Full Text for Luke 17:20-21 in Recent Investigations (Text)

Concoll()ia Theological Montbly DECEMBER • 1951 '-----------~-~ ---ConcoJl(Ho Theological Monthly Published by The Lutheran Church -Missouri Synod EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF CONCORDIA SEMINARY ST. LOUIS, Mo. Address all communications to the Editorial Committee in care of the Managing Editor, F.E.Mayer, 801 De Mun Ave., St.Louis 5, Mo. EDITORIAL COMMITTEE PAUL M. BRETSCHER, RICHARD R. CAEMMERER, THEODORE HOYER, FREDERICK E. MAYER, LOUIS J. SIECK CONTENTS FOR DECEMBER 1951 PAGE TRIBUTE TO DR. WILLIAM ARNDT _. ______________ ,_. __ ...... 881 RESOLUTIONS OF APPRECIATION ____ __ __ . __ 882 GOD'S TRIUMPHANT CAPTIVE CHRIST'S' AROMA FOR GOD. (2 Cor. 2: 12-17.) Victor Bartling ________ .. __ 883 LUKE 17:20-21 IN RECENT INVESTIGATIONS. Paul M. Bretschef' ______ . 895 THE ApOSTOLIC PSHA! Martin H. Franzmann 908 GOD'S CONCURRENCE IN HUMAN ACTION. fohn Theodore Mueller ._ 912 CHALCEDON AFTER FIFTEEN CENTURIES. faroslav Pelikan _. _____ . __ 926 JOHN CHRYSOSTOM ON THE CHRISTIAN HOME AS A TEACHER. At·thur C. Repp . _______ 937 LITURGICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN EUROPE, Walter F. BttSzin ________ . 949 HOMILETICS ______ .. __________________ . ___________ 00 __ 955 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY is published monthly by Concordia Publishing House, 3558 S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis 18, Mo., ro which all business correspondence is to be addressed. $3.00 per annum, anywhere in rhe world, payable in advance. Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second·class maner. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of posrage provided for in Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July 5, 1918. ,'INn]) Df n .•.•. Luke 17: 20-21 In Recent Investigations By PAUL M. BRETSCHER THIS is the significant passage recorded only by Luke and rendered in the K J version: "When He was demanded of the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God should come, He an­swered them and said: The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, Lo, there! for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you." The passage poses a number of linguistic and exegetical difficulties. It raises such questions as: What did the Pharisees believe the Kingdom of God to be? What did Jesus have in mind when He used that term? What is the precise meaning of the phrase "with observation" (f1E,a JtaQa,'Y]Qt10EW~)? What is the meaning of EVLo~ uf1wv? What is the force of Eo,Lv? Is the consideration that EO,LV follows rather than precedes EV'O~ uf1WV of any determining significance? Does the passage constitute a complete unit of thought permitting an interpretation which totally disregards the larger context, espe­cially Luke 17:22-37? Who are the "f1WV in the phrase EV'O~ uf1wv? Some years ago this journal published an article of mine dealing with this same passage.1 My chief interest in the passage at that time was the phrase EV'O~ "f1wv. I came to the conclusion that in view of the immediate context in which the phrase occurs, it means "among," "in your midst." Since that time I gathered further data on the entire passage and enlarged the scope of my inquiry. It is the burden of this paper to present an overview of these findings, with special reference again, however, to the phrase EVLO~ uf1wv. Following this overview, I shall list, and adduce the evidence for, various renderings of the phrase. In compiling the findings, I am mindful of the need of following sound hermeneutical principles. These are well expressed in the following summary: "Any inter­pretation of this saying must, if it is to be valid, satisfy four condi­tions: it must be philologically unobjectionable; it must not part company with the entire tradition of the Church, or, if it does so, it must be able to explain why the true rendering was so long over-895 896 LUKE 17:20-21 IN RECENT INVESTIGATIONS looked; it must make sense in its context; it must not contradict the whole tenor of the Gospel teaching about the Kingdom." Colin H. Roberts, the author of the above summary, recently contributed a careful investigation of Luke 17:20-21.2 He plunges into his discussion with the challenging observation: If of all of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom this one paragraph had alone survived, no Greek scholar would have thought of ren­dering the last sentence except in the way familiar by usage and sanctioned by a tradition of exegesis unbroken until