The Sermon on the Mount and Moral Theology: A Virtue Perspective by William C. Mattison III

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Sermon on the Mount and Moral Theology: A Virtue Perspective by William C. Mattison III Michael A. Wahl The Sermon on the Mount and Moral Theology: A Virtue Perspective by William C. Mattison III (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), xiii + 279 pp. William Mattison's The Sermon on the Mount and Moral Theology endeavors to remedy the lack of sustained engagement between theological exegesis of Matthew 5–7 and the tradition of moral reflection grounded in the virtues. In short, it argues that the convergences between the Sermon and virtue ethics prove mutually illuminating. Reading the Sermon on the Mount through the lens of the virtues casts light on the structure and content of Jesus's words, while the vision of the Christian life presented in the sermon both refines and reorients a classical understanding of the virtues. Mattison explicitly situates his project within the trajectory of moral theology advanced by Servais Pinckaers (5). This claim is substantiated by his insistence that a shared understanding of morality as the pursuit of happiness rather than the fulfillment of duty undergirds the fruitfulness of the engagement between the Sermon and virtue ethics. Moreover, drawing liberally from the treasury of patristic and medieval (especially Thomistic) commentary on the scriptural text, Mattison's exegesis of the Sermon reflects an evident concern for the sources of Christian ethics. This approach is bound to generate valuable insights, of course, given the congeniality of those commentators to an approach rooted in the virtues. At the same time, he also refers to a plethora of contemporary biblical scholarship in order to highlight the commonalities between more recent research and the tradition. Nevertheless, readers seeking a historical-critical [End Page 612] examination of Matthew 5–7 will be disappointed, for despite his facility with the literature, Mattison's is decidedly a work of moral theology, and his engagement with contemporary exegesis is at the service of that aim. Indeed, his strategic deployment of biblical commentary—ancient and modern—constitutes one of the book's key virtues. The structure of the book follows, for the most part, the order of the biblical text. The first chapter examines the beatitudes and argues for an "intrinsic relationship" between "the characteristics of the blessed and the rewards they attain" (17). This relationship holds that there exists a continuity of activity between the qualifying condition declared blessed here and now and the reward promised to those who embody those qualities. Mattison surveys each of the beatitudes in order to illustrate this point, showing how, for instance, there exists, contrary to expectations, profound continuity between "refusing to find relief in worldly comforts" which characterizes those who mourn, the qualifying condition, and those who receive "the comfort of eternal reward" (29). This analysis aims to illustrate the connection between ethics and eschatology by demonstrating the beatitudes' simultaneous promise of God's future deliverance and exhortation to a particular way of living here and now. A potential weakness of Mattison's approach, however, is that emphasis on the continuity between the qualifications and rewards of the beatitudes overshadows the discontinuity between the content of the beatitudes and the powers of this world. In the process, Mattison overlooks an opportunity to consider how a virtue-based analysis of the sermon might prove useful not only for personal holiness but also for social transformation. Mattison offers the beginnings of such an analysis in his treatment on the "utterly ecclesiological" verses about salt and light, but a more extended discussion of this matter would be helpful (55). Chapter 2 considers the six antitheses of Matthew 5:17–48 in order to determine how Jesus can be understood to fulfill the Mosaic Law in both its moral and ceremonial dimensions. Mattison argues that the foundation of the new law's fulfillment of the old resides in their possession of a common telos, namely, bringing about the kingdom of God. Consequently, the new law can be understood as "enjoining prudent activity that constitutes a more perfect participation of the person in the ultimate end sought" even when it commands different material content than the old law (85). Moreover, the new law, as the grace of the...