No house divided against itself will stand

An Ecumenical interpretation of Matthean symbols of sin and conversion

Ivana Noble 

"He knew what they were thinking and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons then the kingdom of God has come to you. Or how can one enter a strong man's house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man? Then, indeed, the house can be plundered. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me, scatters. Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come." (Mt 12: 25-34)

1. Introduction

There is a wide range of symbolic expressions in this Matthean text demonstrating the complexity of human relationships and attitudes which needed conversion, if they were not to ruin the community life. The kingdom divided against itself making plundering of the house and its fall possible, being against Jesus and scattering instead of gathering with him, sin and blasphemy, speaking against the Son, and finally blasphemy against the Spirit and speaking against the Holy Spirit[1]. They are the obstacles for the proclamation of justice to the Gentiles, and of the healing ministry of the servant on whom God has put his Spirit,[2] and in this sense we can see them as primary symbols of sin.

In this article I will examine in what ways these symbols are relevant to the situation of a divided church, and thus also, what forms of conversion they require. By emphasizing a multitude of symbols, I want to demonstrate that it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw a sharp dividing line between doing wrong, committing injustice, injury ( )- and missing the goal, losing oneself, being mistaken, the meanings which flow into the Greek µ , which usually translates as sin or transgression[3]. Isolating the concept of µ from other ones, and trying to understand the reality of sin by means of contemplating this concept, does theology, in my view, more harm than good. I will start with identifying three problematic interpretations, which may have a claim to be faithful readings of the text in the circumstances in which it was written, but which, as I will argue, have destructive theological consequences. Then I offer an alternative interpretation, which would make use of the notion of structural sin, and apply it to the situation of the divided church today, at the universal, denominational and local level, I will point out some of the problems preventing progress in ecumenism, as well as some possible ways of conversion.

2. Three ways of assessing superiority

The Matthean text on the divided kingdom has been used to assert the church's identity against Israel, to show a difference between "true" church and schismatic bodies, or even to strengthen anti-institutionalism and anti-authoritarianism, so strongly present in our cultures. In this part I sketch these interpretations in a bit more detail, show how they are related to the text and to the context, but also, what undesirable theological consequences they bring.

2.1 Is Israel the divided house?

The warning that the house, the city or the kingdom which is internally divided will be laid to waste, will not be able to stand, that their treasures will be plundered, their members scattered, is in Matthew a part of the main plot, the mortal struggle between Jewish leaders and Jesus, which starts with the story of declaring the place of Messiah's birth to Herod, where the knowledge of the Scriptures provides the chief priests and the scribes with the facts, but not with the attitude. They can tell that the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem of Judea (2: 5-6), but unlike the wise men from the East, they have no desire to go and pay him homage. The narrative places them more at Herod's side, which becomes even more apparent later in the story of the Gospel, when they prepare Jesus' condemnation to death and when they carry it out, and when they keep their animosity beyond death, which Matthew interprets as ‘Israel's demise as God's special people' which results in the transfer of God's rule to the church, which becomes the eschatological people (21:43; 16:18; 13:38) [4].

But to read this text historically is not enough. If it is to speak to the church, then surely it cannot do so only as a means of confirming her identity against Israel, and implicitly also against other world religions. Rather the church can see the struggle which Israel has experienced for so much longer reflected in its own awareness of division.This type of interpretation is supported already by Paul's emphasis on the permanency of God's election of Israel,[5] and on the need of humility towards Israel, who has been cultivated by God for a longer time, and from whom the church can learn - from the persistence of the ancestors in faith, as well as from God's judgement to Israel when she betrayed her faith.[6]

2.2 Are schismatics the divided house?

This Gospel text about the fall of the divided house, about scattering of God's people, has been taken up by Cyprian in his pastoral treatise The Unity of the Catholic Church, which responds to the situation after the persecution of Decian (250-251), when the church was divided in her practice of penance for the lapsi, and their readmission to the community.[7] Cyprian is clear which part he sees as the true, and therefore the whole, church, and claims that it is impossible to live in disunity with her and celebrate unity with Christ in the sacraments.[8] The conviction that one's faith is honest, and therefore true, and that therefore it is the other who must be in error represents one of the dangers or diseases threatening ecumenism up till now. It is not surprising that Cyprian's authority was recalled by the Donatists in the fourth century, who claimed that as the great church had failed through her lapsed leaders, they alone constituted the true Catholic Church - the moral elite, and only their sacramental mediation of Christ was valid. Against their position, and indeed also against his own early convictions[9], Augustine developed a broader understanding of church unity and the causes of the lack of unity, and of God's salvation that is active both inside and outside of our ecclesial boundaries. [10]

