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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
My purpose in this article will not be to deal with the tradition history behind Matt 25:31–46 or with the actual eschatological identity of the nations, the sheep and the goats, and Jesus' least brothers, although some attention will need to be given to the latter. My primary purpose will rather be to inquire about the nature and quality of the stance or posture or self-understanding that constitutes the responses of the sheep and goats—which responses Matthew is implicitly calling his readers respectively to actualize and to reject. And what is required of human beings has implications for the possibilities and nature of human beings. The first order of business, however, will be to locate the text generically and in the context of Matthew 23–25.
1 For an analysis of the tradition history see Robinson, J. A. T., “The‘Parable’ of the Sheep and the Goats,” NTS 2 (1956).Google Scholar According to Robinson the parable in 25:32–33 and the dialogue portions of 25:35–40, 42–45 are pre-Matthean tradition and substantially go back to Jesus. Matthew fused these with an allegory about the last judgment, created 25:31 as an introduction, and added a number of other touches of his own (232–37). See also Catchpole, David R., “The Poor on Earth and the Son of Man in Heaven: A Re-Appraisal of Matthew 25:31–46,” BJRL 61 (1979).Google Scholar
2 For a selection of studies concerned about whom the nations and Jesus' least brothers refer to see Michaels, J. Ramsey, “Apostolic Hardships and Righteous Gentiles,” JBL 84 (1965)Google Scholar; Maddox, Robert, “Who Are the‘Sheep’ and the ‘Goats’?” AusBR 13 (1965)Google Scholar; Cope, Lamar, “Matthew 25:31–46—‘The Sheep and the Goats’ Reinterpreted,” NovT 11 (1969)Google Scholar; Klein, Leonard, “Who Are the‘Least of the Brethren’?” Dialog 21 (1982)Google Scholar; Court, J. M., “Right and Left: The Implications for Matthew 25:31–46,” NTS 31 (1985).Google Scholar
3 Paul D. Hanson, “Apocalypticism,” IDBSup, 28–30; Collins, John J., “Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre,” Semeia 14 (1979) 2–4.Google Scholar
4 Collins, “Genre,” 9–11. E. P. Sanders has claimed that defining the genre on the basis of transcendence is not really a definition because it includes too many positions which are unlike apocalypses—such as the Hermetic literature, much Gnosticism, the Fourth Gospel, etc. See Sanders, E. P., “The Genre of Palestinian Jewish Apocalypses,” in Hellholm, D., ed., Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1983) 451, 453, 455, 458.Google Scholar I think it should be said, however, that the Collins definition contains more elements than transcendence, which do in fact tighten up the definition.
5 Collins, Adela Yarbro, “The Early Christian Apocalypses,” Semeia 14 (1979) 96–97.Google Scholar
6 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “The Phenomenon of Early Christian Apocalyptic: Some Reflections on Method,” in Hellholm (ed.), Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World, 298–300.
7 Ibid., 300, 302. J. Collins (“Genre,” 13), on the other hand, holds that parenesis is rare even in Christian apocalypses.
8 Cf. Dan 7:13–14.
9 On these points see Gundry, Robert H., Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982) 453, 472, 474Google Scholar; Beare, Francis W., The Gospel According to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981) 445–46.Google Scholar For the view that chap. 23 is not really an integral part of chaps. 24–25 see Meier, John P., The Vision of Matthew (New York: Paulist, 1979) 159–60.Google Scholar
10 Sanders, “Palestinian Jewish Apocalypses,” 456–57.
11 Collins, “Genre,” 7, 13, 14. It had earlier been argued that 23:34–36 came originally from a lost wisdom apocalypse. See Suggs, M. Jack, Wisdom, Christology, and Law in Matthew's Gospel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970) 19–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Beare, Matthew, 474.
13 Bornkamm, Günther, “End-Expectation and Church in Matthew,” Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew (trans. Scott, P.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963) 23.Google Scholar
14 Burnett, Fred W., “Prolegomenon to Reading Matthew's Eschatological Discourse: Redundancy and the Education of the Reader in Matthew,” Semeia 31 (1985) 100, 101.Google Scholar
15 Schüssler Fiorenza, “Early Christian Apocalyptic,” 305.
16 See Ricoeur, Paul, Interpretation Theory (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976) 34–37.Google Scholar
17 For an elaboration of this point see Via, Dan O., The Ethics of Mark's Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 7–10.Google Scholar
18 See Cope, “Matthew 25:31–46, “37.
19 See Court, “Right and Left,” 223.
20 See Bornkamm, “End-Expectation,” 23; Pregeant, Russell, Christology Beyond Dogma (Philadelphia: Fortress; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978) 118–19.Google Scholar
21 Cope, “Matthew 25:31–46,” 36–37.
22 Furnish, Victor Paul, The Love Command in the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972) 82–83.Google Scholar Ramsey Michaels (“Apostolic Hardships,” 28–29) takes a similar position.
23 Pregeant, Christology, 119.
24 Court, “Right and Left,” 229, 231.
25 Bornkamm, “End-Expectation,” 23–24.
26 This view is taken, e.g., by Michaels, “Apostolic Hardships,” 28; Cope, “Matthew 25:31–46,” 38–39; Court, “Right and Left,” 229.
27 For the use of eis onoma to mean “because” see Moule, C. F. D., An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953) 79.Google Scholar Pregeant (Christology, 118) also observes the distinction noted here.
28 Court, “Right and Left,” 231.
29 Pregeant would apparently answer this question “Yes.” See his Christology, 48, 57–60, 81–82, 89–90, 122–23, 127, 130, 145, 156–58.
30 For a defense of this position see Via, Dan O., “Structure, Christology, and Ethics in Matthew,” in Spencer, R., ed., Orientation by Disorientation (Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1980) 212–13.Google Scholar
31 This kerygmatic dimension of the text has been recognized in Minear, Paul, “The Coming of the Son of Man,” TToday 9 (1953) 489–91Google Scholar; Richardson, Alan, An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament (London: SCM, 1958) 137.Google Scholar Catchpole (“The Poor on Earth,” 396) believes the emphasis to be rather on demand.
32 Cope, “Matthew 25:31–46,” 40–41.
33 See Via, Dan O., “Matthew on the Understandability of the Parables,” JBL 84 (1965) 430–32.Google Scholar
34 On cover stories and real stories see Crites, Stephen, “The Aesthetics of Self-Deception,” Soundings 62 (1979) 126–27.Google Scholar
