40 Fun Facts About The Beatitudes

Which group will inherit the earth, according to a Beatitude that echoes Psalm 37?

The meek were promised land long before Jesus spoke: Psalm 37:11 uses almost the same words, and the New American Bible still says 'the land' in Matthew.

Which Monty Python film shows listeners at the back of the crowd mishearing the Beatitudes?

Life of Brian plays the sermon itself straight, with Jesus shown respectfully. The comedy comes from people standing too far away to hear him properly.

Which group does Jesus call blessed in the very first Beatitude, recorded at Matthew 5:3?

The poor in spirit come first, and the phrase is Matthew's alone: Luke's shorter version speaks directly to people who are simply poor.

Which shape did the architect give the Church of the Beatitudes, to match the number of blessings?

An octagon gives the church one wall for each blessing in Matthew's list, and the words of the blessings appear in its upper windows.

What are those who mourn promised in Matthew's Beatitudes, a pledge that echoes Isaiah chapter 61?

They will be comforted, a hope Isaiah 61 had voiced centuries earlier, when it spoke of one sent to console all who grieve.

Jesus giving the Beatitudes on a hill is often likened to Moses receiving the law on which peak?

Mount Sinai is the parallel many readers draw, casting Jesus as a new Moses, though some scholars doubt Matthew intended the link.

Which group will be called children of God, in a Beatitude King James I adopted as his motto?

The peacemakers were once misprinted: the 1562 second edition of the Geneva Bible blessed the 'placemakers', earning it the nickname the Place-makers' Bible.

Which language gave the Beatitudes their name, from the word that opens each one in an old Bible?

Latin Bibles begin every one of the blessings with the word beati, and the noun beatitudo was coined by the Roman orator Cicero.

Which body of water lies below the traditional Mount of Beatitudes, close to the ruins of Capernaum?

The Sea of Galilee spreads out below the hill, where pilgrims have marked the spot since at least the fourth century.

Straight after the Beatitudes, Jesus calls his followers the salt of the earth and what else?

The light of the world follows at once in Matthew 5:14, with the picture of a city on a hill that cannot be hidden.

Which group, blessed at Matthew 5:7, is promised the very thing it shows to other people?

The merciful are the one group whose reward mirrors their own conduct, and the blessing has no counterpart in Luke's shorter list.

What are the pure in heart promised in the sixth Beatitude of Matthew's Sermon on the Mount?

They will see God, a promise the New American Bible, read at Catholic Mass in the United States, gives to the 'clean of heart'.

Matthew's fourth Beatitude blesses those who hunger and thirst for which quality, not for food?

Righteousness is Matthew's own touch: Luke's parallel blesses people who are simply hungry now, with no quality attached.

Which promise does Matthew's Gospel attach to both the first Beatitude and the one at Matthew 5:10?

The kingdom of heaven opens and closes the list, and scholars read the repeat as a frame that binds the blessings into one unit.

According to Matthew 5:1, who came to Jesus on the mountainside just before he began the Beatitudes?

His disciples gather round him, and the verse marks the first time Matthew's Gospel uses that word for the followers of Jesus.

The Beatitudes are sayings of Jesus; which apostle wrote the list known as the fruit of the Spirit?

Paul sets out the nine qualities in a letter to young churches, and his Greek word for fruit is singular, as if all nine were one harvest.

Which leader of India's independence movement praised the Beatitude about inheriting the earth?

Mahatma Gandhi admired the whole Sermon on the Mount, whose teaching later fed the nonviolent American civil rights movement.

Luke follows his four Beatitudes with four mirror-image warnings, each beginning with which word?

Woe opens each of the four, and each one reverses a blessing just given, a pairing that Matthew's longer version does not have.

The Greek word behind 'blessed' in the Beatitudes is rendered by some English Bibles as which word?

Happy is the choice of Young's Literal Translation, which opens every line that way, though most versions keep the weightier word.

The Beatitudes are in two Gospels; which New Testament letter has the nine-part fruit of the Spirit?

Galatians gives the list in its fifth chapter, setting the nine qualities against a much longer catalogue of vices.

