Last time, if you'll recall, we read and digested Matthew 5:13, in which Jesus told his new followers that they were the "salt of the earth." Remember that Matt 5:13 began a set of verses collectively known as the "Similes of Salt and Light." Today, just like last time, we're going to dispense with any superfluous topics and focus directly on our gospel reading. We have some interesting ground to cover, so let's get started.
------------------------------
Matthew 5:14
14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
------------------------------
The metaphors are really flying now. Last time, they were the "salt of the earth." Today, they are called the "light of the world," and they are compared to a city set on a mountain. None of this makes immediate sense, and none of it can be simply glazed over. The use of metaphor insists that we pause and process.
Today, we'll highlight some linguistic differences between 5:14 and 5:13. We'll work to ascertain Jesus' general meaning in 5:14 by digesting the language and looking at the traditional interpretation. Then, we'll look around ancient Galilee to see if any cities were built on mountains in the time of Jesus, since a local "city on a mountain" might help to explain Jesus' choice of metaphor. Finally, we'll look for attestation of these words in other gospels.
Linguistics
In Matthew 5:13, when Jesus calls his followers the salt of the earth, the word used for "earth" is "gês," a Greek word meaning "land," "earth," or "soil." In 5:14, Jesus switches terminology from "salt of the earth" to "light of the world." The Greek word used for "world" here is "kósmos," meaning "order," "mode," or "humankind."
In English, "earth" and "world" can be seen as synonymous, so it is interesting that the evangelist records Jesus as having used non-synonymous Greek terms here. Let's postulate as to why the terms differ.
Jesus' use of the term "gês" in the salt metaphor makes sense because it refers to the literal earth beneath our feet. Salt is a mineral found in the soil of earth, and "gês" refers to that soil. When Jesus proceeds to discuss the "light of the world," he uses the term "kósmos," which detaches us from the physical earth and causes us to look for a broader vision. His followers aren't the light of the soil. His followers are the light of order. His followers, he says, are the "light of humankind."
Between 5:13 and 5:14, Jesus moves from a concrete, physical term to an abstract conceptual term. Jesus is, perhaps deliberately, broadening the visionary aperture for his followers here. It is possible that, by moving from "gês" to "kósmos," he means to tell his followers "don't go thinking that my teaching only applies here in your physical life, when in reality it applies broadly to the whole world, and across all time."
Interpretation
So, what is Jesus' specific meaning in this verse, as he moves a step toward the abstract? By "light of the world," Jesus clearly means that his followers are to "enlighten humankind." This is the standard traditional interpretation, with which I agree. Another way of putting this is that Jesus wants his followers to be teachers of his school of thought. The teaching is not to be hoarded, but given away.
The next portion of the verse, "a city on a mountain cannot be hidden," will make more sense when we arrive at the last verse of these similes, but, based on what we've read so far, we can guess that Jesus is again referring to the relative placement of his true followers among humankind. His followers, he says, are to be seen very clearly, even from a distance, and are not to hide themselves from the world. His teachings are for all.
"You will give the world light that it needs. You cannot hide your light from the world," he seems to say. This is the traditional interpretation, with which I agree.
In 5:13, as Jesus compared his followers to precious salt, we noted that salt cannot become not-salty. This seemed to indicate an irreversible status for the true follower of Christ. Once salty, always salty. Once a follower of Christ's teachings, always a follower of Christ's teachings. This kind of irreversible status seems to be reflected again in today's reading, where Jesus says the city on a mountain cannot be hidden. The visibility of the city is irreversible.
The salt needed not do anything outside of its nature in order to remain salty, and the city on the mountain need not do anything outside of its nature in order to remain permanently visible.
The salt and the city make no effort, but are important and conspicuous by their very nature. By these verses, Jesus means that his followers will need to make no effort in being the light of the world. They will be the light of the world by their very nature - a beautifully empowering concept.
Cities on Mountains?
Moving on, I wanted to note that a city being built on a mountain was not a rare thing in the ancient world. A mountain, or, more generally, any land that stood elevated above the land which encompassed it, was far more defensible in combat than level ground or low-ground. Human military commanders have understood the tactical value of high-ground since prehistory. That said, it is no surprise that many cities all over the ancient world were founded on hills, mountains, or elevated plateaus.
