Thursday 29 September 2016

(Un)changeable

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4426 words, 22 min read

I have recently come across the grandiosely-titled website: "Declaration of Fidelity to the Church's Unchangeable Teaching on Marriage and to Her Uninterrupted Discipline", signed by no less than three cardinals and by over 2600 others, whose ranks the website invites us to join. However much the company of cardinals may be enticing, what holds me back are the words of a certain carpenter, who once told his friends the following: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth” (John 16:12-13).

Instead of going over arguments previously laid out in this blog,1 let me just pull together a tasting menu of what the Church has said about marriage during the councils it held over the course of the last 2000 years (plus the so-called "Apostolic Canons" that predate them), so you can make up your own mind about whether it has been (un)changing.

  1. 4th century AD - Apostolic Canons:
    6. Let not a bishop, a priest, or a deacon cast off his own wife under pretence of piety; but if he does cast her off, let him be suspended. If he go on in it, let him be deprived.

    17. He who has been twice married after his baptism, or has had a concubine, cannot be made a bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, or indeed any one of the sacerdotal catalogue.

    18. He who has taken a widow, or a divorced woman, or an harlot, or a servant, or one belonging to the theatre, cannot be either a bishop, priest, or deacon, or indeed any one of the sacerdotal catalogue.

    19. He who has married two sisters, or his brother’s or sister’s daughter, cannot be a clergyman.

  2. 309 AD - Council of Elvira:
    16. Heretics, if they are unwilling to change over to the Catholic Church, are not to have Catholic girls given to them in marriage, nor shall they be given to Jews or heretics, since there can be no community for the faithful with the unfaithful. If parents act against this prohibition, they shall be kept out for five years.

    17. If any should somehow join their daughters in marriage to priests of idols, they shall not be given communion–even at the end.

  3. 325 AD (May 20-June 19) - First Council of Nicea:
    8. Concerning those who have given themselves the name of Cathars, and who from time to time come over publicly to the catholic and apostolic church, this holy and great synod decrees that they may remain among the clergy after receiving an imposition of hands. But before all this it is fitting that they give a written undertaking that they will accept and follow the decrees of the catholic church, namely that they will be in communion with those who have entered into a second marriage and with those who have lapsed in time of persecution and for whom a period [of penance] has been fixed and an occasion [for reconciliation] allotted, so as in all things to follow the decrees of the catholic and apostolic church.

  4. 451 AD (October 8-November 1) - Council of Chalcedon:
    14. Since in certain provinces readers and cantors have been allowed to marry, the sacred synod decrees that none of them is permitted to marry a wife of heterodox views. If those thus married have already had children, and if they have already had the children baptised among heretics, they are to bring them into the communion of the catholic church. If they have not been baptised, they may no longer have them baptised among heretics; nor indeed marry them to a heretic or a Jew or a Greek, unless of course the person who is to be married to the orthodox party promises to convert to the orthodox faith. If anyone transgresses this decree of the sacred synod, let him be subject to canonical penalty.

    15. No woman under forty years of age is to be ordained a deacon, and then only after close scrutiny. If after receiving ordination and spending some time in the ministry she despises God's grace and gets married, such a person is to be anathematised along with her spouse.

    16. It is not permitted for a virgin who has dedicated herself to the Lord God, or similarly for a monk, to contract marriage. If it is discovered that they have done so, let them be made excommunicate. However, we have decreed that the local bishop should have discretion to deal humanely with them.

  5. 1123 AD - First Lateran Council:
    21. We absolutely forbid priests, deacons, subdeacons and monks to have concubines or to contract marriages. We adjudge, as the sacred canons have laid down, that marriage contracts between such persons should be made void and the persons ought to undergo penance.

  6. 1139 AD - Second Lateran Council:
    6. We also decree that those in the orders of subdeacon and above who have taken wives or concubines are to be deprived of their position and ecclesiastical benefice. For since they ought to be in fact and in name temples of God, vessels of the Lord and sanctuaries of the holy Spirit, it is unbecoming that they give themselves up to marriage and impurity.

