Beatitudes, not Platitudes
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 5: 1-10]
It is difficult to convey the effect these now familiar paradoxes must have had upon Jesus’ listeners. The conventional wisdom (not just of Jews but of Greeks and Romans) is turned on its head. Success is what mattered in the ancient world. Good fortune, wealth, and power were signs of divine favor. Jews, in looking back at their own history, would have admired the exploits of Joshuah, Gideon, and Samson, men would not have been out of place in the American West. King David and his son Solomon were among their greatest heroes. David was a man of war who smote his enemies and built a powerful (albeit tiny) kingdom; Solomon was proverbial for his wealth as well as for his power.
For more recent heroes, Jews could turn for inspiration to the Maccabees, who had led a bloody insurrection that liberated their people from the Macedonian kingdom of Syria ruled by Antiochus Epiphanes. The successors to the Macedonians were the Romans, who had been ruling over the Jews, largely through proxies like the Herods, for years. In expecting a messiah or savior, the common belief was that he would come as a fighting prince, another David or Judas Maccabeus, with sword in hand to to drive the Romans into the sea. Yet here is this prophet or (some might say) messiah, early in his career, calmly beginning an address to the multitude proclaiming the blessedness of “the poor in spirit” or simply, as in the parallel passage in Luke, “the poor.”
What do these words mean, really, “blessed” and “poor in spirit.” Blessed, for example, can mean several things in English. When we bless someone, we speak well of him. While poor can mean either lacking in wealth or in a poor condition or quality, as in “the actor turned in a poor performance. The original text is clearer. The Greek word makarios means happy, in the sense of having good fortune. The simpler word makar is typically used in early Greek to refer to the gods as opposed to mere mortals, and makarios thus retains a strong whiff of divine favor. In the plural (as Jesus uses it here), makarios refers to the rich and well-educated. Ptochoi (the poor), by contrast, are at the end of the socio-economic spectrum; they are the beggars that crouch and cringe, fearfully, in the presence of their superiors. A slightly educated listener might have thought of Odysseus, the noble Greek warrior who disguised himself as a beggar and had to endure insults and abuse in his own house—a story that eerily anticipates Jesus’ own arrival in earthly form: the son of God who is born to a poor family, a man “despised and rejected and acquainted with grief.”
Matthew’s phrase “poor in spirit” is even stronger than Luke’s. Odysseus may have been without resources and beggarly in appearance, but, as a proud and violent Greek aristocrat, he was anything but poor in spirit. Jesus was telling his people that the greatest happiness one can have is to have the spirit of the cringing beggar. What a strange statement, then, to make that the abject and miserable, those who mourn the loss of a loved one, are the ones who have experienced divine good favor. Most of us have read or heard this sermon so many times we take it for granted as either hyperbole—He could not have meant these things literally, could he—or as a set of Sunday school clichés that we recite without any intention of living up to. But then they would not be the Beatitudes, but only the platitudes.
In Mathew’s story, nothing has prepared us for this shocking message. We know only of Jesus’ miraculous conception and birth, his precocious wisdom, his baptism by John the Baptist, and his temptation by Satan, who had promised him material comfort and power if he would only challenge his father, as Satan had done, and follow the fallen angel. Emerging victorious over the Enemy, Christ attracts a large following, not only from his home-area of Galilee but also from Jerusalem and Judea and even from the Decapolis, ten Hellenic cities that enjoyed important municipal privileges within the empire. These cities enjoyed Greek culture, which even the Semitic inhabitants (whether Jews or Syrians) had absorbed. The mention of these Decapolitans in the audience is the first indication that Jesus is not necessarily preaching only to Jews or to men and women of exclusively Jewish cultural traditions.
What would these Greeks or Jews who had a Greek education think of the Sermon, with its disturbing invasion of values? Those who had read some Homer—and the Iliad and Odyssey were obligatory reading in any course of education—would think of the noble heroes who populate the epics, especially of Achilles, whom some believed to lead a life of eternal happiness in the Isles of the Blessed. These were men of violence and wrath, who took nothing from nobody, as the saying goes. The only lower-class character in the Iliad, the ugly rabble-rouser is rebuked and beaten by Odysseus.
Early Greek poets had never tired of celebrating men of wealth and power or of complaining about their own failures and poverty. Traditional Greek culture taught that shame (aidos) and honor had to be respected. A sense of shame included having a regard for social conventions and being respectful to parents, elders, and social superiors, while honor (the Greek world literally implies price or value) was the respect to which you were entitled, by your family, social status, and personal qualities. When the great Achilles quarreled with Agamemnon and left the Trojan War, it was not so much that he missed the woman of whom he had been deprived as it was the honor he was losing. It would be little use telling Achilles (or most Greeks) to ignore public opinion, because they would interpret such a remark to be an indication of a base character.
