Beatitudes III

The eighth beatitude seems to conclude the list, as it is a doublet of the first in both the use of the present tense and the promise of the kingdom. The present handing over of God's kingdom book-ends the whole sequence, providing a ringing sense of a complete and finished unit. But it is followed directly by another "Blessed", i.e. by exactly the same beatitude formula. And this ninth beatitude is itself doubled with a repetition in verse twelve: its same content and  meaning given in a further statement, but in the imperative rather than indicative. (This is much the same thing as we noted about the sixth and last antithesis in relation to the seventh beatitude.)

It appears that the promise of the eighth beatitude was so crucial that it merited repeating two more times!

The experience of persecution is a startling new element to be added to the list of biblical characteristics of the anawim, to their poverty and nonviolence, to their longing for justice and peace. Biblical figures had certainly been persecuted before. The examples of Job and the Nonviolent Servant spring to mind. There are numerous examples in the psalms, and in the book of Daniel there are hints of a whole group of deeply observant, nonviolent Jews, calling themselves the "wise", who suffered violent persecution. But the eighth beatitude makes it a fixed sociological value in its own right. By raising the experience to the level of a kingdom event, making it not simply an unfortunate side-effect and something to be reversed later on, the eighth beatitude turns persecution into a positive good . People are actually blessed when the world goes after them! In the present tense and authentic fact!

According to Rene Girard the gospels introduce the category and truth of persecution to human history. Because of the gospels the victims of persecution have gained significance and truth in their own right. But the new category depends entirely on nonviolence. To be persecuted you have to be nonresistant to violence; if you retaliate you may be in a state of oppression and pain but you are not persecuted. The root of the word is "to hunt down", "to pursue." In other words you are a creature in the condition of flight, not fight.

Behind the blessing is the living relationship with God-active-in-the-world which Jesus declared and made available. If this were not there, if Jesus had not provided the context for his own words, we could only repeat the violence of the world in response to its violence. That could happen in a variety of ways, from resistance, to despair, to bitterness and resentment. But now the "blessing" of persecution intrudes an entirely different note, one of actual joy which knows the violence inflicted as direct evidence of God's saving action. It is highly paradoxical, but conforms to Jesus' method of speaking a truth into reality and making it stick through his own powerful example. Because of him the world has changed and if his disciples are persecuted when they commit to that change it is further proof the change is real and effective!

The centrality of Jesus is underlined in the ninth beatitude. Now, for the first time the formula changes from the third person to the second, indicating that the statement is addressed to Matthew's actual community. It means that the group of Christians for whom Matthew wrote was experiencing the concrete forms of persecution mentioned: they were being reviled, hunted, and slandered. The final expression is, "Uttering all evil against you." In other words, people were talking trash about them to the extent they had become the sum of all evil in the world, or indeed pure evil itself! In these circumstances it would not be exaggerated to fear for your life.

According to many commentators Matthew (or others) added to the statement the words "falsely, on my account". They believe these qualifications should not need pointing out (they state the obvious, and in fact some of the manuscripts lack the expression "falsely"). But because the qualifications are included they suggest that already people were using the "persecution" motif to excuse bad behavior and its repercussions. It seems the I-am-the-victim excuse was already being abused in the first century! Which, in an upside-down kind of way proves again the reality of the promise. If people had not witnessed the power of the experience of persecution and the way its victims were validated in the community there would have been nothing there to abuse. At the same time the evangelist (or copyist!) understood clearly the difference between the "victim mentality" and the genuine blessing of persecution for righteousness' sake.

And key to that is obviously "on my account." Jesus is absolutely the principle and source of all the beatitudes, and especially this one. It is only by identification with him that persecution is blessed. Here it is of considerable interest that no reference is made to Jesus' own experience of persecution, his passion and death. What we have, therefore, is an echo of his original authority as a teacher and prophet communicating his personal vigor of nonviolence to the audience. Verse twelve with its invocation of the prophets puts the teaching squarely in this frame. The qualifications "falsely, on my account" establish, therefore, the criterion of sincere identification with the nonviolent historical Jesus as condition of the blessing.

Finally the imperatives "Rejoice and be glad" in verse twelve put us in "liturgical" contact with the experience of Jesus' teaching and Matthew's community which remembered it. We are invited to enter in the present moment into the enormous upwelling joy of Jesus reaching through history announcing God's life-giving nonviolence into the world.