Marianne Blickenstaff

The Bloody Bridegroom: Violence in the Matthean Family

Copyright 2001

Recent cultural studies 1 demonstrate how Matthew redefines first-century Hellenistic and Roman concepts of "family" by replacing traditional domestic structures (consisting of blood relatives, and in wealthier families, also servants and perhaps clients) with a new theologically based family consisting of children of God the Father, called a "fictive family," "spiritual family," or "theological family" (Mt. 10:34-39; 12:46-50; 18:2-3; 19:14, 29-30; 23:9). The Matthean Jesus displaces earthly fathers with the heavenly Father (23:9) and defines his mother and brothers as "those that do the will of the Father in heaven" (12:46-50). He warns that he has come to disrupt existing family relationships: he sets a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law (Mt. 10:34-37; cf. Micah 7:6). Jesus promises rewards to those who have left their family of origin and their property to follow him (19:29-30), and he disapproves of another would-be disciple who first wants to bury his father (8:22). Though Jesus does reiterate the commandment to honor one's father and mother, Julian Sheffield has argued convincingly that Jesus is referring to the heavenly Father and the "mothers" represented by the new theological family.2

Building on this research, I propose that Jesus' fictive family can be defined not only as children of God the Father, but also as "the sons of the bridal chamber" (oi (ui(oi\ tou= numfw_noj) who celebrate Jesus' presence as a Bridegroom (9:15). Just as Matthew uses ui(o/j to identify a group of people or to denote close association, such as "Son of David" (12:23; 21:15), "sons of the Pharisees" (12:27), "sons of the kingdom" (13:38), "sons of the evil one" (13:38), and "sons of Gehenna" (23:15), so oi( ui(oi/ tou= numfw_noj (9:15), the "sons of the bridal chamber," is a designation for those who are worthy to share a spiritual kinship with Jesus the Bridegroom.

That the "sons of the bridal chamber" saying in Mt. 9:15 is sandwiched between two instances in which Jesus addresses someone as a child (te/knon in 9:2 and qu/gater in 9:22) is a clue to who the "sons of the bridal chamber" might be: those who take heart because their sins are forgiven and their faith has saved them. Jesus says to the paralyzed man: "Take heart, child [te/knon], your sins are forgiven" (9:2) and to the hemorrhaging woman, "Take heart, daughter [qu/gater], your faith has made you well" (9:22). These "children" represent the Bridegroom’s new spiritual family who take heart and cannot mourn, because the Bridegroom is with them (9:15). That Matthew uses the words te/knon and qu/gater instead of ui(oi/ to describe these individual members of the fictive family could suggest that the "sons of the bridal chamber" is gender-inclusive, because there are daughters among the ui(oi/, the "sons" or "children." Alternatively, Matthew could be suggesting, like the Gospel of Thomas, that women must "become male."3

Though the Bridegroom is the son of the Father in heaven and refers to his disciples as "brother, sister, and mother" (a)delpfo/j, a)delfh\, kai\ mh/thr) (12:46-50), he has a unique role in the fictive family. Just as his birth was extraordinary, Jesus' relationship to the fictive family is unusual and difficult to define in conventional terms. The Bridegroom is not merely one of the family but the celebrant of the wedding banquet, an honor he shares with no one else. Moreover, he is responsible for the creation of this new family, because his wedding banquet is the occasion for which they have left biological family ties and come together as fictive family.

As a liminal figure, the Bridegroom (who is promised but not yet married4) represents the liminality of those who are "betwixt and between," liminal both to the world and the kingdom of heaven, which is described as an eschatological wedding feast (22:1; 25:1). The fictive family's liminality is also expressed by the ambiguity of the Bridegroom's presence with them: the Bridegroom has been "delayed" (25:5), but says "I will be with you always" (28:20).

Church tradition identifies the Church as the bride waiting in this liminal period between resurrection and the parousia of the Bridegroom (cf. 1 Cor. 11:2). But the author of Matthew says nothing about the church as bride. The striking omission of a bride in the parable of the Ten Virgins (25:1-13), as well as in other references to the Bridegroom and wedding feast (9:14; 22:1-14) suggests that the Matthean Bridegroom never fulfills the role of husband but remains a bridegroom with his fictive family in a permanently liminal state.5

Jesus is a Bridegroom without a bride, who never enters a bridal chamber, presenting us with the paradox of a bridal chamber without sexual activity. Indeed, sexual contact is precluded throughout the gospel. The Bridegroom says that "it is better not to marry" (19:10), that the highest calling is to become "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven" (19:12), that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like children (19:13-14), and that in the resurrection there will be no marriage, as the resurrected will be "like the angels" (22:30). Thus, Matthew presents the irony of a bridegroom who disrupts marriage and sexuality. Moreover, his instruction to "become like eunuchs" and "children" suggests that the fictive family be non-procreative, as Brant Pitre has demonstrated.6