If they had dabbled in philosophy, the Decapolitans might have been less shocked and connect Jesus’ preaching with the diatribes of Cynic and Stoic philosophers who derided the pursuit of wealth and power as vanity and distraction, but in that case they might also suspect that Jesus was one more hypocritical guru, of the type that satirists routinely ridiculed. Wealth is nothing, say the philosophers? Then why are they always asking for handouts and taking fees for teaching—rather than practicing—the virtues of self-restraint, chastity, and humility?
In this sermon, Christ fulfills the highest traditions of the Jewish prophets and Greek moral philosophers. The implications might take us ordinary folks a lifetime to figure out to any degree. With these bold paradoxes he turned conventional wisdom on its head and forced his followers to acknowledge the humanity of people they may well have loathed--Samaritans, Syrians, Greeks, Romans. It has nothing in common with either Capitalism or Socialism, but offers us a truth that is also the way to life, both to a better life on earth and to eternal life.
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Thank you so much Dr. Fleming for this beautiful and timely reflection as the Lenten season moves to its culmination.
I would greatly value your opinion on whether Stonewall Jackson might have lived up to these moral precepts? From what I have read he fought not for personal glory nor out of hate, but out of an honest belief that a Christocentric culture and its way of life were marked for extinction. As low church Calvinist of backwoods origin, was he "poor in spirit" as distinct from Odysseus? In other words, can any great military leader truly be "poor in spirit" as Matthew defined the term?
Morality can only come from the strong was something the Greeks understood, just as genuine compassion come from the strong, not from the weakling.
The ideas above are in ample existence further east before Christ, way before he was born--did not have to be taught by son of God---
Fail to see how he has a monopoly on those ideas in terms of originality--not to put them down--
But for those that measure history--A.D. and B.C. and no world exists beyond Jerusalem--such a thought can only be an instance of impudence and ignorance.
Gargi, you do not understand Christian morality or Christian theology. You use the term originality, but what does that mean? Christianity has always maintained the greatest respect for all that was true and beautiful in heathen philosophies and religions. Truth can always be expressed either partially or totally. Many ancient cultures had many things right about how people should treat one another. Read Aristotle or Confucius. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said that if Christianity taught something that was new in the sense of being radical or inimical to human nature then he wouldn't believe it.
Ultimately, though, all of the ancient moralities and philosophies were fulfilled in Christ, but not just within His words. It is the Person of Christ that is absolutely original and absolutely unique. This is why it is not insulting or even sensible to charge Him with unoriginality. He Is God. This cannot be said about even the greatest moral teachers, and it is why Christianity can never be reduced to a philosophical or legal system. If you fail to understand this then you will undoubtedly fail to understand the concepts of A.D. or B.C.
Finally, I do not think that someone who contributes nothing to any discussion but adolescent argumentation, if it can be called that, and shallow criticism should be accusing anybody else of either impudence or ignorance.
Thank you, Dr. Fleming, for these beautiful reflections. Success is the idol of many modern men, just as it was of ancient pagans. I recall a series of meditations conducted by a priest here in which he said, "Question your success." This is something which we as moderns are rarely told to question. Rather the successful are idolized, sometimes literally (American Idol). And even of those of questionable character who are successful, it is often said, "Well, he must be doing something right" when maybe all he has been doing is lying, cheating and stealing.
The ideal would be to try to be the best you can at whatever you do, and be successful at it, without identifying with it ,i.e. without trying to measure your own self-worth by your success or failure. If you succeed, good, enjoy the success, but dont get an ego thrill from it. If you fail, well, fine, accept it and move on, dont think of yourself as a failure and dont get depressed.
With possessions, it's the same thing. If you have wealth and property, fine. Enjoy it. That's what it's for. Even so, of itself, it cannot make a person happy. Loss of it may change one's economic circumstance or social status, but how does that change one's self-worth? If you dont have wealth or property to begin with, that's fine too. Just do what it takes to pay the bills, and dont fret about bring 'poor'.
Of course none of this would abrogate one's responsibilities in society. Aristocrats and nobles have their place in society (in normal societies) and should fulfil that role, but do so without oppressing others. There are duties to God as well.