    7. [N]obody is to hear the masses of those whom he knows to have wives or concubines. Indeed, that the law of continence and the purity pleasing to God might be propagated among ecclesiastical persons and those in holy orders, we decree that where bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, canons regular, monks and professed lay brothers have presumed to take wives and so transgress this holy precept, they are to be separated from their partners. For we do not deem there to be a marriage which, it is agreed, has been contracted against ecclesiastical law. Furthermore, when they have separated from each other, let them do a penance commensurate with such outrageous behaviour.

    8. We decree that the selfsame thing is to apply also to women religious if, God forbid, they attempt to marry.

  7. 1215 AD - Fourth Lateran Council:
    1. For not only virgins and the continent but also married persons find favour with God by right faith and good actions and deserve to attain to eternal blessedness.

    50. Prohibition of marriage is now perpetually restricted to the fourth degree. It should not be judged reprehensible if human decrees are sometimes changed according to changing circumstances, especially when urgent necessity or evident advantage demands it, since God himself changed in the new Testament some of the things which he had commanded in the old Testament. Since the prohibitions against contracting marriage in the second and third degree of affinity, and against uniting the offspring of a second marriage with the kindred of the first husband, often lead to difficulty and sometimes endanger souls, we therefore, in order that when the prohibition ceases the effect may also cease, revoke with the approval of this sacred council the constitutions published on this subject and we decree, by this present constitution, that henceforth contracting parties connected in these ways may freely be joined together. Moreover the prohibition against marriage shall not in future go beyond the fourth degree of consanguinity and of affinity, since the prohibition cannot now generally be observed to further degrees without grave harm. The number four agrees well with the prohibition concerning bodily union about which the Apostle says, that the husband does not rule over his body, but the wife does; and the wife does not rule over her body, but the husband does; for there are four humours in the body, which is composed of the four elements. Although the prohibition of marriage is now restricted to the fourth degree, we wish the prohibition to be perpetual, notwithstanding earlier decrees on this subject issued either by others or by us. If any persons dare to marry contrary to this prohibition, they shall not be protected by length of years, since the passage of time does not diminish sin but increases it, and the longer that faults hold the unfortunate soul in bondage the graver they are.

    51. Clandestine marriages forbidden. Since the prohibition against marriage in the three remotest degrees has been revoked, we wish it to be strictly observed in the other degrees. Following in the footsteps of our predecessors, we altogether forbid clandestine marriages and we forbid any priest to presume to be present at such a marriage. Extending the special custom of certain regions to other regions generally, we decree that when marriages are to be contracted they shall be publicly announced in the churches by priests, with a suitable time being fixed beforehand within which whoever wishes and is able to may adduce a lawful impediment. The priests themselves shall also investigate whether there is any impediment. When there appears a credible reason why the marriage should not be contracted, the contract shall be expressly forbidden until there has been established from clear documents what ought to be done in the matter. If any persons presume to enter into clandestine marriages of this kind, or forbidden marriages within a prohibited degree, even if done in ignorance, the offspring of the union shall be deemed illegitimate and shall have no help from their parents' ignorance, since the parents in contracting the marriage could be considered as not devoid of knowledge, or even as affecters of ignorance. Likewise the offspring shall be deemed illegitimate if both parents know of a legitimate impediment and yet dare to contract a marriage in the presence of the church, contrary to every prohibition.

