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World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדות
/ יחסו של ישו אל המצוות JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAWAuthor(s): MORTON SMITH and מורטון סמיתSource: Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies / דברי הקונגרס העולמי למדעיכרך א / VOLUME I ,היהדות, כרך דpp. 241-244 תשכ"ה / 1965Published by: World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדותStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23514530 .
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JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAW
MORTON SMITH
NEW YORK
For the development of various sects among the
worshipers of Yah weh during the two centuries before
Jesus5 lifetime, differences of legal teaching seem to have
been the most important proximate cause.1 Such
differences, at least, are alleged by our ancient sources as
the occasions of the schism of the Dead Sea Sect2 and
of the Maccabean revolt.3 It was legal considerations
which led the Hasideans to side first with the Maccabees,
afterwards with the High Priest Alcimus.4 The Pharisees
and the Sadducees appear, even in the pages of Josephus,
as sects characterized by special legal teachings.5 It was
reportedly a difference as to a question of law which led
to the break between the Hasmoneans and the Pha
risees.6 And John the Baptist probably owed his title
and his notoriety to a legal innovation — his intro
duction of an immersion ceremony which, he claimed,
would not only cleanse from impurity, but also remit
sin.7
Given all these precedents, it would be surprising if
Jesus' differences with his contemporaries did not at
least take the form of legal contradictions, or if the
persecution of early Christianity and its isolation as a
distinct sect did not result, at least in large part, from
peculiarities of legal teaching. And this all the more so
because uncommon Messianic claims, which are usually
adduced to explain the separation of Jesus' followers,
do not seem to have had much divisive effect by them
selves. We find all sorts of Messianic predictions side
by side in the Old Testament, the pseudepigrapha, the
Essene and Rabbinic literatures, so the writers who
invented or copied these predictions do not seem to have
been troubled by their obvious incongruity.8
Moreover, the expectation that Jesus' differences with
the sects of his day should have centered in legal
questions is supported by tradition. All the Gospels
contain accounts of Jesus' legal disputes with various
parties and authorities (most often with the Pharisees,
the scribes and the high priests) and in the Synoptic Gospels, where we can speak with some confidence
about sources or groups of sources, it is clear that all
the major ones — Mark,9 the non-Markan material
common to Matthew and Luke,10 the material peculiar
to Matthew,11 and that peculiar to Luke12 — all of
these contain reports of such legal disputes. Finally,
even John — although he writes at a time when Jesus'
followers have come to think of themselves no longer as
one of the sects, but as a new religion, in opposition to
all 'the Jews',13 and although his conception of Jesus'
work as saviour is one in which the Mosaic Law no
longer has an important place11־ — even John contains
elements of tradition which reflect legal disputes raised
by Jesus' teaching or practice,13 and which report that
these disputes were among the causes of the plots
against Jesus' life.10 In this last point John is supported
by the Synoptics, which report that Jesus' legal oppon
ents initiated plots against his life and that the charge of
blasphemy was what decided the Jewish authorities to
turn him over to the Romans.17 Moreover, in addition
to all this material about Jesus, the Lucan account of
the early Christian communities most often represents
1. See M. Smith, 'The Dead Sea Sect in Relation to Ancient
Judaism, New Testament Studies 7 (1961), p. 347 ff.
2. C. D. 1:lff.; v.17—vi:11.
3. I Macc. 1: 41-11:28; II Mace. v-vm:7.
4. 1 Macc. 11:42-48; vn:12ff.
5. War II viii:14; Antiquities XVIII 1:3-4.
6. Josephus, Antiquities XIII x :5-6.
7. Mark 1:4 etc. (This interpretation will be defended in the
author's forthcoming book on the new Gospel fragment
attributed to Mark.)
8. M. Smith, 'What is Implied by the Variety of Messianic
Figures ?', Journal of Biblical Literature 78 (1959), p. 66ff.
This is not to deny that Jesus' Messianic claim was the
theoretical basis of his legal innovations. But the legal
innovations, not the Messianic claim per se, appear to have
been the causes of the disputes. Even in Mk. x1v:61ff. and
parallels the charge is a legal one — blasphemy — and seems
to be based on the claim to be the Son of God, not merely the
Messiah. This shows what the Christian community, about
the year 70, imagined to have been the issue in the interro
gation.
9. Mk. 11:1-111:6; vn:l-23; xt:15ff., 27ff., etc.
10. Mt. xt :19 parallel Lk. vii:34; Mt. xxm:25ff. parallel Lk.
x1:39ff., etc.
