Infelicitous Oaths in the Gospel of Matthew

Abstract

This paper employs the analytic tools of speech-act theory in order to explore the complexity of the acts of swearing in Matthew's Gospel. With the assistance of the observations of J.L. Austin, John Searle, Wolfgang Iser and others, the paper examines how the utterance of the prohibition against swearing by Jesus at the beginning of the Gospel alters the rules of speech, how the subsequent narrative oaths are infelicitous, and how in the end, while oaths are counter to God's will, they cannot be used to counter God's will.