So far, we have closed down two ways of interpretating the text, which stressed assessing church identity against Judaism or other religions, or which claimed a part of the church to be the whole, in the sense of the whole of the church body where God's grace is acting effectively. The last dead end road I want to avoid is related to the division between the "leaders" and "others", which might appear rather attractive in our cultures with their anti-institutional pathos[11] .

2.3 Are churches as institutions the divide house?

As European Values System research has proved, one of the typical features across Europe is a mistrust towards most forms of institutional life. The Czechs together with Estonians, Bulgarians, Slovenians and Germans from the former Eastern part of Germany have a leading position in trusting churches even less than other institutions.[12] In their implicit "ecclesiologies" churches are predominantly identified with church leaders, visible through the media, especially when some issues of public scandal are involved.[13] Individual Christians can be tolerated, sometimes even admired[14], but the negative image of the churches as institutions is largely not subverted by those encounters, largely because of the common privatised view of religion.[15] This is also why the rehabilitated forms of religiosity do not involve commitment to anything which would be beyond one's control, anything where God - or indeed, the Spirit, as is their preferable name for a divine power - would not only move where it wills, but also mediate divine will through an institution run by corruptible people, such as a church.

Against this background it is important to stress, that the Matthean warning is not meant as a way of strengthening an anti-leadership and anti-institutional sentiment. As a church minister and as a theologian I include my responsibilities into the appropriation of the text, but the adressee who can benefit from hearing and understanding it can be in many other different positions, as in some sense all of us have some form of responsibility for someone else, and thus exercise (or neglect) some form of authority, which builds up a house, a city or a kingdom, as Matthew might say. Thus, I would claim that any form of interpretation that diverts the negative in the text towards the other is missing the theological point, which is not in assessing one's identity, but rather in an ongoing way of conversion towards participation in God and ministering in ways which proclaim justice, bring healing and thus testify the presence of God's kingdom.

3. An ecumenical reinterpretation

Now, let me offer an alternative interpretation, which will not aim at assessing ecclesial or personal identity against someone else's identity, and which will not operate with the superiority and inferiority divide.

3.1 Context: topos and utopia of ecumenism

First, let me set the scene in which I want to unfold the reading. The ecumenical dialogue seems to have come to a halt. It seems that the vision of church unity as something attainable within our lifetime which ecumenists shared in the 1960s and the energies with which they worked on it is no longer here. The utopia[16] of the full and visible unity has remained unrealised. But we have moved forward. There are hardly any possible subjects of division which have not been addressed by expert groups of theologians and hardly any forms of mutual hospitality and shared ministry which would not be practised and evaluated by Christian communities at the grassroots level. On the side of the church representatives, there is a much wider public acknowledgement that the leaders of different churches belong to one family. But this is where the optimistic picture seems to end, and where the ecumenical dream needs to insert itself more subversively.

The Protestant Christians, who have learned to appreciate liturgy and deepened their understanding of sacraments, who have rediscovered different forms of spirituality which seemed lost in their traditions for centuries, are now even more heavily burdened by the Roman Catholic disciplinary measures opposing intercommunio, almost independently of the fact that a common faith concerning the eucharist is shared, at least as much as within the Catholic camp, and by its growing clericalisation and centralisation, some of which seems to have been adopted from her Orthodox sister. Having learnt that the eucharist is the centre of Christian life, that it is the vital source of it, that the church celebrating liturgy is led to become a sign of conversion for the world, an image of the world's destiny[17], having been brought into believing this, Christians from other churches are more and more loudly being told: But in such a celebration you have no right to have an active part, unless you leave your own and become one of us. This is something they cannot put in accord with their Biblical faith, neither with the tradition as they grasped also as their own.

The options that remain open are either to go back behind the ecumenical dream of heading towards the unity by means of living it, or to go on in this dream, even if in a semi-legal existence, relying on one's conscience and on the open mind and heart of others. And there is a growing need for discernment: What is of us, and what is of God? Which "goods" to prioritise?

