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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Hastings Dictionary of the NT: Cosmopolitanism
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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 (Act_16:21; Act_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 (Act_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 (Mat_8:5, Luk_7:2; Luk_23:47), strangers from Tyre and Sidon (Mar_3:8), a short journey to Decapolis (Mar_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 (Joh_12:20). Traces of a cosmopolitan atmosphere may be detected in Mar_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 (Joh_19:20).
Jewish exclusiveness was apparently endorsed by Christ Himself (Mat_5:47 ( Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ) 6:7, 32); the Twelve are forbidden to go into any way of the Gentiles (Mat_10:5); and the Syrophœnician woman is at first addressed in thoroughly Jewish language (Mat_15:21, Mar_7:24). On the other hand, our Lord speaks the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luk_10:30 ff.); commends the faith of a Roman centurion as greater than any faith He had found in Israel (Mat_8:10, Luk_7:9); and, notwithstanding His first words to the Syrophœnician woman, recognizes and rewards the greatness of her faith (Mat_15:21 ff., Mar_7:24 ff.). Simeon welcomes the infant Messiah as a light to lighten the Gentiles (Luk_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 (Mat_2:1); and if he traces the genealogy of Christ to Abraham (Mat_1:2) St. Luke takes it back to Adam and God (Luk_3:38).
It is true that the Gospels are full of protests against Jewish exclusiveness (Mat_3:9 ‘Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father’; cf. Joh_8:37 ff., where the claim founded on descent from Abraham is contemptuously dismissed; also Mat_12:41 f., Luk_11:31 f. ‘the men of Nineveh … the queen of Sheba shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it’; Mat_8:11 f., Luk_13:29 ‘many shall come from the east and the west … but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth’; and Mat_11:21, Luk_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, Mat_9:11; Mat_11:19, Mar_2:15, Luk_5:30; Luk_7:37; Luk_15:1, and the fragment in Joh_7:53 to Joh_8:11; (b) the universalism of the gospel, Mat_24:14, Mar_14:9 (‘what she hath done shall be preached in all the world’), Mat_28:19, Mar_16:15, Luk_24:49 (‘make disciples of all the nations’); so Joh_3:16; Joh_12:33 (‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself’); the same thing would result from Mat_20:28, Mar_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 (Mat_12:1, Mar_2:23, Luk_6:1; Luk_13:14), ceremonial ablutions (Mat_15:1, Mar_7:19), the provisions of the Law (Mat_5:21; Mat_5:33; Mat_5:38; Mat_5:43), and the inadequacy of the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (Mat_5:20). It is noteworthy that the ground of marriage fidelity is carried back from Moses to the Creation (Mat_19:4, Mar_10:6), and the Sadducees are referred, on the subject of the resurrection, to God’s language to the pre-Mosaic patriarchs (Mar_12:18, Luk_20:37); still Christ regards as final a combination of Deu_6:4 and Lev_19:18 (Mar_12:28 ff.), and He asserts that His purpose is not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it (Mat_5:17, cf. Mat_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 (Act_8:26; Act_10:11; Act_10:34; Act_11:20), and even opposed by a powerful party in the Church when explicitly stated by St. Paul (Act_15:5): but it reaches its full statement in Rom_10:12, Gal_3:28, Col_3:11 (‘neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free’), and Php_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 Joh_4:42; Joh_6:51; Joh_12:47; Joh_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 (Rom_11:11-12). See also articles Exclusiveness, Grecians, and Universalism.
W. F. Lofthouse.