Who Is a Hypocrite?

By I. Howard Marshall

[I. Howard Marshall is Honorary Research Professor of New Testament, University of Aberdeen, Scotland.

This is article two in a four-part series, “Four ‘Bad’ Words in the New Testament,” delivered by the author as the W. H. Griffith Thomas Lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, February 6–9, 2001.]

This article on another negative concept in the New Testament examines a group of Greek words that are compounds of the prepositional prefix ὑπό with the root κριν-. Although this root has the sense of judging, the prefix transforms the meaning radically, and the English nouns “hypocrite” and “hypocrisy” derive from the resulting Greek words ὑποκρίτης and ὑπόκρισις. The corresponding verbs ὑποκρίνομαι, found in the New Testament only in Luke 20:20, and συνυποκρίνομαι, in Galatians 2:13, have no equivalent verb in English and periphrastic constructions like “to play or act the hypocrite” must be used. A negative adjective ἀνυπόκριτος means “sincere.”

The word group is found predominantly in the Synoptic Gospels, where it occurs twenty-one times (fourteen times in Matthew, twice in Mark, and five times in Luke), and ten times elsewhere,[1] making a total of thirty-one times in the New Testament. This is much less frequent than the other major word groups being considered in this series. However, the material for consideration is enhanced by a number of texts that convey the concept by using other words.

In this word group one of the main problems is that of meaning. Some Bible students wrongly assume that the English words derived from the Greek ones are much the same as the original words, or that if one knows the meaning of the English word “hypocrisy,” this tells what the Greek word meant. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines “hypocrisy” as “simulation of virtue or goodness; dissimulation; pretence,” and “hypocrite” as a “person guilty of hypocrisy; dissembler, pretender.” This definition seems to imply that hypocrites are people who deliberately pretend to be virtuous or good whereas in fact they are something else, and that the pretense is carried out in the interests of some evil plan. It follows that the means to the end is itself evil. Yet hypocrisy in this sense is not totally depraved, for in the words of La Rochefoucauld, “Hypocrisy is the respect which vice pays to virtue.”[2]

Not surprisingly, then, Louw and Nida, whose Greek-English lexicon is organized on the nonalphabetical principle of grouping items in the appropriate word fields, treat the key Greek words in a section entitled “Hypocrisy, Pretense.”[3] They say the key words convey the meaning “to give an impression of having certain purposes or motivations, while in reality having quite different ones.” Thus the sense is to pretend to be one thing while actually being (or doing) another.

At first sight this definition fits in with the developed usage of the words in Greek, although this was not the case with earlier uses of the word. The Greek verb originally meant “to give a judgment on a question,” in other words, “to give a reply” (a sense similar to that of the more common ἀποκρίνομαι). But the corresponding noun came to be used of an actor who conveys a part in a play by word and gesture. Using the term in this way thus came to express the idea of a person acting in a role that was not his or her own. Then the term was used more generally to refer to a person who pretended to be what he or she was not and to convey the idea of hypocrisy or dissimulation.[4] Thus hypocrisy is a lie that gives a false impression regarding oneself.

This usage involves a pretense that is evil because it serves an evil purpose. But it differs from another fairly common use of the concept of hypocrisy. The typical figure in this second representation is the late nineteenth-century factory owner who is a pillar in his local church, who gives generously to philanthropic causes and charities, and who has a reputation in society for godliness and good character; yet he treats his factory workers badly by paying them a minimal wage, making them labor for long hours, and allowing them to work in a miserable environment. A clear clash exists between the Christian and altruistic principles of the owner’s public life and the way in which he runs his business. And it is not uncommon to hear the term “hypocrite” used loosely for individuals like this who have different and opposing sides to their characters. People who talk this way may be assuming that the godliness is the pretense and that the lack of consideration for the workers is the reality. However, this is not always a fair description of the situation. More likely, such factory owners may have been sincere, but they failed—from ignorance, thoughtlessness, or self-deception—to recognize that the treatment of their workers was unethical. Nor is it clear that the philanthropy was a deliberate attempt to cover up iniquities perpetrated in the workplace.

The Bible certainly knows the existence of this kind of behavior, in which a person is inconsistent. James attacked people who use their tongues to praise God and to curse people (James 3:9–12). According to Psalm 12:2–3 some people have false lips and a double heart. According to Jeremiah 12:2 God is near to some people’s mouths but far from their hearts. The thought recurs in Isaiah 29:13, cited in Mark 7:6–7. There in simple language is the essence of the matter.[5] This may be loosely labeled as “hypocrisy,” but it may be more appropriate to call it “inconsistency.” Inconsistency is the failure to appreciate the fact that obedience to God’s will requres attention to all His commandments and not just some of them. Do the uses of the Greek term correspond more to the first or the second uses of the English term, to deliberate misrepresentation or to inconsistency?

Another issue arises when the Greek word group for hypocrisy is seen in relation to the language of the Old Testament. In some cases the Septuagint took over a standard Greek word and gave it a new sense by using it to translate a Hebrew term with a different (but related) meaning. The standard example of this procedure is where the Greek word δόξα, which means “opinion,” was used to translate the Hebrew term כָּבוֹד, which means “glory,” and the Greek word took on that meaning. Similarly it has been proposed that the Greek verb ὑποκρίνομαι took on the sense of a Hebrew term that simply meant “to be ungodly.” In surveying the evidence, these and other possibilities must be kept in mind.

