'fallen off in face' (skythri5pai; Dan 1:3-19). A religious fast is not incompatible with cheerful appearance - it depends on the intention. To fast with God (cf. Mt 9:15) is to be at a feast (note Mt 22:11-12). There is a passage in Matthew dealing specifically with mixed motives, and it appears soon after the SM. At 8:18-22 there are contrasting questions, one by a Scribe who fancied he might be an attractive recruit, whom Jesus rejects rather dramatically, and one by a disciple who asks for a few days' leave to attend to a pressing family situation. The striking phrase 'Let the dead bury their dead' puts it clearly: no companion of Jesus' (8:18, 22) can afford to have any competing interest, his motives must be entirely unmixed. As the allusions to the Tanakh reveal, the nontrainees of Jesus' day were destined for a holocaust, and who will bury the dead of New Sodom ?5
Chapter Eight TRUE AND FALSE TREASURE
Matthew interrupted the flow of the SM by inserting 6:7-15. Now how is 6:19-34 to be paragraphed? A break obviously occurs at 34, the link between it and 7:1 being unclear. Perhaps 7:1 relates further back? Taking 6:19-34 as a whole, acts of 'righteousness' must be done for the glory of God only. One accumulates capital in the heavenly bank, merit; 1 but there is doubt whether surrender to God in respect of income will leave one a burden on others. Should one calculate one's own needs (Jews said one might give as much as a fifth in charity)? Should one make a generow~ estimate of one's future needs? If accumulations are altogether avoided, such prudence may be ineffectual. Matthew supplies a selection of Jesus' sayings, one of them (6:25-34) detailed. It appears that 6:19-21 is the basic proposition, while 6:22-23 relates back to the word kardia ('heart', virtually 'attention') at 21. Verse 24 likewise relates to kardia, in parallel. with 22-23. Verses 6, 20, 25-34 partly answer the objection at 22-23 and 24 and revert to the themes of 5:6, 20, 6:II, rounding off the topic, 'true and false treasure'. The trainee must start as he/she intends to go on: since his only treasure is in heaven he can be generous without fear of being impoverished. This cleverly complements the previous woposition. One who does righteousness I benevolent acts to obtain human approval (a man-pleaser), gains his reward on earth (often enriching himself), but none in heaven; whereas one who acts benevolently for God's sake must look only to heavenly compensation. His limited energy is directed to a single purpose. Perhaps the more faith one has the less need there is to depend on it? Society vibrates to that rare note, active altruism. Thus Ps 37:25 ('I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his children begging their bread') is no mere imaginative fantasy. 6:19-20: 'treasure' suggests something negotiable (buried or banked), but this is ironical. We are considering motives. Ascetics need no banks, and mystics ignore tangible treasures. 6:19-20 in fact expands on 'they have their reward' (6:2, 5, 16). Do not enlist for prompt payment, let it be deferred! 'You cannot take it with you', we say. But righteousness makes way for you (Prov 18:16; Lk 16:4), it ushers you into the World to Come. Some Jews be-
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lieved that all of them were entitled to the divine promises on the basis of the merits of Abraham, lsaac, and Jacob (Mt 3:9), but the merit of the society must derive from the achievements of its individual members (Mt 25:3). Such is that treasure in heaven, an idea which developed further in later Judaism. We remember Jesus' approach: mixed motives are (for our purpose) no motives. Supporters of asceticism will agree that one who has treasure in heaven will not need applause. People reward a known ascetic: the Buddhist monk for example has visible as well as invisible rewards (Digha-nikaya I. 61-85); but Jesus had a subtler approach. He counsels every trainee not to amass earthly treasure, which either rots or is a focus for envy, but rather to amass i~ where it is safe, obviously by doing good works directly or indirectly. A police force is needed to secure the means to power, but none to protect merit. The maxim, that one's attention is where one's treasure is, is true to life (cf. Jer 48:7; Ez 33:31; Ps 62:10). Those who have merit will not risk it by mixing their motives. Verses 22-23 link well with what precedes. The- eye is the symbol for the disposition. A bad, narrow eye means 'meanness', a good eye means 'generosity'. Here, the eye betrays selfishness (see Sir 18:18b). Where the eye is 'single', generous, the whole of its owner is 'bright'. 2 If one is miserly one is 'dark' indeed: the disposition defines the personality. This saying explains kardia, 'attention'. So one cannot be righteous without being generous, an interesting proposition, especially for those who have nothing but their labour. Calculated donations will not buy righteousness as one buys membership of a club. Verse 24 also relates to 'attention'. It handles the chimaera (Josh 24:l9) of simultaneous service of God and mammon. The latter is the Hebrew for 'money' or money's worth. A sceptic would say that such simultaneous ser~ice was worth the attempt; and the prudent have often tried. But the dichotomy is a favourite of the bible (Dt 6:13-15; Mt 22:5; Jn 4:19-25; Acts 4:19, 5,29; Gal '1:10, etc.); the rabbis explain Dt 6:5 as requiring love of God with all one's means,3 and the sceptic is reproved at 1 Tim 6:17-19. Slaves of two masters were known in Jesus' world. Where two masters disagreed the slave must neglect one (cf. Lk 14:6 with Mt 10:37). If one is a half-slave to God, money helps to further many commandments. But if the other half is a slave to mammon, one stints on charity. Mammon is the opposite of treasure in heaven. The as-
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cetic and mystic ignore mammon, because they attend to God, the custodian of their treasure. They can afford not to be calculating. The non-trainee could be a half-slave to righteousness, or perhaps he is on a sliding scale. These ideas were foreign to Greeks, and the distinction between God and mammon is not directed by Jesus to the development of equanimity (cf. Epict., diss. 4.10.18-25)! 6:25-34 comes none to soon. If we do turn the other cheek, lending to every would-be borrower, give to every 'asker', treat mammon as an implement, gathering treasure only in heaven, what happens when crops fail, pestilence rages, and we have no credit? Others have absorbed whatever surplus we had. St Neilos the Ascetic commented that since faith was rare, verses 26-29 convinced hardly anyone, except ascetics, who, observing the story of Elijah, expected ordinary people to give them their last cake and their last drop of oil. So naive a f,.aith belongs to primitive man, yet it is half the battle (Hermas, mand. 12,3.5). Verses 25, 31, and 34 tell us what the whole is about. While the core consists of two principal assertions, the first of which (26-30) is a parable, backed up by reasoning, the "second (32) is supported by a principle, backed by a promise (33 b). Vibrant is the leading proposition! Verses 25, 31, and 34 teach that one should not devote anxious care to the needs of the morrow (one prays only for epiousios bread), for the 'evil' of the day is sufficient for it. God naturally feeds and clothes his obedient slaves adequately (Lk 12:37). Dependence is taken for granted (6:8, 32 b), as indeed Epictetus did when he discussed the same problem (diss. Ill. 26. 2, 27). The 'evil' is here Adam's punishment, the sweat of his brow (Gen 3:17), allegorically. Ps 104 (Jesus' 'authority') tells us (22-23, cf. 19) that man works during the hours of daylight, and each day is a unit. Adam and Eve had previously been cultivators and food-gatherers (Gen 2:15-16), daytime occupations. The 'anxious care' is about food, drink, and clothing. The argument is that the psyche ('soul') is worth more (cf. Mk 8:35) than the food, and the soma ('body') than the clothing. Those that care for their psyche (Mt 10:28) place the search for food second (cf. 24); and those that save their soma from hell (5:23, 29, 6:23, 10:28; 2 Cor 5:10) will regard any choice of clothing, primarily a status-symbol, as quite incidental. 'But seek you first the Kingdom and his righteousness (his demands); and all these. things shall be superadded to you': food-and-clothing is a byproduct. The 'superaddition' to us agrees with the boons Yahweh gave Solomon, who made the right choices (see 1 Kgs 3:11-13). He received every benefit he did not ask for.
- 55 Birds, animals, and 'herbs of the field' figure in Ps 104. They do not disobey their Maker (Sir 16:27-30): they are fed and the birds and most animals need no superfluity. The 'lilies', absorbing, appear immortal. From the herbs (which lilies are) man clothes himself, and yet no man-made clothing (Diog. L. 1. 51) is immortal as the lilies are. Righteous people will therefore not starve: this is axiomatic (Ps 37:19, 25 above; cf. Ez 14:13). To the ascetic-mystic starvation is no hardship, since righteousness (Lk 10:42) is superior both to the appetite and to the body's complaints (Jn 4:31-32). To those that seek preservation from hell, the quality of comestibles or the status-value of clothing is insignificant. They do not need funny hats. In Hebrew idiom 'to be clothed with' means to have a certain quality: those clothed with immortality are immortal.4 Now if man cannot increase his span of life, God can increase it here and hereafter: Solomon's would have been increased but for his superstition. Ascetics' maintainance will be a by-product of their search for the Kingdom. True messengers of God and trainees in his discipline take so little out of life, easily sated in both actual and metaphorical senses. On the other hand, without a surplus one can hardly give in charity; and so collectors for charities, like Paul, may be concerned about the correct ratio between God's provision for trainees and their provision (in turn) for the incompetent amongst them. The shock conveyed by 5:38-42, loving one's enemies, is almost equalled by 6:24-34. One expects a justification, to sweeten these seemingly doctrinaire assertions. We may anticipate 7:7-12. One can safely renounce 'anxious care', because since the rest of society is bound to give hospitality to its dependants, reciprocity (not to speak of generosity) requires the ascetics and mystics to impart their spiritual wealth to those who maintain them (cf. Ram 15:25-27; 1 Cor 9:11; Gal6:6-10). All problems, logical as well as emotional, are to be solved by trust in God, who cares also for those who must starve (cf. Epict., diss. III. 26. 28-29).
Chapter Nine RECIPROCITY
7:1-12 cannot be difficult. Whatever the meaning of_ its principal subsections, it must once have been intelligible. Perhaps 7: 1-12, the last substantive section of the SM, sweetens the pill, reconciles the wavering and completes the structure. Yet it happens that the meanings of 7:1 and 7:7-8 are uncertain. Of the many guesses none is established.
Since 7:1, 'Judge not, that you may not be judged (by God)', has no connection with 6:34, it could well be in parallel with 6:24, so that 6:24-34 and 7:1-12 are both appendices to the propositions about the 'light of the body'. If we arrange 7:3-5 closely a,fter 6: 22-23 - both deal with eyes - this would fit. Similarly 7:7-8 does not closely follow from 7:6 - a monolith - but it is congruent with 6:25. It is a fair guess that 6:24-34 and 7:1-12 are alternative developments of one idea, namely ultimate reliance on God. First, which is the Hebrew root behind 'judge'? The Eng. 'judge' and Gk. krinein have the same wide semantic scopes: judicial activity, personal opinion, social and moral appraisal, and estimates of various kinds. Now 7:1-2 utilise two ideas behind the word measure, (i) to be used in the judging (obviously a standard), and (ii) by way of talio, the idea of God's judging people by their own standards (Ps 28:4; Mt 16:27, etc., above p.31) - a principle alluded to at 7:12, the climax of the SM. Therefore the judging of 7:1 is hardly what Tolstoy supposed, judicial activity. Krinein is used by the LXX to render a range of Hebrew verbs, but we are not restricted to them. Our krinete/krithete could derive neither from OWN, the prime candidate, nor from SPT. The former covers legal decision-making; the latter judging in public administration (Lev 19:18). More hopeful is YKI:I, which means (a) judging, (b) rebuking. If 7:6 (dogs and swine) depends from 7:3-4 (rebuking) and if 7:3-4 develops the idea at 6:22-23, the choice of YKH is right. So 7:1-6- will continue 6:23. In fact, whereas OWN and SPT. hardly fit with the idea of leniency to the weak, YKI:I may well be done generously, generosity figuring in the previous section. Lev 19:17 will bear this out. And Sir 28:4 assumes that only the merciful will receive mercy from God. The rabbis said (m. Av. I. 7; b. Sabb. 127a) that he who judges his neighbour in the scale of innocency merits
- 57 capital in the World to Come and interest on it in the here and now! So we shall paraphrase 7:1 as follows, 'Rebuke (reprove) not in such a way as to incur God's reproach'. This will correspond with a double entendre based on YKI-:I. Thus one should use a generous measure in (a) charitable donations, (b) transactions, (c) criticizing one's neighbour - consistently with Jewish piety, where we find that one should not quiz a brother until one has stood in his place (m. Av. l/.5). This, unclassical, use of krinein reappears at 1 Clem 2:6, ekrinete = 'you reprehended'; and we encounter this sense at Did 11:11-12. 7:1 reappears at Jas 5:9: 'be forbearing'. It is a good deed to rebuke one's fellow for error. The Torah required it. A collective society needs the righteousness of each member. But when it comes to the reformation of morals and manners, bad strategies and bad habits, 'it is usually found more agreeable to our tastes, as it certainly is the common practice, to begin with our neighbours rather than with ourselves.' Now the ascetic-mystic has become a trusted oracle on norms (cf. 2 Sa m 12:7). He/she has a choice how the trust is performed. Yet to rebuke is an act of power, even where the right is, in principle, reciprocal. 7:3-4, with the maxim of the Chaff (or Splinter) and Pole ('Splinter and Beam'), means that one must not presume to rebuke until one is certain of one's own vision. Trainees must not be self-righteous while debutants on the ladder of perfection (cf. Jn 8:7). Not only in deciding how to do other deeds of loving kindness, but in reprehending and warning, the donor-judger must check his own bias, let alone meanness or even malice. Do not rebuke so as to enhance your own ego! Mixed motives are suspect here too. When one's disposition (the eye) is correct, one may indeed rebuke (Rom 2:3). Those who have thorns or stakes in their eyes are like Israelites hedged in by the Canaanites' abominations (Num 33:35; Josh 23:13; Ps 106:34; Ez 28:24), and liable to be corrupted (Ex 23:8; Dt 16:19).1 One may ask how can ascetics arbitrate if they can never be sure of their fitness to 'judge'? Avoiding condemning either party, he/she draws the attention of both to moral delinquency: see Lk 12:15 (an ascetic's warning). Since 7:6 stands out incongruously, it once had a sharp focus. Luke did not like it. Had it to do with gentiles? 'Dogs' are gentiles (see Ex 11:7; Mt 15:26), for whom 'dog' is an honorific (Mekilta on Ex 22:31); or simply the wicked (Ps 22:16, 59:14; Phil 3:2; Rev 22:15). Swine, assodated with gentiles (Mt 8:31; Lk 15:15) are
- ss the boar (l)azT r: m. 1-full. IX. 2) which tramples on Israel (Ps 80:14 <13>),2 the wild boar (Aesop 407) which has devoured the Vine (LXX Ps 79:14 Alex.), the Fourth Beast, or Kingdom (Seleucids, Rome?) which after destroying cities, will be defeated by the saints in the messianic Age. The boar's oblique movement (~)azar) is interesting (cf. Apuleius, Met. xi): rather than repent (f:IZR) of its swinishness it will (cf. Ps 110:4; Jer 18:10) repent of its moderation and confound its would-be converter. This background is clear from Dan 2:40, 7:7, 19,23, 8:10-11,13-14, 9:27, u:31, 12:11. Many think the verse chiastic: while the swine do the trampling, the dogs rend (Jer 15:3). However, the allusions show that trampling, turning, and rending belong to the swine. And that which is torn by beasts becomes unholy. Dogs and swine imply those to whom scarce resources should not be given (cf. Dam. Doe. 14: 12-16; Tab 4:17; Sir 12:4-7; cf. Anguttata-nikaya i, 161) 3
Not giving the 'holy' to dogs is an idea from the Torah (Lev 22: Jewish law provided that carrion (terefa or nevela) and meat wrongly destined for sacrifice (m. Tem. V/.5; b. Zev. Jla; Ber. 43b) should be cast to dogs (cf. Ex 22:31, 29:33; Mt 15:26) or sold to foreigners (Dt 14:21). But teruma must not be given to an ignorant priest, who is no better than a lion (b. Sanh. 90b). Ex 22: 31 comes immediatly before the rule prohibiting rumour, slander, and false testimony. The scrolls were not divided into verses and chapters. One wonders, then, what is the connection between Ex 22:31 and 23:1-3? Rumour-mongering, false witness, and corrupt judgment befit non-Israelites. The section starts at Ex 22:28, 'Thou shalt not revile jt!dges nor curse a ruler of thy people', and continues about offerings. ''Dogs' are therefore those who would curse judges, and present unfit offerings. So, 'though you may perceive your brother's! sister's moral weakness, do not impart the church's treasure ("holy" whether it be spiritual or secular) to pagans ('dogs' even suggests Cynics: ps. Luc., cyn. 5,15) or enemies of Israel (Is 63:18), who will try us in the Last Days.' Many have understood 7:6 to mean that one should not advise (Ram 7:12) those who are incapable of appreciating it (Prov 9:7-8; Mt 22:5-6; b. Ber. 43b); and it is a fact that swine, in general, are exceptionally difficult both to lead and to drive. Ascetic-mystics have no general licence to preach. 3-15).
