Almsgiving in Tobit, Sirach, and the Sermon on the Mount

One of the main themes of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is personal righteousness. Jesus warns the crowds that "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:20). While some Protestant readers may be inclined to read "righteousness" here through a Pauline-Lutheran lens as something imputed on the basis of faith (i.e. belief) alone, the context suggests otherwise. 1 After offering the great Antitheses (Matt. 5:21-48), themselves full of moral profundity, Jesus returns explicitly to the theme of "your righteousness" (tēn dikaiosunēn humōn) in 6:1. In the following section of the discourse (6:2-18), Jesus' main point is that personal righteousness is only rewarded by the Father when practiced discreetly, not when practiced openly to gain the respect of other people. The structure of the section shows that Jesus understands "your righteousness" to subdivide into three categories: alms (eleēmosunē, 6:2-4), prayer (proseuchē, 6:5-15), and fasting (nēsteia, 6:16-18). Notably, the way Jesus introduces each category assumes that his audience shares his belief that this threefold division captures the essence of personal righteousness: "When you do alms...when you pray...when you fast". At issue is not whether righteousness consists of these deeds—this is simply assumed. At issue is only how these deeds ought to be practiced (i.e., whether openly or secretly).

The word eleēmosunē (usually translated "alms" and from which the English word "alms" derives) occurs ten times in the New Testament outside of Matt. 6:2-4, all of them in Luke-Acts. In Luke 11:41, having scolded the Pharisees for their superficial notion of purity, Jesus advises them, "But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you." In Luke 12:33, Jesus commands his "little flock" to "Sell your belongings and give alms" and thereby "Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy." The importance of alms is further underscored in several accounts in Acts, most notably in Acts 10, where an angel tells Cornelius in a vision, "Your prayers and almsgiving have ascended as a memorial before God" (10:4; cf. Acts 3:2-10; 9:36-42; 24:17). Among early Christian texts outside the New Testament, eleēmosunē is mentioned prominently in the Didache (1.6; 15.4) and 2 Clement (16.4). Evidently, almsgiving played an important role in early Christian piety, following on the teachings of the Master. However, this observation leaves unanswered the question of how Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, was able to assume his audience's familiarity with the concept of "alms" as a central aspect of personal righteousness.

Conceptually, of course, the notion of concern and care for the poor and needy pervades the entire Old Testament. The specific term "alms," however, seldom appears. The Hebrew equivalent of the Greek eleēmosunē is tzedakah (צדקה). This word occurs over 150 times in the Hebrew Bible, but usually in the general sense of "righteousness" rather than specifically "alms" (i.e., charitable acts directed toward the needy). For instance, in the psalms tzedakah is an attribute of God (e.g., Ps. 11:7; 31:1). In a couple of passages in Proverbs, however, a more specifically "economic" sense of tzedakah seems to be in view. These include Prov. 10:2 (where tzedakah contrasts with "ill-gotten gains"), and 11:4 (where tzedakah contrasts with "riches"). The Septuagint translator(s) of Proverbs translated tzedakah with eleēmosunē in 21:21. In Daniel's oracle to King Nebuchadnezzar foretelling that he would become like a beast, Daniel counsels the king to "break off your sins by practicing righteousness (tzedakah), and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed" (Dan. 4:27). Here too, the Greek translation of Daniel (Theodotion) translated tzedakah with eleēmosunē; and the sense of tzedakah seems to anticipate the technical sense of "almsgiving" that the word would take on in rabbinic Judaism.

Despite the above evidence, the usage of tzedakah in the Hebrew Bible (and eleēmosunē in its ancient Greek translations) is not pervasive or developed enough to explain how Jesus could assume that his first-century Jewish audience shared with him a concept of "almsgiving" that was as fundamental to piety as prayer was. Whence then this development? Two of the deuterocanonical books—those considered Scripture by the patristic church (and still by Catholic and Orthodox Christians) but not by Protestants—are helpful here. These books are Tobit and Sirach, both written in the second century B.C. Together, they account for 28 instances of the word eleēmosunē—more than the rest of the Septuagint combined. Surviving Hebrew fragments of Sirach and Tobit demonstrate that eleēmosunē in the Greek versions typically translate tzedakah (e.g., Sir. 3:14, 3:30, 7:10, Tob. 4:8-9 [4Q200 2[bc]:9], etc.).

