Meditation on Matthew 5:4

Previous Posts: Meditation on Matthew 5:3

"How honored are those who mourn,
for they will be soothed."

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I often feel burdened by the company of Christians, by certain attitudes often embodied by them. The particular attitudes to which I refer seem at least gestured toward by the script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

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GOD: Arthur! Arthur, King of the Britons! Oh, don't grovel! If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people groveling.

ARTHUR: Sorry--

GOD: And don't apologize. Every time I try to talk to someone it's "sorry this" and "forgive me that" and "I'm not worthy". What are you doing now!?

ARTHUR: I'm averting my eyes, oh Lord.

GOD: Well, don't. It's like those miserable Psalms -- they're so depressing. Now knock it off!
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What I object to is when Christians are insufficiently celebratory, and possess certain beliefs about sin which result in carrying themselves in a manner which seems to express, "I'm really quite dreadful but the one thing I've got going for me is that God loves me." Both of these seem to connect to overly negative beliefs about creation (or one could say our possession of insufficient practices which help us to celebrate creation and therefore ourselves as part of that creation) and the attendant soteriology which seeks to pry Christians out of this world and push them toward the next.

Why do I bring this up? Affirming mourning in itself is not something I wish to do, though Matthew 5:4 seems to push in that direction. Note that I only said that it seems to. The beatitudes are hermeneutically interesting since they are aphoristic; they are short pronouncements without much contextual packaging. So they beg a lot of questions. What is the nature of the honor/blessedness/happiness of those who mourn? Does this extol mourning at all times? Comforted/soothed? In what way? What's the appropriate way to mourn, in what manner, about what things, to what extent? Is it simply a statement about how God relates to those who mourn without a call to adopt that mourning as a mode of being? Is it eschatological? I could continue pumping out question after question for a long while. Some of them I could as quickly give a reasoned response, but the sheer openness of the possibilities of interpretation seem staggering. Even the manner in which one reads this text in relation to other biblical texts seems endless. This is not to say that every mode of doing so would be equally helpful, but

...the notion of texts having properties that can be mined by anyone using the appropriate method is deeply problematic on philosophical grounds…Once these problems are recognized it becomes clear that the question of unity and diversity within scripture is not a single question. Rather, the question can be asked in a variety of different ways and it must be connected to the ends and purposes for which one interprets scripture. [1]

Frei rightly notes that:

It is doubtful that any scheme for reading texts, and narrative texts in particular, and biblical narrative texts even more specifically, can serve globally and foundationally, so that the reading of biblical material would simply be a regional instance of the universal procedure. [2]

Where does this leave us methodologically and how does this relate to Matthew 5:4?

In my Meditation on Matthew 5:3, I commented, "We need more readings of Scripture not less, and the attempt to reify a particular reading or to scientifically establish what the text 'means' stems from disregarding the importance of interpretive communities for determining what readings are to be preferred and the notion that interpretation is always a political activity."

The theoretical task compatible with the literal reading of the gospel narratives is that of describing how and in what context it functions...[E]stablished or ‘plain’ readings are warranted by their agreement with a religious community’s rules for reading its sacred text. [3]

These rules are related to the life of a particular community. Or saying the same in a slightly different manner:

I do not wish to reduce interpretation to its various other determinants. Rather, I wish to argue that theological convictions, ecclesial practices, and communal and social concerns should shape and be shaped by biblical interpretation. [4]

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Christian tradition provides numerous voices which can help us read our scriptures. I'll shortly be turning to the Catena Aurea of Thomas Aquinas for help with Matthew 5:4. I think a helpful analogy of how interpretation might go forward methodologically is that of common law which originally developed under the auspices of the adversarial system in historical England from judicial decisions that were based in tradition, custom, and precedent. This sort of adversarial system can come together with the notion that "Christians will need to engage scripture in the recognition that they will disagree with each other...the absence of such arguments would be a sign of a community’s ill health." [5]

During the 13th century the Latin church experienced a revival of interest in the Fathers, with many Eastern texts being translated from Greek to Latin for the first time, and thereby becoming available to a wider public. Pope Urban IV commissioned Thomas Aquinas to compile the Catena (the Latin term for an anthology) in a bid to make readily available to the academic public an orthodox patristic commentary on the Gospels.

The Catena Aurea, or Golden Chain, on Matthew 5:4 reads like this:

5:4. "Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted."

Ambrose: When you have done thus much, attained both poverty and meekness, remember that you are a sinner, mourn your sins, as He proceeds, "Blessed are they that mourn." And it is suitable that the third blessing should be of those that mourn for sin, for it is the Trinity that forgives sin.

Hilary: Those that mourn, that is, not loss of kindred, affronts, or losses, but who weep for past sins.

Pseudo-Chrys.: And they who weep for their own sins are blessed, but much more so who weep for others’ sins; so should all teachers do.

