Professor Chilton is a scholar of both early Christianity and Judaism. He has published widely, served on the faculties of a number of prestigious institutions, and was the co-convener of the conference that resulted in the Neusner-Chilton edited volume.
Chilton’s contribution to that volume is a paper titled: “Jesus, the Golden Rule and Its Application”.
He opens his paper with the statement that:
“Jesus insisted that we should love, not only our neighbors (Mt. 22.34-70; Mk 12.38-44; Lk. 10.27-28), but also our enemies (Mt. 5.43-48; Lk. 6.27-36), doing to them as we would be done by (Mt. 7.12; Lk. 6.31)
So, he clearly associates the “love thy neighbor” command with the “do unto others”.
He does not present an argument for this but seems to take it as a given, which is critical assumption and, as we’ve seen, not one universally held.
He then narrows the scope of his paper to “considering how the Golden Rule has been handled:
(1) in Christian interpretation,
(2) in the most influential of the Gospels, the Gospel according to Matthew; and
(3) in recent public discussion.”
The Golden Rule in Christian Interpretation
Chilton first answers some of the uniqueness claims made by Christian scholars by reminding the reader that:
“…the base text that Jesus cites from Leviticus (19:18) – to love your neighbor as yourself – renders the Rule in its positive form, so Jesus can by no means be claimed as the originator”.
He then asserts that:
“Once the basic principle of the affective life is stated in Leviticus, it is obviously applicable to negative affects of avoiding what is hurtful, as well as positive affects of seeking what is beneficial.”
This seems to me to be too easy. The assertion that Lev 19:18 logically, or inevitably, leads to both the Golden and Silver statements of the Rule, deserves more analysis and support than Chilton provides.
Chilton reminds us that:
“When Jesus was asked about the first commandment of all, he replied in the words of the Shema Yisrael…that is the basic confession of Judaism that Jesus embraced.”
Jesus did not deny those basic teachings of Judaism. “Love of God and love of neighbor were basic principles embedded in the Torah.”
“Jesus innovation lay in his claim that the two were indivisible. Love of God was love of neighbor and vice versa.”
“…every person, friendly or not, needs to be seen in the context of God’s presence. That is the basis of Jesus’ distinctive and challenging ethic of love in the midst of persecution. He linked the Rule to the transformed society the prophets had predicted…the neighbor reflects divine presence among us…loving that neighbor was tantamount to loving God in Jesus’ teaching.”
In an interesting passage, Chiton writes:
“The disciples of Jesus whose interpretations are embodied in the New Testament, as well as the Fathers of the Church, appreciated that ethics and revelation were indistinguishable…In the end they realized, as Jesus himself barely intuited, that the kingdom (of God) relativized even the Torah.”
So, where do those religions and philosophies that adhere to some form of the ethic that is represented in Golden Rule thought but do not include a revelatory concept, acquire that ethic?
The Golden Rule in the Gospel According to Matthew
Matthew’s Gospel is dated by scholars to roughly 80 CE, or about 45 years after the death of Jesus and about 10 years after the fall of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
Chilton discusses the clear hostility toward the Jews that is found in Matthew. He writes, in fact, that:
“Matthew’s structure reflects a fraught relationship with Judaism, and therefore with Jews, who are all but formally excluded from the horizon of the love expressed in the Golden Rule.”
“The Matthean Jews in particular are liars in respect of the resurrection (28.15) and willful murderers who implicate their own children in the crucifixion (27.25). That is the most prejudicial charge in all of the Gospels.”
The injunction to “love your neighbor as yourself” is found in the Sermon on the Mount but it is before that passage is reached that “Matthew has already characterized Judaism as teaching its opposite, hatred (Mt. 5.43-48):
“You have heard that it was said. ‘You shall love your neighbor and you shall hate your enemy’, yet I say to you ‘Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you…for if you love those who love you, what reward have you…?”
Chilton is quick to point out that:
“no biblical passage corresponds to the commandment to hate one’s enemies…”
And he concludes that:
“…the fact remains that a global imperative of hatred is projected onto the religion from which Christianity was in the process of separating at the time.”
There is clearly no way to square this with the teaching of love for all, and even for one’s enemies, that Matthew ascribes to Jesus.
Note also that the “hate your enemies” fabrication would be an example of “reciprocity”; the concept that we’ve seen argued as inappropriate by many scholars and other commentators over the centuries.
Matthew’s ascribing that to the Jews is clear indication of the animosity evident in his and other writings by Jesus’ followers.
The Golden Rule in Recent Public Discussion
In this final section of his paper, Chilton addresses an analysis of Matthew by Tod Linberg, a Hoover Institute research fellow. Linberg identifies two related principles that Chilton says, “are often missing from popular conversation and even from scholarly discussion of the Gospel’s political perspective.” Those are:
1. The insight that the Sermon on the Mount…is built around a strict injunction to righteousness, and
2. The way in which Jesus commends the law of Moses, the Torah, involves a key qualification of the conventional reading: in Matthew, Jesus says the Law will not pass until all is accomplished (Mt.5.18) …Jesus truly believed in a prophetic fulfillment that would bring all the peoples of the world to recognize the God of Israel.
As much as Chilton respects the basic conclusion of Linberg, he is disappointed that even as careful a scholar as Linberg, writing as recently as 2007, would still adopt the incorrect position that Matthew proposes; that “the Hebrew Scriptures explicitly instructed people to hate their enemies”.
Chilton writes in response: “If even careful, close readers” continue to publish material that “is not the case, as has been explicitly recognized by scholars for more than half a century…we are surely in trouble.”
Chilton concludes his paper with a statement that:
“the belief that a spiritual chasm separates Christianity from all other religions is as deceptive as the medieval belief that a physical abyss prevented Europe from exploring westward.”
It is important, I think, to look past the issues of scholarly analysis of the full message of Matthew; as fascinating as those are; and bring out the points that Chilton makes that specifically bear on our topic.
Without analysis or explanation, Chilton tells us that the Golden Rule really IS “Love thy neighbor as thyself” and suggests that the “do unto others: and “do not do to others” commands are really just logical extensions of that fundamental stricture.
I don’t think it is appropriate to make that assertion without support.
It does help make the case for the “love your enemies” innovation that Chilton sees Jesus as bringing forth but the fact that it supports an argument doesn’t mean it does not, itself, have to be supported.
As we saw in the paper on Zoroastrianism, the distinction between deeds and feelings/intentions is a crucial one. Clearly, with respect to the Jews, Matthew was anything but loving to the enemy he perceived the Jews to be.
I think Chilton’s treatment of the recent period is lacking in depth.
Christian study of, debate about, and history with the Golden Rule in the last few centuries has been active and interesting. Chilton’s views on that broader context and conversation would have been interesting and, I am sure, instructive.
©Charles R. Lightner