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Explanation IV: Smite on the cheek – The mantle
21st March 1864, from 10am to 1 pm
Matt 5:39
[1] Concerning the 5th chapter and the 39th verse (Matthew), in which is said: “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” etc., verse 40: “And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.” You have to consider the following:
[2] If one would be able to think with just a bit of clarity, he will immediately see that what I have said, could and should not even remotely have application in the material context; for I have said this on the occasion when people asked Me whether Moses' decrees are being negated by My pure commandment of love. But I said: “I do not negate a single word of the law of Moses and I fulfil it as much as it contains love.
[3] It is true that Moses told the ancestors: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth ! He who slays someone have to be punished by death; but among you, My disciples, it need to be different.” Exactly there I used the example of the smite and of the strife about the rightful possession of the cloak, which were of course not written down correctly and added to this came the inaccurate translations from the Hebrew language to the Greek language, then the Roman language and only long after these three languages, to German – which was at the time of translation of rather poor vocabulary and had no words to present some of the expressions in these three languages correctly.
[4] These three verses should read more correctly as follows: “When you have a small squabble with a brother or neighbour and he determinedly opposes you, you should not react with even more vehemence, that the old friendship between you can be enlivened again !” (compare HG 1.174,14; Matt 5:39)
[5] There is no mention of a smite. By that I would have given the stronger one the right to smite his weaker brother and neighbour as much as it suits him, not with one, but also with two blows.
[6] The same goes for the case regarding the strife about the cloak. To better understand this strife about the cloak, one need at least a bit of knowledge about the Jewish household traditions and customs. (Matt 5:40)
[7] It has been an old habit and custom among them that, if someone would per occasion – usually when he had no money or sellable domestic animals – still need a cloak or cape or both at the same time, he would go to the tailor of the congregation of the town, state his problem and determine a date of payment. Yet, it often happened that some of them was not able, or did not want to keep to the promise of the payment date. Then the cloak- and cape fabricator was obliged to wait for a determined second and even a third date for payment with a little added rent, until the last date passed. After the third term, the cloak and cape fabricator had the right to expect the determined amount from him for whom he made the cloak and cape and this not seldom ignited a hot debate before the judge. The tailor wanted his agreed fee, while the owner of the cloak and the cape stated his own reasons for why he, even after the third term, could not satisfy his debtor. In such a case, a law existed among the Jews that when someone really could not pay, then the congregation had the plight to indemnify the tailor, in order to keep him in business. The congregation then had the right to expect of the congregational member who would not pay, to repay the amount in time when they discovered that he was in fact able to pay. Among ten such debtors though, there where scarcely one who would be willing to pay and the others knew very well how to present a myriad of reasons for their permanent inability to pay. This often ensued a striving of many years in such a congregation and I was once asked what should rightly be done in such a case, to curb such evil. This is exactly when I said: The best and most effective way is firstly to, according to the law of
Moses, be completely reasonable and honest, according to which no one should desire something belonging to his neighbour. But since the striving is about a garment, the following should be the rule for the debtor and debt-collector: Let the striving about a garment go every once in a while, rather than to entice the whole congregation into unnecessary strife and dispute.
[8] He then that knows this, can impossibly accuse Me of unrighteousness when I gave such advice, for peace and unity to reign among you.
[9] But the evangelist wanted to relay all this with as little words as possible to save time and effort, since the writing became tedious to him; for writing did not proceed quickly at that time, but tediously and slow. One page, which could be written by an experienced writer within twenty to thirty minutes, took L'Rabbas from Sidon, or Luke in Jerusalem, or Theophilus in Athens, Corinth or Syrakus where he often lived, in all diligence, about eight days; he either had to carve his letters with a steel slate-pencil on specially prepared slates, or they had to write with a fine artist's brush on parchment. For the practised artist or writer, the painting of the letters have proceeded considerably faster, but still not much quicker than the old slate-pencil. This then was the reason why the writers in My time only wrote the necessary. Therefore it took L'Rabbas up to his last, that is the fifteenth gospel, twenty-five years, despite his diligence and zeal. You can thus understand that such writers only touched upon the most necessary words and omitted explanations of the side-issues.
[10] But one would easily ask: “Moses and also other prophets of old have written extensive books; how long did it take Moses then to only write the five known books, with exception of the sixth and seventh book, together with the prophetic appendix ?”
[11] On this I say unto you, that, according to his writing of that time, all books where not longer than one Gospel of John. Moses still wrote the – to him still well known – Egyptian hieroglyphics. Only in the time of the Judges who were still very much acquainted with that handwriting and it's meaning, the books of Moses was penned down on parchment, which production process was well understood by the people of the old city of Pergamum. Yet, that handwriting was unknown to most Jews who lived in My time, for there where no vocals in between the consonants. They where obliged to make new copies, in which the so-called scribes took part in for more than two hundred years and from this came the title of scribe – not that they understood the true meaning of the writing – in which most scribes and Pharisees where real sheep-heads, but only because they now could read the vocal-free handwriting from the time of the Judges. Therefore you should not be surprised that there where often friction between Me and such scribes in which they, because of their blindness, took no pleasure. In this will these two suspect scriptures become clear.