Full Text for The meaning of Matthew 7:6 in the light of its context (Text)

THE MEANING OF MATTHE\i 7: 6 IN THE LIGHT OF ITS CONTEXT by Gerry W. Mohr A Research Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the l-Iaster of Divinity Degree Course B595, Research Elective
David P. Scaer, Adviser
Concordia Theological Seminary
Springfield, Illinois
July, 1976
'_Dnll l1aJtftS1CAl SrMIMAR'f ltll~RY FT. WAYNE, INDIANA 46825 84269 ----~.,.'. .. " Mohr, Gerry W. "The )Ieaning of Matthew 7: 6 in the Light of Its Context." Research Elective 8595, Prof. D. Scaer, Adviser. )Iatthew 7:6, "Give not that which is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and, turning, rend you," has traditionally been interpreted as a prohibition against giving the Eucharist (holy thing) to the unworthy or the Gospel (pearls) to the unreceptive. That interpretation was held, almost without exception (but for l-lethodius' refutation of the "gospel prohibition" about 300 A.D.) until about 1800. Then the rise of a more critical attitude toward the Bible brought forth two other interpretations. The first applies dogs and swine specifically to Gentiles, thereby making 7:6 an anti-Gentile saying. The second maintains that the existing Greek text is a mistranslation from Aramaic and, therefore, retranslates back into the "original" Aramaic to get at the meaning. The traditional view, however, is still dominant, although the applicability of 7:6 to the Lord's Supper has been questioned recently. The above interpretations practically disregard the relationship of 7:6 to its context, especially to 7:1-5, the IIJudge nottl section of the Sermon on the Mount. Also, they concentrate attention on the nouns (holy thing, pearls; dogs, s\vine) in spite of the verbs f (give,.~) being the tie to the context and being in the emphatic position in each clause of the verse. Matthew 7:6 is actually integrally related with its context. It is the culminating verse of a long section (6:19-7:6) bound together by~prohibitions and of the paragraph 7:1-6" which is an admonition against censorious judging of brothers in the Kingdom. Within this context, there is no mention of proper treatment of the Lord's Supper or of the Gospel. The concern is proper treatment of the brother. The link between 7:6 and the preceding verses (7:1-5 and the Lukan parallel) is the verb-pair, and AaAJw>}. Of the two" 4124 dW is the prime carrier of I I theological meaning, and in the Sermon refers to casting out of the Kingdom and into hell. ( (singular neuter) andThe noun-pair 70 Cl.a= 105 ( o o..a a y." eI T75 is of non-specific reference in itself. 7 / lJ 7 The meaning of the pair is dictated by the context and the significance of b'e..JA W, and so the holy thins: and the I pearls are the brother, the fellow-believer. The purpose of 7:6, then" is to impress on the mind of the hearer" in a single and memorable parallel-construc­tion epigram" the point of the preceding verses: do not exercise a judgmental attitude toward your brother" thereby treating him as if he were not a brother at all and throwing him out to be at the mercy of the savage enemies (the dos:s and swine) of the Kingdom. Therefore" 7:6 can no longer be used as a prooftext against indiscriminate dissemination of the Gospel or the Sacrament; such problems are, of course, dealt with else­where in Scripture. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ,,--~, I TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter
Page 1. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM • • • •
1 2.
THE GREEK TEXT OF MATTHEW 7:1-6 AND LUKE 6:37-42 ••••••• • • • • • • • • 4 3. HISTORY OF THE INTERPRETATION OF MATTHEW 7:6 ••••••••• 9 FROM
THE BEGINNING OF THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE TO 400 A.D. • •••.•••••••• • • 9 FROM 400 A.D. TO 1800 A.D. FRm-1 1800 A.D. TO THE PRESENT • 7:6 as an anti-Gentile Saying Aramaic Interpretations • • • The Traditional View CONCLUSION • • • 4.
THE INTERPRETATION OF MATTHEW 7:6 IDENTIFICATION OF THE CONTEXT • COMPARISON OF MATTHEW 7:1-6 AND LUKE 6:37-42 •••••••• • " 18 23 • • • • • • • 24 • • • • • • • 27 • • • • • • • 31 36 • • • • • • • 39 • • • • • • • 39 •
• • • • • • 43 Matthdew ?:1 and Luke 6: 37a: I va,),(.)..1 an aLI ,&19 ••••••••••••• • • 44 Matthew 7:1,2a and Luke 6:37ab: ~/VtJ • • 45 Luke ts First ~lajor Insertion-­Luke 6:37c-38c ••••••• • • • • • • • 47 • • • 4£1 Lukets Second Major Insertion-­L\ike 6:39-40 ••••••••.••• · 49.-
. Matthew 7:3,4 and
Luke 6:41-42c ••• • •• 52 ii • • • • • • • • • • iii Chapter Page Matthew 7:5a and Luke 6:42d: ( U"Ot>j(! ITa.. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 54
Matthew 7:5b and Luke 6:42e:
d I (3./5). f. 'f.' ( 5 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 55
Matyhew 7:5c and Luke 6:42f:
e0~),f. tV. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 55
MATTHEli 7: 6 AS THE CULMINATION OF THE
SECTION 6:19-7:6 AND THE PARAGRAPH 7:1-6 •• 56
THE STRUCTURE OF J.1ATTHEW 7: 6 • • 60
MATTHEW 7:6ab: THE WORD-PAIRS IN THE TWO
INDEPENDENT CLAUSES ••••• • • • • 60
J,dt.Jj&' and l:1e~Aw -£¢MJ.w • • • • • 61
" (, ( 10 ?:6',OV and 0 Mtt,t)Y,?R I ''7 S . . . . 64
7 1 U ( ( <2 Kuu)"v and t) XO$k?OS ••• · . . . . 69
~1ATTHEW 7:6cd: THE DEPENDENT CLAUSE · . . . . 72
) Matthew 7:6c: 7410:011:: ... aurw)) ••••• 72
Matthew 7: 6d: 6 TPo..cp c:Vi"€'S t i ,P9 g wo:rv ~,(J, as; •••••••••••• 74
I .
RELATIONSHIP OF J.1ATTHEW 7: 6 AND
MATTHEl'l 5: 21-26 •••••• • • • • • • •• 75
5. CONCLUSION AND ~PLICATIONS • • • • • • • • • • 77
CONCLUSIONS • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 77
IMPLICATIONS • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 78
BIBLIOGRAPHY • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 82
APPENDIX: CHIASZ-fUS IN MATTHEW 7:6 • • • • • • • • • • • 97
Chapter 1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Matthow 7:6, at least for most Christians, is not a difficult passage. Indeed, for the first eighteen centuries of church history, it was pretty much assumed that the passage was clear and that the words "Give not that which is holy to dogs, neither throw your pearls before swine" were an admonition to Christians not to treat lightly the holy things of God, namely the Gospc~ and the Lord's Supper, by offering them to the unreceptive or unworthy. \fith the rise of a more critical attitude toward Scripture, a slight variation was introduced in the tra­ditional interpretation: the dogs and swine were seen as referring specifically to Gentiles. Also during the last century and a half, investigation of a possible Ar~laic background for the gospel has led some to suggest that Matthew mistranslated Jesus' words; these interpreters then suggest their own rendering of what Jesus originally said. Both the traditional and the newer interpretations tend to treat verse six as unrelated to the immediate con­text. Beare rather baldly states what is implicit in 1 2 almost all treatments of the passage: nCertainly
it has 1 no bearing upon what goes before or what follows. tl Even those who find a connection between verse six and
its context see the relationship as one of contradiction or, 2at the least, of being "complementary", rather than being a continuation of the ideas expressed in the preceding verses. Besides almost disregarding the context, most interpreters also concentrate their attention on only the nouns (holy, pearls; dogs, swine), disregarding the verbs (give, throw, trample, rend). Emphasis is placed on the proper identification of \\That is the holy thing and (synonymously) the pearls and ~are the dogs and their synonym, the swine. Unfortunately, both the traditional and the more recent interpretations, by substantially ignoring the context and the verbs of v.6, have misunderstood the function of the verse and misinterpreted its intent. This paper presents, on the other hand, the results of an analysis of the context of Matt. 7:6, the relationship of 7:6 thereto, and of 7:6 itself, especially the verbs. Chapter 2 presents the Greek text of Matt. 7:1-6 and the parallel portion of Luke (6:37-42) with notes lprancis \'1. Beare, The Earliest Records of Jesus (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), p. 66. 2Suzanne de Dietrich, The Gospel According to Matthew, trans. Donald G. Miller (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1961), p. 46. 3 regarding variant readings. Chapter 3 gives a history of the interpretation of the text ,from the first known reference to it outside the New Testament, through the early church fathers, the major, theologians of the medieval period and the reformation era, and modern views. The, period since 1800 includes three schools of thought: (1) the view of 7:6 as an anti­Gentile saying, (2) the view that 7:6 must be translated into Aramaic to get at the original meaning, and (3) the continuing traditional view. Chapter 4 presents the writer's study of the text. It examines (1) the context, in ever-narrowing terms of the Sermon on the Mount, the section 6:19-7:6, and then 7:1-6 in comparison w'ith Luke 6:37-42; (2) the structure of 7:6; and (3) the major words of'7:6. In Chapter 5, conclusions regarding the meaning of 7:6 are drawn, and implications for its use in doc­trine, practice, and the exegesi~ of other portions of Scripture are discussed. ·
....-,. -~~~~-........­~ Chapter 2 THE GREEK TEXT OF Yu\TTHE\'/ 7: 1-6
AND LUKE 6:37-42
The Greek text of Hatt. 7:1-6 and of Luke 6:37-42 is given on page 5. Notable differences between the tlvO accounts are indicated in two l"ays: (1) words appearing in one account but n~the other are underlined with a solid line (______) an~ (2), words appearing at different places in the two accounts are underlined with a broken line (______). Textual variants are fe,,, and generally of minor import. The follo\'Iing, ho,.;ever, should be noted: ) ... is substituted for SPetSI in the original of Sinaiticus in e, and in the Latin versions. Th'e substitution \"ould bring the reading closer to that of Luke. J " )B. Matthew 7:4b--~is substituted for ~in Family E, from about the sixth century;3 the effect J is to reduce the sharpness of the statement; EI< J \ implies the speck is deeply imbedded,but ~ would imply that it is on the surface.4 3Russell Chillilplin, F.:::.mil E and Its Allies in ~·1att­hew, Studies and Documents, Vol. XXVIII Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1966), p. 10. 4A• Carr, The Gos el Accordin to Matthew (Cambridge: at the University Press, 190 ,p. 137. 4 .. _.-.--..-. ---------~. (!OUP.4R/501J OF TilE ACCOUAJTS
5 LUKe /,~ 37-42 l~" .I "'1 1(1',11£ rc. _ * • • • _ 37~ M/'? 'r,B?rc --­e 380­b ~ -... -(po.ra.llcl: f.,\4.++h~1oJ 15:14) (p:U'AII.eI: ~+t~.., 10: :z4· 25.,). • 3'10­.6 4 _ .40(1. d e of 6 \ \ c.
~fatthew 7: 5a--The correct location of r'7'" aOk.o\J is uncertain. ALmost .all witnesses have it in the middle of the line, as it is here. However, this placement may be an early harmonization with Luke, in which case Nestle would be correct in following Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and C in placing it at the end of the line. ~ (.\ D.
Hatthew 7: 6a--the plural To-AS" a... is substituted for the singular in minuscules 5,38,48,51,53,71, 422, and 1346, in one lectionary of the gospels, and by Chrysostom and Suidas. \'1ettstein attributed the usage of Chrysostom and Suidas to their habit of seeing the term as a symbol for the elements of the Lord's Supper. 5 U
, J E. Luke 6:37a--~ is substituted for ko., 00 in D, 0/, and a few others, apparently· to harmonize with Hatthew. F. Luke 6: 37a--The corresponding forms of 01 Ko.~W appear in p75 and in Vaticanus in place of , ~~r~ ~'K~~w ; the meaning is not seriously altered. G. Luke 6:38d--The words preceding J.,t..ETp,ITE. exhibit 7 I a number of variants. The best supported are the .,.., ~...... ( 7 one printed in the text, Tl!j o..t.lTo/ >A£r;Ro/ tf:', and .'"' A number of less \1ellrw 5Jacobus \V'ettstein, Novum Testamentum Graecum (Graz, Austria: Akademische, 1962), p. 340. 7 supported variants also appear. The manuscript evidence is rather6 evenly divided, but -w(ab U1rttJ has the most diversified support.,r7 , None of the variants has a significance different from the others. H.
Luke 6:42a --"(;;5 is read by Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, four ancient translations, and perhaps p75. 'f? aWS is by far the more common reading (including A, C, D, family E, K, L,';, family1T, families 1 and 13, and a number of the early versions); in either case, there is no difference in meaning. I.
