όλίγων δέ έστιν χρεία ή ένός (LUKE 10.42)

Abstract

The phrase όλίγων δέ έστιν χρεία ή ένός at Lk. 10.42 is not entirely secure but it has been ably defended on text-critical grounds and now can be interpreted in the light of a parallel from a second (?)-century CE phrase book and two other features of Greek grammar. I make two assumptions about the parallel. (a) The book's compiler has adapted a common classical idiom όλίγoυ δεί(ν) ('almost') and produced όλίγων δείται. (b) Because this adaptation is found in a pedagogic context (όλίγων δείται πρός τήν μάθησιν, 'he/she has almost learned'), and because similar words in Lk. 10.42a (όλίγων δέ έστιν χρεία) also occur in a pedagogic context (vv. 39, 42b), at one level they too are an adaptation of όλίγoυ δεί(ν) and mean 'almost'. While at that level Jesus is clearly talking about hospitality, food and his own needs, the new parallel opens up the possibility that at a deeper level he is talking about a would-be disciple and, in words from Pss. Sol. 16.2 and Mk 12.34, her closeness to the Kingdom. The whole phrase can be translated, '[Mary] is close, better, very close'. Mary is contrasted not only with Martha and the lawyer (10.25-37) but, like the Samaritan, probably with the priest and Levite in Jesus's story (vv. 31-32). Along with the Samaritan, Mary might embody Luke's new understanding of Jewish priesthood, as something to be discharged not in sacrifice but, eventually, in loving service (the Samaritan; cf. Tabitha), but first, in attention to the word of Jesus (Mary).