On Matthew 5:43 through 5:45

Hello, all, and Merry Christmas!  Welcome back to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ, the longest, most comprehensive, and most exhaustive gospel study that will ever be written!  If you are here for your first time, it is highly recommended that you start over from the beginning by following this link.

To my regular readers, I'd like to extend my deepest gratitude for your ongoing readership.  This project will forever count among the most important things in my life, and your support counts among the things I cherish most in this world.  Thank you so much!  I pray your holidays and the New Year find you in the best possible condition.

As per usual, we have little time to mince words.  Today, we come upon Jesus' long awaited Sixth Antithesis, as we near the end of The Gospel According to Matthew, Chapter Five.

I know that I said recently that Jesus' "Teaching About Retaliation" was the most important thing Jesus ever said.  The thing about that, though, is that Jesus' words tend to occupy a kind of quantum state, wherein many of the things he said happen to simultaneously be the most important thing he ever said.  That said, allow me to say this: we're about to read the most important thing that Jesus Christ ever said.  And that's saying a lot!  (Don't be surprised when I say this again.)

Without any ado, then, please enjoy today's study.

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Matthew 5:43 through 5:45

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 

44 But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, 

45 that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

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Boom.  There it is.  It could not be any simpler.  Jesus, here, in two sentences, lays down the highest possible law of human morality.  He says simply that, while the ancient Jewish custom was to love one's neighbor and hate one's enemy, he thought it best for his followers to love both their neighbor and their enemy.  

(I know, I know; a concept more foreign to modern "Christianity" simply could not exist.  Modern Christian culture is often predicated on hatred of one's perceived enemies, be they personal, political, or otherwise.  Modern American Christianity exists as if Jesus never said these words at all.  I know.)

Today, to increase our understanding of these transcendent verses, we're going to take our usual course: first, we'll check out some of the original ancient Greek words that constituted this writing.  Next, we'll look at the ancient context for "loving one's enemy," including both the Jewish context and the context at large.  Last, we'll consider the actual meaning of these verses, and the implications of this teaching on Christian life.  Let's get started with some fresh Greek words.

Fresh Greek Words

Today's first word of consequence is "love." We come to the word "love" by the ancient Greek "agapaó," meaning, alternatively, "to show affection to," "to be pleased with," "to be fond of," or "to take pleasure in." "Agapaó" gave rise to the term "agápē," a noun describing a universal love of all humans regardless of circumstance. Agape is one of the most important Christian ideals, and will be the subject of considerable study for us in the future. For now, just know that "agapaó" means "to love" and that "agápē" means unconditional, universal, Christian love.

The next word we'll check out is, perhaps obviously, "hate."  We come to this word through the translation of the Greek "miseó," meaning, very simply, "to hate."  "Miseó" comes from the noun "mîsos," which means "hatred," and "mîsos" has its origins in a very ancient Proto-Indo-European word meaning "to complain or be emotional about."  The spectrum of translation for "miseó" is very narrow.

We arrive at "neighbor" from the Greek "plésion," which is also narrowly translated.  The closest translations are "nearby" or "neighboring," in the most ancient Greek, and "fellow man" in later forms of Greek.  It is understood here that by "neighbor," Jesus meant "a friendly member of one's own community."

The last word to glance at today is "enemy," which we get from the ancient Greek "echthros."  "Echthros" is a Greek adjective meaning "unpleasant," "displeasing," "hated," "hostile," or, simply, "enemy."  Like the other keywords from today's reading, the possibilities of translation here fall within a small margin.  The translation we see above is very fidelitous to the original Greek.

Ancient Context, Jewish and Otherwise 

As we've already mentioned, today's verses make up the sixth of the Six Antitheses, or the six special instances in the Sermon on the Mount wherein Jesus eliminates and replaces portions of the Old Law.  It is important to note right away, however, that little evidence of a written law to specifically "hate one's enemy" in the ancient Jewish tradition actually exists.  In regard to most of the other Antitheses, it is easy to find the portion of the Old Law to which Jesus refers written in the Old Testament.  One will come up empty handed, however, when searching for Moses' specific written commandment to "hate one's enemy."

Just because there is no evidence of a "law of hatred" in the written ancient Jewish tradition is not to say, though, that there wasn't an oral tradition to "hate one's enemies."  Recall that many ancient Jews relied heavily on oral traditions to inform their understanding of their faith.  Indeed, one cannot say that the written Hebrew Bible Canon reflected the entirety of the Law.  Since we cannot know the exact nature of the oral traditions of First Century Palestinian Jews, it is difficult to say with certainty to what Jesus refers when he says "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy."  We are not, however, splitting hairs when we note that Jesus does say "you have heard that it was said," not "you have read what is written."  A specific oral tradition of "hating one's enemies" absolutely could have existed.

