Jesus of Nazareth

by Joseph Ratzinger

  The Greek world, whose zest for life is wonderfully portrayed in the Homeric epics, was nonetheless deeply aware that man's real sin, his deepest temptation, is hubris--the arrogant presumption of autonomy that leads man to put on the airs of divinity, to claim to be his own god, in order to possess life totally and to draw from it every last drop of what it has to offer. This awareness that man's true peril consists in the temptation to ostentatious self-sufficiency, which at first seems so plausible, is brought to its full depth in the Sermon on the Mount in light of the figure of Christ.

  We have seen that the Sermon on the Mount is a hidden Christology. Behind the Sermon on the Mount stands the figure of Christ, the man who is God, but who, precisely because he is God, descends, empties himself, all the way to death on the Cross. The saints, from Paul through Francis of Assisi down to Mother Teresa, have lived out this option and have thereby shown us the correct image of man and his happiness. In a word, the true morality of Christianity is love. And love does admittedly run counter to self-seeking--it is an exodus out of oneself, and yet this is precisely the way in which man comes to himself. Compared with the tempting luster of Nietzsche's image of man, this way seems at first wretched, and thoroughly unreasonable. But it is the real high road of life; it is only on the way of love, whose paths are described in the Sermon on the Mount, that the richness of life and the greatness of man's calling are opened up.

  THE TORAH OF THE MESSIAH

  "You Have Heard That It Was Said...

  But I Say to You..."

  The Messiah was expected to bring a renewed Torah--his Torah. Paul may be alluding to this in the Letter to the Galatians when he speaks of the "law of Christ" (Gal 6:2). His great, passionate defense of freedom from the Law culminates in the following statement in chapter 5: "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Gal 5:1). But when he goes on to repeat at 5:13 the claim that "you were called to freedom," he adds, "Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another" (Gal 5:13). And now he explains what freedom is--namely, freedom in the service of good, freedom that allows itself to be led by the Spirit of God. It is precisely by letting oneself be led by God's Spirit, moreover, that one becomes free from the Law. Immediately after this Paul details what the freedom of the Spirit actually consists in and what is incompatible with it.

  The "law of Christ" is freedom--that is the paradox of Paul's message in the Letter to the Galatians. This freedom has content, then, it has direction, and it therefore contradicts what only apparently liberates man, but in truth makes him a slave. The "Torah of the Messiah" is totally new and different--but it is precisely by being such that it fulfills the Torah of Moses.

  The greater part of the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt 5:17-7:27) is devoted to the same topic: After a programmatic introduction in the form of the Beatitudes, it goes on to present, so to speak, the Torah of the Messiah. Even in terms of the addressees and the actual intentions of the text, there is an analogy with the Letter to the Galatians: Paul writes there to Jewish Christians who have begun to wonder whether continued observance of the whole Torah as hitherto understood may in fact be necessary after all.

  This uncertainty affected above all circumcision, the commandments concerning food, the whole area of prescriptions relating to purity, and how to keep the Sabbath. Paul sees these ideas as a return to the status quo before the messianic revolution, a relapse in which the essential content of this revolution is lost--namely, the universalization of the People of God, as a result of which Israel can now embrace all the peoples of the world; the God of Israel has truly been brought to the nations, in accordance with the promises, and has now shown that he is the God of them all, the one God.

  The flesh--physical descent from Abraham--is no longer what matters; rather, it is the spirit: belonging to the heritage of Israel's faith and life through communion with Jesus Christ, who "spiritualizes" the Law and in so doing makes it the path to life for all. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus speaks to his people, to Israel, as to the first bearer of the promise. But in giving them the new Torah, he opens them up, in order to bring to birth a great new family of God drawn from Israel and the Gentiles.

  Matthew wrote his Gospel for Jewish Christians and, more widely, for the Jewish world, in order to renew this great impulse that Jesus had initiated. Through his Gospel, Jesus speaks to Israel in a new and ongoing manner. In the historical setting in which Matthew writes, he speaks in a very particular way to Jewish Christians, who thereby recognize both the novelty and the continuity of the history of God's dealings with mankind, beginning with Abraham and undergoing a revolution with Jesus. In this way they are to find the path of life.

  But what does this Torah of the Messiah actually look like? At the very beginning there stands, as a sort of epigraph and interpretive key, a statement that never ceases to surprise us. It makes God's fidelity to himself and Jesus' fidelity to the faith of Israel unmistakably clear: "Think not that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5:17-19).

  The intention is not to abolish, but to fulfill, and this fulfillment demands a surplus, not a deficit, of righteousness, as Jesus immediately goes on to say: "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5:20). Is the point, then, merely increased rigor in obeying the Law? What else is this greater righteousness if not that?