Surveying the Evidence

The New Testament does depict the kind of hypocrisy that involves deliberate pretense. A clear example is in Acts 27:30, which states that in face of impending shipwreck the sailors lowered a lifeboat from the endangered ship, “on the pretense of intending to lay out anchors from the bow” (NASB), but in reality they were attempting to escape from the ship. The “imposters” (γόητες) in 2 Timothy 3:13 are people who deceive Christians with false teaching, and they succeed in doing so by pretense. There are false apostles who pretend to be apostles of Christ in order to achieve their evil ends; even Satan can transform himself into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:13–15).

This concept is also present in the Gospels in passages where the word group itself is absent. Jesus said the teachers of the Law “devour widows’ houses, and for appearance’s sake offer long prayers” (NASB, Mark 12:40; Luke 20:47). This is generally taken to imply that the lawyers pretended[6] to be virtuous by saying lengthy prayers in public so that they would win the confidence of the widows from whom they hoped to make money.

In a vivid metaphor Jesus spoke of false prophets as wolves disguised as sheep (Matt. 7:15), interestingly contrasting the outward appearance and the inward character. However, this is not an absolute contrast, since the inward character is in fact demonstrated outwardly by the ravenous wolves once they have infiltrated the sheepfold. Also there is the case of Judas, who spoke about giving to the poor the money that had been spent on ointment for Jesus when in reality he hoped to filch it away for himself (John 12:4–6).[7]

These examples demonstrate that the idea of pretending to be, do, or say one thing while being or intending something different was familiar to the Evangelists, and it was regarded as a characteristic of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. The uses of the word group itself can now be examined against this background.

Occurrences of ὑπόκρισις in the Synoptic Gospels

Those who questioned Jesus about whether it was right to pay taxes to Caesar are described as “spies, who pretended [acted hypocritically] to be honest” (Luke 20:20).[8] They attempted to give the impression that they were asking an honest question and seeking the truth.[9] Seeing through their duplicity (πανουργία, v. 23; 1 Cor. 3:19; 2 Cor. 4:2; 11:3; Eph. 4:14; cf. 2 Cor. 12:16), Jesus recognized that the question was a trap intended to lead Him to make an answer that would incriminate Him in some way or other, and He replied in a way that avoided the trap. Whereas Luke wrote πανουργία (“duplicity”), Mark wrote ὑπόκρισις. And Matthew elaborated on this, writing, “But Jesus, knowing their evil intent [πονηρία],[10] said, ‘You hypocrites’ “ (Matt. 22:18). Luke’s explanation is that the spies pretended to be righteous people in order to get a compromising answer out of Jesus. They presumably tried to give the impression of loyalty to the Mosaic Law in order to tempt Jesus to speak out against paying taxes to the Romans. Here then is a good example of an action that involves pretense that required some skill in trickery or duplicity (Luke’s πανουργία) to carry it out, and that was motivated by an evil desire (Matthew’s πονηρία).

This interpretation is challenged by Giesen, who holds that in Mark the term denotes not hypocrisy but “godless maliciousness.” In his favor is the way in which, as noted, Matthew and Luke substituted words for cunning and evil intent. This suggests that they saw these motives at work in hypocrisy, but this is hardly reason to deny that the element of deceit was present. Giesen has to admit that “Jesus sees that they are trying to deceive him.”[11] Giesen thus recognizes the presence of the concept, but in this case he refuses to find it expressed in the word.

In Mark 7:6 Jesus Himself categorized as hypocrites the Pharisees and lawyers who questioned Him about the washing of hands before meals. He supported this verdict with a quotation from Isaiah 29:13, which refers to the way in which people honor God with their lips but not with their hearts and follow human teachings instead of honoring God by keeping His commandments. Jesus added that they set aside God’s commandments in order to observe their own rules (which they presented as if they were God’s rules).[12] The specific example is that the Law in Scripture commanded respect to parents; the human traditions allowed a person to make a dedicatory gift (“Corban”) to the temple and they were then forbidden to use it for their parents.

Apparently two kinds of vows were given by people. The first happened when people actually gave money to the temple, and in this case they did so instead of recognizing a prior duty to use it to support their parents. This would clearly be a case of hypocrisy on the part of the persons making such vows. They claimed to be honoring God, but instead they were disobeying His command to honor parents. The outward “honor” of God covered up their disobedience to what was a prior duty. Clearly this act revealed inconsistency between giving to God, as seen in donations to the temple, and disobedience to God, seen in failing to honor one’s parents. True, Jesus’ criticism here is directed more against the hypocrisy of the lawyers, who insisted that the vow or offering be upheld even though the fourth commandment was being disobeyed, but this does not significantly affect the point. The lawyers were conniving at the hypocrisy of the children.

In the second kind of vow the person was simply declaring that the money could not be used for the benefit of his parents, but nevertheless he retained control of it and was able to use it for personal ends. In that case the hypocrisy of the lawyers again lay in insisting that the vow should be kept rather than in allowing or requiring the person to help his parents.[13] The discrepancy between outwardly honoring God and failing in one’s duty to one’s parents would have been all the greater in this case.

Either way, then, the issue is the inconsistency of claiming to be honoring God while disobeying His commands or acting selfishly.