Luke 6:42f --The entire Byzantine tradition, including Family 7T whose archetype may go back to the fourth century,7 places £KAgJejv earlier in I the verse, after 6,0:..,8 A;,'PELS, thereby harmo­nizing with r.latthel.... Fitzmyer8 also prefers such a placement, in line with the wording of the passage as it appears in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1 of the Gospel According to Thomas. However, all modern 6 . Bruce M. Hetzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek Net... Testament (London: United Bible Societies, 1971), p. l41~ 7Jacob Geerlings, Family rr in Luke. Studies and Documents, Vol. XXII, p. 8. 8Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Essays on the Semitic Back­Ground of the New Testament (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1971), pp. 388-390. 8 9editors (including Alford, Nestlc, lO the United 11Dible Societies text, and Tasker in the New English 12Bible text have £1< Ae.4 e;v at the end of the I verse. 9Uenry Alford, The Greek New Testament (London: Rivington 1s, 1874), pp. 500-501. 10Eberhard Nestle and Kurt Aland, Novum Testa-mentum Graece (25th ed. Stuttgart: 'iurtembexgische Bibel­anstalt, 1971), p. 162. 11 . The Greek New Testament, cd. Kurt Aland, et. al. (2d ed. , London: United Bible Societiesl 1968), p. 229. 12R. V. G. Tasker, the Text Translated in the Neli En lish Bible Oxford: Ox ord University Press and Cambridge University Press, 1964), p. 100. ..1}
Chapter 3 HISTORY OF THE INTERPRETATION
OF l>IATTHEW 7:6
Although some modern scholars have found 7:6 to be one of the most obscure sayings in the gospels,13 nan enigmatic saying which has persistently eluded the ingenu­14ity of exegetes,uand I1capabl~ of infinite adaptation,n15 there has been little disagreement on its interpretation until modern times. FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE TO 400 A.D. Already in the Didache, about 100 A.D., the verse was used as an injunction against giving the Eucharist to the unbaptized.16 Later in the second century the I1Teaching of the Twelve Apostlesll employed the verse in the same way.17 l3Martin Dibelius, The Sermon on the l>10unt (New York: Scribnerls,:1940), p. 36. l4Douglas R. A. Hare, The Theme of Jewish Persecu­tion of Christians in the Gos el Accordin to St. Hatthelll' Cambridge: at the University Press, 19 7 , p. 122. ~5\Villoughby C. Allen, A Critical and Exefetical Commentar on the Gos 61 Accordin to S. HatthewEdinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1912 , p. 7. l6Didache ix. 5. l7The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles ix. 5. 9 10 .,.~'-\ A simi1ar interpretation is offered near the end of .'. :' the second century by C1ement of A1exandria who writes, immediate1y after quoting 7:6, IIfor it is difficu1t to exhibit the rea11y pure and transparent words respecting the true 1ight to swinish and untrained hearers" and then goes on to offer, as a para11e1verse, I Cor. 2:14: I1But the natura1 man does not receive the t~ings of the Spirit of God, for they are foo1ishness to himll.18 Here the ho1y and pear1s refer·· more to the teachings of the Church. The sing1e interpretatio~ that of exercising dis­crimination, but with twin objects (eucharist and gospe1 teachings) was we11 expressed by Tertu11ian during his orthodox period (around 200 AD), when he wrote: I must not 1eave out a description of the heretics way of 1ife•••• To begin with, one cannot te11 which is a catechumen and who is baptized. They come in together, 1isten together, pray together. Even if one of the heathen arrive, they are quite wi11ing to cast that which is ho1y [sanctum, meaning the eucharist] to the dogsand theiripear1s (fa1se onesl) before swine. 9 About a quarter of a century 1ater, the pseudo­C1ementine IIEpist1es Concerning Virginityn recorded the genera1 practice of not ministering where heathens were 20present. Around 230 A.D. Hippo1ytus attributed to a certain Pythagorean-oriented heretic named B1chesai a 18C1ement of A1exandria The Stromata or Misce11anies i.14. 19Tertu11ian Prescription Against Heretics 41. 20Pseudo-Clementine Epistles Concerning Virginity .ii.6. 11 super-secrecy based supposedly on Matt. 7:6, in which "it would be an insult to reason that these mighty and ineffable mysteries should be trampled under foot, or that they 21should be committed to many". During the same period, the apocryphal ttRecognitions of Clement" twice reported legendary conversations of the Apostle Peter with Clement of Rome, in which Peter quotes I>latt. 7 ~ 6 as a prooftext for restraint in talking of sacred things in the presence 1· 22of unbe ~evers. Three major figures in the middle of the third century refer to the verse, and all with the same general view already presented. Novatian, in opposing the easy re~instatement of those who had lapsed, applies 7:6 to the Lord's Supper and to teachings. 23 Cyprian twice identifies the holy thing with the Gospel. 24 And Origen supplied a connecting link for the twin identification of eucharist and gospel when he identified the Pearl of Great Price of Matt. 13 with Christ and then quoted Matt. 7:6, noting that the disciples had found the pearls and possessed them. 25 Thus the essence of the holy thing/pearl is Christ himself; the common means of contact with Christ, by 22R. 2lHippolytus The Refutation of All Heresies ix.12. ecogn~·t· f Clement ii.3 and iii. 1.~ons 0 23Novatian Letters ii.6.
24Cyprian Treatises v.l and Testimonies iii.50.
250rigen Commentary on Matthew x. 8-10.
12 extension, are also the holy thing/pearl and so His body and blood (the eucharist) and the gospel (His teachings) are holy and pearls. At the end of the third century, l-lethodius, an early opponent of O'rigen1s spiritualizing hermeneutical technique, argued against the identification of the pearls with the gospel. Earlier, he had accepted the identifica­tion,26 but his later argument is so strong I have recorded it here in full: If we must understand by pearls the glorious and divine teachings, and by swine those who are given up to impiety and pleasures, from whom are to be withheld and hidden the apostle's teachings, which stir men up to piety and faith in Christ, see how you say that no Christians can be converted from their impiety by the teachings of the apostles. For they would never cast the mysteries of Christ to those who, through want of faith, are like swine. Either, therefore, these things were cast before all the Greeks and other unbelievers, and were preached by the disciples of Christ, and converted them from impiety to the faith of Christ (as we believers certainly, confess), and then the words, "Cast not your pearls before swine," can no longer mean what has been said; or meaning this, we must say that faith in Christ and deliverance from impiety have been accorded to none of the unbelievers, whom we compare to s\~ine, by the apost.olic instructions enlightening their souls like pearls. But this is blas­phemous. Therefore the pearls in this place are not to be taken to mean the deepest doctrines, and the swine the impious; nor are we to understand the words, "Cast not your pearls before swine," as forbidding us to cast before the impious and unbelieving the deep and sanctifying doctrines of faith in Christ; but we must take the pearls to mean virtues, with which the soul is adorned as with precious pearls; and not to cast them before swine, as meaning that we are not to cast these' virtues, such as chastity, temperance, righteous­ness, and truth, that we are not to cast these to impure 26 .Methodius, The Banquet of Ten Virgins, ch. 4. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. XIV, p. 40. 13 pleasures (for these are like swine), lest they, fleeing from the virtues, cause the soul to live a swinish and a vicious life. 27 Although Hethodius l argument logically destroys the case for identifying pearls with gospel truths in Matt. 7:~ his argument appears to have gone unnoticed in the church-­I found no mention of it in any of the subsequent litera­ture. This may be due less to the argument itself than to the weakness of "virtues" as a replacement identification to go with pearls. Only Gregory,of Nyssa (c. 360) appears to follow Methodius, as he identifies the pearls as elements of the virtuous life, especially with virginity.28 In addition, as Robertson has pointed out, 7:6 \vas needed as a "Reserve principle" for the church during the next century (the fourth), "when Christianity was acknowledged by the state but not embraced by the population"29 and so there existed great temptation to share the mysteries of the faith with the uninitiated. Indeed, the fourth century was a time of rather frequent invocation of 7:6 as a reserve clause. Among its users were the Egyptian bishops defending Athanasius (c. 338-339), who had been offended by the presence of the 27Methodius, 'Extracts from the Work on Things
Created", pp. 176-177.
28Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, ~T_h~e~N~1~'c=e~n~e~a_n_d_ Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), Second Series, Vol. V, p. 363. 29Archibald T. Robertson, ed. ~S~e~1~e~c~t~~'v~r~1~'t~i~n~g~s__a__n_d Letters of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria. The Nicene .and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. IV, p. 106. 14 ernporer and especially his soldiers at a theological d. . 30 ~scuss~on. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 350) falls into the very trap Hethodius had warned against a half century earlier, claiming that the Lord in enlisting souls examines their dispositions •••whoever is found worthy, to him He readily gives His grace. Holy things He does not give to dogs, but where He perceives a good conscience, there He gives the wondrous and salvific seal. 3l ­Three times Gregory Nazianzen used 7:6, once at the begin­ning of his ministry (c. 362)32 and twice several decades later, towards its close;33 each time it is used as Robertson'S "reserve principle". Basil (c. 375) concluded his letter liOn the Holy Spirit" with the remark that he would never have written it to his reader except he were sure "that you would not publish what I was about to say to all the world•••to avoid casting pearls to swine. n34 Here we see that 7:6 may have been used so widely that it had become not only a theological principle, but also a popular aphorism. 30Athanasius, "Defence Against the Arians,1I Select Writings, ed. A. T. Robertson, p. 106. 3lCyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lectures i.3. 32Gregory Nazianzen, "In Defence of His Flight to Pontusn, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. VII,-pp. 213, 221. 33Gregory Nazianzen, nSecond Theological Oration at ConstantinopleII and "Second Oration on Easter", pp. 289,429. 34sasil, "On the Hol~ Spirit," The Nicene and Post­Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. VI, p. 177. 15 On the other hand, when Jerome (c. 380) used 7:6, he put it in the mouths of his opponents. He says of those who accuse him of fo11owing'Origen: "from these passages [several, including 7:6J they conclude that we uninitiated ought to be told falsehoods 1est•••we choke on solid foodJ~5 And he reports the following use of 7:6 by those who wanted to deny recognition to priests who had been ordained by Arians but had later rejected Arian opinions: "Will you replace at the altar the man who having been cast out ought to lie in the mire and be trodden under foot by all men?1I 36 Here 7:6 appears to have been used in connection with dis­fe11owshipping, with the intent that those who had been cast out should stay out. Nearing the close of the fourth century, we find that Ambrose used 7:6 in regard to Holy Communion,37 and that Chrysostom used it in regard to preaching to the the unreceptive,38 in regard to receiving the Lord's Supper 35Jerome, ttLetter 84, II The Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, Second Series, Vol. VI, p. 177.