    52. On rejecting evidence from hearsay at a matrimonial suit. It was at one time decided out of a certain necessity, but contrary to the normal practice, that hearsay evidence should be valid in reckoning the degrees of consanguinity and affinity, because on account of the shortness of human life witnesses would not be able to testify from first-hand knowledge in a reckoning as far as the seventh degree. However, because we have learned from many examples and definite proofs that many dangers to lawful marriages have arisen from this, we have decided that in future witnesses from hearsay shall not be accepted in this matter, since the prohibition does not now exceed the fourth degree, unless there are persons of weight who are trustworthy and who learnt from their elders, before the case was begun, the things that they testify: not indeed from one such person since one would not suffice even if he or she were alive, but from two at least, and not from persons who are of bad repute and suspect but from those who are trustworthy and above every objection, since it would appear rather absurd to admit in evidence those whose actions would be rejected. [... I]t is preferable to leave alone some people who have been united contrary to human decrees than to separate, contrary to the Lord's decrees, persons who have been joined together legitimately.

  8. 1311-1312 AD - Council of Vienne:
    8. We strictly command local ordinaries to admonish by name three times clerics who publicly and personally engage in the butcher's trade or conduct taverns, that they cease to do so within a reasonable time to be fixed by the ordinary and never resume such trades. If after admonition they do not leave off or if they resume them at any time, then as long as they persist in the above ways of life those who are married shall automatically lose all clerical privileges, and those who are unmarried shall automatically lose their clerical privileges relating to things, and if the latter go about in every way as laymen they shall also lose automatically their personal privileges as clerics. As for other clerics who apply themselves publicly to secular commerce and trade or any occupation inconsistent with the clerical state, or who carry arms, the ordinaries are to be diligent in observing the canons, so that these clerics may be restrained from such misconduct and they themselves may not be guilty of reprehensible negligence.

  9. 1431-45 AD - Council of Basel:
    The seventh is the sacrament of matrimony, which is a sign of the union of Christ and the church according to the words of the apostle: This sacrament is a great one, but I speak in Christ and in the church. The efficient cause of matrimony is usually mutual consent expressed in words about the present. A threefold good is attributed to matrimony. The first is the procreation and bringing up of children for the worship of God. The second is the mutual faithfulness of the spouses towards each other. The third is the indissolubility of marriage, since it signifies the indivisible union of Christ and the church. Although separation of bed is lawful on account of fornication, it is not lawful to contract another marriage, since the bond of a legitimately contracted marriage is perpetual.

    It is asserted that some people reject fourth marriages as condemned. Lest sin is attributed where it does not exist, since the apostle says that a wife on her husband's death is free from his law and free in the Lord to marry whom she wishes, and since no distinction is made between the deaths of the first, second and third husbands, we declare that not only second and third marriages but also fourth and further ones may lawfully be contracted, provided there is no canonical impediment. We say, however, that they would be more commendable if thereafter they abstain from marriage and persevere in chastity because we consider that, just as virginity is to be preferred in praise and merit to widowhood, so chaste widowhood is preferable to marriage.

  10. 1545-1563 AD - Council of Trent:
    On the Sacrament of Matrimony.

    Canon I.-If any one saith, that matrimony is not truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the evangelic law, (a sacrament) instituted by Christ the Lord; but that it has been invented by men in the Church; and that it does not confer grace; let him be anathema.

    Canon II.-If any one saith, that it is lawful for Christians to have several wives at the same time, and that this is not prohibited by any divine law; let him be anathema.

    Canon III.-If any one saith, that those degrees only of consanguinity and affinity, which are set down in Leviticus, can hinder matrimony from being contracted, and dissolve it when contracted; and that the Church cannot dispense in some of those degrees, or establish that others may hinder and dissolve it ; let him be anathema.

    Canon IV.-If any one saith, that the Church could not establish impediments dissolving marriage; or that she has erred in establishing them; let him be anathema.

    Canon V.-If any one saith, that on account of heresy, or irksome cohabitation, or the affected absence of one of the parties, the bond of matrimony may be dissolved; let him be anathema.

    Canon VI.-If any one saith, that matrimony contracted, but not consummated, is not dissolved by the solemn profession of religion by one of the married parties; let him be anathema.

