Gospel Essays

Frontier of Sacred and Secular

Mark C. Kiley

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781498263139
• eBook ISBN: 9781630879129
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Is meticulous Matthew also mathematically so? Why does Matthew alone in the canon discuss guards at Jesus' tomb? For popular storytellers in the early church, is the serpent of the Garden the unseen catalyst in the murder of John the Baptist? Why do almost three dozen words beginning with the Hebrew letter ayin have analogues in Luke's infancy narratives? Why do Mary's meditations there cohere with Psalm 19? John's Jesus describes himself as Way, Truth and Life. Does this bear any relation to the single Latin term veritas? St. Ignatius of Antioch, in his letter to the Ephesians, talks about the song of the Body of Christ and people as stringed instruments. Does John know that idea? What does the Roman legend of the emergence of bees from the carcass of a slain ox have to do with the early church?In these close readings of the Gospels, the reader will rediscover the fascination of listening to some of the original resonance of the New Testament text with Hebrew, Greek, and Latin culture. Attentive to detail and persistent in asking questions about the larger picture, this scholarship fulfills the promise inherent in research.

One

Matthew’s Pi

Come with me to Alexandria, Egypt where it is 150 BCE. Over a century has passed since a local luminary named Euclid offered three postulates that uncover principles of constructing with a circle and a straight line. And Archimedes, native of Syracuse who came to study in Alexandria, used those postulates to approximate the value of the relationship between a circle and its diameter, the line that cuts through the circle’s middle. He set that value at 22/7 or 3.14 plus…. Such a value was of intense interest, because at one level of abstraction, a circle has neither beginning nor end, while the introduction of a diameter into a particular circle makes it possible to say something somewhat precise about an unknown quantity in either circle or line. Unbounded and precise. Can you hear the possibilities? Plato’s dialogue Philebus, 15–18, had long since acknowledged the wisdom of attending to a unity not only in regard to the infinite but also with respect to specific numbers.1 Our path turns now to the synagogue, where we witness Alexandrians who have for a century been rendering the Hebrew texts of their Sacred Scripture into Greek. When they plan their task, they so divide the Hebrew Psalter that they create a Psalm 31 that mentions kyklos, circle, not once, but twice (vss. 7 and 10 in the Greek version, the Septuagint, abbreviated LXX). The Septuagintal enumeration Ps. 31 is in itself an example of the relationship between infinity and limit.

In what follows, we fast-forward to the end of the first century of the Common Era and inquire concerning those aspects of the Gospel of Matthew that might have been shaped by this heritage. We examine the cyclic traits of Matthew’s Gospel in five parts: circle texts parallel to Matthew, circle and Pi within Matthew, the (circular) novelty of the adjective oligopistos, associated names-play within the Gospel, and the circular structure of the Gospel.

I. Circle Texts Parallel to Matthew

The very first verse of Psalm 31 (LXX) celebrates the forgiveness of anomia, lawlessness. The Evangelist four times uses this term in the Gospel (e.g. Matt 24:12 “as lawlessness increases, the love of many will grow cold”). Indeed, he is distinctive among the canonical Gospels in his frequent and original usage of this term.

The Matthean crucifixion, uniquely in the canon, includes an earthquake and a resurrection of some saints of Jerusalem (Matt 27:52, 53). Many commentators point out the seeming oddity of having their resurrection occur before that of Jesus. However, the most plausible explanation for the event may reside in Psalm 31:10 LXX “mercy will encircle (kyklōsei ) the one who hopes in the Lord.” Every commentator recognizes that the resurrection of the Matthean saints is similar to that of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. But it is also noteworthy that the resurrection-vision in Ezekiel follows and reverses the lament “our hope is destroyed” (37:11). It seems that Matthew lobbed a volley of hope in Psalm 31:10 LXX toward its partner in Ezekiel 37, and that upon its return, this ricochet brought with it a corporate resurrection. Or, to put it differently, the hope that Matthew reads in Psalm 31 LXX rides the current of the encircling mercy of God. And by reading Ezekiel 37 through the lens of Psalm 31 LXX, the Evangelist asserts that at the cross of Jesus, the life without beginning or end is making a definitive appearance. All heaven is breaking loose, or a substantial foretaste thereof.

And Matthew is not alone in this regard. The other Gospels of the canon are in their distinctive ways as engaged with kyklos as is Matthew with Psalm 31. The Gospel of John uses the very next psalm after Psalm 31 that mentions kyklo-, that is, Psalm 33 (LXX), when John approximates the text by saying “not a bone of his will be broken” (John 19:21; Ps. 33:21 LXX). And Luke quotes Psalm 31 of the Hebrew enumeration when portraying Jesus as saying at the cross “Into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46; Ps. 31:6). They may all have taken their Christian inspiration from the Gospel of Mark. There, the predicted time of the end of this age includes a darkening of the sun (13:24), which begins to transpire in the sun going dark at Jesus’ cross (15:33). That crossover from this age to the new one is cradled within a text whose five occurrences of “time” (kairos) and counting off the hours of Jesus on the cross are congruent with Ps. 31:16 “My times are in your hands.”