'Pearls', the most valuable assets relative to their size, are the capital of the Kingdom rather than the treasures which will be ravaged by the Boar in the days when blood will be lapped by dogs
- 59 and pigs (LXX 3Reg 20:19, 22:38). For the New Jerusalem will be built of such jewels,4 especially pearls (Rev 17, 21), as are deposited outside the infuriated Beast's reach. The 'Ask, Seek, Knock' saying is no less obscure. Is 58:7-12 tells that the doers of good deeds earn merit and God's speedy answer to prayer. The illustrations at 7:9-n, which deal with dependence on the Father, must be relevant; and the Golden Rule (7:12) must cap the whole. It cannot deal with food and clothing, since that has already been handled. Could it not take up, and develop, the theme of 6:26? We must discipline each other, as our mutual concern, in the light of God's discipline. He will prompt us (Mt 10:19). He knows our common needs before we pray. Animal and vegetable creation is maintained without prayer. If we are not power-seekers, but seekers after the Kingdom (6:33), we cannot fail. The spiritual search is depicted in a parable. The journey to the New Jerusalem replicates the walk through the Wilderness to Canaan. Yahweh shared the Israelites' many problems (Ps 103:13) • . He gave them manna for bread and quails from the sea for fish, though the local abundance of stones and serpents (and scorpions) afforded him not only a means of punishing them (Ex 8:26; Num 21:6-7; Am 9:3) but food also (Mk 4.3). He taught them (i) to depend on him (Ex 16:4, 12), (ii) to observe equality amongst themselves (Ex 16:16), and (iii) to anticipate (Ps 23) the banquet: Mt 14:19, I 5:36. Ask, seek, knock, a climax, is a cliche (Ps 27). If we ask God he will give us things or advice (cf. 1 QS 1.1-2, V.8, 11; 7:13-14; 2Chr 1:7; Pss 2:8, 27:7, 45:19; 84:11-12; 105:40, etc.); if we seek God he will be found (1 Chr 28:9; 2 Chr 15:2, 4; Pss 27:8-9, 34:4-10~ 77:2, 105:4, 119:10; Prov 8:17; Cant 3:1-4; Is 45:19, 55:6, etc.); and lastly the gates of Jerusalem will open to the righteous (Is 26:2-4, 60:11; cf. 45:1). The Messiah will open the gate, or the church will open for him (Cant 5:2-7; Rev 3:20; cf. Lk 12:36; Acts 12:16). The banquet proceeds (Mt 25: 10-13; Lk 13:25; cf. Mt 8:12), for the sincere, and the meek (Pss 10:17, 123:2). The book of Job (note 22:21-30) already implies (b. Ber. 63a) that if one associates God with one's sufferings all doubts
are resolved. Mark, and less prominently Matthew, insinuate that when one is in need (6:8) God foresees that other people will 'bend the rules', 'stretch a point', in one's favour (Mk 2:25 , 11:3.
The Golden Rule (v. 12) is subtle. Others may recommend care
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to avoid injuring others (Tob 4:15); but the prophets, including Jesus and his graduate trainees, require reciprocation (the strategy of a collective society), taking God himself as the model. Like a prudent father, he observes equality between children (Lk 15: 29-30). The Holy Spirit operates no discrimination (fvlt 20:14). No one will exploit another on any specious ground. Neither ascetics nor non-ascetics may exploit generosity. Sham generosity, with condescending advice, is ruled out. Does a remuneration arise for a new priesthood (cf. fvlt 17:26)? To visualise preachers as hired (1 Tim 5:18) by their congregations consists with Judaism (in spite of m. Av. 2. 2), but is foreign to the SM, where ascetics and mystics are no employees- note the argument at r Cor 9:7-14.
If we return to the language of evolution-theory and the genetic value of individual behaviour, it is plain that if God is Father, all human beings, including the non-chosen races, being non-sterile with each other, form a species. Reciprocation with all human beings will enlarge the survival-potential of all, though the favourable choices are made in small groups. If it is God's will that all be 'saved', one furthers God's will by reciprocating, as a strategy, even with non-conspecifics, including actual or potential 'cheats'. Those, especially ascetics and mystics, who encourage this strategy, consciously and unconsciously, are meritorious beyond the reach of anyone's remuneration.
Chapter Ten WARNINGS
The role of prophets was to be crucial in this new society. Sed Paul had occasions to comment on their activities and those of their rivals, speakers with 'tongues 1• The prophets of the pagan gods, and Jewish fantasies about prophets, had one thing in common. All problems were to be solved by them. A heavy responsibility. The Spirit was to speak through their mouths, proclaiming the divine will. Jesus' ascetic would not bother himself to please men (Acts 4:19; Gal1:10; Col 3:22; Eph 6:6; LXX Ps 52:6; Syr Ps 53:6): he was above all that .. Unlike the pagan prophets he would not support the rich families 'behind' the shrine (cf. Jas 2:1-9). But his relations with well-to-do members would be interesting. quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Enthusiasm for cults arises in the young (cf. fvlt 19:14-20). Matthew, while adapting Mk 10:17-22, has understandably identified the Rich Enquirer as young. He has a bearing on the SM. Matthew contrasts Jesus' bald quotations from the Torah with the Enquirer's awareness that conventional obedience to it might not be enough (cf. 5:20) - he recognised himself as a possible target for Jesus' campaign. The key word 'perfect' (p. 22) comes up indirectly. He asks, 'What good thing shall I do to have eternal life? 1• 'Good thing' is tov, which suggests merit. Jesus recalls Ps 119:68, 1 Thou art good and the doer of good' (cf. Gen 32:13\ 12>; Ps 125:4). To do good, then, one must imitate God. Jesus restates the question 'If thou (truly) wishest to be perfect ... 1 The Enquirer's good intentions should be realised, capitalised. The one who intends to be 'perfect' (21) conv~rts his negotiable assets (hyparchonta suggests mammon, objects) into 'heavenly treasure'. The possessor of such treasure in heaven is 'righteous', on the route to being 'perfect'. The Enquirer, with a sound financial sense, doubted whether perfection was worth the risk. Luke said he was extremely rich, hoping his negative reaction would not discourage contemporaries who were moderately well-off. According to Matthew's version, Jesus admitted that the commandments already went far: it was not enough to avoid Torah crimes, or to obey its enforcible precepts, one must attempt to comply with that Torah requirement which was most dauntingly
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open-ended - 'Love thy neighbour as thyself', an aspect of asceticism. Therefore one must give accumulations to the destitute. So Jesus encourages a likely candidate for the Kingdom to perform that wide precept. And of how many people did Jesus ever show approval? Such a rarity might easily have been recruited - but rich people could not face that decision unless 'faith' had already made them God's implements (Mt 17:20, 19:26). Earnest enquirers might become a prey to exhibitionists envying the prominence of Moses, Elijah, and the Baptist. A rustjc or artisan could be a bearer of the Spirit (Acts 4:13), by virtue of his renunciation (Mt 4:22, 19:27). Could not the God who spoke to Moses adopt an artisan as his 'son'? An ambitious recruit (Lucian, Fug. 12,17) need show neither reason nor modesty. Society might accept him at his face value. Especially if he recommended almsgiving which combined an appearance of effectiveness with the minimum of contrition. Jesus' notoriety inspired the superficial (in spite of Mt 8:20) to purchase leadership at a little cost. Simon Magus was among hopeful imitators of the apostles. Other examples may be found at· Col 2:18 and Hermas, mand. I I . Dear to Matthew, this theme is reflected even at Jn 6:14, 7:12,40,42, 9:17. False prophets played a fatal role at the Destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, some suborned by tyrants (Jos., BJ 6. 285-7; cf. Mt 24:23). Lucian, an impartial witness, found (Peregr. 11,13) Christians especially liable to penetration. The SM is the great Ascetic Discourse. No worldly inducement is offered to seekers after perfection, whatever the rank to which they aspire. Jesus likens his 'way' to a narrow gate approached by a hard path. Inside that gate is the Enquirer's quest, eternal life (cf. Mt 19:16, 17, 29, 18:8). The well-trodden highway leads to the Broad Gate, wherein losses (tolls and cutpurses) may be expected. 1 Few found their way by the narrow gate, completed the ascetical training, and merited the congratulations of the Beatitudes. Galileans must have known that sheep can hardly be got through a narrow gate when a wide one is visible to them. The teacher, like a shepherd, who led his flock through the broad gate led them to perdition. A hungry shepherd might well prefer the broad gate. God is not found without arduous training, and those that teach otherwise are parasites. An overachieving programme will confer prestige, and hence arises the danger of false prophets, about whom this passage is unusually specific. How are they to be tested (1 Jn 4:1)? Joanna Southcott, who may well have been a genuine
- 63 prophetess when young, repeatedly asked to be 'tried'. At one point the 'Spirit' urged her to buy dresses (out of her hostess's pocket). This betrayed her ,2 for no one suggested it was merely tempting her. 7:15-20: the warning against 'false prophets' who 'come' (cf. Did 11-13) is addressed to every hearer. Existing prophets might become 'false' (5:13); and everyone is subject to penetration. The warning prosechete (beware) figures widely in the New Testament (fvft 24:11, 24; Lk 6:26: 2Pe 2:1; 1 Jn 4:1; Acts 20:29; Rev 16:13). One is not bound to tolerate the cheats (cf. 13:24-30) until That Day (22). Are they not like trees (fvft 15:13) and bushes, cultivated, harvested, or used as fuel? The image was dear to the Baptist and to Jesus, known to the Tanakh (Jer 6:19, 17:7-10), meaningful in a dry land. If the glib talkers (Jer 23:16) produce bad 'fruit' (fvft 12: 33-37, 15:13) they have no merit. 'Fruit' means meritorious/ unmeritorious deeds (fvft 21:34,41, 43; b. Qidd. 40a). One should await the direct outcome (see Dt 18:22; cf. Anguttara-nikaya V 45). If they are ravening wolves, i.e. exploit the flock, 'shear the sheep' as Lucian puts it (Fug. 14), we know who they are. The wolves (cf. fvft 10:16; Jn 10:12; Acts 20:29) in sheep's clothing (7:15) savour of a fable of Aesop (the ass and the lion's skin).3 The wolf-lamb dichotomy is at Is u:6, 65:25; Sir 13:17. The flock is ravaged if shepherdless (Num 27:17; fvft 9:36). The wolves come from Ez 22:27, and the deceptive hairy mantle from Zech I 3:4. Sheepskins were worn by shepherds (Ez 34:3) and itinerant 'philosophers'· Cynics, so dressed, haunted the kitchens of the rich.4 Perhaps some people did say 'Master, Master', 'Lord, Lord', to Jesus (Jer 7:4; Ez 33:31). lt is easier to accept a person, and then follow him/her, than to discern the planks in his/her platform. Leaders may have keen (notably female) followers, competing in devotion to them. But they join for their benefit - not their leaders'. They expect to knock when it suits them. The bridegroom must stand ready to open. Hell is the destination of such self-deluders (cf. fvft 25:41), people of mixed motives. His/her deeds will disclose the true follower (fvft 23:3; 1 Cor 9:26-27). The SM is no amulet. The 'Lord, Lord' people even believe that by doing miracles (cf. fvft 24:24), due to the crowd's faith, they fulfil their obligation (cf. fvft 9:35), and can claim merit. But have they effectuated God's will as expounded in 'all these my words (i.e. precepts)' (24)? If they fail, they are as much mockers of the (new) Law as the Scribes and Pharisees themselves (cf. 23:3, 28). The allegation
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that these bogus prophets were, seemingly, appointed by Christ himself (note the threefold 'in thy name', cf. Dt 18:20; Jer 14:-15) will not help when he sits in judgment (Ps 110:1). Whether one can exorcise demons (see the sceptical discussion at Plotinus, enn. 2. 9· 14) is not investigated. The drama of the prophets' performances will not achieve their own salvation (Ps 50:16-21). Whetller one has been appointed may not be the issue (Mk 9:40). Meanwhile fraudulent impersonators of the Messiah will enlarge the confusion (Mt 24:5, 11). Christ's rejection of impostors, 'I never knew you' (Mt 25:12, 26:74; Lk 13:27) is idiomatic (Tg Neof., Gen 18:21). The 'Practisers of iniquity' figure at Ps 6:8. Their works betray them (cf. Mt 25:45).
7:24-27, though a stiff warning, is a commendation of the SM; Matthew linked Ps 6:9 LXX with Ps 14:2-4 (LXX Ps 13:2-4) and the admonition becomes. positive - the prudent are no exploiters. It is addressed to all (pas), not merely prophets who are God's builders (Sir 49:7; Jer 1:10, 18:9, 24:6). And (pace Bornkamm) there is no evidence it applies only to the End. The hearers that prudently do (Dt 30:12-13) what is prescribed (we recollect s:IO) - their work lasts (1 En 94:6-7). They build (Is 61:4) on rock (1 QH VII 8-9). Ez 13:10-12 illustrates the image (and cf. Job 8:15, 27:18). And the doer and teacher of the SM is no mere hider in caves. He builds, better than a scholar. There is no scholarly class, and 'edifying' is not confined to ·a prophet class (1 Cor 8:1, 14:4, 17, 26; 1 Thess 5:11; 1 Pe 2:5; cf. Lk 11:48, 14:30, 17:28); On the one hand the rock is that struck by Moses; on the other it is God or Christ. On it all rest secure (Ps 55:22; Is 28:16). Does Matthew allude to Peter? He had prophetic qualities (Mt 16:18; cf. Mt 2:20; Acts 10:17, 11: 12-15); and the apostles could be called pillars of the new temple (Gal 2:9). The winds which will blow on the house are the storms of divine punishment (Job 1:19; Ez 13:13-14; Sir 39:28), as the waters overflow the refuge of liars (Is 28:17). A similar metaphor appeared at Sir 22:16-18; and another at m. Av. 3:18. One who, following out the SM, has fortified himself against pride and greed, cannot be undermined. His 'house' shelters his spiritual family, including proselytes. 7:28 gives the public's reaction, the gospel's section-ending. The astonishment is justifiable. So they are all capable of this choice? Jesus did not deduce his teaching from texts which Scribes and Pharisees could never have transcended (Acts 15:21). Salting his teaching with scriptural allusions, Jesus was above scripture (p.22).
- 6s This stance placed him in great personal danger. How long would it be before the fruit of an open-ended ascetic-mystic programme could be tried? Centuries? Meanwhile he himself risked being defined as a 'false prophet' within the meaning of Dt 1 3·
Chapter Eleven THE AUDIENCE
Much is undertaken if the inducement is sufficient. The prospect of doing more than the average do is an inducement. Athletes endured everything in the pancratium in order to win that apple or that olive-branch. Jesus offers principles and precepts (referred to as commandments ) with various inducements. The positive inducement is seeing God and membership of the Kingdom - a nebulous benefit; while the negative inducement is the avoidance of hell, a mythical place of soul-destruction and bodily torment. Neither of these has been verified. To a sceptic the latter inducement is absurd, and cruel. If one is to forgo sexual pleasure, revenge, the admiration of contemporaries, and the approval of the state one welcomes better compensation than these. Perhaps Asians who understood the idiom might not have been fussy. And there is usually a proportion of mankind which relishes ascetic training to achieve mystical knowledge. Rigorous physical training will always find takers. People (not least the Greeks) have undergone heroic labours for posthumous fame; and St Thomas More (d. 15 35) and D. Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) died rather than submit to the standards of their comrades. Did these heroes achieve their goals (they have sent back no report)? The attention people pay to them proves their intangible value. But seekers after fame, and martyrs, will be few relative to their 'audience'. Whether the SM can be recommended even to the 25% depends on whether it is practicable and achieves results. The fruits of physical training can be demonstrated. Mystics may declare they are in heaven now, and have avoided hell: but we have only their word for it. Let us consider the 'customers' for Jesus' programme as depicted by Matthew. 'Customer' is apt. They pay for what they want. And every leader is satisfied to be followed: that is his pay. Syria was susceptible to a healer. Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Trans-Jordania supplied 'many crowds', in whose presence (5:1, 7:28) Jesus taught disciples (cf. tvlt 23:1, 8) who came to hear him. They overheard instruction directed to a group who (as we know from Matthew's vocabulary) are participating in a religious
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function by 'approaching'. Such crowds (cf. the Syro-Phoenician Woman of Mk 7:26) included persons without erudition, religious enthusiasm, or sectarian affiliation, also unobservant and lapsed Jews, and pagans curious about 'philosophers' and wonder-workers. The healing of sufferers at pagan shrines was notorious: it advertised the prophecies that occured there. 7:24-27 assumes that Jesus' words can be heard and done by all - including presently observant Jews (Mt 19:20) - so far as applicable to each. Granted that miracles are achieved through morale (see Is 35:5-10), only some commands can be heard by the deaf. Those to whom it is given (Mt 9:11) may achieve ascetic feats. One may eschew sex to avoid 'adultery', an easy way out of temptation (Philo, Abr. 37-8); or one may be gifted with greater powers of resistance. Only from those to whom much is given can much be expected (Lk 12:48b). Those however who, enterprisingly, trade on Jesus' name, are repudiated; he is 'Lord' of those who actually do the will of his Father. The SM describes what that 'will' is. Asceticism is not just a fad. Does all the SM apply to genuine disciples only?
