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A Syriac Parallel to the Golden Rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

William H. P. Hatch
William H. P. Hatch
Affiliation:
The Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass.
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Extract

Numerous parallels to the Golden Rule of Matt. 7, 12 and Luke 6, 31 have been found in various writers. Most of these are Jewish or Christian, but some of them are far remote in time and place from Judaism and Christianity. Sometimes the precept is put in the positive form and sometimes in the negative, more frequently in the latter. A Syriac parallel, particularly interesting because it combines the two forms, seems to have been hitherto overlooked. It occurs in the philosophical dialogue entitled The Book of the Laws of the Countries, and is as follows: “For there are two commandments set before us, which are meet and right for free-will: one, that we should depart from everything that is evil and we hate to have done to ourselves; and the other, that we should do whatever is good and we love, and are pleased to have it done so also to ourselves.”

Type
Notes
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , April 1921 , pp. 193 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1921

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References

1 Cf. Wettstein, Novum Testamentum, i, pp. 341 f.; Resch, A., in Texte und Untersuchungen, x (1897), 3, pp. 80 f.Google Scholar; G. Resch, ibid., xxviii (1905), 3, pp. 132 ff.; Heinrici, , Beiträge zur Geschichte und Erklärung des Neuen Testamentes, III (1905), pp. 85 ff.Google Scholar; and Proost, De Bergrede (1914), pp. 153 f. To the passages cited in these works may be added the following: Mahabharata, xii, 259, 20: Quod quispiam non vult sibi ab aliis fieri ne ipse aliis faciat, quia scit quid odiosum sit. Thales (Diog. Laert. i, 36): Ἐρωτηθεὶς … πῶς ἂν ἄριστα καὶ δικαιότατα βιώσαιμεν [ἔϕη] ἐὰν ἂ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἐπιτιμῶμεν, αὐτοὶ μὴ δρῶμεν. Ep. Arist. § 168 (ed. Wendland): Ὁ δὲ νόμος ἡμῶν κελεύει, μήτε λόγῳ μήτε ἔργῳ μηδένα κακοποιεῖν. Aphraates, Demonstratio xxiii, 62 (Patrologia Syriaca, I, ii, 129, II. 14 f.): “What you dislike when done to you do not do to your fellow.” This is word for word the way in which Hillel is said to have summarized the Law (Sabb. 31a); cf. the Palestinian Targum on Lev. 19, 18; and Akiba in Aboth de R. Nathan, c. 26 (ed. Schechter, Recension B, p. 27).

2 Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, p. 5; Patrologia Syriaca, I, ii, 551, ll. 11 ff.

3 Cf. e.g. Hirsch in The Jewish Encyclopedia, vi, p. 22.

4 Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels, II (1909), p. 550.Google Scholar

5 Elbogen, Die Religionsanschauungen der Pharisäer (1904), p. 76.

6 Rom. 13, 10.

7 So also Bruce in The Expositor's Greek Testament, 7th ed., i, p. 132.

8 Wettstein, op. cit., ii, p. 46.