Jesus of Nazareth
Page 26
The Twofold Commandment
According to Matthew 22:34-36, a scribe once asked Jesus which commandment in the Torah was the “greatest,” that is, the primary commandment.6 What the scribe asks is not altogether new; it was something that was commonly being asked in different ways in Jesus’ time. It was the search for the center of the Torah—or the effort to summarize the Torah in brief. It was in no way about a disqualification or nonobservance of the other commandments but was primarily about didactics and the correct understanding of the whole Torah. Jesus answers the scribe’s question:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22:37-39)
This coupling of love of God and love of neighbor became more or less a matter of course in and through the New Testament, for Christians at any rate. But we need to pay attention to what has happened here: two commandments that in the first place have nothing to do with one another and are widely separated in the Torah have now been brought together and are, in fact, inextricably bound up with each other.
“You shall love the LORD your God” (Deut 6:4) was the second sentence in the shema, the “Hear, O Israel.” This confession of God’s unity was probably already being recited daily in Judaism in Jesus’ time. It formulates the traditional center of the Torah,7 namely, the commandment to serve YHWH alone and follow no foreign gods, indeed, not only to serve YHWH but to make YHWH the absolute center of one’s life. In short, it was nothing other than a commentary on the first commandment of the Decalogue.
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” is in the book of Leviticus within the so-called holiness code (Lev 17:1-26:46), where we read:
You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD. (Lev 19:17-18)
“Anyone of your kin,” “neighbor,” “any of your people” here all mean the same thing. The reference is not primarily to one’s physical relations but to fellow believers among the people of God.8 One should be as intensively concerned for one’s brothers and sisters in the faith of Israel and care as much for them as for one’s own family. The latter, in fact, is what is meant by “as yourself,” which is commonly misunderstood in an individualistic sense. The solidarity of the immediate family is thus expanded into a solidarity with every member of the people of God. This is evident again, a little later, in Leviticus 19:33-34, where that solidarity is again expanded to include resident aliens living in the land: in our terms, migrant workers or even the undocumented who work among us.
When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
This, then, is what the holiness code means by “love of neighbor”: practical solidarity within the people of God, a solidarity that respects and supports everyone in Israel, including aliens, just as one would do for the members of one’s own family. What is absent from the holiness code is the still further expansion of the love commandment to the foreigners whom Israelites encounter as “traveling through” their land. For them the ethic is not that of love but the longstanding and very exalted “ethics of hospitality” traditional in the Near East. If necessary, one was required to protect and defend a guest with one’s own life.
What was Jesus doing when he linked together the primary commandment from Deuteronomy 6 and the commandment of love of neighbor in Leviticus 19? First of all, we must be assured that in this he is acting well within the Torah. He is not proclaiming a “new commandment.” He is most certainly not issuing a “new Torah.” All that was already in existence. What is new with Jesus is the tight linkage between Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, the love of God and the love of neighbor. But even that linking was not altogether new. It was already beginning in Judaism at that time, it was in the air; everything was heading in that direction.9 Of course, we cannot point to an explicit combination of quotations from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 in the time before Jesus. We must consider the possibility that ultimately it was Jesus’ deep understanding that created the linkage.
But did Jesus not understand what was already written in a completely new way, namely, as relieved of its limitations and now applying in principle to all people and not merely to all those in Israel? Here again we should take a closer look. In the letters of John, love of neighbor clearly means love for one another, that is, for sisters and brothers within the church (1 John 3:10-14; 4:20). For Paul as well, agap, mutual love, has its proper place within the communities. This is quite obvious in Romans 12:9-21. As for “all people,” here Paul is more inclined to speak of “keeping peace” and “doing good” (cf. Rom 12:17, 21; Gal 6:10; 1 Thess 5:15).
Did the New Testament authors misunderstand Jesus? Apparently not, for Jesus himself does not speak about love of neighbor in general, without any reference to place. We must read the texts in which he extends love of neighbor even to enemies with great attention. Then we will see that he is speaking not of those most distant, but of those who are closest, those whom his audience will encounter within Israel:
…if anyone strikes you on the cheek
…if anyone takes away your coat
…if anyone forces you to go one mile
Offering the other cheek as well (Luke 6:29), giving one’s shirt as well as the coat (Luke 6:29), carrying a Roman legionary’s pack two miles instead of one (Matt 5:41)—all that assumes immediate contact. In contrast to the Stoics, Jesus never spoke of “universal love.” He was interested in what happens within the people of God—corresponding precisely to Leviticus 19:17-18.
