Words that should have been said?

February 11, 2007 -- Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Fr. Michael Stubbs

	Fr. Mike Stubbs

In 1415, the French and the English fought the battle of Agincourt. That is a historical fact. It is plausible that Henry V spoke to his troops beforehand, to rouse them to action, in a kind of pre-battle pep talk. But it is doubtful that he spoke the exact same words that Shakespeare put in his mouth in the historical play, Henry V: "This story shall ne'er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers." It is unlikely that the English king would have delivered his entire pre-battle oration in perfect iambic pentameter.

Similarly, in another play by Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Marc Antony begins the funeral oration with the words, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." As stirring as those words sound, it is unlikely that they are exactly what Marc Antony said. But they certainly capture the gist of what he might have said. In Shakespeare's mind, they tell us what he should have said.

In writing these speeches, Shakespeare took the same approach as Hellenistic historians 2,000 years earlier. In his treatise, "How To Write History," Lucian of Samosata offered the opinion that speeches gave the historian the chance "to play the orator and show your eloquence." He advised the historian to respect the character of the person giving the speech. "Let his language suit his person and his subject."

This attitude toward speech-writing matters greatly for the gospel of Luke, because Luke appears to have consciously adopted the model of Hellenistic history. Luke would have composed the speeches of Jesus in the gospel, and the speeches of Peter and Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, with that model in mind.

Sunday's gospel reading offers us a good example. We hear the beginning of Luke's Sermon on the Plain, which corresponds to Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5: 7-12. Both sermons begin with a listing of beatitudes. The two sets of beatitudes are related, but not exactly the same. For example, Luke provides us with four beatitudes, while Matthew gives us eight. Their wording is similar, but with some differences.

That holds true for the rest of the sermons as well. They share a lot of common material, but they are not exactly the same. And there is the difference in location, the plain as opposed to the mount. We wonder if they are two separate sermons, or two versions of the same sermon?

I favor the second theory. It appears that Luke has inherited the memory of an important address that Jesus gave, as well as teachings of Jesus handed on through the oral tradition and eventually committed to writing. Luke took those teachings, and arranged them in an order which he believed reflected Jesus' character. In this, Luke followed the plan set out in the prologue to his gospel. "I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you." (Luke 1:3) Luke is also taking the approach of contemporary historians, to compose a speech which would give us Luke's idea of what should have been said. Through it all, we remember that Luke was guided, not only by his own beliefs, but also by the Holy Spirit. That, and the fact that Luke's writings reflect the church's faith, caused them to be accepted as Scripture.

(Fr. Stubbs, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, has a master's degree in theology from Harvard.)