3.2 Threefold symbolic structure in the text

For Matthew the divided house, city or kingdom is seen as a space governed by demonic forces. Matthew unfolds the plot of Jesus' struggle with the blind authorities of his own people against the background of the spiritual struggle with Satan, the "robber" lord, who exercises control over those who are bound by a demonic possession, but whom Jesus has come to claim and to set free. And whoever sets free, which can be recognized according to the fruits,[18] cannot do it by any evil power, but by the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is in action, there the kingdom of God has come.[19]

Divisions create a place, in which sin flourishes. In that context different symbols of human failure to respond positively to God unfold. The speech of sin is not limited to one term. Perhaps similarly as the meaning of love cannot be reduced to , the meaning of sin cannot be reduced to µ . If we did that, we would also reduce the need for conversion, claiming that, where no conscious decision is involved, no guilt can ensue, and thus leaving the door open for all manner of injustice.[20] The Matthean text is closer to what liberation theologies call structural sin, where personal responsibility for estrangement from God and from the kingdom of God is seen within a context of the estranged society, within which mechanisms of injustice, and ultimately of death have been allowed to develop and to dominate.[21] A house is a structure, so is the city and the kingdom, and this three-fold structure can help us think also about the church in similar terms - as a local community celebrating eucharist together (which does not always have to be one-denominational), as a denomination, and as the whole of Christ's church.

Now, with the help of Matthean symbolic expressions, I will try to trace the structural sin in the church, and ask how the lack of unity of the church impoverishes her, and prevents the proclamation of justice and healing ministry both outside and inside her body.

Out of his knowledge of people's hearts and minds, the knowledge which is not available to us even when it concerns ourselves, Jesus starts the speech with reference to the destruction which is caused by division. "‘Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand." (12:25) Or we could say, every church divided against itself is laid waste and will not stand. Division is seen as something intrinsically destructive at every structural level[22]. As something that cannot be accommodated, befriended, as it would ultimately take over, weaken the church, and plunder her of her treasures, of her faith, hope and love[23], curb her proclamation of justice to anybody,[24] and strip the whole of the church of credibility.

3.3 Divided kingdom: ultimate and pre-ultimate perspectives

One of the causes of divisions come from the desire to prove one's exceptionality, as if for God's election and for God's love to us be true, it would have to mean that others are less chosen and less loved, that to them God is less present. This attitude, then, grants its holders a false epistemological certainty[25], that they know better than others what God wants and what God does not want. This exchange of a living faith for a religious ideology is criticised by Jesus in Matthew's Gospel. Not only does it create an image of how the kingdom of God should look, but also it attempts to control who can and who cannot participate in it.

Jesus identifies in such attitude different degrees of sinfulness. The gradation starts with alienation from the living God, which starts with blindness and deafness to the Word of God and to the actions of the Spirit, leads to active opposition, and thus to separating oneself, and the structure one represents from the Kingdom of God. Matthew distinguishes between being against the Son, who visibly here and now represents the Kingdom, and being against the Spirit, who represents it ultimately. This distinction is behind the difficult passage, which speaks about the blasphemy against the Spirit, or speaking against the Spirit, which cannot be forgiven now or even eschatologically[26]. This ultimate possibility of failure is not further defined, but remains as a warning of how serious alienation from God can be, and as a signpost pointing out the way those who embark on the road of sin are heading. When looking at the problems of structural sin within the church, I will confine myself to the pre-ultimate perspective, recognising, however, how serious being against Christ rather than with him, scattering God's people instead of gathering, sin, blasphemy and speaking against the Son, as well as all attempts to oppose the Spirit (if one is ultimately capable of it) can be.

3.4 Divided city: two types of schism

The ancient church recognised as a source of schisms that attitude of exclusivity which caused distance and step by step separation from the living God,. Yet we have to keep in mind that Cyprian's emphasis on the danger of schism needs to be complemented by Augustine's understanding of church unity which is broader than merely belonging to the "right side". In our situation we may find two types of schism. One I would call a historical schism. It is the given fact the Christ's church is broken into several denominations, who have better or worse relationships with each other, but whose brokenness does not allow full unity in mission and full sacramental hospitality. This is what we have inherited together with the rest of the situation of the world to which we have been born, or thrown, as Heidegger would say,[27] and for which now we share responsibility. The second type of schism I would call chosen or desired schism, which is an attitude one opts for by means of the lack of good will towards unity. Both of the types are interwoven, as are structural and personal sin, but both participate in the church's loss of credibility as well as in her preaching, teaching and healing ministry. The second type, desired schism, confirms the first type, the historical schism, and makes it resistant against new possibilities given by God in Christ, against the inbreaking of the Spirit. The main attention is shifted from the whole of the Church to the denomination, which is either explicitly or implicitly identified with the whole, perhaps in similar way as we found in the Donatist interpretation of Cyprian.

