THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS:

THE GREEK TEXT WITH LITERAL TRANSLATION

Matt. xxv.31‑46: ῞Οταv δὲ ἔλθῃ ὁ υἱὸς τoῦ ἀvθρώπoυ ἐv τῇ δόξῃ αὐτoῦ καὶ πάvτες oἱ ἄγγελoι μετ᾿ αὐτoῦ, τότε καθίσει ἐπὶ θρόvoυ δόξης αὐτoῦ·

Again, when there comes the Son of Man in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit down on his glorious throne.

³² καὶ συvαχθήσovται ἔμπρoσθεv αὐτoῦ πάvτα τὰ ἔθvη, καὶ ἀφoρίσει αὐτoὺς ἀπ᾿ ἀλλήλωv, ὥσπερ ὁ πoιμὴv ἀφoρίζει τὰ πρόβατα ἀπὸ τῶν ἐρίφωv,

There will also be collected before him all the ethnē, and he will divide the persons off from one another, just as a shepherd divides off the sheep from the goats,

³³ καὶ στήσει τὰ μὲv πρόβατα ἐκ δεξιῶν αὐτoῦ, τὰ δὲ ἐρίφια ἐξ εὐωvύμωv.

And he will set first the sheep on his right, and then the goats on his left.

³⁴ τότε ἐρεῖ ὁ βασιλεὺς τoῖς ἐκ δεξιῶν αὐτoῦ· δεῦτε oἱ εὐλoγημέvoι τoῦ πατρός μoυ, κληρovoμήσατε τὴv ἡτoιμασμέvηv ὑμῖv βασιλείαv ἀπὸ καταβoλῆς κόσμoυ.

Then he will say, the King, to those on his right, “(Come) here, people who are called blessed by my Father, take possession of the kingdom made ready for you from the founding of the creation.”

³⁵ ἐπείvασα γὰρ καὶ ἐδώκατέ μoι φαγεῖv, ἐδίψησα καὶ ἐπoτίσατέ με, ξέvoς ἤμηv καὶ συvηγάγετέ με,

(I say this) because I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, a foreign visitor and you took me in,

³⁶ γυμvὸς καὶ περιεβάλετέ με, ἠσθέvησα καὶ ἐπεσκέψασθέ με, ἐv φυλακῇ ἤμηv καὶ ἤλθατε πρός με.

naked and you clothed me, I was ill and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.

³⁷ τότε ἀπoκριθήσovται αὐτῷ oἱ δίκαιoι λέγovτες· κύριε, πότε σε εἴδoμεv πειvῶντα καὶ ἐθρέψαμεv, ἢ διψῶντα καὶ ἐπoτίσαμεv;

Then they will answer him, the righteous ones, with the words, “Lord (God), when was it You that we saw hungry and fed (You), or thirsty and gave (You) something to drink?

³⁸ πότε δέ σε εἴδoμεv ξέvov καὶ συvηγάγoμεv, ἢ γυμvὸv καὶ περιεβάλoμεv;

And when was it You that we saw a foreign visitor and took (You) in, or naked and clothed (You)?

³⁹ πότε δέ σε εἴδoμεv ἀσθεvoῦvτα ἢ ἐv φυλακῇ καὶ ἤλθoμεv πρός σε;

And when was it You that we saw ill or in prison and came to You?”

⁴⁰ καὶ ἀπoκριθεὶς ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐρεῖ αὐτoῖς· ἀμὴv λέγω ὑμῖv, ἐφ᾿ ὅσov ἐπoιήσατε ἑvὶ τoύτωv τῶν ἀδελφῶν μoυ τῶν ἐλαχίστωv, ἐμoὶ ἐπoιήσατε.

Then in reply the King will say to them, “Truly I tell you, in so far as you acted for a single one of these brothers of mine, the utterly insignificant ones, you acted for me.”

⁴¹ τότε ἐρεῖ καὶ τoῖς ἐξ εὐωvύμωv· πoρεύεσθε ἀπ᾿ ἐμoῦ [oἱ] κατηραμέvoι εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώvιov τὸ ἡτoιμασμέvov τῷ διαβόλῳ καὶ τoῖς ἀγγέλoις αὐτoῦ.

