The Beatitudes are the opening passages of the Sermon on the Mount, the longest single teaching attributed to Jesus. The Beatitudes (named after the Latin word for "blessed") are accorded a special place in Christian doctrine. For example, The Catholic Catechism says of them,
1716 The Beatitudes are at the heart of Jesus' preaching. They take up the promises made to the chosen people since Abraham. The Beatitudes fulfill the promises by ordering them no longer merely to the possession of a territory, but to the Kingdom of heaven...
1717 The Beatitudes depict the countenance of Jesus Christ and portray his charity. They express the vocation of the faithful associated with the glory of his Passion and Resurrection; they shed light on the actions and attitudes characteristic of the Christian life; they are the paradoxical promises that sustain hope in the midst of tribulations; they proclaim the blessings and rewards already secured, however dimly, for Christ's disciples; they have begun in the lives of the Virgin Mary and all the saints.
However, when one reads the Beatitudes as prescriptive rules, rather than as descriptions and promises, they cast a very revealing light on Christian culture.
You can read the Sermon on the Mount in its two versions, in the fifth chapter of Matthew or the sixth chapter of Luke (these links are to the Blue Letter Bible web site; here's The Bible Gateway).
The version in Matthew is the more familiar one. The story starts at the end of the fourth chapter:
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and [from] Decapolis, and [from] Jerusalem, and [from] Judaea, and [from] beyond Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
Blessed [are] the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed [are] they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed [are] the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed [are] they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed [are] the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed [are] the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed [are] the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed [are] they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when [men] shall revile you, and persecute [you], and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great [is] your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
The Sermon on the Mount continues for many more verses beyond this point; the Beatitudes are only its introduction. If you want to understand the Christian faith ñ its good and its bad, its generosity and its harshness, its love and its rigidity ñ you should read the full Sermon carefully and be astonished at what is in this teaching that is, second only to the Crucifixion and Resurrection, central to the doctrine.
Do the Beatitudes constitute an ethical touchstone in the sense I have been using? On the surface they seem to be descriptive, not prescriptive. Their superficial message is "These are the characteristics of people blessed by God". It is certainly possible to interpret these verses as "There are meek among you, and they are blessed; I see people who are mourning, let them be comforted," and so on.
But a more traditional view is that the Beatitudes are to be considered normative, as if they said "If you want to inherit the Earth, become meek; If you want to see God, become pure in heart," and so on.
When you interpret the Beatitudes in this way, you get illuminating insights into Christian attitudes and tradition, but not (I think) a useful ethical touchstone.
We can summarize the Beatitudes as prescriptive rules, each with its corresponding promised reward, as follows:
| What to Be | What You Get |
|---|---|
| Poor in spirit | Possession (?) of the Kingdom of Heaven (shared with the persecuted) |
| In mourning | Comfort |
| Meek | Inherit the Earth |
| Hungry for Righteousness | Righteousness |
| Merciful | Mercy |
| Pure in heart | Sight of God |
| Peacemaker | Called Child of God (by God?) |
| Persecuted for Righteousness's sake | Possession (?) of the Kingdom of Heaven (shared with the poor in spirit) |
| Reviled for Jesus's sake | Reward in heaven |
It is not easy to understand the first verse, about the poor in spirit, as a prescription. What could "be poor in spirit" usefully mean, that "be meek" does not also mean? According to Strong's Concordance, (and don't you just love the Web?), the Greek is ptochos pneuma, and the critical word ptochos is from ptosso, to crouch. The literal "crouching soul" can be interpreted in these senses:
At first blush, these are not states you would advise anyone to enter into voluntarily. Yet think about it: are not these states of destitution, powerlessness, and need exactly what Christian monks, nuns, hermits and flagellants have always sought?
Here, in the normative application of the first Beatitude, is the source of the spirit of poverty, and one of several sources for the Christian contempt for the flesh. In the modern world, the Shakers are probably the best demonstration of the creative form of striving to be poor in spirit.
Here also is a source for that strain of Christian teaching that disdains and belittles worldly culture along with worldly status. If the first Beatitude is interpreted in a normative sense, it says "Be humble, be without position, be without culture ñ in order to possess the Kingdom of Heaven."
The second Beatitude converts easily into an injunction, "be meek." It fits nicely with the Buddhist injunction to give up the idea of the self. It has been demonstrated over and over that when a selfless spirit combines with determination to serve a cause, mountains are moved.
This Beatitude reads as a promise: Those who pine and crave after righteousness will be satisfied. It makes less sense as an injunction: You have to pine and crave in order to achieve virtue. However, if the Beatitudes are read in normative sense (as I think they have been, consciously or not), the result is the too-literal pursuit of a state of emotional hunger and thirst for its own sake.
It is good in any ethical system to be merciful or compassionate. The reward that Jesus promises is mercy in return. This would be an interesting variation of the Buddhist notion of kamma, except that in the sermons I have heard, the preachers always assume the reward is to be mercy on the day of judgment, after you die. In effect, "If you don't want your sins to be measured out coldly and exactly, show mercy now."
What does it mean to be "pure in heart"? In typical protestant sermonry, it is taken as a disposition to avoid temptation, especially sexual temptation. If it is taken as meaning "be innocent," this is a difficult teaching indeed, for innocence is not usually possible to recapture once lost. Once you are no longer innocent in any category, can you become so again?
It is also hard to know what the promised reward, "they shall see God," means, if it is a distinct reward for the pure in heart only. Does it mean during the present life, or in the next? Will those who hunger after righteousness but are not pure of heart, not see God?