36Jerome, liThe Dialogue Against Luciferians," p.321. 37Ambrose Concerning Repentance ii.9. 38Chrysostom, The Prcachin of Chr sostom Homilies on the Sermon on the 1.1ount, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan Phila­delphia: Fortress, 1967), pp. 196-198. Chrysostom made frequent use of 7:6 in this manner; the following references are all from The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series: tlResisting the Temptations of the Devil,u Vol. IX, p. 194; "Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew," i.15,
Vol. IX, p.7 ;1nd xxxviii, Vol. IX, p. 251; IIHomilies on
First Corinthians,l1 vii. 3, Vol. XII, p. 35; IIHomilies on
Second Corinthians,lI viii. 2, Vol. XII, p. 318; "Homilies
.on the Gospel of St. John," i. 5, Vol. XIV, p. 3. 16 unworthily,39 and in regard to turning a church over to an Arian--the context indicates he especially wants to safe­guard lithe divine lVord".40 At the west end of the Church's influence, Paulinus of Nola (in Spain) advised Christians harrassed by persecutors that when "these outsiders demand from you a reason for your holy work•••give not that which is holy to dogs, neither ca~t your pearls before swine. For what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever , [2 Cor. 6:14]11141 And Augustine finds in 7:6 justification for sometimes concealing the truth (not, it should be noted, for telling a lie) when the prospective audience would not appreciate or be able to bear the truth.42 Several works of undetermined authorship and date of composition, but probably originating in the first three or four centuries of the Christian era, mention or allude to 7:6. The apocryphal apocalypse, The Revelation of Saint John the Theologian, near its conclusion, reads "Behold 39Chrysostom, "Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews," XX.3, Vol. XIV, p. 458. 40Theodoret The Ecclesiastical History v.32. 4lpaulinus of Nola. Letters of st. Paulinus of Nola i.8. 42Augustine. The Preaching of Auspstine: Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, ii.20.67-20.70. Augustine, like Chrysostom, used 7:6 frequently; the following references are all from The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series: "Letters", xxix.2, Vol. I, p. 253; "Of the Morals of the Catholic Church," xix.33, Vol. IV, p. 51; "Sermons on New Testament Lessons," xxvii. 9-11, Vol. VI, p. 345. 17 thou hast heard all these things, righteous John; deliver,~.. . ",'oJ them to faithful men, that they also may teach others, and not think lightly of them, nor cast our pearls before swine. n43 Another apocryphal work, therConstitutions of the Holy Apostles, also identifies the pearls with teachings, urging widows to be cautious in discussing religion "as the Lord exhorts us [in 7~6J," especially urging them to limit their remarks to arguments against polytheism and in favor of the rulership of God; after all, Ilunbelievers, when they hear the doctrine concerning Christ not explained as it ought to be, but defectively•••will n44rather reject it with scorn. In addition, some of the early liturgies used the words "holy thing$ for holy l\ ( I people ( ().... rfa..-1015 O-{' 01,5) to declare that only the baptized could partake of the Lord1s Supper;45 many scholars believe this formula \~as,derived from 7: 6. Edsman found that the symbol of the pearl was common in many of the European and Asian religions of this period; although he does not deal with interpretations of 7:6, he reports that the Pearl of Great Price in Matt. 13:45-46 was identified with Christ by the Gnostics, the Alexandrian theologians, the Manichaeans, and in several 43Revelation of Saint John the Theologian The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VIII, p. 586. 44Constitutions of the Holy Apostles iii. 6. 4511Early Liturgies,'" The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII, p. 547. 1.8 Syriac 1.iturgies; however, Ephraem of Syria (c. 370) be1.ieved the pear1.s were the Christians.46 FROM 400 A.D. TO 1.800 A.D. The next fourteen centuries saw a far 1.ess frequent use of 7:6; the crises of the fourth century were past and apparent1.y conditions during this 1.ater period were not such as demanded the frequent invocation of the "reserve princip1.e". However, to say that conditions were such as to never require its use wou1.d be to misrepresent the case. For a1.ready by 430 A.D., Cassian used it twice, once in regard to withho1.ding communion from the demon-possessed and a second time in regard to sharing Christian teachings47 And in 458 A.D. Pope Leo the Great wrote a 1.etter exp1.ain­ing why he wou1.d send envoys to the emperor to exp1.ain the faith, but wou1.d not send them to discussions with the Eutychian heretics: llWe wi1.1. have no dea1.ings with rebe1. 46Edsman, Car1.-Martin. Le Bapteme de Feu, se1.ected portions trans. Frank1.in Giebe1. (Uppsa1.a: A. B. Lunde­quistska, 1.940), pp. 1.90-1.99. Mircea E1.iade, Imases and Symbo1.s (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1.961.) reports that Origen1s identification of Christ with the pear1. was fo1.­1.o1'led by numerous authors, among them pseudo-Hacarius, for l'lhom lithe pear1. symbo1.izes on the one hand the Christ as King, and on the other the descendant of the King, the Christian," p. 1.48. 47Cassian (both references are in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vo1..XI)nFirst Conference of Abbot Serenus, II xxix-xxx" pp. 372-373 and Seoond Con­ference of Abbot Nesteros, xvii, p. 444. 19 heretics, remembering the Lord's command, 'Give not••• swine. ,,,48 In the middle of the eighth century, John of Damascus applied 7:6 to Communion and to the gospel. In his description of orthodoxy, he exhorts "with all our strength, therefore, let us beware lest we receive com­munion from or grant it to heretics; Give not•••to dogs, 49saith the Lord, neither cast•••before swinell • And in his tale of Barlaam and Ioasaph,'Barlaam tells Ioasaph that if Iosaph's heart appears to be good fruit~bearing ground, he will plant the seed of the gospel there. But and if the ground be stony and thorny, and the wayside trodden down by all who will, it were better never to let fall this seed of salvation, nor to cast it for a prey to fowls and beasts, before which I have been charged not to cast pearls. SO Here John seems, just as Cyril of Jerusalem did four hundred years earlier, to have fallen into the trap Methodius described so well. The two great theologians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas, both identified spiritual teachings with the 7:6 passage. Lombard (c.llSS) cautioned against indiscrimate giving of 48Leo the Great, "Letter 162," The Nicene and Post­Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. XII, pp. 104-10S. 49John of Damascus An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith iv.13. SOJohn Damascene, Barlaam and Ioasaph, trans. G. R. Woodward, ed. H. Mattingly (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 69. 20 the priestly office, "lest sordid lives crush with their feet the heavenly pearls of spiritual words and divine offices; 1151 here \'1e see an extension of the application from the teachings themselves to the office that does the teaching. But a century later, Aquinas used 7:6 in the more restricted sense of Scriptural truths as he explained the value of metaphor in doctrinal exp,?sition: "the very hiding of truth in figures is useful for the exercise of ,. thoughtful minds, and as a defence against the ridicule of the impious, according to the words 'Give not that ,..hich is holy to dogs' (~latth. vii.6)u. 52 Aquinas was careful to avoid the pitfall outlined by J.l[ethodius, as he applied 7: 6 when lIa publio confession of faith" may ItcaUS6 a liistuf'­bance among unbelievers, without any profit either to the faith or to the faithful," but lIif there is a hope of profit to the faith, or if there be urgency, a man should disregard the disturbance of unbelievers, and confess his faith in public. n53 HOl'lever, although Aquinas did not generalize 7:6 as Lombard had, he did refer it not only to teachings, but also to the Lord's Supper, quoting 7:6 and remarking, "Now it is especially casting holy things to dogs to give.this sacrament to sinners.,,54 51Peter
Lombard Sentences iv. 24.3. 52Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica i.9,ad 2. (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947), Vol. I, p. 6. 53Aquinas, ii,ii.3,ii,ad3, Vol.II,p.1189. other references of 7:6 to teachings are at ii,ii. 40.3,ad 2 (p.
1362) and ii,ii.43. 7 ad2 (p. 1371). 54Aquinas, iii. 80. 6 ad 1 (p. 2491). 21 The Refornation brought no real change in use of 7:6. Luther stated that trampling upon holy things occurs in two areas, doctrine and life--in doctrine, as IIfalse teachers do it,II in life "''Ihen people despise or have become tired of the gospelll. 55 Luther applied 7:6 to four areas: Communion, Scriptural teachings" the Christian 1s deeds, and his own teaching. Regarding Commu~ion, he remarked that "Satan through the ordinance of the pope has thrown the sacrament before swine by compelling everybody to par­take of the sacrament at Easter, whether they believe or 56not. 11 \Vhile frequently applying 7: 6 as a restriction concerning the sharing of Scriptural teachings, Luther was careful not to be overly exclusive as he follows the use of 7:6 with "I would rather sin in preaching fruitlessly than in refusing to preach at all. For in fruitless preaching I would not be guilty of a soul while in refusing to preach I might be held accountable for many souls. n57 Luther applied 7:6 to the works of a Christian in his Notes on Ecclesiastes: "To do something good for the 55Hartin Luther, Commentar on the Sermon on the Hount, trans. Charles A. Hay Philadelphia: Lutheran Pub­lican Society, 1892), pp. 385-386. 56Luther, Works, Vol.XXXVI (Philadelphia: J.:Iuhlenber& 1959), p. 263. other applications of 7:6 to the sacrament are at Vo'l. XXXVII, p. 13lj Vol. XL, p. 64j and Vol. LIII, p. 104. 57Luther, Vol.XL, pp.254-255. other applications of 7:6 to proper use of the \vord are at Vol. XXVII, p. 48; Vol.XXXVII; p.68j Vol. XXXVIII, p.13·4j Vol. XL, p.148; Vol.XLII, P.SO; Vol.XLIII, p.134j and Vol.XLV, p.17l. 22 world,
therefore, is nothing less than to lose one's good deeds,
to cast gold into the manure or pearls before 58swine. 11 This identification is, although probably not based upon, at least similar to that of Methodius (virtues) and Gregory of Nyssa (aspects of the virtuous life). Finally, probably by generalization from the identification of 7:6 with Scriptural teachings, he applied 7:6 to his Olm teachings, as he opened his "Judgment of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows" by encouraging his opponents not to read his argument, as he does not wish to "waste my breath against them•••I neither want to give that which is holy to dogs, nor to cast pearls before swine. n59 John Gerhard followed the traditional interpretatio~ using 7:6 as a prooftext for excluding from the Lord's Supper "those who are defiled with heresy;" this meant that "nor are all Christians prom,iscuously to be admitted to the 60Lord's
Supperll • Roman Catholic interpreters also continued to follow
the traditional interpretation. Bossuet (c.1700) divided the two parallel clauses. Of the holy clause, he wrote: The sacred Rea1itr is the body of Jesus Christ•••• 58Luther,Vol. XV, p. 154. 59Luther, Vol. XLIV, p. 251. 60John
Gerhard, Lo'ci Theologica, Vol.X, p.38l in Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal TheologY of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, trans. Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs . ( 3d ed., Minneapolis: Augsburgj. 1899-), p. 577. 23 In general, the sacred Reality signifies all the mysteries which the shepherds of the Church arc admonished to present \·lith a great deal of dis­cernment in order to prevent the unworthy £rom treating th~m with irreverence.6l But he was more specific with the pearl clause: "the pearls before swine are the saintly discourses presented before 62those who are incapable of appreciating them". The division of the parallel clauses had been made as early as Tertullian (cf. p. 10 above) who associated holy with the sacrament and pearls with teachings. But it seems not to have been followed much. And Bossuet changed the division slightly: for him, the holy clause is general, the pearls clause specific. The general, non-Lutheran Protestant view of 7:6 \'las typified by liesley, who applied it to spiritual truths: "talk not of the Ideep things of God, I to those \'1hom you kno\'1 to be \'1allowing in sin; neither declare the great things God hath done for your soul to the profane, furious, persecuting wretches. n63 FROM 1800 A.D. TO THE PRESENT The interpretation of 7:6 became less monolithic 6lJacques Benigne Bossuet, Selections from J'.1edita­
tions on the Gospel; trans. Sr. Lucille C. Franchere
(Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1962), pp. 73-74.
62Bossuet, p. 74. 63John' Wesley, Ex lanator Notes u on the Nel'l Testa­~(Naperville, Illinois: Allenson, 1950 ,p.32. The same viel'l had been offered in 1555 by John Calvin, Commen­tary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Vol.I (Grand Rapids; ·Eerdmans, 1949), p. 349. 24 at about the beginning of the nineteenth century. T,,,o .factors in the change were the rise of a more critical attitude toward the Scriptures (and, in some cases, a more critical attitude toward Jesus Himself) and, second, an interest in trying to reconstruct a presumed Aramaic back­ground of the gospels. 7:6 as an anti-Gentile Saying Although many of the more critically-inclined have come to rather traditional conclusions about 7:6, not all have. The most common difference is in the identification of the dogs and s,,,ine: they become the Gentiles. Allen, for example, in the International Critical Commentary serie~ observes that nit may express the Je,"ish-Christian point-of­view with regard to the preaching of Christianity to 64pagansu• As support, he cites the Je,,,ish-Christian reluc­tance to admit Gentiles into fellowship and the application of K.UVCJ..l>ltL (dogs) to Gentiles in 15:26. In 1943, CraigI listed 7:6 along with 5:18-19 (lInot a jot nor tittle of the Law will pass away") as a Bible reading illustrating tithe 65 case for the Judaizersu•
Jesus himself is seen as the origin of what Geza
Vermes considers to be an anti-Gentile remark:
It may have been Galilean chauvinism that was
responsible for Jesus' apparent antipathy towards
64Willoughby C. Allen, p. 67. 65Clarence T. Craig, The Beginning of Christianity . (New York: Abingdon, 1943), p. 178. -----25
Gentiles. For not only did he feel himself sent to the Jews alone; he qualified non-Je\~s" though no doubt with 0ratorical exaggeration, as II dogsII 6and II s\~ineII .6 Argyle, on the other hand" ascribes to the writer of
Hatthew (rather than to Jesus) the selection of matter that
is Judaistic and anti-Gentile.67 And Hare finds in 7:6 an
lIarnbiguous reference" to persecution; thus the dogs and
sl~ine "refer to Gentile opponentsII and" ttthe preceding
imperatives may be taken as designating a course of action
68intended to avoid violencell • But Friedlander sees more than just anti-Gentile exclusiveness in 7:6. He characterizes the Sermon on the Mount as a series of precepts that are to form the rule of life for the disciples in the Messianic Kingdom about to be inaugurated. All outside the kingdom are laNless and sinners. The disciples ,~ere to look upon all these excluded people as though they "/ere II dogs11 • 69 As corroborating evidence, Friedlander cites Jesus' referring lito the heathens as '"dogs I or 'little dogs,,' his use of •dogs , and 'swine' in 7:6" his telling parables so most
people could not understand his message (J.1att. 13:11,13)
66Geza Vermes, Jesus the Je,., A Historian's Readin
of the Gospels (New York: :t-.1acmillan, 1973 , p. 49.