11. Mt. v:20; v1:2ff.; xii:2, 5f., 1 If.; xxm:7-10,16-22, etc.
12. Lk. vn:39; xm:10ff.; x1v:l£f.; xv:2ff.; xtx:7ff.
13. Cf., in any New Testament concordance, the use of
.Ioudaios in John with its use in the Synopticsי
14. Jn. 1:17; v1:32ff.,48ff., etc.
15. Jn. v:16ff.; vii:19-25; (v11:53-vm:ll); 1x:l-41.
16. Jn. locc.citt. and x :33; xix :7.
17. Mk. 111:6; x!:18; x1v:61ff. and parallels, on which see
above, n. 8.
zti
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242 MORTON SMITH
the persecution of the Christians by other Jewish groups
as resulting from disputes about the Jewish Law.18
No doubt it would be possible to maintain that all
these apparently independent lines of tradition had been
independently falsified in the same fashion and with similar material. But this would be a position difficult to
defend. It seems easier and more likely to suppose that
so much agreement is an indication of at least some
truth, and that at least some of Jesus' teaching and
practice resulted in legal disputes which set him sharply
against his contemporaries, contributed to the hostility
which led to his death, and continued after his death as one cause of the persecution of his followers.
If we adopt this supposition, however, then a corollary
follows. We should expect that Jesus' legal teaching and
practice, which played so important a role in his life and
in that of the early Christian communities, would
consequently be among the elements preserved most
clearly and tenaciously by Christian tradition.
But as a matter of fact the traditions about Jesus' legal
teaching are not merely obscure, they are openly con
tradictory, and this not merely from one Gospel to
another, but even within the same Gospel. This is most
regrettable, because there is no other Palestinian legal
teacher from the period before 70 about whose halakha
we have such early and extensive information. Neverthe
less, in Matthew, for instance, we find Jesus saying at one
moment, 'The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses'
seat: all things, therefore, which they tell you, you should
do and observe'19 — a direct command to his followers
to keep not only the entire Mosaic Law, but also the
oral law as taught by the Pharisees. And again we find
him saying, 'That which goes into the mouth does not
make a man impure'20 — a ruling which wipes out at
one stroke almost the entire body of laws, both oral
and written, concerning the purity of food.21 And this
contradiction is by no means isolated; the Gospels
contain many similar pairs of sayings, one supposing the
Mosaic Law still in force and its observance necessary
for salvation, the other invalidating some legal require
ment or promising salvation on other grounds without
any concern for legal observance.22
It is customary to deal with such contradictions by
eliminating one of the members. In the case quoted, for
instance, one can say either that the first ruling is a
Matthaean attempt to reconcile Jesus with the rising
power of Pharisaism in the years after 70, or that the
second is an invention of gentile Christians anxious to
have Jesus' authority for Paul's practice. But such
plausible guesses, when they have to be used again and
again and again, lose their plausibility. It becomes
apparent that both the nomistic and the antinomian
elements in the Gospels are so extensive that no attempt
to eliminate either can be convincing. And anyhow,
such elimination misses the main difficulty, which is, not to account for either one of the rulings, but to
account for the fact that we have both of them. More
over, we have both of them in the same book, and this
book was written within about fifty years of Jesus'
death. We must therefore ask: How could such contra
dictory accounts of so important an aspect of Jesus'
teaching have both grown up and been reconciled
within so short a time? (For reconciled they must have
been to be included in Matthew. The final editor of
Matthew was not careless.)
Moreover, if we move from Matthew back to Paul,
thirty years earlier, within only twenty years of Jesus'
death, we still find ourselves facing, under different
forms, the same problem. For large sections of Paul's
letters are devoted to a great dispute about the validity
of the Mosaic Law, and other, almost equally large
sections are devoted to rulings and exhortations which
constitute in effect, if not in name, Christian halakha.
Yet Paul rarely appeals to the details of Jesus' legal
teaching, and never, or almost never, to its general or
peculiar character. How can these facts be accounted
for if Jesus' legal teaching was so distinctive and
important as we have seen reason to think it ? Moreover,
18. Actsv1:13f.; xvm:13ff.; xx1:28f.; xxu1:29; xxv:8,18f.
19. Mt. xxm :2f.
20. Mt.xv:ll.
21. Note the difference from the similar saying of R.
Yohanan ben Zakkai (Pesikta, ed. Buber, 40a and
parallels), 'Neither does a dead body render unclean nor
does the water of purification purify, but (the purity law) is a
royal (sc. divine) decree'. Yohanan is merely denying that
there is any basis in physical changes for the purity laws. They
are simply God's decrees that men in certain relationships to
certain things shall be in the legal conditions called 'impure'
or 'pure'. These divine decrees are of course to be obeyed.
