1. Title

The title “Sermon on the Mount,” which goes back to Augustine (354–430), became established by the 16th century. It is used for the long address by Jesus at the beginning of Matthew (chaps. 5–7) and hence at the beginning of the NT. It has often been regarded as a summary of the preaching or ethics of Jesus. Sometimes the term is used, then, for all that Jesus proclaimed and not just for these three chapters. In the modern period, in which the sermon is valued as a secularized legacy of the church, …