Jesus attacked the people who inconsistently draw attention to a speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye and yet ignore the plank in their own eye (Matt. 7:5; Luke 6:42). The metaphor refers to judging or criticizing trivial faults in other people while overlooking much greater faults in oneself. So there is inconsistency in applying standards of judgment. But are such people also hypocrites in the narrower sense? Possibly their criticism of other people is playacting in order to divert attention from their own failures. But Jesus may also have implied that their criticism is skewed; they cannot see clearly because of their own faults, and so it is necessary for them to deal with those first in order for them to be able to assess other people’s faults fairly. Here the idea of pretending to be righteous in order to conceal one’s own sin is difficult to prove. The basic problem is inconsistency and self-deception.

Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 6:1–18) Jesus discussed three groups of people who performed pious acts in public. Some gave charitable donations to poor people in such a way as to be seen doing so; others said prayers publicly so as to be heard by others; and others drew attention to the fact that they were fasting by appropriate outward disfigurement. In each of these cases the aim of the public display was to get credit from other people and to enjoy the reputation of being pious people. Jesus condemned such activity that is done to gain human applause, and He emphasized that the people who engage in it will get no reward from God; they have already received from other people all the reward they will get. People who act like this are labeled as hypocrites (6:2, 5, 16).

Clearly such people are giving an impression of piety, for the acts they perform are recognized as such. But they are not really pious, because they are acting from the motive of getting public acclamation instead of seeking the reward that comes from God. Hypocrisy therefore is present in that the outward show of piety is inconsistent with and hides the actual, inward desire for human adulation rather than humbly serving God. Good actions can be done from wrong motives and in that way lose their good character insofar as the goodness of the doer is concerned. Some of these actions can benefit the recipient of the action, the person receiving the charity, but others (the pray-ers) do not accomplish any good because their motives are compromised. The people Jesus criticized pretended to be pious by doing actions that looked pious, but because of their false motivation their actions were not really pious.[14]

The Gospel of Luke has three further references to be noted, each one concerned with people who were arrayed against Jesus. The first of them is Luke 12:1, where the chapter division may cause readers to fail to notice the connection with the preceding section (11:37–54), in which the failings of the Pharisees are noted at length. Jesus spoke of the Pharisees as people who were infiltrating society and exercising an influence throughout it, despite their small numbers, like the effect of leaven in causing a whole mass of dough to rise. This leaven is then said to be ὑπόκρισις, a term that probably sums up the preceding section in which Jesus accused the Pharisees and lawyers of various sins, including carrying out some religious duties while neglecting other more fundamental ones. The implication is that their motives were false, and that a discrepancy stood between their apparently pious outward duties and their fundamental failure to serve God truly from their hearts. This interpretation is confirmed by the immediately following remarks in which Jesus prophesied that what is now hidden will be revealed (12:2–3). In the end hypocrites will be unmasked, and both the hidden motives of people’s hearts and the wrong things that they did in secret will be brought out into the open and judged.

Luke’s second use of the term ὑπόκρισις is in 12:56. Here Jesus criticized the crowds, rather than the Pharisees, because while they had the skill to determine what the weather would be like by observing the movement of clouds or the blowing of the wind, they were unable to read the other signs that were there before their eyes, the “signs of the times” that warn people of God’s righteous rule over the earth and His impending judgment on sin (vv. 54–55). Again people were inconsistent in that they were able to read one kind of sign but not the other, the assumption being that people clever enough to read the one are surely able to read the other also. If then they fail to read the latter, it is not because of lack of ability but rather because of unwillingness to recognize what is unwelcome, a determination to resist the evidence that their national way of life is not pleasing to God and is under His judgment. The element of doing one thing as a cover-up for evil thoughts and actions is not present in this saying; the point appears to be simply the inconsistency, which reflects this unwillingness to listen to what God is saying. Thus the element of godlessness is present again.

Luke’s third example is in Luke 13:15. The scene is a synagogue where the ruler objected to Jesus healing a crippled woman on the Sabbath. Jesus denounced the ruler as a hypocrite along with anyone who agreed with him. Jesus noted that people cared for the welfare of their thirsty animals on the Sabbath, thus admitting that certain kinds of “work” were permissible. So it was surely inconsistent not to care also for the welfare of a disabled woman by giving her healing. Once again, therefore, inconsistency is the issue. But whether there was an element of pretense is not clear. The ruler and others made no attempt to cover up an evil disposition or evil actions here, unless the ruler and those like him were carrying out the ritual prescriptions of the Law, as elaborated by the Pharisees, in order to cover up their lack of extending mercy to people. If so, hypocrisy in the fuller sense could be present when the incident is put into the wider context of verses such as Luke 11:42. But simple inconsistency seems more likely.

A passage of major importance is Matthew’s version of material similar to Luke 11:37–52. The passage in Matthew 23:13–32 stands out by reason of the stereotyped address to the audience, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites,” which recurs in verses 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, and 29. This is a total of six times, which may seem surprising in a Gospel in which the number seven occurs often. The number does in fact come up to seven if 23:14 is included. This verse is based on Mark 12:40 (Luke 20:47) and is found either before or after Matthew 23:13 in late manuscripts; it can be safely assumed to be a scribal addition. More relevant is the fact that verse 16 breaks the sequence in that it is a “Woe” saying like the others, but it lacks the formulaic ending. The strict use of the formula, where the corresponding material in Luke has a variety of forms,[15] suggests rather strongly that the original tradition was edited.[16] Although in none of these cases did Luke use the term “hypocrites,” he did, as noted already, use ὑπόκρισις in 12:1, which indicates that the motif must have been present in his source at this point, and therefore Matthew probably emphasized it rather than introduced it.[17]