Jesus' statement also denies that there is any physical basis
for the purity laws, but pays no attention to the fact that they
are divine decrees. Jesus goes on to define 'purity' as a moral
condition, and the implication is that the laws about physical
objects need not be obeyed. (This implication was correctly
understood by the reader who added Mk. vn: 19c, katharizon
panta ta bromata, a gloss which should be translated, 'Thus —
i.e. by this argument — proving that all foods are pure'.)
Between Yohanan and Jesus there is only one step, but it is a
step of the edge of a wall.
22. Mosaic Law in force: Mk. 1: 44; vii: 9ff.; x: 6fF., 19; Mt.
v:17ff.; xviii:16; xxn:37ff.; Lk. v: 14; x:27f.; xvi:29;
xvii:14; xvm:20. Legal requirements invalidated: Mk. 11:19,
23ff.; vii:14f.; x:llf.; Mt. v:38f.; Lk. vi:37; x:8; xvi:18.
Salvation regardless of legal observance. Mk. 11:5f.; vm :35ff.;
ix:37; x:27ff.; Mt. vn:7fL; x:32f., 40; xi:12, 27; xx1:31f.;
xx11:10; Lk. vn:47; x:16; x1:5ff.; xv:llif.; xvi:16;
xvm :9-14.
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JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAW 243
how can the great dispute as to the validity of the
Mosaic Law have developed so soon among the followers
of a man famous, not to say infamous, for his legal
teachings?
Before clutching at the customary catchwords — 'the
gentile Church' and 'the Hellenists' and 'the Hebrews'
and so on — it might be helpful to approach the
problem from the other end and to ask: What sort of
legal teaching can have been, both so clear and important
as to separate Jesus from the other teachers of his time,
lead to plots against his life, distinguish his followers as a sect and remain a major cause of their persecution,
and yet of such a sort that his followers within twenty
years should be involved in great legal disputes (in which they rarely appealed to his teaching) and within
fifty years should have developed flatly contradictory
reports about his teaching and have preserved them both
in a single book? When the question is presented in this fashion, that
is to say, in its proper connection with the history of
the early Christian communities, one sees immediately
that a number of the traditional solutions are inade
quate.
For instance, the notion that Jesus declared invalid
the ritual commandments, but called for a more severe
interpretation of the moral ones, must be rejected not
only because of the particular verses that indicate the
continued validity of ritual laws, nor yet because of the
unlikelihood of a distinction at this time between ritual and moral laws, but more especially because it is
inadequate to explain the rise of the so called 'Judaizing' party in the Jerusalem church and its partial triumph
even in the diaspora (a triumph evident from the
position of the Judaizing Gospel according to Matthew).
Had abolition of the ritual law been a conspicuous
element of the legal teaching of Jesus, had it led to his
persecution and to the continued persecution of the
early Church, then the rise of the Judaizing party would
have been sheer apostacy and Paul would have branded
it as such.
On the other hand, it is equally unsatisfactory to
whittle away, by pilpul, the reports of Jesus' legal
conflicts with his contemporaries, until nothing is left
save a few differences of opinion as to more severe or
more liberal interpretations of individual laws. This not
only contradicts the plain sense of all the Gospels, but
also fails to take account of two of the most important
phenomena of early Christianity — the persecutions and
Paul. We must remember that Paul's early connection
with and dependence on Jerusalem is attested not only י
by Acts but also, and unwillingly, by Paul himself.23
Since Paul first appears in Christian history as a per secutor,24 probably of the church in Jerusalem,25 one
hesitates to suppose he was totally ignorant of Christian
teachings. He evidently found in them something which
persuaded him — a Pharisee, and reportedly a pupil of
Gamaliel the first 26 — that it was his duty to persecute
the Christians, even 'breaking into houses and haling
off men and women... to prison'.22 And Paul as a
persecutor was not unique. After he was converted to
Christianity he himself was subjected to similar treat ment. Towards the end of his career he told the Corinth
ians that he had five times been sentenced by Jewish authorities to receive thirty-nine lashes, had three times
been beaten with rods and once been stoned.28 This
sort of reaction by Jewish courts is inexplicable from the
supposition that Jesus' teaching differed from that of the
other 'rabbis' of his time only by such details as a somewhat lax interpretation of the Sabbath laws, or a
more severe interpretation of the laws on divorce.