It is true that for Jesus too love has no boundaries because it must equal the love of the heavenly Father, who is gracious even to the ungrateful and the wicked (Luke 6:35 // Matt 5:45). But it has a place where it is at home and where when necessary it crosses the boundaries that may come into being. In this Jesus remains entirely in accord with the Old Testament: love is something concrete. It does not dissipate into universal love but remains tied to the real place of the “community of Israel.” There it is to be made real, even toward strangers, and from there it constantly replenishes its strength.
Love of Enemies
But surely Jesus’ command to love enemies went far beyond all the prescriptions for Israel and in the Torah? Let us look closely once more! The most important text for the command to love enemies in the context of what we are discussing is Luke 6:27-30:10
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.
Here and in the following verses we find a composition by Luke, part of the so-called Sermon on the Plain. Luke was making use of a collection of applicable sayings of Jesus that he found in the Sayings Source (cf. Matt 5:38-48). We can see from Luke 6:27-30 how categorically Jesus was capable of speaking. In the sentences quoted, he does not deal with difficulties, conditions, or particular circumstances. He speaks radically, that is, he gets to the root. Therefore the quoted sentences are not formulae to be applied like recipes. They cannot simply be reduced to an ethical system; they are an unwieldy instrument for casuistry.
So, must I give to everyone who asks of me? Jesus would have spoken that demand with an eye to the situation in Israel, where small farmers and day laborers repeatedly needed help from their neighbors or fellow believers to cope with failed harvests or in times of unemployment. For us too the words “give to everyone who
begs from you” have not lost their meaning, but they cannot be applied mechanically. Should a mother going through the supermarket with her child fulfill all the wishes that are created there in the most subtle and well-thought-out ways? She would be exercising hatred for her child if she bought it everything it wants and begs its mother to give it.
The same is true of all the other statements about love of neighbor and of enemies. They cannot and must not be used as if they were operating instructions, to be applied mechanically. Rather, we need to keep in mind that biblical statements of this kind have a basis in which they are rooted, namely, the people of God. The continual parade of false interpretations of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and/or Luke’s Sermon on the Plain almost all derive from a failure to pay attention to that grounding, that basis supporting the whole.11
Because the biblical reality of the people of God was completely foreign to ancient religions, so also the biblical idea of love of neighbor, and certainly that of love of enemies, was equally a stranger to them.12 In 1989 Mary W. Blundell, a professor of classical philology, published a book titled Helping Friends and Harming Enemies, in which she shows that “Greek popular thought is pervaded by the assumption that one should help one’s friends and harm one’s enemies. These fundamental principles surface continually from Homer onwards and survive well into the Roman period.”13 That states the essential. Blundell reaches her conclusions based on her outstanding knowledge of the ancient world. She brings together a multitude of textual witnesses, and these repeatedly testify that one should love one’s friends, help them, lend to them. Of course, the basic principle of balanced mutuality must rule. The Greek poet Hesiod (eighth c. BCE) expresses it this way: “Be friends with the friendly, and visit him who visits you. Give to one who gives, but do not give to one who does not give.”14
In Luke 6:32-36, the continuation of the part of the Sermon on the Plain I cited above, we find just the opposite. Here the principle of ethical mutuality that Hesiod formulates so elegantly is carried ad absurdum. How? Hesiod’s principle completely ignores who God is and how God acts, and so it must also be ignorant of the reality of the people of God,15 for the rule here is:
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:32-36)
“What credit is that to you?” The translation is unhelpful. In this passage in the Greek we find charis three times. What it means is: if you have already mutually lent and paid back, what “reward” or “thanks” do you expect from God? But charis is also, and primarily, “charm,” “beauty,” “grace.” If everything depends solely on precisely calculated mutuality, on “you help me, then I’ll help you,” the world is not only devoid of grace, it lacks any kind of charm or beauty. But in the company of the people of God there is supposed to be the beauty of freedom and complete undeserving. The people of God should reflect God’s graciousness.