Despite the lack of a specific written law to "hate one's enemy," as we've noted before, the Law of Moses did condone corporal and capital punishment in various forms.  It is not too far of a logical leap to say that laws about stoning women to death before their fathers' houses, or gouging out an opponent's eyeball, are laws that implicitly condone hatred of one's enemies.  The Law of Moses is a brutal one, and corporal and capital punishments definitely coincide better with hatred of one's enemies than with love of one's enemies.

It is also worth noting that Psalm 139 seems to imply the lawfulness of the hatred of one's enemies, although it stops short of saying that one must hate their enemies.  From Psalm 139, verses 21 and 22:

21 Do I not hate, LORD, those who hate you?
Those who rise against you, do I not loathe? 

22 With fierce hatred I hate them,
enemies I count as my own.

So what can we say for sure about the ancient Jewish context for today's verses?  Perhaps little more than this: the ancient tradition does not seem to have prohibited hatred, as Jesus does in Matt 5:44, but, rather, seems to have encouraged hatred, as evidenced by frequent prescriptions of barbaric punishments for legal transgressions and the elevation of hatred as some kind of ideal in Psalm 139.  To be sure, Jesus' idea about "loving one's enemy" would have seemed like a paradigm shift to the audience listening to his Sermon on the Mount.

In a broader ancient context, Jesus' "love of enemies" concept may be less innovative.  For instance, Bible scholar John Nolland notes that the ancient Babylonian text known as the "Counsels of Wisdom" contains a similar teaching.  The text in question reads as follows:

Do not exchange hostilities with your opponent;
repay your evil-doer with goodness.
Grant justice to your enemy;
show a cheerful heart to your foe.
Guide […] even the one who gloats over you.
Do not let him set your mind on evil.

Scholars debate the age of this writing, with some placing its authorship almost two millennia before the birth of Christ.  Ancient, indeed.  Mr. Nolland also notes, along the same vein, the ancient Egyptian text known as the "Instruction of Amenemope," which contains the following words:

Row that we may ferry the evil man away,
For we will not act according to his evil nature;
Lift him up, give him your hand,
And leave him [in] the hands of god;
Fill his gut with your own food
That he may be sated and ashamed.

The "Instruction of Amenemope" predates Jesus' teaching to love one's enemy by at least one thousand years.  Knowing this, we cannot say that this teaching in Matthew chapter 5 was exactly unique to Jesus, even at the time it was spoken.  It is arguable, though, that neither Jesus nor his followers would have had even a peripheral awareness of these more ancient teachings at the time of his Galilean Ministry.

So...

What Does This Teaching Mean?

As with the other Antitheses, it is difficult to escape Christ's meaning today.  He says what he says without ambiguity, and offers no exception to this rule here nor elsewhere in the gospels.  In fact, today's teaching is multiply attested; we will see Jesus repeat the exact phrase "love your enemies" twice more by the time this study is complete.  I will reiterate: this teaching is completely devoid of ambiguity.

The earliest Christians took this teaching to heart.  The New Testament is full of instances of affirmation of this rule.  Consider the Book of Acts, 7:58-60, in which the first Christian martyr, Stephen, is being stoned to death by enemies of the early Christ Movement.

58 They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. 

59 As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 

60 Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”; and when he said this, he fell asleep.

Like Jesus, who called out for the forgiveness of his executioners, Stephen shows the ultimate love of an enemy by calling out to God for the forgiveness of those who are actively killing him - an absolutely amazing act.

Consider also the words of Hegesippus, one of the earliest chroniclers of Christian history, as he describes the execution of James, the brother of Jesus, which occurred in Jerusalem in the 60's AD:

So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to one another: "Let us stone James the Just." And they began to stone him: for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned, and kneeled down, and said: "I beseech Thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Again, we see one of the earliest Christians begging God to forgive those who are actively executing him.  A more perfect rendition of "love of one's enemy" cannot be imagined.  Early Christian history abounds with such stories.

While the first Christians understood Jesus well, we all know that history is chock full of examples of so-called "Christians" engaging in an endless slew of violence, malice, and hatred toward any manner of perceived "enemy," even down to modern times.  How, then, did we get from the unambiguous teaching of Christ to love one's enemy, which was obviously well understood by his earliest ancient followers, to the modern situation where "Christians" are known for their bigotry, bitter judgmentalness, and historical violence?  This is the big question.  There is no easy answer, but a good case can be made that the roots of Christian violence grow directly out of the year 312 AD, when the Emperor Constantine began to transform Christianity from a niche faith of pacifists that pledged allegiance to no State into a Roman State-Instituted religion of violent empire.

The question at hand is far too big to unpack completely, let alone answer, here.  In the future, we will spend thousands of words learning about Constantine, the first "Christian" Emperor.  We will spend countless hours studying the corrosive influence of Statism on the nature of historic Christianity.  Eventually, we will come to a common understanding of how we got from Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount to the bigotry and hatred of the Westboro Baptist Church and any number of prominent American "Christians" today.