One of the key problems which cripples churches as denominations today is the fact that we feel shaken in our identities so that, in searching for ways of "maintaining" them, we might kill what we try to maintain. In some sense we cannot "have" our identity, as Hussites, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox etc. For our identity does not come from being a denomination. It comes from being the eschatological people of God. And this Christ-like identity given to us by the Holy Spirit, is not a set of doctrinal, liturgical and canonical rules, and although these are needed, it can never be fully captured by them. It is not a "thing" we can control - but a gift to which we have access only when we live it out in relationship with God and with others. Such is the paradoxical nature of grace that builds the identity of the whole of the Christ's church, and thus also each denomination and each celebrating community. Furthermore, the church is not built on fear, but as Matthew emphasizes, on the experience of liberation, and thus it should spread liberation. Jesus does not subvert the law, the tradition and the cult, [28] but legalism, traditionalism and ritualism, and this subversion is something which has to continue in the church as well, for the sake of her mission and her own health. The questions requiring discernment then are: Where are the attempts of denomination members to search for their identity liberating? Where are they leading them to deeper sources? And when are they causes of division at all three structural levels of the church?

3.5 Divided house: from refusal of the other to indifference

At the level of the local community, the biggest problem today may not be an active refusal of other Christians, but rather indifference. I can work for a better world and worship in the local Hussite Church, you can work for a better world and worship in the local Catholic Church, or any other, we may not be in each other's ways, but we also may not have much in common, as we are quite busy people and there are always more needs than we can meet even in our communities. A number of today's Christians would not find anything wrong with this position. Yet there is a problem. Why do not we desire enough to communicate with each other? Why does it come as a low priority? Is there not an element of scatterring involved in our gathering together-apart? For there are not different Christs with whom we could gather, to use the Matthean symbolic expression. Paradoxically, the desired schism can be most firmly rooted in these relatively tolerant divided local communities, who have accommodated themselves with the fact that the church is divided, and ceased to see it as something which needs change and conversion.

4. Conclusion: Multiple ways of God's conversion

Jesus in the Gospel text has an interest. He wants the scribes to be trained for the kingdom of heaven, to learn to bring out of his treasure what is new and what is old[29]. And his parables about divided house, city and kingdom are leading in this direction. Jesus' public ministry in Matthew starts with the call for conversion: convert, because the kingdom of heaven has approached[30]. And conversion is required throughout the gospel, from the disciples, from the crowd listening to Jesus, from his opponents. All groups stand under the demand to give space to what comes from God, and so does the church. She is invited to be the eschatological people of God, united in Christ, under the power of the Holy Spirit, to continue to live and to preach the gospel. Unity, which is required for this task is not a unity for its own sake - it is not an aim, but a means, maintaining a place which is not dominated by sin,[31] or which at least struggles for that.

Thus, we can say at a general level that Christian faith, hope and love cannot be kept together with a sectarian attitude, that the ministry and the well-being of the whole of Christ's church should have a priority over the denominational "goods", that our identities are not separated entities, but stream from the treasure which is being given to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, in which we all participate, as well as all sharing responsibilities for the failure to be such a church throughout history, that desired schism is something which should be avoided and with that also the conviction that there is nothing we can do about the historical schisms, etc. But a general level is something artificial, it does not exist in any pure form in the individual instances which are more complex, and where often unity with someone can mean the lack of unity with someone else; e.g. unity with my own denomination, including her anti-ecumenically minded members, can mean disunity with others at the local as well as denominational level; or the unity of the communities at the local level can mean the lack of unity with the rest of their denomination. Or is it that the unity which the Gospel text has in mind, and which is not a mere bonding together, has transformational effects for other disunities? I believe so. And yet in each instance we have to ask if living up to the ecumenical dream of unity can go beyond the legal limits of what is possible, and if breaking the limits causes breaking the unity. And I have to count with the possibility of being wrong, and with the possibility of others being wrong. But being wrong is not necessarily a sin, just as being afraid of being wrong is not necessarily a way to avoid sin. The conversion which Matthew's gospel invites us to is a process, in which to act upon love is better than to act upon fear.