modern times, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." Equally there is hardly a modern theologian -whether reacting against the individualism of the nineteenth century or influenced by theories of "realized eschatology" or simply awake to the very real difficulties of the older view -who does not translate, "The Kingdom of Heaven is among you." And yet the objections to both renderings are sub­stantial, if not (as I think) insuperable. Following this introductory blast, to which one need not object too seriously -though Roberts himself admits the inadequacy of his simplification in several footnotes -the author proceeds to demonstrate, on the basis of some reasonable evidence, that the Savior's reply to the question of the Pharisees can only mean: The Kingdom does not come at all if you strain your eyes to look for it, because it is with you, in your possession, if you want it (italics mine}, now. To ask whether the Kingdom is external or internal, a state of mind or a state of society, a process or a cata­strophic event is (in this context) to ask the wrong question; it is no wonder, then, that both answers are wrong, viz., "within you" and "among you" or rather partial and incomplete. Both may in a sense be right. It is a present reality, but only if YO1/, wish it to be so [italics mine}. The misconception to be removed is that the Kingdom is something external to men, independent of their voli­tions and actions; it is a conditional possession. Another recent and very thorough investigation of Luke 17: 20-21 is that by Bent Noack.3 This author examines interpretations of this passage which have come down to us from early Christianity, the early Middle Ages, the Reformation period, the eighteenth and the nineteenth century, and the period since 1890. A hurried glance into Noack's materials will prove helpful. He informs us, to begin with, that the Old Latin texts as well as the Vulgate from Jerome LUKE 17:20-21 IN RECENT INVESTIGATIONS 897 to Clement all translate EVLO~ v[twv with "intra vos." The Latin translation reads: "Non venit regnum Dei cum observatione; neque dicent: Ecce hie, aut ecce illic. Ecce enim regnum Dei intra vos est." Noack contends that "intra" must mean "within." Of the Syriac translations, so Noack continues, the Peshito renders the phrase EVLO~ v[twv "within you," whereas the Curetonian and Sinaitic Syriac manuscripts render it "among you." Of the Fathers, he quotes relevant passages from Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Peter of Alexandria (d. 311), Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Theophylact, and Euthymios Zigabenos. Christian writers representing the early Middle Ages are Bede, Bruno As­tensis, and Strabo. The Reformation and Renaissance period is represented by Faber Stapulensis, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, and Flacius. Catholic writers of the seventeenth century quoted by Noack are Maldonatus and Cornelius a Lapide. Reformed writers of the same period include John Piscator and Hugo Grotius. The eighteenth century is represented by Hannecken, Gnilius, Lim­borchius, Bengel, and Koecher. The nineteenth century until 1890 comes in for only slight consideration. The period from 1890 to our day includes such well-known names as Johannes Weiss, O. Schmoller, Bousset, Loisy, M. Dibelius, H. D. Wendland, A. Schlatter, K. 1. Schmidt, Rud. Otto, R. Frick, B. H. Streeter, C. H. Dodd, and C. J. Cadoux. In the last part of the book, Noack presents his own interpreta­tion of Luke 17:20-22. He makes much of the wider context, that is, Luke 17:22-37, and concludes (1) that EOLlv is a real present, which means that, according to Jesus, the Kingdom has arrived and is in operation; (2) that EVL6~ means "inter," that is, "among," "in the midst of." He justifies his translation with the argument: "If the meaning 'within you' were the correct interpretation, this statement could not express the opposite of v. 22. For the disciples can indeed preserve the kingdom of God 'within' themselves even though the external conditions about them might change. If, how­ever, the Kingdom is 'among' them, it can disappear, can again become hid, or the manifestation of its powers can cease. The transition of v.21 presupposes some such event." Noack believes that Luke speaks of the Kingdom as having arrived, as being present, and as coming in the clouds of heaven. His paraphrase of 898 LUKE 17 :20-21 IN RECENT INVESTIGATIONS Luke 17:20-24 shows the close connection which, according to him, exists between vv.20-21 and vv.22-24. Following