A narrow, low gate off the Via Dolorosa
There can be few gospel passages that have
attracted quite as much discussion as Jesus’ remark that it is ‘easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’ (Mark 10:25; Matthew 19:24; Luke 18:25). There is, for example, a
discussion board on the subject published by one of our national newspapers, apart from discussions
on Christian websites and elsewhere. The expression itself has passed into our language and thus an
article such as that written earlier this year by Desmond Tutu, formerly
archbishop of Cape Town and Bettina Gronblom, chief executive of Not Just for
Profit, asserting that ‘camels can pass through a needle’s eye’ seems counter-intuitive.
There
is a splendidly illustrated children’s story by Nick Butterworth and Mick
Inkpen called The Little Gate, which
shows how a heavily laden camel had to rid himself of a fine saddle and all his
load in order to crawl through a low and narrow gate; but there is a difficulty
with the image: who ever saw a camel crawl on its four knees? The answer is, I believe,
no-one has, because it can’t. So the difficulty with the story is less the
problem of the gate – whether or not there was a narrow, low gate at the
entrance of Jerusalem or not, such gates do exist in the Holy Land because we
have photographic evidence of one such gate off the Via Dolorosa – than the problem of the
camel. The story is a typical exaggeration for effect by Jesus, but it exists
in variant forms both in the Babylonian Talmud (where it is an elephant that
cannot pass through the eye of a needle) and the Holy Qur’an (Q.7:40, where again it is a camel
that cannot pass through an eye of a needle). It is likely that Jesus was using
a proverb cast in the form of a hyperbole, the origins of which are now lost.
And the remark is almost certainly authentic rather than garbled because it is
stated in similar form in all three synoptic gospels. According to Origen, it
was also to be found in the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews.
Origen’s account of Jesus’s meeting
with the rich man is particular from this source is particularly interesting in
its wording:
‘The second rich youth
said to him, “Rabbi, what good thing can I do and live?” Jesus replied, “Fulfil
the law and the prophets.” “I have,” was the response Jesus said, “Go, sell all
that you have and distribute to the poor; and come, follow me.” The youth began
to fidget, for it did not please him. And the Lord said, “How can you say, I
have fulfilled the law and the prophets, when it is written in the law: ‘You
shall love your neighbour as yourself’, and many of your brothers, sons of
Abraham, are covered with filth, dying of hunger, and your house is full of many
good things, none of which goes out to them?” And he turned and said to Simon,
his disciple, who was sitting by Him, “Simon, son of Jonah, it is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the Kingdom
of Heaven.”’ (Origen, Commentary on Matthew, 15:14).
Now what is particularly interesting
here is that Jesus gives a direct application of his teaching. From this it
becomes clear that it is not wealth itself, or even the acquisition of wealth,
which he is attacking. It is the uses to which wealth is put – for example,
what in modern parlance is called ‘conspicuous consumption’ – rather than
charitable giving: ‘your house is full of many good things, none of which goes
out’ to ‘your brothers, sons of Abraham, [who] are covered with filth, dying of
hunger’. ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’, in Jesus’ teaching, means doing
something and not simply having pious thoughts. The gospel is about trying to
build the kingdom of heaven on earth here and now, and not waiting until we
reach heaven, when there will be a settlement of accounts. (This is the point
of Jesus’ story about the rich man and his failure during his lifetime to help
the beggar Lazarus lying at his gate: Luke 16:19-31.)
If we accept at least the possibility
that there were small gates for people to pass through after the main gates
of the city were locked at night to keep enemies at bay, gates that were narrow
and less than 5 feet tall, gates which you had to stoop down to and squeeze
through in order to gain entrance to the city, then it would obviously be
impossible for a fully grown camel to slide through such a small opening. What
becomes intriguing is that the rich and powerful of those times might be reluctant to
use such passageways because they would have to stoop over in order to get
through and they were too proud to do so – they might consider it beneath their ‘position’
or standing in their community. Just as in the image of a camel laden with
goods being unloaded before an attempt was made for it to pass through such a
passageway – successful or not – we thus have an image of the rich man having
to strip himself of all his possessions – to be just like any other person – in
order to pass through the narrow gate. Wealth in the sense of possessions was
an obstacle. Status in the sense of pride was an insuperable barrier: only a
man bending over, or even on his knees can pass through the narrow and low gate
to enter the kingdom of God. Humility is indispensable. And was this not what
Jesus did, ‘though he was rich yet for [our]
sakes he became poor so that [we] through his poverty might be rich’ (2 Corinthians 8:9)? Paul uses Jesus’ example to inspire in the Corinthians – and in all of us – ‘the
gracious ministry of giving’ (2 Corinthians 8:7).
As Desmond Tutu and Bettina Gromblom
argue in their article in the Financial
Times earlier this year, ‘at issue is not
the rate of interest or the size of the mansion we inhabit. What matters is
that we understand how we should behave to one another: namely, following the
Golden Rule, that we should treat others as we would have others treat us… We
cannot worship money and our self-interest alone – it leaves us with a hunger
that can never be satisfied by acquiring more goods… What is important is
finding the balance between greed and having enough, and defining what a joyful
life means to us.’
