COMPASS THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT IN THE EARLY CHURCH

DAVID W T BRATTSTON

HE OLD TESTAMENT commandment in Smyrna’ addressed in Revelation 2.8, to ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’ where ‘angel’ means any message-bearer, Trecurs frequently in early Christian human or supernatural. teaching. It is on the lips of Jesus in Matthew Adamantius was another important 15.4, Matthew 19.19, Mark 10.19, and Luke witness to early Christian understanding. 18.20. cites it in Ephesians Raised in a Christian home, he became dean 6.2. Far from being confined to Jews or the of the world’s foremost institute of Christian Jewish milieu in which the Bible was written, higher learning at an early age, and later the it was restated as a precept of Christian be- most outstanding Bible scholar, preacher, and haviour by two Christian philosophers in teacher of the first half of the third century. —one in AD 125 (Aristides Apology Being called upon by bishops throughout the 15), and the other around AD 177 Middle East as an expert on the Faith, he trav- (Athenagoras Treatise on the Resurrection elled extensively and was therefore better 23)—as also by Bishop Theophilus of Antioch able to observe and record church practice (To Autolycus 3.9) about the same time as in different countries and regions than any Athenagoras, and by Bishop in France other Christian author. In ’s first in the AD 180s (Against Heresies 4.12.5). Also book of systematic theology (On First Prin- in the second century AD, the command to ciples 2.4.2), and his Commentaries on Mat- honour one’s parents was included in a con- thew (11.9), on Romans (2.9.1), and on solidation of the four Gospels and other di- Ephesians (6.1-3), he stated the command- rect teachings of Jesus into a single continu- ment to honour one’s parents was still bind- ous narrative (Diatessaron 28.46). This be- ing in his day. Just before the AD 250s, which came the standard text of the gospel in the coincides with the end of Origen’s ministry, Syrian church until the fifth century. The an anonymous compilation of Christian pre- present article examines the extent and param- cepts repeats the Fourth Commandment as eters of such honour in the light of the wider still operative (Three Books of Testimonies context of the New Testament. 3.70). These second-century authors enjoyed an Origen and his teacher Clement are known advantage over us because they lived in an for their allegorical, or spiritual, method of era when unwritten teachings and Bible in- interpreting Scripture. It posits that, whenever terpretations of Jesus and His apostles were possible, an interpreter should look beyond the still fresh in Christian memory, and before plain, literal sense of a passage to uncover the there had been time for Christian observances deeper, spiritual meaning—especially when a and understanding of the law of Christ to be passage is unclear or difficult, or appears to significantly altered. Irenaeus is a good case contradict another part of the Bible. However, in point. His early Christian training came Origen taught, some biblical commands are from men who had personally learned from so plain on their face that they require no and worked with the Apostle John, one of deeper investigation but are to be understood whom was probably ‘the angel of the church literally. One such is the Fourth Command-

36 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT IN THE EARLY CHURCH ment, which he characterized as ‘useful, apart Dr David W.T. Brattston from all allegorical meaning, and ought to be is a retired solicitor observed’ (On First Principles 4.1.19; ANF living in Lunenburg, 4.368). Nova Scotia, Canada.