The historical course Christianity has taken, unfortunately, has been an ugly and patently anti-Christian one.  The only way to begin to restore Christianity to its original form now is to look candidly at just how perverted and crooked that historical course has been.  I pray that our study together will be the beginning of just such a Great Restoration.

Let's learn to love our enemies, today, and begin to restore the long missing true Christ to the world.

Merry Christmas again.  Thank you for spending the year with me.  There are many more to come.  Happy New Year.

Love.
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To read what came prior to this, click here.

On Matthew 5:40 through 5:42

Hi, everybody.  Welcome back to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ, the most exhaustive Gospel study you will ever read.  If you would like to start over from the beginning, you can do that by clicking here.  Reading this from the beginning is advisable.

Last week was a big gigantic important week for us here, as we began to study Jesus' "Teaching About Retaliation," perhaps the most important teaching that Jesus Christ ever offered.  You won't hear many American Christians these days talking about Jesus' "Teaching About Retaliation."  That's because they don't follow it, nor do they intend to follow it.  Modern American Christians think that Jesus was talking out the side of his neck on this teaching, and that he isn't to be completely trusted.  Instead, their true faith is in the police state, the military industrial complex, and their AR-15 assault rifles.  "Jesus must have had a momentary attack of bein' an idiot during that Sermon on the Mount," modern American Christians think.

Jesus wasn't an idiot, though.  Jesus was an enlightened teacher who offered a precise and narrow moral code to his followers - a moral code that can be sussed out only by studying and comparing his words as they are quoted in the Gospels and studying the writings and actions of his very earliest followers.  I believe that said moral code is, and will always be, the perfect salve to heal the social ills of mankind.  I also believe that modern American Christians have Jesus exactly wrong.*

Jesus, contrary to popular belief, is not on the side of an America that spends more resources than any other nation anywhere in history on mechanisms of war and death. 

Jesus, contrary to popular belief, is not on the side of an America that has developed the world's greatest capacity to wage species-ending nuclear war. 

Jesus, contrary to popular American belief, did mean what he said in his "Teaching About Retaliation." That is, "turn the other cheek."

Last week's writing was a joyous exercise, for us.  Let us remain joyous today, then, as we finish up our present study of Jesus' "Teaching About Retaliation," one of the most important sets of sentences ever uttered by any human ever.

Cheers, and Merry Christmas.

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Matthew 5:40 through 5:42

40 If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. 

41 Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. 

42 Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.

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Last we met, Jesus told his followers that they were not to continue on with the ancient Jewish and Mesopotamian tradition of stabbing one another in the eye with sticks as retribution for eye injuries and knocking out one another's teeth with rocks as retribution for tooth injuries.  He instructed his followers instead to "offer no resistance to one who is evil."  Obviously inherent in this moral tenet is the subjugation of one's person to the rest of humanity.  That is to say that Jesus, in Matt 5:38-39, asked his followers to stop thinking of themselves as being innately more important than every other human on earth.  This moral tenet is rare, if not totally unique, and is the keystone to true Christian morality.

Today, Jesus expands on what he was saying in Matt 5:38-39.  He tells his followers that if someone wants to sue them for their tunic, that the follower ought to give up the tunic and their cloak as well.  He says that if someone tries to lever some work out of his followers, that the follower should not only do the work, but do twice the work that was initially expected.  He says that if someone asks for anything, his followers ought to give it, and if someone wants to borrow something, his followers ought to lend it, as a matter of morality.  These tenets, like those previous, are also rare, if not totally unique.  It goes without saying that today's verses go hand-in-hand with Matt 5:38-39.

Today, rather than our usual routine, I'm just going to riff a little on these teachings, and what they have come to mean to me.  This is not exactly "off the cuff," as I've been studying the Gospel for years, but it will be closer to "off the cuff" than normal.  I won't be quoting Josephus or Ovid, and the Greek lesson has been cancelled, just for today.

Some Riffing

So, what can we say that it means for a person to take "an eye for an eye?"  It means, simply, that a person values their own eyeball as equal to, or perhaps more important than, the eyeball of their fellow human.  Every individual who subscribes to "eye for an eye" morality values their physical body at least as much as the body of their fellow man, and probably more so.  Valuing one's body more than another's probably doesn't sound crazy to anyone reading this.  "If I don't value my body, who else will?" one might ask.  The value of the body is taken for granted in an "eye for an eye" society.  The value of one's physical life is taken for granted.  

What does it mean, then, for Jesus to say that taking an "eye for an eye" is wrong?  If we boil it down a little, it would seem that he is asking his followers to fundamentally devalue their eyeballs.  He is telling his followers "your eyeball is not worth the eyeball of your attacker."  By telling his followers that they may not participate in "eye for an eye" retaliation, he is telling them that their flesh is not as valuable as they had previously been taught - that their bodies are worth relatively less when compared to those of other humans.  In this way, as I said above, he is asking his followers to subjugate themselves to the rest of humanity.  If one's body is not valuable enough to warrant kind-for-kind retribution against any given assailant, than it follows logically that any given assailant's body is actually more important than one's own.