Jesus’ words to the crowd in Matthew 23 begin with a complaint that the Pharisees did everything so as to be seen by other people (vv. 1–7). They were concerned with outward show that would bring them credit among the people (cf. 6:1–18). This enlarges on the warning Jesus gave in Mark 12:37b–40 and makes it the starting point for His lengthy treatment in Matthew 23. At this point nothing was said about the motives of their behavior other than their desire to gain a good reputation among the people. Jesus then gave the seven sayings in which He criticized several other things they did.[18]

First, Jesus said they kept people out of the kingdom of heaven and did not try to enter themselves (v. 13). The kingdom here is the kingdom Jesus proclaimed, and the complaint is against Pharisaic opposition to this teaching. Presumably the ὑπόκρισις lies in the implicit inconsistency between their profession to serve and honor God and their rejection of the message of the kingdom brought by God’s agent, Jesus. No element of pretense or of seeking praise from other people is apparent here.

Second, they exerted themselves to make converts and yet made them children of hell (literally, “Gehenna,” v. 15). This behavior is presumably inconsistent in that their goal was to win proselytes for Judaism, which they understood as the true religion, and yet the effect was to make people even more “Pharisaic” than themselves.

Third, they distinguished between the binding character of oaths by different entities, not realizing that all oaths by sacred objects are really oaths made in God’s name and are equally binding (vv. 16–22). Here there is certainly inconsistency in their teaching that declared some oaths binding and others not, and this may reflect an inconsistency in the behavior of the Pharisees when they themselves took oaths.

Fourth, they offered tithes meticulously but they neglected the weightier matters of the Law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness (vv. 23–24). Here is the clearest example of inconsistency, for they were zealous for some lesser commandments while ignoring other more important ones. This does not look like pretense, doing the lesser ones to hide their failure to keep the greater ones or out of (other) false motives. Rather it is a case of partial obedience to God alongside partial disobedience.

Fifth, they stressed outward cleansing of the body (cf. Mark 7; Matt. 15) but did not clean out the inward spiritual evil of greed and self-indulgence (23:25–26).[19] Again they were inconsistent. And again the stress on the ritual may have been a cover-up for their lack of zeal for moral values, a smoke screen to hide what was going on or to divert attention from it, but the point is not explicit.

Sixth, they looked like whitewashed tombs, attractive objects on the outside, but inwardly they resembled the ritually unclean contents of the tombs (vv. 27–28). So they appeared to people as righteous, but inwardly they were “full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” Here is a somewhat paradoxical doubling of the use of the term ὑπόκρισις. The contrast is between the outward appearance of righteousness in keeping certain aspects of the Law and the inward reality of wickedness, and the hypocrisy lies not only in the inconsistency but also in the way the wicked person makes a pretense of being righteous. But what is hidden in this way includes the ὑπόκρισις itself, that is to say, the desire to use ὑπόκρισις to create this impression.

Seventh, the Pharisees built tombs for the martyrs accompanied by the pious protestation that if they had lived at the time of the prophets’ martyrdom, they would not have been party to the murders (vv. 29–32). But, Jesus said, their building of the tombs is a testimony that they were guilty along with the murderers. This comment has puzzled readers. The building of the tombs could be seen as an attempt to honor those who had been martyred and in some way to disown their murder, but then how is Jesus’ saying a reproach? Perhaps, as Manson suggests, the saying is heavily ironic: “Your fathers killed the prophets, and you make sure that they stay dead by battening them down!”[20] This seems strained, but it may point the way to the right answer, which depends on the immediately following verses in which Jesus prophesied that further prophets, sages, and teachers would come to them, and they would carry on like their fathers in persecuting and killing them. So the ὑπόκρισις lies in the inconsistency between honoring the dead prophets and murdering the contemporary ones. Again, the element of pretense in all this is somewhat difficult to find.

In virtually each of the seven sayings in Matthew 23 Jesus pointed up the Pharisees’ inconsistency between different types of behavior. In one case there is a fairly clear aim of establishing a good reputation despite evil behavior, but in at least three cases it is difficult, if not impossible, to trace this element. Another word that recurs in this discourse of Jesus is “blind” (vv. 16–17, 19, 24, 26), which suggests that in some respects the Pharisees were not aware of their inconsistencies and therefore were not engaged in conscious deceit of other people.[21] (Their blindness may, of course, have been caused by willful resistance to the truth.)

The remaining passage on hypocrisy in Matthew is 24:51. The slave who was left in charge of his master’s possessions and proceeded to “live it up” in self-indulgence and cruelty to his fellow servants would be punished on the master’s return. Jesus said the slave would be assigned “a place with the hypocrites,” where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is obviously a reference to the judgment on the wicked, and the word “hypocrites” looks like a reference to wicked people in general; there is nothing in the immediate context that suggests inconsistency in behavior between good and bad actions. Perhaps, however, the context of chapter 23 suggests that the hypocrites Jesus referred to were the Pharisees.

Other Occurrences of ὑπόκρισις in the New Testament

Peter had been eating with the Gentiles but when messengers from James arrived, he withdrew from this practice out of fear of the Jewish Christians who were imposing circumcision on Gentile converts (Gal. 2:13). The other Jewish Christians present joined in this “hypocrisy” (συνυποκρίνομαι), and even Paul’s close colleague Barnabas was carried along by their ὑπόκρισις and fell in with them.

