Thank you for the welcome St. Matthew critical explanation of his Gospel.
It is all the more illuminating after The Times caption to the article "The Cups Runneth over at the Actors' Last Supper", the photograph called Actor's Last Supper. See the previous Website Post.
To navigate your study, I have emboldened the name "Matthew".
You are kept busy, D.G.
Donald
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: edward ... (Google Drive). . .
To: Donald . . .
From: edward ... (Google Drive). . .
To: Donald . . .
Sent: Saturday, 21 September 2013, 17:05
Subject: Saint Matthew 2013
Attached: Saint Matthew 2013
Dear Donald,
. . . . .
Last evening I
prepared a rather long sermon on Saint Matthew. It begins with a comparison
with the Gospel of Saint Mark and includes a summary of the whole. I wonder
whether this would interest you. Recent poems are on the Concordia refloating
and the battles which have raged in the Christian Village near to Damascus
(Maa'lula). I will look over them to see whether there is something more
intensely religious.
Blessings from
fr Edward O.P.
Saint Matthew
2013
When one
considers the gospel of Saint Mark one finds that it is inspired narrative. The
first ten chapters pass from the preaching of John the Baptist, followed
immediately by John´s baptism of Jesus to the visit to Jericho. The
characteristic of the gospel, which was the first full length gospel. complete
in itself, is the vividness of many of the accounts. Peter´s observations
served him well, and Mark brought them together in such a simple way which was
destined to be an authoritative compilation of material, meant to be read at
the Liturgy, and to be studied privately. It was transparently honest like
Peter himself, and intensely perceptive like Peter at his best. It is not
encombred with a thematic; there is no such linkage inevitably artificial, but
it does take us into the quality of the relationships of which Jesus was the
form and developer. Whatever preconceptions they had about an account of the
following of Jesus, the listeners were struck by the miracles carried out
arising from compassion. The miracles and the discourses of instruction which
were carried out in a manner at once homely and exalted were an opening of his
heart, with the depths of its love and its strength. The transcendent theme was
pursued more implicitly. Peter saw Jesus as the Son of God with prophetic and
healing gifts both intended to raise men up to from where they had fallen, and
to bind up their wounds of soul and body inflicted by life.
But when we
turn from this Gospel, all of whose qualities are arguments for its primacy,
and turn to that of Matthew there is
an explicit return time and again to a thematic Matthew (in Hebrew, Levi) to a more
than cherubic arrow entering the heart of Saint Teresa of Avila, was immediate.
His whole intelligence cooperated with this and accepted it with total
generosity. Quickly he arranged a banquet so that his fellow taxmen could meet
Jesus; they were fascinated by the force of his conversion which showed them
that here was a way of return at a higher level.
We must
look at the gospel which he wrote, fired by Mark´s example. When he came to
write it several decades had passed and he had had many experiences and had
collected much more material and had reflected deeply on it. At some early
stage he had probably compiled a list of proof texts from the Old Testament
which missionaries could use in controversy with the Rabbis. An Englishman,
James Rendel Harris, who had been an Anglican but became a Quaker, had taken up
this position, which has had some echoes among Catholic scholars of repute,
especially a study from Notre Dame University in the United States, Martin C.
Albl, in his "And Scripture cannot be broken" (published by Brill at
Leiden in 1999). There seem to be traces of this in the accepted gospel, where
formal allusions to Old Testament texts can be found throughout the Gospel. It
would be more acceptable if more than a list were in view, with some comments
on the texts and their Christian bearing.
But to
venture an overview of the gospel as known to us, we can say that Matthew showed himself as pre-occupied
with the relationship of Christianity to Judaism. He begins with a genealogy
deriving from Abraham, in three sections: up to King David; from him to the
deportation of the Jews to Babylon; from then until the "birth of Jesus,
who is called Christ". This is followed by an Infancy Narrative, with an
account of his virginal birth, the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem, and the
flight into Egypt to protect his life and the return of the Holy Family to
Nazareth. The two latter are proper to Matthew,
and we would like to know his sources, especially for the visit of the Magi:
the word is of Persian origin though they probably came from Chaldea, and it
entails that they were astronomers as also astrologers. Their names given
elsewhere are derived from a baffling group of traditions. but they are not given
here. Notice the linkage with Judaism. The
star which they saw had entered into a part of the Zodiac concerned with the
fortunes of the Jewish nation. That explains
why they went to the Palace of Herod in Jerusalem. But the treatment by Herod
of the Bethlehem babies was typical of him, and it demonstrates an instinctive
fear and cruelty which was set off when the Magi did not return to him as he
had asked. This was a presentation of his infidelity and hypocrisy as a
supposed Jew (his Idumean race was half-Jewish). An interlude tells of his
baptism by John, his temptations in the desert, his return to Galilee to call
his first Apostles and his preaching and healing there. Then comes the Sermon
on the Mount which is presented primarily spiritually but also with some
artistry. It provides an account of the differences and the superiority of his
conceptions with the fullness of revelation which transcended that of Moses.