This idea is quite radical.  Everything that the senses tell us points to the paramount importance of our own body.  We feel pain so that we know when to protect our body from injury.  We feel hunger so that we know when to feed our flesh.  We experience libido so that we will extend that flesh into the future by generations, and we have every hard-wired instinct to defend ourselves and retaliate against an attacker.  Jesus, in telling his followers to "turn the other cheek," is asking them to subdue their most primal senses.  He is asking his followers to drastically devalue their human bodies relative to the value of all other human bodies, against every instinct that a body has.

Quite radical, indeed.

In today's verses, Jesus takes this one step further by asking his followers to reconsider the value of more than just their bodies.  He teaches that the needs or desires of other humans for physical objects should be valued more highly than the needs or desires of his followers.  He teaches that the needs and desires of other humans for labor or time should be valued more highly than the needs or desires of his followers.  If Jesus devalues the Christian's body relative to that of their fellow humans in Matt 5:38-39, in 5:40-42 he devalues the Christian's need for material possessions, labor, and even time, relative to that of their fellow humans.

It is worth noting here that today's verses are multiply attested.  We have Jesus offering almost the exact same teaching in The Gospel According to Luke, Chapter 6, as follows:

29 To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. 

30 Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. 

Like much of the Sermon on the Mount, the multiple attestation of these verses in other Gospels makes it far more likely that the historical Jesus actually said them.  It is ours to consider, then, what Jesus meant when he actually spoke these words, deliberately and dramatically devaluing one's body, one's possessions, one's labor, and one's time relative to the body, possessions, labor, and time of one's fellow human.

In the course of that consideration, and as we move forward through the Gospels, you will notice that Jesus never asks his followers to devalue their mind or their soul relative to those of other humans.  He never asks his followers to make compromises for those things that impinge upon their morality the way he asks his followers to make compromises for those things that impinge upon their physical well being.  Knowing this, we can say resolutely that Jesus valued the mind/spirit more than he valued anything in the physical realm, and wanted his followers to adopt the same conception of existence.**  This is borne out by the story of Jesus' Passion, wherein he deliberately performs actions in Jerusalem that he knows will cause the authorities to seek his capital punishment, and then submits passively to said punishment.  What Jesus believed in his mind/spirit were obviously way way more important to him than was his flesh.

As is made clear by the sayings at hand, Jesus believed that there was more to existence than just the physical aspect, and that the non-physical aspect of existence trumped the physical in overall importance.  This would have put his philosophy automatically at odds with the philosophies of many of the Jews of his time, including all of those belonging to the aristocratic priestly class, who didn't believe in anything but the physical existence. 

The Greeks and Egyptians, among other ancient cultures, had long believed in a portion of the self that existed outside of the physical plane, but those ancient cultures, by and large, maintained a balance of importance between the physical and the spiritual.  Jesus' conception of the human experience is unique in its time and place for placing all of life's value in the intellectual/spiritual plane.

"Abandon your flesh, abandon your worldly comforts, and follow me to higher ground," Jesus says in his "Teaching About Retaliation."

On the surface, these five verses are about how Christ's followers ought to interact with their fellow human.  The subtext of these verses, however, is much more voluminous, and speaks to fundamental aspects of life and existence on earth.

The counterintuitive part to all of this, I believe, is that Jesus does not anticipate that his followers will find themselves suffering by following these tenets.  This is not a flagellant's morality, nor necessarily even an ascetic's.  Jesus doesn't ask his followers to embrace misery as an ideal, here.  The secret trick of these moral tenets, which Jesus understands full well, is that the mental subjugation of the self to the rest of humanity is actually the key to true happiness in this waking life.  

Later in Luke 17, Jesus will tell his followers that the Kingdom of God is within them.  What he guides his followers toward here in Matt 5, and what he means there in Luke 17, is that God is literally something that can be experienced here and now.  I've come to understand that an ecstatic connection with the Infinite, albeit Yet Unknown, will be afforded anyone who properly values themselves in relation to the rest of humanity per Jesus' prescription as it is revealed by the historical texts.  If we get our petty physical needs and desires out of the way, and retrain our focus onto the needs of others, we will be freed from the spiritual torture device known as ego, and we will experience the Almighty such that we will often spontaneously weep from overwhelming happiness.  

I understand this teaching thus because I experienced it thus for a period of months, around the first time I read the Gospel, many years ago.  I mean to tell you, truly, that I spontaneously wept like a widow frequently in those months (less the anguish.)  I wept out of the deepest and fullest well of happiness and joy I could have ever imagined.  Jesus' philosophy and morality are what brought me to that state.  That state was the closest thing to real magic that I've ever experienced.  I felt like I touched the Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is within us, but it is also ours to reach for.  And so I pray for better reach.

I suppose that this will suffice for today.  Thank you for reading.  Please share this writing.