All this seems like an unrealistic attempt at perfection, but of course no one is perfect, all are fallen, and we do the best we can. On the other hand, as society is today, there is a tendency towards psychopathic behaviour brought about largely by capitalist ideals about success and attaining the good life, and doing whatever it takes to get it. Socialism, since it is based on taking from someone else, and on control, also has a psychopathic tendency. The Beautitudes seem like the perfect antidote.
My old pastor of 19 years - from my birth to my move to Austria, Moses Eli Mercer, came again and again, sermon by sermon to the Sermon on the Mount. He was not a Greek scholar, although he had studied Greek and remained a student of Greek all of his life. He always brought us very practically to the Beatitudes.
Brother Mose, as he was called, taught that the Beatitudes were a long journey on becoming more like Christ. The first real step on that journey of faith was to be poor in spirit like Isaiah as he encountered a Holy God in the Temple, "Woe is me, for I am undone." One must recognize that one is fallen and one must apprehend the great gulf between one and an absolutely Holy God.
Brother Mose said that in his experience there were actually very few people who got to that first step. And, he said, of those who do, even fewer take the second step: to mourn or to lament the fallen condition which they have come to recognize. He always stressed that this is where true repentance begins.
Fewer still, he would say would get to the next place in the journey: to submit in meekness to the yoke and the taming and training of Christ as Lord of their lives.
Once, he would say, when we had submitted to the Lord in meekness, like a horse, having been wild and allegedly free, we would come to know true freedom in Christ - to be able to live according to the purpose for which we were created rather than our following our own whims, we would desire to learn more, to hunger and to thirst for righteousness which is ultimately a quest for Christ, for He and He alone is Righteous.
At this point, Brother Mose would say, we would have the spiritual discipline to begin to show the first fruits of Christian charity, namely mercy. Here he would stress we enter into a reciprocal relationship with Christ, a deepening relationship, in that as we show mercy to others, He shows even more mercy to us.
Out of the practice of charity - showing mercy to others - and out of Christ's charity to us, we arrive at the station of being pure at heart. It is the this pure heart -being among other things guileless - that we are prepared for the next part of the journey.
The next part of the journey is to become the peacemaker: one who brings light and hope to a dark and dying world. Christ is the Prince of Peace. We are thus, becoming more, like Him.
However, the Prince of Peace was hated by the world, the sin of which He came to die for. We, too, being peacemakers can expect to be reviled, persecuted and even killed. It is a predictable reaction of those who hate peace, the Prince thereof, and those who come in His name.
To this last point, Brother Mose, who passed away nearly thirty years ago, told us that if as old men we could not count any enemies among those whom we had encountered over our lives, we were likely not Christians or were poor examples thereof.
There is likely a better and more perfect way to understand the Beatitudes, but the light which Brother Mose gave us, dim as it might be, has helped no few of us along the Way, assisting us in the dangerous narrows thereof, and cementing our love and loyalty to the Master.
"Brother Mose, who passed away nearly thirty years ago, told us that if as old men we could not count any enemies among those whom we had encountered over our lives, we were likely not Christians or were poor examples thereof."
Mr. Peters,
Thank you for this post. There does seem to be a certain fear (perhaps ignorance) of being a Christian today. Probably misplaced in light of the fact that if most of us were ever actually accused of being such a thing, there would probably not be enough evidence to convict. With Brother Mose, however, not so; as your memory of him seems inspired by admiration. Thanks again.
"It has nothing in common with either Capitalism or Socialism, but offers us a truth that is also the way to life, both to a better life on earth and to eternal life."
Amen.
This column is about a specific Christian text and it will not be made the occasion for another round of completely uninformed attacks on Christianity. What is doubly offensive to me as a Greek scholar is the ignorant misuse of the Greeks by an uneducated person who has neither erudition nor manners. I had always had some respect for the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, but if this is the effect it has on an average American, I am going to have to change my opinion
Mr. Peters has once again beautifully illuminated the text. What I put up will actually serve as a preface to a longer piece on what the Sermon on the Mount takes for granted in ancient morality. In asking us to follow Him in fulfilling the law, Christ should not be understood--He himself denied it--to be overturning the law. The Sermon shows us the perfection that He offered the rich young man, but, at the same time, most of us must go on getting married, rearing children, defending our homes against enemies personal and public. It would take Christians several centuries to put all this in context, but, and this was my point in posting this, after two millennia the words can become so familiar as to lose their original power. If I can do any good in this trifling world, it may be in drawing attention to the basic meanings of texts.