The Command to Hate and Love

On the other hand, Jesus also taught that His followers are to hate their parents rather than love them (Luke 14.26). He also prophesied that the gospel will divide families and pit some household members into conflict against Attempts to Reconcile the Precepts others (Matthew 10.34-37). These two pas- sages were also quoted by His disciples, but Can we love our parents and hate them at the seldom by the above-mentioned ones that same time? More apropos to our main topic: counselled honouring one’s parents. Nor did can we honour them without loving them? most of those that restated the Fourth Com- Origen’s predecessor was Clement, who mandment refer to Matthew 10.36f or Luke was the principal Christian writer of the AD 14.26. 190s. He pointed out that a literal interpreta- In the late second or early third century, tion of Luke 14.26 would conflict with Christ’s both passages were regarded as binding by other directives to love one’s enemies. If we (De Corona 11; On Prayer 8; are to love our enemies, wrote Clement, it Scorpiace 10). He had been a prominent stands to reason that we must love our fami- lawyer in a system of secular law that prized lies; and if we hate those nearest to us by natu- the cohesion of the family and the authority ral affection, even more so would we hate our of fathers over it, much more than the Mo- enemies. saic Law or our own. After being converted, Clement explained that even a literal in- he became a prolific Christian author and terpretation of Luke 14.26 conveys a consist- the founder of Latin Christian literature. ent intention. A Christian is to oppose and re- Somewhat strangely, De Corona 11 states sist, even hate, anyone who tempts them to do that we are both to ‘honour’ and ‘love’ our anything detrimental to their soul’s salvation, parents—one of only two references to lov- or who constitutes ‘a hindrance to faith and an ing them in Christian writings before the impediment to the higher life’ (Quis Dives mass apostasy and decimating epidemic of Salvetur 22; ANF 2.597), be they family mem- AD 249-251. ber or an enemy on other grounds. The key The other reference is in the Gospel of factor is whether they lead one to or away from Thomas in the second half of the second cen- Christ (Quis Dives Salvetur 23). I imagine the tury. As often with the contents of this Gos- same could be said of honouring. pel, sayings on parents are ambiguous and Clement did, however, deal directly with contradictory. According to Saying 101, Je- the seeming contradiction between the com- sus taught that whoever does not hate their mandment to honour one’s parents and the parents cannot be a Christian, but then states command to hate them, but produced an alle- that whoever does not love them as He does gorical interpretation that does not really an- cannot be a disciple either. Saying 55 repeats swer the question. Clement’s harmonizing of the command to hate mother, father, and sib- the two produced the advice not to allow one- lings. Nowhere does this Gospel touch on hon- self to go astray through evil customs and ir- ouring them. rational impulses, including sexual impulses

37 COMPASS

(Stromata 3.15 [97]). Origen later commented speaking evil of them (Matthew 15.4; Mark that Christians should sever relations with par- 7.10). He and Origen condemned annuity trust ents that hamper or retard their spiritual lives fund arrangements whereby an adult child (Commentary on Matthew 13.25). could evade the obligation to support their Thus, quoting different Gospel verses led parents in old age (Matthew 15.5; Mark 7.11f; to two lines of thought within ancient Chris- Origen Commentary on Matthew 11.9f). tianity. Nevertheless, nobody before AD 250 Ridiculing one’s father and dishonouring said that the Fourth Commandment was no one’s mother are condemned by the Christian longer binding. Apparently, a Christian may Sibylline Oracles (1.75), a collection of teach- hate their parents so long as s/he honours ings ascribed to a pagan prophetess as predict- them. ing the coming of Christ alongside the Jewish prophets, into which collection Christian ma- What Honour Entails: General terial was inserted. The Sibyl also denounced abandoning parents in old age (2.274), disre- We can determine where to draw the line, and spectfully talking back to them (2.276), and what sorts of behaviour fulfil the duty of hon- hostility to them because of money matters ouring, if we examine specific actions and (2.118). attitudes that New Testament and near-Bibli- On the positive side, the Greek Apoca- cal writers said we should practise in rela- lypse of Baruch, also known as 3 Baruch, tion to our parents. Then, to tease out the full implies that sons owe a duty to pity or have scope and meaning of the Fourth Command- mercy on their fathers (4.17). This book was ment, the present article will consider catego- composed in the first or second century AD ries of other people that ancient Christian and was received as Scripture by some early sources said we are to honour, and apply the Christians. implications of such honouring to relations with one’s parents. What Honour Entails: Obedience Early Christian literature, both New Tes- tament and post-biblical, contains a number Obedience to parents was inculcated by a few of specific precepts as to how Christians are sources: Ephesians 6.1; Colossians 3.20; to treat their parents, which presumably indi- Tertullian (Apologeticum 3); and Origen cate what is entailed in honouring them. Start- (Commentary on Ephesians 6.1-3; Homilies ing with the strongest and most obvious, we on Luke 20.5). On the reverse side of the coin, are not to murder them. This is attested by 1 disobedience by either Christians or non- Timothy 1.19, the Christian philosopher Christians was condemned: Romans 1.30; 2 Aristides of AD 125 (Apology 9), Timothy 3.2; Sibylline Oracles 2.275; and Bishop Melito of Sardis in the third quarter of Origen Homilies on Judges 4.3.41-43. They the second century (De Pascha 52), the Syriac included limits, qualifications, restrictions, and recension of the anonymous Oratio ad other factors relevant to such obedience. For Graecos in the first half of the third century, instance, Origen pointed out that Ephesians 6.1 and the mid-second century Acts of John 48 reads ‘obey your parents in the Lord’ rather (an account of the deeds and preaching of the than ‘obey your parents in the flesh’ and indi- Apostle John). Tertullian especially con- cated that children are to obey only when fa- demned ‘parricidal lust’ (On Modesty 14; ANF ther and mother command something that ac- 4.90). cords with God’s will; they are not to obey Melito also preached against assaulting their ‘parents in the flesh’ who command some- one’s father (De Pascha 51). thing contrary to it. Jesus forbade cursing one’s parents and A problem arises when somebody outside

