Lawyer

In the gospels the lawyer (νομικός) is one trained in the Mosaic law — closer to a religious jurist than to a modern attorney. The umbrella collects two kinds of episode: lawyers testing Jesus, and Jesus pronouncing woe upon them. A single named figure, Zenas the lawyer, appears in the Pauline corpus.

Testing Jesus

A lawyer initiates the exchange that leads into the Good Samaritan parable: "And look, a certain lawyer stood up and made trial of him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25). When Jesus throws the question back to the law itself, the lawyer cites the double love command (Luke 10:27). Pressing further "to justify himself," he asks "And who is my fellow man?" (Luke 10:29) — the question Jesus answers by telling of the priest and Levite who pass by, the Samaritan who stops and binds up the wounded man at his own expense (Luke 10:30-35), and the redirected closing question: "Which of these three, do you think, had been the fellow man of him who fell among the robbers?" (Luke 10:36). The lawyer must concede: "He who showed mercy on him" (Luke 10:37).

The encounter at a Pharisee's table is similar: "And Jesus answering spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?" (Luke 14:3). The lawyer-Pharisee combination functions as a watching judiciary that Jesus repeatedly outflanks.

Woe to the Lawyers

Inside another Pharisee meal (Luke 11), one of the lawyers complains that Jesus' rebukes are reaching them too: "Teacher, in saying this you reproach us also" (Luke 11:45). Jesus answers with three woes specifically against the lawyers.

The first is the burden-loading charge: "Woe to you⁺ lawyers also! For you⁺ load men with loads grievous to be borne, and you⁺ yourselves don't touch the loads with one of your⁺ fingers" (Luke 11:46). The second couples them with their fathers in the killing of the prophets: they build the tombs while standing as witnesses to ancestral murder (Luke 11:47-48), so that "the blood of all the prophets, having been shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation" (Luke 11:50) — from Abel to Zachariah who perished between altar and sanctuary (Luke 11:51). The third is the keys: "Woe to you⁺ lawyers! For you⁺ took away the key of knowledge: you⁺ didn't enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you⁺ hindered" (Luke 11:52). Their craft has obstructed access to the very knowledge their office is supposed to open.

Zenas

A single lawyer is named in the Pauline correspondence: "Set forward Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently, that nothing is wanting to them" (Tit 3:13). The notice is brief — Zenas is sent on with Apollos and supplied for the trip, with no controversy attached.