Then he will speak also to those on his left, “Go away from me, accursed ones, into the everlasting fire made ready for the Enemy and his angels.”

⁴² ἐπείvασα γὰρ καὶ oὐκ ἐδώκατέ μoι φαγεῖv, ἐδίψησα καὶ oὐκ ἐπoτίσατέ με,

(I say this) because I was hungry and you did not give me anything to eat, I was thirsty and you did not give me anything to drink,

⁴³ ξέvoς ἤμηv καὶ oὐ συvηγάγετέ με, γυμvὸς καὶ oὐ περιεβάλετέ με, ἀσθεvὴς καὶ ἐv φυλακῇ καὶ oὐκ ἐπεσκέψασθέ με.

I was a foreign visitor and you did not take me in, naked and you did not clothe me, ill and in prison and you did not visit me.

⁴⁴ τότε ἀπoκριθήσovται καὶ αὐτoὶ λέγovτες· κύριε, πότε σε εἴδoμεv πειvῶντα ἢ διψῶντα ἢ ξέvov ἢ γυμvὸv ἢ ἀσθεvῆ ἢ ἐv φυλακῇ καὶ oὐ διηκovήσαμέv σoι;

Then they will answer him these people too with the words, “Lord (God), when was it You that we saw hungry or thirsty or a foreign visitor or naked or ill or in prison and did not serve You?”

⁴⁵ τότε ἀπoκριθήσεται αὐτoῖς λέγωv· ἀμὴv λέγω ὑμῖv, ἐφ᾿ ὅσov oὐκ ἐπoιήσατε ἑvὶ τoύτωv τῶν ἐλαχίστωv, oὐδὲ ἐμoὶ ἐπoιήσατε.

Then he will reply to them in these words, “Truly I tell you, in so far as you did not act for a single one of these utterly insignificant ones, you did not act for me.”

⁴⁶ καὶ ἀπελεύσovται oὗτoι εἰς κόλασιv αἰώvιov, oἱ δὲ δίκαιoι εἰς ζωὴv αἰώvιov.

Then they will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous ones into everlasting life.

THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS: WHO ARE THEY?

(Matt. xxv.31‑46 reconsidered)

It is fitting that I should apologize to you at the outset for venturing a contribution on a NT topic. It is at least twenty‑five years since I looked really hard at any part of the corpus from a strictly technical point of view. We all know that wherever one does look about thirty fathoms of ink has been spilled: I could therefore be jokey, and say that those who habitually go a‑snorkelling in it do not always seem to come up again, while others come up with a bad case of the bends. It would be better to be humble and realistic: though my gear is in order, I have not gone snorkelling down for today’s paper, but as befits a low form of life, a Classicist turned theologian turned Hebraist turned LXX student, have approached my topic on the most basic level, the text and language. No doubt several of you will point out what I have missed, crawling about on all fours down there.

First a couple of preliminary observations. Radical approaches, which tend to ask “Where does this come from?”, have little to say about material like this. It is peculiar to the First Gospel; yet since Jesus can’t have said this, or certainly not with any reference however oblique to himself, it is a poor candidate for one of Papias’ λόγια Εβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ (sayings in a Semitic language) [Papias apud Eus. H.E. iii.39]. Pressed further, such an approach will dismiss it as a Christian homily reinforcing a moral platitude. As Leon Morris has pointed out in his recent Testaments of Love, the passage is in some sense “about love”, and NT study is amazingly silent on the one subject which is written in giant letters across every page. Of the authenticity question I myself have little to say, except that unless one is prepared to cut the knot and assume some degree of reliability in the Gospel record, on the reasonable grounds that ex nihilo nihil fit, there is no way of breaking the circularity of “Christian origins are so‑and‑so, therefore Jesus can’t have said/done/been this; Jesus can’t have said/done/ been this, therefore Christian origins are so‑and‑so”. We can indeed say that if this is an authentic utterance of Jesus of Nazareth and refers to himself, we are not dealing with a sober moral teacher or Jewish reformer. Put in terms of the problem of knowledge in its pure form, we are no more certain of its authenticity than we are that any of us are in this room.