What did Jesus do on reaching the mountainside in Matthew 5:1, just before speaking the Beatitudes?

He sat down to teach, whereas Luke's parallel has him standing, a difference commentators have puzzled over since the early church.

Matthew 5:12 says which earlier figures were persecuted in the same way as the followers of Jesus?

The prophets are offered as proof that ill-treatment puts believers in good company, which is why the verse tells them to rejoice and be glad.

Luke sets his Beatitudes after Jesus comes down a mountain, in the so-called Sermon on the what?

Plain comes from Luke 6:17, where Jesus stands on a level place among a crowd drawn from as far away as Tyre and Sidon.

In Luke's version of the Beatitudes, what are those who weep now promised in place of their tears?

Laughter is the promise, and Luke soon turns it around, warning people who are merry now that mourning and weeping lie ahead.

Which pope proposed six new Beatitudes for modern Christians during a visit to Malmö in Sweden?

Francis offered them at a Mass in Malmö, blessing among others those who protect and care for our common home.

Which Catholic text calls the Beatitudes the heart of Jesus's preaching, in Part 3, Life in Christ?

The Catechism adds that they take up promises made since Abraham and point them beyond the possession of any territory.

Which religious text has Jesus repeat a version of the Beatitudes to a crowd in ancient America?

The Book of Mormon sets the scene in 3 Nephi 12, where the risen Jesus speaks blessings close to Matthew's and ties them to baptism.

On which November feast does the Catholic Church proclaim the Beatitudes as the Gospel at Mass?

All Saints' Day falls on 1 November, and its Gospel runs from Jesus climbing the mountain to the call to rejoice and be glad.

The Beatitudes end with the persecuted; which quality comes last of the nine in the fruit of the Spirit?

Self-control closes the list, a quality the King James Version calls temperance, and the verse ends by noting that no law forbids such things.

Which cross, worn by the Order of St John, has points the order links to the Beatitudes?

Maltese crosses have marked the Knights Hospitaller for centuries: their statutes of 1489 required every knight to wear the white cross.

Which dictator helped pay for the Church of the Beatitudes, built for pilgrims in the 1930s?

Benito Mussolini's government helped fund a mission society's project, and the finished church opened in 1938 in the care of an order of nuns.

Which German philosopher saw the Beatitude about inheriting the earth as a case of slave morality?

Friedrich Nietzsche made the charge in On the Genealogy of Morals, though the same verse has drawn warm praise from readers outside Christianity.

Luke pairs his Beatitudes with warnings; the fruit of the Spirit is set against which list of vices?

The works of the flesh come first in the chapter, a catalogue running from idolatry and envy to drunkenness, before the nine virtues answer it.

Luke's last Beatitude blesses those hated and insulted because of which title Jesus used of himself?

The Son of Man is Luke's wording, where Matthew's parallel has Jesus say simply that the abuse comes on his account.

Which Beat Generation novelist said the 'beat' in the movement's name also pointed to 'beatitude'?

Jack Kerouac insisted the word meant beatific as well as beaten down, after a newspaper columnist coined 'beatnik' as a put-down.

Which church father named the Sermon on the Mount and matched its Beatitudes to gifts of the Spirit?

Augustine paired the first seven blessings with the seven gifts, beginning with fear of the Lord and ending with wisdom.

Which Christian tradition often sings the Beatitudes as the third antiphon of its Sunday service?

Eastern Orthodox choirs chant them while the Book of the Gospels is carried in solemn procession towards the sanctuary.

The Beatitudes that Matthew and Luke share are often traced to a lost source known by which letter?

Q is short for the German word Quelle, and the theory holds that both writers drew on this collection alongside the Gospel of Mark.

Which composer spent ten years on Les Béatitudes, an oratorio first heard at his home in Paris?

César Franck never heard the complete work in public: the full oratorio with orchestra was performed only after his death in 1890.

Who, nicknamed the Architect of the Holy Land, designed the Church of the Beatitudes?

Antonio Barluzzi also built the pilgrimage churches at Gethsemane, on Mount Tabor and at the tomb of Lazarus in Bethany.