chapter five
Jewish law with all its regulations? Then the love commandment would
be just one commandment—important though—among others. Or are
the commandments ignored because of a Christian point of view? Had
the love commandment become a magic key, a divine justification for
loosening the bonds of Jewish law?^49
We may also note here a possible difference in meaning between the
expressions “doing the law (and the prophets)” and “fulfilling the law
(and the prophets).” Because the verb “do” (LXX:πι ω)isused,for
instance, in Deut : where anyone who does not “do” the law is cursed,
it is possible that the verb “do” connotes the “doing” of individual OT
commandments, whereas “fulfill” is preferred by Christian writers in
contexts where general principles of the law are discussed.^50 This may
indicate that the writer of Origen’s passage takes the love commandment
more as one of the Old Testament commandments than as a “Christian”
summary of the ethical core of OT teaching.
A closer look at the context of the discussion also reveals a clear
“Christian” point of view in the synoptic versions of the story which
is missing in Origen’s story. The synoptic versions seem to serve two
functions. First, the listing of the individual commandments probably
serves the prebaptismal teaching of pagan converts. Every Jew surely
knew the commandments and there would be no reason to cite them
word-for-word in a purely Jewish context. Second, the listing probably
also serves the building of the self-identity of the group and legitimation
of its teaching over and against the Jews. In the synoptic gospels, this
is the only place where Jesus shows that his teaching includes the ten
commandments. If they were missing here in theGospel of the Hebrews,
are we to assume that they were listed in another passage? Or is it more
likely that everyone knew them from the Torah?
With or without the commandments, none of the tradition historical
variants of the story about the rich man explicitly discusses the points of
(^49) This is the way in which, for instance, Paul and Matthew use the love command-
ment. In Romans, Paul makes a connection between the love commandment and indi-
vidual commandments: All the commandments “are summed up in this word, ‘Love your
neighbor as yourself’” (Romans :). In Galatians (:–), the application of the love
commandment is more liberal. It sets aside the individual commandments and empha-
sizes the necessity to obey the love commandment. For the role of the love commandment
in Paul’s understanding of the law in Gal and in Romans, see Räisänen , –. For
Matthew’s use, see above.
(^50) For the discussion of Paul’s possible distinction between “doing” and “fulfilling,”
see Räisänen , – n. . According to Räisänen it is not possible to find an
intentional terminological distinction by Paul.