Discourse on holiness

The discourse on holiness forms the concluding part of the Sermon on the Mount, following immediately from the discourse on judgementalism. Like many other parts of the Sermon, it consists of a series of sayings followed by a brief explanation, and many of the sayings appear also in the Gospel of Luke. Due to the presence of the sayings in Luke and Matthew, but not in Mark, as well as their nature and the difference in narrative setting, it is suspected by many scholars that they originate from the Q document, and consequently that the discourse on holiness is an artificial creation of Matthew, for the purpose of providing a narrative framing for the sayings.

eeking answers

In Luke (at 11:9-13) and Matthew (at 7:7-11) is a monologue about asking, seeking, and knocking, which Luke presents as simply occurring in the day-to-day run of things, while Matthew presents it as part of discourse on holiness. The most common interpretation of this monologue, amongst modern Christianity, is that it refers to prayer. However, like most of the sayings attributed to Q, they can also be interpreted in a heavily gnostic way, which supporters of Gnostic primacy consider to be the meaning it was originally intended to have. Several Christian scholars such as Fowler, Hendriksen, Morris, and France, argue for the prayer-interpretation by suggesting that "asking" refers to humility, "seeking" refers to seeking answers to their needs in God, or to the effort and concentration required for prayer, and "knocking" as a metaphor of the time for "gaining admittance" to the "Kingdom of Heaven. Other scholars, though, contend that the more obvious interpretation is the search for knowledge - Schwiezer argues that many Rabbis of the period placed important stress on religious study, while Luz argues that the Gnostics (a significant early form of Christianity) saw the pursuit of unteachable esoteric wisdom as their main goal (in a similar sense to the Buddhist search for "enlightenment").

The present imperative tense is used for the three verbs "seeking", "asking", and "knocking", in these verses, implying that these actions are to be continuous. With the prayer interpretation this is usually seen as implying that prayer should be a continual habit, not just an occasional one, while with the wisdom interpretation this is seen as a statement of obvious fact - that the search for knowledge is one that is in some ways unending.

Between Luke and Matthew's version of the monologue three metaphors are given, presumably since they are relevant:
*When a man asks for bread you are unlikely to give him a stone - given by Matthew
*When a man asks for fish you are unlikely to give him a serpent - given by Matthew and Luke
*When a man asks for an egg you are unlikely to give him a scorpion - given by Luke

Although the objects involved may seem at first to be quite unsuited to being pairs, this is not entirely the case, as the standard form of bread in the era were small round loaves resembling stones, and a common fish caught in the region was the "Clarias lazera", a catfish that happens to resemble a snake. Scorpions on the other hand have little resemblance to eggs, though a few scholars.

False prophets

The discourse emphasises that there are those who falsely claim to teach the truth, by metaphorically portraying false prophets as "wolves in sheep's clothing", a phrase which has since become a common expression for confidence trickery and for villainy hiding under a guise of innocence. Wolves have since ancient times been consistently portrayed as excessively malevolent, and so the phrase originally had much greater strength than it does today. Schweizer has argued that the metaphor is indirectly referring to the then traditional description of prophets being clad in animal skins.

It is an open question whether "false prophets" is a reference to any group in particular, rather than just a general warning. As most scholars argue that Matthew has drawn Jesus' quote from the Q document, the phrase doesn't even necessarily refer to someone that Matthew elsewhere has portrayed as an enemy. The main possibilities that have been suggested are:
*specific individuals like Simon Magus and Bar Kokba
*the Pharisees, whom Matthew consistently portrays as the main enemy of righteousness
*the Essenes, a religious sect that had several strong similarities to the behaviour that Matthew attributes to Jesus
*the Zealots, a radical Jewish group, later advocating violence
*the Gnostics, a major form of Christianity in early times, though many scholars (usually Christian) believe Gnosticism not to have developed at the time Matthew was written
*what became the Christian orthodoxy, which, according to those arguing for Gnostic primacy, wasn't the original form of Christianity.

Matthew also describes Jesus as making a statement, that one should identify false prophets by their "fruits", since grapes don't come from thorn bushes. Most commentators view the metaphor as explaining that successful prophecy comes only from true prophetsFact|date=February 2007. Matthew asserts the conclusion by claiming that good trees bear only good fruit, and rotten trees only bad fruit.

References

*Davies, W.D. and Dale C. Allison, Jr. "A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew". Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark, 1988-1997.
*Fowler, Harold. "The Gospel of Matthew: Volume One." Joplin: College Press, 1968
*France, R.T. "The Gospel According to Matthew: an Introduction and Commentary." Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1985.
*Hendriksen, William. "The Gospel of Matthew." Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1976
*Hill, David. "The Gospel of Matthew". Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981
*Luz, Ulrich. "Matthew 1-7: A Commentary." trans. Wilhlem C. Linss. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989.
*Morris, Leon. "The Gospel According to Matthew." Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992.
*Schweizer, Eduard. "The Good News According to Matthew." Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975