Johannes Steenbuch: ’Do [not do] unto others…’ – Negative and positive formulations of the Golden Rule in early Christian ethics

This short communication explores some of the apparent discrepancies between the negative formulation of the principle (”do not do unto others…”) and the positive formulation (”do unto others…”) of the so-called Golden Rule in early Christian ethics. The precept not to do unto others what one does not want to suffer can be found in both Jewish and Hellenic sources, before the rise of Christianity. It is often claimed that only with Christianity the precept was formulated in positive terms (e.g. Barclay). But while the principle is formulated in positive terms in Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31 as a precept to “do unto others as you would have them do to you”, surprisingly often only the negative version appears in early Christian authors in the first centuries AD. It has been argued by contemporary philosophers that the positive formulation is logically implicit in the negative (Ricoeur) and that this was also seen to be the case by early Christian authors (King, Alton). This might partly explain the absence of positive formulations in early Christian ethics. There are, however, examples of early Christians, such as Tertullian, Lactantius and later John Chrysostom who explicitly distinguish between the negative and positive formulations of the Golden Rule. While not offering an explanation for the lack of positive formulations of the principle in early Christian ethics, this short communication presents a few moral philosophical issues that ought to have our attention when studying the role of the Golden Rule in early Christian ethics.