67A. lY. Argyle, The Gospel "According to :t-1atthel'l
(Cambridge: at the University Press, 1963),,· p. 61.
68Douglas R. A. Hare" The Theme of Jel'lish Persecution of Christians in the Gos el Accordin to St. l-1atthe,.,.. Cambridge: at the· University Press, 19 7 , pp. 122-123. 69Gerald Friedlander" The Jewish Sources of the -Sermon on the :t-10unt (New York: KTAV, 1969), p. 76. 26 and his orders to his disciples not to go to the Gentiles
0
and Samaritans Vlatt. 10:5).,,7However, \vood argues against the anti-Gentile position. He claims that Hatthew's tlprimary concern is to. commend the Gospel to the Jews, tf but Ilhe is not a Judaizer" and in fact nhe takes for granted the evangelization of the Gentilesn• 7l And Davies has argue~ convincingly that both Jesus and Hatthew were strongly 1Iuniversalistic" in their view of the scope of Gospel preaching. He cites :t>1atthew's use of the Hagi at the opening of the book and his closing the book with the Great Commissionj in additio~ Davies treats a number of passages in Matthew that support 72his case. Manson, in 1937, advanced a position that has not been supported since, but is interesting for its ingenuity in labelling 7:6 as at one time anti-Gentile, but later anti-Jewish: l-1t 7:6 looks very like a bit of apocalyptic Jel'/ish exclusiveness, adopted by extreme Jewish Christians, and incorporated among the sayings of Jesus. Later the Gentile Church tUl"ned the saying to face the opposite way, interpreting the holy thing as the Eucharist, and the dogs and sW'ine as Jews, heretics, and unbaptized persons. An early stage in this 70Friedlander, p. 219. 71Herbert George ,.,rood, tlSome Characteristics of the Synoptic lvriters, 11 The Parting of the Roads, Studies in the Devclo ment of Judaism and Earl Christianit, ed. F. J. Foakes Jackson London: Edward Arnold, 1912 , p. 159. 72\v. D. Da~ies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge: at the University Press, 1964), pp. 326­·332. 27 process is reflected in the Didache 9:5.73 The possibility that 7:6 was an anti-Genti1e saying will be analyzed in the pertinent section of Chapter 4. Aramaic Interpretations Already in 1792 J. A. Bolten suggested that holy in 7:6 was a mistranslation from an original Aramaic saying 'that had the word ('or r.l.nC~fJ lnotoad. 74 Indoed, many scholars have recognized a Semitic background behind our Greek gospels" so that Surburg can simply abate that Jesus spoke an Aramaic dia1ect75 and Manson can broaden the same claim to: IIAramaic was the mother tongue of Jesus 76and his discip1esn• Fletcher" who believes the Gospels \iere originally liritten in Greek, the language of the young Church" in order to preserve eyeliitness accounts that were in Aramaic,77 no doubt speaks for many: In the Gospel records we must necessarily expect to hear tliO voices--the voice of Jesus speaking in Aramaic, and the voices of many courageous 73T • \'1. Hanson, The Sayings of Jesus (London:
SOl Press, :1937), p.1~4. 74Joachim Jeremias, IIMatthau8 7:6a," Abraham Unser Vater, ed. otto Betz (Leiden and Ko1n: E. J. Brill, 1963), p. 271. 75Raymond F. Surburg, ItThe Influence of Syriac
Christianity" (unpublished Th.D. dissertation, American
Theological Seminary, 1942), p. 2.
76T • W. 1-1anson, The Teaching of Jesus (Cambridge:
at the University P.ress, 1955), p. 46.
770a8i1 Fletcher, The Aramaic Sayings of Jesus .(London: Hodder and Stoughton" 1967)" p. 95. 28 ;~..... . , .~ . ,
early Christians speaking in the Greek of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. 78 In order to get back to what Jesus originally said, some writers posit a need to retranslate the existing Greek gospels back into Aramaic. Some (e.g., John Chapman,79 80 81 82.Howard, Lamsa, and C. C. Torrey ) bell.eve that the first \'1ritten records were in Aramaic and our gospels are a translation from written Aramaic, but this view is opposed by most scholars; Surburg expresses the view of the" great majority: lithe theory that advocates the Gospels were 83originally written in Aramaic is unfounded and unprovenll • In either case, several interpretations have been advanced based on a mistranslation from Aramaic into GreeI.::. Bolten1s in 1792 has alrei",ldy been noted; this would elimi­nate holy and strengthen the parallelism of the clauses, since they would both include articles of jewelry. In 1926, Perles claimed to have found IIno fewer than four mistranslationsll in the Greek, and dismissed the ) !.A?rrOTf. 78Fletcher, p. 28. 79John Chapman, Hatthew, Hark and Luke (London; Longmans, Green and Co., 1937), p. 181. 80Wilbert F. Howard., IIScmitisms in the Ne\i Testament,tI A Grammer of New Testament Greek., ed. James H. Houlton and \'I. F. lIo\'1ard (Edinburgh:"T.&T. Clark, 1919)., Vol.II, p.4l9. 8lGeorge 1-1. Lamsa, Gospel LiC;l1tt Cor.une~ts on the Teachin s of Jesus from Aramaic and Unchan ed Eastern Cus­~Philadelphia: Holman, 1939 , pp. ix, x. 82 ( " Charles Cutler Torrey, The Four Gospels 2d.ed., New York: Harper &: Brothers, 1947), pp. vii, xviii. 83Surburg, p. 4. 29
clause as a Greek addition to the Hebrew (not Aramaic) . . 1 84orl.gl.Ila • Dlack, hOl'lever, while accepting the probability of rings being original, rejects Perles elimination of the final clause. 85 Jeremias dealt with the Greek E./!.-ITPO(5'f}E.V ,; , decided it was a mistranslation, and suggested this trans­lation: Do not put a ring on the dogs And do not hang your pearls on the snout of 8the swine. 6 , BO't.;man and Tapp find Jeremias' 'rendition satisfactory, commenting that nBlack's suggestion at this point is more acceptable [than holy] as it serves to maintain the par­allelism in the t,'lO parts of the saying. It 87 Schwarz alters Jeremias' translation slightly, and on that basis guesses that the original situation for the saying was the question some young women among Jesus' followers had about the proper · 1 88use 0 f Jewe ry. However, others have retranslated into Aramaic and apparently seen no mistranslation; Lamsa's retranslation 84Felix Perles, "Zur Erklarung von. 101t. 7: 6, II Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 25 (1926), p. 164. 8~1atthew Black, An Aramaic A roach to the Gos els and Acts (3d ed., London: Oxford University Press,19 7 ,p.201.1 86Jeremias, "Matthaus 7:6a," p. 275. English trans­lation is the present ''lriter 's. 87John \"lick BOlvman and Roland '0[. Tapp, The Gospel from the l-iount (Philadelphia: \vestminster, 1957), p. 150. 88Gu~ther ~chwarz., IIMatthaus vii. 6a, Emenda~ion dnd Ruckubersetzung," Novum Testamentum 14 (1972), ~. 24. 30 yields the traditional interpretation and 'Y'ording. 89 C. C. Torrey found 250 mistranslations from Aramaic to Greek in the New Testament, but 7:6 was not one of them;90 his own translation, in. which he claims to have used the Semitic original continually, reads just like the usual translation lfrom the Greek,9and the same is true of the translations of Dalman92 and Burney.93 In fact, it is just such lack of agreement among those who translate Greek· back into Aramaic that forced Filson to conclude that tithe process is too 94subjective to be convincingll • Even Dalman, who advocated Aramaic retranslation, admitted that "absolute certainty in 95regard to minutiae cannot possibly be expectedll • Riddle has criticized the Aramaic interpretations on the grounds that the "retroversions" are tlhighly syn;.. thetic" and no actual parallels in the extant Aramaic 89Lamsa, Idioms in the Bible Ex lained (St. Peters­burg, Florida: Aramaic Bible Society, 1971 , p. 62. 90TOrrey, Our Translated Gospels (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1936). 91TOrrey, The Four Gospels, p. 14. 92Gustaf Dalman, Jesus-Jeshua, trans. Paul R. Levertoff (New York: KTAV, 1971), p. 232. 93C• F. Burney, The Poetry of Our Lord (London: Oxford University Press, 1925), pp. 131-132. 94Floyd V. Filson, Origins of the Gospels (Ne'i York: Abingdon, 1938), p. 71. 95Gustaf Dalman, The ''lords of Jesus, trans. D. M. Kay (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902), p. 72. 31 1iterature are cited for tho suggested 1ocutions.96 Others have even estab1ished the possibility that Jesus and the d's . 1 nt ~"Greel~.97-101 I l'~ c~p es were conversa ~A ~ n conc us~on, the efforts to go behind the Greek to a hypothetica1 Aramaic have not been successfu1 and appear not to be a usefu1 too1 in understanding 7:6. The Traditiona1 View The traditiona1 view has 'continued to dominate interpretation of 7: 6. Some who have pub1ished ''lith this view are Aborn (pp. 130_131),102 A1bright (p. 84), Charles L. A11en (p. 153), Bro\'ln (p. 47), Bonhoeffer (pp. 165-167), A1exander B. Bruce (p. 129), Carr (p. 139), Coleman (p.70), Eichho1z (pp. 152-154), Gore (pp. 162-163), Hanson (p. 34), 96Dona1d w. Ridd1e, liThe Aramaic Gospels and the Synoptic Prob1em,1I Journal of Bib1ica1 Literature: 54 (1935), p. ~36. 97Ernest C. Co1we11, The Greek of the Fourth Gospe1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931), pp. 130-131. 98Sau1 Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Pa1estine (New York: Jewish Theo1ogica1 Seminary of America, 1942), p. 39. 99Sau1 Lieberman, He1lenism in Jewish Pa1estine (2d cd., Ne,.,. York: Jewish Theo1ogica1 Seminary of America, 1962). . 100E • V. Rieu, The Four Gospe1s (Baltimore: Penguin, 1953), p. xv. 101Nige1 Turner, Grarrunatica1 Insights into the Ne,.,. Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. C1ark, 196~), pp. 174-188. 102Rather than giving an extensive 1isting of foot­notes here, the pertinent pages in each ''lorI, are cited with the author's name above; p1ease consult tho bibliography for titles and pUblication data. 32 IIill (pp. 147-148), Kent (p. 23), Lang (p. 39), Lange (pp. 138-139), Lehman (p. 172), Micklem (p. 65), Morison (p.113h l'1umford, Pink (p. 292), Seventh-Day Adventist Commentary (p. 355), Strack-Billerbeck (p. 450), Thomas (pp. 74-75), Tholuck (pp. 268-279), and Trilling (pp. 129-130). Conser­vative Lutherans in the United States have held to the traditional vie,... , both outside the l>1is~ouri Synod among Ylvisaker (p. 288), Loy (pp. 256-259), and Lenski (p. 291) , and ,.,..ithin the Missouri Synod: Graebner, Wessel, and Dau in the 1920 Catechism (pp. 151-152), Kretzmann (p. 37), Bartling (p. 409), \'leidenschilling (p. 44), and Franzmann (p. 60) .102a During this period, Hakrakis has carefully main­tained the distinction between the holy and the pearls that Tertullian and Dossuet befqre him made: the holy being the IIholy body of Christtl (the sacrament) and the pearls being the ttholy truths of Christtt • 103 Hendriksen, on the other hand, considers the two terms tlrather indef­inite, tt that "Jesus is saying that ''1hatever it is that stands in special relation to God and is accordingly very precious should be treated with rev~rence and not entrusted to those who •••can be compared to dogs;" he then applies 102~ather than g~V1ng an extensive listing of foot­notes here, the pertinent pages in each work are cited \'lith the authorls name above; please consult the bibliography for titles and publication data. . . 103Apostolos l>1akrakis, The Inter retation of the Gospel La,.", trans. D. Cummings Chicago: Orthodox Christian 'Educational Society, 1955), p. 106. · .._---".'._.__.. ---_._------. .;-_.---. 33
7:6 to the gospel message, the office of the ministry,
l04
positions of lay leadership, and the Lord's supper. Some writers have pointed out the relevance of 7:6, as traditionally interpreted, for fellowship and discipline. Loy considered 7: 6 to be a text on fellowship and sa,.,. its parallel in II Cor. 6:14-17: "Do not be bound together with unbelievers•••therefore come out from their midst and l05be separatell • Bartling took this attitude too, in , commenting on 7:6: IIAlso in church discipline there is a necessary final step when the former brother must be told that he is henceforth regarded a heathen man and a publican 106until he repents. 1I As will be seen from the analysis to be presented in Chapter 4, Loy and Bartling are correct in applying 7:6 to fellowship, but they have almost exactly reversed the intent of the passage. Three writers have proposed views that, at first
glance, appear rather different from the traditional, but
actually are not. Davies calls 7:6 lIa bit of cautionary
gcmara, i.e. it urges discriminatory caution following on
the prohibition of judging". He believes the verse is
Itlirected not 'against the Gentiles ~r heretics as such but 104william Hendriksen, Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew, New Testament Commentary Series (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1973), pp. 359-360. 105Matthias Loy, The Sermon on the-Mount (Columbus,
Ohio: Lutheran Book Concern, 1909), pp. 258-259.