Jerome: For the mourning here meant is not for the dead by common course of nature, but for the dead in sins, and vices. Thus Samuel mourned for Saul, thus the Apostle Paul mourned for those who had not performed penance after
uncleanness.

Pseudo-Chrys.: The "comfort" of mourners is the ceasing of their mourning; they then who mourn their own sins shall be consoled when they have received remittance thereof.

Chrys.: And though it were enough for such to receive pardon, yet He rests not His mercy only there, but makes them partakers of many comforts both here and hereafter. God's mercies are always greater than our troubles.

Pseudo-Chrys.: But they also who mourn for others' sin shall be comforted, inasmuch as they shall own God’s providence in that worldly generation, understanding that they who had perished were not of God, out of whose hand none can snatch. For these leaving to mourn, they shall be comforted in their own blessedness.

Aug., Serm. in Mont., i, 2: Otherwise; mourning is sorrow for the loss of what is dear; but those that are turned to God lose the things that they held dear in this world; and as they have now no longer any joy in such things as before they had joy in, their sorrow may not be healed till there is formed within them a love of eternal things. They shall then be comforted by the Holy Spirit, who is therefore chiefly called, The Paraclete, that is, “Comforter;’ so that for the loss of their temporal joys, they shall gain eternal joys.

Gloss. ap. Anselm: Or, by mourning, two kinds of sorrow are intended; one for the miseries of this world, one for lack of heavenly things; so Caleb’s daughter asked both “the upper and the lower springs.” This kind of mourning none have but the poor and the meek, who as not loving the world acknowledge themselves miserable, and therefore desire heaven. Suitably, therefore, consolation is promised to them that mourn, that he who has sorrow at this present may have joy hereafter. But the reward of the mourner is greater than that of the poor or the meek, for “to rejoice” in the kingdom is more than to have it, or to possess it; for many things we possess in sorrow.

Chrys.: We may remark that this blessing is given not simply, but with great force and emphasis; it is not simply, ‘who have grief,’ but “who mourn.” And indeed this command is the sum of all philosophy. For if they who mourn for the death of children or kinsfolk, throughout all that season of their sorrow, are touched with no other desires, as of money, or honour, burn not with envy, feel not wrongs, nor are open to any other vicious passion, but are solely given up to their grief; much more ought they, who mourn their own sins in such manner as they ought to mourn for them, to shew this higher philosophy.

I view what Thomas is up to in the Catena Aurea as not altogether different from what Foucault's The History of Sexuality does in its charting a genealogy of power as it relates to sexuality. In this genealogical conception of interpretation which connects links in a chain, a single cluster of links - such as those of the so-called historical-critical method - cannot be allowed to overdetermine the others. Of course there are pronounced differences between Thomas and Foucault, namely Thomas is here merely listing what the authors wrote in bullet-point fashion. He lacks a narrative description of how the terms 'blessed,' 'mourning,' 'comforted,' and the supplied term 'sin' might change and be variously appropriated by the different authors to different ends. I'm using the comparison tentatively and merely to evoke a conception of a mode of interpretation. Still, one notices that those voices from the tradition that Thomas has selected and ordered do have a narrative thread that runs through them.

They all take the 'mourning' of Matthew 5:4 to be talking about mourning one's sins; comfort generally is the "ceasing of their mourning; they then who mourn their own sins shall be consoled when they have received remittance thereof." God "rests not [God's] mercy only there, but makes them partakers of many comforts both here and hereafter. God's mercies are always greater than our troubles," and the Holy Spirit is referenced as the Comforter. One could view such interpretive precedence as cases in the tradition of common law, cases that constitute a tradition but which can be revisited and even overturned.

I started by expressing a distaste for attitudes sometimes embodied by Christians, what seems like a certain groveling existence which I'd like to argue mourns sin, but fails to celebrate either the goodness of creation (and one's self as participating in that creation) or of one's virtue. Of course, I know plenty outside the church who would find the call for Christians to mourn their sins to be an appropriate one. This might manifest itself in being less dogmatic (since traditional notions of sin include the notion of not being able to name one's limitation/sin adequately and therefore one must be open to revision), walking with less swagger and adopting a more teachable demeanor in the recognition that God's comfort does not come from being argumentatively invulnerable, but as God's response to particular kind of mourning...

[All of this, of course, begs a more comprehensive elucidation of sin and the manner in which it functions within the Christian religion.]

-DRM-

[The photo comes from a small chapel in Gegenbach, Germany which graphically depicts the various beatitudes from Matthew. The chapel was a stopping point for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.]

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[1] Stephen E. Fowl, Engaging Scripture (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998), 19.
[2] Hans W. Frei, “The ‘Literal Reading’ of Biblical Narrative in the Christian Tradition: Does It Stretch or Will It Break?” in The Return to Scripture in Judaism and Christianity ed. Peter Ochs (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), 70.
[3] Ibid, 75.
[4] Fowl, 60.
[5] Fowl, 87.