this brief summary of the studies by Roberts and Noack, let us now soberly face up to some of the problems which interpreters of Luke 17:20-21, both ancient and modern, have bequeathed to us. Let us, to begin with, return to the challenging statement thrown out by Roberts and quoted above. Roberts claims: "No Greek scholar would have thought of rendering the last sentence [in Luke 17:21} except in the way familiar by usage and sanctioned by a tradition of exegesis almost unbroken until modern times, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.' . . . There is hardly a modern theologian . . . who does not translate, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is among you.''' To us this appears to be a false antithesis. Without going to the trouble of ferreting out a few Greek scholars who did not render fVL6~ with "within" and a few modern theologians who do not render EVL6~ with "among," one is safe in supposing that there have been Greek scholars who were also theologians and that there are some modern theologians who are also Greek scholars. But, in all seriousness, what does "within" mean? As I tried to show in my previous article,4 the English "within" is a flexible term and allows for shades of meaning which come perilously close to "among." Again, what is the dividing line between "inter" and "intra" in Latin? May one say with absolute finality that "inter" suggests a partial and "intra" a complete limitation? Shall one suppose that Ethelbert Stauffer made a serious blunder when he remarks that Luther with his inwendig in euch set himself in direct opposition to the "intra" of the Vulgate? 5 Shall one say that Lenski made the same mistake? 6 For it must be remembered that the Latin "intra" is indeed the standard translation of fVL6~, but whether it always meant "within, inside of," to the Latin writers, is another question. All we know is that much evidence from Latin writers points in the direction that they understood "intra" in the Luke passage as meaning in c01"dibus. But even this is not the most serious consideration facing the student who wrestles with £vL6~ and "intra." The greatest difficulty confronts him when he considers what early Church Fathers be­lieved the Kingdom of God to be of which they wrote that it was LUKE 17:20-21 IN RECENT INVESTIGATIONS 899 "intra vos." For a discovery of differing views of the Kingdom of God held by Christians from the Apostolic age to St. Augustine, one need only consult Robert Frick's monograph.7 Tertullian be­lieved the Kingdom of God to be the praeceptum Dei. He inter­prets Luke 17: 21: "In praecepto est Dei regnum." 8 In one passage, Origen suggests that the Kingdom of God in us is in opposition to the kingdom of sin in sinners.9 For Athanasius, the Kingdom in us is Christ. For Faber Stapulensis, the Kingdom "within us" is fides Christi, doctrina spiritus, et nova in ipso creatura, et ipse (quod maximum est) qui per fidem jam in ipsis habitabat.lO For Calvin, the Kingdom "within us" is interior et spiritualis animae renovatioY Other interpretations of "Kingdom of God" could be cited. But these will suffice to indicate that their interpretation of the term "Kingdom of God" may well have determined, in part or wholly, for Christian writers in the early and in later periods a preference for "within." Roberts' statement, "There is hardly a modern theologian . . . who does not translate, 'The Kingdom of God is among you;" creates the impression that the translation "among you" is of very recent origin. As Noack shows, that translation may be traced already in Cyril of Alexandria,12 although it seems to have become firmly established only since the seventeenth century. Noack quotes both John Piscator and Hugo Grotius as having understood EV't6~ in the sense of "among." 13 In the eighteenth century, "among" becomes a widely accepted translation. Noack quotes, as a telling instance, Limborchius, who writes: "Sensus non est: regnum Dei tantum est internum, et in cordibus vestris; sed in medio vestro, seu inter vos." 14 Bengel belongs to this period. He is frequently re­ferred to as one who favored the meaning "among." In justice to Bengel it must be said, however, that he did not deny the meaning of EV't'6~ to be "intra." He preferred "inter" merely because the Uf.Lwv involves the Jewish people.15 In any case, a marked preference for "among" is evident throughout the eighteenth century. The reason for the shift was, as Noack indicates, an interpretation of "Kingdom of God" different from interpretations of previous