The "sons of the bridal chamber" are not a product of sexual union but adoptive members of the Bridegroom's family. Matthew's depiction of Jesus' unusual birth and infancy foreshadows the role of "father" in this fictive family: Jesus had no human father, but as Krister Stendahl has shown, he was engrafted into the theological family and lineage of Abraham and David through his adoptive father, Joseph.7 The only father begetting children in the new theological family is God the Father, whose method of creating "children" for the kingdom of heaven is not sexual, but involves incorporating new members by adoption into the theological family. Thus, the Bridegroom disrupts not only marriage and sexuality, but procreation and the traditional associations of family lineage.8

To this point, the fictive family celebrating the presence of the bridegroom is a joyous image, reminiscent of the joy associated with the bridegroom in prophecy and wisdom (e.g., Isa. 61:10; 62:5; Ps. 19:5/6). However, just as the Matthean Bridegroom redefines family construction, so too must conventional ideas about weddings be questioned. A major part of the Bridegroom's role in Matthew is to create dissension. Whereas Jesus fulfills the bridegroom's expected role of uniting families, he also divides them. And, whereas the wedding feast is depicted as a joyful celebration, Jesus the Bridegroom's wedding banquet is also an occasion for weeping, murder, violence, and expulsion from the community.

In the Parable of the Wedding Feast (Mt. 22:1-14; Lk. 14:16-24), a king hosts a wedding feast for his son, but the occasion quickly turns into a scene of horrific violence. The first invited guests not only refuse to come, they murder the messengers sent to invite them. The king becomes angry and orders the unworthy invitees to be killed and their city burned (22:1-7). In contrast to Matthew’s wedding feast, Luke’s version of the parable contains no violence: the invited guests refuse to come but do not kill the messengers, and the host, though angered by their refusal, does not retaliate. Many interpretations explain that the violence in Matthew’s redaction of the parable describes the destruction of Jerusalem, but this explanation exculpates Matthew of the parable's violent rhetoric. To delimit the import of the parable to the historical circumstances of 70 CE disregards the focus Matthew places on the Bridegroom and wedding feast as a context for separation and violence.

While Luke's version of the parable ends with the replacement of the unworthy guests, Matthew's redaction continues his focus on judgment to include even the newly invited company. When the king discovers a guest not wearing a wedding garment, he commands that the unfortunate man be bound hand and foot and expelled "into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth" (22:13). The king's abrupt action shocks the reader into realizing that those who manage to gain entrance to the feast are not guaranteed a place at the table, and that the Bridegroom's fictive family is perhaps not as all-inclusive as it seemed. Though one can never cease to be a biological relation, even if disinherited, one can be expelled from this new adoptive family and be forced to remain in the "outer darkness," the opposite of the joyful wedding banquet, a place where the Bridegroom is never present.

In the Parable of the Ten Virgins (25:1-13), anticipation of the Bridegroom's coming creates dissension between the ten women waiting in the darkness with their lamps. The division between the women echoes other instances where the Bridegroom's presence creates strife, such as between Jesus' and John's followers (9:14-15) and within families of origin (10:34-38; 19:29). While the exclusion of the five "foolish" virgins is not violent in the same sense as the Parable of the Wedding Feast, with its murder, burned city, and bound up guest, the Bridegroom inflicts psychological violence born of complete rejection when says to them "I have not known you," or "I have never known you"9 and leaves them in the darkness outside.

Most interpreters argue that the five "foolish" virgins and the man without a wedding garment deserve to be left out of the wedding feast because they were not adequately prepared.10 While this may be the point of the parables, I cannot help but notice that Matthew punishes not only these unworthy guests, but also the ones who are prepared and found worthy of the feast. The eschatological language in the Bridegroom-saying ("the days will come when the Bridegroom is taken away; then they will mourn and fast" in 9:15) and in the wedding parables links the Bridegroom thematically to violent eschatological judgment described in 24:3-44, where Matthew reveals that violence will affect not only those who are unprepared, but also the Bridegroom's own spiritual family. Indeed, it is precisely because of their allegiance to Jesus and their identity as "sons of the bridal chamber," they will be handed over to be tortured and executed (24:9) and will suffer as no one has ever suffered before (24:19). Matthew is clear that all will suffer and mourn (24:21, 30; cf. 9:15).