1. The Beatitudes are addressed to all (note the third person) except for the extra-metrical addition at 5:11-12 which applies to the potential martyrs. Persecuted, they are equal to mythical prophets. Masters in mystic understanding, they need be anxious only not to become 'insipid' (13).
2. From the idea of 1J:;!rophet' hangs the 'salt and light' saying, which is addressed to disciples. A brine may become unfit. A condiment or preservative is a vital minor ingredient: it must allude to accomplished trainees.
3· 5:17-20 tells the position relative to 'the Law and the Prophets' (see also Mt 19:18-19). There are ranks within the trainee body. Teaching and doing commandments appertain firstly to observant Jews, capable of advising others. They are already in the Kingdom, 'righteous 1, if not fully-fledged 'prophets 1• They will exemplify righteousness, the first step of all, for all (5:20). 4· The Antitheses (5:21-48) deal with inter-community (22) and intra-community behaviour (41). Their climax, 43-45, shows they are of universal interest. This is the standard to be aimed at by
- 68 all trainees, and it presupposes the cult of Yahweh (24, 35). All accept Judaism - even Galileans admit the prominence of the cult-centre. 5:46-47: taxgatherers and pagans, strangers to the cult (ethnikoi are non-Jews: 6:p), exemplify non-trainees. Taxgatherers and pagans can start training (Mt 9:9), abandoning the world as Lot abandoned Sodom (Mt 8:18-22). 5· Almsgiving, prayer and fasting are open to all. 6:1-4 is addressed to all, their 'righteousness' looking back to 5:20. The warning about mixed motives applies to all. The contrast with hypocrite Jews is emphasised (6:2, 5, 16), pagan prayer-techniques ridiculed (6:7). The trainees are neither conventional Jews nor pagans. The Father's will is presupposed, again, for the Lord's Prayer. 6:19-21 applies to all who accept the idea of merit. Such an approach was exploited by Cynics talking to anyone who would listen: earthly 'treasures' are vain. 6. The metaphor of the eye has no limitation, nor the 'slave of two masters'. 6:25-34 (anxious care) applies to all, though the allusions are biblical. So the warnings against censoriousness and the quaint 7:6. 7:7-20 is of a wisdom character, applicable to all. Ch.7 has supplied many a proverb. 'Few are they that find it' at 7:14 suggests that many will climb so that a few will arrive. 7:15 implies the entire 'flock' will be ravaged by able impostors (7: 21-23). But surely the genuine ascetics will not - faithful shepherds, alert to the fraudulent, and to competition (Mt 10:16)? 7· 7:21-23 and 24-27 refer to Jesus, his position as prophet, mystic, and model. Any hearer may assent to these artless comments on the SM. Every hearer is specifically referred to at 7:24, 26. In sum, while the SM begins with provisions attractive to seekers for the exalted status of God's favourites, the greater bulk is directed to every hearer. The nucleus of the new cell is the 'perfect', including prophets; the cytoplasm is the would-be 'righteous'. The latter need to be taught, e.g. by the prophets, the trainers. The kernel of the SM is 7:12, the Golden Rule- easy to assimilate, open-ended like Lev 19:18. It applies universally. The arrogances of Greeks and Hebrews are abandoned. Man takes responsibility for man. Generosity is the topic of many verses. This ascetic regimen has dignity, and it avoids extremes. The trainee avoids ex-
hibitionism, conscious of motives, a perfectionist in attitudes. Now for duties. Jesus' words were not (pace Dimitroff) commands in our sense of that word - he had no authority to turn his 'sheep' into automata. While they are child-like, they retain responsibility for their thoughts and actions. He claims his 'yoke' is 'easy' (cf. Prov. 3:3; fvft 11:30): (I) The basic principles of the SM are few; (2) the package is a path to security for oneself and others (7:24-27). This is an inducement in itself (cf. Jer 6:I6). I. Principles appear at 5:16 (act so as to shine), 19 (not to underrate the Tanakh), 20 (seek a high righteousness), 27, 32 (preparations for sinning are sinful); 39 (not to resist evil); 43 (to love enemies); 48 (to be perfect); 6:19 (not to hoard treasure on earth); 24d (not to worship God and mammon); 25, 31, 34 (not to worry about subsistence); 7:1 (to judge circumspectly), 7 (to ask), 13 (choose the hard path). Illustrations of principles (e.g. 6:6) are not precepts in themselves. The Tanakh proceeds otherwise, for a commandment may serve to ground a principle (e.g. the nest, Dt 22:6-7; and the calf-or-lamb, Lev 22:28). 2. Precepts appear at 5:21-26 (resolve disputes); 34 (swear not); 7:6 (not to waste instruction or assets); 12 (the Golden Rule); 15 (beware of false prophets). None of these can be enforced. The arrangement at Mt I8:15-I7 (dispute settlement) is anomalous. Based on the imperative rule (Dt 19:15) quoted at I8:I6c, it is a prudent recommendation- this is how the 'righteous' would act. 3· Some propositions have spiritual consequences only. No visible results flow from failure to comply: 5:22 (anger leads to hell); 6:1 (advertising good-doing deprives one of heavenly rewards). Unlike Pharisaism, which derived from the Tanakh an obligation on all circumcised Jews and their female counterparts to pursue the halakha, the right way, or to be disciplined by the Jewish courts, no hearer of the SM has been warned of any partj~t.ilar legal duty anterior to his opting for the training. Once a 'little one', he becomes subject to the SM's conditions. If he makes progress and afterwards becomes 'insipid' he is cast out. One must consider, as the Essenes had to do, whether it is not better to stay in the world, with its contradictions, than to train inside an overachieving body, which may decide unpredictably, and eventually fling one out as inadequate.
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We have seen an illustration (fvlt 19:22). One who heard Jesus, understood his position (fvlt 11:6, 13:16-17), and invited further instruction, was offered the goal of being 'perfect' on a condition fatal to his finances. If he had been told, 'Continue to obey all the commandments in the Torah and increase your alms-level', he might well have followed Jesus in accord with Ez 18:5-9· Such 'doers' have floated many religious organizations. But the shift of emphasis we find at Jas 1:27 is revealing. One may safely undertake the training prescribed in the SM, accepting Jesus' 'yoke', practising this disposition, as soon as one finds it a duty to oneself. The problem of 'practicability' is almost answered by this. When kings accepted missionaries' descriptions of Christianity, and sensed its benefits (p. 13), the religion must be adopted by all their subjects or the advantages were almost illusory. Establishments cannot avoid ulterior motives even (or especially) in the department of religion. If Christianity was a package for a few heroes, their admirers and supporters (as in pre-Constantinian Rome), then those advantages would be diminished. If an injection of chemicals could have m"ade all their subjects tame, 1 loyal, and obedient, the kings would have all of them injected, or at least as many as they could catch.· There would have been no point in injecting 25% of them. So Christianity was profitable in proportion to the numbers who, at least nominally, embraced it. All ought to be submitted to ecclesiastical discipline, all, perhaps excepting a few whose loyalty could be relied upon on other grounds . . . Let us return to the SM, where it is not assumed that all will be 'perfect'. To find a territory's best talent in art, athletics, chess, commerce, mathematics, music, etc., it is desirable to detect aptitudes and capacity for discipline at an early age. There are excellences which emerge late in life, but they utilise trainings formerly imparted with other objects. So an apt declaration of moral truth, with a sketch of moral training, should be offered to all, in order to elicit degrees of response from every layer of society. If it is presented by seers, ignoring the response of the short-sighted (e.g. the rulers), it will evoke an echo in a proportion of the population. For them training commences inside a society which is its gymnasium. But just as one cannot go into prolonged training to become pope, or to be a mathematical genius of the order of Srinivasa Ramanujan (I887-192o), so the course is valid for all, though the eventual adepts, perfecting natural talent with train-
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ing, having a great potential effect on mankind, will necessarily be few. Many are called but few are chosen (Mt 20:16, etc.). Because of the nature of this training no one is chagrined not to be chosen - many run in races though only one can win - and none of the chosen misuse their talent. We must not lose sight of psychically or mentally abnormal persons whose impact on their societies, in the absence of hospitalisation, can be incalculable. Some have exceptional gifts. Few understand them, and some may well regret them. But where avenues have been found which match their talents, and their destructive potential is correctly neutralised, their endeavours may employ their energies fruitfully, and some have virtually become immortal. Without harnessing, disciplining, their powers they would be, and remain, anonymous.2 The ancient world, and the Third World of today, being much more tolerant of the abnormal than we are, a rationalisation of their peculiarities was and is more readily entertained.
Chapter Twelve SAINT AUGUSTINE
A programme intended to attract potential ascetic-s and their followers is hamstrung if impracticable. A conversion ::-in that direction would alarm any couple with children. 'Not peace, but a sword' (Mt 10:34) applies. A husband buys merit (or dissolves sin) with alms irrespective of his wife's opinions (cf. Test. Job 13:6; Philostr., v. Ap. 4. 3); or the wife lavishes food on holy mendicants. The 'birds' consume what the 'lilies' have not absorbed. The ascetic's flight from maturity attracts comment. It depends on others' 'barns' - others too busy to supplicate the deity themselves, while 'saints' (the more impressive for being poor) may do it for them. Unless others have striven, ascetics must perish, and their charitable prayers with them. No doubt asceticism mitigates inequalities of wealth, and a bridge is built unconsciously between the low-ranking peasant and the tycoon, the 'good' and the 'wicked'. The example and teaching of the ascetic play a role in social change. But the suasive force of 'basic living' wanes during a prolonged famine. If we locate Matthew in Syria, where Jews accumulated wealth amid poor pagans, we can see the .SM at work. Merit is good, a widow's 'mite' can acquire it. But even she had to acquire the 'mite'; and the coinage itself depends on high finance. Jesus must have known this. His affectation of not handling coins (Mk 12:15-16) does not help us - traditionally, he and his used at least one purse (Lk 22:36, Jn 12:6), .not to speak of Martha (Lk 10:40-41; cf. Lucian, Peregr. 16 ), who was better than a purse. His disciples will follow him into a boat, where indeed he may lay his head (Mt 8: 19-20, 24, cf. Mk 4:38; Piper, 149), and someone must have owned the boat. Nevertheless the SM expects to be taken seriously. The New Testament teaching is actually promoted by the self-abnegation of Christ and his imitators, Paul, Stephen, and the rest. Apart from their renunciation and sacrifice, the teaching (not immediately derivable from the Torah) hangs in the air. For their conviction is not proof of verity. The myth of the first Christian martyrs' impatience with the historical Jerusalem soon became trite. It was history, as ancient by AD 135 as it would be 1935. And still Matthew's gospel purported to offer 'life' to everyone. What had
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started as a live protest-movement gathered momentum as an esoteric, messianic propaganda of interest to women, slaves and others who had most to gain, and least to lose, from an 'irrational' distribution of assets, and a negation of arbitrary force. The ascetic's or martyr's selfless piety was emulated in the hope of benefits no less real here than in the next world. Such a programme should be demonstrably practicable. One defended the SM not only against rabbis' scepticism, in particular of its reliance on an autonomous spirit of uncertain source, but also against the doubts of well-to-do converts (notably female). Objections to living an ascetic lifestyle would be not the less sincere for being furtive. Thefts, murders, vendettas, sexual abuse of slaves and minors, homosexuality, easy divorces and remarriages were, no doubt, bad things, and not only in the eyes of people who had begun to abhor them. The Romans in particular pretended to admire austerity, and the Greeks 'sobriety'. But the SM had other implications for behaviour, whether in inter-personal relationships, or the procedures of commerce. Monopolies, for example, became questionable. Should one reject the SM's package; should one unflinchingly stand by it; or - and here rabbis' experience could be invaluable - should one interpret it, as 'holy scripture', so as to mitigate its tone? If one could, one could enhance its promises yet abate its demands.
Texts are notoriously liable to be invaded by glosses. A very early example arises at 5:22. The word eike ('to no purpose') was inserted 1 into the first clause (only), giving a right to be angry for sufficient reason. Who would judge whether a reason was sufficient? According to Jews, the unrighteous should be rebuked, reviled, and even assaulted till they repented - for religion and law cohered and were mutually supporting (as in modern Iran). Our forgers forgot that anger on any ground destroyed ascetic-mystic detachment (Matthew had meanwhile deleted the phrase 'angrily' from Mk 3:5 when he copied the passage). They thought that the risks of an assumption of superiority, or even of brawling, encouraged by eike were nothing as contrasted with the recruitment of those who craved the pitiful luxury of self-righteousness. The teaching of Christ was thus diluted to palatable strength at the cost of the theory embodied in the SM. Another hand added en to phanero at 5:4 by analogy with 2Sam 12:12. God would reward charitable intentions openly. Present ad-
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vantage would enhance pious intentions. Prosperity and piety were linked, and waverers encouraged. But Christ never promised that charity would be rewarded openly: he was interested in the subjective disposition. Other departures occured: at Rev 6:10 martyrs pray that they may be avenged - this was not his teaching (cf. Acts 7:60). But to those whom life has mauled, the hope of vengeance is sweet. A searching treatment of the SM was undertaken. St Augustine, bishop of Hippo, using the Sermon in many places, thoroughly reviewed it in his commentary written in the last decade of the fourth century. His qualifications were remarkable, though perhaps he was better at breadth thari depth. He was once a Manichean. He abandoned, with that faith, its doctrine of the two standards, the 'ordinary believers' and the 'perfect'. He was unaware that the SM called everyone each to his/her own optimum level of achievement. He was very learned in the bible which he cited in Latin when it was helpful and ignored when it was not - both for allegorical and non-allegorical interpretations. He denied that the Old Dispensation had been repealed. He called on every New Testament author to explain the SM, even if he was inharmonious with Matthew. McArthur has pointed out (122) that one cannot bring sayings of Jesus into conformity with patterns of behaviour found elsewhere in the bible without distorting them. Augustine would not have accepted that (and cf. Tertull., de pud. 6). True, he never claimed definitive understanding; but his ingenuity was free. He linked verses with each other, and subordinated the parts to the whole. His skills in rhetoric, law, and administration placed him above accusations of naivety. He wrote for clerics (ll, 16-17, 20), concerned for the well-being of their flocks. The Sermon's holy atmosphere must sanctify day-to-day living. Its teeth were drawn with the tenderest of hands. So began the systematic velleity (see below) which has clogged Western treatment of the SM. The Sermon is admired without an effort to realise it. The Montanists, Novatianists, and Donatists were 'heretics'. They tended to believe that asceticism, in lieu of martyrdom, was required for all. The church must not compromise, and must remain free from political pressures. Indeed velleity and resolve are opposites. Matthew explains this in the parable of the Two Sons (Mt 21:28-32), the elder exemplifying velleity.2 The ascetic both resolves and achieves. But his admirers contribute to his charities, perhaps purchasing their freedom from other
- 75 resolves. Westerners, in the wake of the Romans, instinctively separate business from religion. A religion which interferes with business is bad; and Westerners dislike sanctimony, a notable Asian characteristic: it must be confined to the imagination. And this is how the SM has, by and large, been interpreted. The achievement of Augustine was crucial. One might enlarge on his treatment but his scheme enchanted the West. One may read a nineteenth-century commentary based on Augustine's,3 and believe that, e.g. remarriage after divorce (available to the very rich), and a preoccupation with money-making (the normal companion of philistinism) were lamentable, but only doubtfully wicked. But it could be positively wicked to give to the destitute. Breaches of 5:32 or 6:24 were venial. Clerics (many of them magistrates) cultivated the substantial donors to the church and (through themselves) to the poor. Some people omitted 1as we have forgiven our debtors• from the Lord's Prayer, because the state did not condone criminal acts! Congregations were branded as hypocrites by non-church-goers who, like Numidians, intuitively understood the SM. This slur should be answered. Neither Augustine, nor the nineteenth-century or later commentators were hypocrites. They have been misled by early unknown Greek exegetes who re-identified and sold their religion at a low price. They were a class of 1false prophets• which Christ himself did not anticipate. He could hardly have visualised his sayings as a continuous text round which commentaries would be written. The commentators did not speak with tongues, or exorcise demons (cf. Acts 19:15): but they adapted the gospel to Western taste. Augustine, admitting that it is hard to live uprightly without approbation, recommends uprightness irrespective of public response. Yet non-Christians are to admire the results without divining their basis. The naive expectations of Christians held by citizens, or by the state, are not sharply distinguished from God's. There is no comment on the insensitive 1world 1• This is a strange silence, when one considers the Fourth Gospel, and the sacrifice of the martyrs, whose remains were still venerated. Augustine's flock did not feel persecuted, and 5:11-12 were obsolete. The plebeian Donatists, his enemies, claimed to be the true church, and did feel persecuted. His impatience with them was total and pervades his commentary on the SM. They should never claim the
