Introduction
Empathy has long been celebrated as a virtue to be pursued and cultivated. Distinct from related emotions such as compassion, sympathy, or pity, it is broadly conceived as the cognitive and emotional capacity to enter into the experience of another, to feel the other’s adversity or joy as one’s own. Advocates of empathy insist upon its fundamental moral contribution to social relationships, from the formation of bonds between an infant and parent to global progress in human rights and humanitarian enterprises. While not sufficient in itself when detached from rational actions and policies, empathy is often thought to be a crucial starting point toward fostering peace and alleviating suffering.
Recently, however, the value of empathy has been challenged. In his 2016 Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, for instance, the psychologist Paul Bloom highlights its limitations, arguing instead that the moral capacities of self-control and intelligence can more effectively produce compassion.Footnote 1 Outside of the academy, a campaign against empathy has gained momentum from several quarters. On a popular podcast, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, declared it “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization.”Footnote 2 At the time Musk made this claim, he was working aggressively in his role within the US government to shut down longstanding foreign aid programs, such as those providing food assistance in war-torn Sudan, treatments for AIDS in Africa, and support for Syrian refugees.Footnote 3 Some American Christians have also adopted similar postures, reflected in books by influential leaders with titles such as Toxic Empathy and The Sin of Empathy.Footnote 4
In light of these developments, it is a timely moment to reevaluate empathy and religion. This article explores its place at the beginnings of the Jesus movement. While there is an abundance of studies on charity, compassion, humanitarianism, and the like in the Bible and early Christianity, only a few are dedicated to empathy in particular; among the most insightful are those of Thomas Kazen, Jan Assmann, Susan Eastman, Chee-Chiew Lee, and Paul Blowers.Footnote 5 Building on these studies, here I focus on the earliest attested Christ-followers, especially the Apostle Paul with a few select cases from subsequent decades. My contention is that from the time when the death of Christ came to be regarded with cosmic significance, empathy figures prominently in Christian theological and ethical formulations in so far as divine salvation and moral progress were to be achieved through vicarious suffering. First, Christ embraced the mortal condition of humans—especially of the lowly and marginalized—in order fully to experience their pain for himself as his own. Second, humans in turn are to embody Christ’s humiliation and shameful death as their own, cognitively and affectively, through imitation, ritual performance, and even mystical union. Finally, the religious community, as the body of Christ instantiated through the spirit and shared ritual, is to be connected empathetically through mutual suffering and redemption—ultimately to include the creation itself.
This analysis proceeds in five sections. First, I survey empathy as it has been understood and defined in psychology and neuroscience. Drawing on several important advances in this contemporary research, section two concerns ancient terminology and concepts. While the phenomenon of one resonating with the experience of another is widely attested, for instance in medicine and philosophy, it was not attached to ἐμπάθεια and cognates but rather those of συμπάθεια, and, of course, the concept may be present apart from any technical terminology. Thus, in section three I analyze several Pauline epistles, arguing that not only does Paul use the verb συμπάσχω to advocate for the practice of empathy among the community of Christ-followers (1 Cor 12:26) and their participation in the sufferings of Christ (Rom 8:17), empathetic resonance is central to his formulations of Christology and cosmic redemption. Sections four and five examine the Epistle to the Hebrews and Gospel of Matthew, respectively. The former describes an empathetic Christ who comprehends human experience through his own afflictions and applies συμπαθέω both to Christ (Heb 4:15) and to the mutuality of human care (Heb 10:34). Finally, the latter’s so-called Parable of the Sheep and Goats (Matt 25:31–46) positions Christ in place of the marginalized and afflicted, not merely to save them, but to be like them.Footnote 6
Empathy in Contemporary Research
In English, “empathy” was first introduced in 1909 as a psychological concept by Edward Titchener, who coined the term with explicit reference to the German Einfühlung rather than its Greek counterpart ἐμπάθεια.Footnote 7 He later defines it as “[t]his tendency to feel oneself into a situation. . . on the analogy of sympathy, which is feeling together with another.” The “core” of empathetic ideas “is imaginal, and their context is made up of sensations, the kinaesthetic and organic sensations that carry the empathic meaning. Like feelings of strangeness, they are characteristic of imagination.”Footnote 8 Over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, researchers in psychology and more recently in neuroscience have refined and expanded its definitions.Footnote 9 While unanimous agreement remains elusive, empathy is broadly understood as a capacity to resonate with the mental or emotional state of another.Footnote 10 It involves a vicarious experience of feeling or acting as though the other’s circumstance is one’s own. Empathy can include both emotion—sharing an isomorphic affective state—and cognition including perspective-taking, that is “an imaginative process through which one constructs another person’s subjective experience by simulating the experience of being in the other’s situation.”Footnote 11
Empathy is closely related to several other psychological and moral phenomena. “Emotional contagion” and “motor mimicry,” for instance, are like empathy in that they involve affective matching but differ in so far as they are automatic, unmediated, and lack self-other differentiation.Footnote 12 On the other hand, “pity,” “sympathy,” and “compassion” are closely connected to empathy in that they are feelings for another person; however, they lack the element of a shared or isomorphic affective state.Footnote 13 The (synonymous) emotions of sympathy and compassion correlate in particular with motivations to alleviate another’s suffering.Footnote 14 Finally and also closely related is “altruism”—“a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s welfare”—which has been shown to arise from empathic concern.Footnote 15
Both in popular perception and in academic research, empathy is widely seen as a virtuous and desirable quality, contributing constructively to interpersonal relationships, motivating helpfulness, kindness, and charity. Even so, it has limits. As Martha Nussbaum notes, in itself, it is morally neutral, in part due to the gap between empathy and compassion.Footnote 16 For instance, she observes, a torturer may imaginatively reconstruct the pain of his victim and derive pleasure from it.Footnote 17 In addition, empathy can be subject to biases in favor of those most proximate, as Bloom writes, it is “a spotlight that has a narrow focus, one that shines most brightly on those we love and gets dim for those who are strange or different or frightening.”Footnote 18 Moreover, though potentially yielding altruism, empathy can also lead to a state of “empathic distress” or “compassion fatigue” with adverse effects including withdrawal or burn-out, even “pathological altruism.”Footnote 19
Researchers in various fields have contributed to more robust understandings of the nature and function of empathy. Psychologists have devised instruments of measurement, such as the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy.Footnote 20 It has been observed that some psychological conditions are correlated with reduced levels of empathy.Footnote 21 In neuroscience, a seminal study in 2004 by Tania Singer and colleagues demonstrated that similar regions of the brain were activated in first-hand responses to pain stimulus as when participants observed a cue for the pain stimulus in a loved one, that is, those associated with “the subjective affective dimension of pain.”Footnote 22 Since 2004, experimental research continues actively concerning the relationship between neural activities arising from direct pain and from vicarious pain observed in others.Footnote 23
Finally, while much of the research on empathy has been conducted within North American contexts, William Chopik, Ed O’Brien, and Sara Konrath have undertaken a far-reaching analysis of how empathy varies across sixty-three countries.Footnote 24 Among other things, they discovered that levels of empathy were higher in collectivistic countries than in individualistic ones, that is, where one’s wellbeing is perceived to be more closely intertwined with others. Societies of the ancient Mediterranean are generally thought to be less individualistic than those of modern west. Even so, before analyzing early Christianity, it will be important to delineate ancient terms and concepts, noting how they may resemble or differ from modern academic constructs of empathy.