106Victor ~artling, "Our Need of Clear Vision--5ermon Outline on the Gospel for the Fourth Sunday After Trinity,1I . Concordia Theological Monthly, 16 (1945), pp. 407-409. 34
against 'those without' whoever they might be".107 This is reminiscent of Friedlander's idea, but that it is no real change from the traditional view is apparent from his citing as a parallel the Dead Sea Scroll Manual of Disc,ipline (ix.17) requirement that" leaders of the community conceal the counsel of the Torah from the perverse. The second writer, Bornkamm, began with an overal~ observation that l-iatthew's arrangement of materials shows the IIcatechetical" , nature of the work, that this is especially true in the Sermon on the Hount, and that the section including 7:6 consists of IIGemeinderegelnll (congregation-rules).lOB But although he considers the Didachefs application of 7:6 to the Eucharist to be IIfree supplementing!! rather than precise exegesis, he appears to accept such interpretation as valid. Third, Bowman and Tapp initially exclude the traditional interpretation as a proper one, advancing a view of the verse flas a pedagogical principle".109 But that their position is basically traditional is seen on the next page, (p. 150): "no more is it wise to place the deepest spiritual truths or doctrines before those who have not had an adequate foundation laid for their reception". The one question that arises, however, with this interpretation is .107, W. D.Davl.es,. Ch'rl.St'l.an 0"rl.gl.ns and J u dal.sm (Philadelphia: l'lestminster, 1962), p. 123. 10BGunther Bornkamm, "Endwartung u~d Kirche in Matt-' hausevangeliu.rr;" The Back round of the New Testament and Its Eschatology, ed. \Y. D. Davies and D. Daube. Cambridge: at the University Press, 1956), p. 225. 109nowman and Tapp, p. 149. 35
whether Bowman and Tapp are implying that the dogs and swine might be within the Church, but just need less advanced spiritual nourishment. Two interpretations, though, are somewhat novel. Kahane and Kahane went to Byzantine and modern Greek for a clue to the passage. They began by taking holy to be sacrificial meat; they then found what they believe to be uses of pearls ()/¢~()W(0}6) that refer to the bread of the eucharist or perhaps II crumbs" • From the foregoing, they give the translation: DB not give the Sacrificial meat to dogs, and do not throw the crumbs of your shewbread before swine.110 By substituting shewbread for pearls, the Kahanes justify the interpretation that the passage speaks against tl sacri-· legen• But such, of course, is.essentially also the traditional view. Hobb1s view is also novel. He proposes the fol­lowing:
Suppose we think of ItdogsII and nslll'inen separately•
Both are unclean. NOlII' imagine a dispute between
them. This suggests a controversy between two
who are not Christian brot~ers.. The Christian is
asked to settle the dispute. Obviously he should
do so on Christian principles, principles which
neither disputant is capable of comprehending or
appreciating. To do so is to give holy things to
dogs and pearls to swine. The'result is that both III
refuse your counsel and turn on you in the process.
110Henry and Renee, "Pearls Before Swine? A Rein­terpretation of Matthew 7:6,1t Traditio, 13 (1957), pp.423-424. lllHerschel H. Hobbs, An Exposition of the Gospel of .Matthew (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1965), p. 82. 36 -~-'----'--.-~-"--" ­The problem, unfortunately, with Hobbs I view is that his whole situation is imagined and not in the text. Finally, M. D. Goulder has attempted, as have few few others, to relate 7:6 to its context. He considers 7: 1 -6 t 0 be a un1't re1at ed t 0 the Second Beat't1 ude.112 As the Second Beatitude says that it is the humble and peni­tent (those who mourn) who receive the comfort of God, so it is humility and penitence (seeing one1s own sin, not , those of the brother) which are commanded in 7:1-6. Goulder believes 7:1-6 has "three parts: (a) don't criticize (in your heart); (b) donlt criticize your brother to his face; (c) don1t criticiz~ your brother behind his baCk;ftl13 verse six is the third part. Thus Goulder identifies holy and pearl with the brother, and finds in 7:6 an admonition against ftbackbitingll.114 CONCLUSION The traditional view that 7:6 is an injunction to be discriminating in offering gospel teachings (and deriva­tives thereof, as the Lord1s Supper) has dominated the entire period beginning with the Didache. However, in the last two centuries that interpretation has been under some attack by those who see it as an anti-Gentile saying and 1121-1. D. Goulder, l-Hdrash and Lect-ion in Hatthclv (London: SPCK, 1974), pp. 264-265. A fuller treatment of Goulder1s understanding of the structure of the Sermon on the Mount is presented in Chapter 4. 113 114Goulder, p. 265. Goulder, pp. 266-267. 37 those '''ho see it as a mistranslation' from the Aramaic. Neither of these attacks, however, has proven to have much substance. A third attack, however, has also been mounted, and this against the application to the Lordls Supper. F. F. Bruce has stressed the general character of the verse, and rejected any specific application to the sacraments.115 Argyle states that lithe text does not refer to the Eu­116charist,11and Fenton contends that' it is not "a command not to admit the unbaptized to the Eucharist" because that 117interpretation does not fit the context.Fenton's point is the key to the passage--the Lord's Supper is nowhere to be found in the context. To put it more strongly, 7:6 is part of the Sermon on the Hount, but the Lordls Supper was not instituted till much later in Jesus' ministry, so the hearers of 7:6 could have had no notion of the Lordls Supper, and it is therefore unlikely that the passage had anything to do with the Eucharist. Instead, to find its meaning, we must follow the lead given by Fenton and look to the context of 7:6; Goulder did that and identified the holy as the brothers mentioned in vv. I­S. In Chapter 4 Goulder's identification will be seen to 115F. F. Bruce, st. l>latthe,,,, Scripture Union Bible Study Books (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), p. 24. 116Argyle, p. 61. 117J. C. Fenton, "Inclusio and Chiasmus in Hatthe\~" Studia Evangelica; Papers ,presented to the International Congress on "The Four Gospels in 1957,11' ed. Kurt Aland, F. L. Cross, et. ale (Berlin: Akademie, 1959), p. 110. 38 be correct, although he mistook the point of the admonition, which is not against backbiting. """"',on·-: '-',.'. , Chapter 4 THE INTERPRETATION OF }'1ATTHE\'l 7: 6 IDENTIFICATION OF THE CONTEXT Filson has remarked upon the "careful arrangement" 118of material in Hatthew, noting that "the ultimate origin of these patterns might go back to Jesus" although he favors the vie\~ that "teachers of the early Jewish-Christian 119Church" constructed the arrangement.In either case, he (as have many others) has been struck by the careful structuring of Matthew's gospel. And yet many have worked on the premise that 7:6 is unrelated to its context. Willoughby Allen finds it "has no particular connection with the preceding,,120 and originally was "probably not in the Sermon" on the Mount at all.12l Beare calls it "an 122isolated logion of uncertain provenancell • Dibelius declares lithe frame\~ork of its setting is missing, ,,123 Gerhardsson that it "has become separated from its l18Floyd V. Filson, "Broken Patterns in the Gospel of Hatthew," Journal of Biblical Literature 75 (1956),p.227 • .119Filson, uBrol,en Patterns," p. 231. l20Willoughby C. Allen, p. 66. l21Ibid, p. lviii. 122Beare, p. 66. l23Dibelius, p. 36. 39 40 situation,1I124 Kilpatrick that IIvii.6 does not well agree 125with vii.1-5, u and Hill that "it does
not seem to be 126linked to what precedes or what follows ll • Ylvisaker was certain that it does not apply to brothers (the objects in vv.1_5),127 Pink called 7:6 by itself lithe seventh and 128shortest division of the Sermon," and Perry goes so far as to label Chapter 7 of the Sermon on the Mount lithe 129scrap basketu• Chapman, who was impressed by the reten­tive ability of whoever wrote doWn the Sermon on the l-J:ount (from memory) suggests that during the section covered by 7: 1-13 lithe reporter being [,\,as] perhaps
tiredtl .130 Even editions of the Bible separate out v.6. In \'lyclif 1s 1380 Bible and in Tyndale's 1534, the text ran vv.1-5, then v.6 by itself, then vv. 7ff. However, other edit.ions (e.g. Crammer in 1539, the Geneva of 1557, and ~lcims of 1582)131 agree with the Vaticanus paragraphing, 124uirger Gerhardsson, Memory and Hanuscript (Uppsala and Lund: C. \'I. K. Gleerup, 1961), p. 332. 125George D. Kilpatrick, The Origins of the Gospel According to st. Hatthew (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), p. 76. 126David Hill, The Gospel of Hatthew, New Century Bible Series (London: Oliphants, 1972), p. 147. 127Ylvisaker, p. 288. 128pink, p. 288. 129 . . Alfred H. Perry, liThe Framework of the Sermon on the Mount,U 30urnal of Biblical Literature 34 (1935),p.114. 13030hn Chapman, p. 217. 131The English Hexapla (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1841) 41 in which 7:1-6 are a unit. However, even those who sec vv.1-6 as a unit generally see the paragraph as Erc,f:l.; and Ludd vielIJs the context as Ilthe Kingdor.l of God as a ""'r,~,:-~,·_J· "'';ftl1 1341"" .....d • ..:. .......u .. f..., 0..... • Vie'.-:ing 7: 6 as part of the Sermon on the
Mount, then, we may antici~atc that it deals not with life in general, but with life in Codls Kingdom. \,lithin the Sermon, Lund's chiIatthew has these deletions) and the fact that Luke onits the c1ir.1actic verse of the section give the t\\,o accounts start1in61y different emphases. These differences ,·ti11 be considered along ......ith a number of differences in worcling '!:let\·:een "che two writers. !·la-tthe,·,f 7: 1 and Luke 6: 37a: OU ) '//"1} The very first sentence of the parallel accounts contains our first indication of different emphases. Both wri,t:.ers quote Jesus as saying "Stop judgingll (or, IIDon It be judgingll). But the reason for ceasing judgment is different. :t-Iatthe\'l fo110;·:s the command ''lith a purpose clause, ,·:hich may be treated either as an exhortation (llin order thatll) or a warning (tllest you bell). But Luke uses the latthe,~ uses 1(£1 VCv only six times, four of 'chem I in these verses. In 5:40 "to sue" is meant; in 19:28 the disciples will IIjudge" the twelve tribes of Israel. :,;:ither of these uses carries any necessary hint of condemnat_on; instead they appear to reflect an essentially neutral~ llnj:lartial view 'of judging.142 Matthew uses two other \~ords, /(aTo_ f('t:Ji voJ and l«()'TO.d I Ko...~(j.j when judging specifically means II condemn, II the first word four times and the second word twice. Luke records parallels to the contexts of all four of Matthew's uses of KO-fez K'/)r )}w , but he uses Ka;ro. Kf?1 \Jed in onlyI I two of the cases (11:31,32); in the other two cases he completely omits the condemnation recorded by Hatthe\V' (cf. Matt. 20:18 with Luke 18:31-33 and Matt. 27:3 with l42~10ule, too, asserts that Kr'FVu.) is "a neutral wordll unless lithe context compels it" lto be negative, pp. 470-471. 46 r, Acts 1:16-19). Likewise, Luke has parallels of thc . -, ,:J passages in which Hatthew uses KCJ:-ra. C.U(o..sw but he omits the condemnation in them too (cf. Hatt. 12: 7 lV'ith Luke 6:1­5 and Matt. 12:37 with Luke 6:43-45). The use of Kctia.ct,krLz'tJ-) is espe::cially significa.nt. :=; In 12:7, Natthew uses it for mistaken judgment in which the innocent one is condemned; in 12:37 it is condemnation ren­dered by God, the opposite of tljustifiedll • Thus Matthe\V' uses KfIVW' for judging in general, not necessarily condemnatory judging. HOliever, his usage is also dependent on lithe primary significance of the original \V'ord,lT \ihich lIseems to be to separate. lIl43 Especially in l-latthe\i it was the Pharisees \iho judged or separated people "into two categories of trighteous ' and lsinnerst.1I144 Within the kingdom, then, citizens arc not to judge each other in terms of who is IIrighteousll and who is a tlsinnerlt • As it turns out in Jesus t teaching all citizens of God's Kingdom are righteou~ and all 'are also sinners. But Luke's use of KPJ VW is more varied. In i addition to not making as much use of other words that specifically mean condemn, he uses ~IVW with that meaning. )eIVW appears five times in Luke and many times in Acts, with meanings such as estimate (Luke 7:43), evaluate l43Hendriksen, Sermon, p. 182. l44Dowman and Tapp, p. 146. 47 {Luke 12:57}, rule (Luke 22:30), and condemn (Luke 19:22). ''lith such a variety of meanings, Luke finds it necess.:::ry to define /(/JIVuJ. This he does in v.37b, where he ma.kes I his lone use of a \vord that specifically means condemn: Luke's First Hajor Insertion--Luke 6:37c-38c Because of l>'latthe\v I s more specific use of words for judging, he is able to assume his readers understand he is using it without any negative connotation. He therefore follows with the two-part statement in verse 2, tying the standard of judgment used to the standard that will be later used on those who now judge. Thus in !.1atthew" verse 2 serves as a transition to verse 3; if we will be judged just as \ve ourselves judge, then ''Ie ought to stop judging (v.l) until our judging apparatus is in good shape (vv.3-5~ Luke, on the other hand, cannot make this smooth transition because he must first explain what he means by IIjudgell • And once he has defined it as lIcondemn" (37b), he must prepare for the IImeasure" saying by also illus­trating the opposite of IIcondemnll • He therefore goes on to describe the positive action which he has not included in IIjudgingl1 and which his \ readers should not stop doing: ' forgiving. But although bringing in forgiveness has rounded out the larger concept of judging, Luke still needs to prepare for the IImeasure for measure" element. The transi­tion is made by the use of IIgivingn. ) Ci-TTo AU£T£ ; then it leads into a description of the bounty 48 that the giver will receive (3801); then the use of~ AEieoV .' l in describing the bounty leads into the /.J..£.,/'>(;J of 3Sd.7 ( Thus Luke in rather lengthy fashion gets to the same place that Matthew had so directly reached: the saying in . Hatt. 7: 2b about "nieasure for measure". Hatthe\~ 7: 2b and Luke 6: 38d: :Heasuring The Uf.yW p..E.TI'f.7TS saying is not only reached 7 7 I by different routes, it is also h~ndled slightly differ­ently. The use of fi¥-here is the key. Matthew 7:2 has a tl10-part, parallel construction: ) "'" 2a: £v ~ oO-f KflfAa.n K.fl\} £TE '1'e'7 CYt:.(58E. , I ....2b: 1<0.../ E'V 4J "p-£'/,w r£r/~/T£ jA'i-7"/1 (jy)6€.To..( Here the first line, the fact that judgment l·dll occur, is given as the reason for the "stop judgingll of verse 1 .. Luke also uses parallelism, but his parallelism