Love.

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* To be sure, there are groups of Christians and individual Christians living in America who have rejected the American system of ideals and thus do not necessarily have Jesus "exactly wrong."  Those groups and individuals just happen to be very few and far between in the grand scheme of things.  With this caveat, you'll forgive my hyperbole.

** I say mind/spirit because, in the ancient world, mind and spirit were not generally divided from one another.  In fact, in many ancient languages, the same word is used to denote either "mind" or "spirit."

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To read what came prior to this, click here.

On Matthew 5:38 through 5:39

Hello, all. Sorry I haven't been writing often. It pains me to not be writing, and every moment I'm not writing feels stolen and sinful to me. If you're new here, please check this study out from the beginning by clicking here.

To remind everyone, this is a never-for-profit venture. It will be the most exhaustive and detailed Gospel study ever by the time it is complete. I am writing this because I believe that a shroud has been pulled down over the visage of Jesus Christ by history - a shroud which has obscured his true nature and his true message from almost everyone who claims to follow him. I believe that this obscurity has prevented humanity from receiving the infinite potential benefit of the doctrine of Jesus Christ. I believe that humanity, standing now as it does on the brink of its own self destruction, is in desperate need of said infinite benefit. 

Believe me when I say that I believe that the doctrine of Jesus Christ is the only thing that will save humanity now from its own deadly machinations.

Last we met, we finished up our study of Jesus' "Teaching About Oaths." We now approach the end of Chapter Five of the Gospel According to Matthew. I confess that the verses we have immediately before us are some of my favorite verses out of the entire Gospel. I agree with my spiritual mentor, Leo Tolstoy, in that I think the next few verses are probably the most important verses ascribed to Jesus Christ in the entirety of the Gospel. I agree with his assessment that, in addition to these verses being the most important, they are also the least observed of the words of Christ.

There exists a sad contradiction, which Tolstoy has pointed out to us in his late works: the most important and most revelatory words of Jesus are also those that are most often ignored, mitigated, or rationalized against by his own "followers."

The study of the verses we have immediately before us will, in the long run, prove to be the most important study we ever do here at The Moral Vision. Our study of today's verses begins here, but will not end for many years. Today is huge for us. Let's see, then, what we can say about Matthew 5:38-39. We'll start with the reading itself.

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Matthew 5:38 through 5:39 

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’  

39 But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on [your] right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.

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Just read that a couple of times, if you would. No more humble law has ever been written, I assure you.

These beautiful verses constitute the fifth of the "Six Antitheses." I know that I'm embracing my inner-broken-record when I explain that the Antitheses are six highly structured sayings of Jesus that do away with specific parts of the old Law of Moses and replace them with augmented, stricter versions of the law.

Today, we're going to try to follow our basic pattern: we'll look at some Greek vocabulary, we'll learn a little about the ancient context for these verses, and we'll try to divine the actual meaning of Christ from the words themselves. There is a tremendous amount to be said about these two verses, and we will not have the opportunity to fully express it all today. As I said, you may rest assured that we will be talking about these verses over and over again over the coming years.

Without further ado, here's some Greek.

Some Koine Greek

Let's start with the human anatomy we see represented in these two verses. The first body part we have mention of is the "eye." We arrive at the English "eye" from the Greek "ophthalmos," which can mean, in addition to "eye," "sight," "understanding," "that which is best," or "the bud of a plant." As in most cases, this translation is unambiguous.

The second body-part we'll learn the Greek name of is "tooth." This translation is coming from the Greek "odous," which can alternatively be translated as "tusk." It can also refer to anything pointed, like a "spike" or a "prong." Interestingly, to me at least, odous also denoted the second human vertebra, because that particular vertebra looks a lot like a big tooth.

The third body-part vocabulary here is "cheek." We come to the word "cheek" via the Koine Greek "siagón" which actually translates more closely as "jaw," "jawbone," or "maxilla," "maxilla" being the Latin and modern medical term for "jawbone." The word "siagón" implied the side of the face to ancient Greek speakers, so "cheek," while somewhat imprecise, is not necessarily inaccurate. The difference between being struck on the cheek or on the jaw seems, to me at least, to be very little.

The next word of importance here is "resistance." We come to "resistance" by the Greek word "anthistémi." "Ant," in the ancient Greek, meant "against," "anti," or "opposite." "Histémi" meant "to make a stand," "to stand," "to set," or "to stand still." Thus "anthistémi" meant "to stand against" or "to oppose."

The next word of interest here is one we've already recently discussed. We arrive at "one who is evil" here from the Greek "ponéros" which means "evil" or "wicked." From what I can ascertain, "evil" might, alone, be as accurate a translation as is "one who is evil." It seems there is some ambiguity as to whether or not this phrasing initially meant "evil" or "an evil person," but the words that follow seem to clear the ambiguity right up, so there is not much to be gained by trying to parse it out here.