    Canon VII.-If any one saith, that the Church has erred, in that she hath taught, and doth teach, in accordance with the evangelical and apostolical doctrine, that the bond of matrimony cannot be dissolved on account of the adultery of one of the married parties; and that both, or even the innocent one who gave not occasion to the adultery, cannot contract another marriage, during the life-time of the other; and, that he is guilty of adultery, who, having put away the adulteress, shall take another wife, as also she, who, having put away the adulterer, shall take another husband; let him be anathema.

    Canon VIII.-If any one saith, that the Church errs, in that she declares that, for many causes, a separation may take place between husband and wife, in regard of bed, or in regard of cohabitation, for a determinate or for an indeterminate period; let him be anathema.

    Canon IX.-If any one saith, that clerics constituted in sacred orders, or Regulars, who have solemnly professed chastity, are able to contract marriage, and that being contracted it is valid, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical law, or vow; and that the contrary is no thing else than to condemn marriage; and, that all who do not feel that they have the gift of chastity, even though they have made a vow thereof, may contract marriage; let him be anathema: seeing that God refuses not that gift to those who ask for it rightly, neither does He suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able.

    Canon X.-If any one saith, that the marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony; let him be anathema.

    Canon XI.-If any one saith, that the prohibition of the solemnization of marriages at certain times of the year, is a tyrannical superstition, derived from the superstition of the heathen; or, condemn the benedictions and other ceremonies which the Church makes use of therein; let him be anathema.

    Canon XII.-If any one saith, that matrimonial causes do not belong to ecclesiastical judges; let him be anathema.

    Decree on the Reformation of Marriage.

    Chapter VII. Vagrants are to be married with caution. There are many persons who are vagrants, having no settled homes; and, being of a profligate character, they, after abandoning their first wife, marry another, and very often several in different places, during the life-time of the first. The holy Synod, being desirous to obviate this disorder, gives this fatherly admonition to all whom it may concern, not easily to admit this class of vagrants to marriage; and It also exhorts the civil magistrates to punish such persons severely. But It commands parish priests not to be present at the marriages of such persons, unless they have first made a careful inquiry, and, having reported the circumstance to the Ordinary, they shall have obtained permission from him for so doing.

    Chapter IX. Temporal lords, or magistrates, shall not attempt anything contrary to the liberty of marriage. Earthly affections and desires do for the most part so blind the eyes of the understanding of temporal lords and magistrates, as that, by threats and ill-usage, they compel both men and women, who live under their jurisdiction,-especially such as are rich, or who have expectations of a great inheritance,-to contract marriage against their inclination with those whom the said lords or magistrates may prescribe unto them. Wherefore, seeing that it is a thing especially execrable to violate the liberty of matrimony, and that wrong comes from those from whom right is looked for, the holy Synod enjoins on all, of whatsoever grade, dignity, and condition they may be, under pain of anathema to be ipso facto incurred, that they put no constraint, in any way whatever, either directly or indirectly, on those subject to them, or any others whomsoever, so as to hinder them from freely contracting marriage.

  11. 1962–1965 AD - Second Vatican Council:
    Lumen Gentium

    11. Christian spouses, in virtue of the sacrament of Matrimony, whereby they signify and partake of the mystery of that unity and fruitful love which exists between Christ and His Church,(108) help each other to attain to holiness in their married life and in the rearing and education of their children. By reason of their state and rank in life they have their own special gift among the people of God. From the wedlock of Christians there comes the family, in which new citizens of human society are born, who by the grace of the Holy Spirit received in baptism are made children of God, thus perpetuating the people of God through the centuries. The family is, so to speak, the domestic church. In it parents should, by their word and example, be the first preachers of the faith to their children; they should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each of them, fostering with special care vocation to a sacred state.

    29. With the consent of the Roman Pontiff, this diaconate can, in the future, be conferred upon men of more mature age, even upon those living in the married state.

