The Sherlockismus and the Silence of Jesus

In his 1911 tongue-in-cheek essay, “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes,” Msgr. Ronald Knox coined the term Sherlockismus to describe “a special kind of epigram,” an ambiguous statement that is nevertheless memorable.

One example Knox gives is from the story “Silver Blaze”: While discussing the case with Holmes, Inspector Gregory of Scotland Yard asks him, “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Holmes replies, “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory, puzzled, objects, “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” To which Holmes rebuts, “That was the curious incident.”

Had the person who removed Silver Blaze from his stable been an outsider, the dog would have raised the alarm. Since the dog remained quiet, Holmes deduced, the perpetrator must have been an insider—the trainer, in fact, who was trying to hobble the horse to win a bet. Sir Arthur’s earliest biographer, John Dickson Carr, exclaimed: “Call this ‘Sherlockismus’; call it any other fancy name; the fact remains that it is a clue, and a thundering good one at that” (Jon Lellenberg, “And Now, a Word from Arthur Conan Doyle”).

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A relative of mine who leans left posts on her Facebook wall a meme featuring former President Jimmy Carter, who explains that “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality.” Burbles the meme, “That is what a REAL Christian sounds like!”

Not really. It’s what a liberal politician trying to reconcile his ideology with his Evangelical Christian background—and doing a bad job of it—sounds like.

True, Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality. Or at least, none of the Gospels record him saying anything about homosexuality. The Gospels also don’t record Jesus saying anything against slavery. Let that sink in for a moment.

Then realize that the “argument from Jesus’ silence” is a two-edged sword. There’s a lot of things the Gospel doesn’t record Jesus either condemning or approving. The Gospels are not exhaustive, minute-by-minute records of his entire life and ministry. “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). I really, really, really wish people would stop treating Jesus’ silence as if it were some kind of wrecking ball.

Is it possible that Jesus did say something pro-gay but the uptight homophobic redactors of the Gospels (or some later, equally uptight and homophobic Church Authority) blue-penciled it out? Try reading the Bread of Life Discourse (John 6:22-69) again: Jesus gets so insistent, so graphic about eating his flesh—he shifts to a verb that means to gnaw—that many of his disciples turn away. Heck, Protestants are still trying to convince themselves (and us) that Jesus wasn’t speaking literally! What’s sodomy compared to cannibalism?

A lesser story illustrates this matter as well: In the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42), Luke notes that Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.” To sit at the feet of the rabbi was the prerogative of men; women sat separate from them, or—like Martha—tended to the household tasks. Some commentators have seen this as a shattering of traditional gender roles, though it doesn’t appear the apostles and disciples saw it as such. But it’s a curious incident that Jesus would deliberately allow a woman to take a man’s place at his feet and yet not condemn patriarchy or affirm transgender theory. It’s curious that Jesus the Progressive Revolutionary Anarchist said nothing particularly or blatantly progressive, even for that time.

Here’s the point of referencing the Sherlockismus:

In first-century Judea, gay sex was still punishable by stoning. The precept against gay sex is still part of the mitzvoth that Jews must observe. Had Jesus said anything against the precept, you can be sure his followers would have found it shockingly memorable. It would have been part of at least one of the Gospels, and we would have had a “gay-positive” Church from the very beginning. But since the Gospels didn’t record anything pro-gay, we can be sure that if Jesus had said anything about it at all, what he said was within the bounds of convention for that time and place, whether they thought of him as the Son of God Incarnate or as a controversial itinerant rabbi.

Qui tacet consentire videtur ubi loqui debuit ac potuit: He who is silent, when he is able and ought to speak, must be seen to consent. The dog did not bark in the nighttime.

One thing Christ did say: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).

Christ’s death and resurrection changed our relationship with God by doing away with the Law of Moses as the instrument of our justification. But it did not change the nature or specification of sins; what was sinful prior to Christ’s ministry remained sinful after His ascension.

Jesus did not condemn the adulteress to death, but he did tell her not to sin again (John 8:11). We were no longer obligated to stone men for lying with each other, but St. Paul still warned that neither male prostitutes nor sodomites would enter into Heaven. “And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). The Law of Moses was abrogated, but not natural law.

Now, what Jesus did teach about our treatment of others had an effect on Christian thinking concerning slavery, which would eventually condemn the institution. Similarly, Jesus’ teachings on our treatment of others demand that we treat the same-sex attracted with dignity, compassion, and respect because we too are sinners, each in our own way (cf. CCC 2358-9). And occasionally prudence may dictate silence when speaking will do more harm than good.

But loving the sinner does not require us to embrace the sin or to lie about its nature for the sake of the sinner’s feelings of being accepted. To speak the truth as best we know it is one of the most basic social obligations we have to one another; it’s integral to any reasonable concept of justice. Whatever secular society requires or forbids, living in the light of the gospel message requires that we abstain from sin and seek reconciliation with God when we fail, however we fail, every time we fail.

Now, the meme indirectly tells us that, whatever else people may think about Christianity, many still want the message of God’s love that the gospel message brings. That much is an encouraging thought. However, it’s a love that demands we change for our own good and for the good of others. Like the Bread of Life Discourse, it tells us hard things that we often don’t want to accept. Nevertheless, real Christian love requires we tell the beloved the truth even when that truth is harsh, even when that truth goes against the conventional wisdom of the world.

The silence of Jesus may be ambiguous, but you can’t simply pour whatever content or meaning you want into it; you have to look at both what came before his ministry and what came in light of it. Some things changed; other things would change over the centuries. But sin remains the same because humans remain the same—born into original sin and its effects.