The last word we'll learn about here is the one from which we have arrived at "strikes." The word is "rhapizó." This is another straightforward one. Alternative translations include "to strike with a stick," "to slap," "to cudgel," or "to thrash."

As usual, I feel that understanding the Greek phrasing offers a higher dimension of comprehension. Learning some of the ancient language really seems to ground the study. 

Now, let's look at context.

"Eye for an Eye" in the Ancient World

In 1901 AD, in a place called Susa, Iran, an archaeologist named Gustave Jéquier, working for the Jacques de Morgan expedition, discovered something amazing. His discovery has fascinated historians for over a century now, and has informed the study of ancient human history, government, law, and philosophy in ways few other single artifact discoveries ever have. Jéquier, in the sand and dirt of Susa, discovered a stele* of relatively enormous proportions. This stele was carved out of black diorite - a kind of granite - and stood stunningly at over seven feet tall. To the joy of the archaeologists on the project, small cuneiform** writing appeared all over the stele. The language, they recognized, was Akkadian.***  Akkadian had been deciphered by scholars during the 19th century, so translation of the stele discovered at Susa was able to begin immediately. The product of that translation would prove to be Earth-shaking for historians around the world.

The product of the translation is, as some of you may have guessed, what we call today The Law Code of Hammurabi, perhaps the best known extant ancient human law-code. The Law Code of Hammurabi, written by a Babylonian king living in the 18th Century BC, claims to be a divinely inspired document meant to "bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak," to "enlighten the land," and "to further the well-being of mankind." It is significant in many ways to many fields of study. For our purposes, it is significant because it serves as part of the ancient context for Jesus' words in Matt 5:38.

The Law Code of Hammurabi, you see, was based in large part on the principle that Jesus referenced in Matthew 5:38: "an eye for an eye." "An eye for an eye," generally speaking, means that if a person harms another person, then the harmed party has the right to inflict a similar harm back upon the first person. "An eye for an eye" is also known as "The Law of Retaliation." The Code of Hammurabi consists of 282 laws, the vast majority of which prescribe some kind of retaliatory punishment for wrongdoing. The most pertinent of those laws for our study is law #196, which reads roughly as follows:

"If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye. If one break a man's bone, they shall break his bone. If one destroy the eye of a freeman or break the bone of a freeman he shall pay one gold mina. If one destroy the eye of a man's slave or break a bone of a man's slave he shall pay one-half his price."

This is the kind of law Jesus is referring to when he says "You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’" This kind of law was common in the ancient world over a thousand years before Christ's Galilean Ministry. The Law Code of Hammurabi is only the best known example of myriad ancient law codes that centered around The Law of Retaliation.

Now that we understand what is meant by the ancients when they say "an eye for an eye," let's look at the specific context of Jewish Law to see what exactly Jesus was referring to when he referenced this law.

"An eye for an eye" appears in the Old Testament on three occasions, and was definitely part of the Law of Moses. All three mentions of this retaliative code appear in the Pentateuch. Let's take a look at each instance.

The first occurs in Exodus 21:24. Exodus 21:12-32 are subtitled "Personal Injury," and they list Moses' laws about personal injury. These laws describe what to do with a kidnapper, (put him to death,) what to do with someone who curses their father or mother, (put him to death,) what to do with someone who strikes his slave with a rod, (nothing if the slave doesn't die from the blow,) and what to do with an ox who gores a man or a woman to death, (put the ox to death.) The portion wherein "eye for an eye" is mentioned reads as follows:

22 When men have a fight and hurt a pregnant woman, so that she suffers a miscarriage, but no further injury, the guilty one shall be fined as much as the woman’s husband demands of him, and he shall pay in the presence of the judges.

23 But if injury ensues, you shall give life for life,

24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

This paragraph is very specific. How often is a pregnant woman harmed because two fighting men accidentally hurt her? This would seem like a rare occurrence. Is the pregnant lady drinking in the rowdiest bar in town? I jest, of course, but I have always gotten a little bit of a chuckle from these verses. It really just seems like it wouldn't happen often...

The second mention of "an eye for an eye" occurs in Leviticus, Chapter 24. This instance occurs in a section subtitled "Punishment of Blasphemy." The first part of this section describes a man who, in an argument, uttered the Lord's name in a curse. The people who heard this were shocked, and took the man to Moses. Old-Testament-God tells Moses, roughly, "you need to take that boy out to the edge of town and whip stones at him until he is good and dead," which they did. Old-Testament-God then continues on offering laws that don't seem exactly relevant to the situation at hand. He tells Moses the following:

17 Whoever takes the life of any human being shall be put to death;

18 whoever takes the life of an animal shall make restitution of another animal, life for a life.

19 Anyone who inflicts a permanent injury on his or her neighbor shall receive the same in return:

20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The same injury that one gives another shall be inflicted in return.