Why did Paul regard this conduct as ὑπόκρισις? Plainly there is no element of doing something good as a matter of pretense. Rather Paul saw an inconsistency between the agreement that had been reached in Jerusalem—an agreement that did not require circumcision of Gentiles and presumably allowed fellowship meals between Jews and Gentiles in the church—and the practice of Peter and the others who were no longer prepared to eat with Gentiles. Logically for Paul the abandonment of the need for circumcision entailed the willingness to have fellowship meals with such Jewish converts, and therefore the behavior of these Jewish Christians was hypocrisy in that sense. This is a unique example of people holding the right beliefs (as agreed in Jerusalem) but who then acted wrongly out of fear of other people (v. 12). The inconsistency between the right beliefs and the wrong behavior constitutes the ὑπόκρισις here.[22]

A second occurrence is in 1 Timothy 4:2, which states that false teachings will come into the church “through hypocritical liars [literally, ‘the hypocrisy of liars’], whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.” The ὑπόκρισις here would seem to consist in the fact that these people were masquerading as Christian teachers and professing to speak the truth, whereas in fact they were misled by demonic powers to give teaching and commands that were based on lies, thereby deceiving believers. Another possible view is that they practiced asceticism as a way of deceiving their hearers into believing they were saintly people. The possibility that they were themselves deceived seems to be excluded by the immediately following phrase which indicates that they refused to listen to their consciences and sinned deliberately.[23] The usage mentioned earlier in 2 Timothy 3:13 fits in nicely with this interpretation.[24]

In 1 Peter 2:1 ὑπόκρισις is included in a short vice list of five items of which believers are to rid themselves. The other items in the list are malice, deceit, envy, and slander. When a word occurs in a list like this, it is difficult to be sure about the intended nuance of meaning, but the fact that ὑπόκρισις is preceded by malice and followed by deceit, strongly suggests that this is deliberate wrongdoing and that it is a means of deceiving people by some form of pretense, making oneself out to be better than one is, especially with regard to one’s motives. A further clue may be found in the fact that in the immediate context (1:22) the love of Christians is to be genuine and sincere (ἀνυπόκριτος), that is, free from mixed motives. This makes it reasonably certain that ὑπόκρισις here has the sense of pretense.[25]

This last passage forms a convenient bridge to examine the half dozen occurrences of the term ἀνυπόκριτος, which designates persons or things that are free from ὑπόκρισις. In addition to 1 Peter 1:22 in two other verses (Rom. 12:9; 2 Cor. 6:6) love is to be free from ὑπόκρισις. This is most plausibly understood as meaning that the expression of love must be genuine and not be based on wrong motives. Two passages in the Pastoral Epistles (1 Tim. 1:5; 2 Tim. 1:5) refer to a faith that is free from ὑπόκρισις or “unfeigned, genuine, sincere.” Since this is a basic Christian attitude rather than outward behavior, this probably indicates a faith that is wholehearted and thus not characterized by inconsistency; it is authentic.[26]

In James 3:17 the wisdom that comes down from above is the subject of a list of virtues that culminates in one being “sincere [literally, ‘free from ὑπόκρισις‘].” This list of virtues is not so much a list of the qualities of wisdom itself as it is a description of the person whose life is filled with heavenly wisdom. Such a person will be “pure … peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” Again the fact that the word occurs in a list gives little context by which to determine its meaning, but the closeness of the adjective to “impartial,” that is, treating people alike, may suggest that here “sincere” has to do with being consistent in behavior.

Summary

̔Υπόκρισις and related words are usually concerned with inconsistency between actions, or between (hidden or partially hidden) motives and (overt) actions. Generally speaking the inconsistency is between something that can be regarded as good and something else that can be regarded as evil. Several times the aim of the outward actions seems to be simply to gain applause, but in a significant number of cases it is fair to conclude that there is an element of deceit, in that a person pretends to be doing something when he is really doing something else, or is doing something that is apparently good but that springs from false motives, such as the desire to gain human applause rather than divine approval or to take advantage of other people by acquiring a false reputation for trustworthiness.

What Is Hypocrisy?

In the Greek language outside the New Testament the dominant sense of the noun ὑπόκρισις, that of playacting, could lead in the direction of inconsistency. The actor in his personal role as a private person and the actor in a particular role in a play may seem to be two different people: an actor of good personal character can play the role of a villain, and vice versa. It could also lead in the direction of deceit when a person pretends to assume a role and character other than his own for the sake of some advantage. Although the basic idea was that of interpreting or reciting the speech of the character with the appropriate style and accompanying actions rather than that of playing a part, nevertheless the vocabulary was used of pretense, as by Demosthenes. Wilckens gives the impression that “in all classical usage ὑποκρίνομαι never became a term with a negative ethical ring.”[27] This idea has rightly been challenged by Barr, who argues that the word group did refer to hypocrisy rather than to acting in a play.[28]

There is no doubt, however, that in the Jewish world the usage was uniformly negative.[29] Sometimes surprise has been expressed at this “shift” from the alleged uniformly positive sense in classical Greek.[30] But in reality there is no shift, since by the Hellenistic period the negative sense of the terminology in Greek was well established, and already in the classical period this meaning occurs.

In the Septuagint the noun ὑπόκριτης was used twice to translate the Hebrew חָנֵף, which describes someone who is godless (Job 34:30; 36:13) and is elsewhere translated by the terms “lawless” and “godless.” However, these rare occurrences,[31] together with further examples in Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, in which the same Hebrew word is translated in this way, are scarcely sufficient to suggest that the term had acquired a regular new meaning of “godless.”