    35. In connection with the prophetic function is that state of life which is sanctified by a special sacrament obviously of great importance, namely, married and family life. For where Christianity pervades the entire mode of family life, and gradually transforms it, one will find there both the practice and an excellent school of the lay apostolate. In such a home husbands and wives find their proper vocation in being witnesses of the faith and love of Christ to one another and to their children. The Christian family loudly proclaims both the present virtues of the Kingdom of God and the hope of a blessed life to come. Thus by its example and its witness it accuses the world of sin and enlightens those who seek the truth.

    41. [M]arried couples and Christian parents should follow their own proper path (to holiness) by faithful love. They should sustain one another in grace throughout the entire length of their lives. They should embue their offspring, lovingly welcomed as God's gift, with Christian doctrine and the evangelical virtues. In this manner, they offer all men the example of unwearying and generous love; in this way they build up the brotherhood of charity; in so doing, they stand as the witnesses and cooperators in the fruitfulness of Holy Mother Church; by such lives, they are a sign and a participation in that very love, with which Christ loved His Bride and for which He delivered Himself up for her.

    Gaudium et Spes

    48. The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, and is rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. Hence by that human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each other a relationship arises which by divine will and in the eyes of society too is a lasting one. For the good of the spouses and their off-springs as well as of society, the existence of the sacred bond no longer depends on human decisions alone. For, God Himself is the author of matrimony, endowed as it is with various benefits and purposes. All of these have a very decisive bearing on the continuation of the human race, on the personal development and eternal destiny of the individual members of a family, and on the dignity, stability, peace and prosperity of the family itself and of human society as a whole. By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown. Thus a man and a woman, who by their compact of conjugal love "are no longer two, but one flesh" (Matt. 19:ff), render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and of their actions. Through this union they experience the meaning of their oneness and attain to it with growing perfection day by day. As a mutual gift of two persons, this intimate union and the good of the children impose total fidelity on the spouses and argue for an unbreakable oneness between them. [...] Widowhood, accepted bravely as a continuation of the marriage vocation, should be esteemed by all.

    49. This love is uniquely expressed and perfected through the appropriate enterprise of matrimony. The actions within marriage by which the couple are united intimately and chastely are noble and worthy ones. Expressed in a manner which is truly human, these actions promote that mutual self-giving by which spouses enrich each other with a joyful and a ready will. Sealed by mutual faithfulness and hallowed above all by Christ's sacrament, this love remains steadfastly true in body and in mind, in bright days or dark. It will never be profaned by adultery or divorce. Firmly established by the Lord, the unity of marriage will radiate from the equal personal dignity of wife and husband, a dignity acknowledged by mutual and total love. The constant fulfillment of the duties of this Christian vocation demands notable virtue. For this reason, strengthened by grace for holiness of life, the couple will painstakingly cultivate and pray for steadiness of love, large heartedness and the spirit of sacrifice.

    50. Marriage to be sure is not instituted solely for procreation; rather, its very nature as an unbreakable compact between persons, and the welfare of the children, both demand that the mutual love of the spouses be embodied in a rightly ordered manner, that it grow and ripen. Therefore, marriage persists as a whole manner and communion of life, and maintains its value and indissolubility, even when despite the often intense desire of the couple, offspring are lacking.

    Presbyterorum Ordinis

    16. Perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, commended by Christ the Lord and through the course of time as well as in our own days freely accepted and observed in a praiseworthy manner by many of the faithful, is held by the Church to be of great value in a special manner for the priestly life. It is at the same time a sign and a stimulus for pastoral charity and a special source of spiritual fecundity in the world. Indeed, it is not demanded by the very nature of the priesthood, as is apparent from the practice of the early Church and from the traditions of the Eastern Churches. where, besides those who with all the bishops, by a gift of grace, choose to observe celibacy, there are also married priests of highest merit. This holy synod, while it commends ecclesiastical celibacy, in no way intends to alter that different discipline which legitimately flourishes in the Eastern Churches. It permanently exhorts all those who have received the priesthood and marriage to persevere in their holy vocation so that they may fully and generously continue to expend themselves for the sake of the flock commended to them.