does not involve the measure saying. His parallelism is
as follol1S:
37a :,IA'] Kfl V £..£ oJ"p-'1 K/' ()1TtE:. don It condemn 37b: PI] Ka.Ta..1atthew consider to be the recipients of this speech. Luke includes these two parables, lvhich can have both wider and narrOl'ler applications. In the ,·/ider application, they can refer to all people; in the narro\.,rer l451l0ne suspccts that Luke may have inserted 39, 40 ••• from other discourses of JCSUS,II Frederick S. \'lenger, Exe etical Notes on the Gos 01 Adcordin to Luke (Spring­field, Illinois: Concordia Mimeo, n.d. , p. 50. 50 . :/ sense, they could refer to Jesus' disciples, but it is unlikely that here such is the case. The first parable (Luke 6:39) about tithe blind leading the blind," is placed by Matthew (15:14) in a condemnation of the Pharisees. Since the Sermon on the }1ount is about life in the kingdom and does not includ.e the Pharisees, if l>'Iatthew had included the.blind leading the blind here, he ,.,ould have been applying Jesus' words about the Pharisees to Jesus t 0\<,"11 follo;.,ers. Luke t s use of the parable here, on the other hand, suggests that Luke is not treating this statement of Jesus as particularly addressed to His disciples. Hatthewts parallel to Luke 6:40 (tithe disciple is not greater than his masterll ) appears in 10:24-25a and clearly refers to the disciples there. Dut the use in Chapter ten is for instructional purposes, whereas if Hatthew had placed it within the section 7: 1-6, it ,~ould have taken on (from the Judc;e not of v.l) a castigating sense; it is hardly credible that Jesus would have accused the disciples of thinking themselves better than He, yet that would be the meaning if the parable had been placed in 7:1-6 by Hatthew. From Lukets use of these two parables, then, it appears that the Lukan audience is a fairly general group that includes the disciples, but may even include Pharisees. This conclusion is consistent with the setting established by Luke in 6:19-20 and confirmed in 7:1. Although this 51 portion of Luke follows the listing of the tl'ielve (6:13-16), yet the multitudes predominate over the disciples in vv. 17_19.146 In v.20 Jesus gazes on the disciples and this could mean they .vere the direct object of his speech,. but the text never states that they were. At the end of the sermon, it is reported that the discourse was given lIin the hearing of the peoplell (7:1); 1;.his indicates .::. general audience .vas present, but does not specify i'.'hether I they or the disciples were the intended hearers. But, because of the unacceptability of the narrOlv application of the tl-:O parables, it is more likely that Luke has the general audience in mind. Natthe\v deletes the ti'iO parables because they \liould be a digression from the point of the paragraph. This is not to say that Matthe..... is denying the authenticity of these parables (he does report them elsewhere), but just that they are not appropriate here. But if Matthew sees Jesus as speaking to a general audience, they lVould at least be acceptable in this context (as they are in Luke). Ivhy, then, are they inappropriate here? It would seem to be that they do not apply to the disciples--and this implies that, for HatthelV, the disciples must be the primary audience. This limitation of the immediate audience in .Hatthe\v to the disciples is consistent \vith ~latt. 5:1,2 in l46A contrary position is advanced by Jacques Guillet, The Consciousness of Jesus (New York: Newman, 1971), ....ho believes Luke stresses even more th:m Matthew that the dil;clploH <11'0 1.~lw prlnwry audienco, p. 71. 52 which Ildisciplesll is the immediate antecedent for Ilhe began to teach them". Although a more general audience may have been present, they were not the direct object of the message in Hatthe\V'.147 Matthew 7:3,4 and Luke 6:4l-42c In these verses Natthew continues his presentation on an even tone level, but Luke's heightens in emotion. H.:ltthcw writes lIyour eyel1 a simple, rather neutral expres­sion. nut Luke's emotions rise: lIin your ~eye" 8( t 6"W , belonging to an individual; private).14 That he is getting rather excited at this point is also indie Both Natthew and Luke use 6, 0.. A).. f. ITw • For K;:;.tthet'{,I .. a natural progression from general perception (oraw) to insightful, thorough vision is made. For Luke the pro­gression is more important: it is a mark of the application that follo,'V's the illustration begun in v. 41. The illus­tration had been physical (AA l?TfW); the application coves -7 on to insight. ) Hatthe..v 7:5c and Luke 6:42f: 8/<0aAeI))I ) The infinitive form cKl3ttA EI V may be considered I a IIpurposeu or a II resultII use. The Christian is to remove the mote from his own eye !!2. ~he is able to see clearly l50Sjef van Tilborg, The Jewish Leaders in Hatthe\'l (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972), pp. 13-14. 56 ) and can thcn "cast outll ( Eflatt­hc\'/ IS account is still building. Therefore, M:atthew hud to use this verse, but Luke could not becuuse for him the vcrse ''lould have been anti-climactic (6 :41-42 were his climax), inappropriate to his audience (which includes the generul listener, who does not necessarily possess the holy nor the pearl), and off the subject (since v.42 leads into a section on good \10rks) ~ Verse six brings all the major elements of Hatthew1s entire section (6:19-7:6) and especially the paragrap~1 (7:1-6) together into one parallel-construction sentence. Inasmuch as the three key verbal (in the sense of 'words, not verbs) elements of v.6 are /1n7 7) it night be expected that, for all three, in v.6 is the culmination of a thread running through the entire paragraph and perhups through the entire section. The first verbal"thread, the~ prohibitions, is the basic frame....ork of the entire section (cf. p. 42). This threud opens the section (6:l.9), gives continuity by t • .;ice appearing midl...ay (6:25,31) through the first half, concludes the first part (6:34), opens the concluding paragraph (7:1), and dominates the final. verse (7:6) by heading both major cluuses (and a variation on the theme heads the subordinate clause). The otdw y..., thread is not so obvious, but the use ) of a form of C1l6()~t,l! in the first clause of v. 6 (especially when the existence of the Mn and A'~4d ()) thrcads .:lrc .r-r 7 58
considered) sug~ests its existence. At first glance, of course, 110 such thread is seen since no form of 6Idc.J,O_1 ) hns nppenred in 1·!atthe\v since 6:11, which is not in the paragraph or even the section at hand. HOl-tever, does nppear in the Lukan r.1nterial (6: 37-42), three t:i..r.1CS in v. 38abc. This suggests that Luke's IIfirst insertionll (vv. 37b-38c) was probably originally part of the Sermon, and so might rather be called'a 1I}1atthean deletionll • For when Hatthe.v completed 7: 5, he continued right on to the culminating verse, and the first few words of v.6 recnlled earlier clements of Jesus I sermon: the ~prohibitions and the three uses of OI6Wp,1 by Jesus. (It is notet'iorthy) that there arc also exactly three appearances of forms of A,~AA (.0 almost imr.lediately preceding its use in v. 6.).I In addition to the probnble existence of the thread, two other factors suggest that Luke 6:38abc lV.;lS originally part of the speech that ~1atthew reports. First, the stylistic advantage of deleting the verse is obvious, for by deleting it (it \vould originally have appeared bet'\Icen 7: 2a and 7: 2b) the striking paral;lelism of v. 2 is obtained. Second, given Hatthe,'l's' focus on the disciples as the main audience (in contrast to Luke's more generalized main audience) , it ,,,ould be most incongruous to retain the earlier 61 dW ) ftl passage J for thnt ,,,ould have set up a parallel bet'veen the disciples as the indirect object of passage and the dogs as thegiving in the earlier indirect object of giving in v.6. The parallel may not 59 have been apparent when the sermon was spoken.., but it 't\"'ould be readily apparent to the reader who could reflect on and study the written record. The third verbal string is even more complex because it uses two different lexical forms from the sarne root: The first form /!.:r).), {,,\ .., I appears six times in the first chapter of the Sermon on the Hount.., then it appears twice in 6:19-7:6 (once in 6:30 ) and once here). The second form' EKA,i7AdvJ , is frequently/ used by :t-latthew.., but it does not appear until 7: 4. It appears once in 7:4 and twice in 7:5. So &.J;\ W in 7: 6 I builds upon the appearance of in those verses where l-fatthew began heightening his emotional pitch; because of this, we might expect "SltA"\'w to be a \lIord of I prime importance in v.6. Besides combining the three verbal threads of the preceding verses in a single verse, v.6 also uses the beginning elements of the section (treasure) and of the paragraph (judging). That it speaks of treasure (recalling 6:19-21) is obvious from the use of holy and of pearl. And within v.6.., judging is necessary to determine the identification of dogs.., swine, holy.., and pearls. Thus 7:6 may properly be considered to be the climactic, cul­minatingstatement used by Jesus and recorded by :t-latthel'/ to impress upon believers the exhortation that began in 6:19, especially that is contained in 7:1-5: the exhortation to stop judging brothers in the Kingdom. 60 THE STRUCTURE OF HATTHE\'l 7: 6 Natthe\\f 7: 6 is composed of two independent clauses, and a third subordinate clause. The two main clauses appear to exemplify the parallelism common in IIebrew poetry, the second clause repeating the same basic content of the first: 6a: dWTE TO CJ.-"(IOV ·7015 KU(J'I V .r? ( 6b: /J-1 ,sa:).'1 Te. TOOS .J-Aat(ct'T?5 {wI) "XPlfWV The third clause (6cd) appears to be dependent on 6b, with the SHine trampling the pearls, turning, and tearing ~chc thro~·:crs. Hany interpreters, however, favor splitting 6c frO;:l 6d, applying 6c to the swine of 6b, but 6d to the 10:::'s of 6a, so that it is the dogs that turn and tear the -chro\·;ers. Neither interpretation reuch affects the r.1ec.ning of the main clauses, since dOt:!;s and s\vine are parallel; a fuller treatment of the proble~ appears in the appendix. l-lATTHE\'I 7: 6ab: THE liORD -PAIRS IN THE TWO INDEPENDENT CLAUSES Without exception, every published comrJ.entary on this verse treats at relatively great length the t\'lO \oJord pairs holy-pearls and c!.ogs-s,dne and either completely or almost completelyl52 ignores the word pair (give-throw) that is in the first position (the position of greatest emphasis) in each clause and that serves as the climact:.ic 1520nly Tholuck, Exposition, pp. 268-279, treats either verb. He deals with Olc\lLl/,d , but ignores ,A,'1'AAW • 7 I elcment, (cf. pp. 57-59) of the parag-ra~h. i'lo ;"hc.ll begin with this word pair. "nd I' r) >. '\ 'J \ _ (/: v f)a 1 1\,..'\ u. n '.. , ( \/1" ~ . l'./) .Ali . "'_II I Both verbs havc gcncr~l ~caninGs i~ everyday use and also carry special thcological freighting. The basic meaning of Qkin various senses, acc. to conte""t.1I153 ~1""11o"'""" J"-", 1 , ( ..0, C.'WI."-( 7 Nith strong theological meaning, the =':0'.'; ':'est~r.1cnt as a ...·:hole uses a variety of for'os of the root ";'lit:.11 i:-.sc?­arable prefixes (as ) ('.;­0.ITc ('l' () L,J /j~1 • 7 ... , 1TO./J()dufWJhl ) as the ,,'ortis ''lith intrinsic spiritual iw;,or·t.154 J 153G• Abbott-Sl:1.ith, It.. J·~;:mual Greek Lexic.on of t:1C No; Testament (Ne,'l Yorl-.::: Scribner's, 19'37), p. i14 •.--­154Friedrich Buchsel, 11 !IC: II as in Hebre\vs 9:1 (the only reference). But this does not appear to fit 7:6. I l! If \';e take TO (J. VIa\! as a general term, it v receives its specific intention from the context, and in the light of vv.. 1-5 and the meaning of ,4aAA e,j, this must I l74Some have asserted that this is not a telling argument inasmuch as various figures used in the Ne'.... Testament for Jesus are neuter or even feminine: ('0 a,ovIQV in Revelation,. TO cl2¥4;. in Natt.. 4:16, Ii I'JI:10,\) It was practic.' II Theolo.r.;ieal Dietionnry of the l';e't'l Testa-n(cnt, vdl. ,p. 473 all identify tho pearl as the Kingdom of heaven or its blessings on the basis of Hatthe\'l 13. l84Seligsohn has listed soveral passages in the Talmud in \lIhieh the soul is called .a pearl, p. 570. 69 this verse, a sunmlary of the reasons for the procedure are listed below: 1.
