TEMA AUTOR FUENTE AÑO

In Luke 16, Jesus tells a parable that appears to praise a dishonest steward. Jesus seems to condone the steward’s deception, which contradicts the morals of the New Testament as well as the Commandment not to bear false witness. In this parable, Jesus relates that the steward lowers the bills of his master’s debtors, effectively short-changing his master, yet the master commends the “wise” dealing by the steward (Luke 16:1-13). Mather suggests that “[t]he Intention of our Saviour, is to represent not only prudence, but also a Vast Contrivance, Industry, Resolution, and

a certain Heroic effort of Soul, as necessary in them that would attain ye Kingdome of Heaven”

(“BA” 7: Luke 16:1). His interlocutor asks why Jesus could not present an example of honest wisdom instead of one that is criminal. Mather concedes that the world provides many potential examples of honest industry and prudence, yet those would be less compelling than “ye most Extraordinary Subtilty, Transcendent Invention, and Exquisite Artifice” in the “Theeves, and Cheats” (“BA” 7: Luke 16:1). If Jesus means to praise industry in this parable, Mather adds,

“There is no such Ingenuitie, or Vigorous Application, as is in these Folks” (“BA” 7: Luke 16:1).

57 _{Velleius Paterculus (ca. 19 B.C.E. – 30 C.E.), a Roman solider, senator, and historian, wrote Historia} Romana, which was relatively unknown until it was republished by Beatus Rhenanus in the early sixteenth century (Yardley and Barrett 36). After that, his biographers write, “he did enjoy a certain vogue” and was cited by Dryden and Samuel Johnson (Yardley and Barrett 36).

He may have realized that this interpretation stretched credulity since it suggests that criminal activity has moral merit.

In another gloss on this parable, Mather cites an analogy from the classic rabbinic

commentator David Kimchi,58 who likens the steward to humankind, which has been trusted by

God to manage the world like a steward would manage an estate (“BA” 7: Luke 16:3). Mather

likely borrowed Kimchi’s analogy, as it appears in Lightfoot’s Hebrew and Talmudical

Exercitations (1684). Kimchi concludes: “If hee[the steward] behave himself well, hee will find

favour in ye eyes of our Lord. If ill, hee will remove him from his Stewardship” (“BA” 7: Luke

16:3, c.f. Lightfoot 2:450). This is an interesting perspective on humankind’s responsibility to maintain the Earth, although Mather does not offer further reflection. However, by borrowing this analogy from Kimchi, Mather further confirms his opinion that the dishonest steward performed well, even as he double-crossed his master. Possibly, the steward had performed well because he managed to collect the debts, and perhaps that success came from dropping the interest on the debts.

Mather implies in an additional gloss on the parable that the steward performed well because he improved the situation for everyone, not just the master. Mather examines Jesus’s conclusion to the parable: “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light” (Luke 16:8). Quoting an anonymous biography that applies the passage to a deceased minister, Mather states: “This worthy man was wise for his generation & Exercised his

Witt with much contrivance and much Diligence, that his generation, even ye Faithful people of

God in the world might bee accommodated in all their Interests” (“BA” 7: Luke 16:8). Speaking of dishonesty, Mather himself deliberately misleads his reader when he introduces the biography,

58 _{David Kimchi or Kimhi or Radak (ca. 1160-1235) was a rabbi at Narbonne and wrote commentaries on} Chronicles, the Psalms, and the major prophets (Talmage 155). Despite Mather’s polemical religious antisemitism, he periodically cites Jews as exegetical authorities.

writing: “I have read that passage in the life of a Worthy man” (“BA” 7: Luke 16:8). In fact, the passage he quotes is not only one he read, but one he wrote! He connects the parable to Jonathan

Mitchel in his famous Magnalia Christi Americana (1702) (2:105). As was common at the time,

Mather often quotes without acknowledging his sources and sometimes without using quotation marks. As was less common in this period, but characteristic of Mather’s desire to maintain a façade of modesty, he occasionally quotes himself, even though the supposedly anonymous attributions are usually transparent.

The inconsistency in Jesus’s behavior appears in the other Gospels, as well. Because Mather faithfully believed that the four Gospels belonged together as a non-severable canon, he dismisses variations between the four narratives as deliberate. For example, in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus’s mother, Mary, is notably present as a mourner at Jesus’s execution and at his tomb, implying that she was one of his disciples. However, in the Gospel of John, when she speaks to Jesus at the wedding at Cana, he sharply rebukes her: “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” (John 2:4). Mather, supposing Jesus was responding to her request for wine rather than simply to her presence at the wedding, defends this remark as “A Rational Answer, to an Impertinent or unseasonable proposal” (“BA” 8: John 2:4). Mather’s interpretation of this

passage might come from Matthew Henry’s similar reading in his Commentary on the whole

Bible (1704).59 _{He adds that this rebuke illustrates Jesus’s independence of Mary since she “had} no Authority over Him” (“BA” 8: John 2:4, c.f. Henry, John 2). This odd relationship raises a question about how insubordinate Jesus was to his parents in his youth, but instead of

considering Jesus’s discipline, Mather adds a doctrinal level of interpretation. He explains, unkindly referring to the Roman Catholic doctrine of intercession, that Jesus foresaw that in “ye

59 _{Matthew Henry (1662-1714), a Presbyterian minister in Chester, England, most famous for this five-} volume exposition on the Bible, begun in 1704 and completed by thirteen Independent ministers after his death (Wykes).

church of Rome,” there would be “an absurd & wicked Generation of Idolaters, who would prefer Mary above Jesus” and apply to her to “direct, order, procure for them, the kindnesses of

our Lord-Redeemer” (“BA” 8: John 2:4).60 The rebuking of Mary, then, had a mystical

significance, and “to Anticipate this Idolatry, was this passage, first Uttered, & then Recorded” (“BA” 8: John 2:4). Mather accepts not only Jesus’s words but the anecdote in the Gospel itself to be divinely inspired.

Since he chose to include and justify it, Mather likely recognized the harshness in Jesus’s address to his mother and its apparent contradiction of the commandment; he realized it seemed uncouth enough that it deserved an explanation. In fact, he suggests that the words should actually be translated as “What is that to mee & thee, woman?” (“BA” 8: John 2:4, c.f. Henry, John 2). He adds that “woman” was not a derogatory term in the first century. Although he claims “I infer nothing from it,” he points out that he has read of servants using that term to address their mistresses and even queens (“BA” 8: John 2:4). However, he evidently saw its

derogatory connotation in his own time,61 because he concludes: “But, on the [term?] in general,

I make [no?] Remark” (“BA” 8: John 2:4).62