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honour of martyrdom. Augustine believed that Christ completed a pyram-id of piety. Moses improved on the patriarchs' society, Christ improved upon Moses. Those who fell below Christ are not so repr~hensible as those who fell below Moses. Secondly the precepts related to the internal disposition: it was not neces'sary (often impracticable) to observe them literally. One does not discard an eye because forms attract it, one regrets one's susceptibility to 'lust'; one does not turn the cheek if this will exasperate the aggressor; one does not yield the cloak to him who litigates for the shirt, if this will encourage false suits; one does not give a knife to a potential suicide, nor alms to every sturdy beggar. One complies with the SM if one's heart is pure; but there is no trial of purity. One may do one's charities openly, if one does not exclusively aim at popularity - an actual reversal of Christ's teaching (p. 46). 'Peacemakers', inwardly peaceful, need not make peace with or between anyone. Soldiers should fight to establish peace. War may proceed in the spirit of love. The Kingdom of heaven is the rational soul's higher wisdom. Blessedness is within. But the sincerity of heretics and schismatics will not avail them. 'Great' are those who do and teach the Antitheses as now propounded. Holy anger is justified. One need not ask a brother's forgiveness if he is absent, one seeks. his pardon mentally. 1Agreeing with the adversary' is coming to terms with God's commandments. One plucks out an 'eye' when one dismisses a false counsellor (e.g. a heretic), and a 'hand' when one disposes of a bad assistant. Divorce is deprecated in favour of living in 'chastity', but secular relationships must. not be valued as such. 'Fornication' embraces idolatry and covetousness, though her husband should not put away a 'fornicatress' unless he is faultless. Where a wife prostitutes herself for his convenience he should not use that as an excuse. Oaths can well be necessary where otherwise men would be incredulous. The 'merciful 1 are those who supply correction, and one may always rebuke, in the right spirit. Non-retaliation means acting benevolently as if with invalids and lunatics. One may, bearing one another's weakness, forgo valuables, if it will teach others their worthlessness. Evil ought to be resisted to teach goodness. Punishment may be necessary, even with death, inflicted of course compassionately. Advice is the best gift to the unemployed. Gifts could hurt some-
- 77 one, including oneself. Prospective borrowers may be repulsed, but cheerfully. The plight of those without credit is ignored. One should lend to those who will certainly repay. One does not pray for enemies (e.g. Donatists), one must hate the evil in the enemies of God. Almsgiving is a matter of good conscience. There is no harm in being praised for it, otherwise many might overlook an avenue of respectability. Prayer may be prolonged if it is prayer. Private prayer is not requisite: one can pray anywhere if one concentrates. We may pray for abundance provided we pray for eternal life too. We need not remit debts, except to the incorrigible debtor who resists (Il. 8) out of avarice. Since pagans found avarice repugnant, to expose a debtor as avaricious was to apply to him/her a most effective pressure. During set fasts no dissimulation is called for: reJOICe in your inner man which you are purifying. Intention is important: one may serve mammon with good intentions. One may be anxious about food-and-clothing (work is obligatory: Eph 4:28), provided one seeks righteousness first. 'We eat to preach the gospel, we do not preach in order to eat' (II. 6). Bishops must provide for the morrow as Paul did and and allowed others to do (Acts 28:10; 1 Cor 16:1-8). To act differently is to be a vagabond. We may judge, benevolently and advisedly. Manifest errors must be reproved. Each reckons the infirmity of another as his own. There is no obligation tc proselytise, or to expound secrets (cf. Jn 16:2; 1 Cor 3:1, 2) to unfit persons. One need not answer every question (Mt 21: 23-27). We must seek for truth and persevere therein. Mt 7:13-28 is handled quietly by Augustine. He does not notice the consequences of preferring velleity over resolve. The exertion of power (I. 20) is not masked, nor its exercise against rebels. The teaching that no Christian is to oppress another (Mt 20:25 and parallels, cf. 1 Pe 5:3; cf. Neh 5:15; 1 Kgs 12:4; Ps. Sol. 17:32-41) finds no place in Augustine. Mild, patient, compassionate, he would not hesitate to put down heretics and schismatics by any effective means.4 They survived, in spite of their enormities, becaus~- the state would not wholly assist him. So the comforts of a Christian society inhered in groups which on the one hand harboured vagabond pseudo-ascetics, and on the other glorified heroes whom they ignored as models. I say 'the comforts of Christian society' - for they were admired - but not its verity. Conversion to Christianity, remaining at the level of
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imagination, was ineffective, if the SM was a touchstone of what is to be a Christian. Theories are many (briefly, below). One remains impressive. Joachim Jeremias hesitated to say what it was, but he knew the answer. The SM applies to, and is valid for, those to whom the Beatitudes apply, whether or not (as Gnilka would require) they have been baptised. The poor in spirit, etc., will fulfil the precepts; and they earn the promises. Exploitation of one true Christian by another cannot arise, though a pseudo-Christian may well exploit others. Mt ro:8, 'Freely you received, freely give' is to be taken literally (see 2 Cor 2:17). The answer applies to countries, classes, and individuals. We must love public and private enemies (attempts to prove the contrary are disingenuous). It takes two to sustain enmity, and if one is poor in spirit and meek there is no enmity. Scholars' other explanations are listed in many places.5 No light is thrown on the SM by Rom r,.8, but a tendency to harmonise persists. A common notion is that the state is excluded from the SM, except as beneficiary of the subjects' meekness. Traditional Roman Catholic exegesis was that, though grace may facilitate performance, the 'religious' undertake the precepts, the remainder revere, but need not achieve the 'evangelical counsels'. To some the SM describes Jesus, the ideal man, or discloses the nature of God. Other exegetes thought it an interim ethic inducing repentance before the End. Or it manifests an ethical attitude, preparing for grace. Grace, however, does not figure in the SM. Protestants deny that the words of the SM have any saving power. They force us to a decision, exposing our incapacity for perfection till the Judgment. Or the SM will apply when the Kingdom comes; an eschatological standard by which all will be judged (Strecker). Or is it a critique of industrial, capitalist, force-manipulating society (Marx, Tolstoy, etc.)? No one now sees it as a blue-print for an actual society (Tolstoy's experiments were a farce).
If few see in the SM concrete teachings for the disciples, all find compromises essential. Goppelt sees the SM as a Call to an Attitude Arising from Faith; Burchard detects a missionary lifestyle: 'a Christian can neither rule nor revolutionise the world with the aid of the Sermon, but without it he should not even try'. Schottroff-Stegemann, mistaking the 'poor in spirit' for the poor, take the SM to proffer an Utopia in which no concern for the Existenz-
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mm1mum will enslave its citizens (emphasising Mt 10:28-32): neither hunger nor death can destroy a humanity so disposed - an interesting intuition. But better, as Schnackenburg and Bornkamm almost agree, is the perception that though the SM is not legal, it sets out the conditions for admission to the Kingdom.6 Chrysostom believed the Kingdom consisted of those who intended to observe all the SM. Siotos finds in it the basic rules for the faithful's askesis in their lives in Christ (91-92), a foundation document (katastatikos chartes) for the community of believers. Sandmel agreed it was a remarkably elevated charter for a religious community, but 'unreservedly impractical'. Gnilka (Matt. 291) calls it the Magna Charta of the New Israel. Yet nowhere (except amongst the Amish?) would a person be refused baptism or be excommunicated for failure to observe its precepts. All theories (except perhaps Siotos') try to overcome objections to the SM. The object was misconceived. The uneducated person, by instinct, grasps what is intended, and can be a better guide than St Augustine. The latter, trained in legal interpretation and advocacy, has applied his skill to make the SM consistent with the respectable lives of charismatically ungifted people, people who tolerated wicked Christians as churchmen because only at the End would they be 'cast out' (Augustine, Civ. Dei 1.35). Dimitroff, following Wendland (1931) and followed by Strecker (1985), understood Jesus to reject conventional ideals (71-77) and all Utopias. He brought eternity into time and required his pupils to observe his counsels on pain of forfeiting the Kingdom. There is a logic in this which others will admit - provided they water down the counsels themselves. The words 'asceticism' and 'mysticism' are carefully avoided.
Chapter Thirteen PRACTICABILITY
Endless have been Western comments that the SM i~ impracticable. The fact that Syrian and Orthodox Christians believed it was practicable is usually ignored. If one turned the other cheek savages would prevail. If one lent to every applicant one would have no credit. If one trudged the second mile one would have no home life. Irony and comedy have joined in ridicule. 1 Yet the earliest evidence suggests that the SM was practicable at everyone's own option. See Jas r :22-27, 2:8-9; Justin, I Ap. r6; and Hermas, si m. 5· 5· 3, 6. 3, 8. 3· Ignatius (fvlagn. 8:2) claimed that even the ancient prophets lived according to Jesus, and were persecuted for it. Paul, however, knew that one was limited by what 'lay in' one (Rom 12:18). The Didache (6:2) says one should attempt to be perfect, complying with the 'commandments' (ib. 1-4-, 15:4-), but 'if thou canst not, do what you canst'. The whole of the SM supplied a standard to which one might aspire: rClem 13:2-3; Barn 19. A residue of such an attitude is found in mediaeval Jewry. Maimonides (fv1T, I. IJ. v, 13) describes a true scholar (potentially any Jew) in such a way as to include a remarkable number of SM precepts. He is true to his word, forgiving, benevolent, non-retaliatory, and that too specifically in the field of everyday business! The fourth-century Syriac Uber Graduum2 explained that Christ's 'perfect' were the ascetics, and those of the remainder who attempted to follow the SM were the 'holy'. The road to 'perfection' (gemiruta) required constant vigilance. But 'holiness' (qaddisuta), in the sense- of self-restraint, was available to all, and with it the Kingdom of heaven. There were degrees of reception of the Spirit, claimants to the lowest level of achievement perhaps not striving very consistently. They would know of the SM, and professed it as part of their faith, without practising it with any particular success. Matthew, who does not distinguish between exceeding righteousness (5:20) and being 'perfect' (5:4-8, 19:21), had a three-tier picture (p. 22) with osmosis between the tiers. The Syrians had a notable tradition of asceticism. Many aspired to ascetic virtue, and perhaps more than a few achieved it. A few were 'perfect', we surmise. These sought to be, and certainly were, useful in many practical ways to their society.
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The once widespread perfect-righteous dichotomy is proved by the popularity of Manichaeism in the third century and after,3 which absorbed many who would have been Christians or Buddhists, and who accepted the parasitic class of 'perfect' as their leaders. The Manichaeans thought the Beatitudes applied to them especially (Augustine, c. Faust. V.1, 8-24). The scheme endured as long, and as far, as the Cathars. One may ask how this would work, seeing that if the SM was addressed to would-be mystics and ascetics (however generously defined) the responding audience must be small, less than the hypothetical 25%? The market for the SM must be so specialised as to reduce the influence of the gospel. Church-membership would fall promptly. Just such considerations have interfered with appreciation of the SM. Even Franz Alt says that Jesus was not concerned about ascetic perfection, but about the Completeness of Man, as if that was something different. The churches led by the Spirit, churches which excluded sinners and regarded martyrdom alone (the rebaptism in blood) as an atonement for post-baptismal sin, the rigorists of Phrygia and Numidia, were obnoxious to fellow-Christians who believed 'the Law and the Prophets were until John', and, by the mid-third century, had left rigour to such priests as were up to it.4 In due course Montanists, Novatianists, Donatists, vanished into the mists of heresy, leaving, as a Catholic legacy, a general, and comforting, disdain for rigorism. But it is not unusual to recommend a standard which only exceptionally gifted people can attain to, without any suggestion that it is irrelevant to the remainder. Courses of training (Acts 24:16; 1 Cor 9:25-27; 2 Tim 2:4-5) exist which few can pursue to virtuosi/ae status. We have considered this (pp.l0-71). Some Syriac, Aramaic, Greek, and Coptic speaking peoples (protected from Scribes and Pharisees, and suspicious of Roman triumphalism) had a flair for ascetic living, manifesting a symbiosis between the ascetic model and the non-ascetic follower. The Qumran sect maintained a nucleus of men 'perfect (temrmTm) in all the revelations of the Torah', who would undergo (in effect) penance f()!' Israel. A minority had something to renounce and they renounced it. Similar movements succeeded in India, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. These absorbed some the surplus production, and reduced the birthrate. Of the Therapeutae and the Essenes we know enough to surmise the same of them. Rabbis are not unknown (see b. Taran. 23 a) who fasted to propitiate heaven and even drew circles round themselves to emphasise their austerity. It is impossible that Bud-
- 82 dhist monastic ideals had not been heard of in Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt. They could have struck a chord. Brahmin asceticism (Lucian, fug. 6-7) had been discussed by Greeks and Jews (we have referred to the Cynic diatribe on which a Jew improved: p. 26 n.4). The fantasy of Moses' asceticism (p. 22) was well-known. After AD 70 some Jews responded to the Destruction by asceticism (t. Sot 15:11-15). On what basis did these mini-societies function? The background to all mystical and ascetical teaching is the 'world'. This works with the aid of a legal administration, systematic taxation, public works, a military establishment, a chain of political command. Asceticism never negated the legal contract or the secular devolution of power (fvlt 8:9-10). People compete for social promotion, intent on prestige and power. But even successful manipulators suffer from frustrations, especially in unreliable, unpredictable, and unfree societies. In Greece and Israel the young learnt the illusoriness of wealth and its options. A 'philosopher' evaded disappointment by practising the teaching of Stoics, Cynics, and even Sceptics (much influenced by India). What counted was manliness in surmounting convention, prejudice, or human weakness (showing both enkrateia and karteria, the Cynic's virtues). The wandering Cynic, with his pouch, found an audience, though he never aimed to start a religious cult. Great mental liberation accrued from the realisation that ambitions or fears were illusions and that man must, to be free, be above them. This would interest slaves hardly more than the free. A person in good employment would occasionally abandon all and become a hermit;5 his place would be filled; he had found another universe to conquer - himself (cf. Epict., diss. II.16. 44-47). The world needs its mystical and ascetical elements. Ascetics, Eastern or Western, had theit disciples. To subsidize and sit at the feet of a 'holy' man (less often a woman) was to earn merit, gaining prestige greater then, e.g., by holding a feast in honour of Serapis. Luke, interested in the infrastructure of Christianity, explains: ordinary people subsidized the first Christians, with cash and services. By 'washing the feet of the saints' alone one might earn merit. Such foot-washers were within the ascetical-mystical society, not outside it. They applied its principles to their circumstances, and it was their 'brothers' whom they supported (Jo. Dam., 18.154-6). They did work (ergasia) for God (ib. 40. 362). Jesus had called his missionaries 'workers' (ergatai: fvlt 9:37-38); and to support them was to engage in work.
