Decidedly Dead at Dinner

[catholicscot]

The Book of Tobit provides us with a model of righteous behaviour under the Law which shows us that the subsequent development of the Pharisee party was not the only way to be a good and upright Jew. Justification through the Law is impossible but the Law as such did not create a barrier to right living prior to the New Covenant as the Holy Family clearly showed. Elsewhere I have written a reflection about the episode in Tobit where he leaves the Pentecost feast in order to retrieve the body of a murdered Israelite in Nineveh. The thrust of my analysis is this-

Gazing upon Christ crucified Catholics may be tempted to believe that the righteousness of the Jewish Law is symbolised by three bloody nails and one heart-piercing lance. In that scenario one can imagine that Jesus represents a spiritual fulfilment of the Law and the Pharisees a literalistic one. The picture that scripture paints of Tobit however is the antidote to such a view. Righteousness cannot be achieved through the way of Moses but neither is that way a necessary barrier to it. If, famously, the letter kills but the Spirit gives life is there not a way in which the Spirit can give life even to the letter? It is said of the Blessed Virgin Mary that with her Yes! to Gabriel she effectively conceived our Lord in her heart before doing so in her womb, perhaps the righteous children of Israel who said Yes to Yahweh before saying Yes to the Law achieved the purpose of the Law. The sin of the Pharisees consisted in saying Yes to the Law before saying the same thing to the Lord.

The motivation that Tobit has to bury the dead and give alms to the poor springs from the same source as that which leads him to worship the Lord God and obey the precepts of the Law. When Jesus recommends His followers to a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees (Matt 5:10) it is of people like Tobit that He is thinking as well as the Holy Family. Obedience is the key that sets Tobit free. He chooses to obey the Law, the Assyrians and his idolatrous kinsfolk are slaves to sin, he exercises choice and they do not hence he is freer than them. Since his obedience springs from his Yes to God it is prior to the Law and not dependent upon it, a fact which will become of crucial importance in the later Christian economy of salvation.

 

[Crumpy]

What does the title of this thread have to do with anything? You’ve got to help us with that one. Or, if you’re using some modern allusion, I have to say I’m over 60 and you’ve lost me.

Sure, you open the door to a whole lot of subjects here. righteousness is one of those topics that Catholics don’t spend a lot of time discussing. Perhaps, as you suggest, we should. In the first place, it’s right there in scripture, especially in the NT.

I’ve read several Jewish commentaries (from the Jewish Publication Society) and you’ve hit a nerve with me on one favorite subject, that that the modern writings don’t seem to explain the whole Pharisee issue.

Pharisees were not (necessarily) priests. Maybe most of them were not. Yes, they seem to have developed an interpretation of scripture distinct from others, such as the scribes. I’m surely vague on this, but I sense that they emerged in the post-exile period really in good faith, to try to put Judaism back together, so to speak, Their existence seems to speak to the problems which led to the exile, to begin with. They wanted to steer Judaism in the right course.

Jesus clearly indicates that they did not succeed, for any number of reasons, some of which He addressed in various places in the gospels. Sure, their externals, for example, looking for praise in the sight of other men. That’s just a hair’s distance, though, from trying to give good example to others. It proves that anything can go wrong.

Modern Jewish commentaries deflect the criticism of externals, first, by agreeing with it. They don’t agree with or even profess emphasis on externals. They are apt to say that others simply don’t understand them. At first approximation, they don’t care, either, if they’re misunderstood.

Catholics, for sure, don’t need to criticize Jews for their emphasis on 613 laws said to exist in the Torah. I don’t think we even try to enumerate the number of laws that we follow. And, the whole point of that is the need for a Christ-centered internal disposition, i.e. conscience. Unless I have gone astray someplace.

Oh, but you’re right. As OT scripture pointed out, there was more to come.

 

[catholicscot]

What does the title of this thread have to do with anything? You’ve got to help us with that one. Or, if you’re using some modern allusion, I have to say I’m over 60 and you’ve lost me…

I’ve read several Jewish commentaries (from the Jewish Publication Society) and you’ve hit a nerve with me on one favorite subject, that that the modern writings don’t seem to explain the whole Pharisee issue.

Pharisees were not (necessarily) priests. Maybe most of them were not. Yes, they seem to have developed an interpretation of scripture distinct from others, such as the scribes. I’m surely vague on this, but I sense that they emerged in the post-exile period really in good faith, to try to put Judaism back together, so to speak, Their existence seems to speak to the problems which led to the exile, to begin with. They wanted to steer Judaism in the right course…

.

The title of the piece refers to the fact that in the episode Tobit looked for a dinner guest and found a dead body. It’s a bit allusive because I hoped that people would read the Book of Tobit in order to “get it”. Bit of a long shot certainly but I do love to encourage reading of sacred scripture.

On your more substantive point. The conflict that sprung up after the birth of the Church between the Law and the Spirit seems to be often retrojected into the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees as if they were the same conflict. But that is only partly true. People like our Lady and St Joseph, Zacariah and St Elizabeth Simeon and Anna were observers of the Law no less than the Pharisees were and this did not hinder them from being righteous. This is because they obeyed the Law in response to an impulse to love God and serve Him above all else and, in that Covenant, the only means available to them was that set out by Moses. The Pharisees in the early days of their party were similarly motivated. By the first century, however, the earlier impetus had become mixed up with other more worldly considerations and they stood in need of some pretty major reform. In the event they were superseded.