Robert @ 7
Brother Mose was the most circumspect man whom I have ever met, guileless and without pretense. He loved Christ, his family, the church and the local congregation for which he was responsible, and his community - Pollock, which reached from the upwaters of Big Creek to Little River and spread up Sandy Creek to Findley's Trussel. More than once, I and others were with him at his old home church, the Big Creek Baptist Baptist. That church, established in the mid-1800's was, as he loved to say, the granddaddy of all of the Baptist congregations in the parish, just as, as he would point out, the towerning and ancient longleaf pine standing near the church, was the granddaddy of many longleaf pines in the parish. He was the first, through this analogy, to teach me that trees migrate over generations - one tree casting its seeds, growning the next tree further away, so moving the species across a region conducive to its kind.
I also greatly enjoy Mr. Peters' writing. One of my best friends grew up in Dugdemona Bayou, and was also a great story teller. Mac has gone on to his eternal reward, but at least I can still enjoy fine, uplifting Louisiana stories.
Dr. Fleming, I understand what you have written above, but did not Christ also defend His Father's House, rather violently, from the corruption of the money changers? How might this action relate to the Beatitudes?
Leaving aside the perspective and attitude of the singer, or maybe not, does Bob Dylan's song "Rolling Stone" give good examples of the rich and poor in spirit? "...You used to laugh about/ Everybody that was hangin' out/ Now you don't talk so loud/ Now you don't seem so proud/ About having to be scrounging for your next meal...." The subject of the song was a phony-baloney, rich with undeserved unearned wealth, and had been lording it over others, then fell and is, in the song, now dealing with a righteous comeuppance and apparently not becoming pure but falling further into a desperate corruption. So she was never really rich in spirit like Odysseus, in that her pride was false, a stupid show, an act in which she was only fooling herself. But she can't seem to be a good example of any sort of poor in spirit that could be blessed, because she seems to be heading into a life of crime. Her falsity on top and continued crime or avoidance, denial, and dishonesty on the bottom would explain why the singer condemns her both coming and going. Or was Jesus saying that even the desperate poor who are compromising themselves and making deals to survive are happier, or more blessed, or in a better position with God than, well, everyone else? That can't be correct. The subject of the song, even broken down, doesn't yet seem to have the attitude of Isaiah --“Woe is me, for I am undone.”-- that Mr. Peter's wrote about. Maybe that's the point of the song: won't you finally wake up, you're broke, your riches were illusory in the first place, you were false when you were on top, yet you are still acting with false pride on the bottom.
Excuse me. This got a little longer than I first intended and I imagine you don't want to analyse contemporary music (though I did like the Lilly Allen essay).
Christ was not a quietist nor a pacifist nor non-judgmental. In this world, there is work that has to be done, such as fighting wars, defending the Church, protecting our loved ones. To refuse to do our duty is to be traitors to those who depend on us and to the Faith we claim to believe in. I could cite the passages, given a few minutes, where he recommends to the apostles that he who has two cloaks should sell one and get a sword. What he gives us in the Beatitudes is a vision of the Kingdom of God, which we see in this world, as Paul tells us, in a distorted mirror. If we keep this vision as clear as we can, we can then be better able to make true judgments as to, for example, who needs killing and when. We should also be clear that the enemy we are told to love is an echthros, a personal enemy not a foreign enemy (polemios) bringing war and murder to our homes. Because Christ's teachings are aimed primarily at the followers who called themselves brothers, he is often aiming his arguments primarily at those people who have accepted the faith but continue to quarrel with each other over trivia. This deserves a much longer discussion, which we may be able to have later on.
I once liked the song, but I have come to believe that the ratfaced con artist "Dylan" was crowing over seeing some social superior degraded, not exactly a Christian sentiment but something more like Mick Jagger's "Under My Thumb." I could be wrong.
Dr. TJF would you kindly review my brief "take" on all of this?
In all that Christ said or did,His main,if not exclusive,audience was the Palestinian Jew.The key to understanding Christ is His opening of the heretofore exclusivist Jewish Covenant,to Gentiles.This opening would be difficult to explain to a people steeped for centuries in anti-Gentile animus.The miracles and parables,properly understood,were meant to illustrate the transformative effect of Christ's intercessionary Grace on the long hated "Goy,"turning him into something "good" from-pace Jewish opinion-something "bad."
Metaphorically speaking then;the blind man,the lame,the prodigal son,the adulteress,the prostitute,the publican etc.,are a type of Gentile who,in contrast to their opposites;the sighted,the fit etc.,are a type of "Chosen" Jew.By healing or otherwise befriending the "Gentile," Christ is intimating,as well as demonstrating,the New Covenant He has come to announce.
If any of this is correct then the Sermon on the Mount can be read thusly.
.
And in a similar vein.
etc..