- 83 Merit is the abstract result of meritorious actions. It is not measurable by the amount of work done (Mt 19:16-17, 20:14-16), and is volatile (Mt 25:29), for merit may be imputed, and it may fade. Since all good is done by God's agents, unremunerated 'lovers' of A are not creditors of A but of God. It is good to be the creditor of one who will repay (at his option: Mt 20:14; m. Av. VI. 5) provided one does not disqualify oneself. Merit corresponds to a sense of power, open to the otherwise powerless. He that does an altruistic action, valuable to the species, acquires power. Seekers after God are also seekers after power, if only unconsciously. Jesus has congratulated them - they will be successful. Ascetics and mystics emerge as alternative directors of their segment of society. They have found their mission. Secular leaders usually fear, and thereby authenticate, ascetic-mystics. Merit-seekers support them at the level of subsistence (Mt 10:9), pure alms. To keep ascetics in luxury would expose them as bogus, 'stupid' brine of a putrid society. For an ascetic to accept alms from anyone is an act of mutual validation. There is no merit in assisting unfit recipients (Vinaya I 293; Anguttara-nikaya i.160-1, iii. 279, v.198; Philo, de Abr. 115116; b. Baba Batra 9b; Jer 18:23). It is not merely a question of seeking fit recipients for a well-administrated charity (Sen., vit. beat. 24.1-4). In a collective society the sins of A contaminate B (Syr. A!Jiqar 2:16). Tainted money (Sir 40:29; Mt 27:6) was feared by the pious (Test. Zeb. 3:1-3; Dam. Doe. V/.14-16; 1 QS V.13-18; IX. 8-9, 22; b. Sanh. 6 b ; cf. Manu V.106). Associates of sinners (and their property) go to perdition: Num 16:26; Dt 13:16; Pss 28:1-3, 141:4; Jer. 49:10 (Midrash on Psalms, 28 §3); Acts 8:20 (cf. Job 34:8; Prov 1:15,. 4:17, 20:17). Jesus according to Lk 16:4 (cf. Mt 26:9), advised that immorally earned money be given to the destitute. But that novel idea6 could not be extended to encourage immorality (Dt 23:18). The ascetic took little from society save esteem; he could select his backers. It was a certificate of character that ascetics accepted one's alms. One must be worthy, like Job, to entertain the ragged deputy of God, who should resort, as Job did, to the village dunghill rather than to be lodged with sinners (Mt 10:11, 13, 37-38, 22:8; Lk 4:7; Epict., diss. Ill. 22. 65, 69; cf. Gen 19:2-3; b. f-jull. 7 b). And those that are worthy will be guests at the Banquet of the Messiah (Mt 22:8). That Banquet hints at unconscious expectations. In this life, as
- 84 in the World to Come, there should be no ranks (see fvlt 20:14; Lk 15:31-32) as between ascetics (trainees), the more dramatic selfmortifiers and the less (as indeed Jovinian contended). The supporters of non-earning ascetics are not inferior to them. Vicarious merit means one shares in the merit of others, _and no one has the right to judge in what proportion! The biblicaF distinction is between the good and the bad (2Cor 5:10); and I Cor 3:12-14 proves that even those who truly 'build' with nothing more costly to them than thatch will be sure of that seat around that round table. So the SM invited subscriptions to Jesus' brand of ascetic-mystic philosophy (fvlt 8:18-22). Some would eschew family responsibil.ities for a greater (fvlt 19:11). But the rest would live by principles of righteousness so far as they could, step by step (Gnilka) - humility, non-violence (except to avoid sin), non-retaliation, etc., caring for all as for themselves, removing from their neighbours all temptation to infringe the laws of God. For the sin you can prevent (but do not) is attributed to you, as is some of the merit of those whom you have taught to be good.7 Those parts of the SM which apply to the 'perfect' are of great significance to the 'righteous', for the latter need to know from which ascetics to learn and whom to subsidize! Subvention of the 'perfect' would cost much less than aiding their fellow-creatures, who would also respond by making cooperation wqrth-while. Sluggards had been ridiculed (Prov 6:6-11, 21:25, etc.; Sir 22:1-2; fvlt 25:26), and it was not long before energy, skill, and industry were insisted upon by the apostles (1 Thes 4:11-12; 2 Thes 3:10-12; 1 Tim 5:13), as it became absurd to subsidize idleness (Did 1 :5-6), 8 and no matter of shame to commen~ on it. Did early Christians live up to this? Many refused to partiCIpate in secular activities; they ridiculed Greek religion and philosophy, with the intolerance of the under-educated and the 'enlightened'. They earned a reputation as persistent busibodies, prying into the welfare of their neighbours.9 But on the testimony of pagans themselves, they identified religiosity with indiscriminate charity. Whether comments were favourable or hostile, it is natural that a meek, unaggressive group will be despised; but, as it begins to disburse superfluities even to non-members, it must be admired, more particularly if a few well-placed people are attracted to it. Individuals suffered , but claimed the promises of the Beatitudes. Heroism to this day proves which are the true and which
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the false prophets. Such challenges to the 'world' are needful, and if specimens perish, the species (homo sapiens) has shuffled one step forward. The story of Naboth (1 Kgs 21) teaches (a) that oppression must be resisted within reason, and by reason, and (b) that if the oppressed perish here their significance is not at an end. Non-violent resistance obtains widespread admiration. 10 The SM, speaking to the 'little ones', attracts even those who will become neither 'righteous' nor 'perfect'. But who can tell what degree of fitness each hearer will achieve? Our very impatience with bogus mysticism, and the enthusiasms in which failed Christians have taken refuge,II in turn encourage hopes of an uneven progress. One may argue against this our analysis of the SM, somewhat on the line of Schottro££-Stegemann, that early Christianity, outside Syria, appealed most directly to humble agricultural and artisan societies caught, as soon as their lives emerged above subsistence-level, between imperial tax-collectors, and barbarian invaders. That in short it was a religion of have-nots, whose asceticism must have been a delusion. But this would be a double misunderstanding. The SM, like the Cynics, did not ignore the wealthy; indeed it can be said to have had the monied groups, which required merit, as its particular targets. Secondly, Matthew was recommending the extension of a specifically ascetic form of Judaism to the world - an asceticism which, while it regarded hoarded wealth as an obstacle to 'perfection', did not discard poverty as an evil. And it had ethical requirements of all, irrespective of wealth. Futhermore, it preached resignation and prayer as the response to oppression, a strategy incompatible with the violent behaviour of · Donatists and other rebels against the alliance between Roman secular totalitarianism and a complaisant, compromiSing, post-primitive version of Christianity - that which soon became Catholic.
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The SM projects a strategy. It is possible to define it in terms of a games theory. A games theory, such as the famous Prisoner's Dilemma,I2 concentrates on the choice of responses to a gamepartner, chosen at random, with whom one may, or may not, have opportunities of renewing play. This type of study has linked hands with theories of evolution. The 'fitness' in Darwinian terms of individuals in the process of transmitting genes can be enhanced, or
- 86 diminished, by strategy. It is believed that characteristics can be transmitted genetically from mutants, or otherwise. Thus aptitudes to choose and employ strategies can survive (over aeons). A more successful strategy may oust (with their practitioners) less successful strategies. A particular strategy tested during repeated competitive Prisoner's Dilemma games with the inept name TIT FOR TAT, better LIKE FOR LIKE (LFL), is known as the most successful game strategy, 1 3 provided it is probable that play will be resumed. Successful in the sense that although it never wins, but obtains a draw, the partner who plays it always obtains a higher score than anyone who plays any other strategy so far devised. LFL has these characteristics: 14 (I) the LFL player is never the first to 'defect', i.e. refuse to cooperate, (2) it is provocable into retaliation by a defection by the other, and (3) it is forgiving after just one act of retaliation (see p. 87 below). I will not tease my reader with the proofs of this. In real life one deals at random with partners with whom there is no probability of pla.ying again (strangers) as well as partners with whom there is a high probability (such as kindred). LFL is not therefore a wholly 'stable' (impenetrable) strategy. 1 5 People may learn to choose between various strategies, and it is not inconceivable that specimens which learn the best choice will pass on this ability genetically, to the eventual extinction of types not making the same choice. Real life confirms the extended dominance of identifiable groups having high ability to make correct choices of partners and strategies, a dominance usually reproduced even amongst the engineers of revolutions. The kindred-recognition process, as part of, and necessary to, a strategy whereby the genes of a group are propagated with the utmost 'fitness', automatically encourages the prosperity of a village, a caste, a country, until we reach the point where those that have a skin-colour in common imagine that they owe each other support, or a lightcoloured Muslim will stand up even for Idi Amin Dada. The rabbinical exegesis of Lev 19:18 c ('Love thy neighbour ... ') conforms to this pattern. The Christian interpretation, drawing attention to a player's option to start with a cooperative, rather than a 'defecting' move (Lk 10:31-35), suggests a strategy whereby Lev 19: 18c can be stretched, Antithesis-style, to permit 'kinship', in the weaker form 'neighbour-ness', with its claim on the biological instincts, to embrace all mankind. No one 16 has wholly explained why the 'Go thou and do likewise' of Lk 10:37 answers the ques-
- 87 tion 'Who is my neighbour?'. It is an interesting coincidence that this is meaningful in terms of a games theory. To be 'neighbour' means to start with a cooperative action, irrespective· of the unpredictable response from the other party. The Samaritan's risk of 'loss' is dramatized by Luke with the utmost solemnity· (10:34-35). A 'selfish' strategy is one in which the player 'defects'; an 'unselfish' strategy is one in which he icooperates'. The LFL strategy is not simple, but it has .unselfish characteristics. The SM is not the LFL strategy, but is comparable with it. The SM is an altruistic strategy, but unlike in 'true altruism',I7 the altruistic player is not 'truly' altruistic, not favouring the other party to its own loss, like a mammal handing over all its food to a sibling or cousin .. The boy who throws himself upon an exploding grenade in order to protect other occupants of his bunker is not operating the SM strategy, which places no human being above another. The mother risking her life to protect her child is obeying instincts derived from the requirements of reproduction. Both are unselfish, neither is being guided by the SM. On the other hand the SM agrees with the LFL strategy in playing a 'defecting' move when provoked by a. 'defect' on the other side, which is only technically 'selfish' since the other will learn a positive response. The SM does not require a passive (inert) response to another's 'sin' (p. 57). Sjns are to be forgiven inter partes in the 'repentance and forgiveness' pattern, and harmful retaliation is ruled out, however often the need to forgive has to be repeated (Mt 18:22). The LFL strategy involves the 'forgiving' of a single 'defection', proceeding to 'cooperate' at every subsequent move. This much would agree with the SM strategy. There is a difference, too, between 'defecting' in the game, which is a noncooperative act (selfish), and harmful retaliation such as is known to the Old Testament, whereby the other party's capacity to play is threatened. But the primary difference arises thus: the SM (in particular 7:12) requires a positive, 'cooperating' first move with those, further encounter with whom is doubtful, and even those where, like the Man who Fell among Thieves, it is even unlikely. In such a context, according to games theory, the correct strategy is All Defect, i.e. neither party can lose by not cooperating at any move. We have no space for the reasonings here.I8 One may wonder, however, whether the SM strategy could have been conceived
- 88 on the principle that an 'unselfish' strategy will be readily adopted between individuals if such a strategy became so indiscriminate as to raise the probabilty of reciprocating encounters (the 'pass it on' attitude). If all mankind is perceived as 'brother'/'sister', the natural aids to recognition of kindred and friends (from their faces, etc.), to which portions of the brain are dedicated,I9 are of less value than supposed. Such aids belong to the 'world', which loves friends and hates enemies. One could do little loving-and-hating if one ceased to tell other people apart for the purpose of choosing a strategy. The SM strategy assumes that the loss to its players from 'cheats', which we take to be certain,20 is insignificant compared with the gain to the species. We shall be doing better than birds which are more aggressive to strangers whose unrecognised song threatens their territories than they are to specimens whose known song reinforces an agreed boundary.2I What could be the genetic effect of a widespread application of the SM strategy? Ascetic practices, from the most elementary self-control to the systematic reduction of emotional responses to the minimum required for active life, protect the ascetic from the ill effects of competition. He has nothing but his life to lose, and is cushioned by his ideology from fearing slaughter at the hands of invaders. His example, effective life without ambition as usually understood, will show that the whole world can be 'kindred' of the ascetic, as mystics have actually suggested (and cf. Jufian, or. 7.2140). A group which practises the SM strategy, insured against the worst effects of 'cheats', can survive, as a group, since, though it can never win (grabbing the world's goods for itsel£),22 it will, in a repeated series of 'draws', increase the fitness of all specimens whilst not decreasing (by 'loss') its own. The ascetics may project their own genes parsimoniously, or not at all, but their siblings' genes have every chance, itself a requisite of evolution.23 Moreover, substitute offspring are known to very many cultures (China, Hinduism, Rome), and the Jews recognised proselytes as substitute children (Gen 12:5).24 Taking ambition to operate on this low, biological level, to concentrate on 'fitness' (a Darwinian analogy for obedience to God's will?) cannot be negative for the species. Nature teaches those who do not 'play the game' that it is genetically inadvisable, and the genes terminate with the persistently incorrect player.25 It is hardly impossible that such a perception of human evolution may lie behind the SM. This is not merely a question of 'nice', cooperative people, prospering and helping others to prosper with them:26 it is a device to both en-
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courage the systematical practice of altruism with the aid of selfselecting demonstrators, and to repress the tendencies to 'cheat'. The future would not, then, be with the genes of those that cannot enlist, still more if they pretend to enlist, under the banner of this variety of ascetic-mystic religion, this 'expression of the mysticism of action' (Happold, 102).
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The question remains, then, whether the SM is practicable (as Franz Alt continually asserts it is). Research has shown27 the strengths and weaknesses of the Moravian experiments in Saxonia and subsequently, in Pennsylvania. A great deal was achieved in one generation, a great deal learned. New difficulties arose with the second and subsequent generations. Without greater penetration of motives, more self-awareness, such a society cannot persist. But it was proved, both in Germany with the intervention of Abraham DUringer and with the aid of August Gottlieb Spangenberg in America, that a sound financial sense can coexist with complete devotion to the SM and Christian principles at large. One especial difficulty emerges. The repository of, sound financial sense will only rarely be gifted with talents in the departments of political science and ecclesiastical administration. The comprehensive talents of a Brigham Young (whatever may be thought of his rule in an actual territory supposedly governed as the Kingdom of God) are extremely rare. The manipulation of religious simplicity in the interest of frauds and 'cheats' is the more practicable as the simplicity is deeper. 'Wise as serpents and innocent (literally 'unmixed') as doves' (Mt 10:16, cf. Rom 16:19) is a very extraordinary combination. Yet, as that research itself proved, the wisdom of the race increases. It must be remembered that the Jews have never found any incongruity between piety and business; and there is no essential reason why a Kingdom of heaven should not be reproduced one day under the principles and precepts of the SM. By practice, training, lessons can be learned, and imparted. The whole point of askesis is that every kind of obstacle shall be overcome. And just as the 4-minute mile is now a common occurrence, though unknown (except amongst primitive peoples) until this century, so the ascetical level recommended in the SM may be employed in a new Herrenhut, and a new Bethlehem, more propitiously, and more infectiously.
Appendix
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
The text translated (save for the om1ttmg of a bracket and the insertion of certain brackets) is that of Nestle-Aland, 26th edition (1979). The translation is based on that of Benjamin Wilson (New York, 1864), which went into ten editions, last printed in 1942 when it was overtaken by another diglot.
5:1 And beholding the crowds, he ascended the mountain, and when he had sat down his disciples approached. 2 And opening his mouth he taught them, saying: J Happy the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven! 4 Happy the mourners; seeing that they will be consoled! 5 Happy the meek; because they will possess the Land! 6 Happy they who hunger and thirst for righteousness; since they will be satisfied! 7 Happy the merciful; because they will receive mercies! 8 Happy the pure in heart; for they will behold God! 9 Happy the peacemakers, because they will be called sons of God! 10 Happy the persecuted on account of righteousness; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven! 11 Happy are you, when they revile and persecute you, and on my account falsely allege every kind of evil against you. 12 Rejoice and exult, because your reward will be great in heaven; for thus those prophets who preceded you were persecuted.
13 You are the salt of the earth. 1;3ut if the salt become insipid, how shall it recover its savour? It is .then worthless, except to be cast out and trodden down by people. 14 You are the light of the world. A city being situated on a hill cannot be concealed: 15 nor is a lamp lighted to be placed under the corn-measure; but on the lamp-stand; and it gives light to all the family. 16 Thus let your light shine before people, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father in heaven. 17 Think not, that 1 have come to subvert the Law or the prophets: 1 have come not to subvert, but to establish. 18 For, indeed, 1 say to you, till heaven and earth pass a way, one iota or one tip of a letter shall by no means pass from the Law, till all be accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever shall violate one of the least of these commands, and shall teach people so, will be called little in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever shall practise and teach them, will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, that unless your
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righteousness excel that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall never enter into the kingdom of heaven.
21 You have heard that it was said to the ancients, 'Thou shalt not kill', and whoever shall kill will be amenable to the j_udges. 22 But 1 say to you, that every one being angry with his 15rother shall be amenable to the judges; and whoever shall say to his brother, 'Vain fellow!', will be subject to the High Council; but whoever shall say, 'Fool', will be obnoxious to the burning of gehenna. 23 If therefore, thou bring thy gift to the altar and there recollect that thy brother has ought against thee, 24 leave there thy gift before the altar, and go, first be reconciled to thy brother, then come, and present thy gift. 25 Agree quickly with thy prosecutor, while thou art on the road with him; lest the prosecutor deliver thee to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. 26 indeed I say to thee, thou wilt by no means be released, till thou hast paid the last farthing. 27 You have heard that it was said, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery'; 28 but I say to you, that every man gazing at a woman, in order to cherish impure desire, has already committed lewdness with her in his heart. 29 Therefore if thy right eye insnare thee, pluck it out, and throw it away: it is better for thee to lose one of thy members, than that thy whole body should be cast into gehenna. 30 And if thy right hand insnare thee, cut it off, and throw it away: it is better for thee to lose one of thy members, than that thy whole body should depart into gehenna. 31 And it was said, 'Whoever shall dismiss his wife, Jet him give her a writ of divorce.' 32 But I say to you that every one dismissing his wife except on account of whoredom causes her to commit adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. 33 Again you have heard that it was said to the ancients, Thou shalt not perjure thyself, but shalt perform to the Lord thine oaths; 34 but I say to you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; 35 nor by the earth, because it is a footstool for his feet; neither by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great king; 36 nor by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. 37 But Jet your Yes be. yes; and your No, no; for whatever exceeds these, proceeds from evil. 38 You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye' and 'Tooth for tooth'; 39 but I say to you, oppose not the injurious person; but if anyone strike thee on the right cheek, turn to him also the left; 40 and whoever will sue thee for thy coat, let him have the mantle also. 41 And if a man press thee to go one mile with him, go two. 42 Give to him who solicits thee; and him who would borrow from thee, do not reject.
- 93 43 You have heard that it was said, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour' and hate thy enemy; 44 but I say to you, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you; 45 that you may resemble your father in heaven, who makes his sun rise on bad and good, and sends rain on just and unjust. 46 For if you love them only who love you, what reward can you expect? Do not even the taxgatherers the same? 47 And if you salute your brethren only, in what do you excel? Do not even the gentiles the same? 48 Be you therefore perfect, even as your heavenly father is perfect.
