Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§14.6 The Character of Discipleship
taken to indicate the likelihood that the principle has been drawn into the Jesus
tradition and did not originate for that tradition in a particular articulation of Jesus.
203 The inadequacy of such an argument should be obvious: if the principle
was so common, Jesus himself may well have signalled his agreement with it.
But in this case one of the curiosities of the tradition is that the echoes in P. Oxy.
654 6.2 and GTh 6.2 are closer to the form in Tob. 4.15, 204 which does indeed
suggest that in these cases the tradition has indeed been drawn from sources
other than Jesus. So the possibility certainly cannot be excluded that the Golden
Rule was drawn into the Jesus tradition as a way of summing up Jesus' teaching
on love as the motivating force for disciples' relations with others. Since it makes
the same point as the law summed up in the call for neighbour love (§ 14.5a
above), nothing is lost either way.
14.6. Forgiving as Forgiven
A further mark of the love for which Jesus called is the readiness to forgive.
Characteristic of the discipleship to which Jesus called was the two-sided theme
of forgiven as forgiving, forgiven therefore forgiving. The importance of this
two-sidedness of forgiveness is already clear in the Lord's Prayer: 'Forgive
(aphes) us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors' (Matt. 6.12); 'Forgive
(aphes) us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone indebted to us' (Luke
11.4). 205 And Matthew underlines the point by adding and elaborating an emphasis
also found in Mark: 206
T. Naph. 1.6; and the famous response of Hillel, b. Sabb. 31a. A more positive form is not unique
to the Christian tradition (cf. Sir. 31.15; 2 En. 61.1-2; Sextus, Sercf. 89); see particularly the survey
by A. Dihle, Die goldene Regel. Eine Einführung in die Geschichte der antiken und
frühchristlichen Vulgärethik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1962) 80-108; also P. S. Alexander,
'Jesus and the Golden Rule', in Charlesworth and Johns, eds., Hillel and Jesus 363-88.
203. Bultmann, History 102-103; Funk, Five Gospels 156, 296; Lüdemann, Jesus 152;
but also Davies and Allison, Matthew 1.688. On the other hand, Vermes's point should be given
weight: 'the very fact that the distinctive positive wording is used rather than the common negative
formulation, must . . . count as a definite argument in favour of Jesus having actually
framed it' (Religion 41).
204. Tob. 4.15: 'What you hate, do not do to anyone'; P.Oxy. 654 6.2 = GTh 6.2: 'Do not
do what you hate'. Note also that in Christian tradition {Did. 1.2; Acts 15.20, 29a D) it is the
negative form of the rule which is quoted.
205. Such differences of wording and tense are a further reminder that the concern in
reteaching the Jesus tradition was for substance and present relevance, not for a more pedantic
verbatim memorization. The different words used for 'forgive' in the following material make
the same point.
206. Cf. also Matt. 5.23-24 — reconciliation as both forgiving and being forgiven; and
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