The Gospel of Luke contains, in addition to its four Beati- tudes and in immediate sequence upon them, four correspond- ing Woes. With these Woes an increasing difficulty has been felt ; many scholars have come to regard them either as so modified in transmission that they no longer represent Jesus’ spirit, or as a free traditional expansion of the four Beatitudes, and therefore unauthentic. Four chief objections are made to them : (1) These Woes find no parallel in the Matthzan account, nor elsewhere in any of the Gospels. Jesus used the Woe type of expression (cf. Mt 112! 187 2313-36, Lk 1011-15 1137-52) against those who had long and deliberately refused Him and His message ; but these four Woes of Lk 62426 are found only in this passage. If Jesus gave them at this time, they have failed to be preserved in the longer and better of the two reports of the discourse which have come down to us. (2) These Woes have a crass material import. Each of the four Woes gives the converse of each of the four Beatitudes, in the same order, and fixes upon them a materialistic sense. ‘Blessed are ye poor !’ conversely, ‘Woe unto you that are rich!’; therefore only economic poverty and wealth are meant, since spiritual riches cannot be deprecated. ‘Blessed are ye that hunger now!’ conversely, ‘Woe unto you, ye that are full now!’ ; therefore the ‘hungry’ are those in physical need of food, for the
* The reversal of the order of the second and third Beati- tudes of Matthew which is found in Codex D, 33, Syr cur and a few other early text witnesses, was adopted into the text by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles ; Achelis approves it, and H. Holtzmann thinks it may be the true reading. It is rejected, however, by Tholuck, Westcott and Hort, Nestle, and B. Weiss. The transposition may have been due to the close OT association of the two ideas of ‘poor’ and ‘meek’ (the LXX renders the Hebrew O39 by both zrwyo/ Ps 6933 and T pees Ps 3711) ; or it may have been merely fortuitous,
t Similarly Wendt, Lehre Jesu, i. 56; Bacon, Sermon on. the Mount, p. 126.
{So Klopper, Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1894 ; Kabisch, SK, 1896; J. Weiss, Predigt Jesw2, p. 182f. ; Schmiedel, Hneyel. Bibl. vol. ii. col. 1855 ; Heinrici, Bergpredigt, i. 29, who Says: “An effort to exclude all misinterpretation is seen in the phrases of closer definition, 74 svejuars (v.3), riyv dizorordvyy (v.6), 77 zupdioe (v.8), and Evexev dixecsoobvys (v.10). These additions mar the parallelism. They cannot be explained except as expansions of the original made in the process of translating Jesus’ words into Greek.’ Similarly Bacon, op. cit. p. 127f. The preservation of the precise meaning of the Beatitudes was of the first import- ance, and to Greek-speaking Christians they would not have been quite clear in their original brevity, for they would not have understood the terms ‘poor’ and ‘hungry’ to have a meaning primarily spiritual. The addition of these phrases removed all ambiguity.
SERMON ON THE MOUNT
spiritually ‘full’ are not doomed to eternal spiritual privation. Also the third and fourth Woes are harsh in their terms, shallow and external in their conceptions. The exaltation of material poverty and distress which thus appears in Luke’s Beatitudes and Woes can be seen also in other parts of his Gospel (see the account of the rich young man, Lk 1818-30 ; the parable of the Rich Fool, Lk 1216-21. 33; the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Lk 1619-31, cf, 153),* The Evangelist probably is not responsible for these views ; rather they had already impressed themselves upon the material which constituted the sources for his Gospel. They represent a strong sentiment in the first century, which grew out of a false contempt for the earthly life and an exaggeration of Jesus’ teaching about riches. (3) These Woes are out of character with Jesus. He never condemned wealth as such; what He condemned was that a man should permit wealth to be his supreme purpose and his master. On this subject Jesus taught much, and with profound insight into the true relation of men with things ; from Him we must learn the real aim of living and the proper use of the material world about us.t It is difficult, if not impossible, to bring the tone and import of these Woes into accord with Jesus’ spirit, con- ceptions, and method. (4) These Woes are inappropriate to the Sermon. This discourse was given to a large company of people who had been attracted to Jesus by His words and His works; many of them were His professed followers, all of them were well disposed towards Him. The occasion was not suitable for violent language and condemnatory pronouncements. Jesus used the Woe type of utterance for His final judgments against those who rejected their Messiah ; but here He is in the midst of His Galilean ministry, the people hear Him gladly, and the enmity of His opponents has not yet reached its final stage. In view of these four considerations, the full authenticity of the four Woes in Lk 62426 must be counted an open historical question. If they are not authentic as they stand, they may represent in a modified form actual Woes spoken by Jesus in another connexion during the closing months of His work. Or, if they cannot be attributed to Jesus at all, they will be ex- plained as free expansion in transmission, due to a desire to intensify the teaching against earthly goods. The verses may then have been constructed on the pattern of the ‘Blessings and Cursings’ of the Old Covenant (Dt 27. 28), or still more likely on the pattern of the great Prophetic utterance (Is 5).