38 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT IN THE EARLY CHURCH the family has an equal or greater claim on a our cue from the way our own parents behave Christian’s obedience than parents. Hebrews towards people in these categories, we will 13.7 speaks of ‘them which have the rule over fulfil the duty to honour mother and father by you, who have spoken unto you the word of treating our parents exactly as our parents treat God’, which can indicate only office-bearers these people. in the church. A decade or two later, this was First of all, Christians are to honour the reinforced by Bishop when clergy. Origen preached that, at a minimum, he exhorted: ‘obey the bishop and the believers are to bow and exhibit courtesy to presbytery with an undivided mind’ (Letter to them and to ‘other servants of God’ (Homi- the Ephesians 20.2; ANF 1.58), and said of a lies on Joshua 10.3; p. 112). Just as Jesus deacon in another congregation: ‘whose Christ submitted to Joseph and the Virgin friendship may I ever enjoy, inasmuch as he is Mary, so Christians are to be subject, not only subject to the bishop as to the grace of God, to fathers, but also to their bishop and pres- and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus byters/church elders (Origen Homilies on Christ’ (Letter to the Magnesians 2; ANF Luke 20.5). A first-century manual of church 1.59). and personal Christian practice mandated: In the mid-second century, the oldest sur- ‘My child, him that speaketh to thee the word viving Christian sermon outside the New Tes- of God remember night and day; and thou tament predicted a hellish afterlife for people shalt honour him as the Lord.’ ( 4.1; that ‘knew not and believed not and obeyed ANF 7.378). This manual was the Didache, not the elders who show us plainly of our sal- which may have been composed before the vation.’ (2 Clement 17.5; ANF 10.255f). Gospel of Matthew. About the same era, He- In the AD 180s, Irenaeus stated that brews 13.7 called for remembering rulers of it is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are the church who spoke the word of God to its in the Church,—those who, as I have shown, readers. First Thessalonians 5.12f is to the possess the succession from the apostles; those same effect. In the opening years of the sec- who, together with the succession of the epis- ond century, Ignatius of Antioch wrote: ‘It is copate, have received the certain gift of truth, well to reverence both God and the bishop. according to the good pleasure of the Father. He who honours the bishop has been hon- (Against Heresies 4.26.2; ANF 1.497) oured by God; he who does anything without Complicating the matter is the attribution the knowledge of the bishop, does [in real- to Jesus in the mid-second century that all ity] serve the devil.’ (Letter to the Christians are to love and obey each other Smyrnaeans 9.1; ANF 1.90) (Epistle of the Apostles 18). The Apostle Pe- ‘Let the elders that rule well be counted ter would have us obey every human ordi- worthy of double honour, especially they who nance, not only Christian ones (1 Peter 2.13). labour in the word and doctrine.’ (1 Timothy 5.17) Does this mean double honour to church Honour Others elders/presbyters, and apparently only single honour to parents? What acts manifest a ‘dou- Similarly, Christians are to honour people ble honour’? Describing a practice to which other than their father and mother. Here too he was hostile, Tertullian around AD 210 de- are many categories of positions, roles, and plored that for majority Christians it meant offices in society and church that the ancient giving a presbyter twice as much food and sources said should be honoured. By observ- drink at a church supper than to a layperson ing who these categories were, we can ascer- (On Fasting 17). This is corroborated by a tain how and to what extent parents are to be Syrian church manual compiled in the first honoured in our time and our lives. If we take three decades of the third century, which inci-