Yes, indeed, the Church has been (un)changing!



1 E.g., here (via Gödel), here (in the words of Schönborn), here (by Pope Francis), and in many other posts on this blog.

Monday 5 September 2016

Humor in St. Matthew’s Gospel

Fishers of men

2105 words, 11 min read

The theory of humor is about as much use to humor as ornithology is to birds, to paraphrase Richard Feynman. Instead of setting out a preamble that contrasts Bergson’s attributing the comic to inflexibility with Kant’s focus on strained expectations being transformed into nothing, or with Freud’s view that it is a mechanism for psychological release, or reflecting on the importance of the non sequitur and the absurd, I will just say that what is labelled as humorous in the following is simply what made me laugh, chuckle or smile.

I am certainly not the first (and hopefully not the last either) to find comedy in Scripture, so there is no claim to novelty here. Instead, the following follows from a desire to share what I found when reading St. Matthew’s Gospel, back to back, with the aim of looking for humor in it.1 As a final preambulatory point, and one that ought to be redundant for recidivist readers of this blog, I believe humor to be a profoundly positive and deeply relationship-building trait, as a result of which its roots and its pinnacle are in God and their absence from Scripture would be a joke.

Even though it might not be obvious at first, St. Matthew’s Gospel opens with what to my mind is a very funny bit - the genealogy of Jesus (1:1-16). On the face of it, this is a formal piece, designed to legitimize Jesus’ lineage and rootedness in the people of Israel, since it presents a sequence of forty pillars of the community from Abraham, father of God’s chosen people, to St. Joseph, Jesus’ own earthly father. So far so serious, but what gives this résumé a nice, humorous twist is the mention of four women - St. Joseph’s great-great-... grandmothers:
  1. Tamar, who was mistaken for a prostitute by Jesus’ ancestor, Judah, who subsequently solicits her services and whose immorality is then publicly unmasked by her.
  2. Rahab, who was actually a prostitute.
  3. Ruth, who was a foreigner, a Moabite, member of a tribe with a tempestuous relationship with the Israelites, eventually destroyed by them.
  4. Bathsheba, who was a real looker and whose first husband, Uriah, was sent to his death by king David after he saw her naked, so that he could take her for himself.
St. Matthew could just have presented us with a dry list of the great and the good of Israel’s glorious history. Instead, he very much spices things up and I wonder whether his contemporaries laughed, or at least sniggered at the ladies he chose to parade alongside the gents who otherwise might have projected too much propriety.

Matthew also seems to have a nice, dry sense of humor, when, in Chapter 4 he tells us that Jesus “fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry.” (4:2) A bit like the Black Knight telling King Arthur “It’s just a flesh wound,” after having both arms cut off in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

And it is not only Matthew, who has fun here. Jesus too played games when talking to the disciples and it seems like Matthew was only too happy to record them. In the same, fourth chapter we get this gem:
He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. (4:19-20)
Really? This guy shows up out of nowhere, tells a bunch of fishermen that he’ll make them “fishers of men” and they all jump up and ask where to sign up. What seems much more likely to me is that these guys would have followed Jesus no matter what he said, so he had some fun with them and delivered a line of beautiful absurd humor. “My hovercraft is full of eels.” might have been too much (although it is appropriately fishing-themed), so he went with “I will make you fishers of men.” I can imagine Jesus reminiscing with Peter about it after the resurrection and the two having a great laugh ...

The absurd is also well represented in the various exaggerations that Jesus uses, such as his invitation to schizophrenia when almsgiving:
“But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret.” (6:3-4)
To typographical hair-splitting:
“Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (5:18)
Or to wanton exaggeration in response to reasonable requests (“No, I won’t just count to infinity once, I’ll do it twice!” as Chuck Norris would add):
“If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.” (5:40-41)
Jesus’s parables, as recounted by Matthew, are also a good source of humor, like the following one about light:
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house.” (5:14-15)
I can’t help but be reminded of the Sufi story of Mulla Nasreddin looking for his ring:
“Mulla had lost his ring in the living room. He searched for it for a while, but since he could not find it, he went out into the yard and began to look there. His wife, who saw what he was doing, asked: “Mulla, you lost your ring in the room, why are you looking for it in the yard?”