Empathy beyond Etymology: Ancient Terms and Concepts
Prior to the introduction of “empathy” into English, there was already a longstanding concept of resonating with the feelings and perspectives of another. Often, though not exclusively, this was expressed with the language of “sympathy,” as well-illustrated in two mid-eighteenth-century philosophical treatises. First, in his 1757 A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, Edmund Burke defines sympathy as a passion concerning others, “that we are moved as they are moved. . . For sympathy must be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected” (1.13).Footnote 25 Similarly, Adam Smith observes, in the opening section of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), “Of Sympathy”: “By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them” (1.2).Footnote 26 Smith expands on the imaginative process of sympathy as involving both cognition and emotion, noting that “it is by changing places in fancy with the sufferer, that we come either to conceive or to be affected by what he feels” (1.3).Footnote 27 It is clear, therefore, that both Burke and Smith understood “sympathy” to have the very characteristics that contemporary psychologists and neuroscientists now define as “empathy”—that is, as a vicarious experience of entering a mental or emotional state more appropriate to the situation of another.Footnote 28
The sympathy-empathy distinction is sometimes explained with reference to the terms’ Greek cognates.Footnote 29 As πάθος means “misfortune,” or more neutrally “experience” or “emotion,” sympathy, from σύν, entails suffering “with” others whereas empathy, from ἐν, is suffering “in” them. Ancient usage does not support such a differentiation, however. In the first place, there is no verb “to empathize,” and the noun ἐμπάθεια is unattested in Attic Greek of the classical period. Among its earliest attestations, a fragment of Plutarch, it is the vice of excessive emotion, and accordingly Plutarch writes that a priest must be free from “all licentiousness, all injustice, and all passion” (πάσης ἀσελγείας πάσης ἀδικίας πάσης ἐμπαθείας, frag. 47).Footnote 30 The adjective (ἐμπαθής) is more common and similarly entails a heightened state of emotion (e.g., Aristotle, Somn. 460b7).Footnote 31 It is ordinarily a negative condition of mental unrest or turmoil (e.g., Chrysippus, frag. 475).Footnote 32 In this vein, Philo of Alexandria asserts that for the person who is already accustomed to giving way to their passions, alcohol can make them even “more impassioned” (ἐμπαθέστερον, Plant. 171).Footnote 33 Plutarch likewise observes that when practical deliberations proceed with “heightened emotion” (ἐμπαθεῖς), reason is hindered (Virt. mor. 448a; cf. Josephus, A.J. 16.100).Footnote 34 In short, ancient Greek words of the root ἐμπαθ- do not correspond to English “empathy” with the latter’s emphasis on resonating with the experience of another.
By contrast, words from συμπαθ- are far more frequent, occurring not only in the noun (συμπάθεια) and adjectival forms (συμπαθής), but also in the common verbs συμπάσχω and συμπαθέω. Sometimes, it simply expresses sadness for the situation of another person, as in a saying of Epicurus: “let us sympathize with our friends, not by lamenting but by paying attention” (συμπαθῶμεν τοῖς φίλοις οὐ θρηνοῦντες ἀλλὰ φροντίζοντες, frag. 66; cf. Polybius, Hist. 15.25.18).Footnote 35 Often, however, it denotes a stronger relationship of mutual integration, particularly in philosophical and medical texts concerning the interaction between body, mind, or soul and among the parts of a body. According to the Aristotelian Physionomica, “thoughts appear greatly changed by the experiences of the body” (πολὺ γὰρ ἐξαλλάττουσαι φαίνονται αἱ διάνοιαι ὑπὸ τῶν τοῦ σώματος παθημάτων) as conversely “the body suffers together with the experiences of the soul” (τοῖς τῆς ψυχῆς παθήμασι τὸ σῶμα συμπάσχον, 805a5–6). Again, later, “it seems that the soul and body suffer within each other” (δοκεῖ ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ τὸ σῶμα συμπαθεῖν ἀλλήλοις, 808b11–12; see also An. pr. 70b16; Chrysippus, SVF 2.899; Ps.-Hippocrates, Ep. 23.9–10).Footnote 36 In a second-century CE diagnosis for epilepsy, Aretaeus observes the challenge of distinguishing between disease that originates in the head versus that originating in the body, because “the midsections of the body suffer more together with the head” (ξυμπαθέει γὰρ κεφαλῇ τὰ μέσα μᾶλλον, De curatione diuturnorum morborum 1.4.5; cf. Aristotle, Probl. 961b19).Footnote 37 Galen, his contemporary, defines “sympathy” (συμπάθεια) as “one part suffering together with another” (τὸ σὺν ἑτέρῳ πάσχον, De locis affectis 3.1), that is, “the affects arising in accordance with the sympathy of another body part” (τὰ κατὰ συμπάθειαν ἑτέρου μορίου γινόμενα πάθη), which is distinguished from those that arise separately from local infection (κατὰ ἰδιοπάθειαν, 1.3; cf. 3.7).Footnote 38 Philo uses the verb in a similar sense, explaining the intimate connection between the sense of sight and the soul, observing that “the eyes suffer together entirely with the experiences of the soul” (συνόλως τοῖς τῆς ψυχῆς πάθεσι συμπάσχουσιν ὀφθαλμοί, Spec. 3.194).Footnote 39
The sympathetic interaction between the parts of a human body is occasionally correlated with the cosmos, especially in Stoic metaphysics. Sextus Empiricus, for instance, reports a claim held by some that “the cosmos is also a body” (καὶ ὁ κόσμος σῶμά ἐστιν), and that in contrast to other composite entities it “is a unity” (ἡνωμένον) as evident “from the sympathies around it” (ἐκ τῶν περὶ αὐτὸν συμπαθειῶν, Math. 9.79). Whereas with a composite, “the parts do not sympathize with each other” (οὐ συμπάσχει τὰ μέρη ἀλλήλοις), the cosmos is like a body, such that “as when a finger is cut, the entire body is affected together” (εἴγε δακτύλου τεμνομένου τὸ ὅλον συνδιατίθεται σῶμα, 9.80).Footnote 40 Or as Epictetus has it, “all things are a unity” (ἡνῶσθαι τὰ πάντα), and accordingly “earthly things sympathize with heavenly things” (συμπαθεῖν τὰ ἐπίγεια τοῖς οὐρανίοις, Diatr. 1.14.2).Footnote 41 According to Philo, Moses also confirmed “the fellowship and sympathy of everything in the parts” (τῇ μὲν ἐν τοῖς μέρεσι κοινωνίᾳ καὶ συμπαθείᾳ τοῦ παντός, Migr. 180).Footnote 42
On occasion, the sharing of mental states could be compared to involuntary physical mimicry, as when Socrates describes Critias, “seeing me [Socrates] in a state of aporia, as those who see others yawn in front of them experience the very same thing [ταὐτὸν τοῦτο συμπάσχουσιν], he also seemed to be compelled by my being in aporia and himself to be seized by aporia” (Plato, Charm. 169c).Footnote 43 In this instance, the shared experience (συμπάσχω) of a yawn brought about involuntarily is likened to the intellectual and emotional contagion of reaching the dead end of a philosophical inquiry.
