Change Your Mind

I was reminded today of an old post of mine on Ghulf Genes, “Silent in Siloam” (link). There I quoted a passage from Luke 13:2-4 as follows. The passage comes when some people approached Jesus and told him some news about the execution of some insurgents by Pilate. He answered them thus:

“Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus? I tell you, No: but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem?”

Brigitte and I got to talking about this—and soon we were focused on one word, repentance. We wondered about its origin, thus what word was used there in the first edition of Luke, you might say. I was reluctant to make the effort, but finally succumbed. Luke was written in Greek, and the word used was metanoeo. I also discovered that it is a key word throughout the Gospels. Now that Greek comes apart into meta and noeo, a form of noos. The first, used as a prefix, can mean “beyond,” as in metaphysics; it can also signal “movement,” and therefore “change.” Noeo stands for mind—and survives in English in “noetic,” thus pertaining to the intellect. Metanoeo thus means “change of mind”—which, while it certainly encompasses repentance, also carries a wider meaning. “Repentance” narrows the meaning unnecessarily, but—and this is true generally of all revelation—there is more there than at first meets the eye.

Repentance signals a quid-pro-quo sort of rule. Sin and its punishment—unless sins are repented. But in metanoeo one senses something more fundamental that simply stopping sloppy or criminal behavior. It signals something more fundamental, a change in the very character of the mind itself, one might view it as an ontological change. Jesus’ brief reply also holds two different meanings for “perish.” There is death in that word—as by execution or the accidental collapse of a tower. And there is in that word, as well, a more fundamental loss than merely the loss of a body.