6:1 Beware that you perform not your religious duties before people, in order to be observed by them; otherwise you will obtain no reward from your heavenly father. 2 When, therefore, .thou givest alms, proclaim it not by sound of trumpet, as the hypocrites do, in the assemblies and in the streets, that they may be extolled by people. Indeed, I say to you, they have their reward. 3 But thou, when giving alms, Jet not thy left hand know what thy right hand does; 4 so that thine alms may be private; and thy father, who sees in secret, will recompense thee. 5 And when you pray, you shall not imitate the hypocrites, for they are fond of standing up in the assemblies and at the corners of the open squares to pray, so as to be observed by people. Indeed I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But thou, when thou wouldst pray, enter into thy private room, and having closed the door, pray to thy father who is invisible; and that father of thine who sees in secret, will recompense thee. 7 And in prayer, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen; for they think that by using many words they will be accepted. 8 Therefore, do not imitate them; for God your father knows your necessities, before you ask him.
9 Thus, then, pray you: 'Our father, thou in the heavens, revered be thy name! 10 Let thy kingdom come; thy will be done upon earth, even as in heaven. 11 Give us this day our necessary food; 12 and forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors; 13 and abandon us not to trial, but preserve us from evil.' 14 For if you forgive people their offences, your heavenly father will also forgive you; 15 but if you forgive not people their offences, neither wW your father forgive your offences. 16 Moreover, when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a melancholy aspect; for they distort their features, that they may seem fasting to people. Indeed I say to you, they have their reward. 17 But thou, when fasting, anoint thy head, and wash thy face; 18 that thy fasting may not appear to people, but to that father of thine who is invisible; and thy father who sees in secret wW recompense thee.
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19 Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal; 20 but deposit for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust can consume, and where thieves break not through, nor steal. 21 For where thy treasure is, there thy heart will also be. 22 The lamp of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be clear, thy whole body will be enlightened; 23 but if thine eye be dim, thy whole body will be darkened. If, then, that light which is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate one, and love the other; or he will attend to one, and neglect the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. 25 Therefore, I charge you, be not anxious about your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor about your body, what you shall wear. Is not the soul of more value than food and the body than raiment? 26 Observe the birds of heaven; they sow not nor reap, nor gather into storehouses.; but your heavenly father feeds them. Are not you of greater value than they? 27 Besides, which of you by being anxious, can prolong his life one moment? 28 And why are you anxious about raiment? Mark the lilies of the field. How do they grow? They neither labour nor spin; 29 and yet I tell you, that not even Solomon in all his splendour, was arrayed like one of these. 30 If, then, God so decorates the herb of the field, which flourishes today and tomorrow will be cast into an oven, how much more you, 0 you distrustful! 31 Therefore be not anxious, saying, what shall we eat?, or what shall we drink?, or with what shall we be clothed?, 32 for all the nations require these things; and your heavenly father knows that you have need of all these things. 33 But seek you first the kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things shall be superadded to you. 34 Be not anxious, then, about tomorrow; for tomorrow will claim anxiety for itself. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble.
7:1 Judge not, that you may not be judged; 2 for as you judge you will be judged; and by the measure you dispense it will be measured to you. 3 And why observest thou the splinter in thy brother's eye, and perceivest not the beam in thine own eye?, 4 or how wilt thou say to thy brother, 'let me take the splinter from thine eye'; and, behold, a beam in thine own eye? 5 Hypocrite! first extract the beam from thine own eye, and then thou wilt see clearly to take the splinter from thy brother's eye.
6 Give not sacred things to dogs, nor throw your pearls before swine; lest they tread them under their feet, and turning again they tear you.
- 95 7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will Find; knock, and it will be opened to you; 8 for everyone who asks, receives; and everyone who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, the door shall be opened. 9 Indeed, what person among you, who if his son request bread, will offer him a stone? 10 or, if he ask for a fish, will offer him a serpent? 11 If you, then, being evil, know how to impart good gifts to your childten, how much more will your heavenly father give good things to those who ask him? 12 Therefore whatever you wish that people should do to you, do you the same to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.
13 Enter in through the narrow gate; for wide is the gate arid broad the road leading to destruction; and many are they who enter through it. 14 How narrow is the gate of life and how difficult the way leading thither; and how few are they that find it! 15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the garb of sheep, while inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 By their fruits you will discover them. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? 17 Every good tree yields good fruit; but the bad tree produces bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot yield bad fruit; nor a bad tree good fruit. 19 Every tree not producing good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will discover them. 21 Not everyone who says to me, 'Master, master', will enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he who performs the will of my father in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Master, master, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name expelled demons? and in thy name performed many wonders?' 23 Then I shall protest ,to them, 'I never approved of you: depart from me you who practise iniquity'. 24 Therefore, whoever hears these precepts of mine, and obeys them, he will be compared to a prudent man who built his house on a rock; 25 for though the rain fell, and the torrents came, and the winds blew, and rushed upon that house, it fell not, because it was founded on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these precepts of mine, and disobeys them, will be compared to a foolish man, who built his house on the sand; 27 for when the rain fell, and the torrents came, and the winds blew, and dashed against that house, it fell, and great was its ruin. 28 And it happened, when Jesus had finished this discourse, that the crowds were struck with awe at his mode of instruction, 29 for he taught them as possessing authority and not as their Scribes.
NOTES
PREFACE r. Art., 'Ascesi e mistica', Enciclopedia delle Scienze Sociale (Rome), forthcoming. 2. it is remarkable that the term akolouthein, rightly defined by Kingsbury as 'to commit oneself to a teacher as a disciple' (cf. Mt 6:I9, 22), does not appear in the SM at all, nor at 8:4. It is not a personal commitment which is being suggested. The programme is excellent per se. CHAPTER ONE r. For paganism see Fox, Pagans (I986). 2. Lucian, vit. auct. I I, reveals the snobbism of the less dramatic 'philosopher'. 3· Derrett, New Resolutions of Old Conundrums (Shipston on Stour, I986), eh. 4· CHAPTER TWO r. Plato, Euthyd. 283a, Gorg. 527e. H.Dressler, The usage of askeo and its cognates in Greek documents to IOO A.D., Washington I947· H. Windisch, ThWNT I, 492-4; J.Bergman, et al., 'Askese', TRE 4 (I979), I95-259· The reinterpretation of ascticism by Calvin (see J. Milton Yinger, Religion in the Struggle for Power, Durham, N.C., I946, 83) shows that asceticism (Suso-style) was virtually extinct. 2. H. Suso imitated Meister Eckhart. St John of the Cross imitated his predecessors of various ages. L. Cognet, Introduction aux mystiques rheno-flamands, Pa("is I968, eh. 4· L. Bouyer, The Spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers, London I963, 206-8. F. v. HUge!, The Mystic Element of Religion, London and New York I908, I6r. W. Johnston, The Inner Eye of Love: Mysticism and Religion, London I978, eh. I9. John W. McKay, 'The Old Testament and Christian charismatic/ prophetic literature' in Scripture: Meaning and Method (FS A. T. Hanson), Hull I987, 2o0-2I7. 3· In gymnosophistical texts (see below eh. 3, n. 4), b. Tan 31 b-p a, and ep. Aristeas I87-294. Derrett at Z.R.G.G. I9 (I967), 47-52, 22 (I970), 3I. Cf. Fox, (I986), I9I (questions to Apollo). 4· Acts 2I:9. B. Ward, tr., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, London I975, 6; Nagel (I966) I §6; Pourrat I, Ip. M.Smith, Rabia' The Mystic and her Fellow-Saints in Islam, Cambridge I928/I984. 5· J.J.Lhermitte, Mystiques et Faux Mystiques, Paris 1952; B.Billet, et al., Vraies et fausses apparitions dans i'eglise, Paris and Montreal I973i F. Trochu, Sainte Bernadette Soubirous I844-I879, London 1958, eh. I6. 6. Tert. de an. 9.4; Fox, Pagans, 4II; A.Leonard at A.Ple et al., Mystery and Mysticism, London I956, 109; H. Graef, The Story of Mysticism, London I966, 83; B. Ward (I975), 3-6; S.T.Katz, ed. Mysticism, London I978, 2I4-I 5; St Teresa, Life, eh. 25 (tr. E.A. Peers, 1960, p.239); S.G. Tulpule, Mystics of Medieval India, Wiesbaden I984, 8o; L. Rooney and R. Faricy, Medjugorje Journal, Great Wakering, 1987,
- 97 146-7. J.B. Tyson, NTS 33 (1987), 619, 629. 7· P.C.Bori and G.C.Gaeta, 'La sposa etiope e il primato profetico di Mose (Num 12)', Annali di Storia dell' Esegesi r (1984), 201-218. 8. NTS 34 (1988) at p.277. Cf. G. W. Buchanan, Typology and the Gospel, Lanham 1987, 40, 47-9, 58-9 (the SM paralleled with Ex 20-40). 9· Dhammapada 308. B.S. Turner, Religion and Social Theory. A Materialist's Perspective, London and New Jersey 1983 (esp. pp. roo-r). CHAPTER THREE r. Fox, Pagans (1986), 652, based on R.G.M. Nisbet (1978), 79; Jos. a~t. 14. 388, r 5· 343; and Virgil's Fourth Eclogue. K. Haacker, 'Kaisertribut und Gottesdienst', Th. Beitr. 17/6 (1986), 285-292 at 291-2. 2. The source, nature, and purpose of the Baptist's asceticism are still open to debate. See H. Thy en, 'Baptisma metanoias ... 1 in: Zeit und Geschichte (FS R.Bultmann), TUbingen 1964, 97:-125 at rrr-3. 3· R. Eppel, Le Pietisme Juif dans les Testaments des Douze Patriarches, Paris 1930; G. Vajda, 'Le role et la signification de l'ascetisme dans la religion juive', Arch. de Sociologie des Religions 9/r8 (1964), 21-26 (biliography). J. Maier at TRE 4, Berlin 1979, 193. M.Simon at U. Bianchi, ed., La tradizione dell' Enkrateia. Atti del Colloquia Internazionale, Milano 20-23 Aprile 1982, Rome 1985. The rabbinic Heb. for 'asceticism' is siggCif (SGF corresponding to biblical Heb. rNH) and is both a quality of the righteous and a trap for the unwary: for according to the rabbis one must not so severely 'afflict oneself' as to diminish one's utility or become a charge on the public (b. Ta
CHAPTER FIVE 1. J.E.Latham, The Religious Symbolism of Salt, Paris 1982; Sand, EWNT I, col. 137· J.Dupont at Logia (FS Coppens), Leuven 1982, 201-236. 2. Derrett, New resolutions, 219-223. 3· Buchanan, Typology (1987), eh. 6. CHAPTER SIX r. Derrett, 'New Creation in Qumran, Paul, the Church, and Jesus', RQ 13, nos. 49-52 (Memorial Jean Carmignac) (1988), §6, pp.587-598. For the Noachide laws see Derrett, Making of Mark (1985), App. 4· 2. P.J. Du Plessis, TEAEIOl:. The idea of Perfection in· the New Testament, Diss. Kampen 1959, 94, 170. 3· Manu Vl.47-48. O'Flaherty, Asceticism (1973), 89 and n. 58, I 51 and n. 54· M. Hara, Koten Indo no Kugyo, Tokyo 1979, 454-9 (in English). Rom 12:14. Maimonides, MT, I. II. 2,3. 4· Gen 39:7-18. Epict., diss. Ill 12, 12. O'Flaherty (1973); Hara (above). L. Tolstoy, Father Sergius (conceived 1877, published posthumously). 5· Lev 5=17-19; Num 15:25-28; Ps I9:I2-J3. F.J.Dolger, 'Die SUnde in Blindheit und Unwissenheit', Antike und Christentum 2 (1930), 222-29. Derrett, New Resolutions (1986), 91-3, 149-50. 6. Derrett, 'Taking up-the Cross and turning the cheek' in: A.E. Harvey, ed., Alternative Approaches to New Testament Study, London 1985, 61-78; also id., 'Camel through the eye of a needle', NTS 32 (1986), 465-70 at 467-8. 7· Derrett, New Resolutions, eh. 10. 8. As is so often contended, e.g. B.D.Ehrman at NTS 34 (1988), 35· CHAPTER SEVEN 1. Acts18:3, 20:34-35; 1Cor4:12, 9:16-18. Jo. Dam. 40.362. J.Ryan, Irish Monasticism (1931), 14; P.Nagel, Die Motivierung der Askese (I966), §7; Abbot-Callagher, ed., tr., Documents of Vatican II (1972), 476, 485; N.Russell, tr., The Lives of the Desert Fathers (1980), 13-14. But are not doles deleterious: Samuel Smiles, Self-I-lelp, rev. edn. (London r889h; W.D.Howells, Annie Kilburn, New York 1891, 240? 2. See Maimonides, MT, I. V. ro, 2-4. 3· Cf. Ach. Tat. VIII. ro, ro. The medieval glass at Merton College (Oxford) donated by Henry de Mamesfeld shows Henry twentyfour times. 4· Derrett, Studies in the New Testament I (1977), II8-127. 5· Derrett, Downside Rev., No. 352 (1985), 221-5. CHAPTER EIGHT 1. m. Av. II. 16. Derrett, Studies II (1978), 108-9. It is inadvisable to bargain as to the amount: one may lose by it (Mt 20:13-14). 2. Derrett, 'Christ and reproof', NTS 34 (1988), 272. 3· m. Ber. IX.5. Derrett, Law in the New Testament (1970), 224 and n. 4 (me'od = wealth). 4· Derrett, 'Birds of the air and lilies of the field', Downside Rev., July 1987, 181-192 at p. 186.
- 99CHAPTER NINE 1. Derrett, 'Christ and reproof', NTS 34 (1988), 271-281 at 275· 2. Samuel Bochart, Hierozoicon, London 1663, cap. 29, coli. 976-985, esp. 981. For the Fourth Beast in Daniel see R. Bodenmann, Naissance d'une exegese, BGBE 28, TUbingen 1986, 267-307. For the wild boar see W. Nicholson, The Bible Student's Companion, London repr. 1924, 146 col.2. And for its turning: Ach. Tat. II. 3· 3· Barn 10:3. Cf. Philostratus, Vita Apol. 6. 36. Gnilka, Matth. I. 258. Bequest of Meredith Maddy of London (31 Aug. 1643) to Dorstone and Michaelchurch Eskley (Heresfordshire): 'My desire is that my benevolence be not conferred upon Dogs and Swine namely those noted to live in any noted or known notorious sin, e.g. Swearing ... ' By the time of Mart. Pion. 12:3 'pearls before swine' could suggest Christians persecuted by pagans. Oxy. Pap. V. 840, I. 33· 4· Derrett, 1 "Thou art the Stone, and upon this Stone ... " ', Downside Rev., 106 (Oct. 1988), 276-85. J.M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (1977), 267. CHAPTER TEN I. Derrett, Studies IV (1986), I47-I56. On the hypocritical cat of India see Manu IV. I95, Jataka 128, and other references cited by M. Winternitz, History of Indian Literature II, rev. edn., New Delhi I977, 126 and n.2. 2. , 1'fte Second Book of Wonders (I813), 4 (gratia A.W.Exell). On false Prophets see P.S.Minear at 'Neues Testament und Kirche' (FS Schnackenburg) (I974), 76-93. Rev 2:20-23. 3· A post-Christian fable appears at Babrius (Loeb C. L.), n0.45I (p.5I3): Progymnasmata of Nikephoros Basilides. 4· Maldonatus and Grotius saw the point, but Tholuck (I833) denied it. 2Kgs I:8; I Kgs I9:I3, I9; I Clem I7:I; Mk I:6. Jos., BJ 1.24.3 = 480; Dhammapada 394· Heb u:37. Tg. Is. 20:2-3. Diod. Sic. 6.I3; Epict., diss. 3· I. 24; Dio Chrys. 13:1o-u, 33:I s, 34:2, 70:8; Plut., mor. 332A, 499C-D; Luc., peregr. I 5,26; fug. 14,20; ps. Luc., Cyn. I, I7, I9; Philostratus, Vita Apol. 8. I9; Athanasius, Vita Ant. 9I; Palladius, Hist. Laus. 32.33; Jo. Dam. I8.I54-5, 160, I85; Bas., ep. 4· Syn. ep. I47· Staff and wallet are conventional signs of poverty (b. Sabb. 31 a). Jataka VI. 377· K. Herbst, Was wollte Jesus selbst? II (198I), I36. CHAPTER ELEVEN J· Cf. E. Lamotte, Histoire du Bouddhisme Indien, des origines Saka, Louvain-la-Neuve I976, 258. 2. D. Gorce, Vie de Sainte Melanie, Paris I962.