Sirach and Tobit share in common the bold teaching that almsgiving atones for sins and saves one from evil or death (Sir. 3:30; Tob. 12:8-9).2 This idea is echoed in early Christian literature. The mid-second century Christian text 2 Clement teaches that "charitable giving (eleēmosunē) relieves the burden of sin" (2 Clem. 16.4), while the Didache, a first-century Christian text, declares, "If you earned something by working with your hands, you shall give a ransom for your sins" (Did. 4.6; cf. Barnabas 19.10).

Both Sirach and Tobit also conceive of almsgiving as storing up treasure (Sir. 29:8-12; Tob. 4:7-11), a metaphor also used by Jesus at the conclusion of the section of the Sermon on the Mount that discussed almsgiving, prayer, and fasting (Matt. 6:19-21), and a metaphor directly linked with almsgiving by Jesus in Luke 12:33. As we have already seen, the redemptive power of alms is highlighted also in the story of Cornelius' conversion in Acts 10. A recent study by Anthony Giambrone notes how there developed in early Christianity the tendency to refer to almsgiving as the commandment par excellence, thus giving "forceful expression to its archetypal status."3 According to Giambrone, the roots of this expression are found in Sirach ("Because of the commandment, help the poor," 29:9) and further development is seen in the Didache (1.5; 13.4-7).

The early church, following Jesus, understood almsgiving to have a very prominent—indeed, redemptive—role in the divine economy. This coheres well with the notion of the "treasury of merit" in Catholic theology. However, it is difficult to reconcile with a Protestant sola fide doctrine in which almsgiving has no redemptive role whatsoever (indeed, to teach otherwise is considered by many Protestants to subvert the doctrine of salvation by grace). Regrettably, the portions of the Old Testament that are most helpful for filling in the Jewish context of the early Christian teaching on almsgiving—Sirach and Tobit—were removed from the biblical canon by the Reformers.

To make these points is not merely to revive a tired, sixteenth-century doctrinal debate. Consider the current controversy among American Evangelicals over "the social gospel." A statement authored by John MacArthur and other prominent Evangelicals asserts that "the obligation to live justly in the world" is an implication and application of the gospel but not a "definitional component...of the gospel." Almsgiving is an archetypal way of living justly in the world, and for Jesus and the early church it absolutely was definitive. In the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20), Jesus ordered the apostles to "Go and make disciples of all nations". The subordinate clauses specify how disciples are to be made: "baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit," and "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." Almsgiving is one of the primary observances commanded by Jesus; it is as central to the mission of the Church as prayer is.

Footnotes

• 1 Of course, a comprehensive doctrine of righteousness and of salvation requires us to systematise these teachings of Jesus with those of Paul concerning salvation by grace through faith. This cannot detain us here, but such a systematisation can be found in the Catholic response to the Reformers' doctrines in the canons of the Council of Trent.
• 2 Indeed, the whole of the Book of Tobit could be described as a theodicy of prayer and almsgiving. After Tobit suffers blindness despite having lived a life of almsgiving, his wife (in like fashion to Job's wife) taunts him, "Where are your charitable deeds (eleēmosunai) now?" (Tob. 2:14) Tobit nonetheless instructs his son on the virtue of almsgiving (Tob. 4:7-11), and is eventually vindicated when God heals his blindness.
• 3 Anthony Giambrone, "‘According to the Commandment’ (Did. 1.5): Lexical Reflections on Almsgiving as ‘The Commandment’", New Testament Studies 60 (2014): 448-465.

