To Err is Human, To Forgive Divine

 

Jesus was the epitome of clear communication. It made the complex and verbose simple, understandable, and effective.

“Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Lexicographer Samuel Johnson, erstwhile author of Johnson’s Dictionary, said it in this manner to dodge and deceive his interrogators.

Jesus had a ‘deadline’ to meet. Not one of achievement that would bring thunderous applause, but thunderous indeed, to rent the curtain in the Jerusalem Temple and make a mark on the Richter Scale that measures the magnitude of an earthquake. A line that would transform humanity and open up eternity for all.

Jesus did not care to dodge or deceive. Jesus took full responsibility for His words. After all, He was the Word.

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him”. With poignancy, Jesus asked, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:53-69).

To make his 3-year deadline to the Cross, Jesus had to abridge the Old Testament, make it relevant to the time, and establish that He was the awaited Messiah.

The priestly class of the time, the Pharisees, Sadducees and the Scribes, had turned the Ten Commandments into minutiae of 613 Mitzvot (Commandments) that covered every conceivable action the Jewish community could take. The idea was to regulate, dominate, punish, and keep the community in line and answerable to the religious authorities.

The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5) had nine ‘Thou shalt not’ and one Commandment, the Fifth, with a promise: “Honour your father and mother so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” (Eph 6:2-3) Seemingly innocuous, but observed more in the breach than in practice, which of course did not escape God’s attention. ¹² For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Heb 4:12)  

Here’s an instance why God purportedly made this promise part of the Ten Commandments:   

“You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”  And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’^[ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ ¹¹ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— ¹² then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. ¹³ Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” (Mark 7 8-13)

The very First Commandment was violated twelve chapters later, in Exodus 32, when a Golden Calf was cast to worship because Moses was ‘late’ in coming down from the mountain. “

“When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” (Exodus 32:1)

Jesus abridged the Ten Commandments to just two: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” The second is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these. (Mk 12 30-31)

Jesus' intention was clear. If you kept these two commandments in letter and spirit, you are unlikely to fall foul of the other nine.

In the two commandments given by Jesus, we are expected to answer the two all-encompassing questions:

1.     What constitutes ‘loving God’?

2.     What constitutes ‘loving yourself’?

Potential answers for the first are many, or is it just one: And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ (Mt 25:40)

For the second, it is for each of us to introspect. To arrive at our own that we may do justly by our neighbour.

Returning to Johnson, it behoves well, in context, to understand the backstory:

|Johnson was contacted by Rev Dr William Dodd, convicted of forgery and sentenced to die by hanging. Johnson ghostwrote pleas on behalf of the Reverend for leniency in his sentencing. Rev Dodd: “Having unhappily contracted expensive habits of living, partly occasioned by licentiousness of manners, he in an evil hour, when pressed by want of money, and dreading an exposure of his circumstances, forged a bond …” The high quality of the material penned by Johnson led some to doubt that the ascription to Dodd was accurate. When Johnson was asked about Dodd’s authorship, he replied misleadingly: “Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”|

Johnson did right by his neighbour. He tried to help him out using his genius with words. That it did not help is another matter. Dr William Dodd was hanged, notwithstanding.

I don’t know whether Samuel Johnson was a religious man, but he did honour the religious and was willing to overlook a trespass, as Jesus did many times over. In Alexander Pope's (1688-1744) words: To err is human; to forgive divine. Almost biblical, wouldn’t you say?

-        Mathew Anthony