If we look specifically at the Galilee in the time of Jesus, the best example of a "city on a mountain" is that of Safed, which was known in Christ's time as Sepph. Safed is the highest city in Israel, and is visible from a huge portion of Galilee. If Jesus' Sermon on the Mount did indeed occur outside of Capernaum, on the north side of the Sea of Galilee, it is completely possible that Jesus and his followers could have seen Safed, sixteen miles to the north, during the Sermon. Some scholars have wondered whether Jesus didn't actually gesture toward Safed while he said this. "You will be as visible as a city on a mountain," he might have said, pointing north to the highest land on the horizon.
Whether or not Jesus indicated Safed to his followers or was thinking about Safed during the Sermon does not change our interpretation, but it is interesting to consider nonetheless.
Multiple Attestation
Lets cover one last thing here. We need to discuss the multiple attestation of this verse. First, I'll remind you what we mean by "multiple attestation."
In gospel scholarship, and especially in the context of the quest for the historical Jesus, there are specific criteria we use to determine historicity. These criteria include the "Criterion of Dissimilarity," the "Criterion of Embarrassment," and the "Criterion of Multiple Attestation." Admitting that the gospels arrive to us through the veil of history anonymous, and through copies of translations of copies, we do not immediately trust anything in the gospels as being true in and of itself. Instead, we utilize the aforementioned criteria and others like them to suss out what might be true historical data and what might be conjecture or story-telling on the part of any given evangelist.
The "Criterion of Multiple Attestation," sometimes called the "Criterion of Independent Attestation," says, simply, that the likelihood of an event or saying in a gospel being historical increases proportionately with the number of times that said event or saying is recorded in other independent sources.
The word "independent" is key here. When we look for "multiple attestation," we have to remember that Matthew and Luke share more than half of their material in common. A huge percentage of the material in common between Matt and Luke comes directly from Mark. The remaining material Matt and Luke share in common must have come from some other common source. Whatever that source was, it is now lost to history. Scholars call this lost source "Q," which stands for the German word "quelle," meaning "source."
That said, we cannot say that material common to Matt, Mark, and/or Luke has been "multiply attested," because Matt, Mark, and Luke are not independent from one another. Material found common between Matt and Luke always came from either Q or Mark. However, if some material is found in common between Matt, Mark, or Luke and, say, the Gospel of John, said material can be called "multiply attested," because John was written independently of the other three.
I say all of this to help demonstrate why it is important that today's verse is indeed attested in another gospel. Given what you've just read, you might be surprised that the other gospel in question is not the Gospel of John. No, this verse is actually multiply attested in the famed Gospel of Thomas.
We've discussed the Gospel of Thomas very little thus far. I promise that, during the next few years, we will discuss it in depth again and again. In short, the Gospel of Thomas is a "sayings gospel"* about the life of Jesus which was lost in antiquity and only recently rediscovered in the brilliant "Nag Hammadi" cache.
Verse 32 of the Gospel of Thomas reads as follows:
32 Jesus said, "A city being built on a high mountain and fortified cannot fall, nor can it be hidden."Some scholars believe that the Gospel of Thomas was written very early. Some scholars will even argue that the Gospel of Thomas is the oldest extant gospel. There are strong arguments to be made that Thomas was written completely independently of Matt, Mark, Luke, and John. If it is true that the author of Thomas did not have access to any of the other known works, then it stands a good chance that Jesus' use of the "city on a mountain" metaphor is historical.
Like... the historical Joshua actually said it.
This kind of measured probability is the closest we can get to standing among the crowd of Jesus' first-century disciples. It is heartwarming to be so close to the Man, and I can't hide my smile as I consider it.
We will be increasingly on the lookout for the various Criteria of Historicity, and will eventually find cause to work a "Criteria of Historicity" section into each entry of our "sayings of Jesus" index.** For now, just know that we here at The Moral Vision take nothing for granted. We assume that any given bit of any gospel might be contrived, and we base our understanding of the historical Jesus solely on data that meet some Criterion of Historicity.
Whew. That seemed like a heady mouthful. I hope I didn't lose you to the jargon.
Next time, we'll continue with "The Similes of Salt and Light," as Jesus continues to expound upon his moral vision. Until then, remember: Christ wanted his followers to be the "light of the world." If you count yourself among his followers, perhaps you ought to enlighten someone this week.
Thank you for reading. Please share this writing.
Love.
-------------------------
* A "sayings gospel" is a gospel that does not follow a narrative arch, but, rather, simply relates a list of things that Jesus was thought to have said.
** I know I've fallen far behind on the index work. I promise to remedy that as soon as I have the time.
-------------------------
To read what's next, click here.
To read what's next, click here.
To read what came prior to this, click here.
For the index of Christ's words, click here.