Elsewhere, Plato deploys similar language in describing the effects of mimetic poetry on an audience. Upon hearing Homer or a tragedian “imitating any of the heroes in grief. . . we rejoice and follow along, fully immersing our own selves and suffering together” (μιμουμένου τινὰ τῶν ἡρώων ἐν πένθει ὄντα. . . χαίρομέν τε καὶ ἐνδόντες ἡμᾶς αὐτοὺς ἑπόμεθα συμπάσχοντες, Resp. 10.605d).Footnote 44 Plato’s Socrates, of course, disapproves of this because it provokes audiences to adopt such moral behaviors through imitation—in this case excessive public mourning and lamentation—which they may otherwise be inclined to avoid (605e–606b). Indeed, as he argues earlier in the Republic, mimetic performance also corrupts those playing the roles of the wicked, and thus Socrates would forbid it for guardians: “they must not be accustomed to liken themselves to madmen either in words or deeds” (οὐδὲ μαινομένοις ἐθιστέον ἀφομοιοῦν αὑτοὺς ἐν λόγοις οὐδὲ ἐν ἔργοις, 3.396a), although perhaps one might “imitate the noble man acting with steadfastness and intelligence” (μιμούμενος τὸν ἀγαθὸν ἀσφαλῶς τε καὶ ἐμφρόνως πράττοντα, Resp. 396c).Footnote 45
Plato’s successors do not, for the most part, adopt such a stark view of the moral consequences of imitation. Aristotle, while similarly speaking of the sympathetic effects of mimetic poetry—“in listening to representations, they all become sympathetic” (ἀκροώμενοι τῶν μιμήσεων γίγνονται πάντες συμπαθεῖς, Pol. 8.5.1340a 12–13)—is much more sanguine about its influences on audiences.Footnote 46 In the Poetics, he does not focus on sympathy with those who suffer but defines the tragic genre as a “representation [μίμησις] of an action” that has the ability to “accomplish a catharsis of such sufferings though pity and fear” (δι’ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν, Poet. 1449b).Footnote 47 As David Konstan notes, for Aristotle, “pity” (ἔλεος) differs from “sympathy” (συμπάσχω, συλλυπέομαι, συναλγέω, συνάχθομαι). Whereas the latter means “to ‘condole’ or ‘feel pain together’ with another,” in a strong sense of “shared identity,” “[i]n the case of pity, we do not experience the pain of the other directly. Rather, the pain entailed in pity, according to Aristotle, derives from the awareness that we might ourselves suffer a like misfortune.”Footnote 48
In short, the foregoing survey has established that in ancient Greek, as in English prior to 1909, concepts that are now associated with empathy in popular and academic usage were expressed not with words of the root ἐμπαθ- but of συμπαθ-. Analysis of empathy in antiquity, therefore, must proceed from the latter.Footnote 49 The lexicon of shared or mutual suffering is only the starting point, however, as the Hellenistic world furnished various conceptual paradigms for it. Sympathetic interconnectivity was prominent in medical texts concerning disease in the body and in philosophical speculations about the body and soul, both of individuals and of the cosmos itself. Mimetic poetry, and tragedy in particular, also provided a paradigm for empathy wherein audiences and actors would suffer as if they were another through what contemporary psychology might describe as emotional contagion or cognitive perspective-taking. As shall be seen in the subsequent sections, these cultural and intellectual contexts all contribute in various ways to how early Christians formulated their attitudes toward mutual and vicarious suffering.
The Apostle Paul: Empathy between Christ and Community
Shared and imitative experiences of adversity were central to the Apostle Paul’s religious vision. In his earliest extant epistle, he commends the Thessalonians, saying that in undergoing persecution, “you yourselves also became imitators of us and of the Lord” (καὶ ὑμεῖς μιμηταὶ ἡμῶν ἐγενήθητε καὶ τοῦ κυρίου, 1 Thess 1:6), and adds “you became imitators because you suffered the same things” (ὑμεῖς γὰρ μιμηταὶ ἐγενήθητε. . . ὅτι τὰ αὐτὰ ἐπάθετε, 2:14). Throughout his subsequent writings, the violent execution of Jesus and his own personal encounters with physical hardships, beatings, and imprisonments remain prominent with recurrent focus on collective and mutual participation. Paul only rarely uses specific terminology associated with sympathy or empathy as discussed above (συμπάσχω, Rom 8:17; 1 Cor 12:26), but the concept of resonating with the pain (or joy) of another permeates his writings. This section focuses on three interrelated themes in Paul’s undisputed epistles that illuminate his understanding of empathy: first, Christ’s vicarious suffering wherein he came to feel not merely for humans but as one; second, Christ’s followers being in him, that is, union with Christ, as an imaginative and imitative phenomenon with both cognitive and affective aspects; third, humans mutually resonating with the perspectives of each other, especially within the ritual community instantiated as one body.
A. Paul’s Empathetic Christology
Among the most definitive characteristics of Paul’s writings is that Christ’s death was for the sake of sins and sinners (e.g., 1 Cor 15:3–4; Rom 5:6–8). This was accomplished with a divinely appointed exchange such that Christ did not merely die, but immersed himself fully into the experience of the human condition. For instance, Paul writes, “though he did not know sin, [God] made him sin for our sake in order that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (τὸν μὴ γνόντα ἁμαρτίαν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἁμαρτίαν ἐποίησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς γενώμεθα δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ, 2 Cor 5:21).Footnote 50 Thus, to reconcile humans to God, Christ became what they were (but he was not). Again, similarly, “though rich, he became poor because of you in order that you by his poverty might become rich” (δι’ ὑμᾶς ἐπτώχευσεν πλούσιος ὤν, ἵνα ὑμεῖς τῇ ἐκείνου πτωχείᾳ πλουτήσητε, 2 Cor 8:9). In Galatians, where Paul is concerned with the function of Jewish law, he asserts that “in order to redeem those under the law” (ἵνα τοὺς ὑπὸ νόμον ἐξαγοράσῃ) God’s son not only “came from a woman” (γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός) but also “came under the law” (γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον, Gal 4:4–5; see also 3:13).
