Acts 10, 4, εις μνημοσυνον: Memorial of Sacrificial Prayer with
Almsgiving
The nonritual institution of
almsgiving is expiatory in Israel. It is linked, not juxtaposed, to worship.
Acts 10:3-4 and Acts 10:30-31 show that the implied author shares the belief in
its expiatory efficacy when it is conjoined with liturgical prayer. God atones
for himself, usually through a priest, in order that the people and an
individual person may offer worship that is acceptable (δεκτος). To that end he provides the
expiatory means, namely, memorials which give the worshiper hope for mercy and
for blessing.
Memorials expiate, and they are a
key feature of Israel's worship. For instance, Exod 30:16 appoints atonement
money as a memorial (μνημοσυνον)
before the Lord, to expiate (εξιλασασθαι)
for the people. The author of Sir 45:15-16 speaks of the covenant made with
Aaron and of Aaron's ordination to offer sacrifice as a memorial (εις μνημοσυνον) to atone (εξιλασκεσθαι) for the people.
According to Lev 5:1 1-13, stipulating the guilt offering for a poor person,
the priest takes the offering's memorial portion (μνημοσυνον) to burn on the altar; he atones
thereby (εξιλασεσται) for the
person offering it. The memorial portion of the poor person's offering
substitutes for the atoning blood (Lev 5:7-10). Thus, the atonement theology
and praxis of atonement in the LXX include gaining through offerings a memorial
before God.
By sacrificial prayer with acts of mercy (ελεημοσυνη) an Israelite, according both to the LXX (in
Tobit and Sirach) and to Luke-Acts, obtains a memorial before God. In Deut
24:13, God counts compassion for a poor debtor as mercy (ελεημοσύνη) before
him. This is memorial language. Human deeds of mercy mirror what God does for
worshipers. By synonymous paralleling in Sir 35:2, alms are associated with the
fine flour, the memorial portion of the cereal sacrifice. In Tob 4:11
almsgiving (ελεημοσύνη) is called a good gift (δώρον
άγαθόν) before the Most High. Further on, Raphael tells Tobit that he brought
near before the Holy One the memorial (μνημόσυνον) of Tobit's prayers (Tob
12:12). The piety which begins and ends the Book of Tobit, as also the
immediate context of Tobit 12:12, suggests that Tobit's righteousness,
almsgiving, and dedication to the temple in Jerusalem made those prayers
acceptable. Almsgiving with worship in the temple wins a memorial before God.
Although Cornelius is a Gentile, his almsgiving
and prayers at the time of sacrifice (Acts 10:3-4, 30-31) ascend as a memorial
(μνημοσυνον) before God—all this before Cornelius
becomes Christian. In Acts 10:35 Peter explains why: “in every nation, the
person who fears him and does righteousness is acceptable to him." Tob
14:2 associates almsgiving with fearing the Lord. Cornelius, in Acts 10:2, is
characterized as εύσεβής and φοβούμενος τόν θεον, "pious" and "God-fearing," for he gives alms and
prays with Israel to God.45 In Luke 11:41-42 almsgiving is contrasted to the
kind of tithing practiced by some Pharisees. Paul, after many years as a
missionary, returns to Jerusalem with alms and offerings (προσφοράς) intended
for the temple, in connection with his purification there (Acts 24:11-18).46
Acts 9:36 and 10:2, 4, 31 as well as Acts 21:24 suggest that almsgiving has
actual soteriological, that is, expiatory value, because God takes notice of
those who abound in compassion, and he blesses them.
Alms atone. With prayer made in unison with the
temple liturgy they extend the sacrificial system. Alms purify the whole person
(Luke 11:41). They cause treasure to be stored in heaven (Luke 12:33; 18:22).
Luke presents Cornelius successfully making use of this extended system for
himself and his family. Thus, the Gentile is acceptable before God because of
his practice of Jewish piety in giving alms and
in worshiping from afar in unison with the temple liturgy at times of sacrifice
(Acts 10:3, 30). In Luke 18:13 God is subject of the imperative ιλασθητι, "have mercy," an aorist
passive deponent with middle force. According to the picture Luke draws here,
humble prayer in the temple works expiation, for it leaves the tax collector
righteous (δεδικαιωμένος,
Luke 18:14). The Pharisee, however, trusts in his own use of the system for
righteousness, not in God's actual pleasure in him. In the gospel, then, God's
expiating in return for humble prayer in the temple gives a person
justification, and in Acts 10:22 Cornelius is reckoned just, because of his
compassion and sacrificial prayer. Justification, memorial, and expiation are
interdependent beliefs.
This Lucan picture of atonement by sacrificial prayer and almsgiving is continuous with that in the LXX. Luke presents it as the faith and the praxis of his narrative's sympathetic characters and protagonists. Cornelius' story presupposes an understanding of memorial praxis and soteriology Luke has God regard the memorial of a Gentile and grant him and his household Holy Spirit and then baptism because of it. Thus, in Luke-Acts a memorial constituted by almsgiving and by prayer at the times of sacrifice in the temple operates narratively as a cause for development in the plot of Acts, and theologically as a basis for the unfolding of a salvific relation between God and certain people. Both in the LXX and in Luke-Acts, then, liturgical prayer with almsgiving has the expiatory force of a memorial. Does Luke see also a cultic memorial in the relation to God obtaining in the new covenant? (Francis Giordano Carpinelli, “‘Do This as My Memorial’ (Luke 20:19: Lucan Soteriology of Atonement,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61, no. 1 [January 1999]: 83-86)