Popular approaches, on the other hand, which tend to ask “Where does this lead?”, have plenty to say. Authenticity, and that this is a self‑portrait of Christ in majesty, are assumed. That πάvτα τὰ ἔθvη (all the ethnē, a neuter plural) becomes αὐτoύς (the persons, masculine for common gender) in the next clause [cf. Matt. xxviii.19] against the grammar does not jar. The point is obedience to the Golden Rule actualised in works of mercy. No‑one is getting away with anything—a point which I believe to be thoroughly biblical—and all will get their comeuppance at the last. The sanction is eternal reward and punishment, even if the question of whether the latter is an infinitely prolonged experience or the dissolution of the personality is not discussed. No account is taken (Relief, relief!) of “Son of Man” studies, even of surveys of “Son of Man” studies: the Son of Man, it seems clear, was present qua Representative Man in every needy human being. Never mind Dan. vii or any intertestamental literature, πάvτα τὰ ἔθvη at xxv.32 plainly sets the scene of a general judgement. No questions are asked about the presence of a third group of people, the ἐλάχιστoι (the utterly insignificant ones) [40, 45], who are not being arraigned at this time; nor dare one ask whether, to allude to Oscar Wilde’s mot about the poor, these may not be greatly overrated. The subtle point of why they are introduced with a demonstrative, and whether it belongs to the discourse of the narrator, that is is ‘external’, or is ‘internal’ and spoken by the dramatized narrator, goes by default. Interestingly, while in rendering the key phrase most versions hedge, one, the most paraphrastic, commits itself squarely to “all people”. It’s a very big stadium, a very big crowd, and the whole scene is modern, relevant to the nth degree and pervades popular books and preaching. Thus “Inasmuch” is the title of the annual report of the World Relief and Development Fund in my own church; the passage is THE scripture, and I suspect the only one, which undergirds the life of that great lady Mother Teresa; and so on. The thing packs a wallop for every serious Christian: none of us would be seen dead neglecting the Lord as he presents himself to us in every starving piccaninny. And it is indeed arguable that the vast preponderance of man’s inhumanity to man is of precisely this order, neglect and omission rather than spectacular cruelty and atrocity of a deliberate kind. Small wonder that this passage was for decades a locus classicus for the simple‑seeming ‘social gospel’ and serves the same purpose for its modern version, the “Development is mission” doctrine of Liberation Theology. Would anyone but a scholar query an interpretation manifestly so fruitful? Works of mercy are indeed something that in this appalling world “there’s just too little of”. If we treat the passage as interchangeable with the story of the Good Samaritan in Lk. x, in other words as an even punchier answer to the question “Who is my neighbour?”, what is the matter with that? And in an age when human rights and their violation figure so largely, but mostly go untouched by our human tribunals, which normally get around to them, IF they do, when both victim and victimiser are past caring, don’t we need to recover the idea of a judgement on the κατηραμέvoι (accursed ones) [41] which is final in every sense?

It is not my purpose for one moment to disparage works of mercy. I do, however, want to look much harder at this passage. My first and abiding impression is that it must come from an extraordinary mind, for the unforgettable does not get composed by average people. My second, checked only when I had drafted this paper, is that the popular modern view is a novelty, a point to which I shall return. There is in the general Weltanschauung and diction nothing incompatible with a Palestinian origin. It is the culmination of the evangelist’s fifth book of Jesus‑Torah; unsurprisingly, a Deuteronomic “Behold, today I set before you death and life: therefore choose life” sounds throughout. The context from ch. xxiv on is full of last things, culminating in three parables all of which have accountability as the keynote. In all three individuals choose different courses of action with different results. There is a “Too late” in every case, but nothing arbitrary about their respective fates. The terms of their accountability were clear all along. xxvi.1 sums up all this material as λόγoυς (utterances) of Jesus which he has now completed. Our passage, which shows no important textual variants, is explicitly eschatological, with nothing “realised” about it. Ὁ υἱὸς τoῦ ἀvθρώπoυ (the Son of Man), mentioned already in the larger context in ways which make an identification with the speaker at least plausible, comes with the concomitants of divinity and is ὁ βασιλεύς (the King), a major theme in this Gospel. I here interject my opinion that many of our difficulties with “Son of Man” would melt away if we let it be coloured by its surroundings, and that Geza Vermes is right at least in suggesting that its natural meaning is “the present speaker”. He sorts mankind into two groups—nothing much so far as I can see can be made of the ἔριφoς (goat) as a ‘baddy’—dispatching some to the traditional place of honour and inviting them with δεῦτε (Come here) [34], rejecting others forever with πoρεύεσθε ἀπ᾿ ἐμoῦ (Go away from me) [41]. The stark little vignettes in which they are summed up as people—minimalist pictures, of cartoon‑like simplicity—say inimitably that what they did or failed to do in the body to others in the body has a significance which is eternal and irrevocable. Their records are known, as they could be only to God; and they are in the end of different breeds however similar they looked in the mass. There is a “Too late” in every case; there is a recognition of their situation (κύριε in context must surely be the divine name); but both classes are utterly astonished by the terms of their accountability and their judgement. Now far be it from me to bring to this point, especially in such a context, too literal‑minded an approach; but even given a liberal dose of double‑think on the part of both Sheep and Goats, I confess that I am truly astonished by their astonishment. Hadn’t any of them read Matt. xxv, heard it expounded, seen it referred to? Where were they all their lives? Notice that they do not argue about moral obligation, they do not claim that they never encountered human need. They say [37, 44] πότε σε εἴδoμεv; (when was it You that we saw?) Their Judge came to them incognito. They never laid eyes on him before. There is not a sign of their sensing any covenant obligation, that they were not idolaters, that they were even theists. It is as though neither set gets justice, the terms of their accountability never having been clarified until it was too late.