[1]In Greek: µ µ , which can be also translated as "every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation". Then there are the oppositions µ (being against me) , and (scatters), standing against µ µ (being with me) and µ µ (gathering with me), and the final two gradations, µ µ (the whole of sin and blasphemy) and µ µ (the Spirit blasphemy), and (a word against the Son) and µ (against the Holy Spirit), where the µ µ and the µ are so radical, that they are exempted from the possibility of forgiveness, as Matthew says, µ µ (the Spirit blasphemy will not be forgiven), and with even stronger finality, µ µ ([whoever]speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven to him neither in this age nor on the one coming.

[2]See the previous passage, Mt 12, 17-21, which is announced as a fulfilment of Is 42: 1-4.

[3]There are also concepts employed, like (going aside, turning aside, overstepping, transgression) and µ (transgression, trespass, false step, sin).

[4] See J.D. KINGSBURY, "The Developing Conflict between Jesus and the Jewish Leaders in Matthew's Gospel: a Literary-Critical Study", in The Interpretation of Matthew, ed. G.N. STANTON, T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1995, 179-197: 194.

[5]"As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake; but as regards election they are beloved, for the sake of their ancestors; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." Rom 11: 28-29.

[6]See Rom 11: 1-27.

[7]Cyprian held the stricter line, opposing readmission, arguing as follows: "He will not arrive at the rewards promised by Christ who deserts the Church of Christ." CYPRIAN, The Unity of the Catholic Church The Manresa Press, London, 1924 VI. An opposition party arose against him, installed their own bishops, and thus a schism started. Cyprian was forced to deal with the questions of the validity of the sacraments of the other party, and his treatise conditions the validity of sacraments as means of salvation by the unity with Christ and his whole church.

[8]Cyprian, The Unity of the Catholic Church VI.

[9] In his early period Augustine proposes that for a Christian orthodoxy it is decisive to belong to the right camp. In Of True Religion he states: "religion is to be sought neither in the confusion of pagans, nor in the offscouring of the heretics, nor in the insipidity of schismatics, nor in the blindness of the Jews, but only among those who are called Catholic or orthodox Christians, that is, guardians of truth and followers of right. See Augustine's Earlier Writings, SCM, London, 1953:11.

[10] Especially after the persecution of Donatists, in which Augustine played an active part, he became much more aware of the ambiguities involved in belonging to the "right" Church. In De baptismo he stated: "But the Church, which is the people of God, is an ancient institution even in the pilgrimage of this life, having a carnal interest in some men, a spiritual interest in others." (De baptismo I.xv) Here we also find signals for his later views on the Kingdom of the City of God which is not identical with the Catholic Church as an institution.

[11] To give one example, Czech society can be classified as no longer predominantly atheist, but at the same time less then a third of the population claims to have a religious affiliation. According to the large-scale European Values Study of 1999 only about 8% of the population would claim to be convinced atheists. Both the lapsed atheists and those who left the churches are moving to the new types of non-institutional religiosity. Several research projects were carried out and further information obtained with the results being published by Jan Spousta in J. SPOUSTA, "České církve očima sociologických výzkumů", in Náboženství v době společenských změn. Ed. J. Hanuš, Masarykova Univerzita Brno, 1999, 73-90, as well as in a number of more popular essays and seminars.

[12]See N. BOGOMILOVA, "Reflections on the Contemporary Religious "Revival" Religion", Religion in Eastern Europe XXIV, 4 (August 2004), pp. 1-10, here p. 5.

[13]An interesting counter-example may be the reaction to the death of Pope John Paul II. This was not hindered even by the fact that he was a supreme representative of an institution under permanent critical scrutiny by most of the members of our societies.

[14]An example of that was the involvement of Christians in Charter 77, or Cardinal Tomášek's spiritual authority in this country, connected with his plea for human rights, or in 1989 the number of priests and pastors of different churches who were coordinators of the centres of local Civic Forum.

[15]This is not only a Czech phenomenon, but something typical for post-Christian Europe, see also M. TOMKA, "Contradictions of secularism and the preservations of the sacred", in Secularisation and Social Integration. Papers in Honor of Karel Dobbealaere. Eds. R. WILSON, B. BILLIET, Leuven University Press, Leuven, 1998.