The violent images in Matthew’s wedding parables and the apocalyptic chapters in which they are found are akin to Revelation's version of the heavenly wedding feast for the bloody bridegroom: the New Jerusalem descends as a bride adorned for her husband, the Lamb, (Rev. 21:1-2, 9-10), who "stands as if slaughtered" (Rev. 5:6), who has slain the beast and burned the whore, whose blood has conquered the dragon (12:11), and whose sword and rod of iron have subdued the nations (19:15).11 In Revelation, the eschatological wedding feast is a time not only to rejoice in the Bridegroom's presence, but to revel in the atrocities with which he has vanquished his enemies.12

That a joyful wedding feast can turn to sorrow in the rhetoric of apocalyptic judgment is a theme also voiced by the prophets: "I will bring an end to the sound of mirth and gladness; the voice of the bride and bridegroom in the cities of Judah…" (Jer. 7:34; cf. 16:9; 25:10); and "Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her canopy" (Joel 2:16). Like the prophets, Matthew warns that there is a nebulous boundary between joy and sorrow in the liminal stage between waiting for the eschatological banquet and its fulfillment, between promise and final consummation, between being "out" and being "in." In this liminal stage, the members of the fictive family come to understand that their place at the banquet is not guaranteed, and that even their adoption into the Bridegroom's family does not assure an escape from violence in the final judgment.

1.  E.g., Stephen C. Barton, Discipleship and Family Ties in Matthew and Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Carolyn Osiek, "Jesus and Cultural Values: Family Life as an Example," Hervormde Teologiese Studies 53 (1997): 800-811;Warren Carter, Households and Discipleship: A Study of Matthew 19-20 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994) and idem Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2000); Anthony Saldarini, Matthew’s Christian Jewish Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994): 90-102; Michael H. Crosby, House of Disciples: Church, Economics, and Justice in Matthew (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988): 106-111; Jerome H. Neyrey, Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1998): 52-55; Halvor Moxnes, ed., Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor (New York: Routledge, 1997); Julian Sheffield, "The Father in the Gospel of Matthew," in A.-J. Levine, ed., A Feminist Companion to Matthew (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001): 52-69. 

2.  Sheffield, "The Father in the Gospel of Matthew," 65-67.

3.  Cf. Gospel of Thomas 114.

4.  See Amy-Jill Levine, "Matthew," in Sharon Ringe and Carol Newsom (eds.), The Women's Bible Commentary (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992): 256.

5.  For weddings as liminal settings, see Arnold Van Gennep, "Betrothal and Marriage," in idem, The Rites of Passage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960): 116-145; Victor Turner, The Ritual Process (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1969, 1995): 94-97, 102-112, 125-130; idem, "Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage," in idem, The Forest of Symbols (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967): 93-111; idem, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,1974): 231-270; André Couture, "Marriage as a Rite of Passage in World Religions," Ecumenism 108 (1992); Juha Pentikäinen, "The Symbolism of Liminality," in Religious Symbols and Their Functions (Haralds Beizais , ed.;Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1979):154-166.

6.  Brant Pitre, "Eunuchs for the Sake of the Kingdom." (paper presented at the annual meeting of the SBL. Boston, Mass., November, 1999), 18-21.

7.  Krister Stendahl, "Quis et Unde? An Analysis of Matthew 1-2," in The Interpretation of Matthew (ed. Graham N. Stanton; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995): 69-80.

8.  Whether the disruption of sexuality and gender roles brings gender equality as "children of the bridal chamber" or merely subsumes women into an all-male fraternity of "sons of the bridal chamber" is a topic I will pursue in other work.

9.  oi)=da is in the perfect tense, signaling a present condition resulting from past action, with the sense of "never."

10.  E.g., W.D. Davies and D.C. Allison, eds., The Gospel According to Matthew (3 vols.; ICC: Edinburgh; T&T Clark, 1997), 3:399-400; Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994): 499; T.W. Bear, The Gospel According to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper and Rows, 1981): 481, 484-85; Craig S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999): 598-99; Eduard Schweizer, The Good News According to Matthew (trans. D.E. Green; Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975): 467; Douglas R.A. Hare, Matthew (IBC; Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), p. 285; Donald Senior, Matthew (ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998): 275-76; Daniel Patte, The Gospel According to Matthew (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987): 344.

11. For more about violence in Revelation, see Tina Pippin, Death and Desire: the Rhetoric of Gender in the Apocalypse of John (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992); idem, "The Heroine and the Whore: Fantasy and the Female in the Apocalypse of John," Semeia 60 (1992): 67-82; and Stephen D. Moore "Revolting Revelations," in The Personal Voice in Biblical Interpretation, ed. by Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger (London and New York: Routledge, 1999): 183-200.

12. I will be exploring other instances of bridegrooms and weddings in the context of violent imagery in Greco-Roman literature.