Beatitudes

The Beatitudes sermon by James Tissot, 1886-1896.

In Christianity, the Beatitudes (from Latin beatus, meaning "blessed" or "happy")[1] are blessings from Jesus recorded in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke. According to The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church, The blessings in Luke refer to external situations while those in Matthew refer more to spiritual or moral qualities.[2] This opening of the sermon was designed to shock the audience as a deliberate inversion of standard values, but this shock value has been lost today due to the commonness of the text.[3]

Four of the beatitudes are found in Luke's Sermon on the Plain. Luke's Sermon has four woes in addition to the four beatitudes, and Matthew uses a similar four woes elsewhere for use against the Pharisees. Biblical scholar and author Robert H. Gundry has argued that Matthew wanted to keep the eightfold structure and consequently had to create four additional sayings.[4]

Similar sayings are also recorded in a few of the Dead Sea Scrolls and in Jewish sources predating the Christian era. According to the two-source hypothesis, the Beatitudes originate with the lost saying gospel Q. Matthew and Luke each incorporated Q into their respective stories differently. Matthew consolidates Jesus' sayings into five important scenes, of which the Sermon on the Mount is one. Luke preserves the shorter and bolder versions of the original, blessing those who are poor and hungry, while Matthew spiritualizes these blessings ("poor in spirit", "those who hunger and thirst for righteousness").[5]

These verses are quoted early in the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom as part of the sequence called the Third Antiphon, or the Third Typical Antiphon, it is common in the Russian and Monastic Use of the Liturgy, which continues to be the liturgy most often used in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Contents

Content

While opinions vary as to exactly how many distinct statements the Beatitudes should be divided into, normally ranging from eight to ten, most scholars consider there to be only eight. These eight of Matthew follow a simple pattern: Jesus names a group of people normally thought to be unblessed or unblessable and pronounces them blessed (well-off and fortunate) because of the presence and availability of abundant life in God's kingdom to everyone, regardless of status, circumstances, or condition.

The beatitudes present in Matthew are:

The beatitudes present in the Gospel of Luke are:

The beatitudes present only in Matthew are:

The last of these eight is followed by what appears to be commentaries on it, with Matthew's, according to author R.T. France, integrating elements from Isaiah 51:7.[8] Amongst textual critics, this is seen as an attempt by Matthew and Luke to re-interpret quotations from Q that do not quite fit with their theology if read literally. That the commentary discusses the persecution of Christians, who clearly would not be able to consider Jesus' crucifixion until after it had actually happened, is regarded by most scholars as indicating the timeframe for when Matthew and Luke were written, although this commentary is also an example of prophecy. Matthew refers to only verbal attacks, while Luke also refers to excommunication, which scholars feel indicates the differences in situation between the writers.

A number of scholars, most significantly, Augustine of Hippo, have been convinced that there should actually be seven Beatitudes, since seven has historically been considered the number of perfection. The beatitude about the contrite heart echoes Psalm 24 (as a manifestation of verses 3–5), with which it is remarkably similar and with which Christ would have been familiar. Augustine himself felt that it was the eighth—about persecution of the righteous—which was the addition, since it partly parallels the first.

Parallels and differences

Church of the Beatitudes on the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee in Israel, the traditional location where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount.

Eduard Schweizer feels that a large part of Matthew's variance from Luke is attributed to Matthew not approving of asceticism as a way into heaven in and of itself.[9] Hence Matthew changes what Luke has as ordinary physical deprivations into spiritual ones—by changing poor into poor in spirit, and hungry into hunger . . . after righteousness.

Some of the beatitudes can be found in parts of the Old Testament; for example, the beatitude concerning the meek is also found, with Matthew's wording, in Psalm 37 (v. 11). David Hill speculates that the beatitude about the pure in heart could actually be a mistranslation of Isaiah 61:1, and thus should have read only the contrite will see God.[10] Since the beatitude which precedes it, concerning mourners, ever so slightly parallels Isaiah 61:2, and in a number of early manuscripts of Matthew these two beatitudes appear in reverse order, Schweizer feels the current order was implemented to better reflect Isaiah 61:1–2.[9] In addition to such direct parallels, there are similar themes; for example, the idea of a divinely significant figure ending a fast is commonly used as a metaphor, for example, appearing in Isaiah 55, Jeremiah 31, and Psalm 107. While not a mainstream view, Hans Betz feels that the beatitude concerning the poor can be traced back to Socrates' notion of enkrateia, explaining that the philosopher was one who had no interest in wealth—an idea adopted by the influential Cynics, who rejected wealth and saw poverty as the only route to freedom.[11]

Interpretations

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

Although the beatitude concerning the meek has been much praised, even by some non-Christians such as Mahatma Gandhi, some individuals have negative or cynical views of it:

Investigating the original Greek source, however, Maurice Nicoll (The Mark, The New Man) discovered that the word "praos", translated as "meek", originally meant "becoming tamed, as a wild animal is tamed", suggesting "a capacity for going against all natural resentfulness and passion and anger." Read this way, far from fostering a slave-like mentality, the Sermon on the Mount recommends developing the inner strength to manage one's automatic reactions and aversions to reach a level in oneself called the Kingdom of Heaven (Pogson, Maurice Nicoll: A Portrait, 200).