The Greek verb ὑποκρίνομαι occurs in the later books of the Septuagint (Sir. 1:29, where the parallelism suggests telling lies; 32:15; 33:2; 2 Macc. 5:25, where Apollonius pretended that he had gone to Jerusalem peaceably; 6:21, 24; and 4 Macc. 6:15, 17, of pretending to eat forbidden meat). Here the idea of pretending to do something is firmly attested, and the generally pejorative sense is clear.[32]

In the light of this linguistic background, how should the New Testament terms for hypocrisy be understood? Scholars have suggested at least five ways to define the meaning.

First, Mann attempted to redefine the meaning.[33] He complained that the standard interpretation accused the Pharisees of acting a part, of being two-faced in the sense that they said one thing but meant (for themselves) something different. His proposal is that the word group is concerned with interpretation. He goes back to Greek drama and contends that the verb referred to the correct recitation of the actor’s lines and that the main stress was on the correct interpretation of the material rather than on the fact that the actor was playing a part. Mann then reinterprets the Jewish evidence along the same lines, asserting that the words refer to “hairsplitting legal scrupulosity” or manipulation of the Law. The use of ὑπόκριτης in Job to translate a word meaning “godless” is taken as further evidence that “playing a part” is not in view. On this basis he argues that in the Gospels Jesus was attacking legal casuistry and scrupulousness. “It was not that these people were consciously acting a part which did not correspond to their own inner convictions, but that they were parading their own scrupulousness in public.”[34] He holds that his view is further substantiated by Didache 2:6; 4:12; 8:1, 2, where the issue, he says, is self-conscious rectitude or legalism.

Mann admits that in 1 Peter 2:1 the meaning “insincerity” is possible. But his interpretation of many of the other texts seems to be strained and implausible.

Second, David Garland argues that in Matthew 23 the difference between what the Pharisees did and said is not the determinative factor for understanding in what sense they were behaving godlessly. He finds a clue in the way in which the opponents of the Qumran sect are accused of “seeking after smooth things”; this accusation was related to disputes concerning the interpretation of the Law. So “the opposition to the Pharisees was not precipitated by moral outrage over their false character but by serious disputes involving the interpretation of Scripture.” The term ὑπόκρισις had a flexible meaning and could be used for condemnation of both character and teaching (1 Tim. 4:1–2). The Pharisees had failed to understand the revealed will of God and so they had failed as leaders of Israel. Garland attempts to show that in the first six woes in Matthew 23 there is evidence of scribal misinterpretation of the Law.[35]

There is substance in this argument, although the exegesis of the individual woes is not altogether convincing. Undoubtedly mistaken teaching is an issue in Jesus’ denunciation of the Pharisees. However, the woes are prima facie directed against the practice of the Pharisees and are set in the context of their not practicing what they preach (Matt. 23:3)[36] and their desiring human honor (vv. 5–12). Here are examples of ὑπόκρισις without the use of the term. So it remains probable that their behavior, rather than primarily their teaching, was the focus of Jesus’ accusation.

Third, Giesen defends the view that the word “hypocrite” means simply “godless,” in that the actions referred to in every case are concerned with conduct that is opposed to God or Jesus.[37] This view is based on the assumption that the meaning of the word group was significantly affected by the Hebrew verb that it translated in the Septuagint. The weaknesses of this assumption have been exposed by Barr, who makes the suggestion that the Hebrew and Aramaic terms may have shifted in meaning to accommodate the force of the Greek terminology.

Giesen’s interpretation is also one-sided, since he fails to account for the elements of inconsistency and contradiction in conduct. And he has to recognize exceptions that break his rule (including especially the use of ἀνυπόκριτος). Nevertheless he is correct in recognizing that the usage refers to godless behavior, and this element should be retained in a full understanding of the concept of hypocrisy. What he has failed to recognize is that this is a particular kind of godless behavior that was expressed in a special vocabulary. Similarly Spicq has noted how hypocrisy is closely linked to malice, lawlessness, and evil. But he has also noted passages where some of the church fathers saw clearly that hypocrites were people who were one thing but appeared to be another (Theophylact and Jerome).[38]

Fourth, Davies and Allison hold that in the New Testament “hypocrisy” is associated with unrighteousness and duplicity.[39] However, they do not claim that the latter element is always pres-ent. Nevertheless the view that “hypocrisy” involves duplicity is the popular understanding of the terms.[40] But this element of conscious pretense does not appear in all cases, although it is undeniably present in some.[41]

Fifth, a rather different kind of view has been advocated by Via, who argues that the concept is associated with self-deception rather than with deception of others; the hypocrite is characterized as a person “really believing but also not believing what is false.”[42] Via’s understanding incorporates the paradox that the people in question believed what is not true about themselves and yet to some extent recognized that it is not true. This proposal has been subjected to detailed criticism by Gundry, who holds that the term “keeps its normal meaning of audience-deception.”[43] Nevertheless Via has correctly observed an important element that is often pres-ent in the use of the word.

Toward a Solution

A comprehensive understanding of the New Testament concept of hypocrisy must include the following elements.

First, one must not assume that the Greek word group has the same meaning as the corresponding English words. Nevertheless in a significant number of cases the language refers to people who pretend to be virtuous in order to achieve some wrong or evil end.

Second, one must not assume that the words necessarily have the same meaning in all their occurrences. There can be a range of meanings.

