t The figurative language should therefore be interpreted qualitatively, not quantitatively. So apparently, though not
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to question the precise authenticity of the utterances as they stand reported in Mt 518.19.* The wording of them presents the rabbinical conception of the Law as eternally and literally valid ;+ the formule used are those of the rabbinical phrase- ology. The statements themselves are too likely to be mis- understood and to mislead the hearers. The hyperbole is too much in the direction of the literalism which He was strenu- ously opposing.
t is not necessary to suppose, nor is it at all probable, that Mt 518.19 was a free composition of a subsequent period. The two verses seem to have a real nucleus of something said by Jesus on this occasion. But a certain Jewish-Christian colour- ing they may have received in transmission. Jesus may well have used some strong expressions in this connexion, for the purpose of affirming the Divine character and the essential cor- rectness of the OT revelation, and of impressing the duty of members of the Kingdom which He was establishing to recognize and preserve the truth thus intrusted to them. And these words of Jesus, already more conservative than He was accus- tomed to use in His general teaching, may, through the pro- cesses of transmission and translation, have taken on a still more conservative tone than He had given them. When it is re- membered that for 15 or 20 years after Jesus’ death the primitive disciples had no other conception of the OT than that it was literally and completely in force, Jesus’ teaching being only supplementary thereto, it is not difficult to see how these words which dealt with that matter assumed a form and interpretation in accordance with the disciples’ conceptions of the relation of the New to the Old Dispensation. In such a transformation of Jesus’ words and meaning there would be no intention to mis- represent Him, but rather a conscious purpose to make more definite what they at that time conceived Him to have meant by these utterances. What these verses now say is inconsistent with Jesus’ other teaching and with His practice regarding the OT Law ; but it is consistent with the primitive Apostolic teach- ing and practice of the Law, which maintained the former Jewish position, ignoring for a time that constant and signifi- cant portion of Jesus’ teaching and conduct which was against the literal authority and the permanent observance of the OT.
In the following verse, Mt 5”, we are again on firm ground. Jesus assures His hearers that the current conception and attainment of righteousness, as taught and pee by the scribes and Phari- sees, was entirely insufficient—not enough to admit one to the Kingdom of Heaven.} Instead, therefore, of abrogating or diminishing religious require- ments, as they charged against Him, He was, in fact, demanding of men a great deal more than they demanded, with all their boasted devotion to the Law. What the character of the Pharisees’ righteousness was can be seen in Mt 23°, Lk
clearly, B. Weiss, Meyer-Komm. u%. d. Mattevgm. p. 104: the jot and tittle ‘signify in the concrete-plastic form of Jesus’ ex- pression every part of the Law, however small. . . . That Jesus has in mind here only the moral law, not the ceremonial law, is an untenable view. He includes the whole Law, and contem- plates an antitypical fulfilment of the ceremonial element in it.’ With Weiss agree Tholuck, Achelis, Feine, H. Holtzmann, and others, that a distinction of moral and ceremonial portions in the Law, which could be separately and might be differently viewed, is an entirely modern one, unrecognized by Jesus and His contemporaries.
*So Baur, Strauss, Keim, Wittichen, Késtlin, Weizsacker, Hilgenfeld, Feine, H. Holtzmann, Schmiedel. Holtzmann, Comm. wi. d. Synoptiker, p. 106, regards the three verses, vv.17-19, as an answer of the Evangelist to the Pauline anti-legalism. Feine, Jahrb. f. Protest. Theol. 1885, pp. 26-35, argues at length that vv.18-19 cannot be authentic, but must be Jewish-Christian additions. Bacon, Sermon on the Mount, pp. 133-138, rejects y.18, but thinks that v.19 can be explained here as it stands.
+ The Jews of Jesus’ day conceived the Law to be the Divinely revealed will of Jehovah, made known to Moses for the per- manent guidance of the people ; it could not therefore change or pass away. So Tholuck, H. Holtzmann, B. Weiss (against Meyer, who on the basis of Jer 3131 thought that the Jews looked for a new law). See also Bar 41, To 16; Philo, Vita Mosis, ii. 656 ; Josephus, contra Apionem, ii. 38. Bereshith R. 10. 1 reads: ‘Everything has its end, the heaven and earth have their end; only one thing is excepted which has no end, and that is the Law.’ Shemoth R. 6: ‘Not a letter shall be abolished from the Law forever.’ Midrash Koheleth, 71. 4: ‘ [The Law] shall remain in perpetuity for ever and ever.’
t It is difficult to understand how the words of Mt 23.3 can be authentic just as they stand. How could Jesus command the people to render complete obedience to the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees (‘ All things whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe’)? Their teaching was certainly better than their practice, but both were essentially defective and perverse. Jesus characterized the scribes and Pharisees as ‘blind,’ Mt 1318 2317.19; His whole mission was concerned with the establishment of an anti-Pharisaic ideal of belief and con- duct. So that we seem to have in Mt 232-3, as in Mt 518-19, a certain false colouring of Jesus’ language, the modification of His words in transmission to express an ultra -conservative Jewish-Christian conception.