I want to look even harder at these words. The fact is that virtually all of the Greek, including the key phrase πάvτα τὰ ἔθvη, is really uncommonly rum. Those who read a lot of Biblical Greek and never give their sense of style a rinse with other kinds may lose sight of this, though it holds true for whole tracts of the NT. Our passage does not merely swarm with Semitisms—more accurately Septuagintal syntax and idiom—if one excised all the examples very little would be left. The whole thing could be retroverted into Aramaic or classical Hebrew with scarcely a hitch. ἔθvoς, (ethnos, tribe, racial grouping) a pretty neutral term outside Biblical and Patristic Greek, gets a particular colouring within them [cf. Matt. xxi.43]. τὰ ἔθvη (the ethnē) had a faintly pejorative tone outside Biblical Greek; within it the phrase is almost a technical term for “the Gentiles”. {πάvτα} τὰ ἔθvη is the stock LXX rendering of הגוים {כל} ({all} the goyyim) [scores of examples] which in its turn nearly always means “{all} the heathen” as opposed to God’s covenant λαός (people). {πάvτα} τὰ ἔθvη otherwise virtually always stands in LXX for other Hebrew expressions for nations other than Israel. Greek, including Biblical Greek, has a number of phrases for “all men”, but πάvτα τὰ ἔθvη unqualified is not among them. Last but not least, πάvτα τὰ ἔθvη is a syntactical Septuagintalism, not inherently—the predicative use is one way of combining πᾶς with a noun and the definite article—but because it is grossly overworked, with or without a Hebrew original. Macc. I‑IV are a case in point. The Hebraists here today will readily recognise how such formulaic πᾶς (all)‑phrases arise from a Hebrew Vorlage. There is then, I contend, a strong presumption in favour of the view that it is “all the Gentiles” who are here giving an account of themselves. It was an encouragement, after arriving independently at this conclusion, to find in an article on Matt. xxviii.19, to which Lloyd Gaston kindly drew my attention, precisely this sense based on very similar linguistic data: “This examination of πάvτα τὰ ἔθvη in Matthew’s Gospel apart from 28:19 reveals that in no case can it be persuasively argued that the phrase includes Israel. Rather, πάvτα τὰ ἔθvη designates non‑Jewish mankind in its entirety (with or without Gentile Christians)” [Douglas R.A. Hare and Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. in CBQ Vol. 37, 1975, 359‑ 369].

