the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Cosmopolitanism
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or COSMOPOLITANISM.—That the Jews were of all nations the most exclusive, was familiar to classic writers (cf. Juv. Sat. xiv. 103 ‘non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti,’ and Mayor’s references ad loc.); though both political and social conditions in the 1st cent. had made cosmopolitanism more possible than it had ever been before (cf. Juv. ib. iii. 62 ‘in Tiberim Syrius defluxit Orontes’). Under the Roman emperors the world was becoming more and more one great State; St. Paul’s Roman citizenship stood him in good stead in Philippi as in Jerusalem (Acts 16:21; Acts 22:25). Even in Palestine there were distinctly cosmopolitan elements, as was inevitable in the case of a country lying across the great trade routes of the world. Decapolis was almost entirely Greek; in Galilee there had for long been a large Gentile population; and foreigners as well as proselytes from all parts of the empire found their way to Jerusalem (Acts 2:7; see Schürer, HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] , Index, s. ‘Hellenism’; and Merrill, Galilee in the Time of Christ). The presence of foreigners, however, is seldom mentioned in the Gospels, save for a few references to centurions (Matthew 8:5, Luke 7:2; Luke 23:47), strangers from Tyre and Sidon (Mark 3:8), a short journey to Decapolis (Mark 7:31, where, strangely enough, the Aramaic word ‘Ephphatha’ finds special place in the text), and the notice of the Greeks who sought for Jesus at the feast—though no account of His interview with them is given (John 12:20). Traces of a cosmopolitan atmosphere may be detected in Mark 15:21 (‘Simon, father of Alexander and Rufus’), in the Greek names of two of the disciples (Andrew and Philip), and the trilingual ‘title’ on the cross (John 19:20).
Jewish exclusiveness was apparently endorsed by Christ Himself (Matthew 5:47 ( Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885) 6:7, 32); the Twelve are forbidden to go into any way of the Gentiles (Matthew 10:5); and the Syrophœnician woman is at first addressed in thoroughly Jewish language (Matthew 15:21, Mark 7:24). On the other hand, our Lord speaks the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30 ff.); commends the faith of a Roman centurion as greater than any faith He had found in Israel (Matthew 8:10, Luke 7:9); and, notwithstanding His first words to the Syrophœnician woman, recognizes and rewards the greatness of her faith (Matthew 15:21 ff., Mark 7:24 ff.). Simeon welcomes the infant Messiah as a light to lighten the Gentiles (Luke 2:32), in spite of the markedly Jewish tone of Luke 1, 2. St. Matthew is the narrator of the visit of Wise Men from the East (Matthew 2:1); and if he traces the genealogy of Christ to Abraham (Matthew 1:2) St. Luke takes it back to Adam and God (Luke 3:38).
It is true that the Gospels are full of protests against Jewish exclusiveness (Matthew 3:9 ‘Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father’; cf. John 8:37 ff., where the claim founded on descent from Abraham is contemptuously dismissed; also Matthew 12:41 f., Luke 11:31 f. ‘the men of Nineveh … the queen of Sheba shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it’; Matthew 8:11 f., Luke 13:29 ‘many shall come from the east and the west … but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth’; and Matthew 11:21, Luke 10:13, where the unrepentant Bethsaida and Chorazin are contrasted with Tyre and Sidon). So far as this break with the Jews shows itself, it rests on (a) enthusiasm for humanity; cf. esp. the references to publicans and sinners, Matthew 9:11; Matthew 11:19, Mark 2:15, Luke 5:30; Luke 7:37; Luke 15:1, and the fragment in John 7:53 to John 8:11; (b) the universalism of the gospel, Matthew 24:14, Mark 14:9 (‘what she hath done shall be preached in all the world’), Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:49 (‘make disciples of all the nations’); so John 3:16; John 12:33 (‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself’); the same thing would result from Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45 (‘to give his life a ransom for many’), if carried out to its logical conclusion; (c) anti-legalism in regard to the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1, Mark 2:23, Luke 6:1; Luke 13:14), ceremonial ablutions (Matthew 15:1, Mark 7:19), the provisions of the Law (Matthew 5:21; Matthew 5:33; Matthew 5:38; Matthew 5:43), and the inadequacy of the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). It is noteworthy that the ground of marriage fidelity is carried back from Moses to the Creation (Matthew 19:4, Mark 10:6), and the Sadducees are referred, on the subject of the resurrection, to God’s language to the pre-Mosaic patriarchs (Mark 12:18, Luke 20:37); still Christ regards as final a combination of Deuteronomy 6:4 and Leviticus 19:18 (Mark 12:28 ff.), and He asserts that His purpose is not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it (Matthew 5:17, cf. Matthew 3:15).
The real nature of Christ’s teaching cannot be understood apart from the deductions from it in the Acts, where the recognition of the cosmopolitanism of the gospel is forced on the Apostles almost against their will (Acts 8:26; Acts 10:11; Acts 10:34; Acts 11:20), and even opposed by a powerful party in the Church when explicitly stated by St. Paul (Acts 15:5): but it reaches its full statement in Romans 10:12, Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11 (‘neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free’), and Philippians 3:20 (‘our citizenship is in heaven’). (Cf. J. R. Seeley, Ecce Homo, ch. xii. ‘The Universality of the Christian Republic’). It will thus be seen that the recognition of cosmopolitanism in the sense of a universal mission of Christianity is, in the Synoptic Gospels, only slight (cf. Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, English translation vol. i. pp. 40–48, especially the statement that, omitting what is probably unauthentic, ‘Mark and Matthew have almost consistently withstood the temptation to introduce the Gentile mission into the words and deeds of Jesus,’ p. 40). St. Luke differs from them in a slight colouring of expression rather than in the narration of fresh facts. St. John had both watched and taken part in the expansion; but the universalism of the Fourth Gospel is chiefly confined to the striking use of the expression ‘the world’ (see above and John 4:42; John 6:51; John 12:47; John 17:23 etc.), which silently bears out the view—to a Christian, abundantly confirmed after 70 a.d.—that the Jews were a reprobate people. From the rejection of one race followed the acceptance of all (Romans 11:11-12). See also articles Exclusiveness, Grecians, and Universalism.
W. F. Lofthouse.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Cosmopolitanism'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/c/cosmopolitanism.html. 1906-1918.
