Bev Franco Essay - San Francisco Theological Seminary

workers who felt cheated, literally, “Is your eye bad because I am good” meaning, “Are
you envious because I am generous”
In Greek Jewish literature, such as The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs,
πλο ς “denotes the ideal of the pious person who is devoting his life to the perfect
fulfillment of God’s will.” 25 Such a one is “a person of integrity… who resists the
world’s temptation; there is no duplicity in that person’s acting and thinking … that
person does not grudge one’s neighbor or pay attention to one’s defects…The true
person’s life is directed toward one goal: to love God and every human being.” 26
Hence,
in the passage from Matthew, the contrast is between the eye of integrity and mercy and
the eye of corruption.
The concept of an “evil eye” was prevalent in the ancient world. It could mean
anything from jealousy to a magical device for evil. According to Allison, “a bad eye …
is a selfish, ungenerous, miserly spirit, the companion of inner darkness.” 27
The evil eye
“comes from the ethical vocabulary of Judaism. It expresses the antithesis of generosity
– selfishness, covetousness, an evil and envious disposition, hatred of others.” 28 Because
of the location of the unit on the eyes in the center of two passages about devotion to
money, it seems that the best interpretation of the φθαλμός πλο ς and the φθαλμός
πονηρ ς are generous and greedy eyes, which, as lamps of the body, show forth the
generous or greedy characters within.
But eyes, of course, do more than reflect our characters. They focus our vision on
the things we find important and let the less important fade out. Materialism narrows our
25 Thomas Zockler, “Light within the Human Person: A Comparison of Matthew 6:22-23 and the Gospel of
Thomas 24.” Journal of Biblical Literature 120 no. 3 (Fall, 2001): 489-490.
26 Ibid. 490.
27 Davies, 640.
28 Allison, 143.
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