Assuming that Matthew was composed very early in the history of the church – in the early 30s, I suspect – it fits neatly into the early persecution situation of the church. As a retelling of Israel’s history, it mimics Stephen’s sermon, which presents the history of Israel as a history of rejecting those whom the Lord sent. Jesus assumes various roles in Matthew – the law giver, the Sage, the apocalyptic prophet – and the Jews do to Him what they did to all the prophets.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Letters
Joshua T. Katz’s (“Pure Episcopalianism,” May 2025) reason for a theologically conservative person joining a theologically liberal…
The Revival of Patristics
On May 25, 1990, the renowned patristics scholar Charles Kannengiesser, S.J., delivered a lecture at the annual…
The Enduring Legacy of the Spanish Mystics
Last autumn, I spent a few days at my family’s coastal country house in northwestern Spain. The…
