Using Quintilian to Interpret Mark

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The passage from Mark which follows, has always been a puzzle:

If your hand offends you, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled, than with both hands to depart for hell, to the unquenchable fire.

And if your foot offends you, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame, than with both feet to be thrown into hell.

And if your eye, offends you, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than with two eyes to be thrown into hell (9:43–47).

The word I have translated “offend” (skandalizein) is rendered “causes you to sin” (with a footnote “to stumble”) in the Revised Standard Version. Essentially the same translation (“should cause you to sin”) is used in the Jerusalem Bible. In the New English Bible, we find “is your undoing.”

The saying in Mark is often understood as hyperbole, demanding radical and uncompromising discipleship. According to this interpretation, one must be prepared for the most painful sacrifice should there be anything that might cause one to separate from God and his kingdom.¹

Another interpretation is that we must extirpate sin at the very first before it has a chance to spread. As expressed by Professor Montefiore: “The advice which Jesus here gives is that we are not to provoke danger and call it forth. Far better to nip it in the bud, and to pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation.’”²

Still others have interpreted the saying as a warning against sexual sin. This interpretation not only has many modern supporters but was also widespread in the ancient Church.³

The sexual interpretation is based in large part on the occurrence of the same saying in Matthew 5:29–30 (in the Sermon on the Mount); in Matthew, however, the context (5:27–28) makes the sexual connection clear: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell” (Matthew 5:27–30).

I do not believe the passage from Matthew can help us to understand the saying from Mark because in Matthew the saying is no longer in its more original context, but has been used by the Gospel of Matthew for a different purpose, that is, to warn against sexual sin.

My own view is that the saying was originally designed as a metaphor in which the body stands for the community as a whole. In the context of Mark, it is advising the Christian community to drive out offending individuals before they contaminate the entire community.

My view is based upon a parable similar to Mark’s found in the Latin rhetorician Quintilian (Institutio oratoria 8.3.75): “As the physicians cut off the members of the body which are estranged (from it) through sickness, thus also evil and corrupting people, even if they are related to us through bonds of blood, must be cut off.”⁴

In Quintilian there is no attempt at hyperbole which would relate the offense to the moral behavior of the individual. The danger is to the health of the community. In the ancient world the image of the body and its members as a communal metaphor⁵ is so widespread that one must assume that the saying of Mark 9:43–47 was originally designed to serve as a rule for the community: members of the Christian church who give offense should be excluded. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 5:1–13, gives an example of the application of this rule. There a man is reported to be living with his father’s wife: He should be removed from the community. In verse 13, Paul quotes Deuteronomy 17:7 “Drive out the wicked person from 045your midst.”

Although here Paul does not use the saying of Mark 9, elsewhere (in 1 Corinthians 12:12–27) he does use the common image of the human body representing the community. In 1 Corinthians 12:26 there is some corroboration of the interpretation suggested by the Quintilian passage: “And when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.”

One difficulty remains. The saying from Mark would be simpler if it said: “It is better for you to live as a cripple than with both hands to perish.” The expressions “to enter into life” or “into the kingdom of God” and “to depart for/to be thrown into hell” do not appear to be needed for the saying’s application.

For early Christianity, however, the choice between eternal life and destruction was not seen as a choice of the individual, but rather as a demand for the preservation of the Christian community as a whole. The choice between eternal life, on the one hand, and death, on the other, or the choice between the kingdom of God, on the one hand, and hell, on the other, was not seen as the choice of the individual but as the choice of the entire Christian community.

When Matthew uses this saying of Mark, as he does in Matthew 18:8–9, he uses it to introduce his discourse on community regulations. Rules on reproving and excommunication follow (Matthew 18:15–18). 2 Corinthians 13 demonstrates that destruction of the whole community can be the alternative to the excommunication of an individual.

In short, the parallel in Quintilian reminds us that in general usage the image of the body and its (sick) members was understood as a communal parable.

(For further details see Helmut Koester, “Mark 9:43–47 and Quintilian 8.3.75, ” Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 71, pp. 151–153 [January–April 1978]).

The passage from Mark which follows, has always been a puzzle:

If your hand offends you, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled, than with both hands to depart for hell, to the unquenchable fire.

And if your foot offends you, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame, than with both feet to be thrown into hell.