Mulla stroked his beard and said: “The room is too dark and I can’t see very well. I came out to the courtyard to look for my ring because there is much more light out here.””
The parable about the pearls too must have elicited some laughter, simply by virtue of the sharp simile it used:
“Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.” (7:6)
Neither dogs, who in some cultures today are treated like children, nor pigs, who were the very embodiment of uncleanliness, were epithets that one would have been happy about and their free application to those Jesus was critical of must have made his listeners chuckle.

And, the parable about the camel must also have made them laugh at the ridiculousness of what Jesus was delivering to them, presumably with a straight face:
“Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”” (19:24-26)
Eddie Izzard’s “If you’ve never seen an elephant ski, you’ve never been on acid,” comes to mind.

Jesus also happily used flowery language on another occasion:
“But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment,o and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.” (5:22)
And, purely in the interest of clarity, remember that “Raqa” means div, dope, eejit, gobshite, plonker, tool, berk, wally, schmuck, pillock, thicko, numpty, ... - now, don’t tell me that didn’t at least make you smile!

Also, let’s not forget that Jesus quite happily self-applied humor and didn’t shy away from formulating what he perceived was a crowd’s attitude towards him using some choice words:
““To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is vindicated by her works.”” (11:16-19)
Now, Jesus’ pulling his listener’s legs didn’t just end with the use of some juicy words. No, our Lord took it to the next level and wove entire stories to illustrate just how absurdly misguided some of his contemporaries were.

He accused them of being impotent:
“I say to you, do not swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black.” (5:34-36)
So self-obsessed as to be dangerous:
“Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye?” (7:3-4)
So entirely missing the magnitude of what he was presenting to them as to be stupid:
“Another of [his] disciples said to him, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” But Jesus answered him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”” (8:21-22)
And, so completely back-to-front that their behavior, when transposed to a familiar scenario, would be criminal:
“Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread,or a snake when he asks for a fish?” (7:9-10)
Situational comedy wasn’t off the menu either, where the best example is a contribution to the universally-rich category pertaining to mothers-in-law:
“Jesus entered the house of Peter, and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, the fever left her, and she rose and waited on him.” (8:14-15)
No, no, he didn’t “just” cure her so she’d rustle up a nice dinner, it was for her own good ...

Jesus didn’t shy away from shock tactics either, going more for a nervous than a hearty laugh and intermingled with a sense of fear rather than Freud’s release:
“When he was going back to the city in the morning, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went over to it, but found nothing on it except leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again.” And immediately the fig tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed and said, “How was it that the fig tree withered immediately?” Jesus said to them in reply, “Amen, I say to you, if you have faith and do not waver, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done. Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.”” (21:18-22)
If the disciples didn’t think “This guy’s loco,” when Jesus made the fig tree wither for not bearing fruit as Jesus passed by, then I’d eat my hat (if I wore one). I wonder whether nervous “ahaha”s filled the air as the tree - an inanimate object without will or the potential for culpability - was “punished” for not doing it’s job and whether some of the disciples took a couple of cautious steps back, away from their Master.

In what can only be seen as a case of Žižek’s post-hoc predestination proof points, applied to the Dead Parrot sketch, Jesus also delivers the following, perfect line:
“When Jesus arrived at the official’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd who were making a commotion, he said, “Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they ridiculed him. When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand, and the little girl arose.” (9:23-25)



1 Please, note that nothing could be further from my mind than to suggest that my reading of the following passages from the perspective of humor is a claim to their only meaning or interpretation being from that point of view.