a !'ere
CHAPTER TWELVE I. D.A.Black's interesting doubts (NT 30/I, I988, I-9) I find myself unable to accept. 2. Derrett, Studies I (I977), 76-84. 'Die Bergpredigt kann man nicht wollen, die Bergpredigt kann man nur tun ... Nicht die gute Absicht zahlt, sondern allein die Tat' (Alt, Frieden, 28-9). 3· R.C. Trench, Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount drawn from the
- IOOWritings of St Augustine, London 2I85Ii German translation, Neukirchen I904. Siotos (I986) deals with Augustine at Ioo-9. A. Holl, Augustins Bergpredigtexegese nach seinem FrUhwerk De sermone Domini in monte libri duo, Vienna I960, is of great interest, if somewhat naive. 4· Georgius, bishop of Alexandria, who informed against his opponent to Constantius, was murdered in the time of Julian: Amm. Marc. 22. I 1.5. The goings-on of Donatists at the various stages of their conflicts with the Catholics and internally amongst themselves are hardly even a caricature of Christianity - the darker side of rigorism. 5· E.Fascher, R.G.G. 31 (I957), coli. 1050-3; G.Barth, TRE V (I98o), 6II-I8; Strecker, pp. IJ-23; Siotos, passim; McArthur (I96I), 105-I29. 6. See also Daniel Rees, et al., Consider Your Call, London I978/I983, 34· Mysticism in action: Happold, Mysticism, I979, I02. CHAPTER THIRTEEN 1. Julian, £rag 5 (Loeb C. L. iii.430). A. Trollope, The Way we Live Now , London I95I/I962, 75, 467. W.James, Varieties of Religious Experience, London I902, 355-6. C.E.M.Joad, Common-sense Ethics, London I92I, 47· Franz Alt quotes similar statements in Germany, and, from the I975 Swiss Catholic catechism, "Sind die Anweisungen in der Bergpredigt wortlich zu nehmen? Die Anweisungen in der Bergpredigt sind nicht wortlich zu n<::hmen, weil das sowohl im privaten wie im offentlichen Le ben zu unhaltbaren Zustanden fUhren wUrde." 2. Particulars at A. Guillaumont, 'Liber Graduum ', in M. Viller et al., edd., Dictionnaire de Spiritualite 9 (I976), cols. 749-54. 3· H.-C.Puech, 'Le Manicheisme', in: Puech, ed., Histoire des Religions 11, Paris I972> 523-645. S.N.C.Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China, Manchester I985 (see pp. I43-7). 4· W.H.C.Frend, The Donatist Church, Oxford JI985, II2-I25· 5· A. Bareau, Recherches sur la biographie du Buddha dans les Sutrapitaka et !es Vinayapitaka anciens: De la quete de I 'Eveil a la Conver' sion de Sariputra et Maudgalyayana (P.E.F.E.O. 53), Paris I963, I9920J esp. 203. 6. Ill-gotten gains may be spent on a latrine (b. A.Z. I7a) or firewood (Didascalia). 7· Lev I9:I4i Is J:I2, 9:I6; Jer 2J:IJ, 32; Mic J:s; I Kgs I4:I6, IS:JOj 2Chr 33:9; Mt I8:6-7. m. Av V. I8. Derrett, Downside Rev., I985, 220, 228. 8. R.Russell, 'The idle in 2Thes. 3:6-12', NTS 34 (I988), 105-II9. G. Schollgen points out (ibid., 76) that I Thes 4:11-I2 is addressed to the comfortably-off. Derrett, Studies 11 (I978), u8 and n.IIJ. 9· P.Aelius Aristides, or. 46 (Opera, Dindorf, 11.402-J). Julian, c. Gal. (Spanheim 283C); cf. Dhammapada 77· 10. A.P. Hare and H.H. Blumberg, edd., Nonviolent Direct Action, Washington and Cleveland I968; James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven and London, I986. For a defence of Christianity somewhat along these lines see Minucius Felix, Octavius, Paris I964 (third cent.), supported by Lucian, peregr. I J,I6 and Aristides I 5.3,9 in E. Hennecke, ed., Die Apologie des Aristi-
- IOI -
des, TU 4i3, Leipzig I893· 11. S.Levine, Radical Departures: Desperate Detours in Growing Up, San Diego I984. H.Zinser, Schamanismus im "New Age", ZRGG 39/4 (I987), 3I9-327. E.Barker, The Making of a Moonie, Oxford (Blackw.), I986. I2. A. Rapoport and A. M. Chammah, Prisoners's Dilemma, Ann Arbor I965, and subsequent publications by Rapoport. I owe these references to Dr Alex Tindall (Tromsjll). I3. R.Axelrod and W.D.Hamilton, 'The evolution of cooperation', Science 211 (I98I), I390-6. Altruism can benefit reproduction of the set. 14. Ibid., I393· R. Axelrod, 'More effective choices ... 1, J. Conflict Resolution 24 (I98o), 379-403. R.M. May, 'The evolution of cooperation', Nature 292 (I98I), 29I-2. R.Dawkins, 'The nice way to survive', Listener, 17 April I986, p.10. Anecdotal anthropology has confirmed the usefulness of cooperation: P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, New York and London 1902. I 5· R. Boyd and J.P. Lorberbaum, 'No pure strategy is evolutionarily stable in the repeated Prisoner's Dilemma game', Nature 327 (I987) 58-59. I6. Including the writer: Law in the New Testament, London I970, eh. 9· 17. M.J.Wade and F.Breden, 'The evolution of cheating and selfish behaviour', Behavioral and Ecological Socio-biology 7 (1980), 167-I72. I8. Axelrod and Hamilton (n.I3 above), I391. 19. Axelrod and Hamilton, I 395· 20. R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Oxford I976; D. Barash, The Whisperings Within, New York 1979· 21. E.O. Wilson, Sociobiology, Cambridge (Mass.) 1975, 273 cited by Axelrod and Hamilton, I 395· 22. Krates (fl. 326 B.C.) (Diog. L. 6.85) thought sufficiency and peace would obviate ambition and rivalry. The Cynics insisted that superfluity was the mother of vice; hence the attraction of the gymnosophist mythology. 23. W.D. Hamilton, J. Theor. Bioi. 7 (I964), I-16, I7-52. 24. Derrett, 'The functions of the Epistle t~ Philemon', ZNW 79 (1988), 63-9I at P·75 (2 a). 25. The fig-wasps: Axelrod and Hamilton, I395· 26. Dawkins (above, n. I4). 27. Gillian L. Gollin, Moravians in Two Worlds. A Study of Changing Communities, New Ymk and London 1967, ought to be required reading for every student of the SM. The 'Bruderhofs' (sic) in the United Kingdom attract interest.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
D.C.Allison, jr., The Structure of the Sermon on the Mount, JBL 106/3 (1987) 423-445· Franz Alt, Fri~de ist mo~lich. Di_e Pol!tik der ~ergpr~digt, Muni<:h a_nd Zunch, 1983/1986; Liebe 1St moghch. Die Bergpredigt Im Atomzeitalter, Munich and Zurich, 1985/1987. C.F. Andrews, The Sermon on the Mount, London 1942 (Andrews was an associate of M.K. Gandhi). G.Barth, 'Bergpredigt I' in: G. Krause- G. MUller, edd., Theologische Realenzyklopadie V (1980), 603-618 (literature!). Ursula Berner, Die Bergpredigt. Rezeption und Auslegung im 20. Jahrhundert, Gottingen 3 1985. H.D.Betz, Essays on the Sermon on the Mount, Philadelphia 1985, chh. 1, 2, 7· O.Betz, Jesus der Messias Israels. Aufsatze zur biblischen Theologie, TUbingen 1987. K. Beyschlag, 'Zur Geschichte der Bergpredigt in der alten Kirche', ZTK 74 (1977), 291-321. G.Bornkamm et al., 'Bergpredigt' in: R.G.G. 3 I (1957), coli. 1047-1054· Ch. Burchard, 'Bergpredigt' in: E. Fahlbusch et al., edd., Evangelisches Kirchenlexicon I (1986), coli. 433-6. A. T. Cadoux, Jesus and Civil Government. A Contribution to the Problem of Christianity and Coercion, London 1923. K.M. Campbell, 'The New Jerusalem in Matthew 5:14', SJT 31 (1978), 335363. M.L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages I, Leiden 1985. W.D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount, Cambridge 1964. J.D.M. Derrett, 'Merit' in: B. Almond and B. Wilson, edd., Values. A Symposium, Atlantic Highlands (NJ) 1988, 57-73 (comparative). A.L. Descamps, 'Le Discours sur la Montagne. Esquisse de theologie biblique', Rev. theol. de Louvain 12/I (I98I), 5-39· A.Dihle, Die goldene Regel. Eine EinfUhrung in die Geschichte der
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antiken und frtihchristlichen Vulgarethik, Gottingen I962. Stojan Dimitro££, Der Sinn der Forderungen Jesu in der Bergpredigt, Diss. Bern I938. F.Gerald Downing, 'The social contexts of Jesus the Teacher: construction and reconstruction', NTS 3 3 (I 987 ), 439-45 I. Jesus and the Threat of Freedom, London I987 (I have not seen his The Christ and the Cynics, Sheffield 1988). J.Dupont, Les Beatitudes I, Le probleme litteraire, Paris 2 1969; 11, La Bonne Nouvelle, 2 1969; Ill, Les Evangelistes, 2 1973. 'Le langage symbolique des directions ethiques de Jesus dans le Sermon sur la montagne' in: Etudes sur les evangiles synoptiques, Leuven 1985, 763-778. R.L.Fox, Pagans and Christians, Harmonsworth 1986. Joachim Gnilka, Das Matthausevangelium I (1:1- 13:58), Freiburg i. B. 1986. L.Goppelt, 'Das Problem der Bergpredigt. Jesu Gebot und die Wirklichkeit dieser Welt' in: Christologie und Ethik. Aufsatze zum Neuen Testament, Gottingen 1968, 27-43. R.A. Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount, Waco I982. A. Guillaumont, Aux origines du monachisme chretien. Pour une phenomenologie du monachisme, Begrolles en Mauges 1979· B.Haring, 'The normative value of the Sermon on the Mount', CBQ 29 (1967), 375-385. F.C. Happold, Mysticism. A Study and an Anthology, Harmondsworth 1979. V.Hasler, 'Das Herzsttick der Bergpredigt. Zum Verstandnis der Antithesen in Matth. 5,21-48', TZ IS (1959), 90-106. H. Hendrickx, The Sermon on the Mount, London 1984. G.H.F. Heard, The Creed of Christ, London 1941; The Code of Christ, London 2 1944· S.Jacoby, Wild Justice, London 1988. J. J ere m ias, The Sermon on the Mount, London 1961; 'Die Bergpredigt' in: Abba. Studien zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte, Gottingen 1966, 171-189. W.0. Kaelber, 'Asceticism' in M. Eliade, ed., The Encyclopedia of Religion I, New York 1987, 441-5. W.S. Kissinger, The Sermon on the Mount. A History of Interpretation and
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J.Piper, 'Love Your Enemies', Cambridge 1979· R.A.Piper, 'Matthew 7,7-11 par. Luke II,9-13' in: Logia (FS J.Coppens), Leuven 1982, 411-418. P.Pokorny, Der Kern der Bergpredigt. Eine Auslegung, Hamburg 1969. P.Pourrat, La spiritualite chretienne, Paris 1918-1928. A.Ravier, ed., La mystique et les mystiques, Paris 1965. A. Sand, Das Gesetz und die Propheten, Regensburg 1974. A. Saudreau, The Mystical State, London 1924. T.E.Schmidt, Hostility to Wealth in the Synoptic Gospels, Sheffield 1987. R. Schnackenburg, 'Bergpredigt', LTK 11 (1958), coli. 223-7. L. Schottroff, 'Gewaltverzicht und Feindesliebe in der urchristlichen Jesus-Tradition: Mt. 5,38-48, Lk 6,27-36 1 in: G.Strecker, ed., Jesus Christus in Historie und Theologie (FS H. Conzelmann), TUbingen 1975, 197-221 Luise Schottroff- Wolfgang Stegemann, Jesus von Nazareth- Hoffnung der Armen, Stuttgart 21981. Markos A. Siotos, Mapxo~ A. I: t w-ro~,
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Leo Tolstoy, A Confession (r888), The Gospel in Brief (r883), and What I Believe (r888), tr. Aylmer Maude (r92r), Oxford I940; Resurrection (r899), tr. Louise Maude (r9r6), Oxford 1926; The Kingdom of God (is Within You)' (r893) and Peace Essays (r894-1909), tr. Aylmer Maude (1936), Oxford I974· H.S. Versnel, 'Religious mentality in ancient prayer' in: H.S. Versnel, ed., Faith, Hope and Worship, Leiden 1981, r-64. A. Verhey, The Great Reversal. Ethics and the New Testament, Grand Rapids 1984. A. Voobus, History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient, Louvain 19581968. S. Westerholm, Jesus and Scribal Authority, Lund 1978. C. Wolf£, 'Niedrigkeit und Verzicht in Wort und Weg Jesu und in der apostolischen Existenz des Paul us', NTS 34 (r988), r 83-196. H.T. Wrege, Die Uberlieferungsgeschichte der Bergpredigt, Ttibingen 1968.