Apart from Psalm 31 LXX, one of the most wonderfully wrought aspects of Passion and Resurrection narratives in Matthew is centered in an exploration of Psalm 25 LXX in which the verb kykloō is employed: “I will wash my hands in innocence and go about/encircle your altar, Lord” (Ps. 25:6 LXX). Uniquely, in Matt 27:24, Pilate washes his hands before the crowd crying for Jesus’ death. When, in the very next verse, Matt 27:25, the crowd calls down Jesus’ blood on themselves and their children, we have an elaboration of Ps. 25:9 LXX in which the Psalmist asks for rescue from “men of blood / bloodthirsty men.” But the parallels are more extensive yet. In Matt 28:12, the Evangelist explicitly states that the guards at the tomb were paid a large amount of money to spread a story about the disciples stealing Jesus’ body to make it look like he had risen from the dead. Listen to Psalm 25:10 LXX: “their right hand is full of bribes.” And finally, Psalm 25:12 LXX, the conclusion of the Psalm, has the Psalmist celebrate the fact that his “foot stands in an even place.” Matt 28:9, uniquely among the Resurrection accounts of the canon, focuses on grasping the feet of the Risen One.

I would also offer the tentative suggestion that unique aspects of Matthew’s Gospel are partly informed by a dialogue with a widely known text of antiquity itself constructed on cyclic repetitions, Homer’s Odyssey. The encounter in Book 9 of Odysseus and the lawless Kyklōpes Polyphēmos presents us with themes that add texture to the attack of Jesus in Matt 23 on those who are blind guides, full of dead men’s bones, disregarding the weightier matters of the law.

This dialogue may become quite sophisticated in Matt 26 if the uniquely Matthean word dēlon secondarily alludes to Dēlos , the center of the Cyclades Islands in the Aegean. The attendant in Matt 26:73 says to Peter that even your speech “makes you dēlon” (apparent; i.e. gives you away). Most commentators on the verse show a good deal of nervousness about our ability to demonstrate gradations of the spoken word in this period. But this scene with Peter occurs in the midst of others that contain echoes of book 5 of the Odyssey. Homer has Kalypso recount a tale of a mortal being hunted down by a god on Dēlos. This tale occurs in the midst of a talk with Hermes, who is depicted as able to put men to sleep by his power. The discourse ends when Kalypso acknowledges that there’s no eluding the will of Zeus. These parallels-of-type are used by the Evangelist as texture in the springboard that ultimately propels the reader toward Peter’s recognition of Jesus’ identity in Matthew 16, bringing Peter to a position of central preeminence within the circle of Jesus’ disciples. It is in Matthew 16 that Peter’s speech also makes him dēlon, a center.

II. Circle and Pi within Matthew

Remembering that counting is inherent within the notion of scribe (s-f-r), allow me to offer some other exploratory suggestions about some of the most beautifully crafted dynamics of this literary circle:

The circle that forms the focus of this approach to Matthew should not be seen as asserting a cyclic view of history whereby history repeats itself forever. Rather, the circle is a symbol of God’s life, made available to a world / an age that has an end: its transformation in the life of God. Here we note with many observers that, while Matthew claims to have given us fourteen generations in his third triad in chapter 1, in fact he has only given us thirteen. Matthew is living in the final age, made definitively so by the Paschal mystery of Jesus.

And where is the word circle as such? While there is no explicit use of kyklos, circle, in Matthew, it is the silent elephant plopped down in the middle of the room. Matthew alone among the canonical Gospels mentions the ekklēsia, church, which shares all of the consonants in kyklos (kls). Moreover, the threefold occurrence of ekklēsia (16:18; twice in 18:17) is mirrored in the fact that Matthew has tripled Mark’s single occurrence of kyllos, maimed (Matt 15:30, 31; 18:8). Jesus, whose authority to straighten crooked limbs is unlimited, already begins now what will come to fruition at the end of the age. Indeed, of all the various types of healings effected by Jesus, it is limb-straightening that most closely resembles the diameter of a circle in the relationship we are tracing.

The feeding of two different crowds in Matthew 14 and 15 reflect those in Mark, with one notable difference. The number of people fed, 5000 and 4000 respectively, is rendered with an additional note “not counting women and children.” I see here a literary expression of the ongoing value of Pi beyond its first few digits. Obviously, the portrait of women and children is inherently a note of fecundity and continuation. And their function in relation to Pi is depicted by the sentences that precede and follow their appearance. Matthew 14:20 and 15:39 each contain 14 words.

The Gospel is rife with groupings of threes. Jack Kingsbury’s 1988 Matthean commentary argued that the phrase “from that time on Je...

Table of contents

• CoverImage
• Kiley.AncientIndex.6_6
• Kiley.bibl.SG3
• Kiley-1.ch1.SG3
• Kiley-1.ch2.SG3
• Kiley-1.ch3.SG3
• Kiley-1.ch4.SG3
• Kiley-1.ch5.NEW.SG3
• Kiley-1.ch6.SG3
• Kiley-1.ch7.SG3
• Kiley.fmtr.SG3
• Kiley-1.fmtr.SG3
• Kiley-2.fmtr.SG3
• Kiley-3.fmtr.SG3
• Kiley.ModernIndex.6_6
• Kiley.SubjectIndex.6_6