centuries. Efforts to ascertain the true meaning of Ev·tI)~ {,f.Lwv was not a burning issue in the first ninety years of the last century. This may 900 LUKE 17:20-21 IN RECENT INVESTIGATIONS be due largely to the fact that in this period the concept of the nature of the Kingdom of God was not closely scrutinized. There were those, of course, who favored the rendition of h.o£ v[.twv with "among you." Others, like Godet,16 defended the traditional position. A fresh interest in the meaning of EnD£, begins to appear, however, in the early nineties of the past century with the publica­tion in 1892 by Johannes Weiss of his Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (2d ed., 1900). In this work, Luke 17:20-21 plays an im­portant role. It continued to do so in the many volumes which in some way or other took up the challenge raised by Weiss. Whether one seconded the "futuristic eschatology" 17 proposed by Weiss, as did Schweitzer, Bousset, and Juelicher, or whether one championed a "realized eschatology" of the Kingdom proposed by C. H. Dodd,18 or whether one took a mediating position and held that with Jesus' ministry the Kingdom of God "broke through," "dawned," and that His ministry on earth was God's way of establishing His rule over and among men, but that the full revelation of the Kingdom of God lay in the future, in any case, interpreters could not escape an encounter with Luke 17:20-21. Since the Kingdom of God came more and more to mean God's gracious rule among men and since this Kingship of God was identified with the person, life, and activity of Jesus -in particular with His casting out of demons, His preaching of the Gospel, His signs and miracles -interpreters of Luke's Gospel in ever-growing numbers adopted the interpreta­tion "among." 19 It would be a most interesting study to trace the shift from "within" to "among" in the past fifty years of leading interpreters of the Gospel of Luke. I myself have discovered this shift in Adolf Schlatter 20 and William Manson?l Interpreters who have expressed themselves on the meaning of Ev.o£, within the last quarter century and who interpret the phrase "among" are: Walter Bauer in the 3d edition of his Greek-German dictionary of the New Testament, Ernst Lohmeyer,22 K. L. Schmidt,2S Rudolf Otto,24 Ethelbert Staufter,25 A. G. Hebert,26 J. Lagrange,27 K. H. Rengs­torf,28 and Miller Burrows.29 Small wonder that the Revised Stand­ard Version translates Ev.o£, v[.twv "in the midst of you." There are, of course, still those who prefer the rendering "within," as B. H. Streeter,SO J. M. Creed,S! and Robert Frick,32 Those who are very dogmatic in their opinion that Bno£, cannot but mean "among," LUKE 17:20-21 IN RECENT INVESTIGATIONS 901 will do well to investigate the argument in favor of "within" ad­vanced by F. Godet.33 As far as I know, no one has ever success­fully met Godet's arguments. It remains now to list, and to provide the evidence for, the several interpretations of EV'tO<; which have been proposed. For the sake of convenience we shall present them under four headings. 1. "WITHIN" This rendition rests on solid philological ground. The passages from classical Greek commonly adduced in support of "among" are, as Roberts shows, not altogether convincing. The two passages most often cited are from Xenophon. The first is from the chapter of the Anabasis describing the conduct of the Greek guards of Cyrus' camp after the defeat at Cunaxa (Anab. I, 10, 3). In this passage,_ the meaning of EV'tO<; may well be, however, "within their lines" or, possibly, "within their power." In the second passage, from the Hellenica (II, 3, 19), EV'tO<; has its common meaning of "within the limits of." Roberts makes bold to write, "No other passage from a classical Greek author need come into considera­tion." He notes also that E. Mayser, in his grammar of Greek papyri,34 cites twenty examples of EV'tO<;, everyone having the mean­ing "within_" The meaning "within" is supported also, as Godet points out, by the position of the phrase EV'tO<; vllwV in the context. He also notes -that EV'tO<; always includes a contrast to the idea "without." Who could the object of an implied E%'tO<; be? Certainly not, so he argues, the Gentiles, since there is no reference to the Gentiles in the passage. There is, finally, the weight of sacred tradition reaching all the way back to the Old Latin translations which render EV'tO<; with "intra," granting, of course, that "intra" was always used by the Latin writers in the sense of "within," that is, in cordibus. Above aU, those who favor the meaning "within" find powerful support for their position in the contrast which they maintain exists between !twI :rtaQ(l't'l'}Q~cr£Ul<; and EV'tO<; Vllwv. They like to para­phrase the passage to read: "The Kingdom of God will not come in such a way that it can be observed, for the Kingdom of God is 'within,' 'in the heart,' and therefore lies outside the realm of sense experience." 