Third, sometimes the underlying intention is to secure human applause, which is regarded as incompatible with seeking divine approval (cf. 1 Thess. 2:3–4). In these cases an inconsistency is pres-ent between the pretense of virtue and the underlying evil intention. Giesen rightly contrasts the way in which Jesus’ healings led people to glorify God for giving such power to human beings (Matt. 9:8).[44]

Fourth, perhaps more frequently in the Gospels, an inconsistency in conduct exists between actions that are or seem to be good and other actions that are evil, or between a profession of religion and a person’s actual practice. The element of pretense and intended deception of other people cannot always be traced in these cases.

Fifth, since one side of the conduct is evil, the people concerned can be characterized as rebellious or godless, in that their behavior is inconsistent with God’s demands. In some cases this may be due in part at least to genuine blindness, but in other cases the blindness may be willful. Since there is a rich vocabulary in the New Testament for godless behavior, it is unlikely that this element, though present, is the sole distinguishing feature in the use of the ὑπόκρισις word group.

In summary, ὑπόκρισις generally characterizes a form of behavior that shows a clash either (a) between a person’s professed desire to please God and behavior that is inconsistent with it, or (b) between a person’s hidden evil intentions and his or her appearance of piety or virtue, which is in fact intended to secure a wrong end, which may include gaining human applause rather than giving glory to God.[45] In some but not all cases the wrong end may be achieved by a pretense or deception. Further, in the latter cases the inconsistency is deliberate, whereas in the former it may be a matter of blindness and self-deception or of willful refusal to obey God in specific ways while professing to obey Him. To the extent that a pious person engages in conduct that is contrary to God’s commands, to that extent that person is godless and a ὑπόκριτης.[46] The Pharisees were criticized because they did virtuous acts but with the motive of gaining human applause. They were people who sought to please God, and their desire for human applause was inconsistent with this.

The motifs expressed by this vocabulary are well attested in Judaism and early Christianity. The use of this particular word group to express them would seem to depend on the development in the Greek world of the contrast between the true self and the role of the actor. This in turn led to the idea of ὑπόκρισις as pretense and deception, but it also seems to have led to the simple contrast between what a person really is and behavior that is inconsistent with that, or between behavior that seems to represent one motive but in reality represents another. One must always bear in mind that language is flexible and attempts should not be made to force all the occurrences of a given word into an inflexible mold.

Although Jesus attacked the Pharisees and teachers of the Law who were guilty of this behavior, clearly the ultimate intention of the record is to warn Christian readers against the same kind of danger in their own lives.[47] Some are deceived by plausible, false teachers, or more seriously some believers live inconsistent Christian lives. Still others act for the sake of gaining human applause for their apparent godliness.