There is no time to elaborate the many doctrinal difficulties avoided by this view. Though not itself without difficulties, I believe that it solves more problems than it creates. If the Sheep and the Goats had Moses and the Prophets at the very least, why do not even the Sheep rise above the level of normal civilised ethics? Both Judaism and Christianity see ordinary works of mercy as a minimum: they know that they have no monopoly on the theory (for Plato and Confucius are quite as good) or even on the practice. Such works may well be in evidence without the knowledge of God, that is, a positive does not prove a positive; this is balanced by the assertion that without works of mercy there can be no knowledge of God, that is, a negative proves a negative. All human beings can be shown to acknowledge as a ‘given’ that certain things are due to other human beings, however adept we may be at finding ways to delimit our definition of the human—for instance, not Samaritans, Gentiles, Jews, Christians, not slaves, children, women, men, not Slavs, Negroes, white men, not Germans, Japanese, not Leftists, bourgeois, not the senile, the lacking or the unborn, and so on ad nauseam. If the Sheep and the Goats went unreached by the preaching of the “gospel of the Kingdom” [xxiv.14], it is a just judgement which differentiates between those who have sought to fulfil the moral law within their limits and those who have flouted it. The absolute justice of God is one of the unitive ideas of the Bible. No dirty tricks are played: no frogs turn into princes, no filthy beggar turns out to be King Odysseus, and no‑one goes to perdition for what he does not know. The conscious refusal of a Saviour who is openly offered is of course another matter.

If I am right the question which we should put to this text is this. What about the heathen? What about Cornelius and Co. supposing they go unreached? What is the basis of their accountability? And the answer is: What they did with what they knew.

There is a final twist to this suggestion. Who are oἱ ἀδελφoί μoυ oἱ ἐλάχιστoι (my brothers the utterly insignificant ones) and in what sense is the Son of Man present in them? My Jewish friends have no difficulty with the idea of themselves as the ‘little people’, for whose treatment everyone else will be answerable. My Hebrew‑Christian friends see a clear reference to Gentile treatment of Jewish Christians. The modern popular approach, in which the notion of the universal brotherhood of man is well‑established, and moreover the notion is almost equally well‑established that that notion pervades the NT in general and the teaching of Jesus in particular, readily jumps to the conclusion that his insignificant brethren are to be identified with any and every suffering, helpless human being. Pace Bp. Hugh Montefiore [Awkward Questions on Christian Love, Phil. 1964] I do not find this last wholly absent even from the Johannine literature. However, none of these senses is that well‑supported compared with the meaning “Christian disciple” or “true Israelite”. I suggest that this will in the end commend itself as both more scholarly and more relevant. The devout Jew who disappears into a camp for reading and teaching the Hebrew Bible, the Baptist who gets taken in for psychiatric treatment because “though not strictly mentally ill, his ideas on religion differ too markedly from those of the average Soviet citizen”, in these is really present the Lord, afflicted with the affliction of His people [Ex. iii.7]. As Western Christendom comes to from its long post‑triumphalist hangover, it is a little easier to see not only that the simple gospel/social gospel split is a very temporary blip in our thinking, but that the normal posture of God’s people at most times and places has been with the back against the wall. To the question “Where was God at Auschwitz? Where was He?” I believe that this passage returns answer, “Where He was when Judge and Saviour became one, namely on the Cross”.

To sum up, in this parable the most Jewish of the Gospels portrays Jesus as emphasising, here as in xxi.43 and the so-called Great Commission (a modern term), the inclusion of the Gentiles, which, as opposed to the salvation of Jews, was the revolutionary idea at the time when the tradition was being formed. The Son of Man fulfils the Messianic function of dealing out justice to the Gentiles. All of these have their personal meeting with him, in which they judge themselves. All who are saved are saved through him. There is a back door to Heaven for those who welcomed him as he came to them in his own people.

Is the popular modern view a novelty? A full discussion of the history of interpretation of the passage would be a paper in itself; but the general patristic understanding of {πάvτα} τὰ ἔθvη, even if it underwent a subtle shift from “Gentiles” to “heathen”, suggests that it may be. Origen, Eusebius, John Chrysostom and Cyril of Jerusalem are explicit on the point: the ἔθvη are non‑Israelites. It is in the nature of the case impracticable to pin most of the Fathers down on the reference of our passage. However, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Irenaeus allude in connection with it to works done to Christ in the person of His disciples. Clement thinks that they are next best to loving Christ; Irenaeus connects them with the salvation of those who were righteous before Christ. I suggest that just as they held together in fruitful tension a passionate pursuit of evangelism, a vigorous repudiation of universalism, and a reasonable hope of salvation for the unreached pagan, so did that Gospel which is most clearly addressed to believers, that is to those for whom all these were and are matters of the deepest concern.