Does Christ tell us to Maim Ourselves?

by Admin · March 7, 2016

By David Brattston – In Matthew 18:8-9, Christ issues a peculiar command: “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life maimed or crippled than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into eternal fire.

“And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into fiery Gehenna.”

Does Jesus command us to physically maim ourselves in Matthew 18:8-9?

How can anyone obey these injunctions literally, especially in the days before anaesthetics and antiseptics, when they would result in death, by either blood loss or infection?

Solutions to the stark harshness of a literal application were provided by Origen, an Egyptian who was the foremost Christian Bible scholar and teacher of the first half of the third century AD.

Origen cited Matthew 18:8-9 as a prime example of biblical injunctions that are impossible or unreasonable. He taught that the Holy Spirit placed such difficulties in the Scriptures in order to teach readers and interpreters not to confine themselves to the plain, literal wording, but to examine the passage more closely, to unveil the deeper meaning (On First Principles, 4.1.18).

Origen taught that the underlying message the Holy Spirit intended readers to draw from the text was that the parts of the body represent members of a Christian’s family or circle of friends.

“It is possible to apply these words to our nearest kinsfolk, being considered to be members of our bodies, because of the close relationship; whether by birth, or from habitual friendship. We must not spare them if they are injuring our soul,” Origen wrote.

“Let us cut off from ourselves as a hand or a foot or an eye, a father or mother who wishes us to do that which is contrary to piety, and a son or daughter who would have us revolt from the Church of Christ and the love of him.

“Even if the wife of our bosom, or a friend who is kindred in soul, become stumbling blocks to us, let us not spare them, but let us cut them out from ourselves, and cast them outside our soul, as not being truly our kindred but enemies of our salvation; for ‘whosoever hates not his father, and mother’ and so on (Luke 14:26),” Origen taught.

“We must hate them as enemies and assailants, that we may be able to win Christ, and be worthy of the Son of God. A lame person, so to speak, is saved when he has lost a foot—say a brother—and alone obtains the inheritance of the kingdom of God; and a maimed person is saved when his parents are not saved, but they perish, while he is separated from them, and he alone obtains the blessings” (Commentary on Matthew, 13.25).

Origen travelled throughout eastern Christendom, at the request of local bishops, as a theological expert. Although familiar with widespread Christian practice and with local variations, he never indicated that believers in some geographical areas or sects actually did amputate their hands, feet or eyes.

A common lack of body parts among Christians in ancient times could not escape notice and comment by even the most casual observer as a common feature among Christians.

We possess the accounts by the pagan Pliny the Younger around AD 112, and most of the attack on Christianity half a century later by the pagan philosopher Celsus.

Pliny was Roman governor in Turkey, part of whose job was to detect and persecute Christians. His letter to the emperor (Epistle 10.96) described Christian faith and practices in some detail, but never mentioned self-mutilation.

In his comprehensive denunciation of Christian behaviour, Celsus would have jumped at the chance to ridicule voluntary destruction of body organs, or suicide by exsanguination (draining of blood) or infection.

Justin Martyr wrote defences of Christian beliefs and practices in the middle of the second century AD. Among other topics, he dealt with the pagan wish that Christians commit suicide rather than continue to bother the world by their presence and preaching (2 Apology 4).

If believers of this period did indeed chop off their extremities, Justin would not have failed to mention that Christians did in fact court death, fulfilling the pagan hope.

Although we have thousands of Christian denominations, ministries, sects, cults, divisions and Church parties in our own day, not one advocates self-mutilation in obedience to Matthew 18.

Therefore, either all historical and contemporary Christianity has been heretical, or Jesus intended that not all his sayings be applied literally.