Notes

1. Galatians 2:13; 1 Timothy 4:2; 1 Peter 2:1; the adjective is found six times in the Epistles (Rom. 12:9; 2 Cor. 6:6; 1 Tim. 1:5; 2 Tim. 1:5; James 3:17; 1 Pet. 1:22).
2. La Rochefoucauld, quoted in W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: Clark, 1988), 3:717.
3. J. P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, eds., Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1988), §88.227-88, 237.
4. Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, trans. and ed. James D. Ernest (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 1:134–36; 3:412–13; Ulrich Wilckens, “ὑποκρίνομαι κ.τ.λ.,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), 8:559–71; cf. Walther Günther, “ὑποκρίνω,” in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 2:468–70. See also Robert H. Smith, “Hypocrite,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, and I. Howard Marshall (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992), 351–53.
5. Günther, “ὑποκρίνω,” 2:468.
6. The word πρόφασις can be used to mean an “excuse” for an action (John 15:22) or, as here, a “pretense” (Phil. 1:18; 1 Thess. 2:5).
7. Second Timothy 3:5 may fit here also with its reference to people who have the outward appearance of godliness but lack spiritual power.
8. All Scripture quotations are from the New International Version, unless noted otherwise.
9. Cf. Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, 3:411, n. 22.
10. It is noteworthy that Matthew and Luke each substituted a similar term to replace Mark’s ὑπόκρισις. This is an example of a loose Matthew-Luke agreement against Mark, with significance for the Synoptic problem.
11. Heinz Giesen, “ὑπόκρισις, ὑποκρίνομαι,” in Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 3:403.
12. Cf. Wilckens, “ὑποκρίνομαι,” 8:567.
13. These two types of vows are discussed by R. A. Guelich, Mark 1–8:26 (Dallas: Word, 1989), 369. Cf. Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel according to St Mark (London: Black, 1991), 177–78. Hooker makes two other points. First, there was a difference of opinion in the Mishnah (Ned. 8) over this kind of issue, and therefore Jesus may have been siding with one group of Pharisees against another rather than opposing all Pharisees. Second, the inviolability of oaths was taught in the Torah, and therefore Jesus was really upholding the primacy of one scriptural commandment over against another. This is dubious, since the commandments needed interpretation, and there could obviously be cases (like making an oath rashly or in anger) in which inviolability was capable of being overruled.
14. Cf. Davies and Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1:580–81. Taking a different view, Giesen argues that the word “hypocrite” is used here of people who act (like actors!) to win public applause and in this way are behaving in a godless manner. He says there is no contrast between their outward behavior and their inward motives; their motive was to gain human applause and their outward behavior was designed to win it. This explanation is not compelling, since they carried out apparently pious acts from a wrong motive (Heinz Giesen, “ὑπόκρισις, ὑποκρίνομαι,” 3:403–4; idem, Christliches Handeln: Eine redaktions-kritische Untersuchung zum Begriff im Matthäus-Evangelium [Frankfurt: Lang, 1982], 151–57).
15. Luke has “Woe to you” (11:44, 47); “Woe to you Pharisees” (vv. 42–43); “Woe to you experts in the law” (vv. 46, 52); and “Now then, you Pharisees” (v. 39).
16. The effect of this is that the epithet ὑπόκριται has different forces with different accusations.
17. Although Luke 12:1 has similarities to Mark 8:14–15, the verse may well be based on Q (cf. Matt. 16:6).
18. Spicq notes that it is customary today to defend the Pharisees against the accusations made by Jesus. Nevertheless he points out that they are also judged adversely in the Qumran documents and in Josephus (Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, 3:411, n. 23).
19. Again this is not purely inward; it is manifested in outward moral evil, so that the contrast is ultimately not between the inward and the outward, but between ceremonial/ritual behavior and moral conduct.
20. T. W. Manson, The Sayings of Jesus (London: SCM, 1949), 101.
21. For a discussion of the historical motives of the Pharisees, see E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE-66 CE (London: SCM, 1992), 444–48. He finds it implausible that most Pharisees were deliberately pretending to serve God and really seeking self-glorification.
22. E. D. Burton, The Epistle to the Galatians (Edinburgh: Clark, 1921), 108–9.
23. I. H. Marshall with P. H. Towner, The Pastoral Epistles (Edinburgh: Clark, 1999), 539–41.
24. There is some uncertainty about the adjective “double-tongued” (διλόγος) in 1 Timothy 3:8 (NASB), which describes what deacons ought not be. This could mean saying one thing to one person and something else to another, thus being inconsistent, or it could refer to saying one thing and meaning another, that is, being insincere.
25. The variant reading at James 5:12, “Let your ‘Yes’ be yes, and your ‘No,’ no, so that you do not fall into hypocrisy” (author’s translation), makes good sense, but so does the much better supported reading “so that you may not fall under judgment” (author’s translation).
26. Cf. Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, 3:134–36 (partly repeated in 3:412–13). He draws attention to 2 Corinthians 8:8, where Paul told the Corinthians to demonstrate that their love is authentic, that is, full and complete.
27. Wilckens, “ὑποκρίνομαι,” 8:563; cf. 565.
28. James Barr, “The Hebrew/Aramaic Background of ‘Hypocrisy’ in the Gospels,” in A Tribute to Geza Vermes, ed. Philip R. Davies and Richard T. White (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1990), 307–26 (esp. 320). See also U. Luz, Matthew 1–7 (Edinburgh: Clark, 1990), 357. R. A. Batey has argued that Jesus would have been familiar with acting from the theater at Sepphoris, and could have drawn His language from this context (“Jesus and the Theatre,” New Testament Studies 30 [1984]: 563-74). This may have been an influence, but the theory presupposes a predominantly negative evaluation of actors and does not seem adequate to account for the various nuances of meaning in the Gospels.
29. For this summary see especially Wilckens, “ὑποκρίνομαι,” 8:559–63.
30. Ibid., 8:565-66.
31. These are the only occurrences in the Septuagint where there is a Hebrew equivalent.
32. For other Jewish evidence see the frequent occurrences in Philo (e.g., On Joseph 67; On Dreams 2:40; On Providence 99) and in Josephus (e.g., The Jewish Wars 2:587), which indicate that the words had a clear sense of pretending to be other than what one really is. See also Testament of Benjamin 6:4–5 and Psalms of Solomon 4:6–8.
33. W. F. Albright and C. S. Mann, Matthew, Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1971).
34. Ibid.
35. D. E. Garland, The Intention of Matthew 23 (Leiden: Brill, 1979), 91–123, 124–62.
36. The saying is difficult because it gives the impression that Jesus approved “all that they tell you,” which is in contradiction to His criticism of them elsewhere. M. A. Powell surveys the various solutions previously offered and proposes that the reference is not to the teaching of the Pharisees but to their reading aloud of the Law of Moses to people who otherwise had no access to it (“Do and Keep What Moses Says [Matthew 23:2–7],” Journal of Biblical Literature 114 [1995]: 419-35).
37. Giesen, “ὑπόκρισις, ὑποκρίνομαι,” 3:403–4; and idem, Christliches Handeln.
38. Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, 3:410, n. 20. See the reference to Augustine, The Sermon on the Mount 2.2.5, cited by Davies and Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1:581.
39. Davies and Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1:581.
40. For a list of scholars who take this interpretation, together with a detailed refutation, see Garland, The Intention of Matthew 23, 99–102.
41. Barr is nearer the mark with his stress on “self-righteousness” and “self-advertisement” (“The Hebrew/Aramaic Background of ‘Hypocrisy’ in the Gospels,” 319).
42. D. O. Via, Self-Deception and Wholeness in Paul and Matthew (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 93.
43. Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 647.
44. Giesen, Christliches Handeln, 154, n. 405.
45. For this twofold categorization see David E. Garland, Reading Matthew (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 78. He distinguishes the deliberate feigning of piety to cloak inward godlessness and the self-deception of the people who do not recognize the discrepancy between what they think of themselves and what God thinks of them.
46. One ought not think that the man in Romans 7 who wants to do good but does not have the power to do it is a hypocrite. Hypocrisy, therefore, must include an element of evil motivation.
47. Garland, The Intention of Matthew 23, 117–18, 215.