INDEX OF BIBLICAL SOURCES OLD TESTAMENT Genesis 1:22, 38; 2:15-16, 54; 3:17, 54; 4:2, 31; 6:11, 41; 8:21, 49; 12:5, BB; 17:1, 36; 18:19, 21; 18:23-32, 21; 18:32, 23; 19:2-3, 83; 20:7, 23. 42; 22:16, 39; 28:20-22, 48; 32:13(12), 61; 33:9-11, 38; Exodus 8:12-13, 42; 8:26, 59; 11:7, 57; 16:4, 59; 16:12, 59; 16:16, 59; 17:16, 23; 19:10-15, 22; 20:7, 40; 20:18-29, 22; 22:27, 31; 22:28, 58; 22:31, 58; 23:1-3, 58; 23:3, 21; 23:4-5, 43; 23:8, 57; 23:15, 38; 24:10-11, 3; 29:33, 58; 32:32, 31; 34:6,9, 31; 34:28-30, 50; Leviticus 5:1, 40; 18-24, 23; 19, 23; 19:2, 37; 19:12, 40; 19:14, lOO; 19:17, 56; 19:18, 34. 68. 86; 22:3-15, 58; 22:28, 69; Numbers 6, 26; 12:3, 30; 12:13, 31; 14:18-19, 31; 16, 23; 16:26, 83; 20:13, 47; 21:6-7, 59; 22:18, 23; 22:38, 23; 25:4,11, 23; 27:17, 21. 63; 30:2, 40; 33:35, 57; Deuteronomy 4:24, 45; 5:7, 45; 5:31, 31; 6:3, 40; 6:5, 45. 53; 6:13,15, 45. 53; 13, 65; 13:16, 83; 14:21, 58; 15:4-11, 28; 16:16, 38; 16:19, 57; 18:13, 36; 18:15, 22. 30; 18:18, 30; 18:20, 64; 18:22, 63; 19:15, 69; 22:6-7, 69; 23:18, 83; 23:21, 40; 24:1, 39; 27:36, 34; 28:12, 42; 30:7, 23; 30:12-13, 64; 32:24, 30; 32:35, 35; 34:10, 30; Joshua 7, 23; 8:27, 24; 23:13, 57; 24:19, 53; Judges 14:6,9, 20; 14:16, 20; Ruth 3:3, 50; 1 Samuel 2:5, 30; 2:8,10, 29; 10:10, 29; 25:23-28, 38; 25:38, 41; 25:39, 40;
10:11, 24;
2 Samuel 12:7, 57; 12:8, 47; 16:5-8,13, 38; 19:18-23, 38;
12:14-24, 30;
12:12, 45. 73;
21:5-6, 19; 12:20, 50;
25:10, 41; 14:2, 50;
1 Kings 3:11-13, 54; 10:9, 21; 12:4, 77; 14:16, lOO; 15:30, lOO; 19:9-18, 21; 20:19 LXX, 59; 21, 85; 22:21-23, 16; 22:24, 6; 22:38 LXX, 59; 2 Kings 2:9, 29; 2:23-24, 31; 4:33, 4 7; 19:13,19, 99; 1 Chronicles 28:9, 59; 2 Chronicles 1:7, 59; 15:2,4, 59; 33:9, lOO; Nehemiah 5:15, 77; 9:20, 22; 13:25, 40; Tobit 4:8-10, 45; 4:15, 60; 4:17, 58; 12:8, 43; 12:9, 45; 13:12, 42; 14:10, 45; Judith 8:25-27, 32; 1 Maccabees 4:46, 23; 9:20, 23; 14:41, 23; Job 1:6, 31; 1:19, 64; 4:17, 31. 47; 8:15, 64; 22:21-30, 59; 27:18, 64; 34:8, 83; 42:8-9, 49; Psalms 1:1, 13; 2:1-4, 8; 2:3, 35; 2:8, 59; 2:12, 13; 6:8, 64; 6:9 LXX, 64; 6:10, 37; 7:4, 42; 10:17, 59; 11:7, 31; 14:2-4, 64; 14:3, 48; 17:15, 31; 18:26(25), 37. 38; 22:16, 57; 23, 16. 59; 24:4, 31; 25:9, 30; 27, 59; 27:5, 45; 27:7, 59; 27:8-9, 59; 28:1-3, 83; 28:4, 56; 29:1, 31; 31:31, 45; 32:1, 13; 32:3, 13; 34:4-10, 59; 34:8, 13; 34:14, 31; 34:14 LXX, 50; 34:15, 46; 35:13, 50; 35:19, 42; 37:6, 33; 37:9, 30; 37:11, 30; 37:16,18, 29. 30; 37:19, 55; 37:21-22, 30. 31; 37:25, 55; 37:26,28, 31; 37:34, 40; 40:4, 13; 41:1, 13; 45:19, 59; 50:16-21, 64; 51:10-13, 31; 51:15, 29; 52:6 LXX, 61; 53:3, 48; 53:6 Syr, 61; 55:22, 64; 59:14, 57; 62:10, 53; 63:5, 16; 65:4, 13; 69, 29; 69:3, 30; 69:4, 31. 32; 69:5-6, 31. 32; 69:10-12, B. 30. 50;
- IIO-
(Psalms cont.) 69:13, 31; 69:17, 31; 69:19-21, 8. 30. 32; 69:26, 32; 69:29, 29; 69:32, 30; 69:33, 29; 69:35, 30; 72:11-14, 31; 76:9, 30; 77:2, 59; 78:34, 23; 79:13, 21; 80:14(13), 58; 84:5, 13; 84:11-12, 59; 84:12, 13; 86:1-6, 29; 86:8, 31; 86:17, 30; 94:7, 46; 94:12, 13; 97:1, 34; 100:3, 21; 101:1, 64; 103:13, 59; 104, 54; 105:4, 59; 105:40, 59; 106:3, 13; 106:23, 30; 106:34, 57; 107:4-7, 30; 107:9, 30; 110:1, 33; 110:4, 58; 113:7, 29; 119, 32; 119:2, 31; 119:10, 59; 119:19, 29; 119:68, 61; 119:165, 31; 120:6-7, 31; 122:6, 31; 123:2, 59; 125:4, 61; 126:5, 30; 132:15, 30; 135:6, 48; 137, 30; 139:15, 46; 139:21-22, 42; 141:4, 83; 144:13, 48; 146:5,7, 30; 149:4, 30; Proverbs 1:15, 83; 1:20-21, 47; 3:1, 66; 3:3, 69; 4:17, 83; 4:18, 33; 6:6-11, 84; 8:17, 59; 9:7-8, 58; 15:3, 46; 16:7, 31; 18:16, 52; 20:17, 83; 21:14, 46; 21:25, 84; 22:9, 31; 25:8-10, 38; 25:9, 38; 25:21-22, 42; 26:27, 40; 28:8, 31; 30:8, 48; 30:12, 47; Son~
of Songs (Canticles) 3:1-4, 59; 5:2-7, 59;
Wisdom 5:3, 8; 5:5-14, 31; 9:6, 36; Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 3:30, 45; 4:3-5, 41; 12:4-7, 58; 13:17, 63; 16:17-30, 45; 18:18, 53; 22:1-2, 84; 22:16-18, 64; 40:29, 83; 23:4, 47; 23:9-11, 40; 28:4, 56; 31:8-11, 29. 46; 34:8, 36; 35:1-4, 38; 39:26-27, 33; 39:28, 64; 44:16,17, 36; 45:4, 30; 49:7, 64; Isaiah 2:2, 33; 3:12, lOO; 8.13, 47; 9:6, 33; 9:16, lOO; 11:6, 63; 14:30, 29; 26:2-4, 59; 26:20, 47; 28:16, 64; 28:17, 64; 30:18, 13; 35:5-10, 67; 44:3, 30; 45:1, 59; 45:19, 59; 49:10, 30; 50:6, 41; 51:7-B, 32; 55:1, 30; 55:6, 59; 57:15-19, 30; 57:19, 31; 58:5-6, 50; 58:7-12, 59; 58:9-11, 16. 33. 48; 60:1-3, 33; 60:11, 59; 61:1, 30; 61:2-3, 30; 61:4, 64; 63:16, 47; 63:18, 58; 65:13, 30; 65:24, 4 7; 65:25, 63; 66:10, 30; Jeremiah 1:10, 64; 6:14, 6; 6:16, 69; 6:19, 63; 7:4, 63; 14:15, 64; 15:3, 58; 15:10-11, 32; 17:7-10, 63; 18:9, 64; 18:10, 58; 20:7, 8; 23:12, lOO; 23:16, 63; 23:32, lOO; 24:6, 64; 31:12, 16; 35, 26; 39:10, 29; 48:7, 53; 49:10, 83; Lamentations 3:14, 8; Ezekiel 3:12, 29; 13:10-12, 64; 13:13-14, 64; 14:13, 55;. 18:2, 23; 20:41, 47; 22:27, 63; 28:24, 57; 33:31, 53. 63; 34:3, 63; 36:23, 47;
18:5-9, 70;
Daniel 1:3-19, 51; 2:40, 58; 3:86-88 LXX, 32; 6:10, 4 7; 7:7, 58; 7:19, 58; 7:23, 58; 8:10-11, 58; 8:13-14, 58; 9:20-21, 23. 47; 9:27, 58; 10:2-5, 50; 11:31, 58; 12:11, 58; Hosea 6:6, 35; Joel 2:12-13, 50; Amos 2:11, 26; 7:14, 24; 9:3, 59; Obadiah 15, 40; Jonah 3:5, 50; 4:4,9, 38; 4:11, 21; Micah 3:5, lOO; 4:2, 33; 5:2, 25; Zephaniah 2:3, 30; Zechariah 7-8, 50; 13:4, 63; Malachi 2:10, 47; 2:10-14, 38;
NEW TESTAMENT Matthew 1:25, 25; 2:6, 25; 2:11, 25; 2:12-13, 25; 2:20, 64; 3:1, 25; 3:3-8, 26; 3:4, 25; 3:7-12, 25; 3:9, 53; 3:11-12, 25; 4:1, 29; 4:2-4, 26; 4:4-10, 36; 4:10, 45; 4:15, 33; 4:17, 26; 4:19-22, 26; 4:22, 62; 4:23, 26. 29. 33; 4:24, 21; 5:1, 66; 5:3, 29; 5:3-10, 29; 5:4, 73; 5:5, 30; 5:6, 30. 52; 5:7, 30; 5:8, 31; 5:10-12, 31. 64; 5:11, 18. 34. 67; 5:11-12, 75; 5:12, 13. 22; 5:13-14, 14. 63. 67; 5:13-16, 33. 34; 5:16, 49. 50. 69; 5:17-20, 33. 34. 67; 5:18, 35; 5:19, 69; 5:20, 52. 61. 67. 69. 80; 5:21-26, 38. 67; 5:21-48, 36. 67; 5:22, 14. 67. 73; 5:23, 14. 54; 5:24, 68; 5:26, 14; 5:27-30, 38. 69; 5:28, 39; 5:29, 54; 5:29-30, 14; 5:31-32, 39; 5:32, 14. 69; 5:33-37, 39; 5:34-36, 40. 69; 5:35, 68; 5:37, 40; 5:38-42, 37. 41. 55; 5:39, 14. 69; 5:40, 14; 5:41, 14. 67; 5:42, 14; 5:43-48, 37. 41. 42. 67; 5:43, 14. 32. 42. 69; 5:44, 37. 49; 5:45, 37; 5:46, 37; 5:46-47, 68; 5:48, 22. 37. 42. 69. BD; 6:1-4, 14. 46. 49. 68; 6:2, 52. 68; 6:5-6, 49. 52. 68. 69; 6:5-14, 47; 6:7-8, 47. 68; 6:7-15, 49. 52; 6:8, 15. 37. 47. 49. 54. 59; 6:9, 14; 6:11, 52; 6:12, 14. 37. 41; 6:14-15, 37. 49; 6:16-18, 49; 6:19-21, 52. 69. 96; 6:22, 96; 6:22-23, 6:15, 38; 6:16, 52. 68; 52. 54. 56; 6:24, 15. 42. 56. 69; 6:24-34, 52. 54. 55. 68. 69; 6:26, 43. 59; 6:26-30, 54; 6:31, 54; 6:32, 15. 37. 47. 54. 68; 6:33, 59; 6:34, 54; 7:1, 52. 56. 57. 69; 7:1-2, 56; 7:1-5, 37; 7:1-12, 56; 7:3-5, 56; 7:6, 33. 56. 57-8. 68. 69; 7:7-8, 56. 69; 7:7-9, 37; 7:7-12, 55; 7:8, 18; 7:9, 43; 7:9:12, 59; 7:11, 37; 7:12, 37. 59. 68. 69; 7:13, 69; 7:13-28, 77; 7:14, 15. 18. 68; 7:15, 63. 68. 69; 7:15-20, 63; 7:19, 14; 7:21-23, 68; 7:23, 34; 7:24, 7. 16.18; 7:24-27, 64. 68. 69; 7:28, 64. 66; 7:29, 34; 8:9-10, 82; 8:12, 59; 8:14, 3; 8:18, 51; 8:18-22, 68. 84; 8:19-20, 72; 8:20, 21. 62; 8:22, 51; 8:24, 72; 8:31, 57; 8:37-38, 14; 9:8, 50; 9:9, 68; 9:11, 67; 9:13, 35; 9:14, 50; 9:15, 51; 9:24, 20; 9:35, 63; 9:36, 21. 63; 9:37-38, 4. 82; 10:6, 25; 10:8, 78; 10:9, 83; 10:1J, 24. 83; 10:13, 83; 10:16, 63. 68: 89; 10:19, 59; 10:19-20, 23; 10:22-23, 23; 10:25, 8; 10:26, 8. 20; 10:28, 41. 54; 10:30, 29; 10:34, 72; 10:34-36, 23; 10:37-38, 21. 53. 83; 10:39, 21; 10:41, 22; 10:42, 22; 11:2, 34; 11:6, 25. 70; 11:9, ·22; 11:13, 34; 11:15-27, 19; 11:18, 25. 34; 11:19, 3. 34; 11:29, 30; 11:30, 69; 11:31, 50; 12:3, 59; 12:7, 35; 12:33-37, 63; 12:36, 23; 12:42, 34; 12:50, 48; 13:8, 4; 13:16-17, 70; 13:17, 22; 13:19, 49; 13:24-30, 63; 13:30, 4; 13:38, 49; 13:54, 34; 13:57, 22; 14:19, 59; 14:20, 30; 14:23, 19; 14:30, 26; 15:11, 22; 15:13, 63; 15:20, 22; 15:24, 25; 15:26, 57. 58; 15:36, 59; 16:17, 21; 16:18, 64; 16:25, 21; 16:27, 56; 16:28, 21; 17:11, 34; 17:20, 62; 17:26, 24. 60; 17:27, 24; 18:3,5, 22; 18:6, 22; 18:6-7, lOO; 18:8, 62; 18:10,16, 22; . 18:15-17, 69; 18:22, 49. 87; 18:33, 31; 19:11, 84; 19:14, 22; 19:14-20, 61; 19:16, 62; 19:16-17, 83; 19:17, 20. 35 62; 19:18-19, 67; 19:19, 34; 19:20, 67; 19:21, 22. 34. 35 80; 19:22, 70; 19:26, 62; 19:27, 62; 19:29, 24. 62; 20:1-5, 44; 20:5, 14; 20:7-8, 21; 20:12-14, 15. 98; 20:14, 60. 83. 84; 20:14-16, 83; 20:16, 71; 20:25, 77; 21:3, 59; 21:23, 34; 21:23-27, 77; 21:28-32, 74; 21:32, 34; 21:34, 63; 21:41,43, 63; 22:5, 53; 22:5-6, 58; 22:8, 14. 83; 22:11-12, 51; 22:29, 34; 22:34,36, 21; 23:1, 66; 23:3, 63; 23:5, 45; 23:8, 66; 23:10, 34; 23:13, 4; 23:23, 35. 50; 23:25-26, 36; 23:28, 34. 63; 23:29, 22; 23:31-32, 23; 23:34, 22. 23; 23:35, 22. 32; 24:5, 64; 24:11, 63. 64; 24:24, 63; 24:38, 3; 25:3, 53; 25:10-13, 59; 25:12, 64; 25:26, 84; 25:29, 83; 25:40, 23; 25:41, 63; 25:45, 64; 25:46, 22; 26:9, 83; 26:37-38, 29; 26:38, 14; 26:63, 40; 26:74, 64; 27:6, 83; 27:34, 29; 28:16,20, 24; Mark 1:6, 99; 1:35, 19; 2:18, 25; 2:23-28, 21; 2:25, 59; 3:22, 23; 4:3, 59; 4:38, 72; 6:20, 23; 6:41, 46; 7:26, 67; 7:29, 21; 7:34, 45; 8:32, 19; 8:35, 54; 9:12-13, 36; 9:39, 16; 9:40, 64; 9:41, 22; 10:17-22, 61; 11:3, 59; 12:15-16, 72; 12:24, 36; 12:40, 47; 1?:41-52, 46; Luke 2:27, 29; 2:37, 20; 2:49-50, 20; 4:7, 83; 4:14, 29; 5:8, 47; 6:26, 63; 6:36, 31; 9:55, 31; 10:31-35, 86. 87; 10:37, 86; 10:40-41, 72; 10:42, 55; 11:48, 64;
- I 12 -
(Luke cont.) 12:15, 31. 57; 12:21, 43; 12:36, 59; 12:37, 54; 12:48, 67; 13:25, 59; 13:27, 64; 14:6, 53; 14:26, 21; 14:30, 64; 15:15, 57; 15:29-30, 60; 15:31-32, 84; 16:4, 52. 83; 16:14, 8; 16:27, 5; 17:28, 64; 18:11-12, 47; 18:12, 25. 50; 18:13, 47; 20:36, 31; 20:47, 47; 22:25, 28; 22:36, 72; 23:35, 8; 24:27,35,45, 34; 24:32, 36; John 1:18, 31; 1:21, ZZ; 1:32-34, 25; 1:36, 25; 1:47, 20; 2:10, 3; 2:24-25, 4:19-25, 53; 4:31-32, 55; 4:34, 30; 5:39, 36; 5:44, 46; 6:14, zz. 62; 6:46, 7:12, 62; 7:40,42, 62; 8:7, 57; 9:17, 62; 9:28, 40; 9:39, 19; 10:12, 63; 10:35, 11:41-42, 20. 45; 12:6, 72; 12:27-30, 45; 12:43, 46; 15:13-15, 8; 16:2, 17:1, 45; 17:17-20, 33; 17:18, 33; 20:21, 33;
20; 31; 36; 77;
Acts 2:29, 19; 3:22, ZZ; 4:13, 62; 4:19, 53. 61; 4:21, 50; 4:22-23, 30; 5:29, 53; 5:41, 32; 7:52, 32; 7:60, 74; 8:20, 83; 8:26-40, 34; 8:39, 29; 10, 34; 10:2, 43; 10:10-16, 34; 10:17, 64; 10:26, 34; 11:5-12, 34; 11:12-15, 64; 12:16, 59; 14:11-15, 34; 15, 34; 15:21, 64; 15:23-24, ZZ; 15:28, 34; 18:3, 98; 18:18, 26; 19:15, 75; 20:29, 63; 20:34-35, 98; 21:23, 26; 24:14, 35; 24:16, 18. 81; 28:10, 77; Romans 1:2, 34; 2:3, 57; 2:28-29, 45; 5:3-5, 32; 7:3, 39; 7:12, 34. 58; 8:35-37, 32; 9:1, 40; 12:14, 98; 12:14-21, 42; 13:8-10, 34; 15:25-27, 55; 16:19, 89; 1 Corinthians 3:1,2, 77; 3:12-14, 84; 3:21-22, 24. 30; 4:12, 98; 4:16, 30; 6:12, 24. 30; 7:1, 19; 7:32-35, 24; 8:1, 64; 9:5, 3; 9:7-14, 60; 9:11, 55; 9:16-18, 98; 9:24-27, 14; 9:25-27, 63. 81; 11:1, 30; 13:3, 32; 14:4, 64; 14:17,20, 64; 16:1-8, 77; 2 Corinthians 2:17, 78; 5:;LO, 54. 84; 6:10, 24; 8:9, 21. 24; 11:31, 40; 12:7-10, 32; Galatians 1:10, 53. 61; 1:20, 40; 2:9, 64; 4:19, ZZ; 5:14, 34; 6:6-10, 55; Ephesians 4:28, 77; 6:6, 61; Philippians 3:2, 57; 3:14; 14; Colossians 2:18, 62; 3:22, 61; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4, 19; 4:11-12, 84; 5:11, 64; 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12, 84; 1 Timothy 4:7-10, 17; 5:13, 84; 6:16, 31; 6:17-19, 53; 2 Timothy 2:4-5, 81; 2:5-6, 6; 4:7, 14; Hebrews 1:13, 31; 11:36-38, 32; 11:37, 99; 12:1-14, 14; James 1:22-27, BD; 1:27, 70; 2:1-9, 61. BD; 5:9, 57; 1 Peter 2:5, 64; 5:3, 77; 2 Peter 2:1, 63; 1 John 2:3-5, 66; 4:1, 62. 63; 5:16, 42; Revelation 3:20, 59; 6:10, 74; 16:13, 63; 17:21, 59; 22:15, 57.