Why the Trinity Just Doesn’t Make Sense to Christadelphians

Guest Article by Matthew J. Farrar

Introduction

The denial of the Trinity doctrine is arguably one of the strongest identity markers of Christadelphians.1   Christadelphian arguments against the Trinity typically follow one of three lines:2

1. Jesus is not the Father and is therefore not God.
2. Jesus is a man and is therefore not God.
3. The Trinity is inconsistent with the Scriptures' absolute insistence on monotheism.

The first objection is actually based on an erroneous conflation of Modalism3—a doctrine holding that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three modes of operation of a single divine person—with the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, which holds that there are three distinct, eternal persons who share a Divine nature. The second objection similarly conflates the doctrine of Christ’s Divinity with a denial of His humanity, whereas orthodox Christology emphatically affirms Christ’s humanity.4

However, in conversations with Christadelphians—and indeed my own experience as a former Christadelphian—by far the most compelling arguments against the Trinity are based on the third issue of monotheism. Undoubtedly, the Scriptures insist on an uncompromising monotheism.5 It therefore appears that the Trinity doctrine is a violation of basic common sense: if God is one, then God cannot be three, and if He is three, He cannot be one. An answer in The Christadelphian Advocate's Question Box feature succinctly exemplifies this objection:

The Bible is so clear on this matter it is a puzzle as to how anyone can conclude anything about a godhead consisting of three beings, acting independently of each other yet still together, as one single being. The idea that the three were co-existent as well as co-equal and each a part of the Supreme Being destroys the beauty of the Father/Son relationship that is so emphatically detailed in the Scriptures.

The objection is clear enough: to say that three beings are actually one being is a contradiction, and a rather obvious one at that. So why is it that orthodox Christians hold to this doctrine when it seems to be at odds with basic common sense?

An Important Assumption

What is tacitly assumed but not acknowledged in the Christadelphian line of reasoning is that the God of the Bible is rightly understood to be a being. That is to say, there are many beings (e.g. angels, humans, animals), and God is regarded as another being, albeit a unique and supreme Being who exceeds all other beings in power, knowledge, wisdom, goodness, etc. It is precisely under this assumption that the Christadelphian argument against the Trinity are so compelling: 

1. A "being" is the broadest classification possible.
2. Therefore, distinct persons are beings.
3. "God" is a being.
4. Therefore "God" is either one person and one being or three persons and three beings. He cannot be three persons but one being.
5. Since the Scriptures affirm that God is One (being), the Trinity is false.

So how is it that the Church came to affirm the Trinity doctrine despite this glaring problem? The answer lies in that the Church does not consider God to be a being, but rather, being itself.

Nominalism: The Roots of a Theological Revolution

Believe it or not, the roots of this issue go back to the 14th century, a time prior to but very influential on the Reformation. This era ushered in a new philosophical position known as nominalism, a philosophy that is widely held—though seldom explicitly recognized—today. At its core, nominalism denies the real existence of universals. To understand what a universal is, consider the drawing below.

We would all quickly identify this drawing as a triangle, but on what basis? There are two basic answers to this question. The first is that there is a universal triangle, of which this particular triangle is a manifestation or instantiation. In other words, something is a triangle in the measure that it conforms to the universal triangle. The second answer—that of nominalism—is that there are simply a collection of objects which we call “triangles”, and this happens to be one of them. However, nominalists would claim that this classification is more or less one of convenience and therefore there is no such thing as the essential nature of a triangle.

To see the impact of this thinking in our own day, consider two hot-button issues: marriage and gender. Those who believe that universals are real—called realists—hold that heterosexual marriage and gender (male and female) are real universals. As such, a particular marriage is an actual marriage in the measure that it conforms to this universal and is a particular instantiation of it. Similarly, realists hold that a man is a man on the basis that he is an instantiation of a particular universal, namely, a male nature (and similarly for a woman).

In contrast, the nominalist perspective asserts that there are merely a collection of relationships called “marriages.” Therefore, to redefine marriage beyond monogamous heterosexual marriage is simply to broaden the usage of the word “marriage”. Similarly, “man” and “woman” are mere labels applied to groups of persons, and so the labels can be applied differently or new labels may be created as needed.