902 LUKE 17:20-21 IN RECENT INVESTIGATIONS 2. "AMONG," "IN THE MIDST OF" This rendering finds some support, as even Roberts admits, in the Symmachus translation of the Old Testament. Roberts cites three passages from Symmachus: Lam. 1: 3; Ps. 87: 16; and Ps. 140:5, which appear to require the translation "among." He con­cludes his investigation of these passages with the observation: "Although in all these passages En"ot; still retains something of its limiting sense, 'among' is undeniably a legitimate translation .... The explanation of this anomaly is probably to be found in the ambiguity of the corresponding Hebrew preposition, which may mean either 'within' or 'among' and would explain his [Sym­machus'} choice of Ev-rOt;." 35 Other evidence which favors "among" is the widely accepted identification of the Kingdom of God in the Synoptic Gospels with the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus is the au-ro~a(nAda, an expres­sion coined by Origen.3G In Him God is manifesting both His grace and His power. The point is also made that Jesus certainly did not mean to say that the Kingdom of God is "within" the Pharisees, His bitter enemies. The attempt to universalize the V[!WV is ruled out, so the champions of "among" say, by the consideration that in Luke 17: 22 Jesus is expressly directing Himself to His disciples. One also frequently meets with the contention that elsewhere in the Gospel it is man who enters the Kingdom, not the Kingdom into man. This has always seemed to us a very powerful argument. It is met in part, however, by Godet, who notes: "In giving to EVLOt; the meaning 'within' we are led back to the idea expressed in the answer of Jesus to Nicodemus: Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." Further evidence for the rendition "among" is supplied by Noack, who, after a thorough examination of Luke 17:21-37, concludes that the larger context demands the rendition "among." Finally, a deep-seated prejudice obviously causes some inter­preters to defend "among." They seem to be so disturbed at what happened to the "within" in the theology of Ritschl and his fol­lowers that they will have nothing to do with any interpretation which centers the Kingdom of God in man's heart. These concerns are not altogether unfounded. To appreciate what has happened LUKE 17:20-21 IN RECENT INVESTIGATIONS 903 to the concept "Kingdom of God" in the course of the Church's history, one need only read Robert Frick's monograph. It is so easy, also in our own day, to forget that the emphasis in the term "Kingdom of God" lies not on "Kingdom," or, if one prefers, on "Kingship," but rather on "God." How often has man disavowed God's rule and substituted for it man's rule and identified, or came close to identifying, the Kingdom of God with the kingdom of man. A final note. Those who render EVL6c; with "among" are fre­quently much concerned about the force of EO·tLV. Some regard the EO·tLV as an "apocalyptic present" and interpret the saying of the Savior to mean: "When the Kingdom of God comes, it will be there all of a sudden." So Bultmann, who observes, "Die Gottes­herrschaft ist mit einem Schlage unter euch." Others regard the EO'cLV as a real present and translate the passage, "The Kingdom of God is already present among you." 3. "WITHIN YOUR POSSESSION, IF ... " This translation of EVLOC; 'Il!lcOv, which Roberts favors, is not altogether new. The conditional element read into the passage is found already in Terrullian, who comments, "Quis non ita inter­pretabitur: intra vas est, id est in manu, in potestate vestra, si audiatis, si faciatis Dei praeceprum?" 37 Roberts quotes other pas­sages from the Fathers. Origen, for instance, interprets the King­dom of God in some passages as a potentiality in the soul of man, the grain of seed which mayor may not come to fruition. In a homily on Numbers, Origen writes: "Sed intra vas est salutis occasio sicut et Dominus dixit, ecce enim regnum Dei intra vas est; intra vas namque est conversionis facultas." 38 A passage from Cyril of Alexandria which supports Origen's interpretation is especially significant. The passage reads: !l~ yaQ ()~ XQovo'Uc; EQW1'U1'E,