The ancient world thought differently: one was reasonably expected to give only where one received, and it was perfectly all right to hate one’s enemies. In fact, one should do them harm whenever possible. So, for example, Meno, in Plato’s dialogue with that name, is supposed to have been asked by Socrates about the specific virtues of a man. He replies, “This is a man’s virtue: to be able to manage public business, and in doing it to help friends and hurt enemies, and to take care to keep clear of such mischief himself.”16 And one last example: the Greek poet Archilochos (seventh c. BCE) writes, “I know how to love those who love me, how to hate. My enemies I overwhelm with abuse.”17
That is, in fact, how the majority of ancient society saw things. This was the normal, usual, commonsense attitude. Plato was one of the few who disrupted that line of thinking. In the very first book of his great work on the state, through the mouth of Socrates, he picks apart the basic premise that it is justice to do good to friends and evil to enemies, to love those who deserve it and hate those who are wicked.18 And in the dialogue Crito, again through the mouth of Socrates, he proposes as a basic principle that no one may do injustice under any circumstances. It is true that most people (!) believe that someone to whom injustice has been done is entitled to do injustice in return. But no, one may not slander in return, one may not mistreat someone in return, not even when it has been done to oneself.19
It was not until the Roman Stoics that these basic principles proposed by Plato were again taken up—especially by Musonius, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. Seneca (d. 65 CE) warns to answer evil not with evil but instead with good. He gives as a reason: “If… you wish to imitate the gods, then bestow benefits upon the ungrateful as well as the grateful; for the sun rises upon the wicked as well as the good, the seas are open even to pirates.”20 Seneca is very close to the Sermon on the Mount here. But such thinking remained an exception in antiquity, and the Stoics themselves usually gave other reasons for their aversion to hatred. For example, they reflected on whether it was good for the human being to hate and to get angry. Perhaps it was contrary to the dignity of one’s own person, and it could also be that it was not beneficial to the soul’s tranquility.
That was certainly not stupid, but such reasoning is worlds removed from Jesus. His challenge to love of enemies was for him the consequence of the reign of God, now coming to pass. It was a consequence of the love with which God loves the world and of God’s will to transform the world.
So we should not underestimate the breakthroughs regarding the thought patterns of antiquity accomplished by Plato and the Stoics. But at the same time we must see clearly what was commonplace and widely held at the time. Only then can we ask: where did Jesus get his idea about love of enemies that confronts us with such elementary force in the Sermon on the Mount? Is he not, at least in the case of love of enemies, going far beyond the Torah?
Apparently not. For the holiness code, where it speaks of love for one’s “brother/sister,” for one’s “kin,” and for one’s “neighbor,” includes the enemy as a matter of course. It is said that “you shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin.… You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people” (Lev 19:17, 18). The person against whom one bears hatred in one’s heart is one’s enemy. And the one against whom one seeks vengeance is one’s enemy. But even the enemy in Israel is a “brother/sister,” is “kin,” and therefore there can be no hatred against him or her. So the commandment to love one’s neighbor in Leviticus 19 includes the enemy. But the Torah says it much more clearly in another place: within the still older “book of the covenant” incorporated in the book of Exodus (Exod 21:1–23:33) there is a very explicit commandment about how to behave toward one’s enemies:
When you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back. When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help [your enemy] to set it free. (Exod 23:4-5)
Two examples are given here, and the cases are chosen in such a way that the second is an expansion of the first. In the first case, just bringing back a strayed ox or donkey takes time and goes against the grain for the finder. One could simply let the animal go on straying and so injure one’s enemy. But one is not allowed to want to hurt him or her. One must help. In the second case, there is significantly more at stake than simply bringing an animal back. Here, it is a question of cooperation: two have to work together to raise the donkey to its feet and distribute the heavy load better. And this you must do together with the person who hates you—what a task of overcoming one’s own self is presented here! But it
could also be a step toward reconciliation.21
The word “love” does not appear in this text, but in its substance it quite clearly speaks of what love means. Love in the Bible is not primarily deep feeling and upwelling emotion but effective help. When, in the parable in Luke 10:30-35, the Samaritan raises up the robbery victim, pours oil and wine on his wounds and bandages them, brings him to an inn, pays the owner and assures him that he will make good on any additional costs, Jesus is describing exactly what he thinks of as love. Exodus 23:4-5 does the same.
Even as concerns love of enemies Jesus thus thinks and speaks entirely in terms of the Torah. He interprets it. He brings its scattered parts together. He thinks through “loving God” and “loving neighbor” to their utmost consequences. Precisely on the basis of the Torah he knows who God is and how, therefore, people in Israel ought to be also.
Certainly it was not a matter of course to read the Old Testament that way, because there are other voices to be found there as well. It can indeed speak of hatred and do so with elemental rage. In Psalm 139—to take only one example—we read:
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies. (Ps 139:21-22)
We could say a great deal about this extract from a much longer psalm text. It is not about private quarrels and enmity. The one praying experiences how the people of God are being destroyed by “men of blood” (v. 19) who themselves are Israelites, and he or she wants to stand on God’s side. But above all we may not overlook the “prayer dynamic” of the psalm.22 The speaker has already asserted that she or he can never truly grasp God’s thoughts (vv. 17-18) and in the end begs God to test him or her and point out the way she or he should go (vv. 23-24).