  True, at the beginning of this "relecture"--this new reading of essential portions of the Torah--there is an emphasis on extreme fidelity and unbroken continuity. Yet as we listen further, we are struck by Jesus' presentation of the relationship of Moses' Torah to the Torah of the Messiah in a series of antitheses: "It was said to them of old...but I say to you..." Jesus' "I" is accorded a status that no teacher of the Law can legitimately allow himself. The crowd feels this--Matthew tells us explicitly that the people "were alarmed" at his way of teaching. He teaches not as the rabbis do, but as one who has "authority" (Mt 7:28; cf. Mk 1:22; Lk 4:32). Obviously this does not refer to the rhetorical quality of Jesus' discourses, but rather to the open claim that he himself is on the same exalted level as the Lawgiver--as God. The people's "alarm" (the RSV translation unfortunately tones this down to "astonishment") is precisely over the fact that a human being dares to speak with the authority of God. Either he is misappropriating God's majesty--which would be terrible--or else, and this seems almost inconceivable, he really does stand on the same exalted level as God.

  How, then, are we to understand this Torah of the Messiah? Which path does it point toward? What does it tell us about Jesus, about Israel, about the Church? What does it say about us, and to us? In my search for answers, I have been greatly helped by the book I mentioned earlier by the Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner: A Rabbi Talks with Jesus.

  Neusner, a believing Jew and rabbi, grew up with Catholic and Protestant friends, teaches with Christian theologians at the university, and is deeply respectful of the faith of his Christian colleagues. He remains, however, profoundly convinced of the validity of the Jewish interpretation of Holy Scripture. His reverence for the Christian faith and his fidelity to Judaism prompted him to seek a dialogue with Jesus.

  In this book, he takes his place among the crowds of Jesus' disciples on the "mount" in Galilee. He listens to Jesus and compares his words with those of the Old Testament and with the rabbinic traditions as set down in the Mishnah and Talmud. He sees in these works an oral tradition going back to the beginnings, which gives him the key to interpreting the Torah. He listens, he compares, and he speaks with Jesus himself.
He is touched by the greatness and the purity of what is said, and yet at the same time he is troubled by the ultimate incompatibility that he finds at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount. He then accompanies Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem and listens as Jesus' words return to the same ideas and develop them further. He constantly tries to understand; he is constantly moved by the greatness of Jesus; again and again he talks with him. But in the end he decides not to follow Jesus. He remains--as he himself puts it--with the "eternal Israel."

  The rabbi's dialogue with Jesus shows that faith in the word of God in the Holy Scriptures creates a contemporaneous bond across the ages: Setting out from Scripture, the rabbi can enter into the "today" of Jesus, just as Jesus, setting out from Scripture, can enter into our "today." This dialogue is conducted with great honesty. It highlights the differences in all their sharpness, but it also takes place in great love. The rabbi accepts the otherness of Jesus' message, and takes his leave free of any rancor; this parting, accomplished in the rigor of truth, is ever mindful of the reconciling power of love.

  Let us try to draw out the essential points of this conversation in order to know Jesus and to understand our Jewish brothers better. The central point, it seems to me, is wonderfully revealed in one of the most moving scenes that Neusner presents in his book. In his interior dialogue Neusner has just spent the whole day following Jesus, and now he retires for prayer and Torah study with the Jews of a certain town, in order to discuss with the rabbi of that place--once again he is thinking in terms of contemporaneity across the millennia--all that he has heard. The rabbi cites from the Babylonian Talmud: "Rabbi Simelai expounded: 'Six hundred and thirteen commandments were given to Moses, three hundred and sixty-five negative ones, corresponding to the number of the days of the solar year, and two hundred forty-eight positive commandments, corresponding to the parts of man's body.

  "'David came and reduced them to eleven....

  "'Isaiah came and reduced them to six....

  "'Isaiah again came and reduced them to two....

  "'Habakkuk further came and based them on one, as it is said: "But the righteous shall live by his faith"' (Hab 2:4)."

  Neusner then continues his book with the following dialogue: "'So,' the master says, 'is this what the sage, Jesus, had to say?'

  "I: 'Not exactly, but close.'

  "He: 'What did he leave out?'

  "I: 'Nothing.'

  "He: 'Then what did he add?'

  "I: 'Himself'" (pp. 107-8). This is the central point where the believing Jew Neusner experiences alarm at Jesus' message, and this is the central reason why he does not wish to follow Jesus, but remains with the "eternal Israel": the centrality of Jesus' "I" in his message, which gives everything a new direction. At this point Neusner cites as evidence of this "addition" Jesus' words to the rich young man: "If you would be perfect, go, sell all you have and come, follow me" (cf. Mt 19:21; Neusner, p. 109 [emphasis added]). Perfection, the state of being holy as God is holy (cf. Lev 19:2, 11:44), as demanded by the Torah, now consists in following Jesus.