Now since nominalists deny the existence of universals, and natures are universals, it follows that nominalists deny the existence of natures. Thus, under this rubric there is no universal human nature (i.e. humanity) of which all human beings are instantiations; there are simply a collection of beings that we call “humans” just as there are three-sided objects that we call triangles. More to the point, if there is no such real thing as a nature, then there is also no such thing as a real divine nature: only a being we call “God,”6 and the phrase “the divine nature” simply becomes a shorthand for His personal attributes. Consequently, to acknowledge three divine persons is necessarily to acknowledge three divine beings, since “divine” and “persons” are again merely labels and “being” is simply the least restrictive classification possible.

Since Christadelphians—like most of the Western World—tend to be involuntary nominalists with respect to their conception of God,7 8 the Trinity doctrine appears to present an insurmountable contradiction. Nominalist Trinitarians attempt to circumvent a contradiction by false appeals to the mystery of the doctrine,9 while Christadelphians deny the mystery of the doctrine by appeals to the contradiction.

But what if we reject nominalism in the first place?

God is Being itself, not one being among many

Since nominalism was an innovation of the 14th century, it follows that the formulators of the Trinity doctrine in the first five centuries of the Church were not and could not have been nominalists. For example, the Nicene Creed states that Jesus is “one in substance/essence/nature with the Father.” Of course, this formulation necessarily assumes that natures are real! Even the Arians of the 4th Century—those opposing the divinity of Christ at the First Council of Nicea—did not dispute the real existence of natures, but instead argued that Christ was of a different, inferior nature from that of the Father. Semi-Arianism, a subsequent attempt at a compromise position, declared the Son to be of “like nature” (homoiousios) to the Father rather than of the same nature (homoousios) as the Nicene Creed affirmed.10 Thus, opponents of Christ's true divinity in the fourth century were not raising the so-called “common sense” objections outlined above.

Moreover, if nominalism is rejected, then we may also reasonably deny that God is one being among other beings.11 Instead, following the revelation of the divine name, “I AM” (Exodus 3:14), the Church teaches that God is "the act of to be" itself.12 Thus, while I am a being, God is being itself. If this sounds unfathomable, perhaps we have not taken God’s transcendence seriously enough. God is not merely greater than us by degree but is utterly beyond us, of a different order. If the notion that “God is being itself” seems too abstract to grasp, consider by analogy the assertion that “God is love” (1 John 4:16). The Biblical claim is not merely that “God is extremely loving” or “God has a lot of love”; love is not merely an abstract attribute that exists apart from God and that God has more of than anyone else. Love is essential to God’s nature, and does not exist apart from God. We are capable of love only because God has shared his love with us (1 John 4:19). The same is true of being, of existence. God is not merely a supreme being, i.e. one who has the attribute of existence (and other dependent attributes such as power, wisdom and love) in greater quality or quantity than others. Rather, God is existence; nothing exists except from him and through him and for him (Rom. 11:36; Heb. 2:10).

Given this understanding of God, the “common sense” rejection of the Trinity no longer holds for the following reasons. 

First, monotheism is actually a consequence of this understanding, not a condition imposed upon it. While we cannot truly comprehend what it means for God to be “to be itself”, it’s simply impossible to have more than one sheer act of being itself. Thus, it is rigorously consistent with Scriptural affirmations of monotheism.

Second, the key tenets of the Trinity doctrine—that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-eternal and co-equal in nature—also follow directly from this understanding of God. It would be a contradiction in terms to say, for example, that the Son is the sheer act of being but not co-eternal with the Father, who is also the sheer act of being. Nor would it be possible to say that the Son is co-eternal with the Father but not the sheer act of being, since that would mean that a being exists always with being itself, which is also a contradiction. Thus, the doctrine that God is “to be itself” and the joint doctrines of consubstantiality (i.e. the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have the same nature) and co-eternality are logical consequences, not additionally imposed doctrines.