For Paul, Christ’s vicarious experience was not merely empathetic, that is, cognitive or affective; rather, the suffering of physical death was necessary to release humanity from the power of sin and death. Even so, Paul sometimes characterizes Christ’s capacity to feel what humans do with empathetic qualities. In the so-called Christ Hymn (Phil 2:6–11), for example, his appearance as a human entails what Susan Eastman describes as “mimetic participation.”Footnote 51 This is evident in some of its terminology evoking theatrical drama to conceptualize Christ as role-playing, in particular, his alteration of “form”—moving from “existing in the form of God” (μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων, 2:6) to subsequently “taking on the form of a slave” (μορφὴν δούλου λαβών)—and being “found in appearance as a human” (σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος, 2:7). Regarding a σχῆμα, for instance, Eastman notes it can refer to what an actor would deploy to embody their role on stage.Footnote 52 Michael Cover develops specific resonances with Euripides’s Bacchae, where the appearance of the god Dionysus as a human similarly involves a change in μορφή, as he declares that he “exchanged the form of a god for a mortal” (μορφὴν δ’ ἀμείψας ἐκ θεοῦ βροτησίαν, Bacchae 4) and again, “I have altered my form into the nature of a man” (μορφήν τ’ ἐμὴν μετέβαλον εἰς ἀνδρὸς φύσιν, 54).Footnote 53 By contrast to the Christ Hymn, however, where Jesus is celebrated because he “came in the likeness of humans,” (ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος, Phil 2:7), at the conclusion of the Bacchae Cadmus complains against Dionysus that “it is not proper for gods to liken themselves to mortals in their tempers” (ὀργὰς πρέπει θεοὺς οὐχ ὁμοιοῦσθαι βροτοῖς, Bacchae 1348). This critique of Dionysus represents a reversal of popular ideas of piety wherein the human aspired to become like god by way of imitation or mystical ascent (Plato, Phaedr. 252e–253c; Theaet. 176a–c); in the Bacchae, as also in the Christ Hymn, it is the deity who likens himself to humanity.Footnote 54 In the case of Jesus, in contrast to the tragic Dionysus, his immersion within human form and likeness allows him to experience their pain as one of them through the process of self-humiliation (ἐταπείνωσεν ἑαυτόν) and mortality (μέχρι θανάτου, Phil 2:8).
In short, Paul’s Christ through vicarious sufferings came to feel humans’ predicament of sin, humiliation, and mortality as his own in order to deliver them from judgment into resurrected life. Paul falls short, however, of psychologizing this process in modern terms associated with empathy. As shall be seen below, by contrast, the Epistle to the Hebrews suggests such a process of Christ’s cognitive development (esp. Heb 5:8). Nevertheless, Paul’s conception of the immersion of Christ into the human situation becomes paradigmatic for how those who believe in him might in turn be united with the sufferings of Christ and of each other, both involving empathy.
B. Empathizing with Christ
As Paul understood Christ to have endured bodily affliction as a human, he insists, conversely, that believers should suffer as Christ suffered. Whereas the former involved literal physical adversity, the latter is envisioned differently. That is, while Paul certainly maintained that he and other Christ-followers may similarly undergo violent persecution and even death at the hands of hostile mobs or civic and imperial authorities, to suffer with Christ entailed more than this. Participation in or union with Christ, as scholars have variously described it, has several of the defining characteristics of empathy, as also does the inverse corollary of the exchange described in the previous section.Footnote 55 Whereas Christ became poor, sin, and mortal, now it is those in him who die his death: “one died for all, therefore all died” (εἷς ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀπέθανεν· ἄρα οἱ πάντες ἀπέθανον) with the result that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold, they have become new” (εἴ τις ἐν Χριστῷ, καινὴ κτίσις· τὰ ἀρχαῖα παρῆλθεν, ἰδοὺ γέγονεν καινά, 2 Cor 5:14, 17). Or, in Galatians, “I am crucified with Christ, and I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι· ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγώ, ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Χριστός, Gal 2:19–20), so that in some mysterious sense Christ’s death is also Paul’s death, and his life is Paul’s life (cf. Gal 5:24).Footnote 56
Being “in Christ” entails matching the human condition to that of Christ as he had matched his to humanity. Thus, for instance, in Philippians there is a symmetry between Paul’s desire to “gain Christ and be found in him” (Χριστὸν κερδήσω καὶ εὑρεθῶ ἐν αὐτῷ, Phil 3:8–9), and Christ having been “found in appearance as a human” (σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος, 2:7).Footnote 57 In this case, there is a cognitive component, as Paul’s concern is “to know him, the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, by being transformed to his death” (τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτὸν καὶ τὴν δύναμιν τῆς ἀναστάσεως αὐτοῦ καὶ κοινωνίαν παθημάτων αὐτοῦ, συμμορφιζόμενος τῷ θανάτῳ αὐτοῦ, 3:10). As a result, at the eschaton Christ would “alter the appearance of the body of our humiliation into a form in common with the body of his glory” (μετασχηματίσει τὸ σῶμα τῆς ταπεινώσεως ἡμῶν σύμμορφον τῷ σώματι τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ, 3:21). Again, this terminology echoes the Christ Hymn: whereas Christ had changed form (μορφή) to match humanity (2:6–7), now humans would be changed to share his form (συμμορφιζόμενος; σύμμορφον; likewise μετασχηματίσει [3:21] and σχῆμα [2:7]; see also 2 Cor 3:18; Rom 8:29).
Elsewhere Paul speaks of sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection with the verb συμπάσχω. In Romans 8, he expands on the exchange of death and life, sin and righteousness by focusing on the spirit (πνεῦμα) who dwells within those who are in Christ (Rom 8:9–11) resulting in their adoption by God (8:15–16). To this, Paul adds, “if we are children, then we are also heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ, if we suffer with him in order that we might also be glorified with him” (εἰ δὲ τέκνα, καὶ κληρονόμοι· κληρονόμοι μὲν θεοῦ, συγκληρονόμοι δὲ Χριστοῦ, εἴπερ συμπάσχομεν ἵνα καὶ συνδοξασθῶμεν, 8:17). This shared, sympathetic affliction is not merely human or individualistic but also cosmic, which Paul articulates by way of several additional σύν- prefixed verbs: “the entire creation groans and suffers together the pains of childbirth until now. . . and we ourselves also groan within ourselves” (πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις συστενάζει καὶ συνωδίνει ἄχρι τοῦ νῦν. . . ἡμεῖς καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐν ἑαυτοῖς στενάζομεν, 8:22–23). Here Paul evokes a notion of cosmic sympathy familiar in antiquity, as noted in section two above, particularly among Stoics who viewed the cosmos as a living, rational organism.Footnote 58
It is clear, therefore, that the participation of Christ-believers in his afflictions and death resounds throughout Paul’s writings. What this entails practically, however, is less obvious, and scholars have struggled to offer a coherent account.Footnote 59 In some instances, Paul envisions this as an embrace of physical adversity, as in 2 Corinthians when he lists numerous afflictions and persecutions, then comments that we “always carry about the dying of Jesus in our body in order that the life of Christ might also be made manifest in our body” (πάντοτε τὴν νέκρωσιν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματι περιφέροντες, ἵνα καὶ ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματι ἡμῶν φανερωθῇ, 2 Cor 4:10; see also Gal 6:14). And some subsequent Christians would pursue their own martyrdoms with the explicit intention of imitating Christ (e.g., Mart. Pol. 1.2; see also Col 1:24).