There follows a section of very striking miracles, into which Matthew interposes his own vocation,
with Jesus' two words "Follow me!". Then comes the naming and
commissioning of the twelve apostles with his warning about the sublime
holiness of their mission. He begins to reveal his personal awareness of the
superficiality of the people, demonstrated in their failure to persevere with
him. Jesus insists of the essential simplicity of his message, and addresses
the Father in an ecstasy of prayer. The cures continue; Matthew introduces the prophesies of the Suffering Servant as an
explanation of his activity. He is accused of being in league with the prince
of devils as the intensity of opposition to him rises. Yet he continues his
parabolic teaching, contemplating the simplicity of nature despite its
weed-growth. He visits Nazareth where he is rejected. Herod the Tetrarch hears
of him and says it is John the Baptist, whom he had had executed, risen from
the dead (here Matthew
retrospectively describes his execution). There is the miraculous feeding of
the five thousand with bread and fish, and the calming of the lake storm. Here
he turns on the excessive literalism of the Pharisees attitude to the Law,
which is not deep: they are imperfectly converted. Despite all of his miracles,
the Pharisees still demand a sign from heaven; he condemns Pharisees and
Saducees together (the high priesthood was Saduceean). He prophesies at three
instances his Passion. He rejects the casuistry of the Pharisees about divorce.
Identifying himself with the children whom Judaism ignored until they came of
age; he makes great demands on the seriousness of his disciples, emphatically
asserting that leadership entails service. He comes to Jerusalem from Jericho
and enters as Messiah; immediately he cleanses the Temple. King David had said
that his Lord is greater than himself. Then comes a diatribe against the
Scribes and Pharisees. Only he could have saved Jerusalem, instead of which
there will be an ending at which he will return from Heaven to judge the world.
The ending
is in the Passion followed by his Resurrection. The Passion results from a
conspiracy made possible by the treachery of Judas Iscariot. He is arrested in
the Gethsemane garden, and passed by the Sanhedrin to Pontius Pilate for
judgement; prompted by the Chief priests and Elders the crowd rejected Pilate´s
intended liberation of Jesus and chose Barabbas; Pilate judged that he must
comply, on the risk of a riot. So he was mockingly crucified. Matthew describes his dying in some
detail. He was buried in Joseph of Arimathea´s own tomb, over which a guard was
mounted. Towards Dawn the women went to the Tomb to perform the rites more
perfectly. Coinciding with an earthquake an Angel rolled away the stone, and
told the women that he would appear in Galilee, which he did before the eleven remaining
disciples. There he told them that their mission would be to all nations,
baptising them in the name of the Trinity and they should instruct them to
observe all the commandments which he had given them; he would be always with
them.
In all of
this narrative there has been a mounting thematic. The key to what had preceded
it came at the very end. Christ is resurrected in a glorious and unconquerable
state which will be eternal. Baptism into his mysteries which had taken place
in their presence: the new Pasch from the slaughter of the sacrificial Victim
to his resurrection in a state of glorification will be communicated to the
Baptised, brought into the spiritual Church in total familiarity with him,
participating in his divinity into which they will be adopted by baptism. There
will be a universal ending for all men in a condition of being judged by him
who is their life and their model. The defective Roman judgement is also
accepted by the Divine Son as an additional weight of sin. Innumerable
anticipations of this central mystery for mankind will be found in the Jewish
Scriptures so that the life of God can be perfectly participated unendingly on
earth, Those anticipations will disappear so that what they anticipated may
come in fullness and effect a timeless and endless fulfilment and rectification
of what had gone before. In the light if that the opposition and antagonism of
Priests, Elders, Temple Scribes and so-called reformist Pharisees was totally
irrelevant after the universal Messiah and King had terminated the whole
thematic, and would lead humanity into an exalted and unanticipated peace.
Amen.
