Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T02:19:24.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pearls Before Swine? A Reinterpretation of Matt. 7.6*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Henry Kahane  and
Renée Kahane
Henry Kahane
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Renée Kahane
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Tradition and habit over many centuries have led Western civilization to take for granted the idiom, throwing pearls before swine. Yet, as numerous interpreters of its source, Matt. 7.6, have puzzled, why pearls? The principal exegetic difficulty of the passage, in other words, consists in the analysis of the literal rather than the idiomatic meaning. The conventional semantic rationalizations can be illustrated by quotations from two of many commentators: J. P. Lange calls the act of casting pearls before swine ‘foolish’; O. Baumgarten et al. consider the expression ‘ein derb volkstümliches Gleichnis: man wird doch nicht den Säuen Perlen als Futter vorwerfen.’ Various attempts have been made to change the reading of the passage: while these provide no satisfactory solution to the problem, they are, obviously, expressions of dissatisfaction. The present note is a suggestion that the correct interpretation may be reached by a study of the stylistic pattern of the passage.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 13 , 1957 , pp. 421 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Lange, J. P., A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures I (New York 1867) 139.Google Scholar

2 Baumgarten, O. et al., Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments I (Göttingen 1917) 285.Google Scholar

3 See for example Pallis, A. ’ emendation (A Few Notes on the Gospels according to St Mark and St Matthew [Liverpool 1903] 33–34; Notes on St Mark and St Matthew [Oxford 1932] 71–72) and the discussion thereof by P.-L. Couchoud in Journal of Theological Studies 34 (1933) 135; by Goosens, R. in Byzantion 7 (1932) 695, 9 (1934) 452–453; L'Antiquité classique 2 (1933) 231–232.Google Scholar

4 Nestle15 (Stuttgart 1951). Google Scholar

5 Revised Standard Version (New York 1946).Google Scholar

6 Michel, O. apud Kittel, G., Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament III (Stuttgart 1938) 1101 no. 2; Bauer, W., Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments (4th ed. Berlin 1952) 17.Google Scholar

7 The Jewish Encyclopedia 10 (New York and London 1909) 616–17.Google Scholar

8 A similar approach, based on patterning, to the passage under discussion has been suggested by Zolli, I., ‘Le cose sante ai cani,’ Religio 13 (1937) 272–277; yet, he proceeds in the opposite direction from ours: his unknown is τό ᾃγıον for the interpretation of which he uses μαϱγαϱίτης; ours is μαϱγαϱίτης, for the interpretation of which we use ᾃγıον.Google Scholar

9 Cange, Du, Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae graecitatis (Lyons 1688) s.v. μάϱγαϱος. Sophocles, E. A., Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods (Boston 1887) s.v. μαϱγαϱίτης. Google Scholar

10 PG 63.898; Quasten, J., Monumenta eucharistica et liturgica vetustissima 110 n. 1 (Florilegium Patristicum 8.2; Bonn 1935).Google Scholar

11 PG 63.901–922. Google Scholar

12 VI (Eton 1612) 983ff. Google Scholar

13 PG 63.922. Google Scholar

14 Aἱ τϱεΙς Λειτονργίαι: Texte und Forschungen zur byzantinisch-neugriechischen Philologie (Beihefte zu den Byzantinisch-neugriechischen Jahrbüchern 15 [Athens 1935]) 158.Google Scholar

15 PG 98.384–453, a much longer text than any of the older recensions (edited by Krasnoseltsev, N., Notes on Several Liturgical Manuscripts of the Vatican Library [in Russian; Kazan 1885] 323–375; by Brightman, ‘The Historia Mystagogica and other Greek Commentaries on the Byzantine Liturgy,’ Journal of Theological Studies 9 (1908) 248–267. 387–397; by Nilo, D. Borgia, Il Commentario liturgico di Germano S. … e la versione latina di Anastasio Bibliotecario, Studi Liturgici I [Grottaferrata 1912]).Google Scholar

16 PG 98.388–389. Google Scholar

17 Written not before the 11th or 12th centuries; cf. Krumbacher, K., Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur (2nd ed. Munich 1897) § 85 with Anm. 2.Google Scholar

18 PG 87.3985. Google Scholar

19 Ἀθηνᾷ 25 (1913) 288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Andriotis, N., ‘Die Ausdrucksmittel für “gar nichts,” “ein wenig” und “sehr viel” im Alt-, Mittel- und Neugriechischen,’ Byzantinisch-neugriechische Jahrbücher 16 (1940) 59ff.: 59, 60, 66, 67, 83, 87, 90, 97, 103, 105, 110.Google Scholar

21 Andriotis 66, 105; Ἀθηνᾷ 29 (1917) 188. Google Scholar

22 Cange, Du, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis (Niort 1883–1887) s.v. margaritae; PG 33.1125; Quasten, Monum. 109 with n. 2.Google Scholar

23 Du Cange s.v. margaritae. Google Scholar

24 Meyer, W.-Lübke, Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (3rd ed. Heidelberg 1935) 5559.Google Scholar

25 Hastings, J. et al., Dictionary of the Bible 3 (New York 1902) 734, apropos Matt, 7.6.Google Scholar