How love of God and neighbour outweighs every sacrifice in the Law of Moses
Christ teaches that all the Law and the Prophets rest on the twofold love of God and neighbour, surpassing every ceremonial observance.
Christ teaches that all the Law and the Prophets rest on the twofold love of God and neighbour, surpassing every ceremonial observance.
Editor’s Notes
The following mini-series deals with the Gospel read on the 17th Sunday after Pentecost – in which Christ discusses both “the great commandment” and the relationship between King David and the Messias.
This takes place during Holy Week, after Christ’s triumphal entry, and the cleansing of the Temple. His enemies attempt to ensnare him, but he reduces them to silence. Coleridge draws out some of the rivalries between the Jews at this time, emphasising the opposition between the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
In this first chapter, Coleridge explains why the law of charity is greater than any external observances – and that even sacrifice is only the external manifestation of this absolutely fundamental virtue.
In this first part, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How the Law is summed up in love of God and neighbour as the highest command.
That true religion is measured not by sacrifices but by this interior love.
Why the unity of God stands as the preamble to His supreme claim on the heart.
He shows us that love of God and neighbour is the soul of all divine worship.
The Great Commandment
Passiontide, Part I
Chapter IX
St. Matt. xxii. 34-40; St. Mark xii. 28-34
Story of the Gospels, § 140
Burns and Oates, London, 1887
Admiration of the multitude
The answer given by our Lord to the question of the Sadducees seems to have produced an impression in His favour in the minds of the multitude. The Sadducees were probably not popular with the generality of the people, who were perhaps not sorry to see this dominant and overbearing faction put to silence. St. Matthew tells us that ‘the multitudes hearing it, were in admiration of His doctrine,’ and we learn from St. Mark, that one of the scribes, ‘answering said to Him, Master, Thou hast said well.’ He adds that after that they durst not ask Him any more questions.
The question, therefore, of which St. Mark speaks in the next verses was a question raised by an individual scribe, and not the result of any combination or conspiracy to entrap Him in His teaching.
‘And there came one of the scribes that had heard them reasoning together, and seeing that He had answered them well, asked Him, which was the great commandment in the Law? And Jesus answered him, The first commandment of all is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. And the second is like to this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these. On these two commandments dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets.’
The preamble which our Lord quotes to the great commandment is the declaration of the unity of God,1 which was the special truth which Israel was commissioned among the nations of the old world to uphold, and which might have been altogether lost therein, if it had not been for the witness borne to it by the chosen people, notwithstanding their many defections from it in practice.
There seems to have been some formal connection intended between the unity of the Godhead, which it was the great boast of the nation to have as its profession of faith, and the words which follow, in which the Jews were taught to witness to this article of their faith, by the supreme and only love of that God above all things.
Question of the Scribe
There is nothing in the text before us to lead us to suppose that the question of this scribe was asked in any spirit of cavil, and our Lord, without going into any more formal explanation than what was contained in the simple recitation of the words of the law in Deuteronomy, gave His sanction to the conduct of His questioner in the words which conclude the incident.
We have already remarked that this question and answer occur here for the second time in the history, having been put at an earlier point, just before the deliverance of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The two occasions are, however, different, not only in point of time. On the former occasion we are told that a certain lawyer or scribe, stood up tempting Him, and asked Him what he was to do to possess eternal life?
Our Lord answered Him by a counter question, How did he read in the Law? The lawyer answered Him by quoting these words about the love of God, and then our Lord said to him, Thou hast answered well, this do, and thou shalt live. Then the scribe went on to the further question, But who is my neighbour?
The statement of St. Luke, that the questioner spoke ‘tempting’ Him, as it is in our version, must not be pressed so far as to seem to indicate a cavilling spirit in this other scribe. The word really means nothing more than that he was making trial of our Lord, finding out how He would answer a question very much discussed in those days. But in the former account which has just been given, the question is formally put by our Lord Himself, and not by the scribe.
The Great Commandment
There seems little doubt that this was, as has been said, one of the moot questions of the day, having become so, probably, in consequence of the greater intercommunication that had existed of later times between the Jews and the nations of the Greek and Roman Empires with which they had been brought so much into political relations, and among whom the Jewish communities of the dispersion had been so providentially spread. This was a preparation for a far greater and more complete fusion than any Israelite as yet dreamed of, and it involved a great departure from the ordinary tone of thought on such subjects in which so many generations had been trained.
And yet this commandment of the love of God above all things stood at the very head of the Law, as promulgated in Deuteronomy, and seems to have been understood as implying a contrast to the ceremonial precepts which were peculiar to the Jews, involving their inferiority in obligation. For the real question seems to have been between the precept and the other like it on the one hand, and the ceremonial observances on the other. We gather this from the answer of the scribe to our Lord’s declaration about the great commandment, for the scribe says:
‘Thou hast said in truth that there is one God and there is no other beside Him, and that He should be loved with the whole heart, and with the whole understanding, and with the whole soul, and with the whole strength, and that to love one’s neighbour as oneself, is a greater thing than all holocausts and sacrifices.’
The answer seems to imply that this question had been in his mind when he spoke to our Lord, though the comparison was not in any way expressed. And something of this kind may have been a reason for the preservation of the question and answer in this context, as if it had been opportune that the doctrine should be put forward at this especial time, and in course of our Lord’s last teaching in the Temple.
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The Great Commandment
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Deut. vi. 4.
I love how Our Lord starts W the word "Hear". He's making very plain the need to listen to His Words.............Thanks!