21 Whoever takes the life of an animal shall make restitution, but whoever takes a human life shall be put to death.

This law, as laid out by Old-Testament-God, is very much like parts of Hammurabi's Law Code. The Israelites certainly would have been familiar with Babylonian Law when they were putting the Book of Leviticus to paper for the first time, so it is safe to say that they adopted some of their law system from the Babylonians, and perhaps from the Hammurabi Law Code itself.

The third mention of "eye for an eye" law in the Old Testament occurs in Deuteronomy, Chapter 19. In Deuteronomy 19, Moses is relaying more of Old-Testament-God's law to the Israelites. He offers a law regarding people who lie in court:

16 If a hostile witness rises against someone to accuse that person of wrongdoing,

17 the two parties in the dispute shall appear in the presence of the LORD, in the presence of the priests and judges in office at that time,

18 and the judges must investigate it thoroughly. If the witness is a false witness and has falsely accused the other,

19 you shall do to the false witness just as that false witness planned to do to the other. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.

20 The rest shall hear and be afraid, and never again do such an evil thing as this in your midst.

21 Do not show pity. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot!

Like our first instance, this instance is quite specific, but still speaks to the retaliatory nature of the Law of Moses. Suffice it to say, then, that the law Jesus grew up learning about had much in common with the Law Code of Hammurabi. The Law of Moses, as far as it deals with humans who wrong other humans, is The Law of Retaliation. It wouldn't be hard to believe that Jesus grew up witnessing public executions that occurred based on the ancient law of his people. If he did witness such a thing, it wouldn't be hard to believe that he found it absolutely repugnant. 

But you heard Old-Testament-God: "whip stones at that dude until he is good and dead!"

What Did Jesus Mean in Matthew 5:38-39?

I've spoken to countless modern "Christians" about today's verses. I've asked countless modern "Christians" how war or violence of any kind is justifiable in light of Jesus' teaching to "resist not evil." Almost every "Christian" I've engaged on this issue has responded stutteringly that Jesus simply didn't mean what he said. Some search their minds for Bible verses that might contradict Jesus' doctrine. Some mention that Old-Testament-God says "an eye for an eye" and "whip stones at him until he's dead." Almost invariably, though, the response of the modern "Christian," when confronted with the words from Matthew 5:39, is that Jesus didn't mean exactly what he said. This seems preposterous to me, especially when the doctrine of the modern "Christian" says that Jesus is God incarnate. Why would God come down and offer moral prescriptions that he didn't believe in or actually want followed!?

I'm afraid that so-called Christians have held this perverted view of the words of their savior for a long, long time. The idea that Jesus didn't mean what he is recorded to have said in the most significant moral teaching of his Galilean Ministry has been pervasive through Christianity for centuries, and has followed Christianity wherever it went. We can know this by listing the number of battles and wars and corporal punishments that have been perpetrated by "Christian" nations since the 4th Century AD. That list is nearly endless.

Jesus' meaning in the Sermon on the Mount is, in fact, inescapable. His teaching to "resist not evil" does not appear as anomalous within the context of the Sermon. Rather, it fits perfectly among the other teachings of the Sermon. Jesus is asking his follows to forget the old Law of Moses, and replace it with a new law of meekness, peace, forgiveness, honesty and simplicity. What does Jesus mean when he speaks in the Gospel According to Matthew, Chapter Five, Verses Thirty-Eight and Thirty-Nine? He means "the people who have come before us have lived by the Law of Retaliation. I am replacing that law with a new and superior law: the Law of Peace. I tell you now: resist not evil. If you are attacked, invite further attack and do not defend yourself." He doesn't immediately give a list of exceptions to this rule, the way modern "Christians" will. In fact, he doesn't ever give any exception to this rule. He literally wants his followers to adopt complete and total pacifism. It is inescapable, and it happens to be perhaps the most powerful thing he ever taught his followers.

This teaching is what I would call the crux.

Let's let Tolstoy get a piece of this, with these words from the introduction to his book "The Kingdom of God is Within You:"

"In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title "What I believe," in which I did in fact make a sincere statement of my beliefs.

In affirming my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help explaining why I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the Church's doctrine, which is usually called Christianity.

Among the many points in which this doctrine falls short of the doctrine of Christ I pointed out as the principal one the absence of any commandment of nonresistance to evil by force. The perversion of Christ's teaching by the teaching of the Church is more clearly apparent in this than in any other point of difference."

Beautiful. "The perversion of Christ's teaching by the teaching of the Church is more clearly apparent in this than in any other point of difference." Honestly, when I first read these words many years ago, I felt like I'd just met the only person who understood the world.

I could repeat myself all day, saying over and over again that Jesus literally meant for his followers to "resist not evil," and that this teaching is the most critical of any of Jesus' teachings, but you don't have to take it from me. Instead, let me quote just a few more ancient texts to help drive the point home. You see, it wasn't immediately that the followers of Christ threw out the teaching of Christ. We can know this by, for instance, reading the following from Paul's Letter to the Romans, Chapter 12:

19 Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

20 Rather, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.”

21 Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.

