Beatitudes

The Beatitudes () are eight or nine blessings recounted by Jesus in Matthew 5:3–10 within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, and four in the Sermon on the Plain in the Gospel of Luke, followed by four woes which mirror the blessings. In the Latin Vulgate, each of these blessings begins with the word beātī, which translates to 'blessed' (plural adjective). The corresponding word in the original Greek is μακάριοι (makarioi), with the same meaning. Thus "Blessed are the poor in spirit" appears in Latin as beātī pauperēs spīritū. The Latin noun beātitūdō was coined by Cicero to describe a state of blessedness and was later incorporated within the chapter headings written for Matthew 5 in various printed versions of the Vulgate. Subsequently, the word was anglicised to beatytudes in the Great Bible of 1540, and has, over time, taken on a preferred spelling of beatitudes. While some opinions can differ as to exactly how many distinct statements into which the Beatitudes should be divided (ranging from eight to ten), most scholars consider them to be only eight. These eight of Matthew follow a simple pattern: Jesus names a group of people normally thought to be unfortunate and pronounces them blessed.