39 COMPASS dentally coincides with the first half of Jesus Christ, whose blood was given for us; Origen’s writing ministry and is roughly the let us esteem those who have the rule over time when Tertullian made his comment. Ac- us; let us honour the aged among us’ (1 Clem- cording to the church manual, deacons are to ent 21.6; ANF 1.11). Describing relations be given twice the helping of ‘widows’ (fore- within the Christian community about a cen- runners of nuns), and the presbyters four times tury later, Athenagoras noted that believers as much, ‘for they ought to be honoured as the regarded their age-mates as brothers and sis- Apostles’ (Didascalia 9). When honouring was ters, ‘and to the more advanced in life we give done by way of food, parents were accorded the honour due to fathers and mothers.’ no such privileged status. (Legatio 32; ANF 2.146). Such honour in- The phrase ‘double honour’ calls for fur- cluded taking care that the older people re- ther examination, especially in light of the wide main free of sexual sins, such as kissing for array of persons Christians were obliged to pleasure (Legatio 32). honour. Ought father and mother be honoured Husbands have a duty to ‘honour’ their specially or more than other people? The an- wives (1 Peter 3.7). Both the Apostle Paul and cient Christian evidence is mixed. Tertullian Origen considered it ‘fitting’ that wives sub- stated that Christian law demands that we ‘hon- mit to (obey) their husbands (Colossians 3.18; our and love next to God Himself’ mother, Homilies on Exodus 13.5). fathers, and nearest kinfolk (De Corona 11). There are yet other categories of people The Sibylline Oracles agrees. ‘First, honour Christians are to honour. First Timothy 5.3 God, then your parents.’ (1.60) On the other instructs that well-behaved widows/nuns be hand, the Sentences of Sextus has ‘After God, honoured, as does Three Books of Testimonies honour the sage.’ (244). A collection of prac- 3.74. Origen called on Christian brothers to tical maxims and instructions for the Chris- honour everyone that performs good works in tian life, the Sentences of Sextus proved very the churches, especially women (Commentary popular among Christians after its composi- on Romans 10.17.2). Sextus opined that any- tion in the mid-second century and was often body that does not honour seekers of knowl- translated into other languages. Comparing it edge and wisdom show ingratitude to God to Tertullian and the Sibyl reveals that there (Sentences of Sextus 229). was not the agreement as to the degree and According to 1 Peter 2.13f and 17 and priority of honour due to parents that there was Origen (Commentary on Romans 9.29), Chris- to the sentiment that they be honoured in some tians are to honour and submit to kings and fashion. other secular rulers. In our own day, Members However, if presbyters and other clergy of Parliament and cabinet ministers bear the hold the place of God in relation to an indi- title ‘Honourable’ in front of their names, and vidual Christian, there is no conflict. This state lieutenant-governors and some judges are would render the Sibyl as directing: ‘First, addressed as ‘Your Honour’. honour your clergy, then your parents’, and Indeed, all Christians have a duty to hon- Tertullian as ‘honour and love parents next to our each other (Romans 12.10). Quoting Psalm clergy.’ 15.4, Origen preached that honour will be Christianity before the mass apostasy and shown to all who fear God (Homilies on Jer- epidemic of AD 249-251 required that hon- emiah 16.6.2) our be shown toward all elders, not just hold- As if this were not broad enough, 1 Peter ers of the office of church elder. In the mid- 2.17 commands ‘Honour all people’ in a con- dle or late first century, when some apostles text that indicates that it is to be shown to were still alive, the church at Rome exhorted non-Christians as well. In a presentation of that at Corinth: ‘Let us reverence the Lord Christian ways to a pagan readership, Tatian

