Chiasmus

Chiasmus is a literary device. It comes from the Greek chiazo, which means “to shape like an x.” Chiasmus may be described as crisscross parallelism.  An example of this is Socrates’ “Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”  Another example comes from Shakespeare’s Othello: “But O, what damned minutes tells he o’er Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strong loves.”

Mark’s account of the healing of the paralytic is yet again an instance of chiasmus. Mark writes that when Jesus returned to Capernaum, so many people flocked to him that there was no room left even in front of the door. While he was preaching, four men came carrying a paralytic. Because they could not bring the paralytic to Jesus, the four men ripped a part of the roof and through the hole lowered the stretcher on which the paralytic lay.  Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “My child, your sins are forgiven.” When they heard this, the scribes thought to themselves, “How can this man talk like that? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God?” Jesus, knowing their thoughts, faced them, “Why do you have these thoughts in your hearts? Which of these is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your stretcher and walk’? But to prove to you that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,”—he turned to the paralytic—“I order you: get up, pick up your stretcher, and go off home.” And the man got up, picked up his stretcher at once and walked out. Everyone was astounded and praised God saying, “We have never seen anything like this.”

I find several chiasmi in the account.  When presented with the paralytic, instead of healing him, Jesus forgave him his sins. And when the scribes thought ill of Jesus for doing what only God can do—forgive sins—Jesus answered them by healing the paralytic. There is here crisscross parallelism, the incidents take the form of an x.

Again there is chiasmus, a sort of crisscrossing, in the fact that, while it was the faith of the four men that impressed Jesus, the paralytic was the beneficiary of the forgiveness and healing.

And, of course, in getting the paralytic into the house through the roof, the four men stood the idea of entrance upon its head, and this itself suggests a chiasmus, because the healed paralytic most certainly exited from the house through the entrance door.

I should add here that on several other occasions Jesus employed chiasmus and made such cruciform statements as, “But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first,” and “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

E. M. Forster writes that a novel can have a pattern, such as that of the hourglass, which is exemplified in Henry James’ “The Ambassadors,” in which the characters exchange places—one character’s social decline crosses over another’s rise.

The hourglass pattern is really a chiasmus, and this, to me, is the pattern of the story of salvation—the Son of God becoming man, suffering humiliation and death, so that the descendants of Adam, condemned to death by sin, will have life and the honor and status of God’s children.

Truly, the Cross is a chiasmus.