In fine,I read the Sermon as a kind of parable.Is that Orthodox?
There is an element, rather small, of what you say in the text but I fear not much. In the later parts of the Gospels, He addresses himself quite specifically to these questions and even polemically, but it would be a mistake to read such a view into this passage. I believe we have only two ways of proceeding, 1) a careful examination of the apparently literal meaning of the words in the wider context of the entire NT, and 2) the traditional exegesis of the Church. A speculative interpretation that reduces the impact of the text is undesirable.
"1) a careful examination of the apparently literal meaning of the words in the wider context of the entire NT, and 2) the traditional exegesis of the Church. A speculative interpretation that reduces the impact of the text is undesirable."
"We should also be clear that the enemy we are told to love is an echthros, a personal enemy not a foreign enemy (polemios) bringing war and murder to our homes. Because Christ’s teachings are aimed primarily at the followers who called themselves brothers, he is often aiming his arguments primarily at those people who have accepted the faith but continue to quarrel with each other over trivia. This deserves a much longer discussion, which we may be able to have later on."
I think that both the Beatitudes and the injunction to love your enemy have been subsumed by liberalism and therefore twisted into some type of timid pacifism that sacrifices morality and right conduct. This is partly the reason why anyone who asserts Christian doctrine unabashedly is branded as behaving un-Christian. It would be nice to see these passages in their proper context and meaning without the modernist filter which basically says that Christ came to eliminate physical violence and only physical violence.
@Edward, This is why I am hoping that Dr. Fleming will continue these discussions. It is extremely hard to understand these passages without a detailed knowledge of Greek. One of the reasons I attend my particular parish is that one of the priests there is well versed in Greek, and explains what the original text means in his sermons. He frequently corrects the translation of the lectionary. I once has the chance to start the study of Greek, but my workload at the time prevented me from doing that. I would also like to learn Latin. I am supposedly well educated, but realize that without a strong background in Greek and Latin, I have severe scholarly shortcomings.
Mr. Berg @ 11
I am a child of the Dugdemona Bayou. It springs forth near Driskill Mountain, the highest point in Louisiana. When it reaches Georgetown, it merges with Castor Creek to become Little River into which the creeks of the polity of Pollock flow - Fish Creek, Big Creek, Clear Creek and Flagon Bayou. It then flows into and through Catahoula Lake and comes out as Old River and French Fork and, again as Little River, meets the Ouachita and the Tensas at Trinity/Jonesville to become the Black River which flows into the Red. Both of my paternal grandparents grew up on the Dugdemona. northwest of Winnfield. I have hunted many a hog, deer and squirrel as well as squealer duck in the Dugdemona Bottom. Just writing this paragraph brings me to smell the late spring and early summer on the Dugdemona.
"I think that both the Beatitudes and the injunction to love your enemy have been subsumed by liberalism and therefore twisted into some type of timid pacifism that sacrifices morality and right conduct"
Edward,
This is a wise observation. One quality of courage is to know what to fear and what not to fear, or so Socrates suggested in one of the earlier dialogues. There is also Christ's instruction to fear those who can destroy the soul more than those who can kill the body. If one were to ask, "Where in our current climate is this instruction most ignored," it would be hard to exclude any aspect of contemporary habits. The University being the most vile and expensive example of ignoring one's duty to put first things first, or to put it another way, the refusal to place a priority on the good over the merely useful.
Dr. Peters @19, Not wishing to hijack this fine thread, but thank you very much for your beautiful description of Dugdemona Bayou. I have never been there. I know it only from my late friend's stories. His name was J. David McCartney. He was a fine and entertaining Christian gentleman, whose efforts saved many a troubled person, including myself.
“I think that both the Beatitudes and the injunction to love your enemy have been subsumed by liberalism and therefore twisted into some type of timid pacifism that sacrifices morality and right conduct” Edward
Very well said, and thanks to all for the good conversation. Liberalism has twisted many things. Thanks to Dr, Flemming for helping me understand some of these things. I am not an "educated" man and rely on sources like the Chronicles to help me along my journey. Great comments!
"It would be nice to see these passages in their proper context and meaning without the modernist filter which basically says that Christ came to eliminate physical violence and only physical violence."
Didn't St. Paul accomplish something like that.
TJF@16:
It is significant, I think, that the Catechism of the Catholic Church uses "Our Vocation to Beatitude" to describe the heart of Jesus' preaching. The singular is important; the "beatitude of heaven" sets the standard for all earthly things in relation to God and His Kingdom. Any reductionism is both dangerous and distracting.
Lovely reflections, wonderfully timely.