[16] Utopia as I understand it, represents a world which has not been included into a present model of social relationships, a world which, however, lives in promisses, desires, hopes and dreams of beetter future. I adopt Jo o Batista Libanio's emphasis on the double etymology of the word: - (no place; something which is not of this world) and - (a good place; something where our dreams and hopes desire to rest). Using this double etymology Libanio shows the tension between the real and the unreal, which the promises, desires, hopes, and dreams of a better world hold in themselves. But utopia as a positive alternative has also a critical function. It accuses the existing world of not giving place to it. The "world" which is rejected by the existing world, by its very non-existence, subverts that existing world. See J.B. LIBANIO , "Hope, Utopia, Resurrection", in Systematic Theology. Perspectives from Liberation Theology. Eds. J. SOBRINO and I. ELLACURÍA, SCM, London, 1996, 279-290.

[17]See e.g. A. SCHMEMANN, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy. St. Vladimir's Theological Press, New York, 1998, 140.

[18]See Mt 12:33.

[19]See Mt 12:28.

[20]A Concise Dictionary of Theology, e.g. definies sin as a conscious personal failure, as: "Any thought, word or deed that deliberately disobeys God's will and in some way rejects the divine goodness and love." The Protestant tradition has been impressed by Paul's reflections on the power of sin to corrupt and enslave human beings (Rom 1:18-3:23; 5:12-21; 6:15-23). The Orthodox tradition sees that sin destroys koinonia (Gr. "communion") with God, with other human beings, and with nature. The Catholic tradition, like Western Christianity generally, has tended to think of the sins of individuals rather than of the community wounded by sin." It also points out that Vatican II (GS 25) and John Paul II's encyclicals (e.g. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis 36-37) renewed a sense of the social dimension of sin. A Concise Dictionary of Theology: Revised and Expanded Edition. Ed. G. O'COLLINS and E. G. FARRUGIA, T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 2000, 243.244.

[21]"But in the liberation approach sin is not considered as an individual, private or merely inferior reality - asserted just enough to necessitate ‘spiritual' redemption which does not challenge the order in which we live. Sin is regarded as a social, historical fact, the absence of fellowship and love in relationships among persons, the breach of friendship with God and with other persons, and, therefore, an interior personal fracture." Quoting José Maria Gonzáles Ruiz, Gutiérrez employes the notion of a structural sin. Sin is "a kind of parameter or structure which objectively conditions the progress of human history itself." G. GUTIÉRREZ, A Theology of Liberation. SCM, 2001, 174 (citing J.M. GONZÁLEZ RUIZ, Pobreza evangélica y promoción humana, 29).

[22]But in Matthew unity and peace is not something unproblematically good, if it does not stand on solid grounds, see 10: 34-36.

[23]This triad represented a Christian existence, see 1 Cor 13:13, 1Tes 1,3; 5,8; Ef 1,15-18; Kol 1,4f., Heb 10: 22-24. Later, faith hope and love were named as the three cardinal virtues, of which the Council of Trent said that they were theological virtues, as the were "poured out" by grace (DS 1530-1531).

[24]See Mt 12, 17-21.

[25] I have dealt with this theme in more detail in I. DOLEJŠOVÁ, Accounts of Hope: A Problem of Method in Postmodern Apologia, Peter Lang, Bern, 2001

[26]This text has caused mortal fear even to many saints, who at some point in their lives became worried that they had offended the Holy Spirit - but on whose lives as they develop after this struggle we can see most clearly how they managed not to exchange the various "pre-ultimates" with the "ultimate", something which we do not know if anybody is capable of. The Gospel text does not say this. See e.g. J. BUNYAN, The Pilgrim's Progress. Penguin, London, 1987, p. 32-33, n. 32.

[27]See M. HEIDEGGER, Being and Time. Oxford, 1962, §31.144.

[28]See KINGSBURY, "The Developing Conflict between Jesus and the Jewish Leaders in Matthew's Gospel: a Literary-Critical Study", 184.

[29]"Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old." Mt 13: 51-52.

[30]In Greek: µ . Mt 4:17.

[31]Matthew also has sharp words against the unity which is based in agreed or ignored injustice: "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." Mt 10:34.