More often for Paul, however, participation in Christ’s sufferings could be achieved in other ways. On the one hand, it was cognitive, to be comprehended intellectually as implied by Paul’s use of the verb γιγνώσκω in his desire “to know the fellowship of his sufferings” (Phil 3:10, emphasis added; see above). This mental aspect of participation is corroborated earlier in the same epistle when Paul introduces the Christ Hymn by exhorting readers to “have this thought in yourselves which is also in Christ Jesus” (τοῦτο φρονεῖτε ἐν ὑμῖν ὃ καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, Phil 2:5). That is, the Philippians should “in humility regard each other as superior to themselves” (τῇ ταπεινοφροσύνῃ ἀλλήλους ἡγούμενοι ὑπερέχοντας ἑαυτῶν, 2:3), just as also Christ “humbled himself” (ἐταπείνωσεν ἑαυτόν) in obedience to the point of death (2:8). Elsewhere, Paul expressed a similar idea with the noun μιμητής. Claiming not to “pursue my personal advantage but that of the many” (ζητῶν τὸ ἐμαυτοῦ σύμφορον ἀλλὰ τὸ τῶν πολλῶν), he exhorts the Corinthians, “become imitators of me just as I am also of Christ” (μιμηταί μου γίνεσθε, καθὼς κἀγὼ Χριστοῦ, 1 Cor 10:33–11:1; see also 1 Thess 1:6; 2:14).
To suffer with Christ, therefore, is empathetic in that it entails perspective-taking and matching one’s mental state to that of the other. Moreover, it is mimetic not only ethically, as noted above, but also through ritual performance. This latter aspect arises from Paul’s view of baptism as a reenactment of Christ’s death and resurrection. While Jewish ritual washings were prescribed in Mosaic Law (e.g., Lev 15:1–30; Num 19:14–22) and practiced widely, including for sectarian initiations (e.g., Essenes: Josephus, B.J. 2.138; John the Baptist: Josephus, A.J. 18.116–119; Mark 1:4), for Paul it had additional significance: one was “baptized into [Christ’s] death” (εἰς τὸν θάνατον αὐτοῦ ἐβαπτίσθημεν, Rom 6:3) and “buried with him” (συνετάφημεν οὖν αὐτῷ), resulting in resurrection from the dead to “walk in the newness of life” (ἐν καινότητι ζωῆς περιπατήσωμεν, 6:4).Footnote 60 This mimetic death and resurrection resembles Greco-Roman mysteries where initiates might reenact the experience of a deity in the etiological myth. At Eleusis, for instance, Demeter’s torch-lit, night-long wanderings in search of Persephone were reperformed by the initiates as a symbolic enactment of their own death and rebirth (Aristophanes, Ran. 440–446; Plutarch, frag. 178; Clement, Protr. 2.17.1). Similarly, Apuleius’s fictional devotee of Isis reports after his ritual washings, “I approached the boundary of death and. . . returned” (accessi confinium mortis et. . . remeavi, Metam. 11.23).Footnote 61 Analogously, Paul’s baptismal initiates “have become kindred with the likeness of [Christ’s] death” and also his “resurrection” (σύμφυτοι γεγόναμεν τῷ ὁμοιώματι τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ. . . τῆς ἀναστάσεως, Rom 6:5; cf. ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας, Rom 8:3; ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων, Phil 2:7).Footnote 62 For those who have undergone this ritual performance, Paul returns again to its cognitive aspect: we “know this, that our old self was crucified with [him]” (τοῦτο γινώσκοντες, ὅτι ὁ παλαιὸς ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος συνεσταυρώθη), and thus he concludes “consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς λογίζεσθε ἑαυτοὺς [εἶναι] νεκροὺς μὲν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ ζῶντας δὲ τῷ θεῷ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, Rom 6:6, 11, emphasis added).
Participating in the sufferings of Christ, therefore, is multivalent, reciprocally involving Christ in humanity and humans in Christ. Both entail qualities of empathy. As discussed in the preceding section, Paul’s Christ matched his experience to the human condition, and so he exhorts them to participate in Christ vicariously, to tune their own mental, moral, and emotional states to his, to come to feel as he feels. This can occur through an imaginative reconstruction of Christ’s death, to think oneself into Christ’s place, or in the case of baptism, to reenact it through ritual. In the language of modern psychology, it is affective matching and other-oriented—in this case Christ-oriented—perspective taking.
C. Paul’s Empathetic Community
The reciprocal dynamics of union between Christ and his devotees discussed above function for Paul as a paradigm of empathy within the human community. As Christ took the “form of a slave” (Phil 2:7) and came “under the law in order to redeem those under the law” (Gal 4:4–5), in his own mission Paul envisions himself as adapting his persona to his target audience. He claims, “although I am free from all, I made myself a slave to all” (Ἐλεύθερος γὰρ ὢν ἐκ πάντων πᾶσιν ἐμαυτὸν ἐδούλωσα, 1 Cor 9:19), and although himself not subject to the law, he became “as though under the law to those under the law” (τοῖς ὑπὸ νόμον ὡς ὑπὸ νόμον, 9:20). Paul’s objective in matching his condition to his audience was the success of his mission—“that I might win more” (ἵνα τοὺς πλείονας κερδήσω, 9:19)—and in addition to adopting Jewish and other ethnic identities he even undertook their lowly condition, becoming “weak to the weak” (τοῖς ἀσθενέσιν ἀσθενής, 9:22; see also 1 Cor 4:10; Heb 4:15; and Isa 53:3–4 in Matt 8:17 below). In short, “I became all things to all people in order that by all means I might save some” (τοῖς πᾶσιν γέγονα πάντα, ἵνα πάντως τινὰς σώσω, 1 Cor 9:22). These moves function for Paul, presumably, as a mode of other-oriented perspective-taking, placing himself into the situation of another, through imagination or imitation, in order to understand and relate to the experience of people with different background and identities.
For those within the Jesus movement, Paul conceived of the community as a single body constituted by ritual reenactment of Christ’s death and resurrection. In addition to baptism (see above on Rom 6:3–6), he viewed the cup of Lord’s supper as “fellowship in Christ’s blood” (κοινωνία. . . τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ) and the bread as “fellowship in Christ’s body” (κοινωνία τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ), adding, “because there is one loaf of bread, we the many are one body, for we all share from one loaf of bread” (ὅτι εἷς ἄρτος, ἓν σῶμα οἱ πολλοί ἐσμεν, οἱ γὰρ πάντες ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς ἄρτου μετέχομεν, 1 Cor 10:16–17). A similar unity of body results from baptism: “we are all baptized into one body” (ἡμεῖς πάντες εἰς ἓν σῶμα ἐβαπτίσθημεν), even as “we were all made to drink one spirit” (πάντες ἓν πνεῦμα ἐποτίσθημεν, 1 Cor 12:13). This language appears to reflect a common liturgy. A related formula occurs in Galatians—for those “baptized into Christ” (εἰς Χριστὸν ἐβαπτίσθητε), “you are all one in Christ Jesus” (πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστε ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, Gal 3:27–28)—and in both cases baptismal unity transcends human divisions, “whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free” (1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:28 adds “male and female”; cf. Col 3:11). What stands out in Paul’s Corinthian formulation is his emphasis on the “one body” (ἓν σῶμα) of Christ and its application to an extended physiological metaphor in critique of factionalism: “just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body are a single body although they are many, so also is Christ” (Καθάπερ γὰρ τὸ σῶμα ἕν ἐστιν καὶ μέλη πολλὰ ἔχει, πάντα δὲ τὰ μέλη τοῦ σώματος πολλὰ ὄντα ἕν ἐστιν σῶμα, οὕτως καὶ ὁ Χριστός, 1 Cor 12:12).Footnote 63 Paul then adds that each part of the body, whether a hand, eye, or foot, whether weak or honorable, all constitute one and the same body according to God’s arrangement (12:15–25). There must, therefore, be no division, but “the members should devote the same care for one another” (τὸ αὐτὸ ὑπὲρ ἀλλήλων μεριμνῶσιν τὰ μέλη, 12:25).