  It is only with great respect and reverence that Neusner addresses this mysterious identification of Jesus and God that is found in the discourses of the Sermon on the Mount. Nonetheless, his analysis shows that this is the point where Jesus' message diverges fundamentally from the faith of the "eternal Israel." Neusner demonstrates this after investigating Jesus' attitude toward three fundamental commandments: the fourth commandment (the commandment to love one's parents), the third commandment (to keep holy the Sabbath), and, finally, the commandment to be holy as God is holy (which we touched upon just a moment ago). Neusner comes to the disturbing conclusion that Jesus is evidently trying to persuade him to cease following these three fundamental commandments of God and to adhere to Jesus instead.

  The Dispute Concerning the Sabbath

  Let us follow Rabbi Neusner's dialogue with Jesus, beginning with the Sabbath. For Israel, observing the Sabbath with scrupulous care is the central expression of life in Covenant with God. Even the superficial reader of the Gospels realizes that the dispute over what does and does not belong to the Sabbath is at the heart of Jesus' differences with the people of Israel of his time. The conventional interpretation is that Jesus broke open a narrow-minded, legalistic practice and replaced it with a more generous, more liberal view, and thereby opened the door for acting rationally in accord with the given situation. Jesus' statement that "the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath" (Mk 2:27) is cited as evidence, the idea being that it represents an anthropocentric view of reality, from which a "liberal" interpretation of the commandments supposedly follows naturally. It was, in fact, the Sabbath disputes that became the basis for the image of the liberal Jesus. His critique of the Judaism of his time, so it is said, was a freedom-loving and rational man's critique of an ossified legalism--hypocritical to the core and guilty of dragging religion down to the level of a slavish system of utterly unreasonable obligations that hold man back from developing his work and his freedom. It goes without saying that this interpretation did not favor a particularly friendly image of Judaism. Of course, the modern critique--beginning with the Reformation--saw in Catholicism the return of this supposedly "Jewish" element.

  At any rate, the question about Jesus--who he really was, and what he really wanted--as well as the whole question as to what Judaism and Christianity actually are: This is the point at issue. Was Jesus in reality a liberal rabbi--a forerunner of Christian liberalism? Is the Christ of faith, and therefore the whole faith of the Church, just one big mistake?

  Neusner is surprisingly quick to brush this sort of interpretation aside--as well he might, because he lays bare the real bone of contention so convincingly. Commenting on the dispute over the disciples' right to pluck the ears of wheat, he simply writes: "What troubles me, therefore, is not that the disciples do not obey one of the rules of the Sabbath. That is trivial and beside the point" (p. 83). To be sure, when we read the dispute over the healings on the Sabbath and the accounts of Jesus' angry grief at the hard-heartedness of those who spoke for the dominant interpretation of the Sabbath, we see that these debates concern deeper questions about man and about the right way to honor God. This side of the conflict is therefore by no means simply "trivial." Neusner is nonetheless right to identify Jesus' answer in the dispute over the ears of wheat as the place where the heart of the conflict is laid bare.

  Jesus begins his defense of the disciples' way of satisfying their hunger by pointing out that David and his companions entered the House of God and ate the holy bread, "which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests" (Mt 12:4). Jesus then continues: "Or have you not read in the law how on the sabbath the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice' (cf. Hos 6:6; 1 Sam 15:22), you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath" (Mt 12:5-8). Neusner comments: "He [Jesus] and his disciples may do on the Sabbath what they do because they stand in the place of the priests in the Temple; the holy place has shifted, now being formed by the circle made up of the master and his disciples" (pp. 83f.).

  At this point we need to pause for a moment in order to see what the Sabbath meant for Israel. This will also help us to understand what is at stake in this dispute. God rested on the seventh day, as the creation account in Genesis tells us. Neusner rightly concludes that "on that day we...celebrate creation" (p. 74). He then adds: "Not working on the Sabbath stands for more than nitpicking ritual. It is a way of imitating God" (p. 75). The Sabbath is therefore not just a negative matter of not engaging in outward activities, but a positive matter of "resting," which must also be expressed in a spatial dimension: "So to keep the Sabbath, one remains at home. It is not enough merely not to work. One also has to rest. And resting means, re-forming one day a week the circle of family and household, everyone at
home and in place"(p. 80). The Sabbath is not just a matter of personal piety; it is the core of the social order. This day "makes eternal Israel what it is, the people that, like God in creating the world, rest from creation on the Seventh Day" (p. 74).

  We could easily stop here to consider how salutary it would also be for our society today if families set aside one day a week to stay together and make their home the dwelling place and the fulfillment of communion in God's rest. But let us forgo such reflections here and remain with the dialogue between Jesus and Israel, which is also inevitably a dialogue between Jesus and us and between us and the Jewish people of today.