Today's passage is devoted, as we will soon see, to the theme of Tradition and to how differently different people can make use of it depending on...
Today's passage is devoted, as we will soon see, to the theme of Tradition and to how differently different people can make use of it depending on their intentions. This passage consists of three dialogues that the Savior conducts with different interlocutors.
The first of them (vv. 13-17) is plainly provocative in character. The question of whether it was permissible to pay taxes to the Roman authorities, under whose rule Palestine then was, was usually raised by representatives of the most radical part of the Synagogue of that time, whom the Gospel calls "Zealots," that is, "the zealous." These people held views of the Kingdom of God not very different from those that were generally accepted in the times of Joshua and the Judges. For them, the Kingdom of God and Roman power in Palestine were incompatible things. They considered armed struggle against Roman rule a religious duty for every believing Jew, and the payment of taxes to Roman authority a violation of the Law. To all that has been said, one need only add that all who looked at things less radically, even if they were their fellow believers, were considered by the Zealots to be apostates and enemies of the faith, deserving death. The question about taxes, asked of Jesus publicly, in a crowd where both Zealots and secret agents of Roman power were certainly present, placed the One answering in an obviously losing position: to answer "yes" meant bringing upon Himself the wrath of the Zealots; to answer "no" was equivalent to a state crime in the eyes of the Romans, for under Roman laws public calls to refuse payment of taxes to the lawful authority were treated as rebellion.
The second question (vv. 18-27) most of all resembles a problem from a theology textbook, or one of the traditional "hard questions" of its time that opponents of faith in the resurrection used against believers. Of course, to this question, as to all similar questions in all times, there existed an answer, and perhaps more than one, well known to everyone who had received the corresponding education. But what was known about Jesus was precisely that He had not studied theology, and it was all the more interesting to those asking the question what this, as it appeared to them, ignorant man from Galilee would answer.
The third dialogue (vv. 28-34) was caused, evidently, not by a desire to catch the Teacher in His words, but by a real desire to understand what He thought about the Law. Apparently the questioner understood that this astonishing Man truly had to understand something important and central in the Law, and he wanted to learn what it was. And Jesus, in reply, refers him to those traditional answers that were perfectly well known to the questioner himself. It is interesting that in this answer only the first part, speaking of love for God, has a direct correspondence in the text of the Law (Deut. 6:4-5). The second part of the commandment is a formula of rabbinic tradition that in Gospel times had already become generally accepted. And in this case Jesus confirms Tradition by His own authority.
In neither the first nor the second dialogue does He do this. Of course, in these cases too the questioners appeal to Tradition, but here the matter evidently has more to do with abuse of Tradition than with relying on it. This is no surprise: authentic Tradition always reflects the experience of real, living communion with God preserved in the memory of the community. But if the goal turns out not to be communion with God but something else, for example the desire to catch an opponent in his words or to assert oneself at the expense of one's interlocutor, the spirit of Tradition disappears, and only its empty, dead form remains, giving nothing except support for equally empty, dead religiosity and human pride.
3
3:1 Be not many teachers - Let no more of you take this upon you than God thrusts out; seeing it is so hard not to offend in speaking much. Knowing that we - That all who thrust themselves into the office. Shall receive greater condemnation - For more offences. St. James here, as in several of the following verses, by a common figure of speech, includes himself: we shall receive, - we offend, - we put bits, - we curse - None of which, as commonsense shows, are to be interpreted either of him or of the other apostles.
3:2 The same is able to bridle the whole body - That is, the whole man. And doubtless some are able to do this, and so are in this sense perfect.
3:3 We - That is, men.
3:5 Boasteth great things - Hath great influence.
3:6 A world of iniquity - Containing an immense quantity of all manner of wickedness. It defileth - As fire by its smoke.The whole body - The whole man. And setteth on fire the course of nature - All the passions, every wheel of his soul.
3:7 Every kind - The expression perhaps is not to be taken strictly. Reptiles - That is, creeping things.
3:8 But no man can tame the tongue - Of another; no, nor his own, without peculiar help from God.
3:9 Men made after the likeness of God - Indeed we have now lost this likeness; yet there remains from thence an indelible nobleness, which we ought to reverence both in ourselves and others.