Paul’s body metaphor concludes with a comment on shared experiences of suffering and joy: “if one member suffers, all the members suffer together; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice together” (καὶ εἴτε πάσχει ἓν μέλος, συμπάσχει πάντα τὰ μέλη· εἴτε δοξάζεται ἓν μέλος, συγχαίρει πάντα τὰ μέλη, 1 Cor 12:26). This introduction of συμπάσχω evokes the technical discourses in medicine concerning sympathetic integration discussed above in section two. Mutually interconnected parts of a body are inevitably affected by diseases arising from each other, from which Paul draws a social and psychological application: each member, ritually connected within the body of Christ, must necessarily feel along with the other.
In these ways, Paul’s formulations resemble modern notions of empathy. Shared pain and joy in the body of Christ may be the result of cognitive perspective-taking, affect matching, or even emotional contagion. As contemporary psychologists understand this to be an imaginative process, Paul instructs members of the Jesus movement to envision themselves through ritual participation in Christ’s body as united one with another. Moreover, by sympathetic union in Christ’s sufferings, they are connected by the divine spirit with the affliction of the entire creation—metaphysically and mystically—in anticipation of the final apocalyptic revelation.
Suffering with the Other in the Epistle to the Hebrews
Among early Christian writings, the Epistle to the Hebrews articulates particularly similar conceptions to those of Paul concerning Christ’s identification with humanity and the expectation that the community embrace one another’s adversities as their own. The anonymous author was influenced by the Pauline corpus, either directly or indirectly, and may even have consciously imitated him.Footnote 64 As this section demonstrates, the two share an empathetic Christology, while diverging in a number of important respects.
As expressed by Paul (e.g., Phil 2:6–11), the Christ of Hebrews was preexistent (Heb 1:1–4; cf. Col 1:15–20) and prior to his final glorification underwent a period of voluntary, temporary self-abasement (e.g., Heb 2:9).Footnote 65 Nevertheless, in Hebrews Christ’s affinity with humanity is articulated in different terms than by Paul. While the latter can convey Christ’s ethnic kinship as the “seed” (σπέρμα) of Abraham (Gal 3:16) or David (Rom 1:3) or more broadly by way of juxtaposition with Adam (Rom 5:12–21), Hebrews emphasizes a sibling relationship. As God’s unique child (υἱός: Heb 1:2, 1:5–14; 3:6; 4:14; 5:8; 6:6; 7:28; 10:29), he leads “many children into glory. . . though his sufferings” (πολλοὺς υἱοὺς εἰς δόξαν. . . διὰ παθημάτων, 2:10). Because he and they are made holy “all from one. . . he is not ashamed to call them siblings” (ἐξ ἑνὸς πάντες. . . οὐκ ἐπαισχύνεται ἀδελφοὺς αὐτοὺς καλεῖν, 2:11; cf. Rom 8:29). The author further emphasizes the human materiality of this kinship: “since, then, the children share in blood and flesh, he himself also partook closely in the same things” (ἐπεὶ οὖν τὰ παιδία κεκοινώνηκεν αἵματος καὶ σαρκός, καὶ αὐτὸς παραπλησίως μετέσχεν τῶν αὐτῶν, Heb 2:14; cf. Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 5:18). As it was through his own death he was able to destroy the power of death (Heb 2:14–15), “he had to be made like his siblings in every way in order to become merciful” (ὤφειλεν κατὰ πάντα τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ὁμοιωθῆναι, ἵνα ἐλεήμων γένηται, 2:17; cf. ὁμοίωμα above in Phil 2:7; Rom 8:3). Thus, Christ’s embrace of mortality was crucial not only for the atonement but also because it enabled him in turn to assist others: “in what he himself suffered, having been tested, he is able to help those who are being tested” (ἐν ᾧ γὰρ πέπονθεν αὐτὸς πειρασθείς, δύναται τοῖς πειραζομένοις βοηθῆσαι, Heb 2:18). The parallelism between passive participles (πειρασθείς, πειραζομένοις) underscores the correspondence between Christ’s trials and those of his human counterparts.Footnote 66
The author returns to similar themes in Heb 4:14–16, reintroducing Christ as “high priest” (4:14; cf. 2:17, 3:1), now adding the language of “sympathy”: “for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but who is tested in every way and likeness but without sin” (οὐ γὰρ ἔχομεν ἀρχιερέα μὴ δυνάμενον συμπαθῆσαι ταῖς ἀσθενείαις ἡμῶν, πεπειρασμένον δὲ κατὰ πάντα καθ’ ὁμοιότητα χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας, 4:15). Again there is a passive participle of πειράω (as in 2:18), here with the noun ὁμοιότης instead of the verb ὁμοιόω (2:17). The author adds, moreover, as in 2:18 that Jesus’s involvement in human trials and weaknesses are what enable him to show mercy so that his followers might “find grace for timely assistance” (χάριν εὕρωμεν εἰς εὔκαιρον βοήθειαν, 4:16). Thus, the verb “to sympathize” (συμπαθέω) here suggests complete immersion into the experience of another (“in every way but without sin”), which is in keeping with the range of meanings discussed above (section two). And Christ’s placement into the situation of others, to feel what they feel, has additional qualities of empathy.Footnote 67 For instance, the author adds a cognitive dimension: “he learned obedience from the things he suffered” (ἔμαθεν ἀφ’ ὧν ἔπαθεν τὴν ὑπακοήν, 5:8).Footnote 68 In this way, Hebrews goes beyond Paul; whereas Paul also speaks of Christ’s obedience (e.g., Phil 2:8; Rom 5:19) and its paradigmatic function for human imitation, for Hebrews it qualifies him fully to understand their condition, which may be characterized as Christ’s perspective-taking.