See? Paul gets it. Evil is conquered by good. Evil is conquered by turning the other cheek to it. Evil, when resisted by evil acts, is only evil doubled.

Then we have the following, from the very beginning of the "Didache," a first century Christian document considered by many scholars to be the very first example of "Church orders:"****

There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways.

The way of life is this. First of all, you shall love the God who made you. Second, love your neighbor as yourself. And all things you would not want done to you, do not do to another person.

Now the teaching of these words is this. Bless those who curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast for those who persecute you. For what credit is it to you, if you love those who love you? Do the people of the nations not do the same? But you should love those who hate you, and you will not have an enemy.

Abstain from the desires of the flesh and of the body.

If anyone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other cheek to him also, and you will be perfect.

If anyone compels you to go one mile, go with him for two miles. 

If anyone takes away your coat, give him your shirt also. 

If anyone takes away what is yours, do not demand its return, for you cannot.

To anyone who asks something of you, give it to him, and do not ask for it back, for the Father desires that gifts be given to all from His own riches.

As we can see here, the anonymous authors of the Didache, one of the earliest foundational church documents, understood Christ's commandment well. They didn't believe, as modern "Christians" believe, that Jesus said a bunch of things that he had never meant.

Finally, we'll come to a close on a bit of text from a very ancient diary known as the "Passion of Saint Perpetua, Saint Felicitas, and their Companions." The Passion is a diary written by a Christian girl named Perpetua living in Carthage in the late 2nd Century AD. The Passion is a prison diary, and was written while Perpetua was imprisoned by the local Roman authorities for her professed Christianity. The bulk of the text is believed to have actually been written by Perpetua, while the ending is believed to have been written by a witness to the events described. 

After a period of imprisonment, Perpetua and a handful of her Christian friends were brought from the prison into a public amphitheater for execution. Before a crowd, wild animals were set upon Perpetua and her friends. Having sustained massive injuries by the animals, the victims were herded back to a central area of the amphitheater so that everyone in the crowd could see their final execution.

Here. Read for yourself.

But the crowd demanded that they be brought back to the middle of the arena, so that as the sword penetrated the bodies of the martyrs their eyes might be accomplices to the murder. The martyrs got up unaided and moved to where the crowd wished them to be. First they kissed each other so that the ritual of peace would seal their martyrdom. The others, in silence and without moving, received the sword’s thrust, and particularly Saturus, who had first climbed up the ladder, was the first to give up his spirit. For once again he was waiting for Perpetua. Perpetua, however—so that she might taste something of the pain—screamed out in agony as she was pierced between the bones. And when the right hand of the novice gladiator wavered, she herself guided it to her throat. Perhaps such a woman, feared as she was by the unclean spirit, could not have been killed unless she herself had willed it.

Wow. Talk about non-resistance to evil. I've played this scene over and over in my mind. Perpetua stands there looking at the gladiator who is to strike her down. He swings his sword back and chops down at her neck, but, due to weakness, hesitation, or bad aim, his sword glances off of her collar-bone, tearing her flesh open painfully, exposing bone and sending blood spraying. She screams out in agony, and the gladiator stands looking at her in shock, perhaps uncertain how to remedy the situation. Perpetua takes a step towards him, composing herself, and grabs ahold of his sword with her bare hands. She raises the tip of the sword up to her own throat and reaches out to grasp the gladiator's wrist, where he still holds onto the sword.

"No, no. Like this," she tells him, as she pulls his wrist toward her, plunging the sword definitively into her neck, ending her life.

Wow.

It was stories like these of non-resistant martyrs - true followers of Christ - that caused Christianity to explode in popularity and size in the first few centuries of its existence. The early church martyrs abandoned the Law of Retaliation. They left "an eye for an eye" with their ancestors. They embraced Jesus' doctrine whole-heartedly, and, in doing so, were responsible for perhaps the most profound shift in religious and philosophical thought that this world has ever seen. It was because of the martyrdom of the early Christian pacifists that Greco-Roman paganism was eventually lost to the dust-bin of history.

Ask a modern "Christian," though, and they'll tell you that Perpetua was crazy. Ask an American "Christian" and they'll tell you: "Jesus didn't mean what he said. Perpetua should have grabbed that sword and cut the gladiator down."

We'll see you next time. Please share this writing.

Love.
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* A "stele" is an upright standing commemorative stone slab that frequently has inscriptions on it. Since they frequently contain written language informing us about ancient peoples, steles are the things archaeologists dream about discovering.

** Cuneiform was an ancient form of writing named after the wedge shape markings that formed its letters.

*** Akkadian is a dead Semitic language from Mesopotamia that was used by Babylonians, Assyrians, Akkadians, and others.

**** "Church Orders" refers to ancient texts that clarified Christian morality, explained apostolic prescriptions, offered standardized liturgies of worship, and layed out ancient Church organizational structures.
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To read what came prior to this, click here.