The preceding context, esp. vv. 1-5, is clear in meaning. 2.
Verse 6 is the culr.lination of the section beginning at 6:19 and especially of the paragraph beginning at 7:1. 3.
The verbal elements connecting v.6 to the preceding verses are 1...1..11 I'~ ('J ~ AuJ od'j(l c\', (~If,,! LA. I ; ,·:ithin / IJ/ J
/ the Sermon on the !"Iount, fie! AJI.IJ especially is signific.:h"'1t theOlOgicall!: (
(4.
The neuter ,0 Cl-'>'10)) and the l'lord () /1(7.12 \/-0 (? 11r! <:' " / I/)I / ....)do not have clear theological referents in the Bible. 5.
This word pair is in the position of least er.lphasis, the middle position in each clause. The er.1pha~ic initial position in each clause is given to the and 6a)lA~.,/ /)1,2 prohibitions using I Therefore, holy and pearls are not the deterndnants for the ~eaning of 7:6. Instead, the identification of the refcr­ents for the word pair L1Ust be, and has been, dr,;.n·m frOI;'l the clements that do determine the meaning of 7:6. <: o
l(uw'J and Both dog and swine ,..:ere undesirable animals <;:..-::ong the Semitic peoples. The ,dog referred to in the Bible [Old Test~~entJ is the semisavage species•••held in contempt for its fierce, unsympathetic habits •••He lives in the streets, \-:here he acts as scavenger, feeding on .:mimal flesh unfit for man, and even devouring human bodies ••• fierce disposition and therefore the type of violent men•••treacherous and filthy_ •• an unclean an:i..-n;::l1 ••• sh~~elessness of the dog gave rise to the name •••for the class of priests in the service of Astarte ""ho . practiced sodomy••,.in rabbinical literature for 70 186 shameless and relentless people, and therefore for wicked heathen.ISS Parbridge reports that lithe affection and fidelity of the dog made hardly any impression on the Semites, and is almost al...·..ays referred to by them in terms of eontemptn• In Philippians 3:2 !levil workers" are called "dogs;!! in Revelation 22:14,15 "dog-sl! are first in a listing of those .......ho are not in the :!\CHi Jerusalem, but are outside, i.e., the damned. So dogs seems to be.more than just the heathen or I! impure menlt • 187 They seem rather to be n ......icked oppo­nents;1I the term dog, then, points "to the relentlessness . 188and sha.'ilelessness of persecutors". As reported in Chapter 3, some interpreters have found in ~a reference to the Gentiles; they believe Jesus I calling the Syro-phoenician \':Ol:lall a 11dogll (}lat~c. 15:26) provides the meaning Jesus attached to the word; even Augustine thought that the \voman was a dog in the sense the ...·lord is used in 7: 6, although he explains that by admitting she was a dog she shm'led humility and so ''las 185Kauffman Kohler, ItDogtl, The Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, pp. 630-632. 186l>lauriee H. Farbridge, studies in Biblical .:md Semitic Symbolism (Ne....1 York: KTAV, 1970), p. 79. 187Joachim Jeremias, Unbekannte Jesus.....ortc (3d ed., Gutersloher: Gerd Hohn, 1963), p. 57. 188Isaac Abraham.s, :;;;S_t;...;l.""ld~i..;.e...;s ~_·n~....___ P-:h-:a~r_i~s:-a_~-:-·_s_m_a_n~d_t~h-:-e_ Gospels (Second Series, Cambridge: at the University Pres~ 1924), p. 195. 71 accepted. 1S9 But the parallelling of Matthew 7:6 and 15:26 results from a superficial reading of the texts, for the <. dogs in 7:6 arc OI<,UWV (the dogs described above) but in 15:26
(and the parallel passage, Hark 7:27,28) the \wrd is To I KO Va. ,cJlD)}, the dimil1utive form for the pet or house­7 190
\ <.dog. To clearly separate To KUvaf!lov from Q g.'uwV,) the \"loman replies: nYes, but even the dogs under the table l (To... kUvo.. (J/O-U1TQI-<..o-TuJ T'1S ~"Ct7T{)75) feed on the 7 191children IS crumbs." Certainly the calling of the Syro­phoenician woman a dog has nothing to do, therefore, ''lith the usc of dog in 7:6. The swine, too, \':ere "-'-nong the unclean ani!l1<:lls .192 They were held in contempt and thought of as an em';:)le::l of filthiness.193 According to Feliks, lithe pig forncrly found in Eretz Israel differed from the present-duy onc;1I l89Augustine. Sern:ons on New Testa.'":1ent Lessons xxv~~. 9-11. A s:L-:tilar vicw is expressed by Austin Farrer, St. !·!atthCl'l ond st. :l'-Iark ("Jestminster: Dacre Press, 1954), ,vho thinks Hatthe\l 7:6-11 is a parallel to l·:!ark 6:30-3:38, involving rcminisces of the Syro-phoenician \'loman, etc. 190Friedrich lllass and Albert Debrunner, A Greek Grm:ll'i1:1r of the New Tcsto.mont and Other Early Christi::n Literature, trans. and rev. Robert IV. Funk '(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), p. 60, say the dir.1in­utive form here is l1in the noture of h)'1)ocoristica, II meaning a pet n.ome with implications of tenderness and caressing. 19~1ark 7:28. Similar \.,.ording, although not as striking, is in Matt. 15:27. 192Leviticus 11:7, Deuteronomy 14:8. 193I • M. Casanowicz, 115wine,11 The Jewish Encyclo­peclin, Vol. XI, p. 609. 72 the earlier pig was closely related to "the wild boarn.194 Although some also sec in sNine a reference to non-Je'\;'s, citing the JC'\·/ish use of the word for thct uhich is unclean and the Jewish perception of the gentiles .:!s unclean, Friedlander argues that IIthere is no Jewish or Rabbinical foundation for this opinion. n195 Nor is there any evidence in the New Testament that Jesus or any of His follo'\'lers made this racial identification. Instead, t:1C , s,\1inc and the dogs ';'QuId be adamantly scorning unbelievers ,-.'ho were particularly harmful to the Kingdom; such is precisely the case in 2 Peter 2: 21-22, '\;1here apostates arc ,.., called dogs and pigs (4, the SO..i). MATTHE\v 7: 6cd: THE DEPENDENT CLAUSE .I HatthC'-l 7:6c: .L{100TC:.J,* au/oJ V
7
The l':ey ,.,rord in the dependent clause is K{J.:ra 17(t-TeW, to trample.. In the Septuagint, the 1.\lord is frequently used of the actions of the victor toward the vanquished: 1 S\. 198 fro~ e'7 V YUAA I and define it as IItcar in piecesll ...... But 7 J / ( 3l~ss and Debrunner report that the t,·:o verbs ,ofl \, \)U t) {1..1 T77J( cnd /I)qcrrr £1 V seem to have IIconverged in Koin'e ll199 ai.1U 1,10ulton concurs in that opinion. 200 If this is so-' and it appears to be, then we ean.."'lot be certain if the r.1ez.ning. of the verb is lito rendl! (from~nVV U /)..1 ) or to IIthrol-l fll! I. ( down, dash to the groundII (from C"? )/'(1 /'I I ­7 / [J I ~, although used by most interpreters as the determinant 77 78 of 7:6 1s meaning, is in fact of non-specific reference in itself; the meaning of the t\'JO \,·ords here is dcterr.lined by the context and the theological significance of .6'"Jv,\ (,) • I On that basis, the holy thinr~ and the penr1 are found to be the !lbrother", the fe110\;,-be1iever and member of Christ's Kingdom. The purpose of 7:6, then, is to L~press, on the mind of the hearer-reader, i~a single para11e1-constructio~ ,the point of the preceding verses. 1,V'hat hud been expounded earlier in the Sermon (5:21-26) and again in 7:1-5 is capsu1ized in one ;:'lcmorab1e saying, so that the point of the e,:position \Vi11 stay 'with the audience .::.nd. be casi1y recalled. \'lithin the Kingdom, we arc brothers. We arc not to judge our brother, not to be of a fault-finding dispo­sition to'l..:ard him. Rather, 'I:ie are to see our 0'.'111. faults, repent of them, and then help the brother with his fault. Rathel'" than IIjudgingll him and, by i1:"lp1ication, placing him outside the Kingdom, we are to treasure him as holy and of great value. D'IPLICATIONS The results of this study, '·...hich are practically the direct opposite of the traditional interpretation (nnd also the two other views, the uanti.-Genti1e-sayingll school and the Aramaic school) of Hatthe,\' 7: 6, hnve direct implications in four areas. First, it is no longer possible to use 7:6 as a 79 proofte::::t for exercising e;:!.ution in the proclamation of the Gospel to the unreceptive or as a prooftext for denyin.::; the Lordts Supper to those who arc unworthy. The verse has nothinG to do ''lith either of those two practices; if anything, such use as a prooftext is a direct revers;:!.l of the intent of the passage, ,-:hieh is to discourage judginG of the brother. Second, hO\-leVer, the results of this study do not imply that there is to be no -discipline in the Church. Guidelines and procedures for church discipline are dealt ""i'th else.\'l1ere, e.g. in Hatthew 18:15-18. J:.:atthe\l 7: 6', as docs vv. 1-5 and also the I':atthew 18 passage itself, pro­vi0.cS the attitudinal frn..'11e,·.'"ork for all relationships, including discipline, within the Church: the purpose of all dcalings with a brother is to help hm, to remove the mote from his eye, to reclaim him if he errs. The purpose is not to judge him, not to CD.st him out. So Hatthe.·/ 7: 6 docs not negate in any way }iatthe'w 18. Third, the identificat;ion of the pearl with tl-;.c believer in 7:6 raises questions about the identification of the Pearl of Great Price in 13:45-46. These are the only uses of any gem in the gospels, so the uscs may be related; in the past, the pearl in both was seen as approx­ima"tely the same: the gospel, the Kingdom, or Christ Hiwself (all related concepts). In contemporary interpre­tation, the identification of the Pearl of Great Price "lith the gospel, the Kingdom, or Christ is "lell-nigh 80 unonir.l.ous,204 although a felY ,'[riters mention the Clltern.:lJ..:;.e explanation that the pearl is the Church or the believcr. 205 The dominant interpretation sees the parable os a lesson in sanctification. But could it instead be cleali:1.g \dth otonecent? If the pearl in Chapter 7 is the believer, could ?06the pearl in Chapter 13 als01-The possibility ;::..crits, at the le.is­torical survey in Chapter 3, a solidly-entrenched cxe~etic<ll conclusion throughout church history. Are there verses, perh.:lps even prooftexts as this one, \'/hieh have been :;:isin­terpreted due to what appeors to have been cisrego.rd :::or 204Cf 1':' 'I ':"} , S··, N" ... ' T'e~-' ,.,.. (,.,-..1-,, __,.1.• L.m~ ur-....,nncr, 0 '·/~ ...1.o;:-<-no. ., c", ,)J.n':2,. l-,~C.,-,.,"","~. Jol1::'l Knox, 1964), pp. 30-32; Fl~;;mcis H. Derk, Yz~s..:::.:~ Titles of Chris~ (lI'li::'lnec.polis! Dethz.ny Fcllo~:.s~-;.ip, IS,0S» p. ll4; Archibald H. Hunt~cr, (l'ho PO!'2.blcs 1'l:c:1 and xc;; (Philadelphia: \'lestminster, 1"971) 5 pp. 77-7';3; j02.ch';-:;­Jcremias, The pz.rables of .Jesus (:'~ew York: Scribner's, 1963), p. 201; latthe'.... Scripture Union Bible Study Books. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970. Brunner, Emil. Sm'ling and ReapinG, trans. Thomas \vieser, Richmond: John Knox, 1964. Calvin, John. Commentary on a Harmony of the EvanGelists, Vol. I. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949. B~chsel, Friedrich. II ¢ 16'B,M( ,II TheoloGical Dictionary of the Ne,... Testament, Vol. II, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, .. 1964. Burkitt, Francis Crawford. Early Christianity outside the Roman Empire. Cambridge: at the University Press, 1899. Burney, C. F. The Poetry of Our Lord. London: Oxford University Press, 1925. Carr, A. The Gospel According to st. Hatthew. Cambridge: at the University Press, 1906. Casanowicz, I. M. "Swine," The Jewish Encyclopedia, 12 vols. New York: Funk and 'lVagnalls, 1905. Cassian, John. liThe Works of John Cassian,JI trans. Edgar C. S. Gibson, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. XI. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956. Champlin, Russoll. Family E and Its Allies in Hatthew. Studies and Documents Series, Vol. 28. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1966. ;..F.;;;an;;;;l;.;;i;;.;;l;;.,y~1T~_,,""i;;;;;n~:r.~l.;:;a~t,-t-:h.;.e.;..w_. Studies and Documents Series, Vol. 24. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1964. Chapman, 'John, O.~.B. Matthew, Mark and Luke. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1937. Chapman, Richard. A Greek Harmony of the Gospels. London: Rivington, 1836. 