So we come back to the antithesis already stated: The
legal teaching of Jesus must have been distinctive and
important, yet of such a sort that his followers could
promptly develop contrary interpretations of it and
preserve both of them. One is always tempted to explain
apparent contradictions either by a change of position or
by carelessness. But careless teaching would scarcely
satisfy the requirements of importance and distinctive
ness, and there is no clear indication that any major
change in Jesus' position took place. The supposition of
development is made difficult by the fact that Jesus
seems to have taught only for a short time, a very few
years at most. Also, if his teaching had developed, we
should expect that the great dispute about it, which
came so soon after his death, would have produced
some references to the development by those defending
the later, as opposed to the earlier, rulings. So the
supposition of development is not satisfactory. Some
other line of approach must be sought.
We have a number of sayings in which Jesus dis
tinguishes between the legal obligations of different
classes of persons.29 To discuss these in detail would
require a dissertation, not an article, but, in sum, they
make it possible to distinguish three groups. There are
Galatians 1:15-11:10.
I Corinthians xv :9; Philippians 111:6.
Acts viii: 3 etc.
Phil. m:5f.; Romans xi:1; II Cor. xi:22; Actsxxn:3;
xx111:6; xxvi :5.
Acts viii :3.
28. II Cor. x1:24f.
29. Such distinction is normal in Jewish law: The gentiles
are not under the Law; women and children are not
obligated to observe certain commandments; the obliga
tions of priests differ from those of ordinary Israelites, and
so on.
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244 MORTON SMITH
the ordinary Jews, for whom the Mosaic Law is still
binding. For them Jesus — who was evidently consulted
as a legal authority 30—interpreted the Law as did the
other teachers of his time, advocating stricter inter
pretations in some instances, laxer in others. Then there
are those who would be 'perfect, who must leave
everything to follow Jesus.31 These are still subject to
the Mosaic Law (as Jesus interpreted it), but on the
one hand are also subject to additional requirements of
radical self-denial while, on the other hand, since they
make up the cortege of the Messiah, they are exempt
from certain everyday legal obligations, such as that
of fasting.32 Finally, among this last group there are,
or may be, a few whom Jesus has already admitted to
the Kingdom of God. These, who have been reborn of
water and of the spirit, are greater than the Baptist, who
was only born of a woman,33 and are exempt from the
Law, for the Law and the prophets ran until the Baptist,
but from there on the Kingdom of God can be taken by
violence.34 This is the mystery of the Kingdom, that
Kingdom which was already among Jesus' hearers, or in
their power, without their knowing it, and whose
initiates were free as the winds.35
This theory cannot be discussed adequately in a
brief article. Here all that can be done is to point out
that it would satisfy the requirements of the tradition.
The libertine core of the teaching would explain the
persecutions and Paul; the legalist exterior would
explain the development of Judaizing Christianity. The conflict between Paul and the Judaizers could be seen
as that between an esoteric and an exoteric interpretation
of Christianity, and the difference between Paul's letters
and the Synoptics would be understandable as that
between esoteric and exoteric documents. Practical,
everyday considerations forced the Church gradually to
abandon the libertine side of Jesus' teaching, but the
abandonment, as usual, resulted in a compromise. The
Church arrogated, in theory, for all its members, what
Paul claimed for his holy initiates, but it kept for
practical purposes the moral requirements of the Mosaic
Law. Thus a new, unified community was created,
separated from the other forms of Judaism not by the
claim of complete freedom for a chosen few, but by the
practical abolition of part of the Law for everybody.
This new community was not concerned about his
torical criticism or philosophic consistency. As religious communities do, it held to any elements of its tradition
which it found useful. Consequently we have in the
contradictory sayings of the Gospels evidence of an
earlier stage of Christianity, when it had not yet become
in theory a congregation of Pauline saints, nor, in
practice, a community of gentiles, but was — or, at
least, wished to be — both a school of halakha for all
Israel and a mystery by which a chosen few might
escape from the realm of the Law into the freedom of the
Kingdom of God.
30. Mk. x:2 17;xn:14f., 18ff., 28 and parallels; Lk. x:25; xii :13f.
31. Mt. xix.'llf., 21; cf. v:48 (this explains the impractical
teachings of the Sermon on the Mount); Lk. xii:33; Xiv :33 etc. Compare the traditions concerning Pharisaic
groups whose members undertook observances more rigorous than the Law required. 32. Mk. 11:19, cf. 26, and parallels. Here again, similar
exemptions for members of bridal parties, mourners, and so on, appear in rabbinic law and presumably were taken
by both the Pharisees and Jesus from their common back
ground.
33. Mt. x!:ll;Lk. vn:28; Jn. m:3ff.
34. Mt. xi:12; Lk. xvi:16.
35. Mk. iv: 11 and parallels: Lk. xv11:21; Jn. m:8; Lk. vi:5D.
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