Finally—and most importantly for the present discussion—the existence of distinct divine persons is no longer equated with the existence of distinct divine beings. Rather, within the divine nature (i.e. the sheer act of to be) we can discern three distinct persons, but at no point are there any beings involved, only the act of to be itself. Do we really comprehend what that means? No, and that is why the doctrine is truly and properly called a mystery. However, the contradiction suggested by the original argument is dissolved.

Concluding Remarks

The philosophical system of nominalism developed in the late Middle Ages, long after the creedal statements surrounding the Trinity doctrine were constructed, but its popularity—especially amongst the Reformers—was widespread. Not surprisingly then, Christadelphian objections to the Trinity doctrine on the basis of “common sense” appeals to Scriptural statements of absolute monotheism tacitly—if not unwittingly—assume an underlying nominalist philosophy, namely that God is one being amongst many other beings. This is an important observation since some Christadelphians (perhaps relying on Col. 2:8)13 view “philosophy” as a by-word, a distraction to be avoided. What this article has shown, however, is that all of us—Christadelphians included—engage in philosophy and what we may prefer to call “common sense” actually rests on our own philosophical presuppositions. My hope is that a greater awareness of this philosophical framework will open channels of future discourse.

• 1 Though not entirely unique. Biblical Unitarians essentially agree entirely with Christadelphians on this point, while Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Oneness Pentecostals share in the denial of the Trinity doctrine but do not share in Christadelphian theology and/or Christology. The Christadelphian doctrine of God underwent considerable evolution in the early period of the movement. The founder of the sect, Dr. John Thomas, held a somewhat ineffable doctrine of God that he thought was captured by the Greek word phanerōsis. While Dr. Thomas's ideas still have currency with some Christadelphians, the main stream of the movement has long since moved toward something closer to Socinianism or (biblical) Unitarianism—doctrines that Dr. Thomas emphatically repudiated!
• 2 For example, see here.
• 3 This view is also known as Sabellianism because it was taught by Sabellius, a 3rd-century priest. He was excommunicated for his teaching by Pope Callixtus I.
• 4 Refer to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed defined at the fourth-century ecumenical councils of Nicea and Constantinople, and the Christological Definition reached at the fifth-century Council of Chalcedon.
• 5 Historians of religion debate exactly when monotheism developed in Israelite religion; some earlier texts may suggest a belief closer to henotheism (allegiance to only one God, without necessarily denying the existence of others—see, e.g., Psalm 95:3). In any case, strong exclusive claims about “one God” that are synonymous with monotheism are present in Second Temple Jewish texts and in the New Testament (e.g., Mark 12:32).
• 6 Granted, a very impressive being, even a Supreme Being. However, this being differs from us only in degree (e.g. we have limited power, while God has unlimited power) not by nature, since nominalists deny the existence of natures.
• 7 As evidenced by the quotation above which starts from the use of the word “beings.”
• 8 I wish to be clear that I do not mean this disparagingly. My point is merely that certain philosophical presuppositions are present in all arguments.
• 9 This was blatantly the case in the writings of William of Ockham.
• 10 Semi-Arianism was condemned at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D., but by that time the three Cappadocian Fathers (St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory Nazianzus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa) had succeeded through theological dialogue in persuading most of the Semi-Arians to return to the catholic faith.
• 11 To be precise, while other beings have a real nature, we rightly say that God is His nature. In other words, I, as a human being, am a particular instantiation of a human nature. God, on the other hand, is not an instantiation of a divine nature, but rather, He is the divine nature.
• 12 Ipsum esse subsistens, in the Latin of St. Thomas Aquinas.
• 13 Of course, Paul does not here condemn philosophy itself, but only philosophy that is contrary to Christ and therefore false. Paul’s own willingness to enter into philosophical discourse is on vivid display in the account of his speech at the Areopagus (Acts 17). For a defense of the use of Greek philosophy by the early Church, see here.