The Love Command (Mk 12:29-31)
The Love Command (Mk 12:29-31)
Mark reports Jesus as teaching that the greatest commandments in the law are whole-hearted love for the only true God and loving one’s neighbor as oneself (Mk 12:29-31). The positive use of the double “similarity” criterion (the continuum approach) comes into play here: that is, the teaching fits Jesus’ environment as well as left a conspicuous imprint on the church. Jesus’ teaching here, as well as the question about the greatest commandment that it answers, readily fit the criterion of Palestinian environment. They reveal Jesus as a sage still in dialogue with Judean teachers of the law. At the same time, they explain the centrality of a “law of love” in diverse parts of early Christianity in a way best explained by dependence on the single authority figure shared by that entire movement.
This passage surely reflects Palestinian Jewish tradition.13 Some Pharisees ask a question with which they had sufficient practice, since their own teachers debated among themselves which commandment was the “greatest.”14 Although all commandments were equally weighty in one sense,15 teachers had to distinguish between “light” and “heavy” commandments in practice.16 Although many opted for the command to obey one’s parents as the “greatest,” other Jewish teachers stressed love as the preeminent commandment.17
In the late first century R. Akiba, in contrast to some of his colleagues, regarded love of neighbor in Lev 19:18 as the greatest commandment in the law.18 Although Jesus ranked it only second,19 their rankings were close.20 Other Jewish teachers also conjoined love of God with love of neighbor,21 following the natural Jewish interpretive principle22 of linking two commandments on the basis of the common opening word we’ahavta (“You shall love”).23 (Others also looked for summaries or epitomes of the law.)24
Yet as Vermes notes, there is also something distinctive about Jesus’ combination of the two as the greatest commandments.25 This link exercised an authoritative influence on subsequent Christian formulations.26 In the multiplicity of other proposals concerning the greatest commandment among other Jewish teachers, only Jesus wielded the moral authority among his followers to focus their ethics so profoundly around a single theme.27 The distinctive primacy that love plays in virtually all early Christian ethics would not have been possible had the Christians not derived this primacy from the mouth of the one Teacher who united them. Thence comes the early Christian “law of love,” attested not only in Mark’s tradition but in Paul (Rom 13:8-10; Gal 5:14), James (Jas 2:8), and Johannine tradition (Jn 13:34-35).28
From Jesus’ teaching on the subject we see him engaged with Jewish discussions of his day and devoted to the Torah, especially on matters of foundational principle. The first passage Jesus cites in fact portrays the love of God as a summary of the law (Deut 6:1-7); one who loved God would fulfill the whole Torah (Deut 5:29). This passage about loving God was the central and best-known text of Judaism, the shema.29 Likewise, the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Lev 19:18) expresses a general principle (cf. Lev 19:34), though its original context applied it to a more specific situation.
The love command coheres with some of Jesus’ other teachings, such as the “Q” saying about treating one’s neighbor as one would wish to be treated (Matt 7:12//Lk 6:31).30 This saying fits its Jewish environment,31 although not in a distinctive way (being a sentiment shared with other cultures as well,32 even as far away as China).33 That both Matthew (Matt 7:12; but not Luke) and a later report about Jesus’ predecessor Hillel34 cite it as fulfilling the law is surely more than coincidence.35 The love command coheres particularly well with Jesus’ extension of the command to love of enemy in “Q” (Matt 5:44//Lk 6:27, 35).36