In any case, I suspect that the prescription, "be pure in heart," has worked in the context of Christian culture to promote the idea of celibacy for religious and for those who would be religious. After all, how can you be demonstrably, visibly pure, except by being demonstrably and visibly celibate?
The Middle East was no less contentious and war-torn in 34 AD than it is now, and peacemakers were no easier to find; so the implied injunction "be a peacemaker" was practical for its time as well as timelessly appropriate for any ethical system. The reward, to be called a Child of God, presumably means that the peacemaker will stand in God's good graces, be praised, in the next life.
Considering the eighth and ninth Beatitudes, it is usually assumed that to be
persecuted "for righteousness's sake" means "for the church's sake,"
with martyrdom as the ultimate persecution. However, that interpretation makes the
eighth verse effectively identical to the ninth one. It is hard to know how being
"persecuted for righteousness" differs from being "reviled for Jesus's
sake."
There is the trivial meaning that one can be persecuted in more drastic ways than
one can be reviled: Sticks and stones are used in persecution, but words in revilement.
It seems more likely to me that "the sake of righteousness" means "for
the sake of adherence to Mosaic law" (Jesus, a Jew, was speaking to a Jewish
audience after all); and in the ninth Beatitude He is putting support for himself
on an equal footing with support for the Law.
Regardless, in the context of an ethical system it simply makes no sense to enjoin
someone to "be reviled" or "be persecuted." Being reviled or
persecuted is not evidence of ethical action. To seek after these states would have
to mean encouraging people to become revilers and persecutors; that is, to provoke
people into acting unethically toward you. Encouragement of an unethical act is itself
unethical. In any case, provoking people is the opposite of being a peacemaker.
However, the injunction to "be reviled and persecuted" does make
sense in a context of motivation to a cause. I read these final Beatitudes as instructions
to disciples, "Go forth and make converts so aggressively that people hate you."
When you read these verses in that sense, you hear Jesus saying "You who spread
my word, if you are not being persecuted and reviled, you are not trying hard
enough. If you want a reward in heaven, you had better bear down!" I believe
that this Beatitude has been read in exactly that way and taken in just that way
by generations of Christians. If so, there you have the source of much of the success
of early Christianity, and of its unpleasant nature as well.
Most philosophers who grapple with ethical questions assume that ethical behavior
is a matter of determining the right behavior and doing it, or at least promoting
and applauding it, because it is right. Ethical education consists of learning
to recognize the right.
Socrates and other Greeks did not talk about rewards and neither did the God who
delivered the Mosaic law and the Ten Commandments. Buddhist ethics are based on practical
self-interest, but not on reward as such: if you don't behave ethically, they say,
you tangle yourself in such a morass of lies and self-delusion that self-understanding
becomes impossible. The reward for ethical behavior is simplicity and clarity of
mind.
Jesus's teachings set a new style: do what is righteous and you will be rewarded. The entire Sermon on the Mount is heavily reward-oriented; the nine Beatitudes that preface it establish a pattern that continues. (I first met this insight in Peter Singer's book on modern ethics, How Are We To Live?) Here are all the rewards and threats I note in Matthew chapter 5 and 6 (with verse numbers for reference):
The climax of the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7:21-23, makes the heavenly reward system explicit:
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
I remember more than one revival preacher using these verses as his text, and I can remember vividly their powerful emotional impact. "In that day! In that awful day when you face the Throne of the Almighty! What will you hear on that dreadful day? Will our loving savior look at you, and hold out his hand, and say 'Come here, my child'? Or will you hear those terrible, terrible words, 'DEPART FROM ME - I NEVER KNEW YOU'? Well, if you don't want to hear that, my friend, you had better get right with God, right now, tonight, at this altar." (Congregation: "Jesus! Halleluja!")
Today, I find this emphasis on reward for the right action and punishment for the wrong to be striking. Remember, this text is the very doctrinal engine of Christianity. In it, all motivation is based on reward and punishment. There is no suggestion that some behavior is good in and of itself; no mention of acts or attitudes that are fundamentally right or self-evidently right; and no hint that ethical behavior should, or even could, be productive, creative, or satisfying in this life. Every recommended behavior or attitude is motivated by a future reward or punishment. And this has shaped every facet of Christian culture since.
When the Beatitudes are read prescriptively, they have a narrow and vague ethical coverage. Looking only at the ones that make sense as prescriptions for "how to live," they are:
Like the Ten Commandments, which are the preface for a much longer Mosaic Law, the Beatitudes are only the preface to a much longer sermon with many further directives. They are not intended to summarize the entire sermon, any more than the Commandments are meant to summarize the whole Law.
Still, the effect of these teachings, taken together, ought to be similar to the Buddhist injunctions to give up desire and striving, to give up attachment to the ego, and to be compassionate. Together they have no doubt motivated and guided Christian contemplatives. As with the Buddhist Eightfold Path, if you elaborate these ideas and ramify them into a lifestyle, you can reach a calm, detached, and possibly joyful existence.
But that ramification is not simple or easy, and the Beatitudes as written give no guidance, not even general guidance, on how to do it. Like the Eightfold Path, they suggest attitudes and give little guidance on actions. Unlike the Eightfold Path, they are not associated with a shorter list of Precepts. Like the Kantian Imperative, they suggest how to make a decision, but not what to decide. On our four engineering criteria for touchstones:
| Prescriptive | Six of the nine, when read against their syntax; but vague. |
| Authority | Scriptural authority relevant to Christians only. |
| Compact | Compact and fairly easily memorized. |
| Coverage | Narrow; little specific guidance and many areas not covered. |
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