85 . ..."""" .j.• Chrysostom. Ilomilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corin­thians. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. XII. Nel¥' York: Christian Literature Company, 1889. __~--:-_. Homilies on the Gospel of St. John and The Epistle to the Hebrews. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. XIV. New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890: __~:--_. Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Hatthew. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol7:X. New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888. The Preaching of Chrysostom, Homilies on the Sermon on the Hount, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967. • "Resisting the Temptations of the Devi1,1t The ----~N~~~·c-e-ne and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol:-IX. New York: Christian Literature Company, 1889. Clement. The Letter of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth. Early Christian Fathers, ed. Cyril C. Rich­ardson. Library of Christian Classics, Vol. I. New York: Macmillan, 1970. Clement of Alexandria. The Stromata, or Hiscellanies. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,'195l. Codex Sinaiticus, photographs by Helen and Kirsopp Lake. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1911. Coleman, Robert E. The }laster Plan of Evangelism. Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell, 1964. Colwell, Ernest C. The Greek of the Fourth Gospel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931. Constitutions of the Holy Apostles. The Ante-Nicene Father§, Vol. VII. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951. Cooper, David L. :P1essiah: the Historical Appearance. Los Angeles: Biblica1 Research Society, 1961. Craig, Clarence Tucker. The Beginning of Christianitx. New York: Abingdon, 1943. . Cranmer translation, 1539. The English Hexapla. London: Samuel Bagster and Sons,"184l. Cyprian. Testimonies. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951. 86 Cyprian. Treatises. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951. Cyril of Jerusalem. Catechetical Lectures. The Faith of the Early Fathors, trans. \villiam A. Jurgens. Collegeville, Hinnesota: Liturgical Press, 1970. Dalman, Gustaf. Jesus-Joshua, trans. Paul R. Levertoff. New York: KTAV, 1971. __-=-_-::-. The 'vords of Jesus, trans. D. H. Kay. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902. Davies, W. D. Christian Origins and Judaism. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962. • The Settin of the Sermon on the Hount.--0:::---:­Cambridge: at the University Press, 19 4. Derk, Francis H. Names and Titles of Christ. Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1969. Dibelius, Hartin. From Tradition to Gospel, trans. Bertram L. Woolf. New York: Scribner's, 1935. The Sermon on the Hount. New York: Scribner's,---=:-:.-::-~.1940. Didache, trans. Cyril C. Richardson. Library of Christian Classics, Vol. I. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953. Dietrich, Suzanne de. The Gospel According to Matthew, trans. Donald G. f.1iller. Layman's Bible Commentary, Vol. 16. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1961. lIEarly Liturgies, The Divine Liturgy of James,lI The Ante­Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951. Edsman, Carl-Nartin. Le Bapt8me de Feu. Uppsala: A. B. Lundequistska, 1940. Eichholz, Georg. 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Farbridge, l-laurice H. Studies in Biblical and Semitic Symbolism. NO'i York: KTAV, 1970. Farrer, Austin. st. Hatthew and st. Hark. westminster: Dacre Press, 1954. Feliks, Jehuda. npig," Encyclopedia Judaica, 12 vols. Jerusalem: Keter and Ne,.,. York: Hacmillan, 1972. Penton, J. C. 'l'he Gospel of st. Hatthc,.... Pelican Gospel Commentaries. Baltimore: Penguin, 1963. __'""':'"':;--_. IIInclusio and Chiasmus in Hatthe,.,.," in Kurt Aland, F. L. Cross, et.al. Studia Evangelica, Vol. I. Papers presented to the International Congress on "The Four Gospels in 1957" held at Christ Church, Oxford, 1957. Berlin: Akademie, 1959. (Issued as Vol. 73 of Texte und Untersuchun en zur Geschichte der Altchrist­lichen Literature. Filson, Floyd,V. "Broken Patterns in the Gospel of Hatthe,..," Journal of Biblical Literature 75 (1956), pp. 227-231. _________• Origins of the Gospels. New York: Abingdon, 193& Fitzmyer, Joseph A. Essayst on the Semitic Back,ground of the New Testament. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1971. Fletcher, Basil. The Aramaic Sayin~s of Jesus. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1967. Franzmann, :t>Iartin H. Follow :Me: Discipleshi~ According to Saint Hatthe'.... st. Louis: Concordia, 19 1. Friedlander, Gerald. The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the :t>lount. Ne'.... York: KTAV, 1969. Geerlings, Jacob. Family 13 (The Ferrar Group) in Hatthe'..... Studies and Documents Series, Vol. 19. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1961. ____~___• Family E and Its Allies in Luke. Studies and Documents Series, Vol. 3. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1968. • Family" in Luke. Studies and Documents Series, --V~o-lO;--. 22. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1962. -------T~. Family 13 (The Ferrar Group) in Luke. Studies and Documents Series, Vol. 20. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1961. 88 Geneva Bible, 1557. The English lIexapla. London: Samuel Oagstcr and Sons, 1841. Gerhard, John. Loci Theologici. 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The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. IV. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954. Sanford, John A. The Kingdom '''ithin. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1970. Schnackenburg, Rudolf. Christian Existence in the New Testament, Vol. I. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968. Schonfie1d, Hugh J. The Authentic Ne\Y' Testament. London: Dennis Dobson, 1955. The Bible 'vas Right. London: Associated Ne,'is­papers Ltd, 1959. Schwarz, Gunther. "1-1atthaus vii.6a, Emendation und Ruck­ubersetzung,1I Novum Testamentum, 14 (1972), pp. 18-25. Se1igsohn, Hax. IIPear1--in Rabbinical Literature,1I The Jewish Encyclopedia, 12 vo1s. Neli York: Funk and­\vagna11s, 1905. Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, ed. Francis H. Nichol, Vol. V. \vashington,'D.C.: Review and Herald, 1956. Strack, Hermann L. and Paul Bi11erbeck. KOllunentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Hidrasch, Vol. I, Das Evange1ium nach Hatth~lUs. l-1unchen: C. H. Beck t sche Ver1agsbuchhandlung, 1922. Surburg, Raymond F. tiThe Influence of Syriac Christianity." Unpublished Th.D. dissertation, American Theological Seminary, 1942. Tasker, R. V. G. The Greek New Testament, Being the Text Translated in The New English Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, 1964. The
Teachins of the Twelve Apostles. The Ante-Nieene Fathers, Vol. VII. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951, pp. 371-382. Tenney, Merrill. John: the Gospel of Belief. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948. Tertu11ian, Prescriptions against Heretics. Library of Christian Classics, Vol. V. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1956. 95 Tertullian. "To My Wife," The Faith of the Early Fathers, trans. William A. Jurgens. Collegeville, l-1innesota: Liturgical Press, 1970. Theodoret. The Ecclesiastical History. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. III. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953. Thielicke, Helmut. Christ and the Heaning of Life, trans. John \\1. Doberstein. New York: Harper & ROl'l, 1962. Tholuck, August. Commentary on the Sermon on the Hount. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874. ____~__~. Exposition, Doctrinal and Philological: of Christ's Sermon on the Nount, trans. Robert Menzies. Edinburgh: Thomas Clarl<, 1843. Thomas, David. The Genius of the Gospel. London: Dickinson and Higham, 1873 (reprinted as The Gospel of Hatthew, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1956). Torrey, Charles C. Our Translated Gospels. New York: Harper & Brothers" 1936. ____~. The Four Gospels, 2d ed. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947. Trench, Richard C. Notes on the Parables of Our Lord. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1948 (orig. publ., 1861). Trilling, \Y'olfgang. The Gospel According to St. Matthew. New York: Herder and Herder, 1969. Turner, Nigel. Grammatical Insi~hts into the New Testament. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 19 5. Tyndale translation, 1534. The English Hexapla. London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1841. Tyndale, William. The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. London: nagster, 1836 (orig. publ., l526}. van Tilborg, Sjef. The Je,.;ish Leaders in l-latthew. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972. Vermes, Geza. Jesus the Jew, A Historian's Reading of the Gospels. New York: Hacmillan, 1973. Vitringa, Campegius. Verklaring van de Evangelische Para­bolen. Amsterdam: Hendrik Strik, 1715. 96 lYeidenschilling, J. t-i. studies in st. Matthew's Gospel• .....~ St. Louis: Concordia, 1948. Wenger, Frederick S. Exegetical Notes on The Gospel According to Luke. Springfield, Illinois: Concordia Himeo Company, n.d. the New Testament. orig. publ. 1754 • Westcott, Brooke Foss and F. J. A. Hort. The New Testament in the Original Greek. New York: Hacmillan, 1951. Wettstein, Jacobus. Novum Testamentum·Graecum, Tomus 1. Graz, Austria: Akademische, 1962. Wood, Herbert George. "Some Characteristics of the Synoptic \'1riters, II The Parting of the Roads: Studies in the Development of Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. F. J. Foakes Jackson. London: Ed,...ard Arnold, 1912. \yuest, Kenneth S. studies in the Vocabulary of the Greek Ne,." Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955. \'Iycliffe [\viclif] translation, 1380. The English Hexapla. London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1841. Ylvisaker, Joh. The Gospels. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1932. APPENDIX CHIASl>mS IN MATTHEW 7: 6 l>latthew 7:6 has, over the past several decades, come to be used as an example of chiasmus (ABBA construc­tion), so much so, that the American Bible Society's Today's English Version translates 7:6 as follows: Do not give ,,,hat is holy to dogs--they will only turn and attack you; do not throw your pearls in front of pigs--they l¥'ill only trample them under­foot. 207 This view of the relationship of the dependent clause (split into tl"O parts) l¥'ith the preceding independent clauses has a long history. 208 In the English languag~ it goes all the way back to \vycliffe in 1380, who translated 7:6 thusly: Nile ze zeue holi thing to houndis,
nether cast ze zoure margaritis bifor swxne:
leest peraventure thei defoule hem with her feet,
and the houndis [emphasis added] be turned : al to
tere zou. Z09 .
210Tyndale followed Wycliffe in his 1526and his 1534 207Good Nelis for Modern Man, The New Testament in Today l s English Version (3d ed., New York: American Dible Society, 1971), p. 16 • . 208T• Francis Glasson, "Chiasmus in Matthol'l vii.6,," Expository Times 68 (1956-1957), p. 302. 209Wicflif translation in The EnGlish lIexapla. 2l0William Tyndale, The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (London: Dagstor, 1836" orig. publ.1526). 97 98 .,.-, dOt' 211 'th d"l t th t d th de ~ ~on, us~ng e wor s es ey rea e em un er their fete/and other tourne agayne and all to rent you". 212 .Cranmer in 1539 used Tynda1e IS ,,,ording,, but the Geneva nib1c213 of 1557 deleted any special indication of chiasmus" as did succeeding versions until 1