According to non-pacifists, the word peacemakers does not imply pacifism, instead applying to people who cause peace where once there was conflict. As such, this beatitude formed the heart of Augustine's argument in favour of a just war, arguing that a war that brought about greater peace was justified. The first century was in the middle of the Pax Romana and actual wars were rare, so according to author Howard Clarke, this verse may have been referring to those who merely calm disputes within the community.[13] Although traditionally the passage is regarded as stating that such peacemakers will be children of God, Sons of God is more accurate—Martin Luther and other early Protestant translators viewed the term Son of God as an actual genealogical relationship, rather than simply a description of someone as being generally spiritual, and hence felt it could only be applied to Jesus.

Some Christians have typically seen the commentary following the beatitudes as somewhat disconcerting in its soteriology, since it emphasizes how good deeds can result in eternal rewards, and barely mentions any need for faith. Some, such as Hill, attempt to resolve this by reinterpreting divine reward as good repute.[10] An interesting feature of the commentary as far as scholars are concerned is the manner in which it compares the audience to prophets, pointing to similarities between Jesus and the Essenes, who called each other prophets, though, as suggested by Schweizer, this may simply be a reference to Jeremiah 31:34 and Isaiah 54:13, which prophesy that one day all will be equal to the prophets.[9]

An interpretation of the Beatitudes can be found in "Resident Aliens", by Stanley Hauerwas & William Willimon. In their book Jesus is explained to be showing his audience that "In God's kingdom, the poor are royalty, the sick are blessed." "The Beatitudes are not a strategy for achieving a better society ... they are an indication ... of life in the kingdom of God ... to produce a shock within our imaginations ... to see life ... in a radical new way." Similarly, John H. Yoder, in his "Politics of Jesus" refers to Matthew 5 as part of a "call on the disciples of Jesus to renounce participation in the interplay of egoisms".

Cultural references

As one of the most famous of Beatitudes, the meek shall inherit the earth has appeared many times in works of art and popular culture:

Other than "blessed are the meek", perhaps the most famous of the Beatitudes is blessed are the peacemakers:

References

  1. ↑ Harper, Douglas. "Beatitudes". Online Etymology Dictionary. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=beatitude. Retrieved 2008-09-09. 
  2. ↑ "Beatitudes". Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
  3. ↑ Kodjak, Andrej (January 1987). A Structural Analysis of the Sermon on the Mount. New York: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 0-8992-5159-5. 
  4. ↑ Gundry, Robert H. (February 1982). Matthew: a Commentary on his Literary and Theological Art. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8028-3549-X. 
  5. ↑ Funk, Robert W., Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar. The five gospels. HarperSanFrancisco. 1993. "Matthew" p. 129-270
  6. ↑ "Blessed are the Peacemakers at Christianity Today.
  7. ↑ Matthew 5-9
  8. ↑ France, R.T. (October 1987). The Gospel According to Matthew: an Introduction and Commentary (1 ed.). Leicester: Send the Light. ISBN 0-8028-0063-7. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Schweizer, Eduard (June 1975). The Good News According to Matthew (New Ed ed.). Atlanta: Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0-8042-0251-6. 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Hill, David (June 1981). New Century Bible Commentary: Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. ISBN 0-8028-1886-2. 
  11. ↑ Betz, Hans Dieter (1985). Essays on the Sermon on the Mount (translations by Laurence Welborn). Philadelphia: Fortress Press. ISBN 0-8006-0726-0. 
  12. ↑ Nietzsche, Friedrich (1887). On the Genealogy of Morals. ISBN 9780679724629; ISBN 0679724621.. 
  13. ↑ Clarke, Howard W (July 2003). The Gospel of Matthew and its Readers: A Historical Introduction to the First Gospel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-2532-1600-1. 
  14. ↑ http://www.firstpresjamestown.com/2007Sermons/beat_goes_on.htm
  15. ↑ http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Blessed+are+the+beatniks-a054090876

External links

Beatitudes
Life of Jesus: Sermon on the Mount or on the Plain
Preceded by
Commissioning the Twelve		 New Testament
Events		 Succeeded by
Expounding of the Law
in the Sermon on the Mount