This reading of συμπαθέω in Heb 4:15 is corroborated by the other use of this verb in Hebrews. In 10:32–34, the author provides a practical example of the kinds of adversities the community might undergo together, recalling a recent occasion in which “you endured a great trial of sufferings” (πολλὴν ἄθλησιν ὑπεμείνατε παθημάτων, 10:32). This occurred in two distinct ways: “on the one hand, by being publicly paraded with insults and afflictions and, on the other, by becoming sharers with those treated in this way” (τοῦτο μὲν ὀνειδισμοῖς τε καὶ θλίψεσιν θεατριζόμενοι, τοῦτο δὲ κοινωνοὶ τῶν οὕτως ἀναστρεφομένων γενηθέντες, 10:33). The latter is elaborated, “you sympathized with the prisoners” (τοῖς δεσμίοις συνεπαθήσατε), resulting in the seizure of their own property, which they accepted “with joy” (μετὰ χαρᾶς, 10:34).Footnote 69 In this case as with Christ in Heb 4:15, συμπαθέω involves actual entrance into the sufferings of others and taking them on as one’s own. Beyond the cognitive and affective aspects of empathy, they stood in solidarity with the prisoners thereby becoming victims along with them.Footnote 70
Care for prisoners is taken up again in Hebrews’ final chapter (13:3), in the so-called paraenetic section, devoted to a series of practical moral instructions.Footnote 71 The exhortations are introduced with “let sibling-love remain” (Ἡ φιλαδελφία μενέτω, 13:1), recalling the earlier claims about the kinship relationship between Jesus and the other children of God (esp. 2:10–18).Footnote 72 In keeping with broader usage in the Jesus movement, ἀδελφοί extends beyond biological relationships (e.g., Heb 3:1, 12), and accordingly the first application of φιλαδελφία is “do not neglect hospitality to strangers” (τῆς φιλοξενίας μὴ ἐπιλανθάνεσθε, 13:2).Footnote 73 Φιλοξενία concerns attending not merely to those outside one’s own family, but beyond one’s community or city, that is, foreigners.Footnote 74 Such hospitality was a prominent value among some early Christians (e.g., Matt 25:35–45; Acts 10:23; 28:7; Rom 12:13; 1 Tim 3:2; 1 Pet 4:9; Did 12:1–2; cf. 3 John 5), and Hebrews adds vivid urgency to the imperative by commenting that in doing so, “some were unaware that they were hosting angels” (ἔλαθόν τινες ξενίσαντες ἀγγέλους, Heb 13:2). This alludes most directly to Abraham (Gen 18:1–15) and Lot (Gen 19:1–23), but also more broadly to mythological tropes of divine visitors among humans (cf. Homer, Od. 17.485–487; Euripides, Bacch; Ovid, Meta. 8.612–727; Acts 14:8–18; see further below on Jesus in Matt 25:40, 45).
The very next exhortation is, “keep in mind the prisoners, as though imprisoned with them, as though you yourselves were also in body of those being mistreated” (μιμνῄσκεσθε τῶν δεσμίων ὡς συνδεδεμένοι, τῶν κακουχουμένων ὡς καὶ αὐτοὶ ὄντες ἐν σώματι, Heb 13:3). As with welcoming foreigners, concern for prisoners was prominent across the earliest Christian communities (Matt 25:36–43; Luke 4:17–21; Acts 12:11; 27:3; Phil 2:25–26; Col 4:10–14; Ignatius, Phil. 11:1–2; Eph. 2:1–2).Footnote 75 Recalling his earlier commendation (τοῖς δεσμίοις συνεπαθήσατε, Heb 10:34), the author now further emphasizes the need for empathy. The double ὡς clauses direct readers to undertake the cognitive exercise of imagining themselves into the place of the others, “as though” afflicted themselves, and to feel vicariously what the others feel even physically with them “in body” (ἐν σώματι, 13:3).Footnote 76
In light of this overview, I concur with Chee-Chiew Lee that “the word συμπαθέω in Heb 4:15 and 10:34 denotes a sense closer to empathy than to sympathy,” the former with reference to Jesus taking on human trials to understand their perspective, and the latter describing members of the community participating in each other’s persecutions.Footnote 77 Even so, among modern English versions, only the NIV translates συμπαθέω as “empathize.” The usage in Hebrews is also consistent with the survey of συμπαθέω and cognates above (in section two), as well as Pauline formulations of Christ’s identification with humanity and the expectation that those in him experience each other’s pain (συμπάσχω) and joy (συγχαίρω, 1 Cor 12:26).
This Christian regard for one another appears to have made an impression on outsiders. In the second century, Lucian of Samosata remarks that their founder taught Christians that “they are all siblings of one another” (ἀδελφοὶ πάντες εἶεν ἀλλήλων, Peregr. 13), and Lucian mocks them for their excessive and extravagant charity toward the imprisoned Peregrinus even though he was an outsider to their community (Peregr. 12–13).Footnote 78 Sibling love, thus broadly defined to entail care for prisoners and foreigners, occurs again significantly in the parable of Jesus discussed below.
Christ as Marginalized Other in the Gospel of Matthew
Jesus’s concern for the marginalized—the lowly, the sick, the outcast—is prominently attested across the New Testament gospels and their sources, from Mark and Q through the special material in Matthew, Luke, and John.Footnote 79 The Gospel of Matthew places Jesus’s pronouncements of blessing on the “poor,” the “hungry,” and “thirsty,” at the very start of his first public sermon (Matt 5:3, 6).Footnote 80 In this section, I analyze the conclusion of his last speech in this gospel, the Parable of the Sheep and Goats (25:31–46). Unique to Matthew, this pericope culminates familiar gospel themes so as to foreground the empathy of Jesus in surprising directions, making it central to the apocalyptic judgment and to a religious vision of compassion.
This parable is positioned at a turning point in the Gospel of Matthew, concluding Jesus’s eschatological discourse (24:1–25:46) and leading immediately into the passion narrative (26:1–27:66). It opens with common apocalyptic tropes familiar from scripture and related Jewish literature (25:31–32): the Son of Man comes in glory (also Matt 16:27; 19:28; 24:30; cf. Dan 7:13), sits on a throne to perform judgment (cf. 1 Enoch 62:5–16) with all kingdoms and nations gathered at the end of days (cf. Joel 3:1–12; Dan 7:9–14; 2 Baruch 29:1–30:5).Footnote 81 The subsequent parable is a creative product of the Jesus tradition, with sheep and goats representing the righteous and the wicked, respectively, separated to the right and left (Matt 25:33; cf. Ezek 34:17–22).Footnote 82 It is somewhat surprising that starting from verse 34 the judge is the “king” rather than the Son of Man and that the animals are able to converse with him. Most surprising, however, from the perspective of the narrative participants is the basis upon which they are judged and either enter life or eternal punishment. As the king reports to those on his right,
ἐπείνασα γὰρ καὶ ἐδώκατέ μοι φαγεῖν, ἐδίψησα καὶ ἐποτίσατέ με, ξένος ἤμην καὶ συνηγάγετέ με, γυμνὸς καὶ περιεβάλετέ με, ἠσθένησα καὶ ἐπεσκέψασθέ με, ἐν φυλακῇ ἤμην καὶ ἤλθατε πρός με.
For I was hungry and you gave something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was a foreigner and you brought me in, naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you visited me. (Matt 25:35–36)
Astonished, they ask when they encountered him in these conditions, repeating back to him the same six terms (25:37–39), to which he replies, “truly I say to you, as much as you did so for one of the least of these my siblings, you did for me” (ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐφ’ ὅσον ἐποιήσατε ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν ἀδελφῶν μου τῶν ἐλαχίστων, ἐμοὶ ἐποιήσατε, 25:40). Turning next to the goats on the left, the situation is reversed. The king curses them and sends them into the eternal fire because they failed to attend to him in his need (25:41), and both he and they repeat the same six conditions (25:42–44), followed with the conclusion, “as much as you did not do so for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” (ἐφ’ ὅσον οὐκ ἐποιήσατε ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν ἐλαχίστων, οὐδὲ ἐμοὶ ἐποιήσατε, 25:45).
