Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

4.33 Quibus duobus dominis neget posse serviri quia alterum offendi sit necesse altemm defendi, ipse declarat deum proponens et mammonam

[Holmes: What the two masters are who, He says, cannot be served, on the ground that while one is pleased the other must needs be displeased, He Himself makes clear, when He mentions God and mammon. Then, if you have no interpreter by you, you may learn again from Himself what He would have understood by mammon.

Evans: Who those two masters are who he says cannot be served, because of necessity one of them will be spurned and the other protected, he himself makes clear when he sets them down as God and mammon And next, if you have no one to explain to you whom he intends you to understand by mammon, you can hear it from himself.

When advising us so to use worldly possessions as to provide for ourselves future friendships and support, he refers to the example of the servant who, when dismissed from office, relieves his lord's debtors by reducing their obligations, and so gains security for himself: and adds, And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, meaning, with money, as that servant did. For all of us know that money is the author of unrighteousness, and the tyrant of all human society. So when he saw that the covetousness of the pharisees was subservient to it, he slung out this sentence, Ye cannot serve God and mammon. So the pharisees, who were covetous of money, derided him, because they understood that by mammon he meant money. So let no one suppose that by 'mammon' one must understand the Creator, or that Christ had called them away from the Creator's service. How so? Learn rather from this how Christ has shown that God is one. He has made mention of two masters, God and mammon, the Creator and money. So, ye cannot serve God, the God they were thought to be serving, and mammon, to which they preferred to commit themselves. But if he had been representing himself as that other, it would have been three masters, not two, that he indicated. For the Creator is master, being God, and in fact much more a master than mammon, and deserving much greater respect, being much more the master. For how can it be that when he had called mammon a master and had mentioned him in the same sentence with God, he should in truth have omitted to mention those people's own God, the Creator? Or was it that by not mentioning him he admitted it was permissible to serve him, since it was only himself and mammon he said could not be served? So when he speaks of God, in the singular—though he would have mentioned the Creator too, if he himself had been that other <god>—it was the Creator he did mention, by the fact that he did without further definition refer to him as master. And so light will be thrown on this, in what sense it was said, If ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will entrust to you that which is true? He means 'unrighteous money', not 'the Creator', for even Marcion says the Creator is 'righteous'. And if ye have not been found faithful in that which is not your own, who will give you that which is mine? For to servants of God that which is unrighteous must always be 'not their own'. But how can the Creator be an alien to the pharisees, when he is the particular God of the Jewish nation? If then these expressions do not apply to the Creator but to mammon, the questions Who will entrust to you that which is more true? and, Who will give you that which is mine? cannot be taken for questions by one god about another god's grace. He might indeed have been thought to mean this, if by censuring them for unfaithfulness towards the Creator, not towards mammon, he had by mentioning the Creator introduced distinctions between <him and> some second god who would refuse to entrust his own truth to those unfaithful to the Creator; as likewise he can indeed be taken for the Christ of that other god, except that he is set before us in terms by which he is kept at a distance from the subject under discussion

quomodo tunc alterius videri potest, si non ad hoc proponatur ut a re de qua agitur separetur.

Holmes: How then can he possibly seem to belong to another god, if He be not set forth, with the express intention of being separated from the very thing which is in question.

Holmes: Forasmuch then as the words, "Who will entrust to you the truer riches? "and, "Who will give you that which is mine? "are only suitable to the Creator and not to mammon, He could not have uttered them as alien to the Creator, and in the interest of the rival god. He could not have uttered them as alien to the Creator, and in the interest of the rival god. He could only seem to have spoken them in this sense, if, when remarking their unfaithfulness to the Creator and not to mammon, He had drawn some distinctions between the Creator (in his manner of mentioning Him) and the rival god----how that the latter would not commit his own truth to those who were unfaithful to the Creator. How then can he possibly seem to belong to another god, if He be not set forth, with the express intention of being separated from the very thing which is in question.

If then these expressions do not apply to the Creator but to mammon, the questions Who will entrust to you that which is more true? and, Who will give you that which is mine? cannot be taken for questions by one god about another god's grace. He might indeed have been thought to mean this, if by censuring them for unfaithfulness towards the Creator, not towards mammon, he had by mentioning the Creator introduced distinctions between <him and> some second god who would refuse to entrust his own truth to those unfaithful to the Creator; as likewise he can indeed be taken for the Christ of that other god, except that he is set before us interms by which he is kept at a distance from the subject under discussion.

The remarks I have advanced on this case will be also of use to me in illustrating the subsequent parable of the rich man tormented in hell, and the poor man resting in Abraham's bosom. For this passage, so far as its letter goes, comes before us abruptly (subito propositum est) but if we regard its sense and purport, it naturally fits in with the mention of John wickedly slain, and of Herod, who had been condemned by him for his impious marriage. It sets forth in bold outline the end of both of them, the "torments" of Herod and the "comfort" of John, that even now Herod might hear that warning: "They have there Moses and the prophets, let them hear them."