40 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT IN THE EARLY CHURCH the Assyrian in the mid-second century wrote In neither dictionaries nor early Christian that ‘Man is to be honoured as a fellow-man’ literature does the Fourth Commandment re- (Address to the 4; ANF 2.66). The quire obedience or submission. Still less does Apostle Paul would have a Christian honour it require an internal contest in priorities as to his or her own body of flesh (1 Thessalonians obeying one person or category of persons 4.4). when another person or category mandates the opposite, for the answer in any such contest Conclusion would be clear and automatic. The thrust and meaning of the many ex- There thus appears great diversity and a wide hortations to honour your father and mothers range as to who is to be honoured and to what indicate, and require no more than, being civil extent. Keeping this scope and variety in mind to your parents and refraining from needlessly when we examine all New Testament writings harming them. No more honour, respect, es- in their Christian context as a whole, we must teem, or courtesy need be shown to them than select the closest dictionary meanings of the other people. Underage children, at least, are verb ‘honour’ for the Fourth Commandment. to render obedience to them, but only if it does These are ‘respect’, ‘esteem’, and ‘be courte- not conflict with a higher duty of obedience to ous toward’. A person can exhibit all these to someone else. Except in the sense that Chris- one person without diminishing those to an- tians are to love their neighbours and every- other, and more honour can be displayed to one else, loving one’s parents is not manda- one person than to another. Twice as much tory for salvation, for it is advocated only by respect, esteem, and courtesy (‘double hon- later authors rather than Scripture, and is con- our’) can be demonstrated towards one per- traindicated by others. Filial love is merely son or category of persons, and is compatible an elective, and applicable only when it pro- with showing a lesser degree to others. motes your spiritual growth.

NOTES

Except where otherwise indicated, all patristic quo- Scholars Press, 1981) © 1981 Society of Biblical tations are as translated in The Ante-Nicene Fa- Literature, p. 45 thers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers The quotation from the Sibylline Oracles is down to A.D. 325 ed. Alexander Roberts and James from the translation by J. J. Collins in The Old Donaldson. American Reprint of the Edinburgh ed Testament Pseudepigrapha vol. 1 Apocalyptic Lit- by A. Cleveland Coxe (Buffalo, NY: Christian Lit- erature and Testaments pp. [327]-472 ed. by James erature Publishing Co, 1885-96; continuously re- H Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, printed Edinburgh: T & T Clark; Grand Rapids, 1983) © James H. Charlesworth 1983, p. 346 Mich: Wm B Eerdmans; Peabody, Mass: The quotation from the Didascalia is from Hendrickson), herein cited as ‘ANF’ Didascalia apostolorum; The Syriac Version The quotation from the Sentences of Sextus is Translated and Accompanied by the Verona Latin from The Sentences of Sextus trans Richard A. Fragments by R. Hugh Connolly (Oxford: Edwards and Robert A. Wild (Chico, California: Clarendon, 1929) p. 90

Can we love our parents and hate them at the same time? More apropos to our main topic: can we honour them without loving them?

41