While this parable is unattested in other gospel sources, it was already likely in circulation and adopted by Matthew from preexisting material.Footnote 83 It shares common elements with other of Matthew’s special material, such as the separation of wheat and the tares (Matt 13:24–30, 36–43) and the dragnet (13:47–50) which are integrated into a catena of Markan parables (Matt 13; Mark 4). At the same time, some of the king’s dialogue resembles formulaic sayings attributed to Jesus which Matthew shares with the other gospels. For instance, commissioning his disciples as itinerate prophets sent throughout the villages, Jesus declares, “whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me” (Ὁ δεχόμενος ὑμᾶς ἐμὲ δέχεται, καὶ ὁ ἐμὲ δεχόμενος δέχεται τὸν ἀποστείλαντά με, 10:40, apparently from Q; see also Luke 10:16; John 13:20). There is also a broader application to children: “and whoever receives one such child in my name receives me” (καὶ ὃς ἐὰν δέξηται ἓν παιδίον τοιοῦτο ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματί μου, ἐμὲ δέχεται, Matt 18:5, from Mark 9:37; see also Luke 9:48). In a slight variation, Matthew’s Jesus asserts, “whoever gives one of these little ones a single cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, he will never lose his reward” (ὃς ἂν ποτίσῃ ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν τούτων ποτήριον ψυχροῦ μόνον εἰς ὄνομα μαθητοῦ, ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐ μὴ ἀπολέσῃ τὸν μισθὸν αὐτοῦ, Matt 10:42). In the Markan source, by contrast, the recipients of this water are limited to Jesus’s disciples (Mark 9:41), and elsewhere Jesus commonly applies “my siblings” (ἀδελφοί) to them rather than humanity in general (Matt 12:46–50; 23:8; 28:10). Consequently, some have argued that “the least of these my siblings” envisioned in Matthew 25 are merely those Jesus sent out to preach.Footnote 84 Matthew’s tendency, however, is to expand these formulaic sayings (e.g., 10:42) and in Matt 25:31–46 he has broadened the range of marginalized conditions (hunger, thirst, foreignness, nakedness, sickness, and imprisonment), in each case with the king himself in place of the prospective recipient of charity. Moreover, that the identity of the king remains hidden and unknown to the sheep and goats until the judgment implies an obligation to care for all such people as potentially Christ in their midst.Footnote 85
That a divine person might be present among humans and in need of their hospitality or charity is attested in biblical traditions, such as the angels mentioned in Heb 13:2 (Gen 18:1–15; 19:1–23), or the proverb, “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord and will be repaid in full” (Prov 19:18 NRSVUE; see also 14:31). It also connects to distinctly Matthean portrayals of the ongoing presence of Jesus, from the opening where he is named “Emmanuel,” “God with us” (μεθ’ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός, Matt 1:23; cf. LXX Isa 7:14) to the closing promise, “I am with you for all days” (ἐγὼ μεθ’ ὑμῶν εἰμι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας, Matt 28:20; also, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them,” οὗ γάρ εἰσιν δύο ἢ τρεῖς συνηγμένοι εἰς τὸ ἐμὸν ὄνομα, ἐκεῖ εἰμι ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν, 18:20). Moreover, that Jesus himself bears the diseases and afflictions of the people is suggested in Matthew’s citation of Isaiah’s Servant of the Lord (Isa 53:3–4; Matt 8:16–17).Footnote 86
In short, the presence of Christ himself in the person of the afflicted draws together several motifs from the gospels while also heightening its urgency by orienting it within the apocalyptic judgment. That Jesus does not merely rescue the marginalized but identifies as them has striking implications for empathy in so far as it entails role-playing or an imaginative process of projecting oneself into the place of another. In this way, the parable connects to Christological themes in Paul and Hebrews discussed in the preceding sections. As Hebrews envisioned unknowingly entertaining angels (ξενίσαντες ἀγγέλους, Heb 13:2), Matthew places the king himself as a “foreigner” (ξένος) in need of hospitality, and whereas the Christ of Hebrews is able to “sympathize with our weaknesses” (συμπαθῆσαι ταῖς ἀσθενείαις ἡμῶν, Heb 4:15), in Matthew he is himself the sick (ἠσθένησα; ἀσθενής, Matt 25:36, 43). For Paul, likewise, the son of God himself became poor, humble, cursed, and lowly (e.g., 2 Cor 5:21; 8:9; Gal 3:13).Footnote 87 His Christ Hymn deploys the trope of a divine visitor, as suggested above, with the exchange of μορφή and alteration of σχῆμα evoking Euripides’s Bacchae where Dionysus is the archetypal foreigner (ξένος: Bacch. 233, 247, 353, 642, 1047, 1063, 1068, 1077) and even a prisoner (Bacch. 434–450). For failing to recognize his true deity and welcome him, Pentheus—as the goats in Jesus’s parable—was subjected to the most violent divine wrath.Footnote 88 In these ways, by depicting the son of God as present, disguised in human form in need or distress—as a foreigner or prisoner—Matthew positions empathy as central to a religious vision of compassion for the marginalized and abject.
Conclusions
The capacity to tune oneself with another, to assume an affective and cognitive state more appropriate to their circumstances has been variously defined as empathy, and researchers in psychology and neuroscience continue to analyze and theorize its causes and effects, from evolution and child development through regional brain activity. Related concepts are also attested in antiquity, albeit often under the terminology of συμπάθεια rather than ἐμπάθεια. These were formulated, for instance, in medical treatises evaluating the interconnectivity of parts of the body and philosophical speculation concerning body and soul and even the sympathetic unity of the entire cosmos.
When the Christ movement first emerged as a sect centered on the death of Jesus, such conceptualizations of shared suffering provided intellectual resources for its theological formulations. For the Apostle Paul, Christ’s complete, vicarious experience of the mortality of humans achieved their atonement, while their participation in his sufferings, in turn, through imitation, ritual enactment, and cognitive reflection transformed Christ’s followers into his image. These mutually empathetic interactions extended also to the community of believers as the body of Christ and beyond them to encapsulate the creation itself.
In the decades after Paul, empathy was expressed in various other ways. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews emphasizes that Christ was able to aid humans in their weaknesses because of the cognitive processes arising from his own sufferings, and later he exhorts his readers likewise to imagine themselves into the place of fellow Christ-followers in their afflictions. In a different context, the Gospel of Matthew envisions Christ in the marginalized person, specifying six abject conditions and making charitable assistance for such people the criterion for the final judgment and division between the sheep and goats. This surprising and radical mode of Christ’s empathy and his potential presence as “the least of these” form an ethical basis for acts of kindness and generosity toward the hungry, thirsty, foreigner, naked, sick, and imprisoned. These early Christian texts are largely unconcerned with the moral ambiguities of empathy or its potential harms, such as those articulated by Plato who warns against mimetic suffering or modern critics who highlight its limitations. Rather, for these earliest Christ-followers, empathy was central to their moral vision and a necessary condition for the salvation of the cosmos.
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